Prisoner of Desire

by Jennifer Blake

  Murray wrenched himself backward, stumbling, slipping in the dew-wet grass. The movement was so familiar that it sent a shiver along Ravel’s spine. Just so Jean had slipped in the dew on that night, here on this very field, under these old oaks with their swaying moss.

  The duel could not continue like this. It must be ended one way or another. He waited, poised and patient, until Murray recovered, then in a crackling display of technique, with his blade winking like silver, snicking, slithering, grimly scraping, he began to advance upon his opponent. Murray gave ground, defending himself with teeth clenched and sweat pouring into his eyes. It availed him little. Ravel’s wrist was as tempered and pliant as his sword, and both were directed by vivid thought and implacable will.

  There was a feint, a riposte. The blades ground edge to edge. Ravel’s swirled, adhering, bending, prizing. Murray’s grip was broken and his sword spun end over end, landing in the grass with a dull clatter.

  Once more the ritual was observed. It was obvious to everyone assembled there on that field that Ravel could as easily have spitted Murray. When the younger man refused to accept his defeat, when he once again declared himself unsatisfied, the rumble of the discussion among the seconds and the attending surgeon was loud. Nevertheless, at a gesture from Ravel, Murray’s small sword was retrieved and wiped dry. The match went on.

  What would Ravel do now? The answer was not long in coming. The swords tapped like the ringing of a set of bells, they flashed like lightning, crossing, leveling, and when the two men drew apart, there was blood on Ravel’s opposite arm.

  Once more he had allowed himself to be nicked. The wound was deeper than the first, for it was fast turning his sleeve to crimson. Surely now Murray could not refuse to stop.

  He could. He did. The surgeon tied a strip of bandage around Ravel’s arm and the two men faced each other again.

  A shudder rippled over Anya. It was followed by another and another. The clash of the blades grated on her nerves so that she wanted to scream. How much longer could it go on? There must be something she could do, but what? What?

  Gaspard shook his head. “Never, but never, have I seen anything like it. It’s magnificent!”

  Anya turned her head to stare at him as if he were mad. “What are you talking about?”

  “Wait. Wait and see,” he answered, and gave a low, admiring laugh.

  Anya turned from the older man, watching with straining eyes. Another injury, this time in Ravel’s side as he twisted, leaping back to avoid a violent thrust. The question was a mere formality. Murray gasped out his refusal, but there was jubilation in his eyes. Oblivious of the hard stares of Ravel’s seconds, he was waiting for a moment of misjudgment, for the mistake that would give him the chance to finish the other man. He gripped the hilt of his sword tighter as the duel continued.

  Slowly Anya began to grasp Gaspard’s meaning. It was so simple and yet so clever; so noble and yet so diabolical; so obscure, yet simply rooted in the essence of the code duello.

  What Murray did not seem to realize was that with every drop of Ravel’s blood he shed, he was coming nearer to his own ruin. This was a contest of honor, not of endurance or skill. Murray’s stubborn insistence on satisfaction in the face of his opponent’s magnanimity was branding him as lacking in the instincts of a gentleman as surely as any revelation of his recent activities would have done. If the object of this meeting was to discredit Murray, then Ravel was succeeding.

  But how far would he carry his sacrifice? How much blood must he lose before he would consider his task accomplished? With so many injuries, as small as they might be, how long could he retain the control to permit Murray to slash him only where he himself chose? And was his purpose truly what it seemed, or was there in it also an element of expiation? Expiation for the death of another young man here on this ground seven years ago?

  20

  FASTER NOW THE WOUNDS CAME, a slice to the shoulder, another thrust to the arm, a scratch on the cheek an inch below the eye. It seemed it was Murray who chose the sites and Ravel who only avoided drastic results. Ravel’s seconds had moved in concert toward him once, as if to halt the fight, but he had stopped them with a dogged shake of his head. The men acting for him were at a loss. So far had this contest gone beyond the bounds of the code that they finally ceased to intervene with the question of satisfaction. Murray’s seconds, though they should have joined with the men of Ravel to halt the duel, were of his own stripe; they stood back, openly gloating.

