Unmasked (29 page)

Mari’s gaze fell but a second later she raised her eyes and met his very straight. “You were faithful to her?”

Nick’s heart stuttered, missed a beat. She had gone straight to the point. And how could he lie to her? He had to be honest. But if he told the truth, he would crush the delicate trust they were building between them. To have any trust from Mari at all seemed a miracle after all she had gone through and now he was going to destroy it willfully by telling her the truth.

He closed his eyes. Opened them again. She was still waiting. “No,” he said at last. “No, I was not. I did try. It only happened the once. Anna had been ill for two years and we had not been together…” He stopped. “And I am making excuses where there can be none.”

There was a silence. The breeze rippled along the surface of the river. He looked at Mari and saw that her eyes were dull with shock. He wanted desperately for her to say something, anything at all, to prove that she was still prepared to speak to him.

“Many people behave as you did,” Mari said. She cleared her throat. “I know it is the way of
Ton
society. But I did not expect that you…” Her voice trailed away.

“I did not
want
it to be the way that I behaved,” Nick said. “I was angry with myself, so remorseful…” He stopped. He was not going to tell Mari all the details—how Anna had been bedridden for over two years and he a young man who had tried so hard to suppress his natural urges, how it had happened just the once when he had been drunk and had allowed himself to be seduced by the wife of a senior officer. Even now, thinking about it, it seemed tawdry and shoddy and shameful that he had not been able to withstand the temptation. It had been the guilt and remorse that had kept him from doing the same thing ever again. He had betrayed Anna and betrayed his own principles. But he would not tell Mari all that because it sounded as though he was trying to excuse the inexcusable.

He snapped another stick viciously in half and hurled it into the river. He knew he had to finish this now and tell her everything.

“I neglected Anna,” he said, with difficulty. “My infidelity was a part of that neglect. My cruelty was not deliberate but I hurt her, nevertheless. I think she was lonely and I was seldom there. And then, suddenly, she was taken from me. I had not been there to protect her and my guilt was so huge, so monstrous, that I could scarcely live with it.”

“Nicholas…” Mari had moved to sit close to him. A strand of her hair brushed his cheek and he put a hand up to twine it absentmindedly around his fingers. “I failed,” he said baldly. “I was so complacent. I feel sick to think of it now, and Anna lying there alone at the end…”

Mari said nothing trite to try to comfort him. Perhaps, he thought, she knew from her own experience how impossible it was to bind deep hurts with commonplace words. But she put her arms around him, spontaneously, for the very first time, and pulled him to her and held him tightly and it felt good. Her body was so warm and soft that he felt a huge urge to hold her and kiss her and lose himself in her. He held back, though, knowing that he might never have that right now, and freed her.

“What are you thinking?” he asked, wondering if he really wanted to know the answer to that question.

She looked up at him and her eyes were the clear, candid dark that he loved. “I am thinking that when you proposed to me all those weeks ago, I told you that you did not know the real Mari Osborne, and that because I had been wronged, you had put me on a pedestal,” she said. “And now I see that I did the same thing with you. I loved your integrity and your strength and thought you too good for me, little realizing that you, too, had made mistakes.”

“You made no mistakes,” Nick said gruffly. “You have done nothing wrong.”

Mari ticked them off on her fingers. “Theft, lying, highway robbery…”

Despite the dread and misery inside him, Nick’s lips twitched involuntarily into a smile. “You had a good reason,” he said.

“Nicholas, stop it.” She sounded very stern. “I may have excuses but I am not perfect. Don’t try to make me so.”

He looked at her. “And what do you think of me now, now that you know I am very far from perfect, too?”

She held his gaze. “I think that you should forgive yourself.”

He felt the rush of emotion flood his body. “I love you,” he said. “I failed when I tried to love before, so I probably have no right to tell you that or ask you to marry me. But if you will let me, I will look after you and care for you and be faithful to you and love you in the way that I never could love before. I will not fail you. I swear it.”

If you will let me…

He saw the uncertainty in her eyes and knew he asked too much.

“You can’t do it.” He spoke flatly. “You can’t trust me.” He scrambled to his feet. “It is no wonder. I can understand that.”

He turned away and walked across to where the horses were grazing. Of course she could not trust him. How could she, when he had revealed so many painful reasons as to why she should not? He knew that what he had told her was true. He would not fail her, he would always love her, be faithful to her, cherish and protect her. But he could not make her believe it, not Mari, who already had so few reasons to trust.

