Unmasking Sin, page 1
Unmasking Sin
Pleasure Garden, Book 3
Mary Lancaster
© Copyright 2021 by Mary Lancaster
Text by Mary Lancaster
Cover by Wicked Smart Designs
Dragonblade Publishing, Inc. is an imprint of Kathryn Le Veque Novels, Inc.
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Produced in the United States of America
First Edition November 2021
Kindle Edition
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All Rights Reserved.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
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Additional Dragonblade books by Author Mary Lancaster
Pleasure Garden Series
Unmasking the Hero (Book 1)
Unmasking Deception (Book 2)
Unmasking Sin (Book 3)
Unmasking the Duke (Book 4)
Unmasking the Thief (Book 5)
Crime & Passion Series
Mysterious Lover
Letters to a Lover
Dangerous Lover
The Husband Dilemma Series
How to Fool a Duke
Season of Scandal Series
Pursued by the Rake
Abandoned to the Prodigal
Married to the Rogue
Unmasked by her Lover
Imperial Season Series
Vienna Waltz
Vienna Woods
Vienna Dawn
Blackhaven Brides Series
The Wicked Baron
The Wicked Lady
The Wicked Rebel
The Wicked Husband
The Wicked Marquis
The Wicked Governess
The Wicked Spy
The Wicked Gypsy
The Wicked Wife
Wicked Christmas (A Novella)
The Wicked Waif
The Wicked Heir
The Wicked Captain
The Wicked Sister
Unmarriageable Series
The Deserted Heart
The Sinister Heart
The Vulgar Heart
The Broken Heart
The Weary Heart
The Secret Heart
Christmas Heart
The Lyon’s Den Connected World
Fed to the Lyon
De Wolfe Pack: The Series
The Wicked Wolfe
Vienna Wolfe
Also from Mary Lancaster
Madeleine
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Publisher’s Note
Additional Dragonblade books by Author Mary Lancaster
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Epilogue
About Mary Lancaster
Prologue
One of the candles guttered and went out. It made little difference to the general bleakness within the large, oppressively warm bedchamber.
Dr. Fanshawe, who had been bent over his patient for some time, straightened at last and turned to face the other occupants of the room. His quick, shrewd gaze met Rebecca’s, then moved on to those of her husband’s uncles before he shook his head.
Even before that gesture, Rebecca had known that her husband was dead. She had almost imagined he took his last gasp as the candle went out.
She walked forward like an automaton, wondering what she felt or if she was too exhausted ever to feel again.
Pity. I feel pity. She reached down and touched his pale, cool cheek. “Rest in peace, Theo,” she murmured. Could she, now that she was a widow again? A widow, this time, with a fatherless son, who was the entire focus of her love.
A loud cry of anguish rent the air. Theo’s mother, Lady Cornish, flew across the room. “My son, my son!”
Rebecca had no time to get out of the way before her mother-in-law’s eyes stabbed her with hate and fury. “Get away from him! Filthy murderess!”
In shock, Rebecca could only stare with more pity as Lady Cornish threw herself on the corpse of her only son, weeping uncontrollably.
No, Rebecca thought wearily. There would be no rest for the living. But right now, she could face no more. She merely bowed her head and walked across the room to the door. No one, certainly not the uncles who were entirely concerned with soothing Lady Cornish, offered her the smallest word of sympathy or condolence.
Chapter One
The Black Widow sat beneath a chestnut tree, palely lit by lantern light and the solitary candle on her table. She wore a gown of some elegant, gauzy material in a unique lavender hue. Her mask was of the same shade of lace over a more impenetrable fabric. She had not come to be recognized.
There was no crime in that. It was a masked ball, one of those held twice a week at Maida Pleasure Gardens during the summer. She appeared to be watching the dancers who had spilled out of the ballroom onto the lawn while she occasionally sipped from a wine glass held gracefully in her gloved right hand.
A domino cloak of deep purple hung over the back of her chair, no doubt because the evening was too warm to wear it comfortably. Interestingly, she wore no jewels, and there was no other chair at her table.
So, you are the Black Widow, thought Ludovic Dunne. It was the first time he had seen her in person, and he didn’t know why he was surprised. Even with half of her face covered, she was as beautiful as everyone had told him, but she was also supremely elegant. Every sip of her wine, every small change of position, was undertaken with the same almost sensual grace. Yet, with her focus entirely on other people, she seemed quite unaware of her own attractions.
