Midnight Flame

by Lynette Vinet

  The feel of his hand upon her, the sensations his touch produced, weren’t unpleasant to Laurel. She knew she should fend him off somehow, but she was trapped within his grasp. From somewhere deep inside her throat, she emitted a low moan of pleasure.

  “Wanton witch,” he intoned in her ear.

  “Please leave me alone. Take me back to the main road.”

  She hadn’t intended to plead like this, but she understood that he wasn’t going to release her until he was finished with her—if he did intend to free her. The thought that he might kill her entered her head for the first time, and she visibly trembled. She wasn’t ready to die yet. God, she had barely started to live.

  “You’re shivering,” the man noted in his raspy voice, and his arms tightened around her like a protective covering when he withdrew his hand from her bodice. A tiny surge of hope rose in Laurel at the thought that he felt remorse for what he was doing to her, and this bit of physical comfort was his way of making amends, that he might have a change of heart and release her. But her hopes were dashed when he said, “I don’t want you to fall ill on me. That would take all the enjoyment out of my plans for you.”

  “I hope you catch your death, you filthy beast!”

  Where the courage to utter such words came from, Laurel didn’t know. When she felt him stiffen behind her, she expected he would strike her. Instead he laughed again and slid a hand along the swelling curves of her breasts, almost as a perverse reminder that she was his captive and he had the right to intimately touch her.

  “Until I decide your fate, you belong to me.”

  “Have you no conscience?” she asked, not willing to resign herself to the fate he had decreed for her.

  His hand moved down to her waist, then lower until his fingers gently grazed the soft flesh of her inner thigh. “Not where you’re concerned.”

  “I’ll never give in.”

  “Admit to yourself that you’re more than the smallest bit excited by this kidnapping, by my hands stroking your satiny flesh. Before this night is finished, you’ll be on your hands and knees to me.”

  “Never!”

  Her objection vibrated through the moss-laden trees and across the water, which rippled with slithering and swimming creatures. He said nothing else, and Laurel knew any further protests would go unheeded. Somehow, she resolutely decided, she would escape.

  The horse had traveled along a shore path the entire distance and now crossed a shallow body of water to the opposite shoreline. This side of the bayou wasn’t as dense with trees and undergrowth, and soon the dark silhouette of a small cabin came into view. Supported above the ground by four rough-hewn logs, the cabin rested half over the water and half over the shore. The horse approached the shore side and stopped to graze on the furling edge of a fern.

  The black-clad man jumped down and unceremoniously hauled Laurel from the horse. Dragging her protesting form, he pulled her up the wooden steps onto a rickety porch. Then, pushing back the thick iron latch from its sheath on the cabin door, he propelled her into the inky-black room.

  She spun around from the force. When her head stopped spinning, she attempted to focus her gaze. At the moment she could see little, only a vague outline of a table and chair against the wall and a cot near the window. But when the moon peeped through the clouds, she saw very clearly that the window was barred. What sort of place was this makeshift prison?

  “You can’t make me stay here!” she declared.

  “You’ll do whatever I decree,” he stated with such deadly calm that she shrank away from his voice in the darkness.

  “Someone will find me. I was a guest tonight at Petit Coteau, and the carriage you abducted me from belongs to Tony Duvalier. His driver will tell him about you, and the authorities will be called in. You’ll never get away with this.”

  His raspy tone held a hint of a smile. “I already have. Granted, Duvalier may search for you, but he won’t find you. You’re in the bayou, and access to the road is long and arduous. But we’re wasting time with such foolish talk. I brought you here for a purpose. Take off your clothes.”

  Laurel backed away. Even in the room’s darkness she felt his eyes upon her, almost imagined she could see them flare like twin flames. She sensed his approach toward her; then his hands, heavy upon her arms, lifted her up as if she weighed nothing and threw her on the cot. She wouldn’t be able to plan an escape. She must act.

