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“Are you serious?” He raked his hand through his hair, leaving a few brown strands sticking straight up, which somehow only served to make him more devastatingly attractive.
“Deadly serious,” she said.
“Well, for one thing, I’m a duke.”
“That’s not a skill.”
“It’s an entrée into Parisian society, both the high and the low.”
“Is that all? You’re a duke?”
“You know my skills. I’m a famous hunter and collector of antiquities.”
“Infamous.”
“Precisely. I’m infamous for my single-minded pursuit of pleasure and treasure.”
“Not really the skills I’m looking for in a business partner. Will you be any use in a surprise ambush?”
He made a fist that looked as though it could smash through a brick wall. “Does this answer your question?”
“What if your opponent has a blade?”
“This is all the weapon I’ve ever needed. These...” He flexed the enormous muscles in his arms. “And this.” Copper-brown eyes beneath thick dark brows lit with a wicked promise. His smoldering gaze nearly incinerated the gown from her body.
Indy drew a shaky breath. “Be serious. Bedchamber eyes aren’t going to defend you from a cutpurse in a dark alleyway. You do entirely too much lolling about in houses of ill repute. Your arms may be... solid muscle... but it’s practice that builds the reflexes necessary to defend against surprise attacks.”
He shrugged. “You’ll have to save me then, Lady Danger. We’re a team now. At least for the next fortnight.”
“We’re not a team.” She shook her head vehemently. “We’re a provisional partnership. A distrustful duo. Temporarily engaged and soon to be separated again.”
“I’ll swagger around and carry a big knife. No one will challenge me,” said Ravenwood.
“If you carry a knife and don’t know how to use it, you could be the one facing its blade,” she said. “I’ve trained with fencing and knife-fighting instructors to become combat-ready should the day come again when I must defend myself against another attack.”
“I prefer pistols, myself. Much more straightforward. Point and shoot.”
“Too cumbersome. Too much time to load. What you want in close combat is a knife.”
“Then teach me how to fight with a blade,” he suggested.
“What, here? In the middle of the street?”
“No.” He grabbed her wrist and pulled her down a narrow side street between two buildings. “Here.”
His gargantuan shadow loomed against the brick wall, dwarfing hers. She shivered, pushing away the memory of another dark alleyway.
Another large shadow.
He might have the advantage of size but she was quicker.
She’d always been quicker, even when they were children racing through the woods, dreaming of buried treasure and making plans to travel the world in search of adventure.
Plans that he had abandoned. Dreams that he had extinguished.
Indy gripped the hilt of her knife.
“Very well,” she said. “You sense I’m a threat. You raise your knife.”
