Prisoner of Desire (35 page)

Her life had been so uncomplicated before he had come into it. There had been no danger, no violence, no perilous emotions to shake her image of herself. There had been no complex questions of right and wrong, guilt and innocence, no decisions that might bring life or death. There had been no man to impose his will upon hers or to stir longings better left unawakened.

Echoing in her mind in an endless refrain were the things Ravel had said in the salon earlier, and the answers she had made. The arrogance of the man was beyond belief. He had tricked her into forfeiting her chastity, caused the destruction of her property, tried to hold her captive, and abused her on a public street, and still he thought she would accept with gratitude his condescending proposal of marriage. That she had caused him bodily injury, held him prisoner, and left him open to the attack of his enemies made little difference; she had refrained, in the main, from offering him direct insult.

Around her the house was silent. Activity had ceased in the courtyard as the servants finished their chores and found their way to bed. Somewhere a dog barked. Now and then the sound of a carriage rolling past in the street filtered through the thick walls. She had heard Celestine and Madame Rosa retire soon after dinner. If Madame Rosa had told Celestine of the events of the evening, then they must each have much to mull over. Anya wondered what Celestine thought of the proposal. It was likely that in her place, her half-sister would have felt forced to accept it — though Celestine, being highly conventional, would never have placed herself in a position where it had to be offered.

Marriage. If she had accepted Ravel as her husband, there would have been orange blossoms and cream-colored satin, a betrothal bracelet, a wedding basket of gifts, and the blessing of a priest. There might have been a wedding journey to distant, curious relatives, followed by the return to the house on Esplanade. Then what? Nights of passion and days of contempt? A life with a stranger who would come to resent his social and legal imprisonment as fiercely as he had resented his captivity at Beau Refuge?

But beneath it all was an even more disturbing line of reasoning. If she could be so sure now that Ravel would not deliberately set out to harm Murray as a means of revenge, then what of seven years before when he had met Jean with a sword in the moonlit shadows? If Jean’s death had been nothing more than a tragic accident, if the words she had screamed at Ravel had been false, then it was possible that she was to blame for what he had become. It could be that what had happened to her was her own fault.

She turned her head on her pillow and flung her arm over her eyes. She did not want to think anymore. She would give anything to be able to stop. There was oblivion in Madame Rosa’s orange-flower water if she chose to seek it. A few minutes more, and she would ring the bell and ask a maid to bring the opiate. She had to sleep, somehow.

A soft scratching sound came from outside the French doors leading to the gallery. Anya started so violently that the bed shook. She sat upright. The windows were firmly closed against what Madame Rosa considered to be the dangerous fumes of the night air, but they were not locked. Beyond them there was the glow of moonlight pouring into the courtyard. Against that light, silhouetted on the muslin that covered the windows, was the dark shape of a man. Even as Anya watched, he reached for the handle of the door and began to press it down.

The glass-paned door panel eased open. The man put his head inside, then slid noiselessly into the room. He took a step toward the bed. Another. Anya jerked free of her paralyzed stillness. She opened her mouth to scream.

“Mam’zelle?”

She let out her breath in a sigh. “Marcel, you frightened the wits out of me!”

“I’m sorry, mam’zelle, but you did say to come to you at once when I had information. I didn’t know whether to wake you or not.”

“It’s all right,” she said quickly. “You have news?”

“I think so, mam’zelle. I went to the stables of M’sieur Ravel as you said. At first his people would say nothing, but then I thought to share with the coachman a bottle of rum. It happens that every Monday night for the past two months M’sieur Ravel has ordered his carriage for ten o’clock and had himself driven to an address on Rampart Street.”

“A quadroon?” Anya asked, her brows drawing together over her eyes.

Rampart was well known as the street where the men of the city housed their mistresses, most of whom were beautiful women of one-quarter Negro blood and three-quarters white. The practice, known as
plaçage,
had been outlawed some eight years before, but the result had been merely to strip the women and the children of such unions of the legal rights they had once enjoyed, not to abolish the custom.

“But no, mam’zelle. It is a house where he meets with other men, two dozen or more in number. The coachman has seen them when he returns for m’sieur two hours later.”

“I see,” she said, her tone thoughtful.

“Today is Monday.”

Her head came up. “The time?”

“Just half past ten.”

“Why didn’t you follow him?” she cried.

Marcel’s voice held a hint of reproof as he answered. “There was no need. I know the house, and I thought, mam’zelle, that you might wish to see.”

She flung back the covers. “You are right of course. Wait for me outside — no, find a carriage for hire. I don’t want to wake the house having ours brought out.”

“There is one waiting,” Marcel said with dignity.

Anya laughed, a soft sound of relief caused as much by the prospect of doing something, discovering something about Ravel at last, as for Marcel’s efficiency. “Very well. I will be with you in a moment.”

They dismissed the carriage in front of a house several doors down from that where the meeting was being held. It was obvious that the men in attendance must have done the same, for there were no vehicles lining the street to attest to their presence. Lamplight glowed through the slats of the shutters that covered the windows of the white-painted shotgun house Marcel indicated, but no sound came from it, nor was there any movement around it. The street itself was dark here, the only light coming from a far corner where a lantern hung by its bail on a leaning wooden pole. Those who lived or visited on what had once been the back street of the old Vieux Carré did not care for too much illumination shed upon their comings and goings.

