Unmasked
Unmasked
Nicola Cornick
Can innocent young widow Mari Osborne really be a murderess and the notorious leader of the Glory Girls highwaywomen?Wickedly handsome Nick Falconer would stake his life on it! He's been sent from London to the tranquil English village of Peacock Oak to solve the murder of his cousin Rashleigh and unmask this female Robin Hood. But Nick never expected that Mari would be so intoxicatingly beautiful or so disturbingly luscious.Determined to have her–body, soul and secrets–at any cost, Nick sets out to seduce her with a passion that inflames them both. But Mari holds much deeper, darker truths than Nick could ever imagine. Despite her fierce resistance, she can't stop her body from yearning for his touch.Can she hide her sinister past from him much longer? Or will trusting the one man she so desperately wants lead her straight to the hangman's noose?
Nicola Cornick
is an international bestselling author and a
RITA
Award finalist, and her novels have received acclaim the world over
“A rising star of the Regency arena.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Nicola Cornick’s historical romances bring the sensual and elegant world of the Regency to vivid life.”
—Anna Campbell, author of Untouched
“Ms. Cornick has a brilliant talent for bringing her characters to life, and embracing the reader into her stories.”
—RomanceJunkies
Praise for Nicola’s previous HQN titles
“A powerful story, rich, witty and sensual—a divinely delicious treat.”
—Marilyn Rondeau, Reviewers International Organization, on Deceived
“Cornick masterfully blends misconceptions, vengeance, powerful emotions and the realization of great love into a touching story.”
—Romantic Times BOOKreviews, 4½ stars, on Deceived
“Cornick expertly spices her latest Regency historical with danger, while the sizzle she cooks up between her sinfully sexy hero and delightfully resourceful heroine is simply spectacular.”
—John Charles, Booklist, on Lord of Scandal
Nicola Cornick
Unmasked
Dear Reader,
From the Scarlet Pimpernel to Zorro, Robin Hood to William Wallace, the real-life legends and fictional stories of those who fight for freedom and justice have always inspired me. In Unmasked I have written an outlaw story of my own! Over the wild heather-clad hills and dales of Yorkshire ride a band of highwaywomen, taking from the rich to give to the poor, protecting the weak and setting right the injustices of society in true Robin Hood style. But the Glory Girls who ride in Unmasked are no ordinary outlaws. These are women who defy convention because they cannot bear to sit at home, confined by the traditional role of the Regency wife or widow, who see injustice and feel a burning need to take action.
Nick Falconer, the hero of Unmasked, is a man of honor, sworn to uphold the law, and when he is sent to bring the Glory Girls down he is determined to do his duty. But in Mari Osborne, the woman he suspects to be Glory, he finds someone very different from the criminal he is expecting, someone whose principles equal his own…. I loved writing my story of those dashing Regency outlaws the Glory Girls, and I hope you enjoy it, too!
Love from
This book is dedicated to Yorkshire,
county of my birth, for all the wild and
wonderful places that inspired me.
Unmasked
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
AUTHOR NOTE
PROLOGUE
London—April 1805
Daffodil—Deceit
“THE THINGS I DO for England.” Major Nick Falconer stood back and squinted at his reflection in the pier glass in the hall of the Marquis of Kinloss’s London mansion. The Marquis was out of Town, which Nick thought was probably all to the good. His great-uncle was notoriously high in the instep and might have cut up extremely rough had he seen his heir’s outrageous appearance.
Nick turned to the young man who was leaning against one of the marble pillars and watching him with amusement in his blue eyes.
“What do I look like, Anstruther?”
“You look quite shocking, sir,” Dexter Anstruther said politely. “The ribbon is a nice touch, as is the perfume and the patch.”
Nick laughed. “And the jacket? Quite dandified, I think.”
“Much worse than a dandy,” Anstruther said, a smile twitching his lips. “I beg your pardon, sir, but you look like a molly with extremely dubious sexual tastes. A rum cove, as my father would have said.”
“I do my poor best,” Nick said. He picked up his hat, a jaunty wide-brimmed affair with a flirtatious orange feather.
“This place you’re going to,” Anstruther said, “this club…”
“The Hen and Vulture,” Nick supplied.
“Yes.” Anstruther looked vaguely uncomfortable. “Is it really the case that one cannot be sure whether…I mean, there are men there, and women…”
“And the men may be dressed as women and the women as men,” Nick finished. He grinned. “So I understand. Far too shocking for youngsters like yourself to visit, Anstruther.”
“Men dressed as women,” Anstruther muttered, rubbing a hand across his forehead. “How could that possibly be attractive?”
“I believe the appeal of such a place lies in the ambiguity,” Nick said. “Apparently some of the most beautiful courtesans in London also attend and the skill is in telling them apart from the men in women’s clothes.”
“Good God,” Anstruther said faintly. “It’s so…unBritish.”
“Just count yourself lucky that you don’t have to come with me,” Nick said comfortingly. He looked at his companion, sober in his black evening dress. Dexter Anstruther had been assigned to assist him in his current mission by no lesser personage than the Home Secretary himself. The boy had only graduated from Oxford the previous year but he was clever, diplomatic and hardworking, and Nick’s current venture, to rein in the wilder excesses of his cousin the Earl of Rashleigh, required assistance from someone with absolute discretion. Dexter Anstruther fitted the bill perfectly.
“How would you dress if you were visiting the Hen and Vulture, Anstruther?” Nick inquired.
“Just as I am—as a repressed English gentleman,” Anstruther said ruefully, looking at Nick’s somewhat colorful outfit, “rather than the sort of mincing dandy I see before me—with the greatest of respect, sir.” He straightened, thrusting his hands into his pockets. “What if Lord Kinloss should hear of this, sir? He’ll have a fit. The heir to a Marquisate in a house of ill repute!”
“I’ll probably recognize plenty of other peers in there,” Nick said, “so no one will be able to point the finger.”
Anstruther shook his head in disbelief. “It is difficult to believe, seeing you like that, sir, that you have a certain reputation for ruthlessness.”
Nick was adjusting his outrageously lacy collar. “Thank you, Anstruther. Unfortunately I also have the bad luck to be Rashleigh’s cousin.”
“And the best shot in England and one of Gentleman Jackson’s finest,” Anstruther said, with an air of hero worship.
Nick smiled. “More to the point, Anstruther, Lord Hawkesbury knows I’ll be discreet because no matter how much I hate my cousin, this is a family matter.” He tilted his head to one side and patted the patch on his cheek. “Too much, do you think?”
“You look like a whorehouse madam, sir.”
“Just the style I was attempting,” Nick said.
“Lord Hawkesbury said that this was a delicate business,” Anstruther said, shifting from one foot to the other, as though he was not quite comfortable to be in the same room as a man in such dubious attire. “A matter that could cause repercussions through the top ranks of society, he said.”
“Yes,” Nick said. “It is damnably delicate. You know that my foolish cousin Rashleigh has borrowed heavily from the sprigs of the nobility, Anstruther. He has targeted those youths with generous allowances and lax guardians. And now that his activities are exposed there are peers lining up from Aberdeen to Anglesey threatening to see him in hell. Lord Hawkesbury wants Rashleigh warned off tonight and the money repaid before one of them kills him.”
Nick stopped, thinking that in better times Dexter Anstruther himself might have been one of Rashleigh’s targets. The boy’s father, whilst not titled, had been from a good family and had had a tidy fortune—until he had gambled it all away.
“I had heard that Lord Rashleigh was a scoundrel,” Anstruther said gruffly. “I know he’s your cousin, sir, but he’s still bad Ton.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” Nick said affably. “Never could stand Rashleigh myself. He comes from the dissolute branch of the family. My mother’s brothers were all worse than scoundrels.”
“Dashed nuisance that you have to go to this so-called club,” Anstruther observed. “Did you try calling on your cousin at home, sir?”
Nick laughed. “Yes, I tried. He declines to see me. We have not spoken for several years and last time we met he damned me to perdition for refusing to advance him a loan.”
“A pity he is a habitué of the Hen and Vulture rather than Whites,” Anstruther said. “You could have had a pleasant evening there.”
“Whites blackballed him years ago,” Nick said.
“You don’t surprise me. Unwholesome fellow.” Anstruther shifted uncomfortably once more. “I heard Lord Hawkesbury say that he was robbed blind by one of his mistresses a few years back? He said it was the talk of the Ton for a while.”
Nick’s mouth set in a thin line. “Yes, it was. She was a Russian girl. Rashleigh’s side of the family had estates there, inherited from his grandmother. He told me once how he had sold his serfs off to the highest bidder.” His fist clenched in an instinctive gesture of anger and repudiation. “I think—” his tone hardened “—that that was when I really started to hate him.”
He could see that Anstruther was staring at him but he did not elaborate. Nick had spent his adult life in the army, fighting for honor and freedom and principle, to defend the weak and preserve the things that he believed to be right. It was a moral code he believed in, a belief that had only been strengthened by the violent death of his wife some three years earlier. But his cousin, in contrast, treated human life as though it were a commodity to be bought and sold, as though people’s very souls were of no account. He sneered at the weak and crushed them under his aristocratic heel. Rashleigh had laughed at the reformers and sworn that those who wanted to abolish slavery were soft in the head. And in Nick’s book that made Robert Rashleigh the scum of the earth.
Nick adjusted his hat to a more rakish angle. “That’ll do. I’m off.”
“Good luck, sir,” Anstruther said, holding the door for him. “You are sure you do not need me to accompany you?”
Nick looked him up and down. “A selfless offer, Anstruther, but in that outfit you would stand out like the proverbial sore thumb.” He slapped the younger man on the back. “I shall see you later, when I am confident you will be able to report to Lord Hawkesbury on a job well done.”
Out in the street it was a brisk April night with a cold breeze whipping the ragged clouds across the moon. Nick settled back in a hackney carriage and winced in the draught from the ill-fitting door. He had no appetite for this errand and no time for his cousin, but for the sake of his family’s good name, he knew he had had to take the Home Secretary’s commission. As the carriage clattered through London’s streets he thought, with no degree of affection at all, about his errant cousin and the trouble that he had caused from the day of his birth. There was no doubt, as Anstruther had said, that the Earl of Rashleigh was worse than a scoundrel.
The hack drew up abruptly and Nick sighed and jumped down, pushing the plumed hat down farther on his head as a gust of wind threatened to take it off. His current garb, he reflected, was about as far from his army uniform as could be.
From the outside the Hen and Vulture looked much the same as any low tavern in the Brick Hill area. The shutters were closed and from within came the flicker of candlelight, the mingled smell of ale and stale smoke, and the roar of voices and laughter. Nick squared his shoulders. He had been called upon to perform some unusual roles during his career in the Seventh Dragoon Guards but none had taken him anywhere quite like this.
He pushed open the door.
Inside it was so dark that for a moment Nick could not see properly, then his eyes adjusted to the light and he headed for a quiet corner, sliding along the wooden bench behind a rough ale-stained table. The room was almost full. Despite the tavern’s reputation, there were only one or two outrageously clad men. One was dressed in an embroidered corset and a trailing golden robe with satin-lined sleeves. He had a well-powdered wig, ear pendants and a beauty patch on one cheekbone that was a match for Nick’s.
The inn servant—a slender youth who could actually have been a girl—slopped a beaker of ale down onto the table and gave Nick a flirtatious smile, which he returned in good measure as he slipped the payment into the youth’s hand. He looked around the room. As far as he could see, Rashleigh had not yet arrived.
Nick took a mouthful of the ale. It tasted like dirty water and he put the tankard down again quickly. It was threatening to be a long evening if the drink was so poor. He glanced around the room again and caught the eye of a strikingly pretty, masked woman in a tight crimson gown. Like him she was sitting alone in a quiet corner. It looked as though she was waiting for someone. She held Nick’s gaze for a long moment and despite their surroundings, despite his outrageous garb sufficient to confuse anyone as to the true nature of his sexual interest, a connection flashed between them that was so intense he felt it like a kick in the stomach.
The girl got up, walked slowly across the room and slid into the seat beside him.
“Hello, darling.” Her voice was warm, inviting and very definitely feminine.
Nick thought quickly. In showing more than a fleeting interest in the girl he had no doubt made her think that he was a potential customer. The sort of whores who paraded their wares in places like the Vulture, male or female, did not in general interest him, but he supposed that he would draw less attention if he pretended an attraction to this one, and that would not be very difficult for she was extremely pretty.
He had barely looked at another woman in the three years since his wife had died. Anna had been his childhood sweetheart and their marriage had been an understood thing from the first, an eminently sensible arrangement between two families. They had married when Nick was one and twenty and he had confidently expected to live very happily ever after. It had therefore been both a shock and a disillusionment to find that the reality of their marriage had not lived up to its early promise. Anna was delicate and could not follow the drum and he was young and determined to serve abroad and so they had spent much of their time apart. Nick had told himself that it did not matter, that it was a good enough marriage, better than many, but he knew something was lacking. And so it might have continued for years had not an opportunist robbery in a London street turned violent and he had lost his wife in one vicious moment. He had finally been forced to confront his failure and guilt, and the grief had overwhelmed him, not only for Anna but also for what might have been. His distance from home and the sheer helplessness of his situation only served to compound his remorse, but by the time he had received the news of her death and returned to England, Anna was cold in her grave and his heart was even colder.
He had never felt an interest in another woman since but he looked at this one now and felt an unexpectedly strong pull of attraction. As she leaned toward him he could smell a fresh flower scent on her, light and sweet. He felt her silken warmth wrap about him, a far cry from the stale perfume and sweat he had expected. The sensation went straight to his head—and to his groin. He could not remember the last time he had noticed the scent of a woman but this one filled his senses. It made him feel restless and disturbed in a way he could not quite explain, as though he was dishonoring Anna’s memory in some way. He pushed the feeling away and gave the girl a long, slow smile in return. This was, after all, only business.
“Hello, sweetheart,” he said. “What can I do for you?”
The girl looked him straight in the eyes. “Several things spring to mind,” she murmured.
She was not shy then. She was not even pretending to be shy. Nick did not mind. He disliked artifice in any form. A direct man himself, he preferred bluntness in his dealing with others and whatever she was, she seemed honest.
He allowed himself a moment to study her. She had blond hair that curled about her face, and behind her velvet mask her wide-set, candid eyes were so dark Nick thought they were black until a stray beam of candlelight shone on them and showed up the tiny flecks of green and gold in their depths. She was wearing far too much paint for a young girl but the deep cherry-red of her lips was alluring and drew his gaze. She ran her fingers lightly but deliberately over the lace that edged the low-cut bodice of her gown, back and forth gently across the swell of her breasts, and Nick’s eyes followed the movement and he felt the lust slam through his body in response.
He looked up to see her watching him, a knowing look in her eyes.
“What’s your name?” he asked. His voice was a little rough.
She gave him a small, secretive smile. “Molly.”
Nick laughed. It was a good choice for a place like the Vulture but he doubted it was her real name.
Molly moved a little closer to him. Her slippery satin thigh pressed gently against his leg and once again he felt desire as hard and hot as a punch in the gut. Damnation. He had always considered himself to have iron self-discipline but the only iron thing about him at present was his erection, which was swelling with each provocative slide of Molly’s satin skirts against his thigh.
“And who are you?” she whispered in his ear. Her voice was low, slightly husky. Her breath tickled his cheek.
Nick cleared his throat. “My name’s John.”
She smiled again, that knowing smile. “What are you doing here, John?”
“Looking for company.” Nick took a mouthful of the watery beer and appraised her over the rim of his tankard. “What about you?”
She gave a little shrug of her shoulders. The candlelight gilded the pallor of her bare skin, made it look smooth and tempting. There was a scattering of freckles over her shoulders and a tiny, heart-shaped mole above her collarbone that was already driving Nick almost mad with frustration. He found that he wanted to press his lips to it, to taste her skin. He shifted on the bench.
“I’m looking for someone, too,” she said.
“Someone in particular, or anyone?”
For a second Nick thought he saw some expression flicker in her eyes, too quick to read. Then she smiled. “Someone special, darling. Someone like you.”
Nick leaned toward her. One kiss would do no harm and he wanted it, wanted her, with a hunger that was already hard to control.
She leaned away. “Not so fast,” she said. “There’s a price.”
There always was, with a whore.
Nick raised his brows. “You charge for your kisses?”
“I charge for everything, darling.”
The curve of those red lips was very seductive. Nick ran one finger down the bare skin of her inner arm, tracing the curve. He thought that he felt her tremble just a little and admired her skill. The cleverest whores were the ones who seemed innocent.
“And if I want to take something on account?” he murmured.
Her eyes were veiled behind the mask. “It’s against the rules.” She put her hand on his thigh. “Let me persuade you to open your purse.”
Nick caught her chin in his hand, turning her face up to his. “Let me persuade you to break the rules,” he murmured.
He felt her go very still beneath his touch, like a wild animal freezing in the face of danger. For a moment Nick thought that he could read abject terror in the depths of those dark eyes and he started to draw back. He wanted no part in coercing an unwilling woman and he understood all too well how some of these girls were obliged to play a role that they hated just to earn enough money to survive.
But then Molly put a hand on his nape and pulled his head down so that his lips touched hers. The surprise held Nick still for a moment as he absorbed the sensation, the touch and the feel of her. Again he sensed a hesitation in her before her lips parted a little and softened beneath his. Her tongue tentatively touched the corner of his mouth, then slid across his lower lip in sweet invitation, and he felt a sudden helpless rush of desire, like the first blindingly hot passion of his youth, so strong it made him ache, so unexpected it shocked him. He had never felt anything so raw for any woman, and certainly not for Anna. Fierce need smashed though him and in that instant he forgot his scruples, forgot his memories, forgot even why he was there, and pulled her to him and kissed her deeply until he was panting and she was, too.
When she tore herself from his grip he was so wrapped up in the taste and feel of her that for a moment he was completely disorientated. Then he saw that she had moved a little way away from him along the bench. Her face was averted and she had a hand pressed to her lips. Nick could see she was shaking slightly. The downward curve of her neck looked so vulnerable that he felt a powerful surge of anger and protectiveness and lust inextricably jumbled into one. Her closeness and her apparent defenselessness unleashed a sudden wave of memories of Anna, terrible, tormenting memories so sharp that they cut him to the core. He had not been there to protect his wife when she needed him. He had failed her in so many ways.
He put his head in his hands for a moment to try to clear his mind. He could not think about this now. He should never have touched the girl and sparked the tangle of memory and desire that had captured him.
With deliberate intent he wiped out the memories and, when he straightened up, he saw that Molly’s attention had drifted and she was staring across the room. He followed her gaze toward the door and saw that his cousin, Robert Rashleigh, had come in and was standing preening himself like a displaying peacock. In a white wig, silver cloak, gold breeches and scarlet shoes, he drew all eyes.
The conversation in the tavern fell to a murmur then rose again as men resumed their drink and sport. Nick suddenly became aware that beside him the girl was rigid, upright, vibrating with a strange kind of tension he could not understand. Her attention was riveted on the flaunting figure of the Earl.
“Excuse me,” she murmured, and slipped from the seat beside him. She walked straight across to Rashleigh, put a hand on his arm and indicated to the tavern servant to bring him a drink.
Nick’s eyes narrowed as he watched the interchange between his cousin and the whore. He felt a fool now for his unrestrained response to her. Evidently he had been without a woman for too long to fall into lust so hard and so fast. Molly, in contrast, had forgotten him already for she was at the door, gesturing to Rashleigh to follow her out into the night, no doubt to a set of rooms nearby. There was no sign of reluctance in her now. The appearance of hesitation earlier must have been only for show—or because she had not really thought Nick worth her time. Her apparent vulnerability and defenselessness had been no more than figments of his imagination. Nick’s jaw tightened as he saw her give Rashleigh the same tempting, secretive smile in parting that she had given to him.
He watched as Rashleigh drained his glass of wine in one gulp and ordered a second, which he dispatched the same way, his eyes on the door the whole time. Nick guessed that the girl had asked Rashleigh to give her a few minutes in which to prepare herself before he joined her in her bed. He got to his feet. It was time to spoil his cousin’s party. He started to move toward Rashleigh with deliberate intent.
Rashleigh looked up and their eyes met. For a long moment they looked at one another and then Rashleigh turned away abruptly and hurried out without a word. The tavern door crashed on its hinges as it closed behind him. The candles fluttered in the wind and half of them went out. Men cursed as they knocked their drinks over in the dark. Nick blundered across the room and found his way to the door. He was not going to let Rashleigh get away from him now.
The alleyway outside was pitch-black. The tavern sign was swinging in the rising breeze and creaked overhead. Nick stopped, his eyes adjusting to the darkness. He listened intently but could hear no sound of movement. He could not tell which way Rashleigh had gone but he was determined to find him and confront him with Hawkesbury’s accusations before Rashleigh gave him the slip and tumbled into bed with that willing little harlot.
Then he saw the glimmer of something in the gutter at the end of the lane, where the narrow passageway joined the high road. His breath caught. Turning, he shoved open the door of the tavern and shouted inside, “Bring a light!”
The landlord hurried to do his bidding, a flaring torch in his hand. Nick could see a fold of the silver cloak, all muddied now from the dirt of the gutter, gleaming bright in the torchlight.
The customers were piling out of the alehouse, scenting trouble. Another lantern flared, showing Rashleigh lying on the ground, his face paint smeared, his wig askew. One of his hands lay outstretched as though clutching after something that had eluded him. Nick could see a knife protruding between his ribs. It was buried to the hilt. Beside him lay a blond wig and a black velvet mask.
Images filled Nick’s mind of Anna, lying there in the gutter in his cousin’s place, limp, broken, her life drained away. He saw her blue eyes clouding over in death and felt the familiar tide of sickness and guilt wash through him. With an immense effort of will he forced the images from his mind and looked dispassionately down at his cousin’s tumbled body. Rashleigh looked undignified in death. His face had fallen and crumpled in on itself. He looked weak and dissolute and pitiful. Nick searched his heart and did not feel a scrap of sorrow. The world was a better place without the Earl of Rashleigh.
The breeze stirred the edge of Rashleigh’s silver cloak and stirred, too, the scrap of paper that had been clasped between his fingers. It fluttered free and Nick bent to pick it up. It was a visiting card and on it was printed the flaunting symbol of a peacock in gold. Nick frowned. He had seen that device before. It was similar to the coat of arms of his old school friend Charles, Duke of Cole. He turned it over. On the back was written the words Peacock Oak, the estate in Yorkshire where Charles had his country seat.
Nick saw the inn servant at the front of the crowd, his face thin and terrified in the flickering light. He walked over to him.
“You were standing near to Lord Rashleigh when he was talking to the girl,” he said. “Did you hear anything they said?”
“Are you the law?” the servant demanded.
Nick thought of Lord Hawkesbury and wondered what he would make of this mess. “Near enough,” he said.
The servant shook his head. There was the sweat of fear on his upper lip and he wiped it away with his sleeve. “He asked if there was a place where they could talk and she said to wait a few minutes and then to follow her across the street. That was all.”
Nick held out the card with the golden peacock on it. “Have you ever seen that before?” he demanded.
The inn servant held the card up to the light, peering at it. Then he recoiled, and pushed it back into Nick’s hands. He cast one, fearful glance over his shoulder.
“That’s Glory’s calling card!” He turned an incredulous look on Nick. “Have you not seen it, sir? It’s been in all the presses. Glory leaves her card when she robs her victims!”
A hiss went through the crowd, a strange indrawn breath of fear and excitement, for there was only one Glory and she was the most infamous highwaywoman in the country. Everyone knew her name. No one needed an explanation.
Nick straightened up. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he said softly.
He remembered the touch of the girl’s lips on his. She had kissed like an angel. He felt part shocked, part incredulous, to think her a criminal and a murderer. It seemed impossible. He had thought her honest and even now some instinct, deep and stubborn, told him she could not have killed Rashleigh, though the evidence was right in front of him. The wig, the mask, the knife…And his cousin’s fallen body that reminded him so sharply, so heartbreakingly, of Anna….
He thought about the strange tension he had sensed in the girl when Rashleigh had entered the room. She had recognized the Earl. Perhaps she had even known him. She had told Nick that she was waiting for someone and that someone must have been Rashleigh himself. All her actions that evening must have been calculated. She had lured Rashleigh outside to kill him in cold blood.
“Shall I call the watch, sir?” The landlord was at his shoulder, his face strained and sweating in the half-light. “Powerful bad for business, this sort of thing.” He saw Nick’s face and added hastily, “Terrible tragedy, sir. Friend of yours, was he?”
“No,” Nick said. “Not my friend. But he was my cousin.”
The landlord gave him a curious glance before beckoning the bar servant over with a message for the watch. Nick knew he should go directly to tell Lord Hawkesbury what had happened but he lingered a moment longer, his eyes scanning the dark warren of streets that wound away into the dark. He thought fancifully that the faint, incongruous scent of flowers still seemed to hang in the air. For a second, above the creaking of the inn sign, he thought that he could hear the tap of her heels, see a flying shadow melt into the darkness of the night. He knew he would never find the girl again now.
Word of the murder was rippling through the crowd. People were gathering at the end of the street to peer and point and whisper at the sight of the infamous Earl of Rashleigh dead in the gutter. And beneath the whispers ran the words “It was Glory. Glory was here. She did it, it was her…”
LORD HAWKESBURY was not amused.
When Nick and Dexter Anstruther were ushered into his presence the following morning he was clearly in a very bad mood indeed.
“This is the most godforsaken mess, Falconer,” Hawkesbury barked, leaning back in his chair and steepling his fingers. “Murder and sedition on the streets of London, the whole capital stirred up by the deeds of this vagabond criminal! It’s in all the morning papers. They are treating her like a heroine for ridding the country of scum like Rashleigh. The whole point of you heading Rashleigh off was to prevent this sort of incident. Instead you spend a jolly half hour with Glory in a tavern and then allow her to wander off and stab your cousin!”
“Quite so, my lord,” Nick said, wincing. He reflected that Hawkesbury’s mild complexion was a poor guide to his choleric disposition. “But whilst there was, no doubt, a long list of people who wanted to murder my cousin I do not believe we could have predicted that one of them was apparently a notorious highwaywoman.”
“You couldn’t even recognize a notorious highwaywoman when you saw one,” Hawkesbury grumbled, drawing toward him Nick’s written statement from the previous night. “Thought she was a harlot, I see.” He looked up. “How old are you, Falconer? Two and thirty? You sound as naive as a babe in arms!”
Anstruther shot Nick a sympathetic look. “It’s Glory’s calling card right enough,” he put in, picking up the card that Hawkesbury offered irascibly and turning it over between his fingers. “I read the penny prints. Some of my best sources of information derive from there. And this—” he flicked the card with a finger “—is the sign she always leaves after an attack.”
“She has not struck in London before, though, has she?” Nick said. “I understood her to operate only in the north.”
The deep frown on Hawkesbury’s forehead deepened further. “Thought she was nothing more than a petty felon and rabble-rouser,” he muttered, shredding a quill between his fingers. “Now it seems she’s involved in treason, as well, and your cousin—” he pointed a stubby finger at Nick “—was part of the conspiracy!”
“Glory is a popular heroine, my lord,” Anstruther offered eagerly. “She robs the rich to feed the poor, they say.”
Hawkesbury grunted. “You’ve been reading too many fairy tales, Anstruther! The woman’s a criminal, no more and no less.” He threw the ruined quill down on his desk and leaned forward, glaring fiercely at Nick. “I have no official authority over you, Falconer, but I’d like to suggest that this is what you do. You’ve got some army furlough, haven’t you? Good!” he added, as Nick nodded grimly. “Then you go to Yorkshire and find this Glory person. You’ve some acquaintance with the Duke of Cole, have you not?”
“We were at Eton together,” Nick confirmed.
“Excellent. He is to host a house party at his Yorkshire estate from next month, so I understand. You will be one of the guests. There must be some connection between Cole and this felon since the name of his estate was on her calling card!”
