Unmasked (9 page)

“On the contrary,” Nick said, “you fascinate me, Mrs. Osborne.”

The glance she flicked him was contemptuous. “You sound like a man with too much time on his hands, Major Falconer. I am surprised that the army can spare you for the whole summer.” Her dark, mocking gaze traveled over him. “How will they manage?”

“I am sure they will scrape through somehow,” Nick said.

She inclined her head, a slight smile still on her lips, but once again she did not reply.

They had reached the path that led down to Peacock Cottage and Nick put a hand over hers where it held the reins. It would do no harm to ruffle her feathers a little more, he thought. He had every intention of deliberately provoking her each time they met until the truth was revealed between them. This blistering awareness that heated his blood and found an echo in her response to him could be used against her, to make her susceptible to him. He had seldom faced a more enticing prospect than that of seducing the truth from Mari Osborne.

“If you already know that I am an army man, then it seems you have been asking questions about me,” he said. “Admit that you have a curiosity about me, too, Mrs. Osborne.”

He expected her to withdraw from his touch and she did remove her hand from his, but gently. Her lips were curved into a smile that was faintly scornful.

“Acquit me of any personal interest in you, Major Falconer. The clue to the fact that you are an army man is, after all, in your title. I have heard gossip of your profession, nothing more. At the ball last night, Lady Faye was full of your dashing exploits.”

Nick smiled straight into her eyes. “Then you disappoint me, Mrs. Osborne. I was hoping for much more than that.”

Mari’s hand tightened on the reins momentarily. “You will be waiting a long time if you hope for more from me, Major Falconer. I have no interest in idle flirtation. Now, if you will excuse me—” She turned away.

“Wait!” Nick said. “You have dropped something.”

He passed her the card that Rashleigh had had clenched in his hand on the night he died, Glory’s visiting card with the flaunting golden peacock on it.

And he watched her face for every little reaction.

She took it in her gloved hand. There was a slight frown of puzzlement between her brows but nothing more, no recognition, no fear. It appeared that she had never seen anything like it before. She turned it over and her brows rose slightly to see the words
Peacock Oak
on the back.

“This is not mine,” she said.

“But if you recognize the handwriting,” Nick said, “perhaps I could return it to the right person.”

Mari looked at it again briefly, but shook her head. “I have no notion whose crest this is, nor whose handwriting.” She handed it back to him. “I am sorry I cannot help you. Good day, Major Falconer.”

Nick watched her walk away down the path to the house. The chestnut mare was taking advantage of her, sidestepping, pausing to snatch a mouthful of food from the hedge. Nick grimaced to see such indiscipline. Either Mari Osborne was a better actress than he gave her credit, or she could not control a horse to save her life. And if she was not pretending, she most certainly could not lead a gang of female desperadoes intent on redressing the injustices of the rich toward the poor, the strong toward the weak. She could not be the notorious Glory.

And then there was the visiting card. Nick sighed, running his fingers over its smooth edges as it lay in his pocket. He was an observant man, accustomed to spotting even the tiniest nuances that would give away a man or woman in a lie. They would look away, blush, say too much or too little. But Mari Osborne had reacted in none of those ways. She had seemed entirely honest.

On the other hand he was still certain, on instinct alone, that Mari was the woman he had met that night in the Hen and Vulture. And that put her at the center of his investigation. She had to be involved. There had to be a link. He would find it somehow.

He watched her go through the archway into the stable yard and disappear from sight. His blood still beat with the intensity of their encounter. He had come so close to kissing her. Only the thought of dishonoring Anna’s memory had prevented him. Yet now when he thought of Mari he remembered the naked abandon with which she had splashed in the fountain, the intimate slide of her tongue against his when she had kissed him, the erotic entwining of her body around his in all his most heated dreams. He felt his body harden in response to the mere thought and almost groaned aloud. He remembered that night in the Hen and Vulture when he had believed that he had iron self-control and Mari had been able to undermine that self-discipline with just one kiss. It could not be allowed to happen again. He would use Mari’s awareness of him as another weapon in the armory, to undermine her resolve and break down her resistance. He would have the truth from her eventually and he would not allow himself to become distracted from his purpose. He was in control now.

