Page 28 of Beneath the Devil’s Mask (The Hidden Hearts Collection #4)

Nine

The black cloak pooled like a shadow in the bottom of Anne’s wardrobe. As she bent down, touching the garment, the folds of silk rustled in her fingers, whispering of night breezes, the heat of a kiss, a vow made with passionate desperation.

I would sell my soul to the devil if I had to.

Careful, Sorrow. The devil just might take you up on that offer.

The pact she had made with Mandell seemed fantastic in the daytime, sunlight spilling through the latticed windows, past the lacy curtains and over the elegant satinwood furniture of Anne’s room at Lily’s.

The bedchamber was thoroughly feminine. No place could have been further removed from Mandell’s aura of powerful masculinity, from midnight wanderings and reckless promises.

If not for the cloak she clutched in her hands, Anne could have believed that their tryst had been nothing more than a haunting dream.

Yet the child napping in the little room just above Anne’s own was no dream.

For the past week since Norrie’s return, Anne had feared she would awaken and find it so.

She had kept the little girl with her almost constantly.

Even when Norrie slept, Anne stole from her own bed, creeping down to the nursery to tuck the blankets more snugly around Norrie, to stroke a curl back from her cheek, just to touch the child, and reassure herself that Norrie would not disappear with the morning light.

But during that same week, Anne had had the leisure to wonder how she was ever going to keep her promise to Mandell to go to his bed. She tried to reassure herself. She was no shrinking virgin. She had been a married woman, for mercy’s sake; had borne children.

Yet Gerald had always been what he termed “a gentleman” in bed.

He had eased up her nightgown, mumbling apologies for violating her chastity, taking her with merciful swiftness.

Anne knew that what would take place between Mandell’s sheets would be nothing like that mundane wifely ritual.

She had already had a taste of the difference in Mandell’s arms, his lips so hot upon her own.

He would want her naked in his bed and without any blushes of maidenly modesty.

He would never be satisfied with the tame submission she had shown her late husband.

Mandell would take relentlessly, demand with his mouth, with his hands, with his lean hard body.

He might stir in her those passions she had learned to keep locked away, desires that often kept her awake nights, a fine sheen of perspiration bathing her flesh.

When he had done, Mandell would rise from the bed, offer her clothes with a mocking bow, and go coolly on his way. But Anne was very much afraid that she would never be the same woman again.

She pushed the cloak away from her, stuffing it to the very back of the wardrobe.

She could not go through with it. She was not the sort of female who could offer herself up casually to a man.

And such a man! A rake who had known dozens before her, women far more beautiful and sophisticated.

What could she be to him but one more conquest, another night’s amusement, and a disappointing one at that?

But she had promised, and Anne had never broken a promise in her life. She bit ruefully down upon her thumbnail. She had pledged Mandell one night in his bed. Yet their bargain had not been a fair one, she argued. He had taken shameless advantage of her desperation, hadn’t he?

Anne’s conscience would not allow of that excuse, either.

Who was it who had flung out such a reckless offer that could not help but tempt a man like Mandell?

She owed him something. He had kept his word.

She had her little girl back again. And yet how much had Mandell had to do with that?

She did not know for sure. Of a certainty, he must have talked to Lucien, applied some little pressure.

But she might have gotten Norrie back some other way even if Mandell had not intervened.

Perhaps Lucien had been planning to return Norrie all along.

Anne groaned softly, resting her head against the wardrobe door.

Who was she attempting to fool? She would never forget Lucien’s hate-filled look as her brother-in-law had thrust Norrie back into her arms. Lucien had never meant to return Norrie, and whatever Mandell had done to him, it had been far more than talk.

But his lordship had made no effort to contact her once this entire week.

True, she had kept close to the house, but he had never called or even sent round a note.

Perhaps, Anne thought hopefully, moving on to nibble the nail of her forefinger, perhaps Mandell had simply forgotten all about redeeming the pledge she had made.

But this comforting reflection did not last long. She could not block out the memory of his intense gaze, his warning, I do not deal kindly with those who break faith with me.

Anne did not know what prevented him thus far from demanding that she keep her side of the bargain, but whatever it was, one thing was certain. Mandell would never forget. Her second finger bitten nearly raw, Anne shifted to the next nail. She started when the soft rap came at her door.

