Page 6 of Beneath the Devil's Mask
She knew him. But he didn’t think he knew her. The voice was not familiar. As she took a wary step back, her hood fell back a little revealing a pale, heart-shaped face, and delicate features that conveyed an impression of haunting sadness.
She was young, but not a chit just out of the schoolroom. She might have been pretty, but it was difficult to tell, her eyes being so swollen with her tears. Her hair certainly was beautiful, tumbling to her shoulders in a cascade of honey gold. There was something vaguely familiar about her, but Mandell could not quite place it.
After assessing her appearance, he asked, “Have we met before, madam? You are?”
He waited for her to fill in the blank, but she only retreated deeper into the shelter of her hood.
“That is none of your concern, my lord. Be pleased to pass on your way.”
“Well, my Lady Sorrow, I would be happy to do so,” he said drily, “but that is a little difficult when you bar my path, rusting out my gatepost with your tears.”
“Your gate?” she faltered. “You live here?”
“To the best of my recollection.”
She choked on a bitter laugh. “Is this not typical of my fortune? I do not even have the right house.”
She mopped at her eyes with the back of her hand. Even in the dim light of the street, Mandell could see that her eyes were very blue, like violets from those long ago springs he had spent in the country instead of walled up in the stone and grit of London.
“Do forgive me, my lord, for being such a fool.”
She tried to rush on, but this time Mandell blocked her way. He never sought to burden himself with anyone else’s misery and he was not about to do so now. All the same he felt curiously loathe to let her go.
“You shouldn’t be wandering about alone at night, milady. It is not safe.” He was not about to bring up the murder. If there was a chance she had not heard of Bert Glossop’s death, there was no sense in terrifying her. Instead, he concluded, “Even here on Clarion Way, there is a danger of footpads.”
“But I have nothing left of value for anyone to steal.”
She ducked past him and moved off rapidly down the street, never glancing back. Mandell stood by his gate, watching her go. There might have been a time in his more hot-blooded youth when he would have been intrigued enough to follow her, discover the secret of her tears, perhaps the sweeter secrets still she kept concealed beneath that cloak.
But he was far too jaded and cynical now to go pursuing mysterious young women through the streets. As he observed that proud slender shape vanish into the darkness, for a fleeting moment Mandell was sorry that this was so.
Two
It was well past midnight by the time the marquis of Mandell arrived at the Countess Sumner’s ball. He permitted a servant to remove the black cloak from his broad shoulders. Without glancing around, Mandell handed off his gloves, high-crowned hat, and gold-tipped cane to another pasty-faced footman. Then, straightening his cuffs, the marquis passed between twin marble pillars into the main drawing room.
It was a long chamber done up with gilt mirrors and hung with red damask like some opulent Italian palazzo. Mandell presented a stark contrast in the severe style of his evening clothes, the unrelenting black relieved only by the snowy folds of his cravat.
The gallery was already thronged with the countess’s guests. Mandell observed the assembled company through cynical eyes. Apparently, Glossop’s murder had done little to discourage any of the haute ton from venturing abroad in search of their pleasures. If anything, it added a certain titillation to the hum of gossip. The well-bred voices could be heard even above the scrape of the violins.
“My dear, positively too dreadful.”
“That murderous footpad, the Hook.”
“Mr. Glossop’s throat pierced quite through.”
“And it happened right here on the corner of Clarion Way.”
Mandell’s lip curled with contempt and he wondered why he had come. He might have done better to have appeased Sara, lingering in her bed, except that he had been troubled with a restlessness of late that not even she could satisfy. He felt as hollow, as empty as this roomful of chattering fools.
The hour was advanced enough that Lily was no longer receiving latecomers. Mandell waved aside the servant who would have announced him. He strolled into the drawing room, but he had not taken many steps when he was accosted by Sir Lancelot Briggs.
The man came scrambling to Mandell’s side like a bumbling puppy. Briggs was plump, with shirt collars worn too high, his hair curled too tight. His eyes lit up with joy at the sight of Mandell and he clutched at the marquis’s sleeve.
“Mandell! Oh, thank God! Thank God you are unharmed.”
“Which is more than can be said for my coat,” Mandell complained, prying Briggs’s fingers away.
“I am sorry. But I have been so anxious about you, what with that fiend the Hook still roaming abroad.”
