Page 117 of Beneath the Devil's Mask
The duke continued, “He was a coward to the last. When I approached him, sword drawn, he only looked at me. He made not one move to defend himself, profaning Celine’s name by whispering it with his last breath. It was but simple justice, his life in retribution for hers.”
“Oh, God!” Mandell groaned. After so many years of denying kinship with his father, he felt at one with the man, could fully understand the complete despair and agony of the young chevalier’s final moments, the way he must have welcomed the sword thrust that ended his life.
Mandell stared at his grandfather, the regal old man dwindling to become something twisted, evil, and hideous in Mandell’s eyes. His breath shallow and rapid, he stalked toward the duke, his hands clenching and unclenching.
The duke did not stir. Only his eyes shifted to regard Mandell with chilling understanding.
“Now you would like to kill me and you could do it swiftly and without mercy. You are not so very unlike me, Mandell, except that you are driven to act from passion, whereas I have always been ruled by cold logic.”
His words brought Mandell up short. He was horrified to realize the old man was right. Gazing into the duke’s face was like staring into some demonic mirror, a reflection of the dark recesses of his heart. Mandell glanced down at his hands, inches from reaching for the old man’s throat. With great effort of will, he lowered them to his sides and stepped back.
“No, your grace,” he said dully. “You are not ruled by logic, but the bitter poison in your soul that drove you to destroy my father and that will destroy you as well.”
The duke said nothing. He reached for his quill and signed his name to the confession with a final flourish. Mandell paced a few steps away, striving to regain his composure before he could ask, “What did you do with my father after you killed him?”
“I concealed his body in a winding sheet and turned him over to the parish as a wandering vagrant who had died upon my lands. He was buried in a pauper’s grave in the cemetery of the little church near my estate. I daresay the old vicar can point it out to you if you are sentimental enough to wish it.”
After sanding the ink dry, the duke folded the vellum. Using the candle, he melted some red wax upon the closure and affixed his seal to it.
“Here,” he said, holding out the signed confession to Mandell. “This is yours. You may do as you like with it.”
Slowly, Mandell turned and came back to the desk. As he reached for the paper, the duke’s hand closed about Mandell’s wrist. The old man’s fingers were remarkably cold.
“After you mother died, Mandell,” the duke said, “I felt that you were all that was left to me. I both cared for you and hated you. Your physical resemblance to your father was pure torment to me, so much so that I would often gaze at you as you slept and think of taking up the pillow and suffocating the life from you.”
“After what I have learned tonight, I almost regret that you permitted me to live,” Mandell said. He stared pointedly at the duke’s fingers until the old man released him. Wrenching the confession out of His Grace’s hand, Mandell turned and stalked from the room.
Only when he was certain that Mandell was gone did the duke allow himself to murmur, “But I have never had any such regrets, my Mandell.”
The duke put away his ink, quill, and wax, clearing the desk as he had always done. He could not tolerate disorder nor had he ever liked servants handling his private possessions. He rose to his feet and went to peer at the surface of the bed with a smile of satisfaction. Mandell had forgotten to take the pistol away with him. That simplified matters a great deal.
Going to the window, the duke forced open the casement, taking in a reviving breath of sharp cold air. Smoothing back the lace from his cuffs, he took up the pistol.
Moments later a shot rang out in the night as the duke of Windermere claimed his final victim.
Twenty-Two
Braced by a score of pillows, Nick managed to sit up to take his breakfast. Bending over his tray, he attacked a large juicy beefsteak with a hearty enthusiasm that was unhampered by the thick wadding of bandages wrapped about his shoulder. Watching him, Sara could only marvel at his recuperative powers. It was difficult to remember that he was the same man who had been fetched to the doorstep of their modest townhouse only five days ago. He had hovered on the verge of death, and Sara had prayed to a God and all manner of saints she had not even believed in until that moment.
Her prayers had been heard and answered by someone, for Nick made a rapid recovery. Sara had discovered her husband possessed a remarkable resiliency of spirit as well as body. Whatever shock and disillusionment he had suffered from uncovering the truth about his grandfather seemed to have healed as swiftly as his wound. There would always be the scar creasing his shoulder, perhaps the lines about his mouth a little deeper for sorrow. But the sparkle in his eyes told Sara that his ultimate faith in the reason and goodness of mankind had not dimmed. Nick still believed.
Would that shining belief remain untarnished when faced with a far greater disillusionment? No longer having to fear for her husband’s life, Sara had been freed to torment herself with other worries, Mandell’s warning echoing through her mind again and again.
You would be better off telling him any dark secrets you might harbor.
The terrible events that had occurred that night at Windermere Palace had but postponed the inevitable. Sara knew that Mandell was right, yet she could not seem to summon the courage to act upon his advice.
While Nick devoured his breakfast, she sat by the hearthside in silence, mangling the stitches that she attempted to set in a linen handkerchief. Nick’s bedchamber was small and close, not large enough to contain the mounting tension. But Sara knew the tension was all locked within her. Nick remained blissfully unaware that anything was wrong, or at least so she thought.
She was startled when he shoved his tray to one side and cheerfully demanded, “Out with it, Sara. What is troubling you, my love?”
“Troubling me?” Sara tried to look astonished. “I have no notion what you might mean, Nicholas.”
Nick grinned. “Our marriage has been brief, I will admit. But I can always tell that when you start wreaking havoc on some piece of unoffending fabric with a needle, it is a sure sign that something is wrong.”
She winced at his perception. This could be the opening she sought, but it would still be easier to laugh and deny his words. She had been such a good liar all her life. She did not know how to stop dissembling, had never wished to do so until falling in love with Nick. How did one begin to tell the truth, especially when one knew with a sense of inevitability where it must lead?Perhaps the best course was to spare them both a great deal of pain and begin with the end.
Plucking at the snarled threads of her embroidery work, she said, “I was only wondering how long one could be married and still obtain an annulment. Or barring that, how difficult it would be to obtain a divorce.”