Seemed.
She had taken the trouble to have the other chairs removed from her table. She did not want company. Or she was waiting for someone in particular.
“I want to know who her lovers are,” Mr. Constantine Rawlston had barked at Ludovic. “Which immoral and villainous bounders are coming in contact with my great-nephew.”
“I thought you wanted proof that she had murdered your nephew?”
“Both!” had snapped the other Rawlston brother, Aloitius. “We need the boy away from her as soon as possible for his own safety, and we need her hanged for murder!”
“I have spoken to Dr. Fanshawe who treated Sir Theodore,” Ludo had replied. “He tells me your nephew died of a putrid sore throat.”
Aloitius Rawlston had shaken his head sadly. “Theo was recovering. While she was dosing him constantly with something. You will look into it more closely, Mr. Dunne. You might even start with her first husband’s death, for she appears to have done for him, too. But it was in Italy, so the law here cannot touch her. She’s certainly never been left worse off by her widowhoods! They don’t call her the Black Widow for nothing, you know.”
The widowed young Lady Cornish certainly didn’t look like a spider. She was more like a dragonfly, bright, colorful, and dazzlingly beautiful.
As Ludovic pulled down his mask over his eyes and walked toward her, he saw that she was also younger than he had expected. With two husbands buried, he had imagined her a handsome thirty summers or so. But despite her poise, this young woman was surely still in her early twenties.
He made no secret of his approach, edging past gr
He rose, “Pardon me, madam. Did you drop this?”
She turned her head. Her brilliant eyes seemed to spark amber as they met his and dropped to the proffered handkerchief.
“No.” She offered a mere flicker of a smile, barely touching her shapely lips, to soften the blunt monosyllable. She turned back to the dancers.
He moved round into her line of vision. “Could you not pretend that you did?”
She blinked. A hint of surprised amusement had crept into her gaze. “No.”
“A lady of few words,” he observed. “Perhaps you spend too much time alone.”
A glimmering smile curved her lips. “No.” Then, she appeared to take pity on him. “You may put your chivalry away. I am waiting for someone.”
“But where would he sit?”
“Where he likes,” she drawled. “And why should you assume this person is a he?”
“A very good question with many philosophical points behind it. May I join you to discuss them?”
She glanced with deliberation around the table. “But where would you sit?” she asked gently.
Ludovic reached over and hooked a chair from the next, empty table. Placing it at a courteous distance from hers, he sat down. “Here?”
Her face betrayed neither pleasure nor displeasure. Only by the sudden tightening of her fingers on her glass could he guess her alarm. But more than a hint of hauteur entered her gaze, and he guessed this was how she kept the encroachers at bay. “My good sir, why do you keep compelling me to repeat the same word to you?”
“No?” he guessed. “I suppose I have difficulty understanding why anyone would come to a place like this for solitude.”
She set down her glass on the table. “Then you know nothing. There are many kinds of solitude.”
“You are lonely,” he said matter-of-factly. Though he watched her closely, she betrayed no admission, let alone mortification. “And so you wish to be near people.”
“Without actually talking to them.” She met his gaze without fear, with only the faintest hint of aristocratic scorn. And yet, half-hidden by the tablecloth, her fingers twisted together.
“But you are talking to me,” he pointed out. “Don’t you find that a better antidote to loneliness?”
She only raised one eyebrow, the minutest of gestures containing a world of meaning, and he laughed.
“No,” he guessed, rising to his feet. “Then I leave you to your solitude and wish you a pleasant evening. One of us, at least, has enjoyed the encounter.” He bowed and even removed the chair, placing it back where he had found it.
She inclined her head once, revealing neither relief nor disappointment, merely bored amusement. Before he walked away, she had already returned to watching the dancers. But as she picked up her wine glass and sipped, her fingers trembled so slightly he might have missed it.
Somehow, he had disturbed her, and he wasn’t coxcomb enough to believe it was with his good looks and charming conversation. She truly did not want company. But she was not as sure of herself as her outward manner portrayed. He doubted she was waiting for anyone, whatever the rest of the family thought. But she was definitely hiding something.