Nick nodded. There were worse ways to spend one’s leave than as the houseguest of the famously lavish Duke and Duchess of Cole, and Lord Hawkesbury’s suggestion was as good as an order.
“Are you suggesting that Charles Cole may be part of a criminal conspiracy, sir?” he inquired.
“Certainly not!” Hawkesbury harrumphed. “Sound man, votes Tory! You can rely on him. No, this female malcontent taunts us, that is all, with peacocks and calling cards and addresses…Pah!” The quill snapped between his fingers. “The sooner you find her the better, Falconer. Find her and send word to me. I’ll make her talk and then I’ll hang her.”
Nick raised his brows. “Surely she will have to have a fair trial, my lord—”
“Optional!” Hawkesbury barked. “I’d rather shoot her. This is a time of war. The country must be freed from such seditious influences, Falconer.” He glared at Anstruther from under his sandy brows. “Popular heroine, indeed. Pah! What a pair you are. It’s your mess, Falconer. You sort it out. Anstruther can go with you. He might be useful if he gets over his infatuation with this…this female Robin Hood!”
“So what do we do, sir?” Anstruther said to Nick as, dismissed from Lord Hawkesbury’s presence, they made their way out into a chilly London morning.
Nick laughed. “You heard the Home Secretary, Anstruther. We travel up to Yorkshire, find Glory and send word to Lord Hawkesbury. He will make her talk and,” Nick said wryly, “then he will hang her.”
Anstruther gave him a look. “You met the woman, sir. What did you think of her?”
Nick thought of the girl from the Hen and Vulture. He had been thinking about her for most of the night, remembering the seduction of her kiss and hating the way that despite all the evidence of her perfidy, his body still burned for her.
He set his jaw. “I think she must be the most cunning charlatan in the kingdom, Anstruther,” he said, “and she has played me for a fool. So now it is my turn. I shall take great pleasure in hunting Glory down.”
CHAPTER ONE
Yorkshire—June 1805
Monkshead—Danger is near
SOMETIMES THE NIGHTMARE would come to her in the depths of the darkness and she would wake cold and shaking, reaching for the comfort of the candle’s light. Other times—this time—it caught her unawares, tricked her in that hour before daybreak when the summer light had already started to creep around the edges of the curtain.
She was going to die. She could not breathe. Her wrists were chafed raw from the rope that tied her to the cart and her legs ached intolerably from the long, stumbling miles. She could hear the rumble of the carriage wheels echoing in her head. Her skirt was ripped to shreds and her thighs were criss-crossed with wheals where Rashleigh had leaned from the carriage and plied his whip, laughing as she staggered in the mud. He had sworn to punish her for being seasick all the way from Russia to England. This was his revenge because he had wanted her—wanted to spend the entire voyage in bed with her, no doubt—and instead of pleasuring him her body had thwarted him with her illness. He had told her that she disgusted him.
It was winter and the road was bad. Her feet were bare and blue with cold, her hands numb, her wrists torn. And there was murder in her heart. If Rashleigh gave her but one chance, if there was one single careless moment when his attention was diverted, then she would kill him. It was as simple as that.
But the moment never came. In her dream there was all the anger and the frustration and the pain almost past enduring but never the satisfaction of release. The darkness stretched before her endlessly with no promise of escape. She was a serf, a slave, nothing more than property. She was trapped forever.
Mari struggled awake. The remnants of the nightmare fled. She was lying in her huge bed in her cottage in Peacock Oak. It was light now and downstairs the servants were already awake and at work. She could hear the muted sound of them moving about. Jane would be bringing up the morning tea for her. Soon she would be knocking at the bedroom door, chattering blithely over the beauty of the day as she drew back the drapes and let the sunshine into the room.
There was the rattle of china outside the door, then Jane’s knock and the same words that she used each day, “Good morning, madam!”
Mari had always thought that Jane had an amazing capacity for cheerfulness. Even on the gloomiest of winter mornings with the snow piled up on the windowsill and the wind blowing spitefully down the chimney she would remark that it would brighten up later. Jane was their housekeeper and ran Peacock Cottage with the help of one maid of all work and a handyman gardener called Frank, a cousin of hers who was a dour Yorkshire man of as few words as Jane had plenty.
“What a beautiful morning, madam!” Jane had placed the tea tray carefully on the bedside table and gone across to open the curtains. “It will be perfect for her grace’s garden party and ball later.”
“I hope so,” Mari said. She sat up and reached for her wrap. Jane poured the tea from the tiny china pot. It was rich and strong, just as Mari liked it. Strong tea was a proper Yorkshire custom, Jane had said proudly, when Mari had expressed her preference, little knowing that Mari’s own tastes had been set years before in Russia, where the black tea had been so strong Mari suspected even Jane would have choked on it.
Beside the cup was a letter and next to that a three-day-old copy of the Times. The news reached Peacock Oak a little later than elsewhere but it scarcely mattered. Rural life rolled on its way in this part of Yorkshire with very little change or challenge from day to day and that was exactly how Mari wished it to be.
“I was worrying last night that there might be a summer storm that would flatten all the flowers,” Mari said now, “and all our work would be ruined.”
“Not a bit of it,” Jane said stoutly. “The garden will look beautiful, madam. So many of those lovely flowers you chose for her grace! Mr. Osborne would be so proud of the way you have kept his work alive.” Her gaze went to the small portrait hanging on the wall at the side of Mari’s bed.
“Ah, yes,” Mari said. She smiled, stretched. “Dear Mr. Osborne.”
She was very fond of the late Mr. Osborne. An older man, graying, avuncular, he had a gentle face and gave the impression of a manner to match. He had been the perfect husband, rich and kind. Mari felt a rush of affection for him. Sometimes even she almost forgot that Mr. Osborne was imaginary, so real had he become in her mind.
She had never told anyone that she was not a widow. A single woman living in a small village needed a respectable background and hers could not have been more scandalous. The imaginary Mr. Osborne had, in contrast, been a most upright man, the younger son of an obscure clergyman from Cornwall, the owner of a small but profitable business importing and growing exotic plants. Mari had found it remarkably pleasing to create the sort of husband she had required. Mr. Osborne, she was sure, had been shrewd in business but mild in his family life. He had been a temperate drinker, the smoker of the odd cigar on special occasions, but had had no other discernible vices. Certainly he had required nothing from her emotionally and even better, would not have wished for a physical relationship. Which was good because she thought that she never, ever wanted a physical relationship with a man again.
For a moment the nightmare threatened to invade her mind once again, and Mari shuddered. Rashleigh…But she would not think of Rashleigh and the horror of the past. That was dead, gone, buried. Rashleigh himself was dead, after all, murdered in a London rookery two months before.
Marina shivered a little to remember the events of that night. She had never discovered how the Earl had tracked her down to Yorkshire seven years after she had escaped him. Foolishly she had even started to believe that she would be free forever, so when his letter had arrived, threatening blackmail, she had been almost sick with shock. She had known at once that she had to confront Rashleigh for the sake of all those he threatened to expose. He knew all her secrets and could have her hanged for them—he knew that she was a runaway slave and a thief, and worst of all, somehow he knew the true identity of Glory and the girls who rode with her, and he was threatening to tell the authorities and have them arrested if Mari did not meet with him.
She had had no choice if she wanted to save those she loved. She had traveled up to London; had arranged to meet Rashleigh at the Hen and Vulture. She had had a private room waiting in a tenement across the street, had told him to wait a few moments before he followed her, but he never came. And then she had heard the cry go up that he had been found stabbed to death in the alley outside.
Mari had not stayed to hear more. She knew that if people once knew her history as Rashleigh’s slave and his mistress, if they found out that the Earl had threatened her with blackmail, she would not stand a chance. All the secrets she had tried so hard to hide would come tumbling out and all the people she cared about would be ruined. She knew she had the best motive in the world for murdering Rashleigh and no one would believe her innocent. So she had run from him for the second time in her life.
Well, Rashleigh was dead now and no one else could trace her. She had reinvented herself years ago; covered her tracks too well to be discovered. She was not even sure how Rashleigh himself had managed to find her again, but now that he was dead the secret had surely gone with him to the grave.
Mr. Osborne had been the opposite of the Earl of Rashleigh in every way. He was gentle, moderate, kind. She had invented the memory of a paragon, the kind of man who would never hurt her or threaten her or give her cause for grief.
“Indeed,” Mari repeated, smiling at the portrait that she had picked up in a pawnshop for two shillings. “Mr. Osborne was a shining example amongst men.”
“Lady Hester is taking breakfast in her room this morning, madam,” Jane said referring to Mari’s companion of the past five years. “She says that she is a little fatigued but will join you for a stroll on the terrace at ten of the clock, before you go to the garden party.”
“That would be delightful,” Mari said, but mentally she was shaking her head slightly. She knew Hester’s ailment and it was not mere tiredness. Lady Hester Berry, the spoiled cousin of the Duke of Cole, was bored, and boredom led her to drinking in alehouses, picking up low company and worse. No doubt this morning she was still half cast away.
Jane was collecting Mari’s cup and tidying the tray. She always enjoyed a gossip in the mornings.
“Frank says that there was another attack last night, madam,” she said. “That gang, the Glory Girls…”
Mari paused, unfolding the newspaper slowly to give herself time. “What did they do?”
“They stopped Mr. Arkwright’s banker on his way back to Harrogate and took Arkwright’s money.”
Mari raised her brows. “All of it?”
“A tenth of the profits, madam.” Jane’s eyes were bright with excitement. “A tenth was the money that Arkwright had promised his loom workers and then refused to pay. They say that the Girls gave it back to those who had been cheated of it. Heroines they are, madam!”
“They are criminals,” Mari pointed out. “They break the law.”
Jane’s face fell. She preferred the romance of robbing the rich to give to the poor, rather than the harsh reality of the penal code.
“Yes, madam,” she said. “Of course.” Her voice warmed with pride. “But begging your pardon, ma’am, I do think that our girls are proper heroines! I know it’s not for you to encourage highway robbery but they only hurts those as mistreat the weak and needy.”
“Quite,” Mari said. “You need not think that I disapprove of the Glory Girls’ principles, Jane. I merely remember that highway robbery is a capital crime.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Jane dropped a respectful curtsy. “Shall I return in a little while to help you dress, ma’am?”
“Thank you, Jane,” Mari said. “I shall read the newspaper for twenty minutes or so and then I will be ready.”
Jane went out and Mari listened to her footfalls receding along the landing. She did not pick up the paper again. Instead she reached for the letter that had lain untouched on a side table until then. Hester always laughed at the way that Mari left letters unopened for hours when she fell upon hers with excitement the minute that they arrived. But then, Hester fell on life with eagerness whereas Mari had always been rather more careful.
She unfolded the letter. There was a single line of writing, printed in capital letters.
I know all about you. I know what you did.
There was no signature.
Mari did not react to the letter in the manner in which nine out of ten people would have done. She did not turn pale or cry out. Instead she narrowed her eyes, tapping the letter against the fingers of her other hand.
I know all about you. I know what you did.
The difficulty was that she had done so many things. She had stolen from the Earl of Rashleigh. She had run away from him. She had lied to create an alternative life for herself. She had been present at the scene of Rashleigh’s murder. She was party to a conspiracy that robbed the rich to give to the poor…
She had no idea to which of these incidents the letter writer was referring.
She dropped the letter onto the bed, slipped from beneath the covers and went across to the window, drawing back the curtain and standing beside the open sash. A slight breeze caressed her face and flattened her nightdress against her body. The wind was warm and smelled of hay and summer. Jane had been right, it was a beautiful day for a garden party and Mari’s friend Laura, Duchess of Cole, certainly knew how to entertain. The event would be the talk of the county for months.
From her window, Mari could see across the lawn to the hothouses where she cultivated her rare and exotic plants. Frank was already hard at work opening the vents in the greenhouse roof and plying his watering can along the row of seedlings. The mellow south wall behind the hothouse separated Mari’s land from the deer park of Cole Court. There was a charming white-painted door in the wall through which she often walked when she went to see Laura. Sheep were grazing beneath the spreading oak trees of the park and beyond the grounds the river curled slow and shallow. Nothing else moved in the landscape. A faint heat haze was already rising from the grass.
The view was peaceful but despite the warmth of the day, Mari wrapped her arms around herself as though seeking comfort. She could feel something malevolent in the air. Someone was watching—and waiting.
The letter had disquieted her. Of course it had. That was only natural. Now she thought about it, she realized that the timing of it could not be a coincidence, coming so soon after Rashleigh’s death. He must have told someone else her whereabouts. The nightmare was not over after all. She should have known better. She should have known that a runaway slave always had to keep on running.
She knew what would happen next. There would be a demand for money in return for silence and she would have to decide what she was going to do about that. Giving in to bullies and blackmailers had never been her style, though she wondered a little wearily when she would ever be free of the past. She could never forget it, of course, but she could try to live with it, to carry the burden of her history, to keep the secret. If only there were not others so intent on reminding her….
She gave herself a little shake. These blue devils were very unlike her. She was anxious at the prospect of the opening of the new garden and the enforced mingling with the Duchess’s guests, of course. She disliked grand social occasions. And then there had been Jane’s mention of the Glory Girls’ activities. But there was no intimation that the authorities were any closer to identifying the group of female desperadoes who occasionally—very occasionally—terrorized the rich and miserly to redress the balance for the poor and needy.
And the letter…Well, she would just have to wait and see what happened there. Hester would help her. They always helped one another. Hester and Laura were the only ones who knew all her secrets.
With a decisive step, Mari crossed the room to ring the bell for Jane to come and help her dress. It was going to be a beautiful day. The new garden would be a raging success, the Duchess’s guests would be suitably appreciative and at the end of it life in Peacock Oak would settle back into the same peaceful routine it had possessed for the last few years. Nevertheless, Mari felt a chill.
Someone was coming. She could sense it. Someone dangerous.
CHAPTER TWO
Wood Sorrel—Secret sweetness
“IT HAS BEEN A HUGE success, I think,” Laura Cole said, later that day. She slipped her arm through Mari’s and together they walked down the slope from the wooded garden, past the cascade with its secret mossy pools, past the fountain fringed by weeping willow and down to the formal gardens at the back of the house. Cole Court glowed pale in the evening sunshine.
“I am so tired,” Laura said. She pulled a face. “And my feet hurt. These gold slippers were such a foolish choice for today! But—” she squeezed Mari’s arm “—thank you, dearest Mari, because the whole thing has been marvelous.”
“I am glad that you have enjoyed it,” Mari said. She glanced at her friend. “If it comes to that, you have worked quite hard yourself, Laura, in entertaining your guests. I do not envy you that. Give me plants anytime.”
“Oh, some of our guests have been dire,” Laura agreed. “So rude! I heard Lady Faye calling you quite the little artisan, Mari. What a poisonous, patronizing toad of a woman she is. And then she was pushing poor Lydia into John Teague’s arms all day when all he wished to do was speak with Hester.” Laura cast a look around. “Where is Hester? Has she gone home already?”
“You know she takes hours to prepare for a ball,” Mari said.
“Dampening her petticoats, I suppose,” Laura said. Her rather plain face broke into a mischievous smile. “Oh, what a cat I am! You know that I love Hester dearly, but the gown that she wore for Lady Norris’s rout last week was barely decent. Can you not speak to her, Mari?”
“No,” Mari said. “I am not her mother.” She laughed. “I have tried, Laura, but you know that Hester goes her own way.”
“I suppose so,” Laura said, sighing. She paused to admire a display of roses growing against the pale red brick of the old walled garden. “Frank tells me that you grew these roses from old cottage garden stock. Are they very ancient?”
“Hundreds of years old,” Mari said.
“They look so pretty with the lavender,” Laura said. “My own little cottage garden!”
Mari smiled inwardly to see the Duchess of Cole playing at owning a cottage garden when the acres of Cole Court were spread all around them. She had originally met Laura at the Skipton Horticultural Society and Laura had quickly been taken with the idea that she wanted Mari to help redesign the gardens at Cole Court. In vain had Mari protested that the Duchess was quite above her touch and helping to redesign such extensive gardens was a challenge for a more experienced horticulturalist. Laura, with all of a Duchess’s disregard for convention, had decided that she wanted both Mari’s designs and Mari’s friendship, and there was no arguing with her. Laura was so likable and so utterly without the snobbery that often came with high estate that Mari found she could not refuse her. And so Laura had persuaded her and they had worked together on the plans for the best part of two years, and now they were firm friends in spite of Mari’s reservations. She knew that letting people close to her was a dangerous business and being the protégée of the Duchess of Cole brought too much attention, attention that she did not crave. She had seen the effect of that today. All society in the county took its cue from the Duchess of Cole and now that Laura Cole had a new garden, everyone else wanted one, too, and they were all clamoring for her designs.
“There is Lady Craven,” Laura said, waving. “She tells me that she will be asking you to design a knot garden and a herb terrace for her at Levens Park.”
Mari nodded dolefully. “Lord Broughton has already approached me, as has Mrs. Napier and Lady Jane Spring.”
“Everyone is talking about you,” Laura said. “They think you are most talented.”
“They are very generous,” Mari said. “I was sure that the Persian Paradise Fountain would not work and that all the fruit trees would be attacked by aphids and die.”
“You are too modest, or perhaps too pessimistic,” Laura said. She looked at her and sighed. “I am sorry, Mari. I forget sometimes that you have no taste for company and had chosen Peacock Oak to live because it was so quiet.”
“Yes,” Mari said. She laughed. “That was before you came back to live here! The lawyer made a particular point of telling me that it was a little backwater of a place where nothing ever happened! I thought it sounded perfect—before you arrived!”
They laughed together. “Well—” a shade of bitterness entered Laura’s voice now “—I suppose I could have gone back to Buckinghamshire, or to Norfolk or Surrey or another of the Cole seats, but I preferred Yorkshire because it was the farthest I could get away from Charles.”
“Oh, Laura!” Mari put a hand on her arm. “Is it truly so bad?”
“Having a hopeless regard for one’s own husband and knowing he does not return your feelings?” Laura nodded. “Yes, it is that bad. And now that Charles has joined me here for the summer it is even worse.”
“I am sorry,” Mari said. “Never having had a husband I cannot understand, but I do sympathize.”
“Hush!” Laura looked around. “Someone will hear you and where will the respectable Mrs. Osborne be then?”
“Back in deep trouble, I imagine,” Mari said. She glanced across at the clock on the stable block tower. Above it, the weathervane with its iron-carved highwayman was unmoving in the still air. Mari shook her head to see it. Laura’s sense of humor took her breath away sometimes.
“I had better let you go and dress,” she said. “You will be unconscionably late for your own ball as it is. I will hunt up Hester and make sure that she is ready, too.”
“You will come, won’t you?” Laura caught her hands. “Just for a little time? Please, Mari—”
Mari had been intending to spend the evening quietly, but now that she saw her friend’s pleading face she relented. “Oh, very well. Just for a little. I suppose it cannot do any harm.”
“So that is your opinion of the fabled hospitality of the Coles,” Laura said, laughing, as she waved a farewell and made her way toward the terrace. “I will see you in a short while.”
The gardens were deserted now. The sun was sinking behind the fells and the blue of twilight was settling beneath the trees of the woodland garden. On impulse, Mari slipped off her shoes and stockings and squeezed the blades of grass between her toes, relishing their cool freshness. Like Laura she was exhausted, for she had been tense all day with the strain of meeting the guests, of discussing her garden designs with them, of playing her part and putting on a show. Now that evening had come and the shadows had fallen she wanted the relief of sloughing off that personality, washing it away along with the heat of the day. The trouble with reinventing herself was that every so often she wanted to shake off respectable Mrs. Osborne and be Mari, the girl who had always had a streak of wildness in her.
She stood by the fountain and looked longingly at the refreshing shower of droplets. Her mouth felt dry just thinking about its cool, quenching pleasure. She looked around. There was nobody there. Temptation beckoned. No one would see her. Retreating into the dark shade of pines that bordered the cascade, she started to strip off her clothes.
IT WAS PAST EIGHT o’clock at night when the mail coach from Skipton to Leyburn stopped at the gates of Cole Court and deposited two parcels, seven letters and Nicholas Falconer.
Nick had spent the day in Skipton, speaking with the various forces of law and order that had so far singularly and spectacularly failed to capture the Glory Girls. He had left behind him a disgruntled Captain of the Yeomanry, two angry justices of the peace and a fuming town constable, who were all most put out that the Home Secretary was suddenly taking an interest in their local affairs. Nick had left Dexter Anstruther to smooth them over and Anstruther would be joining him in the morning when all their baggage had arrived from London. For now, Nick was able to look forward to a reunion with Charles Cole, who was one of his oldest friends, and the promise of the legendary Cole Court hospitality.
He threw a word of thanks to the coachman, shouldered his kit bag and started off up the driveway before the lodge-keeper could protest that he had the gig standing by to convey the Duke’s guest to the house. The coachman looked at the groom and they both cocked a curious eyebrow at the lodge-keeper. Visitors to Peacock Oak were frequent, for the Duke and Duchess of Cole kept open house, and that very day had unveiled their new pleasure gardens to an audience of invited guests. Most visitors, however, did not travel by mail coach, nor carry their own luggage.
“That’s the Quality for you,” the lodge-keeper said, shrugging, as he bent to lift the sack of mail. “Do as they please.”
“Quality? Him?” The groom stared up the driveway after the fast-disappearing figure. “Shabby as you like and no servant?”
But the coachman knew better. “Old soldier,” he said wisely. “Carries his own kit.”
“That’s Major Falconer,” the lodge-keeper boasted. “Heir to a Marquisate. Scottish title, mind, but even so. I heard he was at school with his grace.”
“Well, stone the crows,” the groom said, scratching his head. “You never can tell.”
They sat watching Nick until he passed a turn in the driveway and was swallowed up between the huge oaks of the home park. Then an irritable voice from within the coach asked when they were to resume the journey. The coachman recollected himself and picked up the reins and the lodge-keeper waved a cheery hand and hefted the sack of mail away.
As the sound of the coach died away, silence settled once again over Cole Court and Nick shifted his bag from one shoulder to the other to ease the ache. This was not how he would have chosen to spend his army furlough, despite the pleasure of renewing acquaintance with his old friend, but then Rashleigh had never had any consideration for the needs of others and it was typical that in his death he would cause as much trouble as in life.
Nick had shied away from all social engagements since Anna’s death, preferring instead the rigors of life on campaign. Somehow the physical hardship of army life assuaged the guilty ache in his soul that he had not been there to help Anna when she needed him. But now he had been obliged to put aside his own preferences for a little and rejoin the Ton even if it was only as a cover to hunt down a notorious criminal.
Nick thought about the girl at the tavern frequently, more often than he wished. The memory of her haunted him, superimposing itself on the older, more faded memories of Anna, demanding his attention in a manner that both obsessed him and fed his guilt. He did not seem able to escape her. He had held the girl in his arms and had wanted her. He had desired her more than any woman he had known. He had dreamed about her every night for a week after they had met in the tavern, vivid erotic dreams from which he had woken panting and hard, desperate to assuage the ache in his body. It seemed like a double betrayal of Anna’s memory to want to make love with a woman who must be a harlot and a murderer, and the guilt flayed him alive. For hours he had sat with his miniature of Anna clasped in his hand, trying to force his thoughts back on to his dead wife and away from the woman who had bewitched him. He had turned his back on all women since Anna’s death, yet suddenly he found himself lusting after a girl who was everything that sweet, delicate Anna was not. He had tried to bury the memory and turn his heart to ice again but he could not forget the girl in the tavern. His emotions, once reawakened, were not so easy to turn off again and he hated himself for it. He had fallen slave to lust and he did not seem able to escape it.
Thinking and hoping that it was just a physical need for a woman—any woman—he had sought out one of the most celebrated courtesans in Town. Their encounter had been torrid and intense and entirely devoid of any real emotion on either side. At the end of the night she had kissed him affectionately and invited him to call on her again whenever he chose, and he had left feeling strangely unsatisfied. His body was sated but his mind felt sharp and unfulfilled. He needed to find the woman from the Hen and Vulture again. He wanted her with an ache that was ever more powerful.
As he walked up the driveway toward the lights of Cole Court, Nick’s thoughts turned inevitably once more to the girl in the tavern. Could such a woman really be Glory, the infamous highwaywoman whose band was responsible for the rather quixotic robbing of the rich to give to the poor? Nick was of the opinion that Glory would not have been so notorious were it not for the fact that she was a woman. Her deeds had caught the public imagination like a latter-day Robin Hood. Ballads and poems were written in her honor. She was talked of in the taverns and the clubs, her exploits celebrated in toasts and speeches. She was a popular heroine. And now he was here to track her down so that Lord Hawkesbury could hang her. He would likely end up the least popular man in the country if he carried it through. But leaving aside Lord Hawkesbury’s commission, he had a personal quest to fulfill. Glory, the girl in the tavern, had played him for a fool and he wanted revenge.
Nick went through the gate that separated the parkland from the formal gardens. Dusk was falling now, painting the sky in shades of peach and blue with the trees standing tall and black against its light. There was the scent of pine and cut grass on the air, and Nick could hear the splash of water. Suddenly he felt intolerably dirty from the long journey. Following the sound, he found himself approaching a flat grassy plateau with a round pool and a small summerhouse. Someone had designed a charming sequence of canals and cascades here. In the half-light the water looked deep and mysterious. A fountain at the center showered down a spray of sparkling drops like grains of corn. Nick lowered his bag to the ground, knelt on the grass beneath the tumbling branches of a willow tree, cupped his hands and tipped the cold water over his head, exulting in the cold shock as the liquid ran down his neck and eased the gritty scratching of his skin. He was tempted to strip off his clothes and leap into the pool, but even as he straightened and his hands went to the buttons of his jacket, he saw that he was not alone. Someone else had had the same idea as he.
From the trees on the far side of the pool came a slender figure so insubstantial in the dusk that she looked more like a figment of his imagination than a real woman.
Or like a figment of those wild erotic dreams that had haunted his nights.
As she crossed the grass she let the white shift slip from her body. The rising moon touched her skin with silver. There was a splash as she stepped into the pool, and Nick heard her involuntary gasp as the cold water from the fountain cascaded over her. She stood still beneath its caress, a creature of fantasy in the moonlight, raising her hands high above her head as the water ran down her body in silver rivulets and scattered jewel bright drops over her cloudy dark hair.
Up at the house the orchestra was striking up for the ball and the music drifted across the quiet gardens and hung on the air, faint and tempting. The goddess ran her hands slowly down her naked length, over her breasts, across the planes of her stomach and the curve of her hips, leaving a trail of shimmering water on her skin. There was a smile on her parted lips, at once sensuous and innocent, that had a direct effect on Nick’s groin. He felt his body swelling to what felt like near fatal proportions. His breeches were suddenly intolerably tight, a tourniquet about his most vital parts. It felt like the hottest night of his entire life.
The air seemed full of the scent of honeysuckle. It wound itself around Nick’s senses, sweet and seductive. He knew that he was no gentleman to watch, but then she could be no lady. And he would have had to be approaching death to remain unaroused at the sight of the woman in the water. Her head was tilted back as the fountain splashed down on her face, her eyes were closed, the lashes fanning against her cheek, and every line of her body was pure and silver in the moonlight, with the water droplets rolling over her breasts, beading on her nipples and cascading down to the dark juncture of her thighs.
A peacock called its harsh cry from near at hand and Nick jumped, cracking his head on one of the willow tree’s low branches. The girl in the pool froze. She turned her head toward him and for a second it seemed that her gaze met his, and then she was gone, running from the pool with the water spangling the grass behind her, scooping her chemise up as she went, before her flying figure was swallowed up in the shadows.
Nick released the breath that he had been holding. His whole body felt hot, hard and aroused. Damnation, he needed that dip in the pool even more now. A shower of cold water was exactly what he required to get his wayward body and feverish imagination under control, or he would be presenting himself for the Duchess’s ball in an extremely inappropriate physical condition. The sight of the girl in the fountain had tapped straight into all those dreams he had sought so hard and so unsuccessfully to repress.
