“I see. You rate yourself higher than a fat colonel.”
“I want to take care of you. With me, you will not only be safe, you will have every comfort, every luxury.”
“What a charming prospect. I am almost tempted, but you see I have been used to rather more respectability. I am assuming, of course, since you don’t mention it, that marriage is not a part of your kind offer?”
“I have no wish to marry just yet,” Ryan said. “It would not be fair to take a wife when I am so often away at sea.”
“Fairness to a mistress not entering into the matter?” Elene had no more wish to be married than he, but to say so at the moment could only weaken her position.
“She would have no reason to complain,” he returned, keeping his voice low with an obvious effort. “You don’t understand what I’m saying at all, nor are you trying to.”
“I understand you feel free to offer me this insult because in a moment of weakness I succumbed to your blandishments and my own need for consolation. I understand that you also have acquired a sense of responsibility for me — not enough to take me on for life, but enough to make you reluctant to leave me behind. I will even concede that you may have some degree of desire for me, if you like; I doubt that otherwise the invitation would include sharing your living quarters. Just don’t try to make me think that your interest is based solely on concern for my welfare. I don’t believe it, and won’t believe it.”
“Do you believe,” he said pleasantly, “that I will put you on my ship with my own hands, no matter how much you kick and scream, if you don’t agree to come with me?”
“Certainly,” she said without hesitation. “I would put nothing past you.”
He cursed under his breath for long, colorful moments. When he spoke again, his voice was strained, but calm. “The major cause of the problem here is that damnable perfume you wear. There might never have been any blandishments, as you call them, if it hadn’t been so enticing. But never mind. Your stay in my house need be for the barest amount of time necessary to establish yourself elsewhere. I have no more use for a reluctant mistress, I thank you very much, than you have to be one.”
“Indeed? How magnanimous! Especially since I have no means of establishing myself elsewhere.” The words were merest bravado. She had managed to forget the role the perfume had played in her seduction.
“You can’t have been using your head these last three days. You have only to make up a few batches of that scent, and your fortune’s assured.”
He was not serious, only clutching at straws to enforce his argument. Nevertheless, was the idea so farfetched? There was no denying that the fragrance was exquisite, with or without its supposedly unique property. If Devota were able to concoct it in New Orleans, if the ingredients, the precious oils and essences, were available, then it might sell. Naturally the incantations or the particular herb or oil that turned it into a powerful and long-lasting aphrodisiac must be left out, but that should not affect its smell.
“Oh, I’m sure that’s just what New Orleans needs, a new scent.” The words were jeering, yet inside Elene felt the slow rise of excitement.
“A sweet one, at any rate. All the perfumes of Araby could hardly cover the smells of the open gutters and back lot privies. There’s also the overripe fish and soured fruit from the old French market, fermenting molasses from the warehouses, and the odors from the cemeteries where paupers are simply covered with quicklime in a mass grave. Nor is that saying anything of the mold and mildew that grows everywhere, or the effects on the human body of months of hot weather and, for some, scant bathing.”
“You almost convince me that New Orleans is a wonderful place,” she said in dry tones, “for a perfumer.”
“It’s the only place for you.”
“Possibly so,” she answered.
She allowed her words to stand for an agreement. It had, perhaps, been foolish of her to fight the idea. As a destination, a place of refuge, it had been apparent New Orleans was the best choice from the beginning. She would be among her own kind, people who spoke the same language, had the same customs. Even so, to go so far from all she knew, to make her home among strangers, arriving with not even a purse in her hand, much less anything to put in it, was not easy.
There was a part of her that was aghast at her acceptance of the prospect of living with a man, even for a brief period. She winced away from it. What she required was to gain control of her life. That was the only security, to arrange matters so she need not answer to father, husband, or even lover, but only to herself. If Ryan Bayard, or even her perfume, could be used to that end, then that was what she must do.