  Lifting her legs, she kicked out, not certain that her knee had reached its mark until she heard him groan. Pushing herself off the cot, she gained a moment to run across the room toward the door, eager to be outside, not caring that the bayou was filled with harmful creatures. Those creatures would do her less harm than this man, and at the moment she wanted to get out of the cabin and find the horse. She would flee the hooded stranger and somehow find her way to the road.

  But that was not to be. No sooner had Laurel reached the door than it was roughly pushed shut with a thud, and once again she was thrashing against the man’s chest, attempting to break the grip of his steel-vise arms around her.

  “No! I won’t let you do this to me. I’ll kill you first!”

  Her rantings only seemed to incite his passion as he held her in midair. He was as strong as a Titan.

  “Why do you insist on fighting? You know you can’t win against me, and you also know you don’t want to fight. Give in to me. Give in.” His voice was huskily soft and suddenly seductive against her cheek.

  The fight died within her when his warm, moist lips touched hers in a kiss that deepened when his tongue slid between her teeth to connect with her own. A strange melting sensation uncoiled within her abdomen and seeped into her legs before winding its way to center in her pulsing womanhood. The feeling excited and frightened her. This was how she had felt in Tony’s arms, and she ached for the same sort of fulfillment, for something she wasn’t even certain existed.

  The man seemed to take her sudden quietness in his arms for acquiescence, and a slight moan escaped him. With one long stride, he put her on the cot and was on top of her. His hands slid up her thighs to seek the throbbing peak of her desire. Long, sure fingers stroked her softness, and Laurel whimpered in mounting passion against his mouth.

  “This is how I’ve thought of you for so long,” he said lowly. “In my arms whimpering and aching for me. You are a tempting tease, a vixenish whore.”

  Laurel’s eyes flew open. His words threw cold water over her increasing ardor. For an insane moment she had thought she was in Tony’s arms, again succumbing to her desire for him, a desire for a man who had only intended to use her and cast her aside. Now, her mind cleared, and she realized this man was far more dangerous than Tony. He was a stranger, who had kidnapped her and intended to force her to respond to him. Not rape her. She had fallen into her kidnapper’s trap as easily as into Duvalier’s. What was wrong with her? She had to stop this or become no better than a whore in her kidnapper’s eyes and, worst of all, her own.

  She rested submissively against him, allowing his hands to wander freely over her flesh. Once again she smelled the faint odor of smoke surrounding him. His black hood suddenly made Laurel realize that for some reason he didn’t want her to know his identity, that he intended to humiliate her by her response to an unknown man. But, she thought, his plan would fail if she removed the hood.

  With a surprising quickness, her hand bolted upward, and she grabbed a handful of the wet, coarse material and began to yank it from him. Before she had a chance to reveal her kidnapper’s face, he had swiftly wrenched her hand away and held her arm between them in a vicious grip. His other arm firmly pinned her to the cot.

  “Nice try.”

  Tears of rage and disappointment welled in her eyes. She had failed to see his face or even something to identify him. The cabin was too dark, and her only clue was his voice. Even that was disguised.

  “I know what you’re trying to do. You want to humiliate me, to obtain a response from me. Why, I don’t know,
but it won’t work. I won’t give you the satisfaction of making this easy for you.”

  “You’re wrong,” he said jeeringly. “I’ll prove you wrong.”

  With that he proceeded to kiss her again, to attempt to tantalize her with his lips, his tongue. Hot, eager hands stroked her breasts, her thighs that lay bared to him. But Laurel had willed herself to lie still, not to react in any way to this man’s lovemaking. Yet she found it difficult not to whimper in growing desire. Something about this man’s touch excited her perversely, and she wondered if she was a wanton. Even now his hardened manhood rested against her lower body, and he ground into her in an attempt to elicit a passionate response.

  Nothing happened.

  Soon he stopped his movements and removed his weight from her. Standing up, he towered over her half-naked and wet form. When he heaved a sigh, she felt more than saw that he had come to some sort of a decision.

  “You think you’ve won,” he said at length.

  “Yes,” she whispered lowly.