So empty and quiet was the street indeed at this hour that Anya felt conspicuous. With Marcel at her right hand, she kept to the shadows as much as possible, moving from one dark patch to another. She had not troubled to don stays or a hoop and had put on only the minimum of petticoats, so that she moved with ease and a steady, confident stride. As they came nearer the small house, they slipped between two of its neighbors in order to approach from the rear. A cat emerging from under a set of back steps almost beneath their feet hissed and fled into the night. Anya, brushing past an enormous evergreen cape jasmine bush, stepped into a spider web and had to stop to wipe away the webs that clung to her face, tangling in her lashes. Marcel stepped on what was apparently a child’s discarded hoop and stumbled against Anya. By reflex action, she reached out to help him, but caught his injured wrist in its sling, so that he drew breath with the sharp sound of pain. Her whispered apology resounded like a stentorian shout in her ears. They moved on, rounding a corner. The lighted house lay just in front of them.

Anya came to a halt. She stood staring at the shotgun cottage with a cold feeling inside her. Her disenchantment with the scheme upon which she and Marcel were embarked had been growing since they had left the carriage. To spy upon Ravel seemed ignoble, if not downright dangerous. But the truth of the matter was that she was afraid. Afraid of what they might discover.

What did it matter, after all, what Ravel did? She need never see him again if she wished; she had gone for years before without meeting him face-to-face. If she found out something to his discredit she would be faced with the dilemma of either permitting him to continue or else doing something about it. It was not a decision she cared to make.

Still, it would be cowardly to retreat now, when she was so close. Suppose she learned later that he was engaged in something clandestine, something that would hurt others? How would she live with the knowledge that she might have prevented it? And how could she live with the doubt?

It was with a distant feeling of being driven that she moved toward the side window of the room at the front of the house. Marcel, without being told, drifted toward the back door.

It was logical to assume that there might be a guard posted if this meeting was for a reason that was less than aboveboard. There did not appear to be any sign of one, still Anya looked around a last time as she crouched under the window Seeing nothing, she rose to her full height and peered through the crack where the shutters, warped and loose on their hinges, came together in the middle.

She gave a soft exclamation. Seated directly across from her was Gaspard, Madame Rosa’s faithful cavalier. He was leaning forward with a frown of concentration on his lean face and his hands propped on the silver head of his cane that stood between his feet. His presence was so unexpected, so incomprehensible, that it was a moment before Anya noticed anything more.

When finally she dragged her gaze away, she saw that the meeting room was furnished as a salon of incongruous elegance, with Louis Quatorze pieces, silk-hung walls, crystal girandoles, and a soothing blue and cream decor of the same refinement as that of Madame Rosa or any other Creole lady. There were nine men in her line of vision, though she thought from the rumble of the voices that there were several more that she could not see on either side. Some were seated, some stood leaning against the walls. Ravel was standing beside a commode table with the fingertips of one hand resting on its inlaid surface near a gavel. As Anya watched, he picked up that symbol of authority, turning it idly end over end as he listened to a man speaking on his left.

Then in that masculine gathering there was a small stir. A woman, moving with deft grace, came from the back room of the cottage with a silver tray and began to collect the empty liqueur glasses that a few of the men held or that sat here and there. She was no servant, however. The silk gown she wore was in the latest mode and draped over a generous-sized hoop, and her hair was tastefully arranged. The delicate application of cosmetics enhanced a vivid natural beauty. Her manner was gracious and unaffected as she moved about the room, as if she were perfectly at home. Which she was, of course. Her skin was the light creamy brown color known as
café au lait,
the badge of the quadroon.

The woman stepped near Ravel, picking up his glass that sat on the commode table. She said something to him, perhaps a light apology as she moved on in front of him. He turned to reply, giving her a brief smile that seemed to hold a special warmth.

Pain gripped with the feel of steel claws inside Anya’s chest. Damn the man! Was one mistress not enough for him? Were his appetites so demanding that he not only had to keep an actress under his protection and seduce every woman who crossed his path, but support a beautiful quadroon
placée
as well? He was depraved, an immoral monster who obviously felt he was entitled to every prerequisite that wealth afforded in a city like New Orleans. She wondered if Simone Michel knew about this quadroon, and if she did, how she felt about sharing her lover.

So great was Anya’s indignation that it was a moment before the discussion taking place among the men inside took on meaning. The words were muffled, not always distinct, but she could make out enough to guess the rest. First one and then another spoke, with Ravel taking little part for the moment.

“—the arsenal behind the Cabildo. It’s poorly guarded, hardly more than a skeleton force in the hours after midnight and half of them asleep. The arms and ammunition there would give us a decided advantage. Gathering up our hunting guns and ancient family muskets is all very well, but we need more.”

Arms. Weapons. That was what the thugs at Beau Refuge had been after. There was no time to consider the implications of that memory. Other men were speaking.

“Artillery. Nothing less than artillery will win the day.”

“That seems a little drastic.”

“So is the situation. It will take a lot of convincing before—”

“You are speaking of much killing, m’sieur.”

“It may be that’s what it will take.”

Anya caught a flicker of movement from the corner of her eye. She turned her head. Marcel was beckoning from the rear of the house. He called in a sibilant whisper, “This way, mam’zelle! Hurry!”

What she was hearing was of such potential importance that she hesitated, turning back for one last look though the crack between the shutters.

At that moment there came a thunderous knock on the door of the shotgun house. It was followed at once by shouting: “Police! Open up!”

The men inside started out of their seats with consternation in their faces. An instant later there was pandemonium as they fled in every direction. The candles in the girandoles were extinguished so that darkness closed down. In the last fading glow Anya saw a man swinging toward the window where she stood, wrenching up the sash. She stumbled back, turned to run. The shutters crashed open and a man hurtled headfirst out of the window. He somersaulted and his heel struck Anya at the knee. She went down, a small scream catching in her throat as she fell. The man bleated with surprise, but did not stop. He jumped to his feet, blundering off in the dark.