Unmasked (20 page)

Nick’s footsteps crunched on the wooden panels of the pagoda as he walked a little way away from her.

“So he pensioned you off, but then, seven years later, he sent for you?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Mari forced a smile and hoped it looked convincing. “I imagine he had planned some sort of…reunion. Something mutually enjoyable and financially beneficial.”

She closed her eyes momentarily and felt the hot tears sting behind her lids. She could guess what Rashleigh had really wanted. He had been searching for her ever since she had run away from him. He wanted revenge. He had written that he had tracked her down and that if she did not agree to meet with him, he would expose her for who she was, and see her hang for the theft of his jewelry all those years before. And he had made it plain that he also knew about her involvement with the notorious gang, the Glory Girls. And so she had gone to Rashleigh to try to strike an agreement just as she had come to Nick now, to prevent the truth coming out, to stop her friends from being ruined and to bargain with whatever power she had to save them.

Nick did not reply and his silence stretched her overtaxed nerves close to breaking.

He had come to stand directly behind her and suddenly her physical awareness of him overwhelmed her. When he put both hands on her upper arms, she shivered, but it was no longer with revulsion. Nick could draw a response from her that Rashleigh had never been able to command. She did not understand it and she could not control it, but it frightened her, as well as holding her unwillingly fascinated.

“So now you come to strike a new agreement with Rashleigh’s successor.” He bent his head and his lips touched the curve of her neck. “You received the letters and you are willing to give yourself to me.”

Her mind cried out against it even as her traitorous body trembled. The tragedy was that she knew she could have admired this man, loved him even, if he had had the honor and integrity she had once imagined. But now he had shown himself to be as venal and callous and immoral as Rashleigh himself, a man prepared to stoop to blackmail to ensure he could take what he wanted, a man prepared to hide his true nature behind a facade of honor. She felt a sense of betrayal and a desperate disappointment that she had once thought him a principled man.

But she was his slave. She did belong to him.

“I am.” She fought the emotion rising within her.

He turned her to face him. His hands were warm on her bare arms, sending little quivers of sensation along her nerves.

“You will do whatever I ask of you?”

“I will.”

His mouth took hers in a sudden fierce kiss that had her catching her breath. Her mind reeled.

“I want all of you.” He sounded harsh. “Body and soul, Marina.”

Mari stepped back. She spread her arms wide. “You have my body. Why ask for more?”

“Because I want everything.” He was standing before her, tall, straight, commanding. “I demand it.”

He stepped in close, so close she could feel the heat of his body. “Did you give Rashleigh everything?” he asked roughly.

“He did not ask it of me.” Rashleigh had not been the man to ask for her mind when he could have her body. He had not cared.

“Well, I am not like my cousin.” He put a hand on her waist, drew her to him so that they were touching. She could feel his arousal, already hot and hard against her. “I wanted you from the start. All of you.”

Mari tilted up her chin. “I offer you exactly what I offered Rashleigh,” she said. “It is a business arrangement only. If that is not enough…” She let the words die away.

The tension spun out between them and then he gave a groan and pulled her to him.

“It will have to be enough.”

His mouth came down on hers, the kiss hard and demanding. For a moment Mari stood still beneath the onslaught. She had not intended to resist, merely to endure whatever he chose to do to her. But now the heat of his embrace, the relentless seduction of his mouth on hers, drew a response from her. Her mind turned cloudy with passion, her need for him swamped all other thoughts. She parted her lips and her tongue tangled with his and he made a noise of satisfaction deep in his throat to have wrung a response from her. The flames licked her, burned her, surprising her with sensations she had never imagined. For a moment she fought against the assault on her feelings, but then she let go and felt her mind spin away into darkness.

His mouth had gentled on hers now and was exploring her intimately. One of his hands slid upward, cupping her breast and teasing the nipple with the tips of his fingers. Mari gave a gasp and he took advantage to deepen the kiss still further. Then he wrenched himself away from her and stood back, and Mari felt so shocked and bereft that she almost fell.

