He staggered back from one particularly well-placed blow, buying enough space for him to meet Gwen’s eyes, his own flashing with shock, and something else, moving so quickly Gwen wasn’t sure she’d seen it.

Anger?

Gwen felt a prickling along the back of her neck as she politely waited for him to recover his balance. It was a sense that had sharpened over these last weeks with Isobelle, dodging discovery and facing down well-armed knights every few days—a sense that warned her of the nearness of danger.

Instinct flung up a solution into her mind. She could pretend to lose. Now, before Orson realized what Gwen had known from Orson’s first swing of the sword: that she could beat him. When she was a child, she’d fenced once with one of the boys in the village. After she’d knocked him flat, he stopped speaking to her. They had been thick as thieves, and after that day, his eyes slid past her as if she were no more substantial than smoke. That had been nearly ten years ago, and still, the most acknowledgment he ever offered was a distant nod when his wife stopped to chat with Gwen in the square.

If she just pretended to lose to Orson here, now, then all would be well for a little bit longer.

I am so goddamned tired of pretending.

The thought blazed through Gwen’s mind as Orson came at her again. All her thoughts fled, and she abandoned caution, losing herself in the rhythm of attack and counterattack, the notes of Isobelle playing at the organ echoing in her head as her feet danced through the long grass.

Another lunge, a parry, a twist of her arm . . . and Orson’s sword thudded heavily into the dirt a few feet away, followed not much later by Orson himself, staggering backward with too much momentum to avoid crashing to the ground with a thud and a whoop of expelled breath.

Gwen’s heart pounded so loudly she barely heard the scrape of her sword as she slid it back into its sheath. She took a few steps toward Orson, who sat like a crab with his hands braced behind him and his bent knees slightly akimbo, blinking up at her. She saw that flash again, searing and unlikely on Orson’s friendly face. Her heart sank, but she held out her hand anyway in a silent offer to help him up.

Orson stared at her a moment longer—and then he burst out laughing, running one hand through his sweaty, disheveled hair and then clapping the other against Gwen’s palm. “Well, damn,” he said cheerfully, eyes dancing. “I guess I’d better hope I knock you off your horse tomorrow, huh?”