Prisoner of Desire (3 page)

The contredanse came to an end, and after a moment or two, another waltz began. It appeared that Celestine and Murray were going to remain on the floor for it. Anya pushed away from the column, making her way toward Madame Rosa and Gaspard, trying to discover some way to frame a request that they go home.

There was a flicker of movement above her. A dark shadow spread, swooping, and from the balcony overhead a man in costume leaped, to land with springing lightness on his feet before her. His cloak settled around him, swinging in heavy folds about his heels.

With her nerves jangling, Anya drew herself up, staring at the Black Knight. The helmet he wore was real, as was the plate armor cuirass molded to the muscles of his chest, but for ease of movement the rest of his armor was constructed of black metallic cloth cut and stitched in a clever design that looked very like the real thing. His cloak was of black velvet lined with cloth of silver.

“May I have this waltz, Mademoiselle Sauvagesse?”

His voice echoed hollowly from inside his helmet as he made his request, giving her the title that went with her costume. The deep timbre had a familiar ring, though she did not think she knew it well. It seemed to vibrate through her, touching a resonant chord inside. She did not like the sensation, nor the feeling of being caught off guard. Her voice was cold with annoyance as she spoke. “Thank you, no. I was just leaving the floor.”

As she stepped away from him, he put out a gauntleted hand to catch her arm, detaining her. “Don’t refuse, I beg of you. Such opportunities as this come seldom, sometimes only once in an overlong life.”

His touch, even through the heavy glove, made the skin of her arm tingle with the prickling rise of gooseflesh. She stared at him, trying to pierce his disguise, disturbed by a peculiar and unwilling awareness. “Who are you?”

“A man who desires a single dance, no more.”

“That’s no answer,” she said sharply. She thought he had hesitated over his choice of words. It made them seem as if they held a meaning hidden from her. She tried to pierce the bars that made up the visor of his helmet, but could catch no more than a jet glitter where his eyes should be.

“But can’t you see? I am a knight painted black, a dastard, the foe of good and master of evil; an outcast. Won’t you take pity on me? Allow me to bask in the warmth of your favor; dance with me!”

His tone was light and his touch the same, not at all restraining, she discovered, though she would have sworn a moment before that the hold was unbreakable. For a breathless instant she was assailed by a sense of overwhelming, inescapable intimacy. So disturbing was it that she jerked her arm free, turning away once more. “I fear it would not be wise.”

“But when have you been that, Anya?”

She swung back toward him so quickly that her long thick braids flew out to strike soft ringing blows against his metal cuirass. “You know me?”

“Is that so strange?”

“I find it more than odd that you can recognize me while I am masked, yet you still remain unknown to me.”

“You knew me once.”

It was an evasion. “If this is a guessing game, you must hold me excused; I don’t care for such play.”

She stepped quickly around him. This time his hand shot out to capture her wrist, and it was not a light clasp. She was whirled back against him so that her shoulder landed hard upon the metal that covered his chest. She stared up at him through the slits of her demi-mask, her eyes wide and startled as she recognized the superior strength he held in leash, and also the sheer radiating force of him as a man. Her pulse began to throb. A soft apricot flush rose to her cheekbones, and her eyes darkened slowly to deepest cobalt with rising anger and the strange distress that increased it a hundredfold.

The man in black stared down at her with a tight feeling in his chest. His gaze caught and held for a long instant on the delicate color of her face, the lovely and smooth contours of her mouth. He was a fool; if he had not known it before, he knew it now.

His voice rasped as he spoke. “It’s such a small thing I ask; why could you not have the grace to grant it without getting into a ridiculous wrangle?”

“I’m glad to see that you realize it is ridiculous.” Her rage was no less biting for being quiet. “It will be less so if you will let me go, at once.”

Before he could comply, before he could answer, there was a stir behind them and the sound of quick footsteps. Murray Nicholls, his face flushed and his hands clenched, appeared beside them. His tones stiff, he asked, “Is this man troubling you, Anya?”

The Black Knight breathed a soft imprecation before he released Anya’s wrist and stepped back. “My most sincere apologies,” he said. Inclining his head in a bow, he turned away with a swirl of his cloak.

“Just a minute,” Murray called, his tone harsh, imperative. “I saw you molesting Anya, and I believe there is an explanation due.”

“To you?” The voice of the man in black was as hard as granite as he turned back.

“To me, as a man who will soon be as a brother to her. Shall we step outside where we may discuss it in private?”

Celestine, standing a short distance away, made a sound of dismay that she smothered by raising her hands to her lips. Anya glanced at her, aware as was the other girl of the implications of the words of the two men. Duels had been fought many times over much less than had just occurred.

“Really, Murray,” she said, moving to put her hand on his arm, “there is no need. It was a simple misunderstanding.”

“Please stay out of this, Anya.” The face of Celestine’s fiancé was pale and his voice unusually stern.

Anya’s temper, held precariously until that moment, left her control. “Don’t take that tone with me, if you please, Murray Nicholls! You and Celestine are not yet married, and you have no responsibility where I am concerned. I can fight my own battles.”

He paid no attention, but made a curt gesture that indicated he expected the black-costumed man to follow as he pulled his arm from Anya’s grasp and walked away. The Black Knight hesitated, then, with a movement of wide shoulders that might have been a shrug, moved after the younger man, overtaking him in a few long strides.

