Page 104 of Beneath the Devil's Mask
”No!” He breathed harshly. The nightmare had come again and this time there was no waking to escape it. He could envision it so clearly, the rough hands seizing her, dragging her off into the blackness of night, her face pale with tenor. But it was not his mother’s face he saw. It was Anne’s.
The past shifted to the present and Mandell shivered, sickened with a dread and fear that he had not known since that long ago night. The pounding continued and he realized it was his own heart.
“Mandell?” Sara’s image drifted into his view. He had all but forgotten her presence. “Mandell, you are looking very queer. Are you all right?”
He managed to bring the room back into focus, becoming aware of her troubled frown, of Hastings’s anxious concern. The footman was attempting to press a glass of brandy into his hand.
“Here, my lord. Perhaps you had best drink this.”
Mandell gulped down the contents of the glass. The fiery liquid burned his throat and sent a rush of warmth through his veins. The chilling terrors of the boy slowly dissolved to become the anger and fire of the man.
Mandell thrust the empty glass back at Hastings and said in an impassioned rush, “I have got to get Anne out of that accursed place.”
“My lord?” Hasting’s eyes widened in alarm, but Mandell was already striding for the door.
It was Sara who caught him, blocking his way. “Where are you going, Mandell?”
“To Newgate,” he snapped. “Don’t you understand what has happened?”
“Yes, this lady friend of yours has been arrested, but it will do you no good charging off in this agitated state.”
Hastings spoke up. “Indeed, my lord, I fear Mrs. Drummond is right. Firken said that the countess had done all that she could to secure her sister’s release.”
“They do not let one leave Newgate for the asking,” Sara said.
“I didn’t say I was going to ask.” Mandell started forward again, but Sara splayed her hands against his chest to stop him. He tried to thrust her aside, but she clung to him with a stubborn desperation.
“There will be nothing that you can do, Mandell. It is not as if they will take this Anne out and hang her at once. There will be inquiries, a trial.”
Mandell gave a harsh laugh. “And what sort of trial will it be with a dozen servants being forced to say they saw Anne standing over Lucien with a pistol? Or perhaps you think the Hook will step gallantly forward and confess, place his own neck in a noose to save her?”
His sardonic suggestion seemed to strike Sara forcibly. The blood was driven from her cheeks. “No. That would be most foolish of the Hook. And yet it is the sort of gesture a certain gallant sort of rogue might make, a man bent on throwing his life away.”
“The Hook is more interesting in taking lives. But he’ll not sacrifice Anne’s.” Mandell shook her off savagely. He did not bolt out the study door as he had intended, realizing himself that he must strive for some measure of calm. He would do Anne no good if he rushed out behaving like a madman.
He paced to the window, drawing in cleansing breaths, struggling to find his customary cool logic. But he sought in vain. Pressing his palm against the glass, he peered out into the sun-dappled street and thought of the house at the end of the square, of Norrie waking sobbing and frightened to find her mama gone, of Anne cut off from the sunlight, thrust into some dank, dark cell, prey to vermin, prison fever, and God knew what other horrors. He thought of Anne wrenched out of that same cell, only to be displayed in the dock, his Lady Sorrow exposed to the rabble’s pitiless gaze. And the most dread thought of all, he imagined a rough hemp rope being fitted about her slender neck, over that warm delicate pulse he had so often placed his lips against when making love.
No! He could not even imagine such a thing, or he would go mad. If Anne were to die, he would die as well. Even if he continued to draw breath, his heart and soul would be lost. Because his heart was lost already. He had left it in Anne’s gentle hands last night when he had bid good-bye to her. That thought stunned him with a truth he had been afraid to acknowledge for so long, even to himself. He stepped back from the window, shrinking from the sunlight as he suddenly realized just how much of a fool he had been.
Yet he felt strangely calmer as he turned to face Sara and Hastings. With an iron edge in his voice he said, “I will have Anne out of Newgate by sunset today, no matter what it takes. Bullying, bribery, even if I have to break down the gates.”
“Perhaps you had better get dressed first,” Sara said drily.
Mandell flushed, but before he could do anything, Sara sprang into action and began issuing commands to the footman.
“Tell the marquis’s valet to lay out his most expensive and ostentatious suit of clothes. His lordship will also need a small pistol, and then, Hastings, you must go to Newgate and make some subtle inquiries. Find out exactly where Lady Fairhaven is being kept. Given her rank, she will likely be held in the prison portion of the warder’s own residence. If she has not been shackled, getting her out could prove easier than you would suppose.”
Hastings nodded in eager agreement. But recollecting himself, he turned toward Mandell, as if questioning whether Sara’s commands were to be obeyed. Mandell frowned at Sara.
“What do you think you are doing?” he demanded.
“Helping you,” Sara said calmly. “I have decided you are right. It is best that you fetch Lady Fairhaven out of prison as soon as possible. Newgate is not impregnable. Escapes are arranged all the time. The trick is to know the way to go about escaping and to keep from being recaptured once you have done so.”
“If I find the way to get Anne out of that accursed hellhole,” Mandell said fiercely, “I shall permit no one to drag her back again.”
“I believe I can show you the way, if you have the boldness to carry out my plan, which no doubt you do.”
“You possess some passing strange knowledge for a respectable widow from Yorkshire, Mrs. Drummond.”
