The fencing master / Arturo Pérez-Reverte ; translated from the Spanish by Margaret Jull Costa.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Everyone in Madrid in the torrid fall of 1868 is discussing political plots and revolution except for Don Jaime. He is a fencing master and a man of honor, an anachronism. For years he has been working on a Treatise on the Art of Fencing, the heart of which is his perfection of the unstoppable thrust. He is approached one day by a beautiful and mysterious woman with a scar at the corner of her mouth that hints at dark violence. She asks the maestro to teach her the unstoppable thrust. Eventhough Do-a Adela de Otero's weapons of charm and elegance are formidable, Don Jaime declines. But he is entirely unprepared for the unhurried, sure, and inexplicable movements that follow. Soon he finds himself involved in a plot that includes seduction, politics, secret documents, and murder. Rich with the historical detail of a decaying world that agonizes-as does the art of fencing-over ideals of honor and chivalry, The Fencing Master is superb literature and an honest-to-goodness page-turner.