Prisoner of Desire (10 page)

He inclined his head in agreement. “Of course. That’s only human nature.”

“Could they really have done that?”

“About Lopez, I’m not sure; Spain has a strong presence in Cuba. But Walker certainly could have. He was president of Nicaragua for some months. All Washington had to do was give him official sanction and some sign of military backing. Congress and the president failed to do that, in spite of previous encouragement. They gave a lot of reasons, but in fact it was Northern monied interests, and Cornelius Vanderbilt in particular, that swayed them. The moment when intervention could have been successful passed. Walker failed.”

“I believe I read that it was a ship of the United States Navy, under a Captain Paulding, who shelled Walkers men and finally captured him. Did that really happen?”

“It did indeed.”

“But why? Walker and his men were Americans.”

“A bagatelle. The government meant to disassociate the United States from the undertaking so that Vanderbilt could continue to do business, to run his steamers through the Nicaragua route from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. Paulding exceeded his orders officially, but probably not unofficially. I believe they are going to give him a medal.”

There was bitterness in his voice, and also a hint of hardships endured and tragedies remembered. Anya said slowly, “I can see what Walker hoped to gain, but what of the others, the men who fought?”

“They went for the promise of land, grants of hundreds, even thousands of acres, and for a fresh start in a new country, on a new frontier. There were also those who went for the sake of the fight, the excitement of it. And as always, there were
a few who went to escape hanging here.”

“And you? Why did you go with them?”

“I went,” he said with deliberation, “to escape my own personal demons.”

“Meaning?”

He turned his head, his dark eyes shadowed with torment. “Surely you can guess?”

For a short while there had been something very like a truce between them. It was gone. “The duel.”

“The duel,” he repeated. “I killed my dearest friend. On a moonlit night when the world was cool and beautiful and touched with silver, I pushed my sword through his body like a pin into a butterfly, and watched him die.”

She drew in her breath, tried to speak, then had to stop and clear her throat of the lump of anger and pain that had gathered there. “There must have been more to that night than that.”

He was quiet. He looked down at the chain on his ankle, picking up the links and letting them drop so that they made a musical clinking in the silence.

“Well?”

“I could tell you, but I doubt you would believe it.”

“There have been many things said about you, but I’ve never heard that you were a liar.”

“A damaging admission. Take care, or you may find something to approve.”

There was a raw edge to his voice. She chose to disregard it. “We were talking about the duel.”

“It might be best if we didn’t.”

“Why?” she asked, her voice hard. “Is there something you prefer that I not know?”

“No, I—”

“Something that reflects upon you?”

“No!”

“Some reason for that stupid contest besides the one given out?”

“It was a mistake to mention it. Let it go.”

“I can’t!” she cried, leaning forward, her eyes dark blue and luminous with unshed tears. “Don’t you see I can’t?”

“Neither can I.”

He leaned his head back with a sigh, staring at nothing. At last he went on. “It’s nothing so different. There were the six of us, the moonlight, the empty dueling field under the oaks. We paired off. It was a simple contest of skill, at first. We were all a little tipsy, perhaps some of us more than a little. There was a great deal of laughing and slipping around in the dew. Then I pinked Jean in the arm. Jean flared up in a rage. I never knew before that night that he resented my hard-earned skill with a blade, but apparently he did. More than that, I had ruined his new frock coat.”

“His frock coat.” She repeated the words as if they had no meaning.

“It may sound funny, a trivial thing, but men have died before for less. In any case, Jean wouldn’t put his sword down, but demanded that we continue. He lunged, I parried and began a riposte, all the while talking to him, trying to make him see reason.”

There was more; Anya knew it from the sound of his voice. She did not want to hear it, still it was as if she were driven to it. “And then?”

“There is a point in many moves of swordplay past which it is impossible to draw back. I was driving forward in a riposte, intending to nick him in the arm once more as a warning. He slipped in the wet grass, lurched toward me. My sword point caught—”

“Stop! Please.”

Her breasts rose and fell with the swiftness of her breathing and her heart was beating so hard it jarred the bodice of her gown. Her hands were clenched on the arms of the chair. When his voice ceased, she closed her eyes. Still the image of the duel he had conjured up with his words burned in her mind.

“You did ask,” he said, his voice shaded with weariness.

She lifted her lashes to stare at him with a cold and leaden feeling inside her. His face there in the dim room was pale, shadowed by a dark growth of beard on his chin, and with the faint glint of perspiration on his forehead. His black eyes were steady though the set of his mouth was grim.

“Your skill,” she said, the words scathing. “Is that what you call your ability to kill other men on the dueling field? How does it feel to know that you can take a life at will? Do you enjoy it? Does it make you feel good to know that other men fear you?

A muscle clenched in his jaw, then relaxed again. When he spoke, the words were even. “I have never sought a fight or killed a man if there was another choice.”

“Oh, come! Surely you don’t expect me to believe that.”

“I repeat—”

“What of Murray? He would never have dreamed of challenging you, never in this life!”

“It’s surprising what young men will do — if they think it will increase their prestige. Half the meetings I have had were with fools who thought it would be a fine thing to be able to say they had drawn blood from Ravel Duralde.”

“So you killed them for their effrontery.”

“You would have preferred that I had died instead?” he asked, then answered himself. “Foolish question; of course you would.”

“I would prefer,” she said, her tones hard,” that no one die in a duel ever again.”

“A noble sentiment, but impractical.”

