“Forgive me, but I find it difficult to comprehend. My son has never been irresponsible. Even when he was younger, seven years ago, he left behind a letter for me. He is most considerate of those he loves, so much so that I now find it beyond belief that he would not let me, or you, know where he was going!”
The words reverberated in Anya’s mind so that it was a moment before she could grasp them. “Those he loves? He has no love for me.”
“Don’t be foolish.” Madame Castillo’s tone was sharp. “He has loved you for years, since you were his best friend’s betrothed. Why else would the things you said to him the night Jean was killed have such power to destroy him?”
There was a swelling, choking feeling inside Anya’s chest and she could hear her own heartbeat fluttering in her ears. She whispered, “It can’t be true.”
“I assure you it can. It is.”
“But why didn’t he tell me?”
“Perhaps he had some reason to think it wouldn’t matter. But it does, doesn’t it?”
The dazed look Anya gave her was answer enough. “If you had not come, I might never have known.”
“Now are you certain he said nothing, gave no hint of where he might be going, when last you saw him?”
Anya shook her head, looking down at her hands.
Madame Castillo frowned. “It’s so perplexing. I heard him speaking to his valet the night before he left. It seemed odd at the time, though I was not really attending. I can’t think it was important or see how it might pertain at all to his whereabouts, but I could swear he asked for a chess set — and a chain.”
Slowly Anya lifted her gaze to meet that of the other woman. A shiver ran along her nerves and she suppressed it. A chess set? A chain? Was it possible? No, it couldn’t be. He would not go to Beau Refuge, not for love. No, and not even for revenge; he was not that kind of man. Was he?
I would rather be your enemy!
“What is it, chère?”
Anya moistened her lips. “Possibly nothing. But — it may be I can find Ravel.”
It had been midafternoon when Madame Castillo made her visit. The early darkness of February was falling by the time Anya could have her things packed, make her arrangements to leave town, and say her adieux to Madame Rosa, Celestine, and Emile. No one tried to dissuade her. They had become so used to her hurried departures and unexpected arrivals that it caused scarcely a ripple. In any case, she had sighed often enough for Beau Refuge in the past few days that they had been in almost hourly expectation of her setting out for the plantation.
The good weather they had enjoyed through Mardi Gras and beyond had not held. There was a chill wind blowing that crept into the carriage. It carried in its breath a presage of rain, though for the moment the moon shed enough light to see the road. Anya huddled under a fur rug against the damp cold and prayed that the rain would not come until morning. By then she would have reached her home. By then she would know if Ravel was there. By then she would have discovered, once and for all, what, if anything, he felt for her.
He might have loved her once; that would explain much. It did not mean, however, that he loved her still. It would be amazing if he did, after everything she had done to him, all the trouble she had caused. Her motives had been of the best, but he could hardly be blamed for failing to believe it.
She thought of him as he had been when they played chess together, or when she had bartered with him for a hairpin, the way he had smiled, the teasing, caressing light in his eyes. Dissembling devil. He had only pretended to be her prisoner. But how handsome he had been, and what pleasure she had taken in the feeling that he could not escape her. Only a part of what she felt, if she were truthful, had been the satisfaction of vengeance. She had quite enjoyed thinking that he was in her power, even while she had feared what he would do if released. Human beings were strange creatures.
She would not feel that same way now in the same circumstances. Or would she? If the means presented itself and she knew it would end this uncertainty, she might be tempted to confine him once more. Admitting it, she was not quite certain what kind of woman that made her, except an honest one.
The miles jolted by. Anya sat staring into the dark, thinking and also trying not to think in an endless round. Now and then a shiver rippled along her nerves. She was not sure whether the cause was cold or excitement, dread or anticipation.
She tried to think of every eventuality. If Ravel was there at Beau Refuge, would she be gracious and receptive and wait for him to declare himself. Would she be impetuous and run into his arms? Would she be tongue-tied and miserably aware of how they had parted, ready to take fright or find offense so that nothing was changed, nothing resolved? If he was not there, would she sit down and wail, or would she calmly greet Denise, calmly walk upstairs and put herself to bed, calmly blow out the lamp, and then wail?
