Page 56 of Beneath the Devil’s Mask (The Hidden Hearts Collection #4)

“Stop being ridiculous, Anne Fairhaven,” she scolded herself.

It would be a bold intruder indeed to invade the sanctuary of someone’s private garden.

The open gate was a sign of nothing but one of the servant’s carelessness.

Anne forced herself to go forward, intending to slam the gate closed and lock it.

But her fingers had no sooner touched the cold metal of the bars when a figure loomed out of the shadows cast by the wall. Anne started to scream, but she was roughly seized, one arm pinned behind her back. Her cry was choked off by the gloved hand clamped over her mouth.

“Don’t scream, Anne,” a familiar voice rasped. “It is only me. Lucien.”

His words conveyed to Anne no sense of reassurance. Rather, her heart gave a terrified leap and she put up a frantic struggle to free herself. Lucien’s grip only tightened more cruelly, the leather of his glove bruising her lips.

“Anne, please. I am not going to hurt you. I must talk to you.”

Anne sensed a level of desperation beneath Lucien’s harsh whisper. His body reeked of stale sweat and strong spirits. Dear God! He had been drinking. The realization only deepened her fear.

“If you will promise to be quiet and not to run away,” he breathed close to her ear, “I will let you go.”

Although her heart pounded madly, Anne attempted to subdue her panic, sensing that cooperation might gain her more than her futile efforts to break loose of Lucien’s grasp.

She made herself go still, and after a few agonizing moments she felt Lucien’s hold on her slacken, his hand easing away from her mouth.

She twisted free of him and backed away a few steps, gasping, “Lucien! What are you doing here?”

“I had to find you. I needed to see you.”

“Then come into the house and—”

“No!” He swayed slightly forward and Anne gained a fleeting impression of his appearance, his hair unkempt, his clothing dirty and rumpled as though it had been slept in for many days. He sounded too sober to be drunk and yet there was a wildness about him she found even more unnerving.

She glanced toward the house, attempting to gauge the distance and the chances of reaching the security of those walls before Lucien intercepted her. As though guessing her intent, Lucien shifted, planting the solid outline of his stocky frame directly in her path.

“I don’t know what you want with me,” she said. “We have nothing more to say to one another. You are not even supposed to be here in London. Norrie said she saw you peering out the window at her, but I did not believe her. What sort of game are you playing with us now?”

“No game. I have been hiding, trapped in my own house.”

“Hiding? From whom?”

“That devil. Your high and mighty Lord Mandell.” Lucien spat out the name with loathing and dread.

“Nonsense,” Anne faltered. “Mandell has no more desire to seek your company than you do his.”

“Is this nonsense?” Lucien stumbled closer, gesturing toward his face. The moon had drifted from behind the clouds enough to illuminate the ravaged contours of Lucien’s features.

Anne choked back a soft cry. His nose was bent to an angle, a large bump forming where the bone was not healing properly.

His face was yet streaked with sickly yellow bruises, the pockets of flesh beneath his eyes puffy from lack of sleep.

But it was the eyes themselves that truly horrified her, glazed over and bloodshot.

He looked exhausted. He looked haunted. He looked . .. mad.

When Lucien thrust his face even closer, Anne could not refrain from shuddering and looking away.

“What is wrong, Anne?” he asked. “Can you not bear the sight of what your lover did to me? He wanted to kill me. He still does.”

Lucien’s voice rose on a note of hysteria.

“He’s been stalking me. Every time I look over my shoulder, he’s there.

I catch just a glimpse of his cloak. Even in the daytime, even hidden away in my own house, he watches me.

I should have destroyed him when I had the chance.

I should have had my revenge on all of you. Even the child.”

Lucien’s eyes gleamed wildly and Anne did not wait to hear more. She made a panicked effort to dart past him. He clutched at her arm, but she managed to wrench free. Her heart thundering, she raced up the path, expecting to hear him come crashing after her.

But instead, his voice shattered on a mighty sob. “Anne! Please. I am sorry. I didn’t mean that. Don’t leave me. You must help me. You must make Mandell stop. You have to m-make him.”

Anne hesitated long enough to glance back. She saw Lucien sag to his knees. Burying his face in his hands, he rocked back and forth. His ragged sobs went right through Anne. He sounded so much like the pathetic boy she had once known; she was moved to pity despite herself.

Although she knew it was unwise, she returned. Maintaining a cautious distance between them, she said soothingly, “Hush, Lucien. I don’t know what has put such strange notions in your head, but I assure you Lord Mandell has not been following you. He does not even realize you are still in London.”