He picked up his kit bag. A brisk walk across the garden would have to suffice instead.
By the time that he reached the house, both Nick’s breathing and his errant body were under control again. His imagination, however, was proving more difficult to subdue, presenting him with images of naked goddesses with water cascading over their bodies. He blinked when a liveried footman opened the main door of the house and the glare of candlelight spilled out. What he must look like he had no notion, wild-eyed and with the water still dripping from tendrils of his dark hair. The butler was summoned, took one look at the shabby kit bag at Nick’s feet and seemed about to send him to the tradesmen’s entrance or perhaps dismiss him entirely. Fortunately Charles Cole himself was crossing the hall with one of his guests at the time. He glanced toward the door and his face lit up as he saw his old friend.
“Nick! You’re here at last!”
Nick stepped into the hall as the butler, disdain in every line of his body, sniffed and instructed the hall boy to take Major Falconer’s bag upstairs, and the haughty aging beauty who had been hanging on Charles’s arm looked down her long, aristocratic nose at him.
“Major Falconer?” she queried, with just the faintest hint of emphasis on the prefix as though no one below the rank of General could possibly be a welcome guest at Cole Court.
Nick grinned and sketched a bow. “How do you do, madam? Nicholas Falconer, at your service.”
“Nick was at school with me, Faye,” Charles said. He held out a hand and shook Nick’s warmly, his fair, open face alight with good humor. “Nick, this is my cousin’s wife, Lady Faye Cole.”
“Falconer…” the beauty murmured. Her face cleared. “Oh, the Marquis of Kinloss’s heir! I thought for a moment that Charles had taken to inviting the ranks of the military to Cole Court!”
“I am a major in the army, ma’am,” Nick murmured.
“Well, never mind, never mind.” Lady Faye’s pale blue eyes bulged. “More importantly you are heir to a Marquisate.” Her gaze hardened slightly. “You must meet my daughter, Major Falconer.” She smiled, a cold smile that did not reach her eyes. “I was a child bride, of course, and Lydia is but seventeen and only just out.”
Nick had no desire to meet the schoolroom daughter of a matchmaking mama, but he bowed politely and Lady Faye drifted off, no doubt to hunt up her daughter and present her like a sacrificial lamb to the new arrival.
“I’m sorry about Faye,” Charles Cole murmured, taking Nick’s arm as his cousin’s wife drifted away on a cloud of nose-numbing perfume. “My cousin Henry always was an abject fool when it came to women. You remember Henry? Then you’ll know what I mean. But she could at least have waited until you were through the door before lining you up as a prospective son-in-law.”
“Someone should warn her that I am not good son-in-law material,” Nick said, a little bitterly. His parents-in-law had never reproached him for his treatment of Anna but his remorse was sharper because he knew he was culpable.
Charles sighed. “If you are solvent and have all your own teeth, then you are eligible, old chap.”
Nick gave a groan. “Tell them I’m penniless, for pity’s sake, Charles.”
“I could do that, but then I would be lying. And what about the Marquisate?”
“Put it about that my uncle has disinherited me, or something.” Nick laughed. “I’m sure he would do if he could. He finds me very unsatisfactory—doesn’t approve of his heir working for a living. Speaking of which, I am here to work, Charles, not to be distracted by debutantes.”
“So I understand.” Charles threw a rather theatrical look over his shoulder and Nick realized that he was probably going to make a poor conspirator. “Hawkesbury sent a letter before you. Might have known that Rashleigh would continue to cause trouble from beyond the grave.”
“Naturally. He never had any consideration.”
“Where is Anstruther?” Charles asked, looking around. “Is he not with you? Now he really is ineligible, poor lad. Faye won’t be throwing Lydia in Anstruther’s way, not now that his father has disgraced the family name.”
“Dexter arrives tomorrow,” Nick said. “I left him in Skipton, smoothing over matters with the constable.”
“Of course, of course.” Charles looked furtively excited. “I must say this business has certainly enlivened my summer. Usually I find the country a dead bore. Now Hawkesbury says…” Charles drew closer and whispered loudly, “You are to fill me in on the details and I am to offer you all aid I can in catching the Glory Girls.”
“Right,” Nick said, trying not to laugh.
“But tonight—” Charles turned as the ballroom door opened and several couples spilled out into the cool of the checkered hall “—tonight you are to meet my guests and mingle. Who knows, you may discover something useful.”
Nick nodded. “Of course. I—” He stopped abruptly.
The front door had opened and two late guests, both female, were being ushered into the hall by a deferential footman. One was a beauty of maybe seven or eight and twenty. She could command a room. As imperious in her own way as Faye Cole, the arrogant tilt of her blond head demanded that everyone should look at her and Nick thought that most men would be only too willing to comply. She was dressed in a shockingly low-cut ball gown of scarlet that barely covered her nipples and looked as though it had been dampened for good measure. Very bold, Nick thought, with all the goods in the shop window. He heard Charles sigh.
“That’s another of my cousins, I’m afraid, Lady Hester Berry. The perils of a large family…”
But Nick was not listening. He was looking at the other woman. She was hanging back behind Lady Hester and he could see from the way in which her gloved fingers gripped her evening bag that she was nervous. She looked younger than Lady Hester, a little pale, small but voluptuous, her hair covered by a fashionable turban, her body swathed in an expensively modest gown that nevertheless clung lovingly to every one of her curves.
Nick stared. He had seen those curves recently covered in no more than droplets of water.
She turned her head and met his gaze. He had thought that her eyes were black until the lamplight struck across them and he saw the flecks of green and gold in their depths. The recognition hit him then so hard and so fast that he almost lost his breath. It could not be a coincidence. Surely, surely this was the girl from the Hen and Vulture? She had been wearing a blond wig then, and a mask, but the one thing that she could not disguise was the unusual color of her eyes. He stared at her, admiring the curve of her cheek, the sensuous fullness of her lips—not stained a harlot’s cherry-red tonight but a tempting pale pink—and the vulnerable line of her neck. He was almost certain—as sure as he could be without kissing her—that it was the same woman.
Her gaze widened slightly as it met his and he knew in that moment that she had recognized him, too, though whether as the man she had kissed in the tavern or as the man by the pool—or both—he could not be sure. He watched her and waited coolly for her reaction.
It was not long in coming. She raised her chin and gave him the most perfectly calculated cut-direct that he had ever experienced. She looked through him as though he simply did not exist.
Nick’s lips twisted with appreciation. She was a very cool customer indeed.
But could this oh-so-proper lady truly be the notorious Glory, the harlot from the tavern? She was certainly the naked nymph from the fountain.
And he had the advantage. His sudden appearance must inevitably have shocked her, no matter how well she concealed it. So now was the time to make a move before she had the chance to rally her defenses.
“Who is that?” he murmured, and heard Charles sigh again.
“I told you, old fellow, that is my cousin Hester—”
“No,” Nick said. “The other lady.”
“Oh.” Charles sounded taken aback, as though no one should be able to see another female in the room when Hester was there to dazzle. “That is Mrs. Marina Osborne. She is a neighbor of ours.”
Mrs. Osborne. Nick’s eyes narrowed. She sounded extraordinarily respectable.
“She’s married?” he asked.
“No.” Charles sounded wearily amused, as though Nick was not the first person to ask. “She is a widow—a rich and most devoted widow. They say she buried her heart with her late husband.”
Nick smiled. A rich widow. What a perfect cover for the questionable Mrs. Osborne. She had a husband to lend his name and respectability but, conveniently, not his presence.
“They always say that about apparently virtuous widows,” he said.
“Sometimes it’s true,” Charles said. “You are a cynic, my friend. And you have absolutely no chance whatsoever if you are planning to fix your interest there. She is reputedly as cold as ice.”
Nick thought once again of the tempting beauty of Marina Osborne as the drops of water caressed her naked body.
“We’ll see,” he said. He straightened his shoulders. “Introduce me.”
CHAPTER THREE
Indian Jasmine—Attraction
“THE MOST GORGEOUS MAN in the room is staring at you, Mari,” Lady Hester Berry whispered. “I do believe he intends to make your acquaintance.”
Mari knew. The second she had entered the hall she had been aware of the man standing to Charles Cole’s right. She had been conscious of every gesture he made, every glance in her direction. She had seen him look at Hester, then look at her, and then—extraordinarily—continue to hold her gaze as though no one else in the room existed.
Such a thing had never happened to Mari before. One of the many reasons she loved having Hester as a companion was that Hester was the most perfect camouflage. Mari was accustomed to being looked through, over and around by men who were searching the room for Hester. She welcomed it. That was not to say she had no suitors of her own. There were plenty who admired her fortune if not her person. But she was mainly accustomed to men trying to charm her solely so that she would speak well of them to her friend.
This dark stranger broke every rule. He had looked at Hester and then he had looked at her and he had not looked away again. In that moment Mari had known, instinctively, since she had not seen him clearly, that he had been the man beneath the willow tree in the garden and that he had recognized her as the naked nymph swimming in the fountain.
A second later, as he stepped into the light, she had also known—with a certainty that made her heart drop to her satin slippers—that he had also been the man in the tavern in London the night that Rashleigh had been killed. He was the man that she had picked up whilst she had waited for Rashleigh to come, the man she had kissed.
He looked different, of course. That night he had been dressed somewhat ambiguously. Yet she had sensed as soon as she had seen him that it was a disguise rather than his true persona, for there was something hard, intense and entirely masculine about him that he had not been able to disguise. It was something that, to her shock, had called to all that was feminine in her.
She shivered beneath the folds of her silver shawl and drew it a little closer around her. The kiss had been a mistake. An aberration. Normally she hated kissing. It disgusted her. She seldom even touched another person. Such closeness made her fearful. Which made it even more extraordinary that she had forgotten all her own rules when she had kissed this particular man.
She had spent the months since meeting him trying, unsuccessfully, to forget the kiss, to forget him. When Rashleigh had appointed the Hen and Vulture as their meeting place she had known she could not sweep in wearing her widow’s weeds if she wished to remain inconspicuous. So she had chosen Molly’s fetching disguise but as soon as she had arrived at the club she had realized her peril when a drunken dandy had tried to pick her up. She had looked around the club for another man whom she might use as decoy, as protector, and her gaze had fallen on him. But as their conversation had progressed she had realized she had a tiger by the tail.
There had been something about him that had intrigued her, attracted her. She had never felt like that before in her whole life and it had been heady, like a draught of the strongest wine, tempting her, calling to her wild side. A part of her had been incredulous and disbelieving that after the way Rashleigh had treated her she could ever feel like this, and it lured her into further indiscretion. When he had leaned in to kiss her she had panicked for a moment, afraid that she would feel all the revulsion that she had felt for Rashleigh, her skin crawling, the fear threatening to close her throat. But it had passed in an instant and instead of disgust she had felt a sensation that was sweet and strong, sweeping her past hesitation. She had brought his lips down to hers, led by instinct, wanting to explore the taste and texture of him. The quick rush of desire that had flooded her had taken her by surprise and, when she withdrew from him, she had seen the echo of that passion and that surprise in his eyes, too, and her world had reeled.
He was a dangerous man, a man who could almost make her forget the past. She had thought that she would never see him again, that she could forget what had happened between them. She had been wrong.
And now it seemed he was dangerous for another reason. He had been at the Hen and Vulture the night Rashleigh was murdered and he was here now, and that could be no coincidence.
Mari raised her chin and very deliberately broke the eye contact between them.
“He is not so handsome,” she said now to Hester. “His nose has been broken in the past and has not set straight. And I prefer fair hair to brown.” Even so, there was little to fault in his appearance, and she knew it. He had very straight, dark brows above equally dark watchful eyes, cheekbones and a jawline that looked as hard as rock and a very firm mouth. Mari remembered that mouth with a little shiver of recollection.
“Nonsense,” Hester was saying. “You are too particular. He looks—”
“Tough,” Mari said, with another shiver.
“Yes,” Hester allowed. “Very direct.” She smiled. “He is not for me, I think. But I do believe that he is the most handsome man I have seen in Peacock Oak these two years past.”
“Peacock Oak being well-known as a center of excellence for masculine beauty,” Mari said.
Hester gave her a flashing smile. “I will allow you to be an expert in matters botanical, Mari, but not in matters pertaining to the opposite sex. There, I think, you must bow to my superior knowledge.”
“Your extensive knowledge,” Mari agreed.
Hester gave her a tiny kick with her slippered foot. “Here they come,” she said. “He must have asked Charles for an introduction.”
“Then he cannot take a hint,” Mari said. Her heart had started to beat a little faster now despite her outward calm. “I just cut him dead.”
“Must you do things like that?” Hester asked. “I wish to meet him even if you do not.”
“I fear I have to cut him,” Mari murmured. “He was the one I told you about earlier. The one who was watching me in the fountain.”
Hester clapped a hand to her mouth. “Oh! No wonder he was staring!”
“And,” Mari continued, “I am almost certain that he is also the man I met in London.”
Hester looked at her blankly and she spelled out, “The one at the Hen and Vulture, Hes, the night that Rashleigh was killed.”
All the color fled Hester’s face, leaving her pale beneath her paint. “Damnation,” she breathed. “Can it be a coincidence?”
“I don’t believe in coincidences,” Mari said bleakly.
Hester bit her lip. “Is it too late to run away, do you think?”
“I fear so,” Mari said. She looked thoughtfully at the purposeful figure advancing toward her. “I suspect that if I did,” she said, “he is the sort of man who would run after me. And catch me.”
“Then what are we to do?” Hester whispered. She still looked very pale. “I am hopeless at dissembling—”
“Then don’t try. Leave it to me.”
Charles Cole was bowing before them. Mari dropped a demure curtsy. She had always kept her distance from the Duke who was more, she was sure, than simply the easygoing country squire he pretended to be. Having her own secrets to keep made her more sensitive to the deceptions of others, though she was not sure exactly what Charles Cole’s secret was.
Hester offered her cousin a cheek to kiss. “Good evening, Charles,” she said. Mari could tell that despite her nervousness, she was making strenuous efforts to behave normally and she felt a rush of affection for her friend. Hester had insisted on accompanying her to London on the dreadful journey to confront Rashleigh. She had waited for her at Grillons Hotel. Mari had told her everything that had happened that night, for they always shared all their secrets. But now, for the first time, she was wishing that there were some things she had kept from Hester, too, so that her friend should not feel this terrible pressure to protect her. Mari had looked after herself before when there had been no one else to care for her. She could do it again if she had to. She did not want Hester to suffer for her past.
“Good evening, Hester,” Charles said, making sterling efforts not to look down the front of Hester’s dress where her bosom rather flaunted itself. He bowed more formally to Mari. “Mrs. Osborne.”
“Your grace.” Mari tried not to look at Charles’s companion and failed singularly. She could feel the weight of his glance on her like a physical touch, and when she raised her eyes, there was a look in his that made her heart jolt and delicious shivers run along her skin. His glance on her was hard, appraising. She felt a heat start to burn deep in her stomach and was shocked. She had thought that Rashleigh had taught her all about men, all about their baser instincts and how far they would go to indulge them. When she had run from him, she had run from the desire ever to have an intimate relationship with a man again. She had thought never to want to. Yet this man had overturned those certainties before with just one kiss and now he was doing the same with one look.
She reminded herself sternly that he must be here with a purpose and that she could not afford to drop her guard for a moment. Her attraction to him could only weaken her. It made her vulnerable to him and that she could not permit.
“May I introduce Major Nicholas Falconer,” Charles Cole was saying smoothly. “He is an old friend of mine come to spend the summer in the country. Nick, my cousin Lady Hester Berry and a friend of ours, Mrs. Osborne.”
Nicholas Falconer. He sounded safe enough and he bowed to Mari with scrupulous courtesy. But when he took her hand in his, his touch felt dangerous. It also felt shockingly familiar on the basis of just one kiss.
“How do you do, Major Falconer?” Mari made her voice as colorless as possible.
“I am very well, thank you, Mrs. Osborne,” Nick Falconer said. He took her arm and drew her a little away from Charles and Hester. He did it with supreme confidence and an absolute determination to separate her from their companions. It had happened before Mari had even realized what he was about.
“I beg your pardon, Mrs. Osborne,” Nick Falconer said, “but have we met before?”
Mari met his gaze. It was dark and direct. Suddenly she felt quite cut off from everyone but Nick himself, for his broad shoulders blocked out Hester and Charles and all the other guests. He had drawn a little closer to her as a group of people passed by, chattering and laughing, on their way to the refreshment room. One of his hands was holding her elbow, lightly, but with a touch that made her entire body tingle with awareness. She could smell the scent of him, a combination of summer nights, sandalwood cologne and something more personal and intimate. His clothes were creased and dusty from his journey but that did not detract one whit from his air of authority. Here was a man accustomed to taking what he wanted. She could tell. She doubted that many women would refuse him.
The awareness shivered between them, intense, compulsive. It felt as though he was conscious of every inch of her beneath the gray silk of her evening dress. Mari broke the contact only with difficulty.
“I am sure that we have never met,” she said.
He gave her the same slow smile that she remembered from that night at the tavern. “Would you have remembered me?”
Definitely. I could not forget you….
“I have a good memory,” Mari said coolly, “but you do not feature in it.”
He raised an eyebrow, completely unmoved at her set down. “Strange. You seem very familiar to me.”
Mari gave him a cold smile. “On the contrary, Major Falconer, you are the one who is overfamiliar—and not very original in your approach, either.”
He smiled again. It was devastating. “And yet for all your denials I am certain that I recognize you,” he said, “although you do look very different with your clothes on.”
Mari could feel herself clutching her reticule so tightly that the catch bit into her fingers. So he was going to be that direct. Not many men would be so blunt but she might have known that he would waste no time on courtesies. She knew he was deliberately provoking her, testing her to see what her reaction would be. No respectable woman, after all, would admit to swimming in the nude in a garden fountain. So if she did admit it, it would be tantamount to confessing that she was of easy virtue and then, well, judging by the look in his eyes, it would not be her planting schemes he would be interested in discussing…
Damn it all to hell and back. She admitted to herself that he had her trapped. What was to be done? It could be the ruin of her reputation if he spoke out about what he had seen. On the other hand, her indiscretion in the garden was not as damaging as those other, life-threatening secrets that she absolutely had to keep. She could admit to being the woman in the fountain but never, ever to being the harlot at the Hen and Vulture.
“I know it was you in the fountain,” he said softly, whilst her trapped mind ran back and forth over the possibilities. “You may protest if you wish but I believe I would recognize you anywhere.”
A shiver ran along Mari’s nerves and she drew the silver shawl more tightly around her shoulders. Oh, yes, he recognized her from the gardens but did he know her from the tavern, as well? It felt as though they were already deeply involved in a game of hunter and hunted and any admission she made could be so very dangerous.
Challenge him. See how far he will go, what he will give away….
She had always been a gambler. She had had to be in order to survive. Sometimes to throw down the gauntlet was the only way.
She gave a little shrug. “Very well. I concede that I was the woman you saw in the fountain. I thought I was unobserved. It was…careless of me.”
He flashed her another smile, a disturbingly attractive one. Her toes curled instinctively within her slippers and her heart did another giddy little skip as though she was a schoolroom miss developing a tendre rather than a mature woman of five and twenty.
“I like it that you do not pretend,” he said. His voice was intimately low. “Ninety-nine women out of one hundred would have claimed not to understand me.”
If only he knew. Sometimes she forgot where the pretence began—and where it ended.
She gave him a very straight look. “Of course they would, and who could blame them? A reputation dies all too easily, as you must know, Major Falconer.”
“So why are you different? Why did you admit it?”
Mari met his quizzical dark gaze and felt a little breathless. “I am not different. I do not wish you to be the ruin of my reputation, Major Falconer. But equally, I know that you saw me, so what can I say?” She spread her hands in a gesture of surrender. “I was bathing. You saw me. It would avail me little to pretend otherwise. So I must rely on your behavior as a gentleman and hope you will not speak out.”
It was not the whole story, of course. It would be impossible to tell him the truth, that sometimes the role of the respectable widow grated on her and she felt an impossible desire to be free. She could not tell him that it was this impulse that had led her to strip off her clothes and revel in the fresh coldness of the fountain. That was too intimate a thing to confide to a virtual stranger, a dangerous stranger who already saw far more than she wished.
When he remained silent, watching her face, she raised her brows. “Was that all you wished to say to me, Major Falconer?”
She saw his lips twitch into a smile at her attempted dismissal of him.
“No, it was not all.” He reached forward. His fingers brushed against her neck very lightly and lingered, warm against her skin. “You had better hide that curl if you do not wish anyone else to guess your secret. Your hair is still wet. You must have rushed home and dressed in a great hurry.”
Mari’s hand flew to her neck where the wayward curl of hair nestled against her throat. It felt feathery, soft and damp, drying from the warmth of her body. She pushed it beneath the edge of her turban, her fingers suddenly clumsy. She could feel the color suffuse her face as Nick continued to watch her.
“Hair as black as midnight,” he said. “I remember.”
There was a heat in the pit of Mari’s stomach as she thought of what else he might remember about her. Her whole body felt as though it was on fire. But then the memory of Rashleigh—his violence, his touch—slithered into her mind and turned her blood to shards of ice and this time she could not erase it.
Not all men were cruel like the Earl of Rashleigh had been. She knew that. She knew that some were all that was chivalrous and honorable. But she had no desire to find out for herself which were good and which were not. She could never trust a man; never let him close to her, and this man least of all when he could bring them all down. So she had to put an end to this disturbing attraction now. She had to finish matters before they really began.
“I have to ask you to forget everything that you saw, sir,” she said coldly, “and never speak of this again.” Indignation swept through her and she could not quite stifle it. “Indeed,” she said, “if you had any claim to the title of gentleman, you would not have been watching anyway.”
She saw the laughter lines around his eyes deepen and felt a strange tug of feeling inside. “My dear Mrs. Osborne,” he sounded amused, “you ask too much. I am a man first and a gentleman second.”
“A very long way second!”
He inclined his head as though conceding the point. He took her hand again, drawing her close. His breath tickled her ear. The icy feeling that was wedged beneath Mari’s heart threatened to melt in the heat of his touch.
“You are a widow, Mrs. Osborne,” he said softly, “and as such, I assume, you are familiar with the way a man thinks on such matters as—” his voice dropped further “—physical desire?”
Mari repressed a shiver. Oh, yes, she knew all about the way a man thought about lust. Rashleigh had taught her more degrading things than she ever wanted to remember. She looked down her nose at him.
“The thought processes of a man on such subjects are scarcely complex,” she said coldly.
Nick laughed. “Quite so. Then you may imagine how I felt on seeing you naked and soaking wet with the water cascading over your body and the droplets catching the last of the light—”
Her whole body suffused with blistering heat, Mari wrenched her hand from his. “Major Falconer!”
“Call me Nicholas. Or Nick, if you prefer, since we already know one another so well and are likely to know each other even better.”
“Major Falconer,” Mari repeated, “you are remarkably—indeed, distressingly—obtuse. I have no interest in encouraging your attentions to me. I am a respectable widow.”
“All appearances to the contrary, Mrs. Osborne,” Nick interrupted smoothly.
Mari stared at him. He was right, of course. No woman who displayed herself so wantonly in public could possibly claim the right to modesty. It was the richest irony that she had allowed herself to swim only because she was certain she was alone and now it turned out that the one man in the entire kingdom whom she would wish never to meet again had been the one man standing watching her.
“If you are looking for a lover—” Nick began.
Mari’s temper snapped. “Major Falconer, I am not! I must ask you to desist from speaking of such matters! As for what you saw in the gardens, you will desist from even thinking about it—” She broke off as Nick shook his head.
“Oh, no, Mrs. Osborne. I give you my word that I will tell no one of what I saw, but you cannot ask me to forget.” He smiled. “You cannot erase my memories.”
Mari had an all too vivid picture of what those memories might look like. She took a deep, steadying breath.
“Very well. If I have your promise of silence then I suppose I must be content.”
He bowed mockingly. “Of course. No gentleman could promise less.”
Mari bit her lip. She was not sure if she trusted him to keep silent. It should have felt like a partial victory and yet the spark in those dark eyes suggested that it was anything but.
“Thank you,” she said warily.
He shrugged easily. “Once again, a pleasure. And if you tell me that we have never met before, then I shall, of course, believe you. But…” He hesitated, and Mari’s overtaxed nerves tightened a further notch, “I wonder…Do you ever visit London, Mrs. Osborne?”
It took every last ounce of self-control for Mari not to jump. She met his gaze and saw nothing there but polite inquiry. He had the most perfect face for games of chance, she thought. He was able to hide every emotion behind a wall of impassivity. And yet she thought she knew where this conversation was heading now. Despite her disguise, he must have recognized her from the Hen and Vulture. He must know she had been the one there that night, waiting for Rashleigh.
Why had he come to Peacock Oak? Did he know her true identity? Had he come to accuse her of Rashleigh’s murder?
Mari thought of the consequences of unmasking and the fear took her breath away. She closed her eyes for a second to steady herself, reminding herself that she knew none of this for certain. Even if he suspected her, he could prove nothing.
“I go to London very seldom, Major Falconer.” The evenness of her voice surprised her. “I have no need of the diversions of Town when I am so sincerely attached to the country.”
Nick inclined his head. “Odd. I thought perhaps that we might have met there a few months ago?”
Mari smiled and shook her head. “I have already said not, if you recall, Major Falconer. And I advise you not to push your luck—or your familiarities—too far.”
Their eyes met and held with the clash and challenge of a sword thrust. Then, with inexpressible relief Mari saw the figure of Laura Cole approaching. There was a faintly worried expression on her face, as though she had realized that Mari was in trouble and was coming to the rescue. Mari was so relieved she wanted to hug her.
“I do believe your hostess is coming to welcome you,” she said. “I wish you a pleasant stay at Cole Court, Major Falconer.”
Nick detained her with a hand on her arm. She felt the warmth of his touch through her sleeve as though her skin was bare. “I will see you again, Mrs. Osborne?”
“I doubt it, Major Falconer,” Mari said, and saw his teeth flash white as he smiled.
“You misunderstand me, Mrs. Osborne,” he said. “It was not a question. I will see you again. In fact, I would stake on it.”
“I do not play games,” Mari said. She released herself very deliberately from his touch. “Goodbye, Major Falconer.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Rosemary—Remembrance
NICK LEANED HIS BROAD shoulders against the ballroom doorway and watched Marina Osborne dancing the cotillion. Laura, Duchess of Cole, had welcomed him in the vague, sweet manner that he remembered and then she had drifted off to speak to some of her other guests and Nick thought that he would retire for the night rather than join the festivities. He felt tired and dirty from the journey. He was not dressed for a ball, as Lady Faye Cole had not hesitated to point out when she had passed him in the doorway and had practically sniffed to imply that he smelled rather insalubrious from his travels.
Mari was dancing with Faye’s husband, Charles’s cousin Henry Cole. Nick watched the elegant sway of her gown as she moved through the steps of the dance. When she and Henry came together, he grabbed at her with the overexcited playfulness of a puppy and she withdrew, an ice maiden in silver satin. Nick did not know Henry well for, although he belonged to the junior branch of the Cole family, he was older than Charles by several years and so Nick had never spent much time in his company. Henry had always struck him as a typical country squire, his life a round of hunting and shooting and fishing, gorging himself at table, drinking hard and suffering the gout in consequence. His color was certainly high as he danced with Mari but that, Nick thought, was probably due to a different kind of excitement from that engendered in the field. As he watched, he saw Henry surreptitiously squeeze Mari’s bottom as she passed him, a clumsy but lascivious gesture that made Nick clench his fists in disgust. For a moment Henry bent close to her ear and made some remark that had the color searing Mari’s face. No one else had seen his actions—Nick realized that Henry had made very sure of that. His opinion of Charles’s cousin fell several notches from an already low starting point.
