Unmask Me If You Can

by Shana Galen

  But she had, and somehow he’d become her responsibility. She had to find a way to move him up the hill. There was only one way she could think to do that, and she would need Richard and Clover’s help.

  Two

  Jasper woke in pain. Pain so great he couldn’t even open his eyes. He couldn’t do anything but breathe through it, and even that hurt. Gradually, the wave of pain that precipitated his waking subsided to the level of mere agony, and he had time to process the fact that he was no longer lying face down in the mud. In fact, he wasn’t outside at all. There was no mistaking the yeasty smell of baked bread or the mouth-watering aroma of thyme and rosemary. He couldn’t yet manage to crack his eyes open, but what he’d thought was the thudding of blood rushing in his ears he slowly realized was the sound of rain pelting a roof and windows.

  At least he wouldn’t die out in the open. Not that he intended to die, but it was hard to argue with the stabbing sensation in his side. Unlike most of the wounds he’d suffered during the war, this was no mere scratch. The knife had plunged deep. But the pain was nothing compared to that of being burned. If he’d had to think of it in colors, this pain was red, while the burns he’d suffered had been a blinding white for weeks. He’d wanted to die then. Now he wanted to live. He tried to open his eyes again, and they wouldn’t obey. A bad sign.

  He tried to rise. Something held him down, pressing on his chest and binding his arms. He fought the restraints until another scent teased his nose. Jasper froze.

  The scent was that of a woman. He had no doubt of that. It might have been some time since he’d been close enough to a woman to inhale her fragrance, but it was a heady combination no man ever truly forgot. The scent was a mixture of the herbs cooking, the sea air, and a light note of femininity.

  A warm hand touched his cheek. Her hand, judging by the size and weight of it, and it was so cool that Jasper realized he was burning with fever. Something cool pressed against his lips followed by wetness, and he opened his mouth to take in the water. It quenched his thirst, but it must not have been the first liquid he’d been given for his throat wasn’t parched. Still, it was an effort to force words past what felt like a swollen throat.

  “Where am I?” he croaked. His eyelids fluttered, and he was able to see a gray haze before him and firelight behind it.

  “Just rest,” said a low female voice. It was a young voice. The woman whose hand had touched his cheek?

  His cheek...Panic reared inside him as he remembered his mask. Had she removed it? Was his scarred face exposed for all to see? His hand flew up to touch his face, relief coursing through him like a great avalanche when he felt the silk mask still in place.

  “I tried to remove it earlier,” said the woman, “but you fought so hard I left it.”

  Jasper reached out to touch her. She sounded nearby, but he couldn’t locate her. All he saw was that gray haze.

  She caught his hand and held it lightly. “May I remove it now? You have a fever, and I’d like to bathe your face.”

  “Where am I?” he asked. His voice sounded less hoarse now and more like it usually did.

  “With friends. You’re injured.”

  “The bastard stabbed me.” He heard the soft intake of breath. He was no longer used to speaking in front of ladies. “Forgive me.”

  She spoke softly, and someone responded. So they weren’t alone. There were others here. The gray was beginning to take shape. It was cloth, material for a dress. She was standing before him, and he was staring at her dress. He tried to look up, but the effort of lifting his head was rather more than he could manage.

  And then she surprised him by obliging him. She knelt beside the cot or pallet where he lay, and he could see her quite clearly. Her brow was furrowed in concern. It was a delicate brow on a delicate heart-shaped face. He didn’t think it was pain or delirium that made him see her as somewhat more than merely pretty. Dark hair framed the pale face, little pieces of it—what were those called?—falling down around her ears. Her eyes were the blue of the sky at dusk and framed by thick black lashes and dark brows. Her lips were like a bow, small and pink, pursed in a look of concern. Concern for him, of course.

  “Do you know who stabbed you?” she asked, and from her tone he did not think it the first time she’d asked the question. He’d been so caught up in looking at her, he hadn’t been able to concentrate on anything else. And not simply because she was extraordinarily pretty. Because he knew her, and she would have known him as well if his face hadn’t been ravaged in that fire.