“Nicholas.” She put a hand on his shoulder and he turned.

“I will think about what you have told me,” she said. “And I will give you my answer soon. I promise.”

“Of course,” he said, masking his disappointment. “Thank you.”

They rode back in silence and when he helped her down from the saddle, he was careful not to touch her for a second more than was necessary in case he gave in to the impulse to hold her and take her and never let her go.

But he rode back to Half Moon House thinking of Anna.

I think that you should forgive yourself.

How wise Mari had been. He had to forgive himself before he asked anything more of her.

When he got back to Half Moon House, he went upstairs to his room and took out the locket with the tiny miniature of Anna inside. He held it in his hand as he walked down to the bridge over the river, feeling the warm, familiar shape of it against his palm. He stood for a moment on the bridge, looking down at the smiling, painted face of his first wife, and remembering everything that had been good for them, without the shadow of guilt to cloud it. Then he closed the locket softly and let it drop into the water below. The sun caught the shining silver arc as it fell and for a moment the light dazzled his eyes before it hit the water and disappeared from his sight.

He turned back to the inn and as he walked his heart felt lighter. He knew he did not need the locket now. Anna lived on in his memory, would always have a place there and one that was finally without bitterness or guilt, or regret. All that remained now was hope that his past would not be the ruin of his future. And all he could do was wait.

Tulip—Enchantment

N
ICK WAS LYING
on his bed at Half Moon House staring up at the ceiling. None of Josie’s blandishments had succeeded in persuading him to eat. She had tried to tempt him with mutton stew that smelled delicious, and with Yorkshire pudding and onion gravy, and now she was here again, tapping on the door. He knew it was Josie because her tap was like someone else’s hammering.

“Mrs. O is here to see you,” she said, sticking her head around the door. She looked at him closely. “You look like a proper wet weekend, Major. Done something to upset her, have you?”

“Yes,” Nick said. He knew that this was probably an unwise disclosure given Josie’s strength and propensity toward violence but he did not care.

“Can’t let her up to your room, wouldn’t be proper,” Josie said. “You’d better come down to the parlor. Lenny and me will give you some privacy.”

“Thank you,” Nick said. He stood up and reached for his jacket. His stock was undone and his shirt unfastened and he knew he looked unkempt, but since he was probably going to be given his marching orders, it did not seem to matter. He followed Josie down the stairs.

The parlor was dark. The sunlight that had accompanied their trip to Bolton Abbey earlier in the day had gone now and rain clouds were massing above the fells. At least, he thought, Mari had not made him wait too long.

Mari turned as he came in. In the gathering dusk her gown looked a deep lavender-blue. He thought that she looked nervous. He sketched a bow.

“Mrs. Osborne.”

She smiled and he felt hot all over. She could do that to him with just one smile. He could not believe how nervous he felt. He started to fumble for his neck cloth in order to loosen it and then realized that it was not there. Josie went out and left the two of them alone.

“Major Falconer,” Mari said. “I have a few questions for you.”

His throat was dry. “Ask them.”

“You say that you love me.”

He nodded. “I do.”

“Hmm.” Mari was looking at him very intently. “You promised to cherish and protect me and be faithful only to me.”

“I will. I promise.”

“I see.”

She spun on her heel; walked a little way away from him.

“Do you have a special license?” she inquired.

He did, but he hesitated to admit it. It seemed rather presumptuous now, given all that had been said between them.

“Major Falconer?” Mari sounded ever so slightly impatient.

“Yes, I have one,” Nick said.

She nodded. She came right up to him and stopped when she was within touching distance. “You said that you love me, but are you
in love
with me?” Her eyes were fixed on his face, her lips slightly parted. “Specifically, Major Falconer, do you desire me and wish to make love to me? Do, please, be honest, as you have not touched me since the day that you proposed so I cannot be sure.”

Nick found that he was staring. Was she mad? Could she not see how much he wanted her? Just thinking about it made his body harden into almost unbearable arousal.

“I do.”

Had she flicked a glance down at his breeches? He could not be sure. He was feeling as hot and hard as he had done that night when he had seen her in the fountain. If she did not end this purgatory soon…

“Then I will marry you,” she said decisively. “I have been thinking about what you said.” She drew so close to him that their bodies were touching. “I think you were very honest with me and that you deserve a second chance, just as I have been given one. For a while I was afraid that, if I allowed myself to love you, I would never be truly free. I thought that in loving you I would give away something of myself.” She tilted her face up to his. “But I see now that in loving you I will gain something, not lose. There is no freedom without you.”

