Love and Adventure Collection - Part 1 (Love and Adventure Boxed Sets)

by Jennifer Blake

  A few feet more and Catherine halted, teetering on a paving stone. Farther down the hedge a group of men loitered, obviously watching the contest inside the garden. The urge to retrace her steps was strong, but stronger still was the need to know what was happening in that enclosed space. Her future, with Marcus or without him, might depend on the events of this night. Raising her hand, she touched the mask over her eyes. She was disguised still. It was extremely unlikely that she would be recognized. The men ahead, though they lacked the air of gentlemen, were not ruffians either. What harm could befall her? With her head held high, she went forward.

  The men, after an instant of surprise, moved back to permit her to pass. At the back of the group there was a muttered comment too low to catch, followed by a laugh, but the man who stood nearest the jokester gave a warning shake of the head and gestured toward the duelists.

  It came as something of a shock to Catherine to have the connection between herself and the fighting men made so quickly, but she dismissed it with a mental shrug. It could not be helped. Surely it could not matter.

  The clouds which had obscured the moon earlier had passed over. St. Anthony’s Garden was bathed in a cool white light. A faint wind, however, still stirred the branches of the hedge and set the flames in the lantern to fluttering so that the shadows of the two men before her danced grotesquely over the ground.

  Marcus and Navarro had removed their boots, tailcoats, and cravats. In addition, Navarro had scorned to retain the added protection of his waistcoat, and its gray brocade gleamed also on the pile of clothing tossed, with the sheaths of their swords, on the grass. In their stocking feet, they faced each other, oblivious of their surroundings, intent on inflicting pain upon each other — and, if possible, death.

  How long had this clash of arms lasted? Not long surely; and yet, above the scrape and snick of their blades, she could hear the panting rush of heavy breathing. Marcus, his face flushed with anger and exertion, was almost winded already, and a scratch on his cheek dripped sullenly, staining the pristine white of his shirt with blood. By contrast Rafael Navarro appeared to be enjoying himself. A tight smile thinned his strongly molded mouth, and his eyes burned from between narrowed lids with an intent and murderous light. For a moment she thought he was untouched, then she noticed a slash in the fullness of his shirt at the waist. It was not a serious wound for he did not favor it, but there was a wet sheen at the waistband of his pantaloons where blood had soaked into the cloth.

  It was a fight to the death, that much was plain. Honor was usually satisfied at the first drawing of blood. Catherine knew little of swordplay. Still she could see that Marcus, whatever he might have been in the beginning, was now on the defensive. He retreated slowly before the tireless blade of Navarro. He parried each thrust, but his ripostes were ineffectual and he seemed unable to initiate an attack himself.

  Watching the flashing rapiers Catherine felt her nerves cringe from the final blow. She kept her gaze on the shadows slipping over the grass. Far better to follow them in silhouette. And yet to her heightened imagination the black shadow of Navarro seemed no less deadly, no less satanic, than the man who cast it. It flowed back and forth with feline grace and agility as he stalked Marcus with the sure control of a hunting panther, the nickname she had heard in the ballroom.

  But perhaps Marcus’s show of weakness was a ruse — for suddenly he lunged. Sparks of fire glittered along the blades as they rasped together, locking at the hilt. Some murmured comment made by Navarro stung Marcus, for he disengaged violently and made a wild feint. There was a flurry of steel, a sudden curse, and Marcus’s sword fell from his fingers to stand on its point in the ground before sinking slowly into the grass.

  Navarro stepped back while Marcus clutched at his left forearm with red seeping through his fingers.

  “Bind your wound,” Navarro ordered. “The dew on the grass is slippery enough without adding your blood to it.”

  Catherine, with one hand pressed to her lips, drew in her breath at that unfeeling comment.

  The sound attracted the attention of the dark man. He raised his sword before his face in a flickering fencing salute, his smile sardonic. Then his eyes widened and the black implacable gaze moved slowly, assessingly over her. Catherine felt a shaft of purest apprehension strike through her. She knew a sense of brooding peril allied in some unforeseen fashion to the leashed strength of this man, Navarro.

