By Desire Bound Page 13

  "Come to me," she goaded him. "Come."

  She rose onto her knees and bore down on him. He was just ready, so ready. She held it all in her hands: his strength, his vigor, his power.

  She grasped him tightly, pushing him, pulling him, bringing him on. She felt all his muscles contracting, she felt him gathering, and he jacked himself up and thrust against her encircled fingers, and erupted in one mighty blow.

  He spewed all over her, on her breasts, her face, her belly, her hands. And still he came, his ejaculate spurt­ing with each convulsive spasm. She held him until his last shuddering climax, and even then, she didn't let him go.

  "I'm covered with your essence," she whispered. ". . . do you see me?"

  "I see you," he said hoarsely. "I feel you." He reached up and grasped her at the waist. "I want you." He pulled her down to him and rolled her over onto her back.

  This he was sure of—in the dark. Her body was a landscape he could negotiate, in the dark.

  "The water will get cold," she murmured, as she wel­comed his weight and parted her legs.

  He positioned himself to breach her heat, slanting his mouth down within a breath of hers.

  "It can't quench my thirst," he whispered against her lips.

  And he drove into her like a drowning man who had finally reached the shore.

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  Eleven

  In the Ottakring, it was simple to find shops catering to every need, and brokers anxious to buy or sell, or to lend you money. What they liked best of all was collat­eral, and they examined the ring that Darcie wanted to sell, one broker after the other, and made their unac­ceptable offers.

  "And then they'll resell to whatever jeweler with which they have a connection and make a profit of a hundredfold," Darcie said disgustedly, as they entered a pawnshop on the Schloss Alee.

  "We don't have a choice now," he told her in an undertone. "We're too conspicuous. What do you think they see? Two vagrants hawking a diamond ring—we don't have the option of going to one of the bigger stores. They'd have the authorities after us before we could count to three."

  She looked at the shopkeeper, who was old, with papery skin, and dressed in a long black frock coat, and she could have sworn he understood every word. And his eyes . . . his knowing eyes as he took the ring and examined it under a magnifying glass and with his loupe.

  He made her nervous as he turned the ring over and over and tested it every way possible, and then he looked up at Con and made his offer.

  "It's a little more money than the others."

  "It's not nearly enough," she said, knowing how she sounded.

  He handed her a stack of gulden. "Come on now. It's just a little setback." He said some words to the shopkeeper, and motioned Darcie toward the door.

  She took his arm and turned back to look at the man.

  He was old and stooped and losing hair, and he looked as if he were gloating over the bargain he had made. And then he looked up at her, and his eyes . . . his burning, knowing eyes—

  She slammed the door behind them as they stepped into the street.

  "That man . . ."

  "Darcie . . ." he said warningly. "I didn't sense any­thing."

  "You didn't see him. His eyes—"

  "Forget his eyes. I have a plan. We're going to use the money to dress ourselves like gentry who might be stranded and in need of cashing in some valuables. You said it yourself: we have to pretend. This is just the first step."

  Her senses began to tingle. "All right. You're right. We had to accept less so we didn't have to explain things. I understand. But that man's eyes . . ."

  "Let's go shopping," Con interrupted her. "Find a cab."

  She was even leery of doing that. She could still see those eyes that had followed them from Paris to Vienna. Those eyes could be anywhere, even in a pawnshop. Or driving the next cab.

  "The driver says we want the Kohlmarkt," Con said, climbing into the carriage after her. "And Rosteck's for gold and gifts. I think we'll do very well with our stake."

  And that was what it was: a stake, and she didn't think

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  they'd do well at all, but by late afternoon, they had accomplished a lot. They found in the Kohlmarkt stores that sold clothing ready to wear. She purchased an ele­gant dove gray suit over an underdress of lavender satin, and they fitted him out in a severe black suit which emphasized his height and gave him an elegance that belied his blindness.

  They were able to buy one outfit each, with under­clothing, and toiletries, and a suitcase that didn't look as if it had weathered a war, and they had left a handful of kreuzer.

  "That might buy us a pastry for lunch," Darcie grum­bled as she guided him along the boulevard.

  "Then it's time to find Rosteck's and proceed to the next step."

  Rosteck's was the equivalent of Poiteau's in Paris. An elegant shop that sold gift items and jewelry. A place where nothing was advertised and everything was un­derstood.

  "We need to sell a necklace this time," Con said. "We're going to need a lot of money."

  They were taken once again to the rear of the shop, straight to the appraiser's office. Darcie removed a pouch and handed it across the desk. Con did the talk­ing, and she could tell he was playing on the gentle­man's sympathy.

  They had concocted the story before they even reached the store, and it was paper thin to begin with. They were on their honeymoon. They ran out of money. They had no family to turn to. The necklace was a wed­ding present, an heirloom, but they were willing to sac­rifice to continue on their journey. They were young and gay and so much in love.

  Darcie rolled.her eyes. The appraiser took the neck­lace and began his examination.