So busy was Elene with plans and ideas that it was more than a half hour later before she realized that her exact position in Ryan’s house during the time she would spend there had not been determined. She opened her mouth, then closed it again without a sound.
Someone was coming.
They saw the glow of the candlelight first. It shone through the cracks between the floorboards above them, casting odd, moving streaks over the stone walls. The footfalls that accompanied it were light, almost creeping. There was a long pause, as if whoever was above them was standing listening, looking around with care.
The chairs began to slide, barely scraping, as they were quietly pulled back. Dust sifted as the rug was pulled aside. Ryan, on his feet, was still. Elene was the same, though she looked about her in the faint light for a weapon. Her hands slowly curled into fists. Tension sang along her veins and hovered around her like a tangible presence.
The iron ring used to lift the trapdoor rattled. There came a soft grunt of effort. With a creak of hinges, the heavy door began to lift. They saw a woman’s skirt. Beside her sat a lantern of pierced tin, its rays wavering through the holes, making odd patterns in the darkness. There was no sign of a tray, no smell of food. The door was raised higher, higher still. It was laid back on its hinges.
It was Devota.
A small sound of relief escaped Elene. The maid gave her a quick smile of sympathy, but wasted no time on greetings or explanations. “Out, quickly,” she said, her voice the merest husk of sound. “The ship is coming in.”
They needed no further urging. Ryan took a running leap, put his hands on the edge of the hole, and with a powerful bunching of shoulder and chest muscles, hoisted himself up, catching the edge of the floor and pulling himself free of the hole. He turned, balancing on one knee as he extended his hand down for Elene. She stepped into her slippers, then caught his wrist. His firm fingers locked around her arm. She gave herself a boost, and was drawn upward until the floor edge was at her waist and she could scramble up onto the thick boards.
Ryan helped her to her feet, then bent to close the trapdoor. They threw the rug back in place and quickly replaced the chairs. Devota swung away then, picking up the lantern by its bail, whispering, “This way.”
“Favier?” Ryan said softly.
“Hiding,” Devota answered in disgust. “I waved the lantern myself.”
“We are in your debt. But the light won’t be needed again. Extinguish it.”
Devota did as Ryan bid her, then set the lantern down in the middle of the floor and left it while she led them from the dining room.
They did not speak again. As quietly as ghosts, they moved through the house to the back doors, then through them out onto the gallery. A moment more, and they were on the open lawn that led to the lip of the headland.
The air was soft with moisture, warmly caressing, and so fresh with the breath of the night sea that it was like elixir. Elene felt her senses expand, swelling into the infinite space around her as if they had been cramped. A pale moon beamed down. It looked exactly like the one on the night she and Devota had run from her burning home, though now its light had the strength of a caress. Somewhere nearby sea grapes and palm trees rattled in the breeze, a constant, soothing sound.
They were halfway across the lawn, their shadows thrown by the moonlight rac
ing ahead of them, when abruptly it seemed to Elene that there was too much space around them, that their position was too open, too exposed. It was, perhaps, the effect of confinement and her fears. That possibility held her quiet for another stride or two. Until she remembered her unease, before.
“Ryan?” she whispered.
“I know,” he said. “Keep walking. Don’t run, not yet.”
They stretched their strides, taking another. Another.
A shout, shrill with anger, rang out behind them. It was taken up by what sounded like a hundred throats, becoming a deep and undulating roar.
“Now run!”
Elene picked up her skirts and sprinted as hard as she could go. There was no need to look back; she knew what she would see. The men, the machetes, the guns. Her eyes blurred with tears of effort, her chest felt raw with the grasps of her breathing. The thudding of her heart was a violent drumbeat. Stones and sharp pieces of shell embedded in the wild grasses cut her feet through her thin satin slippers, but she did not feel them. She could hear Devota pounding along on one side and Ryan on the other. It was her nightmares all over again, a race with howling death, one she could not win, not again.