*
Rebecca, Lady Cornish was undoubtedly shaken by her encounter with the stranger. She had come here perhaps four times in the last month, and the tall man in the plain, black mask was the first who had ever spoken to her. Over the years, she had developed a cool, disinterested posture, a haughty and forbidding stare that repelled all unwanted attention. Some had made determined approaches but had turned tail without a word as soon as she had looked directly at them.
This stranger had not turned tail. He had been repelled by neither her determined back nor her haughty glare. She would have assumed him drunk or stupid, except that he was clearly neither. Worst of all, she had the lowering feeling he had only left her because he had sensed her discomfort, her fear.
Rebecca did not like showing fear. It was a sign of weakness she could ill afford. And it seemed now she could not afford to come to Maida again either. It was no loss. She wasn’t even sure what drove her here, except boredom and, as the stranger had humiliatingly pointed out, loneliness.
The London Season had ended some weeks ago, as the ton decamped to their own country estates for the summer or to be entertained at those of their friends. But even before then, Rebecca had stopped receiving invitations. Of course, it was a little under a year since Theo had died, so she was still officially in mourning. But in the first weeks after she had arrived in London, her old friends had welcomed her. Then the invitations had thinned, as had the morning calls, and her supposed friends never seemed to be at home when she called on them.
Never one to inflict herself where she was not wanted, she had retreated within the walls of her townhouse. As she had already retreated from Redpath Hall, although it was her home for life and her son’s inheritance.
Little Tom was her life. But the walls of the house closed in on her of an evening. Shunned and alone, she yearned for gaiety. And so, on impulse, she had come here to Maida Gardens, where few members of the ton were ever seen even during the Season, where she could be anonymous and part of society in a way she could control.
Or thought she could control until the stranger accosted her with the handkerchief ruse. Should she be flattered that he had invented an excuse to talk to her? He spoke well, looked well, so far as one could tell behind the mask. Certainly, he was poised, confident, observant…and a little too perceptive. But no threat. He had gone easily enough, moved on, no doubt, to some other woman who would be more open to his charm.
Only… Only, what is a man like that doing alone at Maida Gardens?
With a wry smile to herself, she acknowledged the irony of the question. He would have his own reasons as she had hers, and they were no one else’s business. Only she could not help wondering about his story.
Perhaps as he was wondering about hers.
Oh, please! she castigated herself. Even I cannot create the illusion of a soul mate from one hostile conversation!
He had pitied her, and that didn’t sit well with her either.
Slowly, she finished her wine, watching the dancers and imagining their lives. The stranger who had spoken to her never drifted across her line of vision.
In the midst of a dance, when fewer people milled around the area, she rose and donned her cloak and walked casually toward the main path that led to the gate. The path was well lit, but at this time of the evening, not well used. Only the figures of two men came into view as she rounded the bend.
They stood still, which was warning enough. Maida was known for occasional thieves and pickpockets, and it struck her that these two waited where they could not be seen either from the gate or by anyone at the top of the path. She contemplated going a different route, but walking on the side paths left a female open to a different kind of attack. Instead, she slipped the strings of her reticule from her wrist into the grasp of her fingers. And though her heart beat uncomfortably fast, she assumed her best haughty glare and refused to let them intimidate her.
She glided down the middle of the path, but it seemed she was not repelling enough, for they came up to meet her, deliberately blocking her way.
She halted to avoid coming too close. “Stand aside if you please.”
“Hand over the gew gaws, and we’re gone.”
“Can you see any gew gaws?” she demanded.
The one on the left lunged for her arm. “Give me the damned bag!”
So she did, swinging it up hard into his chin. The sharp crack was audible and sent him staggering backward so fast he almost fell. Rebecca bolted forward, but the second man stood there, a glinting blade in his hand.
“Drop the bag!” he snarled. “I can throw this so fast your brain won’t know your throat’s cut.”
“That,” said a voice she knew, “is no way to address a lady.”
The stranger she had encountered earlier stood beside her, unmoving. The first man, recovering from her blow, advanced from the left.
“Stop,” her companion commanded. And such was the force of his presence that both would-be thieves stopped in their tracks. “You are too blatant, gentlemen. A word in Renwick’s ear will see your days severely numbered.”
