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The spring semester at Fittes House Academy for the Talented was, by all accounts, a gruelling affair. The days stretched, bleary-eyed, towards final exams, the coursework piled up with a cruel and relentless momentum, and the pressure to perform for end-of-year assessments loomed like a spectre in every hushed library and polished hallway. But for Lucy Carlyle, the most significant and profoundly distracting event of the season occurred not within the ancient stone walls of the lecture halls, but every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon on the sun-dappled North Lawn.
Officially, the course was listed in the curriculum as "Advanced Stagecraft: Physical Performance," a title that promised a dignified exploration of gesture and presence. Among the student body, it was known by its more visceral and accurate name: Stage Combat. And Lucy had decided, with a sense of grim resignation, that it was a form of exquisite torture designed specifically for her.
From her chosen spot of plausible deniability, a bench beneath the sprawling branches of an ancient oak, she would arrange her textbooks and open her notebook to a densely annotated page on the impressionist movement. It was a flimsy shield. Her focus, her entire world, would narrow to the patch of grass where Anthony Lockwood moved.
Lockwood, with his effortless grace and stupidly sharp cheekbones, was a study in controlled chaos. While other students fumbled with their foils or shuffled through choreographed passes, Lockwood possessed a terrifying, liquid grace. The practice rapier was not a prop in his hand, but an extension of his will. He moved with a breezy, effortless confidence, a slight, infuriatingly charming smile always playing on his lips as he effortlessly parried and riposted. When the sun caught the blade, it flashed like a shard of lightning, and when he lunged, his dark hair would fall across his forehead, a detail Lucy noted with an artist’s aggravating precision.
It was the sound of it all that truly undid her. The sharp clack of the practice blades was a percussive rhythm that made her pencil still on the page. She’d hear his laugh, bright and clear, as he disarmed a flustered opponent, and the low, earnest tone of his voice as he corrected someone’s footing. She tried to anchor herself in the notes on Monet’s use of light, but the theory of broken colour was a poor defence against the living, breathing spectacle of Anthony Lockwood, bathed in actual sunlight, a sheen of sweat on his temple and a look of pure, unadulterated joy in his eyes.
Today, they were practicing rapier and dagger work, a duellist’s dance that was infinitely more complex and dangerous than the single-sword drills. And of course, Lockwood was paired with Kipps. Quill Kipps, whose technical proficiency was as renowned as his permanent, insufferable look of smugness. It was a pairing that should have been irritating, even agonising, to watch the school's golden boy and his most pedantic rival. It wasn't. It was mesmerising.
The late afternoon sun, heavy and golden, caught the sheen of sweat on Lockwood’s brow as he dropped into a fluid lunge. His plain white t-shirt, once loose, was now plastered to his back, the damp cotton clinging in a way that outlined the sharp definition of his shoulder blades and the lean, corded muscles that shifted and tightened with every movement. He was a study in motion, a sketch made flesh. Kipps came at him with a sharp, efficient thrust, his face a mask of concentration. But Lockwood was already moving, a half-step ahead, his body reading the attack in the air before the blade even arrived.
With a deft twist of his wrist, he brought his practice dagger up. The sound wasn't just a clack; it was a sharp, percussive crack that split the lazy hum of the lawn, a sound that spoke of force and precision. He didn't just block; he deflected, his body twisting in a beautiful, efficient arc that used Kipps’s own momentum against him, leaving the other boy momentarily over-extended and off-balance. A ghost of a smile touched Lockwood’s lips, not a smirk of superiority, but the pure, unadulterated expression of someone completely in their element.
On her bench, Lucy’s pen stilled completely, leaving a small, blooming blot of ink on the page. The words ‘the influences of Monet’ stared back at her, a string of black marks that had lost all connection to meaning. What were hazy water lilies or the facade of Rouen Cathedral compared to the live-wire tension of the scene before her? This was a different kind of impressionism, not of light on water, but of light on skin, on steel, on the damp fabric of a shirt and the fierce, bright focus in a pair of dark eyes.
