Prisoner of Desire (26 page)

She heard the uncompromising hardness of his tone, but it roused no answering fire inside her. She turned away, staring into the sinking fire. Who might the boss be? She tried to think but her brain refused the effort. There seemed no clue on which to base a supposition. The only thing that was apparent was that it could not be Ravel.

She heard the clank of his chain as he returned to the bed. The ropes under the mattress creaked as he lay down. It seemed a long time later when he spoke again. “There’s no more wood for the fire.”

He was right. They had used the stockpile of logs in the room during the day, and Marcel had not replenished it. There was still a deep bed of coals glowing red with heat, but the damp cold was creeping in around the windows and under the door and she had lost her shawl.

“You’ll be chilled through if you stay there on the floor. Come to the bed. You can wrap up in the cover.”

“I’m all right, thank you.”

He swore softly. “You are the most obstinate woman I’ve ever known.”

“Because I question your word or fail to fall in with your every suggestion? If no woman has ever done that before, then you must have been very spoiled.”

“I had intended to be the soul of chivalry and let you have the bed to yourself,” he drawled, “but if I have to come and get you, then I refuse to be responsible for the consequences.”

“You will forgive me if I say that seems like a somewhat frivolous threat under the present circumstances?”

“Tell me a better time. If you watch and wait for trouble, it’s likely to come. If you ignore it, it may well pass you by.”

“Being a prisoner isn’t exactly something you can ignore,” she said, her tone cross.

“No?”

One moment he was lying relaxed, the next he was on his feet and crossing with long, swift strides the distance that separated them. Before she could do more than throw up a hand to ward him off, he was upon her. He caught her arm, placing it around his neck, then thrust one hand behind her back and the other under her knees. She cried out in surprise, kicking as she was lifted against the hard surface of his chest; then as she met his somber gaze she went as still as if she had been made of marble.

His arms were like steel chains around her. The beat of his heart jarred through them both, arousing throbbing echoes that Anya felt deep inside. There was an expression in the black depths of his eyes that brought the warmth of a flush to her cheekbones. As the seconds ticked past and she failed to protest or to struggle, the color deepened, becoming fiery. Her only defense was disdain, and she lifted her chin, silently daring him to comment.

His lashes flickered, lowering like dark shields. He stepped to the bed and placed one knee on the mattress, lowering her to the resilient surface. Lying down beside her with his weight on one elbow, he reached to pull the quilts up over them.

10

ANYA’S LEG WAS LYING IN DISTURBING intimacy against that of the man beside her in the bed. She shifted, holding herself stiff as she tried to place a little distance between them. It was impossible. The sag of the bed ropes tipped her slowly back toward him. As she relaxed, her hip and thigh were molded to his once more. She tried again. The result was the same.

It was difficult to maintain an air of hauteur while being pressed against a man’s side, absorbing his warmth. She had not realized how chilled she had become. The reaction to the heat of his body against her cool flesh, even though her leather skirt, sent a shiver over her.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Nothing.”

She closed her lips tightly on the word. Clasping her hands over her abdomen, she placed her elbow against his ribs to support herself. He turned on his side in an effort to accommodate her. The movement caused her to roll toward him. Hastily she put her hand on his chest to hold herself off. If she was not careful, the treacherous mattress would have her on top of him.

With a sound of irritation deep in his throat, he took her hand and placed it on his side, slid his arm under her head, then reached to draw her against him so that their bodies braced each other. She was also pressed to him from breast to ankle.

“There, is that more comfortable?”

It was, of course, on a purely physical level. Otherwise, it was extremely trying. Through set teeth, she said, “You are insufferable.”

“Agreed,” he said gravely.

“It doesn’t seem to trouble you.”

“No.”

His apologetic tone was so patently mocking that she retreated into silent dignity. The blood was racing in her veins and she feared he could feel the jarring of her heartbeat. Her chill had vanished, to be replaced by a radiant warmth that came from within. Her breathing quickened, becoming deeper. She was angry, she told herself, that was all. Who wouldn’t be?

Ravel wanted her. The need of her was like a fever in his blood, and yet something restrained him. It was only in part the resistance he sensed in her. That might have been overcome, if it had not been reinforced by a sense of time running out. There might never be another night like this one, another time when they could be together without hindrance, without an audience. He wanted suddenly to know everything there was to know about her, her thoughts, her feelings, her dearest hopes and wildest dreams. He wanted to hold and understand the essence of her. He just wanted to hold her.

“What, no more insults?” he asked, his voice wry and yet shaded with something like pain.

She shrugged, but unconsciously her fingers spread over his side, gently holding in a gesture that might have been a need for support or an impulse to comfort.

“Tell me,” he went on, “does it ever trouble you, having the responsibility for the support of Madame Rosa and her daughter on your shoulders, plus that of the people in the quarters here?”

His question and the reflection that lay behind it seemed to indicate a truce. It might be safest to abide by it. “Sometimes. At others, I like it.”

“Do you ever wish there was someone to share it, that there had been a brother to grow up with you, to take some of the load now?”

“Jean was my brother.”

