Page 41 of Beneath the Devil’s Mask (The Hidden Hearts Collection #4)

Anne’s primrose morning gown rustled softly as she stepped closer. Her honey blond hair was tucked beneath a lace cap, silken wisps of gold caressing her pale cheeks. Deep shadows rimmed her eyes and she looked as though she had not passed a much better night than he.

Their eyes met across the length of the bed and both made haste to look away. Heat washed over Mandell’s face. It had been so many years since he had experienced such a thing, it took a moment for him to realize what was happening to him.

Damn. He was blushing.

Anne’s hand fluttered to the lace at her throat and she seemed to find it easier to address her daughter. “Norrie, you should not have come in here.”

“I only wanted to peek at the strange gentleman, Mama. He is not mad as Bettine says, but very nice. He reads myths, too.”

“This is not a proper way to be making Lord Mandell’s acquaintance. I want you to go back to the nursery right now.”

Norrie’s lip quivered at Anne’s stern tone, and Mandell spoke up. “I fear the fault was mine. Miss Eleanor kindly came in to inquire after my health, and I kept her engaged in conversation.”

Anne looked astonished, but Norrie flashed him a brilliant smile. “It was nice being ‘quainted with you, Lord Man. I will remember how you told me to get rid of the doctor.”

“Get rid of ...” Anne faltered. She shot Mandell such an accusatory look, he made haste to say, “It was good advice only if one is quite well, Miss Eleanor. However, if I had a cough, I would demand that the doctor make me better at once.”

“You would?” Norrie asked.

“Indeed, I would.”

Looking thoughtful, Norrie left the room, still practicing the trick with her eyebrow. As she passed through the door, she could be heard to say imperiously, “Make me better at once.”

After the child had gone, an awkward silence ensued. Mandell found himself thinking of the last time he and Anne had been alone together in a bedchamber, but he struggled to suppress the thought. He had enough aches to torment him without adding the agony of frustrated desire.

”I am sorry if Norrie disturbed you, my lord,” Anne said.

“I have not yet engaged a governess for her and I fear she has been permitted to run a little wild. I will have to have a discussion with Eleanor about the impropriety of—of—” Her gaze skittered over Mandell’s frame stretched beneath the coverlet. “Of invading a gentleman’s bedchamber.”

Despite his splitting head and sense of embarrassment, Mandell possessed enough of the devil in him to murmur, “That should be a most enlightening discussion. I would love to hear it.”

Anne turned a bright pink and took a step nearer to the door. “I am glad to see you looking more fit. I took the liberty of sending word to your household. Your valet has arrived with fresh clothes for you. I will send him in immediately.”

As she started to retreat, Mandell called out, “Anne. Wait!”

She hesitated, glancing back at him.

“My head is still not quite clear about exactly what happened last night,” he said.

“I have a fair idea that I made a nuisance of myself. I understand your maid thinks I should have been thrown back into the street and no doubt she was right. Please convey my thanks to your sister for her forbearance.”

“My sister?”

“Yes, I assume that she must have directed her servants to put me to bed.”

“Lily was not even here when you arrived.”

Mandell glanced up sharply at that. Even though his wits felt far from keen, he perceived a difference in Anne, something so subtle he had not noted it before.

He could find none of the primness about her mouth that he had expected.

There was a gentleness in her tone, a light in her eyes that was softer than the sunbeams streaming through the window, turning her hair to gold.

“I don’t understand,” he said.

“Lily did not arrive home until sunrise and—” A tiny smile curved Anne’s lips. “Her head was not quite clear, either. She always sings tunes from the Beggar’s Opera when she has had a drop too much champagne. Did you not hear her in the hall?”

“No, that was one performance that thankfully I missed. But then who admitted me to the house?”

Anne said nothing. She merely smiled at him again and then slipped out of the room. As Mandell heard the door close behind her, he sank back down into the pillows, feeling more dazed than when he had first regained consciousness.

The drawing room that hosted so many of the countess’s balls and other brilliant gatherings stood still and silent in the afternoon.

Most of the draperies had been drawn to protect Lily’s delicate silk-striped chairs from exposure to the sun.

The gilt mirrors, the towering ceiling, and the magnificent chandeliers were all cast into shadow, like part of the scenery on a vast unlit stage.

