Prisoner of Desire (49 page)

“There are ways to better the odds.”

It was his vanity that made him answer her, that and possibly a desire to strike at her in words if he could not attack her physically. The blows were telling. With the dawn, in a few short hours, he would be meeting Ravel. Somehow, someway, the contest would be weighted in Murray’s favor.

“Such honor,” she said in scathing tones. “What will happen to your position as a landed gentleman if anybody finds out? You’ll be finished.”

“They won’t find out.”

“Ravel has fought duels in Central America in two different military expeditions, been in every kind of dirty battlefield situation, and been held in prison with every kind of thief and trickster. You may find that he knows more of how to better the odds than you do. You may be in more danger than you know.”

“I may,” Murray answered with a sneer, “but it won’t help you.”

She had made her own blow count. For just an instant there had been a flicker of fear in Murray’s eyes. Perhaps Madame Rosa was right; perhaps he was a coward. Why had she never noticed before now how weak his mouth was, and how hard his eyes?

Before she could think how to use her suspicion to advantage, she intercepted a quick, thoughtful glance in her direction from Chris Lillie. For a long moment, she could not think what she might have said to catch his interest. Then it came to her. Ravel. Central America.

Her eyes blazing with relief and pure exultation, she stepped from behind her chair to accuse Murray and Chris Lillie at the same time. “But that’s it, isn’t it? That’s why you want Ravel dead, and have from the beginning. He’s a danger to you. It’s his experience as a soldier and an officer with the Cuban expedition and with William Walker in Nicaragua that frightens you. If he should use it to turn the Vigilance Committee into an army, your stranglehold on the city could be broken. The Know-Nothing party would be thrown out, trampled in the dust by the stampede of voters able at last to get to the polls without hindrance.”

“Smart, too, ain’t she?” the redheaded man observed.

Murray started to answer, but Lillie cut him off with a hard, chopping gesture. He stood up and, without a glance toward Anya, walked to the door. Murray hesitated, then followed him.

“You coming back,” Red called after Murray, adding in a suggestive tone, “later?”

“No.” Murray’s hazel eyes were like cracked marbles as he stared at Anya. “You know what to do.”

“Make you any difference what happens before?”

“Not in the least.” Celestine’s fiancé smiled, a cold movement of the lips.

The door closed behind them.

Anya looked at the man still leaning against the wall. “I will pay you well if you will let us go.”

“Yes, and have just a whale of a time watching me hang afterward.”

“Touch me and you’ll also hang.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. I always wanted to have me a lady.”

“Enough to die for the pleasure?”

“Well, now,” he said, and there was hot anticipation behind his eyes as he pushed away from the wall, “it’s not me who’s going’ to die.”

Anya backed away, keeping her eyes upon him. “Nor am I.”

“Is that so?”

“You can bet on it.”

“Against my own self?”

“That’s your choice.”

A little more, a little further away from the bed, away from the end of it where her bonnet lay. He was big and he was strong as he stalked her. She had to be sure. She sidled along the footrail, letting her fingers trail along the iron bar at the top.

“What you running away for? There’s no place to go.”

Wasn’t there? “You expect me to just give up?”

“Might as well. Might even find it worked out better.”

“And pigs might fly.”

A cruel smile bared his teeth. “I do like a woman with a tongue in her head.”

“Oh, do you?”

“I do. Sassy women fight back and that makes it more fun. But try anything smart with me like you did with Nicholls and you’ll be glad to git the whole thing over.”

“How kind of you to warn me,” she mocked.

He made some answer, but she did not hear. Grasping the end of the iron rail, she swung like a banner unfurling around the end and dove for the floor. The jarring fall set her head to pounding once more, but she whipped over, rolling, sliding under the high bed, stretching toward her bonnet on the far side—and the cane that lay under its veiling. Emile’s sword cane.

The man called Red cursed, growling threats as he plunged after her. She heard the crashing thud as he flung himself down on his knees beside the bed. He was reached for her, catching her skirts, bunching them in his hands and tearing them loose at the waist as he pulled.

Her fingers touched the cane, sent it rolling. She hitched toward it, panting with the effort. She was pulled backward. She looked up and saw the bed ropes on the bed, with the thin mattress bulging between them. Was the bulge moving? There was no time to tell. She was being dragged from under the bed. She grasped at the ropes above her, curling her fingers around them, holding tight. She kicked backward and heard a grunt as her foot connected. There was a slight release of the aching pressure on the skirts at her waist. She hunched forward again.

She could not reach the cane. She tried instead for the bonnet, catching the veiling, yanking it in her direction with a sharp tug. The cane came with it. She had her fingers on it. Had it in her hand.

Red gave a mighty wrench. Her shoulder scraped over the floor and the skin was torn on her fingers that were twisted in the bed ropes as she was pulled half the length of her body from under her cover. The man must have his a foot braced on the side rail. Desperately she put both hands on the cane and turned the head. Nothing happened. Again she tried as she had once seen Emile do in a darkened carriage. Nothing.

She was being hauled into the open on her side. Hard hands were on her hips, sinking into the flesh. If the cane was not a sword, it could at least be a club with its heavy silver head. As her shoulders cleared the bed, she suddenly bent double. Her head came into the open. She reached with her left hand and grabbed the shirt front of the red-haired man squatting over her, yanking him toward her with all her strength. As he leaned forward, she brought the head of the cane from beneath the bed, ramming it under his chin with the force of her pain and rage behind it.

