Arms of a Stranger (15 page)

Anne could feel Renard’s powerful thighs press against her hips as he spurred the horse forward, his chest bearing down on her as he reached for the reins and flicked the horse’s neck. “Hiyaaa! Go, Tempest!” he shouted, and they shot forward with such force, Anne’s head popped back to thump against Renard’s chin. She could hear his teeth clack together on impact.

Just as they gained the road, she glanced back and was relieved to see that they were pursued by only three men, not a fully organized posse. No doubt the men were bounty hunters, keeping their numbers small so there’d be fewer of them to split the reward among them.

In a moment they were on the road, a mere horse’s length behind the wagon but, fortunately, several lengths ahead of the pursuing horsemen. But Anne knew they were not out of shooting range. Renard’s broad back stood as a barricade between her and the firing guns, but she took no comfort in this fact. She couldn’t bear the thought of Renard being shot.

Renard did not intend to be anyone’s bounty, dead or alive. Handily managing the racing horse, he jagged back and forth without pattern, making for an unpredictable target. Eventually they gained on the wagon and pulled alongside it. Renard extracted a gun from a holster strapped to his hip and twisted in the saddle to take aim.

There was the deafening crack of gunfire at close range. Above the ringing in her ears, twice Anne heard the dull impact of a bullet and the shrill cry of a frightened horse thrown off-balance by a floundering rider.

With only one rider left in the saddle, the chase seemed all but over. The hoofbeats of the remaining horseman slowed, then halted completely. Renard turned in the saddle. Anne had turned, too, and was peering hopefully over Renard’s shoulder when she felt the searing, stinging path of pain across her temple.

Blood, warm and sticky, immediately oozed from the wound and trailed thickly down her cheek and around the curve of her jaw. Her face washed cold. She felt faint, distanced, teetering. There were only pinpricks of consciousness left … Then there was nothing.

Lucien felt Anne go limp. He grabbed her around the waist and held tight. She must have fainted. He marveled that she’d lasted as long as she had during all this excitement.

Despite her disguise, Lucien had recognized Anne the minute she’d jumped out from behind that bush. He’d long ago memorized her every movement and mannerism, the nuances of her body language as familiar to him as his own. For weeks he’d watched her from a distance and longed to be close to her, as close as last night in her bedchamber, as close as now. But not under these circumstances, damn it! Now, in addition to the strong feelings he’d had for Anne all along, his heart swelled with gratitude. The little scatterbrain had risked her life to save his.

Thank God the chase was over, the favorable ending of it achieved, he knew, only because of the two casualties. Lucien hoped fervently that the wounds he’d inflicted were as trivial as he’d intended them to be. He’d aimed for the pursuers’ arms and legs, but it was hard to be accurate from the back of a galloping horse.

But, just as the note had warned, Jeffrey Wycliff—or one of his informants—had known about tonight’s mission and leaked it, intentionally or unintentionally, to the wrong people, forcing this confrontation and the resulting bloodshed. It was the first time Lucien had had to resort to gunfire to avert capture. His stomach churned with anger. Was this just the beginning of other botched missions? So few people were involved in the planning and execution of these escapes—people he trusted—that he didn’t have the slightest idea whom he ought to suspect. Whom was Wycliff in cahoots with?

Armande turned now and waved to Lucien, veering the wagon to the right as they reached a fork in the road, slowing it to a pace that would keep the ancient conveyance intact till the rendezvous point with out-of-town compatriots. Armande would continue north on River Road and Lucien would go east, toward Bocage.

There was a remote cabin on the outskirts of his estate, a sultry niche deep in the cypress woods near a critter-infested bayou where no one but Lucien and Armande ever went. They had arranged to meet there in the morning and report on the completed mission.

It was a favorite place for the two of them to put their heads together to plan strategies for the cause, or just to relax on the porch with a cheroot, listen to the lulling singsong of the crickets, and watch alligators pretending to be drifting logs, their beady eyes peering out from under mossy headdresses. Tonight Lucien would take Anne there to recover from her swoon.

He slowed his horse to a canter, then a walk, nuzzling his chin against a tuft of hair at Anne’s brow. He smiled and squeezed her close, desire and admiration for her, like shafts of sunlight, beaming brightly, warmly, into the dark, cold corners of his cynical soul. She was a game one, foolish and headstrong, but pluck to the bone. When had he started to care so deeply for her?

Yes, he cared for her. Maybe he even loved her. It was a thrilling but unwelcome possibility. He didn’t want to love her. He had no business loving anyone, not while he was committed to the masquerade of Renard and the risks it entailed. How could Anne possibly fit into such a crazy existence? Did he have the right to try to make her care as deeply for him if it endangered her life? He lifted his chin and let her head fall back into the hollow under his jaw. He kissed her forehead, his lips drifting down her hairline …

… And tasted the metallic bitterness of blood.
Mon Dieu!
She’d been shot!

