Prisoner of Desire (42 page)

She cried out, bringing her free hand up to claw at his face. He snatched his head back and grabbed her other wrist in a bone-grinding hold; Anya stamped on his instep with her heel and had the satisfaction of hearing him curse. Before she could do it again there was a second Arab at her side and a third. They grasped her arms, drawing them back.

Twisting, struggling, she called out, “Help me!”

The Charley on the corner turned and looked, but it was as if he were blind or she were invisible. A small space began to form around her as people drew their children back out of harm’s way. An elderly gentleman stepped forward with his cane upraised, as if ready to do battle for her. He was joined by another, younger man.

The first Arab winked at her would-be rescuers. “Don’t be hasty, friends. She’s only a whore ‘at got outta line.”

“No! I’m not! I’m not!”

Behind them there was a sudden clamor and commotion, but there was no time to heed it. The Arab shrugged. “Who you gonna believe?”

Hard and clear and ringing with vicious irony, there came a new voice. It belonged to Ravel, who answered, “The lady, friend!”

Anya felt a sob of relief welling up inside her, though she could not see Ravel for the man who held her. His presence was plain, however.

A man in a burnous was sent sprawling backward into the crowd. There came the sharp crack of a blow to the chin and another reeled into the road. The Arab who had first grabbed her pulled a knife from under his robe. In a single fluid movement, Ravel caught his arm, twisted, and brought it down on the hairy white knee of his goat-god costume. There was a muted crunching sound and the man howled. The knife fell to the banquette. Ravel kicked it away so that it skittered between the feet of the spectators.

Swinging around then in a blur of dark green wool, he reached for Anya, clasping one arm across her back and the other under her knees as he lifted her high. He sprang with her from the banquette to where his chariot waited with the reins held by a patient faun. He handed Anya up, steadying her until she could stand in the bower of geenery that was his tableau, then swung up beside her. He took back his reins and braced his feet, then turned to circle Anya with his arm, drawing her against him.

He stared down at her, his mouth grim though there was a bright, bold light in his eyes. “Are you all right?”

She was not all right, nor would she ever be again. Her heart was a solid and enormous ache in her chest, and the hurtful press of tears was behind her eyes. She trembled inside with a strange glad terror. She was a fool, for she had fallen in love with an amorous god and the fates were not kind to mortal women who dared such a thing.

She smiled, her lips tremulous, and reached up to straighten the vine leaves that had been tipped most beguilingly over his left eye by his exertions. “Your crown is crooked,” she said.

The touch of her hand, that small gesture and expression of concern, made the blood that flowed through Ravel’s veins feel effervescent, as if it were hot and foaming champagne. He could no more resist the impulse to bend his head and press his mouth to the tender curves of her lips than he could stop the beating of his heart.

Around them the applauding crowd erupted into wild cheers, into hurrahs and cries of “Bravo.”

Ravel lifted his head, and his eyes were dark with promise as he held Anya’s soft blue gaze. He turned, and with one hand slapped the reins upon the haunches of his white goats. The parade of Comus rolled onward once more.

16

TO RIDE UP AND DOWN THE STREETS and around the squares of New Orleans until the very end, playing nymph to Ravel’s Pan while smiling and accepting the accolades of the interested watchers along the parade route, was a great temptation. It was also impractical. The men who portrayed the gods and also, in the old Greek theater tradition, the goddesses of
The Classic Pantheon
must eventually make their way to the Gaiety Theater, there to take their places for the grand tableaux that would be a feature of the Comus Ball. Anya had no part in that arrangement, nor was it right or fair to expect Ravel to make one for her. It was necessary for her to return home, take off her mask, and don her ball gown. The masquerade was over; to attempt to prolong it was useless.

Accordingly, Anya requested that when the slow-moving line of chariots passed Madame Rosa’s townhouse, Ravel pause long enough to allow her to alight. He looked down at her, his arm tightening around her. It was strange, she thought, how much a demi-mask could hide, even when the eyes themselves were visible.

“You need not worry,” she said. “I’ll be safe there.”

“Are you certain?”

“What do you mean?”

It was odd that he had not asked who the men were who had been menacing her, or why. It could be assumed they were the same men, for the same reason as before, because she could identify their leader, but he had no way of knowing unless he had some understanding she did not possess. Or unless he had sent them.

No, she would not think of that; to do so would be too swift a descent from the magic pinnacle of loving and perfect accord she had so recently reached. If it seemed a coincidence that the men attacked her on Mardi Gras day, on Royal Street as the parade was passing, it was simply because it was the first opportunity that had occurred since the incident at Beau Refuge to separate her from her escort.

“I mean,” he said slowly, “that perhaps you should consider who might gain if something should happen to you.”

“That’s ridiculous. The only reason I’m in any danger is because—”

“Yes?” he said softly.

“Because of you,” she finished, but with much less certainty in her tone. There seemed no connection whatever between Ravel and her pursuit by the Arabs. And yet there had to be. She had no enemies. None at all.

“There is no reason that I know of why any activities of mine should constitute a peril to you,” Ravel said.

“But those men, they were the ones who tried to kill you. I’m almost sure of it!”

Was that their purpose?”

“Of course it was! Why are you trying to suggest otherwise?”

“For your protection,” he said with quiet incision.

