Unmasked by the Marquess

by Cat Sebastian

  That was what the past month had been like: a blur of laughter and fun. Clever people, amusing conversation, music and food and wine and all the best things in life.

  She wanted to soak up every minute of it because she knew that soon it would be gone. She would be gone. Alistair had to know that her time was running out, and he wasn’t even here to share it with her.

  At least Louisa was not at home when Maurice Clifton called. Innocently, she would have somehow given them away in an instant, and the man’s likeness to Robbie would only have distressed her. God knew, it certainly distressed Charity. She felt like she was lying to Robbie himself.

  “I must say, Cousin, that I was quite surprised when I heard that you had done so well for yourself at Cambridge.” He spoke with an accent that Charity assumed was native to Dorset. It made him, for some reason, sound honest and kind, and she hated this deceit even more. “I had never taken you for the scholarly sort.”

  Robbie had been far from scholarly. He hadn’t had the temperament for sitting still and working, and had always been happier mending fences or helping in the stables. “I was a late bloomer,” Charity said, not letting her smile falter. After all, she had been a late bloomer. It felt less filthy to sprinkle some honesty over the top of the deceit.

  “In some ways, perhaps.” Clifton was stroking his chin in a thoughtful way.

  Charity smiled blankly, not knowing where this was going.

  “You aren’t as tall as I might have expected. I recall you being something of a brawny lad.”

  “I lost a good deal of weight after my illness.” After Robbie died, after Charity and Louisa buried him secretly beneath the rowan tree at Fenshawe, Keating spread word among the villagers that Mr. Selby’s illness had left him sadly thin. Thus, they were prepared for a change in the young squire’s appearance if they happened to see him from a distance. Charity felt sick repeating the lie to this man who looked so much like Robbie.

  “Hmm.” Clifton was regarding her very intently. “You seem hale enough now. Agatha Cavendish is here in London with you, you say?”

  “Yes, she’s at the milliner’s with my sister.” Another truth, not that it mattered.

  “She must be seventy. How long did you say she lived with you at Fenshawe?”

  “She came right before I left for university.” She didn’t like the direction of his questions. He suspected something.

  “I haven’t been to Northumberland in years. Perhaps I ought to pay a visit.”

  Was that a threat? An opportunity to confess? Or simply idle chatter?

  Clifton left and Charity began pacing.

  It was now doubly important to get Louisa creditably married. Then Charity could be done with this deceit.

  How would she do this? Would she pretend to jump off a bridge? Book passage to India and, once there, bribe somebody to send home a death notice?

  And then where would she go? She could never see anyone she had known in this life or her fraud would be revealed—not only hers, but Louisa’s too, and Keating and Aunt Agatha’s complicity. In order to keep Louisa safe, she would never be able to see Louisa again. She felt tears spring to her eyes.

  Nor would she ever see Aunt Agatha, Amelia Allenby, or any of the people she had met in London.

  She would never again see Alistair. Not that he would want to see her.

  Not that he wanted to see her now.

  There came the sound of the front door opening and closing, muffled voices traveling up from the vestibule. She made an effort to compose herself, but must not have achieved a very convincing result, because no sooner had Louisa appeared at the threshold than she rushed over to Charity’s side. “What happened?” She knelt on the carpet, rubbing Charity’s hands.

  “Cousin Clifton visited.” Charity wiped her eyes with Louisa’s handkerchief. “He looks so much like—” Her next words were muffled by Louisa’s hand over her mouth. When Charity looked up, there was Gilbert, standing in the doorway and looking embarrassed.

  Well might he look embarrassed, coming into a room where a grown man was weeping like a child. With some effort, she stopped. Taking a deep breath, she forced a smile. “Sorry, Gilbert. I was being maudlin. A cousin visited, and he looks like our late father.” That was a neat recovery, she thought.

  “Maurice?” This was Aunt Agatha, who had only now come into the drawing room. “He doesn’t look a damned thing like Francis.” For a moment Charity was terrified that she was about to go on in this imprudent way, regardless of Gilbert’s presence. “You should see the bonnet Louisa bought. It looks like something that washed up on the banks of the Thames.”

  Charity went over to the table where they kept the brandy and poured herself a glass. She forced herself to drink it all before turning around and facing the room. There really were times when strong drink was medicinal, and she was fairly sure this was one of those times. As she felt the brandy work its way through her veins, a warmth spreading slowly across her body, she tried to steady herself. If Louisa married, nothing else mattered. Even if they were exposed, Louisa could explain to her new husband that she had been forced by Charity to cooperate in the fraud. And if she married a man of influence and wealth, her husband might be able to buy Clifton’s silence.

  Gilbert de Lacey was not a man of influence and wealth, but his brother was, and that was close enough, if Alistair could be persuaded to dirty his hands.

  Louisa was trying on her new bonnet, which did rather look like a sea creature. It was a frightful shade of green, and if one was in a grotesque frame of mind, one could detect a suggestion of seaweed and tentacles in the ribbons and netting. It would be properly hideous on anyone else, but over the last six weeks in London, Louisa had discovered that she could get away with wearing things that other women might not dare.