  His voice came out harsher and raspier than ever. “You’re wrong. The game isn’t over yet.”

  With that terse remark hanging on the air, he made for the door. Laurel scampered off the cot just as he exited, but when she reached the door, she heard the latch being sheathed.

  “Let me out!” she cried and pounded on the heavy pine door. “You can’t keep me here! Take me back!”

  For a moment all was silent as she wondered if he were considering, but when his booted feet scraped against the porch flooring only to be followed by the steady clip-clop of the horse’s hoofs, she knew he had left her.

  She slid to the floor and huddled against the door, drawing her knees up to her chest. The tears she had suppressed flowed freely now. Never in her life had she felt so weak and wet and cold. And alone.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Early the next morning, bright sunshine streaming in through the barred window roused Laurel. She wakened, shivering in her still damp costume, to a suddenly cold morning to discover that she had fallen asleep on the floor beside the door. A few times during the night she had wakened, cold and wet, but had been so exhausted she could not summon the strength to crawl to the cot. Now her clothes and hair were not yet dry, and the skirt and blouse were dirty from lying upon the floor.

  Slowly she stood up, every muscle aching in her body, and hugged herself for warmth while surveying the room. It was small. Two large steps would take her from the door to the cot and barely three feet to the left was the table and chair. Nothing else. No blanket to warm her, no food. What did the blasted man who had kidnapped her expect her to do? she ranted inwardly. The whole incident seemed like a nightmare, and while she had slept, she had dreamed she was safe and warm in her own home, in her own parlor, pouring tea for Philbert Anderson. Being with Philbert, at the moment, held far more appeal than this place she now inhabited. Yet this was no dream from which she could waken, but a living nightmare.

  Again she wondered, why had the masked man chosen her? A prickle of fear coursed up her spine when she thought he would soon return and finish what he had started last night. Though relieved at having escaped his lovemaking, she couldn’t help but wonder why he had stopped. Certainly, he could have finished the act without her participation, but he had wanted her to respond. That was why she had been brought to this place.

  “I’ll be gone before he comes back,” she vowed aloud. “I’ll find some way out of here.”

  A surge of strength flowed through her, and she walked to the window and wrapped her hands around the bars. The bayou was breathtakingly beautiful, and if she hadn’t been forced here under duress, she might have taken pleasure in the peach-gold sky that was now turning a light blue, in the fluffy clouds skittering overhead and seeming to touch the tall cypress trees that surrounded her. Two egrets basking in the warming rays of the sun stood like sentinels on the shoreline. Birds twittered in the trees, and she saw the flash of a fish as it jumped from the water, only to dive back into the silvery depths.

  How free they all were, and how she envied these creatures their freedom—a freedom that she vowed would soon be hers.

  Pulling at the thick iron bars accomplished nothing. They wouldn’t budge, nor would the door give way when she pushed her weight against it. She then picked up the chair and rammed it against the center of the door, but the door was much too thick, and the chair barely caused an indentation in the solid pine planks.

  In frustration, Laurel threw herself upon the cot and quelled the urge to cry. She had cried enough last night and did not wish to shed any more tears. She already found it difficult to breathe, and her throat felt slightly raw. Probably from all the dust in the room, she thought and coughed. Putting her feet under her, she leaned backward against the wall and pondered her situation. Had this cabin served as some sort of a prison? Perhaps for wayward slaves? She remembered her kidnapper telling her that she was in the middle of the bayou, so he may have had need of such a place for his slaves. But why choose her? None of it made any sense. If her kidnapper owned this property and had slaves, he must be quite wealthy and not in need of money, a fact she had already guessed. He had made it quite clear that he had made no mistake about her. He meant her to be here.