L
ADY
H
ESTER
B
ERRY
woke with a headache. She lay for a moment with her eyes closed, listening. It must be late. The alehouse was already astir; there was the sound of barrels being rolled deep in the cellar and the chatter of voices and the crash of pots from the kitchen.

Hester groaned. The drink and the sex had made her oversleep, careless of time. And now she would have to ride home in full daylight, wearing last night’s ball gown, looking just what she was, a harlot who had been tumbled in a cheap tavern.

Beneath her nose the bedsheets smelled none too clean, of sweat and stale straw. But then, she thought, if she chose to couple with the groom, she could not really complain if he smelled of the stables.

She opened her eyes. He was lying beside her, on his back, snoring. He was a big, muscular lad she had seen working in Josie’s stables when they had taken the horses there after the last venture with the Glory Girls. She could not even remember his name—if she had ever known it. Last night she had seduced him easily, sweeping into Half Moon House in her ball gown, pointing at him and beckoning him to follow her upstairs. He had wiped the ale from his mouth with the back of his dirty sleeve and followed her amidst the catcalls and cheers of his fellows. She had been aware of Josie’s disapproving eye upon her and had not cared, in the same way that she had not cared earlier in the evening when Mari had told her she was concerned about her. Hester knew that her friends worried but it did not stop her. Sometimes she thought that nothing could stop her. She and her latest conquest had made love with a brutal frenzy that had, for a time, satisfied her wildness and need. Hester stretched and felt herself ache; she knew there were bruises and scratches on her body.

Last night she had wanted him. Now she wanted him gone. She shoved him hard and he snorted awake.

“Get your clothes and leave,” she said.

He stared at her for a moment and she could smell his stale breath on her face and see the saliva crusted at the corner of his mouth. He slid from the bed, grumbling under his breath, and struggled into his breeches. Hester lay and watched. For all his glowering looks and muttered imprecations, he did not refuse to go. None of them ever did.

After he had gone out, and the door had crashed closed behind him, Hester lay still, staring up at the cracks in the plaster ceiling. Out of the corner of her eye she could see her ball gown lying discarded on the floor. It looked tawdry and crumpled in the daylight. Hester turned her head to look at it and noticed a tear in the bodice. Her cloak had disappeared entirely and her evening slippers were tumbled in the corner of the room.

The door banged open and Josie Simmons marched in without a knock. The landlady of Half Moon House was a big woman in every way, physically large with a big personality and a very loud voice. She brandished a feather duster threateningly at Hester.

“Get up, milady, and get you gone home. I need to clean the chamber!”

Hester put her hands over her ears to block out the bellowing. “Any chance of breakfast, Josie?”

“None,” Josie said rudely. “Now get your backside out of that bed.” She had never stood on ceremony with Hester. They had first met years before when Hester had gone to Half Moon House to take her drunken husband home after one of his many bouts of carousing. A firm if unlikely friendship had developed between the two of them over the years. These days Josie hid the Glory Girls’ horses and rode out with them when they could find a cob large enough to bear her weight. She was a formidable woman whose own husband had run off with the potboy years before and had never been heard from since, and against all the odds Josie had turned the tavern around to make a healthy profit.

Now she stood, hands on hips, looking down at Hester. “What are you at, madam? You’ve run through all my grooms and serving men and in the villages they’re talking about you like the trollop you are—”

Hester winced. Josie never spared anyone’s feelings.

“And sooner or later your cousin the Duke will get to hear of it, or that nice Lord Teague…”

Hester put the pillow over her face then wished she had not because it smelled of her perfume from the previous night and, like everything else, seemed stale.

“That is all I ever hear,” she complained. “What about that nice Lord Teague, why not
marry
that nice Lord Teague. I am sick of hearing how nice John Teague is!”

“You could do worse,” Josie pointed out.