  Robbie had still been alive when Charity first realized that Louisa would be a beauty. Charity and he had been huddled under the blankets in his bed when she asked if he had anything set aside for Louisa’s dowry. “No, but she has her face,” was his answer. He had not been a terribly responsible brother, but he had been so young, and his guardian—none other than Mr. Clifton—had been so far away. “We have time,” he told Charity, pulling her close against him. But they didn’t.

  There was never time. Now Charity’s remaining time with Louisa could be measured in weeks instead of months.

  Feeling abjectly sorry for herself, she went in search of the one person who could be counted on to snap her out of it. She found Keating in the tiny butler’s pantry, indifferently polishing silver.

  “You’ll never get the spots off unless you twist the rag up like so,” she said, taking the spoon and cloth from him.

  “Never said I wanted to be a proper butler,” he grumbled. “You lured me with promises of a life of crime.”

  When Charity met Keating he had been working at Cambridge as a bedder—a servant who tended to students’ linens and washing water. She caught him sneaking out of another student’s rooms at an odd hour and supposed him to be a common thief, but in fact he was that student’s sometime lover. By that point she had been desperate for an accomplice, someone to pretend to shave her and to handle the laundry so she wouldn’t have to burn her monthly rags. And if Keating could keep the secret of his relationship with the other student, then surely he could keep her secret as well. She had not been disappointed.

  “Lucky you,” she said, pushing her sleeves up in order to save them from the silver polish, “we only have another month or so left, and then we’ll go back to being penniless miscreants.”

  “Hmph.” He eyed her carefully. “You don’t sound too cheerful about the prospect.”

  “I think it’s only fair to warn you that I’m going to be very bad company at first.” Try as she might, she could not remember agreeing that Keating would accompany her. But it seemed he had made up his mind.

  “I’m sure I’ll contrive a way to amuse myself.” He took the half-polished spoon back from Charity. “So. A
re we to flee by land or by sea?”

  “I don’t know yet. Clifton was here. He hinted that he might go to Fenshawe and ask questions.”

  “Bad timing, with the pretty lordling almost on the hook.”

  There was no point in taking issue with this characterization of Lord Gilbert’s courting of Louisa. “Exactly.”

  “I’ll go to Fenshawe and make sure there’s no gossip.”

  God, that would be a relief. “You’ll send word if it looks like he’s about to make trouble?” That would at least give her time to get away, time to make sure Louisa knew what she had to say.

  And then she’d be gone.

  She had recovered from losing Robbie and she’d recover from losing Louisa and Alistair and the rest of it. She had started this life with nothing and nobody, and it would be no great loss to start with nothing again. Being alone and nameless was practically her birthright, after all.

  Chapter Twelve

  Alistair called on her as soon as he returned to London. Well, as soon as he washed off the dust of the road and changed into something suitable. Although what attire was suitable for this errand he couldn’t rightly guess. He was doing what was correct, and that would have to sustain him. The entire week at Broughton he had spent turning this issue over in his mind, finally determining that there was only one acceptable course of action.

  Checking once more that his cuffs were even and his collar straight, he entered the drawing room. It was crowded with the usual young bucks and whichever female relations they could persuade to accompany them. Miss Allenby was present and, after only an instant’s hesitation, he gave her a cordial half bow. Or perhaps not precisely cordial, but at least . . . Well, it was a bow. Robin couldn’t accuse him of treating his half sisters like lepers now, could she?

  He didn’t see Robin anywhere, though. He caught Miss Selby’s eye—he made her a bow and in return she delivered her usual approximation of a smile. She didn’t like him in the least bit, and for all her pretty manners couldn’t quite feign civility to him. Gilbert had likely filled her ear with tales of Alistair’s stinginess and cruelty. It might have been more convenient to be on friendly terms with Robin’s pretend sister, but Alistair was rather used to a certain chilliness in his dealings with people, so he didn’t concern himself overmuch about Miss Selby.

  Without even looking, he knew the minute Robin walked into the room. Maybe it was the way so many people smiled toward the door. Maybe it was her scent or some primal connection they had forged during their night together. Whatever the reason, he felt her presence with his entire body.

  When he turned and she saw him, she smiled so brightly and started towards him so automatically that for a moment he thought she was going to launch herself into his arms.

  The horrible thing was that he would hardly have minded, so lost was he to all sense of decorum and propriety where Robin was concerned. And that was why he had to go through with this.

  Some of his unease must have shown on his face because she checked her progress toward him, adopting a more neutral expression, the bland politesse that was utterly proper in London drawing rooms.

  He hated it. He wanted to grab her and kiss her until she gave him that smile again.

  This was madness.

  He schooled his expression into something decent. “Mr. Selby.” He spoke loudly and coolly enough for half the room to hear how utterly unmoved he was by seeing her. “Is there a place where we can discuss that matter I referenced at our last meeting?”

  She played along. She was practiced at playacting, after all. A veritable expert at deceit, his Robin was. “Of course, Lord Pembroke. Come to my study.”

  She must have been out riding, because she was wearing riding clothes, and her hair was even more disordered than usual. Now that he had seen the body underneath the clothes, he couldn’t walk behind her without his gaze straying to her legs, her hips, the curve of her arse.

