“There is nothing to be discussed. M’sieur Duralde has proposed as duty demands, and I have refused. That is the end of it.”
Ravel made a soft sound of disgust. “Duty has nothing to do with this, and well you know it.”
“Oh, yes, I know,” Anya said, giving him a long, straight look.
There were times when being a gentleman was a great inconvenience, Ravel thought, holding to his temper with difficulty. He longed to either strangle Anya with her own shining hair, or else throw her over his shoulder and take her away to some place where he could hold and caress her until her cold eyes filled with warm and languorous desire and her heart and mind were open to him as he had dared dream once, on a chaise lounge at Beau Refuge, that they might possibly be. His mind was lamentably centered on one thing today, or so it seemed. Dear God, what was the matter with him? Why did she obsess him so? She had beauty and pride and courage, but so did a thousand other women. He was mad to court humiliation, possibly the ruin of carefully made plans, even death, for her sake.
He turned to Madame Rosa. “Your stepdaughter is in danger because of me. I want the right to protect her, as well as make just recompense for having compromised her good name.”
Madame Rosa said to Anya, “That does not seem unreasonable to me.”
“Because you don’t know him,” Anya cried.
“And you do, after a mere few days?”
“As well as I wish to.”
Anya swung away from them, moving to put down her bonnet and strip her gloves from her hands. Polite, she must be polite, she told herself with compressed lips. It was pointless to scream and rail at him, and if she did she might start to cry and that would never do. What would her answer have been, she wondered, if he had come with words of love and desire instead of cold reason? She shuddered to think of it. There was a weakness in her character where he was concerned; she might well have fallen for such a trap.
“Anya,” he began, his voice firm and yet with a raw note in it that seemed to tear at her fragile composure.
“No!” She whirled to face him, slapping down the gloves she held upon the small table beside her. “No, I’m not going to marry you. Never! Do you understand me?”
She despised him. There was no reason, then, not to show himself entirely despicable. “Never is a long time. What if I were to say to you, marry me, or your half-sister’s fiancé dies?”
She stared at him with the color draining from her face. Through stiff lips she said, “You wouldn’t.”
“Wouldn’t I?”
“It’s inhuman. You couldn’t kill a man for such a reason; I know you couldn’t.”
“Your trust is touching, if misplaced.”
Trust. That was the ingredient that was missing in her relationship with this man. There were things about him she did not understand, things she suspected him of hiding. And yet she was as certain as she could be of anything that he would not be able to deliberately destroy Murray because of her. He might challenge him in the heat of anger, and match swords or pistols with him if it was required, but to carry a vendetta so far was not his way. It was astonishing how sure she was of that much, when she was sure of nothing else.
She lifted her chin. “It doesn’t matter. This is a bargain already concluded between us, or so I thought. As I remember it, you swore you would not seek Murray out. If I cannot depend upon your word given then, how can you expect me to do so now?”
Somewhere in the back of his mind there stirred reluctant admiration for the firmness of her stand, for the logic of her mind and the way she spoke. It was short-lived. He had played his last card and there was nothing left for him to do except leave the game. He should have known how it would be, and yet it was hard to accept that the physical intimacy they had shared, the sweetness of her surrender, had meant nothing. His gaze rested on the firm curves of her lips, and the memory of the feel and taste and scent of her was like a bleeding canker inside him.
“I don’t expect it,” he said, the words quiet yet with an undertone of steel. “From you I expect nothing at all. But of one thing you can be sure; this isn’t the end of it.”
The door closed behind him. Anya stood still, staring at nothing.
Madame Rosa, her gaze pensive upon her stepdaughter, spoke finally. “Ah, chère, was that wise?”
With a visible effort Anya roused enough to give the older woman a weary smile. “Perhaps not, but it was necessary.”
“Was it not also a trifle — hasty?”
“Who can tell?” Anya shook her head as if to dismiss unpleasant possibilities, then as a thought struck her, went on. “What did he mean by ‘recent obligations?”