  She glanced quickly away to where Marcus was knotting a handkerchief about his arm, pulling it tight with his teeth. His face was pale when he took up his sword and took his stance at guard.

  As their blades engaged again it seemed to Catherine that their passages were more controlled, that Navarro had subdued his style to a deliberate, methodical destruction of Marcus’s defenses. Gone was the flashing, careless brilliance of the swordplay. All that remained was a grim struggle for supremacy.

  Catherine could see Marcus flagging before her eyes. Then, quicker than the eye could follow, it was over. She saw in horror the glittering tip of Navarro’s sword pierce through Marcus’s shoulder, protruding for a brief second, red-tipped, from his back. With a cry of pain Marcus fell to his knees, his blade falling from his nerveless fingers to lie hidden in the grass.

  Once more Navarro stepped back. “I find myself satisfied at last,” he drawled, shaking his ruffled cuffs loose from his wristbands so they fell once more over his hands.

  Catherine saw her own disbelief mirrored in the hazel shadows of Marcus’s eyes and she knew that he, like herself, had expected this contest to end in death. She wondered if he appreciated the magnanimity of the Spanish Creole’s gesture. The wound could so easily have been to the heart.

  But Marcus would most certainly not appreciate the knowledge that she had viewed his defeat, or have the patience to hear her sympathy — even if she could find words adequate to express it. Never in her life had she felt such fearful pity as had risen within her, watching her escort so hopelessly outmatched. No, Marcus, proud, jealous of his reputation, would want neither her help nor her pity. Most of all, he would want her gone from the scene of his defeat — if he had ever been aware of her presence.

  Turning to the group of men near her she murmured, “His carriage is at the end of this alley, near the doors of the cathedral — if you would be so kind—” When she saw two of the men begin to move forward to help the fallen man, she gathered up her skirts and pulled her shawl closer about her. With one last backward glance, she turned and started back the way she had come. Her footsteps quickened as she went, and an urgency beat up into her brain. She had to reach the carriage. There was no one behind her, and yet she covered the last steps in the unreasoning panic of one who is pursued.

  The coachman climbed down to open the door when he saw her coming. The sound of it closing behind her as she took her seat was a comforting one. She took a deep, calming breath, clasping her hands in her lap. Poor Marcus. Had he had the chance at any time of overcoming Navarro?

  Casting back in her mind, she went over the scene that had led to the meeting in St. Anthony’s Garden. It was a jumbled confusion of impressions. All that remained clear was the taunting voice of the dark man as he manipulated both Marcus and herself, forcing them into the positions that he wanted. It was not only her overstrained nerves which insisted there was something uncanny about this man. She wished fervently that she had never met him. That being denied her, she hoped she never saw him again.

  A man’s voice outside brought her head around. They had been quick, she thought. Could it be that Marcus had taken worse hurt than she had imagined?

  She had leaned toward the door to open it when it swung wide beneath her hand. A sword, coat, and cravat were flung upon the opposite seat. As the carriage jerked to a start, a man swung inside, threw himself upon the cushions beside her, and slammed the door behind him.

  Catherine drew back, then froze, staring into the laughing eyes of Rafael Navarro. Holding her gaze, he leaned back against the squabs a
nd stretched out his long legs, crossed his booted feet at the ankles.

  “Where is Marcus?” Catherine whispered. “What have you done with him?”

  “Done? Nothing. He is patiently awaiting the arrival of my carriage — a much more comfortable vehicle than this, I assure you — to carry him for a visit to the surgeon. But if he had taken my advice he would have run miles to avoid the quack.”

  “You didn’t — He isn’t—”

  “Dead? I didn’t and he isn’t.” His teeth flashed in the dim interior of the moving carriage. “I will admit the temptation was strong, but when I saw you standing there, as cool and regal as any lady, I bethought myself of a more subtle and damaging revenge. Can you guess what form it will take, Celeste, ma belle?”