Celestine tottered toward Anya, clutching her hand. “Oh, what is going to happen? What are we going to do?”

Anya hardly heard her. “Damn men,” she said with unaccustomed heat. “Damn them and their stupid pride and their idiotic pairing off like fighting cocks.”

The girls were joined almost at once by Madame Rosa and Gaspard. The older couple had seen the contretemps from where they were sitting. Gaspard had thought the matter had a most serious appearance and feared his presence might be needed, but he had, it seemed, arrived too late. Neither by word nor tone did he indicate that Madame Rosa had delayed him, still Anya knew it must be so, and was sorry. There might have been something he could have done; Gaspard was not only well versed in such matters, he was, above all else, extremely diplomatic.

They stood in a close group as if for mutual comfort as they waited for Murray to return. As the time passed, a terrible coldness grew inside Anya. She could remember so well the morning she had been told Jean was dead. The man who had killed him, Ravel Duralde, had come to tell her. He had been dark and handsome, perhaps three years older than Jean and his closest friend, though not of the plantation aristocracy. On that occasion, his face had been gray and his eyes filled with pain as he tried to explain, to make her understand the reckless euphoria, the sheer
joie de vivre,
that had led to the moonlight duel. She had not understood at all. Looking at the man, sensing the vibrant life that flowed so strongly within him, knowing of his reputation as a superb swordsman while Jean had been merely competent, Anya had hated him. She could remember screaming at him in her shocked grief, though she could not recall the words. He had stood gazing at her, his face dazed and without defense; then he had gone away. From that moment, the mere thought of dueling had roused Anya to instant rage, a rage so great she could scarcely control it.

Suddenly Celestine gasped with her hand over her heart. “Thank God. Murray. There he is, and alive.”

“Did you think they would fly at each other at once?” Gaspard asked in his precise tones, his distinguished features expressing shocked surprise. “That is not the way an affair such as this is conducted. There must be seconds chosen, weapons collected, arrangements made. It will be at least the dawn, and possibly twenty-four hours more, before the duel can commence.” Catching the glance of asperity sent him by Madame Rosa, he added hastily, “Of course, we do not know that the matter will come to such a painful necessity.”

Murray Nicholls’s face was greenish, with a fine sheen of perspiration across his forehead and upper lip. His smile was less than a success, and there was false heartiness in his tone as he reached them. “Well, that’s settled. Celestine,
ma chérie,
shall we dance?”

“But what happened?” the girl asked, her gaze searching his features.

“Men don’t discuss these matters.”

“Quite right,” Gaspard said, nodding his approval.

“In any case,” Murray went on, “it came to nothing. Let’s speak of something else, if you please.”

Anya stepped forward with a frown between her winged brows. “Don’t act as if we were simpletons. We were here when it started; it’s useless to pretend that we know nothing. Are you going to meet this man, or not?

“Perhaps it would be better if we took the ladies home,” Murray said to Gaspard, ignoring Anya’s question. “I believe they have been made a little overwrought by the incident.”

Celestine, her gaze on the hand Murray held at his side, asked in a rush, “What is that you are holding? It’s a card, isn’t it?”

Murray glanced down at the strip of pasteboard in his hand, then with an abrupt gesture tried to stuff it into the pocket of the doublet of his costume. The card flipped from his fingers, fluttering to the floor.

It was a calling card of the sort one man gave to another in order that his opponent in a duel might know where to send his seconds to arrange the details of their meeting. Of heavy cream-colored stock, richly engraved, it was a damning piece of evidence. There would be a duel.

Anya knelt quickly to pick up the card before Murray could retrieve it. Rising slowly to her feet, she stared at it. The blood drained from her face as the name sprang out at her in strong black lettering, the name of the man in the costume of the Black Knight who had invited her to waltz, the man whom Celestine’s finance would meet on the field of honor for her sake.

The man who had killed her fiancé with a thrust to the heart on a moonlit night seven years before.

Ravel Duralde.

2

“WHERE ARE YOU GOING?”

Anya halted with a violent start as the question came to her from down the dark gallery. She recovered quickly, turning toward the dim figure of her half-sister seated in a rocking chair a few yards away. “Celestine! What are you doing still up?”

“I couldn’t sleep. My thoughts whirl around in circles until I think I shall go mad. Oh, Anya, Murray will be killed, I know it! He’s no match for a man like Ravel Duralde. I’m so afraid.”

“Don’t upset yourself again. I thought Madame Rosa gave you a sleeping cordial.”

“I couldn’t drink it. I feel quite ill with nerves. But what of you? You can’t be going out again, not alone and at this hour.”

It was bad luck that she had been caught, Anya thought. She had meant to slip quietly away, leaving a note with some excuse. And yet, a spoken lie could not be worse than a written one.

“There has been a message from Beau Refuge, some problem among the hands. I’ll only be gone a day or two.”

Anya glanced over the gallery railing into the courtyard below. The coachman would be waiting for her in the
porte cochère,
the passageway that allowed the carriage coming from the stables in the far rear of the court to exit from under the main bulk of the two-story house into the street. She had sent her instructions, and he would not fail her. Still, she must hurry; it was getting late.

“But you can’t leave, not before the duel,” Celestine protested.

“You know how I feel about such meetings. I can learn the outcome at Beau Refuge just as easily as here.”

“But I might need you.”