Page 99 of Beneath the Devil's Mask
His sudden shift to anger alarmed Anne into retreating again. Attempting to humor him, she said, “I don’t want to hurt you, Lucien. I will make sure you are safe. I will fetch some of Lily’s footmen to escort you home. They will protect you.”
But Lucien was clearly no longer listening to her. He had tensed, jerking upright, like some wary beast sensing the approach of the hunter. He whipped about, staring, and pointed a shaking finger. “There! What did I tell you? He’s there again.”
“Where?” Anne asked. She peered into the darkness at the end of the garden, seeing only the breeze stirring the tendrils of ivy along the side wall.
“There! Over by the gate!”
“Lucien. There is no one here.”
“Can you not see him?”
Anne watched stunned as Lucien lurched forward, shrieking.
“Curse you, Mandell. Show yourself. If you want to kill me, do it. But I can bear no more of this hellish torment.”
He staggered forward, thrashing about amongst Lily’s rosebushes. Anne stood paralyzed with a mixture of horror and pity. She had never seen anyone driven by madness before. The sight was dreadful. She knew she had to force herself to move, summon aide from the house and find some way to stop Lucien before he brought harm to himself.
But as she turned to go, Lucien vanished from her line of sight. She could still hear his hideous sobbing and cursing. She took a cautious step along the path and looked for him. He was by the gate.
Her blood froze. She wondered if she had been afflicted with Lucien’s madness. She saw him grappling with a phantom, a creature that should have had no existence outside of Lucien’s insane imagination. The specter’s ink black cloak blended with the night, his features shadowed by a large, plumed hat as he attempted to level a pistol at Lucien.
Anne’s throat closed with terror as she watched Lucien make a desperate grab for the weapon. The force of the struggle carried the two men beyond the gate, out onto the pavement.
Anne attempted to scream for help. She rushed forward to Lucien’s aid, not knowing what she meant to do, what she could do. A loud retort rang out and Anne saw Lucien stagger back, clutching his chest.
Anne forced her trembling limbs to move faster, but by the time she reached the gate opening, the cloaked man had vanished, melting into the darkness like the vision from a nightmare.
There was only Lucien, sprawled out on his back, the light from the streetlamp glinting on his golden hair, the crimson tide of his blood staining the pavement. Shaking, Anne crept to his side.
His face was contorted with pain, a rasping noise emanating from his throat as he struggled to breathe. He stared up at her through half-closed lids.
“Anne.”
She glanced frantically along the darkened street, praying that someone had heard the shot besides herself. To her relief she heard the echo of distant footsteps, and behind her she saw more lights begin to glow behind Lily’s windows. The household had been aroused.
Anne knelt beside Lucien, her knee striking up against something. The pistol. Lucien must have wrenched it from the man’s hand even as he was shot. Scarce thinking what she did, Anne picked up the weapon.
“Anne,” he groaned. “What have you done to me? Would never have happened but for you.”
“Hush, Lucien,” she said, touching trembling fingers to his brow. He already felt so clammy and cold. “Try to be still. Help is coming.
“‘Too late. Curse you, Anne. You’ve killed me.”
His chest heaved in a violent convulsion as he made a desperate effort to draw air into his lungs. A horrible rasping noise came from his throat. His head lolled to one side and he went suddenly still, his eyes vacant and staring.
“Lucien?” Anne whispered. She blinked as light fell over his distorted features. Only then did she realize she was no longer alone. Someone stood over her, holding up a lantern.
Dazed, Anne glanced up to see a pool of stunned faces, some she recognized as Lily’s servants. But the swaying light was held aloft by the old charley who patrolled Clarion Way, and he wasstaring down at the pistol still clutched in Anne’s hand with a deep reproach in his ancient eyes.
Nineteen
Morning sunlight streamed through the windows of the marquis’s study, but the warmth did not touch Mandell where he sat slumped in the wing chair by the hearth, lost in troubled slumber. He had known if he dared sleep, the dream would come, but he could no longer bring himself to care. Since his parting with Anne, he had struggled with feelings of desolation, of utter hopelessness. Sometime near dawn he had surrendered, falling into an exhausted sleep, eventually allowing the nightmare to claim him.
But it was different this time. Mandell frowned, sensing it even in the depth of his slumber. He heard the knocking at the door, the thunder of the dream command. Open! Open in the name of the tribunal! But this time it was not his mother’s soft hands seeking to thrust him into the closet, but bony fingers, gnarled with age.
A mocking voice cackled in his ear. Forget, boy. Forget everything except that you are the marquis of Mandell.
“No.” Mandell muttered, tossing his head against the chair’s hard cushion. He could not forget. “You don’t understand. Have to save her.”
