Page 98 of Beneath the Devil's Mask
But her fingers had no sooner touched the cold metal of the bars when a figure loomed out of the shadows cast by the wall. Anne started to scream, but she was roughly seized, one arm pinned behind her back. Her cry was choked off by the gloved hand clamped over her mouth.
“Don’t scream, Anne,” a familiar voice rasped. “It is only me. Lucien.”
His words conveyed to Anne no sense of reassurance. Rather, her heart gave a terrified leap and she put up a frantic struggle to free herself. Lucien’s grip only tightened more cruelly, the leather of his glove bruising her lips.
“Anne, please. I am not going to hurt you. I must talk to you.”
Anne sensed a level of desperation beneath Lucien’s harsh whisper. His body reeked of stale sweat and strong spirits. Dear God! He had been drinking. The realization only deepened her fear.
“If you will promise to be quiet and not to run away,” he breathed close to her ear, “I will let you go.”
Although her heart pounded madly, Anne attempted to subdue her panic, sensing that cooperation might gain her more than her futile efforts to break loose of Lucien’s grasp. Shemade herself go still, and after a few agonizing moments she felt Lucien’s hold on her slacken, his hand easing away from her mouth.
She twisted free of him and backed away a few steps, gasping, “Lucien! What are you doing here?”
“I had to find you. I needed to see you.”
“Then come into the house and?—”
“No!” He swayed slightly forward and Anne gained a fleeting impression of his appearance, his hair unkempt, his clothing dirty and rumpled as though it had been slept in for many days. He sounded too sober to be drunk and yet there was a wildness about him she found even more unnerving.
She glanced toward the house, attempting to gauge the distance and the chances of reaching the security of those walls before Lucien intercepted her. As though guessing her intent, Lucien shifted, planting the solid outline of his stocky frame directly in her path.
“I don’t know what you want with me,” she said. “We have nothing more to say to one another. You are not even supposed to be here in London. Norrie said she saw you peering out the window at her, but I did not believe her. What sort of game are you playing with us now?”
“No game. I have been hiding, trapped in my own house.”
“Hiding? From whom?”
“That devil. Your high and mighty Lord Mandell.” Lucien spat out the name with loathing and dread.
“Nonsense,” Anne faltered. “Mandell has no more desire to seek your company than you do his.”
“Is this nonsense?” Lucien stumbled closer, gesturing toward his face. The moon had drifted from behind the clouds enough to illuminate the ravaged contours of Lucien’s features.
Anne choked back a soft cry. His nose was bent to an angle, a large bump forming where the bone was not healingproperly. His face was yet streaked with sickly yellow bruises, the pockets of flesh beneath his eyes puffy from lack of sleep. But it was the eyes themselves that truly horrified her, glazed over and bloodshot. He looked exhausted. He looked haunted. He looked ... mad.
When Lucien thrust his face even closer, Anne could not refrain from shuddering and looking away.
“What is wrong, Anne?” he asked. “Can you not bear the sight of what your lover did to me? He wanted to kill me. He still does.”
Lucien’s voice rose on a note of hysteria. “He’s been stalking me. Every time I look over my shoulder, he’s there. I catch just a glimpse of his cloak. Even in the daytime, even hidden away in my own house, he watches me. I should have destroyed him when I had the chance. I should have had my revenge on all of you. Even the child.”
Lucien’s eyes gleamed wildly and Anne did not wait to hear more. She made a panicked effort to dart past him. He clutched at her arm, but she managed to wrench free. Her heart thundering, she raced up the path, expecting to hear him come crashing after her.
But instead, his voice shattered on a mighty sob. “Anne! Please. I am sorry. I didn’t mean that. Don’t leave me. You must help me. You must make Mandell stop. You have to m-make him.”
Anne hesitated long enough to glance back. She saw Lucien sag to his knees. Burying his face in his hands, he rocked back and forth. His ragged sobs went right through Anne. He sounded so much like the pathetic boy she had once known; she was moved to pity despite herself.
Although she knew it was unwise, she returned. Maintaining a cautious distance between them, she said soothingly, “Hush, Lucien. I don’t know what has put such strange notions in yourhead, but I assure you Lord Mandell has not been following you. He does not even realize you are still in London.”
Lucien raised his tear-streaked face to stare up at her. “Is that what he says? He lies. He has been after me day and night, just waiting for his chance. And I’m all alone. My servants have deserted me. The c-cowards fled the night I saw Mandell’s reflection and I had to shoot the mirror.”
Lucien crushed his fingers against his brow so hard he seemed to be trying to shatter his own skull. “I cannot bear it anymore,” he wept. “I can’t sleep. This accursed pain in my head grows worse every moment. Even the tincture of opium does not help anymore.”
Opium. Dear God, Anne thought. At least that accounted for his strange delusions. “You should go back home,” she said, making one last effort to reason with him. “And try to rest. I will summon a doctor for you.”
“Doctor? What doctor? The sort that would have me clapped up in Bedlam?” Lucien shrilled at her, glaring through his tears. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Anne? Shutting me away would be as good as having me killed. Maybe you are even helping Mandell to do this to me.”