Madame Rosa gave her a bland look. “Did he say that?”
“It appeared he expected the reminder to guarantee your approval, even your championing of his cause. Has it?”
“Chère! What are you saying?” Madame Rosa’s tone throbbed with her distress. “You must know I want only what is best for you.”
Anya sighed, rubbing a hand over her eyes. “Yes, I do know. Forgive me.”
They said no more. Anya went slowly from the room. In her own bedchamber, she tidied her hair. Attracted by the fluttering of a moth at the French doors, she moved toward them, pushing them open to step out onto the gallery that overlooked the courtyard.
The last of the twilight had faded and dark had fallen. There was a blaze of light and the bustle of activity around the kitchen on the lower floor across the way, and the smell of shrimp and oysters simmering in a rich sauce and sugar being turned into caramel floated upward. It did not tempt Anya’s appetite. She did not think she could face dinner. She would have something light in her room after she had bathed away a little of her weariness; then she was going to bed and sleep the clock around.
“Anya, is that you?”
The nearest pair of French doors opened and Celestine looked out. She had been dressing for dinner, for she was wearing a wrapper of pink challis and her hair spilled down her back. She looked very young and appealing, and also troubled.
“Yes, chère.
Celestine opened her mouth to speak, then, as she caught sight of Anya’s face in the lamplight pouring through the doorway, said instead, “Oh, what has happened now?”
“Not a great deal,” she said in wry tones. “Did you need something?”
“Only to talk to you for a few minutes.”
Anya, catching her half-sister’s quick glance over her shoulder at her maid, assumed the matter was one of some little delicacy. She had often been the repository of Celestine’s girlish confidences over the years, and could not refuse to listen now. “Of course. Would you like to come to my bedchamber when you are dressed?”
“Never mind,” Celestine said, her gaze still searching Anya’s face. “It isn’t important.”
“Are you sure?”
“In the morning will do just as well.”
“Tomorrow is Mardi Gras,” Anya reminded her.
Celestine gave her a bright smile. “Yes. Are we still going into the street?”
There was nothing Anya felt less like doing at that moment than joining a crowd of boisterous merrymakers. She could not spoil Celestine’s pleasure, however. “We are indeed.”
“Lovely. I thought you might have changed your mind after…”
“No, nothing has changed,” Anya said as Celestine paused in embarrassment.
“I will see you in the morning, then,” the other girl said happily.
Anya agreed and, when Celestine had gone back inside, turned to reenter her own bedchamber. She had lied. Everything had changed. Everything.
Three hours later Anya lay in her bed staring up into the darkness. She was too tired to sleep. Her bath had refreshed her, but, though she had lain for some time in the hot water scented with oil of damask roses, it had done little to relax her. She was so tense that the muscles in her legs quivered and she had to force herself repeatedly to unclench her jaws. Through her mind ran over and over again t
he image of the brutish faces of the men who had laid hands on her at Beau Refuge. She had been made to feel vulnerable, unable to protect herself, and she did not like it. She had always thought of herself as strong and self-sufficient, and to be handed such graphic proof that it wasn’t so was unsettling, incensing, it made her long to smash something. Ravel was a part of that rage. He had shown her that she was vulnerable also to the needs of the flesh, and for that she would not easily forgive him.
Her life had been so uncomplicated before he had come into it. There had been no danger, no violence, no perilous emotions to shake her image of herself. There had been no complex questions of right and wrong, guilt and innocence, no decisions that might bring life or death. There had been no man to impose his will upon hers or to stir longings better left unawakened.
Echoing in her mind in an endless refrain were the things Ravel had said in the salon earlier, and the answers she had made. The arrogance of the man was beyond belief. He had tricked her into forfeiting her chastity, caused the destruction of her property, tried to hold her captive, and abused her on a public street, and still he thought she would accept with gratitude his condescending proposal of marriage. That she had caused him bodily injury, held him prisoner, and left him open to the attack of his enemies made little difference; she had refrained, in the main, from offering him direct insult.
