Unmasked (15 page)

Nick bent his head and his lips grazed her neck. She drew back a little in surprise, trying to mask the sharp delight that had swept through her at his touch. Their bodies swayed and his thigh brushed the material of her gown, momentarily hard against her softness.

“I hear this dance is the fashion in the country,” he said, and she saw the corner of his mouth lift in a smile.

“It is like no dance I’ve ever known before,” Mari commented dryly.

He pressed his cheek fleetingly against her hair. “I know. I do not think there is a man here who is complaining, though.”

The music rippled and swelled around them and the dancers linked hands and spun and swayed together, and once again the music caught Mari up and swept her away. She was conscious of nothing but Nick. He filled her whole awareness.

When the music finally stopped, there was a burst of appreciative applause from the dancers and Mari blinked as though released from a dream. Nick let her go gently and with reluctance. They were standing in a shadowy corner of the barn and he was smiling down at her. Something shifted inside her, a tug of feeling deep within. She felt shaken by the force of it. She knew that her smile had faltered and as he saw it, his own expression changed and focused, his eyes darkening, their expression masculine and primal.

“Mari—” he said, and her pulse raced to hear him say her name.

He cupped her face in his hands, his thumb brushing the fullness of her lower lip. “I believe I had something to prove,” he said softly.

Mari shivered. “You should not have taken it as a challenge,” she whispered.

“Maybe not. But I did.”

His lips were about an inch from hers. He leaned closer.

“My turn, I think, eh, Falconer?” Lord Henry Cole’s jovial tones broke the moment and they moved apart so hastily that Mari almost tripped. Lord Henry put a hand on her arm and she tensed, still shaken from that moment with Nick. She had almost kissed him again. She had almost let her defenses down. How could she have been so foolish, so careless, after resolving to keep him at arm’s length?

“Thank you, my lord,” she said, turning to Lord Henry, “but I think I will sit out the rest of the dance.”

Lord Henry turned a nasty shade of red. “No need to spoilsport, m’dear. One little jig won’t hurt.”

“No, truly, I—”

Lord Henry’s grip tightened on her. “Come along, m’dear. Tally ho!”

Mari’s skin pricked, the icy shards of revulsion chilling her blood at the latent violence she felt in him. She broke away from him. “My lord, I do believe you are not listening to me,” she said. “I have no desire to dance with you. I ask that you leave me alone.”

“You heard Mrs. Osborne, Cole,” Nick said. His tone was pleasant on the surface but there was something ugly beneath. He had taken a step forward and she could feel him standing at her shoulder. “Don’t make me reinforce her wishes,” he added gently.

Mari watched as Lord Henry backed away, stammering his apologies. For a moment there had been an expression of the most primitive possession in Nick’s eyes and it had shocked her to the core, but when he turned back to her he had banked it down and sketched a bow with careless courtesy. “If I can be of further service, Mrs. Osborne—”

“Much as I appreciate your support, Major Falconer,” Mari said, her temper flaring, “I can take care of myself.”

“That has been apparent all along, Mrs. Osborne,” Nick said. He was smiling slightly. “A pity you did not have your fan in order to deliver another sharp stab in the ribs, as you did at the ball.”

Mari could feel herself blushing. “You saw that? I thought you had.”

“I did. And applauded the neatness of your maneuver.” His dark eyes swept her face. “Fortunate for Lord Henry, perhaps, that you did not have a knife to hand.”

The words dropped into frozen silence. Mari felt stricken. For the duration of the dance she had forgotten that Nick suspected her of Rashleigh’s death. She had given herself up to the pure pleasure of the music and the night and his company. She had been swept by a raw, demanding passion for him and now she felt a fool to have been so misled, for clearly he had not forgotten for one moment. It was as she had suspected—his pursuit of her was no more than a means to an end, a means to seduce her into revealing the truth.

“If you think me so ruthless, Major Falconer, it surprises me that you risk dancing with me yourself,” she said coldly. “But then, I suspect you are a man who likes to gamble with danger.”

His fingers closed around her wrist and he held her still. “You are correct,” he said, his voice so low only she could hear. “I do. Or rather, I like to gamble with you, Mrs. Osborne. It is very…stimulating.”

