Prisoner of Desire (20 page)

Conversation after that was fitful as they waited, being primarily concerned with whether the ladies wanted to step back inside, and whether the inexpensive silk umbrellas being hawked would actually stop rain without dripping dye all over the buyer.

The downpour held off, and the carriage arrived. There was some hilarity as they squeezed into it, but finally Gaspard, Madame Rosa, and Anya were seated with their backs to the horses, while Murray, Celestine, and Emile faced them. They were still unable to proceed homeward, however. Two carriages had become entangled at an intersection some distance ahead of them, blocking traffic. Gaspard’s coachman on the box of their own carriage inched forward until a side street was reached, then swung into it. Rather than following the long, slow-moving line of the detouring carriages, the man continued on for a few blocks hoping to get out of the congestion before turning back toward the Vieux Carré.

It was a great relief when the noise and confusion fell away behind them. They had left the area of the gaslights, and the streets here were quiet and dark. The houses were set back behind fences, closed in, the shutters tightly drawn, with only now and then a faint gleam of lamplight showing through their slats. Somewhere a dog barked, a sound with the monotonous persistence of a creaking gate.

The carriage slowed and turned into a cross street. Here the dwellings were meaner, with crumbling plaster, peeling paint, and sagging doors. Interspersed among them were small shops, butchers and bakers and cobblers, with now and then a barrelhouse from which spilled sawdust and lamplight and the smell of cheap whiskey. Men reeled along the banquettes, a few with their arms wrapped around hard-faced women wearing gowns cut so low they revealed their breasts to the nipples.

Celestine, staring out the window, reached to clutch Murray’s arm in a tight hold. He patted her hand, though his manner was distracted. Gaspard, his lips pursed, leaned forward to tap on the pass-through window, urging his coachman to go faster. In anticipation of having the order obeyed, Anya reached for the hanging strap beside her as she sat in one corner.

Ahead of them, a ramshackle cart drawn by a mule pulled into the street from an alley. The man on the box above them swore, sawing at his reins, bringing his team to a halt so close to the cart that its broken-down mule kicked at the leader.

There came a thudding noise and the carriage jolted on its springs as a heavy weight landed on the back. At the same time, a man ran from the side to leap onto the step and wrench open the door. The driver of the rickety cart in front of them flung himself down from his seat, abandoning his vehicle, dragging a pistol out of his waistband as he ran toward them.

It was an ambush. Madame Rosa gasped and fell back against the seat. Gaspard turned to her in concern, grasping her hand. Emile, his face stern in the light of the carriage lanterns, twisted the knob of his cane and drew a slender and lethal blade, hissing, from the hollow staff. At the same time, he threw himself in front of Celestine to shield her. Murray, his face flushed with anger that might have been directed toward Emile as much as for the men converging upon them, thrust his hand under his coat and brought out a small, multi-barreled pistol of the kind known as a pepper pot.

“Hold it right there, boys,” the rough-looking man in the doorway growled. In his hand was a large Colt revolver, darkly shining, the bore waving slowly from one male passenger to the other. Gaspard and Murray and Emile went still, freezing into position.

Anya caught the sour animalistic smell of the man so close to her. The insolence of his voice, the incredible daring of this attack in the middle of the city brought the rise of virulent anger inside her. She did not pause to think. Clinging to the strap she held for purchase, she lifted her leg beneath the mound of skirts made by her gown and petticoats and collapsed hoop and kicked high.

Her movement was hidden until it was too late. The man yelped as her foot caught his hand. The revolver went flying, tumbling in the air. In that instant, Murray fired. The man in the door made a choking sound as he was thrown backward by the blast.

The cart driver, almost to the carriage, came to such a sudden stop that he skidded, stumbling, nearly falling on his face. He looked up, staring inside the carriage through the swirling, acrid screen of gun smoke. His skin turned a pasty white. “Mother of God,” he croaked, then spun around, taking to his heels.

