Page 65 of Beneath the Devil’s Mask (The Hidden Hearts Collection #4)

“On the contrary, Lady Fairhaven poses the greatest threat of all.” The old man’s icy facade cracked a little, some of his bitterness seeping through.

“I bred Mandell to be as hard and polished as a diamond, to accept the rights and privileges that are his due. But she has changed him, softened him and inflicted him with some sickly notion of love.”

“I am glad that I have,” Anne cried.

“It is the same curse that destroyed his mother, lured my Celine away from me to die.”

“Lured! She probably fled from you. If you raised her with as much heart as you’ve shown Mandell, how I would have pitied that poor lady.”

The duke’s eyes flashed dangerously. “My proud Celine would have had no need of your pity. Any more than does Mandell.”

He seized Anne’s wrist, his grip amazingly strong. He dragged her away from Nick, hauling her to her feet. Despite the realization that she could be dead soon, Anne met his ferocious gaze with a look of defiance.

“You cannot hope to get away with any more killing,” Nick gasped. “You will be caught this time.”

“Perhaps I shall. But at least I will have saved Mandell from committing the same folly his mother did.”

Nick made a feeble effort to grip the staircase banister, trying to pull himself upward. “Damn you. Leave her alone.”

The duke ignored him, demanding of Anne, “Where is Mandell? I heard about his foolish heroics, rescuing you from Newgate. I thought I should have to send out runners to overtake the pair of you on your flight. Then my dolt of a butler finally saw fit to confide in me that Mandell had sent round earlier to obtain the keys to this place.”

He gave Anne a rough shake. “Where is Mandell now? Where has he gone?”

“He has gone seeking the truth,” Anne said. “And I would give my life to shield him from it.”

“I will have to take you up on that offer, my dear.”

Nick kicked out wildly, sobbing with his efforts to rise only to sink back again. He cursed, saying, “You will have to deal with me first.”

“I presumed I already had.” Releasing Anne, the duke shifted, staring down at Nick.

Anne saw the sudden flex of tension in the old man.

As he drew back the sword, she flung herself at him, deflecting his sword arm upward.

He lashed out, shoving her hard. With a small cry, Anne lost her balance.

She banged up against the banister and tumbled down the stairs, catching herself at the first landing.

Bruised and shaken, she could only watch in horror as the duke whipped around, preparing to run Nick through. She would never reach him in time.

“Anne!”

Someone roared her name, but the cry did not come from Nick or the duke.

Mandell’s voice echoed from behind her. The duke froze at the sound of his grandson’s voice, the old man’s face draining as white as the moonlight that bathed his features.

Anne choked on a sob of relief and struggled to her knees.

She had not heard the door flung open or witnessed his return. She was only too glad to see him now, taking the stairs two at a time. He pulled Anne to her feet, dragging her into his arms. “Anne, thank God. I—”

He broke off as his gaze slid past her to Nick’s inert form. He appeared to have lapsed into unconsciousness, his eyes closed.

“What the devil!” Mandell exclaimed. He attempted to go to him, only to find the way barred by his grandfather’s sword.

“I fear Drummond is beyond your help, Mandell,” the duke said.

“My God, old man, what have you done?”

“Attempted to keep you from flinging your life away upon this woman.”

Mandell’s jaw hardened. “It is all finished, Your Grace. Briggs has remembered. I know everything.”

“You know nothing and you understand even less. And I have no more time to teach you.” The first hint of regret crept into the old man’s tone, but he was quick to quell it.

He started down the steps toward Mandell and Anne. Mandell wrapped one arm protectively about Anne’s waist. With his other hand, he drew forth a pistol and leveled it at the duke’s chest.

The duke paused, regarding the weapon with a brief flash of pained surprise. His lips curved in a smile laced with irony.

“So it comes down to this, does it?” he asked. “We were ever adversaries of a kind, Mandell. But now that we reach the sticking point, I wonder. Do you possess the ruthlessness to fire that weapon?”

“I beg that Your Grace will not put me to the test.”

Anne held her breath, glancing from one taut male face to the other, alike in hauteur and unyielding pride. But where the duke’s eyes were empty and cold, Mandell’s roiled with pain and despair.

The duke took another step down. “Are you in truth my grandson?” he purred. “Or only still that puling brat that sprang from de Valmiere’s loins? Do you possess the steel to do whatever you deem necessary without remorse or regret?”

