Susan Carroll (20 page)

I would sell my soul to the devil if I had
to.

Careful, Sorrow The devil just might take you
up on that offer.

The pact she had made with Mandell seemed
fantastic in the daytime, sunlight spilling through the latticed
windows, past the lacy curtains and over the elegant satinwood
furniture of Anne's room at Lily's. The bedchamber was thoroughly
feminine. No place could have been further removed from Mandell's
aura of powerful masculinity, from midnight wanderings and reckless
promises.

If not for the cloak she clutched in her
hands, Anne could have believed that their tryst had been nothing
more than a haunting dream.

Yet the child napping in the little room just
above Anne's own was no dream. For the past week since Norrie's
return, Anne had feared she would awaken and find it so. She had
kept the little girl with her almost constantly. Even when Norrie
slept, Anne stole from her own bed, creeping down to the nursery to
tuck the blankets more snugly around Norrie, to stroke a curl back
from her cheek, just to touch the child, and reassure herself that
Norrie would not disappear with the morning light.

But during that same week, Anne had had the
leisure to wonder how she was ever going to keep her promise to
Mandell to go to his bed. She tried to reassure herself. She was no
shrinking virgin. She had been a married woman, for mercy's sake;
had borne children.

Yet Gerald had always been what he termed “a
gentleman” in bed. He had eased up her nightgown, mumbling
apologies for violating her chastity, taking her with merciful
swiftness. Anne knew that what would take place between Mandell's
sheets would be nothing like that mundane wifely ritual. She had
already had a taste of the difference in Mandell's arms, his lips
so hot upon her own.

He would want her naked in his bed and
without any blushes of maidenly modesty. He would never be
satisfied with the tame submission she had shown her late husband.
Mandell would take relentlessly, demand with his mouth, with his
hands, with his lean hard body. He might stir in her those passions
she had learned to keep locked away, desires that often kept her
awake nights, a fine sheen of perspiration bathing her flesh.

When he had done, Mandell would rise from the
bed, offer her her clothes with a mocking bow, and go coolly on his
way. But Anne was very much afraid that she would never be the same
woman again.

She pushed the cloak away from her, stuffing
it to the very back of the wardrobe. She could not go through with
it. She was not the sort of female who could offer herself up
casually to a man. And such a man! A rake who had known dozens
before her, women far more beautiful and sophisticated. What could
she be to him but one more conquest, another night's amusement, and
a disappointing one at that?

But she had promised, and Anne had never
broken a promise in her life. She bit ruefully down upon her
thumbnail. She had pledged Mandell one night in his bed. Yet their
bargain had not been a fair one, she argued. He had taken shameless
advantage of her desperation, hadn't he?

Anne's conscience would not allow of that
excuse, either. Who was it who had flung out such a reckless offer
that could not help but tempt a man like Mandell? She owed him
something. He had kept his word. She had her little girl back
again. And yet how much had Mandell had to do with that? She did
not know for sure. Of a certainty, he must have talked to Lucien,
applied some little pressure. But she might have gotten Norrie back
some other way even if Mandell had not intervened. Perhaps Lucien
had been planning to return Norrie all along.

Anne groaned softly, resting her head against
the wardrobe door. Who was she attempting to fool? She would never
forget Lucien's hate-filled look as her brother-in-law had thrust
Norrie back into her arms. Lucien had never meant to return Norrie,
and whatever Mandell had done to him, it had been far more than
talk.

But his lordship had made no effort to
contact her once this entire week. True, she had kept close to the
house, but he had never called or even sent round a note. Perhaps,
Anne thought hopefully, moving on to nibble the nail of her
forefinger, perhaps Mandell had simply forgotten all about
redeeming the pledge she had made.

But this comforting reflection did not last
long. She could not block out the memory of his intense gaze, his
warning,
I do not deal kindly with those who break faith with
me.

Anne did not know what prevented him thus far
from demanding that she keep her side of the bargain, but whatever
it was, one thing was certain. Mandell would never forget. Her
second finger bitten nearly raw, Anne shifted to the next nail. She
started when the soft rap came at her door.

