Prisoner of Desire (44 page)

And if she did truly care for Ravel, if it was love that caused her such pain at this moment, could she allow herself to be used as he wished? If he should ask again, could she marry him in the hope that what she felt could counterbalance all the old wrongs and the betrayals, and that with the heat of the passion that could flare between them they might forge a life worth living?

17

CRISP’S GAEITY THEATER HAD CLOSED during the winter and reopened under new management and with a new name. Officially the Varieties Theatre, it was still known affectionately, to a populace unused to the change, as the Gaiety. Whatever it might be called, a vast number of people had converged upon it this evening. The press of carriages was so great it was difficult to get near the door. Around the entrance, the crowd of uninvited persons clamoring for admittance, including ladies in elaborate toilettes shaking their fists and screaming like apple women, was so thick that Anya felt lucky that her card of invitation was not torn from her hands and that she and Gaspard and Emile were able to push inside without having their clothes ripped from their backs. The near hysteria outside was ample indication, if any was needed, that this was the year’s most fabulous social gathering.

It was not the only ball of consequence by any means. Most of Creole society was at the Orleans Theater where another glittering
bal masqué
was in progress. The Young Men’s Benevolent Society was also holding a mask-and-fancy-dress ball where, it was rumored, members would appear in the scarlet silk costumes of Chinese mandarins of the Celestial Empire Club for a series of drills and pantomimes. There had been cards available for both these other affairs, but it had been decided that the Comus Ball offered the most exciting prospect for the evening.

Within the walls of the theater, the orchestra that played lilting melodies was nearly drowned out by the hum of voices. The tiers of seats above the wooden floor that covered the parquet sparkled and glittered with jewels and silk and satin from the gowns of the ladies. There was scarce a dark color to be seen, for the gentlemen were all either taking refuge in the refreshment room, called the “crush-room” or else standing at the back of the boxes to permit their wives and daughters the comfort of the chairs. Along those rows of white shoulders and brilliant and costly gowns there was a constant movement as the ladies plied their fans in the warmth caused by the mild day, the mass of bodies, and the heat of the gaslights.

The assigned seats for the Hamilton party, in a box very nearly on the stage itself, were taken as Gaspard had feared. It seemed that budging the occupants, the stout wife and two plump nieces of an American planter from upriver, might be an impossible task, but Emile managed it be dint of excellent manners and guile. As they stood near the box, he discussed the best seating in the most idle of conversation, but in a carrying voice. It was so warm near the dress circle where the lights were brightest, was it not? Quite stifling as the theater became crowded, and of course it was a good distance from the exits in case of fire or other catastrophe. Theaters burned with distressing frequency; it was taking one’s life into one’s hands to attend at all. And it was such a short time ago, a matter of a few years, that the floor over the parquet had collapsed at a ball, killing and maiming several ladies while a number of others had been trampled in the panic because they were so far from the exit.
Sacrebleu,
but he had not realized the young ladies from the country were listening; he would not have alarmed them for anything! But he did know where there were three chairs quite near a window. He would personally escort the younger ladies, one on either arm, if they cared to see them?

One niece was plain and mousy, the other rather bold, with china blue eyes, white-blond curls, and a tendency to simper and flutter her lashes. They were neither of them immune to Gallic charm when administered with all the bows and complimentary flourishes that Emile could assume. They moved. Anya and Gaspard took their places. Anya spread her cape on one chair and placed her fan and opera glasses on the other. She was not sanguine about her ability to hold off a determined feminine invasion, even with Emile’s aid, but she intended to try.

The siege was brief. Celestine and Madame Rosa arrived in short order. Emile and Gaspard remained talking and pointing out acquaintances until the ladies were settled, then prepared to take their leave, to go and repair their forces in the crush-room. Murray was inclined to remain behind, until Celestine told him frankly that he might as well go as stand over her, cutting off the air. The gentlemen were not out of sight before a girl Celestine’s age, with whom she had attended convent school, waved from the next box then pranced around to show them the ruby betrothal bracelet she had just received.

Madame Rosa, taking advantage of Celestine’s lack of attention as she gossiped with her friend, turned her back on her daughter. To Anya she said, “Now you may tell me without the trouble of evasion what you and Gaspard were talking of earlier.”

Anya searched her mind, saying in a vague, rather offhand manner, “We were speaking of Ravel, and the marvelous parade.”

“Please do not dissemble, Anya. I may be approaching middle age, but my hearing is most acute. I distinctly heard some mention of my name and the question of marriage in the same breath.”

Gaspard had not asked it, but Anya knew he expected her to keep his confidence. She would have liked to do so, but Madame Rosa had been her friend and confidante for many years, the repository of her childish secrets, sharer of her girlish wedding plans, and listener to her adult strategies for making Beau Refuge produce more handsomely. It was not easy to withstand her.

“It wasn’t important,” she said.

“I disagree. It disturbs me to think of you and Gaspard talking of me behind my back.”

“It wasn’t like that. It was just — just idle conversation.”

“If that’s so, why won’t you tell me what was said?”

“Gaspard would not be pleased. Perhaps it would be best if you asked him,” Anya said, a shade desperately.

“I shall, never doubt it, but I would also like to hear it from you.”

Anya frowned. “Surely you don’t think there was anything clandestine between us — it’s too ridiculous!”

