A Bride Unveiled Read online

  He drew a breath, willing his body to settle down.

  He had left an ugly impression on her the last time they’d been together in Monk’s Huntley. It killed him, remembering how he must have looked to her. Helpless. Humiliated. Worth less than an animal being sold.

  Part of him had never wanted to see her again. The other part desperately wanted her to see what he’d become.

  When he fell asleep later tonight, it would not be locked in a solitary cell, nursing a hard blow to the head. He wouldn’t crawl through a tunnel to reach his rooms. He was his own man. He was free. And if he wanted to stay up until daybreak thinking about the woman he had kissed, he would do so.

  But for all of his accomplishments, he was still a thief. If he wanted her, he would have to steal her from another man.

  Chapter 8

  Aunt Francesca, stubborn beldam that she was, had insisted that she felt well enough to stay to have pastry with the other matrons and that she would go home with Godfrey and Violet.

  Sir Godfrey had stared at his betrothed and his fencing master on the dance floor and could hardly believe the compliments he heard. Guests seemed to be comparing their improvised country reel to everything from a Hungarian courtship ritual to a pagan Highland dance. He half expected someone to arrange Fenton’s swords across the floor for this highly . . . Well, Godfrey wasn’t sure how to describe the dance.

  Improper to ignore the music and make up one’s own steps at a party of this importance. Only the lower classes would dance like . . . He gaped at Violet, her head thrown back, her laughter unaffected, those dark curls escaping her pearl comb to caress her white skin. Suggestive.

  Her behavior suggested many things to Sir Godfrey. None of which he cared to ponder. Violet was virtue incarnate.

  And Fenton? From what Godfrey knew of him, Fenton led a decent life.

  He insisted that his pupils study hard and avoid trouble. Those who did not adhere to the code could not attend the academy. He was Godfrey’s secret hero. He was the strong but gentle brother Godfrey had always wanted in place of the two stupid brutes who throughout his youth had bashed him around for sport.

  But that was in the past. The brutes could kiss his rump. Godfrey anticipated that his business would double in the weeks before the ton left London for their country estates. After Fenton’s well-received spectacle of sword mastery, the sales of lanterns and walking canes that Godfrey had stocked in the emporium would increase. He had given away all his cards to the well-heeled philanthropists who had asked about his affairs. A news reporter had even introduced himself and promised a nice mention of Godfrey’s arcade in the paper.

  The dance was almost over. Godfrey felt as if he were aging by the minute. The way they danced . . . It just wasn’t done. The manner in which Violet and Fenton moved. Goodness. It went beyond insouciant. It bordered on dangerous.

  What if one of them tripped the other and fell? Godfrey had practically put out his back performing with that lantern tonight. Where did Fenton find the energy to dance like that?

  In another half hour or so he would be comforting Violet over her aunt’s failing health and making plans to take over the country manor in Monk’s Huntley. Godfrey could not imagine himself living in an old pile that faced a graveyard, but it would do for Violet and their children on the occasional holiday. The deed was paid off. And Violet did seem to harbor a strange attachment to the place.

  “We can’t sell the house, Godfrey,” she had told him repeatedly. “Not until you see it.”

  He felt an embarrassing fondness for her. Other people admired her, too. He noticed quizzing glasses raised to study her and Fenton. Bless her, he thought.

  Violet is only using her gifts to advance us. She is too refined to be drawn into an encounter with a common swordsman. But she wasn’t above dancing for a benefit.

  And Fenton might be common, but it wouldn’t surprise Godfrey to hear that the man had been raised to an honorary appointment or some such tribute in the future. The marquess wanted to employ him as the family’s master-at-arms. If Fenton accepted, Godfrey would not be surprised. He might even ride on Fenton’s coattails, if there was profit to be made.

  His spirits elevated, Godfrey decided he would wait until after the dance to chide Violet. It wouldn’t be fair to spoil the moment. After all, he wouldn’t want society to get the impression that she and Fenton were actually conducting a . . . He was at a loss as to what his fiancée and fencing master were doing.