Nick found that he had already taken a couple of steps forward, with every intention of intervening, when he saw Mari dig the spokes of her fan into Henry’s ribs with a force that had him almost doubling up in pain. Henry reeled out of the dance, coughing and spluttering and Mari raised her brows, a look of most perfect concern on her face. Nick relaxed a little and smothered a grin. Henry Cole had got what he deserved and clearly Mari Osborne could take care of herself. Of course she could. She did not need his protection. For a moment he had almost forgotten that she might be a criminal and even a murderer, blinded as always by the complicated mixture of raw desire and deeper need that she seemed to evoke in him.
As a soldier, Nick had honed a fine instinct for danger, when to attack, when to withdraw and bide his time, to trust his gut feeling, to listen to that intuition which other men sometimes derided. It had led him to make judgments and decisions that on more than one occasion seemed to fly in the face of practicality and sense and yet they had proved correct in the long run. His instinct had kept him and his men alive. And now his instinct was telling him that Mari Osborne was Glory, the harlot from the tavern, and he wanted her. Lusting after Mari Osborne, the clever, devious, disreputable widow ran counter to everything that he had always believed in about himself and what he had thought he wanted from a woman. She could not have been more different from Anna. And yet his hunger for her was intense, burning him up.
He shifted, uncomfortable with both his thoughts and the physical effect that they had on him. He had found crossing swords with Mari intensely stimulating. He had admired the coolness with which she had countered his attack and the manner in which she had weighed the odds and decided which matters to concede and where to fight him. She was a clever strategist and he relished the game between them. And since they possessed such a powerful mutual awareness, he would use that attraction to bring her down. He would get close to her. He would seduce the truth from her. And he would not forget for a moment that this was all in the line of duty. In playing the game he would be able to slake his desire for her and then the white-hot passion that seared him would burn itself out.
“She turned you down then,” Charles Cole said in his ear, with a certain satisfaction.
Nick straightened up. “She did. In no uncertain terms.”
Charles laughed. “I did warn you,” he said. “She’s as cold as the driven snow. Always has been.”
Nick raised his brows. “Does she have many disappointed suitors then?”
“Plenty of men are interested in her fortune,” Charles said, “even if she is a little gray mouse of a woman.”
Nick looked at him. Charles was a man, albeit an apparently happily married one. Could he not see how alluring Marina Osborne was if one looked beneath the dowdiness of her attire? But perhaps he could not. Charles skated across the surface of life, seldom seeking deep meaning. He had been like that for as long as Nick had known him. Perhaps he could not see the rich curves and tempting lines of Mari Osborne’s body and perhaps it was a good thing, too, for Nick had a powerful feeling that he would want to take any man who looked covetously on Marina Osborne and pull his neck cloth so tight it choked him.
With a palpable effort he forced himself to relax. His feelings were becoming too involved and it was clouding his judgment. This was precisely what had happened to him at the Hen and Vulture when Mari’s warmth, the touch and the taste of her, had invaded his senses and played havoc with his judgment. She had played him for a fool then. It would not happen again. Now they would play on his terms, not hers.
He watched as Mari made her way off the dance floor and disappeared through the doors that opened on to the terrace. Her gray dress blended in with the pale shadows and she was gone from his sight. With a slight jolt Nick realized that Mari’s deliberately drab appearance was as much a disguise in its way as the blond wig and mask had been at the Hen and Vulture. She was trying to efface herself, perhaps to escape the fortune hunters, perhaps for another reason. Could she be deliberately creating a persona as far from that of Glory, the female hellion, as possible?
“I think,” Charles said suddenly, surprisingly, “that Mrs. Osborne might be shy. She is not at ease in social situations. I have often observed that she would prefer to avoid gatherings such as this.”
Nick reflected cynically that Charles might have made an interesting point—that Mari Osborne avoided company—but attributed it to the wrong reasons. No woman who dressed as a courtesan and picked men up in a tavern like the Hen and Vulture could possibly be shy, but again she might be deliberately playing a role that was the opposite of the highwaywoman heroine, Glory.
“Well, if she is shy, then she is most unlike your cousin,” he said, nodding toward Lady Hester Berry, the vivid center of a group of male admirers further down the room.
“Chalk and cheese,” Charles agreed. “Poor John Teague—” He indicated an older man standing slightly apart from the group and watching with an air of weary amusement. “He never gets a chance. He’s been in love with Hester for years but I think she barely sees him.”
Teague glanced toward them and Charles beckoned him over. “Come on,” he said to Nick. “There’s better refreshment in my study than you’ll find for Laura’s guests. And Teague has lived in this area awhile. You may find he can throw light on your case.”
They repaired to Charles’s study, a room off the hall where Charles had stashed a very fine bottle of brandy against the need to fortify himself to deal with his cousins.
“For,” he said wryly, “Henry and Faye may be family but I fear that I have little in common with them and Faye will try to foist her daughter on any or all of my male guests, like a fishwife pushing her wares.”
“A shame,” John Teague said lazily, accepting a glass of brandy and folding his long length into an armchair, “for Miss Cole is a fetching little chit—” He broke off to see Charles’s quizzical eye upon him. “No, I do not have an interest there myself!” he said hastily. “You know me better than that, Charles.”
Nick had been watching Teague and weighing up how far to take him into his confidence. Charles had introduced the older man as a friend and indicated that he was reliable, but Nick liked to make his own mind up on such things. Certainly Teague, with his shrewd expression and open manner, seemed pleasant enough. But even at Eton, Charles had been quick to trust, and whilst it was an admirable trait to look for the good in everyone, it could be damnably awkward if you found that the man you had thought honorable turned out to be less than sound. So Nick said nothing of Rashleigh’s murder, merely indicating that he had been sent by Lord Hawkesbury to investigate the civil disturbance caused by the Glory Girls. Teague raised his brows and said he was surprised that Hawkesbury should concern himself with such a small domestic matter.
“They are a bunch of petty criminals, highwaymen, no more,” Teague said. “Gossip has it that they are females, but I doubt it very much.”
“Gossip has it that they are gently bred females,” Charles interposed, “and I think there may be some truth in it.”
“Do they ride sidesaddle?” Nick asked.
Charles laughed. “Not they! They ride astride like a pack of huntsmen!”
Teague shot him a look from beneath lowered brows. “There was nothing gently bred or remotely feminine about the felons who held up my coach two weeks ago, old chap,” he said. “The ringleader had the gruffest voice this side of the alehouse and sat his horse like a trooper.”
“What did they stop you for?” Nick asked mildly.
Teague turned his shrewd gray eyes back to him. Nick remembered what Charles had said about Teague being one of Hester Berry’s suitors and remembered that he had almost pitied him to hear it, but now, seeing the keen intelligence behind those eyes, he started to wonder if Hester knew John Teague very well at all. He did not seem the kind to tolerate her flirting with a great deal of equanimity.
“What do you mean, old fellow?” Teague asked.
Playing for time, Nick thought, and wondered why.
“I understand that the Glory Girls always have a reason for what they do,” he explained. “The redistribution of wealth to the poor, for example, if a mill owner is cheating his workers. Or the liberation of the oppressed if farm laborers are forced to work long hours.”
Teague gave a crack of laughter. “If you say so, Falconer. All they wished to liberate in my case was my money.”
Nick pulled a face. “Are you sure it was the Glory Girls?”
Teague shifted and took a mouthful of brandy. “Certain. They boasted of it.”
Nick shrugged and let it pass. It was odd that in Teague’s case there appeared to have been no ulterior motive for the attack when all the other cases he had read about had been prompted by some injustice. But perhaps the gang that had attacked Teague were impostors trading on the Glory Girls’ name and reputation. That happened often enough when one set of thieves wanted to borrow some of the luster of another.
“My favorite,” Charles said, with a reminiscent grin, “was the time they kidnapped Annabel Morehead on the way to her wedding. Her father’s face, when he realized that all his scheming to marry her off for money had been in vain!”
“That was richly deserved,” Teague agreed. “And Miss Morehead was extremely grateful.” He looked thoughtfully at Nick. “You will find plenty who do not look kindly upon your plan to capture the Glories, Falconer. Some people see them as popular heroes—or heroines—hereabouts.”
“I doubt that Arkwright’s banker is one of those,” Nick said. “I must go to Skipton in the week and speak with him about the attack a few nights ago.”
“I doubt he will still be Arkwright’s banker after that fiasco,” Charles said. “Edward Arkwright does not condone incompetence in his employees and losing a tenth of his profits would be a heinous sin in his books.”
“Perhaps he should look to his own business practices, then,” Nick said. “He was the one who cheated his workers out of their money, so I understand.”
Teague cocked an inquiring brow. “You sound surprisingly sympathetic to these felons, Falconer,” he said. “Surely Lord Hawkesbury expects you to fulfill his commission with the full weight of the law?”
“I imagine so,” Nick said. “Don’t mistake me, Teague. I do not condone highway robbery or extortion and I do intend to find these criminals.” He drained his brandy glass. “Charles, have you ever been held up on the road?”
“No,” his host said, sounding, Nick thought, slightly disappointed to admit it. “But I keep a pistol in my carriages so I can wing them if they try and attack!”
Nick laughed. “I see. So, gentlemen, is there anything else that we know about the Glories?”
“No,” Teague said.
“They are reputed to meet at one of the hostelries on the Skipton road,” Charles said, after a moment.
“I recall,” Teague said. “The King’s Head, is it not?”
“Either the King’s or Half Moon House,” Charles agreed.
“I will call there,” Nick said, “and see what I may discover. And if we entertain for a moment the idea that the Glories are a band of gently bred females—”
Teague shifted, clearly uncomfortable. Once again, Nick noted it. And wondered.
“Seems preposterous,” Charles muttered. “Can’t see Laura or Faye or Reverend Butler’s wife leading a band of mounted desperadoes.”
“No,” Nick said. “On the other hand there must be others. Does Mrs. Osborne ride?”
Charles and John Teague exchanged a look. “Occasionally,” Charles said after a moment, “but she is a poor horsewoman.”
“Hester rides like a jockey,” Teague said, “but surely you are not suggesting that Cole’s cousin is a highwaywoman, Falconer? That’s outrageous!”
“I am not suggesting anything at the moment,” Nick said, unruffled. “I am merely asking.”
There was an awkward silence. “I’ve sometimes wondered about Mrs. Osborne,” Charles said suddenly.
“Oh, come now, Charles!” Teague had gone a little red in the face. “Just because she made her money in trade!”
“It isn’t that,” Charles said. He, too, had gone a little red. “I know Laura has taken her up and Hester likes her, but…” He stopped, looking uncomfortable.
“It is true that she is a little reserved,” Teague said gruffly, “but when one gets to know her…” He took a deep breath. “She has been the truest friend to Hester that one could ever ask for, and to Laura, too, if you would only admit it. Laura is lonely here in the country with you up in Town so often—” Teague stopped and cleared his throat as Charles shot him a less than friendly look. “They have a genuine mutual interest in the horticultural society,” he finished, a little lamely.
“I’m glad to hear it,” Charles snapped.
Nick said nothing. There were interesting undercurrents here, he thought. He had not realized that Charles left his wife in the country when he went up to London to take his seat in the Lords. He wondered why they spent so much time apart. And then there was Teague, who evidently was in love with Hester Berry. His defense of Mari Osborne might well spring from his loyalty to Hester. But what of his discomfort when the Glory Girls were mentioned? It could be that Nick was getting too close in his questions and that Teague knew it. Mari Osborne’s apparent lack of skill as a rider, for example, could be as much an elaborate ruse as her dowdy appearance. Whatever the case, it was clear where Teague’s sympathies lay and that made him a man worth watching, as well.
Nick stood up and stretched. “Thank you for your time, gentlemen, and for the brandy, Charles. If you will excuse me, I will seek my bed. It has been a long day.”
As he went out, Charles was offering John Teague another glass but in Nick’s view Teague’s thoughts did not appear to be on the excellence of his host’s cellar. He was gazing into the distance and the expression in his gray eyes was very bleak indeed.
MARI HAD FOUND a dark corner of the terrace where the honeysuckle twined around a pretty little arbor of her own design. She curled up on the cushioned seat, wrapping her arms around her knees, careless of crushing the silk of her gown. It was a warm night with a gentle breeze from the moors that carried with it the smell of gorse and bracken and, rather more agriculturally, sheep.
When she had walked away from Nick Falconer, her first instinct had been to run and hide until she had the chance to gather her thoughts. She knew, however, that for the sake of her charade, she had to appear utterly unconcerned by their encounter. Accordingly she had gone into the ballroom and had accepted the first offer to dance made to her, which had, unfortunately, been from Lord Henry Cole.
Mari detested Lord Henry. A big, bluff hunting man, he hid a vicious nature under an outward show of bonhomie. He reminded her of Rashleigh in too many ways. For some time now Henry had been pressing her to show him what he referred to as “kindnesses” and what Mari knew to be sexual favors, implying that her bed had been cold too long and he was just the man to fill it. When he had squeezed her in such a disgustingly familiar manner during the dance, she had felt horribly sick, his big, sweaty lustful hands reminding her of Rashleigh’s importunities. She knew that his liberties would only get worse. He seemed inordinately excited by her resistance, the kind of man who saw refusal as a challenge that simply has to be overcome by force.
Mari shuddered. To make matters worse, she knew that Nick Falconer had been watching her every move with that dark, implacable gaze of his. She thought that he had probably been the only one to see Lord Henry touch her, for he had started toward them as though he were about to intervene. He had looked positively thunderous. The realization that he had been coming to her aid made Mari feel very strange. She had felt a compound of relief and security and trust that she had never experienced in her life before. She wanted to throw herself into Nick’s arms and simply soak up the strength and protectiveness of him. It was an instantaneous and inexplicable reaction but more importantly, it was extremely dangerous because of course she could not trust Nicholas Falconer. He was the last man on earth she should allow close to her. He could expose the truth about her. She had the horrible thought that perhaps he was the author of the anonymous letter, the fate that was about to catch up with her.
“I know all about you. I know what you did…”
The panic threatened to overwhelm her, tight bands around her chest, the fluttery wings of a thousand butterflies in her stomach beating frantically to break out. She had been troubled by such attacks on and off since she had run away from Rashleigh. They happened whenever the past loomed too close, whenever it seemed that she could not escape. Because sometimes it seemed that she could never get away, never be free.
She dug her nails into the palms of her hands and tried desperately to calm her shaking. Breathe deeply. Distract yourself.
She thought about what she might do now that Nick Falconer was here. She could run away. She could start all over again. She had done it before. But if she did that, Rashleigh would have won again and she would not let that happen. She was too strong to let that happen.
The feeling of panic was passing now, the tightness in her chest easing, her breath coming more easily. She pressed her forehead against her knees and felt the cool silk of her skirts against her hot cheek. Suddenly she felt bone-weary. It had been a very long day.
There was a step on the terrace beside her and a swish of silk and Mari straightened up hastily, pushing her tumbled hair back from her face. Her turban—she hated it anyway, the ridiculous thing—lay discarded on the terrace beside her. She made a grab for it but then realized that the newcomer was only Hester so she relaxed again.
Hester sat on the balustrade beside her and passed her a glass of cold champagne. It felt smooth against Mari’s rough throat.
“Are you all right, Mari?” Hester’s voice was troubled. “What happened? I saw you leave the ballroom.”
“I am very well.” Mari gulped some more champagne. “Lord Henry annoyed me. I hate his importunities.”
“He molested you again.” Hester sounded disgusted. “I am so sorry, Mari. He is a blackguard to do so, especially when he knows you are an unprotected female. What can we do? Shall I get John Teague to call him out, or…I know—Glory can call him out!”
“No,” Mari said, feeling a little better. Hester’s suggestion had almost made her laugh. “I know John would do that for your sake, Hes, and I am sure it could only add to the luster of Glory’s reputation for her to fight a duel, but there is no need. It only upset me because it reminded me of Rashleigh. Most of the time I can shut out such thoughts but sometimes…” She shook her head. “Anyway, I stabbed Lord Henry with my fan and I think I bruised him.”
“Good,” Hester said, with satisfaction. “A pity you did not crack his ribs.” She swung her legs beneath her silken skirts but within a moment the movement had stilled. Her voice changed, became serious. “I have been asking some questions, Mari. About Major Falconer, I mean. He is a widower, heir to a Scottish Marquisate.”
“Lady Faye will be delighted,” Mari said dryly.
“I imagine so. But the rest is not so delightful,” Hester said. “He is Rashleigh’s cousin on his mother’s side, Mari, and when Rashleigh died without issue, he inherited everything that was not entailed.”
Mari almost dropped her champagne glass. Nick Falconer was Rashleigh’s cousin? Suddenly it felt illicit to have been attracted to him, shameful and wrong. Even if he were not cut from the same cloth as Rashleigh, they were related, tied by blood. And if he had inherited all of Rashleigh’s property then he might well have inherited her along with Rashleigh’s other possessions. She had run away but she had never been freed. She had been Rashleigh’s chattel, body and soul. She felt sick.
“Oh,” she whispered. She cleared her throat. “I did not know.” She put her glass down very carefully. “I knew it could be no coincidence that he was here! That must be why he was in the Hen and Vulture that night, Hes. He had gone to meet Rashleigh. Perhaps—” Her anxiety was rising again and she fought hard to control it. “Perhaps Rashleigh told his cousin about me,” she said. She looked at Hester and rubbed a hand across her brow, her head aching intolerably. Suddenly the past pressed frighteningly close. “Do you think that is why he has come here? Does he know I am his property? Does he intend to take up the blackmail where Rashleigh left off?”
Hester slid off the balustrade and came to sit beside her, passing a warm arm comfortingly around her shoulders. “Do not even think it, Mari!” she said sternly. “I am sure it is nothing of the sort. Rashleigh may have threatened to expose your past and reveal your links to the Glory Girls but I am sure he told no one else of his evil plans. That sort of scoundrel always keeps his secrets.”
“I hope that you are right,” Mari said, with a shudder. “It is true that whilst I was with him I never met any other member of his family and he never spoke of them so I imagine he cannot have been close to his cousin. But Major Falconer must know that the Earls of Rashleigh once owned serfs in Russia.”
Hester’s arm tightened. “What if he does know it? That is all in the past.”
“No, it is not,” Mari said, shivering. “You know that legally I was never given my freedom. I am still a serf.”
For one long, terrifying moment the memories crowded in and she was back in the study of the house in St. Petersburg, where she had lived for the first seventeen years of her life. Rashleigh’s father had taken her from her parents when she was a child and had educated her on a whim, instructing her in all the arts that an English lady would learn. He was an eccentric, an academic and a collector, and Mari had come to realize that in an odd sort of way she was part of his collection. He had wanted to see if he could take the child of Russian serfs and transform her into something approaching a lady.
But when his son had inherited her, he had had other ideas of the role of his father’s seventeen-year-old protégée. In her mind’s eye Mari could still see Robert Rashleigh strutting into the house and plundering it whilst his father’s body was not yet cold upstairs. He had lolled back in his father’s chair, appraising her with his insolent gaze.
How piquant of my father to try out such a foolish notion as to educate you and give you ideas above your station, girl! But never mind, all serfs are bred to be no more than bed warmers and soon you can take up your duties on your back.
He had leaned forward and pinned her with his icy-blue gaze.
You see, I have a proposition for you, my dear. An offer you cannot refuse. You and your family are serfs. You belong to me body and soul. So I am offering you a proposal—a rather piquant one, I think you’ll agree. If you give me your body to do with as I wish I will give your family their freedom, their souls, if you like…
She had accepted his proposition.
Of course she had, for how could she have refused, knowing that her family’s very freedom was at stake? She had had no real choice. She was trapped. So she had traded herself, her virginity, her innocence, her very life, for their freedom from slavery. She had become the Earl of Rashleigh’s mistress.
The only remarkable thing about it was that Rashleigh had kept his word, giving money for her sisters’ education, buying her father a small plot of land near Svartorsk and giving him grain and animals enough for him to forge a living from the soil. But then Mari had come to realize that it pleased Robert Rashleigh to be magnanimous sometimes, so that amidst the cruelty and avarice, he occasionally displayed a careless generosity that would surprise her. At first she had taken it as a sign of hope—that there was good in him after all. Later she came to realize that he did it precisely for that reason—to make people think there was hope in order to take a perverse pleasure in proving them utterly wrong. He had freed her family on whim because he wanted to prove he had the power to do so, the power of life and death, the power over freedom or slavery. And then he had set out to exact thorough and devastating payment from her, subjugating her body to his will.
With a shudder she pushed the memory back into the furthest recesses of her mind.
“Don’t think like that, Mari,” Hester said now, recalling her to the present. “You are not a possession. You belong to nobody but yourself. Legally—” she waved a hand around vaguely, with the kind of aristocratic disregard for convention that always made Mari laugh “—there may be some boring argument that someone could make against you, I suppose, but that will never happen.” She paused. “I think it is most likely that if Major Falconer does have a purpose in coming to Peacock Oak, it must be to solve his cousin’s murder.”
There was silence whilst they both thought about it.
“But how did he know to come here?” Mari spread her hands wide. “Unless Rashleigh told him where to find me…”
Hester was shaking her head. “I don’t know, Mari. But I think that until we find out, you must be very, very careful.”
Mari nodded. She felt frighteningly uncertain. From the questions he had asked her that evening she thought that Nick Falconer surely suspected her of Rashleigh’s murder. It could be no coincidence that he had come to Peacock Oak. She already knew he was strong and ruthless in his pursuit of what he wanted, and if his aim were justice, he would hunt her down. She refused to think of the other, even more frightening possibility that Rashleigh had told his cousin everything about her and that Nick was there to take up the blackmail where Rashleigh had left off. She tried not to think that he might have come there to claim her.
Hester was right. She had to be very careful indeed. Say nothing, admit nothing, show no fear….
“He cannot prove a thing,” Hester said now, “least of all that you killed Rashleigh, since you did not.”
“No,” Mari agreed.
“And even if you had,” Hester said, her voice as hard as iron now, “no one could condemn you, Mari. Not if they knew the truth. The man deserved to die horribly a thousand times over for what he did to you.”
There was a silence between them. At the beginning of their friendship, when Hester had suggested that they should share a home, Mari had decided to tell her all about her background. Hester and Laura Cole were the only people she had ever told, the only ones who knew that Mari had reinvented herself as Marina Osborne, respectable widow. Even then she had omitted the worst details of Robert Rashleigh’s vice, not wanting to either relive it or to inflict on her friends the horror of what she had experienced. Mari thought that she would never forget Hester’s appalled reaction and the look of utter shock on her face when she heard the tale. Hester, who had believed herself so outrageous, so worldly wise and cynical, had been shaken to the core by Mari’s disclosures.
She had heard Mari’s tale in silence and then she had squared her shoulders and told her that Robert Rashleigh was a despicable man who deserved to die for what he had done and that Mari must never, ever feel sad or ashamed or lonely ever again. Mari had appreciated her kindness and her generosity of spirit more than Hester could ever know, but even so there were things that she could never tell her friend, things she could never explain about the shackles that were on her mind if not her body. She had been a serf all her life. One of her earliest memories was trying to grasp after what it truly meant to be free. She had asked the old Earl to explain about serfdom but he had just laughed at her for what he called her philosophical interests. And when she was twelve and he had asked her what gift she would like for her birthday, she had asked for her freedom and he had given her instead a mouse made of spun sugar.
The old Earl of Rashleigh had treated her as a toy but it was his son who had made her his plaything, had taken away her self-respect and her innocence and sometimes she despaired that she could ever forget.
She finished the champagne and smiled wryly to think of the little serf from Russia sitting on a Duke’s terrace and drinking his champagne. How far she had climbed. How far she had to fall, if Nick Falconer should suspect her, if he had uncovered that she was his cousin’s runaway mistress, a slave, a thief and a criminal.
“He is a difficult man to deceive,” she said, thinking of Nick.
Hester looked at her sharply. “What do you mean?”
Mari swung her champagne glass thoughtfully between her fingers. “Only that he is clever, Hester, and ruthless and strong. I am so afraid that he will catch me out sooner or later.”
Now Hester looked horrified. “But, Mari, you cannot let him! You must lie to him and keep your nerve. Think of the consequences if you do not! You could bring us all down—”
“I know,” Mari said. She felt immensely weary. This, she thought, was hardly the moment to tell Hester how much Nick Falconer attracted her nor that she had a mad desire to trust him.
“Do not worry, Hester,” she said. “You have always cared for me. I will not let you all down.”
“All you have to do is to carry on as though nothing has happened,” Hester said, calming a little. “Besides, it could all be a hum. Major Falconer was at school with Charles. It might just be a coincidence that brings him here to Peacock Oak and nothing to do with Rashleigh at all.”
“As I said before, I don’t believe in coincidences,” Mari said bleakly. She put the empty glass down gently on the balustrade. “I think I shall retire. Laura will understand that I am tired after the day’s festivities.”
“I will come with you,” Hester said at once. She stood up and brushed down her skirts. “This ball bores me. It is the same old faces. I shall drop you at home and then travel on to Half Moon House.”
Mari’s shoulders slumped. “Oh, Hester!”
The light spilling from the ballroom windows was bright enough to illuminate Hester’s rueful expression.
“I know. You think me wanton.”
“It is not that,” Mari said. She struggled with her feelings for a moment. On the nights when Hester did not come back, she lay in her bed and fretted the night away as though she were Hester’s mother. “I worry about you, out on your own, in bad company. And then there is Lord Teague. If he knew…” She stopped.
Hester snapped her fingers. “John is my friend, nothing more.”
“But he wants to be more,” Mari argued. “He cares about you. He loves you, Hester!”
Hester slipped her hand through Mari’s arm. “Let us not quarrel,” she pleaded. “You are tired and anxious, and I am bored. You know how these events stifle me. So you will go to your bed and I will go—”
“To someone else’s,” Mari said dryly. She sighed as she spoke for there was no changing Hester. She and her husband, Jack Berry, had been as wild as each other, forever encouraging one another to new feats of madness. From things that Hester had said, Mari had understood that she and Jack had quarreled like cat and dog, and yet something had bound them together. In Jack’s case the madness had ended in an early death on the hunting field. In Hester’s, Mari was not sure where it would end.
They went back inside and Hester sent a footman to fetch their cloaks. As they crossed the hall to leave they saw Nick Falconer emerging from Charles Cole’s study. For one infinitely long, loaded moment his eyes met Mari’s and she stared, unable to look away. She thought of her own words and Hester’s response.
He is a difficult man to deceive….
You must lie to him! You could bring us all down….
It was true. If Nick Falconer knew her history, knew everything his cousin Rashleigh had known, then conceivably it might ruin all those whom she cared about the most. For herself, she sometimes felt so tired of the struggle to be free that she did not care. But she could never bring danger to Hester or Laura. They had shown her nothing but kindness and friendship. Even so, looking into Nick Falconer’s dark eyes and wondering what he wanted from her, Mari had a conviction that she could not escape their encounter unscathed.
CHAPTER FIVE
Witch Hazel—A spell is upon me
NICK AWOKE EARLY the morning after the ball and made his way downstairs. Streaks of silver dawn light were fading from the sky. The musicians, their faces drawn with tiredness, were packing up their cases. The servants were starting to scrub, polish and dust the house back into a state of tidiness. Nick knew it would be some time before his fellow guests rose from their beds, so he partook of an early breakfast and set off to walk a path that led up through the beech woods to the fells above.
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Nicola Cornick
Can innocent young widow Mari Osborne really be a murderess and the notorious leader of the Glory Girls highwaywomen?Wickedly handsome Nick Falconer would stake his life on it! He's been sent from London to the tranquil English village of Peacock Oak to solve the murder of his cousin Rashleigh and unmask this female Robin Hood. But Nick never expected that Mari would be so intoxicatingly beautiful or so disturbingly luscious.Determined to have her–body, soul and secrets–at any cost, Nick sets out to seduce her with a passion that inflames them both. But Mari holds much deeper, darker truths than Nick could ever imagine. Despite her fierce resistance, she can't stop her body from yearning for his touch.Can she hide her sinister past from him much longer? Or will trusting the one man she so desperately wants lead her straight to the hangman's noose?
