Dangerous Obsession Read online

  “Save that for someone you really want to hurt,” he advised me. “I’m your friend.”

  “You are dirt!” I scratched at his face with my fingernails.

  He caught my hands and pressed hard on the undersides of my wrists with his thumbs. The pain was sudden and intense. “Naughty, naughty,” he clucked.

  I screamed and I struggled, and when he got tired of it he gave me a stunning blow to the side of the head that made my brain buzz. I went reeling across the floor.

  “You whores never learn,” he said sadly. “Now let’s go back to bed.”

  I scrambled to my feet and backed around the two chairs in front of the fire. He followed, slowly and steadily, and the smile never left his face. I skirted quickly around the bed and slithered past the dresser, and finally I stopped in front of the liquor table. He smiled kindly and stretched out his arms to me. I groped behind me. I found the bottle and grasped it by the neck. When I judged that he was close enough I hoisted the bottle and brought it down on his head, in one long, swift movement.

  A trickle of blood oozed down his cheek. He looked dead. Then his eyes rolled around and he slumped to the floor. Still smiling.

  Quickly, I fell on my knees beside him and searched through his pockets. I found the key, as well as a billfold full of money and a shining gold watch. I stuffed the last two items into my bodice and clutched the key in my hand.

  I tiptoed to the door, unlocked it, and slipped into the hallway.

  Just as I emerged from the room, a woman with vivid red hair and a brightly painted face stepped out of the room next door. She looked at me curiously.

  “Hello, sweetie,” she said companionably. “How’s business tonight?”

  I gulped and gurgled, then I bolted down the stairs. The man at the desk looked up when he heard me.

  “Ha,” he leered knowingly, “that didn’t take long. Old Louis is more of a man than I thought.”

  “Help, murder!” came an ear-splitting scream from above. “Murder!”

  “What have you done?” the clerk shrilled. “Come back here, you little slut!”

  But I was out the door and pelting as hard as I could down the sidewalk. I could still hear their shouts. A whistle screamed after me, too, and then I heard pounding footsteps. I looked over my shoulder. Two policemen were chasing me, shouting at me. I dodged down an alley. At the end a solid wall rose up to meet me. A dead end. Several doors opened onto the alley. I chose one and found myself in a tailor’s shop. An old man was sitting cross-legged on a table with a length of dark fabric on his lap. He looked up, startled.

  “Good evening, Mademoiselle,” he greeted me politely, as though I were an customer instead of a rain-soaked fugitive.

  “Good evening!” I panted. “Which way—the street?” He pointed to the other end of the room. I ran through the shop and emerged on a street again. I looked to my left and saw someone running towards me. So I ran to the right.

  Rain was falling heavily, blinding me and soaking me. The sharp wind felt like it was turning the moisture on my skin to ice. I was nearly dropping with fatigue. Footsteps beat the cobbles in pursuit. They came closer and closer. I ran up one dark street and down another while visions of bloodthirsty Cossacks flashed across my mind. They would kill me when they caught me, I was sure of it. They would slaughter me as they had slaughtered my family, my tribe. Everyone hated Gypsies.

  My lungs were bursting and I couldn’t breathe. I took shelter in a doorway and crouched down with my satin skirts pulled up around my shoulders for warmth. I was sure that I had killed the man. As I had killed my uncle. I tried to remember if I had felt any pulse while I was searching through his pockets. He had felt stiff. He had certainly looked dead, except for that smile. I had killed a smiling man. If the police caught me they would hang me, or else they would lock me away in some jail for a hundred years. Every Gypsy knew that to kill a gorgio was a very stupid thing to do. Very stupid.

  “Hey, you. What are you doing here?”

  I looked up. A black-clad policeman was standing over me, his right hand resting on a lethal-looking club. My mouth went dry. I was aware of how I must have looked to him, with my hair lank and sodden and my gown filthy and shredded. I looked like a murderess.

  “Long live the Gypsies!” I screamed, leaping to my feet. He fell back, surprised, and I darted past him to the street. I had gone about a hundred yards when I heard the piercing shriek of his whistle.