“Anne, it’s Lily,” her sister called out. “Are you still abed?”

“No. Just a minute.” Anne made haste to pile some old shawls on top of Mandell’s cloak.

Her fingers brushed against something hard; her pistol, which Mandell had shoved into the cloak pocket that night which now seemed so long ago.

Anne had all but forgotten her foolish little weapon.

She dumped an extra shawl on top of it and shoved the whole pile as far back into the wardrobe as she could.

The maid Lily had assigned her, young Bettine, had already noticed the masculine garment.

Anne had been able to explain that it belonged to her late husband and the girl had sighed, imagining Anne, the brokenhearted widow, clinging to the cloak in remembrance.

But Lily would not be so fooled. Gerald, ever the provincial gentleman from his boots to the severe style of his cravat, had never worn anything so dashing as Mandell’s cape.

Closing the wardrobe door, Anne smoothed out her gown and tidied the wisps of her hair. She called out as cheerfully as she could, “Come in.”

Lily bustled in, carrying a fistful of sealed letters. “Good,” she said. “You are up and stirring. I thought you might be lying down for a nap, poor dear. You have been exhausting yourself, looking after that child.”

Although she smiled, there was a hint of reproof in Lily’s tone. Lily was delighted for Anne’s recent happiness and only too pleased to welcome her small niece into her home. Yet she feared that Anne had become far too absorbed in performing the tasks of a nurserymaid.

But for too many months, Norrie had awakened only to the impersonal ministrations of servants. Anne vowed her child would never do so again.

For her sister’s benefit, Anne shook her head, saying, “I am not in the least tired, Lily. I have just been going through my wardrobe, selecting some gowns that are out of fashion to pass on to my maid.”

To Lily, that was at least a reasonable occupation for any lady.

Her eyes lit up with immediate understanding.

“Of course! You have needed some new things for an age. I shall take you round to my modiste this very afternoon. You will need a special gown for the Bramleys’ rout come Saturday next, and just look at all these other invitations you received in this morning’s post.”

Lily laid out the squares of vellum upon Anne’s dressing table, gloating over the cards like a miser counting a treasure.

“How very nice,” Anne said.

“Do you not intend to open them?”

“Perhaps later.”

“Later?” Lily’s elegant brows rose skeptically. “Or will they end up in the fireplace grate again? Anne, this simply will not do. You have been hiding yourself away in this house ever since Eleanor was returned to you.”

“That’s absurd. I have not been hiding.” But Anne’s protest sounded halfhearted even to her own ears. That was exactly what she had been doing. Hiding from Mandell, afraid of encountering him again, not knowing how she would react, what she should say, afraid of what he might do.

“You got what you wanted, Anne. Your child returned,” Lily said with a tinge of impatience. “Now it is time to cease this moping. You are in London at the height of the season. You need to get out more, enjoy yourself.”

“And I shall. But you know Norrie has not been well. She has been having trouble sleeping and then there is that worrisome cough she has developed.”

“You cannot have an apoplexy every time the child sneezes.”

“Norrie has always been delicate. Every trifling illness seems to strike her so much harder than other children. There was that time I thought she had but a sniffle. By nightfall, she was in such a raging fever she did not recognize me. I almost lost her that time, Lily.”

“Well, you will not lose her now. I know some of the finest physicians in the city. We shall have Dr. Markham out to check her cough in a trice. Will that make you feel better?”

Anne nodded reluctantly.

Lily gave her a swift hug although she continued to scold, “You are still young, Anne. Your life cannot center upon that little girl. And there is another excellent reason you should get out more. I have not liked to mention this, but there have been rumors, Anne. Rumors about you and the marquis of Mandell.”

Anne opened her mouth to speak but found she couldn’t. She felt herself grow pale as Lily continued, “The gossip all seems to have started since that ugly scene between Mandell and Sir Lucien at Brooks’s.”

“What scene?”

“I thought you might have heard something of it, but I keep forgetting. You have been buried in the nursery all week. You will recollect, however, that we both wondered why your brother-in-law experienced such a sudden change of heart regarding Eleanor’s future.”