Prisoner of Desire Page 16

“Yes. He seemed to know exactly what he was doing.”

  A corner of his mouth lifted an instant. “Is that a warning?”

  “If you care to take it that way.”

  “I am unmanned by your concern.”

  “I somehow doubt it,” she snapped, annoyed by his obvious amusement.

  “Well, perhaps not,” he agreed, unperturbed, “not with a woman like you so near me.”

  She sent him a look of smoldering resentment for the innuendo. “Am I supposed to be flattered?”

  “Interested, possibly. Do you have any idea how enticing you are, sitting there? Do you have any conception of the self-control it requires to prevent myself from reaching out and pulling you into my arms? I know how soft and sweet your lips are, and how your breasts fit into my cupped hands. I’ve seen the way your eyes turn into dark blue pools of desire, and the need to put that look there again is driving me slowly insane. I want—”

  He stopped, biting back the words, closing his lips firmly. Pushing back his chair, he got to his feet and moved away a few steps, his hand clasped on the back of his neck. Over his shoulder he said. “I’m sorry.”

  Anya stood and moved to the door, pulling it open. With her hand on the knob, she turned to look at Ravel still standing with his back to her, at the wide width of his shoulders beneath the red flannel of his shirt, the tapering of his lean waist and hard flanks under the close tailoring of his trousers, at the chain that anchored him firmly in his cell.

  Her voice quiet, almost reflective, she said, “So am I.”

  Anya’s regret was real and comprehensive. She was sorry she had ever conceived the idea of abducting Ravel, sorry she had injured him in the process, sorry that he had turned out to be a man of such devastating and complicated charm, and sorry that she had allowed herself to be swayed by his facile arguments to the point of giving herself to him, sorry that she could not find it within herself to continue the intimacy they had begun. It made no difference. She could not release him.

  If she released him, he would in some manner continue his quarrel with Murray, the outcome of which seemed inevitable. If she did not, his presence at Beau Refuge must, when it became known, ruin her own good name. She was caught between two fires. There was more to it than that, however. She could not keep Ravel a prisoner indefinitely; it was impractical to think otherwise. The time would come when his patience would end and he would force his way to freedom, or else she would listen to the promptings of her own conscience and free him. The time for some decision, for finding some solution to the dilemma in which they found themselves, was short. There might be only another day or two at most. But what could it be? What could it be?

  Morning came, and Anya was still no closer to an answer. She rose early and dressed herself in a plain gown of washed-out blue cambric without collar or cuffs, topped by a plain and serviceable apron. As she brushed her hair and coiled it in a knot on the nape of her neck, she stared in the mirror at the dark circles under her eyes. She looked like deaths first cousin, but it hardly mattered. She was going nowhere, and if Ravel should find her less attractive that might be a good thing.

  She fully intended to visit him again. It would be cowardly to stay away, however much she might prefer it. It was, she reminded herself, her duty to provide some means of making the time pass more pleasantly for him. That he could wish to see the woman who was holding him prisoner seemed unlikely, but since it apparently afforded him some amusement, she would allot time for him.

  It was Sunday, she realized, as, leaving her bedchamber, she moved through the house where nothing was stirring. By law, it was a day of rest for the people on the plantation. She could have the carriage brought around and go to mass, but it seemed inappropriate under the circumstances. In any case, there was no legislation decreeing a day of rest for the plantation mistress.

  Anya found the housekeeper, Denise, in the kitchen, where she was directing the cook concerning breakfast. While it was cooking, Anya went with Denise to the storehouse to hand out supplies of beans, salt meat, cornmeal, and molasses for each person on the place; then the two of them moved on to inspect the dairy, where cows were being milked and the previous days milk and cream set out to sour for the making of butter and cheese, necessary tasks regardless of the day. Afterward, while Denise returned to the kitchen, Anya checked on the winter garden, when she made a mental note to order the last great heads of cauliflower cut for the kitchen, and to direct the making of rows for the seeds she had bought in New Orleans.