  I ran for all I was worth. I could feel every stone, every crack between the cobbles through the thin soles of my dancing slippers. My legs felt tight and sore and a stitch in my side pained me so severely that I could hardly keep going. But the picture of that policeman behind me spurred me on: I could see him gaining steadily, perhaps even drawing his gun so that he could shoot me in the back.

  Then I tripped over a curbstone and went sprawling in a vast puddle. When I got halfway to my feet I saw a carriage bearing down on me. It was drawn by four enormous horses—sixteen flashing hooves—and travelling at breakneck speed. I tried to stand but my feet became entangled in my wretched petticoats. I threw up my arms. Then I closed my eyes and murmured, “Sweet Mother of Mercy!” Men shouted. A woman screamed. The rumble of the wheels on the wet cobblestones sounded like thunder on the Day of Judgement.

  Strong arms closed around me and lifted me as the carriage swept by. For a moment all was silence. Then I opened my eyes and saw Seth’s face hovering over mine.

  “Oh, no,” I moaned. My head dropped, onto his chest. “Not you.”

  “Yes, me. Are you all right?”

  I gave an infinitesimal nod. His arms felt so strong, so secure. Like a bulwark against danger and horror.

  “Hold on there!” The policeman ran up. “In the name of the King I arrest you—”

  Seth swung his arm. The man staggered and fell flat on his back in the puddle.

  We raced along on foot, down a dank, narrow alley where the running rainwater came up higher than my ankles. We reached a small square. Seth’s horse was tethered to a hitching post outside a wineshop. He lifted me up on the horse’s back and climbed up behind me. We wound through a maze of twisting streets and alleys before we reached the Seine. I slumped against him, thankful for the warmth of his body and the timeliness of his rescue. Yet I felt dejected and defeated because my efforts to escape him had landed me right back in his arms, where I had no wish to be.

  We arrived at the house on the Rue de Montmorency. Seth pulled the horse up at a side door and shouted for Jules. The butler appeared instantly, as if he had been awaiting the summons, and held the horse’s head while Seth lifted me down and carried me inside.

  “There is a fire in the rose bedroom, Monsieur,” Jules said. “And some brandy.”

  “Good. Tell Boucher to look after the horse. And prepare a bath.”

  “Yes, Monsieur,”

  He carried me across the foyer and up the curving staircase. I could feel the unevenness of his gait and I was certain that his leg was hurting him dreadfully. He pushed open a door on the second floor, not far from his own room, and dumped me on a large, soft bed.

  “Suppose you tell me why the police want to arrest you,” he said, standing over me with his hands on his hips.

  I couldn’t look at him. I rolled on my side and said, “I killed a man. In some hotel. He pretended to be nice to me but he wouldn’t let me go. So I hit him with a bottle. He deserved it! He was trying to—to dishonor me!”

  He made a derisive noise. I heard the clink of glass and the pouring of liquid. He pulled me into a sitting position and shoved a tumbler into my hands.

  “Drink.”

  I sniffed. “No! I don’t want any! That man tried to make me drunk on his brandy and—”

  “Shut up and drink or I’ll pour it down your throat.”

  I pouted and shrugged, but I obeyed him. This brandy didn’t burn and it had a nice taste. I emptied my glass.

  He took the tumbler away from me and said, “On your feet.�
�� I hesitated. He put his hands on my arms and lifted me. I might have been a child, he did it so easily. I stood in front of him, glaring at him resentfully. He looked angry, too.

  “How did you find me?” I asked.

  “Just happened to be passing,” he said gruffly. “Take those things off.”

  “I won’t!” I flashed.

  He gripped the edge of my bodice and wrenched it roughly away from my body. My victim’s billfold and watch dropped to the floor. He said, “Jesus. You never learn, do you, Gypsy?”

  He stripped off my gown, my sodden petticoats, my corset, my drawers. Everything. I was naked and shivering. Then he wrapped a rough scratchy blanket around me and pulled it tight around my shoulders. Our faces were inches apart and I was trembling. The corner of his mouth twitched and his eyes grew large and dark. He grabbed a fistful of hair and jerked my head back. His lips burned my throat. I felt as though I were dissolving, melting like a block of salt in a rainstorm that grows smaller and smaller as the water pares it away and the earth absorbs it.