Lucien would have panicked, or wept, or cursed if he’d had the leisure of time, or if the stakes hadn’t been so damned high. But he had no way of knowing how serious Anne’s injuries were until he could examine them by candlelight, and that could not be accomplished on the road in the dead-dark of night. So all emotions were checked for now, all energy channeled into getting Anne to the cabin as fast as possible.

He spurred his sweating horse to a gallop, Anne clasped tightly against his chest, his large hand curved around her jaw to keep her head against his heart, to keep her delicate neck from snapping like a doll’s. Hardened by a career of risk and danger, Lucien was still nearly overpowered by a nauseating, gut-wrenching fear. What if he was too late? What if he lost her?

He was off the main road now, urging his horse to an even faster gallop as he rode down a country lane. Skirting the manicured lawns of Bocage, the slave quarters, and the acres of sugarcane fields, he headed for the dense security of the cypress woods. The closer he got, the rougher the terrain became. Given this fact, he was probably riding too fast, but he trusted his horse to follow the thin trail familiar only to those few who used it frequently.

Tempest sidestepped dangerous snarls of overgrown ground cover and circumvented rocks and shrubs that loomed up seemingly out of nowhere. Finally the ground got mushy, and Lucien knew they were almost into the woods, and once inside, he would have no choice but to slow down. Time. Time was the enemy.

Lucien prayed. He prayed to all the saints he knew by name, and all the saints he didn’t know by any stretch of a sinner’s imagination. In his mind’s eye, he was on his knees, the endless sky the roof of his cathedral, each star a candle lighted for Anne. For sweet, sweet Anne.

T
hey were deep in the woods now, their progress slow as Lucien maneuvered his horse around the trunks of large cypress trees, thin fingers of moonlight barely penetrating the overhanging, moss-laden branches. The verdant closeness of the swamp made many people claustrophobic, but Lucien welcomed the dense foliage—tonight more than ever—as a means of hiding from the encroachment of unfriendly civilization. Fireflies winked in the dark stillness.

The trees cleared slightly, and he saw the cabin, its weathered wood gleaming silver-gray. It was really nothing more than a fishing shack, perched on the muddy banks of the bayou. Footwide planks of wood, supported by moldy rope, served as a sort of walkway over the mud from the crude hitching post to the warped and blistered front door. But inside this unprepossessing structure the cupboards were stocked with food, medicines, bandages, and sundry supplies that made the old cabin a valuable haven for Lucien and chosen others. Anne wasn’t the first refugee he’d brought there, but he’d never been more relieved to see the place, or felt more urgent in his mission.

He eased off the horse, carefully pulling Anne with him and supporting her sagging body against his. She felt so slight and insubstantial, he experienced another rush of uncontrollable fear. He caught her under the knees and carried her to the cabin, making a distracted mental note to water and tend to the exhausted horse later, when he was sure Anne was out of harm’s way. He to prayed God he had it in his power to secure Anne’s safety.

He lifted the latch in the door, which was never locked, and, turning sideways, toted his light baggage inside, kicking the door closed behind him. He knew where the bed was and needed no light to guide him. He laid her down, the supporting bed boards creaking as Anne sank lifelessly into the soft, moss-filled mattress.

He walked quickly to a pantry, found a tinderbox, and struck a light, shakily holding it to the wick of a thick candle. He darted a searching, worried glance at Anne, then hastily found and lighted three more candles. He took two of these, placing one on each side of the bed on small tables.

He sat down on the bed and leaned forward, gently taking hold of Anne’s chin and turning her head to the light. Lucien’s stomach tightened with distress, every nerve in his body cringing in sympathy. There was so much blood! Too much of it to see the wound, or to assess its seriousness.

Tamping down his rising panic, he stripped off his black gloves—sticky with Anne’s blood—found a flagon of fresh drinking water, and poured a goodly amount over a clean cloth he’d taken from the medicine chest. He dabbed gingerly at the wound till he’d sponged away most of the blood. All during this process, Anne didn’t stir at all. Such pale inertia was unlike her. Before, whenever he’d seen her, she’d been vibrant with life, so passionate and energetic. What had he done to her?

Lucien’s fears were considerably mollified and his guilt slightly assuaged when he got a good look at the wound. There had been no penetration of the bullet. It had only grazed her, leaving a shallow scrape about an inch long. Lucien let loose a heavy sigh, relief flooding through him like a tranquilizing dose of bone-warming, muscle-loosening liquor. With the application of that herbal disinfectant Armande had mixed up recently and a clean bandage, she’d heal in a matter of days, the wound probably leaving no permanent mark. He didn’t relish the idea of Anne having a lifelong reminder of this night in the form of a scar on her beautiful face.

