Page 68 of Beneath the Devil's Mask
Anne managed to get through the rest of the tale, intoning the words without making much sense of them. When she had finished, she was relieved to see Norrie’s eyelids looking heavier. Casting the book aside, Anne lifted her daughter in her arms and carried her over to lay her in her small bed.
“But I’m still not sleepy, Mama,” Norrie mumbled as she burrowed deeper against the pillow. She groped about as though feeling for something, a movement that Anne had already anticipated. She bent down, retrieved Lady Persifee from where the doll had slipped to the carpet, and placed the bedraggled object within Norrie’s reach.
The child gathered the doll to her with a contented sigh. By the time Anne had tucked the coverlet about her and kissed her cheek, Norrie’s eyes were already closed. The child appeared likely to rest quietly now, untroubled by that persistent cough. Anne was glad that Lily’s doctor was scheduled to visit in the morning.
Straightening, she rubbed the small of her back. It was more than time that she retired to her own bedchamber and got some sleep herself. As she moved to make sure the fire on the hearth was properly banked, Anne noticed that it had begun to rain again. The storm had ended hours ago, but the droplets continued to beat out a monotonous tattoo upon the nurserywindow. The sound was dreary and depressing without the majestic clash of thunder and lightning.
As quiet and dreary as the entire day had been Anne gave herself a brisk shake, annoyed with her own unsatisfied thoughts. What was the matter with her? She should be content. Her little daughter was safely in her care. She had nothing more to worry about, no dangerous midnight quests to undertake, no more reckless pledges to redeem, no more marquis stalking her with wicked intent in his dark eyes.
She ought to be grateful instead of feeling as restless as a sleeping princess only half awakened by a kiss because the prince drew back before he had finished the job.
What an absurd thought that was. Mandell was certainly no fairy-tale prince simply because he had experienced one fleeting noble impulse. He was an unscrupulous rake who had been doing his best to seduce her and had nearly succeeded. Why did she have trouble remembering that fact?
That was as unanswerable as some of Norrie’s wonderings about the myth of Persephone and Hades. Anne caught herself musing over the child’s innocent remark.
Perhaps she started to like the dark lord a little.
Like him? Anne frowned. How did one begin to like a dark menacing stranger when all one knew of him was the power of his kiss to turn one’s veins to molten fire, his merest touch enough to make one forget all one had ever learned about the virtues of being a perfect lady?
She could not speak for Persephone, but as for her own dark lord, Anne could not begin to comprehend him. How could one man be at once so kind and so cruel, so mockingly aloof and so passionately tender?
Mandell could have taken her at once last night. Anne had expected him to do so. What she had never expected was suchpatience, such effort to stir her own desires. He had even tried to make her feel beautiful in his arms. And he had come so close.
When he had her more than willing to do anything he asked, he had wrenched himself away, snapped at her to get out. What was it he had said? Something about stumbling over his conscience and finding it damnably inconvenient.
“It would have been much more convenient if you had happened upon your conscience a little sooner, my lord,” Anne murmured. Before he had put her through such agonies of apprehension waiting for him to claim his due from her, before he had summoned her to him in that humiliating fashion like some mighty sultan beckoning to his harem girl, before he had taught her what it was like to experience passion in a man’s arms.
Why had he drawn back at the last possible moment? Did the wicked marquis truly possess some scruples, a finer side to his nature? Or when it came down to it, had he simply not found her desirable enough? That thought gave her small comfort, but at least it was one explanation for his behavior that she could comprehend.
She sighed. The clock upon the nursery bookcase told her that it was now past three in the morning. She was beginning to fear she would be up until dawn fretting over Mandell’s puzzling behavior when she was interrupted by a rap on the nursery door. Alarmed lest Norrie be disturbed, Anne hastened across the room, but the door was already opening. Bettine thrust her head across the threshold, calling, “Milady?”
Anne frowned, nodding toward the sleeping child, and raising a finger to her lips. She whispered. “Bettine, what are you doing up? I told you I had no more need of you.”
“Oh, madam, I thought I would find you in here,” the maid said. She appeared far too agitated to keep her voicedown. “You’d best come downstairs at once. There’s such a commotion.”
“What’s the matter?”
“Some drunken lunatic has forced his way into the front hall. And he won’t leave. He kept calling for you and he nearly knocked poor Mr. Firken down. Now the fellow seems to be in danger of passing out and Mr. Firken doesn’t know what is to be done with him.”
Lucien was the first dread thought that popped into Anne’s head. Who else did she know capable of such barbaric behavior? If he was in one of his drunken rages, Anne feared that neither her sister’s elderly butler nor the footmen would be capable of subduing him. Lucien was adept at bullying servants even when sober.
What could have possibly induced him to come here? Anne remembered the last time she had seen Lucien, and his threats of vengeance. She stole a look at her sleeping child and shivered, then drew herself up sharply.
“Bettine, I want you to stay here with Norrie,” she said, “and lock the door.”
“Oh, milady!” Bettine’s eyes went wide. “What do you think is going to happen?”
“I don’t know, but I am taking no chances. Just do as I say. Lock that door and open it for no one but me.”
Bettine nodded, her face going pale with fear. She needed no further urging and when Anne stepped out of the room, she heard the lock being fastened with a resounding click.
Her heart thudding with trepidation, Anne steeled herself to remain calm. She did not know exactly what she was going to do, but thoughts of the pistol buried in the bottom of her wardrobe chased through her head.
But as she tiptoed along the landing above the stairs, she heard none of the uproar that she anticipated. The hall wasstrangely silent. Perhaps by some miracle Lucien had already been persuaded to leave.
Peering over the imposing mahogany balustrade into the shadows below, she saw Lily’s butler, clad in his nightclothes, bending over one of the high-backed chairs near the fireplace. A pair of masculine legs clad in dark breeches and Hessian boots stretched toward the hearth. The face of the man slumped in the chair was obscured from view, but one thing was certain. Those legs were too long to belong to Lucien.
Anne did not know whether to be relieved or more alarmed. Whoever the intruder was, he appeared to have been calmed for the moment.
