Susan Carroll

by The Painted Veil

  Anne hunkered down to Norrie's level. Setting the pistol she carried by her knee out of the child's sight, Anne smiled tremulously, reaching both arms through the bars.

  Instead of coming any closer, the little girl shrank back against Louisa, the child's sleep-misted eyes regarding Anne with confusion. The memory of Lucien's mocking words echoed inside Anne's head.

  I vow the child has forgotten you already.

  Anne's chest hurt so that she could hardly breathe, but she managed to croon gently, “Norrie. It's me. It's Mama.”

  “Mama'?” Norric took a tentative step forward, blinking at Anne with the solemnness of a baby owl. Then her glad cry rang out, shattering the silence of the brooding darkness.

  “Mama! It is you. I thought I just dreamed you again.”

  Norrie flattened herself against the gate, and Anne ran her fingers through the child's silken curls, pressing feverish kisses against Norrie's face, her own tears wetting Nonie's baby-soft cheeks. Her arms ached with the need to gather her child close.

  “For the love of God,” Anne cried to Louisa. “Unlock this wretched gate.”

  Her eyes large in her frightened face, Louisa bit down upon her lip. “Oh, I can't, milady. I brought the girl to see you. I daren't do any more.”

  “Please. Let me into the garden. Just for a moment.”

  “Nay, ma'am. I am already afeard I done too much. 1 should never've agreed to any of this. If the master caught me, I'd be turned out for sure and whipped besides. I ought to be getting that child straight back to her bed.”

  “Oh, no! Please.” Anne clutched at Norrie with desperation. Having seen her, touched her, Anne knew she could not give up her child so easily. She thought of the weapon lying on the pavement by her knee.

  Anne had only to raise it, level it at Louisa, and order the girl to unlock the gate. She could grab Norrie up in her arms and flee with her into the night.

  But where could she flee that would take her far enough, fast enough from Lucien's certain and vindictive pursuit? Nowhere. She was not prepared to vanish with her daughter this night. And if she had been, Anne realized that she could not bring herself to threaten poor Louisa with the pistol, terrifying both that simple creature and her own little daughter.

  Stifling her mad impulse, Anne hugged Norrie as close as she was able, the bars of the gate an impassable barrier between them. Norrie bore this patiently for awhile, then wriggled to be free, protesting, “You are pushing my face against the bar, Mama. I'm getting rusty.”

  It took all of Anne's self-restraint to release her daughter, to content herself with stroking the child's curls back from her brow. Norrie patted away the last traces of Anne's tears.

  “Don't cry, Mama.” Norrie had always handed out her commands not with the regal hauteur of a queen, but with the gentle dignity of a princess accustomed to having her slightest wish granted.

  “I won't. Not anymore,” Anne said. “It is only that I missed you so.”

  “I missed you, too. Have you come to take me home?”

  Anne had to swallow deeply before she could answer. “I fear I cannot just yet.”

  “But Mama, I have been here in London forever.”

  “It has only been three months, Norrie.” Three months ... eternity.

  Norrie opened her mouth wide, pointing to a gap where her front tooth should have been. “I even lost a tooth while I've been with Uncle Lucien. And I had my birthday.”

  The little girl added in aggrieved tones, “Did you forget all about my birthday, Mama?”

  “No! Never. I have presents waiting for you. I even made a new gown for your doll. Is that what Uncle Lucien told you—that I forgot?”

  With a troubled look in her eyes, Norrie nodded.

  Damn him. Anne gritted her teeth. “What else has he told you about me?”

  “I am not allowed to talk about you very much. Uncle Lucien said I don't need a mama anymore. He said that you were tired of taking care of me. But I knew that wasn't true.”

  “Did you?” Anne's anger at Lucien was dispelled by that sense of wonder Anne had always experienced at her daughter's perception. Those clear blue eyes of Norrie's seemed to see things far beyond her years, far beyond the understanding of many adults.

  “Uncle Lucien tells dreadful lies sometimes,” Norrie continued with a sad shake of her head. “But I remembered, Mama. You told me you would always be there until I was grown up enough to take care of myself. And you never break your promises.”