Hester pushed the pillow aside. “But he could not.”

Josie did not contradict her and after a moment Hester turned the subject. She did not want to talk about herself. She had been running away from herself ever since her husband, Jack, had died.

“You have had no trouble since the Girls were out a three nights ago?” she questioned.

“No.” Josie sniffed. “No questions, no one looking around. But if you carry on like this, you’ll bring trouble on us all.”

Hester remembered saying the same thing to Mari only the previous night. All their fates and futures were wrapped up in Mari and her identity. If she gave in, crumpled under the pressure, then Hester knew they might all be doomed. She shuddered. She knew Mari was strong but she had been through so much—far more than anyone could be expected to bear without running mad. Hester could still remember all too vividly Mari’s despair when Rashleigh had tracked her down, and her anguish when she had decided she must meet him again, to try to buy his silence.

It was Mari who had inadvertently created the Glory Girls. One day she had gone to take fresh vegetables from her kitchen gardens to the villagers in nearby Starbotton and had returned almost incoherent with rage, telling Hester of the appalling working conditions in the local lead mine, the property of a hard-nosed businessman called Sampson.

“It is well nigh slave labor!” she had stormed to Hester. “It’s iniquitous! Mrs. Dell’s son broke a leg because he was so tired he fell down the mine shaft, having been made to work for twenty-five hours without rest! And then when Mrs. Dell went to Sampson to ask for aid because her son was the only breadwinner and could not work whilst his leg mended, Sampson laughed in her face!”

It had been in that moment that the Glory Girls had been born. Hester knew that for Mari it was a point of principle to make some redress, to ensure in some way that people did not have to suffer the sort of injustice that had beset her own life. Mari always burned with the need to right perceived wrongs. She had built the school in Peacock Oak, she provided food and medicines for the poorer villagers and she gave a fortune to local charities, and all without drawing attention to her benevolence. It was as though she was driven to do whatever she could to help others. Whereas Hester freely admitted that on her part, riding out with the Glory Girls—leading the Girls—was just another aspect of her quest for excitement. She was not moved by principle, only the need to satisfy her lust for adventure.

Mari never rode with them. She did not have the ability. Hers was the cool head behind the planning, Hester the one who carried the plans through. Josie rode with her, and Josie’s lover, Lenny. Lenny was actually a man but he was allowed to be an honorary girl for the purposes of highway robbery. But most shocking, most scandalous of all was the fact that Laura Cole was part of the group. Hester smiled to think of what Charles, that stuffed shirt of a man, would say to see his wife of ten years riding hell for leather across the county. But then, if only Charles did not neglect Laura so and leave her alone to go to Town for months on end, she would not be so unhappy and looking for other diversion.

They involved no one else, trusted no one else. And if one of them should be unmasked, then they were all in deep trouble.

Josie picked up the tattered ball gown and threw it to her. “Come along. Some of us have work to do.”

Hester slipped from the bed and dressed as best she could in the remnants of her gown. Josie left her to it, thundering back down the stairs to harangue the kitchen maids. Peering into the spotted mirror, Hester winced at her frowsy reflection. But this was a part of her ritual. The night before was wicked and wild, the morning after humiliating.

She went down into the bar. In the bright morning light it looked drab and smelled of old beer. A maid was scrubbing the flagstone floor. She looked up when Hester passed, staring at her. Hester swept by with her head in the air. She always ignored those stares. But then she opened the door and was assailed by the fresh summer morning. The sun was already climbing high in a blue, blue sky, the air was sweet and the warmth of the day enfolded her like a mother’s embrace.

And to her horror, Hester felt the tears start in her eyes and run down her cheeks unchecked and she did not even know why she was crying but she thought that her heart might break.

Tiger Lily—I dare you to love me

M
ARI WAS IN
the greenhouses when Hester arrived back from Half Moon House later that morning. She had taken a tisane of wild mint to ease her headache but when Jane had suggested she should rest, Mari had declined and had taken herself off down to the gardens. It was one of the few places where she felt any peace. But this morning not even the earthy smell of the soil and the hot bloom of the roses could soothe her.