  “No,” Jasper finally said. “He came out of nowhere.”

  “I found you on the trail. Had he forced you off the sea shore so he might accost you? I’ve seen a few smuggling ships and heard stories of pirates, but we’ve never had any trouble.”

  He understood what she wanted to know.

  “No. He was hiding on the trail. I was looking for you.”

  She shrank back, her eyes widening. “You know me.”

  He tried to nod and found it hurt too much. “I do. And you know me, though I don’t expect you to recognize me with the mask.”

  “May I—?” She reached out one hand.

  “Touch it at the risk of losing your hand,” he said in a much more menacing tone than he’d intended.

  She snatched her hand back.

  “You’re Miss Carlisle. We danced together years ago. Before I wore this mask. Before you disappeared from Society.”

  “You have me at a disadvantage.”

  “Jasper Grantham.”

  She stared at him as though willing her brain to place him. “That’s the surname of the Marquess of Strathern.”

  “His third son, at your service.” He’d foolishly tried to make a flourish with his arm, and it brought on a coughing fit, which made his side hurt as though someone was digging the knife in all over again. He tasted blood in his mouth and knew that to be a bad sign.

  “And why have you come looking for me?” she asked when he’d stopped hacking enough that he could hear her. Through tears brought on by the pain, he saw her pretty blue eyes were wary and shadowed by those long lashes.

  “No need to worry about that now.” She was going all gray again. Had she stood? Was he staring into the folds on her dress again?

  “Why is that?”

  “Because I’m dying. Won’t live long...enough...to...”

  Blackness, blessed for its lack of sensation, descended and Jasper went willingly into its embrace.

  When he woke again, he knew she was near. He could detect her fragrance, just barely, but it was there. It still rained, so the storm hadn’t yet passed. It was either a remarkably strong storm or he hadn’t slept very long. Jasper did a mental accounting of his body. He still wore the mask, which surprised him because most people he knew were far too curious to leave something like that in place. He still lay on the bed, but his chest was bare beneath the sheet that covered him. He wore his trousers but wiggling his toes a bit told him he didn’t possess his boots. The one boot might be lost forever.

  His blasted side hurt like the devil, but now the pain was only a raw pink as opposed to searing red. His throat felt dry and his skin hot and itchy, which meant the fever hadn’t left him, but it had lessened. There must have been something in the water she’d given him, some sort of medicine to ease the pain and fever. He had the first fleeting hope that he would not die.

  Of course, he wasn’t about to stand up and walk out of here. And he certainly wouldn’t be able to take Miss Carlisle with him. For all the strength he had, she could push him over with one finger.

  He opened his eyes and stared at the wide oak beams that supported the roof. They were not painted, though they had discolored slightly from the fires that kept the cottage warm. Jasper allowed his gaze to travel across the ceiling and then down the wall across from where he lay. There was the hearth and in it a small fire burned. It had been banked for the night, and expertly so. It would burn cheerily for hours to come. Beside the hear
th a large pot hung on an iron arm that could be swung into the fire so its contents might heat. On the other side, a small wooden rack held a pair of stockings and a small shirt. These were drying with the aid of the fire’s heat.

  Jasper stared at the shirt for quite a long time. It looked like a man’s shirt, though it was too small for any man.

  In the center of the room a good size oak table took up most of the rest of the space in the cottage. On it lay two plates and two bowls, stacked on top of each other. A basket filled with what looked to be herbs and vegetables was in the center, and several books were at the end farthest from the fire. Benches ran the length of both sides of the table, and Jasper could just make out several small objects on the bench farther from him and thus in too much darkness for him to identify. A ladder lay against the wall across from the table, and it led to a loft, where Jasper assumed Miss Carlisle slept. As to where he now lay...he tried to move his head enough to determine where he was. It was a bed, not a cot as he’d earlier assumed. A small bed with soft sheets and a warm blanket over his legs. It must have belonged to the person he’d heard her speaking to earlier. A maid? A friend? The voice had not been low enough to belong to a man.

