by Danice Allen
Anne couldn’t think of a better plan on the spur of the minute, so she remained where she was. But she struck a nonchalant pose, hooked her thumbs in her trouser pockets, thrust out her chin a little, and fixed her eyes on the boardinghouse across the street. She hoped to appear so sure of herself and relaxed that she would excite no interest at all. No such luck.
“Monsieur.” One of the men made a slight, polite bow, touching the narrow brim of his hat. Anne watched him out of the corner of her eye, keeping her chin up and her face averted. “Might we be of some assistance to you? Are you looking for an address at this late hour?”
She replied in a lowered voice, her tone brusque, hoping to sound convincingly male. She hadn’t planned on talking to anyone. “No … er … thanks. I’m waiting for someone.”
The man did not respond. After a tense pause, Anne braved a look at him. She was startled to see that he was the same man she’d nearly run into at the cemetery a few days before—the handsome black man. He was looking at her keenly, as if he recognized her, too, or perhaps simply saw through her disguise. She tried to brazen it out, but she was afraid her nervousness showed.
“Armande?” The other man was talking now, nudging the first man on the arm. “Come along, brother, this fellow doesn’t need our assistance.”
Anne glanced at the second man. He, too, was a mix of races, just as handsome as the first man, but younger looking. He was visibly sweating, shifting nervously on his feet. They were both well-dressed—and in a hurry. The older one, called Armande, was carrying a small valise.
“Come, Armande,” the younger man said again, impatience in his voice. “We’ve got work to do.”
Armande was finally prodded to movement. With one last puzzled, interested look at Anne, he hurried off down the street with his brother.
Anne wasn’t sure what suspicions Armande had about her, but he was gone, and that was all that mattered. She blew a relieved breath, then waited for them to turn a corner and disappear before she took up her position behind the rhododendron bush. The shadow that had moved over Jeffrey’s shade was gone, but an instant later it reappeared, then slid away again, as if he were pacing restlessly in his room. He’s as excited as I am! thought Anne. She smiled in the dark. On the matter of Renard, she and Jeffrey would always agree. They were both drawn to him, to his heroic lifestyle that was the active, expanded realization of their own ideals.
Now the waiting began. She didn’t want to sit down because the wet grass would stain her borrowed trousers. Though it was probably just an hour or so, the wait seemed like an eternity, and by the time the light went out in Jeffrey’s room, Anne’s legs were stiff and her back ached. These minor discomforts were, however, quickly disregarded when Jeffrey let himself out a side door of the boardinghouse and made for the street. Even though it was dark, Anne couldn’t mistake that swaggering, long-legged stride. It was Jeffrey, all right.
She followed him at a discreet distance. Though it must have been after midnight there were still occasional people on the streets. Anne darted in and out of shadows, usually managing to hide when someone approached, but her throat tightened with fear whenever a man passed by. She dreaded a repeat of the scene in that alley yesterday, particularly since there was no Lucien Delacroix in the vicinity to help her out of it.
Jeffrey was just ahead, of course, and she could call to him for help if necessary, but she didn’t want anything—not even her own defense—to interfere with Jeffrey getting to his destination on time. Her whole hope of seeing Renard depended on Jeffrey being in the right place at the right time.
The right place was apparently the cemetery, in fact the same cemetery where Aunt Katherine’s husbands were buried, the same place where Anne had held a conversation with Delacroix, and where she’d seen that man … She remembered thinking how appropriate the atmospheric burial grounds were for trysts and dangerous assignations, for romance and skullduggery.
Now Jeffrey seemed just as anxious as she was to keep out of sight. Mindful of possible watchful eyes, he stealthily stationed himself in the shadows of a rose arbor in a yard across the street from the Catholic section of the cemetery. She hid herself behind a bush in the yard next door, the slick, leathery leaves of another rhododendron pressing against her cheek.
She crouched down and congratulated herself on stalking Jeffrey so expertly that he never suspected he’d been followed. She was settling in for another long wait when she heard the dull, plodding echo of a horse’s hooves on the road. She parted her protective greenery and watched the excruciatingly slow approach of what appeared to be a rickety farmer’s wagon full of cargo. In the moonlight she could make out barrels, baskets of produce, and what looked like huge sheaves of tobacco tied together in large bundles.
