Page 3 of Beneath the Devil's Mask
And Mandell realized that it was not a weapon of steel he wielded at all, but wood. A child’s toy.
Someone threw something at his feet. He glanced down at the object, all golden and bright, sticky red. His mother’s head.
“No!” Mandell sat up in bed with a jerk, his heart thundering. It took a moment for the haze to clear from his eyes, to realize where he was. Breathing hard, he stared wildly about him until the room came into focus.
Not Paris, but London, the familiar feminine surroundings of Sara Palmer’s bedchamber. With a shuddering sigh, Mandell sagged back onto his elbows.
He had only been dreaming, and more humiliating still, crying out like a child in his sleep.
“Mandell?” Sara’s voice came from beside him, soft, questioning.
Mandell nearly cursed aloud to find he had awakened her with his thrashings. She sat bolt upright, regarding him with wide green eyes, her long, dusky hair falling over the lush swell of her breasts.
“What is it, Mandell? What is wrong?” She risked a tentative touch to his shoulder.
He realized that his flesh was bathed in a sheen of cold sweat. It glistened over the muscles of his chest, the matting of dark hair. He flung himself away from Sara, swinging his legs over the side of the bed.
“Was it a nightmare?” she persisted.
He didn’t answer, locating the breeches he had discarded earlier. He rammed his legs into the close-fitting garment, then stood easing the fabric up over his hips. As he fumbled with the buttons on the flap, he walked to the window.
The night sky beyond seemed vast, cool, and soothing. He stood staring into its emptiness until he was certain he had recovered his composure and relegated the dream to the dark corner of his mind where it belonged. He said at last, “It was only a nightmare, nothing of any consequence. I am sorry I disturbed you.”
“That is quite all right, my lord,” Sara replied. “I am sure I do not blame you. I have not slept easy myself since the report of that killing the other night. Every time I close my eyes, I see some murderous fiend with a hook coming after me.”
“I doubt you would have anything to fear, madam.” A reluctant smile creased Mandell’s lips. He felt restored enough to face her again. The dark-haired beauty sat propped up against the pillows, clutching the coverlet over her breasts. She looked almost helpless, swallowed up in the vastness of that great bed,but only a fool would have mistaken Sara Palmer for other than what she was, a most formidable woman.
“Besides,” he continued, “there is nothing even to connect this Hook to the crime except for the babblings of a hysterical old watchman. Bert Glossop was the kind of fool to inspire any number of people with a desire to kill him.”
“Yes, he was—” Sara started to agree wholeheartedly, but she brought herself up short, assuming a prim expression. “Of course, one must not speak ill of the dead.”
“Why not? Glossop was a perfect ass. I cannot imagine that death did anything to improve him.” Mandell arched one brow in mocking fashion. “You had best take care, my Sara. You are starting to sound as hypocritical as any of my set. And heretofore, I have always found you so wonderfully refreshing.”
“I still am,” she murmured, flinging back the covers from his side of the bed, patting the mattress. There was a sparkle in her eyes, her lips parting in invitation.
He made no move to rejoin her. He had banished the nightmare, but the painful emotions it had aroused left him feeling wearied and not in the least amorous.
“I beg your pardon, my dear,” he said, “but I fear I must leave you. It is nearly midnight, and if I am going to put in any appearance at the Countess Sumner’s ball, I must go back to my house and change.”
She took his rejection in good part, with only a tiny pout. He had half expected her to make more of an effort to change his mind, which led him to suppose Sara was not really in the mood, either. As he reached for his shirt, she rose languidly from the bed, stretching her arms over her head, making no attempt to shield her nakedness. She had no modesty, but then, Mandell thought, there was no reason why she should. The full curves of her body could have served as a model for a sculptor depicting Venus.
Sara enveloped herself in one of those filmy wrappers she favored, the pink tint of her flesh shimmering through the sheer white silk. While Mandell shrugged into his shirt, she lounged against the wall, watching him through the thickness of her lashes.
“I don’t suppose,” she said, “that you would consider taking me with you tonight?”
“To Lily Rosemoor’s ball? I doubt you would find it interesting.”
“Why don’t you give me chance to find out?”
“We have been through this before, Sara,” he said, shooting her an impatient glance. “There are certain times and places that a man does not flaunt his mistress.”
“But I have heard that the countess is very open-minded, not so particular as some about whom she admits into her house.”
“The decision in this instance is mine, not Lily’s, my dear,”
A flicker of annoyance crossed Sara’s features. “You express such contempt for your society, yet you are so careful to follow the niceties of its code. Sometimes I think it is you who is the hypocrite, my lord.”
“I never pretended to be otherwise,” he drawled, but with a slightly bitter set of his lips. He stepped in front of the oval mirror that hung over her dressing table, to achieve what he could with a neckcloth that had become rumpled during their earlier love play.
