By Desire Bound Read online

  "Con?" she whispered. "There is a gendeman here who probably would like to know what we're doing here."

  Con nodded and made their needs known. "He says to wait in one of the salons at the rear of the store."

  She took his arm and followed the man as he led them past counters of glittering jewels set enticingly on gold-corded creamy satin pillows in locked display cases.

  Their gentleman indicated the first door along a hall­way of doors the same creamy color with moldings picked out in gold. Darcie opened the door to a room that was papered in cream and gold stripes and furnished with an upholstered bench, an elegant escritoire and two chairs.

  "Someone will come," Con told her, "and will ask to examine the stones. You'll give him one piece—a ring,

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  if you have one—and he will determine the cut and grade of the stone, the value, and what Poiteau might be willing to pay."

  "Sounds like a lengthy process," Darcie said. She was getting very nervous. She reached under her waist­band and fished in one of the pouches for a ring. She'd taken two. Or maybe three. Or maybe she'd for­gotten already in the heat of all that had happened during the journey.

  She slipped it on her finger and stretched out her hand. The ring had a filigreed band and a round stone that flashed rainbow colors in the artificial light.

  The kind of ring she would have liked: simple, elegant and visible. But it was Lavinia's ring, from a time when someone had loved her.

  She felt Con's hand touch her and then slide down her arm to feel the ring. She saw by his face he knew which one it was, and that there were memories. Always memories.

  "Monsieur, madame—"Their gentleman at the door.

  "He says to follow him," Con murmured. "The ap­praiser will see us now."

  She took his arm and guided him back into the hall­way. The gendeman was moving toward the sales floor, and she turned in that direction.

  "At the rear of the store," Con directed.

  She turned to the right and maneuvered them past the sparkling display cases where customers were al­ready on the sales floor. She could just see where to follow; Con slowed her up just ten steps behind.

  "Where is he going?"

  "There's an area back there they can evaluate gems. At least that's what he told me.

  "Did you tell him what we have?"

  "No."

  That was quick and to the point. She only had time to wonder why when they reached the end of the aisle. There was only one place to go: she pushed him to her left where there was a smoky glass door through which their gentleman had gone.

  "I guess this is it." She grasped the brass knob and opened the door.

  Another man stood with his back to them across the room and their gendeman was nowhere in sight.

  Darcie tapped on the door. "Monsieur..."

  The man turned.

  The deckhand . . . ! Trussed up in formal clothes, bran­dishing a loupe, his smile as malicious as a shark. Dear God, what was he doing here? How could he be here?

  He took a step toward her and she screamed, "Con . . . !" And she grabbed his hand and she ran.

  Down the aisles, through the store, knocking over tables, chairs, customers, pushing aside salespeople, oblivious to the shouts and screams that followed them. Con, lumbering blindly behind her, his one arm out­stretched, crashing against everything in his path.

  Oh God, oh God, oh God . . .

  She smashed through the doors and into the sun­light, hauling him widi her. They're coming, coming, com­ing . . . Her fear was monumental. They had to escape, she didn't care how. She bolted across the avenue, oblivious of vehicles, horses, pedestrians, curses follow­ing them as she ran interference for him.

  She heard them shouting behind her, but she was oblivious to everything but getting them out of sight of the store.

  "Con!" She was panting so hard she could barely get out his name.

  "Jesus God." He was right with her. "What the hell . . . !"

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  "Can't . . . talk—" She didn't slow down, wasn't aware of the stares of pedestrians who saw a frenzied young woman and a blind man racing like furies down the street. "Can't . . . stop—"

  Another block and another. She would never get far enough away. But she was running out of breath. She had a stitch in her side, and she was suddenly aware that she'd left their suitcase in the little salon in the store, and that all she had with her now was the money and jewelry pinned under the clothes she wore.

  Oh my God . . . She slowed her pace to a walk, and waited as he fell in step beside her.

  "God almighty, Darcie, what the hell was that all about?"

  "Are you all right?"

  "I don't know." He felt dizzy, disoriented, and depen­dent on her. And he hated it. Hated, hated, hated it. And more than that, he despised her eyes. And he was so intent on that, he almost didn't hear what she said.

  "He was there."

  He shook himself and tried to concentrate. "Who?"

  "The deckhand. In the store, in the appraisal room."

  "What?"

  "We have to get out of here. He's everywhere. He was even in the store, and for all I know, he's somewhere out here." Now she was panicked; she sounded close to hysteria. "We have to get away from here. Right now. Before he comes after us."

  He felt himself going calm in the face of her agita­tion. Something he could do, he thought. He could fo­cus and direct her and get her back in control. They had nothing, if Darcie couldn't maintain control.

  "All right," he said with more composure than he felt. "We'll get out of here now; we'll take the first train, no matter where it goes."

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  * * *

  Details. A train rocketing through the night. Arrangements made by telegraph for him to be met in Switzerland. In the dead of the night. Money exchanged. Confidentiality assured.

