Read Online Unmasked by Nicola Cornick - Free Book Online

hell and back. She admitted to herself that he had her trapped. What was to be done? It could be the ruin of her reputation if he spoke out about what he had seen. On the other hand, her indiscretion in the garden was not as damaging as those other, life-threatening secrets that she absolutely had to keep. She could admit to being the woman in the fountain but never, ever to being the harlot at the Hen and Vulture.
    “I know it was you in the fountain,” he said softly, whilst her trapped mind ran back and forth over the possibilities. “You may protest if you wish but I believe I would recognize you anywhere.”
    A shiver ran along Mari’s nerves and she drew the silver shawl more tightly around her shoulders. Oh, yes, he recognized her from the gardens but did he know her from the tavern, as well? It felt as though they were already deeply involved in a game of hunter and hunted and any admission she made could be so very dangerous.
    Challenge him. See how far he will go, what he will give away….
    She had always been a gambler. She had had to be in order to survive. Sometimes to throw down the gauntlet was the only way.
    She gave a little shrug. “Very well. I concede that I was the woman you saw in the fountain. I thought I was unobserved. It was…careless of me.”
    He flashed her another smile, a disturbingly attractive one. Her toes curled instinctively within her slippers and her heart did another giddy little skip as though she was a schoolroom miss developing a tendre rather than a mature woman of five and twenty.
    “I like it that you do not pretend,” he said. His voice was intimately low. “Ninety-nine women out of one hundred would have claimed not to understand me.”
    If only he knew. Sometimes she forgot where the pretence began—and where it ended.
    She gave him a very straight look. “Of course they would, and who could blame them? A reputation dies all too easily, as you must know, Major Falconer.”
    “So why are you different? Why did you admit it?”
    Mari met his quizzical dark gaze and felt a little breathless. “I am not different. I do not wish you to be the ruin of my reputation, Major Falconer. But equally, I know that you saw me, so what can I say?” She spread her hands in a gesture of surrender. “I was bathing. You saw me. It would avail me little to pretend otherwise. So I must rely on your behavior as a gentleman and hope you will not speak out.”
    It was not the whole story, of course. It would be impossible to tell him the truth, that sometimes the role of the respectable widow grated on her and she felt an impossible desire to be free. She could not tell him that it was this impulse that had led her to strip off her clothes and revel in the fresh coldness of the fountain. That was too intimate a thing to confide to a virtual stranger, a dangerous stranger who already saw far more than she wished.
    When he remained silent, watching her face, she raised her brows. “Was that all you wished to say to me, Major Falconer?”
    She saw his lips twitch into a smile at her attempted dismissal of him.
    “No, it was not all.” He reached forward. His fingers brushed against her neck very lightly and lingered, warm against her skin. “You had better hide that curl if you do not wish anyone else to guess your secret. Your hair is still wet. You must have rushed home and dressed in a great hurry.”
    Mari’s hand flew to her neck where the wayward curl of hair nestled against her throat. It felt feathery, soft and damp, drying from the warmth of her body. She pushed it beneath the edge of her turban, her fingers suddenly clumsy. She could feel the color suffuse her face as Nick continued to watch her.
    “Hair as black as midnight,” he said. “I remember.”
    There was a heat in the pit of Mari’s stomach as she thought of what else he might remember about her. Her whole body felt as though it was on fire. But then the memory of Rashleigh—his violence, his touch—slithered