Prisoner of Desire (38 page)

In the meantime, the day was fine, warmed by the golden light of the subtropical winter sun. The French doors from the salon out onto the gallery overlooking the street were thrown open, and Madame Rosa ordered a table of refreshments and a row of chairs placed outside, where those who wished could view the passing scene in comfort. Many of their neighbors had done the same, and there was much calling back and forth from balcony to balcony, and much visiting to drink a glass of wine or sample some special trifle of pastry or savory. Nearly everyone had a Mardi Gras cake, a yeasty sweet glazed with sugar icing in yellow, green, pink, and purple, and into which a bean had been baked that was supposed to confer a year of good luck upon the finder.

There was no lack of entertainment in the street below. Costumed figures strolled along arm in arm, cavaliers and red Indians, priests and corsairs, gypsies and queens, Venetians, Turks, Chinese, South Sea Islanders, and Eskimos. A pair of ladies of most peculiar gait, surpassing homeliness, exaggerated coquettish gestures, and wearing hoops so large they nearly filled the street were obviously gentlemen in disguise. They were accompanied along the street by the sound of smothered giggles and the calling of florid compliments.

Another troupe of women were viewed with less noise, but no less curiosity, at least on the part of the ladies. Painted, bejeweled, handsomely and rather ostentatiously gowned as courtesans with demi-masks, or else wearing the masculine costumes of Canal Street dandies, boisterous sailors, or goggling greenhorn flatboatmen, they were easily recognizable as women from the bordellos. They were not seeking custom, but rather enjoying the one day of the year when their presence was tolerated in the more respectable part of the city. To complete the world-turned-upside-down aspect of this day, it was possible for ladies, with perfect propriety, to venture into the higher class of bordello to further satisfy their curiosity. Many took advantage of the open invitation, though all were heavily veiled or masked, and few admitted it.

As the day advanced into afternoon, the streets became more crowded. The sense of gaiety and merriment increased. This was a day dedicated to laughter, a day to cast off care and escape from an identity that might be burdensome, assuming one that was fanciful, light, and free. It was a day of license and of catharsis, a day of purest pleasure without thought of tomorrow.

Many of the maskers, having fortified themselves for the strenuous festivities at various wineshops and barrooms along their way, were beginning to be a little tipsy. These, along with the few who were abroad without mask and costume, were the targets for the young boys who by time-honored tradition pelted them with small paper bags of flour that burst on contact. Some even threw bags of the white powder up at the galleries before taking to their heels. The flour, brushed from costumes and swept from gallery floors, fogged in the air, sifting down to cover the streets like snow.

Murray, arriving toward teatime, had his new silk top hat knocked from his head by a well-placed flour bag while he was only a few feet from Madame Rosa’s door. The flour also showered down over his face and right shoulder. He was still wiping at the flour and brushing his sleeve as he came into the salon.

Anya had deserted the gallery. She could not seem to enter into the spirit of the day, and as the sun waned and their side of the street was covered with shadow, she had felt cool. A small coal fire burned in the grate and she curled up in a chair before it, picking up the book that Madame Rosa had been reading and had left beside the chair. Celestine came inside, going to her room to dress for the evening; still Anya read on. She had just been telling herself for the tenth time that she really must go and make herself ready, when Murray entered. She put her book aside and rose with grace to greet him. Seeing the flour, she insisted that he remove his coat and gave it to the maid who had let him in, along with his hat, to be brushed. At the same time, she asked the girl to inform Celestine that her fiancé had arrived.

“You are very thoughtful,” Murray said as he tugged at his shirt sleeves in a vain attempt to straighten the wrinkles that had formed under his coat. He seemed a bit ill at ease, which was not surprising. A gentleman seldom if ever appeared in his shirt sleeves before a lady not a member of his immediate family. She remembered with a pang that no such compunction had troubled Ravel.

“Not at all,” she said.