  Undignified? Not with dignitaries imitating their inventive figures and looking altogether damned ridiculous. Had Violet been tippling? Not unless she did so in secret. Furthermore, no one on earth but Violet could aspire to pirouette in midair like a spinneret.

  Bless her, he thought again. Violet was only dancing with Fenton because Godfrey had asked her to. She would never act like the giddy debutantes in the ballroom who were still oohing and ahhing over Fenton’s excessive display of chivalry.

  Violet’s manners had sent Godfrey into a swoon the first day they had been introduced.

  “Sir Godfrey, I believe,” a deep voice said from above him, and he looked up into the gregarious face of the Most Honorable, the fifth Marquess of Sedgecroft, his influential and wealthy host. “Is this an inopportune time to mention a small matter of business?”

  Godfrey bowed so deeply that his nose touched his knee.

  “Are you certain that you don’t want me to stay beside you the rest of the night, Aunt Francesca? It is a strange house, and you cannot see well in the dark.”

  “I see more than you think I do, but no, I do not wish you to stay.” Her aunt spoke quietly from the bed, where she rested against a pile of pillows. “Not if you cannot hold still for me to sleep. Why are your cheeks damp? Have you been crying?”

  “I went outside in the garden while you were undressing. It’s starting to rain.”

  “You went outside at this hour? Let me feel your head. How often have I told you that it is unhealthful to stand in the damp after a strenuous activity?”

  Violet swung around the bedpost, lowering herself to her aunt’s side. Francesca’s fingertips pressed against her forehead before slipping down her nape to test for fever. “How am I?” Violet asked, restraining a grin.

  “Too full of energy for a young lady who should have worn out her shoes. Ask Delphine to make you a mug of skimmed milk to settle you down.”

  “Yes, Aunt Francesca,” she said, dancing back to the door and almost escaping before her aunt said, “Is that all it took to make you happy? A rogue’s attention at a ball?”

  Violet managed a smile. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Did I miss more than the performance tonight?” her aunt asked in soft reproach.

  “Taking into account the Boscastle history for infamous affairs, it is possible that we both did.”

  Aunt Francesca frowned, folding her hands over her Bible. “Go to bed, or at least go to your room. Do not set one foot outside again at this hour. I should think you’ve had enough excitement for the night.”

  “Yes, madam.”

  “Close the door, Violet.”

  “Yes, madam.” And she almost did, curtsying and twirling straight into the lady’s maid that she and Francesca shared.

  “Is everything all right, miss?”

  “Yes, Delphine.” She glanced back in embarrassment. “She’s ready to sleep.”

  “Shall I help you out of that gown?” Delphine asked.

  “I can manage. Just listen for my aunt in the night. Perhaps one of us should sleep in here.”

  “Definitely not,” Francesca murmured, her eyes sealed shut.

  Violet lowered her voice. “She felt light-headed at the ball, but a physician attended her and said she was fine. Probably only overcome by the excitement.”

  Delphine nodded. “I wouldn’t have been able to sleep for days before or after an event of that social importance. It’s too much at her age.”

  It was too much a
t Violet’s age—especially when Kit had turned an exciting enough social event into a forbidden reunion. Violet doubted she would sleep much herself tonight. She might not even be able to sit for a minute straight.

  She shook herself and hurried off to her room to change for bed. The small chamber felt stuffy, and she was warm from dancing and kissing Kit. She kicked off her shoes and wandered to the window, pushing it open to breathe in the night air.

  A light smattering of raindrops cooled her burning cheeks and caught like diamonds in her unbound hair. Where did he live? She looked out across the church spires and glistening rooftops that rose above the gaslit square. Was he close to her, in fashionable Mayfair, or in the dangerous East End? Why was she still tempted to run outside and find him in the dark? Why was he still the most fascinating person in the world?

