Arms of a Stranger (14 page)

Anne frowned. Reggie would say it was stupid. Most people would think it was stupid, and very dangerous. And maybe it was. But she had such a strong compulsion to see Renard again—even from a distance—that she felt she had no choice but to follow the driving instincts that urged her on.

Last night he’d been in that very room, holding her, kissing her. Anne closed her eyes and remembered the sensation of his lips on hers, his hands moving over her bare skin. No one had ever made her feel so sensual, so alive.

No one, that is, except Delacroix! She hated to admit it, but both men had the same devastating effect on her. She’d had intimate encounters with them both in the last twenty-four hours, and if she was honest with herself, she’d have to admit that sometimes the memories got confused and intertwined.

The curtains moved in the incoming air as if in slow motion, a languid breeze rolling across the room to the bed. Anne welcomed its cooling effect on her flushed cheeks. The moon was nearly full that night, and the room had a dim, preternatural glow about it. Nothing was really in complete shadow. The furniture, the cushions, the bric-a-brac, everything was still and solid, everything but the curtains belling in the breeze.

She might have slept if she weren’t so full of expectancy, so full of thoughts of Renard … and Delacroix. Anne shook her head in the dark. How she wished she could keep that scoundrel from weaseling his way into her thoughts!

She heard movement and lowered voices outside her door, then the knob turned carefully. Quickly she rolled on her side and closed her eyes, forcing herself to relax completely. She must look convincingly, peacefully dormant.

She sensed the light of a lamp falling across her face, the darkness behind her closed eyes brightening infinitesimally.

“She’s done up, the poor dear,” whispered Reggie.

“Yes,” said Katherine. “The herbs seem to have done the job well enough.”

“We really must do something for Delacroix,” said Reggie. “He might have actually saved her life, the little scatterbrain.”

“Yes,” agreed Katherine. “We’ll do something to show our appreciation.”

There was a pause, during which Anne supposed she was being studied. She felt a little foolish, though thoroughly loved. How often was a twenty-three-year-old woman so completely mollycoddled?

In another moment the light withdrew and the door was closed. She opened her eyes and listened while her doting relatives moved away, each to his or her own room. She wondered with what feelings they parted tonight.

Just to be safe, Anne waited another ten minutes or so after the last squeak of a floorboard was heard in the hall, then she threw off the sheets, flipped up the mosquito netting, and got out of bed. She lit a lamp, turned it low, then quickly donned the trousers and jacket over her chemise. She pulled on a pair of sturdy half-boots, then finished the outfit with the hat she’d borrowed from Reggie’s room. She had wound her braid in a coronet and secured it with several hairpins. She hoped none of it would come loose and hang down her neck, revealing to everyone the true nature of her sex.

She studied her reflection in the mirror and acknowledged that she’d be instantly known for a fraud—or at least an oddity—if she were trying to go about town in the daylight hours. But in the dark she hoped to get by with such a hastily devised disguise.

Now she had only to wait a few more minutes before leaving the house to walk to Jeffrey’s lodgings. She looked at the mantel clock. It was forty minutes past ten. She sat down at her dressing table and stared at her reflection, waiting, waiting … The tick of the clock sounded through the silent room, its slow-creeping measures of time completely out of rhythm with Anne’s racing heart.

Soon she would see Renard again. Soon.

A
nne walked quickly through the quiet residential streets of the Faubourg St. Mary, discreetly keeping in the shadows of the trees as much as possible, crossing to the other side if it looked as if she was about to encounter someone on the banquette. Her disguise was adequate, but it was best not to take chances.

Jeffrey lodged in a respectable boardinghouse on Camp Street, just down the block from the new St. Patrick’s Church and not far from Canal Street and the Vieux Carré. The closer Anne got to Canal Street, the more people she saw, and the more nervous she got. It was one thing dreaming up a daring scheme in the safety of her bedchamber, and quite another actually to undertake it.

But despite her anxieties, she did not regret the deception and danger in which she found herself hopelessly tangled. She had to see Renard again, and this appeared to be the only way to accomplish what had become an all-consuming desire.

