By Desire Bound Read online

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  Two days. Even out in the bright fresh air, the words sat between them, a bridge between pleasure and prom­ise. Two days.

  But no—she wouldn't let it happen; that part was over. They had things to do now, and memories to res­urrect. By the time they stepped foot in Le Havre, she had to know where their course would take them.

  She wheeled the chair around purposefully, and bumped it up onto the gangplank, and pulled it up the slanted walkway from behind.

  "Jesus, Darcie."

  "Shhhh," she whispered fiercely. "Be quiet. You don't know."

  What didn't he know? he thought, and he almost fell out of the chair as with another clump and bump, she pulled the wheelchair onto the solid foredeck of the steamer Rossignol.

  "We're here."

  "I can tell." The sea-scent was more pungent here, the cry of gulls, the sound of voices as the crew shouted orders back and forth in preparation to sail.

  "We just have to go through checks and ticketing. Act old. "There was an odd note in her voice.

  "There's something wrong."

  "No. Everything is fine," she said. But she wasn't sure. She didn't feel any aura of evil. There was no pal­pable sense of danger. But something wasn't right, and she couldn't quite put her finger on what.

  Better to say nothing. Better to just get him to the cabin so they could settle in.

  She felt all of her senses start to tingle. She would allow nothing to distract her now: the real journey had just begun.

  The cabin was small, dishearteningly small, with two berths one over the other, and the top one folding up against the wall so the lower could be used for seating.

  Darcie was appalled at the cramped space. Admit­tedly, she had bought a single cabin, but still—a pull-man car on a train was roomier than this. Well, it was too late now, and there were at least a hundred other passengers, which meant there probably would not be any other space available.

  They would make do. She was good at making do.

  She asked one of the mates to help them down the narrow stairs to the lower deck over Con's furious pro­test.

  "Shhh . . . you're infirm, remember?"

  Oh, he was infirm all right, but it had nothing to do with age. He felt like throttling her. He didn't like this plan. He didn't like the mate settling him into the bunk like a baby while Darcie cooed instructions on the side.

  He was amazed he had the patience to wait until they were alone in the cabin before he exploded. "What the hell was that all about?"

  "That was about appearances," she said loftily, pull­ing a blanket over him against his struggles to sit up. "I'm going to leave you for a while. All you have to do is remember you're an invalid, and stay put. I have to arrange to have food delivered to the cabin. And you need to stop fighting me and—think."

  "Damn it to hell, Darcie—I ..."

  "Con, there isn't anything else you can do right now."

  "I can think of one thing."

  She patted the blanket. "We don't have time for that now."

  Just as he'd thought. Practical, sensible Darcie. Put it all in a compartment and store it neatly away.

  He heard the door close softly, and he kicked off the

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  blanket. Goddamn darkness. Goddamn everything a stupid black blank . . . God, he hated it, he hated it. . . there weren 't words for what he felt, how helpless he felt, how crazy he felt depending on a mercenary adventuress who turned her desires on and off like a faucet.

  He swung his legs over the edge of the bunk. A man needed to scout things out his surroundings. He'd been pinioned between Darcie and one of the deck hands, so he'd gotten no sense of where he was, and he knew how dangerous that was. He'd been careless once and—

  What. . . ? . . . careless—once . . . ?

  —And what? What? What couldn't he remember?

  He got up and began groping around the cabin. The berths were on the wall opposite the door. There were built-in drawers on either side and two doors, one of them leading to a minuscule water closet. There was a fold-down table, and two chairs tucked under the lower bunk. Neat for sleep and very little else, he thought, feeling his way back to the bunk. A tribute to Darcie's thrift. Nothing more or less than they needed for the short trip across the Channel. . . . short trip . . .

  That struck a chord somewhere.

  He eased himself back against the wall. Where had he been when they'd gotten to him? His eyes narrowed. Not with the diamond. He closed his eyes. He remembered that. Not with the diamond. So they 'd been after him then. Roger would not have left it alone, just as he recalled. His memory had not failed him: Roger would have wanted it too, a coup for the company. An expansion into other realms. All of that was clear to him now. All the arguments, the anger, the re­criminations. What he didn 't remember definitively was what came after. That was just a grab bag of odd jagged pieces, a jigsaw puzzle in his mind.

  Think ... As if he could wave a magic wand and con­jure it all up. But the lulling movement of the ship re­minded him of something.

  A short trip. Precautions not taken. . . . careless once . . .

  He had known there was danger. He would work back­ward—or forward—from that.

  She stood topside at the deck railing, watching the commotion on the dock, and being jostled by late boarding passengers and deckhands wheeling their lug­gage alongside.

  They were a half hour away from sailing into calm waters against a cloudless blue sky. Overhead, gulls screeched and dove for food. She watched as one wheeled and swooped down low over the dock and to­ward the boat, toward her, she thought in shock as she moved to dodge it. But then at the last minute it veered nose-down into the water.

