Page 64 of Beneath the Devil’s Mask (The Hidden Hearts Collection #4)

Twenty-One

Anne clutched the hat to her like a shield, fear and doubt warring within her.

Nick Drummond, the Hook? The murderous brigand who had attacked Briggs and killed Lucien?

It was impossible. It had to be. And yet, as Nick stepped farther into the room, Anne shrank instinctively back against the bedstead.

She moistened her lips, forcing a casual tone into her voice that was belied by the unsteady thrum of her pulse.

“Mr. Drummond. What are you doing here? I was expecting Mandell.”

“I know,” he said. “Mandell should not have brought you here. He could not have picked any place in London that would have been less safe.”

“Indeed, this house is in a sad state of disrepair and ...” Anne’s voice trailed away as Drummond shook his head at her.

“It’s no use pretending, Anne. I should know. I have been doing too much of that myself for far too long.” He stalked nearer and plucked the hat from her fingers. “I know you are intelligent enough to understand the significance of what you have found.”

“It’s just a hat and some old clothes?”

“Anne,” he admonished. His eyes were filled with that unnerving regret.

He stroked the back of his knuckles along her cheek, sending a chill up her spine, his face hovering above her own.

It was like gazing at a familiar sunlit landscape only to find the scene shifted to something bleak and ominous.

“It might have been a relief to have someone else discover the truth if it had been anyone but you,” he said. “But you are far too gentle a soul to be dragged into the midst of all this. I am deeply sorry.”

“But I don’t have the slightest idea what all this is,” Anne cried.

“Unfortunately, there is no time for explanations.” He cast the hat aside, allowing it to tumble to the carpet with a soft thud. At the same moment, the candle gave one final flicker, guttered, and went out.

As the room plunged into darkness, Anne felt Nick’s swift movement. A choked scream escaped her as his hands closed over her shoulders. She struggled wildly lest he gain a grip upon her throat.

“Anne, stop,” he growled.

Flailing with her fists, she landed several blows upon his face, driving her knuckles in the soft pocket of his eye. He grunted with pain and surprise, whipping his head back and cracking it against the bedpost. With a sharp oath, he released her. Anne stumbled past him.

Through the haze of blackness and her rising panic, she could make out the silhouette of the open door. Hurling herself across the threshold, she dared to slam the door closed behind her. Leaving Nick trapped in total darkness purchased her a few precious seconds.

Her breathing coming in ragged gulps, Anne ran blindly along the gallery. Mandell’s heavy cloak tangled about her legs. She tripped on the hem and crashed to her knees. Struggling to regain her footing, she realized the cloak had caught on something, a loose floorboard or a nail.

Tearing frantically at the fabric, she heard Nick hurling open the bedchamber door and his muttered curses. Terror threatened to overwhelm her. She wrenched at the fastening of the cloak and flung it off her shoulders.

Scrambling to her feet, Anne made it as far as the upper landing. A ghostly mist of moonlight poured through the front windows, illuminating the gallery below.

Behind her, Nick bellowed her name. Anne glanced about, desperate for any avenue of escape. The twisting flight of stairs leading down to the hall seemed her best, her only hope.

But before she could take another step, Nick lunged. Out of the shadows behind her, she felt his arms close about her. She clawed at his hands even as she struggled to maintain her balance, feeling herself sway precariously on the topmost step.

A cry for help breached her lips as hoarse as it was unavailing, echoing along the palace’s indifferent corridors.

Swearing, Nick sought to clamp his hand over her mouth,

“Damn you, Anne,” he panted. “Stop it! What are you—”

“Let her go, Drummond.”

The icy command issuing from the foot of the stairs caused them both to freeze.

Twisting in Drummond’s hard grasp, Anne stared downward, her breath snagging in her throat.

It was as though her frantic plea had summoned some dread specter to her aid, a stern gallant of another time and place in his stiff silvery-grey brocade, lace spilling over his ancient hands.

He held aloft a lantern, the light illuminating those aged aristocratic features, the flow of white hair bound back into a queue.

“Release the lady, Nicholas,” His Grace commanded again.

Nick was startled enough to do so. With a choked sob of relief, Anne started down the stairs. But Nick recovered himself enough to come after her, seizing her upper arm.

“No, Your Grace,” he said, Anne had never heard any words choked out with such hatred and anguish.