  The mock caressing note in his voice set Catherine’s teeth on edge. As she was making up her mind how to answer him, the carriage swung wide to turn into a street which went nowhere near her mother’s house. She flicked a glance at the man beside her. He could have no idea of her true identity and station. Where could he be taking her?

  Summoning dignity she told him coldly, “We will soon be passing the house of Monsieur Duralde. If you will be so obliging as to set me down there, I can find my way home.”

  “Can you indeed?” he asked sarcastically. “I am desolate that I am unable to grant your request.” There was a slight pause. “Such an action has no part in my plans.”

  With her hands pressed tightly together in her lap, Catherine assured herself that she had only to give her name and that of her mother to end this farce. But she had no way of knowing what this man would do with such information. Her last wish was to place herself that much in the power of anyone, much less the ruthless man who sat beside her. What revenge might he not plot against Marcus if he knew?

  “I must insist,” she said, but even she recognized the lack of force in her tone, and was not surprised when he did not answer.

  They rode in silence for a length of time, then his voice came through the darkness. “Are you in love with Fitzgerald?”

  “What difference does it make?” she asked.

  “Are you?”

  His tone was soft, but its gentle persistence held an implacable quality which demanded the truth of her. “No, no, I don’t think so,” she said finally.

  “Have I found that rare thing, an honest woman?”

  At that sarcastic inflection Catherine turned away from him. His relaxed air was a pose, nothing more, she discovered as he reached out and caught her arm. “Stay, ma belle. That haughty manner is becoming, but a man easily gets a surfeit. A smile would not come amiss. And if you had a kiss going begging—”

  The pressure on her arm slowly increased. She tried to twist it from his grasp but succeeded only in bruising the flesh of her wrist. Gradually she was drawn nearer. His right hand came up to cup the back of her neck and then his lips, warm and gentle, were against her mouth.

  For an instant she was still, savoring the sensation with an instinctive curiosity. Then she stiffened in outrage and jerked away, pushing at him with both hands against his chest as she felt his grip slacken. He was only shifting his hold. As Catherine raised a hand to strike him, he caught both wrists and dragged her across his hard form.

  “Marcus or me, what is the difference?” he demanded. “You were born a quadroon, reared and trained to make yourself pleasant to a man. What does it matter who the man is, as long as you are cared for?”

  “I am not a quadroon,” Catherine said, breathlessly aware of the strength of his hands and the firm muscles of his thighs beneath her. His smile flashed once again and she thought his eyes rested on the whiteness of her shoulders where her shawl had fallen away, behind her on the seat

  “Very well then — octaroon. You are certainly fair enough to deserve that title.”

  “You don’t understand,” she panted, shaking her head.

  “Are you going to insist that I apply to your mother? That seems unnecessary under the circumstances. At any rate, you can be sure she will have no objections to you accepting my protection — not if she consented to Fitzgerald. And you can stop trembling. I am not an ogre.”

  “No,” she whispered. “Only a panther.”

  Suddenly he brought her hands down and set her apart from him. “Where did you hear that nonsense — not that it matters. I suppose you heard the rest of it too. How I am acclaimed, or blamed, depending on the narrator — with tracking down three men and killing them in cold blood? How people enjoy legends!”

  “You — you deny it?” she asked, more to continue in the safety of conversation than from real interest.

  “No. What would be the purpose?” Releasing her, he leaned back and closed his eyes. As the wheels of the carriage passed over a pothole in the street the coach body shifted and Catherine took advantage of its swaying to move minutely away from him. In that moment she made an important discovery. There had been the taste of absinthe on his lips. She had caught that same smell more than once on the breath of her dancing partners. Absinthe, the most potent of liquors. He was not inebriated by any means. Still, wasn’t his speech just a trifle precise, his movements a shade deliberate? And the splendor of swordplay — did it not have the daredevil exuberance of a man who cared little whether he lived or died? And now? Wasn’t his control excessive under what he believed to be the circumstances? Perhaps he had drunk deep earlier in an effort to forget his Lulu. Perhaps it was only now beginning to be felt? How much would it affect him? Enough so that when the carriage slowed again he would be delayed in following if she jumped out and ran? The possibility was worth a try, anything at this point was worth a try.