  She could have sworn the thing was coming after her. But that was ridiculous, she chided herself. It was all of a piece with her feeling of disquiet. Everything would seem threatening underscored by that.

  She did trust her feelings. She and her father hadn't gotten where they were by following the rules. There were no rules. The last two days had proven that.

  But even though she'd given in to her feelings, she had learned long ago never to have regrets. Never to be afraid to be wrong. There was always another love. Always another strike.

  Always someplace else to go.

  Well, Le Havre was the first place they would go. And from there she would study how to get them to India.

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  And somewhere between those two points, Con would remember all about the location of the diamond.

  It was too late to back out, she thought. The die had been cast with Roger's death.

  But the thing was to remember the details. Lavinia. The baby. The legends. The lore.

  The game.

  The game—the undefinable game against an opponent who wasn't there. And rules that didn't exist.

  She stayed at the rail until the lines were cast and the ship moved out of the harbor and she could see the gulls no more.

  Eight

  She had arranged for tea, and breakfast and dinner, to be brought to the cabin. So she was expecting the knock at the door shortly after she returned to the cabin, and she opened it without cautioning Con to pull up the blanket.

  The deckhand who had helped them when they boarded was at the door, the tea tray in his hands. She took it from him, mesmerized for a moment by the burning look in his eyes. But he wasn't looking at her; he looked beyond her, at Con sitting on the bunk with every evidence of physical vigor.

  She grabbed the tray and slammed the door in his face, and she turned to face Con, her eyes wide. "He was looking at you."

  "So what? He was just one of the sailors—didn't I recognize his voice?"

  "He was the one who brought us down here." She folded down the table and set the tray on it, and then pulled out the chair
s and set them up. "Come." She held out her hand. "I didn't like the way he was looking at you."

  He fumbled his way across the room. "What could he have seen? I was sitting on the bed."

  "You don't look old." She guided him to one of the

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  chairs, and took the other opposite. "You don't look slouchy. " She poured him a cup and put it into his hands.

  "I hate this."

  "Well, we all know that, but we're committed now."

  "You know, I don't feel quite the same urgency you do."

  "And I'm feeling it more."

  "You don't think, if Lavinia were after you, that you would have seen some evidence of it by now?"

  She shook her head. "She's very subtle. She and Roger managed to get to you, right?"

  "I can't remember that."

  "What do you remember? You remember the dia­mond." She was as certain of that as her life.

  He nodded. "And all the arguments before I even set out on the expedition to find it. They wanted it for the company. They wanted this great big huge diamond that they didn't even know if it existed, and they wanted to cut into it and turn it into a fortune in crown silver. I left the company because of it, probably the only noble thing I've ever done, and all in service of this grand guignol gesture which was pure selfishness. I was going to find the thing, and be the mythic hero."

  "And you found it."

  "I found it. But I don't know where, and I don't know how, and all I next remember is being in a deep dark pit for an endless amount of time. And nothing after that until I woke up in the brothel."

  She sipped her tea thoughtfully. All that was encour­aging, she thought. "You touched it."

  "Yes."

  Very encouraging. "You held it."

  "Yes."

  "You didn't remove it."

  "No."

  "Why?"

  Why ? Maybe he hadn 't been asking himself the right ques­tions. Why?

  He gave it a long moment's consideration. "I don't know."

  "Think—maybe you knew they were after you."

  Maybe . . . had he known ? He must have known . . .

  She saw his confusion. "Roger and Lavinia told ev­eryone you'd died in India in search of the diamond. Long before I married Roger. It had been announced in the papers. They had a memorial service for you at St. James. They even put up a tombstone on the grounds of Goole."

  "Was my funeral well attended?" he asked sarcasti­cally.

  "I wasn't there—more's the pity. I thought you were dead. This was the deepest buried secret, Con. No one knew."

  "They knew," he said darkly, "—and you found out. I remember what you said. You found out. But you never said how."

  "You escaped."

  He slammed down the cup. "Jesus, Darcie—that's the most important point. I escaped ... ?"

  "You don't remember?"

  "I keep goddamned telling you ..."

  "All right, I believe you. This is what happened: A messenger had come during dinner—something ur­gent. Roger was absolutely panicked. I heard them say they would talk later, in the library, after I'd gone up­stairs, and I was desperate to know what had happened. I hid behind the curtains . . .

  . . . the curtains that were redolent with the scent of spices . . .

  "... and I heard the whole thing, that they thought

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  they'd had you contained, they thought that the latest torture had weakened you to the point that you might be ready to tell. They wanted the diamond, they wanted it over, and they wanted you dead. And somehow you got away. Does any of this sound familiar?"

  He shook his head. "You're chasing after ghosts."

  "Lavinia knew I was there. How did she know? I un­derstood what was at stake. I didn't move a muscle. I didn't breathe. I didn't make a sound. And still she knew I was there."

  He tried to envision it. Lavinia, stalking around the library, in a rage because he had somehow escaped. Roger, placating, shaken, agitated. The two of them, plotting and scheming all to naught: they didn't know how he'd gotten away or where he was.

