Read These Vicious Masks: A Swoon Novel for Free Online

door. “Miss Wyndham, your mother asked me to help dress you for church.”
    My guilt shifted very quickly to anger. Rose was kidnapped, and they wanted to go to church? Mechanically, I marched to my room and dressed, not knowing where Lucy put my nightgown or how she
laced me into my corset with shaking fingers. My mind thought of nothing but Rose. Mother would not listen until I found some kind of evidence, and with two men showing entirely too much interest
in my sister last night, I had my suspicions about which of them might be able to provide it. And he would be attending church with his uncle.
    “For the time being, we will tell anyone who asks that Rosamund is visiting my sister in London,” my mother informed me as the carriage took us into town for church.
    Father nodded along in approval. “We will have to wait for her next letter. Then we’ll send someone to retrieve her.”
    I refrained from saying anything and seethed silently, raging at both Mr. Cheval and Mr. Braddock. The carriage groaned to a stop outside the church, and as the small crowd of our neighbors
meandered inside, I saw a solitary dark head lingering in the shadows. Of course he was in the shadows.
    “Oh look, Mother, there’s Mr. Braddock. I would so like to speak to him again!” I said as I climbed out.
    Mother looked at me suspiciously. “I thought you didn’t like him.”
    “Oh no, I simply didn’t wish to give myself away!” Was a modest look down doing it up too brown? Yes, probably.
    “Is it really the time for this, Evelyn?”
    “It can’t hurt to just speak to him, could it?”
    My parents were too tired to argue any further and led the way to the church. I pretended to find the sky deeply fascinating until they were safely inside. When the last person shut the door, I
marched directly toward Mr. Braddock, and the expression on his face turned stormy when he realized my target.
    “Miss Wyndham, are you also angling for a seat in the back?” Dark green eyes judged mine for a brief moment before he bowed slightly.
    Without preamble or forethought, the words spilled out. “What is your relationship to the giant?”
    He stared at me as though I had grown a few extra heads, and in reviewing the phrasing, perhaps he had reason. “What are you speaking of?” he replied carefully. “What’s
happened?”
    Straightening my back, I pierced him with a cold glare.
    “Last evening at the ball—you obviously knew that giant French man, Mr. Cheval. What is the nature of your relationship with him?”
    He glared back hard before answering. “I gather you are referring to the man I asked to leave, yes?”
    “Of course I’m referring to him. It’s rather difficult to confuse him with another.”
    He bristled and broadened his already considerable shoulders. “I have not been acquainted with him.”
    “If you were not acquainted, how did you know he was not invited?”
    “I did not see my uncle greet him at the door,” he said, his voice strung tight and low. “It was obvious he snuck inside.”
    No. The rage in his face had been deeper than that. I knew in my bones that he wasn’t telling me everything.
    “I apologize if you mistakenly received the wrong impression,” he said curtly, moving away from the stone church wall. “But that was our first meeting.”
    Liar.
    “Is he an acquaintance of your sister?” Mr. Braddock asked, attempting a guileless innocence and failing. “Is she here today?”
    I ignored his question and latched onto his mention of my sister. “What is your interest in Rose? Why were you so intent on speaking to her with all that nonsense about her
gift?”
    Frowning, he spoke slowly to me as though I were a child. “I wished to thank her for helping save my uncle’s life last week.”
    Ha! “You could have easily given her all the thanks and gratitude in one sentence. But you demanded a private word with her. You, sir, wanted to talk to her about her
‘
powers.
’ What could you mean