Prisoner of Desire (48 page)

The face of the man with Murray had been familiar, but she could not quite place it. She did not think it was anyone she had seen lately, nor any of Murray’s friends she had ever met at various social events. That was odd; a man usually chose his friends to be his seconds, since they would be more likely to look after his interests in matters of the duel. Perhaps the man was a surgeon preferred by the Americans? It was required that one be present on the field of honor.

The footsteps of the two men descended the marble treads of the stairs and continued out the hotel door. Anya waited with strained patience for Emile. The seconds ticked past. What was he doing? She had left her place, putting a foot on the short run of steps back up to the lobby, when she heard the clatter of his hurried descent. Stifling a mad urge to laugh aloud, she drew back out of sight until he too had stepped through the hotel doors held open by a pair of obsequious doormen. As soon as he was out of sight, she followed.

The hour was growing late. Most of the balls had ended and people were wending their way homeward. Even the hordes of riffraff, the women from the bordellos and their rougher customers, were slowly reeling off toward their more usual haunts. Parties of drunken men staggered here and there. Now and then a shiny carriage with a liveried coachman on the box rolled past or a man on horseback with a cloak thrown carelessly around a wrinkled costume trotted toward his lodgings. Trash and refuse littered the street. A few men and women in rags picked at it here and there, scavenging. No one molested Anya; no one even seemed to see her. The sight of a widow was so common, and so respected, in New Orleans that she was nearly invisible.

It appeared for a time that Murray was retracing his route, perhaps returning to the Hamilton townhouse. He passed it by with scarcely a look, however, going on another two blocks before he turned right, heading toward the river. Anya, her feet aching from walking in her dancing slippers, thought seriously of turning into her own gateway, of dropping away from this strange chase. There seemed no reason behind it, not that she had had much time to think about it. The only thing that kept her on the trail was the sure knowledge that if she did give up, she would never be able to rest for puzzling over what Emile was doing. Curiosity. Ravel had warned her against it once. How long ago that seemed.

The blocks slipped past. It was instinct, not any consciously recognized landmark, that told her suddenly where she was heading. She had been this way not too long before, and in the darkness hours. Her heart leaped in her throat and she looked around at the barrelhouses and the signs that advertised gambling in the upper rooms. Ahead came the faint sounds of music and drunken shouts and the gleam of light. If Murray did not call a halt soon, they were all going to run into Gallatin Street.

He did not stop. Ahead of her, Murray and the man with him turned left and were swallowed up in the noise and blaring, romping life of the city’s most notorious area. Anya saw Emile pause on the corner and she halted, waiting for him to go on. He did not move immediately, but stood with his feet spread, grasping his cane in both hands like a weapon as he gazed after the other two men.

The silk of Emile’s top hat and the satin lapels and fine cloth of his coat caught the light, and it occurred to Anya how out of place he looked there in his evening clothes. The precaution he had just taken was a natural one to a man going into territory he knew to be dangerous. Murray, on the other hand, though dressed in much the same way, had turned into Gallatin Street as if it were like any other.

A frown drew Anya’s brow together. Did Emile’s action indicate that he knew the place and the need to be on his guard well, or only that he was wary in an area known for its unsavory reputation? Did Murray’s apparent lack of concern stem from ignorance of the streets seamy character, or from the contempt of familiarity?

Why in the name of all the saints was Emile following Murray? What did he expect to gain? It seemed foolish, nearly as foolish as her trailing after them both, and yet there was something about it that so intrigued her that she could not bring herself to turn back, in spite of the impulse to do so that clamored inside her.

A cart rumbled past carrying whiskey barrels, one of which was leaking into the street. Down the narrow banquette came a sailor with his arm around a hard-faced doxy. He was a mountain of a man in a striped jersey, and the woman still wore a man’s costume that made her look like a country yokel. They made a zigzag step around Anya, and the sailor gave her a leering grin through her veil as he squeezed one of the doxy’s breasts. On the opposite side of the street just down from where Anya stood, two drunks singing a bawdy song about a girl named Biddie at the top of their lungs, both carrying demijohns of drink, staggered out of a barroom. They began to make their way up toward Gallatin. A man with shifting, squinting eyes and his hand inside his coat as if clutching a weapon rounded the corner on that side. He was moving with a loping stride. Seeing the pair, he gave them a wide berth, stepping out into the street and back again, before charging on into the darkness.

This was no place for her. In sudden decision, Anya picked up her skirts, preparing to turn around and go home. What stopped her was a sudden move made by the two drunks. They suddenly angled across the street a short distance ahead of her. They were still singing, but seemed much better able to make their arms and legs work. They were nearing Emile.

Jean’s brother turned his head and saw the pair coming. He stepped back out of their way in a gesture of both good manners and good sense. They bore down on him, swinging their demijohns, caroling and laughing at their own coarse ditty. As they neared him, they released their hold on each other and with expansive good humor reeled over to clamp their arms around Emile.

The movement was too quick, too hard. The singing broke off too sharply. Anya opened her mouth to cry out a warning. It was too late. One of the swinging demijohns caught Emile a smashing blow on the side of the head. He sagged between the two men, his crushed hat flopping to the dirty street. One of the men jerked his cane from his flaccid fingers. Between them they half dragged, half carried him across the street, out of Anya’s sight.

She started forward, all thought of her own danger forgotten. If she could see where he was taken, she might bring help. There came a whisper of sound behind her. She caught a whiff of beer and stale sweat; then rough hands caught at her, dragging her into a hold like a steel barrel hoop that confined her arms inside her cloak. Something hard and sharp prodded her side.

“Keep quiet, dearie, or I’ll slit you open like gutting a fish!”

It was the sailor and his doxy. The woman held the knife while the man squeezed Anya to his oxlike, hair-matted chest.

