Page 96 of Beneath the Devil's Mask
Mandell’s brows drew together in a heavy frown.
“My dear Mandell, you look positively thunderstruck. Could it be you actually did not know of your cousin’s intent to wed, either?” Lily purred in delight. “I fear this will quite put an end to your reputation for uncanny perception. Never mind, sir. It shall be my privilege to be the first to entertain the newlyweds and to introduce you to your own cousin’s bride.”
Lily linked her arm through Mandell’s. He glanced back for Anne only to discover she had quietly slipped away. Mandell would have been grateful for the chance to do so as well, but he was too stunned to do other than permit Lily to lead him across the room, chattering as she did so.
“Actually, Drummond’s startling news has proved a godsend. This party was getting excessively flat. Mr. Shelley turned out to be such a disappointment. His poetry is depressing enough to make one want to hang oneself. If only he could be more like Lord Byron, so deliciously rude, dark, and brooding. Mr. Shelley is a pleasant young man, but I fear he will never take in society.”
Mandell scarce heeded one word in ten, his mind still reeling. Drummond elope? Mandell could not credit it. He had never known Nick to spare any female a second glance except for that dour Quakeress he had once admired for starting schools for the poor. But even the flighty countess would hardly describe Miss Abdingham as a mysterious beauty.
Mandell eased out of Lily’s grasp and elbowed some of her guests aside, as both his curiosity and impatience mounted. Drummond glanced up at his approach, his face flushed with a strange mixture of happiness and defiance.
“Mandell, I hoped you would be here tonight. There is someone I have to present to you.”
“So I gather,” Mandell said. “What the deuce sort of mischief have you been about, Nick?”
“None I fear that you will approve.” Nick flashed him a smile. It struck Mandell that Nick’s gaiety was forced, so bright as to be almost feverish.
“My dear come here.” Nick disengaged his bride from the cluster of excited females, dragging her forward.
For Mandell, all sound, all movement in the room faded to a blur. He could focus on nothing but the face of the dark-haired woman immediately before him, a face of sultry beauty with bright eyes that had ever reflected his own cynicism.
Sara.
He inhaled sharply, feeling as though a heavy blow had forced the breath from his lungs. Too shocked to say anything for several seconds, he finally managed to growl, “Is this some sort of a jest?”
“I would hardly jest about anything that means so much to me.” Nick’s hand tightened possessively on Sara’s arm as he said, “My love, allow me to introduce you to my cousin, the marquis of Mandell. Mandell, this is my bride, Sara.”
“I believe the lady and I have already met,” Mandell said through clenched teeth.
Sara waxed pale, but she was still brazen enough to offer him her hand. “Ah, yes, we were introduced once at Drury Lane Theatre, was it not? How have you been, my lord?”
She tipped her chin in a challenging manner as though daring him to contradict her, to say anything more. She knew full well that he could not, damn her. Not in front of a roomful of curious eyes, not without shattering Nick completely.
Mandell had suspected this day might come, when he would meet his former mistress again, Sara triumphant, atlast breaching the doors of the society she had always craved, leaning on the arm of some poor fool she had snared to realize her ambition. Mandell had expected to derive great amusement from the moment. But he did not feel in the least like laughing.
Sara and Nick. How was it possible? How could they even have met? With Nick always so buried in his Parliamentary doings, Sara would have had to have arranged it, have deliberately sought Nick out, knowing him to be Mandell’s cousin.
The silence stretched out. Mandell was aware of Nick’s burning gaze upon him. He was forced to take Sara’s hand. Bending over it, he murmured for her ears alone.
“You bitch.”
“Thank you, my lord,” she muttered back, her teeth gritted in a smile. “That was exactly the sort of felicitation I expected from you.”
Sara slipped her hand from his grasp, only to be swept off by Lily to be introduced to the rest of the pack of cooing females. Mandell seized Nick by the arm and pulled him roughly to one side.
“You young idiot. What the devil have you done?”
“Fallen in love and gotten married, Mandell. Some men do, you know.”
“Not with some—some?—”
“Take care,” Nick warned, his eyes blazing.
“Some female.” Mandell amended the epithet he had been about to apply to Sara. “Some woman that you cannot have known for long. Can you possibly have any idea of who she is, what her background might be?”
“I know Sara far better than you could ever imagine.”
Did you know she had once been my mistress? Mandell had to bite his tongue. It would be unthinkable and cruel to blurt such a thing aloud. For all his hard defiance, a hint ofvulnerability lurked about the corners of Nick’s mouth, the trust of an idealistic dreamer. Small wonder that Sara had found him such easy prey.
