The Black Mask (22 page)

“Listen, Sir Niles, I know you’ve never so much as looked at my sister ...”

‘You’re quite wrong.”

“What? Now, see here, if you’ve been playing fast and loose with Rose, you’ll have to take the consequences.”

“I’m entirely prepared to do so, Rupert, but there are a few other matters I must deal with first.”

“I beg your pardon,” Rose said in a voice so clear and icy that it instantly chilled the virility-fueled confrontation in the library. Wapton and Rupert looked in her direction, pausing as if frozen in their positions. The only sound was Rupert’s glass hitting the floor, dropped from nerveless fingers.

Niles turned his head much more slowly, his eyes closed, delaying the inevitable moment when he’d witness the wreck of his hopes. When he did finally look at Rose, she was no wrathful maiden, but stood there in the shadows smiling at him with such warmth and tenderness as to make his rage dissolve like a pinch of salt in the sea.

She crossed the room to his side, taking his bruised hand tenderly in hers, bringing it to rest against her bosom. “You are quite wrong, Colonel. Niles isn’t the Black Mask. He couldn’t be. He’s been right here with me the entire evening. As for his hair being a trifle damp, I have cause to know he took a bath a little while ago.”

Niles, appalled, tried to tug his hand free, though an instant ago he’d been more than pleased with its location.

“How do you know that?” Wapton demanded.

She lowered her eyelids demurely. Was it a trick of the firelight or was she actually blushing? “Really, Colonel...” she said softly.

“Rose!” Rupert cried.

“I’m sorry, Rupert. I know how this must look.”

“It looks as though you’ve lost your mind,” her brother said in anguish. “Wapton’s right. This is all my fault. Sir Niles, you must marry her at once.”

Niles started to speak, but Rose gripped his hand so tightly, her nails left marks. “No,” Rose said in all seriousness. “I make my own decisions,”

Rupert looked as if he didn’t know whether to hit Niles or break down and cry. “What will Father say? And poor Aunt Paige? How could you betray her trust like this?”

“Why don’t you go tell her?” Rose suggested.

“I will. I’ll tell her I have a sister who is entirely dead to shame!” He marched toward the library doors, only to wheel sharply before he reached them. Rose, who had sighed with relief at his departure, tensed again. “Where is she dining tonight?”

“With the
Gardners.”

“Middle of St. James Square?” At her nod, he marched off again.

Niles felt Rose’s body sag against his as she watched her brother leave the room. She let go of his hand but he turned it in his own and brought it to his lips. “He was in no danger, Rose,” he murmured. “Wapton wants to kill me, not Rupert.”

“He’ll never do it,” she answered back, brightly. “But I want to see you mill him down.”

Wapton sneered. “That runt? I was division boxing champion three years running.”

“I’ve already hit you once,” Niles said, untying his sash.

“That was luck.”

“I’ve always had lucky hands,” Niles said, handing his dressing gown to Rose, along with the scarf he wore about his neck. Under it, he had on scuffed boots and black breeches.

Though it was piling scandal on scandal, Rose watched him dance out, his fists ready. His body, though slender, had muscles that gleamed like oiled stones under his smooth skin. As he turned his shoulder to Wapton, presenting less of a target, she saw a line of dark hair ran down the center of his chest into the waist of his breeches over a ridged belly. His body had the condition of a marble Greek god.

Wapton huffed as he struggled out of his damp coat. “We’ll see if she’ll still want you when your pretty face is battered and your nose is spread over half your face.” He ripped off his military-style stock and yanked his shirt out of his waistband. He started to take it off but glanced at Rose, who was gazing with admiration at Niles’s lean form. He left his shirt on, but sucked in his stomach.

He danced out as well, shaking his arms and shoulders to loosen them. “I’m going to destroy you,” he said levelly.

“Enough talking.” Niles’s eyes gleamed with satisfaction and a kind of unholy joy. Rose’s faith in him didn’t waver but she did close her eyes as Wapton swung his left.

She’d sometimes gone to the butcher’s at home. The sound she heard reminded her of when the butcher cut off a chop with one heavy stroke of the cleaver.

She opened her eyes to see Wapton staggering back, doubled over. Miles followed him, his boots tapping rapidly over the floor. Then he slipped in a small puddle of brandy from Rupert’s dropped glass. The crystal rolled ringingly across the floor.

