Excerpt of The Charmer by Celeste Bradley

(Two students of the Liar's Club spy school, both skilled, both intelligent--battling each other and their own unadmitted desires. He is an aristocrat. She is a former housemaid. Two people from backgrounds too different to offer any hope of a future, their feelings are doomed before they ever begin. Only the most powerful love could ever overcome such obstacles...)

She'd won. Again. Rose went to the weapons rack to hang up her sword. Only this morning she might have fetched Collis's to the rack as well, trying in some small way to lessen the sting of his losing. Her shoulders straight despite her weariness, she turned to face him.

"Are we quite finished?"

He closed his open hand into a fist. "What's the matter, Chamberpot? Left the dusting undone again?"

As quickly as the simmering anger within her came to a boil, Rose reached behind her to the rack and sent a throwing blade spinning through the air to thud quivering into the straw-filled mat between Collis's feet. He jumped back. "Bloody hell!"

"What's the matter, Blueblood?" she drawled. "Have you never seen a knife before?" Less than witty, but she was no good at trading cutting remarks. She settled for raising one eyebrow. She knew Collis hated that, which was why she'd practiced it before her mirror until she'd perfected it.

Collis saw that blasted eyebrow rise all right. He felt his face flush as he bent to pull the knife from the mat. "My turn to choose." He approached her slowly, never taking his eyes from hers. It was beneath him to enjoy that flicker of intimidation he saw there. Low and dishonorable. But sweet. He came so close that he could smell the clean, floral scent of her hair. She smelled so damned good--

Sometimes it was hard to remember why he disliked her so. Then again, as he thought of his humiliation in the weapons arena this morning, sometimes it was very easy. She didn't move a muscle as he reached behind her to hang up the knife. He smiled slowly and to be honest, not very nicely. "And I choose..." He let his voice trail off to a whisper as he stepped closer still.

Surprisingly, Rose didn't so much as twitch. Most women would have giggled or quivered or otherwise reacted to him being so close. Then again, the other women of his acquaintance were ladies. Rose was as common as a weed growing between the cobblestones of the London streets.

Rose steadied her nerves with all the will in her soul. She would not react, would not give the advantage. This was simply another sort of attack, after all. Collis Tremayne kept the world at bay with his charm and kept his secrets safe behind his facade of roguish flirtation. Besides, she was every bit as practiced in the art of concealing her emotions.

Except for that tiny portion of her that vibrated to his closeness, that noted the virile scent of well-warmed man, that longed to push that single dark lock back from his forehead to reveal the lonely depths in his eyes, that was achingly aware of his near-nakedness...

Rose pulled herself from that fruitless world of fantasy with an exertion of will. "Having trouble finishing a sentence, Tremayne?" She affected a bored tone. "Then again, the aristocracy doesn't precisely breed for brains, does it?"

One corner of his mouth twitched at that. For a moment, she thought he might actually laugh. Then his expression returned to that manipulative smirk that swayed so many women but only left her cold. But then he leaned closer, until his breath tickled her ear and she could feel the heat of him on her skin. "I've an idea," he whispered.

Rose had a few ideas of her own. Most of them had to do with following that path of fine dark hair that trailed down over the ridges of Collis's hard stomach. Her fingers twitched with the desire to touch his warm skin.

"Rose." His breath just barely stirred her hair as he whispered. "Why don't you wrap your hands around my thick...hard..." He plucked a weapon from the rack. "Staff?" Dancing back a few steps he assumed attack position with a six-foot oak staff in his hands. Still dry- mouthed and dazed from arousal, Rose barely had time to fumble behind her for another before the swish of his first blow went past above her head.