Page 49 of Beneath the Devil's Mask
Anne did not know what prevented him thus far from demanding that she keep her side of the bargain, but whateverit was, one thing was certain. Mandell would never forget. Her second finger bitten nearly raw, Anne shifted to the next nail. She started when the soft rap came at her door.
“Anne, it’s Lily,” her sister called out. “Are you still abed?”
“No. Just a minute.” Anne made haste to pile some old shawls on top of Mandell’s cloak. Her fingers brushed against something hard; her pistol, which Mandell had shoved into the cloak pocket that night which now seemed so long ago. Anne had all but forgotten her foolish little weapon. She dumped an extra shawl on top of it and shoved the whole pile as far back into the wardrobe as she could. The maid Lily had assigned her, young Bettine, had already noticed the masculine garment. Anne had been able to explain that it belonged to her late husband and the girl had sighed, imagining Anne, the brokenhearted widow, clinging to the cloak in remembrance.
But Lily would not be so fooled. Gerald, ever the provincial gentleman from his boots to the severe style of his cravat, had never worn anything so dashing as Mandell’s cape.
Closing the wardrobe door, Anne smoothed out her gown and tidied the wisps of her hair. She called out as cheerfully as she could, “Come in.”
Lily bustled in, carrying a fistful of sealed letters. “Good,” she said. “You are up and stirring. I thought you might be lying down for a nap, poor dear. You have been exhausting yourself, looking after that child.”
Although she smiled, there was a hint of reproof in Lily’s tone. Lily was delighted for Anne’s recent happiness and only too pleased to welcome her small niece into her home. Yet she feared that Anne had become far too absorbed in performing the tasks of a nurserymaid.
But for too many months, Norrie had awakened only to the impersonal ministrations of servants. Anne vowed her child would never do so again.
For her sister’s benefit, Anne shook her head, saying, “I am not in the least tired, Lily. I have just been going through my wardrobe, selecting some gowns that are out of fashion to pass on to my maid.”
To Lily, that was at least a reasonable occupation for any lady. Her eyes lit up with immediate understanding. “Of course! You have needed some new things for an age. I shall take you round to my modiste this very afternoon. You will need a special gown for the Bramleys’ rout come Saturday next, and just look at all these other invitations you received in this morning’s post.”
Lily laid out the squares of vellum upon Anne’s dressing table, gloating over the cards like a miser counting a treasure.
“How very nice,” Anne said.
“Do you not intend to open them?”
“Perhaps later.”
“Later?” Lily’s elegant brows rose skeptically. “Or will they end up in the fireplace grate again? Anne, this simply will not do. You have been hiding yourself away in this house ever since Eleanor was returned to you.”
“That’s absurd. I have not been hiding.” But Anne’s protest sounded halfhearted even to her own ears. That was exactly what she had been doing. Hiding from Mandell, afraid of encountering him again, not knowing how she would react, what she should say, afraid of what he might do.
“You got what you wanted, Anne. Your child returned,” Lily said with a tinge of impatience. “Now it is time to cease this moping. You are in London at the height of the season. You need to get out more, enjoy yourself.”
“And I shall. But you know Norrie has not been well. She has been having trouble sleeping and then there is that worrisome cough she has developed.”
“You cannot have an apoplexy every time the child sneezes.”
“Norrie has always been delicate. Every trifling illness seems to strike her so much harder than other children. There was that time I thought she had but a sniffle. By nightfall, she was in such a raging fever she did not recognize me. I almost lost her that time, Lily.”
“Well, you will not lose her now. I know some of the finest physicians in the city. We shall have Dr. Markham out to check her cough in a trice. Will that make you feel better?”
Anne nodded reluctantly.
Lily gave her a swift hug although she continued to scold, “You are still young, Anne. Your life cannot center upon that little girl. And there is another excellent reason you should get out more. I have not liked to mention this, but there have been rumors, Anne. Rumors about you and the marquis of Mandell.”
Anne opened her mouth to speak but found she couldn’t. She felt herself grow pale as Lily continued, “The gossip all seems to have started since that ugly scene between Mandell and Sir Lucien at Brooks’s.”
“What scene?”
“I thought you might have heard something of it, but I keep forgetting. You have been buried in the nursery all week. You will recollect, however, that we both wondered why your brother-in-law experienced such a sudden change of heart regarding Eleanor’s future.”
Lily had wondered. Anne had kept her speculations on that subject to herself.
“My dear Anne, it would seem you are indebted to the marquis for your daughter’s return. I have it on excellent authority—Sir Lancelot Briggs’s—that Mandell confronted Sir Lucien in the Great Subscription Room. Mandell had stripped off his glove and was going to fling it into Fairhaven’s face.”
“Mandell challenged Lucien to a duel?” Anne felt a sudden need to sink into the chair by her dressing table.
“No, it never came to that. Lucien Fairhaven has far too great a regard for his own skin. Mandell is deadly with a pistol, my dear, positively deadly. In any case, Sir Lancelot was close enough to overhear the cause of the quarrel. Would you credit it, my dear? It was over our little Eleanor. Mandell demanded that Lucien give up the child.”