A shot rang out. They heard the whine of the ball overhead. The yelling and blood-hungry cries behind them seemed closer. So was the lip of the headland. Another shot blasted the air. A path like a pale and sandy trench slanting down and to the right appeared before them. They swerved into it in a splatter of sand. Downward they leaped, sliding over the sand-covered rocks.
Below them was the moonlit crescent of a beach with the dark and sparkling waves slowly washing back and forth. The low shape of a boat lay at the water’s edge. Beside it was two men who stood staring up at the headland with the muskets in their hands held at the ready. Beyond them, out on the breast of the waves, lay a twin-masted schooner with the graceful, raking lines of a ship built for speed. It rode at anchor within the enclosing arms of the cove, without a light or a hint of sound to indicate its presence.
The rampaging former slaves spilled over the edge of the promontory behind them, crashing through the growth that lined the edge. They yelled in piercing triumph as they spotted their quarry. The rocks they dislodged rattled down.
Another shot rang out, zinging past Elene’s head. A lance, hurtled with incredible strength, impaled itself in the sand to the right. Two others fell just behind them, and one sailed above, arching to splash into the sea.
Ahead lay the flat stretch of the beach. Elene reached it first, hurtling herself along it with sand flying from under her feet. Ryan turned to look back. The dark forms were a surging mass on the slope of the headland. He swung back toward the boat and cupped his hands around his mouth. “Fire!” he shouted. “Fire!”
The double blast of both muskets going off at once smote the air. Cries of pain and panic rang out from the slope behind them. The pursuit slackened. The boatmen threw their muskets into the long craft and began to shove off, though holding it ready, afloat on the high tide.
Ten more yards, five, and then they were at the boat, clambering over the sides. Ryan snatched up a musket, took the powder and ball one of the boatmen tossed to him, and began to reload even as the two men sprang, wet and cursing, over the gunwales. They picked up the oars and began to row. Ryan swung his loaded musket and squeezed the trigger. The man in the lead of the blacks streaming now along the shoreline threw up his hands and fell backward.
There was no time for more. The boat lunged over the waves in a hard, thrusting rhythm, leaving the beach behind. Another shot or two roared out, but the balls made harmless spouts in their wake. The stretch of water between boat and sandy shore widened, gently rolling, dancing in the moonlight. A few of the pursuers waded out, shouting, gesticulating with raised fists, but they could hardly be heard.
Elene turned to face the front of the boat. Though she held to the thwart on which she sat with both hands, she gave her attention to the ship that lay before them. Painted dark gray with a broad white stripe circling it just beneath the bowsprit, it appeared to have the carved figure of a woman in flowing robes for a figurehead. The black letters on the white stripe were etched in moonlight, spelling out her name, the Sea Spirit.
A rope ladder dangled down one side. There were a number of people gathered around it at the top. They had been shouting out encouragement, though with the distance and the wind on the water, Elene had thought the sounds to be some kind of bird cries. They reached out to give a helping hand as Elene reached the top of the swaying ladder. She accepted their support gratefully, though she turned at once to see to Devota who was none too happy over the perilous ascent.
In a moment, they were all on deck. Orders were given to bring the boat on board. A man stepped forward to shake Ryan’s hand and congratulate him, a man with dark curly hair and laughing eyes whom Ryan addressed as Jean but introduced as the ship’s captain. The others surged around them, men and women in what appeared to be evening dress, all of them exclaiming, laughing in excitement, asking questions in high voices.
Elene was suddenly so tired she could hardly see. The muscles in her legs were trembling in wrenching spasms. Afraid she would fall down, she reached out to catch Ryan’s arm. He turned to look at her, felt the tremors running through her fingers, and slipped his arm around her waist to draw her against him.
“Let’s get below,” he said.
