TheCharmer Read Online Free PDF Page A

the aristocracy doesn't precisely breed for brains, does it?"
    One corner of his mouth twitched at that. For a moment, she thought he might actually laugh. Then his expression returned to that sly, knowing smile that swayed so many women but only left her cold. Well, at least hardly warm at all. Mostly.
    "I've an idea," he said. "Why don't you wrap your hands around my thick… hard…" He plucked a weapon from the rack. "Staff?"
    Dancing back a few steps, he assumed attack position with a six-foot oak quarterstaff in his hands. Rose barely had time to fumble behind her for another before the swish of his first blow went over her head and glanced off her shoulder.
    Numbness shot through her arm and she almost lost her grip on the staff. Unable to bring it up to block him, she took advantage of his next swing to duck beneath his outstretched arms and roll past him.
    Of course, she couldn't pass up the chance to slap him across the backs of his knees with her own stick. His balance faltered, and he stumbled, although he did not go down.
    Fry it, she should have hit him harder. Still, his stumble gave her the chance to stand matched against him, braced for attack, although her arm still tingled to the bone.
    He was very good with the staff. This was one area where his wounded arm did not seem to hinder him at all. In fact, she had seen him turn to take a blow on that arm more than once, making his lack of sensation work to his advantage.
    She hadn't a hope against him. The staff was not her best weapon against someone with longer reach and height—which included almost everyone.
    The only way to win this was to back from his blows, making him waste strength until he slowed or made a mistake. The impact of stick on stick rang through the bones of her hands and arms as she tried to strategize. She only needed to be careful not to let him back her into a—
    The rack of sparring dummies came up against her back. Bloody hell indeed. She twisted under Collis's unrelenting blows, trying to slip through the rack between the dummies. But some light-minded trainee had dressed the dummies in bits of stolen French uniforms. Rose's sleeve caught on the buttons of one jacket while her hair snagged in the pins holding the tattered epaulets in place. The rack of dummies came tumbling down.
    Rose went with it. To add to her defeat, as she rolled into the disintegrating rack she felt Collis's staff give her a brisk wallop across her buttocks. "Point to me," he crowed.
    As she sat up amid the wreckage, she wasn't sure what smarted more, her pride or her rear.
    "Give up, O Thorny One?"
    He was leaning on his staff like a shepherd with his crook, grinning at her. Rose felt her chest rising and falling like a bellows. Collis wasn't even breathing heavily.
    The rat.
    Part of Rose wanted to quit. Let him win, for what did it matter? His sort would always win in the end. Power and wealth won out, especially when paired with top-drawer lineage and dark-angel magnificence.
    Then again, why should she let him win this? He'd been handed the world the moment he'd been born. Perhaps it was her turn.
    "My turn." She stood and walked past him to the weapons rack. They'd used swords and staffs, and she didn't want to go hand-to-hand again. There were daggers aplenty, mostly dulled. The only weapons on the rack kept sharp were the small, gleaming throwing knives. Rose inserted her fingers between the hilts of the six remaining knives, lifting three in each hand like a circus showman. They were her best weapon and Kurt had taught her well.
    She turned and nodded at Collis, her hands hidden at her sides. "Take a step to your left, if you please."
    He only frowned at her.
    She tilted her head and shrugged. "As you wish."
    The knives flew past Collis with such rapidity that they thudded into the wall behind him with a sound like hail on the roof. After the first shining weapon had spun through the air between them, Collis had frozen. He had no choice but to trust to