Susan Carroll (40 page)

Until that moment, Anne had never realized
how close she had come to touching his heart. It had made the
parting from him that much more painful, more poignant, as she saw
so clearly what they might have had together. She had longed to
kiss him, to hold him, to desperately find some way to give him
back the part of himself that had been torn from him long ago by a
terrible black night in Paris, by the enduring bitterness of an old
man. But she realized the impossibility of such a thing.

“I wanted to lead you from the darkness, my
love,” she whispered. “But I could not do so. I fear you must find
your own way back.”

Her eyes burned, and she was able to weep at
last, but only a single tear that cascaded silently down her cheek.
She dashed it away with the back of her hand. Glancing back toward
the house, Anne saw that the lights from the drawing room no longer
shone so bright.

Someone had begun to extinguish the candles.
It must be even later than she had realized. She was a little
surprised that her absence had not been noted. The furor over Mr.
Drummond's elopement must have absorbed everyone's attention, even
Mandell's.

Lily probably assumed that Anne had retired
to her room, and Anne was glad that no one had come in search of
her. She did not feel equal to facing her sister. Lily had been too
preoccupied with her own affairs these past days to notice much of
what had passed between Anne and Mandell. But Anne feared that Lily
had observed enough tonight to ask Anne some awkward questions Anne
had no desire to answer.

But she was not eager to find herself locked
out of the house, either. Shivering, she noticed the air seemed
cooler than when she had first ventured outside. Clouds sifted
across the face of the moon, making the garden darker, no longer so
soothing, somehow more unfriendly.

Anne rose from the bench, shaking out her
skirts. She prepared to follow the path leading back to the terrace
steps when she heard the sharp snap of a twig. Peering through the
gloom, she thought she saw a shadow pass behind one of the trees.
Perhaps Lily had sent one of the footmen in search of her after
all.

Surely she would have noticed someone coming
down from the house. Anne fretted with the lace at the neckline of
her gown, a sense of uneasiness stealing over her. She started when
she detected the crack of another branch. This time the sound
seemed to be coming from behind her.

She spun about, her heart thudding. “Is there
anyone there?” she called. “John? Bettine? Firken?”

No one responded. The path threading through
the plants and flowering shrubs remained empty. Feeling a little
foolish, Anne ventured a few steps along the gravel walkway. As she
neared the stone wall, she was disturbed to see the garden gate
standing ajar.

Left unlatched, it had been blown open by the
wind, she tried to tell herself. Except that the breeze was hardly
strong enough to disturb the delicate branches of the rose bushes,
let alone move a heavy iron gate.

The night itself seemed to stir around Anne,
taking on a presence. She could feel the hair prickle at the back
of her neck and experienced a strong urge to flee for the shelter
of the house.

“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 have to help me. You have to 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 in spite of 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 spectre'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 street lamp 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 down 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.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Morning sunlight streamed through the windows
of the marquis's study, but the warmth did not touch Mandell where
he sat slumped in the wing chair by the hearth, lost in troubled
slumber. He had known if he dared sleep, the dream would come, but
he could no longer bring himself to care. Since his parting with
Anne, he had struggled with feelings of desolation, of utter
hopelessness. Sometime near dawn he had surrendered, falling into
an exhausted sleep, eventually allowing the nightmare to claim
him.