By Love Unveiled (7 page)

He caught his breath as the sun lit her face and tipped her tresses with antique gold. Lightly he trailed his fingers over one smooth cheek, marveling at the softness of her skin.

She blushed then, so prettily that his pulse leapt. Damn her for being so lovely. There was too much at stake for him to let himself be tempted by a fair face. “It seems you have no need for the physician Milburn after all.”

She stiffened. “You never intended to bring me to him anyway. Your offer was merely intended to unmask me, wasn’t it?”

He shrugged. “Not entirely. But your tale of disfigurement rang false. How else could I prove my suspicions? I assure you, if you’d been telling the truth and accepted my offer, I would have brought you to Milburn.”

After digesting that a moment, she glanced to the door. “Well, sir, now that you’ve satisfied your curiosity, I wish to leave.”

Did she think he’d let her go that easily? She was hiding a great deal more than just her face.

Before he released her, he must know what. “Actually, you’ve merely roused my interest further. You might, for example, tell me why you wear a mask in the first place.”

“I don’t see how that concerns you, my lord,” she said, her palpable apprehension giving him pause.

She seemed poised to flee, but he didn’t intend to let her slip away this time. Not without answers. “Everything concerns me. This is my domain. I don’t like having two strange gypsies roaming it, especially when one hides her face and lies about the reason. It makes me wonder what mischief she is about.”

“I intend no mischief.” She tilted her chin up so that the light fell half across her face. “Isn’t it enough that I saved your life?”

He ignored a quick stab of remorse. He had to learn the reason for her disguise, if only to ensure she wasn’t one of his uncle’s minions come to spy on him. Of course, if she’d worked for his uncle, why would she have cared for his wounds so skillfully?

Yet there could be other, equally sinister reasons for her disguise. After years of dealing with lies and deceit, he knew better than to trust a stranger, no matter how lovely.

“Have you committed some crime?” he probed, his tone deliberately intimidating. “Are you hiding from soldiers or the guard?”

The fear that leapt in her eyes made him wonder if he’d hit upon the truth. Then she stiffened. “No, my lord,” she said, contempt lacing her words. “I’m hiding from noblemen like you who wish to devour women like me.”

Her deft answer surprised him. She wasn’t easily cowed, that was certain. “What makes you think I’ll devour you?”

“Aren’t you holding me here against my will? Haven’t you tricked me into returning to your manor? That’s proof enough that you intend me harm. Because of rogues like you, Aunt Tamara thought it wise to keep my face and form hidden. It was, and still is, my only protection.”

His gaze strayed over her face and then her hair, which tumbled down her back like golden wheat spilling from a sheaf. “I understand why your aunt felt the need to protect you. But why do so by hiding your face?” He chose his words carefully, hoping to provoke her into revealing more. “Wouldn’t it have been better to find you a protector?”

As her eyes widened, he smiled. “I see that you take my meaning. You’re young and beautiful. You could easily find someone other than a nagging aunt to shield you from the world.”

Her gaze turned murderous, giving him pause. She acted as if she were a well-born lady with a reputation to protect.

“Only a thoroughly wretched scoundrel could offer such a solution!”

Wretched wasn’t quite the word for what her loveliness made him feel, would make any man with eyes feel. Which might have been exactly his uncle’s plan. Deliberately, he let his gaze trail over her cloaked form. “Gypsies have sought noble protection for years.”

She drew herself up in affronted dignity. “And that, my lord, is why so many bastards with gypsy blood roam the countryside. Not to mention gypsies with noble blood who’ve been thoroughly ruined because the hope of better things was dangled before their eyes, then snatched away at the last minute!”

“Is that how you consider yourself?” he asked pointedly. “Was the hope of better things dangled before you, then snatched away? You said your father was a nobleman, and judging from your coloring, you’ve spoken the truth. So are you a ‘thoroughly ruined’ gypsy?”

She paled. “I was not speaking of myself.”

“So your father’s ‘protection’ of your mother didn’t ruin you,” he persisted.

“I suppose not.”

“But it has left you, as I pointed out before, with only an aunt and a flimsy disguise to protect you.”

“The two have been enough to deter most men,” she replied uneasily, turning her face away.

