Unmasked. Nicola Cornick
gardens and hung on the air, faint and tempting. The goddess ran her hands slowly down her naked length, over her breasts, across the planes of her stomach and the curve of her hips, leaving a trail of shimmering water on her skin. There was a smile on her parted lips, at once sensuous and innocent, that had a direct effect on Nick’s groin. He felt his body swelling to what felt like near fatal proportions. His breeches were suddenly intolerably tight, a tourniquet about his most vital parts. It felt like the hottest night of his entire life.
The air seemed full of the scent of honeysuckle. It wound itself around Nick’s senses, sweet and seductive. He knew that he was no gentleman to watch, but then she could be no lady. And he would have had to be approaching death to remain unaroused at the sight of the woman in the water. Her head was tilted back as the fountain splashed down on her face, her eyes were closed, the lashes fanning against her cheek, and every line of her body was pure and silver in the moonlight, with the water droplets rolling over her breasts, beading on her nipples and cascading down to the dark juncture of her thighs.
A peacock called its harsh cry from near at hand and Nick jumped, cracking his head on one of the willow tree’s low branches. The girl in the pool froze. She turned her head toward him and for a second it seemed that her gaze met his, and then she was gone, running from the pool with the water spangling the grass behind her, scooping her chemise up as she went, before her flying figure was swallowed up in the shadows.
Nick released the breath that he had been holding. His whole body felt hot, hard and aroused. Damnation, he needed that dip in the pool even more now. A shower of cold water was exactly what he required to get his wayward body and feverish imagination under control, or he would be presenting himself for the Duchess’s ball in an extremely inappropriate physical condition. The sight of the girl in the fountain had tapped straight into all those dreams he had sought so hard and so unsuccessfully to repress.
He picked up his kit bag. A brisk walk across the garden would have to suffice instead.
By the time that he reached the house, both Nick’s breathing and his errant body were under control again. His imagination, however, was proving more difficult to subdue, presenting him with images of naked goddesses with water cascading over their bodies. He blinked when a liveried footman opened the main door of the house and the glare of candlelight spilled out. What he must look like he had no notion, wild-eyed and with the water still dripping from tendrils of his dark hair. The butler was summoned, took one look at the shabby kit bag at Nick’s feet and seemed about to send him to the tradesmen’s entrance or perhaps 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