  Ravel’s parries were slowing; his hair was wet with perspiration. His breathing was as hard as Murray’s, and with every heave of his chest, the spreading red of his blood seeped in wider splotches across his damp shirt. Murray, his lips drawn back in a feral grin, aimed a thrust at Ravel’s breastbone. There was a blur of motion, a singing of steel, and when the two men parted, Ravel’s shirt was torn and his chest had a small slash, but Murray had a gash on his neck. He slapped his left hand to it, then stared at his reddened fingers in disbelief. Ravel stepped back, lowering his sword. There was a sudden silence.

  “Murderer! Bloodstained butcher!”

  The screams came from behind Anya. She turned in time to see Celestine tumble from the closed carriage that had brought Gaspard.

  “Mother of God,” the older man said under his voice, “I had forgotten her.”

  Anya started toward her half-sister, but Celestine fended her off. Tripping over her full skirts, the younger girl stumbled toward the men who faced each other. “Stop it!” she screamed. “Stop it! I can’t stand any more!”

  Murray saw Ravel’s stunned distraction, his lowered guard, saw also his own opportunity. He gathered himself, stealthily raising his sword. He drew a soft breath.

  To Anya it seemed like a tableau, a scene of frozen motion representing some fable of life and death and the fine balance between the two. Celestine with tears running down her face, nearly between the two men. Ravel off guard. Murray intent on his advantage. The bloodied swords. The old oaks. The startled seconds. Gaspard, gaping. The clear morning sunlight.

  How had they come to be there? The causes were many, but a portion of the blame was hers. That being so, she must mend matters as best she could.

  It was instinct that guided her, however, not slow and rational thought. Before the answer was clear she was moving, launching herself after Celestine, crying out her warning.

  “Ravel, watch out! Kill him! End it, for the love of God!”

  Her shoulder and one hand struck Celestine in the back. Together they plunged earthward. A yard of singing death passed so close over the back of Anya’s head that she felt the wind of its flight, felt it and knew that Murray would have been glad if it had found her.

  Then came the resonant clang of blades engaging, the hard ring, the furious scrape and clatter of a strong, deliberate attack. There was a swift-drawn breath, a grunt. A second muttered in amazement. Anya swung her head in time to see Murray stagger back and fall sprawling in the grass. His hand still holding his sword twitched, and then he was still.

  It was done, over. A vast weariness settled upon Anya. She felt as if moving were beyond her strength. The seconds crowded around and three men offered her their hands to rise. She accepted that of the man nearest. The other two men lifted Celestine, who took one swift look at Murray then cast herself into Anya’s arms, sobbing. Over the girl’s shoulder, Anya looked to where Ravel stood. A second had taken his sword, and the surgeon, muttering under his breath, was cutting away his blood-soaked shirt. Ravel did not seem to notice; his black gaze was upon Anya, and in it was the same fierce, burning concentration he had brought to the duel.

  Gaspard was there, his words soothing and yet as bracing as those of a father as he took a part of Celestine’s weight. He turned with the younger girl toward the carriage, urging her along, away from the scene of carnage, and with Anya supporting her on the other side, managed to place the stricken girl in the closed vehicle.

  He turned then to Anya. “Come, ch�
�re, get in and let us go home. Your man can bring your mount. There is nothing more to be done here.”

  “Yes, in a moment,” she answered, and turned to walk back toward the men under the oaks.

  The surgeon had dressed the most serious of Ravel’s cuts and cleaned the others with carbolic. The smell of it hung on the air, masking the scent of blood. Murray’s seconds had disbursed, carrying his body to his carriage, making ready to depart. Ravel’s men drew back at her approach in a display of conscious sensibility. The surgeon looked at Anya, then tossed his roll of bandaging into his bag, snapped it shut, and after dividing a bow between her and his patient, moved briskly toward where the seconds had gathered.