  The child's solemn faith in her almost shattered what remained of Anne's self-possession. The urge to bury her face against the folds of Norrie's nightgown and burst into uncontrollable weeping was hard to resist. But as she had managed to do so often for her daughter's sake, Anne reached inside of herself and found the strength to remain calm.

  “I am glad you remembered what Mama said, Norrie. I do always try to keep my promises.” Anne lowered her voice so that the hovering Louisa could not possibly hear. “And I promise you will be with me very soon.”

  “Why can't I come now? Why won't Uncle Lucien let me be with you?”

  Because he is a cruel, cold-hearted bastard.

  Anne choked back the words, knowing she could never possibly say such a thing to her small daughter. For the moment, Norrie had to continue to abide under Lucien's roof. It would help nothing to teach the child to fear and despise her uncle.

  Groping for a better answer to her daughter's question, Anne said, “Well, you must think of our time apart as kind of like a game of pretense. Do you remember how we used to playact the stories in your myth book?”

  Norrie favored her with that chatting gap-toothed smile. “Yes, that was when we named my doll Lady Persifee.”

  “Only this time, you have the part of Persephone, carried off by the dark lord Hades to his fantastic underground kingdom.”

  “Uncle Lucien is supposed to be Hades? His hair is too yellow.”

  “We are only playing pretend, Norrie.” The blanket had started to slip off Norrie's shoulders and Anne tugged it more firmly around her. This damp night air was no good for the child. And behind Norrie, Louisa had begun to pace.

  Anne realized she had not much more time and rushed on with her explanation. “I will pretend to be the goddess Demeter, looking for my lost daughter everywhere.”

  “And making it winter until Hades lets me come home,” Norrie said solemnly.

  “That's right, my little love. And not until I have you back safe will I ever allow it to be springtime again.”

  Norrie cocked her head to one side, considering. Then she said with a heavy sigh, “My new governess won't like this game, Mama. Mrs Ansley says reading about gods and goddesses is heathen. She took away my book of myths. She said I would get mixed up and not remember who the real God is.”

  Norrie's small chest swelled with indignation. “I told her I wasn't a baby. I knew that myths are just make-believe. But she sent me to bed without supper anyway.”

  “Oh, Norrie.!”

  “I didn't mind so very much, Mama. Because I knew I was tight,” Norrie's chin jutted out at a stubborn angle. For all her air of fragility, Norrie often exhibited a courage and obstinacy that amazed Anne.

  “Ma'am!” Louisa broke in upon her and Norrie's whispered conversation. “I got to be getting the child back before someone notices she's gone.”

  “I know,” Anne said. She looked at Norrie, forcing a smile to her lips. “You have to go back now, love. But remember what we have talked about and don't tell Uncle Lucien. My lord Hades mustn't know we are about to break his spell.”

  “All right, Mama.” Norrie's lip quivered. “But I don't think I like this game very much.”

  “Neither do I,” Anne whispered. She drew Norrie close to the bars to kiss her one last time before. Louisa scooped the child back up in her arms, arranging the blanket around her. Stiff from bending, Anne rose slowly to her feet.

  Norrie’s small sad face peered at Anne from beneath the folds of the
blanket. “Don't make it be winter too much longer, Mama.”

  “I won't. I promise.”

  Anne was not sure that Norrie even heard her anguished vow as Louisa bundled the child back toward the house. Anne would have liked to thank the maid for the risk she had taken, for allowing Anne even these few precious moments with her daughter. But Louisa fled back along the garden path as though pursued by devils.

  Gripping the gate bars, Anne strained against the cold metal, her gaze fixed not upon the maid but upon her daughter, watching until Norrie was swallowed up by the brooding silence of the house,

  Only when Norrie had vanished from her sight did Anne allow her shoulders to slump. The pain-filled joy she had experienced at seeing her child faded to become the more familiar ache of despair.

  She had seen Norrie, touched her, but she had accomplished nothing else by this nocturnal visit. She had not gotten to view the inside of the house and she was afraid she would never again be able to persuade the timid Louisa to help her.