  They made it all the way there without dropping the facade. It wasn’t until Alistair himself had turned the key in the door behind them that they even touched one another.

  And then she did actually launch herself at him, and he was glad of it. “You vile bastard,” she said, covering his face with kisses. “Where were you?”

  “Shropshire.” He scooped her up against him and then, realizing he had better things to do with his hands, pushed her against the wall, caging her in with his body and running his hands all over her—the nip of her waist, the small of her back, the slight swell of her breasts. He wanted to be touching all of her at once. Kissing her, possessing her. Madness.

  “I was beginning to fear you meant to spend the rest of the season in the country.”

  So had he, for that matter. “I had to think.” He kissed her ear, her neck, the tip of her nose. Her freckles seemed to have multiplied in the last week.

  She rubbed her face along his jaw, which he supposed meant she wasn’t too cross with him. “You couldn’t think in London?”

  No, he quite plainly could not. He had come here to behave respectably, and now look at him. He was grabbing fistfuls of her shirt, crudely shoving aside waistcoat and riding jacket, all to get to her skin, and this while only a few yards away, a roomful of ladies and gentlemen sipped tea. “There are other things I do in London,” he said, before taking her mouth in a kiss.

  She tasted like lemons and sugar and he couldn’t get enough. He stroked his tongue along her lower lip, her teeth, her tongue. And she kissed him back relentlessly, like they were having a contest to see which of them could do the most kissing. The thought crossed his mind that they were on the road to total dishevelment, and that he had no strategy for retying the cravat she was currently mangling in her hands, but then she wrapped her legs around his back and he found that he lost even that scruple.

  He slid his hands under her backside, bringing her closer against him, making her feel how much he wanted her, how thoroughly lost to all standards he was. He needed her to know how being around her made him lose that part of himself, because maybe she would understand why he had to go through with his purpose in coming here. Maybe even he would understand.

  But she made a soft and needy sound, and his thoughts scattered like pigeons startled by a cat. There was nothing outside the four walls of this room and maybe there never had been. There was only Robin moaning when he let his hand settle between her legs.

  He had never, not even as a young man, not even in his wildest fantasies, allowed himself to conjure up anything so arousing, anything so utterly indecent as this. Breeches and riding coat, unkempt hair and unbound breasts.

  “Too many clothes,” he managed to say.

  “Do you mean to undress? I won’t complain.”

  “I mean to undress you, because I can’t figure out how to properly fuck you otherwise.” He knew she liked it when he swore. He was truly far gone.

  Her eyes darkened and her face assumed a dangerous expression. “Is that a challenge?”

  “It’s whatever you want it to be as long as I’m inside you in the next thirty seconds.”

  She turned to face the wall and pushed her breeches below her hips. He could see the curve of her arse below the hem of her coat and his cock throbbed with need. He unfastened the minimum number of buttons necessary to take out his cock, then rubbed it between her legs, sliding it along her wet warmth. His hips settled against the softness of her backside, and she braced her hands on the wall to steady herself against his movement.

  She shot him a sly glance over her shoulder. “You said thirty seconds.”

  He gave her a quick, hard kiss before tugging her hips back and thrusting into her. He groaned at the sensation of tight warmth surrounding him, holding still for a long, grateful moment. This arrangement didn’t allow for much movement. Her legs were bound by her breeches and he couldn’t quite position his own legs between them. But the way their movement was hampered only heightened his need. She was rocking her hips onto him in rhythm with his thrusts. Inspired, h
e shoved the coat and shirttails away so he could watch the place where they joined. Every time his cock disappeared into her flesh she gave a small, satisfied moan.

  “You like this,” he said, pointing out the obvious. She liked the feel of him inside her.

  “So much,” she said. “So much. I thought about it all week.” She took one of her hands from the wall and slid it down to where he entered her, circling his erection and then stroking herself. He brought one of his own hands to join hers, so she could teach him to touch her the way she touched herself. So light, barely any pressure, only the tip of a finger tracing small circles around that one bud of nerves.

  When she came, he felt her tighten around him, and that was enough to bring on his climax. He pumped hard into her, and she had to use both arms to brace herself and take his thrusts. He managed to withdraw in time to spill into his handkerchief, but still he didn’t step away from her.

  “I came back for a reason.” His mouth was against her ear. “Marry me, Robin.”

  She must have misunderstood. “Excuse me?” Her body had gone stiff, the last lingering traces of her climax chased away by his words.

  “Marry me. You’re familiar with how it works? Church, vows, ring.”

  And here she had thought him a reasonable, prudent person. “That’s mad.” She pulled up her breeches and wriggled away from his grasp.

  “It’s the right thing for us to do.” He looked so bloody solemn she wanted to slap him.

  She felt her face heat. “Fuck your right thing to do. I don’t want any part of your righteousness. I don’t want to be your goddamned good deed, either.” She balled her fists at her sides. “Marry you, my arse. Go home, Alistair, and sleep it off. You wouldn’t be the first man to make hasty offers after a tumble. You’ll think more clearly in the morning.”