Prisoner of Desire

“The colorful city of New Orleans is the perfect setting for this novel of crime and passion.”

~
Publishers Weekly

“Prisoner of Desire sizzles with sensuality and undisguised passion. In lilting prose and with glorious descriptions, Jennifer Blake weaves a magnificent tale of smoldering desire, towering emotions and intrigue. This spectacular novel is filled with the flavor of antebellum New Orleans, and accurate, colorful details that are complemented with a spicy mystery. The novel may well be the ultimate fantasy — what reader wouldn’t want to indulge in the daydream of holding a gorgeous man captive only to become his Prisoner of Desire.”

~
Romantic Times

“One of my all-time favorites … Anya Hamilton abducts the treacherous Ravel Duralde and locks him away. Even though the Creole is her prisoner, it isn’t long before she becomes his captive of desire and their battle of wills becomes a sensual game of cat and mouse.”

~
Kathe Robin

This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system — except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews — without the written permission of publisher or author, except where permitted by law.

Copyright © 1986 and 2012 by Patricia Maxwell

First Trade Edition: September 1986

First Mass Market Edition: December 1991

First E-Reads Edition: 2000

Steel Magnolia Press Digital Edition: 2012

Cover Design by
LFD Designs For Authors

1

IT WAS A GLITTERING AND fantastic spectacle. The St. Charles Theater blazed with gaslight from the great Gothic chandeliers of wrought iron with their milk-glass globes. The wooden floor that had been laid over the parquet area had been waxed to a high gloss that reflected not only the warm pools of light, but also the white plastered pillars with their gilded decorations of acanthus leaves, the crimson velvet of the stage curtain, the urn-shaped balustrades of the boxes, and the lyre designs in the domed ceiling. Silken streamers of red and green and gold had been looped from the dome down to the upper tier of boxes. They swayed gently in the rising heat given off by the burning gaslights, as if moving in time to the measured lilt of the waltz being played by the orchestra.

Dancers whirled around the floor clad in silk and velvet and lace, and with their eyes gleaming with pleasure through the slits of the masks covering their faces. Here a girl garbed as Medieval Lady with pointed, veil-draped headpiece was partnered by a Bedouin in flowing robes. There a Monk with a cross swinging about his knees was paired with a lady in the guise of a Vestal Virgin. Promenading on the arm of one of Iberville’s Dragoons was a lady with a powdered coiffure and a red ribbon about her neck denoting an aristocrat of the French Revolution. Cloth of gold shimmered. Feathers floated and drifted from headdresses. Stones of paste vied in sparkle with the restrained glint of real jewels. The air smelled of perfume, with also a faint hint of camphor in which many of the costumes had been packed away until this Mardi Gras season. There was the subdued roar of merriment and conversation in voices lifted to carry above the music. Over the gathering hung a faint air of daring, a sense of risqué pleasure, as discreet flirtations were conducted behind the anonymity of concealing disguises.

Anya Hamilton, watching the crowd from where she stood against one of the great columns that supported the dress circle boxes, smothered a yawn. She allowed her dark lashes with their auburn tips to close. The smoke and the smell of partially burned gas from the lights were giving her a headache, or perhaps it was the tightness of the tie of her ecru satin demi-mask. The music was too loud, though the hollow shuffle of feet on the temporary wood floor, combined with the chattering of voices, nearly drowned it out. It was still early in the evening, but there had been too many late nights for Anya in the past weeks. This was her fifth
bal masqué
since coming to New Orleans shortly after Christmas, and she did not care if it was her last, though she well knew there were nearly two weeks more of them to go before the blessed respite of Ash Wednesday.

Mardi Gras had once been a pagan festival celebrating fertility and the rites of spring. Named in those early days the Lupercalia for the cave where had been held the celebrations surrounding the worship of the god Pan, deity of the land of lovers called Arcadia, it had evolved into an excuse for debauchery and licentious conduct during the time of the Romans. The early Christian fathers had tried to stamp it out but, failing abysmally, had incorporated it into the rituals of the Resurrection. Mardi Gras then was decreed to be the last day of feasting before the arrival of Ash Wednesday, which heralded the forty days of Lenten fasting preceding Easter. The priests had called their festival in Latin
carnelevare,
a word that could be loosely translated to mean “farewell to the flesh.”

It was the French who had named it Mardi Gras, literally Fat Tuesday, for their practice of parading a
boeuf gras,
or “enormous bull,” through the streets as a symbol of the day. It was also the French, under Louis XV, who had popularized the weeks of opulent festivities in advance of the final holiday, and the tradition of the
bal masqué.

