‘In my cabin—if you dare.’
‘You are teaching me how to repel unwanted advances—aren’t you worried that you might find your own lessons turned on you?’
‘Of course, you can try. You won’t best me though. Besides, my advances are not unwelcome—are they?’ he said with a deliberate arrogance designed to provoke.
Dita shook her head at him, but a smile she could not control twitched at the corner of her mouth. He felt something shift inside his chest, something almost like a twinge of fear. Damn it, what am I getting myself into? He gave himself a mental shake: she was not a virgin, he was not going to risk getting her with child, she was willing. What was there to worry about?
Dita stood up. She felt curiously shaken. It was probably the fight. Even though she knew there were buttons on the foils and that it was essentially a game, there was something primal and stirring about two men fighting with deadly skill and elegance. Especially, she had to admit, over her. Even more so when one of them was Alistair. She did not want to investigate that thought too deeply.
‘Would you care to try the foils now? You do not mind an audience?’
She hardly had time to nod before he was gone, to return with the swords and Mrs Bastable, both Chatterton twins and Averil at his heels. Alistair placed one foil in her hand and she exclaimed at how light it was.
‘The point is to impale your opponent, not bludgeon him to death,’ he said, and she snorted with nervous laughter as he put his hand over hers to adjust her grip. ‘Good, check the button is secure, you do not want to run Mr Chatterton through just yet.’ Callum grinned, picked up the other foil and stood opposite her. ‘Now stand sideways, with your feet like this …’
Alistair nudged her into position, his hands warm yet impersonal on her shoulder, at her elbow. She had thought he would need to hold her more closely and found herself oddly piqued that he did not. ‘En garde,’ Callum said, bringing his foil up, and she imitated him.
‘Now lunge.’ Alistair moved behind her, his body suddenly as close as she could have wished, one arm bracketing her, his hand over her fingers. Their weight shifted together, Callum moved, his foil coming across to deflect her blade, and Alistair pulled her back. ‘Bring up your foil; he is going to counter-attack.’
‘Oh!’ It was alarming, seeing that blade coming towards her, even slowly. Hers met it at right angles. ‘Push,’ Alistair said in her ear and she did, as he twisted her wrist, moved their balance and Callum, caught unawares, found his foil flicked out of his grasp.
‘Now, in for the kill!’ Instinctively she straightened the blade, let her body go with the thrust of his and Callum was standing there, the button of her foil pressed against his heart.
‘I’ve killed you!’ She jumped up and down in glee before she realised what she had said. ‘Oh! I am so sorry, Mr Chatterton, I didn’t mean—’
‘You, Lady Perdita,’ he said with a grin, ‘are quite lethal, with or without a weapo
n. I think I will let my brother stand as your opponent in future—he has no reputation as a swordsman to lose.’
‘I think that is quite enough,’ Dita said. ‘I know what it feels like to hold a sword now, and I would like to learn more—but I do not think that proper lessons would be quite—’
‘Proper?’ Alistair released her and reversed the foil over his arm for Callum to take before he went to retrieve the fallen one. ‘Thank you,’ he added, holding out his hand to shake the other’s. ‘That was good sport.’ He nodded to Dita and strode off.
‘What was that about?’ Dita demanded when she found herself alone for a moment with Callum while Daniel wiped the blades with an oiled cloth and laid them back in their case. He looked at her blankly. ‘Mr Chatterton, one minute you and Alistair are bristling at each other like two tom cats on a wall and the next you are shaking hands and appear to be friends for life.’
‘Oh, that.’ He took her arm and strolled to the rail where they could look down on the main deck. ‘He thought my intentions towards you might be less than honourable, I suspect. Now he believes me when I tell him they are simply those of friendship and I believe him when he tells me that he is acting purely as a concerned neighbour.’
‘A neighbour?’ Dita stared at him. ‘Lord Lyndon has been no neighbour of mine for the past eight years.’
‘He obviously feels he still has a responsibility to look after you, Lady Perdita,’ Callum said with a perfectly straight face and laughter in his eyes. ‘If you will excuse me.’ He bowed and left her a victim to considerable confusion.
Why on earth did Alistair feel he had to warn Callum off, and why did he want to teach her to defend herself? Was he a rake or a reformed man? Or a rake who was trying to lull her into a false sense of security? Whatever the answer, it was intriguing. Not that she should give in to her regrettable attraction to him again.
She was still leaning on the rail and brooding when Alistair came back. ‘That empty cabin is still unoccupied and no one is around down there. Do you want to attempt to disarm me now?’
Dita followed him warily, but the space was brightly lit by three lanterns and there were an array of props on the unmade bunk. It seemed he really did have a self-defence lesson in mind.
After ten minutes he had her in fits of laughter as he demonstrated the best way to wield a hat pin to deter a pest sitting next to her in a pew at church, the easiest way to tip a glass of wine down a gentleman who was standing too close whilst making it seem like an accident, the most painful part of the foot to stand upon with a French heel and how to free one’s hands if they had been seized. It was all fun and extremely useful.
‘Girls ought to be taught this sort of thing instead of endless embroidery,’ she remarked as Alistair rubbed a twisted thumb.
‘That will deal with the pests,’ he said. ‘What I will show you now is how to deal with an over-amorous gentleman who completely oversteps the bounds of decency.’
‘Indeed?’ Dita raised an eyebrow. ‘You intend to stop kissing me and … other things, do you?’
Alistair studied her without amusement. ‘Tell me that anything I have done has been unwelcome and I will not speak to you, or approach you, for the remainder of this voyage.’
That was handing her her own with a vengeance. Dita searched her conscience, then shook her head. ‘You have done many things that are shocking, unwise and outrageous, and I have not been unwilling.’ It was difficult to meet his eyes, but when she did the tension had vanished from his face.