Lucien raised his tear-streaked face to stare up at her. “Is that what he says? He lies. He has been after me day and night, just waiting for his chance. And I’m all alone. My servants have deserted me. The c-cowards fled the night I saw Mandell’s reflection and I had to shoot the mirror.”

Lucien crushed his fingers against his brow so hard he seemed to be trying to shatter his own skull. “I cannot bear it anymore,” he wept. “I can’t sleep. This accursed pain in my head grows worse every moment. Even the tincture of opium does not help anymore.”

Opium. Dear God, Anne thought. At least that accounted for his strange delusions. “You should go back home,” she said, making one last effort to reason with him. “And try to rest. I will summon a doctor for you.”

“Doctor? What doctor? The sort that would have me clapped up in Bedlam?” Lucien shrilled at her, glaring through his tears. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Anne? Shutting me away would be as good as having me killed. Maybe you are even helping Mandell to do this to me.”

His sudden shift to anger alarmed Anne into retreating again. Attempting to humor him, she said, “I don’t want to hurt you, Lucien. I will make sure you are safe. I will fetch some of Lily’s footmen to escort you home. They will protect you.”

But Lucien was clearly no longer listening to her. He had tensed, jerking upright, like some wary beast sensing the approach of the hunter. He whipped about, staring, and pointed a shaking finger. “There! What did I tell you? He’s there again.”

“Where?” Anne asked. She peered into the darkness at the end of the garden, seeing only the breeze stirring the tendrils of ivy along the side wall.

“There! Over by the gate!”

“Lucien. There is no one here.”

“Can you not see him?”

Anne watched stunned as Lucien lurched forward, shrieking.

“Curse you, Mandell. Show yourself. If you want to kill me, do it. But I can bear no more of this hellish torment.”

He staggered forward, thrashing about amongst Lily’s rosebushes.

Anne stood paralyzed with a mixture of horror and pity.

She had never seen anyone driven by madness before.

The sight was dreadful. She knew she had to force herself to move, summon aide from the house and find some way to stop Lucien before he brought harm to himself.

But as she turned to go, Lucien vanished from her line of sight. She could still hear his hideous sobbing and cursing. She took a cautious step along the path and looked for him. He was by the gate.

Her blood froze. She wondered if she had been afflicted with Lucien’s madness.

She saw him grappling with a phantom, a creature that should have had no existence outside of Lucien’s insane imagination.

The specter’s ink black cloak blended with the night, his features shadowed by a large, plumed hat as he attempted to level a pistol at Lucien.

Anne’s throat closed with terror as she watched Lucien make a desperate grab for the weapon. The force of the struggle carried the two men beyond the gate, out onto the pavement.

Anne attempted to scream for help. She rushed forward to Lucien’s aid, not knowing what she meant to do, what she could do. A loud retort rang out and Anne saw Lucien stagger back, clutching his chest.

Anne forced her trembling limbs to move faster, but by the time she reached the gate opening, the cloaked man had vanished, melting into the darkness like the vision from a nightmare.

There was only Lucien, sprawled out on his back, the light from the streetlamp glinting on his golden hair, the crimson tide of his blood staining the pavement. Shaking, Anne crept to his side.

His face was contorted with pain, a rasping noise emanating from his throat as he struggled to breathe. He stared up at her through half-closed lids.

“Anne.”

She glanced frantically along the darkened street, praying that someone had heard the shot besides herself. To her relief she heard the echo of distant footsteps, and behind her she saw more lights begin to glow behind Lily’s windows. The household had been aroused.

Anne knelt beside Lucien, her knee striking up against something. The pistol. Lucien must have wrenched it from the man’s hand even as he was shot. Scarce thinking what she did, Anne picked up the weapon.

“Anne,” he groaned. “What have you done to me? Would never have happened but for you.”

“Hush, Lucien,” she said, touching trembling fingers to his brow. He already felt so clammy and cold. “Try to be still. Help is coming.

“‘Too late. Curse you, Anne. You’ve killed me.”

His chest heaved in a violent convulsion as he made a desperate effort to draw air into his lungs. A horrible rasping noise came from his throat. His head lolled to one side and he went suddenly still, his eyes vacant and staring.

“Lucien?” Anne whispered. She blinked as light fell over his distorted features. Only then did she realize she was no longer alone. Someone stood over her, holding up a lantern.

Dazed, Anne glanced up to see a pool of stunned faces, some she recognized as Lily’s servants. But the swaying light was held aloft by the old charley who patrolled Clarion Way, and he was staring down at the pistol still clutched in Anne’s hand with a deep reproach in his ancient eyes.