Anya had a grudge against the Gallic race for the last. It wasn’t that she disliked the masked balls, not at all. She always enjoyed the first one or two of the winter season, the
saison des visites
as it was known in New Orleans. But she saw no reason why Madame Rosa and Celestine had to go to every such affair to which they received an invitation. It must have been her Anglo-Saxon heritage that deplored such prolonged merriment; to her it was expensive, it was boring, but most of all, it was exhausting.

“Anya, wake up! People are staring!”

Anya lifted her lashes with irony behind the warmth in her eyes that were the ink blue of northern seas, turned her head to look at her half-sister Celestine. “I thought they had already been staring all night at my ankles, at least according to you.”

“So they have been and still are! How you can stand there with every man that passes ogling your lower limbs, I don’t understand.”

Anya flicked a glance over the other girl, dressed as a deliciously voluptuous shepherdess with a great deal of her softly rounded bosom showing, then looked down at her form that was completely covered except for her bare ankles that were a scant two inches below the hem of the doeskin costume that turned her into an Indian Princess. She picked up one of her thick braids that had the rich golden russet brown hue and patina of polished rosewood. Flipping the end in a derisive gesture, she said, “Scandalous, isn’t it?”

“It is indeed. I wonder Maman allows it.”

“I am masked.”

Celestine gave a ladylike sniff. “A demi-mask, scant disguise or protection.”

“An Indian woman with her skirt down to the floor would be ridiculous, and well you know it. Since I had to wear a costume, I prefer it to be authentic. As for Madame Rosa, she is much too good-natured to try to constrain me.”

“What you mean is you haven’t the least regard for her wishes, or for those of anyone else!”

Anya smiled at her half-sister, her manner coaxing. “Dear Celestine, I’m here, aren’t I? Don’t be cross, it will give you wrinkles.”

Instantly the younger girl’s frown smoothed. She went on, however. “I’m only concerned for what the old ladies will say about you.”

“It’s sweet of you,
chère
,” Anya said, giving the other girl the endearment heard a thousand times a day among the Creoles, “but I fear it’s too late. They have been exercising the ends of their tongues on me for so long, it would be a pity to deprive them of the diversion.”

Celestine looked at her elder half-sister, at the smooth oval of her face, the sparkle of her eyes through her mask, her straight nose, and the warmth of the smile that curved her perfectly molded mouth. With worry in her brown eyes, she looked away, glancing around the room. “So far they only call you eccentric. So far.” Abruptly she stiffened. “There, that man. You see how he stares? That’s what I mean!”

Anya turned her head to follow the direction of her half-sister’s narrow gaze. The man Celestine spoke of stood on the first balcony tier across the room, with one hand braced on a Corinthian column and the other on his hip. He was tall and broad, an impression heightened by his costume of black and silver representing the Black Knight, complete with floor-length cloak and visored helmet covering his head and shoulders. He was a powerful figure and a romantic one in a rather dangerous way. So complete was his disguise that there was no hint of his identity; still, the glinting silver crossbars of his helmet were turned in her direction.

It was unnerving, that steady, faceless appraisal, almost as if it held a threat. Anya felt a ripple of unease that was allied to an odd awareness of herself as a woman. Her pulse quickened and she felt a singing tension along her nerves. It grew until, with a swift indrawn breath, she tore her gaze away. “Is he staring? I can’t tell,” she said mendaciously.

“He has been watching you for the past half hour.”

“Smitten, no doubt, by my dainty ankles?” Anya thrust out her foot, displaying an ankle that, though slender and well turned, had too much strength to give the proper appearance of fragility. “Oh, come, Celestine, you are imagining things. Or else, you like the looks of the knight, since you must have been watching him while he was watching me. Shocking! I should tell Murray.”

“Don’t you dare!”

“You know I wouldn’t, though the timing is perfect. Here he is.”

Beyond Celestine, Anya had caught sight of a fresh-faced young man. He was dressed as Cyrano de Bergerac, but had removed his long-nosed mask and left it dangling around his neck. Of medium height, he had thick and curly light brown hair, ingenuous hazel eyes, and a smile that creased his tanned cheeks into dimples of consummate charm. At the moment, he was making his way along the edge of the dance floor carrying, somewhat precariously, two cups of lemonade.

“Sorry to be so long,” he said as he relinquished his burdens, one to each lady. “There was a crush you wouldn’t believe around the lemonade bowl. It’s this heat. I can tell you we never had anything like it in February in Illinois.”