Dear God, would this journey never end?
It did at last. The carriage rolled along the drive under the spreading arms of the oaks, black at this midnight hour, and pulled up before the house. It sat dark and silent. If there was anyone there, they had gone to bed, including Denise.
Marcel, who had come with her as a matter of course, the most faithful man of her acquaintance, got down from the box and opened the carriage door. Stiffly Anya climbed down. She glanced at the house with her lips pressed to prevent them from trembling. When Marcel said that he would ride to the stables with the coachman to bed down the horses, she agreed with a weary nod. Gathering up her skirts, she trudged up the steps to the upper gallery and pulled the rope for the bell at the door. She heard it ringing on the back gallery. While she stood waiting for Denise to come and let her in, she turned to look around her, pulling her cloak closer around her against the tug of the wind. Below her, Marcel set her baggage on the lower gallery, then climbed back up beside Solon, the coachman. The carriage moved away down the drive.
Denise did not come. Anya turned from contemplating the night and reached once more for the bellpull. It was then that she noticed the great front door was standing ajar.
What was Denise thinking of? Anyone could walk in. Or had the latch been broken somehow during the thievery of Murray’ men? She didn’t remember such a thing, but surely it should be repaired by now, even so? Such scolding questions were a distraction from the odd sense of unease that crept in upon her.
This was her home. There was no reason for her to hover about on the doorstep. Marcel would be returning at any moment, and in any case, she no longer had anything to fear.
She pushed open the door and stepped into the main salon. When her eyes had adjusted to the inside, she could see well enough with the gleam of moonlight. The room was full of squat shapes of furniture made colorless and ghostly in the dimness. There did not appear to be a lamp anywhere close. Instead of searching for one, she moved with the ease of long familiarity through the room to the door that connected with the dining room. Here, it was darker since the room, being in the center of the house, had no windows. She passed through it quickly, just touching with the tips of her fingers the backs of the chairs lined at the table. Beyond the dining room was the back sitting room, with her own bedchamber opening from it to the left. Anya moved toward the last room as toward a sanctuary.
Her hand found the knob, she turned it, pushed open the door. She stepped inside. Gooseflesh rose on her arms. She hesitated, listening. She could hear nothing. Her heart was thudding against her ribs. There was a tight feeling around her forehead, as if a tight band were fitted there. A light. She needed light to banish this fluttering of nerves. She moved away from the door toward the washstand where a lamp always sat with matches in a holder beside it.
Hard hands caught her forearms, clamping them to her sides. She was whirled, lifted with hard arms at her back and under her knees. She kicked, arching against the chest of the man who held her. It made no impression. A few jarring steps, and suddenly she was dropped.
Even as she gave a strangled cry, she struck the so
ft resilience of the feather mattress of her own bed. Her bearings returned in an instant, and she tried to roll. The mattress gave and a heavy and confining weight landed across her waist. She pushed at it, felt a hard muscular shoulder, felt also the thick padding of a bandage. She went still.
Swiftly her right arm was caught. The hard and warm fingers upon it moved to her wrist. There was a musical jangle and a sharp clicking sound. Something cold and heavy confined her arm. The weight upon her lifted, the bed rocked on its ropes, and she was alone.
She lay in unmoving disbelief for an instant; then with a yank of her arm she tested the shackle that held her. It gave only a short distance before stopping with a dull rattle. The chain was fastened to the post of the bed.
She raised herself on her elbow, straining her eyes in the darkness. Her voice vibrating with fury, she said, “Ravel Duralde, I know you’re there! What do you think you are doing?”