  The blanket fell away. He moved his hands over my body, not lovingly as he had the night before, but possessively, greedily, like a miser handling his gold. Sudden stabbing sensations in my middle made me catch my breath. They were painful and thrilling at the same time. I tried once to push him away, but my arms had no strength I could feel his manhood swelling and straining under his breeches. He unleashed it and led my hand to it. I recoiled, but he held my hand closed around it. It was velvety smooth, as hard and as hot as a poker yet throbbing with life and longing. I moaned and parted my lips. He filled my mouth with his tongue. We sagged together and sank to the floor. I pressed my body close to him and guided that terrible, wonderful thing into me. His thrusts went ever deeper as he pounded me mercilessly and ravaged my flesh with his mouth and hands. A growing sense of urgency and desperation possessed me. I clutched him tightly. I think if he had taken himself away from me at that moment, I would have died of sorrow and despair.

  My frenzy grew. I was as lustful and animal and wanton that night as any harlot, and I didn’t care. Once I felt that I couldn’t bear any more and I begged him to stop. He paid no attention, and even quickened his movements. Somewhere deep inside me a chasm opened. I shuddered and quivered. My passion mounted and crested and exploded, and then it began to ebb away. Seth gave a few more convulsive jerks and lay still.

  I could not look at him. He had asserted his mastery over me, and not only had I allowed it, I had begged for it. In my mind and soul I was still free, still Gypsy. But my body belonged to this man. And he knew it.

  He took himself away. I felt bereft and cold. I could feel him standing over me, exulting in his power. I lay with my eyes closed and my arms thrown over my face until he had left the room. And then I curled up on the blanket and sobbed like a civilized woman. It was the first time in my life that I had ever given way to tears. Even when I had mourned for my Gypsy tribe I had not cried like that. I hated him for reducing me to such a state.

  I should have known better than to try and escape him. I had forgotten Ursula’s prophecy. I had forgotten that our journeys and our futures were linked. As Lyubov used to say, “You can’t hide from God in a rabbit hole.” You can’t escape your fate.

  There was a soft knock on the door. I pulled myself together, mopped my face, wrapped the blanket securely around my naked body, and stood up.

  “Come in.”

  It was Jules. “Your bath is ready. Mademoiselle. Madame Mornay sent a trunk with your things this afternoon. I unpacked. You will find everything either in the armoire or in your chest of drawers.”

  “Thank you. Where is Monsieur Garrett?”

  “He has gone out again. I don’t expect him until very late. There is a card party at Monsieur Dumas’.”

  Yes, cards. I had forgotten that he played cards. Hadn’t I come into his life in the first place because of cards?

  I followed Jules to a small wood-panelled room near Seth’s bedroom. A large tub full of steaming water stood in the center of the floor. A pile of soft towels lay within reach on a chair. My own robe hung from a peg on the wall, next to a large robe of maroon silk. On a small shelf over the washstand stood an assortment of articles for shaving and grooming. A soap cup and shaving brush, hairbrush, comb, and scissors. A leather case held his razors. My eyes flashed back to the scissors.

  “If there is anything else you need, Mademoiselle,” Jules said, “please do not hesitate to ring. Here is the bell pull, and there is one in your room, near the door. Perhaps I can fix you some supper?”

  “No, thank you. Monsieur Jules,” I said quietly. “I could not eat.” I looked around. “It is a very fine house. Did he win it at cards, too?”

  Jules looked startled. “Yes, Mademoiselle, I believe so. The house is very old, and it belonged to the same family for over two hundred years. The young man who lost the house was the last of the line, I believe.”

  “Ah. He must have been very upset, to lose his house," I said. “Where did he go? Did he have another house somewhere?”

  Jules looked distressed. He frowned and the frown seemed to work itself halfway across his shining bald head. “I believe the young man shot himself, Mademoiselle,” he said. “A great tragedy.”

  He left me alone. A great tragedy, I thought. To lose everything, and your pride along with it. To be shamed by a man like Seth Garrett. I went to the washstand and picked up the scissors.

