Unmasked

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.