Page 37 of Beneath the Devil’s Mask (The Hidden Hearts Collection #4)
“Don’t taunt me, Mandell. I am frightened and I am not ashamed to admit it. There are all manner of evil wretches hanging about this part of town. Especially that soldier over there by the rum keg. He has a wicked-looking scar on his chin and he has been staring at us in a most suspicious manner.”
Mandell bestirred himself enough to glance in that direction. He saw only a scullery boy in a greasy apron.
“You’re imagining things, Briggs,” he scoffed. “Have another whiskey. If you’re going to hallucinate, you might as well be as drunk as I am.”
Briggs declined. He drew forth his pocket watch. Snapping open the gold case, he consulted it with a weary sigh. “It is not so late. Maybe we could leave and go call upon your cousin Nick. Yes, that would be the very thing. He would know what to do.”
“What the devil would I want with Drummond? I am in no mood for any speeches.”
“It only seemed to me that you are not finding much amusement here, either. This hardly is the place for a man of such fastidious tastes as your lordship.”
“Ah, that is because you are unfamiliar with the darker side of my nature, Briggs.” Mandell took a gulp of the whiskey. It was vile stuff, but his palate had gone dead so it didn’t matter. “I have bad blood, y’know.”
“Then maybe you need to see a doctor. I have heard being bled helps when a man falls into these black humors.”
Mandell gave a snort of mirthless laughter. “I’d have to slit my damned throat.”
Briggs paled with alarm. “Oh, no, pray, my lord. Don’t even jest about such a thing.”
As Mandell reached to refill his glass, Briggs pleaded, “I think your lordship has had too much to drink. You have consumed enough to have felled an ordinary man.”
“But then I am not an ordinary man, Briggs. I am the marquis of Mandell.”
Mandell splashed some whiskey into the glass and started to raise it in a mocking salute when he was distracted by a sudden commotion. The buxom blond serving wench stumbled into Briggs’s chair, emitting a shrill protest as she fled to escape the customer who had been harassing her.
“No, I won’t be after going upstairs with you. You are a deal too rough, sir.”
“I’ll get a lot rougher, you little bitch, if you don’t do as I say.”
The familiar snarling accent grated upon Mandell’s ear.
He looked up slowly, focusing on the girl’s tormentor.
Staggering across the room in pursuit was Lucien Fairhaven, flushed, sweating, and stinking of gin.
Mandell had not seen Fairhaven since he had permitted the man to stalk out of Brooks’s unscathed.
He remembered regretting that Sir Lucien escaped so lightly for all the misery he had caused Anne.
A regret that Mandell was surprised to realize still gnawed at him.
Fairhaven closed in upon the blond girl, seizing her wrist and causing her to cry out, “Ow, let me go.”
Her predicament evoked not the slightest ripple of interest in the crowded taproom. Sir Lucien dealt the wench a hard slap and started dragging her toward the stairs.
“I believe the woman asked you to release her, Fairhaven,” Mandell called out. It was a slurred imitation of his usual icy tone, but it had the desired effect.
Lucien twisted around, peering in Mandell’s direction.
He was startled enough to let go of the girl.
Clutching her reddened cheek, she whirled and fled up the stairs.
Fairhaven made no effort to follow, his attention now fixed upon Mandell.
He took a wavering step toward the table, his bloodshot eyes dilated with unmistakable hatred.
“Oh, no!” Mandell heard Briggs moan softly, but he ignored him, never taking his eyes off Fairhaven’s approach.
“Well, well, the high and mighty Lord Mandell and his favorite toady.” Lank strands of dirty blond hair tumbled across Lucien’s brow as he leaned across the table. “What brings you to this part of town, m’lord? Still playing the knight errant. Championing whores now?”
“Please, Sir Lucien,” Briggs piped up. “We don’t want any trouble,”
“There isn’t going to be any trouble,” Mandell said. He was only vaguely aware of how hard his hands were gripping the edge of the table. “Sir Lucien is just leaving. He knows I find his company most distasteful,”
“Leave? The devil I will!” Sir Lucien thumped his fist against the table, rattling the glasses. “What’re you going to do, Mandell? Threaten me with your glove? Do you think I am afraid of you?”