The way was miraculously cleared for them. The others trooped ahead, ducking through doorways, stepping over high thresholds until they reached what appeared to be a small common room, or officer’s dining quarters. The men picked up drinks they had left standing here and there. The women took up sewing and embroidery, or a book. Yet they all waited expectantly as Ryan and Elene entered, as if they had been looking forward to meeting the famous privateer, Bayard, the man who was undoubtedly their host.
Where had they come from, all these people, Elene wondered in the dullness of exhaustion as she surveyed them by the light of a pair of lamps swinging in gimbals on the side walls. They had the look, in their clothing and their pale, sallow faces, of islanders, though it did not seem likely a privateer would carry passengers.
Even as the glimmering of an answer began to form, a man stepped from among their number. Of medium height, arrogant even with an angry red slash down his cheek and his white suit wrinkled and stained, he moved toward Elene with his hands held out, sure of his welcome.
“Elene, my love, my bride,” Durant Gambier said in rich pleasure. “I thought I had lost you, but no. By the grace of le bon Dieu you have been returned to me.”
6
“BY THE GRACE, RATHER, of Ryan Bayard,” Elene said in brittle contradiction, then watched her fiancé come to a halt with the smile fading from his face.
Where the words had come from, she could not tell. There was a vague feeling in the back of her mind that they could prove dangerous, but that did not deter her. Her one aim had been to stop Durant from taking her into his arms, from claiming her once more. Ryan had been too obvious a shield to ignore. If there were consequences for using him, she would face them later.
The silence that fell had an avid quality, as though the little drama being enacted was a welcome distraction from problems the others who were gathered there would as soon escape. The dull red of rage began to rise in Durant’s face. He put his hands on his hips, his gaze moving in frowning incredulity to Ryan’s arm at Elene’s waist before lifting to the face of the privateer. Ryan stared back with a faint smile curving his lips and one brow raised in enquiry.
Behind them, the ship’s captain stepped into the room, moving around Devota who hovered just inside the door. It appeared he meant to ask something of Ryan, but sensing the stiff confrontation in progress, hesitated. Ryan turned to him. “Tell me, Jean,” he said, his tone conversational, “who are all these people?”
The captain looked as uneasy as a small boy who has come home with more marbles than he had when he left. “Refugees, Ryan, people trying to
get away from Saint-Domingue. They came out in small boats — some yesterday evening, some two nights ago — whenever we came in sight of land. I couldn’t turn them away.”
“No, I don’t suppose you could.” Ryan turned to the group. “Forgive me, ladies and gentlemen, but Mademoiselle Larpent and I have had a trying time. We will make ourselves known in proper form later, but for the moment what we want is a bath, food, and a place to lay our heads. If you will excuse us?”
“Now see here—” Durant began.
“Later.” There was the rasp of steel in that one word.
A woman stepped forward and placed her hand on Durant’s arm. She moved with unconscious poise, as if she quite expected every eye to be upon her. She was not beautiful in the classic sense: her hair was a russet-red shade that was most unlikely to be natural, her skin was pale and rather sallow, and her features piquant. Regardless, her voice when she spoke had such lovely modulation, was so rich and sensual in timbre, that she was fascinating.
“Dear Durant,” the woman said, “let them go if you have any kindness in your heart. Only think how desperate we were for the comforts of food and rest ourselves not long ago.”
Ryan inclined his head to the red-haired woman, then began to move with Elene at his side toward a doorway on the opposite side of the room.
The ship’s captain cleared his throat before calling after him. “Ryan? Our destination, what is it?”
“New Orleans,” Ryan said over his shoulder, adding with delicate irony, “with all possible speed, if you can manage it. I don’t suppose the committee who saw us off had a boat handy, but it might be a good idea to get underway, just in case.”
The owner’s cabin on board the schooner was by tradition the largest available. That was not saying a great deal. It contained a fairly wide bunk with a sea trunk at the foot, a drop-leaf table pushed against one wall with a pair of straight chairs drawn up to it, and a washstand with a china bowl sunken into the top. There was barely enough room left in the center of the floor for the bath tub when it was brought.
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