“Then again,” she said, her voice stifled, “if they weren’t the same, your presence was very convenient.”

When he answered, his tone was deliberate. “As much as I might be tempted to have you mauled and terrorized for the pleasure of rescuing you, it seems a rather drastic means of courtship.”

They were nearing the townhouse, the vehicle slowing as with corded arms he pulled on the reins. “Why? Gratitude must surely be as acceptable to you as a reason to be wed as any other. You were willing enough to marry me for mere duty.”

“Would you have preferred it if I had declared undying love and passion?”

The irony in his tone was like the flick of a whip in her vulnerable state. “Oh, infinitely,” she said, summoning scorn to help disguise her pain, “so long as some pretense had to be made.”

“Interesting. If you are sure the sense of duty was a pretense, what reason do you think I had for proposing a marriage between us?”

“The same as most, money and position.”

“I have enough of both to suit my needs.”

“Respectability?”

“Ah, that’s a prospect, isn’t it? I thought respectability was what I was offering you.”

“Did you indeed!” she said wrathfully. The chariot had stopped. She gathered up her skirt, preparing to alight.

He put his hand, warm and strong, on her arm. “I have lived without respectability most of my life. Why should I feel the lack of it now?”

“Most of us want the things we can’t have.” Her gaze was dark blue and steady.

“True,” he said, soft amusement in his tone as he released her, “but there is a basic fault in your reasoning, if you will look for it.”

She descended with what grace she could muster from the chariot. On the banquette, she turned, ignoring the curious stares of those around her as she answered him in scathing tones. “If I discover it, I will let you know.”

“Do,” he said with the greatest affability, and, slapping the reins he held over the backs of his goats, rolled away.

There was no time to think about his meaning, however, or to regret the discord that always seemed to arise between them. Nor was there time to bend her mind in earnest to the reasons for the attack upon her. Servants, hanging out the attic windows of the house to watch the parade, had pulled in their heads and run screaming into the house with the news that she was found. She was met on the courtyard staircase by Celestine, her face red and blotched with tears. The other girl flew to throw her arms around Anya, while Emile and Murray came down more slowly behind her.

“Where were you?” Celestine cried. “We looked everywhere, but it was as if you had disappeared from the face of the earth! We only just now arrived back here to see if you had returned.”

Anya explained as best she could between exclamations of horror, sympathy, and concern. By the time she was finished, Celestine was wringing her hands.

“But you might have been killed, or worse! I can’t think how we came to be separated so completely, except that we turned aside to look at a cunning bonnet in a shopwindow, then saw ahead of us another woman in a costume similar to yours so that we thought you had passed us by. I told Emile and Murray that it wasn’t you, that you wouldn’t wear that cloth thing over your head like a washerwoman, but they insisted.”

“A thousand regrets, Mademoiselle Anya,” Emile said, his gaze earnest as he possessed himself of her hand. “I will never forgive myself for leaving you, for exposing you to such fear and anguish. But how intrepid of you to defeat them. I am all admiration! Never, but never, have I heard the like.”

“If you two are going to make such a fuss,” Murray said in practical tones, “you might at least let her come into the salon where she can sit down.”

“Indeed, yes,” Madame Rosa said from the landing. “I’m sure she is exhausted after such excitement. And I believe we could all do with a restorative.”

The tale had to be told again, with embellishments, for her stepmother. Celestine, a distraught court lady, sat on the settee beside Anya, holding her hand as if she meant never to let go of her again. Madame Rosa occupied a sturdy chair nearby, with Gaspard, his face creased with worry, behind her chair. Murray had removed the black domino that he had worn over his normal clothing. He sat on Celestine’s other side, while Emile took a side chair, sitting forward with his elbows on his knees, his embroidered gauntlets and his cavaliers hat thrown aside, and with his soft brown curls in disarray.

“How fortunate Duralde was able to come to your aid,” Gaspard said.

“Yes, he was quite the hero,” Murray agreed.

Emile struck himself on the knee. “I should have been there!”

Anya looked down at the glass of dry sherry that had been placed in her hand. Ringing in her mind was Ravel’s suggestion that she consider who might benefit from her disappearance. It was unbelievable that any of the people in that room would harm her. She knew them so well. They were the warp and woof of her life. With the possible exception of Emile, it was inconceivable that they should not always be there.

It was true, of course, that there might be some cause for envy against her. She was her father’s principal heir. The laws of succession in Louisiana were based on the French laws of the Napoleonic Code that had been devised from old Roman law. They set up strict guidelines for the division of property, protecting women and children and making it impossible for a man to disinherit his family. Property that was acquired during a marriage was considered to belong to both man and wife equally. On the death of either spouse, half the property went to the children. Therefore, on the death of Anya’s mother, Anya had inherited half of Beau Refuge. On the death of her father, his second wife, Madame Rosa, retained use of any monies accumulated during her marriage to Anya’s father, but the remaining half of the plantation itself had been divided equally between Anya and Celestine. Anya, therefore, owned three-quarters of Beau Refuge, three-quarters of her father’s fortune. Even the townhouse had been bought by Anya since her father’s death, for the pleasure of Madame Rosa and Celestine. Anya called it her stepmother’s in her mind because Madame Rosa stayed there far more than she did and had supervised the furnishing of it, but in truth her stepmother and half-sister might be said to be living on Anya’s charity.