Prisoner of Desire (50 page)

Anya’s answer was as stark as Ravel’s question had been. “There are a number of things I must tell you. May I come in?

He stepped aside with the stiffness of reluctance.

Setting the soft curves of her mouth in firm lines, Anya swept past him. The light was coming from a sitting room to the right. It was fitted out as a study with not only a grouping of chairs and small tables, but also a set of glass-fronted bookshelves and a desk with a top of tooled and gilded Spanish leather. Anya moved toward it. Ravel entered the room behind her and closed the door. Moving to the desk, he sat down on the corner as she took a chair to one side.

His voice dry, he said, “I am at your service.”

The mask was gone. The man who sat watching her was the same one she had known so briefly at Beau Refuge. For that much she was thankful, even if there was little warmth or welcome in his expression.

“Emile will not be able to meet with you in the morning,” she began, and took the note entrusted to her from her string purse to hand it over. Keeping her voice even with an effort, she told him of how Emile had followed Murray and been struck down, was taken prisoner then escaped, though the tale was somewhat incomplete. Her own part in the events she omitted. It had no bearing on the duel, and she had a distinct aversion to speaking of her near assault by the man called Red, or of hearing yet again that she was in need of a keeper.

Ravel listened in silence. The lamplight gleaming on her hair and shimmering in the intense blue of her eyes was a distraction, and he transferred his gaze to the toe of his boot. His frown deepened, becoming grim and thoughtful by turns.

Finally Anya said, “Emile has no grudge against you, no ill will whatever. He accepts that his brother’s death was an accident. His challenge this evening was made because he thought to forestall Murray. He had been watching him and asking questions about him. It had begun to look as if Murray meant to use the duello in some way as an excuse to kill you. Before he could speak to you about it, he saw Murray lying in wait for you at the ball. Because of the friendship Jean felt for you, and because of lessons you gave him once with a sword when he was a younger brother tagging after you and Jean, he stepped in as a delaying tactic, meaning to apologize and explain later.”

She came to an end, her gaze upon Ravel’s face. She waited for some comment. When it was not forthcoming she said, “You aren’t surprised.”

He looked up briefly. “No.”

“Not even that the duel with Murray will be fixed in some way to his advantage?”

“Given the rest, it seems a logical step for him to take.”

“What are you going to do about it?”

“Do? I will meet him.”

“You can’t! It would be like walking into a trap. You don’t know how he is going to arrange the thing.”

He gave her his full and exasperated attention. “What would you have me do? Fail to put in an appearance? I can’t do that, not again.”

“Death with honor, is that it? You would rather die than face the whispers and sniggers?”

Darkness rose in his eyes. He took a deep breath, trying for patience. He had insulted Anya on the dance floor at the Comus ball in the hope of giving her such a disgust for him that a scene like this could be avoided, a scene he had guessed would come as soon as he had seen Murray waiting for him to return Anya to her seat. He might have saved himself the trouble.

“You don’t understand,” he said, his voice low. “It has nothing to do with what people will say; I am bound by my given word to uphold a certain level of conduct. To fail would be to fail myself. Call it pride, call it stupidity, and most men will agree it’s both those things. But it is also a code to live by.”

It was a code that required courage and integrity, one that defied the mean grasping after life at any cost. Without it, would men remain gentlemen? Or would it be the same: some men would adhere to the principles by natural tendency, while others would use them for their own ends and discard them when they ceased to be profitable?

“There must be something that can be done!”

“What do you suggest?”

That was of course the question. The police could not be called in, for they were ranged with the Know-Nothing party Murray was being used to protect. To go to Murray and confront him would be useless; he would only deny everything and possibly hint that it was cowardice that caused the accusations. There was really only one thing that Ravel could do, if he would not avoid the meeting.

“Your seconds—” she began.

“They will check the field thoroughly, you can be sure of that. In the end, Murray will have to face me, alone. It will be just the two of us.”

“Is that supposed to be a comfort? I saw him perfecting his prowess with a sword in Exchange Alley. I also saw him shoot a man once, in the dark; the ball went through the heart.”

Murray had shot the thug that night when their carriage had been held up. “My God.” The man’s confederate, a man very like Red, had bawled, and it had not been because of the smoking pistol in Murray’s hand. It had been because he had been appalled at their unlucky choice of vehicle, because he had recognized Murray and knew the dead man had been shot to keep him from showing that he had done the same.

“I didn’t know,” Ravel said softly, “that you needed comforting.”

There was nothing in his face to show that it mattered to him one way or the other. She got to her feet, turning away. “I — I feel responsible. If I had not interfered—”

“If you had not interfered, I might be dead. If this meeting is to be rigged now, the first would have been rigged.”

She sent him a quick glance from under her lashes. “A strange meeting,” she said, her tone laced with bitterness. “Madame Rosa wanted you to show up Murray, but he wouldn’t back down because it was such a good opportunity to be rid of you. There you were, both apparently fighting over the attentions paid me, when in reality I had nothing to do with the motives of either one of you.”

“That isn’t precisely so,” he answered, his tone measured. “I agreed to Madame Rosa’s request primarily because it gave me an excuse for doing something I had wanted to do for a long time.”

“Meaning?”

“I approached you because I was tired of avoiding you, tired of watching you avoid me.”

“But you were masked,” she said.

“It was easier that way.”

Had it been easier to let fall his figurative social mask while wearing a real one? Had it seemed less dangerous to break their pact of mutual avoidance in secret? If it had not been for Murray’s interference, would she ever have known who the man in the mask of a knight had been?