Last night’s encounter in her bedchamber played over and over again in her mind, spurring her on. She had no way of knowing when or if he’d ever visit her again. He was elusive, a dream that had to be pursued. He certainly hadn’t been knocking on her aunt’s door lately, or—like Delacroix—turning up like a bad penny everywhere she went.

The night was balmy, the air redolent with scents both good and bad. The stars hung low, their brilliance softened and blurred at the edges, as if shining through the thin translucence of Chinese lanterns.

Mrs. Cavanaugh’s Boardinghouse, a moderate-sized two-story building surrounded by a tidy garden, was just ahead, the gables and shutters limned by moonlight. Jeffrey had made the point once that he was plump enough in the pockets to have his own house, but, being a bachelor, he found it more convenient to come and go as he pleased at Mrs. Cavanaugh’s.

But when discussing the advantages of having his meals and laundry taken care of, Jeffrey always made it quite clear to Anne that he’d give up these admirable arrangements at the drop of a hat if a woman he couldn’t resist marrying came along. He’d said it in that coy way of his, leaving Anne no doubt that he thought of her as just such an irresistible woman.

Anne determinedly put Jeffrey’s troublesome infatuation out of her mind. Tonight her thoughts and feelings were consumed with the idea and image of her hero, Renard.

Anne stared up at the only lighted window in the house, an upper outside window with the shade pulled down. She decided that it must be Jeffrey’s room. When a shadow from inside suddenly loomed over the shade, Anne realized how exposed she was standing there in the moonlight. If Jeffrey happened to look out, he couldn’t help seeing her. She crossed the street and scanned the area for a good hiding place. She saw a large rhododendron bush near the street, in a corner of someone’s small yard. Hidden behind it, she could still command a comprehensive view of the boardinghouse.

Anne was just about to take up her position for spying when she heard fast-paced footsteps on the banquette. She snatched a glance up the road and saw two gentlemen quickly walking her way. She’d have to wait till they passed by before she could hide, and she wondered how she was going to manage to look inconspicuous in the meantime. Surely it would appear odd to the gentlemen if she simply stood there twiddling her thumbs!

Anne couldn’t think of a better plan on the spur of the minute, so she remained where she was. But she struck a nonchalant pose, hooked her thumbs in her trouser pockets, thrust out her chin a little, and fixed her eyes on the boardinghouse across the street. She hoped to appear so sure of herself and relaxed that she would excite no interest at all. No such luck.

“Monsieur.” One of the men made a slight, polite bow, touching the narrow brim of his hat. Anne watched him out of the corner of her eye, keeping her chin up and her face averted. “Might we be of some assistance to you? Are you looking for an address at this late hour?”

She replied in a lowered voice, her tone brusque, hoping to sound convincingly male. She hadn’t planned on talking to anyone. “No … er … thanks. I’m waiting for someone.”

The man did not respond. After a tense pause, Anne braved a look at him. She was startled to see that he was the same man she’d nearly run into at the cemetery a few days before—the handsome black man. He was looking at her keenly, as if he recognized her, too, or perhaps simply saw through her disguise. She tried to brazen it out, but she was afraid her nervousness showed.

“Armande?” The other man was talking now, nudging the first man on the arm. “Come along, brother, this fellow doesn’t need our assistance.”

Anne glanced at the second man. He, too, was a mix of races, just as handsome as the first man, but younger looking. He was visibly sweating, shifting nervously on his feet. They were both well-dressed—and in a hurry. The older one, called Armande, was carrying a small valise.

“Come, Armande,” the younger man said again, impatience in his voice. “We’ve got work to do.”

Armande was finally prodded to movement. With one last puzzled, interested look at Anne, he hurried off down the street with his brother.