Hope blazing in his eyes, Wapton came forward, his hands held low, his teeth showing. Rose suddenly knew what a man who meant to kill looked like. She wanted to scream, but pressed her fist hard against her lips, stifling any distracting sound.

Niles twisted like a fish leaping out of the water and saved himself from falling. Shadows moved across their bodies as they weaved in and out of candlelight and firelight, teasing eyes and intellect. Wapton threw out his right but somehow Niles was no longer in the same place to be hit.

Three blows later—two to the belly, one to the jaw—Wapton went over like a felled oak. His eyelids fluttered and his feet and arms still moved restlessly, but for the rest, he had lost all consciousness.

Niles shook his right hand as if moving it very fast would keep the pain from finding him. Judging by his grimace, he didn’t succeed.

Rose flew across the room to him. “Niles. Are you hurt?”

“It feels good,” he said, smiling at her. “It feels right.”

The warmth and tenderness he showed brought unaccountable tears into her eyes. “I was so afraid.”

“You? I’ve never seen you show fear.”

“You weren’t looking at me. And it’s a good thing, as it turns out.”

Niles laid his bruised right hand along her cheek. Rose nestled her face against his palm, her eyes closing in delight. “What are you going to do with the colonel?” she asked.

“What colonel?” Niles tilted her face up, eager to claim openly what he’d only stolen before. Yet no sooner had he dipped his head down to taste her lips than Rose gently moved his hand away and stepped back. “Rose?” Niles said, disappointed.

“I have something to show you first,” she said. “What did I ...” She hurried over to the “secret” panel, really no more than an easy access way to the butler’s pantry. She snatched up something dark from the floor. Turning her back, she put her hand to her face. When she spun around, her eyes were shaded by the mask that covered her from cheek to brow.

“I’m afraid your man gave the show away,” she said. “You see, I know the colonel was right about you.
You
are the Black Mask.”

“Yes. I am.” He moved around the table to reach for his shirt.

“Why this game, Niles? I think I have a right to know, and not only because you decoyed me out of my room tonight so you could steal the colonel’s papers.” She laughed a little. “And I thought I was being so clever, enticing you to come to me by using the Malikzadi.”

“Oh, that reminds me.” He reached into his dressing gown’s pocket and put the world’s ugliest ruby ring into the center of his desk. It clashed horribly with the greenish color of his desk blotter.

“You did steal it? Why?”

“So you would think I only took the satchel as an afterthought.” He took up the ring, held it in his hand a moment, then placed it again on the desk.

Rose came a little closer. “That’s not my ring.”

“No. I had that one made a few weeks ago. It’s not fit for a queen, but perhaps a bride?” Rose could never have imagined that the arrogant Sir Niles, who had just decommissioned a man twice his size, could look so humble and nervous.

She reached out and took up the ring. Like the Malikzadi, the center stone was a ruby. This one, however, flashed with a passionate red flame, surrounded by brilliants. She slipped it onto the third ringer of her left hand. “It fits.”

Taking off the mask, she put it in the spot the ring had been. “I don’t know yet if I can do what you ask me, Niles. I have guessed some of what you were doing, but not everything. Tell me everything.”

“It seems my mask was wearing thin.”

“A trifle.” Searching his expression for a clue to his feelings was unprofitable. “I don’t understand why...”

“Why the meticulous Sir Niles Alardyce would do so quixotic a thing as-become a thief by night?” He sat down on a deeply buttoned leather sofa a few feet away from where Colonel Wapton slumbered with noisy breaths. Rose came over to sit beside him. Though it was forward of her, she look his hand and held it comfortingly between her own, the ruby ring on top.

“You remember my telling you about Christian?”

“Your cousin.”

“Yes. How we both entered the army?”

“That’s right. He died?”

“Yes, but not honorably on the field. He died in prison, clapped up for the crime of selling guns to the enemy.”

“He was innocent!”

Niles smiled at her, but there was pain behind his eyes. He sighed. “No. He wasn’t. He definitely had a hand in the crime. But even the authorities couldn’t swallow the idea that Christian had planned and executed the series of misdirection, inventory swapping, and painstaking deliveries that took place, despite the fact someone had very carefully falsified documents to show he was the principal criminal.”

“Wapton, Beringer, and Curtman?” Rose looked with loathing at the snoring man at her feet.