He leaned forward until his lips brushed her ear. “Ah, but I stripped away your feeble defenses with little effort, didn’t I?”

She smelled like lavender, which took him by surprise. It was such a ladylike scent.

It provoked him to try to learn more. “Perhaps I should have offered you my protection instead of my gold a few nights ago.”

Her head snapped around and she opened her mouth to retort, but before she could, the door swung open and her aunt marched in.

“I knew it!” Tamara spat as her eyes took in the scene. “I knew it was all an unscrupulous trick!”

Behind her, Will burst in, rubbing his head, which now sported a large lump. Garett scowled at them both, annoyed at having his interesting conversation with Mina cut short.

Will cast him an apologetic glance. “I didn’t expect the wench to crown me with a vase, m’lord!” He tried to pull Tamara from the room, but the gypsy woman resisted.

“Unhand her this instant!” she demanded of Garett, whose fingers still gripped Mina’s arm. “How dare you touch my niece! And after what she did for you, you ungrateful lecher!”

“I merely offered her a reward, woman,” Garett snapped. “She hasn’t had the good sense to take it. Yet.”

That seemed to give Tamara pause. She glanced at her niece’s stony face, then back to the earl’s mocking one. “I can well imagine what sort of ‘reward’ you offered. But my niece is no fool—she’d never let a man’s
fine form and smooth words tempt her. The only reward we’ll take is in gold, for the other kind tarnishes all too quickly.”

“I don’t want his gold, either,” Mina protested as she wrenched her arm free.

Garett studied the young woman. Why was she so adamant in her refusal to take his money? She simply wasn’t what he expected a gypsy girl to be.

Her aunt, however, was clearly willing to meet expectations. “We’ll take the gold,” she stated, ignoring her niece. “She’s earned it well enough.”

“She has indeed.” He motioned to Will to fetch his purse.

Mina refused to meet his gaze, her cheeks pink.

In moments, Will returned. Garett removed a healthy portion of coins and thrust them into Tamara’s hand. Tamara gave him a grim smile as she shoved them into a pouch hung around her waist. When William muttered something about its being too much, Tamara silenced him with a glare.

“Are you finally satisfied, my lord?” Mina asked. “You’ve paid me for my efforts to save your deceitful hide. Now leave me and my aunt alone. We have no use for your kind.”

“Yes, you have your mask for protection, don’t you?” Garett mocked.

“Just leave us be!” Mina repeated before wheeling around and sweeping from the room. Tamara cast both men a contemptuous look, then followed her niece out, slamming the door behind her.

Garett watched them go, eyes narrowing. Mina’s answers hadn’t satisfied him one whit. What were she and her fierce aunt doing in Lydgate? Was the mask really meant just to protect her from unwanted advances, or did she have a more sinister reason?

She speaks of flowers and gardens and chides you for killing. That’s hardly the mark of someone with a sinister character.

True, but something was going on with her and her aunt. The townspeople turned mysteriously silent whenever he asked about her, and in a town like Lydgate, people never kept their opinions to themselves.

“Two fine-looking wenches,” Will muttered as he stared at the closed door. “But their tongues are a mite too sharp for a man’s enjoyment, eh, m’lord?”

“Indeed,” Garett replied absently.

“That Tamara has a strong arm when she’s wielding a vase, but I’ll wager she’s soft as silk when a man’s got her ’neath him.”

Tamara didn’t interest Garett. But Mina . . . Mina had a soft mouth too tempting for words. He’d wager it was softer than silk.

Will threw his master a sly glance. “Do you mean to leave them be like they asked?”

Garett thought of Mina’s evasions, her strange tale of a noble father, and her obvious familiarity with the people of Lydgate, who mysteriously pretended not to know a thing about her.

“Not a chance.”

To the glass your lips incline;

And I shall see by that one kiss

The water turned to wine.

—Robert Herrick,
“To the Water Nymphs Drinking at the Fountain”

D
awn’s light washed the Falkham House garden with sudden fire, making every dew-drenched leaf and twig twinkle magically, but Marianne spared only a moment to note its beauty. Drawing her heavy cloak more tightly about her, she slipped between the shrubs and onto the weed-choked path, her breath forming misty clouds in the cool fall air.