When she made no answer, he went on. “But you must not blame Madame Rosa for what happened. There was more to it, even, than that. It was in the interest of the Vigilance Committee to be rid of Murray Nicholls, either through forcing him to back down in public so that he was ruined in New Orleans, or by facing him with sword or pistol. He was in far too deep with Lillie, and was too close to attaining a foothold in the Creole community through your half-sister, to be allowed to remain. I was not an unwilling accomplice.”

For a brief time he had thought Anya might be involved with Murray and Lillie; the way she had abducted him had been so convenient for their purpose. The idea held a certain humor now, though once it had been less than amusing.

Anya turned toward him, caught the faint flicker of his smile. It was chilling, coupled with what he had said. “And if I had not stopped the meeting, what then? Would you have been a willing assassin?”

Assassin. Murderer. Heartless killer.
He had heard the accusation before, long ago. A white line appeared around his mouth, and when he spoke there was a raw edge to the words. “I have never been privileged to see Nicholls wield a sword or shoot a man, but I have made it my business to know something of him, including his skill with weapons. My purpose was and is to encourage him to leave the city for the sake of his health. In exchange, he would have had, and still will have, a chance to kill me.”

An excellent chance, one Murray intended to better. “Yes,” she agreed, her gaze steady, “but does that make it right?”

“To use a rite with ties to ancient chivalry in a base manner for a worthy cause? No, but it is sometimes the only way.”

“That’s what you’re still doing, isn’t it? You’re still doing the work of your Vigilance Committee, not simply upholding your honor.”

“Few things are simple.”

She watched him for long moments, letting her gaze touch the strong bronze planes of his face, the width of his shoulders, the masculine beauty of his hard hands. Inside her rose an impulse, growing, burgeoning until abruptly she could contain it no longer. She moved toward him with a soft rustle of her skirts. “Here is one thing that is very simple. Come away with me now. By dawn we could be well along on the road to Mississippi, or to Texas if you prefer. From either place we could take a ship to Paris, or Venice or Rome. You offered once to marry me; I will be your wife if you will come with me now.”

It was a temptation such as he had never known. The need to snatch her up and drive away with her before she could change her mind or marshal some damnably intellectual excuse was like claws tearing him apart inside. Nothing he had ever done, not facing screaming hordes of Nicaraguans nor being led into the torture chamber of a Spanish dungeon, required the self-command it took to look her in the eyes and appear indifferent.

“Such a sacrifice,” he drawled. “You must love your little half-sister very much, or is it Nicholls himself?”

“Or you.”

He flinched from the words as from a blow to the heart. “Don’t! You may pledge your immortal soul and it will not stop this meeting. Nothing will stop it this time.”

He had no use for her love; he did not want it. The tears rising behind her eyes made them luminous. “Very well then! Go to your senseless duel! Face Murray and attempt to kill him if you must. But when you find yourself lying on the wet grass with a bullet in your chest, remember I warned you!”

She whirled from him and ran to the door, pulling it open so recklessly that it banged against the wall. She was through it and across the entrance hall in an instant.

Ravel stared after her with an arrested expression on his face. He leaped up. “Anya!”

The only answer was the slamming of the front door. By the time he reached it and flung it open, the carriage was drawing away. On the point of racing after her, he stopped.

Desolation settled in a hard, hot knot inside him. It rose into his eyes, clouding their dark surface. A soft sound left him and his shoulders sagged. Perhaps it was better this way. He went back inside and closed the door.

Anya sat upright on the carriage seat with her arms crossed over her chest and her eyes burning as she stared into the dimness. Her thoughts raced inside her brain, and they were not pleasant. The vehicle had not gone two blocks before she reached up to knock with her knuckles on the roof. The panel connected to the coachman’s seat slid open.

“Yes, mam’zelle?” Marcel asked.

“Take me to Elijah and Samson’s house,” she said.

“But mam’zelle!” he protested with sudden anxiety in his tones.

“Now, please,” she said softly.

The panel slid shut.

They sat their horses in a dense thicket of scrub brush and vines. They needed its concealment, for the sky in the east was turning a lighter gray with each passing minute. The four of them, Anya and Marcel, Samson and Elijah, did not talk. They watched the road in front of them that, covered with white sea shells crushed by countless wheels, lay like a long pale arrow pointing back toward the city, and they listened for the sound of a carriage. Three had gone by already. The first had held an upright older man who might have been a surgeon, the one after that had contained Murray and his friends who would act for him as seconds, and the last had been occupied by men who must have been Ravel’s  seconds.

Anya had dressed for this outing in the leather skirt and mannish frock coat that were her riding habit, and had put her hair up in a coronet of braids. She did not expect what would take place shortly to be a rough-and-tumble affair; still she meant to be prepared, especially after having her clothes half torn off of her earlier.

As the minutes stretched, she thought about the man for whom they waited. Her anger toward him had faded, becoming chagrin and regret that were so painful she had to clench her teeth to prevent herself from crying out. She had offered herself to him, offered her love, and he had refused her. She wished the words had never been spoken. She should have known what his answer would be, and would have if she had not been too upset and off-balance from the events of the night to think. He had made his proposal before out of duty. By her rejection, she had released him from the obligation. He had desired her in a purely physical manner for a time, had even, perhaps, needed her in order to heal the scars from wounds she had inflicted unintentionally years ago. It had not taken long for him to appease his needs. Now he wanted no more of her.

Well enough, she would accept it. She had injured him, had damaged his honor, and she had made recompense in the manner of his choosing. He was in danger once more at least partially because of her, and she would remedy the matter. After that, it would be over. They would return to their polite pact. They would avoid each other when possible, speak only when necessary. They would look at each other when they were forced to meet and turn away as if they were strangers.