Nick Falconer troubled her. He troubled her a great deal. The sweet stirring of her blood that his presence caused was enough to disturb her. The raw desire she could see in his eyes and feel in his touch both seduced and scared her. It made her want to take a risk, to try to put the past behind her, to test the theory that not all men were evil and cruel in their lust. Worse, she felt a terrible, insidious, instinctive desire to trust him and tell him the truth.

But Nick was not a man she could trust. She could trust no one.

She was no closer to discovering whether he suspected her of his cousin Rashleigh’s murder for he kept his secrets very well whilst seeking to unmask hers. Only that morning he had thrown down the gauntlet to her when he had promised to learn the truth about her.

“What I do not know I intend to find out.”

She was terrified that one of the things he might find—one of the things he might already
know
—was that she was his property.

Mari sighed, and straightened her shoulders. She had to keep him out. Out of her life, out of her head. Already she was afraid that his disconcertingly perceptive dark gaze saw too much. Sometimes he seemed to see directly into her soul.

With a muttered curse Mari tried to block Nick Falconer from her mind, to block out both the promise and the danger he represented. She concentrated, rather fiercely, on her rose cuttings. Tiny green shoots of new growth showed on their woody stems. She bedded them down gently in their little pots.

She had always had an interest in botany. The old Earl of Rashleigh, thinking it a subject suitable for the English lady he wanted to turn her into, had had her educated in the science of plants alongside the other feminine accomplishments of reading, drawing, painting, sewing and music. At the house in St. Petersburg she had pestered the gardeners to tell her everything they knew, practical knowledge, not the book learning she had gained in the Earl’s library. She was never permitted to go out beyond the garden walls but for years that did not matter to her. The gardens and the hothouses were a paradise of scent and color, an escape into another world.

When she had first come to Yorkshire, the fortune she had stolen from Rashleigh had enabled her to buy Peacock Cottage. It had been the natural beauty of the fells and the turning of the seasons that had helped to heal her. She had spent hours and hours planting her garden, watching the seedlings grow, seeing her plans mature in front of her eyes. She had felt peace and fulfillment and a growing sense of freedom. Slowly, carefully, she had explored that unfamiliar liberty like a butterfly stretching its wings in the warmth of the sun. She had felt safe for the first time since she had met Robert Rashleigh….

It had been an illusion. She did not feel safe anymore. The past was closing in on her. Nick Falconer was closing in. She had had five years of peace and freedom, and now it was about to be shattered.

There was a thunder of hooves from the courtyard and Mari looked up to see Hester clattering in and jumping down from the saddle. She shouted for her groom. Mari saw that she was wearing her torn evening gown and was vaguely surprised that Josie had not lent her an old skirt and a shirt as she normally did. But perhaps this was Josie’s way of expressing her disapproval for Hester’s behavior; behavior Mari sensed would come to an explosive climax all too soon.

As Hester ran down the garden toward her, Mari could see the stain of tears on her cheeks. Even now, Hester was wiping them away furtively with the back of her hand, like a little child.

Mari rubbed the soil from her hands and went out to meet her.

“Hester? What has happened?” Hester was always looking for trouble. If someone had hurt her, abused her…Mari felt her heart lurch and the memories swirl in to claim her. “Are you ill?” she whispered.

She saw Hester’s expression change as her friend realized what she was thinking and then Hester gave her a hard hug.

“No! Of course not. I’m so sorry, Mari.” She threw her hat down on the grass and herself down after it. “Josie was foul to me—she practically threw me out—and then on the way home I met John Teague.”

Mari winced. “Oh, no!”

“He asked me where I had been and, since I was in my ball gown, I could scarce pretend that I had not been out all night.” She chewed her lip. “It was most unfortunate.”

Mari thought it was probably worse than unfortunate. John Teague was not stupid and might already have an inkling of Hester’s nighttime activities.