She had not meant to say that, it had simply come out. It was true, though. Recognizing that fact, she felt a giving sensation inside her, as if she had let go of some truth that she had been holding.

It was a moment before Ravel answered; then he said, his voice soft, “He was also mine.”

The words, the way they were spoken, so hopeless of understanding, accepting of what was past, brought a hard constriction to her throat. It was a moment before she could speak. “He wasn’t perfect, we used to quarrel sometimes, but he cared about people. He would be upset, if he knew—
”

“If he knew what has happened to us, what I have become?”

“And what I have done to you.”

His breath was warm against the top of her head. She thought she felt the brush of his lips upon her hair, but that was, of course, unlikely.

He said, “Is that how you judge your behavior, by whether Jean would approve?”

“Not exactly, and yet I can’t think of a better measure.”

There was a silence. Ravel, as if driven, broke it. “Do you ever think of doing something different, something besides shuttle back and forth between here and New Orleans, besides see after this place and follow Madame Rosa and Celestine from one entertainment to another?”

Her mouth twitched in a brief, humorless smile in the deepening darkness of the room. “I used to think of traveling, of going slowly from one country to another until I had covered the whole of Europe, and then beginning on Asia and Africa.”

“What holds you back?”

“Madame Rosa is a prey to sea and carriage sickness.”

“And being a young woman and unmarried, you cannot go alone.”

“It isn’t done,” she agreed.

“There are many things,” he said with amusement threading his tones, “beginning with abducting men and ending with your position at the moment, that are not done by a properly brought-up young woman.”

She started to speak, then stopped. She raised her head and sniffed. She took a breath, and another, and one deeper than before. “Is that just the fire dying, or do I smell smoke?”

Ravel pushed himself up on one elbow. Before he could speak, a faint and flickering orange-red glow began to light the room. The smell of smoke, combined with the acrid odor of kerosene, grew stronger. Somewhere a man gave a shout, a hoarse, jubilant sound. When it had died away, they could hear the soft, muted crackling of flames.

Ravel whipped off the cover and surged to his feet. Anya scrambled after him. By the time they were standing upright, the noise of the blaze had taken on an angry, devouring hum. The reflection of the leaping spires of fire danced on the walls and ceiling. Smoke seeped in around the windows, gathering in the room to form a gray and breath-catching cloud.

“It’s the gin; they’re burning the gin,” Anya said in disbelief. The men who had attacked her had set fire to the cotton gin, knowing the two of them were locked inside.

Ravel made no reply. He slipped his hand into his trouser pocket, bringing out a small object, then lifted his chained leg and set his foot on the bed. Bending, he insert the object in the lock and began to manipulate it.

The hairpin she had snatched from him so short a time before was not the only one he had found. She should have known he had let it go too easily. She made a sound through her nose that was a cross between thankfulness and disgust.

He sent her a quick glance. “It’s amazing, the skills that can be learned in prison.”

“So I see. I trust it also works on the door?”

There was a quiet click and the leg shackle sprang open. Ravel removed the thick ring and flung it aside. “Of course.”

“Of course.” She looked at the window where tongues of fire were licking past the glass, trying to get to the dry cypress shingles of the roof. “You might have used it to release us a bit earlier.”

“I didn’t think it would be necessary,” he told her over his shoulder as he moved with oiled quickness to the door and knelt at the keyhole. “I rather expected to have the privilege of a visit from the boss first.”

“You wanted to see him?” The smoke in the room was growing thicker. Anya lifted the hem of her gown, using it to cover her nose and mouth. There seemed to be more air near the floor and she went to her knees beside Ravel.

“Call it curiosity. I’d like to know who else wants me dead.”

“Else?”

“Besides you.”

She stared at him with smarting eyes, blinking against the sting of the smoke. “I don’t want that at all!”

“You must admit it would solve your problem of what to do with me.”

“You can’t really have thought I had anything to do with the animals who put me in here?”

“That part could have been their mistake.”

“It wasn’t,” she said, and ruined the icy effect of the words by choking and coughing in the middle of them.

Ravel, with his head inclined toward the door in a listening attitude, made no reply. Seconds passed that seemed hours. The old building was burning like tinder soaked in turpentine, going up so fast that fires must have been set at several points. The heat was increasing and the smoke growing black, boiling into the room in a dark and smothering fog. Anya wiped at the tears streaming from her eyes with her skirt. When she looked up again, Ravel had his hand on the door handle, trying it.

He paused, turning to her. His eyes were red rimmed, narrowed against the smoke, and there were smoke-tears gathering underneath them in the hollows above his cheekbones. “I never dreamed you would be in real danger; it just didn’t seem possible. I’m sorry.”

Questions crowded Anya’s mind in a confused tumble, but this was no time to sort them out. She only shook her head and rose to her feet, plunging out into the fresh air at his gesture as he threw the door again. Ravel was right behind her. With an arm at her waist, he swept her down the stairs.

They had gone no more than a half dozen steps when they heard a yell. One of the thugs, bullet-headed and barrel-shaped, came on a run from outside. He stopped in the wagon drive below them and raised a rifle to his shoulder. His face was contorted and his mouth open as he squinted along the barrel.