Her eyes blazed with blue fire at his reply. “Why? Why is it so impractical to ask that men settle their differences without resorting to bloodshed? Is it so impossible for them to be reasonable, rational men and still have pride and honor?”

“I understand how you feel,” he answered, his tones deep and curiously gentle, “but the custom of the duel has its uses. The threat of it curbs the excesses of braggarts and bullies, guards the sanctity of the family by discouraging adultery, and protects females from unwanted attention. It’s rooted in the ideals of chivalry, a means of insuring that men live up to their better instincts, that they keep to the canons of decent behavior or face the consequences. And it allows them to take a portion of their protection into their own hands, without relying exclusively on a police force that may or may not be there when they are needed.”

That he would dare attempt to defend the practice of dueling to her sent cold fury racing through her veins. She controlled it, saying in sweetly puzzled tones, “A primitive means of deciding the justice of an issue, surely? By might instead of right? What if it’s the bully who kills his opponent, or the wronged husband who dies instead of his wife’s seducer? And what is there in the code duello to prevent a man who is known to be superior with a sword or pistol from playing the complete villain, doing precisely as he pleases, even forcing himself upon any woman he chooses?”

He was not fooled. Bluntly he asked, “A man like me?”

“Exactly.” Her answer was grim.

“Nothing.”

Ravel watched the angry color rise into her face with a certain bemusement overlaid by savage satisfaction. If she expected him to accept her insults as well as the situation in which she had placed him, she was going to be disappointed. He wanted her to remain where she was, talking to him, with a longing that came as a severe shock; still, he was not ready to retain her company at any price.

Dear God, but she was beautiful, sitting there in her old coat that was too large for her, with her hair windblown and straggling from its knot on top of her head and her hands as grubby as any schoolboys. He would like to draw her down beside him, to take down her hair and spread it out on his pillow like a shawl of rich, glowing silk, to press his lips to hers, warming them, melting their thin, tight line until they opened softly, sweetly, to him. Oh, yes, she was beautiful, a natural, desirable woman. She was also unattainable. Maddeningly so.

Ravel broke the silence, his tone abrupt. “What have you been doing to yourself?”

“What do you mean?” She scowled at him.

“You look worse than an Irish washerwoman in that ragged coat, with your hair in your face and dirt under your nails.”

“I regret that my appearance offends you,” she said with cold sarcasm. “I was working in the garden.”

“Don’t you have people to do that for you?”

“No one I trust in my verbena beds. Besides, I like it.”

“As you like riding about the fields until you are so freckled no amount of the renowned Antephelic Milk will remove them?”

“The state of my complexion is not your concern!”

“It might be to your future husband.”

“As I have no intention of getting married, it doesn’t matter.”

“You mean to live like a nun for the rest of your life? That’s ridiculous.”

She pushed to her feet, her voice rising. “Why is it ridiculous? I don’t see you leaping into matrimony!”

“Men are able to arrange these matters without it.”

“Oh, yes, certainly, but it isn’t the same thing, is it? What of companionship and children and a home and — and love?” If the words she spoke were a trifle disjointed, she ignored it.

“What of them?”

“Don’t they matter?”

“They matter,” he said, “they matter a great deal, but as I am unlikely to have them—”

“Why should you be?”

“Perhaps it’s because I am not quite a gentleman?”

His words were mocking, but carried also a lash of bitterness. Anya, hearing it, felt a surge of unwilling empathy. For all his bravado, for all the adulation heaped upon him because of his repute as a duelist and his success with women, he knew no contentment. He was, in his way, as haunted by the death of Jean as she herself. More, because of his birth, he was as firmly and forever outside the magic Creole circle of society as she was due to her
américaine
blood.

She swung from him in agitation, pacing toward the window in the corner behind his bed. She did not want to look at him, did not want to acknowledge any common bond between them. She wanted to hate him, to blame him for what had become of her life, for its emptiness. She did not want to think of him as able to feel pain and remorse, hunger and cold, loneliness and fear, but rather to think of him as the Black Knight, armored in steel, a hard and insensitive killer. She did not want to admit that the sight of his long, lean body, his muscled shoulders, bronze features, and the black pools of his eyes made her intensely aware of him as an attractive man; she wanted instead to find him repulsive, twisted of soul and ugly.

She lifted her gaze to the small grilled window where beyond the glass the gray sky of early spring pressed close. She drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. When she thought she could speak without rancor or the tremors of distress, she turned toward the bed.

“I will send you something else to eat, perhaps potato soup along with a flank steak and a bottle of wine. Afterward, if you care for it, I might also order a bath. And I … may … be able to find my father’s razor and a strop to sharpen it.”

He sat up, his gaze upon her narrowing. “That’s most thoughtful of you.”

“Not at all,” she said, coldly polite. “Is there anything else you require?”

“A shirt wouldn’t come amiss, if there is one available.”

His tone was carefully neutral, not at all demanding. She supposed that after tearing his linen up for bandaging, the least she could do was provide some kind of substitute. Her tone colorless, she said, “Unfortunately, I gave most of my father’s clothes to the man who had been his valet. Not long ago, however, I bought a supply of red flannel shirts for the field hands, if you would care to have one of those.”

He smiled with real amusement rising into his eyes. “Do you expect me to be offended? Believe me, I will be too grateful for the warmth. The flannel shirt will be fine.”

“Very well. I’ll send it also.” She turned away, moving toward the door.

“Anya?”

She paused, her back to him. “My name,” she said stiffly, “is Mademoiselle Hamilton.”