She looked up into his eyes. The expression there was hot and hard and shockingly arousing. Mari’s breath caught.

“And I will win,” Nick added, his fingers tightening. “Make no mistake.”

For a long moment they stared at one another and then Mari shook him off. “You can gamble all you wish,” she said, “but you cannot beat me, Major Falconer.” She dropped him the slightest of curtsies and walked away. And though she was shaking, she did not falter and she did not look back once.

N
ICK WAS FURIOUS
with himself. Not once, but twice in one evening, he had forgotten his purpose and allowed Mari Osborne to get beneath his guard. When he had seen her he had been poleaxed by her demure appearance, just as he had that day by the river. She had looked almost like a young girl rather than a widow, worldly or otherwise. And later, when Henry Cole had blundered upon them in his callow way he had been taken by a possessive fury so potent that he would happily have hit the other man across the barn. That was not the calculated action of a man who was in control of his feelings.

He reached for a flagon of cider and drank deep, tasting the bite of the apple and the rougher flavor of the alcohol behind. It was inexcusable in him to neglect his duty and even more disloyal to forget Anna—for he
had
forgotten her for the entire time that he had been dancing with Mari—and lose himself in the moment. He felt confused and ashamed, as Anna’s memory seemed to slip from his mind even as he grasped after it. He had never felt remotely possessive of her in the way that he wanted Mari.

He watched Mari as she sat chatting with Laura Cole, the two of them perched on a bale of hay now like country girls at a fair. Lord Henry had found a buxom lass from the village to dance with who was a great deal more forthcoming than Mari had been, and the two of them were kissing one another with great abandon in a dark corner of the barn. Hester and John Teague were still locked in each other’s arms, dancing in a dreamy fashion that bore no relation to the music at all.

As the dance wore on Nick drank more of the cider and noted that it had a kick like a mule. Hester and John Teague had finally torn themselves from each other and Teague had asked Mari to dance, which she did gracefully and with none of the abandon that Hester had shown. Hester was, indeed, drinking almost as much cider as the village stalwarts and her hair had come loose from its ribbon and her face was flushed red. She looked completely cast away.

No doubt Laura had seen the same signs that he had for a moment later she had signaled that she was ready to leave. Teague supported Hester out to the carriages and Laura caught Mari’s arm and beckoned to Nick to come across. It seemed to him that Mari was anxious to avoid his company, which was, he supposed, no great surprise after the exchange between them earlier. She was tapping her foot impatiently on the ground and looked as though she would have walked away rather than be civil to him had Laura not been there.

“I am persuaded that you will not mind traveling back with Major Falconer, Mari,” Laura said, smiling ingratiatingly at them both. “Hester and Lord Teague have taken the first carriage and I must speak with Mrs. Butler about the arrangements for the harvest festival, so I am sure that they will convey me home whilst we talk. Which leaves—”

“The two of us,” Nick said, favoring Mari with a mocking bow. “Delighted, Mrs. Osborne.”

He saw Mari flash him a less-than-friendly look that warned him to decline Laura’s offer. He chose to ignore it. It was too bad if she did not want him in her carriage. Laura had offered him an unexpected opportunity and he was going to take it.

“There is Lord Henry Cole, as well,” Laura said. “He could take you up, Mari, but he seems to have disappeared. He brought his curricle—so foolish at night! I think he must have been trying to impress someone but anyway, there is only room for one to drive with him.”

“Well, how perfect,” Mari said. She turned to Nick. “You may drive back with Lord Henry, Major Falconer.”

“I think Lord Henry is too occupied to wish to tear himself away,” Nick said. “Besides, that would leave you alone and unprotected in the carriage, Mrs. Osborne, and I could not be so lacking in chivalry as to do that.”

“Pray do not concern yourself,” Mari said sweetly. “As we discussed earlier, I am well able to take care of myself.”

“I am sure you are,” Nick conceded. “Nevertheless, I would like to drive with you, Mrs. Osborne.”

“It is but a step,” Laura said, looking from Mari’s stormy face to Nick’s sardonically smiling one. “You will be home in a moment, Mari.”

“Then as it only a step,” Mari said, “perhaps Major Falconer would care to walk. Or, even better,
I
will walk back.”