The words escaping in a soft, fervent whisper that was swallowed by the breeze. “Bless the spring semester stage combat class.” It was a prayer of surrender, an acknowledgment that for the next hour, Monet was dead, and Anthony Lockwood was very, very alive.
Lockwood disengaged, breathing heavily, a lock of dark hair falling across his forehead. He pushed it back with a gloved hand, a quick, impatient gesture that was somehow wildly attractive. He said something to Kipps, a flash of a grin on his face, and Kipps scowled in response. The competitive fire in Lockwood’s eyes, the way his chest rose and fell with his breaths, the focused intensity of his entire being… it really, truly, Did Things to her.
Her heart was doing a frantic, un-choreographed stage combat routine of its own against her ribs. Her cheeks felt warm. It was utterly pathetic. She was Lucy Carlyle, a girl who’d faced down a drunkard for a father and a less than kind mother for most of her life, and here she was, rendered a puddle of yearning by a boy pretending to fight with a fake sword.
“Get a grip, Carlyle,” she whispered fiercely to herself.
The bout ended with a final, ringing clack of practice blades. Kipps, disarmed and scowling, stalked off towards the water jugs with the rest of the class. Lockwood, however, remained rooted for a moment, his chest rising and falling with steady, deep breaths as he scanned the periphery of the lawn. Then his gaze landed on her, a fixed point under the dappled shade of the oak.
His grin, which a moment before had been a competitive, sharp-edged thing, underwent a subtle alchemy. It softened at the corners, shedding its theatricality and becoming something quieter, more personal, and infinitely more dangerous. It was a look meant for her, and her alone. Tucking his practice rapier under his arm, he started walking towards her bench.
A jolt of pure, undiluted panic seized Lucy’s nervous system. Her heart, which had been thumping a steady, appreciative rhythm, suddenly launched into a frantic gallop against her ribs. He’s coming over here. He’s seen me. He knows. Her eyes, wide with alarm, dropped to her open notebook. The diagram of Van Gogh’s use of brushstrokes, a chaotic tangle of limbs and strategy, suddenly became the most absorbing academic artefact ever conceived by man. She snatched up her pen, fumbling it so badly it nearly skittered off the page, and pretended to trace a line of attack with a intensity usually reserved for deciphering ancient runes. She could feel the weight of his approach in the tremble of the ground, in the way the very air seemed to part for him.
“Luce! Fancy seeing you here.”
His voice was slightly breathless, the words laced with the pleasant exertion of the class, and it washed over her like a warm wave. He came to a stop before her bench, his shadow falling across her notes, eclipsing the diagram entirely. The space around her was suddenly filled with his presence, the scent of fresh, trampled grass, the clean, salty tang of honest sweat, and beneath it all, the distinct, indefinable essence of him: a hint of leather from the practice gear and the simple, clean soap he used. It was an aroma that short-circuited her higher brain functions.
He leaned forward, bracing a hand on his knee, his practice rapier dangling casually from his other hand. His eyes, bright and mischievous, flicked from her feigned focus to the notebook, then back to her burning face.
“Studying hard?” he asked, a thread of playful knowingness weaving through his tone. The question hung in the air between them, a blatant and delightful tease. He knew. He absolutely knew she hadn't been looking at the diagram any more than he’d been looking at Kipps’s smug face.
“Something like that,” she managed to force the words past the sudden, inexplicable tightness in her throat, her voice emerging as a faint, strangled whisper. Summoning a courage she absolutely did not feel, she dared a fleeting glance upward, only to find the view from a distance had been a mere prelude. Up close, he was devastating.
The afternoon sun, filtering through the oak leaves, caught the fine sheen of moisture at his temples and the damp, dark curls clinging to his forehead. A single bead of sweat traced a languid path down the corded line of his neck, disappearing into the hollow of his throat, and Lucy found herself following its journey with a terrifying, singular focus. His skin was flushed with the healthy glow of exertion, and his chest still rose and fell in a steady, powerful rhythm that seemed to echo the frantic beat of her own heart. But it was his eyes that truly undid her. Stripped of their usual theatrical glint, they were alight with a raw, post-exertion energy, bright and focused, holding hers with an unnerving and absolute intensity.
