Unmasked. Nicola Cornick

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СКАЧАТЬ dismiss him entirely. Fortunately Charles Cole himself was crossing the hall with one of his guests at the time. He glanced toward the door and his face lit up as he saw his old friend.

      “Nick! You’re here at last!”

      Nick stepped into the hall as the butler, disdain in every line of his body, sniffed and instructed the hall boy to take Major Falconer’s bag upstairs, and the haughty aging beauty who had been hanging on Charles’s arm looked down her long, aristocratic nose at him.

      “Major Falconer?” she queried, with just the faintest hint of emphasis on the prefix as though no one below the rank of General could possibly be a welcome guest at Cole Court.

      Nick grinned and sketched a bow. “How do you do, madam? Nicholas Falconer, at your service.”

      “Nick was at school with me, Faye,” Charles said. He held out a hand and shook Nick’s warmly, his fair, open face alight with good humor. “Nick, this is my cousin’s wife, Lady Faye Cole.”

      “Falconer…” the beauty murmured. Her face cleared. “Oh, the Marquis of Kinloss’s heir! I thought for a moment that Charles had taken to inviting the ranks of the military to Cole Court!”

      “I am a major in the army, ma’am,” Nick murmured.

      “Well, never mind, never mind.” Lady Faye’s pale blue eyes bulged. “More importantly you are heir to a Marquisate.” Her gaze hardened slightly. “You must meet my daughter, Major Falconer.” She smiled, a cold smile that did not reach her eyes. “I was a child bride, of course, and Lydia is but seventeen and only just out.”

      Nick had no desire to meet the schoolroom daughter of a matchmaking mama, but he bowed politely and Lady Faye drifted off, no doubt to hunt up her daughter and present her like a sacrificial lamb to the new arrival.

      “I’m sorry about Faye,” Charles Cole murmured, taking Nick’s arm as his cousin’s wife drifted away on a cloud of nose-numbing perfume. “My cousin Henry always was an abject fool when it came to women. You remember Henry? Then you’ll know what I mean. But she could at least have waited until you were through the door before lining you up as a prospective son-in-law.”

      “Someone should warn her that I am not good son-in-law material,” Nick said, a little bitterly. His parents-in-law had never reproached him for his treatment of Anna but his remorse was sharper because he knew he was culpable.

      Charles sighed. “If you are solvent and have all your own teeth, then you are eligible, old chap.”

      Nick gave a groan. “Tell them I’m penniless, for pity’s sake, Charles.”

      “I could do that, but then I would be lying. And what about the Marquisate?”

      “Put it about that my uncle has disinherited me, or something.” Nick laughed. “I’m sure he would do if he could. He finds me very unsatisfactory—doesn’t approve of his heir working for a living. Speaking of which, I am here to work, Charles, not to be distracted by debutantes.”

      “So I understand.” Charles threw a rather theatrical look over his shoulder and Nick realized that he was probably going to make a poor conspirator. “Hawkesbury sent a letter before you. Might have known that Rashleigh would continue to cause trouble from beyond the grave.”

      “Naturally. He never had any consideration.”

      “Where is Anstruther?” Charles asked, looking around. “Is he not with you? Now he really is ineligible, poor lad. Faye won’t be throwing Lydia in Anstruther’s way, not now that his father has disgraced the family name.”

      “Dexter arrives tomorrow,” Nick said. “I left him in Skipton, smoothing over matters with the constable.”

      “Of course, of course.” Charles looked furtively excited. “I must say this business has certainly enlivened my summer. Usually I find the country a dead bore. Now Hawkesbury says…” Charles drew closer and whispered loudly, “You are to fill me in on the details and I am to offer you all aid I can in catching the Glory Girls.”

      “Right,” Nick said, trying not to laugh.

      “But tonight—” Charles turned as the ballroom door opened and several couples spilled out into the cool of the checkered hall “—tonight you are to meet my guests and mingle. Who knows, you may discover something useful.”

      Nick nodded. “Of course. I—” He stopped abruptly.

      The front door had opened and two late guests, both female, were being ushered into the hall by a deferential footman. One was a beauty of maybe seven or eight and twenty. She could command a room. As imperious in her own way as Faye Cole, the arrogant tilt of her blond head demanded that everyone should look at her and Nick thought that most men would be only too willing to comply. She was dressed in a shockingly low-cut ball gown of scarlet that barely covered her nipples and looked as though it had been dampened for good measure. Very bold, Nick thought, with all the goods in the shop window. He heard Charles sigh.

      “That’s another of my cousins, I’m afraid, Lady Hester Berry. The perils of a large family…”

      But Nick was not listening. He was looking at the other woman. She was hanging back behind Lady Hester and he could see from the way in which her gloved fingers gripped her evening bag that she was nervous. She looked younger than Lady Hester, a little pale, small but voluptuous, her hair covered by a fashionable turban, her body swathed in an expensively modest gown that nevertheless clung lovingly to every one of her curves.

      Nick stared. He had seen those curves recently covered in no more than droplets of water.

      She turned her head and met his gaze. He had thought that her eyes were black until the lamplight struck across them and he saw the flecks of green and gold in their depths. The recognition hit him then so hard and so fast that he almost lost his breath. It could not be a coincidence. Surely, surely this was the girl from the Hen and Vulture? She had been wearing a blond wig then, and a mask, but the one thing that she could not disguise was the unusual color of her eyes. He stared at her, admiring the curve of her cheek, the sensuous fullness of her lips—not stained a harlot’s cherry-red tonight but a tempting pale pink—and the vulnerable line of her neck. He was almost certain—as sure as he could be without kissing her—that it was the same woman.

      Her gaze widened slightly as it met his and he knew in that moment that she had recognized him, too, though whether as the man she had kissed in the tavern or as the man by the pool—or both—he could not be sure. He watched her and waited coolly for her reaction.

      It was not long in coming. She raised her chin and gave him the most perfectly calculated cut-direct that he had ever experienced. She looked through him as though he simply did not exist.

      Nick’s lips twisted with appreciation. She was a very cool customer indeed.

      But could this oh-so-proper lady truly be the notorious Glory, the harlot from the tavern? She was certainly the naked nymph from the fountain.

      And he had the advantage. His sudden appearance must inevitably have shocked her, no matter how well she concealed it. So now was the time to make a move before she had the chance to rally her defenses.

      “Who is that?” he murmured, and heard Charles sigh again.

      “I told you, old СКАЧАТЬ