  He spent a nerve-racking half hour, going over each of the stones, calling for consultations, and excusing himself at least twice to confer with another appraiser on the premises.

  "They are calling the authorities is what," Darcie fret­ted. "They think we're thieves. We don't look like peo­ple who would own such a piece."

  "They will pay the price," Con said, but even he was a little unnerved by the amount of discussion- that was going on about the necklace, and he resolutely pushed the picture of Lavinia wearing the necklace out of his mind.

  He had been—what?—five or six . . . ? He couldn't quite remember. But there was his father, with an oblong velvet box which he had not placed under the Christmas tree.

  My dear . . .

  Oh my darling—as his father lifted the necklace from its satin nest and held it up in the light.

  It might well have been that he had fallen in love with dia­monds that night. He remembered how they glittered and shot rainbow light down to the floor; how they sparkled like ice as his father's long fingers slipped the necklace around Lavinia's neck.

  She stroked the center stone. It looked smooth as water, deep as the ocean, and bright as a star. . . her voice soft, murmur­ing her appreciation at the thoughtfulness of his father.

  That Lavinia . . .

  "Mein herr ..." The appraiser, an hour later, the necklace spread across his hands like a waterfall.

  He jerked out of his reverie. The amount the ap­praiser was offering was beyond even what he had esti­mated. He nodded his head in agreement.

  "We have to sign a paper that says we are free to sell the item, and that it wasn't stolen or obtained by illegal means. They want all kinds of assurances about it."

  "I suppose technically you are free to sell it."

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  "Technically." He wished he could see her face as he told her the sum. "It's a lot of money." "Is it enough?" Even he didn't know. "It's enough . . . for now."

  They bought the tickets on the Direct Express that afternoon. "I think we need to leave here as soon as possible" Con said. "Even if this
is the most obvious route, once we reach Istanbul we can make modifica­tions. And at least we'll travel in comfort."

  They would leave the next morning from the South­ern Terminal, which meant another night in the Otta-kring. She wasn't happy about that, but she agreed that their money was better spent purchasing more clothes, sturdy shoes, personal items, a small stash of dried food, and another suitcase, for him.

  It was like starting off on the next adventure, Darcie thought, as they bought packages of roast pork and vegetables from a vendor to bring back for their dinner.

  She felt the growing excitement that always preceded the thrill of the hunt. And the fact they now had money eased some of her fears.

  There was always a way to get money if one had some­thing to sell. And the further away from Europe they travelled, the fewer questions they would be asked and the less trouble they would have.

  She felt reassured by the thought. And she decided she'd imagined the man with eyes, and she had better stop feeling so overwrought.

  No one was following them. Lavinia could not have known where she had gone from the brothel. And if she were still after Con, she probably had operatives searching all over India for him. And she had a business

  to run on top of that. She couldn't be everywhere. She couldn't be in Vienna at any rate.

  And Con's blindness hadn't hampered them all that much, she thought, as she laid out their dinner on the small table in their room. They'd bought some beer and wine as well, and she poured the beer into a glass for him and handed it across the table to him.

  "Let's toast the fact we've done well," he proposed.

  "Certainly," she said before she could stop herself. "We'll congratulate ourselves on the fact you were al­most killed—twice—and that we sold a flawless dia­mond ring for no money at all, and we were that close to having the authorities arrest us at Rosteck's."

  "Pessimist." He sipped his beer and made a face. "I hope the food is better."

  "This is the Ottakring. What do you expect?"

  "You adapt well," he murmured, feeling for the food and lifting a piece of pork to his mouth. "That's not bad."

  "Con—we should be moving faster ..."

  He shook his head. "Do you know it's almost seventy hours by train to Istanbul from Paris? And that includes the ferry from Varna. If you were travelling alone, you still wouldn't get anywhere any faster, Darcie, so just shelve the idea of going on without me. You'd wind up dead, and you couldn't tell them where to bury you."

  "I didn't mean that."

  "Sure you did," he said, setting aside his beer and pushing away the pork. He lost his appetite suddenly. Sometimes . . . sometimes, he forgot about the blind­ness and it almost seemed a condition he'd lived with all his life. And he didn't want to get used to it. He wanted to remember when it happened, because he hadn't always been blind. And that meant there was a chance he could regain sight at some point in his life.

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  There was always the hope. Always the next dream. Darcie had lived her life that way, and to some extent, so had he. Only he had always had the advantage of money, and all she had had was faith and guile.

  Sometimes he forgot they were only partners in a game to outwit an unknown enemy. Unholy partners, he thought; both of them rapacious, hungry, and bound by desire.

  A perfect trinity. A blind man. A greedy woman. And The Eye of God.

  Their compartment was in the fifth of seven sleeping cars on the Direct Express, and one of the smaller ones at that. But it did have its own lavatory, and a small closet beside the door to the room.

  On either side of the car there were berths that folded up against the wall during the day; and there were seat­ing benches beneath, and a clever table that pulled up from under the window.