It seemed an odd hour to be transporting merchandise to the market or the dock, but she’d seen other cargo-laden wagons on the road that night, and supposed that busy farmers made up their own schedules. Unless, of course, that was no field hand bent nearly double over the horse’s reins, his wide-brimmed straw hat pulled low on his forehead … Did Renard use disguises other than his usual uniform black? Whoever the driver was, he looked as though he’d dozed off, swaying with the movement of the wagon.
With no one to urge it forward, the piebald mare stopped completely and dropped its muzzle to the short tufts of grass that grew in the middle section of the road in a thin line, tore a juicy mouthful, and proceeded to chew. Anne watched all this with keen interest. The scene looked perfectly harmless and unrehearsed. Was it real, or was it part of Renard’s plan?
Suddenly the driver roused himself, sleepily knuckled his eyes, stretched, and stepped down from the wagon. Anne immediately realized that the driver couldn’t be Renard. He didn’t have Renard’s physical build, the details of which Anne remembered with surprising exactness, as if she’d been seeing him on a daily basis. But she’d only seen him twice, and both times primarily in the dark.
The man led the horse into the shadows of a pair of tall sycamore trees that skirted the boundary of the cemetery and were planted so close together that their upper branches intertwined. Now the wagon bed was in complete darkness. The driver reappeared from the lee side of the wagon and stooped to inspect the horse’s outside shoe. The driver was fully illuminated by the moonlight and seemed the natural object for watching, but Anne couldn’t help wondering…
Her gaze veered into the shadows where the wagon was practically hidden from view. She looked hard. Did she imagine it, or were the bundles of tobacco shifting and moving about? She squinted and strained to see. Someone was crawling into the wagon bed and hiding under the sheaves of tobacco! And there was another dark figure following him, and another figure just emerging from behind one of the tall tombs. Yes, Jeffrey had definitely hit on the right time and the right place! Slaves were being stowed away and driven out of town in a farm wagon! But where was Renard?
Anne watched intently, her breath caught in her throat, her heart hammering against her ribs, as three escapees crawled into the wagon. All during this short process, the driver continued to fuss with his horse’s shoe and pretend to be oblivious to the goings-on at the rear of the vehicle. When all three slaves were safely inside, the driver hiked himself onto the seat and picked up the reins. Anne’s disappointment smarted like a scraped knee. Wasn’t she going to see Renard at all? Or was he hidden in the wagon, too? But surely someone would have had to escort the slaves to this point
Suddenly Renard appeared at the rear of the wagon. Like a flat stone thrown over the surface of a lake, Anne’s heart skipped and skittered. There was no mistaking the dark figure of her hero—so tall, lean, and upright! His movements were assured and economical as he hurriedly arranged the tobacco and made certain nothing was showing that might draw suspicion to the wagon.
As Renard straightened from this task, the driver, without seeming to glance back, gave an almost imperceptible sign—a half-turn of his wrist—which Renard duplicated.
Then the driver deftly flicked the mare’s rump with the tethers and the horse lifted its head, and, still chewing, leaned into the first plodding step of its “getaway” pace.
This was all done without a hitch, and Anne could imagine the smile curving beneath Renard’s mask as he stood in the shadows. But it was too soon to smile. Behind Renard, Anne saw movement. Shapes shifted in the dappled shade of the trees. Obscure silhouettes slid over the cold marble tombs, slithering, like phantasmic predators, ever closer to Renard. Could they be members of a posse, alerted to Renard’s whereabouts and bent on capture? Anne was afraid that was exactly the case, yet Renard continued to stand there, apparently unaware of the imminent danger.
Terror gripped Anne’s throat and strangled the words of warning that formed on her lips. Unable to command her voice, she pushed aside the screen of leaves and ran toward Renard, waving her arms. He seemed to startle when he saw her, stepping forward with one foot, then hesitating.