  She wanted to know everything that had happened to him since she had last seen him in the churchyard. If only they could meet openly, not share wistful passages of their lives in secret.

  She would love to hear all the details of how his passion for sword fighting had become his profession.

  She was sure that her life would seem dull in comparison, which was what a lady’s life should be. How relieved she was to discover that he had been compensated for what he had overcome. And that Ambrose had been wrong when he swore that Kit would find trouble wherever he went.

  Instead, he had carved out for himself a dignified calling. The captain he called his father had given him the legacy he deserved.

  He had admirers galore.

  And he had kissed her. Oh, God. How he kissed her. She would never recover from the thrill of his mouth upon hers.

  A chorus of irreverent male voices broke her reverie. She listened for a moment and struggled to close the window as a carriage clattered past the quiet square.

  She would not be whistled at by a group of inebriated gentlemen rattling home at this late hour. And drunken they must surely be, to judge by the off-key singing that announced their approach.

  She drew the blinds and slowly undressed for bed, slipping into her robe before she hung up her gown and carefully folded her gray silk gloves into a drawer. It was only then that she felt a bit of paper tucked deeply into the seam of her left glove. It was an embossed trade card.

  She held the card to the light to read the inscription.

  Christopher Fenton

  Maître d’armes

  And at the bottom of the card, beneath his Bolton Street address, he had scribbled: My sword belongs to you.

  A rogue, indeed. For all she knew he had passed out several such cards at the party.

  What if Delphine had found the card first? She smiled unwittingly.

  What if Violet had removed her gloves at the party and the card had dropped onto someone’s plate? What if she had left her gloves in Godfrey’s carriage?

  She could never acknowledge in public what Kit had meant to her.

  They had never met until tonight. It was the way it must be. She had come too far to conduct herself in an improper manner with the object of a childhood fascination.

  She was a lady who would fulfill her aunt and uncle’s dream for her. She would be the wife of a wealthy, well-respected merchant who took fencing lessons because it was a gentleman’s art, and Sir Godfrey Maitland valued gentility as much as he did gold.

  And while she might yearn for so much more, it could never be.

  Chapter 9

  It rained lightly as Master Fenton and his entourage packed up their equipment and set off in Kit’s lumbering coach from the Park Lane mansion for the fencing academy.

  Some of the scenery he had used was on loan to the salon from Drury Lane. Kit packed up his swords before anything else. He could replace stage props if he had to, but a sword recorded the history of its owners. It kept a memory of every drop of blood it had drawn.

  Some swords, it was believed, harbored a curse if they had not been used in an honorable fight.

  Tonight he’d used the sword that he and his father had watched being made in Spain, and it had brought him luck. It had brought Violet back to him.

  He lived minutes from his small salon, a situation that was convenient but afforded little privacy. By the time the assembly unloaded the coach, Kit would have only an hour or two before his other pupils began arriving at the salon for lessons.

  He decided halfway home that he’d rather walk than travel in the crowded carriage with not only his two assistants, but Tilly, Kenneth’s wife, and another student who had asked to ride with them.

  “Who is she?” Tilly asked quietly from the window as he jumped onto the curb.

  He looked at her in surprise. “Impertinent servant, did I say I was going to visit a woman?”

  “Evasive master, I saw you dancing with one.”

  “You weren’t supposed to be in the ballroom at all after your rescue.”

  She grinned, her chin resting on her wrist. “Nobody even noticed me. I only took a peek from behind the orchestra door. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen prettier figures in a French cotillion, and half the couples got lost on the floor trying to keep up. She looked lovely from a distance. You looked nice together; that’s what I thought.”

  “For a wench you think too much.”

  But Violet had looked lovelier up close, and if Tilly had sensed how engrossed Kit had been with a virtual stranger, then he wasn’t as careful as he’d meant to be, and someone else might have noticed. At a party that spectacular, however, the little flirtations that occurred would soon be forgotten.

  It wasn’t even what had happened later in the reception room when he’d been alone with Violet that would have raised eyebrows.

