Page 108 of Beneath the Devil's Mask
She caught his hand. “Please don’t, my lord. It is not necessary for you to try so hard to delude me with this show of good cheer. I fully realize what a desperate case we are both in. They will soon be searching all over London for me, and you, too. I should never have allowed you to take such a risk for me.”
“So you have protested several times, and at the most inconvenient moments. Damsels are not supposed to raise such a fuss when being rescued.”
Although he was still smiling, Anne sensed the underlying edge of his tension starting to pierce through. But she could not refrain from saying, “I should not have let you do it. I should have guessed what you were about as soon as you entered my cell. I should have found a way to have stopped you.”
“You had grown so fond of Newgate, then, that you wished for a longer residence there?”
“No, God help me, wretched coward that I am. The prospect of the trial, of being found guilty terrified me so, I would have given anything to have been free.”
“Well, then?” Mandell said impatiently.
“Anything but sacrificing you to do so. Now you are as much a fugitive as I. They will want to arrest you for helping me.”
“What of it?”
“Perhaps if I surrendered myself now, your conduct would be excused.”
Mandell swore, a fire leaping into his eyes that was as much fear as anger. He gripped her shoulders so hard it hurt. “Don’t you dare even to think of such a thing or I swear to God, I will bind you up and hold you prisoner myself if I have to, to keep you from such folly.”
When she flinched, he eased his grip, but she felt the tremor in his hands. “I fully understood the dangers when I set out to free you, but I did not give a damn. Do you think I could have endured leaving you in that place, waiting upon the whim of some oafish judge to decide your fate? I would have gone mad, do you not understand that, Anne?”
She comprehended far too well. She could see the shadows of the old nightmare, the anguish in his remarkable dark eyes.
She reached up, brushing her fingers over his brow, trying to ease the lines of pain she found there. “Yes, I do understand, Mandell. This whole thing stirred memories for you, of what happened to your mother.”
“It was worse than that,” he said. “I thought I knew what hell was, but I didn’t, not until I stood outside those damned prison gates, fearing that you might already be exposed to that cursed gaol fever or to the brutalities of some coarse guard.”
A shudder of strong emotion wracked through him. “No, Sorrow, I could not have endured you being in that foul placeanother moment. I could not take such risks with the woman I?—”
He broke off. The word he could not bring himself to say seemed to hang suspended in the air between them. Anne’s heart hammered so wildly she could hardly breathe, for she found the thought completed in the depths of his eyes.
The woman I love.
The moment was too intense and solemn for Anne to feel a flooding of joy. Mandell turned away from her, grinding his fingertips against his eyes. He said shakily, “You see, Anne, it is not you who is the coward. I have never known any woman possessed of such quiet courage and strength, capable of feeling such compassion, even for a wretch like me who cannot tell you what you deserve to hear even now.”
“Mandell,” she breathed. He refused to face her. The most she could do was rest her hands upon his shoulders, press her face against the iron line of his back.
His voice cracked as he continued, “You deserved a prince, my dear. Not one like Gerald Fairhaven, but a truly noble man. Instead, you got the dragon.” He raised his hand in a gesture of hopelessness. “I wonder if all dragons are like me, on the surface fire and bluster, but beneath it all, nothing but smoke and fear.
“You were right that day in the park when you accused me of living my life as though I were still trapped in a dark closet, afraid to allow myself to feel anything but the shallowest emotions. But sometimes you are forced to confront the things you fear, whether you will or not.”
He turned slowly to face her, his eyes glistening. “I love you, Anne. And it hurts as much as I always feared that it would.”
She cupped his face tenderly between her hands. “It is not supposed to be all pain, my love.”
“I know that.” He caught one of her hands, pressing a heated kiss within the center of her palm. “But now I am vulnerable. Now I have something to lose.”
“You will not lose me. I am here with you now and everything is going to be all right.”
She flung her arms tightly about his neck. He responded with a low groan, crushing her in his embrace. His mouth sought her lips, raining feverish kisses over every inch of her face.
“I love you, Anne,” he repeated and again, as though each word was a prayer, a blessing, a miracle. Anne returned his kisses, for one moment allowing herself to be deliriously happy.
His arms tightened about her, straining her close as though he would gather her into the recesses of his heart and hold her safe there forever.
“There was a great love between my mother and father,” he said. “Even as a child, I was aware of that. But in the end, she died alone, horribly. Her death left me so confused and bitter. My grandfather taught me it was better not to love, that it was an emotion reserved for fools, and I believed him.”
Mandell buried his face against Anne’s hair. “He wanted me both to forget and to remember. And so, the nightmares started, tormenting me until I would cry out in my sleep, a child wanting his mother.”