“Unpin your hair.” His voice was low and rough.

Her hands shook as she pulled out the pins that held up the Grecian knot. A couple of them fell from her fingers. She heard them hit the wooden floor of the pergola and spin away. Behind her the fountain splashed, silver in the moonlight.

She felt her hair loosen and then it started to fall, black and straight, around her shoulders and down her back.

“That’s better.” She heard his sigh of satisfaction. “I have wanted to see you like that.”

He came to her, sliding one hand into her hair and bringing her mouth back up to his with determined force. His palm was against her cheek and it felt warm and a little rough. She yielded with only the slightest murmur now, her mouth bee-stung from his kisses, her whole body quiescent. Yet when he raised a hand and started to unbutton her dress, she drew back.

“Here?”

“Why not?” She could not read his expression in the moonlight. The movement of his fingers did not still. Another button gave. “I want to see you naked in the fountain again.”

Mari shook. “But anyone might see—”

“You did not care about that last time.”

Another button gave. Then a fourth.

“Turn around.”

She did as he bade her, mutely. Her heart was slamming so hard beneath her bodice that she thought the material must be trembling with the force of it. She felt the slow, inexorable slide of his hand down her back as the material of her gown fell apart with each button that was unfastened. When the dress fell to her waist, she stepped out of it without him asking. She was lost, held in the sensual spell he had cast. She refused to think.

He stood back once more. His face was dark.

“Unfasten your chemise. Take your clothes off.”

Mari shuddered. The sensual spell was pierced and she felt cold. Rashleigh had said those words to her. She fumbled with the laces of her petticoat and felt the bodice hang open. The cool night air caressed her breasts, hardening the peaks still further. She closed her eyes and slipped the petticoat from her shoulders.

Nick did not touch her. Her skin burned as she waited in an agony of impatience and fear. The night breathed chill along her nerves. She wanted to cover herself. She felt so exposed but she forced herself to stay still.

When she opened her eyes, it was to see him watching her. His look made her burn all the more. He took one step forward and slid a hand along the curve of her waist. When his body covered hers, it was warm and the contact made her gasp. His mouth took hers with a violence that made her shake with relief that the waiting was over.

Nick picked her up in his arms and carried her, not out to the fountain but deeper into the pergola, where a cushioned bench was positioned against one wall. It was dark here and the noise of the fountain was muted. The moonlight lay in bars across the floor. He laid her down amidst the cushions and left her briefly to strip off his clothes. Her mind floated free now. She could absent herself. Soon this would be over. She had wanted him so much but she had never wanted it to be like this, like it had been with Rashleigh.

Nevertheless when he joined her on the couch, his body hot and hard against her own, she felt the flames of desire burn all the deeper. His hand came up to stroke her breast, the other to slide over the curve of her hip, bringing her into sudden, shocking contact with his arousal.

Her mind was split. A part of her could still taste the sweet, drugging seduction of his kisses but it was overlaid now with a terror that made her shrink from him. She had thought she could keep him out of her mind and her emotions, that she would be able to build a wall against him that would protect her, but now his demands on her and her own needs had made that impossible. Her defenses shivered, faltered. The past pressed agonizingly close.

He touched her, brought his lips down to her breast, and the wall smashed and she started to think and feel with terrifying intensity. She had always wanted him but she could not bear for it to be like this, like her loveless transactions with Rashleigh. That was intolerable. All the shame and the misery and the longing for what might have been fused within her and she caught her breath on a sob. She tried to stifle it and felt as though the sobs would rack her whole body and tear her apart. Her mind was full of Rashleigh and screamed for escape. Her skin crawled with sudden revulsion.

He felt it. His hands, so demanding upon her body a moment before, stilled completely. He raised a hand and very gently turned her head so that the moonlight fell across her face. He brushed her tangled hair back and his fingers lingered on her cheek.