The duke set the lantern down, the light reflecting upward, bathing his face in an eerie glow, making his flesh seem translucent, his skin stretched too taut over his prominent cheekbones. Gripping his walking cane, he started up the stairs, coming as far as the first landing.

The sight disturbed Anne in an odd way she could not name. Perhaps it was because she could feel the tension coil in Nick. She should have warned the old man to take care. But she could not bring herself to believe that Nick would harm his own grandfather.

“Don’t come any closer,” Nick snarled. “Get back to hell where you belong. I am taking Lady Fairhaven with me.”

“No, boy. I have endured enough of your defiance. You have already dishonored me past all bearing.”

“I dishonor you?” Nick gave a wild laugh.

As the duke came closer, something in his movements again gave Anne a ripple of unease. Then she realized what it was. It was the cane, the silver-handled walking cane. He was carrying it. He had no need of its aid, his step steady and sure.

“Lady Fairhaven’s well-being concerns you not,” the duke said. ”Leave while you still may.”

He tugged at the cane’s handle and a swordstick unsheathed in a lethal hiss of steel. Anne’s blood turned to ice as she realized the mistake she had made, a foolish fatal mistake. She realized it even as Nick thrust her behind him and shouted, “For the love of God, Anne. Run!”

He charged at the old man, but the duke was too swift for him. Like an arc of lightning, the sword flashed. Anne cried out as he drove the sword through Nick’s shoulder.

She heard Nick give a guttural cry, watched his face go white with shock.

The sword yet buried in his flesh, he leaned upon the duke’s shoulder for support.

For one moment, horror at what he had done flickered over the old man’s features.

Then he wrenched his sword free. Nick screamed.

As he sagged onto the steps, Anne pressed her fist to her mouth so hard she tasted her own blood, but she felt too numb to notice the pain, or to be aware of anything save the crimson stain spreading over Nick’s waistcoat.

Whatever remorse the duke might have known, Anne saw that he had already shuttered it away beneath his heavy eyelids. He watched his grandson’s lifeblood flow out with a curious kind of detachment.

The sight pushed Anne beyond the realm of horror, beyond any fear for her own safety. Galvanized into movement, she rushed down the steps to Nick’s side. Ignoring the old man who hovered over her, the bloodstained sword still gripped in his hand, she stripped off the frock coat she wore.

Bundling it up, she pressed it to Nick’s shoulder to stop the bleeding. Nick groaned, his mouth clenching with pain.

“I tried to warn you, boy,” the duke said. “But you have always had a habit of rushing into things headlong, never taking heed of sage advice.”

Anne glanced up at him, unable to believe he could stand there and observe Nick’s agony so calmly.

“Can you not see how badly you have injured him?” she cried. “You must go and fetch someone to help.”

For all the response she received, the old man might have been made of stone.

“He is your grandson,” she said fiercely. “I don’t care what else you may have done. You cannot allow him to die.”

The duke produced a laced-edge handkerchief and proceeded to wipe Nick’s blood from his sword. It was most strange, Anne thought. It had been hard for her to imagine Nick Drummond as a murderer, but she had no difficulty casting His Grace of Windermere in that role.

“There is an old saying, my dear,” he said in his low cultured accents. “It goes something like, ‘If thine eye offends thee, pluck it out.’ I have just done so. Drummond is no longer any kin of mine.”

“He is mad, Anne,” Nick panted. “Get out of here. Save yourself.”

Anne shook her head, trying to apply more pressure to Nick’s wound.

“Is it madness then?” the duke asked. “To attempt to defend what is yours, to try to preserve the world you have always known?”

“That’s your justification for murder?” Nick rolled his head to one side, whether to escape the pain or simply because he could no longer abide the sight of his grandfather Anne could not tell.

She was a little heartened to realize that she had managed to stop the flow of blood.

Glancing toward the front door, she prayed for Mandell’s imminent return and calculated her chances of being able to escape and rouse some help from one of the houses on the Strand.

Could she possibly make it down the stairs before the duke attempted to cut her down?

Even if she were able to do so, how could she abandon Nick to the mercy of a man who was clearly dead to any human compassion?

As though guessing at her thoughts, the duke shifted his position behind her so that he now completely blocked the stairs, toying with his sword.

“At least let Anne go,” Nick murmured. “She is no threat to you.”