When Lucien applied the disinfectant, Anne showed the first signs of returning to consciousness. Her head rolled on the pillow, and a soft, low moan escaped her lips. Lucien worked faster. He didn’t want her waking up till he’d completely cleaned and dressed the wound. Once he’d accomplished this, he’d snuff out all but one of the candles. And the one that remained lighted wouldn’t be placed anywhere near his general vicinity. Anne mustn’t see any more of him than necessary.

When Lucien was ready to tie a strip of material around her head and secure the bandage at her temple, his hands faltered for a moment. She’d braided her hair and wound it in a tight bundle, secured by a dozen pins. He’d love to see it loose.

Lucien’s fingers hovered longingly over the coil of gleaming braids. He itched to see the long silken curls cascading over the white pillow casing. He’d imagined it that way so many times … Moments passed, his indecision as palpable and heavy in the surrounding air as the swarm of mosquitoes that had been drawn by the scent of blood.

The insistent, incessant whine of the mosquitoes was what finally prodded Lucien to movement. This was no time to indulge his romantic fantasies! He had to get Anne’s wound properly dressed. He quickly tied the strip of cloth around her head, securing the bandage. He batted away a half-dozen or so mosquitoes, then pulled the net down and over Anne’s still form, tucking it snugly under the edges of the mattress.

“There,
cher,”
he murmured, “you are protected from the bite of the insects.” He pulled a straight-backed, reed-bottomed chair next to the bed and sat down, sighing deeply, smiling with self-derision. “But who will protect you from me?”

The question was not rhetorical. He knew he was a threat to Anne’s immediate safety and ultimate happiness. She could have been killed tonight. He had had no idea that she was quite so intrepid, that she would go to such lengths to see him. Unless he could draw a promise from her to behave more circumspectly, she’d assuredly put herself in harm’s way again. And there was still the problem of how to return her to Prytania Street without exposing her to damaging gossip.

He wondered if she’d been discovered missing yet. If so, he hoped Reggie would keep his wits about him and conduct a
discreet
search for her. If word of her escapade leaked out, society would not look kindly on a young woman who’d dressed like a man, chased after an outlaw, and spent several hours alone with him in a remote cabin. Never mind that he’d only brought her there to recover from an injury; details that might lend the story a more respectable slant would be disregarded.

As his gaze rested on Anne, Lucien felt the tug of another smile—this one tender. She never gave the gossips a second thought, but went about her business, answering to her own conscience and no one else. Just now she looked as sweet and vulnerable as a child. Her knees were drawn up slightly and turned to the side. One arm rested on her stomach; the other was curled up over her head, her hand lying open on the pillow. Her long lashes made feathering shadows on her cheeks, where there was finally a slight flush of color.

She looked so innocent. Like an angel. But he knew how strong-minded, how ruthlessly determined she could be. She believed in Renard, she believed in the cause, and she had willfully flouted conventional wisdom to be, for a short time, part of her hero’s life.

Lucien’s smile fell away. If she knew that Renard was also Dandy Delacroix, would she still think of him as a hero? He was only a man, after all, completely undeserving of such awe and admiration. He knew she fancied herself in love with him—with Renard—but she could only be in love with the legend, not the man, because she didn’t know the man beneath the disguises, behind the masquerade.

He’d been playing the parts for so long now, Lucien wasn’t sure who he was, either. It was too simple to say he was a mix of both Delacroix and Renard. He wasn’t. He was something beyond the sum total of both. How could Anne love a man she’d never met?

Even if Anne’s love was genuine, and not the manufactured infatuation of hero worship, would it be right to accept her love? He had a feeling his career as Renard couldn’t last more than a few more weeks—he needed that much time to carry out a plan he was devising to stop permanently Bodine’s escalating brutality to his slaves—but anything could happen in a few weeks.

Tonight was proof of that. Someone had infiltrated the tight ranks of his operation. Lucien knew his time as Renard must come to a natural end, but he’d no intention of obliging his enemies by celebrating that end dangling from a noose. But fate might see his abolitionist career conclude in a different manner than he envisioned…

In the interim Anne would be in danger, too. The best plan all around would be to discourage her from caring about him, to keep her at a safe distance. But could he? He had gone to her house, kissed and caressed her in her own bedchamber, but there had always been the safeguard of her abigail sleeping in the next room. Completely alone with her now, he wanted nothing more than to hold her in his arms and make love to her all night long.