He grabbed her and she was real in his arms.

“You love me?”

She laughed. “Have I not just said so?”

He kissed her deeply. “Enough,” he said. “Enough of this teasing. You know—surely you
must
know—that you drive me insane with wanting.”

The parlor door crashed open, making it all too obvious that both Josie and Lenny had been eavesdropping shamelessly. “Better get to the church then,” Josie said threateningly. “Mr. Butler is waiting to make the arrangements.”

“I
T WAS A LOVELY WEDDING
,”
Hester said, kissing Mari on both cheeks and standing on tiptoe to do the same to Nick, “but now I am sure that you are wishing us all anywhere but here, so—” she slipped her hand through John Teague’s arm “—we are gone!”

Teague slapped Nick on the shoulder. He had stood as groomsman. “Congratulations, old fellow.”

“Good luck, Mari. I wish you every happiness.” Laura Cole gave her a brief, hard hug and though she smiled Mari could feel how she hurt. How could it not, seeing someone else’s happiness but with Charles so singularly absent and her own marriage so empty? Mari’s heart ached for her. But Laura, so quiet, so self-contained, was already drawing away.

Mari stood on the terrace of Peacock Cottage and watched them all walk away through the garden gate and start across the deer park toward Cole Court. Hester was holding John’s hand and had taken off her bonnet and was twirling it by the ribbons. Laura walked a little apart. Mari sensed Nick come up behind her and a moment later he had slid an arm around her waist, drawing her back against his body.

“It was a lovely day,” she said, a little wistfully, leaning back against him. “And so thoughtful of Jane to choose to visit her brother in the village after the wedding breakfast.”

Nick laughed and nuzzled at her hair. “I expect she has had enough of our shocking behavior. Come inside. It is going to rain. I have never known such a season for storms.”

He was right. The day had been bright, airless and very hot, but now that night was falling the storm clouds were boiling up over the fells and even as he spoke the first big drops of rain fell on the parched ground.

“I love that smell,” Mari said, not moving. “The earth so hot and dry and greedily gasping for water—” She broke off with a gasp herself as the heavens opened and the rain fell, straight and hard. Nick was pulling on her hand but she freed herself. “My greenhouses! Oh, no! All the windows are open! My plants will be destroyed!”

Grabbing her skirts in one hand she ran down the gardens toward the glasshouses. The grass was slick and wet beneath her feet, soaking her silk slippers. The rain ran into her eyes and she dashed it away. Her pearl headdress flew off and her hair fell down around her shoulders. Her bodice was drenched. Nick was running beside her and she looked at him and laughed, and when they reached the bottom of the garden he dashed into one hothouse and she into the other. The rain thrummed on the roof in a torrent. Puddles splashed on the floor and the plants quivered and bent under the onslaught. Mari rushed from one end to the other, the window catches slipping in her wet fingers. Finally she reached up for the last one and turned, panting, half laughing, a stitch in her side, as Nick came in and closed the door behind him.

“Thank you!” she said, collapsing into his arms. “I could not have married a man who cared nothing for my plants.”

He was as sodden as she, the shirt sticking to his back, the rain wet on his face and spiking his eyelashes. She raised a hand to his cheek and he turned his lips against it and then suddenly he was kissing her, as hard and greedy and quenching as the rain falling on the grass outside.

It was hot inside the greenhouse now, scented with the heady fragrance of the flowers, damp and dark. Mari tore her mouth away from his and took a step back. He was breathing hard, his chest rising and falling fast. He looked dangerous. She felt the heat spread through her veins, melting her, scalding her.

“Your gown is soaking,” he said.

“Then take it off me.” She felt drunk with the storm, drunk with power. She remembered his words to her in the Star House. “Undress me,” she said. “Take my clothes off.”

Heat flared in his eyes at the same time as the first shaft of lightning ripped the sky. He turned her around and started to unbutton the gown. One button. A second, a third. She lost patience, tearing it from her body, stepping out of it, letting it fall to the ground. The thin cotton of her chemise and petticoats stuck to her, transparent. He made a sound halfway between a groan and a sigh, wrapped his hand around the back of her neck, his fingers tangling in her hair, and kissed her again, devouring her. She grabbed his shirt, pulled it away from him and ran her hands over his chest and shoulders, relishing the cool, damp feel of his body.