  Another long night in transit. Munich next. Change trains. Board for Vienna. Another two days beyond that to Budapest. He's busy, mapping and plotting where he has to go.

  No interruptions here. He's alone in the railroad car. Money buys that, and luxury. He's too used to it. His mother had told him. Money doesn 't buy everything. It buys him the where­withal to travel in luxury. To purchase silence. To buy loyalty. To possess a legend.

  His mother's voice, always in his ear . . .

  They were going to Munich, economy class, sur­rounded by passengers who knew to travel with picnics and pillows.

  "We can buy food; it doesn't matter," he said, and he knew he was speaking with the voice of a man accus­tomed to having all the money he ever needed at his command.

  "What if he's on the train?"

  "He's not on the train."

  "Next you'll say he wasn't in the store."

  "No. I believe he was in the store. Just like I saw him, on the dock and in the street. Maybe he's a figment of both our imaginations."

  She shook her head. "You're remembering more now, aren't you?"

  "I think so. I goddamned hope so. I hate being blind."

  Balance. Always a question of balance. He had to maintain the balance, to stay calm and clear, and focused on the result. He couldn't allow himself to think about whether his blindness was permanent.

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  "Do you speak German?" she asked idly.

  "A little. I learned just enough of everything to get me whatever I needed."

  She could envision that. Con Pengellis was definitely a man who would always know exactly how to get what he wanted.

  He got me.

  She shook away the thought and turned her attention to the screaming children of the family across the aisle. A tidy middle-class family with two young ones, two older ones, a weary mother and autocratic father who portrayed a semblance of
normalcy, direction, home.

  Things she'd never known.

  She felt a crushing sense of loneliness. Father . . . I want my father—Her need slicing as keenly as a knife through her heart. Daddy—

  How awful—in the midst of bedlam . . . tears stream­ing down her cheeks; she wiped them away impatiently, thankful that he couldn't see them.

  They came to Munich in the dark, and she refused to take a cab, go to a hotel, be stranded in the dark; nothing except stay in the station until the next con­necting train arrived in the morning.

  In the station, there was light. They could see every­thing, everyone—and they could blend into the crowd.

  They bought food from vendors who came to the sta­tion, and she slept with his shoulder cushioning her head.

  Late in the morning after most of the crowd was gone, they bought a ticket for a private car, and they boarded the train for Vienna.

  As the train rolled through the countryside, she counted the money. Too little money. Not many more pounds and francs, and they had so much more to travel, and supplies to fund.

  "We have to get some money."

  "I know. We'll just have to take what we can get."

  She closed her eyes wearily. It sounded more and more hopeless. There were too many factors operating against them. They were running out of money. They needed gear. His blindness was an obstacle almost im­possible to overcome.

  Crazy, crazy, crazy . . .

  Finally, she slept.

  They came into the Western Railway Terminal in Vi­enna early in the morning, and emerged from their car rumpled, tired, and cautious in the extreme, something they'd discussed the whole of the trip.

  "We've taken the obvious route all along," Darcie kept saying irritably. "I want to know now—are we on a wild-goose chase?"

  He wondered that himself. Things were going too slowly; he remembered moving fast when he had been alone, by steamer, by train, by horse and wagon when necessary, with all the Pengellis money paving the way.

  Now they had near nothing, no gear, no clothes, no money, and an outside chance of selling Lavinia's dia­monds for anywhere near what they were worth.

  And all for The Eye of God.

  He closed his eyes and he saw the grotto, the altar of ancient stone, the light pouring down as if from heaven ... oh yes it was real, it was a dream, it was his, and he was going to claim it.

  "For all you know, Lavinia has sent her operatives back to India just to wait for your return."

  "Probably," he agreed, a little shocked that it didn't worry him.

  "They're probably on this train."

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  "Don't get delusional, Darcie. We have work to do."

  They found the Ringstrasse, which was like the center of the world. Here, on one side or the other of the cobbled boulevard, were the parliament and city hall. The university, the museum; the opera house, all built in grand gothic scale, and overlooking a seemingly end­less stretch of malls and esplanades.

  There were clubs and theaters, the woods and wine gardens. There was life in this place, teeming, rollick­ing, vigorous, and they walked right into it and lost themselves in the crowd.

  The quest for a mythical diamond seemed like a fairy tale here, in a country that had lost its fairy tale prince to an operatic tragedy.

  But Vienna was not only the Ringstrasse. It was also the Ottakring district, where they headed on a horse-drawn streetcar an hour later. Here the working class labored and their wives ran the anonymous boarding-houses that they sought. Here they could find a way to dispose of a diamond ring without approaching the bet­ter known dealers or stores.

  He felt insanely hampered by his sightlessness. He felt like a ventriloquist's dummy, speaking only when Darcie needed a direction, an answer, a translation in his raw German.

  But it was enough: enough to procure a room, enough to buy food, and to find a tailor who had some ready-made clothes in his store.

  And nobody asked questions. It was the part of the city in which you could disappear like air. They bought food and maps and melted into the fabric of the poorer quarter as if they'd lived there all their lives.