  And then what? Darcie in the curtains. Lavinia drag­ging her out from behind, and pushing her in front of Roger.

  Can't you control your wife?

  Darcie said the words out loud even as they formed in his mind.

  "And of course, I was so righteous about it. Roger looked about ready to kill me."

  We can't let her run around loose, Lavinia would have said.

  What are we going to do with her? Roger had asked. How can we contain her? You know she'll tell the world.

  We'll—we'll lock her up, Lavinia decided. In the tower. She always thought she was a fairy-tale princess, now we'll make her one. And then we've got to find Con. Do you under­stand, Roger? We must find Con.

  "And then what?" Con asked.

  "They couldn't find you. She was living in dread fear you'd walk in the front door and accuse her of at­tempted murder, and she couldn't see any reason why

  they shouldn't kill me—that would be one more threat out of the way. But there was the baby. And then Roger died and I got away."

  Yes, he remembered her telling him that. And now he remembered Roger. Greedy lustful Roger grasping for something to placate Lavinia that would draw him out in the open.

  If I have to, I'll die for the company.

  He remembered Darcie's stillness when he'd sug­gested it. He could just see Lavinia considering the pos­sibilities.

  That's an interesting idea, my boy. That's a very interesting idea. He might fall for that. He might come and reclaim ev­erything, and then we'll have him.

  They 'd safely put Darcie away so they could concentrate on finding him. What better way than to lure him with everything he'd renounced.

  "I think Roger's death was a ruse."

  She didn't answer for a long few minutes. "You shocked me when you said that before. And I thought maybe you were right, that Lavinia and he could have pulled it off. But I was at the funeral. I saw him in the coffin ..." her voice trailed off.

  "Anybody could play a corpse in a coffin," he pointed out, defining the thing she didn't want to say.

  "They buried him," she whispered.

  "The coffin was closed . . ." He knew it even without her confirming it.

  "Yes." She could still see it in her mind's eye: the gray day, the naked branches bending in the wind. The crowd. The coffin. The gaping hole. The prelate sonor­ously extolling Roger's life.

  Herself, chained to Lavinia, playing the bereaved widow to the hilt. Lavinia who hadn't cried, who'd been as tight and controlled as an automaton, who must have

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  been desperate to preserve the lie and still come away with the prize.

  She shook her head. "I don't know now. Anything's possible."

  He sent her a speculative look that was so direct, she was shaken by it. He saw too much, she thought. And he saw too clearly.

  "It all sounds ridiculous, doesn't it?" she whispered. . . . And then Roger died and I got away . . .

  He rolled that detail over in his mind.

  She got away.

  It sounds ridiculous.

  Anything's possible.

  How much was real, how much was illusion?

  CleverDarcie. She was Scheherazade, who could spin a thou­sand tales over a thousand nights and one night.

  She was Helen who launched a journey of a thousand miles on the strength of his quest for a legend.

  She had the audaciousness of an adventuress, the guile of a gambler, and the confidence of a queen.

  Who was Darcie Boulton, really ?

  And when did he stop playing the game?

  "It sounds insane," he said bluntly.

  "But if Roger's aliv
e—?"

  He didn't answer, and she got up and began pacing agitatedly. He heard her impatient footfall, the swirl of her skirt, her abrasive breathing.

  "This is crazy," she said finally, explosively. "We don't know that Roger's still alive. We don't know anything except that you found the diamond and that somehow you were caught and imprisoned so that they could tor­ture the location out of you. And we know that Lavinia said you'd died in India. We have to assume that's where they kept you isolated, and maybe even where the dia­mond is."

  "I don't know that, Darcie. I still don't know that."

  She ignored him. "That's why we're going there. It will help your memory, just like my taking you to Goole. You started to remember."

  He didn't deny it. He had a lot of the pieces of the puzzle now: he'd been a strutting cock who'd tried to pull off the exploit of the ages. It hadn't been enough to own diamond mines in South Africa worth a million pounds. It hadn't been enough to be the head of Pengellis-Becarre, jewelers to kings, queens, and the wealthy of the world.

  No, he'd wanted the intangibles—adventure, glory, notoriety. Risks and rewards. Slicing close to the edge, and sliding through. All of that. And more. The admi­ration. The envy. The women. The wealth.

  It hadn't been some mystical quest. It had been greed, pure selfish greed, and an arrogant desire to an­noy Roger and provoke his mother.

  He'd been blind to how much was at stake. He never thought it was critical. And he'd been wrong. Dead wrong.

  . . . careless once—

  Words to live by. . . . careless twice—

  A man could die.

  He had to exercise caution on every level. He knew nothing about Darcie Boulton other than what she told him, and for all he knew every word was a lie.

  And now he was thinking like Darcie, he thought mordantly as he lay wide awake in his berth that night, and maybe it was better than being distracted by her.

  It was too easy to slip into her body; she was so hot and too willing, a Circe at his beck and call, and if she

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