“Thought as how somethin’ might have come upon you, lad.”

Feeling thoroughly alive, her blood stirred by her long gallop, Kit swung her leg over Delia’s neck and slid to the ground. “I’m sure we were followed, but I didn’t catch sight of anyone. I went a very long way around, just in case.” She looped Delia’s reins to a wooden strut at the edge of the clearing, well away from the men, who had an almost superstitious fear of the black horse. “What’s the stuff like?” She headed for the tunnel entrance.

Noah waved to a packet opened on a rock. “First-class stuff, it looks.”

Kit bent over the lace, resting both palms on the rock to protect against the impulse to draw off her gloves and finger the delicate tracery, a far too feminine gesture. “This is better than that other stuff you ran. What’s the price?”

The other men sat in the cave entrance, chewing baccy and talking quietly, while she and Noah reviewed their plans.

What warned her, she never knew. The hairs on her nape lifted. The next instant, she whirled, her rapier singing from its sheath, sweeping in an arc before the three men silently approaching.

What happened next made her blink. The foremost man-tall, well built, and hatless was her first impression-took one step back and her rapier clashed against solid steel. Kit’s eyes grew round. She swallowed a knot of cold fear at the sight of her elegant blade countered by a longer, infinitely more wicked-looking sword. The two men following the first drew back, leaving a wide area to the fighters.

Heavens! She was involved in a sword fight!

Resolutely, Kit quelled the impulse to drop her rapier and flee. Drawing a deep breath, she forced her mind to function. If this man was a smuggler, he’d have no knowledge of the finer points of swordsmanship. She, on the other hand, had been trained by an Italian master, a close friend of Spencer’s. She hadn’t practiced for years but, as her opponent drifted left, she instinctively drifted right, the blades hissing softly.