Page 1 of A Masked Lady for Mr. Kenworthy
Prologue
“Lady Faye,” said a voice from the open doorway of the drawing-room.
Faye Winters looked up from the pianoforte, at which she had idly been staring for the past few hours, to see Huston standing in the doorway. Faye offered him a small but warm smile, despite knowing that it was of no use.
“Yes, Huston?” she asked.
The man made a bitter face as she spoke his name, as she had anticipated he might.
“Lord Welborn requests your presence in his study immediately,” he said.
Without waiting for Faye to respond, Huston turned sharply on his heels, his nose high in the air, and exited the room.
Faye sighed, shuddering at hearing her cousin addressed as the lord of her family. Until eighteen months ago, her father had been the Earl of Welborn. When he passed away suddenly from a terrible illness, her cousin, Mayson Winters, had inherited her father’s title. At first, Faye had thought she and her mother would be well cared for and that her cousin would be a comforting presence in the house after her father’s death. She had never been more wrong about anything in her entire life.
Upon arriving at Welborn Manor, Mayson's first act had been to dismiss every servant the family had had for years. He had left only the cook, Bretta, in his employ, and Huston, whom he had brought with him from his residence in London. Faye and her mother had disliked Huston from the moment they met him, but they thought that, perhaps, he was displeased at having to leave his home and follow his master to Welborn Manor. But they quickly discovered that both Huston and Mayson were very unpleasant men. They seemed to lack empathy and affection for everyone apart from one another, and they seemed to make every effort to make Faye and the dowager countess as unhappy as possible.
However, nothing could compare in the way of horror to the terrible news which Mayson had delivered to Faye in his first week at the manor. When Faye had inquired as to why he had terminated the household servants, he had told her coldly and without sympathy that her father had left her and her mother practically destitute. He claimed to have saved them from the poorhouse by dismissing the servants and that she should be grateful he had allowed the cook to remain. He further claimed to have brought Huston with him so that she and her mother would not be forced to tend to all the household duties themselves. At the time, she had been too stunned by the tidings that her father had left them with so little money to be anything but grateful that Mayson was there to help her and her mother.
She had always believed that her father was a shrewd businessman and handled his ventures well. They had never wanted for anything when he was alive, after all, and she could not imagine him ever getting himself into debt for any reason. At the very least, she would have thought her father would have told her mother if they were in such trouble. He was a proud man, but he was also honest to a fault. It made no sense that they could be poor without any prior knowledge of their situation. But her cousin had insisted that all her father’s ledgers proved what he was saying. She had at first thought that Mayson would pull them from debtand restore her family’s fortune. But she had seen no evidence that he was making any progress toward doing so, and she was filled with doubt as well as disdain for her cousin.
With another heavy sigh, Faye made her way out of the room and toward Mayson’s study. She did not bother trying to appear pleasant. He was indifferent to her, at best, no matter how sweetly she spoke to him. She was a benevolent, charitable, good girl, and most correct in her conduct, with manners that were held to be a standard of good breeding. For the time being, she chose to focus on being polite and professional with her cousin and on getting away from him as quickly as she could.Besides, she needed to see about her mother.
She rolled her eyes as she reached the closed study door. It was just like Huston and Mayson to summon her to a room and then close the door. She knocked firmly so as not to give her cousin a reason to pretend he did not hear her, as he often did.
“Come,” said Mayson, his voice muffled by the heavy wooden door.
Faye shuddered at the sound of his voice, pushing open the ponderous door and stepping inside.
“Next time, perhaps you could try not to tear down the door by pounding on it so hard,” Mayson said before she had even reached the desk.
Faye clenched her teeth, resisting the urge to lower her glance. She squared her shoulders and looked at her cousin, who was still staring down at some papers on his desk.
“Huston said you wanted to see me?” she asked, her voice carrying an impatient edge.
Mayson looked up sharply, raising an eyebrow at her.
“I should think you might want to watch your tone, Cousin,” he said, lowering his eyebrow in favor of a sly smirk. “You would not want to be disrespectful to your guardian, would you?”
Faye bit her lip to suppress a biting remark. She cleared her throat and set her jaw.
“I beg your pardon, Cousin. What can I do for you?” she asked. Her tone was marginally more polite, but she refused to acknowledge his question.
Mayson seemed pleased with her sullen tone. He settled back in his seat, his smile changing to one of extreme satisfaction. He reached for one of the desk drawers, not taking his eyes off his cousin. Faye held his gaze, despite the sudden sense of dread that began to burden her as Mayson’s grin widened.
“Please, sit,” he said, gesturing with his other hand to one of the chairs in front of the desk.
Faye gave him a small, tight smile.
“No, thank you, Cousin,” she said. “I must go see Mother as soon as we’ve finished.”
Mayson’s expression did not change. However, movement from the hand that had been fishing in the drawer caught her attention. When she saw what he was holding, she gasped, her knees nearly collapsing from beneath her. Her cousin lifted a shiny, silver pistol onto the desk, pointing the barrel in her direction and using it to gesture to the seats once more.
“I insist, young Faye,” he said. “Make yourself comfortable.”
Faye sat, more out of inability to continue standing than to appease her cousin. He was taking pleasure in her fear, but Faye could not be outraged by the fact. She had not known that Mayson even owned a gun, let alone whether he could actually use it. Something in his hooded gray eyes told her he was almost certainly more than capable of doing so. He tossed his head back and laughed. Her fear-stricken mind could not help thinking about how handsome her cousin was, with his broad shoulders and aquiline nose, if Faye could not see the malice and evil in his every feature. She shuddered as she continued to follow the pistol with her eyes. She was grateful he did not seem to be waiting for her to speak because the gun had her mouth frozen shut.
Mayson chuckled, nodding.