When she woke up, he’d guard his identity … and his heart. He would show her that he was angered by her risky behavior and discourage her from falling in love with an outlaw. It would be hard, but he was doing it for both their sakes. He ruefully remembered Micaela’s comment about him being an honorable man. Could he be honorable tonight, or would he give in to his deepest yearnings?

Lucien heard his horse whinny, a reminder that the animal needed water and his bridle removed. Close by was another smaller shack that he used as a makeshift stable, complete with hay and oats. He would put Tempest in there for what was left of the night, safe from alligators that sniffed out a sweating horse from yards away and stalked it like any other warm-blooded prey. Even now there could be unwanted visitors outside the door—the long-toothed, beady-eyed, low-bellied kind.

With one last look at Anne, who slept peacefully, Lucien stood up, opened the door, and went outside. There was a rustle in the grass that grew tall along the water’s edge and a ripple in the water itself. By the flash of terror in Tempest’s eyes and the way his nostrils flared, Lucien realized he’d come outside just in time, just when an alligator was about to pay a predatory call. Lucien hurriedly led the horse to the shack several yards upshore, rubbing Tempest’s long nose and crooning soothing words. He tended to the animal’s needs and firmly latched the door shut behind him. Then he jogged back along the path to the cabin.

When he opened the door, a firefly drifted in with him. His gaze darted to the bed, seeking reassurance in the vision of his sleeping angel.

But she wasn’t asleep. She was sitting up in bed, staring at him most disconcertingly, all four candles ablaze and flooding the room with light.

Anne was disoriented. Her head felt like a balloon, light and airy, as if it might float off if it weren’t attached. Her memory came in bits and pieces—bits of chaos and pieces of fear. Slowly she put them together and came up with one fantastic scene after another. The cemetery, the slaves escaping, the bounty hunters, the mad dash across country on Renard’s horse, the gunshot, the pain…

A shiver coursed through her. She touched the bandage that was tied snugly around her forehead and winced involuntarily. It hurt like the dickens, but obviously she’d not been mortally wounded. She must have fainted more because of the shock than because of the actual physical injury.

She looked around, familiarizing herself with the strange environs. She was in a bed with clean, simple bedclothes underneath her and nothing on top, which was fine because it was too hot for covers. The bed was swathed in mosquito netting, making everything outside this man-made cocoon appear hazy and slightly unfocused. The fuzziness of her vision might also have something to do with the throbbing pain behind her right eye.

Four globes of light pulsed and flickered, one on each side of the bed, and two across the small room on the flat shelf of what looked like a pantry cupboard. She assimilated these facts and grew comfortable with them before she attempted to unravel the unknown aspects of her situation. Had Renard brought her there? If so, where was he?

The door opened. An instant before she hadn’t even known where the door was. Renard came in the room. As before, he was dressed in black, his head tied up in a close-fitting scarf, hiding his hair completely. A mask covered his face from forehead to mouth, with slits to see through. He wore a long-sleeved shirt, tight-fitting trousers, and tall boots—all black. While a single firefly flickered and bounced around him, he didn’t move. He just stared back at her.

Then suddenly he was in motion, moving quickly to the pantry and snuffing out both candles with a hiss of breath, then leaning over Anne’s bed to extinguish the candle on one side of her with a thumb and forefinger. He picked up the other candle and placed it on the mantel of a small fireplace behind him. This lighting arrangement made it impossible for her to see Renard’s face. He was in the shadows—black melding into black—but she was fully illuminated, exposed. She objected and told him so.

“Renard, why are you hiding from me?”

“Hiding?” He leaned against the wall opposite the bed, his shadow merging indistinguishably into the shadow of the pantry cupboard. “I’m right here,
cher
.”

“I can’t see you.”

“That’s the whole idea.”

“But you can see me.”

“And the sight of you brings me more pain than you can imagine.”

“I … I don’t understand.”

“You have been injured because of me.”

“No, it wasn’t your fault!”

“Why did you come to the cemetery tonight, Anne?” His tone was stern and disapproving. “It was very foolish of you. You were in grave danger. You might have been killed.”

Anne felt awkward and foolish. He was right. “I wanted to see you,” she said, instantly embarrassed by the petulance in her voice.

There was a pause. “And you would take such risks to see me? Why? You don’t even know me.”

Anne twisted her hands in her lap, feeling less and less like a mature woman, and more and more like a silly, inexperienced schoolgirl. But the dark that obscured Renard’s face lent her courage. She raised her chin. “I could ask you the same thing, you know. Why did you risk exposure by climbing into my bedchamber window? You don’t know me, either.”

“I know you better than you think.”

“How is that possible?”

“I have been watching you.”

The thought that Renard had been surreptitiously watching her sent a thrill through Anne like a bolt of lightning. “But how? Where?”