  She was escorted from the garden by ten or twelve of the children on the place, who had discovered her there. Noticing that many of them had sores on their legs from flea bites, she took them to the small building set aside as a dispensary and spread ointment on the sores. Leaving them, she went in search of Marcel, who served also as her majordomo, instructing him to see that bright and early on Monday every cat and dog on the place was dipped for fleas, their sleeping places cleaned and sprinkled with lime, and that sulphur was burned in the cabins.

  Still she was not done. Ravel had put his foot through one of the sheets that had been placed on his bed, and Denise feared that the weakness caused by mildew from the damp climate might have invaded a dozen or so more. She was quite right, as it happened, and Anya spent half an hour making out a list of linen to be ordered when she returned to New Orleans.

  When the task was completed, she was still in time to walk with Marcel as he carried a tray containing both her own and Ravel’s breakfast of café au lait, hot rolls, sugar-cured ham, and blackberry jam out to the cotton gin.

  Anya unlocked the door of Ravel’s room and pushed it open, then took the tray from Marcel. With a smile and a nod of dismissal for the man, she stepped inside.

  The small, high windows gave little light. The day was overcast, with only now and then a gleam of sun, and so the room was dim and filled with shifting shadows. Anya could just make out the shape of Ravel’s long body under the covers of his bed, lying on his side with his back to her. The top of the sheet made a sharp angle across one bronzed shoulder, and the tousled thatch of his hair was black against the white of his pillowcase. He did not move as she entered. She stood irresolute for a moment, then stepped quietly to the table to put down the tray.

  The fire had burned down, allowing the room to grow cool. She scraped back the ashes to find a few coals, laid slivers of pine pitch kindling over them until they caught, then added larger wood until flames leaped high up the chimney. There was a draft through the open door, and she moved to close it.

  The food was getting cold and she was hungry. Anya waited a few minutes to see if the crackling of the fire would rouse Ravel. When he did not move, she squared her shoulders and walked to the side of the bed. There were men, so she had heard, who could sleep through anything from a thunderstorm to having the house fall down around their ears, men who had to be bodily dragged out of bed. She was prepared to do her duty toward her guest, but had no intention of starving while he slept.

  She stared down at the man in the bed, studying the lines of the muscles in his shoulder and neck that, even relaxed, had the look of leashed power, the sculptured strength of his sun-browned features, and the thick black fringe of his lashes resting on his cheeks. There was about him in that moment a peculiar sense of guarded vulnerability, as if even in sleep it was necessary to protect himself from possible pain. Watching him, she felt her throat tighten. Deep inside her there was an odd twisting sensation that she recognized as an unremitting compassion. What an idiot she was to feel such a thing for the man who had killed Jean and who would kill Murray if he could. What an idiot.

  Reaching out her hand, she put it on Ravel’s shoulder and gave him a quick shake. Like the swift and sinuous lash of a cracking whip, he turned, swung, caught her wrist. A hard arm encircled her hips, and in an instant she was hurtling dizzily through the air. She landed on her back on the mattress, falling so hard that her teeth snapped together with a sharp click and the air left her lungs in
a gasp of shock. Hard hands fastened on her wrists, imprisoning them on each side of her face. A hard thigh clamped across her knees, and she was held immobile. Her gaze wide, stunned, she stared up into Ravel’s coffee-black eyes that glinted with devilish laughter and satisfaction.

  “Good morning,” he said.

  Anger boiled up inside her. She clenched her hands into fists, straining against his hold, wriggling and twisting as she tried to free herself. Her struggles were worse than useless, for she could feel her skirts that had been bunched around her knees working higher. Panting with rage and effort, she subsided.

  “That’s better,” he said, his voice rich with amusement.

  She glared at him, setting her teeth. “Swine! Let me go.”

  “Ask nicely, and I might.”

  “I’ll see you damned first!”

  “As you like,” he said with a lifted brow. “I enjoy having you in my bed myself, but I had the idea you found it a little uncomfortable.”

