Page 77 of Beneath the Devil's Mask
“There is something I have never understood about that myth. What did Hades want with a foolish little chit like Persephone when there was Demeter, a woman of strength and determination? If it had been me, I would have carried off the mother.”
They were barely moving, their bodies slowing to a sultry rhythm that caused Anne’s blood to warm, her voice to become unsteady.
“If you had taken away Demeter, you would have plunged the world into eternal winter.”
“I am a selfish man. The rest of the world could shift for itself and be damned.”
Mandell gathered Anne close in his arms until she was pressed up against the hard wall of his chest. The waltz music in her head faded to become the pounding of her own heart. His eyes darkened as he bent toward her. Anne raised her head to meet his kiss.
His lips were gentle, his kiss poignant, rife with an innocence of days gone by. Anne slid her hands up his chest, wrapping her arms about his neck in unashamed response. Her lips parted forhim, allowing his tongue to invade the recesses of her mouth in sweet exploration.
Innocence gradually faded to become knowledge of what they both wanted, desperately needed. Her body’s response to his hard masculinity reminded Anne she was no longer a green girl of seventeen, but a woman and Mandell was making her heartily glad of it. As he deepened his kiss, he ran his hands over her. A low cry caught in her throat when his fingers skimmed over her breast. She clung to him, returning his embrace with unchecked passion, offering herself to him, offering him anything that he desired to take.
It was Mandell who first came to his senses, thrusting her away. His breathing was unsteady, but he managed a lopsided smile.
“And thus, would I have succeeded in getting us both denied vouchers to Almack’s forevermore.” He attempted to jest, but his eyes were hazed with a combination of desire and a melancholy that struck deep to Anne’s heart. “So much for our little game of pretense, Sorrow. I fear it is too late for any new beginnings. It was ever thus with me.”
Anne started to protest but she was stayed by a knock at the drawing room door. Never had any interruption been so ill timed, she thought, biting her lip in vexation. She and Mandell had barely enough time to draw apart before Bettine burst into the room.
The girl had got herself worked up into another of her agitated states. Wringing her hands, she cried. “Oh, my lady Fairhaven, the most dreadful thing has happened. Oh, mercy!” She finished with a shriek when she spotted Mandell.
“It is all right, Bettine. Lord Mandell is quite himself this morning,” Anne said. However, she was not as sure about herself. She pressed her hands to her flushed cheeks to cool them. “Whatever is the matter now?”
Bettine eyed the marquis warily, but since Mandell had stalked away to the window to regain his composure, she dared to speak. “It is terrible news, milady. I heard it from the stable boy who heard it from Lady Eliot’s cook?—”
“Bettine, will you just tell me what it is?”
“We’ve all got to stay inside today and lock the doors. The Hook has been at it again. This time he attacked Sir Lancelot Briggs.”
“What!” Mandell whipped about to stare at Bettine.
His harsh exclamation reduced the girl to a state of terrified speechlessness. Her own heart sinking with dread, Anne prompted the maid gently, “Tell us what happened clearly, Bettine.”
“Well, I-I-”
Mandell strode across the room, glowering. “What nonsense are you talking, girl? Briggs dead? That’s impossible.”
Anne sensed that Mandell’s voice was sharpened by fear, but Bettine cowered away from him. He seized Bettine by the wrists. Anne’s protest went unheeded as Mandell gave Bettine a brisk shake.
”I was just with Briggs myself last night. You must have made a mistake.”
Bettine’s eyes were wide with terror, but she managed to sniff, “No mistake, sir. They found Sir Lancelot early this morning. He is mortal bad wounded. They don’t expect him to live out the day—Ow!”
Mandell’s grip must have tightened cruelly, for Bettine let out a howl. His face had turned ashen.
“Mandell, please,” Anne said. “You are hurting the girl.”
It took a moment before he appeared to hear her. He blinked, releasing Bettine. The maid fled sobbing from the room. Mandell stood as though turned to stone, the look in his eyes unreadable.
“What a dreadful thing,” she faltered. “I was not that much acquainted with Sir Lancelot, but he always seemed such a sweet harmless sort of little man. Did you know him well, my lord?”
“Of course not!” Mandell’s mouth set into an angry, bitter line, “He was a fool, a chattering idiot and a nuisance. But I believe—” He swallowed hard.
“I believe he was my friend.”
Fifteen
The marquis of Mandell never had difficulty making an entrance. He had swept through the doors of anywhere from a king’s drawing room to the most dangerous of gaming hells without a blink, treating the stares of both royalty and rogues with a cool disdain. His arrogant confidence had never failed him until he prepared to enter the humble parlor of Sir Lancelot Briggs’s London residence.