Anne wasn’t sure what suspicions Armande had about her, but he was gone, and that was all that mattered. She blew a relieved breath, then waited for them to turn a corner and disappear before she took up her position behind the rhododendron bush. The shadow that had moved over Jeffrey’s shade was gone, but an instant later it reappeared, then slid away again, as if he were pacing restlessly in his room.
He’s as excited as I am!
thought Anne. She smiled in the dark. On the matter of Renard, she and Jeffrey would always agree. They were both drawn to him, to his heroic lifestyle that was the active, expanded realization of their own ideals.

Now the waiting began. She didn’t want to sit down because the wet grass would stain her borrowed trousers. Though it was probably just an hour or so, the wait seemed like an eternity, and by the time the light went out in Jeffrey’s room, Anne’s legs were stiff and her back ached. These minor discomforts were, however, quickly disregarded when Jeffrey let himself out a side door of the boardinghouse and made for the street. Even though it was dark, Anne couldn’t mistake that swaggering, long-legged stride. It was Jeffrey, all right.

She followed him at a discreet distance. Though it must have been after midnight there were still occasional people on the streets. Anne darted in and out of shadows, usually managing to hide when someone approached, but her throat tightened with fear whenever a man passed by. She dreaded a repeat of the scene in that alley yesterday, particularly since there was no Lucien Delacroix in the vicinity to help her out of it.

Jeffrey was just ahead, of course, and she could call to him for help if necessary, but she didn’t want anything—not even her own defense—to interfere with Jeffrey getting to his destination on time. Her whole hope of seeing Renard depended on Jeffrey being in the right place at the right time.

The right place was apparently the cemetery, in fact the same cemetery where Aunt Katherine’s husbands were buried, the same place where Anne had held a conversation with Delacroix, and where she’d seen that man … She remembered thinking how appropriate the atmospheric burial grounds were for trysts and dangerous assignations, for romance and skullduggery.

Now Jeffrey seemed just as anxious as she was to keep out of sight. Mindful of possible watchful eyes, he stealthily stationed himself in the shadows of a rose arbor in a yard across the street from the Catholic section of the cemetery. She hid herself behind a bush in the yard next door, the slick, leathery leaves of another rhododendron pressing against her cheek.

She crouched down and congratulated herself on stalking Jeffrey so expertly that he never suspected he’d been followed. She was settling in for another long wait when she heard the dull, plodding echo of a horse’s hooves on the road. She parted her protective greenery and watched the excruciatingly slow approach of what appeared to be a rickety farmer’s wagon full of cargo. In the moonlight she could make out barrels, baskets of produce, and what looked like huge sheaves of tobacco tied together in large bundles.

It seemed an odd hour to be transporting merchandise to the market or the dock, but she’d seen other cargo-laden wagons on the road that night, and supposed that busy farmers made up their own schedules. Unless, of course, that was no field hand bent nearly double over the horse’s reins, his wide-brimmed straw hat pulled low on his forehead … Did Renard use disguises other than his usual uniform black? Whoever the driver was, he looked as though he’d dozed off, swaying with the movement of the wagon.

With no one to urge it forward, the piebald mare stopped completely and dropped its muzzle to the short tufts of grass that grew in the middle section of the road in a thin line, tore a juicy mouthful, and proceeded to chew. Anne watched all this with keen interest. The scene looked perfectly harmless and unrehearsed. Was it real, or was it part of Renard’s plan?

Suddenly the driver roused himself, sleepily knuckled his eyes, stretched, and stepped down from the wagon. Anne immediately realized that the driver couldn’t be Renard. He didn’t have Renard’s physical build, the details of which Anne remembered with surprising exactness, as if she’d been seeing him on a daily basis. But she’d only seen him twice, and both times primarily in the dark.

The man led the horse into the shadows of a pair of tall sycamore trees that skirted the boundary of the cemetery and were planted so close together that their upper branches intertwined. Now the wagon bed was in complete darkness. The driver reappeared from the lee side of the wagon and stooped to inspect the horse’s outside shoe. The driver was fully illuminated by the moonlight and seemed the natural object for watching, but Anne couldn’t help wondering…

Her gaze veered into the shadows where the wagon was practically hidden from view. She looked hard. Did she imagine it, or were the bundles of tobacco shifting and moving about? She squinted and strained to see. Someone was crawling into the wagon bed and hiding under the sheaves of tobacco! And there was another dark figure following him, and another figure just emerging from behind one of the tall tombs. Yes, Jeffrey had definitely hit on the right time and the right place! Slaves were being stowed away and driven out of town in a farm wagon! But where was Renard?