“What did you tell him?” she asked.

“Oh, merely that I had spent the night with a friend,” Hester said, with an airiness that was almost entirely unconvincing. “He did not even trouble to answer me, but rode off without a word and with a face like thunder. He is so rude!”

“You push him too far,” Mari pointed out.

“I know.” Hester shrugged pettishly. “But it is his own fault that he allows me to treat him so!”

Mari simply looked at her and after a moment Hester picked a blade of grass and started to chew it. She looked at Mari out of the corner of her eye.

“What are you thinking?”

“I am thinking,” Mari said, “that I wish you would leave my lawn alone to grow properly, rather than pluck it to shreds.”

Hester cast the blade of grass away. “I’m sorry. I am very bad, am I not, Mari?”

“No,” Mari said shortly. “You are like a spoiled little girl, and you know it. A shame your papa was so indulgent to you, and that your cousin Charles is so soft that if he knew of your exploits—which he may well do—he would not lift a finger to stop you, either!”

Hester laughed and jumped to her feet. “Oh, Mari, you sound so severe! What a harsh parent you will be one day!”

“I doubt it,” Mari said. She turned away, the sun pricking her eyelids. She had seldom allowed herself to think of having a husband and a family. The idea seemed unfamiliar, strange. Surely it was not, could not, be for her. And yet the longing took her sometimes when she woke in the night feeling so lonely. She had made a new life for herself but she could not people it with the family she sometimes wanted for fear that her true past would be exposed. She could let no one close. And now, if the past did come to claim her, even her new life would be under threat.

“I met Major Falconer in the woods when I was out collecting my herbs,” she said.

“Oh, so did I!” Hester said, eyes sparkling suddenly. “Now
he
stopped to say good morning to me most civilly. There was a young man with him, too—a
most
handsome young man—called Dexter Anstruther. Apparently he arrived only an hour or so ago to join Charles’s house party.”

“Did he?” Mari said, brows raised. “And did both he and Major Falconer see you like that, Hester?” she added. “Dressed in your ball gown and riding astride?”

“They did,” Hester said. She stooped to retrieve her bonnet from the lawn. “They looked most impressed at my prowess on horseback.”

“I am sure they did,” Mari said, “given that I had fallen off at Major Falconer’s feet earlier this morning.”

Hester sighed. “Oh, Mari, not again! Remember what I taught you—”

“I do remember. But I have no proficiency.” Mari sighed, too. “Forgive me, Hes. I am no credit to your teaching.”

Hester smiled and squeezed her arm. “And Major Falconer? Did he pick you up and dust you down?”

“Very roughly,” Mari confirmed, wincing at the memory. “And then he proceeded to interrogate me all of the way home.” She paused. “He showed me a card, Hes. He pretended I had dropped it. It was like a visiting card, with a golden peacock on it—” She stopped dead as she saw Hester color up ever so slightly. Hester blushing was so unusual that Mari knew at once she was as guilty as sin.

“Do you know about this?” she demanded.

“I?” Hester opened her eyes very wide with perfect, false innocence. “Why would I?”

“So you
do
know!” Mari said wrathfully. “Hester—”

“It sounds like Glory’s calling card.” Hester capitulated. “When Glory robs her victims, she leaves a calling card. Have you not read about it in the press?”

Mari put up a hand to her head. “I believe I must have missed that little detail,” she said sarcastically. She shook her head incredulously. “So you leave a
calling card?
Hester, do you remember
any
of the things I told you about how to behave when you ride out as Glory?”

“You said not to be reckless and not to draw attention to ourselves,” Hester said, a little sulkily.

“Correct.” Mari took a couple of short strides away across the grass. Her head was aching again, the sort of ache that could not be soothed with an infusion of mint. “And do you not think that a flaunting, ostentatious, golden peacock on a calling card is perhaps a little on the obvious side?”

“No more,” Hester said, with spirit, “than dressing up as Haymarket ware and picking a man up in a tavern, or swimming naked in a fountain, only to discover that you have a very interested audience!”

