The Rakehell of Roth (Everleigh Sisters #2) - Amalie Howard Page 0,96

was accustomed to wielding a much lighter rapier. This match would not be won by strength, she knew. She had to use her brain, catch him off guard.

“What makes you think Lady Roth will ever want you?” she asked, keeping her voice low. “You’re a disgrace.”

His face darkened with rage. “Who do you think you are, boy?”

“I know who I am,” she said with a short lunge and then danced out of the way of his return strike. “But you apparently don’t know who you are. A disgraced, discredited peer. No more of a noble than me.”

“Watch your tongue!”

Anger made him clumsy, and as he dove at her, she ducked and spun as fast as she could to shoot her blade out so it caught him on the torso. He staggered back, clutching at his wound and staring at the blood on his fingers in disbelief. “You little brat, I’ll slit your throat for that.”

“Promises, promises, Earl of Codswallop,” she taunted. “That has a nice ring to it, don’t you think? How about Earl of Twaddle? Earl of Almost-Had-It-All?”

Edmund Cain used to be handsome, but the past three years had taken a toll on him. Where there had once been muscle, there was now a layer of dissipation that was easily evident around his middle. His face now sported the first sprouting of a pair of pasty jowls.

“I’m going to take great pleasure in killing you.”

“You always seem to count your chickens before they’re hatched, don’t you?”

His eyes narrowed as they circled each other. “Have we met?”

“Sadly, I don’t run in the same circles as cowardly criminals.” She channeled Clarissa as she let her insolent stare rake down his body, stopping at his hips. “On second thought, maybe Earl of Insignificant Things might suit better.” Isobel laughed. “I’ve heard about you, you know. You’re that earl who likes little girls. One wonders why…”

Though they sparked with rage, his eyes fastened on her. “Do I know you?”

“Me? A lowly groom? I think not.”

“Take off that mask.”

She shook her head, quickening her steps. “But I’m badly disfigured, Lord Little. My face is enough to inspire terror in the most stalwart of men.”

“You speak well for a groom.” He advanced with a short stab of his rapier. “Who are you?”

Quick as a snake, he lurched forward and it took all her strength to jump out of the way. Despite his wound, he kept coming, and once more, Isobel found herself on the defensive. There was something else driving the earl now—a desperate need to find out who she was. And she couldn’t let that happen. Narrowing her focus, she fell back on the lessons from her fencing master, letting her body remember the movements.

Parry, strike, shift. Repeat.

“You fence well for a groom, too,” he panted.

“I do a lot of things well, Lord Beaumont.”

Suddenly, the earl pulled back, his face going hard, and Isobel wanted to kick herself for using his old address. Something in the way she’d said it, some minor inflection must have caught his interest, set off a memory. He stared at her. “I know you.”

“I hate to disappoint,” she replied. “But you don’t and you never have.”

“Show yourself.”

Isobel smiled beneath her mask. “No.”

Taking advantage of his hesitation, she darted in, bringing her sword down onto the hand that held his rapier. It clattered to the clay-hardened grit of the street, and she used the advantage to drive hers toward him, the tip of it pressing into his belly. “Yield,” she commanded.

In a fit of rage, he reached forward and ripped off the swatch of fabric covering her face. Isobel saw the moment he recognized her, even dressed as she was with dirt caked into her skin, his eyes going wide with incredulity. “You!”

Thankfully, her back was to the others, but she still couldn’t resist replying. “Me,” she said in a low voice. “I believe my sister told you once, Edmund, no means no. Surely a man of your intelligence would have learned that lesson by now.”

His eyes glittered with lust and malice. “When we get to Italy, I’m going to punish you in ways you can’t imagine, little one.”

“I’m not sure you understand your predicament here.”

She wasn’t prepared for him to push against the blade and then knock it to the side. Its sharp edges tore through the fabric of his coat, but he paid it no mind. Before he could get a hand on her, Isobel did the only thing she could—she let the sword clatter to the ground,