But of course he would hesitate, Anne reasoned. A man springing out from behind a bush, frantically waving his arms, might be a trap. The driver stared, too, surprised to immobility, like a deer caught in lantern light.
There’d been no time to spare for thoughts of her own danger, but the sickening whine of a bullet as it passed close by Anne’s head made her all too aware of the risk she’d taken. Somehow she found her voice. “Renard!” she called, but he was already moving. However, he wasn’t moving away and out of danger. He was moving toward her! In half a second he collided with her and yanked her to his side, pinning her there with an iron arm around her waist and forcing her to keep up with him as he raced down the road.
Beyond the rattle of her teeth and the rush of her own blood pulsing wildly through her veins, Anne heard hoofbeats on the road, the mare no longer plodding, but charging down the quiet street as if it were chased by wolves. The wagon—all loose rotten wood and squeaky bearings—lurched and clattered behind. Raised voices echoed from the shadows of the cemetery. Angry words intermingled with scuffling boots and the whinnying of nervous horses.
Even as she pushed herself to the very limits of her strength to keep up with Renard, Anne knew it was hopeless. How could they possibly outrun a mounted posse? But suddenly she saw a horse, its dark shape blending into the dense shadows beneath a full-leaved, drooping willow tree at the edge of the cemetery. Renard tossed Anne onto the saddle, quickly untwined the tether from a tree branch, then leaped into the saddle behind her.
“Hold on tight,” he whispered fiercely in her ear. But Anne didn’t need to be told to do something that made such incredible good sense. Both their lives were in the balance, and now that it looked as if she’d have something worth remembering in her dotage, Anne had never felt so determined to reach old age. She clung to the saddle pommel like a drowning man to a tossed ring of life-preserving rope.
Anne could feel Renard’s powerful thighs press against her hips as he spurred the horse forward, his chest bearing down on her as he reached for the reins and flicked the horse’s neck. “Hiyaaa! Go, Tempest!” he shouted, and they shot forward with such force, Anne’s head popped back to thump against Renard’s chin. She could hear his teeth clack together on impact.
Just as they gained the road, she glanced back and was relieved to see that they were pursued by only three men, not a fully organized posse. No doubt the men were bounty hunters, keeping their numbers small so there’d be fewer of them to split the reward among them.
In a moment they were on the road, a mere horse’s length behind the wagon but, fortunately, several lengths ahead of the pursuing horsemen. But Anne knew they were not out of shooting range. Renard’s broad back stood as a barricade between her and the firing guns, but she took no comfort in this fact. She couldn’t bear the thought of Renard being shot.
Renard did not intend to be anyone’s bounty, dead or alive. Handily managing the racing horse, he jagged back and forth without pattern, making for an unpredictable target. Eventually they gained on the wagon and pulled alongside it. Renard extracted a gun from a holster strapped to his hip and twisted in the saddle to take aim.
There was the deafening crack of gunfire at close range. Above the ringing in her ears, twice Anne heard the dull impact of a bullet and the shrill cry of a frightened horse thrown off-balance by a floundering rider.
With only one rider left in the saddle, the chase seemed all but over. The hoofbeats of the remaining horseman slowed, then halted completely. Renard turned in the saddle. Anne had turned, too, and was peering hopefully over Renard’s shoulder when she felt the searing, stinging path of pain across her temple.
Blood, warm and sticky, immediately oozed from the wound and trailed thickly down her cheek and around the curve of her jaw. Her face washed cold. She felt faint, distanced, teetering. There were only pinpricks of consciousness left … Then there was nothing.
Lucien felt Anne go limp. He grabbed her around the waist and held tight. She must have fainted. He marveled that she’d lasted as long as she had during all this excitement.
Despite her disguise, Lucien had recognized Anne the minute she’d jumped out from behind that bush. He’d long ago memorized her every movement and mannerism, the nuances of her body language as familiar to him as his own. For weeks he’d watched her from a distance and longed to be close to her, as close as last night in her bedchamber, as close as now. But not under these circumstances, damn it! Now, in addition to the strong feelings he’d had for Anne all along, his heart swelled with gratitude. The little scatterbrain had risked her life to save his.