“Then you will explain to me what makes it so,” Madame Rosa said with patient tenacity.

An idea flickered across Anya’s mind. It seemed to present an avenue of escape, or at least a means to gain information she wanted in exchange for her betrayal of Gaspard. “There is something that has been troubling me. I asked you about it once, but you could not seem to clarify the problem. Perhaps now that you have had time to think about it, you can.”

Madame Rosa pursed her lips, then said with caution, “It’s possible.”

“It concerns Ravel and the words he said to you in connection with his proposal of marriage. Explain them to me, and I will tell you what Gaspard said.”

If she had hoped that Madame Rosa would demur for the sake of protecting Ravel, allowing her to protect Gaspard in return, she underestimated her. Madame Rosa sacrificed Ravel at once. “Of course, if I can.”

“It was when he was requesting my hand,” Anya said, slowly bringing the scene into focus in her mind. “He said to you that he trusted you would ‘remember recent obligations,’ as if you would know what they were, as if you were obliged to him in some way important enough to sway you against your will to hear his suit.”

Madame Rosa’s features tightened, and almost in an involuntary movement, she looked over her shoulder at her daughter. “Yes. Yes, I remember.”

Until she brought it to light again, Anya had not realized how disturbed she had been over that incident. Suddenly nothing was as important as learning the answer, not her future relationship with the man who might become Madame Rosa’s husband, nothing. Anya felt her stomach knot inside her as she waited for her stepmother to continue. When she did not, she said in strained tones, “Well?”

“It is a matter of some delicacy, one that concerns other people.”

“Of course.” Anya had expected nothing less; still she frowned as Madame Rosa glanced over her shoulder once more.

“I think you know I have not been happy with my Celestine’s choice for a husband.”

“I knew you had asked her and Murray to wait before making a formal announcement,” Anya answered with caution.

“I hoped the attachment would fade, end of its own accord as do so many. So far it has not.”

“Celestine has a tender heart.”

“Yes, and Murray is a most attentive lover. She can hardly breathe without him there.”

Anya lifted her brows. “Is that a fault?”

“There may be few women who would call it one; still I cannot be happy with him for Celestine.”

“But why? What is it about him you dislike?”

Madame Rosa shrugged plump shoulders, her smile wry. “I don’t know. Perhaps it’s because he wants to take my daughter from me. Perhaps it’s because he’s an
Américain,
instead of a Creole, and lacks polish. Perhaps it’s because he reminds me of an ill-trained puppy, boundlessly fond, always underfoot, and prone to chewing the legs of the furniture when your back is turned.”

Anya could not help laughing. “Come, Madame Rosa!”

“It was only a fancy. Still, I thought that if Celestine saw her young man in a situation of some delicacy, one where the need for courage and the mien of a true gentlemen were paramount, she would discover he was not what she wanted, either.”

Anya’s mind leaped ahead to the obvious conclusion. “The challenge at the St. Charles Theater ball.”

Madame Rosa gave a heavy nod.

“But how was it arranged? How did you persuade Ravel to act?”

“That part was simplicity itself. I sent him a note, asking him to call. When he came, I told him what I wanted, that I wished him to force a quarrel upon Murray. At first he refused; it was against his principles. Then he learned that I knew of the meetings he and Gaspard were attending.”

“You know?” Anya leaned quickly to catch the older woman’s arm.

“Chère,
you are hurting! Of course I know.”

“What are they for, what is the purpose?”

“Gaspard told me it was for the Vigilance Committee. I see no reason to doubt him”

“Vigilance—” Of course. The group of men opposed to the corrupt Know-Nothing party. Anya was flooded by a relief so immense that tears sprang into her eyes. A moment later, they died away. “I can’t believe Ravel would allow himself to be blackmailed.”

“Nonetheless, he did just that. It was his idea to approach Murray through you. Celestine seemed the obvious choice, but he thought that while a man will rise to fight for his fiancée as a natural thing, he will be more likely to back off from a challenge over his fiancée’s sister, particularly a half-sister. And yet Celestine’s affection for you is such that she would be deeply offended by such a failure.”

Anya nodded, so now she knew what the obligation was, knew also why Ravel had broken the unspoken pact that had existed between them all those years, the pact not to see or speak to one another. Why was she not happier?

“You were wrong,” she said. “Murray rose wonderfully to the challenge. He was every inch the protector.”

“Yes,” Madame Rosa said with a sigh.

“How could you do it? One of them might have been killed, and at your instigation. How could you have lived with yourself?”‘

“I never thought Murray would screw his courage up to it, never intended it to actually come to a duel. Once the thing was put in motion, there seemed no way of stopping it. Except that you found a way. You intervened. You injured Ravel and destroyed his reputation, leaving me under even more of an obligation to the man. How could I refuse my permission for him to address you then? It was impossible.”

“He made it so.”

“You abetted him”

“I can’t think how you came to see Murray as a coward. Only remember how he shot the man that night when those thugs attacked our carriage.”

“Apparently I was wrong,” Madame Rosa said, her voice carrying an unusual snap. “And now you must tell me what it was that Gaspard was saying to you.”

Anya hesitated only a moment. She had agreed, and she could not deny that it would be interesting to see her stepmother’s reaction. “In the main, he was telling me all the reasons why he had never asked you to marry him.”