“Exactly. Christian’s commanding officer believed it, too, but there was no evidence. That’s why Christian wasn’t hanged outright but put in prison.”

“How did he die?”

“Typhoid broke out. Bad air and appalling conditions will let that happen. Christian worked as a nurse in the prison, caught it himself, and died. They buried him with the other prisoners instead of letting me bring him home.” He stared into the fire as if seeing evil visions in the flames.

“I swore I’d ferret out the other three and expose them. I didn’t realize what else they’d been doing in the years since then. Wapton changed regiments but stayed in the service, rising in rank year by year. Beringer and Curtman left the service with several thousand pounds waiting for them in England, but they couldn’t rest like honest men. Mr. Crenshaw helped me track them down through the ports, the banks, and his own band of cronies down at the Inns of Court.”

Thinking of the ruminative attorney, Rose could smile; despite her tears. “I suppose your part was to search various houses of ill-repute, thus gaining a renewed reputation as a rake. Did you find out very much about these men that way?”

“If I say ‘yes,’ will you believe me?”

Rose couldn’t withstand such a searching glance and looked away.

“You know,” he said, the tension slipping from him, “you have a charming little dimple in your left cheek that I see only when you are trying not to smile. I always want to kiss you then.”

Rose hid that information in her heart to examine later. “But why all this mummery of the Black Mask? Why couldn’t you just expose them for what they had already done?”

“There was still no evidence I could take to a judge. I had to find it. But how could I search their houses or offices?” He laughed a little, reminiscently. “I remember how horrified Crenshaw was when I first put forward the suggestion that I turn thief. He was so certain I’d be shot or run through by some enterprising householder.”

“What confused me most was that you are so good at housebreaking. That trick with the window at my aunt’s home, how did you think of that? There are no books, surely, that tell you how to rob people.”

“No books needed when you have a Baxter.”

“A Baxter? Your man?”

“A reformed thief, if you please. Known until an unfortunate choice of victim as Beau Blade for his fancy waistcoats, charm of speech, and swordplay. I almost wish Wapton there had gone for a sword. It was a shame to waste Baxter’s training.”

“Who was his last victim?” Rose asked though she felt she already knew.

“I found him rifling my box of pretties early one afternoon when I returned unexpectedly. Finding his talents to be precisely what I required, I dismissed my former man and learned all I could from Baxter while teaching him the finer points of valeting. I promised him once the three were dealt with, I’d write him a sterling recommendation for his next employer. He’s fallen in love with respectability, poor man.”

“And you, I suppose, have fallen in love with reckless danger.”

“No, my dear. With you.” His arm slipped down from the back of the sofa to pull her tightly against him. “I’ve been going slowly mad for weeks, torn between what I had to finish and what I so longed to begin. Tell me the truth, Rose. I’ve mistreated you, I know. Can you forgive me?”

“Mistreated? When have you ever mistreated me?”

“At Mrs. Yarborough’s party.”

“I knew that was you! It’s nice to know I’m not a complete fool.”

“Is that all you have to say to me?” He settled her a little more closely against his body. Tilting up her face, he kissed her with restraint. When she sighed against his mouth and let go of his hand to touch his neck, he tore away and laid his cheek against hers. “You are the fulfillment of every wish, Rose. I never dreamed I’d find such a wonder.”

“Let’s finish what we owe to Christian,” Rose said, as Wapton groaned and stirred, “before we think about ourselves.”

Wapton rolled over onto his side and pushed up onto his elbow. He ran his fingers into his hairline, blinking as if his eyes didn’t want to focus correctly. “Christian? Who’s talking about that fool?”

“Fool, was he?” Niles was on his feet, standing over his enemy.

“Yes.” His tongue moved around his mouth, causing strange bulges and rolling movements. His voice sounded thick. “My teeth feel loose. What did you hit me with, a brick?”

“No, just my fist. I’m willing to do it again, too.”

Tasting the blood on his lip, Wapton dabbed at it with the side of his fist. “I know your kind, Alardyce; you won’t hit me again. I’m beaten and I know it.” He rolled a little more, propping himself up on both elbows, his long legs stretched out before him. He moved his jaw around experimentally. “No one’s ever put me down before,” he said mildly, his voice recovering. “I’d like to know how you did it.”