Nicola Cornick - Unmasked

Mari repressed a shiver. Oh, yes, she knew all about the way a man thought about lust. Rashleigh had taught her more degrading things than she ever wanted to remember. She looked down her nose at him.

“The thought processes of a man on such subjects are scarcely complex,” she said coldly.

Nick laughed. “Quite so. Then you may imagine how I felt on seeing you naked and soaking wet with the water cascading over your body and the droplets catching the last of the light—”

Her whole body suffused with blistering heat, Mari wrenched her hand from his. “Major Falconer!”

“Call me Nicholas. Or Nick, if you prefer, since we already know one another so well and are likely to know each other even better.”

“Major Falconer,” Mari repeated, “you are remarkably—indeed, distressingly—obtuse. I have no interest in encouraging your attentions to me. I am a respectable widow.”

“All appearances to the contrary, Mrs. Osborne,” Nick interrupted smoothly.

Mari stared at him. He was right, of course. No woman who displayed herself so wantonly in public could possibly claim the right to modesty. It was the richest irony that she had allowed herself to swim only because she was certain she was alone and now it turned out that the one man in the entire kingdom whom she would wish never to meet again had been the one man standing watching her.

“If you are looking for a lover—” Nick began.

Mari’s temper snapped. “Major Falconer, I am not! I must ask you to desist from speaking of such matters! As for what you saw in the gardens, you will desist from even thinking about it—” She broke off as Nick shook his head.

“Oh, no, Mrs. Osborne. I give you my word that I will tell no one of what I saw, but you cannot ask me to forget.” He smiled. “You cannot erase my memories.”

Mari had an all too vivid picture of what those memories might look like. She took a deep, steadying breath.

“Very well. If I have your promise of silence then I suppose I must be content.”

He bowed mockingly. “Of course. No gentleman could promise less.”

Mari bit her lip. She was not sure if she trusted him to keep silent. It should have felt like a partial victory and yet the spark in those dark eyes suggested that it was anything but.

“Thank you,” she said warily.

He shrugged easily. “Once again, a pleasure. And if you tell me that we have never met before, then I shall, of course, believe you. But…” He hesitated, and Mari’s overtaxed nerves tightened a further notch, “I wonder…Do you ever visit London, Mrs. Osborne?”

It took every last ounce of self-control for Mari not to jump. She met his gaze and saw nothing there but polite inquiry. He had the most perfect face for games of chance, she thought. He was able to hide every emotion behind a wall of impassivity. And yet she thought she knew where this conversation was heading now. Despite her disguise, he must have recognized her from the Hen and Vulture. He must know she had been the one there that night, waiting for Rashleigh.

Why had he come to Peacock Oak? Did he know her true identity? Had he come to accuse her of Rashleigh’s murder?

Mari thought of the consequences of unmasking and the fear took her breath away. She closed her eyes for a second to steady herself, reminding herself that she knew none of this for certain. Even if he suspected her, he could prove nothing.

“I go to London very seldom, Major Falconer.” The evenness of her voice surprised her. “I have no need of the diversions of Town when I am so sincerely attached to the country.”

Nick inclined his head. “Odd. I thought perhaps that we might have met there a few months ago?”

Mari smiled and shook her head. “I have already said not, if you recall, Major Falconer. And I advise you not to push your luck—or your familiarities—too far.”

Their eyes met and held with the clash and challenge of a sword thrust. Then, with inexpressible relief Mari saw the figure of Laura Cole approaching. There was a faintly worried expression on her face, as though she had realized that Mari was in trouble and was coming to the rescue. Mari was so relieved she wanted to hug her.

“I do believe your hostess is coming to welcome you,” she said. “I wish you a pleasant stay at Cole Court, Major Falconer.”

Nick detained her with a hand on her arm. She felt the warmth of his touch through her sleeve as though her skin was bare. “I will see you again, Mrs. Osborne?”

“I doubt it, Major Falconer,” Mari said, and saw his teeth flash white as he smiled.

“You misunderstand me, Mrs. Osborne,” he said. “It was not a question. I will see you again. In fact, I would stake on it.”

“I do not play games,” Mari said. She released herself very deliberately from his touch. “Goodbye, Major Falconer.”

Rosemary—Remembrance

NICK LEANED HIS BROAD shoulders against the ballroom doorway and watched Marina Osborne dancing the cotillion. Laura, Duchess of Cole, had welcomed him in the vague, sweet manner that he remembered and then she had drifted off to speak to some of her other guests and Nick thought that he would retire for the night rather than join the festivities. He felt tired and dirty from the journey. He was not dressed for a ball, as Lady Faye Cole had not hesitated to point out when she had passed him in the doorway and had practically sniffed to imply that he smelled rather insalubrious from his travels.

Mari was dancing with Faye’s husband, Charles’s cousin Henry Cole. Nick watched the elegant sway of her gown as she moved through the steps of the dance. When she and Henry came together, he grabbed at her with the overexcited playfulness of a puppy and she withdrew, an ice maiden in silver satin. Nick did not know Henry well for, although he belonged to the junior branch of the Cole family, he was older than Charles by several years and so Nick had never spent much time in his company. Henry had always struck him as a typical country squire, his life a round of hunting and shooting and fishing, gorging himself at table, drinking hard and suffering the gout in consequence. His color was certainly high as he danced with Mari but that, Nick thought, was probably due to a different kind of excitement from that engendered in the field. As he watched, he saw Henry surreptitiously squeeze Mari’s bottom as she passed him, a clumsy but lascivious gesture that made Nick clench his fists in disgust. For a moment Henry bent close to her ear and made some remark that had the color searing Mari’s face. No one else had seen his actions—Nick realized that Henry had made very sure of that. His opinion of Charles’s cousin fell several notches from an already low starting point.

Nick found that he had already taken a couple of steps forward, with every intention of intervening, when he saw Mari dig the spokes of her fan into Henry’s ribs with a force that had him almost doubling up in pain. Henry reeled out of the dance, coughing and spluttering and Mari raised her brows, a look of most perfect concern on her face. Nick relaxed a little and smothered a grin. Henry Cole had got what he deserved and clearly Mari Osborne could take care of herself. Of course she could. She did not need his protection. For a moment he had almost forgotten that she might be a criminal and even a murderer, blinded as always by the complicated mixture of raw desire and deeper need that she seemed to evoke in him.

As a soldier, Nick had honed a fine instinct for danger, when to attack, when to withdraw and bide his time, to trust his gut feeling, to listen to that intuition which other men sometimes derided. It had led him to make judgments and decisions that on more than one occasion seemed to fly in the face of practicality and sense and yet they had proved correct in the long run. His instinct had kept him and his men alive. And now his instinct was telling him that Mari Osborne was Glory, the harlot from the tavern, and he wanted her. Lusting after Mari Osborne, the clever, devious, disreputable widow ran counter to everything that he had always believed in about himself and what he had thought he wanted from a woman. She could not have been more different from Anna. And yet his hunger for her was intense, burning him up.