Nicola Cornick
is an international bestselling author and a
RITA
Award finalist, and her novels have received acclaim the world over
“A rising star of the Regency arena.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Nicola Cornick’s historical romances bring the sensual and elegant world of the Regency to vivid life.”
—Anna Campbell, author of Untouched
“Ms. Cornick has a brilliant talent for bringing her characters to life, and embracing the reader into her stories.”
—RomanceJunkies
Praise for Nicola’s previous HQN titles
“A powerful story, rich, witty and sensual—a divinely delicious treat.”
—Marilyn Rondeau, Reviewers International Organization, on Deceived
“Cornick masterfully blends misconceptions, vengeance, powerful emotions and the realization of great love into a touching story.”
—Romantic Times BOOKreviews, 4½ stars, on Deceived
“Cornick expertly spices her latest Regency historical with danger, while the sizzle she cooks up between her sinfully sexy hero and delightfully resourceful heroine is simply spectacular.”
—John Charles, Booklist, on Lord of Scandal
Nicola Cornick
Unmasked
Dear Reader,
From the Scarlet Pimpernel to Zorro, Robin Hood to William Wallace, the real-life legends and fictional stories of those who fight for freedom and justice have always inspired me. In Unmasked I have written an outlaw story of my own! Over the wild heather-clad hills and dales of Yorkshire ride a band of highwaywomen, taking from the rich to give to the poor, protecting the weak and setting right the injustices of society in true Robin Hood style. But the Glory Girls who ride in Unmasked are no ordinary outlaws. These are women who defy convention because they cannot bear to sit at home, confined by the traditional role of the Regency wife or widow, who see injustice and feel a burning need to take action.
Nick Falconer, the hero of Unmasked, is a man of honor, sworn to uphold the law, and when he is sent to bring the Glory Girls down he is determined to do his duty. But in Mari Osborne, the woman he suspects to be Glory, he finds someone very different from the criminal he is expecting, someone whose principles equal his own…. I loved writing my story of those dashing Regency outlaws the Glory Girls, and I hope you enjoy it, too!
Love from
This book is dedicated to Yorkshire,
county of my birth, for all the wild and
wonderful places that inspired me.
Unmasked
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
AUTHOR NOTE
PROLOGUE
London—April 1805
Daffodil—Deceit
“THE THINGS I DO for England.” Major Nick Falconer stood back and squinted at his reflection in the pier glass in the hall of the Marquis of Kinloss’s London mansion. The Marquis was out of Town, which Nick thought was probably all to the good. His great-uncle was notoriously high in the instep and might have cut up extremely rough had he seen his heir’s outrageous appearance.
Nick turned to the young man who was leaning against one of the marble pillars and watching him with amusement in his blue eyes.
“What do I look like, Anstruther?”
“You look quite shocking, sir,” Dexter Anstruther said politely. “The ribbon is a nice touch, as is the perfume and the patch.”
Nick laughed. “And the jacket? Quite dandified, I think.”
“Much worse than a dandy,” Anstruther said, a smile twitching his lips. “I beg your pardon, sir, but you look like a molly with extremely dubious sexual tastes. A rum cove, as my father would have said.”
“I do my poor best,” Nick said. He picked up his hat, a jaunty wide-brimmed affair with a flirtatious orange feather.
“This place you’re going to,” Anstruther said, “this club…”
“The Hen and Vulture,” Nick supplied.
“Yes.” Anstruther looked vaguely uncomfortable. “Is it really the case that one cannot be sure whether…I mean, there are men there, and women…”
“And the men may be dressed as women and the women as men,” Nick finished. He grinned. “So I understand. Far too shocking for youngsters like yourself to visit, Anstruther.”
“Men dressed as women,” Anstruther muttered, rubbing a hand across his forehead. “How could that possibly be attractive?”
“I believe the appeal of such a place lies in the ambiguity,” Nick said. “Apparently some of the most beautiful courtesans in London also attend and the skill is in telling them apart from the men in women’s clothes.”
“Good God,” Anstruther said faintly. “It’s so…unBritish.”
“Just count yourself lucky that you don’t have to come with me,” Nick said comfortingly. He looked at his companion, sober in his black evening dress. Dexter Anstruther had been assigned to assist him in his current mission by no lesser personage than the Home Secretary himself. The boy had only graduated from Oxford the previous year but he was clever, diplomatic and hardworking, and Nick’s current venture, to rein in the wilder excesses of his cousin the Earl of Rashleigh, required assistance from someone with absolute discretion. Dexter Anstruther fitted the bill perfectly.
“How would you dress if you were visiting the Hen and Vulture, Anstruther?” Nick inquired.
“Just as I am—as a repressed English gentleman,” Anstruther said ruefully, looking at Nick’s somewhat colorful outfit, “rather than the sort of mincing dandy I see before me—with the greatest of respect, sir.” He straightened, thrusting his hands into his pockets. “What if Lord Kinloss should hear of this, sir? He’ll have a fit. The heir to a Marquisate in a house of ill repute!”
“I’ll probably recognize plenty of other peers in there,” Nick said, “so no one will be able to point the finger.”
Anstruther shook his head in disbelief. “It is difficult to believe, seeing you like that, sir, that you have a certain reputation for ruthlessness.”
Nick was adjusting his outrageously lacy collar. “Thank you, Anstruther. Unfortunately I also have the bad luck to be Rashleigh’s cousin.”
“And the best shot in England and one of Gentleman Jackson’s finest,” Anstruther said, with an air of hero worship.
Nick smiled. “More to the point, Anstruther, Lord Hawkesbury knows I’ll be discreet because no matter how much I hate my cousin, this is a family matter.” He tilted his head to one side and patted the patch on his cheek. “Too much, do you think?”
“You look like a whorehouse madam, sir.”
“Just the style I was attempting,” Nick said.
“Lord Hawkesbury said that this was a delicate business,” Anstruther said, shifting from one foot to the other, as though he was not quite comfortable to be in the same room as a man in such dubious attire. “A matter that could cause repercussions through the top ranks of society, he said.”
“Yes,” Nick said. “It is damnably delicate. You know that my foolish cousin Rashleigh has borrowed heavily from the sprigs of the nobility, Anstruther. He has targeted those youths with generous allowances and lax guardians. And now that his activities are exposed there are peers lining up from Aberdeen to Anglesey threatening to see him in hell. Lord Hawkesbury wants Rashleigh warned off tonight and the money repaid before one of them kills him.”
Nick stopped, thinking that in better times Dexter Anstruther himself might have been one of Rashleigh’s targets. The boy’s father, whilst not titled, had been from a good family and had had a tidy fortune—until he had gambled it all away.
“I had heard that Lord Rashleigh was a scoundrel,” Anstruther said gruffly. “I know he’s your cousin, sir, but he’s still bad Ton.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” Nick said affably. “Never could stand Rashleigh myself. He comes from the dissolute branch of the family. My mother’s brothers were all worse than scoundrels.”
“Dashed nuisance that you have to go to this so-called club,” Anstruther observed. “Did you try calling on your cousin at home, sir?”
Nick laughed. “Yes, I tried. He declines to see me. We have not spoken for several years and last time we met he damned me to perdition for refusing to advance him a loan.”
“A pity he is a habitué of the Hen and Vulture rather than Whites,” Anstruther said. “You could have had a pleasant evening there.”
“Whites blackballed him years ago,” Nick said.
“You don’t surprise me. Unwholesome fellow.” Anstruther shifted uncomfortably once more. “I heard Lord Hawkesbury say that he was robbed blind by one of his mistresses a few years back? He said it was the talk of the Ton for a while.”
Nick’s mouth set in a thin line. “Yes, it was. She was a Russian girl. Rashleigh’s side of the family had estates there, inherited from his grandmother. He told me once how he had sold his serfs off to the highest bidder.” His fist clenched in an instinctive gesture of anger and repudiation. “I think—” his tone hardened “—that that was when I really started to hate him.”
He could see that Anstruther was staring at him but he did not elaborate. Nick had spent his adult life in the army, fighting for honor and freedom and principle, to defend the weak and preserve the things that he believed to be right. It was a moral code he believed in, a belief that had only been strengthened by the violent death of his wife some three years earlier. But his cousin, in contrast, treated human life as though it were a commodity to be bought and sold, as though people’s very souls were of no account. He sneered at the weak and crushed them under his aristocratic heel. Rashleigh had laughed at the reformers and sworn that those who wanted to abolish slavery were soft in the head. And in Nick’s book that made Robert Rashleigh the scum of the earth.
Nick adjusted his hat to a more rakish angle. “That’ll do. I’m off.”
“Good luck, sir,” Anstruther said, holding the door for him. “You are sure you do not need me to accompany you?”
Nick looked him up and down. “A selfless offer, Anstruther, but in that outfit you would stand out like the proverbial sore thumb.” He slapped the younger man on the back. “I shall see you later, when I am confident you will be able to report to Lord Hawkesbury on a job well done.”
Out in the street it was a brisk April night with a cold breeze whipping the ragged clouds across the moon. Nick settled back in a hackney carriage and winced in the draught from the ill-fitting door. He had no appetite for this errand and no time for his cousin, but for the sake of his family’s good name, he knew he had had to take the Home Secretary’s commission. As the carriage clattered through London’s streets he thought, with no degree of affection at all, about his errant cousin and the trouble that he had caused from the day of his birth. There was no doubt, as Anstruther had said, that the Earl of Rashleigh was worse than a scoundrel.
The hack drew up abruptly and Nick sighed and jumped down, pushing the plumed hat down farther on his head as a gust of wind threatened to take it off. His current garb, he reflected, was about as far from his army uniform as could be.
From the outside the Hen and Vulture looked much the same as any low tavern in the Brick Hill area. The shutters were closed and from within came the flicker of candlelight, the mingled smell of ale and stale smoke, and the roar of voices and laughter. Nick squared his shoulders. He had been called upon to perform some unusual roles during his career in the Seventh Dragoon Guards but none had taken him anywhere quite like this.
He pushed open the door.
Inside it was so dark that for a moment Nick could not see properly, then his eyes adjusted to the light and he headed for a quiet corner, sliding along the wooden bench behind a rough ale-stained table. The room was almost full. Despite the tavern’s reputation, there were only one or two outrageously clad men. One was dressed in an embroidered corset and a trailing golden robe with satin-lined sleeves. He had a well-powdered wig, ear pendants and a beauty patch on one cheekbone that was a match for Nick’s.
The inn servant—a slender youth who could actually have been a girl—slopped a beaker of ale down onto the table and gave Nick a flirtatious smile, which he returned in good measure as he slipped the payment into the youth’s hand. He looked around the room. As far as he could see, Rashleigh had not yet arrived.
Nick took a mouthful of the ale. It tasted like dirty water and he put the tankard down again quickly. It was threatening to be a long evening if the drink was so poor. He glanced around the room again and caught the eye of a strikingly pretty, masked woman in a tight crimson gown. Like him she was sitting alone in a quiet corner. It looked as though she was waiting for someone. She held Nick’s gaze for a long moment and despite their surroundings, despite his outrageous garb sufficient to confuse anyone as to the true nature of his sexual interest, a connection flashed between them that was so intense he felt it like a kick in the stomach.
The girl got up, walked slowly across the room and slid into the seat beside him.
“Hello, darling.” Her voice was warm, inviting and very definitely feminine.
Nick thought quickly. In showing more than a fleeting interest in the girl he had no doubt made her think that he was a potential customer. The sort of whores who paraded their wares in places like the Vulture, male or female, did not in general interest him, but he supposed that he would draw less attention if he pretended an attraction to this one, and that would not be very difficult for she was extremely pretty.
He had barely looked at another woman in the three years since his wife had died. Anna had been his childhood sweetheart and their marriage had been an understood thing from the first, an eminently sensible arrangement between two families. They had married when Nick was one and twenty and he had confidently expected to live very happily ever after. It had therefore been both a shock and a disillusionment to find that the reality of their marriage had not lived up to its early promise. Anna was delicate and could not follow the drum and he was young and determined to serve abroad and so they had spent much of their time apart. Nick had told himself that it did not matter, that it was a good enough marriage, better than many, but he knew something was lacking. And so it might have continued for years had not an opportunist robbery in a London street turned violent and he had lost his wife in one vicious moment. He had finally been forced to confront his failure and guilt, and the grief had overwhelmed him, not only for Anna but also for what might have been. His distance from home and the sheer helplessness of his situation only served to compound his remorse, but by the time he had received the news of her death and returned to England, Anna was cold in her grave and his heart was even colder.
He had never felt an interest in another woman since but he looked at this one now and felt an unexpectedly strong pull of attraction. As she leaned toward him he could smell a fresh flower scent on her, light and sweet. He felt her silken warmth wrap about him, a far cry from the stale perfume and sweat he had expected. The sensation went straight to his head—and to his groin. He could not remember the last time he had noticed the scent of a woman but this one filled his senses. It made him feel restless and disturbed in a way he could not quite explain, as though he was dishonoring Anna’s memory in some way. He pushed the feeling away and gave the girl a long, slow smile in return. This was, after all, only business.
“Hello, sweetheart,” he said. “What can I do for you?”
The girl looked him straight in the eyes. “Several things spring to mind,” she murmured.
She was not shy then. She was not even pretending to be shy. Nick did not mind. He disliked artifice in any form. A direct man himself, he preferred bluntness in his dealing with others and whatever she was, she seemed honest.
He allowed himself a moment to study her. She had blond hair that curled about her face, and behind her velvet mask her wide-set, candid eyes were so dark Nick thought they were black until a stray beam of candlelight shone on them and showed up the tiny flecks of green and gold in their depths. She was wearing far too much paint for a young girl but the deep cherry-red of her lips was alluring and drew his gaze. She ran her fingers lightly but deliberately over the lace that edged the low-cut bodice of her gown, back and forth gently across the swell of her breasts, and Nick’s eyes followed the movement and he felt the lust slam through his body in response.
He looked up to see her watching him, a knowing look in her eyes.
“What’s your name?” he asked. His voice was a little rough.
She gave him a small, secretive smile. “Molly.”
Nick laughed. It was a good choice for a place like the Vulture but he doubted it was her real name.
Molly moved a little closer to him. Her slippery satin thigh pressed gently against his leg and once again he felt desire as hard and hot as a punch in the gut. Damnation. He had always considered himself to have iron self-discipline but the only iron thing about him at present was his erection, which was swelling with each provocative slide of Molly’s satin skirts against his thigh.
“And who are you?” she whispered in his ear. Her voice was low, slightly husky. Her breath tickled his cheek.
Nick cleared his throat. “My name’s John.”
She smiled again, that knowing smile. “What are you doing here, John?”
“Looking for company.” Nick took a mouthful of the watery beer and appraised her over the rim of his tankard. “What about you?”
She gave a little shrug of her shoulders. The candlelight gilded the pallor of her bare skin, made it look smooth and tempting. There was a scattering of freckles over her shoulders and a tiny, heart-shaped mole above her collarbone that was already driving Nick almost mad with frustration. He found that he wanted to press his lips to it, to taste her skin. He shifted on the bench.
“I’m looking for someone, too,” she said.
“Someone in particular, or anyone?”
For a second Nick thought he saw some expression flicker in her eyes, too quick to read. Then she smiled. “Someone special, darling. Someone like you.”
Nick leaned toward her. One kiss would do no harm and he wanted it, wanted her, with a hunger that was already hard to control.
She leaned away. “Not so fast,” she said. “There’s a price.”
There always was, with a whore.
Nick raised his brows. “You charge for your kisses?”
“I charge for everything, darling.”
The curve of those red lips was very seductive. Nick ran one finger down the bare skin of her inner arm, tracing the curve. He thought that he felt her tremble just a little and admired her skill. The cleverest whores were the ones who seemed innocent.
“And if I want to take something on account?” he murmured.
Her eyes were veiled behind the mask. “It’s against the rules.” She put her hand on his thigh. “Let me persuade you to open your purse.”
Nick caught her chin in his hand, turning her face up to his. “Let me persuade you to break the rules,” he murmured.
He felt her go very still beneath his touch, like a wild animal freezing in the face of danger. For a moment Nick thought that he could read abject terror in the depths of those dark eyes and he started to draw back. He wanted no part in coercing an unwilling woman and he understood all too well how some of these girls were obliged to play a role that they hated just to earn enough money to survive.
But then Molly put a hand on his nape and pulled his head down so that his lips touched hers. The surprise held Nick still for a moment as he absorbed the sensation, the touch and the feel of her. Again he sensed a hesitation in her before her lips parted a little and softened beneath his. Her tongue tentatively touched the corner of his mouth, then slid across his lower lip in sweet invitation, and he felt a sudden helpless rush of desire, like the first blindingly hot passion of his youth, so strong it made him ache, so unexpected it shocked him. He had never felt anything so raw for any woman, and certainly not for Anna. Fierce need smashed though him and in that instant he forgot his scruples, forgot his memories, forgot even why he was there, and pulled her to him and kissed her deeply until he was panting and she was, too.
When she tore herself from his grip he was so wrapped up in the taste and feel of her that for a moment he was completely disorientated. Then he saw that she had moved a little way away from him along the bench. Her face was averted and she had a hand pressed to her lips. Nick could see she was shaking slightly. The downward curve of her neck looked so vulnerable that he felt a powerful surge of anger and protectiveness and lust inextricably jumbled into one. Her closeness and her apparent defenselessness unleashed a sudden wave of memories of Anna, terrible, tormenting memories so sharp that they cut him to the core. He had not been there to protect his wife when she needed him. He had failed her in so many ways.
He put his head in his hands for a moment to try to clear his mind. He could not think about this now. He should never have touched the girl and sparked the tangle of memory and desire that had captured him.
With deliberate intent he wiped out the memories and, when he straightened up, he saw that Molly’s attention had drifted and she was staring across the room. He followed her gaze toward the door and saw that his cousin, Robert Rashleigh, had come in and was standing preening himself like a displaying peacock. In a white wig, silver cloak, gold breeches and scarlet shoes, he drew all eyes.
The conversation in the tavern fell to a murmur then rose again as men resumed their drink and sport. Nick suddenly became aware that beside him the girl was rigid, upright, vibrating with a strange kind of tension he could not understand. Her attention was riveted on the flaunting figure of the Earl.
“Excuse me,” she murmured, and slipped from the seat beside him. She walked straight across to Rashleigh, put a hand on his arm and indicated to the tavern servant to bring him a drink.
Nick’s eyes narrowed as he watched the interchange between his cousin and the whore. He felt a fool now for his unrestrained response to her. Evidently he had been without a woman for too long to fall into lust so hard and so fast. Molly, in contrast, had forgotten him already for she was at the door, gesturing to Rashleigh to follow her out into the night, no doubt to a set of rooms nearby. There was no sign of reluctance in her now. The appearance of hesitation earlier must have been only for show—or because she had not really thought Nick worth her time. Her apparent vulnerability and defenselessness had been no more than figments of his imagination. Nick’s jaw tightened as he saw her give Rashleigh the same tempting, secretive smile in parting that she had given to him.
He watched as Rashleigh drained his glass of wine in one gulp and ordered a second, which he dispatched the same way, his eyes on the door the whole time. Nick guessed that the girl had asked Rashleigh to give her a few minutes in which to prepare herself before he joined her in her bed. He got to his feet. It was time to spoil his cousin’s party. He started to move toward Rashleigh with deliberate intent.
Rashleigh looked up and their eyes met. For a long moment they looked at one another and then Rashleigh turned away abruptly and hurried out without a word. The tavern door crashed on its hinges as it closed behind him. The candles fluttered in the wind and half of them went out. Men cursed as they knocked their drinks over in the dark. Nick blundered across the room and found his way to the door. He was not going to let Rashleigh get away from him now.
The alleyway outside was pitch-black. The tavern sign was swinging in the rising breeze and creaked overhead. Nick stopped, his eyes adjusting to the darkness. He listened intently but could hear no sound of movement. He could not tell which way Rashleigh had gone but he was determined to find him and confront him with Hawkesbury’s accusations before Rashleigh gave him the slip and tumbled into bed with that willing little harlot.
Then he saw the glimmer of something in the gutter at the end of the lane, where the narrow passageway joined the high road. His breath caught. Turning, he shoved open the door of the tavern and shouted inside, “Bring a light!”
The landlord hurried to do his bidding, a flaring torch in his hand. Nick could see a fold of the silver cloak, all muddied now from the dirt of the gutter, gleaming bright in the torchlight.
The customers were piling out of the alehouse, scenting trouble. Another lantern flared, showing Rashleigh lying on the ground, his face paint smeared, his wig askew. One of his hands lay outstretched as though clutching after something that had eluded him. Nick could see a knife protruding between his ribs. It was buried to the hilt. Beside him lay a blond wig and a black velvet mask.
Images filled Nick’s mind of Anna, lying there in the gutter in his cousin’s place, limp, broken, her life drained away. He saw her blue eyes clouding over in death and felt the familiar tide of sickness and guilt wash through him. With an immense effort of will he forced the images from his mind and looked dispassionately down at his cousin’s tumbled body. Rashleigh looked undignified in death. His face had fallen and crumpled in on itself. He looked weak and dissolute and pitiful. Nick searched his heart and did not feel a scrap of sorrow. The world was a better place without the Earl of Rashleigh.
The breeze stirred the edge of Rashleigh’s silver cloak and stirred, too, the scrap of paper that had been clasped between his fingers. It fluttered free and Nick bent to pick it up. It was a visiting card and on it was printed the flaunting symbol of a peacock in gold. Nick frowned. He had seen that device before. It was similar to the coat of arms of his old school friend Charles, Duke of Cole. He turned it over. On the back was written the words Peacock Oak, the estate in Yorkshire where Charles had his country seat.
Nick saw the inn servant at the front of the crowd, his face thin and terrified in the flickering light. He walked over to him.
“You were standing near to Lord Rashleigh when he was talking to the girl,” he said. “Did you hear anything they said?”
“Are you the law?” the servant demanded.
Nick thought of Lord Hawkesbury and wondered what he would make of this mess. “Near enough,” he said.
The servant shook his head. There was the sweat of fear on his upper lip and he wiped it away with his sleeve. “He asked if there was a place where they could talk and she said to wait a few minutes and then to follow her across the street. That was all.”
Nick held out the card with the golden peacock on it. “Have you ever seen that before?” he demanded.
The inn servant held the card up to the light, peering at it. Then he recoiled, and pushed it back into Nick’s hands. He cast one, fearful glance over his shoulder.
“That’s Glory’s calling card!” He turned an incredulous look on Nick. “Have you not seen it, sir? It’s been in all the presses. Glory leaves her card when she robs her victims!”
A hiss went through the crowd, a strange indrawn breath of fear and excitement, for there was only one Glory and she was the most infamous highwaywoman in the country. Everyone knew her name. No one needed an explanation.
Nick straightened up. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he said softly.
He remembered the touch of the girl’s lips on his. She had kissed like an angel. He felt part shocked, part incredulous, to think her a criminal and a murderer. It seemed impossible. He had thought her honest and even now some instinct, deep and stubborn, told him she could not have killed Rashleigh, though the evidence was right in front of him. The wig, the mask, the knife…And his cousin’s fallen body that reminded him so sharply, so heartbreakingly, of Anna….
He thought about the strange tension he had sensed in the girl when Rashleigh had entered the room. She had recognized the Earl. Perhaps she had even known him. She had told Nick that she was waiting for someone and that someone must have been Rashleigh himself. All her actions that evening must have been calculated. She had lured Rashleigh outside to kill him in cold blood.
“Shall I call the watch, sir?” The landlord was at his shoulder, his face strained and sweating in the half-light. “Powerful bad for business, this sort of thing.” He saw Nick’s face and added hastily, “Terrible tragedy, sir. Friend of yours, was he?”
“No,” Nick said. “Not my friend. But he was my cousin.”
The landlord gave him a curious glance before beckoning the bar servant over with a message for the watch. Nick knew he should go directly to tell Lord Hawkesbury what had happened but he lingered a moment longer, his eyes scanning the dark warren of streets that wound away into the dark. He thought fancifully that the faint, incongruous scent of flowers still seemed to hang in the air. For a second, above the creaking of the inn sign, he thought that he could hear the tap of her heels, see a flying shadow melt into the darkness of the night. He knew he would never find the girl again now.
Word of the murder was rippling through the crowd. People were gathering at the end of the street to peer and point and whisper at the sight of the infamous Earl of Rashleigh dead in the gutter. And beneath the whispers ran the words “It was Glory. Glory was here. She did it, it was her…”
LORD HAWKESBURY was not amused.
When Nick and Dexter Anstruther were ushered into his presence the following morning he was clearly in a very bad mood indeed.
“This is the most godforsaken mess, Falconer,” Hawkesbury barked, leaning back in his chair and steepling his fingers. “Murder and sedition on the streets of London, the whole capital stirred up by the deeds of this vagabond criminal! It’s in all the morning papers. They are treating her like a heroine for ridding the country of scum like Rashleigh. The whole point of you heading Rashleigh off was to prevent this sort of incident. Instead you spend a jolly half hour with Glory in a tavern and then allow her to wander off and stab your cousin!”
“Quite so, my lord,” Nick said, wincing. He reflected that Hawkesbury’s mild complexion was a poor guide to his choleric disposition. “But whilst there was, no doubt, a long list of people who wanted to murder my cousin I do not believe we could have predicted that one of them was apparently a notorious highwaywoman.”
“You couldn’t even recognize a notorious highwaywoman when you saw one,” Hawkesbury grumbled, drawing toward him Nick’s written statement from the previous night. “Thought she was a harlot, I see.” He looked up. “How old are you, Falconer? Two and thirty? You sound as naive as a babe in arms!”
Anstruther shot Nick a sympathetic look. “It’s Glory’s calling card right enough,” he put in, picking up the card that Hawkesbury offered irascibly and turning it over between his fingers. “I read the penny prints. Some of my best sources of information derive from there. And this—” he flicked the card with a finger “—is the sign she always leaves after an attack.”
“She has not struck in London before, though, has she?” Nick said. “I understood her to operate only in the north.”
The deep frown on Hawkesbury’s forehead deepened further. “Thought she was nothing more than a petty felon and rabble-rouser,” he muttered, shredding a quill between his fingers. “Now it seems she’s involved in treason, as well, and your cousin—” he pointed a stubby finger at Nick “—was part of the conspiracy!”
“Glory is a popular heroine, my lord,” Anstruther offered eagerly. “She robs the rich to feed the poor, they say.”
Hawkesbury grunted. “You’ve been reading too many fairy tales, Anstruther! The woman’s a criminal, no more and no less.” He threw the ruined quill down on his desk and leaned forward, glaring fiercely at Nick. “I have no official authority over you, Falconer, but I’d like to suggest that this is what you do. You’ve got some army furlough, haven’t you? Good!” he added, as Nick nodded grimly. “Then you go to Yorkshire and find this Glory person. You’ve some acquaintance with the Duke of Cole, have you not?”
“We were at Eton together,” Nick confirmed.
“Excellent. He is to host a house party at his Yorkshire estate from next month, so I understand. You will be one of the guests. There must be some connection between Cole and this felon since the name of his estate was on her calling card!”
Nick nodded. There were worse ways to spend one’s leave than as the houseguest of the famously lavish Duke and Duchess of Cole, and Lord Hawkesbury’s suggestion was as good as an order.
“Are you suggesting that Charles Cole may be part of a criminal conspiracy, sir?” he inquired.