“Release me at once!” Anya’s fury was real if rather breathless from the hard pressure of the sailor’s arms. It was also directed at herself for walking into this trap, a trap that must have been set by a coin handed to a busboy.

The woman laughed. She jerked her head toward Gallatin and the sailor began to shove her in that direction. Anya set her feet, only to be lifted in such a viselike grip that the air was expelled from her lungs. She felt her stays and her ribs bend, and black dots began to dance before her eyes. The woman spoke, an indistinct sound through the rushing noise in Anya’s ears. The sailor’s grasp shifted downward to her hips and she was heaved up and over his shoulder. Blood poured into her head in a dark tide, so that her eyes and nose ached and she could not see. She caught her breath, only to have it jolted from her again as the sailor began to move. She clung to consciousness with fierce concentration, but could not seem to move as she was carried in the same direction Emile had been taken.

They entered a building, mounted stairs of rough wood, went down a corridor bare of carpet and with whitewashed walls. The woman knocked on a door and it was opened.

“Put her there.” The voice was amused, triumphant, shockingly familiar.

She was deposited none too gently in a hard wooden chair. The sailor stepped back and, at another terse order, he and the woman left the room. The figure of a man stepped toward Anya and reached to jerk free the bow that tied her bonnet. The headpiece with its obscuring black veil was whipped from her head and thrown to one side.

She was in a bedchamber, if it could be called by so exalted a name. The only furnishings were a plain iron bed, a table with a pitcher and bowl, and the chair in which she was seated. There were no window coverings, no decorations on the walls, no rugs to soften the bare wood of the floor. Such severity was suitable for only two purposes, either a monk’s cell or a whore’s room in the cheapest kind of bordello.

There were four men in the room. One of them was Emile. He lay on the bed with his eyes closed. His hair was matted with blood and there was a frightening pallor in his face. She thought his eyelids quivered as she looked at him, but if so it must have been a spasm of the nerves for he was not conscious. The foot of the bed sagged under the weight of the man Murray had met in the barroom, while leaning against the wall near the head was another man that Anya recognized with a fatalistic lack of surprise, a man with rust red hair trailing from under a bowler hat, the man known as Red who had shoved her into the gin room at Beau Refuge. Standing in front of her with his hand on his hips and a satisfied smirk on his face was Murray.

“I had no idea,” he said, “that you would make it so easy for me.”

Her head was pounding in time with her heart and it was difficult to focus her eyes. She was proud of the evenness of her voice as she spoke, however. “That was not, I assure you, my purpose.”

“Oh, I don’t doubt it. You are a meddlesome and altogether infuriating female. Fascinating, I will admit, but impossible. Life will be much easier for me without you.”

Her head was beginning to clear; the sudden leap of fear caused by his words was a powerful goad. She stared at him, then gave a nod. “I see. You think you will be able to manage Celestine.”

“I know it. She loves me.”

“Madame Rosa does not.”

“She will be prostrate over your disappearance for some time, and when she recovers, she will need someone to depend on.”

“You underestimate her, I think.”

He shrugged. “If she becomes too troublesome, there can always be a severe case of food poisoning. She does love her food.”

“And you will control all of Beau Refuge since Celestine, as both my next of kin and also her mother’s, will inherit.”

“Exactly.”

“What a loving husband you will make.”

“Oh, yes, I’ll love her. She is a very lovable girl.”

Oddly enough, she believed him. In his way, he cared for her half-sister, though his first aim was to use her for his advantage. That did not stop Anya’s blood from congealing at the thought of Celestine in his hands. “You aren’t married to her yet. It seems to me her affections have been, shall we say, less warm these last few days.”

Murray jerked his thumb over his shoulder at the bed where Emile lay. “Because of him, you mean? I will attend to that.”

Had she endangered Emile with her words? Surely not. Emile had undoubtedly suspected something or he would never have set himself to spy upon Murray. For that reason alone, Murray could no longer afford to let him live.

She gave him a clear look. “Well, that’s one way of besting a dueling opponent.”

He reached out quite casually and slapped her. The blow flung her head to one side and she tasted blood as her teeth cut her lips. She only prevented herself from falling off the chair by catching the side of it with one hand.

Using that hold for leverage, Anya pushed herself up with rage in her eyes. Doubling her fist as Jean had taught her to do long ago, she struck for the point of Murray’s chin. He turned his head at the last moment, but stumbled backward under the force of the hit. Crashing into the bed, he grabbed at the footrail to save himself.

The thug called Red gave a crack of laugher. “I tol’ you to watch ‘her!”

“Why, you bitch,” Murray said, rising slowly to his feet. He came toward her.

“Later,” the man from the barroom said. The single word was spoken with impatience and cold authority. It sent more terror coursing through Anya’s veins than anything Murray had said.

Murray stopped in place. “But Mr. Lillie—”

“The one we want is Duralde.”

The stiffness went out of Murray’s shoulders. He did not pull his forelock like a serf before his master, but it was in his expression.

Mr. Lillie. Chris Lillie. Anya had seen him once at a distance. It had been at a political rally. He was the Tammany Hall politician imported by the democrats but now aligned with the Know-Nothing party that was behind the present corrupt government. Graying, well fed, with the thickened features of a former pugilist, he sat with knees apart and a bored look on his face. Just beneath him, half under the bed, lay her black bonnet. Its veiling nearly concealed what looked to be Emile’s cane.

She stepped behind the chair in which she had been seated, holding to its back for support. Her voice soft as she faced Murray, she said, “You fraud. Just a struggling law clerk, but one with ambition. What is the price of advancement? Ravel’s head? You were willing to risk a great deal to gain it, weren’t you? Even your own life.”

“There was little risk.”

“On the field of honor?”