Susan Carroll (13 page)

Anne was momentarily confused. It occurred to
her that she ought to step back out of the pool of lantern light on
the chance that this was not Louisa. Her gaze fixed on that
mysterious bundle, a bundle that she realized was a child swathed
in a blanket, the folds falling back enough to reveal a glint of
golden curls.

Anne's throat constricted painfully

“Norrie,” she rasped. That foolish maid had
stolen her little daughter straight out of her bed and brought her
out into the chill damp of the night. But as Louisa stumbled
closer, Anne was consumed by an overwhelming longing. She could
think of nothing but her need to see her child again, to touch
her.

“Lady Anne?” Louisa stopped within yards of
the gate, peering cautiously.

“Yes. Yes!” Anne choked out, flinging back
the shawl so that she would be more readily recognized. Her
daughter stirred awake in Louisa's arms. Norrie raised her head
from the maid's shoulder, knuckling her eyes in a familiar gesture
that wrenched at Anne's heartstrings.

Louisa crept near the gate whispering, “I'm
right sorry, ma'am. But I didn't know what else to do. It seemed
much easier to bring the little girl out to you.”

Anne nodded, unable to tear her gaze from her
daughter's face. The lantern bathed Norrie in a soft glow,
illuminating those fragile porcelain features, the rosebud lips,
the small upturned nose, eyes such a clear blue they were almost
transparent. She was a dream child, an angel child, a golden-haired
fairy who had often seemed not quite real to Anne and never less so
than at this moment.

She strained her arm to the utmost,
stretching through the gate, able to touch only the blanket, half
fearing Norrie would vanish into mist as she had in so many of
Anne's nightmares these past months.

Norrie was small for her age, but it was
obvious she had already proven a great burden to Louisa's slender
arms. With a mighty sigh, the maid set Norrie down. The child was
clad in nothing but her nightgown and the blanket, but Anne was
relieved to see that Louisa had at least enough wit to have eased
slippers onto Norrie's feet.

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.