  She gave him a waspish smile. “You would have felt foolish if it had been Marcel instead of me.”

  “No doubt. But I would know your footsteps in a crowd of thousands. There was no chance of a mistake.”

  “You would know — It was a trick! You weren’t asleep at all!” The idea that she had been feeling sorry for him while he was lying in wait to trap her made her feel hot with chagrin from head to heels.

  “How could you think I might be, with the noise you were making?”

  “Some men sleep hard.” The words sounded almost defensive, even to her own ears.

  “If I was one of them, I would have been dead a dozen times over. To cut the throat of a sleeping man was a favorite sport in Nicaragua. On the ship transporting prisoners to Spain, as well as in the dungeons before we were put in separate cells, any man who slept too sound woke up stripped naked — that is, if he woke at all.”

  “Very well,” she snapped, “I stand, or rather lie, corrected. If there is a reason for this farce I would as soon hear it now, so that I can get up and eat my breakfast.”

  “Oh, yes,” he said, his voice soft, beguiling, “there was a reason.”

  She saw herself reflected in the black pupils of his eyes, saw the warm sheen of desire that surfaced there. Then his head came down, blotting out the light, and his mouth covered hers. His lips were firm and tasted faintly of coffee. His lean cheek had the clean smell of shaving soap. Dimly Anya realized that Marcel had made an early trip to the cotton gin with wake-up coffee and shaving water, one that had gone unmentioned. An instant later, such vagrant thoughts dissolved in a tide of purest sensation.

  Warm, his mouth was warm, and his movements were guided by sure and vital instinct. He explored the molding of her lips with slow pleasure, gently testing the split that had all but healed. He brushed them with the lightest of touches, tasting the moist corners and tender surfaces with the tip of his tongue, delicately awakening their sensitivity as he probed the limits of her resistance. He traced the indentation between bottom lip and chin, and slowly circled her mouth with a trail of kisses so searing that against her will her lips parted in surprise at their heat.

  He took instant advantage of that moment of weakness, molding her mouth to his, pressing inside. He explored the porcelain-hard edges of her teeth and swirled in sinuous play around her tongue with his own, stroking the delicately grained top and flicking across the incredible smoothness underneath before easing deeper, as if he would take possession. He savored the fragility of her mouths inner lining, and drank of her sweetness.

  Anya’s heart thudded as piercing pleasure crept along her veins, fed by his careful expertise. Who had taught him this patient art of wooing? It did not matter. She was aware, as never before, of the quick current of life that flowed through her. Deep inside she felt a slow flowering, and burgeoning need to be held closer, to forget place and time and the identity of the man who held her, to lose herself in this new and incredible magic.

  Ravel, sensing her acquiescence, released her left wrist to cup her face in his hand, tracing with his blunt fingertips the curve of her cheek, the turn of her jaw as it descended into the line of her neck, and lower to the swell of her breast. Gently he clasped the round globe that jarred to the beat of her heart, his thumb brushing the peak through cambric and lawn until it rose to a tight bud of anticipation. She lifted her free hand to his hair, threading her fingers through the thick waves, holding him, increasing the pressure of his kiss.

  What was she doing? Distress and self-accusation rippled through her with the force of a tidal wave. She clenched her fingers in his hair, pulling. He drew a quick breath of pain as she tugged at his stitched scalp. As he released her lips, she turned her head sharply away. In the same instant, discovering her right wrist was only loosely held, she wrenched it free and heaved at him with both hands.

  He was thrown off-balance, toppling backward to teeter on the edge of the bed. As he grabbed at the post of the bed to save himself from falling, Anya thrust herself up, sliding, scrambling over him. Ravel recovered, lunging after her. He caught her foot, and she tumbled to the floor, landing on her outstretched hands. She kicked out at him, striking him in the stomach. He grunted and let her go. She rolled away in a flurry of skirts, but he clutched at her, coming up with a handful of apron. In a single fluid and silken movement, she jerked free the tie at her waist, leaving the apron a limp prize in his hand as she surged to her feet.