Anne watched intently, her breath caught in her throat, her heart hammering against her ribs, as three escapees crawled into the wagon. All during this short process, the driver continued to fuss with his horse’s shoe and pretend to be oblivious to the goings-on at the rear of the vehicle. When all three slaves were safely inside, the driver hiked himself onto the seat and picked up the reins. Anne’s disappointment smarted like a scraped knee. Wasn’t she going to see Renard at all? Or was he hidden in the wagon, too? But surely someone would have had to escort the slaves to this point

Suddenly Renard appeared at the rear of the wagon. Like a flat stone thrown over the surface of a lake, Anne’s heart skipped and skittered. There was no mistaking the dark figure of her hero—so tall, lean, and upright! His movements were assured and economical as he hurriedly arranged the tobacco and made certain nothing was showing that might draw suspicion to the wagon.

As Renard straightened from this task, the driver, without seeming to glance back, gave an almost imperceptible sign—a half-turn of his wrist—which Renard duplicated. Then the driver deftly flicked the mare’s rump with the tethers and the horse lifted its head, and, still chewing, leaned into the first plodding step of its “getaway” pace.

This was all done without a hitch, and Anne could imagine the smile curving beneath Renard’s mask as he stood in the shadows. But it was too soon to smile. Behind Renard, Anne saw movement. Shapes shifted in the dappled shade of the trees. Obscure silhouettes slid over the cold marble tombs, slithering, like phantasmic predators, ever closer to Renard. Could they be members of a posse, alerted to Renard’s whereabouts and bent on capture? Anne was afraid that was exactly the case, yet Renard continued to stand there, apparently unaware of the imminent danger.

Terror gripped Anne’s throat and strangled the words of warning that formed on her lips. Unable to command her voice, she pushed aside the screen of leaves and ran toward Renard, waving her arms. He seemed to startle when he saw her, stepping forward with one foot, then hesitating.

But of course he would hesitate, Anne reasoned. A man springing out from behind a bush, frantically waving his arms, might be a trap. The driver stared, too, surprised to immobility, like a deer caught in lantern light.

There’d been no time to spare for thoughts of her own danger, but the sickening whine of a bullet as it passed close by Anne’s head made her all too aware of the risk she’d taken. Somehow she found her voice. “Renard!” she called, but he was already moving. However, he wasn’t moving away and out of danger. He was moving toward her! In half a second he collided with her and yanked her to his side, pinning her there with an iron arm around her waist and forcing her to keep up with him as he raced down the road.

Beyond the rattle of her teeth and the rush of her own blood pulsing wildly through her veins, Anne heard hoofbeats on the road, the mare no longer plodding, but charging down the quiet street as if it were chased by wolves. The wagon—all loose rotten wood and squeaky bearings—lurched and clattered behind. Raised voices echoed from the shadows of the cemetery. Angry words intermingled with scuffling boots and the whinnying of nervous horses.

Even as she pushed herself to the very limits of her strength to keep up with Renard, Anne knew it was hopeless. How could they possibly outrun a mounted posse? But suddenly she saw a horse, its dark shape blending into the dense shadows beneath a full-leaved, drooping willow tree at the edge of the cemetery. Renard tossed Anne onto the saddle, quickly untwined the tether from a tree branch, then leaped into the saddle behind her.

“Hold on tight,” he whispered fiercely in her ear. But Anne didn’t need to be told to do something that made such incredible good sense. Both their lives were in the balance, and now that it looked as if she’d have something worth remembering in her dotage, Anne had never felt so determined to reach old age. She clung to the saddle pommel like a drowning man to a tossed ring of life-preserving rope.