  But why? She had never been in this area of the parish before and knew no one except Tony Duvalier. Her only other connection with the bayou country was Lavinia’s tragic association with Auguste St. Julian…

  Laurel sat straight up, her heart hammering in her ears. “I can’t risk entering bayou country. My life is at stake!” Lavinia had cried to her before their departure. A relative of St. Julian’s had investigated the old man’s death, held Lavinia personally responsible. There was no other answer to why she, herself, had been kidnapped and left in a cabin in the middle of the swamp. St. Julian’s relative didn’t want her. He wanted Lavinia and believed he now had her at his mercy, that his uncle’s death would be avenged.

  “That’s the answer!” Laurel blurted out, her excitement mounting. She jumped off the cot and stood in the center of the dust-covered floor, a becoming rosy flush staining her cheeks. She would convince the man he had kidnapped the wrong person, and then he would release her. Certainly he could be made to see his mistake. She wasn’t Lavinia Delaney but Laurel Delaney. How easy it would be. She would simply inform him of his mistake when he returned.

  Yet when the morning sun climbed higher in the sky, she wondered if he intended to return or if she were to stay in this cabin until she died from starvation or froze to death. Once more she found her way to the cot and lay down, huddling against the wall. She had just dozed off when the sound of footsteps on the porch outside followed by the creaking of the latch as it was pulled from the sheath woke her.

  Sitting up with her hair all atumble and her clothes wrinkled and dirty, she watched as an old black woman entered, carrying a basket. The cabin was suddenly filled with the delicious aroma of smoked sausage and freshly baked biscuits. Without glancing in Laurel’s direction, the woman headed for the table, placed the basket in the center, and unpacked the food. As she busily set the smoked sausage on a china plate, Laurel rose from the cot.

  The smell of the food caused Laurel’s stomach to growl. Never in her life had she felt such hunger, and the sausage beckoned to her empty stomach. However, this woman must have ridden here or come by pirogue, Laurel reasoned, and the cabin door was ajar. Freedom was only a few feet away, and right now escaping this place meant more to her than a full stomach.

  The woman turned her back to Laurel and placed a fluffy biscuit on Laurel’s plate. Laurel inched toward the door, which blew gently in the cool breeze. Another foot and she would be free. The woman was much too old and moved too slowly to be able to stop Laurel from escaping. So far Laurel saw no evidence that her kidnapper was nearby. Evidently the woman had arrived alone and would present no threat to her.

  Grabbing the door handle, Laurel swung the door back and scampered onto the porch, expecting the old woman to
hobble after her. What she didn’t expect was the tall and broad-shouldered black man who blocked her way. Easily holding her in his grasp, he hauled her struggling and screaming back into the cabin. He said something in French to the old woman, who just shrugged her shoulders before he wrenched the door closed.

  “You shouldn’t have done that, mademoiselle,” the woman admonished her. “If you had escaped, the monsieur would have been very angry with me and my son. My son is a good boy and deserves no punishment because of your foolishness.” She went back to the basket and withdrew a bowl of custard and a spoon, followed by a pot of tea, still warm, to judge by the curling steam rising from the pot.

  The woman’s nonchalance riled Laurel. How could she pretend nothing was wrong? “Who are you?” Laurel demanded.

  “My name is unimportant,” she answered calmly.

  “Tell me who is your master, the monsieur of whom you speak.”

  She shook her head. “Do not ask me such a question, I cannot answer you.”

  “Can you tell me if he is a relative of Auguste St. Julian?” Laurel implored.

  Continuing her chore at the table, she didn’t glance in Laurel’s direction, giving Laurel the impression that she had guessed correctly. Her kidnapper was St. Julian’s relation.

  She motioned to Laurel to sit. “Please eat, mademoiselle.”

  Laurel was ravenous, but at the moment she wanted to impress upon her that her master had made a grave mistake. “Don’t you think it strange that I am here? Don’t you wonder why your master kidnapped me and threw me in here? Don’t you care?”

  The old woman stiffened her back. A look of indignation appeared on her face. “I never question monsieur. Never!”

  “You like being a slave then, a virtual prisoner? Well, I don’t, and I demand my freedom. I implore you and your son to help me escape. I’ll make it worth your while. I have plenty of money.”