“Mari?”

Unbelievably there was tenderness in his voice.

It shattered the last of her defenses. She had been so careful to distance herself, to remind herself that even if he could draw a response from her body, he could not invade her mind. And then he had done just that.

Rashleigh had never shown her any tenderness. He had not cared. Nick did, and his gentleness, his compassion, was enough to break through the last of the protective facade. Suddenly she could feel again, not only with her body but deep in her heart. And it hurt. It hurt so much that Nick cared when everything else was wrong between them. She thought she could not bear it.

“No!” Mari tore herself away from him and struggled to sit up, disoriented by the darkness and what had happened.

Her mind felt sluggish, confused. All she was aware of was the most excruciating pain. She swung her feet to the floor and made a grab for the pile of clothes that she saw at the foot of the couch. She wanted something, anything, to cover herself. As she scrabbled the garment over her head, she realized that it was Nick’s shirt. It smelled of him. It was still faintly warm from his body.

No matter. Anything would do now. She started to move toward the door.

“Wait!” Nick was beside her, his hand on her arm.

“No!” Mari tried to pull away from him as the panic started to pound in her chest. “Let me go!”

His hand fell to his side. It was all she needed.

She ran.

Instinct alone guided her along the path to the deer park and she flew like an arrow to its target until she reached the door in the wall that led to the gardens of Peacock Cottage. She slammed through the quiet house regardless of waking anyone and did not stop until she was in her bedchamber.

The candles were still lit, burning down to their sockets.

Mari stopped, panting for breath, then ripped off the shirt and kicked it violently away from her across the floor. Naked, she stood before the mirror and stared at her reflection in the glass. Outwardly her body looked so innocent, so how could it be so knowing? How could it hold so many hateful secrets that made her want to scream with the shame of it? How could she be so damaged inside and for it not to show on the outside? How could she ever have thought that she could leave her past behind and feel differently with another man? She felt so angry and ashamed and confused that she never, ever wanted anyone, least of all Nick, to know the truth about her.

There was a sound downstairs and she swung around, frozen to think that Nick might have followed her. But it was only the grandfather clock winding itself up to strike the hour of twelve.

The candle guttered and went out. All the fight seemed to leave Mari’s body and leach away, and she burrowed beneath the blankets of the bed and scrunched herself up into a tight ball, closed her eyes and willed the darkness to come and take her away.

N
ICK
F
ALCONER SAT
silent and alone in the pergola for a very long time.

He had dressed slowly, minus one shirt. He could smell Mari’s perfume on his skin and still feel the imprint of her touch on him. The desire that had raced through his blood so uncontrollably was cooling now but, when he found her gown, he held it to his face and inhaled her scent on an impulse, and felt an echo of that ache inside him again.

He did not understand why she had run from him. Even though he had been utterly consumed by his need for her he had sensed some kind of sudden withdrawal in her and had stopped to make sure that she was all right. Her face in the moonlight had looked quite blank of expression and then she had run away as though all hell were at her heels. If he had not known her history, known she was experienced, he would have sworn she had been afraid. But that made no sense. Rashleigh’s mistress must surely have been as debauched and degraded as he. She could be no shrinking virgin.

Nick had been startled to find Mari at the pergola in the middle of the night but had quickly realized that she had mistaken him for someone else, someone who had apparently arranged to meet her, secretly and anonymously, someone who knew her true identity.

Mari, he thought, had given a great deal away without realizing that she was talking to the wrong man.

He knew now that she had been Rashleigh’s mistress and that she had benefited from such an arrangement.

To escape from drudgery to be a rich man’s mistress was a dream…

If he had not heard the words from her own lips, he would not have believed them for it seemed so contradictory to the Mari Osborne he had thought he was beginning to know, the one he was going to beg to trust him and tell him the truth. But that was all over now. He had been misled by his instincts, misled by his desire. He had at last seen her for what she really was.