“Alone?” Nick raised his brows with theatrical surprise. “Is that not rather unconventional, Mrs. Osborne, and you so
respectable
a lady?”

He thought Mari looked as though she would like to stab him there and then.

“It is not precisely respectable to be alone in a closed carriage with a gentleman,” she pointed out, through her teeth. “Walking is the lesser of two evils, Major Falconer.”

At that moment, Lord Henry Cole staggered toward them, waving his whip. “Tally ho, my little filly! Are you driving back with me?”

“Now I am definitely the lesser of two evils,” Nick said, under his breath. “You do not want Lord Henry pursuing you all the way back to Peacock Cottage, Mrs. Osborne.”

Laura waved a hand in relief. “Quite right, Major Falconer. That is settled then. Excuse me, please. Mrs. Butler will be waiting.”

She hurried off and Nick offered Mari his arm. “Shall we?”

Mari placed her hand upon it with obvious reluctance and he smiled. “As the Duchess said, it is but a short journey home. Your purgatory will soon be over.”

He led her out to the lane, handed her up into the carriage and settled in the opposite corner. The coach set off with a slight jerk and he thought he heard Mari sigh, though whether with relief or tension he could not be sure. He watched the skipping moonlight cast her face in its pure white light. She looked young and innocent and he felt some emotion shift within him and deliberately pushed it away.

“Tell me,” he said casually, “have you or the Duchess or Lady Hester ever been stopped on the road by the Glory Girls, Mrs. Osborne?”

He heard Mari catch her breath in the silence.

“The Glory Girls?” she said. She shifted slightly; cleared her throat. “Why do you ask, Major Falconer?”

“I understood,” Nick said gently, “that they are very active in this area.”

“I suppose so,” Mari said, after a moment. He could detect nothing more than a casual indifference in her voice now, after that initial, betraying catch. “Do you have a particular interest in female miscreants, sir?”

Nick smiled. “Only some, Mrs. Osborne.”

There was a slight pause. Again, as when he had questioned her that time in the beech woods, Mari let the silence hang. Again, Nick admired her nerve.

“Well,” she said, after a moment, “the Glory Girls have never stopped any of us, Major Falconer, and I would not really expect it. Laura is very well regarded, as you have probably seen tonight, and Hester—” she paused, then laughed “—well, everyone loves Hester. It is hard not to.”

“And they admire you for your charitable activities, I imagine,” Nick said. “Before this week I had no idea that you were such a benefactor, Mrs. Osborne. Food-stuffs and medicines for the villagers, a feast for the Midsummer dance, almshouses for the homeless…”

In the moonlight he saw a faint smile light Mari’s features. She was relaxing a little with the apparent innocuousness of his conversation, which was exactly what Nick wanted. What could not be gained by outright seduction could, perhaps, be achieved by a more subtle approach. The end result would be the same—the exposure of the truth between himself and Mari Osborne. He was almost certain that she had expected him to pounce on her in the carriage and he took great pleasure in confounding her expectations. For now…

“You should not forget, of course, that I am also responsible for appointing the schoolmistress of whom the Duke so heartily disapproves,” she said.

“Yes,” Nick said. He had heard that Charles did not support the village school. “I wonder why?”

“His grace does not agree with the education of women.” There was a shade of scorn in Mari’s voice now.

Nick felt surprised. He had not known that about Charles, but when he thought about it he supposed that it fitted his friend’s rather conventional stance. “And you do?” he asked.

“Of course.” Mari smoothed her skirts. “Girls have every right to the same standard of education that is given to boys, Major Falconer.”

“You speak with feeling,” Nick said. “Perhaps,” he added, “you have experience of geometry and astronomy and mathematics? Would you wish that tedium on the fellow members of your sex?”

Mari laughed unexpectedly, a low, throaty chuckle that caught at his senses. “I believe that females should have an equal right to be bored to death by such subjects as males do.”

“Did you experience that masculine education yourself?”

He felt the chill in the carriage at once, an arctic cold that seemed to sweep right through her and leave her rigid and frozen. Whether it was because he had touched on something painful to her or simply because he was prying into her past, he was not sure, but he sensed immediately that she had no wish to pursue the conversation further.