Page 32 of Beneath the Devil's Mask
Anne realized she had not much more time and rushed on with her explanation. “I will pretend to be the goddess Demeter, looking for my lost daughter everywhere.”
“And making it winter until Hades lets me come home,” Norrie said solemnly.
“That’s right, my little love. And not until I have you back safe will I ever allow it to be springtime again.”
Norrie cocked her head to one side, considering. Then she said with a heavy sigh, “My new governess won’t like this game, Mama. Mrs. Ansley says reading about gods and goddesses is heathen. She took away my book of myths. She said I would get mixed up and not remember who the real God is.”
Norrie’s small chest swelled with indignation. “I told her I wasn’t a baby. I knew that myths are just make-believe. But she sent me to bed without supper anyway.”
“Oh, Norrie.!”
“I didn’t mind so very much, Mama. Because I knew I was right,” Norrie’s chin jutted out at a stubborn angle. For all her airof fragility, Norrie often exhibited a courage and obstinacy that amazed Anne.
“Ma’am!” Louisa broke in upon her and Norrie’s whispered conversation. “I got to be getting the child back before someone notices she’s gone.”
“I know,” Anne said. She looked at Norrie, forcing a smile to her lips. “You have to go back now, love. But remember what we have talked about and don’t tell Uncle Lucien. My lord Hades mustn’t know we are about to break his spell.”
“All right, Mama.” Norrie’s lip quivered. “But I don’t think I like this game very much.”
“Neither do I,” Anne whispered. She drew Norrie close to the bars to kiss her one last time before. Louisa scooped the child back up in her arms, arranging the blanket around her. Stiff from bending, Anne rose slowly to her feet.
Norrie’s small sad face peered at Anne from beneath the folds of the blanket. “Don’t make it be winter too much longer, Mama.”
“I won’t. I promise.”
Anne was not sure that Norrie even heard her anguished vow as Louisa bundled the child back toward the house. Anne would have liked to thank the maid for the risk she had taken, for allowing Anne even these few precious moments with her daughter. But Louisa fled back along the garden path as though pursued by devils.
Gripping the gate bars, Anne strained against the cold metal, her gaze fixed not upon the maid but upon her daughter, watching until Norrie was swallowed up by the brooding silence of the house,
Only when Norrie had vanished from her sight did Anne allow her shoulders to slump. The pain-filled joy she had experienced at seeing her child faded to become the more familiar ache of despair.
She had seen Norrie, touched her, but she had accomplished nothing else by this nocturnal visit. She had not gotten to view the inside of the house and she was afraid she would never again be able to persuade the timid Louisa to help her.
She had done little but make Norrie promises that she did not have the least idea how she was going to keep. It was so easy to form fantastic plans and grim resolves in the warm security of one’s own bedchamber. Strange how they all fled before the cold reality of a locked gate and the bitter chill of a damp April night.
Anne stared down at the pistol lying on the pavement at her feet. In her hands it was a useless thing, as useless as she was herself. Utterly dispirited, she bent down and picked it up. As she did so, she thought she detected a sound out of place in the night; not the rustlings of Lucien’s ill-kept garden, not the distant rattle of some coach wheel, and not the thudding of her own heart. But she felt drained, too weary to respond even to her own night terrors.
She did not bother looking around until she heard it again, a footstep that was not her own. She glanced up and peered down the street. He stood but yards away, near the corner of the wall, his features obscured by the night, but Anne recognized at once the tall powerful figure enshrouded in the black cloak with the single cape. She should have been astonished to see him, but she wasn’t. He was becoming a familiar shadow across her life, my lord Mandell.
As he stalked closer, she flattened herself back against the gate, leveling her pistol at him. “Don’t come any nearer or I’ll shoot.”
“It is only me, Anne,” he said.
“I know perfectly well who it is.”
A soft laugh escaped him. “Do you? Then I am astounded you did not shoot at once.”
He stepped into the light, the lantern casting flickering shadows over the angles of that proud profile, the black sweep of hair, the fathomless dark eyes. A sense of danger and subtle sensuality emanated from his every move.
“There is no need for such alarm,” he said. “I don’t intend to assault your virtue in the street any more than at the theatre. I prefer a bed.”
“So you have already told me,” Anne snapped.
He appeared not in the least perturbed to have a shaking pistol leveled at his chest. “Is that thing loaded?” he asked in accents of polite interest.
“I am not sure.” Anne lowered the weapon, feeling foolish. “I tried to, but I don’t know if I did it right.”
“I see. Then perhaps you had better allow me…” He eased the pistol out of her grasp. Anne’s hands were trembling so badly, she could not have resisted even if she had wanted to do so. Mandell examined the weapon briefly, glancing at the cocking piece. Whatever he saw caused him to roll his eyes, but he said nothing, slipping the small weapon into the pocket of his cloak.