“I have no desire to hurt you, Grandfather.” A fine beading of perspiration had broken out upon Mandell’s brow, but the hand holding the pistol remained steady.

“Grandfather?” the duke mocked, descending another step.

“You have not called me that since the day you were first thrust weeping into my arms. I soon cured you of it, your French tendencies toward an unmanly display of emotion. But did you learn your lesson well enough to be utterly without mercy, without sentimentality? Can you kill me, Mandell, even to save your lady?”

With a malevolent smile, the duke pointed the tip of his sword toward Anne. Mandell inhaled sharply, his eyes dilated. He cocked the pistol.

“Mandell, don’t,” Anne cried. “Don’t you see what he is doing? He is goading you on purpose. He wants you to be his executioner.”

Mandell blinked and hesitated while Anne wheeled upon the duke. “Leave him alone,” she said. “Haven’t you done enough to him? Would you torment him with yet one more nightmare? Are you such a coward that you would seek this way of escaping all the pain you have caused?”

The duke flinched at her words. He stared at her, but Anne refused to be intimidated by his icy gaze. He was the first to avert his eyes. He lowered the sword as though all the strength had suddenly gone out of him.

“No,” he said. “You are right, milady. The fate of a duke should rest in no other man’s hands.”

Mandell exhaled a deep breath, easing back the hammer on his weapon. The duke turned away. Sparing not a glance for Nick, he stepped past his fallen grandson and began a slow ascent up the stairs, only to disappear into the darkness beyond.

Anne and Mandell raced up to Nick. Mandell bent down to feel for a pulse. “Thank God!” he said. “He is still alive.”

As gently as Mandell could, he managed to heft Nick into his arms and carry him to the hall below. He laid Nick out upon the floor. But it was Anne who worked over Drummond, fashioning a makeshift bandage out of Mandell’s neckcloth.

Mandell could feel the numbness of shock begin to creep over him, born of these last dread-filled hours, forcing himself to accept Briggs’s terrible revelation about the old duke, racing back to Anne only to walk into that hellish scene upon the landing.

If Mandell had been but a few minutes later, when he thought what might have happened to Anne, to Nick . ..

Mandell gave himself a mental shake. This was hardly the time for such grim contemplations. He eased himself out of his frock coat. Bundling it up, he used it to pillow Nick’s head.

Anne touched one hand to Nick’s cheek. “He has lost so much blood, Mandell,” she said. “We must get him someplace where he can be attended properly.”

“Hastings should be here at any moment. He was coming right behind me with the carriage.”

Even under Anne’s gentle ministrations, Nick groaned and stirred. His eyes fluttered open, at first hazed and bewildered. Then he focused upon the marquis.

“Mandell,” he said, weakly raising one hand. Mandell clasped it between the strength of his own.

Our grandfather,” Nick muttered. His eyes roved fearfully.

”It is all right,” Mandell soothed him. “His Grace is gone.”

Nick fixed him with a look of pure misery. “Sorry, Mandell. When Sara told me about where you were going to take Anne. I knew. Knew it was not the Hook doing the killings. But when I began to suspect the truth ... It was too horrible. I couldn’t tell you.”

“Don’t try to talk,” Mandell commanded. “We’ll soon have you out of here, back safe with your Sara.”

Nick’s lips quivered with a smile, but the expression faded. He pressed Mandell’s hand with a renewed intensity. “You are going to have to go after the old man, Mandell. We cannot allow him to continue.”

Mandell nodded.

Anne regarded Mandell with troubled eyes. “But he is, after all, your grandfather, my lord. What will you do with him?”

Mandell fingered his pistol and stared upward toward the gallery, the darkness where the old man had vanished. “God help me,” he said hoarsely. “I wish I knew.”

His Grace of Windermere sat behind the small desk amidst the faded splendor of the restored bedchamber.

Scratching the quill pen across a sheet of vellum, he paused to move the candle closer so that the light fell across the page.

When Mandell appeared upon the threshold, the duke continued to write, not even bothering to look up.

Mandell entered; the loaded pistol still gripped in his hand.

He had not quite known what to expect, but certainly not this degree of sangfroid even from the duke of Windermere.

It might have been just like dozens of times from Mandell’s childhood when His Grace had summoned Mandell to his study to account for some transgression, the duke forcing Mandell to cool his heels until His Grace was ready to deal with the matter.