Unmasked - Nicola Cornick

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is true that whilst I was with him I never met any other member of his family and he never spoke of them so I imagine he cannot have been close to his cousin. But Major Falconer must know that the Earls of Rashleigh once owned serfs in Russia.”

      Hester’s arm tightened. “What if he does know it? That is all in the past.”

      “No, it is not,” Mari said, shivering. “You know that legally I was never given my freedom. I am still a serf.”

      For one long, terrifying moment the memories crowded in and she was back in the study of the house in St. Petersburg, where she had lived for the first seventeen years of her life. Rashleigh’s father had taken her from her parents when she was a child and had educated her on a whim, instructing her in all the arts that an English lady would learn. He was an eccentric, an academic and a collector, and Mari had come to realize that in an odd sort of way she was part of his collection. He had wanted to see if he could take the child of Russian serfs and transform her into something approaching a lady.

      But when his son had inherited her, he had had other ideas of the role of his father’s seventeen-year-old protégée. In her mind’s eye Mari could still see Robert Rashleigh strutting into the house and plundering it whilst his father’s body was not yet cold upstairs. He had lolled back in his father’s chair, appraising her with his insolent gaze.

      How piquant of my father to try out such a foolish notion as to educate you and give you ideas above your station, girl! But never mind, all serfs are bred to be no more than bed warmers and soon you can take up your duties on your back.

      He had leaned forward and pinned her with his icy-blue gaze.

      You see, I have a proposition for you, my dear. An offer you cannot refuse. You and your family are serfs. You belong to me body and soul. So I am offering you a proposal—a rather piquant one, I think you’ll agree. If you give me your body to do with as I wish I will give your family their freedom, their souls, if you like…

      She had accepted his proposition.

      Of course she had, for how could she have refused, knowing that her family’s very freedom was at stake? She had had no real choice. She was trapped. So she had traded herself, her virginity, her innocence, her very life, for their freedom from slavery. She had become the Earl of Rashleigh’s mistress.

      The only remarkable thing about it was that Rashleigh had kept his word, giving money for her sisters’ education, buying her father a small plot of land near Svartorsk and giving him grain and animals enough for him to forge a living from the soil. But then Mari had come to realize that it pleased Robert Rashleigh to be magnanimous sometimes, so that amidst the cruelty and avarice, he occasionally displayed a careless generosity that would surprise her. At first she had taken it as a sign of hope—that there was good in him after all. Later she came to realize that he did it precisely for that reason—to make people think there was hope in order to take a perverse pleasure in proving them utterly wrong. He had freed her family on whim because he wanted to prove he had the power to do so, the power of life and death, the power over freedom or slavery. And then he had set out to exact thorough and devastating payment from her, subjugating her body to his will.

      With a shudder she pushed the memory back into the furthest recesses of her mind.

      “Don’t think like that, Mari,” Hester said now, recalling her to the present. “You are not a possession. You belong to nobody but yourself. Legally—” she waved a hand around vaguely, with the kind of aristocratic disregard for convention that always made Mari laugh “—there may be some boring argument that someone could make against you, I suppose, but that will never happen.” She paused. “I think it is most likely that if Major Falconer does have a purpose in coming to Peacock Oak, it must be to solve his cousin’s murder.”

      There was silence whilst they both thought about it.

      “But how did he know to come here?” Mari spread her hands wide. “Unless Rashleigh told him where to find me…”

      Hester was shaking her head. “I don’t know, Mari. But I think that until we find out, you must be very, very careful.”

      Mari nodded. She felt frighteningly uncertain. From the questions he had asked her that evening she thought that Nick Falconer surely suspected her of Rashleigh’s murder. It could be no coincidence that he had come to Peacock Oak. She already knew he was strong and ruthless in his pursuit of what he wanted, and if his aim were justice, he would hunt her down. She refused to think of the other, even more frightening possibility that Rashleigh had told his cousin everything about her and that Nick was there to take up the blackmail where Rashleigh had left off. She tried not to think that he might have come there to claim her.

      Hester was right. She had to be very careful indeed. Say nothing, admit nothing, show no fear….

      “He cannot prove a thing,” Hester said now, “least of all that you killed Rashleigh, since you did not.”

      “No,” Mari agreed.

      “And even if you had,” Hester said, her voice as hard as iron now, “no one could condemn you, Mari. Not if they knew the truth. The man deserved to die horribly a thousand times over for what he did to you.”

      There was a silence between them. At the beginning of their friendship, when Hester had suggested that they should share a home, Mari had decided to tell her all about her background. Hester and Laura Cole were the only people she had ever told, the only ones who knew that Mari had reinvented herself as Marina Osborne, respectable widow. Even then she had omitted the worst details of Robert Rashleigh’s vice, not wanting to either relive it or to inflict on her friends the horror of what she had experienced. Mari thought that she would never forget Hester’s appalled reaction and the look of utter shock on her face when she heard the tale. Hester, who had believed herself so outrageous, so worldly wise and cynical, had been shaken to the core by Mari’s disclosures.

      She had heard Mari’s tale in silence and then she had squared her shoulders and told her that Robert Rashleigh was a despicable man who deserved to die for what he had done and that Mari must never, ever feel sad or ashamed or lonely ever again. Mari had appreciated her kindness and her generosity of spirit more than Hester could ever know, but even so there were things that she could never tell her friend, things she could never explain about the shackles that were on her mind if not her body. She had been a serf all her life. One of her earliest memories was trying to grasp after what it truly meant to be free. She had asked the old Earl to explain about serfdom but he had just laughed at her for what he called her philosophical interests. And when she was twelve and he had asked her what gift she would like for her birthday, she had asked for her freedom and he had given her instead a mouse made of spun sugar.

      The old Earl of Rashleigh had treated her as a toy but it was his son who had made her his plaything, had taken away her self-respect and her innocence and sometimes she despaired that she could ever forget.

      She finished the champagne and smiled wryly to think of the little serf from Russia sitting on a Duke’s terrace and drinking his champagne. How far she had climbed. How far she had to fall, if Nick Falconer should suspect her, if he had uncovered that she was his cousin’s runaway mistress, a slave, a thief and a criminal.

      “He is a difficult man to deceive,” she said, thinking of Nick.

      Hester looked at her sharply. “What do you mean?”

      Mari swung her champagne glass thoughtfully between her fingers. “Only that he is clever, Hester, and ruthless and strong. I am so afraid that he will catch me out sooner or later.”

      Now Hester looked horrified. “But, Mari, you cannot let him! You must lie to him and keep your nerve. Think of the consequences if you do not! You could bring us all down—”

      “I know,” Mari said. She felt immensely weary. This, she thought, was hardly the moment to tell Hester how much Nick Falconer attracted her nor that she had a mad desire to trust him.

      “Do not worry, Hester,” she said. “You have always cared for me. I will not let you all down.”

      “All

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