“You are also, if I may say so, a most unusual woman.”

Anya glanced at him uncertainly. Woman, not lady. Had the term been used purposely? Was it her imagination, or was there a shade of familiarity in his tone beyond that of a future brother-in-law? She had been expecting to hear something of the sort since her return, though not specifically from that quarter. It was inevitable that the story that had been circulated as protection would not be believed by everyone, but she had expected more faith, or perhaps more concealing guile, from her half-sister’s fiancé.

“I can’t think why you should say so,” she answered repressively. “Madame Rosa and Gaspard are out on the gallery, if you would care to join them.”

“I will wait for my coat, unless you prefer to be alone?”

What could she say? She returned to her chair and seated herself upon it. “No, no, pray sit down.”

He took the settee that was placed at a right angle to her chair beside the fire, and leaned back in a relaxed pose. “I understand I have you to thank for the cancellation of my meeting with Duralde.”

“Who told you?”

He smiled with a flash of dimples as he shook his head. “Two people who are to be united as one cannot have secrets from each other; Celestine told me, of course. Besides, I had a special interest.”

“Yes, I suppose so. It — seemed the right thing to do at the time.”

‘“I had not realized you were so concerned for me.”

Her shrug was as casual as she could make it. “The truth is I have not been rational on the subject of dueling since — well, since Jean’s death.”

“I see.”

Did he? There was warmth, but apparently nothing more in his eyes as he watched her. She said, “I would hate to see Celestine’s happiness destroyed over such a minor affair.”

“It wasn’t minor to me. However, it’s over and done. But as you are on our side, so to speak, I wonder if I could prevail upon you to use your good offices in my favor? I cannot bring Madame Rosa to a serious discussion of our marriage. She smiles and nods and agrees that the waiting is hard, but always finds some excuse why the date we have chosen will not do. Can you not make her see that we are impatient to be together?”

Again she glanced at him, listening for the innuendo behind the words. She could not grasp it. No doubt it was in her head, caused by her own awareness. She gave him a rueful smile. “Madame Rosa can be quite wily when she wishes, I know, and she seldom responds to cajolery. You had best humor her; she will come around eventually.”

Before Murray could answer, Gaspard stepped through the French doors from the gallery. He lifted his brows as he saw them together before the fire, but moved forward to exchange bows with Murray. With the formalities out of the way, he looked about him in a vague manner. “Madame Rosa sent me for her shawl. It should be here somewhere.”

Anya found it where it had slid of its own silken weight from the back of a chair to lie behind it. She knelt to retrieve it, then turned with it in her hands to where her step-mother’s friend stood in the middle of the room. Gaspard took the shawl from her without meeting her eyes, shaking out the heavy silk with its edging of fringe and folding it with precision before draping it over his arm.

Certainly there had been nothing remotely familiar in his manner toward her on this day. He had, instead, been ill at ease in her presence. The only explanation she could find was that he knew she had seen him at the meeting in the house on Rampart Street, and he did not quite know what to make of it.

Anya, watching his movements, was struck by how at home he seemed in the salon. In just the same way, he had appeared at home in the salon of the quadroon woman. There was a good reason for the impression. With the exception of the color, Madame Rosa’s salon, with its taste and refinement, was almost precisely like the other one Anya had seen the night before. Nor was the cause hard to find. Gaspard had guided the furnishing of both, had helped choose wall hangings and draperies, furniture and bibelots. He had put his touch on the salon of the quadroon on Rampart Street as surely as he had this one. The only difference was that he had paid for the first. It followed that the quadroon, then, was his mistress, not Ravel’s.

Not Ravel’s.

Gaspard turned and walked back out onto the gallery, still Anya stood staring after him as if transfixed.

“Is anything wrong?” Murray asked.

“No,” she said, with a sudden brilliant smile. “No.”

“What should be wrong?” Celestine asked as she swirled into the room at that moment and gave her hand to her fiancé. “It’s Mardi Gras and you are here at last! I thought you were never coming!”