There was a soft popping sound and yellow-orange light flared at the washstand. Ravel stood holding a phosphorus match in his hand. He reached for the globe of the lamp and, when he had removed it, touched the flame to the wick. The leaping fire as it caught gave his face the glazed look of a demonic mask in porcelain, an appearance that faded as he replaced the globe and picked up the lamp, moving toward her. He placed the light on the table beside the bed before he spoke.
“What do you think?”
“I think you’re insane!”
“You may be right.”
He turned to look at her, and at the expression in his dark eyes, a frisson that had nothing to do with fear moved over her. She swallowed. “How did you get in here?”
“Denise let me in. I told her I was your guest and that you would be returning at any moment. She has left me to wait up for you these past three nights. She thinks the way you have kept me kicking my heels is extremely bad mannered, but finds my patience endearing. It is all most unconventional but about what she might expect from the two of us.”
“I’m sure,” Anya said tartly. “Do you know that everyone thinks you have disappeared, even your mother? You might at least have left her a message.”
A smile curved his mouth. “Still concerned for my mother? Let me set your mind at ease. I told her in detail where I would be, and what I meant to do.”
“She — she knows?”
“It was she who suggested that if you failed to leave town within a certain time she might send you to me.”
A trap, and most carefully laid. What an idiot she had been to believe a word of it.
He moved to sit on the edge of the bed, drawing up one knee to brace himself though he was careful not to block the light shining on her face. “She also told me how she would see to it that you came.”
Anya held his gaze as long as she could. Lowering her lashes, she said tonelessly, “Did she?”
“There were many possibilities, many emotions she might play upon,” he said, his voice taking on a deeper shading, “among them hate, revenge, remorse, compassion, guilt. But there was only one she would use, just one. If you did not come for that reason, you would not come at all.”
She made no answer; she could not for the hard lump forming in her throat.
“Tell me why you came, Anya,” he urged, his voice soft.
She tried to move her arm and the rattle of the chain brought a small surge of anger, enough to muster defiance. “What does it matter? You have what you want!”
“It matters, sweet Anya; oh, yes, it matters.” He reached to touch her cheek with one knuckle, taking pleasure in the smooth texture of her skin. His attention was caught by the gleam of a pin holding the thick braids of her hair, and he leaned to pluck it out and toss it to one side. His hand warm and gentle upon her hair as he probed for others, he repeated, “Tell me.”
There was no escape. His will was relentless; she had seen that much, if there had ever been any doubt, beneath the dueling oaks. He required nothing less than capitulation. He would have it, then, but only at a price.
“I came,” she said, swallowing on tears, “because I was sorry for what I had done to you.”
“Remorse. No, that isn’t it.” He drew her braids over her shoulders and began to release the tresses, spreading them over her breasts.
She put her free hand on his shoulder, touching the bandaging lightly. “Because I felt your pain and, knowing I was the cause, longed to ease it.”
“Compassion,” he said, and trailed his fingers along the row of buttons that closed the neck of her blue velvet traveling costume. Still there was a tremor in his touch.
“Because I had made you an outcast once and would not have it happen again if words of mine could prevent it, because I wanted to say to you that you had misunderstood, that it was not you Celestine meant to accuse of murder, but Murray.
“Guilt. I’ve carried enough of it with me over the years to know it.” He shook his head.
Beneath his fingers, her buttons had opened to the waist. Her camisole strained over the curves of her breasts that were pressed upward by her corset. With intent concentration, he smoothed over them with one knuckle, watching as the nipples tightened under that gentle, persuasive caress.
On a difficult breath, Anya said, “I came because to stay away would be to give you a peace you don’t deserve.”
“Vengeance,” he said, “is mine.”
“And because you refused to honor the pact I offered, because there is something between us that has been there for seven long years and will not go away!”
“Hate,” he said, and the word was no more than a whisper.
“Not hate,” she answered, and looked at him with tears shimmering in her eyes.
“Anya—”
There was such pain, such doubt in that quiet word that her tears spilled over, making heated tracks in her hair. Her voice husky, she asked, “Have you hated me, all this time?”