  3

  Catherine recognized the street as they turned into it. She knew, from listening to the whispered conversations between her mother and her friends, that this section along the old ramparts was where many of the quadroons were housed by their Creole gentlemen. She was not too surprised, therefore, when the carriage began to slow as they neared a small but well-proportioned white house set flush with the street. With her eyes on the shadowy figure of the man beside her, she leaned forward bit by bit until her hand was nearly on the handle of the door.

  Abruptly she surged upward, pressing the handle, diving for the door. She tumbled out into the muddy road, falling to her hands and knees. There was no time to worry about bruises. She scrambled to her feet, put her head down, and ran with all the fleet unconcern for appearances of that near forgotten summer when her father had died and she had escaped into a boy’s world. Her slippers were left behind in the glutinous mud, but she could not stop.

  Before her lay the dark tunnel of an alley. She swerved toward its concealment, her heart beating high in her throat. A cat fled hissing from beneath her feet, and somewhere in the distance there came a muffled shout of alarm. Still she did not pause or look back, not even when she heard the thudding of footfalls over the pounding of the blood in her veins.

  Cruel fingers fastened on her shoulder. The puffed sleeve of her gown gave with a soft, rending sound, and she was dragged to a halt, the breath driven from her chest as she was captured in a rib-crushing grip.

  A moment later, she felt herself swung high against a hard, muscular chest with bands of steel under her knees and shoulders.

  “Little fool,” Navarro murmured in her ear in an exultant amusement. “Down there are those who would slit your pretty throat for the trinket you wear on your turban. Think you there is no worse fate than to lie in my arms? You are wrong.”

  The door of the white house swung open as he approached. A manservant, holding a closed lantern of pierced tin, stepped back as he entered.

  “Pay off that bug-eyed fool outside for the use of his horse-drawn wheelbarrow,” he flung over his shoulder. Obedient to his command, the servant stepped out into the street, leaving him to ascend the steep, interior stairs in darkness.

  He carried her effortlessly, his step on the narrow treads firm and sure, as if he had climbed them a hundred times. No
r did he waver or stumble, making nonsense, or so she thought, of her certainty that he was the worse for drink. How could she have been so fooled? she wondered dazedly. But she must not think of that now. Gone was her last chance of escaping without revealing her name, thereby placing her future and herself in this man’s hands.

  Distrait laughter bubbled up in her chest and she suppressed it with difficulty. How much more could she be in the hands of Rafael Navarro? No, she must not think of that. In a moment, as soon as she was positive they were out of the hearing of the servant she would tell him who she was.

  There was a closed-in smell of dust-laden hangings and unaired bedding in the upper hall, combined with the lingering musk of a long dead perfume. The mustiness grew stronger as Navarro strode into a bedchamber and kicked the door shut behind him. When he dropped her on an unmade bed, dust rose in a thin cloud, tickling her nose.

  With a muttered imprecation, Navarro crossed to the tall windows and flung the jalousies wide, letting in the long, stretching rays of the moon along with the rush of fresh air.

  Catherine, raising on one elbow to remove her mask in order to breathe better, went still. She was caught unaware by her first glimpse of a purely masculine beauty as the moonlight poured over the head and shoulders of the dark man. It gleamed on the fine black hair with its disciplined waves, and edged the copper planes of his face with silver, leaving his eyes and the faint indention of his chin in shadow. There grew in the back of her mind an intimation of a greater danger to herself than she had dreamed. The man, turning, moving toward her, seemed less than real, a wild, mythical creature unbound by the rules of the civilized world, capable of giving delight or anguish while feeling neither. She lay for a long moment enthralled, unable to move.

  With a strangled cry she twisted away and slid off the bed. A single lithe movement placed him between her and the door, and she stopped, clutching at one of the high posts at the foot of the canopied four-poster.