The Reveal
“Again,” Hereford commandedthe next day, pacing around her with growing frustration. She had not seen him following their lesson or at breakfast. Had he spent the night elsewhere? She was distracted by her husband’s whereabouts and why she couldn’t stop wondering.
“The lunge must be fluid. You’re hesitating before the forward movement.”
Sweat trickled down Amelia’s back as she resumed theen gardeposition for what felt like the hundredth time. Her flesh ached where it met the wooden leg, protesting the repeated movements.
“I said again,” he snapped when she didn’t immediately move. “How do you expect to defend yourself if you can’t manage a basic lunge?”
“I’m trying,” she gritted out, teeth clenched against both pain and anger.
“Try harder. Your enemies won’t wait for you to find your balance.”
She bit back a retort and attempted the lunge again. This time something shifted wrong in her prosthetic—the straps loosened by repeated movement, the wood worn smooth with sweat. Her forward momentum carried her past the point of recovery.
She hit the floor hard, but that wasn’t what made her blood run cold. The distinctive clatter of wood against wood echoed through thepractice room, followed by a shocked silence.
Her prosthetic foot, still in its shoe and stocking, had skittered across the floor to rest at Hereford’s feet.
“Dear God,” he breathed, staring at it. Then his eyes snapped to her, taking in her incomplete form on the floor, understanding dawning in his expression.
Amelia pushed herself up, face burning, unable to meet his gaze. “Don’t…”
But he was already moving, bending to retrieve her prosthetic with careful hands. When she finally forced herself to look at him, she found no disgust in his face. No pity either. Just a kind of wondering comprehension.
“So this is why your balance is so unstable,” he said softly. He crossed back to her, kneeling beside her with her prosthetic cradled almost reverently in his hands. “May I help you reattach it?”
She stared at him, thrown by his matter-of-fact response. “I… no. Please turn around. I can manage.”
He nodded and turned his back, but his voice remained gentle. “The straps must have worked loose with the repeated movements. We’ll need to account for that in future lessons.” A pause. “How does it usually attach?”
Amelia’s fingers trembled as she worked with the familiar straps and buckles. “Leather straps around my knee. It’s… the wood can grow slick with sweat.”
“We could line the contact points with felt,” he said thoughtfully. “Absorb some of the moisture. And perhaps add a secondary strap above the knee for stability?”
She secured the last buckle, oddly touched by his practical response. “You’re not… disturbed?”
He turned back to face her, offering his hand to help her up. “By what? Your determination to learn despite what must be considerable discomfort? Your ability to move so well that I didn’t even realize theextent of your injury?” His lips quirked slightly. “Or the fact that you’ve been hiding a wooden leg in those trousers for two lessons without my noticing?”
A startled laugh escaped her. “When you put it that way…”
“Tell me about the mechanics,” he said, still holding her hand. “How much flexibility does it allow? What movements are most difficult? We’ll adapt the techniques accordingly.”
She studied his face, looking for any sign of the revulsion she’d feared, but found only professional interest and something warmer, almost like admiration.
“Why aren’t you angry?” she asked suddenly. “That I kept this from you?”
His expression softened. “My lady, you owe me no explanations about your private matters.” He squeezed her hand once before releasing it. “Though as your fencing instructor, I do need to understand your physical capabilities. So, shall we discuss modifications to your equipment?”
Amelia felt something shift between them—some wall crumbling, some trust beginning to build. She nodded slowly. “The ankle is fixed, obviously. And the knee joint…” She gestured to her leg. “Would you like to see how it works?”
“Please.” He pulled a bench closer. “Show me everything. We’ll design our lessons around your strengths rather than fighting against the prosthetic’s limitations.”
As she demonstrated the prosthetic’s mechanisms, she kept waiting for his professional demeanor to crack, for disgust or pity to show through. But he remained engaged and analytical, asking intelligent questions about pressure points and weight distribution.
“Right then,” he said finally, standing. “Shall we try that lunge again? This time with proper adjustments for your equipment?”
She looked up at him, this man who had somehow transformed from a rakish aristocrat into someone else entirely—someone whosaw her limitations not as weaknesses to be pitied but as challenges to be solved.