  The morning sun exposed the dark shadows of sleeplessness and worry under Anya’s eyes, but made her skin appear translucent and turned her braided hair into a shimmering aureole around her head. She stood before Ravel with her back straight and her head at a proud angle, though there was contrition in her eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “For what?”

  His tone was brusque. If there were not such an interested audience around them, if he did not feel quite so covered with gore, he would snatch her in his arms and taste her soft lips before he forced her to explain why now, after all this time, she should care whether he lived or died.

  “For everything. For the words spoken in grief and malice seven years ago. For interfering between you and Murray. For whatever it was I did that made you let Murray carve you like a choice piece of—”

  “Even,” he interrupted, “if I am not?”

  “Even so.”

  He stared at her a moment, his dark eyes searching her face. “There is a matter unsettled between us, one made even more imperative after this morning. A matter of marriage.”

  Pain burgeoned inside Anya, but she kept her voice steady, and even managed a faint smile as she repeated the answer he had given her so short a time ago. “Such a sacrifice. There is no need, not for my sake.”

  “I have no use for sacrifices.”

  “I am to believe that, after what I saw here? No, we will forget it, if you please. We have hurt each other enough; there is nothing that requires us to go on doing it. I care not at all what society thinks, nor do you. That being so, we are free to go back to the way we were. Shall we agree on a new pact? When we meet it will be as friends, polite, distant friends who bow and smile but do not meddle in each other’s lives.”

  “I would rather,” he said, his tone grinding, “be your enemy. “

  It was a moment before she could speak. To cover her distress, she turned swiftly from him and picked up the hem of her leather skirt. Over her shoulder she said, “As you wish.”

  Ravel stood with his muscles hard cramped in the effort to prevent himself from reaching out and snatching her back. Let her go. It was what she wanted, wasn’t it? She had made that clear.

  Celestine was not inconsolable. In fact, her spirits improved and her grief receded in direct proportion to the speed of Emile’s recovery. When she was coherent, she explained to Anya that it had not been Ravel she had called a bloodstained butcher at all, but Murray. She had discovered on Mardi Gras night, as Emile had thrown down his challenge to both Ravel and Murray, that it was the gallant Frenchman she loved. It was that sudden knowledge and the predicament of having two men in her life about to meet each other on the field of honor that had rendered her senseless.

  Then as she lay abed at the townhouse, Emile had been brought in with his skull cracked. Madame Rosa had, reluctantly, told her of the perfidy of her fiancé. Celestine had realized what a monster he was and how he had used her. She had been torn between the desire to remain at Emile’s side and the need to know if she was to be released from so horrible a man, as well as a frighteningly urgent need to see justice meted out to him for what he had done to both Anya and Emile — and herself. She had begged a place in Gaspard’s carriage.

  Then had come that terrible duel. It had appeared that Ravel was allowing himself to be slaughtered for some strange reason having to do with men’s stupid sense of honor. She had feared that Murray would finally kill him and be free to finish what he had begun with Emile, to persecute and endanger Anya, even to force her herself to marry him as she had pledged. She had gone a little mad.

  Now it was over and they could be easy again. Emile was mending nicely and seemed to enjoy having her sit with him, read to him. Yesterday he had caught her hand and carried it to his lips, calling her his lovely angel. Murray had never called her an angel.

  Madame Rosa was vindicated in her distrust of Murray. She did not, however, make the mistake of denouncing him to her friends and enjoying her triumph, which would of course have called for explanations that could only besmirch her daughter with the same filth that had covered him. With dignity and reserve, she expressed her regret over the death of the young man on the field of honor. Her daughter, she said, had been prostrate, but was trying to rise above her sorrow by making herself useful in the sickroom. She was always well chaperoned, naturally. She, Madame Rosa, would be sorry to see the Girod boy leave her house when his injury permitted him to be moved. He was so very agreeable as a patient, and was having such a salutary effect upon Celestine, not only in overcoming her grief but in helping her become more mature and responsible. It was most comical to watch her persuade him to take his medicine and rest as the doctor ordered.