“Anne, it's Lily,” her sister called out.
“Are you still abed?”

“No. Just a minute.” Anne made haste to pile
some old shawls on top of Mandell's cloak. Her fingers brushed
against something hard; her pistol, which Mandell had shoved into
the cloak pocket that night which now seemed so long ago. Anne had
all but forgotten her foolish little weapon. She dumped an extra
shawl on top of it and shoved the whole pile as far back into the
wardrobe as she could. The maid Lily had assigned her, young
Bettine, had already noticed the masculine garment. Anne had been
able to explain that it belonged to her late husband and the girl
had sighed, imagining Anne, the brokenhearted widow, clinging to
the cloak in remembrance.

But Lily would not be so fooled. Gerald, ever
the provincial gentleman from his boots to the severe style of his
cravat, had never worn anything so dashing as Mandell's cape.

Closing the wardrobe door, Anne smoothed out
her gown and tidied the wisps of her hair. She called out as
cheerfully as she could, “Come in.”

Lily bustled in, carrying a fistful of sealed
letters. “Good,” she said. “You are up and stirring. I thought you
might be lying down for a nap, poor dear. You have been exhausting
yourself, looking after that child.”

Although she smiled, there was a hint of
reproof in Lily's tone. Lily was delighted for Anne's recent
happiness and only too pleased to welcome her small niece into her
home. Yet she feared that Anne had become far too absorbed in
performing the tasks of a nurserymaid.

But for too many months, Norrie had awakened
only to the impersonal ministrations of servants. Anne vowed her
child would never do so again.

For her sister's benefit, Anne shook her
head, saying, “I am not in the least tired, Lily. I have just been
going through my wardrobe, selecting some gowns that are out of
fashion to pass on to my maid.”

To Lily, that was at least a reasonable
occupation for any lady. Her eyes lit up with immediate
understanding. “Of course! You have needed some new things for an
age. I shall take you round to my modiste this very afternoon. You
will need a special gown for the Bramleys' rout come Saturday next,
and just look at all these other invitations you received in this
morning's post.”

Lily laid out the squares of vellum upon
Anne's dressing table, gloating over the cards like a miser
counting up a treasure.

“How very nice,” Anne said.

“Do you not intend to open them?”

“Perhaps later.”

“Later?” Lily's elegant brows rose
skeptically. “Or will they end up in the fireplace grate again?
Anne, this simply will not do. You have been hiding yourself away
in this house ever since Eleanor was returned to you.”

“That's absurd. I have not been hiding.” But
Anne's protest sounded halfhearted even to her own ears. That was
exactly what she had been doing. Hiding from Mandell, afraid of
encountering him again, not knowing how she would react, what she
should say, afraid of what he might do.

“You got what you wanted, Anne. Your child
returned,” Lily said with a tinge of impatience. “Now it is time to
cease this moping. You are in London at the height of the season.
You need to get out more, enjoy yourself.”

“And so I shall. But you know Norrie has not
been well. She has been having trouble sleeping and then there is
that worrisome cough she has developed.”

“You cannot have an apoplexy every time the
child sneezes.”

“Norrie has always been delicate. Every
trifling illness seems to strike her so much harder than other
children. There was that time I thought she had but a sniffle. By
nightfall, she was in such a raging fever she did not recognize me.
I almost lost her that time, Lily.”

“Well, you will not lose her now. I know some
of the finest physicians in the city. We shall have Dr. Markham out
to check her cough in a trice. Will that make you feel better?”

Anne nodded reluctantly.

Lily gave her a swift hug although she
continued to scold, “You are still young, Anne. Your life cannot
center upon that little girl. And there is another excellent reason
you should get out more. I have not liked to mention this, but
there have been rumors, Anne. Rumors about you and the marquis of
Mandell.”

Anne opened her mouth to speak, but found she
couldn't. She felt herself grow pale as Lily continued, “The gossip
all seems to have started since that ugly scene between Mandell and
Sir Lucien at Brooks's.”

