Hide-and-seek strategy be damned, she was ready to release the proverbial hounds when she spun around and saw the tip of a metal hilt sticking out of a brown cardboard cylinder. It took her two steps to reach it, and in one grand flourish she unsheathed the blade.

God help whoever’d tried to make off with this. She gave a quick flick of her wrist and relished the whoosh the metal made as it slashed the air.

“Unhand the sword,” a firm voice ordered from behind her.

Quite the opposite of the command, she whirled, arm at the ready until her eyes landed on the woman who’d issued the order.

Vic blinked a few times, as if trying to make sense of the strikingly beautiful body clad in traditional tan riding breaches that smoothly stretched from the top of tall leather equestrian boots, over smouldering curves of thighs and hips, and all the way up to a high, slender waist. From there, a gauzy white blouse flowed loosely everywhere but the bust. The woman’s ample assets stressed the last button before the barest hint of exposed cleavage and collarbone. Vic stared at that meeting point only a second too long before the odd word choice finally seeped through her haze, and she snapped her attention to the woman’s dark, defiant eyes.

Struck nearly speechless once more, she managed only to squeak out, “Unhand?”

The woman lifted her chin and stared down her nose at Vic. “Release it.”

Instead of obeying, she stepped forward, tightening her grip on the hilt. Her anger flared at being spoken to with such disdain when it was she who had the right to make demands here.

To her credit the woman didn’t back away even as Vic swung the blade more pointedly in her direction.

The intruder cut an imposing figure. Her boots made her only a smidge taller than Vic, but her bearing amplified her stature. Strong bone structure and dark hair pulled severely back from her smooth sienna face paired flawlessly with the haughty line of her lips. More impressively, her poise was so unfaltering that if the woman had commanded anything other than a symbolic severing of Vic’s birthright, she might have complied.

“Look, I don’t know who you think you are.”

“Lady Regina Bronwyn Alistair.”

Vic narrowed her eyes, unable to quite place the woman’s posh accent. The name managed to sound both vaguely familiar and utterly contrived all at once. The resulting disconnect caused her guard to falter, and she lowered the tip of the rapier as she tried to place the name. The move proved poorly timed, because Lady Regina made use of the lapse to quickly sidestep the false edge of the sword and push well into Vic’s personal space. Then in the same fluid motion, the woman placed a hand firmly around Vic’s on the hilt, and pressed down, pinning the rapier between them.