  "We can stay here for a day or two," Con said.

  "I hate wasting time."

  "Time is all we have. No one else knows where to look for The Eye of God. "

  She eyed him across the narrow table where they had spread their dinner.

  "Do you?"

  Do you ? Studying all the myths and legends. Separating the wheat from the chaff; pinpointing the reality in the fairy tales; the concrete from the dream. Poring over maps and directions. Did he know where to look'? Did he remember?

  Did he?

  "Yes."

  One word and he gave her everything she wanted to know. He felt the tension ease out of her, heard her pour some wine, felt her press his glass in his hand, heard her move things from the table and then the rustle of paper as she unfolded a map and spread it out.

  "How do we go?"

  Now he had to give more. "Just the way I originally went: by express through Budapest to Bucharest, and then a connecting train to Varna. We take a steamer across the Black Sea to Istanbul, and then it's by horse and camel across to Baghdad . . . and then over the Zagros Mountains to Isfahan and on to Lahore."

  Her throat went dry. So many days. So many miles. So much time. And he needed his eyes. She had had no idea how much he needed his eyes. Hers were just not enough for the rough trip ahead.

  She was silent for a long time, studying the route on the map. It wasn't enough, she thought, not his dream, not her desire, not their sex, not their greed. Nothing was enough to compel her to go on from here. It was too much, and they had too little. And even his confes­sion that he remembered the location of the diamond was too little too late.

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  He couldn't do it without his sight. And she couldn't do it leading him blind. And she didn't know how they could do it altogether.

  He sensed her withdrawal. "Darcie?"

  "What?" She knew she sounded terse, unsure.

  "You need a bath and a good night's sleep. It might be the most you get for the next three or four weeks."

  "That's not funny, Con."

  "It's truth. We're halfway there, you know."

  "I don't know. I feel like we're halfway from any­where."

  "Like you felt travelling from—say Colorado to New York?"

  She felt an instant flash of recognition. Narrow gauge railroads and five car trains. Wagons. Dust. Dirt. Mountains. Rain. Flash floods. Dangerous crossings. Mules, sometimes, or horses. And other times, on foot.

  Nothing had ever stopped her or her father. Not weather, not impenetrable wilderness, or lack of money. Or thieves, outlaws, or dead dry claims.

  They just stepped right over the bones of their losses, and kept on looking.

  What was different then? And what did the obstacles matter when the next big strike was just over the hill? Or over a moun­tain. Or across the Black Sea.

  "Halfway there," she echoed softly, moving her finger across the map and following the route he had outlined. Halfway to India, she thought, and riches beyond her wildest dreams.

  There was a knock at the door, and she started.

  "Probably the bathwater," Con said coolly. "Don't panic."

  It was a little luxury she had paid extra for, and they both were going to use it. She opened the door to admit

  the landlady caring two pitchers of steaming water, and her husband and son carrying a narrow copper tub.

  "Just in the middle," she said, and then she pointed. The landlady said something, which Con translated. "She'll be back in a moment with soap, towels and some more water."

  But it took three trips to fill the tub. Darcie locked the door behind the landlady and stared at it doubtfully. "I guess I'll go first. Yo
u don't have to turn your eyes."

  "I guess not," he murmured, settling back on the bed.

  She watched him for a moment, and then she began stripping off her clothes. It was easier without corsets and hooks; she unpinned the little pouches of jewelry and set them on the dresser.

  How long ago was that when she had stolen through Goole Abbey to search out those pieces'? It seemed like forever ago.

  She pushed away the thought and slid out of her camisole, petticoat and drawers. And then she was na­ked, and she trailed her finger in the steaming water to test the heat.

  The water looked so inviting, but he looked even more enticing sprawled out on the bed, attuned to something that she would never be able to share.

  She wanted to know suddenly if he wanted her still, or if he still thought she could be his enemy.

  If he knew she were naked, would he come to her?

  She needed to know. She wanted to explore her power and test his potency. She walked slowly to the side of the bed, watching his body, watching his face.

  His body reacted first, spurting indelibly to life before her eyes.

  This was power. She loved it. She reached out her hand and touched him. Hot. Thick. Hard. Yes.

  She climbed onto the bed and straddled his legs, and

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  she was absolutely certain by the look in his eyes that he could see everything.

  She wrenched apart his trousers decisively, mercilessly ripping the cloth that impeded her way. And then his penis was free, springing into her hands as if it were home.

  "Is that what you want?"

  "Bathe me," she whispered, sliding her hands all up and down his erection.

  "I'll drown you in it."

  "Do it," she breathed.

  Her hand worked harder, faster, slower, lightly, tightly; his eyes closed, his body undulated beneath her, his breathing came fast, his hands reached for her nip­ples as she bent forward into his pleasure.

  It was coming. Slowly it was coming, building volcani-cally underneath pumping of her hands.

  Her excitement escalated. She wanted him now, all over her, every last drop of his desire, she wanted.