There was a pregnant pause.

“Very well,” Mari said, after a moment. She could not quite bite back her smile. “I have to concede that you are right there. I am equally as bad as you.”

“Yes, you are,” Hester said triumphantly. “You try to be respectable but you always fail. You are wild like me.”

“Not quite like you,” Mari said. “At least I have
some
common sense.” Her smile faded. “But the point is that Major Falconer appears not only to be taking an interest in me but also an interest in Glory. And I have been thinking. Do you remember the newspaper reports after Rashleigh had died? They blamed the murder on Glory! We were struck by it at the time but we thought that some enterprising felon had stolen our identity for his own ends. But now I wonder if there is more to it than that.”

Hester chewed on her lip. “Hmm. Where did Major Falconer get the card from?”

Mari sighed. “I thought I was asking you that,” she said sarcastically, “since you are the one who apparently hands them out.”

Hester shook her head. “But I do not know.”

“If it was with Rashleigh’s body,” Mari said thoughtfully, “then that might be the reason Major Falconer came to Peacock Oak.”

Hester gave a little, heartfelt groan. “In which case how did
Rashleigh
get the card?”

“I think someone gave it to him,” Mari said. “The same person who told him where to find me and what my connection was to the Glory Girls.” The light summer breeze breathed gooseflesh along her skin. “I think Rashleigh had the card and Major Falconer found it. He believes that I am Glory and that I killed his cousin. He’s come here to find proof.” She sat down on the grass and gestured to Hester to join her. She rested her chin in her hand and stared up at the impossibly blue summer sky. “We are in deep trouble, Hes.”

“But you are not Glory,” Hester argued, “so he cannot pin that on you.”

“I am as much Glory as you are, or Laura or Josie,” Mari argued. “The execution of the raids may be yours but the idea was mine. And anyway, that is not the real problem. The real problem is anticipating what Major Falconer intends to do now he has found us.”

“I see now that handing out a calling card was a mistake,” Hester said. She bit her lip. “Hmm, I suppose I should have thought that the peacock is a little
too
like Charles’s coat of arms.”

Mari gave an exaggerated sigh. “You might as well have given him directions,” she said. “Though, as it happens it is not entirely your fault.” She turned her head to look at her friend. “Someone had written the words
Peacock Oak
on the back, though I did not recognize the hand.”

“It must have been the person who told Rashleigh who you were and where to find you,” Hester said. She rolled over and propped herself up on one elbow. “But who could that be?”

Mari shook her head. “I don’t know. I wish I did. It is hateful to think that there is somebody out there who knows all our secrets and could bring us down.” She sighed. “I did not tell you before, Hes, but I received an anonymous letter yesterday. It said that the sender knew who I was—and what I had done.”

“So it arrived on the very day that Major Falconer comes to Peacock Oak,” Hester said thoughtfully. “Can that be coincidence?”

“I don’t know,” Mari said. Once again she shivered to imagine what it could mean if Nick Falconer knew her history, knew her secrets and could ruin them all. It might not be Nick, but there was somebody out there who could…

“Someone is playing games with us,” Hester said with a little shiver. “What can we do?”

Mari sat up abruptly. “All we can do is what we have already resolved to do,” she said. “Tell Major Falconer nothing. Show no weakness. Whatever he believes, he will have to prove it. And until he shows his hand we are playing a waiting game.” She sighed. “I do not like this. It feels as though he holds all the cards and we have none.”

“And if your anonymous correspondent is someone else?”

“Then we have two problems on our hands rather than one,” Mari said dryly. “And we have to wait for them to reveal themselves also.”

“Glory could warn Major Falconer off,” Hester said eagerly. “Frighten him, make him give up the case—” She stopped to see Mari’s pitying eye on her.

“No, I suppose that would not serve.”

“Certainly not. Major Falconer is scarcely a man to be frightened off by anything,” Mari said. “And Hes,” she added, fixing her friend with a severe frown, “no riding out with the Glory Girls. Take no risks.”