“No, you appear to have finally located your courage. Where was it? At the bottom of a gin bottle?”
Fairhaven’s face darkened to an alarming hue, but to Mandell’s surprise, it was his own wrist that Briggs seized in a restraining grasp.
“Don’t, Mandell. Can you not see the fellow is drunk? He is not worth your trouble.”
Mandell shook himself free. What was Briggs talking about? He was behaving as though Mandell were the one likely to lose control. He was no Nick Drummond, possessed of a volatile temper. Everyone knew that the marquis of Mandell had ice in his veins.
Sir Lucien straightened, swaggering a little. “That’s right, Mandell. Mustn’t create a scandal to disturb the fair and virtuous Anne. Why aren’t you with her tonight? Could it be that after all your heroic efforts, you couldn’t get beneath her skirts after all?”
The ice in Mandell’s veins pierced and burned. He shoved back from the table. “Don’t you even dare to speak her name, you whoreson dog!”
Sir Lucien’s face twisted with an ugly satisfaction. “Whoreson dog?” he taunted. “A rather common insult coming from you, my lord. What’s happened to the famous cool wits? Could it be my dear sister-in-law has addled them?”
Mandell’s breath quickened. He felt his heart commence an erratic and savage rhythm. Ignoring Briggs’s feeble attempts to restrain him, he struggled to his feet.
“Mandell!” Briggs’s protest was lost in Sir Lucien’s bark of harsh laughter.
“You fool!” Fairhaven smirked at Mandell. “You could have had her in your power, but you didn’t know how to use it, did you? When I had the child in my possession, I actually brought the proud Anne to her knees.”
“You what?”
“Didn’t she ever tell you? She knelt to me in the gutter, begging, crying for the return of her brat. And I spurned her, left her groveling in the murk where she—”
The rest of Sir Lucien’s boast went unfinished as Mandell’s fist smashed against his jaw. Briggs shrieked as Fairhaven stumbled back, his mouth smeared with blood. A low growl of rage escaped Sir Lucien and he lunged for Mandell.
But the ice inside Mandell shattered, splintering into myriad white-hot shards. Before Sir Lucien could strike, Mandell leapt upon him, dragging him to the floor of the tavern to the accompaniment of crashing tables and shattering glass.
Lucien got off a blow that glanced off Mandell’s cheek. Mandell felt nothing but the force of his own blind fury. He drew back his fist again and again. Fairhaven’s head snapped back, his features slick with blood.
“Stop! Mandell!” Briggs cried out. “You’ll kill him.” But his frantic plea was all but drowned out by harsher voices, cheers of encouragement coming from cruel mouths. Greedy eyes gleamed like the demons of hell.
Lucien went limp, his eyes fluttering closed, but Mandell could not seem to check the beast that raged within him. His breath coming in ragged gasps, he drew back his arm to strike again. But something struck him hard from behind, his world exploding in a flash of bright light and pain.
Mandell wavered and fell, darkness misting before his eyes, a darkness that ebbed and flowed, in waves of agony.
He no longer knew where he was or what was happening to him.
Dimly, he realized that he was lying on some hard surface and cold water was being dashed against his face.
He tried to turn away from it and open his eyes, but the effort proved too great.
From a great distance, he heard a man’s voice sobbing.
“Mandell? I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hit you so hard. Please open your eyes. Say something. Oh, dear God, I’ve killed you.”
Killed him? Mandell’s pain-fogged mind latched upon the word. Was he dying then? Surely there was peace to be found in dying, not these sharp spirals of pain, this terrifying feeling of being suffocated in the dark.
“You’ll be all right,” the voice promised. “I’ll get you out of here. I’ll get you to a doctor.”
No. Mandell tried to form the word, but it would not come. He wanted no doctor. There was only one person he wanted, needed. The thought pierced his haze of pain with astonishing clarity.
“Anne,” he whispered. “Take me to Anne.”