The third attacker did not tarry to look. He jumped from the rear of the carriage and pounded away into the night. The scrawny mule attached to the cart, startled into unaccustomed vigor by the shot, bolted, pulling the empty cart bumping and sluing behind him down the street. Within a matter of seconds, the street was clear and everything was quiet.

“Good shooting,
mon amir,”
Emile said with enthusiasm as he slapped Murray on the back.

“Is the fellow dead?” Murray asked, leaning to stare out at his victim, his face pale with what could have been either regret or fury.

“I should think so, at that range.” Emile sheathed his sword cane and turned his attention to Celestine, who had begun abruptly to cry.

Murray, noticing his fiancée’s distress and the way the young Creole had taken her hands and begun chafing them, reached to remove Celestine from his grasp and take her in his own arms. “I suggest we drive on then.”

“Shouldn’t we at least see if he’s still alive?” Anya objected.

Gaspard was fanning Madame Rosa with the small black lace fan he had taken from her evening reticule. “We will inform the first policeman we see and let them deal with the matter.”

“I’ll look at him,” Emile said, and, before anyone could protest, swung down. He knelt beside the sprawled figure on the street, feeling for a heartbeat. After less than a second, he got to his feet once more, wiping his hand on the handkerchief he took from his sleeve.

“Well?” Murray asked, his voice tight.

“Through the heart.”

Emile, his attitude of nonchalance rather forced, stepped back into the carriage. The order was given to proceed. There was silence for some blocks.

Finally Gaspard said, “They grow bold, these ruffians.”

“Why should they not?” It was Madame Rosa who made that ironic reply, a reference to the poor protection given in the last few months by the police, one that needed no explanation.

Gaspard nodded. “Indeed.”

Anya sat staring out the window. Her hands trembled and there was a feeling of sickness in the depths of her stomach. Because she had acted, a man was dead. It had happened so quickly, but was no less final for that swiftness. In some peculiar way it seemed an omen. Could the same thing happen again? Was it possible that because she had involved herself in another dangerous situation, because she had abducted Ravel to prevent a meeting between him and Murray, another man might die?

She had thought she was acting to prevent a death. It might be that she would be the cause.

The following day, a Saturday, dawned bright and clear. Anya rose late, as did Celestine and Madame Rosa. The evening at the theater had been protracted enough, but afterward there had been much discussion over the small repast Madame Rosa had prepared. It had been the early-morning hours before the gentlemen had taken their leave, allowing the ladies to seek their beds.

Even then, Anya had not slept. Her thoughts had run in endless circles, always returning to the impasse of Ravel and what she was going to do with him. Regardless, when morning came and she finally closed her eyes, she was no nearer a solution.

At eleven o’clock a maid arrived bearing hot coffee. The girl’s smile and greeting were so cheerful that Anya could have strangled her without a qualm. The coffee helped somewhat; still it was a great effort to drag herself from bed. The energy, fueled by rage and chagrin, that had propelled her since leaving Beau Refuge had departed. All she felt was a vast weariness and a fervent wish that she had never heard of Ravel Duralde.

Still, his image hovered inescapably at the back of her mind. She tried to read and could not concentrate. She partook of a late luncheon, but had difficulty entering into the conversation over it with Madame Rosa and Celestine. She received a visit from Emile, but so distracted was she that she very nearly put the cornucopia of paper lace holding nougat candies he had brought her into a small vase as if it had been a nosegay. He snatched the candy from her and kissed the inside of her wrist. The action was so unexpected that she was disturbed for a few minutes by the fear that he had taken it into his head to pay her court. However, his manner as he joined Celestine in teasing her over the mistake was so boyish, so like that of a younger brother, that she dismissed the idea.

It was to seek some diversion from her preoccupation that she left the townhouse as the evening waned and walked toward the levee. Saturday was a day of departures in New Orleans, as many of the river packets and oceangoing steamers that jostled the riverbank four deep or stood out in the channel left on their regular runs. It was a favorite occupation of the city to stroll along Front Street and the levee to watch the activity as the boats and ships got under way.