“Certainly not!” Hawkesbury harrumphed. “Sound man, votes Tory! You can rely on him. No, this female malcontent taunts us, that is all, with peacocks and calling cards and addresses…Pah!” The quill snapped between his fingers. “The sooner you find her the better, Falconer. Find her and send word to me. I’ll make her talk and then I’ll hang her.”
Nick raised his brows. “Surely she will have to have a fair trial, my lord—”
“Optional!” Hawkesbury barked. “I’d rather shoot her. This is a time of war. The country must be freed from such seditious influences, Falconer.” He glared at Anstruther from under his sandy brows. “Popular heroine, indeed. Pah! What a pair you are. It’s your mess, Falconer. You sort it out. Anstruther can go with you. He might be useful if he gets over his infatuation with this…this female Robin Hood!”
“So what do we do, sir?” Anstruther said to Nick as, dismissed from Lord Hawkesbury’s presence, they made their way out into a chilly London morning.
Nick laughed. “You heard the Home Secretary, Anstruther. We travel up to Yorkshire, find Glory and send word to Lord Hawkesbury. He will make her talk and,” Nick said wryly, “then he will hang her.”
Anstruther gave him a look. “You met the woman, sir. What did you think of her?”
Nick thought of the girl from the Hen and Vulture. He had been thinking about her for most of the night, remembering the seduction of her kiss and hating the way that despite all the evidence of her perfidy, his body still burned for her.
He set his jaw. “I think she must be the most cunning charlatan in the kingdom, Anstruther,” he said, “and she has played me for a fool. So now it is my turn. I shall take great pleasure in hunting Glory down.”
CHAPTER ONE
Yorkshire—June 1805
Monkshead—Danger is near
SOMETIMES THE NIGHTMARE would come to her in the depths of the darkness and she would wake cold and shaking, reaching for the comfort of the candle’s light. Other times—this time—it caught her unawares, tricked her in that hour before daybreak when the summer light had already started to creep around the edges of the curtain.
She was going to die. She could not breathe. Her wrists were chafed raw from the rope that tied her to the cart and her legs ached intolerably from the long, stumbling miles. She could hear the rumble of the carriage wheels echoing in her head. Her skirt was ripped to shreds and her thighs were criss-crossed with wheals where Rashleigh had leaned from the carriage and plied his whip, laughing as she staggered in the mud. He had sworn to punish her for being seasick all the way from Russia to England. This was his revenge because he had wanted her—wanted to spend the entire voyage in bed with her, no doubt—and instead of pleasuring him her body had thwarted him with her illness. He had told her that she disgusted him.
It was winter and the road was bad. Her feet were bare and blue with cold, her hands numb, her wrists torn. And there was murder in her heart. If Rashleigh gave her but one chance, if there was one single careless moment when his attention was diverted, then she would kill him. It was as simple as that.
But the moment never came. In her dream there was all the anger and the frustration and the pain almost past enduring but never the satisfaction of release. The darkness stretched before her endlessly with no promise of escape. She was a serf, a slave, nothing more than property. She was trapped forever.
Mari struggled awake. The remnants of the nightmare fled. She was lying in her huge bed in her cottage in Peacock Oak. It was light now and downstairs the servants were already awake and at work. She could hear the muted sound of them moving about. Jane would be bringing up the morning tea for her. Soon she would be knocking at the bedroom door, chattering blithely over the beauty of the day as she drew back the drapes and let the sunshine into the room.
There was the rattle of china outside the door, then Jane’s knock and the same words that she used each day, “Good morning, madam!”
Mari had always thought that Jane had an amazing capacity for cheerfulness. Even on the gloomiest of winter mornings with the snow piled up on the windowsill and the wind blowing spitefully down the chimney she would remark that it would brighten up later. Jane was their housekeeper and ran Peacock Cottage with the help of one maid of all work and a handyman gardener called Frank, a cousin of hers who was a dour Yorkshire man of as few words as Jane had plenty.
“What a beautiful morning, madam!” Jane had placed the tea tray carefully on the bedside table and gone across to open the curtains. “It will be perfect for her grace’s garden party and ball later.”
“I hope so,” Mari said. She sat up and reached for her wrap. Jane poured the tea from the tiny china pot. It was rich and strong, just as Mari liked it. Strong tea was a proper Yorkshire custom, Jane had said proudly, when Mari had expressed her preference, little knowing that Mari’s own tastes had been set years before in Russia, where the black tea had been so strong Mari suspected even Jane would have choked on it.
Beside the cup was a letter and next to that a three-day-old copy of the Times. The news reached Peacock Oak a little later than elsewhere but it scarcely mattered. Rural life rolled on its way in this part of Yorkshire with very little change or challenge from day to day and that was exactly how Mari wished it to be.
“I was worrying last night that there might be a summer storm that would flatten all the flowers,” Mari said now, “and all our work would be ruined.”
“Not a bit of it,” Jane said stoutly. “The garden will look beautiful, madam. So many of those lovely flowers you chose for her grace! Mr. Osborne would be so proud of the way you have kept his work alive.” Her gaze went to the small portrait hanging on the wall at the side of Mari’s bed.
“Ah, yes,” Mari said. She smiled, stretched. “Dear Mr. Osborne.”
She was very fond of the late Mr. Osborne. An older man, graying, avuncular, he had a gentle face and gave the impression of a manner to match. He had been the perfect husband, rich and kind. Mari felt a rush of affection for him. Sometimes even she almost forgot that Mr. Osborne was imaginary, so real had he become in her mind.
She had never told anyone that she was not a widow. A single woman living in a small village needed a respectable background and hers could not have been more scandalous. The imaginary Mr. Osborne had, in contrast, been a most upright man, the younger son of an obscure clergyman from Cornwall, the owner of a small but profitable business importing and growing exotic plants. Mari had found it remarkably pleasing to create the sort of husband she had required. Mr. Osborne, she was sure, had been shrewd in business but mild in his family life. He had been a temperate drinker, the smoker of the odd cigar on special occasions, but had had no other discernible vices. Certainly he had required nothing from her emotionally and even better, would not have wished for a physical relationship. Which was good because she thought that she never, ever wanted a physical relationship with a man again.
For a moment the nightmare threatened to invade her mind once again, and Mari shuddered. Rashleigh…But she would not think of Rashleigh and the horror of the past. That was dead, gone, buried. Rashleigh himself was dead, after all, murdered in a London rookery two months before.
Marina shivered a little to remember the events of that night. She had never discovered how the Earl had tracked her down to Yorkshire seven years after she had escaped him. Foolishly she had even started to believe that she would be free forever, so when his letter had arrived, threatening blackmail, she had been almost sick with shock. She had known at once that she had to confront Rashleigh for the sake of all those he threatened to expose. He knew all her secrets and could have her hanged for them—he knew that she was a runaway slave and a thief, and worst of all, somehow he knew the true identity of Glory and the girls who rode with her, and he was threatening to tell the authorities and have them arrested if Mari did not meet with him.
She had had no choice if she wanted to save those she loved. She had traveled up to London; had arranged to meet Rashleigh at the Hen and Vulture. She had had a private room waiting in a tenement across the street, had told him to wait a few moments before he followed her, but he never came. And then she had heard the cry go up that he had been found stabbed to death in the alley outside.
Mari had not stayed to hear more. She knew that if people once knew her history as Rashleigh’s slave and his mistress, if they found out that the Earl had threatened her with blackmail, she would not stand a chance. All the secrets she had tried so hard to hide would come tumbling out and all the people she cared about would be ruined. She knew she had the best motive in the world for murdering Rashleigh and no one would believe her innocent. So she had run from him for the second time in her life.
Well, Rashleigh was dead now and no one else could trace her. She had reinvented herself years ago; covered her tracks too well to be discovered. She was not even sure how Rashleigh himself had managed to find her again, but now that he was dead the secret had surely gone with him to the grave.
Mr. Osborne had been the opposite of the Earl of Rashleigh in every way. He was gentle, moderate, kind. She had invented the memory of a paragon, the kind of man who would never hurt her or threaten her or give her cause for grief.
“Indeed,” Mari repeated, smiling at the portrait that she had picked up in a pawnshop for two shillings. “Mr. Osborne was a shining example amongst men.”
“Lady Hester is taking breakfast in her room this morning, madam,” Jane said referring to Mari’s companion of the past five years. “She says that she is a little fatigued but will join you for a stroll on the terrace at ten of the clock, before you go to the garden party.”
“That would be delightful,” Mari said, but mentally she was shaking her head slightly. She knew Hester’s ailment and it was not mere tiredness. Lady Hester Berry, the spoiled cousin of the Duke of Cole, was bored, and boredom led her to drinking in alehouses, picking up low company and worse. No doubt this morning she was still half cast away.
Jane was collecting Mari’s cup and tidying the tray. She always enjoyed a gossip in the mornings.
“Frank says that there was another attack last night, madam,” she said. “That gang, the Glory Girls…”
Mari paused, unfolding the newspaper slowly to give herself time. “What did they do?”
“They stopped Mr. Arkwright’s banker on his way back to Harrogate and took Arkwright’s money.”
Mari raised her brows. “All of it?”
“A tenth of the profits, madam.” Jane’s eyes were bright with excitement. “A tenth was the money that Arkwright had promised his loom workers and then refused to pay. They say that the Girls gave it back to those who had been cheated of it. Heroines they are, madam!”
“They are criminals,” Mari pointed out. “They break the law.”
Jane’s face fell. She preferred the romance of robbing the rich to give to the poor, rather than the harsh reality of the penal code.
“Yes, madam,” she said. “Of course.” Her voice warmed with pride. “But begging your pardon, ma’am, I do think that our girls are proper heroines! I know it’s not for you to encourage highway robbery but they only hurts those as mistreat the weak and needy.”
“Quite,” Mari said. “You need not think that I disapprove of the Glory Girls’ principles, Jane. I merely remember that highway robbery is a capital crime.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Jane dropped a respectful curtsy. “Shall I return in a little while to help you dress, ma’am?”
“Thank you, Jane,” Mari said. “I shall read the newspaper for twenty minutes or so and then I will be ready.”
Jane went out and Mari listened to her footfalls receding along the landing. She did not pick up the paper again. Instead she reached for the letter that had lain untouched on a side table until then. Hester always laughed at the way that Mari left letters unopened for hours when she fell upon hers with excitement the minute that they arrived. But then, Hester fell on life with eagerness whereas Mari had always been rather more careful.
She unfolded the letter. There was a single line of writing, printed in capital letters.
I know all about you. I know what you did.
There was no signature.
Mari did not react to the letter in the manner in which nine out of ten people would have done. She did not turn pale or cry out. Instead she narrowed her eyes, tapping the letter against the fingers of her other hand.
I know all about you. I know what you did.
The difficulty was that she had done so many things. She had stolen from the Earl of Rashleigh. She had run away from him. She had lied to create an alternative life for herself. She had been present at the scene of Rashleigh’s murder. She was party to a conspiracy that robbed the rich to give to the poor…
She had no idea to which of these incidents the letter writer was referring.
She dropped the letter onto the bed, slipped from beneath the covers and went across to the window, drawing back the curtain and standing beside the open sash. A slight breeze caressed her face and flattened her nightdress against her body. The wind was warm and smelled of hay and summer. Jane had been right, it was a beautiful day for a garden party and Mari’s friend Laura, Duchess of Cole, certainly knew how to entertain. The event would be the talk of the county for months.
From her window, Mari could see across the lawn to the hothouses where she cultivated her rare and exotic plants. Frank was already hard at work opening the vents in the greenhouse roof and plying his watering can along the row of seedlings. The mellow south wall behind the hothouse separated Mari’s land from the deer park of Cole Court. There was a charming white-painted door in the wall through which she often walked when she went to see Laura. Sheep were grazing beneath the spreading oak trees of the park and beyond the grounds the river curled slow and shallow. Nothing else moved in the landscape. A faint heat haze was already rising from the grass.
The view was peaceful but despite the warmth of the day, Mari wrapped her arms around herself as though seeking comfort. She could feel something malevolent in the air. Someone was watching—and waiting.
The letter had disquieted her. Of course it had. That was only natural. Now she thought about it, she realized that the timing of it could not be a coincidence, coming so soon after Rashleigh’s death. He must have told someone else her whereabouts. The nightmare was not over after all. She should have known better. She should have known that a runaway slave always had to keep on running.
She knew what would happen next. There would be a demand for money in return for silence and she would have to decide what she was going to do about that. Giving in to bullies and blackmailers had never been her style, though she wondered a little wearily when she would ever be free of the past. She could never forget it, of course, but she could try to live with it, to carry the burden of her history, to keep the secret. If only there were not others so intent on reminding her….
She gave herself a little shake. These blue devils were very unlike her. She was anxious at the prospect of the opening of the new garden and the enforced mingling with the Duchess’s guests, of course. She disliked grand social occasions. And then there had been Jane’s mention of the Glory Girls’ activities. But there was no intimation that the authorities were any closer to identifying the group of female desperadoes who occasionally—very occasionally—terrorized the rich and miserly to redress the balance for the poor and needy.
And the letter…Well, she would just have to wait and see what happened there. Hester would help her. They always helped one another. Hester and Laura were the only ones who knew all her secrets.
With a decisive step, Mari crossed the room to ring the bell for Jane to come and help her dress. It was going to be a beautiful day. The new garden would be a raging success, the Duchess’s guests would be suitably appreciative and at the end of it life in Peacock Oak would settle back into the same peaceful routine it had possessed for the last few years. Nevertheless, Mari felt a chill.
Someone was coming. She could sense it. Someone dangerous.
CHAPTER TWO
Wood Sorrel—Secret sweetness
“IT HAS BEEN A HUGE success, I think,” Laura Cole said, later that day. She slipped her arm through Mari’s and together they walked down the slope from the wooded garden, past the cascade with its secret mossy pools, past the fountain fringed by weeping willow and down to the formal gardens at the back of the house. Cole Court glowed pale in the evening sunshine.
“I am so tired,” Laura said. She pulled a face. “And my feet hurt. These gold slippers were such a foolish choice for today! But—” she squeezed Mari’s arm “—thank you, dearest Mari, because the whole thing has been marvelous.”
“I am glad that you have enjoyed it,” Mari said. She glanced at her friend. “If it comes to that, you have worked quite hard yourself, Laura, in entertaining your guests. I do not envy you that. Give me plants anytime.”
“Oh, some of our guests have been dire,” Laura agreed. “So rude! I heard Lady Faye calling you quite the little artisan, Mari. What a poisonous, patronizing toad of a woman she is. And then she was pushing poor Lydia into John Teague’s arms all day when all he wished to do was speak with Hester.” Laura cast a look around. “Where is Hester? Has she gone home already?”
“You know she takes hours to prepare for a ball,” Mari said.
“Dampening her petticoats, I suppose,” Laura said. Her rather plain face broke into a mischievous smile. “Oh, what a cat I am! You know that I love Hester dearly, but the gown that she wore for Lady Norris’s rout last week was barely decent. Can you not speak to her, Mari?”
“No,” Mari said. “I am not her mother.” She laughed. “I have tried, Laura, but you know that Hester goes her own way.”
“I suppose so,” Laura said, sighing. She paused to admire a display of roses growing against the pale red brick of the old walled garden. “Frank tells me that you grew these roses from old cottage garden stock. Are they very ancient?”
“Hundreds of years old,” Mari said.
“They look so pretty with the lavender,” Laura said. “My own little cottage garden!”
Mari smiled inwardly to see the Duchess of Cole playing at owning a cottage garden when the acres of Cole Court were spread all around them. She had originally met Laura at the Skipton Horticultural Society and Laura had quickly been taken with the idea that she wanted Mari to help redesign the gardens at Cole Court. In vain had Mari protested that the Duchess was quite above her touch and helping to redesign such extensive gardens was a challenge for a more experienced horticulturalist. Laura, with all of a Duchess’s disregard for convention, had decided that she wanted both Mari’s designs and Mari’s friendship, and there was no arguing with her. Laura was so likable and so utterly without the snobbery that often came with high estate that Mari found she could not refuse her. And so Laura had persuaded her and they had worked together on the plans for the best part of two years, and now they were firm friends in spite of Mari’s reservations. She knew that letting people close to her was a dangerous business and being the protégée of the Duchess of Cole brought too much attention, attention that she did not crave. She had seen the effect of that today. All society in the county took its cue from the Duchess of Cole and now that Laura Cole had a new garden, everyone else wanted one, too, and they were all clamoring for her designs.
“There is Lady Craven,” Laura said, waving. “She tells me that she will be asking you to design a knot garden and a herb terrace for her at Levens Park.”
Mari nodded dolefully. “Lord Broughton has already approached me, as has Mrs. Napier and Lady Jane Spring.”
“Everyone is talking about you,” Laura said. “They think you are most talented.”
“They are very generous,” Mari said. “I was sure that the Persian Paradise Fountain would not work and that all the fruit trees would be attacked by aphids and die.”
“You are too modest, or perhaps too pessimistic,” Laura said. She looked at her and sighed. “I am sorry, Mari. I forget sometimes that you have no taste for company and had chosen Peacock Oak to live because it was so quiet.”
“Yes,” Mari said. She laughed. “That was before you came back to live here! The lawyer made a particular point of telling me that it was a little backwater of a place where nothing ever happened! I thought it sounded perfect—before you arrived!”
They laughed together. “Well—” a shade of bitterness entered Laura’s voice now “—I suppose I could have gone back to Buckinghamshire, or to Norfolk or Surrey or another of the Cole seats, but I preferred Yorkshire because it was the farthest I could get away from Charles.”
“Oh, Laura!” Mari put a hand on her arm. “Is it truly so bad?”
“Having a hopeless regard for one’s own husband and knowing he does not return your feelings?” Laura nodded. “Yes, it is that bad. And now that Charles has joined me here for the summer it is even worse.”
“I am sorry,” Mari said. “Never having had a husband I cannot understand, but I do sympathize.”
“Hush!” Laura looked around. “Someone will hear you and where will the respectable Mrs. Osborne be then?”
“Back in deep trouble, I imagine,” Mari said. She glanced across at the clock on the stable block tower. Above it, the weathervane with its iron-carved highwayman was unmoving in the still air. Mari shook her head to see it. Laura’s sense of humor took her breath away sometimes.
“I had better let you go and dress,” she said. “You will be unconscionably late for your own ball as it is. I will hunt up Hester and make sure that she is ready, too.”
“You will come, won’t you?” Laura caught her hands. “Just for a little time? Please, Mari—”
Mari had been intending to spend the evening quietly, but now that she saw her friend’s pleading face she relented. “Oh, very well. Just for a little. I suppose it cannot do any harm.”
“So that is your opinion of the fabled hospitality of the Coles,” Laura said, laughing, as she waved a farewell and made her way toward the terrace. “I will see you in a short while.”
The gardens were deserted now. The sun was sinking behind the fells and the blue of twilight was settling beneath the trees of the woodland garden. On impulse, Mari slipped off her shoes and stockings and squeezed the blades of grass between her toes, relishing their cool freshness. Like Laura she was exhausted, for she had been tense all day with the strain of meeting the guests, of discussing her garden designs with them, of playing her part and putting on a show. Now that evening had come and the shadows had fallen she wanted the relief of sloughing off that personality, washing it away along with the heat of the day. The trouble with reinventing herself was that every so often she wanted to shake off respectable Mrs. Osborne and be Mari, the girl who had always had a streak of wildness in her.
She stood by the fountain and looked longingly at the refreshing shower of droplets. Her mouth felt dry just thinking about its cool, quenching pleasure. She looked around. There was nobody there. Temptation beckoned. No one would see her. Retreating into the dark shade of pines that bordered the cascade, she started to strip off her clothes.
IT WAS PAST EIGHT o’clock at night when the mail coach from Skipton to Leyburn stopped at the gates of Cole Court and deposited two parcels, seven letters and Nicholas Falconer.
Nick had spent the day in Skipton, speaking with the various forces of law and order that had so far singularly and spectacularly failed to capture the Glory Girls. He had left behind him a disgruntled Captain of the Yeomanry, two angry justices of the peace and a fuming town constable, who were all most put out that the Home Secretary was suddenly taking an interest in their local affairs. Nick had left Dexter Anstruther to smooth them over and Anstruther would be joining him in the morning when all their baggage had arrived from London. For now, Nick was able to look forward to a reunion with Charles Cole, who was one of his oldest friends, and the promise of the legendary Cole Court hospitality.
He threw a word of thanks to the coachman, shouldered his kit bag and started off up the driveway before the lodge-keeper could protest that he had the gig standing by to convey the Duke’s guest to the house. The coachman looked at the groom and they both cocked a curious eyebrow at the lodge-keeper. Visitors to Peacock Oak were frequent, for the Duke and Duchess of Cole kept open house, and that very day had unveiled their new pleasure gardens to an audience of invited guests. Most visitors, however, did not travel by mail coach, nor carry their own luggage.
“That’s the Quality for you,” the lodge-keeper said, shrugging, as he bent to lift the sack of mail. “Do as they please.”
“Quality? Him?” The groom stared up the driveway after the fast-disappearing figure. “Shabby as you like and no servant?”
But the coachman knew better. “Old soldier,” he said wisely. “Carries his own kit.”
“That’s Major Falconer,” the lodge-keeper boasted. “Heir to a Marquisate. Scottish title, mind, but even so. I heard he was at school with his grace.”
“Well, stone the crows,” the groom said, scratching his head. “You never can tell.”
They sat watching Nick until he passed a turn in the driveway and was swallowed up between the huge oaks of the home park. Then an irritable voice from within the coach asked when they were to resume the journey. The coachman recollected himself and picked up the reins and the lodge-keeper waved a cheery hand and hefted the sack of mail away.
As the sound of the coach died away, silence settled once again over Cole Court and Nick shifted his bag from one shoulder to the other to ease the ache. This was not how he would have chosen to spend his army furlough, despite the pleasure of renewing acquaintance with his old friend, but then Rashleigh had never had any consideration for the needs of others and it was typical that in his death he would cause as much trouble as in life.
Nick had shied away from all social engagements since Anna’s death, preferring instead the rigors of life on campaign. Somehow the physical hardship of army life assuaged the guilty ache in his soul that he had not been there to help Anna when she needed him. But now he had been obliged to put aside his own preferences for a little and rejoin the Ton even if it was only as a cover to hunt down a notorious criminal.
Nick thought about the girl at the tavern frequently, more often than he wished. The memory of her haunted him, superimposing itself on the older, more faded memories of Anna, demanding his attention in a manner that both obsessed him and fed his guilt. He did not seem able to escape her. He had held the girl in his arms and had wanted her. He had desired her more than any woman he had known. He had dreamed about her every night for a week after they had met in the tavern, vivid erotic dreams from which he had woken panting and hard, desperate to assuage the ache in his body. It seemed like a double betrayal of Anna’s memory to want to make love with a woman who must be a harlot and a murderer, and the guilt flayed him alive. For hours he had sat with his miniature of Anna clasped in his hand, trying to force his thoughts back on to his dead wife and away from the woman who had bewitched him. He had turned his back on all women since Anna’s death, yet suddenly he found himself lusting after a girl who was everything that sweet, delicate Anna was not. He had tried to bury the memory and turn his heart to ice again but he could not forget the girl in the tavern. His emotions, once reawakened, were not so easy to turn off again and he hated himself for it. He had fallen slave to lust and he did not seem able to escape it.
Thinking and hoping that it was just a physical need for a woman—any woman—he had sought out one of the most celebrated courtesans in Town. Their encounter had been torrid and intense and entirely devoid of any real emotion on either side. At the end of the night she had kissed him affectionately and invited him to call on her again whenever he chose, and he had left feeling strangely unsatisfied. His body was sated but his mind felt sharp and unfulfilled. He needed to find the woman from the Hen and Vulture again. He wanted her with an ache that was ever more powerful.
As he walked up the driveway toward the lights of Cole Court, Nick’s thoughts turned inevitably once more to the girl in the tavern. Could such a woman really be Glory, the infamous highwaywoman whose band was responsible for the rather quixotic robbing of the rich to give to the poor? Nick was of the opinion that Glory would not have been so notorious were it not for the fact that she was a woman. Her deeds had caught the public imagination like a latter-day Robin Hood. Ballads and poems were written in her honor. She was talked of in the taverns and the clubs, her exploits celebrated in toasts and speeches. She was a popular heroine. And now he was here to track her down so that Lord Hawkesbury could hang her. He would likely end up the least popular man in the country if he carried it through. But leaving aside Lord Hawkesbury’s commission, he had a personal quest to fulfill. Glory, the girl in the tavern, had played him for a fool and he wanted revenge.
Nick went through the gate that separated the parkland from the formal gardens. Dusk was falling now, painting the sky in shades of peach and blue with the trees standing tall and black against its light. There was the scent of pine and cut grass on the air, and Nick could hear the splash of water. Suddenly he felt intolerably dirty from the long journey. Following the sound, he found himself approaching a flat grassy plateau with a round pool and a small summerhouse. Someone had designed a charming sequence of canals and cascades here. In the half-light the water looked deep and mysterious. A fountain at the center showered down a spray of sparkling drops like grains of corn. Nick lowered his bag to the ground, knelt on the grass beneath the tumbling branches of a willow tree, cupped his hands and tipped the cold water over his head, exulting in the cold shock as the liquid ran down his neck and eased the gritty scratching of his skin. He was tempted to strip off his clothes and leap into the pool, but even as he straightened and his hands went to the buttons of his jacket, he saw that he was not alone. Someone else had had the same idea as he.
From the trees on the far side of the pool came a slender figure so insubstantial in the dusk that she looked more like a figment of his imagination than a real woman.
Or like a figment of those wild erotic dreams that had haunted his nights.
As she crossed the grass she let the white shift slip from her body. The rising moon touched her skin with silver. There was a splash as she stepped into the pool, and Nick heard her involuntary gasp as the cold water from the fountain cascaded over her. She stood still beneath its caress, a creature of fantasy in the moonlight, raising her hands high above her head as the water ran down her body in silver rivulets and scattered jewel bright drops over her cloudy dark hair.
Up at the house the orchestra was striking up for the ball and the music drifted across the quiet gardens and hung on the air, faint and tempting. The goddess ran her hands slowly down her naked length, over her breasts, across the planes of her stomach and the curve of her hips, leaving a trail of shimmering water on her skin. There was a smile on her parted lips, at once sensuous and innocent, that had a direct effect on Nick’s groin. He felt his body swelling to what felt like near fatal proportions. His breeches were suddenly intolerably tight, a tourniquet about his most vital parts. It felt like the hottest night of his entire life.
The air seemed full of the scent of honeysuckle. It wound itself around Nick’s senses, sweet and seductive. He knew that he was no gentleman to watch, but then she could be no lady. And he would have had to be approaching death to remain unaroused at the sight of the woman in the water. Her head was tilted back as the fountain splashed down on her face, her eyes were closed, the lashes fanning against her cheek, and every line of her body was pure and silver in the moonlight, with the water droplets rolling over her breasts, beading on her nipples and cascading down to the dark juncture of her thighs.
A peacock called its harsh cry from near at hand and Nick jumped, cracking his head on one of the willow tree’s low branches. The girl in the pool froze. She turned her head toward him and for a second it seemed that her gaze met his, and then she was gone, running from the pool with the water spangling the grass behind her, scooping her chemise up as she went, before her flying figure was swallowed up in the shadows.
Nick released the breath that he had been holding. His whole body felt hot, hard and aroused. Damnation, he needed that dip in the pool even more now. A shower of cold water was exactly what he required to get his wayward body and feverish imagination under control, or he would be presenting himself for the Duchess’s ball in an extremely inappropriate physical condition. The sight of the girl in the fountain had tapped straight into all those dreams he had sought so hard and so unsuccessfully to repress.
He picked up his kit bag. A brisk walk across the garden would have to suffice instead.