  She had done little but make Norrie promises that she did not have the least idea how she was going to keep. It was so easy to form fantastic plans and grim resolves in the warm security of one's own bedchamber. Strange how they all fled before the cold reality of a locked gate and the bitter chill of a damp April night.

  Anne stared down at the pistol lying on the pavement at her feet. In her hands it was a useless thing, as useless as she was herself. Utterly dispirited, she bent down and picked it up. As she did so, she thought she detected a sound out of place in the night; not the rustlings of Lucien's ill-kept garden, not the distant rattle of some coach wheel, and not the thudding of her own heart. But she felt drained, too weary to respond even to her own night terrors.

  She did not bother looking around until she heard it again, a footstep that definitely was not her own. She glanced up and peered down the street. He stood but yards away, near the corner of the wall, his features obscured by the night, but Anne recognized at once the tall powerful figure enshrouded in the black cloak with the single cape. She should have been astonished to see him, but she wasn't. He was becoming a familiar shadow across her life, my lord Mandell.

  As he stalked closer, she flattened herself back against the gate, leveling her pistol at him. “Don't come any nearer or I'll shoot.”

  “It is only me, Anne,” he said.

  “I know perfectly well who it is.”

  A soft laugh escaped him. “Do you? Then I am astounded you did not shoot at once.”

  He stepped into the light, the lantern casting flickering shadows over the angles of that proud profile, the black sweep of hair, the fathomless dark eyes. A sense of danger and subtle sensuality emanated from his every move.

  “There is no need for such alarm,” he said. “I don't intend to assault your virtue in the street any more than at the theatre. I prefer a bed.”

  “So you have already told me,” Anne snapped.

  He appeared not in the least perturbed to have a shaking pistol leveled at his chest. “Is that thing loaded?” he asked in accents of polite interest.

  “I am not sure.” Anne lowered the weapon, feeling foolish. “I tried to, but I don't know if I did it right.”

  “I see. Then perhaps you had better allow me…” He eased the pistol out of her grasp. Anne's hands were trembling so badly, she could not have resisted even if she had wanted to do so. Mandell examined the weapon briefly, glancing at the cocking piece. Whatever he saw caused him to roll his eyes, but he said nothing, slipping the small weapon into the pocket of his cloak.

  “You don't seem entirely surprised to see me, Sorrow,” he remarked.

  “I'm not. I'm beginning to believe you are an evil genius set on earth for the sole purpose of tormenting me for my sins.”

  “Sins you have yet to commit, milady.”

  Anne chose to ignore this suggestive remark. “What are you doing here? I cannot believe it is merely chance this time that—” She broke off, recollecting the number of times this evening she had fancied herself being followed. It must have been Mandell all along. He had witnessed her reunion with Norrie, that private moment of tenderness and heartache, all played out before Mandell's cynical gaze.

  “Damn you!” she cried. “You have been spying upon me ever since I left Lily's. How dare you!”

  “Alas, you must forgive me, my dear. I am a jealous fool. I never dreamed this midnight rendezvous of yours would be with a child.”

  Mandell jealous? Anne eyed him with disbelief. He spoke lightly enough, but with an odd grimace. That was the trouble with Mandell and his sardonic facade. One could never be sure whether he was serious or not.

  “How did you even know I would be meeting anyone tonight?” Anne demanded.

  Mandell groped beneath the folds of his cloak. He produced a crumpled scrap of paper. You dropped this out of your purse at the theatre. I pocketed it when 1 retrieved the reticule for you. If you mean to engage in this sort of clandestine adventure, you ought to get in the habit of destroying your notes at once.”

  “I would have done so, but I never had the chance. No sooner had I received the message, then Lily—” Anne broke off. Why was she troubling to explain anything to Mandell? She continued angrily, “It makes no difference. You had no right reading my messages or following me.”

  “Someone must keep watch over you, if you will persist in these midnight wanderings,” he said. “Who was the pretty child that draws you out at such a perilous hour?”