  With Celestine more or less in seclusion and Anya refusing all invitations, in part to save her stepmother embarrassment but primarily out of a disinclination for frivolous amusement, it fell to Gaspard to escort Madame Rosa to the few entertainments available during the Lenten season. They seemed, perhaps, a little more overtly affectionate, a little more satisfied in each other’s company, but of the prospect of a closer relationship there was not a sign. There was nothing, apparently, to keep them from going on as they were indefinitely.

  It was fortunate, Madame Rosa said after a few outings, that the duel and Anya’s part in it had occurred on Ash Wednesday, since the balls and parties of the winter season were at an end, and many people had left town. There was talk; it would have been useless to expect there to be none, but it was not nearly so rabid as it might have been earlier. Most people seemed to agree that Anya was eccentric and headstrong, if not immoral, and that it was unlikely she would ever find a man who could endure her wild ways. There was also much interest in the fact that Ravel Duralde, the other party in the stories circulating, had dropped out of sight. There were some who swore that he had left the country, while others, who claimed to have it from eye-witnesses of the duel, said that he was so mutilated his health was impaired and he was recuperating at some Northern spa. Still another story placed him in the country where, it was whispered, he had every intention of becoming a recluse like his father.

  Anya listened to the stories and the gossip concerning Ravel and herself that were brought by Madame Rosa, but they hardly touched her. It was as if they concerned other people. She heard Celestine speaking volubly and without end of how she felt about Emile and Murray, and she was glad that her half-sister was not as devastated as she had feared, was glad that she appeared to be in reach of happiness, but wished only that she would talk about something else, anything else. In a vague way, she was relieved that Madame Rosa’s social round seemed little affected by what she had done, that life was going to go on just the same. Still, her sole impulse of any strength was to have done with the last of the obligations that tied her to New Orleans and to get away, away from the mess she had made of things, away from her longing for Ravel Duralde, away from her barely expunged guilt over Celestine, away from her concern for Madame Rosa. Away, she just wanted to get away.

  Beau Refuge, beautiful place of refuge. It was more than just a name, it was an ideal. Anya longed for it, for its quiet that soothed her and its routine that absorbed and rejuvenated her; for its peace that would allow her the time to remember, for its memories.

  For the moment, she tri
ed not to think of Ravel. She did try. But it was difficult when every hour brought some reminder, when nearly everything that was said had some reference to him, or when the way those around her avoided mention of his name made it plain he was on their minds. Even the single visitor announced for her in the week that followed the duel was a piercing reminder.

  She entered the salon to find Madame Castillo standing in the center of the room. Ravel’s mother was beautifully dressed in a walking costume of gray velvet and with a small hat of the same material tipped forward on her dark curls. Her face was haggard, however, and there were new lines of worry in her face. Anya went forward with perfect politeness to offer her hand though there was a gripping in her stomach and she could feel the blankness of her own features.

  Madame Castillo spoke first. “I hope you don’t mind that I have come, but I had to see you.”

  “Certainly. Please sit down. May I offer you refreshment, a glass of eau sucre or perhaps a little wine and a few cakes?” The amenities served to give her time to recover her poise.

  “Thank you, no.” The older woman sank down upon the settee. She looked for a moment at her gloved hands clenched into fists on her knees, then raised her head to meet Anya’s gaze. “It’s about Ravel. Have you seen him?”

  “I assume you mean since the duel. No. No, I haven’t.”

  Madame Castillo closed her eyes. “I was afraid of it.”

  “He — he is gone?” It was impossible not to ask.

  “Since the day after that morning when they brought him home. I would not have you think me an alarmist, but once before he left like this. I did not see him again for four years.”

  Once before, when Jean was killed. Anya made a helpless gesture. “I understand, but I have no idea where he may be.”

  “I thought he might have given you some idea of his destination, might have at least communicated with you.”

  “No.” Her voice was flat.