“Riveting stuff, impressionism,” he said, his gaze dropping to her open notebook. He tilted his head. “You’ve written ‘rapier’ in the margin about six times.”
Lucy snapped the book shut, her face flaming. “It’s a… comparative analysis. Of, uh, historical combat forms.”
Lockwood’s smile widened, a knowing, infuriatingly charming spark in his eyes. He leaned a shoulder against the trunk of her oak tree, looking down at her. “Impressionism and combat forms, Is that so? And what’s your professional assessment of my form?” The knowing glint in his eyes was a blazing signal fire. He was teasing her, not with the polished charm he used on everyone else, but with a quiet, intimate certainty that sent a tremor through her very foundation. He knew. The realization wasn't a slow dawn but a sudden, catastrophic collapse of all her carefully constructed denials. The world, in that singular, heart-hammering moment, was most certainly ending.
“Adequate,” she forced out, aiming for a breezy nonchalance that could dismiss sunsets and symphonies alike. What emerged was a thin, reedy squeak, landing somewhere in the vast, mortifying territory of a ‘constricted weasel’. She felt the heat of a furious blush ignite her cheeks.
He laughed, then, a warm, unrestrained sound that seemed to vibrate in the space between them. It did more inexplicable, catastrophic Things to her internal organs than the entire spectacle of the combat class had. “Just ‘adequate’? Ouch.” He pressed a hand to his chest in mock injury, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “And here I was, hoping to impress my toughest critic.” He gestured with his practice rapier, the blunted tip tracing a fluid arc in the air. “It’s all about the footwork, you know. And the wrist. Here.”
Before her thoroughly scrambled senses could form a protest, his fingers were closing around hers. His gloves were off now, and the skin of his hand was warm and dry, the faint roughness of calluses a tangible, shocking history of countless hours of practice against her own smooth palm. Her brain, the traitorous organ, didn't just short-circuit; it dissolved into a shower of silent, white-hot sparks.
“See,” he murmured, his voice dropping to a confidential hush as he gently positioned her hand, shaping her fingers around the imagined hilt of a rapier. He shifted to stand behind her, a solid, warm presence that didn't quite touch, but close enough that she could feel the heat radiating from his body like a furnace, could sense the ghost of his form just inches from her back. His breath stirred the loose hairs at her temple. “It’s not just strength. It’s precision. Control.”
He guided her wrist through a small, parrying motion. Lucy was fairly certain she had forgotten how to breathe. All she could focus on was the point of contact between his hand and hers, the sound of his voice so close to her ear, the impossible reality of Anthony Lockwood giving her a private, intimate fencing lesson.
“You’re… very controlled,” she breathed out, the understatement of the century.
“I have to be,” he said softly, his breath stirring the hairs by her temple. He still hadn’t let go of her hand. “Especially when there’s a pretty girl watching me.”
Lucy’s heart hammered against her ribs like it was trying to escape. Slowly, she turned her head to look at him. His face was inches from hers, the playful teasing replaced by an intensity that mirrored his focus in combat. His eyes flickered down to her lips.
The instructor’s whistle blew, sharp and intrusive across the lawn. “Lockwood! Break’s over! We’re running the final sequence!”
Lockwood didn’t move for a long moment, his gaze still locked on hers. He gave her hand one last, gentle squeeze before releasing it. “Duty calls,” he said, his voice low. He took a step back, the spell broken, but the heat in his eyes remained. “Don’t go anywhere. I think my form needs more… critique.”
He winked, then turned and jogged back to the group, leaving Lucy leaning against the oak tree, her legs feeling about as solid as jelly. She watched him go, her hand still tingling from his touch.
As he took his place and raised his practice blade, he glanced back at her one more time. And Lucy, her notes on impressionism completely forgotten, decided that maybe, just maybe, the spring semester stage combat class was the single greatest invention in the history of academia.