  He came up off the bed, balling the apron into a wad, tossing it into a corner. Magnificently naked, his mouth curved in unholy enjoyment, he stalked after her with his chain scraping the floor in grating echo to his measured treads. His need for her was all too evident. With his lower body pale in contrast to his upper torso that had been colored teak brown by some tropical sun, he seemed half man, half beast, infinitely menacing. Fear she had not acknowledged until that moment leapt along her nerves. It ran over her in a quick shiver, lingering in her knees. She stumbled backward, feeling the heat from the fireplace close behind her.

  His lips twitched. At the same time, she saw in fleeting dismay what had amused him. She had moved in the wrong direction. He was between her and the door. The chain that held him so firmly attached to the wall should have given her room to pass, but Ravel’s longer arms made that a chancy proposition. She might skim past him, if it were not for her full skirts. It was far more likely that he would catch her by that fullness, or else they would flare like tinder as she crowded near the fireplace.

  She retreated deeper into the corner. Her hip brushed the table where the tray had been set, shaking it. The dishes rattled, and the drinking glass, turned upside down on the neck of the carafe, chimed with the sound of a bell. The water. Hard upon the thought, she reached for the carafe, snatching aside the drinking glass, spinning to send the contents in a sparkling, liquid arch toward Ravel.

  He gasped out a strangled oath as the icy water splashed over him. With his hair dripping and rivulets running down his face, pooling in the hollows above his collarbone and trickling down the curling hair on his chest to the flat plane of his abdomen, he stared at her. His voice harsh with shocked wrath, he demanded, “What did you do that for?”

  The strength of his surprise was an indication of how blameless had been his intentions, how scant her danger. Concupiscence there had certainly been, but the peril had been in large part in her own mind, prompted quite possibly by her fears of her own reaction to him. The last thing she could do would be to admit it, however.

  “It seemed to me,” she said with a lift of her chin as she placed the carafe back on the table, “that your ardor needed dampening.”

  “Oh did it indeed? And what of yours?” He looked around him and, catching sight of his shaving water in the bowl on the washstand, started toward it.

  “Ravel! You wouldn’t,” she exclaimed as she saw his purpose. The water, scummed with soap and a floating black powder of beard stubble, had long since cooled in the chill morning air.

  “Wouldn�
��t I?”

  He picked up the bowl, turning with it. There was a gleam in his eyes as he moved toward her, dragging his chain. Water still beaded his skin, standing among the myriad tiny bumps of the gooseflesh that covered him. She pressed against the table behind her, holding out a hand as if she could ward off the promised drenching, keeping her gaze on the dull water that lapped gently in the gold-rimmed bowl.

  “You — you can’t. You are a gentleman.”

  “I thought that was in doubt.”

  “No, not really—”

  “Any lie to save yourself.”

  If she made a quick dash, she might reach the door in time. But any sudden move could also trigger an instant deluge. He would not miss; she knew that without question.

  “I was persuaded otherwise at first, but no longer.”

  It was true, what she said; she discovered that fact with wonder. She went still, her gaze blank as she stared at him.

  “Prove it.”

  “How? I may as well try to prove that I am a lady after what I have done.”

  He had frightened her, he could see that. She was pale and in her eyes was a lingering wariness. But she was no longer alarmed, nor did he sense the basic contempt that had allowed her to treat him as negligible, a man who could be taken by force and shunted aside to assure the safety of those for whom she cared. His need for retaliation seeped away. Turning, he set the bowl of water on the floor, then moved to take from the foot of the bed the dressing gown of black wool with claret silk lapels provided for his use by Marcel. He shrugged into it, lapping the edges and pushing the gilt buttons into their holes with quick movements.

  Over his shoulder, he said, “Some things need no proof. But one thing is certain, my — ardor is certainly damp.”

  It was an olive branch of sorts. It seemed suddenly of great importance that she say the right thing, something neither challenging nor provocative, but completely prosaic. “And your breakfast is getting cold. While you dry yourself, I’ll take it and have it reheated.”