“What scene?'

“I thought you might have heard something of
it, but I keep forgetting. You have been buried in the nursery all
week. You will recollect, however, that we both wondered why your
brother-in-law experienced such a sudden change of heart regarding
Eleanor's future.”

Lily had wondered. Anne had kept her
speculations on that subject to herself.

“My dear Anne, it would seem you are indebted
to the marquis for your daughter's return. I have it on excellent
authority—Sir Lancelot Briggs's—that Mandell confronted Sir Lucien
in the Great Subscription Room. Mandell had stripped off his glove
and was going to fling it into Fairhaven's face.”

“Mandell challenged Lucien to a duel?” Anne
felt a sudden need to sink into the chair by her dressing
table.

“No, it never came to that. Lucien Fairhaven
has far too great a regard for his own skin. Mandell is deadly with
a pistol, my dear, positively deadly. In any case, Sir Lancelot was
close enough to overhear the cause of the quarrel. Would you credit
it, my dear? It was over our little Eleanor. Mandell demanded that
Lucien give up the child.”

Anne pressed her hands to her face. A duel?
She remembered being disquieted by the look in Mandell's eye that
night he had left her, but she had never dreamed he would have been
willing to take things that far,

No matter how good a shot Mandell was, the
possibility still existed that he could have been wounded or
killed. Barring that, dueling was illegal. Despite his powerful
connections, he could have been arrested or forced to flee the
country. Did the man consider such a risk worth it merely to have
Anne in his bed?

“Mandell has ever been such a discreet devil,
so cold-blooded,” Lily said. “Whatever could have inspired him to
such an extraordinary gesture?”

“I don't know.” Anne was unable to meet her
sister's eye.

“One does not think of Mandell as ever waxing
tenderhearted over a mother and child. Though I suppose this all
could have something to do with losing his own mother at so early
an age. Poor Lady Celine. Mama knew her well. She always said
Celine was a great beauty in her day and as proud as Lucifer, like
all the Windermeres. Everyone was stunned when she eloped with some
impoverished French nobleman. Such a ghastly mistake that turned
out to be. She was trapped in Paris during the revolution and
suffered a hideous death. Celine was actually torn apart by an
angry mob.”

“Dear God!” Anne said.

“Did you not know about that part of
Mandell's family history?”

“No, I didn't.” Anne was fast realizing that
she knew very little about the marquis of Mandell. She said softly,
“The man has ever been an enigma to me.”

“And to the rest of the ton. That is why this
chivalrous gesture has so many tongues wagging. Many are saying my
lord means to fix his interest with you. His grandfather has been
after him for a long time to choose a respectable wife.”

“Oh, no!”

“I found that utterly ridiculous, myself. The
wicked Mandell and you, my saintly little lamb. Such speculations
are almost as bad as the more scurrilous rumors that Mandell is
only laying siege to your virtue.”

Anne felt ready to sink through the carpet.
It was unsettling enough to think she would be obliged to share
Mandell's bed, but to hear that half of London was discussing the
possibility!

“Then perhaps I ought to go away for awhile,”
Anne said. “Take Norrie and go home or journey to Scotland and
visit Camilla.”

“Run away? That would be the worst thing you
could do,” Lily said sternly. She relented enough to give Anne's
shoulder a comforting pat. “My poor pet. I know that you are not at
all accustomed to arousing this sort of furor. That is why you must
take the advice of your older sister who has walked the fine line
of scandal herself a time or two. You must get out more, be seen at
parties. When you encounter Mandell, greet him with complete
indifference. That will quickly scotch all these rumors.”

Greet Mandell with indifference? Anne thought
with dismay. It would take a greater actress than the famous Mrs.
Siddons to pull off such a thing.

Lily thrust the stack of invitations into
Anne's hands. “Here. You can start with these. There must be one
amongst them it would please you to accept.”

Anne regarded the pile listlessly. All she
wanted was for her sister to leave her alone to sort out the
bewildering and disturbing array of information Lily had thrust
upon her. But Lily would give her no peace until she opened her
mail.