She heard the crack of hard silver metal on bone, heard his teeth snap together. His hold loosened and he rocked back on his heels. Instantly she shoved away from him, scrambling to her knees, pulling herself up by holding to the bed. She was only half on her feet when he caught her skirts.

She struck at him but he fended off the blow and nearly yanked the cane from her hand before she wrenched it free. Grunting, he hauled himself up hand over hand on her skirts, drawing her toward him at the same time. She feinted with the cane but he was ready for her, reaching for it.

Behind him there was a movement. Emile was awake, raising himself with difficulty to one elbow. He shook his head as if to clear it, focusing on Anya.

He was weak, too weak to help her. Anya brought the cane down on Red’s hand that was wrapped in her skirts. He did not seem to feel it. She jabbed at him with the ferrule and he laughed, grabbing for it. His fingers closed on the metal end for a long moment, but using both hands, she wrestled it from his one-handed grasp.

“I’ll git it. I’ll git it, I’ll use it to beat your pretty—”

Anya ignored the rest of the threat. On the bed behind Red, Emile was reaching out, his fingers spread and trembling. His eyes were clear and in their depths there was a plea. What was it he wanted? The cane? But what could he do with it in his condition?

Red caught her wrist, wrenching it. In another second he would have the cane. She would have only one more chance to use it. One more.

To use it or give it up to its owner. To take her last chance, or let Emile have it. The decision must be made quickly.

Anya reached for the cane with her left hand. As Red let go of her skirts to grab for that arm, she threw the slender stick, arching, toward the bed. She saw Emile reach for it; then her view was blotted out as she went slowly to her knees, compelled by the grinding pain as her wrists were slowly twisted behind her. Through a red haze, she heard a click.

Red gave a hoarse, whistling grunt and went stiff. His grip slackened, his arms flopped down, then slowly he keeled to the side to strike the floor with a solid thud. There was a small slit in his neck. It was hardly bleeding at all.

Anya looked toward the cane in Emile’s hand. From it there protruded a six-inch blade. She met his eyes and he gave her a gallant smile. He said, “Forgive me. On this cane there is a button.”

19

WHETHER BECAUSE MURRAY HAD been confident of the ability of the leader of the thugs to deal with a woman and one unconscious man alone, or because it was Red himself who had been so sanguine, there was no guard outside the door, no one in the entire bordello who made the slightest effort to stop them as they left it. The sight of a woman helping along a man somewhat incapacitated was too common to draw attention beyond an ironic lift of a brow because they were going out instead of coming in.

The difficulty, Anya found, was in finding transportation. There were no cabriolets in this part of the city, and no one wanted to stop for what was apparently a woman of the streets and her drunken customer. Anya could have walked, but Emile was not in so good a case. At last she was able to beg a ride for them on the tail of the cart of a butcher who had been delivering sausages to what passed for restaurants on Gallatin Street. His cart was caked with grease and smelled like something long dead, but he took them to the door of the town-house.

Madame Rosa was aghast at the sight of them. She did not waste time exclaiming, however, but rang for the servants and soon had Emile in bed in a spare bedchamber. A doctor was sent for, who, on his arrival, declared with the greatest possible firmness that M’sieur Girod was not capable of appearing on the field of honor at dawn. The affair must be canceled. There could be no other choice.

Anya waited only long enough after that for Emile to pen a note of regrets and apologies. She had changed her torn gown and ordered the carriage brought out. Leaving Emile in Madame Rosa’s capable hands, taking his note with her, she left the townhouse once more. Ravel must be warned, and though she could have explained how matters stood in a message of her own, her restless fears would not allow it.

In the courtyard she found not only the landau, but Marcel on the box beside the coachman, with a musket propped against the seat beside him. He would not permit that she go alone. If she had so little concern for her own safety as to set out so foolishly as she had earlier, then someone must take care of her.

Anya felt the press of time too much to argue; moreover, she was glad of the gesture of protection. Giving the coachman the order he seemed fully to expect, she climbed into the carriage and sat back on the seat.

There were yellow gleams of light showing through the shutters on the lower floor of the Duralde house. It was a relief to see them; Anya had not liked the idea of waking the entire house in order to speak to Ravel. She would have done it, but she preferred a quieter entrance.

Marcel went with her to the door and lifted the knocker for her. When the door swung open, Anya half expected to see a butler or some older housekeeper, but it was Ravel himself who stood there. The light was behind him, so she could not see his face, but she thought from the sudden stillness of his form that she was the last person he had expected. He wore no coat and the sleeves of his shirt were rolled to the elbows. His hair was tousled, as if he had been running his fingers through it, and in his right hand he held a pen with the nib still wet with ink.

He had been writing his will, or perhaps some last instructions concerning his affairs for his mother or his man of business. It was an obvious precaution under the circumstances; still it gave Anya a suffocating feeling in her chest.

“I will wait for you in the carriage, mam’zelle,” Marcel said, and melted away into the darkness behind her.

“What are you doing here?”

Ravel thought he had relegated Anya to a corner of his mind so as to concentrate without distraction on the matter at hand. The sight of her on his doorstep showed him what a fool he was to think such a thing possible.