Willsen, who had planned the whole passage of the fight from the moment he made a deliberately soft quarte basse, bowed. “Perhaps I was just fortunate, my lord?”

“Don’t patronize me, man,” Lord Marsden snapped as he climbed to his feet. “What was it?”

“Your disengagement from the sixte was slow, my lord.”

“The devil it was,” Lord Marsden growled. He was proud of his ability with foil or saber, yet he knew Willsen had bested him easily by feigning a squeaking retreat. His lordship scowled, then realized he was being ungracious and so, tucking the saber under his arm, held out a hand. “You’re quick, Willsen, damned quick.”

The handful of spectators applauded the show of sportsmanship. They were in Horace Jackson’s Hall of Arms, an establishment on London’s Jermyn Street where wealthy men could learn the arts of pugilism, fencing and pistol shooting. The hall was a high bare room lined with racks of swords and sabers, smelling of tobacco and liniment, and decorated with prints of prize fighters, mastiffs and racehorses. The only women in the place served drinks and food, or else worked in the small rooms above the hall where the beds were soft and the prices high.

Willsen pulled off his helmet and ran a hand through his long fair hair. He bowed to his beaten opponent, then carried both sabers to the weapon rack at the side of the hall where a tall, very thin and extraordinarily handsome captain in the red coat and blue facings of the 1st Regiment of Foot Guards was waiting. The guardsman, a stranger to Willsen, tossed away a half-smoked cigar as Willsen approached. “You fooled him,” the Captain said cheerfully.

Willsen frowned at the stranger’s impertinence, but he answered politely enough. Willsen, after all, was an employee in Horace Jackson’s Hall and the Guards Captain, judging by the elegant cut of his expensive uniform, was a patron. The sort of patron, moreover, who could not wait to prove himself against the celebrated Henry Willsen. “I fooled him?” Willsen asked. “How?”