Thank God the chase was over, the favorable ending of it achieved, he knew, only because of the two casualties. Lucien hoped fervently that the wounds he’d inflicted were as trivial as he’d intended them to be. He’d aimed for the pursuers’ arms and legs, but it was hard to be accurate from the back of a galloping horse.
But, just as the note had warned, Jeffrey Wycliff—or one of his informants—had known about tonight’s mission and leaked it, intentionally or unintentionally, to the wrong people, forcing this confrontation and the resulting bloodshed. It was the first time Lucien had had to resort to gunfire to avert capture. His stomach churned with anger. Was this just the beginning of other botched missions? So few people were involved in the planning and execution of these escapes—people he trusted—that he didn’t have the slightest idea whom he ought to suspect. Whom was Wycliff in cahoots with?
Armande turned now and waved to Lucien, veering the wagon to the right as they reached a fork in the road, slowing it to a pace that would keep the ancient conveyance intact till the rendezvous point with out-of-town compatriots. Armande would continue north on River Road and Lucien would go east, toward Bocage.
There was a remote cabin on the outskirts of his estate, a sultry niche deep in the cypress woods near a critter-infested bayou where no one but Lucien and Armande ever went. They had arranged to meet there in the morning and report on the completed mission.
It was a favorite place for the two of them to put their heads together to plan strategies for the cause, or just to relax on the porch with a cheroot, listen to the lulling singsong of the crickets, and watch alligators pretending to be drifting logs, their beady eyes peering out from under mossy headdresses. Tonight Lucien would take Anne there to recover from her swoon.
He slowed his horse to a canter, then a walk, nuzzling his chin against a tuft of hair at Anne’s brow. He smiled and squeezed her close, desire and admiration for her, like shafts of sunlight, beaming brightly, warmly, into the dark, cold corners of his cynical soul. She was a game one, foolish and headstrong, but pluck to the bone. When had he started to care so deeply for her?
Yes, he cared for her. Maybe he even loved her. It was a thrilling but unwelcome possibility. He didn’t want to love her. He had no business loving anyone, not while he was committed to the masquerade of Renard and the risks it entailed. How could Anne possibly fit into such a crazy existence? Did he have the right to
try to make her care as deeply for him if it endangered her life? He lifted his chin and let her head fall back into the hollow under his jaw. He kissed her forehead, his lips drifting down her hairline …
… And tasted the metallic bitterness of blood. Mon Dieu! She’d been shot!
Lucien would have panicked, or wept, or cursed if he’d had the leisure of time, or if the stakes hadn’t been so damned high. But he had no way of knowing how serious Anne’s injuries were until he could examine them by candlelight, and that could not be accomplished on the road in the dead-dark of night. So all emotions were checked for now, all energy channeled into getting Anne to the cabin as fast as possible.
He spurred his sweating horse to a gallop, Anne clasped tightly against his chest, his large hand curved around her jaw to keep her head against his heart, to keep her delicate neck from snapping like a doll’s. Hardened by a career of risk and danger, Lucien was still nearly overpowered by a nauseating, gut-wrenching fear. What if he was too late? What if he lost her?
He was off the main road now, urging his horse to an even faster gallop as he rode down a country lane. Skirting the manicured lawns of Bocage, the slave quarters, and the acres of sugarcane fields, he headed for the dense security of the cypress woods. The closer he got, the rougher the terrain became. Given this fact, he was probably riding too fast, but he trusted his horse to follow the thin trail familiar only to those few who used it frequently.
Tempest sidestepped dangerous snarls of overgrown ground cover and circumvented rocks and shrubs that loomed up seemingly out of nowhere. Finally the ground got mushy, and Lucien knew they were almost into the woods, and once inside, he would have no choice but to slow down. Time. Time was the enemy.
Lucien prayed. He prayed to all the saints he knew by name, and all the saints he didn’t know by any stretch of a sinner’s imagination. In his mind’s eye, he was on his knees, the endless sky the roof of his cathedral, each star a candle lighted for Anne. For sweet, sweet Anne.