As Anne wandered aimlessly down the length of the room, she felt much like an actress waiting for the curtain to go up, an actress no longer sure of her part. But this was foolish. Nothing had changed.

Despite all that had happened, Mandell was still ... Mandell, and she was the virtuous Anne. But as Anne fingered the gold chain about her neck and felt the cool weight of the locket hidden beneath the bodice of her gown, she knew that was not true.

Something had changed, and she could not say how or when it had begun.

Perhaps the moment when he had pressed the locket into her hand.

Or had the change come sometime during those hours before dawn, watching Mandell struggle with his own private demons, realizing that the arrogant marquis could ache and bleed like any other man?

Or was it when she had seen him being so kind to her little girl?

Anne was not sure. She only knew she would never be able to view the wicked marquis in quite the same way again.

As she waited for him, something compelled her to remove her lace cap, allowing her hair to tumble freely about her shoulders.

She considered retiring to change her gown for something a little less matronly when the drawing room’s massive double doors were eased open.

Anne expected it to be one of the servants come to inform her that the marquis had emerged from his room and was asking for her.

But it was Mandell himself who paused, silhouetted on the threshold.

He turned his head, searching the room. Anne felt her heart miss a beat the moment his eyes found hers.

He stepped quietly into the room, drawing the doors closed behind him.

A remarkable transformation had taken place during the hour since she had left him.

In assuming the clothes his servant had brought—the cravat, the buff-colored breeches, the frock coat of midnight blue—Mandell appeared to have reassumed some of the arrogance of his stance as well.

Clean-shaven, his ebony waves of hair swept back, the only sign of his recent misadventure was a certain paleness, his cheekbones standing out in gaunt relief.

Yet as he stalked the length of the room, coming toward her, Anne sensed a hesitancy in his manner that had not been there before.

He stopped within an arm’s length of where she stood before the French doors leading down into the garden.

They stared at each other like two strangers waiting to be introduced, which was absurd. She had nearly been this man’s lover.

Nearly. Anne had never realized what a world of regret could be found in a single word.

Mandell said, “I was told I might find you in here, milady. May I speak to you for a few moments?”

“Certainly. I have been hoping—that is, I was expecting you would wish to do so.”

“And well you might, although I scarce know how to begin. Anne. It is deuced strange. I can tender the most handsome apologies when I don’t mean a word of it. When I want to be sincere, which isn’t often, I can’t seem to think of a thing to say.”

He turned away from her, his arms locked behind his back. The sunlight that filtered in through the French doors played over the bladelike tension of his profile. “I remember enough of what happened last night to realize that I behaved like a complete idiot.”

”It was no great matter, my lord.”

“No great matter? I burst into your sister’s house, roaring drunk, assaulted the butler, roused you from your sleep, and passed out on the floor. I expected a box to the ears this morning or at least a lecture on the evils of intemperance.”

“I was exasperated with you at first. You have a habit of disconcerting me. I suppose I am getting accustomed to it.”

“I am sorry, Anne,” he said stiffly “When I was in such a state, I do not know why I chose to inflict myself upon you, of all people.”

“Don’t you remember? You came to bring me this.” Anne tugged at her gold chain, drawing forth the locket from inside the neckline of her gown.

Mandell stepped closer to examine it. The gold chain seemed more delicate when contrasted to the strength of his long tapering fingers.

He opened the locket, exposing the miniature of Norrie as a babe, her eyes wide and blue, her halo of tumbled curls and dimpled cheeks making her look like a mischievous cherub. His grim expression lightened a little.

“I do have a vague recollection of rousting some pawnbroker from his bed, forcing him to open his shop.”

“I am astonished that you even remembered my telling you about the locket, let alone where to find it.”

“My memory is a peculiar thing. It is amazing what I choose to forget, what I am forced to remember.” Sadness clouded his eyes.

Anne knew the source of it. She had pieced together the nightmare of his childhood from his ravings, and the knowledge weighed heavy upon her heart. She longed to offer him some comfort, but she had a fair notion of what that would do to Mandell’s pride.

Instead, she asked him the question that most troubled her. “You went to a great deal of bother to retrieve this locket for me. Why did you do so?”