Around her the house was silent. Activity had ceased in the courtyard as the servants finished their chores and found their way to bed. Somewhere a dog barked. Now and then the sound of a carriage rolling past in the street filtered through the thick walls. She had heard Celestine and Madame Rosa retire soon after dinner. If Madame Rosa had told Celestine of the events of the evening, then they must each have much to mull over. Anya wondered what Celestine thought of the proposal. It was likely that in her place, her half-sister would have felt forced to accept it — though Celestine, being highly conventional, would never have placed herself in a position where it had to be offered.
Marriage. If she had accepted Ravel as her husband, there would have been orange blossoms and cream-colored satin, a betrothal bracelet, a wedding basket of gifts, and the blessing of a priest. There might have been a wedding journey to distant, curious relatives, followed by the return to the house on Esplanade. Then what? Nights of passion and days of contempt? A life with a stranger who would come to resent his social and legal imprisonment as fiercely as he had resented his captivity at Beau Refuge?
But beneath it all was an even more disturbing line of reasoning. If she could be so sure now that Ravel would not deliberately set out to harm Murray as a means of revenge, then what of seven years before when he had met Jean with a sword in the moonlit shadows? If Jean’s death had been nothing more than a tragic accident, if the words she had screamed at Ravel had been false, then it was possible that she was to blame for what he had become. It could be that what had happened to her was her own fault.
She turned her head on her pillow and flung her arm over her eyes. She did not want to think anymore. She would give anything to be able to stop. There was oblivion in Madame Rosa’s orange-flower water if she chose to seek it. A few minutes more, and she would ring the bell and ask a maid to bring the opiate. She had to sleep, somehow.
A soft scratching sound came from outside the French doors leading to the gallery. Anya started so violently that the bed shook. She sat upright. The windows were firmly closed against what Madame Rosa considered to be the dangerous fumes of the night air, but they were not locked. Beyond them there was the glow of moonlight pouring into the courtyard. Against that light, silhouetted on the muslin that covered the windows, was the dark shape of a man. Even as Anya watched, he reached for the handle of the door and began to press it down.
The glass-paned door panel eased open. The man put his head inside, then slid noiselessly into the room. He took a step toward the bed. Another. Anya jerked free of her paralyzed stillness. She opened her mouth to scream.
“Mam’zelle?”
She let out her breath in a sigh. “Marcel, you frightened the wits out of me!”
“I’m sorry, mam’zelle, but you did say to come to you at once when I had information. I didn’t know whether to wake you or not.”
“It’s all right,” she said quickly. “You have news?”
“I think so, mam’zelle. I went to the stables of M’sieur Ravel as you said. At first his people would say nothing, but then I thought to share with the coachman a bottle of rum. It happens that every Monday night for the past two months M’sieur Ravel has ordered his carriage for ten o’clock and had himself driven to an address on Rampart Street.”
“A quadroon?” Anya asked, her brows drawing together over her eyes.
Rampart was well known as the street where the men of the city housed their mistresses, most of whom were beautiful women of one-quarter Negro blood and three-quarters white. The practice, known as plaçage, had been outlawed some eight years before, but the result had been merely to strip the women and the children of such unions of the legal rights they had once enjoyed, not to abolish the custom.
“But no, mam’zelle. It is a house where he meets with other men, two dozen or more in number. The coachman has seen them when he returns for m’sieur two hours later.”
“I see,” she said, her tone thoughtful.
“Today is Monday.”
Her head came up. “The time?”
“Just half past ten.”
“Why didn’t you follow him?” she cried.
Marcel’s voice held a hint of reproof as he answered. “There was no need. I know the house, and I thought, mam’zelle, that you might wish to see.”
She flung back the covers. “You are right of course. Wait for me outside — no, find a carriage for hire. I don’t want to wake the house having ours brought out.”