“How should I fail so lovely a lady?” Murray held her hand, smiling at her above it.

In her court gown of russet panne velvet from the Louis XIV period, over panniers ornamented with loops and skeins of pearls, Celestine was magnificent, and very much aware of it. “Such gallantry! I am overwhelmed.”

Anya watched her half-sister flutter her lashes at Murray and felt inside her a strange sense of suspension. They were so young, those two, and relatively untouched by the sordid crosscurrents that swirled around them. Their only thought was for the iron bands of convention that held them. Their worries were so few. Their courtship would proceed by slow degrees, culminating in a year or two in a beautiful wedding at the cathedral, followed by a night of innocent and virginal exploration. There would be a small house on some quiet street in the American section, then in time would come children and day after day of quiet, ordinary pleasures, of companionship and content. There might never be moments of stupendous ecstasy, but neither would there be times of black despair.

“But come, where is your costume?” Celestine was saying to Murray. “I thought you were going with Anya and me into the streets?”

“Are you sure you want to go? It’s no place for a lady. There was a boy throwing rotten eggs not far from here, and two rowdies have been arrested for accosting a woman and pulling her into an alley near the square. I myself was pelted with flour on your very doorstep.”

“You should have been in costume; then you would have been safe. As for Anya and myself, we will have you to protect us. Also Emile Girod.”

Emile?” Murray asked, frowning.

“Don’t look like that,” Celestine said, twining her arm in his. “Anya needs a man’s arm to cling to in the crowds also.”

“I didn’t know you had invited him,” Anya said, a note of inquiry in her voice.

“He sent a note this morning,” Celestine began.

Murray grunted. “He invited himself, the dandified Parisian coxcomb.”

“Mon
cher!”
Celestine said in amazement.

“I’m sorry,” Murray said, his face reddening. “He just rubs me the wrong way.”

“I didn’t realize. Perhaps we can send a message, tell him not to come.” Celestine sent Anya a helpless look.

Anya tilted her head as the sound came of footsteps on the stairs. “I believe it’s too late.”

Emile swaggered into the room in a manner entirely in keeping with his musketeer costume. His dark wig was luxuriant, his mustache appropriately curled, his hat gorgeously plumed and the cuffs of his gloves sewn with jewels. He swept the assembled company a deep bow, pointing his toe and keeping his hand on his sword as he dusted the floor with his hat brim in the prescribed manner. Still, that sword was not a toy but a weapon.

Celestine waltzed forward to drop a curtsy. “How fine you are, I vow! We are quite a matched pair, but what became of the Cossack uniform Anya and I heard you order? I quite expected to see you as a daring Russian officer.”

“I woke this morning and did not feel Russian,” Emile said with a grand gesture.

“In fact, you felt like d’Artagnan?”

“At the very least.”

“Perhaps we should be grateful,” Murray said with a tight smile, “that you did not feel like Adam.”

Emile gave Murray a hard glance that flicked over his shirt sleeves. “At least I did not array myself as a clerk.”

There was a moment of silence that vibrated with strain like an abruptly plucked harp string. Celestine looked from one man to the other with mingled fright and excitement in her eyes and her hands clasped before her. Anya, with nightmare visions of yet another challenge rising in her mind, stepped into the breach. “Murray is doubtless going to wait to surprise us. It’s too provoking of him, since he will have seen our finery first. It would serve him right if I also refuse to change.”

“Oh, Anya, no,” Celestine moaned in distress and disappointment.

“You are quite right, no indeed,” Anya reassured her. “I am to be a goddess, and I’m so looking forward to it that I mean to be a deity as long as possible. But since I have not yet begun to dress, Murray might have time to return to his lodging to change.”

“It hardly matters whether I do or not,” he said with an irritable movement of his shoulders.

“Of course it matters!” Celestine cried.