His face hardened and he reached to catch her arms, giving her a shake. “I have loved you with every ounce of my being and every soulless beat of my heart since first I saw you, and well you know it! You have been the dream I sought, chaste and unsullied, the one bright beacon that kept me sane and gave me hope in a filthy and vermin-infested Spanish prison and in the rotting heat of a Central American jungle. Unworthy as I was, I could not give up hope of having you, though death itself kept us apart. You were my luck, my secret joy, my talisman, the one symbol I honored, until you placed yourself in my hands. After so long, how could I resist the need to have you? But knowing your sweetness, I was damned. There was nothing I would not do, nothing I will not do now, to have you again and again, to hold you always in my arms as I have held you in my heart.”
She required no more in a declaration. “If you can love me, can I not love you?”
“You can and you will. I will see to that if I have to keep you shackled to me for the rest of your days.”
“There is no need,” she said, her eyes clear and deep blue as she met his black gaze. “I love you, now.”
“Anya,” he whispered. “Can you? You wouldn’t lie?”
“How can you think it?”
“How do I dare think otherwise, when I’ve waited so long?”
Tears shimmered as they welled into her eyes. She reached to touch the hard plane of his face with gentle fingertips. “Oh, Ravel, I’ve waited, too, though I did not know it. Take my love now, please, for I can wait no longer.”
He lowered himself beside her, easing over her to her left side so that his own, less injured right arm supported him. There was reverence and a ravishing gentleness in the way he drew her to him. He molded her mouth to his, savoring the pure rapture of her surrender.
The moments passed. With slow delicacy and care, he removed her clothing layer by layer until she lay naked beside him. Gently, endlessly, he lavished upon her a seven-year store of sensual delights, tasting her skin, teasing, seeking to give her pleasure, succeeding beyond imagining.
Anya, drowning willingly in sheer sensation, s
till had the sense of being confined since her right wrist was chained and her left hand trapped between their two bodies. Her inability to move, to do anything other than writhe under his ravishing caresses, was disturbing on more than one count.
Against Ravel’s ear, she whispered, “This is lovely, but it would be better without the chain.”
“Are you sure?” There was a hint of laughter in his voice that indicated his perfect awareness of what he was doing.
“I promise.”
“By all means, then.”
He took from his pocket a small key, then heaved himself out of bed with a quick grimace of the flexing of sore and sliced muscles. Fitting the key into the lock, he released her from the shackle, then dragged the chain from the bedpost and flung it on the floor. He discarded his clothes and bent then to blow out the lamp. When he turned, Anya’s arms were outstretched, welcoming. With soft words of love and blind joy, he came to her.
The moonlight creeping into the room shed its cool radiance upon the moving forms upon the bed, gilding their bodies so that they had the look of a pagan god and goddess disporting themselves in splendor. It touched the chain that lay upon the floor, shining on sinuous links with the precious gleam of purest gold, sparkling on the bracelet with the faceted glitter of diamonds and sapphires that formed the wrist shackle.
Anya did not notice. Ravel did not care.
Author’s Note
The Vigilance Committee as described in Prisoner of Desire was an actual organization. It was formed in the early spring of 1858 in response to the corruption of the Know-Nothing party, and numbered approximately a thousand members. The known leader was a former officer of the United States Army, Captain Johnson Kelley Duncan, age thirty-two, and many officers and members had served with William Walker in Nicaragua. The group engaged in an armed altercation with the New Orleans city government on June 1, 1858, following the seizure of the lists of registered voters by Know-Nothing rowdies for the purpose of striking from them the names of opposing voters. Incensed by this flagrant act, the committee gathered in the Vieux Carré at midnight on June 2, where they took possession of the Cabildo, the city jail, and the arsenal on St. Peter Street to the rear of the Cabildo. They armed themselves with the muskets and other weapons from the arsenal, hauled several pieces of artillery into place commanding the approaches to Jackson Square, and formed entrenchments of cotton bales and paving stones.
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