  His question caused Anne to realize something. While he had been able to observe, he must not have been able to hear any of the whisperings between herself and Norrie.

  “The child's identity is none of your concern,” she informed him loftily.

  “I suppose I can always make inquiries of your sister.”

  “Not” Anne's hauteur dissolved in an instant. “You must not say anything about this to Lily or to anyone. No one must know that I have been here tonight. If Lucien ever found out that I had seen Norrie, I would never be able to get near her again. Please, my lord. If you have any decency at all, you will keep silent.”

  Mandell regarded her through half-lowered lids. “My silence would have a price.” She might have known he would say something like that.

  “Very well.” Anne raised her head with all the drama of a martyr about to meet her doom. “Take your payment then.”

  She pursed her lips and closed her eyes, bracing herself to be assaulted as Mandell had done that night in the garden, the blood drumming through her veins.

  The moment dragged out and she felt nothing but the wind ruffling her hair. When Mandell did kiss her, his mouth just brushed hers, the contact warm and fleeting.

  Anne's eyes fluttered open in surprise to find Mandell's dark eyes glinting with amusement

  “Very sweet,” he murmured. “But a kiss was not what I had in mind, Sorrow.”

  Anne's cheeks flushed hot with embarrassment. “Then why did you take it?”

  “How could I refuse what was so prettily offered? But I fear I must demand payment of another sort. I want to know what is going on. Who is this Norrie? I believe that is what you called her?”

  Anne compressed her mouth into a stubborn line.

  “We are not going anywhere until you answer me, Sorrow. We will stay here all night if we have to. It will not bother me. I have always been a nocturnal creature by habit.”

  Mandell leaned back against the gate, inspecting his nails, looking as disinterested as though he graced some boring afternoon tea. Yet Anne knew he meant what he said. He was fully capable of holding her prisoner by Lucien's gate until dawn if need be. And despite the marquis's negligent posture, she doubted she would get very far if she attempted to flee.

  “All right,” she conceded. “I will tell you whatever you want to know. But can we not continue this conversation elsewhere? I have already risked enough by lingering this long. If Lucien were to catch me, he can be so vindictive.” Anne shivered, drawing the ends
of her shawl tightly about her. “Can we please leave this place?”

  Mandell came slowly away from the gate. He undid his cloak, sweeping it from his shoulders. Before she could guess his intent, he draped it about her, engulfing her in the heavy black folds.

  “Oh, n-no,” she stammered, finding the contact of the fabric, warm from his body, redolent with his musky scent, disturbingly intimate,

  Mandell ignored her protest, fastening the cloak about her neck. “I want no confessions from a woman with chattering teeth. Let this be another lesson to you. Don't attend a midnight revel so scantily clad.”

  Anne started to inform him she was not in the least chilled, but until Mandell had gathered her up in the warmth of his cloak, she had not realized exactly how cold she was. The garment, which came only to his knees, swirled to her ankles, nearly dragging the ground, enveloping her from neck to toe.

  She should have refused to allow this. She wanted nothing from this man. But she was too tired to argue with him, too glad of the cloak's sheltering folds.

  “Thank you,” she said grudgingly.

  “The pleasure is mine, milady.” Mandell steered her away from Lucien's house. They crossed the narrow street. At the end of the block, she could make out the lights of Clarion Way, and hear the clatter of carriage wheels, the distant strains of a waltz, the revelry that never seemed to end in London's Mayfair district.

  Mandell kept her to the side street, for which Anne was grateful. The night shadows no longer seemed so formidable with Mandell at her side, the darkness almost welcoming. They walked slowly in silence until they were a good distance from Lucien's before Mandell demanded again, “Who is Norrie, Anne?”

  “Eleanor,” Anne corrected. “Eleanor Rose Fairhaven. She is my daughter, my only child.” She pronounced the last words with a deal of pride, a deal of sorrow.

  At Mandell's prodding, she told him everything, from the very beginning of Lucien's youthful infatuation for her, a strange passion that had turned to hate. She described the death of her husband and Gerald's infamous will.