By the time that he reached the house, both Nick’s breathing and his errant body were under control again. His imagination, however, was proving more difficult to subdue, presenting him with images of naked goddesses with water cascading over their bodies. He blinked when a liveried footman opened the main door of the house and the glare of candlelight spilled out. What he must look like he had no notion, wild-eyed and with the water still dripping from tendrils of his dark hair. The butler was summoned, took one look at the shabby kit bag at Nick’s feet and seemed about to send him to the tradesmen’s entrance or perhaps dismiss him entirely. Fortunately Charles Cole himself was crossing the hall with one of his guests at the time. He glanced toward the door and his face lit up as he saw his old friend.
“Nick! You’re here at last!”
Nick stepped into the hall as the butler, disdain in every line of his body, sniffed and instructed the hall boy to take Major Falconer’s bag upstairs, and the haughty aging beauty who had been hanging on Charles’s arm looked down her long, aristocratic nose at him.
“Major Falconer?” she queried, with just the faintest hint of emphasis on the prefix as though no one below the rank of General could possibly be a welcome guest at Cole Court.
Nick grinned and sketched a bow. “How do you do, madam? Nicholas Falconer, at your service.”
“Nick was at school with me, Faye,” Charles said. He held out a hand and shook Nick’s warmly, his fair, open face alight with good humor. “Nick, this is my cousin’s wife, Lady Faye Cole.”
“Falconer…” the beauty murmured. Her face cleared. “Oh, the Marquis of Kinloss’s heir! I thought for a moment that Charles had taken to inviting the ranks of the military to Cole Court!”
“I am a major in the army, ma’am,” Nick murmured.
“Well, never mind, never mind.” Lady Faye’s pale blue eyes bulged. “More importantly you are heir to a Marquisate.” Her gaze hardened slightly. “You must meet my daughter, Major Falconer.” She smiled, a cold smile that did not reach her eyes. “I was a child bride, of course, and Lydia is but seventeen and only just out.”
Nick had no desire to meet the schoolroom daughter of a matchmaking mama, but he bowed politely and Lady Faye drifted off, no doubt to hunt up her daughter and present her like a sacrificial lamb to the new arrival.
“I’m sorry about Faye,” Charles Cole murmured, taking Nick’s arm as his cousin’s wife drifted away on a cloud of nose-numbing perfume. “My cousin Henry always was an abject fool when it came to women. You remember Henry? Then you’ll know what I mean. But she could at least have waited until you were through the door before lining you up as a prospective son-in-law.”
“Someone should warn her that I am not good son-in-law material,” Nick said, a little bitterly. His parents-in-law had never reproached him for his treatment of Anna but his remorse was sharper because he knew he was culpable.
Charles sighed. “If you are solvent and have all your own teeth, then you are eligible, old chap.”
Nick gave a groan. “Tell them I’m penniless, for pity’s sake, Charles.”
“I could do that, but then I would be lying. And what about the Marquisate?”
“Put it about that my uncle has disinherited me, or something.” Nick laughed. “I’m sure he would do if he could. He finds me very unsatisfactory—doesn’t approve of his heir working for a living. Speaking of which, I am here to work, Charles, not to be distracted by debutantes.”
“So I understand.” Charles threw a rather theatrical look over his shoulder and Nick realized that he was probably going to make a poor conspirator. “Hawkesbury sent a letter before you. Might have known that Rashleigh would continue to cause trouble from beyond the grave.”
“Naturally. He never had any consideration.”
“Where is Anstruther?” Charles asked, looking around. “Is he not with you? Now he really is ineligible, poor lad. Faye won’t be throwing Lydia in Anstruther’s way, not now that his father has disgraced the family name.”
“Dexter arrives tomorrow,” Nick said. “I left him in Skipton, smoothing over matters with the constable.”
“Of course, of course.” Charles looked furtively excited. “I must say this business has certainly enlivened my summer. Usually I find the country a dead bore. Now Hawkesbury says…” Charles drew closer and whispered loudly, “You are to fill me in on the details and I am to offer you all aid I can in catching the Glory Girls.”
“Right,” Nick said, trying not to laugh.
“But tonight—” Charles turned as the ballroom door opened and several couples spilled out into the cool of the checkered hall “—tonight you are to meet my guests and mingle. Who knows, you may discover something useful.”
Nick nodded. “Of course. I—” He stopped abruptly.
The front door had opened and two late guests, both female, were being ushered into the hall by a deferential footman. One was a beauty of maybe seven or eight and twenty. She could command a room. As imperious in her own way as Faye Cole, the arrogant tilt of her blond head demanded that everyone should look at her and Nick thought that most men would be only too willing to comply. She was dressed in a shockingly low-cut ball gown of scarlet that barely covered her nipples and looked as though it had been dampened for good measure. Very bold, Nick thought, with all the goods in the shop window. He heard Charles sigh.
“That’s another of my cousins, I’m afraid, Lady Hester Berry. The perils of a large family…”
But Nick was not listening. He was looking at the other woman. She was hanging back behind Lady Hester and he could see from the way in which her gloved fingers gripped her evening bag that she was nervous. She looked younger than Lady Hester, a little pale, small but voluptuous, her hair covered by a fashionable turban, her body swathed in an expensively modest gown that nevertheless clung lovingly to every one of her curves.
Nick stared. He had seen those curves recently covered in no more than droplets of water.
She turned her head and met his gaze. He had thought that her eyes were black until the lamplight struck across them and he saw the flecks of green and gold in their depths. The recognition hit him then so hard and so fast that he almost lost his breath. It could not be a coincidence. Surely, surely this was the girl from the Hen and Vulture? She had been wearing a blond wig then, and a mask, but the one thing that she could not disguise was the unusual color of her eyes. He stared at her, admiring the curve of her cheek, the sensuous fullness of her lips—not stained a harlot’s cherry-red tonight but a tempting pale pink—and the vulnerable line of her neck. He was almost certain—as sure as he could be without kissing her—that it was the same woman.
Her gaze widened slightly as it met his and he knew in that moment that she had recognized him, too, though whether as the man she had kissed in the tavern or as the man by the pool—or both—he could not be sure. He watched her and waited coolly for her reaction.
It was not long in coming. She raised her chin and gave him the most perfectly calculated cut-direct that he had ever experienced. She looked through him as though he simply did not exist.
Nick’s lips twisted with appreciation. She was a very cool customer indeed.
But could this oh-so-proper lady truly be the notorious Glory, the harlot from the tavern? She was certainly the naked nymph from the fountain.
And he had the advantage. His sudden appearance must inevitably have shocked her, no matter how well she concealed it. So now was the time to make a move before she had the chance to rally her defenses.
“Who is that?” he murmured, and heard Charles sigh again.
“I told you, old fellow, that is my cousin Hester—”
“No,” Nick said. “The other lady.”
“Oh.” Charles sounded taken aback, as though no one should be able to see another female in the room when Hester was there to dazzle. “That is Mrs. Marina Osborne. She is a neighbor of ours.”
Mrs. Osborne. Nick’s eyes narrowed. She sounded extraordinarily respectable.
“She’s married?” he asked.
“No.” Charles sounded wearily amused, as though Nick was not the first person to ask. “She is a widow—a rich and most devoted widow. They say she buried her heart with her late husband.”
Nick smiled. A rich widow. What a perfect cover for the questionable Mrs. Osborne. She had a husband to lend his name and respectability but, conveniently, not his presence.
“They always say that about apparently virtuous widows,” he said.
“Sometimes it’s true,” Charles said. “You are a cynic, my friend. And you have absolutely no chance whatsoever if you are planning to fix your interest there. She is reputedly as cold as ice.”
Nick thought once again of the tempting beauty of Marina Osborne as the drops of water caressed her naked body.
“We’ll see,” he said. He straightened his shoulders. “Introduce me.”
CHAPTER THREE
Indian Jasmine—Attraction
“THE MOST GORGEOUS MAN in the room is staring at you, Mari,” Lady Hester Berry whispered. “I do believe he intends to make your acquaintance.”
Mari knew. The second she had entered the hall she had been aware of the man standing to Charles Cole’s right. She had been conscious of every gesture he made, every glance in her direction. She had seen him look at Hester, then look at her, and then—extraordinarily—continue to hold her gaze as though no one else in the room existed.
Such a thing had never happened to Mari before. One of the many reasons she loved having Hester as a companion was that Hester was the most perfect camouflage. Mari was accustomed to being looked through, over and around by men who were searching the room for Hester. She welcomed it. That was not to say she had no suitors of her own. There were plenty who admired her fortune if not her person. But she was mainly accustomed to men trying to charm her solely so that she would speak well of them to her friend.
This dark stranger broke every rule. He had looked at Hester and then he had looked at her and he had not looked away again. In that moment Mari had known, instinctively, since she had not seen him clearly, that he had been the man beneath the willow tree in the garden and that he had recognized her as the naked nymph swimming in the fountain.
A second later, as he stepped into the light, she had also known—with a certainty that made her heart drop to her satin slippers—that he had also been the man in the tavern in London the night that Rashleigh had been killed. He was the man that she had picked up whilst she had waited for Rashleigh to come, the man she had kissed.
He looked different, of course. That night he had been dressed somewhat ambiguously. Yet she had sensed as soon as she had seen him that it was a disguise rather than his true persona, for there was something hard, intense and entirely masculine about him that he had not been able to disguise. It was something that, to her shock, had called to all that was feminine in her.
She shivered beneath the folds of her silver shawl and drew it a little closer around her. The kiss had been a mistake. An aberration. Normally she hated kissing. It disgusted her. She seldom even touched another person. Such closeness made her fearful. Which made it even more extraordinary that she had forgotten all her own rules when she had kissed this particular man.
She had spent the months since meeting him trying, unsuccessfully, to forget the kiss, to forget him. When Rashleigh had appointed the Hen and Vulture as their meeting place she had known she could not sweep in wearing her widow’s weeds if she wished to remain inconspicuous. So she had chosen Molly’s fetching disguise but as soon as she had arrived at the club she had realized her peril when a drunken dandy had tried to pick her up. She had looked around the club for another man whom she might use as decoy, as protector, and her gaze had fallen on him. But as their conversation had progressed she had realized she had a tiger by the tail.
There had been something about him that had intrigued her, attracted her. She had never felt like that before in her whole life and it had been heady, like a draught of the strongest wine, tempting her, calling to her wild side. A part of her had been incredulous and disbelieving that after the way Rashleigh had treated her she could ever feel like this, and it lured her into further indiscretion. When he had leaned in to kiss her she had panicked for a moment, afraid that she would feel all the revulsion that she had felt for Rashleigh, her skin crawling, the fear threatening to close her throat. But it had passed in an instant and instead of disgust she had felt a sensation that was sweet and strong, sweeping her past hesitation. She had brought his lips down to hers, led by instinct, wanting to explore the taste and texture of him. The quick rush of desire that had flooded her had taken her by surprise and, when she withdrew from him, she had seen the echo of that passion and that surprise in his eyes, too, and her world had reeled.
He was a dangerous man, a man who could almost make her forget the past. She had thought that she would never see him again, that she could forget what had happened between them. She had been wrong.
And now it seemed he was dangerous for another reason. He had been at the Hen and Vulture the night Rashleigh was murdered and he was here now, and that could be no coincidence.
Mari raised her chin and very deliberately broke the eye contact between them.
“He is not so handsome,” she said now to Hester. “His nose has been broken in the past and has not set straight. And I prefer fair hair to brown.” Even so, there was little to fault in his appearance, and she knew it. He had very straight, dark brows above equally dark watchful eyes, cheekbones and a jawline that looked as hard as rock and a very firm mouth. Mari remembered that mouth with a little shiver of recollection.
“Nonsense,” Hester was saying. “You are too particular. He looks—”
“Tough,” Mari said, with another shiver.
“Yes,” Hester allowed. “Very direct.” She smiled. “He is not for me, I think. But I do believe that he is the most handsome man I have seen in Peacock Oak these two years past.”
“Peacock Oak being well-known as a center of excellence for masculine beauty,” Mari said.
Hester gave her a flashing smile. “I will allow you to be an expert in matters botanical, Mari, but not in matters pertaining to the opposite sex. There, I think, you must bow to my superior knowledge.”
“Your extensive knowledge,” Mari agreed.
Hester gave her a tiny kick with her slippered foot. “Here they come,” she said. “He must have asked Charles for an introduction.”
“Then he cannot take a hint,” Mari said. Her heart had started to beat a little faster now despite her outward calm. “I just cut him dead.”
“Must you do things like that?” Hester asked. “I wish to meet him even if you do not.”
“I fear I have to cut him,” Mari murmured. “He was the one I told you about earlier. The one who was watching me in the fountain.”
Hester clapped a hand to her mouth. “Oh! No wonder he was staring!”
“And,” Mari continued, “I am almost certain that he is also the man I met in London.”
Hester looked at her blankly and she spelled out, “The one at the Hen and Vulture, Hes, the night that Rashleigh was killed.”
All the color fled Hester’s face, leaving her pale beneath her paint. “Damnation,” she breathed. “Can it be a coincidence?”
“I don’t believe in coincidences,” Mari said bleakly.
Hester bit her lip. “Is it too late to run away, do you think?”
“I fear so,” Mari said. She looked thoughtfully at the purposeful figure advancing toward her. “I suspect that if I did,” she said, “he is the sort of man who would run after me. And catch me.”
“Then what are we to do?” Hester whispered. She still looked very pale. “I am hopeless at dissembling—”
“Then don’t try. Leave it to me.”
Charles Cole was bowing before them. Mari dropped a demure curtsy. She had always kept her distance from the Duke who was more, she was sure, than simply the easygoing country squire he pretended to be. Having her own secrets to keep made her more sensitive to the deceptions of others, though she was not sure exactly what Charles Cole’s secret was.
Hester offered her cousin a cheek to kiss. “Good evening, Charles,” she said. Mari could tell that despite her nervousness, she was making strenuous efforts to behave normally and she felt a rush of affection for her friend. Hester had insisted on accompanying her to London on the dreadful journey to confront Rashleigh. She had waited for her at Grillons Hotel. Mari had told her everything that had happened that night, for they always shared all their secrets. But now, for the first time, she was wishing that there were some things she had kept from Hester, too, so that her friend should not feel this terrible pressure to protect her. Mari had looked after herself before when there had been no one else to care for her. She could do it again if she had to. She did not want Hester to suffer for her past.
“Good evening, Hester,” Charles said, making sterling efforts not to look down the front of Hester’s dress where her bosom rather flaunted itself. He bowed more formally to Mari. “Mrs. Osborne.”
“Your grace.” Mari tried not to look at Charles’s companion and failed singularly. She could feel the weight of his glance on her like a physical touch, and when she raised her eyes, there was a look in his that made her heart jolt and delicious shivers run along her skin. His glance on her was hard, appraising. She felt a heat start to burn deep in her stomach and was shocked. She had thought that Rashleigh had taught her all about men, all about their baser instincts and how far they would go to indulge them. When she had run from him, she had run from the desire ever to have an intimate relationship with a man again. She had thought never to want to. Yet this man had overturned those certainties before with just one kiss and now he was doing the same with one look.
She reminded herself sternly that he must be here with a purpose and that she could not afford to drop her guard for a moment. Her attraction to him could only weaken her. It made her vulnerable to him and that she could not permit.
“May I introduce Major Nicholas Falconer,” Charles Cole was saying smoothly. “He is an old friend of mine come to spend the summer in the country. Nick, my cousin Lady Hester Berry and a friend of ours, Mrs. Osborne.”
Nicholas Falconer. He sounded safe enough and he bowed to Mari with scrupulous courtesy. But when he took her hand in his, his touch felt dangerous. It also felt shockingly familiar on the basis of just one kiss.
“How do you do, Major Falconer?” Mari made her voice as colorless as possible.
“I am very well, thank you, Mrs. Osborne,” Nick Falconer said. He took her arm and drew her a little away from Charles and Hester. He did it with supreme confidence and an absolute determination to separate her from their companions. It had happened before Mari had even realized what he was about.
“I beg your pardon, Mrs. Osborne,” Nick Falconer said, “but have we met before?”
Mari met his gaze. It was dark and direct. Suddenly she felt quite cut off from everyone but Nick himself, for his broad shoulders blocked out Hester and Charles and all the other guests. He had drawn a little closer to her as a group of people passed by, chattering and laughing, on their way to the refreshment room. One of his hands was holding her elbow, lightly, but with a touch that made her entire body tingle with awareness. She could smell the scent of him, a combination of summer nights, sandalwood cologne and something more personal and intimate. His clothes were creased and dusty from his journey but that did not detract one whit from his air of authority. Here was a man accustomed to taking what he wanted. She could tell. She doubted that many women would refuse him.
The awareness shivered between them, intense, compulsive. It felt as though he was conscious of every inch of her beneath the gray silk of her evening dress. Mari broke the contact only with difficulty.
“I am sure that we have never met,” she said.
He gave her the same slow smile that she remembered from that night at the tavern. “Would you have remembered me?”
Definitely. I could not forget you….
“I have a good memory,” Mari said coolly, “but you do not feature in it.”
He raised an eyebrow, completely unmoved at her set down. “Strange. You seem very familiar to me.”
Mari gave him a cold smile. “On the contrary, Major Falconer, you are the one who is overfamiliar—and not very original in your approach, either.”
He smiled again. It was devastating. “And yet for all your denials I am certain that I recognize you,” he said, “although you do look very different with your clothes on.”
Mari could feel herself clutching her reticule so tightly that the catch bit into her fingers. So he was going to be that direct. Not many men would be so blunt but she might have known that he would waste no time on courtesies. She knew he was deliberately provoking her, testing her to see what her reaction would be. No respectable woman, after all, would admit to swimming in the nude in a garden fountain. So if she did admit it, it would be tantamount to confessing that she was of easy virtue and then, well, judging by the look in his eyes, it would not be her planting schemes he would be interested in discussing…
Damn it all to hell and back. She admitted to herself that he had her trapped. What was to be done? It could be the ruin of her reputation if he spoke out about what he had seen. On the other hand, her indiscretion in the garden was not as damaging as those other, life-threatening secrets that she absolutely had to keep. She could admit to being the woman in the fountain but never, ever to being the harlot at the Hen and Vulture.
“I know it was you in the fountain,” he said softly, whilst her trapped mind ran back and forth over the possibilities. “You may protest if you wish but I believe I would recognize you anywhere.”
A shiver ran along Mari’s nerves and she drew the silver shawl more tightly around her shoulders. Oh, yes, he recognized her from the gardens but did he know her from the tavern, as well? It felt as though they were already deeply involved in a game of hunter and hunted and any admission she made could be so very dangerous.
Challenge him. See how far he will go, what he will give away….
She had always been a gambler. She had had to be in order to survive. Sometimes to throw down the gauntlet was the only way.
She gave a little shrug. “Very well. I concede that I was the woman you saw in the fountain. I thought I was unobserved. It was…careless of me.”
He flashed her another smile, a disturbingly attractive one. Her toes curled instinctively within her slippers and her heart did another giddy little skip as though she was a schoolroom miss developing a tendre rather than a mature woman of five and twenty.
“I like it that you do not pretend,” he said. His voice was intimately low. “Ninety-nine women out of one hundred would have claimed not to understand me.”
If only he knew. Sometimes she forgot where the pretence began—and where it ended.
She gave him a very straight look. “Of course they would, and who could blame them? A reputation dies all too easily, as you must know, Major Falconer.”
“So why are you different? Why did you admit it?”
Mari met his quizzical dark gaze and felt a little breathless. “I am not different. I do not wish you to be the ruin of my reputation, Major Falconer. But equally, I know that you saw me, so what can I say?” She spread her hands in a gesture of surrender. “I was bathing. You saw me. It would avail me little to pretend otherwise. So I must rely on your behavior as a gentleman and hope you will not speak out.”
It was not the whole story, of course. It would be impossible to tell him the truth, that sometimes the role of the respectable widow grated on her and she felt an impossible desire to be free. She could not tell him that it was this impulse that had led her to strip off her clothes and revel in the fresh coldness of the fountain. That was too intimate a thing to confide to a virtual stranger, a dangerous stranger who already saw far more than she wished.
When he remained silent, watching her face, she raised her brows. “Was that all you wished to say to me, Major Falconer?”
She saw his lips twitch into a smile at her attempted dismissal of him.
“No, it was not all.” He reached forward. His fingers brushed against her neck very lightly and lingered, warm against her skin. “You had better hide that curl if you do not wish anyone else to guess your secret. Your hair is still wet. You must have rushed home and dressed in a great hurry.”
Mari’s hand flew to her neck where the wayward curl of hair nestled against her throat. It felt feathery, soft and damp, drying from the warmth of her body. She pushed it beneath the edge of her turban, her fingers suddenly clumsy. She could feel the color suffuse her face as Nick continued to watch her.
“Hair as black as midnight,” he said. “I remember.”
There was a heat in the pit of Mari’s stomach as she thought of what else he might remember about her. Her whole body felt as though it was on fire. But then the memory of Rashleigh—his violence, his touch—slithered into her mind and turned her blood to shards of ice and this time she could not erase it.
Not all men were cruel like the Earl of Rashleigh had been. She knew that. She knew that some were all that was chivalrous and honorable. But she had no desire to find out for herself which were good and which were not. She could never trust a man; never let him close to her, and this man least of all when he could bring them all down. So she had to put an end to this disturbing attraction now. She had to finish matters before they really began.
“I have to ask you to forget everything that you saw, sir,” she said coldly, “and never speak of this again.” Indignation swept through her and she could not quite stifle it. “Indeed,” she said, “if you had any claim to the title of gentleman, you would not have been watching anyway.”
She saw the laughter lines around his eyes deepen and felt a strange tug of feeling inside. “My dear Mrs. Osborne,” he sounded amused, “you ask too much. I am a man first and a gentleman second.”
“A very long way second!”
He inclined his head as though conceding the point. He took her hand again, drawing her close. His breath tickled her ear. The icy feeling that was wedged beneath Mari’s heart threatened to melt in the heat of his touch.
“You are a widow, Mrs. Osborne,” he said softly, “and as such, I assume, you are familiar with the way a man thinks on such matters as—” his voice dropped further “—physical desire?”
Mari repressed a shiver. Oh, yes, she knew all about the way a man thought about lust. Rashleigh had taught her more degrading things than she ever wanted to remember. She looked down her nose at him.
“The thought processes of a man on such subjects are scarcely complex,” she said coldly.
Nick laughed. “Quite so. Then you may imagine how I felt on seeing you naked and soaking wet with the water cascading over your body and the droplets catching the last of the light—”
Her whole body suffused with blistering heat, Mari wrenched her hand from his. “Major Falconer!”
“Call me Nicholas. Or Nick, if you prefer, since we already know one another so well and are likely to know each other even better.”
“Major Falconer,” Mari repeated, “you are remarkably—indeed, distressingly—obtuse. I have no interest in encouraging your attentions to me. I am a respectable widow.”
“All appearances to the contrary, Mrs. Osborne,” Nick interrupted smoothly.
Mari stared at him. He was right, of course. No woman who displayed herself so wantonly in public could possibly claim the right to modesty. It was the richest irony that she had allowed herself to swim only because she was certain she was alone and now it turned out that the one man in the entire kingdom whom she would wish never to meet again had been the one man standing watching her.
“If you are looking for a lover—” Nick began.
Mari’s temper snapped. “Major Falconer, I am not! I must ask you to desist from speaking of such matters! As for what you saw in the gardens, you will desist from even thinking about it—” She broke off as Nick shook his head.
“Oh, no, Mrs. Osborne. I give you my word that I will tell no one of what I saw, but you cannot ask me to forget.” He smiled. “You cannot erase my memories.”
Mari had an all too vivid picture of what those memories might look like. She took a deep, steadying breath.
“Very well. If I have your promise of silence then I suppose I must be content.”
He bowed mockingly. “Of course. No gentleman could promise less.”
Mari bit her lip. She was not sure if she trusted him to keep silent. It should have felt like a partial victory and yet the spark in those dark eyes suggested that it was anything but.
“Thank you,” she said warily.
He shrugged easily. “Once again, a pleasure. And if you tell me that we have never met before, then I shall, of course, believe you. But…” He hesitated, and Mari’s overtaxed nerves tightened a further notch, “I wonder…Do you ever visit London, Mrs. Osborne?”
It took every last ounce of self-control for Mari not to jump. She met his gaze and saw nothing there but polite inquiry. He had the most perfect face for games of chance, she thought. He was able to hide every emotion behind a wall of impassivity. And yet she thought she knew where this conversation was heading now. Despite her disguise, he must have recognized her from the Hen and Vulture. He must know she had been the one there that night, waiting for Rashleigh.
Why had he come to Peacock Oak? Did he know her true identity? Had he come to accuse her of Rashleigh’s murder?
Mari thought of the consequences of unmasking and the fear took her breath away. She closed her eyes for a second to steady herself, reminding herself that she knew none of this for certain. Even if he suspected her, he could prove nothing.
“I go to London very seldom, Major Falconer.” The evenness of her voice surprised her. “I have no need of the diversions of Town when I am so sincerely attached to the country.”
Nick inclined his head. “Odd. I thought perhaps that we might have met there a few months ago?”
Mari smiled and shook her head. “I have already said not, if you recall, Major Falconer. And I advise you not to push your luck—or your familiarities—too far.”
Their eyes met and held with the clash and challenge of a sword thrust. Then, with inexpressible relief Mari saw the figure of Laura Cole approaching. There was a faintly worried expression on her face, as though she had realized that Mari was in trouble and was coming to the rescue. Mari was so relieved she wanted to hug her.
“I do believe your hostess is coming to welcome you,” she said. “I wish you a pleasant stay at Cole Court, Major Falconer.”
Nick detained her with a hand on her arm. She felt the warmth of his touch through her sleeve as though her skin was bare. “I will see you again, Mrs. Osborne?”
“I doubt it, Major Falconer,” Mari said, and saw his teeth flash white as he smiled.
“You misunderstand me, Mrs. Osborne,” he said. “It was not a question. I will see you again. In fact, I would stake on it.”
“I do not play games,” Mari said. She released herself very deliberately from his touch. “Goodbye, Major Falconer.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Rosemary—Remembrance
NICK LEANED HIS BROAD shoulders against the ballroom doorway and watched Marina Osborne dancing the cotillion. Laura, Duchess of Cole, had welcomed him in the vague, sweet manner that he remembered and then she had drifted off to speak to some of her other guests and Nick thought that he would retire for the night rather than join the festivities. He felt tired and dirty from the journey. He was not dressed for a ball, as Lady Faye Cole had not hesitated to point out when she had passed him in the doorway and had practically sniffed to imply that he smelled rather insalubrious from his travels.
Mari was dancing with Faye’s husband, Charles’s cousin Henry Cole. Nick watched the elegant sway of her gown as she moved through the steps of the dance. When she and Henry came together, he grabbed at her with the overexcited playfulness of a puppy and she withdrew, an ice maiden in silver satin. Nick did not know Henry well for, although he belonged to the junior branch of the Cole family, he was older than Charles by several years and so Nick had never spent much time in his company. Henry had always struck him as a typical country squire, his life a round of hunting and shooting and fishing, gorging himself at table, drinking hard and suffering the gout in consequence. His color was certainly high as he danced with Mari but that, Nick thought, was probably due to a different kind of excitement from that engendered in the field. As he watched, he saw Henry surreptitiously squeeze Mari’s bottom as she passed him, a clumsy but lascivious gesture that made Nick clench his fists in disgust. For a moment Henry bent close to her ear and made some remark that had the color searing Mari’s face. No one else had seen his actions—Nick realized that Henry had made very sure of that. His opinion of Charles’s cousin fell several notches from an already low starting point.
Nick found that he had already taken a couple of steps forward, with every intention of intervening, when he saw Mari dig the spokes of her fan into Henry’s ribs with a force that had him almost doubling up in pain. Henry reeled out of the dance, coughing and spluttering and Mari raised her brows, a look of most perfect concern on her face. Nick relaxed a little and smothered a grin. Henry Cole had got what he deserved and clearly Mari Osborne could take care of herself. Of course she could. She did not need his protection. For a moment he had almost forgotten that she might be a criminal and even a murderer, blinded as always by the complicated mixture of raw desire and deeper need that she seemed to evoke in him.