The thunder crashed outside and echoed in her ears. She did not want to stop, did not want to think. She had been fearful about her wedding night, wondering inevitably how she might feel and what might happen. She had been afraid that Nick would be anxious, too, anxious not to frighten her or hurt her. But now, with a huge feeling of liberation she let go of that fear and pressed closer to him, seeking and finding the passion she had always known he had for her.

When he picked her up and sat her on the edge of her workbench, she drew him close, replacing the touch of her hands on him with her lips and tongue, tasting him, learning the flavor of his skin, the salt and the sweet, the smooth and the rough. Suddenly there seemed so much to learn and so much she wanted to know. He stood braced, his head back and eyes closed as she explored him, but when her questing fingers reached the band of his breeches he caught her hand.

“Not yet. My turn.”

He pushed the damp shreds of the chemise down from her shoulders to her waist, and held her naked breast in his hand, and the rub of his palm against her nipple made her want to cry aloud but she could not, for he was kissing her again, deep, possessive kisses that demanded everything that she could give. The heat built within her, pooling low in her belly, clamoring for release. He put his hand to her shoulder and gave her a little push and she fell back, scattering the remnants of her pots around her. The bench was hard beneath her back and his hands moved over her bare stomach, stroking upward to the underside of her breasts, teasing, raising sensations she had not even dreamed existed. She opened her eyes and looked up at him helplessly. His expression was concentrated, hard. It excited her.

“I want…” she whispered.

“Trust me.” The smile he gave her made her shiver. She closed her eyes as he leaned over her, his mouth brushing her nipples so lightly, tormenting her. She arched.

“Ah! Nicholas, please—”

The damp, moist air touched the inside of her thighs as he slid her petticoats up. She let her legs fall apart with a kind of dizzy relief mixed with aching longing. The drumming of the rain was like a beat in her blood now. She tried not to think. Soon…

His fingers touched the core of her, stroking, caressing and she shook, the muscles in her thighs and stomach clenching. Then, suddenly, his hands held her hips down and his tongue plundered her, seeking and finding. The shock exploded in her mind. She struggled to sit up and his grip on her hips tightened and he held her ruthlessly still and open to his ravishment. The knowledge of it fused with the wanting in her and she screamed, sliding over the edge of pure pleasure, her body rocked by hard, tight spasms, her mind splintering.

Yet even in her bliss, unimagined, unknown bliss, she knew something was missing. She reached for him and he pulled her to the very edge of the bench and entered her in one hard thrust.

She cried out again, her hands braced against the surface of the table, her legs spread wide. He had a palm resting on either side of her body and he bent his head to her breasts and started to move inside her with slow, deliberate strokes. She arched to the demand of his mouth in willing submission and felt each thrust of him like a blow of pleasure through her entire body. When he finally ceased tormenting her breasts and raised his mouth to hers, she wrapped her legs around his waist and felt him move deeper still within her. Again the spiral of desire tightened around her. She tried to stave it off, tried to wait for him, but she could not. Bright white light flooded her mind, and her whole body clenched and tightened around him and she heard him shout and lift her up so that they were breast to breast, entwined, their skin sliding slickly one against the other in an exquisite friction that made her gasp and score his shoulders with her nails. She felt his seed spurt into her and pulled him in closer still to her body and felt him shake with the force of his release. His mouth was buried in the curve of her shoulder, his hand in her hair, his arms around her, and gradually their breathing slowed and calmed and eventually she found that she could speak again.

“I didn’t know it could be like that. That…that’s never happened to me before.” Mari was incredulous. “How did you…How did I…”

His fingers moved, stroking the bare flesh of her inner thighs and her heart raced uncontrollably. Her still damp body shook and an echo of the same raw passion stabbed hard through her, making her gasp.

“Shall I help you do it again—more slowly?” She could hear the smile in Nick’s voice. He drew back from her a little, caressing her gently.

“Not yet. Please.” Her body still tingled, still shook. She was almost begging him. “I can’t…”

“You can.”

His mouth claimed hers again and she forgot all about thinking and forgot about doing it slowly, as well. The knowing, expert slide of his hand against her was relentless, intimate and unbearably good. She felt the sensations shimmer through her, the swift, slick strokes taking her to the brink again. He stopped and she groaned with frustration against his mouth, unable to stifle the sound.

“I want you to come again,” he whispered, and drew a finger over the swollen bud of her femininity, caressing the tiny hard tip. He bent his head and his mouth touched her breast. Mari whimpered as pleasure, hot, slow and sweet as honey this time flooded her veins. She dug her fingers into the muscles of Nick’s shoulders and rested her bowed head against his chest as her body throbbed.