Prisoner of Desire (23 page)

She retreated deeper into the corner. Her hip brushed the table where the tray had been set, shaking it. The dishes rattled, and the drinking glass, turned upside down on the neck of the carafe, chimed with the sound of a bell.
The water
. Hard upon the thought, she reached for the carafe, snatching aside the drinking glass, spinning to send the contents in a sparkling, liquid arch toward Ravel.

He gasped out a strangled oath as the icy water splashed over him. With his hair dripping and rivulets running down his face, pooling in the hollows above his collarbone and trickling down the curling hair on his chest to the flat plane of his abdomen, he stared at her. His voice harsh with shocked wrath, he demanded, “What did you do that for?”

The strength of his surprise was an indication of how blameless had been his intentions, how scant her danger. Concupiscence there had certainly been, but the peril had been in large part in her own mind, prompted quite possibly by her fears of her own reaction to him. The last thing she could do would be to admit it, however.

“It seemed to me,” she said with a lift of her chin as she placed the carafe back on the table, “that your ardor needed dampening.”

“Oh did it indeed? And what of yours?” He looked around him and, catching sight of his shaving water in the bowl on the washstand, started toward it.

“Ravel! You wouldn’t,” she exclaimed as she saw his purpose. The water, scummed with soap and a floating black powder of beard stubble, had long since cooled in the chill morning air.

“Wouldn’t I?”

He picked up the bowl, turning with it. There was a gleam in his eyes as he moved toward her, dragging his chain. Water still beaded his skin, standing among the myriad tiny bumps of the gooseflesh that covered him. She pressed against the table behind her, holding out a hand as if she could ward off the promised drenching, keeping her gaze on the dull water that lapped gently in the gold-rimmed bowl.

“You — you can’t. You are a gentleman.”

“I thought that was in doubt.”

“No, not really—”

“Any lie to save yourself.”

If she made a quick dash, she might reach the door in time. But any sudden move could also trigger an instant deluge. He would not miss; she knew that without question.

“I was persuaded otherwise at first, but no longer.”

It was true, what she said; she discovered that fact with wonder. She went still, her gaze blank as she stared at him.

“Prove it.”

“How? I may as well try to prove that I am a lady after what I have done.”

He had frightened her, he could see that. She was pale and in her eyes was a lingering wariness. But she was no longer alarmed, nor did he sense the basic contempt that had allowed her to treat him as negligible, a man who could be taken by force and shunted aside to assure the safety of those for whom she cared. His need for retaliation seeped away. Turning, he set the bowl of water on the floor, then moved to take from the foot of the bed the dressing gown of black wool with claret silk lapels provided for his use by Marcel. He shrugged into it, lapping the edges and pushing the gilt buttons into their holes with quick movements.

Over his shoulder, he said, “Some things need no proof. But one thing is certain, my — ardor is certainly damp.”

It was an olive branch of sorts. It seemed suddenly of great importance that she say the right thing, something neither challenging nor provocative, but completely prosaic. “And your breakfast is getting cold. While you dry yourself, I’ll take it and have it reheated.”

“Never mind,” he said, his smile rueful and yet warm as he turned, “I’m only grateful your hand didn’t fall on the coffeepot. As for breakfast, I’ll put it by the fire for a few minutes; it will be fine.”

She moistened her lips. “Actually, it’s also my breakfast.”

“I am honored,” he said, his voice dry. “Of course you must do as you please.”

“I’m sure it will be all right,” she said, and turned abruptly away, minutely adjusting the tray on the table.

They sat down to eat a short time later. While the coffee and rolls warmed, the room had been tidied: the shaving water poured away into the slop jar, Anya’s apron rescued from its corner and folded neatly, the puddled water on the floor mopped up with a length of toweling, the bed made and the table, to make room for their meal, cleared of the chess set and books that had been stacked upon it. They had worked together to achieve that neatness, still there was constraint between them. In silence they spread butter and jam on their rolls. The tinkling as they stirred sugar into their coffee was loud. Anya sipped at the dark brew, and it was an effort to prevent the tightness of her throat from betraying her with swallowing noises.

She could not recall ever being so on edge with a man before, nor so aware of his every movement, of the way the muscles tensed in his jaws, the fine black hairs that grew on his wrists, the grace and strength of the shape of his hands. She had also never held a man prisoner before, or been intimate with one; betrayed one, or been betrayed by one. To be comfortable with Ravel was too much to expect; it should be enough that they were no longer antagonistic toward one another. It should be, and yet she could not help wishing that the strain could be eased.

Ravel touched his napkin to his mouth, then dropped it beside his plate. He leaned back in his chair, his fingers toying with the rim of his Sevres coffee cup. He stared at her a long moment with a slight frown between his eyes.

“Tell me something,” he said at last.

“Yes?”

“Why are you here? I don’t mean to sound blunt or unwelcoming — God knows I am glad of the company — still, visiting as if I were an invited guest is the last thing I would have guessed you would do.”

“I didn’t intend it.”

“I’m sure.”

She glanced up at him, then back down at the fleur-de-lis design in the pat of butter that she was destroying with a tine of her fork. “In the first place, it is hardly proper, and in the second it can only call attention to the fact that you are here.”