“There is one waiting,” Marcel said with dignity.
Anya laughed, a soft sound of relief caused as much by the prospect of doing something, discovering something about Ravel at last, as for Marcel’s efficiency. “Very well. I will be with you in a moment.”
They dismissed the carriage in front of a house several doors down from that where the meeting was being held. It was obvious that the men in attendance must have done the same, for there were no vehicles lining the street to attest to their presence. Lamplight glowed through the slats of the shutters that covered the windows of the white-painted shotgun house Marcel indicated, but no sound came from it, nor was there any movement around it. The street itself was dark here, the only light coming from a far corner where a lantern hung by its bail on a leaning wooden pole. Those who lived or visited on what had once been the back street of the old Vieux Carré did not care for too much illumination shed upon their comings and goings.
So empty and quiet was the street indeed at this hour that Anya felt conspicuous. With Marcel at her right hand, she kept to the shadows as much as possible, moving from one dark patch to another. She had not troubled to don stays or a hoop and had put on only the minimum of petticoats, so that she moved with ease and a steady, confident stride. As they came nearer the small house, they slipped between two of its neighbors in order to approach from the rear. A cat emerging from under a set of back steps almost beneath their feet hissed and fled into the night. Anya, brushing past an enormous evergreen cape jasmine bush, stepped into a spider web and had to stop to wipe away the webs that clung to her face, tangling in her lashes. Marcel stepped on what was apparently a child’s discarded hoop and stumbled against Anya. By reflex action, she reached out to help him, but caught his injured wrist in its sling, so that he drew breath with the sharp sound of pain. Her whispered apology resounded like a stentorian shout in her ears. They moved on, rounding a corner. The lighted house lay just in front of them.
Anya came to a halt. She stood staring at the shotgun cottage with a cold feeling inside her. Her disenchantment with the scheme upon which she and Marcel were embarked had been growing since they had left the carriage.
To spy upon Ravel seemed ignoble, if not downright dangerous. But the truth of the matter was that she was afraid. Afraid of what they might discover.
What did it matter, after all, what Ravel did? She need never see him again if she wished; she had gone for years before without meeting him face-to-face. If she found out something to his discredit she would be faced with the dilemma of either permitting him to continue or else doing something about it. It was not a decision she cared to make.
Still, it would be cowardly to retreat now, when she was so close. Suppose she learned later that he was engaged in something clandestine, something that would hurt others? How would she live with the knowledge that she might have prevented it? And how could she live with the doubt?
It was with a distant feeling of being driven that she moved toward the side window of the room at the front of the house. Marcel, without being told, drifted toward the back door.
It was logical to assume that there might be a guard posted if this meeting was for a reason that was less than aboveboard. There did not appear to be any sign of one, still Anya looked around a last time as she crouched under the window Seeing nothing, she rose to her full height and peered through the crack where the shutters, warped and loose on their hinges, came together in the middle.
She gave a soft exclamation. Seated directly across from her was Gaspard, Madame Rosa’s faithful cavalier. He was leaning forward with a frown of concentration on his lean face and his hands propped on the silver head of his cane that stood between his feet. His presence was so unexpected, so incomprehensible, that it was a moment before Anya noticed anything more.
When finally she dragged her gaze away, she saw that the meeting room was furnished as a salon of incongruous elegance, with Louis Quatorze pieces, silk-hung walls, crystal girandoles, and a soothing blue and cream decor of the same refinement as that of Madame Rosa or any other Creole lady. There were nine men in her line of vision, though she thought from the rumble of the voices that there were several more that she could not see on either side. Some were seated, some stood leaning against the walls. Ravel was standing beside a commode table with the fingertips of one hand resting on its inlaid surface near a gavel. As Anya watched, he picked up that symbol of authority, turning it idly end over end as he listened to a man speaking on his left.
Prisoner of Desire Page 25