As a soldier, Nick had honed a fine instinct for danger, when to attack, when to withdraw and bide his time, to trust his gut feeling, to listen to that intuition which other men sometimes derided. It had led him to make judgments and decisions that on more than one occasion seemed to fly in the face of practicality and sense and yet they had proved correct in the long run. His instinct had kept him and his men alive. And now his instinct was telling him that Mari Osborne was Glory, the harlot from the tavern, and he wanted her. Lusting after Mari Osborne, the clever, devious, disreputable widow ran counter to everything that he had always believed in about himself and what he had thought he wanted from a woman. She could not have been more different from Anna. And yet his hunger for her was intense, burning him up.
He shifted, uncomfortable with both his thoughts and the physical effect that they had on him. He had found crossing swords with Mari intensely stimulating. He had admired the coolness with which she had countered his attack and the manner in which she had weighed the odds and decided which matters to concede and where to fight him. She was a clever strategist and he relished the game between them. And since they possessed such a powerful mutual awareness, he would use that attraction to bring her down. He would get close to her. He would seduce the truth from her. And he would not forget for a moment that this was all in the line of duty. In playing the game he would be able to slake his desire for her and then the white-hot passion that seared him would burn itself out.
“She turned you down then,” Charles Cole said in his ear, with a certain satisfaction.
Nick straightened up. “She did. In no uncertain terms.”
Charles laughed. “I did warn you,” he said. “She’s as cold as the driven snow. Always has been.”
Nick raised his brows. “Does she have many disappointed suitors then?”
“Plenty of men are interested in her fortune,” Charles said, “even if she is a little gray mouse of a woman.”
Nick looked at him. Charles was a man, albeit an apparently happily married one. Could he not see how alluring Marina Osborne was if one looked beneath the dowdiness of her attire? But perhaps he could not. Charles skated across the surface of life, seldom seeking deep meaning. He had been like that for as long as Nick had known him. Perhaps he could not see the rich curves and tempting lines of Mari Osborne’s body and perhaps it was a good thing, too, for Nick had a powerful feeling that he would want to take any man who looked covetously on Marina Osborne and pull his neck cloth so tight it choked him.
With a palpable effort he forced himself to relax. His feelings were becoming too involved and it was clouding his judgment. This was precisely what had happened to him at the Hen and Vulture when Mari’s warmth, the touch and the taste of her, had invaded his senses and played havoc with his judgment. She had played him for a fool then. It would not happen again. Now they would play on his terms, not hers.
He watched as Mari made her way off the dance floor and disappeared through the doors that opened on to the terrace. Her gray dress blended in with the pale shadows and she was gone from his sight. With a slight jolt Nick realized that Mari’s deliberately drab appearance was as much a disguise in its way as the blond wig and mask had been at the Hen and Vulture. She was trying to efface herself, perhaps to escape the fortune hunters, perhaps for another reason. Could she be deliberately creating a persona as far from that of Glory, the female hellion, as possible?
“I think,” Charles said suddenly, surprisingly, “that Mrs. Osborne might be shy. She is not at ease in social situations. I have often observed that she would prefer to avoid gatherings such as this.”
Nick reflected cynically that Charles might have made an interesting point—that Mari Osborne avoided company—but attributed it to the wrong reasons. No woman who dressed as a courtesan and picked men up in a tavern like the Hen and Vulture could possibly be shy, but again she might be deliberately playing a role that was the opposite of the highwaywoman heroine, Glory.
“Well, if she is shy, then she is most unlike your cousin,” he said, nodding toward Lady Hester Berry, the vivid center of a group of male admirers further down the room.
“Chalk and cheese,” Charles agreed. “Poor John Teague—” He indicated an older man standing slightly apart from the group and watching with an air of weary amusement. “He never gets a chance. He’s been in love with Hester for years but I think she barely sees him.”
Teague glanced toward them and Charles beckoned him over. “Come on,” he said to Nick. “There’s better refreshment in my study than you’ll find for Laura’s guests. And Teague has lived in this area awhile. You may find he can throw light on your case.”
They repaired to Charles’s study, a room off the hall where Charles had stashed a very fine bottle of brandy against the need to fortify himself to deal with his cousins.
“For,” he said wryly, “Henry and Faye may be family but I fear that I have little in common with them and Faye will try to foist her daughter on any or all of my male guests, like a fishwife pushing her wares.”
“A shame,” John Teague said lazily, accepting a glass of brandy and folding his long length into an armchair, “for Miss Cole is a fetching little chit—” He broke off to see Charles’s quizzical eye upon him. “No, I do not have an interest there myself!” he said hastily. “You know me better than that, Charles.”
Nick had been watching Teague and weighing up how far to take him into his confidence. Charles had introduced the older man as a friend and indicated that he was reliable, but Nick liked to make his own mind up on such things. Certainly Teague, with his shrewd expression and open manner, seemed pleasant enough. But even at Eton, Charles had been quick to trust, and whilst it was an admirable trait to look for the good in everyone, it could be damnably awkward if you found that the man you had thought honorable turned out to be less than sound. So Nick said nothing of Rashleigh’s murder, merely indicating that he had been sent by Lord Hawkesbury to investigate the civil disturbance caused by the Glory Girls. Teague raised his brows and said he was surprised that Hawkesbury should concern himself with such a small domestic matter.
“They are a bunch of petty criminals, highwaymen, no more,” Teague said. “Gossip has it that they are females, but I doubt it very much.”
“Gossip has it that they are gently bred females,” Charles interposed, “and I think there may be some truth in it.”
“Do they ride sidesaddle?” Nick asked.
Charles laughed. “Not they! They ride astride like a pack of huntsmen!”
Teague shot him a look from beneath lowered brows. “There was nothing gently bred or remotely feminine about the felons who held up my coach two weeks ago, old chap,” he said. “The ringleader had the gruffest voice this side of the alehouse and sat his horse like a trooper.”
“What did they stop you for?” Nick asked mildly.
Teague turned his shrewd gray eyes back to him. Nick remembered what Charles had said about Teague being one of Hester Berry’s suitors and remembered that he had almost pitied him to hear it, but now, seeing the keen intelligence behind those eyes, he started to wonder if Hester knew John Teague very well at all. He did not seem the kind to tolerate her flirting with a great deal of equanimity.
“What do you mean, old fellow?” Teague asked.
Playing for time, Nick thought, and wondered why.
“I understand that the Glory Girls always have a reason for what they do,” he explained. “The redistribution of wealth to the poor, for example, if a mill owner is cheating his workers. Or the liberation of the oppressed if farm laborers are forced to work long hours.”
Teague gave a crack of laughter. “If you say so, Falconer. All they wished to liberate in my case was my money.”
Nick pulled a face. “Are you sure it was the Glory Girls?”
Teague shifted and took a mouthful of brandy. “Certain. They boasted of it.”
Nick shrugged and let it pass. It was odd that in Teague’s case there appeared to have been no ulterior motive for the attack when all the other cases he had read about had been prompted by some injustice. But perhaps the gang that had attacked Teague were impostors trading on the Glory Girls’ name and reputation. That happened often enough when one set of thieves wanted to borrow some of the luster of another.
“My favorite,” Charles said, with a reminiscent grin, “was the time they kidnapped Annabel Morehead on the way to her wedding. Her father’s face, when he realized that all his scheming to marry her off for money had been in vain!”
“That was richly deserved,” Teague agreed. “And Miss Morehead was extremely grateful.” He looked thoughtfully at Nick. “You will find plenty who do not look kindly upon your plan to capture the Glories, Falconer. Some people see them as popular heroes—or heroines—hereabouts.”
“I doubt that Arkwright’s banker is one of those,” Nick said. “I must go to Skipton in the week and speak with him about the attack a few nights ago.”
“I doubt he will still be Arkwright’s banker after that fiasco,” Charles said. “Edward Arkwright does not condone incompetence in his employees and losing a tenth of his profits would be a heinous sin in his books.”
“Perhaps he should look to his own business practices, then,” Nick said. “He was the one who cheated his workers out of their money, so I understand.”
Teague cocked an inquiring brow. “You sound surprisingly sympathetic to these felons, Falconer,” he said. “Surely Lord Hawkesbury expects you to fulfill his commission with the full weight of the law?”
“I imagine so,” Nick said. “Don’t mistake me, Teague. I do not condone highway robbery or extortion and I do intend to find these criminals.” He drained his brandy glass. “Charles, have you ever been held up on the road?”
“No,” his host said, sounding, Nick thought, slightly disappointed to admit it. “But I keep a pistol in my carriages so I can wing them if they try and attack!”
Nick laughed. “I see. So, gentlemen, is there anything else that we know about the Glories?”
“No,” Teague said.
“They are reputed to meet at one of the hostelries on the Skipton road,” Charles said, after a moment.
“I recall,” Teague said. “The King’s Head, is it not?”
“Either the King’s or Half Moon House,” Charles agreed.
“I will call there,” Nick said, “and see what I may discover. And if we entertain for a moment the idea that the Glories are a band of gently bred females—”
Teague shifted, clearly uncomfortable. Once again, Nick noted it. And wondered.
“Seems preposterous,” Charles muttered. “Can’t see Laura or Faye or Reverend Butler’s wife leading a band of mounted desperadoes.”
“No,” Nick said. “On the other hand there must be others. Does Mrs. Osborne ride?”
Charles and John Teague exchanged a look. “Occasionally,” Charles said after a moment, “but she is a poor horsewoman.”
“Hester rides like a jockey,” Teague said, “but surely you are not suggesting that Cole’s cousin is a highwaywoman, Falconer? That’s outrageous!”
“I am not suggesting anything at the moment,” Nick said, unruffled. “I am merely asking.”
There was an awkward silence. “I’ve sometimes wondered about Mrs. Osborne,” Charles said suddenly.
“Oh, come now, Charles!” Teague had gone a little red in the face. “Just because she made her money in trade!”
“It isn’t that,” Charles said. He, too, had gone a little red. “I know Laura has taken her up and Hester likes her, but…” He stopped, looking uncomfortable.
“It is true that she is a little reserved,” Teague said gruffly, “but when one gets to know her…” He took a deep breath. “She has been the truest friend to Hester that one could ever ask for, and to Laura, too, if you would only admit it. Laura is lonely here in the country with you up in Town so often—” Teague stopped and cleared his throat as Charles shot him a less than friendly look. “They have a genuine mutual interest in the horticultural society,” he finished, a little lamely.
“I’m glad to hear it,” Charles snapped.
Nick said nothing. There were interesting undercurrents here, he thought. He had not realized that Charles left his wife in the country when he went up to London to take his seat in the Lords. He wondered why they spent so much time apart. And then there was Teague, who evidently was in love with Hester Berry. His defense of Mari Osborne might well spring from his loyalty to Hester. But what of his discomfort when the Glory Girls were mentioned? It could be that Nick was getting too close in his questions and that Teague knew it. Mari Osborne’s apparent lack of skill as a rider, for example, could be as much an elaborate ruse as her dowdy appearance. Whatever the case, it was clear where Teague’s sympathies lay and that made him a man worth watching, as well.
Nick stood up and stretched. “Thank you for your time, gentlemen, and for the brandy, Charles. If you will excuse me, I will seek my bed. It has been a long day.”
As he went out, Charles was offering John Teague another glass but in Nick’s view Teague’s thoughts did not appear to be on the excellence of his host’s cellar. He was gazing into the distance and the expression in his gray eyes was very bleak indeed.
MARI HAD FOUND a dark corner of the terrace where the honeysuckle twined around a pretty little arbor of her own design. She curled up on the cushioned seat, wrapping her arms around her knees, careless of crushing the silk of her gown. It was a warm night with a gentle breeze from the moors that carried with it the smell of gorse and bracken and, rather more agriculturally, sheep.
When she had walked away from Nick Falconer, her first instinct had been to run and hide until she had the chance to gather her thoughts. She knew, however, that for the sake of her charade, she had to appear utterly unconcerned by their encounter. Accordingly she had gone into the ballroom and had accepted the first offer to dance made to her, which had, unfortunately, been from Lord Henry Cole.
Mari detested Lord Henry. A big, bluff hunting man, he hid a vicious nature under an outward show of bonhomie. He reminded her of Rashleigh in too many ways. For some time now Henry had been pressing her to show him what he referred to as “kindnesses” and what Mari knew to be sexual favors, implying that her bed had been cold too long and he was just the man to fill it. When he had squeezed her in such a disgustingly familiar manner during the dance, she had felt horribly sick, his big, sweaty lustful hands reminding her of Rashleigh’s importunities. She knew that his liberties would only get worse. He seemed inordinately excited by her resistance, the kind of man who saw refusal as a challenge that simply has to be overcome by force.
Mari shuddered. To make matters worse, she knew that Nick Falconer had been watching her every move with that dark, implacable gaze of his. She thought that he had probably been the only one to see Lord Henry touch her, for he had started toward them as though he were about to intervene. He had looked positively thunderous. The realization that he had been coming to her aid made Mari feel very strange. She had felt a compound of relief and security and trust that she had never experienced in her life before. She wanted to throw herself into Nick’s arms and simply soak up the strength and protectiveness of him. It was an instantaneous and inexplicable reaction but more importantly, it was extremely dangerous because of course she could not trust Nicholas Falconer. He was the last man on earth she should allow close to her. He could expose the truth about her. She had the horrible thought that perhaps he was the author of the anonymous letter, the fate that was about to catch up with her.
“I know all about you. I know what you did…”
The panic threatened to overwhelm her, tight bands around her chest, the fluttery wings of a thousand butterflies in her stomach beating frantically to break out. She had been troubled by such attacks on and off since she had run away from Rashleigh. They happened whenever the past loomed too close, whenever it seemed that she could not escape. Because sometimes it seemed that she could never get away, never be free.
She dug her nails into the palms of her hands and tried desperately to calm her shaking. Breathe deeply. Distract yourself.
She thought about what she might do now that Nick Falconer was here. She could run away. She could start all over again. She had done it before. But if she did that, Rashleigh would have won again and she would not let that happen. She was too strong to let that happen.
The feeling of panic was passing now, the tightness in her chest easing, her breath coming more easily. She pressed her forehead against her knees and felt the cool silk of her skirts against her hot cheek. Suddenly she felt bone-weary. It had been a very long day.
There was a step on the terrace beside her and a swish of silk and Mari straightened up hastily, pushing her tumbled hair back from her face. Her turban—she hated it anyway, the ridiculous thing—lay discarded on the terrace beside her. She made a grab for it but then realized that the newcomer was only Hester so she relaxed again.
Hester sat on the balustrade beside her and passed her a glass of cold champagne. It felt smooth against Mari’s rough throat.
“Are you all right, Mari?” Hester’s voice was troubled. “What happened? I saw you leave the ballroom.”
“I am very well.” Mari gulped some more champagne. “Lord Henry annoyed me. I hate his importunities.”
“He molested you again.” Hester sounded disgusted. “I am so sorry, Mari. He is a blackguard to do so, especially when he knows you are an unprotected female. What can we do? Shall I get John Teague to call him out, or…I know—Glory can call him out!”
“No,” Mari said, feeling a little better. Hester’s suggestion had almost made her laugh. “I know John would do that for your sake, Hes, and I am sure it could only add to the luster of Glory’s reputation for her to fight a duel, but there is no need. It only upset me because it reminded me of Rashleigh. Most of the time I can shut out such thoughts but sometimes…” She shook her head. “Anyway, I stabbed Lord Henry with my fan and I think I bruised him.”
“Good,” Hester said, with satisfaction. “A pity you did not crack his ribs.” She swung her legs beneath her silken skirts but within a moment the movement had stilled. Her voice changed, became serious. “I have been asking some questions, Mari. About Major Falconer, I mean. He is a widower, heir to a Scottish Marquisate.”
“Lady Faye will be delighted,” Mari said dryly.
“I imagine so. But the rest is not so delightful,” Hester said. “He is Rashleigh’s cousin on his mother’s side, Mari, and when Rashleigh died without issue, he inherited everything that was not entailed.”
Mari almost dropped her champagne glass. Nick Falconer was Rashleigh’s cousin? Suddenly it felt illicit to have been attracted to him, shameful and wrong. Even if he were not cut from the same cloth as Rashleigh, they were related, tied by blood. And if he had inherited all of Rashleigh’s property then he might well have inherited her along with Rashleigh’s other possessions. She had run away but she had never been freed. She had been Rashleigh’s chattel, body and soul. She felt sick.
“Oh,” she whispered. She cleared her throat. “I did not know.” She put her glass down very carefully. “I knew it could be no coincidence that he was here! That must be why he was in the Hen and Vulture that night, Hes. He had gone to meet Rashleigh. Perhaps—” Her anxiety was rising again and she fought hard to control it. “Perhaps Rashleigh told his cousin about me,” she said. She looked at Hester and rubbed a hand across her brow, her head aching intolerably. Suddenly the past pressed frighteningly close. “Do you think that is why he has come here? Does he know I am his property? Does he intend to take up the blackmail where Rashleigh left off?”
Hester slid off the balustrade and came to sit beside her, passing a warm arm comfortingly around her shoulders. “Do not even think it, Mari!” she said sternly. “I am sure it is nothing of the sort. Rashleigh may have threatened to expose your past and reveal your links to the Glory Girls but I am sure he told no one else of his evil plans. That sort of scoundrel always keeps his secrets.”
“I hope that you are right,” Mari said, with a shudder. “It is true that whilst I was with him I never met any other member of his family and he never spoke of them so I imagine he cannot have been close to his cousin. But Major Falconer must know that the Earls of Rashleigh once owned serfs in Russia.”
Hester’s arm tightened. “What if he does know it? That is all in the past.”
“No, it is not,” Mari said, shivering. “You know that legally I was never given my freedom. I am still a serf.”
For one long, terrifying moment the memories crowded in and she was back in the study of the house in St. Petersburg, where she had lived for the first seventeen years of her life. Rashleigh’s father had taken her from her parents when she was a child and had educated her on a whim, instructing her in all the arts that an English lady would learn. He was an eccentric, an academic and a collector, and Mari had come to realize that in an odd sort of way she was part of his collection. He had wanted to see if he could take the child of Russian serfs and transform her into something approaching a lady.
But when his son had inherited her, he had had other ideas of the role of his father’s seventeen-year-old protégée. In her mind’s eye Mari could still see Robert Rashleigh strutting into the house and plundering it whilst his father’s body was not yet cold upstairs. He had lolled back in his father’s chair, appraising her with his insolent gaze.
How piquant of my father to try out such a foolish notion as to educate you and give you ideas above your station, girl! But never mind, all serfs are bred to be no more than bed warmers and soon you can take up your duties on your back.
He had leaned forward and pinned her with his icy-blue gaze.
You see, I have a proposition for you, my dear. An offer you cannot refuse. You and your family are serfs. You belong to me body and soul. So I am offering you a proposal—a rather piquant one, I think you’ll agree. If you give me your body to do with as I wish I will give your family their freedom, their souls, if you like…
She had accepted his proposition.
Of course she had, for how could she have refused, knowing that her family’s very freedom was at stake? She had had no real choice. She was trapped. So she had traded herself, her virginity, her innocence, her very life, for their freedom from slavery. She had become the Earl of Rashleigh’s mistress.
The only remarkable thing about it was that Rashleigh had kept his word, giving money for her sisters’ education, buying her father a small plot of land near Svartorsk and giving him grain and animals enough for him to forge a living from the soil. But then Mari had come to realize that it pleased Robert Rashleigh to be magnanimous sometimes, so that amidst the cruelty and avarice, he occasionally displayed a careless generosity that would surprise her. At first she had taken it as a sign of hope—that there was good in him after all. Later she came to realize that he did it precisely for that reason—to make people think there was hope in order to take a perverse pleasure in proving them utterly wrong. He had freed her family on whim because he wanted to prove he had the power to do so, the power of life and death, the power over freedom or slavery. And then he had set out to exact thorough and devastating payment from her, subjugating her body to his will.
With a shudder she pushed the memory back into the furthest recesses of her mind.
“Don’t think like that, Mari,” Hester said now, recalling her to the present. “You are not a possession. You belong to nobody but yourself. Legally—” she waved a hand around vaguely, with the kind of aristocratic disregard for convention that always made Mari laugh “—there may be some boring argument that someone could make against you, I suppose, but that will never happen.” She paused. “I think it is most likely that if Major Falconer does have a purpose in coming to Peacock Oak, it must be to solve his cousin’s murder.”
There was silence whilst they both thought about it.
“But how did he know to come here?” Mari spread her hands wide. “Unless Rashleigh told him where to find me…”
Hester was shaking her head. “I don’t know, Mari. But I think that until we find out, you must be very, very careful.”
Mari nodded. She felt frighteningly uncertain. From the questions he had asked her that evening she thought that Nick Falconer surely suspected her of Rashleigh’s murder. It could be no coincidence that he had come to Peacock Oak. She already knew he was strong and ruthless in his pursuit of what he wanted, and if his aim were justice, he would hunt her down. She refused to think of the other, even more frightening possibility that Rashleigh had told his cousin everything about her and that Nick was there to take up the blackmail where Rashleigh had left off. She tried not to think that he might have come there to claim her.
Hester was right. She had to be very careful indeed. Say nothing, admit nothing, show no fear….
“He cannot prove a thing,” Hester said now, “least of all that you killed Rashleigh, since you did not.”
“No,” Mari agreed.
“And even if you had,” Hester said, her voice as hard as iron now, “no one could condemn you, Mari. Not if they knew the truth. The man deserved to die horribly a thousand times over for what he did to you.”
There was a silence between them. At the beginning of their friendship, when Hester had suggested that they should share a home, Mari had decided to tell her all about her background. Hester and Laura Cole were the only people she had ever told, the only ones who knew that Mari had reinvented herself as Marina Osborne, respectable widow. Even then she had omitted the worst details of Robert Rashleigh’s vice, not wanting to either relive it or to inflict on her friends the horror of what she had experienced. Mari thought that she would never forget Hester’s appalled reaction and the look of utter shock on her face when she heard the tale. Hester, who had believed herself so outrageous, so worldly wise and cynical, had been shaken to the core by Mari’s disclosures.
She had heard Mari’s tale in silence and then she had squared her shoulders and told her that Robert Rashleigh was a despicable man who deserved to die for what he had done and that Mari must never, ever feel sad or ashamed or lonely ever again. Mari had appreciated her kindness and her generosity of spirit more than Hester could ever know, but even so there were things that she could never tell her friend, things she could never explain about the shackles that were on her mind if not her body. She had been a serf all her life. One of her earliest memories was trying to grasp after what it truly meant to be free. She had asked the old Earl to explain about serfdom but he had just laughed at her for what he called her philosophical interests. And when she was twelve and he had asked her what gift she would like for her birthday, she had asked for her freedom and he had given her instead a mouse made of spun sugar.
The old Earl of Rashleigh had treated her as a toy but it was his son who had made her his plaything, had taken away her self-respect and her innocence and sometimes she despaired that she could ever forget.
She finished the champagne and smiled wryly to think of the little serf from Russia sitting on a Duke’s terrace and drinking his champagne. How far she had climbed. How far she had to fall, if Nick Falconer should suspect her, if he had uncovered that she was his cousin’s runaway mistress, a slave, a thief and a criminal.
“He is a difficult man to deceive,” she said, thinking of Nick.
Hester looked at her sharply. “What do you mean?”
Mari swung her champagne glass thoughtfully between her fingers. “Only that he is clever, Hester, and ruthless and strong. I am so afraid that he will catch me out sooner or later.”
Now Hester looked horrified. “But, Mari, you cannot let him! You must lie to him and keep your nerve. Think of the consequences if you do not! You could bring us all down—”
“I know,” Mari said. She felt immensely weary. This, she thought, was hardly the moment to tell Hester how much Nick Falconer attracted her nor that she had a mad desire to trust him.
“Do not worry, Hester,” she said. “You have always cared for me. I will not let you all down.”
“All you have to do is to carry on as though nothing has happened,” Hester said, calming a little. “Besides, it could all be a hum. Major Falconer was at school with Charles. It might just be a coincidence that brings him here to Peacock Oak and nothing to do with Rashleigh at all.”
“As I said before, I don’t believe in coincidences,” Mari said bleakly. She put the empty glass down gently on the balustrade. “I think I shall retire. Laura will understand that I am tired after the day’s festivities.”
“I will come with you,” Hester said at once. She stood up and brushed down her skirts. “This ball bores me. It is the same old faces. I shall drop you at home and then travel on to Half Moon House.”
Mari’s shoulders slumped. “Oh, Hester!”
The light spilling from the ballroom windows was bright enough to illuminate Hester’s rueful expression.
“I know. You think me wanton.”
“It is not that,” Mari said. She struggled with her feelings for a moment. On the nights when Hester did not come back, she lay in her bed and fretted the night away as though she were Hester’s mother. “I worry about you, out on your own, in bad company. And then there is Lord Teague. If he knew…” She stopped.
Hester snapped her fingers. “John is my friend, nothing more.”
“But he wants to be more,” Mari argued. “He cares about you. He loves you, Hester!”
Hester slipped her hand through Mari’s arm. “Let us not quarrel,” she pleaded. “You are tired and anxious, and I am bored. You know how these events stifle me. So you will go to your bed and I will go—”
“To someone else’s,” Mari said dryly. She sighed as she spoke for there was no changing Hester. She and her husband, Jack Berry, had been as wild as each other, forever encouraging one another to new feats of madness. From things that Hester had said, Mari had understood that she and Jack had quarreled like cat and dog, and yet something had bound them together. In Jack’s case the madness had ended in an early death on the hunting field. In Hester’s, Mari was not sure where it would end.
They went back inside and Hester sent a footman to fetch their cloaks. As they crossed the hall to leave they saw Nick Falconer emerging from Charles Cole’s study. For one infinitely long, loaded moment his eyes met Mari’s and she stared, unable to look away. She thought of her own words and Hester’s response.
He is a difficult man to deceive….
You must lie to him! You could bring us all down….
It was true. If Nick Falconer knew her history, knew everything his cousin Rashleigh had known, then conceivably it might ruin all those whom she cared about the most. For herself, she sometimes felt so tired of the struggle to be free that she did not care. But she could never bring danger to Hester or Laura. They had shown her nothing but kindness and friendship. Even so, looking into Nick Falconer’s dark eyes and wondering what he wanted from her, Mari had a conviction that she could not escape their encounter unscathed.
CHAPTER FIVE
Witch Hazel—A spell is upon me
NICK AWOKE EARLY the morning after the ball and made his way downstairs. Streaks of silver dawn light were fading from the sky. The musicians, their faces drawn with tiredness, were packing up their cases. The servants were starting to scrub, polish and dust the house back into a state of tidiness. Nick knew it would be some time before his fellow guests rose from their beds, so he partook of an early breakfast and set off to walk a path that led up through the beech woods to the fells above.
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Nicola Cornick
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современная зарубежная литература
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: Can innocent young widow Mari Osborne really be a murderess and the notorious leader of the Glory Girls highwaywomen?Wickedly handsome Nick Falconer would stake his life on it! He′s been sent from London to the tranquil English village of Peacock Oak to solve the murder of his cousin Rashleigh and unmask this female Robin Hood. But Nick never expected that Mari would be so intoxicatingly beautiful or so disturbingly luscious.Determined to have her–body, soul and secrets–at any cost, Nick sets out to seduce her with a passion that inflames them both. But Mari holds much deeper, darker truths than Nick could ever imagine. Despite her fierce resistance, she can′t stop her body from yearning for his touch.Can she hide her sinister past from him much longer? Or will trusting the one man she so desperately wants lead her straight to the hangman′s noose?