“That makes sense.”

She threw down the fork. “What has happened between us makes a mockery of proper behavior, and your stay has been protracted past the time when it can be hidden. You can’t remain here much longer; soon you will have to return to New Orleans. There must be a way to enlist your help in putting a stop to any meeting between you and Murray. There must be, but I don’t know what it is. In order to find it, I have to discover what kind of man you are.”

“You could ask.”

“When would I know when I had the right answer?”

The angles of his face tightened, then relaxed again. “Do you play chess?”

“What?”

“There is a great deal to be learned about a person from how they play games of any kind, but especially from chess.”

“I used to play with my father,” she said slowly.

“And will you play with me?”

It occurred to her to refuse. He had spoken as if he were a master of the game, and it was unlikely she was a match for him, though she had sometimes, not often but sometimes, beaten her father. Still, that was not the reason. If she could discover something of his strengths and weaknesses during the test of strategies and maneuvers, then he could do the same for her own. Why he should wish to, she could not imagine, but she did not make the mistake of thinking that his suggestion had been made at random, or from a desire to be accommodating. He had a reason, and she would give much to know what it was before she sat down across a chessboard from him.

She met his dark gaze above the ruins of their breakfast with trepidation and excitement crowding in her mind. Slowly she smiled. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, I will.”

9

CHESS HAD CEASED TO BE A GAME for intellectuals and become the rage in Louisiana. With the advent on the world scene of the chess champion from New Orleans, Paul Morphy, people in the state who had never sat down to a chessboard in their lives suddenly began to find it a delightful pastime. Ladies in the
haut ton
bought special game tables with boards inlaid in the tops, or set out chess sets in their salons with pieces on various squares to make it appear that there was a perpetual game in progress. Young ladies speaking of knights and castles were not always engrossed in the medieval period, and it was not uncommon for an elderly gentleman, taking his handkerchief from his pocket, to shake out a captured pawn or two.

The chess set that had belonged to Anya’s father was Venetian and nearly two hundred years old. It had a board of ebony and ivory in satinwood, and pieces of silver and bronze on bases that were inlaid with lapis lazuli and mother-of-pearl and trimmed with gold. Each piece was carefully fashioned, a small work of art, from the imperious queens to the pawns that looked like foot soldiers. As a child, Anya had played other games with them, pretending that they were families with many brothers, or arranging royal weddings. It had given her pleasure to handle them then, and still did.

While Anya removed the breakfast dishes, Ravel pulled on his clothes, then they both set up the board. She put more wood on the fire so that they need not to be distracted by the need to replenish it and, when Marcel came for the remains of breakfast, sent a message to Denise with directions for the noon meal to be served in the gin. Finally she and her prisoner sat down facing each other at the table with the board between them.

Their play was cautious at first as they took each other’s measure. Anya’s father had been a sober player who went by the book, one who preferred the classic games. Anya had little patience with such moves by rote, tending toward a cavalier but watchful style with sudden brilliant forays into enemy territory. Ravel’s play, she discovered as the morning advanced, was both classical and daring, but also with a degree of concentration and Byzantine calculation she had never before encountered. His ability to predict her moves far in advance was annoying in the extreme. She did not pretend to be an expert at the game, but the ease with which he was able to achieve check and mate the first time put her on her mettle. She settled down to make it a bit more difficult for him.

The morning passed with amazing quickness. Noon came, and still they played. They ate cold meat and bread, fried cauliflower and fried fruit pies without taking their eyes from the board. The rivalry that had sprung up between them was friendly, but intense. Neither gave quarter or asked for it, nor did they take an unfair advantage or expect one.

Ravel, Anya had plenty of opportunity to discover, was generous in victory. He did not gloat, nor did he point out her errors unless she asked. He took her pieces from the board matter-of-factly, without triumph or vindictiveness. When she thwarted his schemes, he was admiring of the strategy even at his most irritated, and when in midafternoon they battled to a draw, there was wry satisfaction in the smile he gave her across the board.

It was then Anya realized that in the heat of the contest she had forgotten the purpose of it. She wondered if Ravel had done the same, or if the manner in which he had played had been designed to give her a good impression of his character. There was no way of knowing. It also crossed her mind to wonder what he had learned of her, what she might have given away. She could think of no reason why it should matter, and yet it did.

“This has been a pleasure,” Ravel said, leaning back in his chair. “With practice you could be formidable.”

“It’s kind of you to say so.”

“I’m not being kind. And I appreciate the sacrifice of your time today.”

“You make me sound like a martyr, when all the time it’s you who—” She stopped, reluctant to remind him of his imprisonment.

His voice soft, he said, “If this is martyrdom, then you should have men beating down your door to endure it.”

Anya gave him a straight look. “Next you will be saying that it was a privilege.”

“Some portions of it,” he said promptly.

Color flared into her face as she took his meaning. She refused to acknowledge her discomfiture, catching at the first thing that came into her mind as a distraction. “It must be growing inconvenient. I understand your mother lives in New Orleans and is not in good health. If you would care to write out a message, I will see that it reaches her.”

“There is no need.”

“No?”

“I sent one yesterday.”