Because of the fine day, there was much activity along the rivers great curve that caused New Orleans to be known as the Crescent City. Stevedores rolled barrels up gangways and hoisted boxes and bales into holds as clerks stood checking off lists. Drays rattled up and down. A man carrying a portmanteau in one hand and holding his hat on his head with the other hurried along. Beside a man in the uniform of an officer of some western plains division of the army walked a woman in a traveling costume, with a baby in her arms and a small boy holding to her wide skirts. Two identical young ladies in gray silk gowns covered by soft black wool capes edged with gray braid were being escorted by a venerable gentleman with a white mustache and beard and followed by an elderly maid in cap and apron who carried a wooden jewel box. A trio of boys in short pants and bare feet were chasing a cat, dodging in and out among the long rows of barrels and sacks and the piles of trunks. Sidestepping the boys before sauntering on was a man wearing the white frock coat and broad-brimmed hat affected by the fraternity of riverboat gamblers.

The rice cake and praline sellers hawked their wares adding to the din of shouts and oaths that rose above the rumble of steam engines being fired up and made ready. The rich, sweet aroma of the confections hung on the air, blending with the sour stench of run and molasses and rotted fruit, and the pervading smell of the woodsmoke that hung in a dark pall over the area, rising from the forest of smokestacks that stretched as far as the eye could see.

As the sun began to set and the hour of five o’clock neared, the tempo increased to a frenzy. Red sparks appeared in the belching black smoke. Lamps were lighted aboard the steamboats, sending out their golden gleams. There was a great stir and shifting along the levee as lines were taken in and positions were changed. The pound and thump and hiss of engines took on a purposeful sound. People emerged on the decks to stand by the rails, waving and calling.

The first packet gave a blast of its whistle, detached itself from the levee, and nosed into the river. Stalwart, majestic, with a half-moon hanging between its stacks and the last light picking out its name in gold on its side wheelboxes, it began to churn the yellow-brown waters of the Mississippi River on its journey upriver. It was followed by another and another, one behind the other like ducklings following their mother.

Anya, standing on the levee near where the twin spires of the St. Louis Cathedral pierced the evening sky, counted them off. There was the New Orleans to St. Louis passenger packet, the
Falls City,
and the Ouachita, Bayou Bartholemew, and Black River packet, the
W. W. Farmer,
heading for Alabama Landing, Point Pleasant, Ouachita City, Sterlington, Trenton, Monroe, Pine Bluff, Columbia, Harrisonburg, and Trinity. Behind it was the Lake Bisteneau packet
Empress
for Minden, Moscow, Boons Landing, Port Bolivar, Griggle Landing, and Speing Bayou on the Red River, followed by the steamer
O. D. Jr.
for Donaldsonville. The steamers, numbering nearly a dozen leaving on this day alone, would make their ponderous way up the many rivers of the state that branched from the Mississippi, to all the small towns and landings, or to the big cities of the Midwest and the East, with hundreds of plantation stops in between. And each of them, at some time in the twilight or perhaps in the early morning after lying tied up for the night, would pass the dock at Beau Refuge where, riding above the level of the land, the passengers would be able to see the main house under its old oak trees.

Sometimes, if there were slave children sitting on the levee, the pilots of the boats would blow their whistles until the mournful blasts echoed over the fields for miles. If it should happen this evening, Ravel, lying in his room, might hear the sound and think of the men and women who were free to travel the river, to go where they pleased, when they pleased. Would he think of her then, and wonder where she was and what she was doing?

She should be at the plantation. That was where Ravel was, where the problem she had created lay and where it must be solved. The rage and humiliation that had sent her from him in such haste were spent. Running away had changed nothing. Somehow she was going to have to come to an agreement with Ravel, one that would allow her to release him without penalty. That could not be done while she was miles away from Beau Refuge.