  Darcie guided Con to the tufted bench on the left hand side, and sank into the seat opposite by the win­dow. She would unpack later, she thought, as she watched the porters hauling piles of expensive luggage toward the rear car. Their two small suitcases suddenly seemed awfully meager when she measured them against what other people were bringing on this trip.

  Or maybe she was feeling the weight of the gloomy weather. They were leaving in the rain, and rain was always a bad omen, although they had arrived before it had begun. Others were just now scurrying down the platform, ill prepared for the weather, and covering themselves with whatever came to hand.

  The train would leave in an hour, the next stop Bu­dapest. And meantime, they would dine royally in the

  dining car, have the luxury of a porter making up their beds at night, and the diversion of new acquaintances in the bar car.

  Con sat very erect, staring straight ahead. The dark­ness today seemed overwhelming, especially on top of the chaos of the departure he sensed beyond the com­partment door.

  Things he used to be able to see—

  Things he couldn't remember. When he'd escaped; how he'd gotten to England; what happened to his eyes . . . blank spaces in his mind, as black as the vista in front of him.

  And Darcie . . . what did he see? The softest of hair, long and flowing down her shoulders; smooth silky skin, magical hands—but not a face or figure came to mind when he pictured her. She was a presence, ephemeral by night, and solid practicality by day. The sum of the parts of her body that he now knew as intimately as his own.

  Even the thought of her aroused him.

  •He didn't need to see her to want her. It was a con­tinual ache in his groin. He was suspicious of it. He hated his dependence on it. And worst of all, he never stopped wanting it. But he couldn't live a life obliterat­ing himself in a sexual void.

  It was too easy.

  She was too easy.

  It was the thing he couldn't quite get around, at night, in the dark, when he couldn't sleep.

  A man with no eyes could see more clearly in the dark.

  But a man with no eyes, he thought warily, was also a very easy mark.

  She saw the man with the eyes as the train pulled out of the Southern Terminal station. On the platform, be-

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  side an empty luggage cart, staring up at her, smiling, smiling smiling, that evil knowing smile. The face of the deckhand, the cabdriver, the money lender. He was all of them—and none.

  And then he vanished as quickly as a ghost.

  But when she turned her head and looked behind, she thought she saw him again, swinging up onto the steps of the last car as the tram left the station.

  Oh my God . . . oh my God— She rose from her seat and then slumped down again. She'd imagined it. She had. The train had been going too fast. Even if he had been on the platform, he wasn't strong enough to jump on a train moving at full speed.

  Her imagination was playing tricks. How was she go­ing to tell Con?

  She wouldn't... It was a threat he couldn't see, and there was no purpose at all in telling him.

  She would have to take all the precautions.

  If she had seen what she thought she had seen.

  I'm going crazy now. Just when I think things have calmed down, that there is no threat. That everything's behind ms ...

  She was trembling. She was shaking like a belly dancer. . . . and the baby—she mustn't forget the baby, it was too easy to forget the baby . . .

  She stared out the window as the train rolled through the outskirts of the city. She would have to bring their food to the compartment, and she would have to scru­tinize every stranger.

  And every stranger would look like the man with the burning eyes . . .

  She jumped at the knock on the compartment door.

  "Who is it?" The first words Con had spoken since they entered the car.

  "A porter." She could see his face through the win­dow, benign, respectful, smiling. Nothing to be afraid

  of. "I'll get it." But her legs were s
haky as she got up and went to the door.

  And then impossibly, before her very eyes, he changed, his face metamorphosing from the elderly porter to the man with burning eyes, evil personified, bent on getting through the door.

  She threw herself against it, shrieking, "Con!" and he bounded up, and, with his arms stretched out, fum­bled his way toward her, and the thumping sound of something trying to enter their room.

  "Con!" She wasn't strong enough, and he wasn't fast enough. "Hurry!"

  The man with the eyes had superhuman strength, and he was beating her; slowly, inexorably he was forcing the door, and she just didn't have the power to stop him.

  And then Con heaved himself against her and his weight in combination with hers enabled her to slam shut the door. She fumbled with the lock. Click. Click. The most welcome sound she'd ever heard. She ripped the curtain across the window, effectively closing out their nemesis.

  But for how long? She was absolutely certain that if she pulled the curtain he would still be there.

  She swallowed hard as he started pounding on the door, and Con looked questioningly at her.

  "Don't open it, Con."

  "Darcie, what the hell's going on?"

  "You won't believe it."

  "You sounded scared to hell."

  "It was the man. And I don't know that this isn't him."

  The pounding grew louder.

  "Ma'am . . . Ma'am—is anything wrong? Can I help you? Let me make sure you're all right Ma'am? Ma'am? If you'd be so kind—open the door."

  "That's crazy," he said under the pounding.

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  "I know." She cursed the fates that Con couldn't see him, and that he couldn't see how scared she was to open the door, "What should I do?"

  He was so logical. "See who's there."

  "But he looked—" she started to say, but what the man looked like made little difference to him. He'd seen him twice—if he had seen him at all, and he wouldn't be able to see the evil beyond the window.