  He heard a sound and turned to look on his other side, and there she was, asleep. Her hands were folded in her lap, a piece of fabric still held loosely, the thread dangling. Jasper remembered seeing his nanny thus many times. He’d always taken advantage of those moments to sneak out of the nursery and play tricks on his young sisters. This woman sat in a rustic-looking rocking chair, her head fallen to one side and her eyes closed. Her dark lashes cast a shadow on her cheek, which looked pinker and warmer than it had earlier.

  She still looked far too pretty, with all that dark hair and translucent skin, like a painting one might see in a museum. Again, he questioned why her parents, who seemed to love her enough to pay him an exorbitant amount to have her returned to them, had ever engaged her to a man like the Duke of Withernsea? The man was a brute, a great bull of a man with little grace and well-known proclivities. As a man who made his way in the world slinking through the shadows of London’s rookeries, looking for people who did not want to be found and whom Bow Street could not find, Jasper knew a thing or two about the seedier side of the city. He knew the brothels and the gaming hells and the streets where the beggars were as thick as flies on a dead dog. Though Jasper himself had no interest in the business of prostitutes, he found himself in their company more often than most. For a farthing or two, the women would give him the odd bit of information. When he needed information on someone of the upper classes, he would spend an evening in the brothels the men of the ton frequented. The whores still had most of their teeth and enough rouge to cover the pox marks on their skin, but the price was a thruppence or even a tanner.

  In some of those brothels, he’d seen more than one ladybird sporting a bloody lip or a bruised cheek. And those were only the wounds that showed. Several men had reputations for such violence. The whores knew who they were, and the abbesses charged them extra. Jasper doubted the broken girl was paid extra for the nightmare she endured, but it compensated the abbess for the expense of doctors who would be called to sew the chit back together.

  And one of the men who always paid extra was the Duke of Withernsea.

  Had the Carlisles not known of Withernsea’s reputation? Jasper couldn’t remember if he’d known of it all those years ago, before the war and before Napoleon. Regardless, he knew of it now. He knew the duke had searched for his betrothed for years. By now he might have married any young lady with parents destitute enough to offer their daughter up as a sacrifice. But Withernsea wanted Viscount Carlisle’s daughter. He wanted what he’d been promised.

  The fact that the woman sleeping just a few feet away had defied the duke for so long impressed Jasper. She had to be resourceful and independent to run away and stay hidden all these years. She can’t have had much money or any way to earn more. Jasper looked about the cottage. And yet she seemed to be making do—more than making do. The cottage was cozy and inviting. If the rain and winds hadn’t been rattling the shutters and battering the walls, it might have even been peaceful. But she couldn’t want to live away from her family, in seclusion. Why had she stayed away for so long?

  What had the duke done to her?

  The effort of looking about had tired him and Jasper allowed his eyes to drift closed again only to snap them back open. His skin prickled painfully, and he tensed. He had the same feeling he’d had when in France, right before an ambush. His gaze returned to Miss Carlisle, but she slept on. Then he darted his attention across the room and up to the darkness of the loft above the ladder.

  There was a figure crouched there who hadn’t been there before.

  Jasper wished he had some sort of weapon. He would have preferred a pistol, but even a knife would have sufficed. As it was, he lay helpless, his chest exposed. And then, as he watched, the figure took shape, and Jasper felt his body relax. This was not a man or a beast, crouched in anticipation of attack. This was a child, peering down at him and attempting not to be seen. Jasper lifted a hand, silently indicating he had noticed the child. He expected the youth to shrink back, but instead the boy moved forward until he knelt beside the ladder.

  Even in the dim light, there was no mistaking the boy’s resemblance to his mother, who slept on unawares. But Jasper also knew the boy’s father, and Withernsea’s red hair was the exact same color as the lad’s.