  I looked at my pale face in the mirror, and I remembered the wide-eyed gorgio debutante in the pearls and the ivory gown who had looked forward to her first ball with such excitement. Was I really that girl? Only one day later, and I felt so much older. I felt as old as Eve.

  I could never marry. I would live in this house until Seth Garrett tired of me. He would use me for his pleasure and I would let him, because I could not help myself. I would be his whore. I smiled grimly. I was shedding my innocence as quickly as a snake sheds his skin.

  When I was still very young, the women in our tribe had cut off all the hair of a young woman named Irina. Irina had kept to herself for months because she was unable to face the rest of us while she wore that badge of shame. I didn’t know then what she had done to deserve such an awful punishment, only that her husband had been in a gorgio jail for many months and that Irina had been living alone. They had not been married long enough to have children. But now I remembered that around that same time a young Gypsy named Pinkus had gone off to live with another tribe, faraway. That was remarkable enough in itself, but I heard Lyubov say that he was lucky to get away with his skin intact.

  I had learned some hard lessons in the past twenty-four hours. I had learned that every deed has its price. And that a foolish woman pays dearly for her mistakes.

  I heard a carriage stop in front of the house, and I heard the tap of his cane on the bricks as he came up the path. The taps stopped as he entered the house, then resumed as he climbed the stairs and came down the hall. His gait was very slow and heavy and uneven, as though his leg hurt very badly. I didn’t care. I was glad.

  He stopped outside my door. He opened it and came in.

  I lay with my eyes closed, pretending to sleep. He undressed in the darkness and climbed into bed beside me. I didn’t move a muscle. He rested on his elbow, looking down at me. He put his hand on my cheek and threaded his fingertips through the fine hair at my temples. When he slid his hand down the shafts it met nothing but air.

  He bounced out of bed and lit a lamp. He held it over me and said, “Christ.” He grabbed my shoulder and made me sit up, and he moved the lamp over me as though he couldn’t believe what he saw. “Christ.”

  I had left four inches all around. I felt as naked as a new duck.

  “I could not bear my shame,” I told him. “You have made me your whore. But you cannot make me happy about it, and you cannot give me back the respect for myself that I have lost.”

  He set the lamp down on the low table by the bed and said disgustedly
, “I haven’t made you anything. Listen, Rhawnie, all women are whores. Every damned one of them. And all men are rogues. The smart rogues and whores make their fortunes. The stupid ones, the weak ones lose everything.”

  “Like that boy who killed himself because you took his family’s house?”

  “I didn’t take it. He wagered it, foolishly, and he lost.”

  “I made a foolish wager, too. Last night. I was sure that I would win, that you would marry me. But I lost. I have learned my lesson well. I know that I have made a bad bargain, Seth. But I will stick to it. I will live with you and eat your food and make love to you. I will not try to run away again. Where would I run? And I will not try to kill you. What would that earn me except death on a gorgio gallows or many years in a stinking jail? But I will not forget how you have hurt me. And I swear to you that I will find a way to hurt you back.”

  He stared at me for a long moment, saying nothing. Then he got up and walked out of my room.

  7

  Playing Cards

  JULES CAME IN late the next morning with a breakfast tray. He set it down near the bed and went to the windows to open the curtains.

  I rubbed my eyes and sat up. “Bonjour, Monsieur Jules.”

  He smiled. “Bonjour, Mademoiselle. Just plain ‘Jules’ will do, I think. I am not used to more.” If he was surprised to see me with no hair he gave no sign of it. The model manservant.

  “Are there no maids here, Jules?” I asked.

  “No, Mademoiselle. I am the only live-in help. Except for Boucher, of course. But he lives over the stables. Two women come in every day to clean and launder when the Master is home.”

  “Ah. Is your Master such a miser, then, that he makes you do all the work by yourself?”

  “The Master dislikes having too many people about the place. Especially women,” he added.

  I grunted. “I don’t know if I should feel flattered or frightened.”

  “Flattered, of course. Mademoiselle,” he said. “There has never been a woman living in this house before, not since I’ve been here.”