When she found the overgrown stretch of rows, she cast a furtive glance about her, but no one stirred in this secluded part of the estate near the apple trees. This had been Mother’s special medicinal garden. Here Marianne hoped to find what she needed.

She crept forward until she came upon the scarlet berries and deep purple flowers signifying black nightshade. Thank heavens they’d survived the months of
neglect. Nightshade could generally be found in fields and ditches everywhere, but this was no common stock. Father had brought the specially grown variety back from France years before. Nothing else was as effective for halting spasms and healing heart troubles, both of which were common among Lydgate’s elderly.

She withdrew the small spade hidden inside her cloak, then carefully dug up three plants. She’d have to replant them in a less dangerous place now that the earl was in residence.

Packing the roots with soil, she wrapped them in the wet rags she’d brought and slid them carefully into her pouch. She ought to leave now, but where else could she find so many useful medicinal plants? Mr. Tibbett used powders and dried herbs brought from London, and he didn’t always carry what she required anyway. One of the townspeople had given her a little patch of land for her garden, but it would take months for seeds to take root. She was already here. Why not take what she needed while no one was about to bother her?

With her mind made up, she crept through the garden, digging up lady’s mantle and woundwort, lad’s love and moonwort. Fortunately, she’d brought plenty of wet rags and pouches. Some of the plants wouldn’t survive, but enough would to make the beginnings of a respectable garden.

As she worked, she couldn’t help thinking of the earl who slept so close by. What kind of man was he? Ever since she’d met him, she’d kept her eyes and ears open, hoping to find proof of his role in her father’s arrest.
Whenever she met his servants in Lydgate, she questioned them discreetly, but they seemed to know little, having been newly hired. His men, whom she occasionally treated for minor injuries, were loyal to a fault, praising him for his just manner and prowess in battle.

He’d killed men in those battles, of course, but he’d been a soldier, so that proved naught. Was he a villain who would betray an innocent man simply to steal his property? Heaven take her, but she wanted to know very badly. Because if he hadn’t had Father arrested, her attraction to him wouldn’t bother her so much.

She snorted. Attraction! She was not attracted to the scoundrel. What absurdity. She wanted nothing to do with him.

So why did she thrill to the thought of how he’d looked at her in his room? Why did she shiver when she thought of his touching her cheek so delicately? And not a shiver of fear, either. That was the worst of it. More like fascination.

Attraction.

A groan escaped her. Very well, so she
was
attracted to the rogue. A little. A very little. And only because she’d had so few dealings with men.

Though her family had used to attend the occasional ball or dinner, a mere baronet with a supposed Spanish wife could never be the toast of high society. Her family had socialized little with people of rank outside of a few close friends.

Instead Father had found friends among men of science, whose mutual interest in medicine had made them
oblivious to his private situation. So Marianne had grown up surrounded by men so engrossed in the fever of learning that they’d barely noticed her. Even as she’d grown older, she’d been treated by her father’s friends more as a young sister than as a possible conquest.

Indeed, her mother had worried about her daughter’s prospects, but Marianne hadn’t cared that she might find herself husbandless. She’d always wanted to follow in her parents’ footsteps; she hadn’t needed a husband for that.

And after Mother had died, there had been little time for dinners and balls. Marianne had had her hands full taking care of Father’s household. Once in a while one of Father’s pupils had noticed her; one had even stolen a kiss. But she’d taken none of them seriously.

Now, after years of being regarded as a mind without a body, she didn’t know quite how to deal with a man who seemed to see her as a body without a mind.

No, that wasn’t quite it, either, for he hadn’t disparaged her wit.

But he’d stared at her with such . . . hunger. Yes, that was it—like a starved man admitted to a feast for the first time in months. Coping with that look was difficult. So was resisting it.

“Stand up very slowly if you wish to live another day,” a deep voice said behind her.

Her hands froze as she recognized the rumbling timbre of that voice. It was as if her very thoughts had conjured him up.

Something sharp prodded her ribs, making her
stiffen. For heaven’s sake, the man was actually holding a sword to her back!