  Jasper swallowed, his dry throat protesting the movement. He had his answers now. What Withernsea had done, why Miss Carlisle had remained hidden. And as usual, now that he had the answers he sought, he wished he’d had the wisdom to remain ignorant.

  OLIVIA WOKE TO BLACKNESS. She hadn’t meant to fall asleep. She’d intended to stay awake and vigilant, keeping an eye on the injured form of Lord Jasper. The man seemed to think he was on the verge of death, but in Olivia’s view, he still had plenty of strength remaining. He’d barely responded when she’d led Clover down the trail and dragged the unconscious man to the travois she constructed from a harness, some old wood, and a study old horse blanket. She had huffed and puffed in order to move the man uphill to the travois. For a few minutes she’d been glad of the rain because it cooled her heated face and washed some of the man’s blood from her hands.

  She’d half wondered if her efforts were even worth it. He’d seemed to have lost so much blood. Having Clover pull him up the steep cliff might kill him even faster. But she couldn’t leave him. He terrified her, but she refused to act any more the coward than she already had. What example would that set for Richard? Of course, if the man ended up murdering Richard and her in their sleep, that wouldn’t be the best example either.

  Clover had easily hauled the man, who must have been eleven or twelve stone, up the cliff and right to the door of the cottage. Richard had stood there, eyes wide with shock, as she unfastened the horse blanket and pulled the man inside. The rain had been coming down in earnest, and if she’d looked out at the ocean, she would have seen the white caps pitching and rolling with a vengeance. As she struggled to maneuver the man into the cottage, she’d used her eyes to dare Richard to say something. When her son, who was no fool, kept his mouth shut, she ordered him to ready her bed.

  “Your bed, Mama?”

  “I can’t drag him up to yours, darling,” she’d wheezed. Together they’d wrestled the man inside and onto her bed, which Richard stripped first so all the linens wouldn’t be soiled with blood. And then she’d gone to work.

  She had a rudimentary knowledge of the sick room. Her mother’s health had always been poor, and Olivia had watched surgeons do their work from the time she was Richard’s age. She knew the wound had to be cleaned and that spirits would work well for that. She had a bottle she kept in case she or Richard were ever injured, and though she hated to waste it now, she did so anyway. She’d removed the man’s shirt—and wasn’t that a new experience—and cleaned the wound by dousing it with
a quarter of the bottle of gin.

  If she’d thought he was half dead, he had disproved it by sitting up and roaring. She’d jumped back just in time to avoid being backhanded by his flying fists. One look at his face told her he wasn’t aware of what he was doing. His eyes had been blank and wild. He was probably barely conscious. When he lay back down, she’d spooned some of the gin into him. It probably wasn’t the best cure, but she figured he would need it when she sewed his wound closed. Surprisingly, he’d only moaned when she’d completed that task. And then he seemed to settle into a deep sleep. She hoped it was a healing sleep, though he might just as easily slip into death. She had no way of knowing if the knife had punctured something vital, and no way to repair the organ if it had. But at least he was no longer bleeding all over everything.

  She’d made soup for Richard and baked the bread she’d spent the morning kneading, then when Richard had eaten and was playing quietly with his wooden animals, she returned to the wounded man and cleaned the blood from his body.

  She’d tried not to look too closely at his chest. It was probably very much like any other man’s chest—muscled and hard with a smattering of hair. The skin was darker than her own as though it had been exposed to the sun on occasion, and while he was not prone to any fat, he was also not slim or slight. He was strong and big and even the ugly knife gash she covered with a clean strip of linen looked insignificant compared to the heft of him.

  She’d noticed other smaller details she should not have. His nipples were a pale pink. She didn’t know why this should intrigue her so. But it had made him seem less formidable to have nipples of such a tender color. She’d wiped the cloth over them, and they stiffened, much like her own when she was cold. That too had been interesting. Interesting enough that she’d glanced guiltily at Richard to make certain he hadn’t seen.