Unmasked by Nicola Cornick

as well. He would have to go there and have a few pints of ale with the local villagers. The difficulty, as he already knew, would be in getting anyone to talk. If the Glories were part of the local population then the villagers would probably guard their secrets well. The Girls were heroines to them, for their work amongst the poor and oppressed. He knew that if he asked questions, in all probability, he would get no answers. Men’s gazes would slide away and they would answer evasively and he would know that they would never tell him the truth. Some loyalties went very deep.
    There was the echo of hooves on the cobbled track farther down the hill and Nick looked down through the beech trees to see Marina Osborne on a chestnut mare. Surprisingly she had no groom leading her, but was alone. This morning she had forsaken the drab gray of her ball gown for a smart riding habit in dark green. Her black hair was drawn back into a tight knot, but a frankly frivolous little hat ruined the severity of the outfit. The horse was picking its way gingerly along the path and Mari was sitting equally gingerly in the sidesaddle.
    Nick watched her thoughtfully for a while. He had wondered if Mari’s apparent lack of facility in riding might be a deliberate ploy, for how could she be Glory if she could not sit a horse with confidence? Yet now he could see that her lack of skill was no pretence. It would be impossible to feign such incompetence. She sat on the sidesaddle as though she were perched on a chair and about to fall at any moment. She held the horse’s reins but exerted no control with them. The simple fact was that she seemed a very poor horsewoman indeed.
    He watched her make a complete hash of leaning down to open a gate, losing her footing in the slipper stirrup in the process and, he was almost certain, cursing under her breath.
    A moment later he was scrambling down the hillside as a small creature ran across the path, the mare shied, and Mari, with no control over the horse at all, tumbled from the saddle to lie still on the track.
    By the time he reached her, the horse had calmed and was cropping the grass beside the path. It looked at him from the corner of a bad-tempered eye. Mari’s saucy little hat had come off and was stuck upside down on a nettle.
    “Mrs. Osborne!”
    She was lying still, her hair falling out of its severe knot to cascade around her shoulders, her eyelashes dark against the pale curve of her cheek. Then she rolled over and Nick could see that, far from being knocked unconscious by the fall, as he had assumed, she had been winded and was literally fighting for breath. He grabbed her arms and forced them wide, then drove her wrists hard into her stomach. It was a primitive and painful treatment—he knew that from personal experience—but it was effective because it drove what remaining wind there was out of her body and allowed her to start breathing afresh. He let her go and she sat up, panting.
    “There is no need to maltreat me, sir!”
    Although she still sounded breathless her eyes were snapping with anger. Nick laughed. It seemed there was not much wrong with her.
    “I did you no hurt and I saved you from choking for breath,” he said. “You should be thanking me, not berating me.”
    She did not reply, but gave him another furious look from those gold-flecked eyes. He judged her to be recovering well enough and went across to pick up the horse’s reins. It came with him docilely and allowed him to tie it to the gate.
    Nick went back and offered Mari a hand to help her rise. She ignored it and scrambled to her feet. Her face was flushed now and there was a long streak of dirt down her cheek. Her hair was awry and her riding habit sadly crumpled. Nick thought she looked utterly tempting, ruffled and disheveled. Unbidden, the image of her in the fountain the previous night rose in his mind, her skin pale in the moonlight, cool, sweet, oh, so desirable.
    Hot and hard on the heels of the