  It was their prior friendship.

  “Go,” he said, motioning the coachman forward with his cane. “No more spying on me tonight, Tilly.”

  “Do you love her?”

  “How could I love a lady I’ve never met before tonight?”

  “That’s what I wondered. May I give you one piece of advice, sir?”

  “No. Absolutely no advice.”

  “You looked lovely at the ball, too. There’s no one who can move me to tears with a mere bow. You’ve the devil’s elegance, I vow.”

  “Heartwarming words. I shall embrace them to my bosom evermore. Now, good night.”

  “But you ought to learn the proper steps to a dance if you wish to impress a lady like her.”

  “I beg your pardon,” he said without a glimmer of emotion.

  “What’s her name?” she called as the carriage rolled away.

  “It’s—” None of her concern.

  None of his, either. For all it mattered, Kit should think of Violet as Lady Maitland, the title she would take upon marriage. Sir Godfrey’s wife.

  He vented a deep sigh of displeasure. She could have chosen better. He understood the reasons for the match. Sir Godfrey might be a pompous ass. He might not claim the most impressive credentials in London. But he had been born above a foundling.

  He frowned at the raucous laughter that arose from his receding carriage.

  Would he have been happier if Violet had been engaged to a man he did not know? Violet did not need his approval to marry anyone.

  If Kit had met her before she had accepted Sir Godfrey’s proposal, he might have been able to influence her decision.

  But he could hardly present himself at her aunt’s door, explaining that he was the boy who had brought disgrace to her niece, that he had once lived in the workhouse near her estate, and would her ladyship be so kind as to listen to his opinion on the matter.

  Even now he was not considered by good society to be presentable.

  He glanced around, distracted by the fall of boot heels somewhere down the street. A man in a black coat veered from the corner and hurried toward him.

  Kit’s hand closed around his sword cane, but he made no attempt to shrink back on the sidewalk. Pity the poor sod who thought to assault a master-at-arms.

  He narrowed his
eyes. The pedestrian resembled Pierce Carroll, one of the pupils who had performed at the benefit tonight.

  He swore to himself as the distance closed. The man didn’t resemble Pierce.

  It was Pierce, bustling straight toward him with a guileless smile that made Kit feel like a mother goose whose fledglings shadowed his every step.

  He swung down his cane in annoyance. The last thing he needed was a pupil hanging on his arm.

  “Sir,” Pierce said, pushing back his beaver-trimmed hat in respect, “do you mind if I walk with you?”

  Kit shrugged. “Suit yourself. I’m not heading in any particular direction.” He walked on, not encouraging conversation.

  “Did I do well tonight, Mr. Fenton?”

  “I told you that you did. It was probably the best rendition of Hamlet’s rapier-and-dagger switch that I’ve ever seen.”

  Pierce loped at his side. “I didn’t think you’d be alone tonight. You could have chosen any lady at the party for company.”

  Kit laughed drily. “I wouldn’t go that far.”

  “Everyone was enchanted by your dance with Sir Godfrey’s fiancée. She’s more than beautiful, don’t you think?”

  Kit hesitated. It crossed his mind that Pierce was either the biggest moron he had ever met or was trying to provoke him into confessing something he would regret. Fortunately, it took more than that to piss out Kit’s tallow.

  “She’s staying with her aunt in Cavendish Square,” Pierce added, one foot in the street, the other on the pavement.

  Kit shot him a considering look. Pierce appeared to be all of twenty. “How do you know?”

  “Sir Godfrey took me home once in his carriage and made a detour to show me the place.”

  “Why don’t you buy your own transport?”

  Pierce grinned. “I wouldn’t have any money to pay for your exorbitant but essential lessons.”

  Kit refrained from making a rude remark about the young man’s expensive habits. Pierce dressed well, but Kit knew little about his personal affairs. As a rule Kit minded his own business—and did not pry into his pupils’ private lives. To his misfortune they did not always return the courtesy.