Prisoner of Desire Read Free Page B

from the column, making her way toward Madame Rosa and Gaspard, trying to discover some way to frame a request that they go home.
    There was a flicker of movement above her. A dark shadow spread, swooping, and from the balcony overhead a man in costume leaped, to land with springing lightness on his feet before her. His cloak settled around him, swinging in heavy folds about his heels.
    With her nerves jangling, Anya drew herself up, staring at the Black Knight. The helmet he wore was real, as was the plate armor cuirass molded to the muscles of his chest, but for ease of movement the rest of his armor was constructed of black metallic cloth cut and stitched in a clever design that looked very like the real thing. His cloak was of black velvet lined with cloth of silver.
    “May I have this waltz, Mademoiselle Sauvagesse?”
    His voice echoed hollowly from inside his helmet as he made his request, giving her the title that went with her costume. The deep timbre had a familiar ring, though she did not think she knew it well. It seemed to vibrate through her, touching a resonant chord inside. She did not like the sensation, nor the feeling of being caught off guard. Her voice was cold with annoyance as she spoke. “Thank you, no. I was just leaving the floor.”
    As she stepped away from him, he put out a gauntleted hand to catch her arm, detaining her. “Don’t refuse, I beg of you. Such opportunities as this come seldom, sometimes only once in an overlong life.”
    His touch, even through the heavy glove, made the skin of her arm tingle with the prickling rise of gooseflesh. She stared at him, trying to pierce his disguise, disturbed by a peculiar and unwilling awareness. “Who are you?”
    “A man who desires a single dance, no more.”
    “That’s no answer,” she said sharply. She thought he had hesitated over his choice of words. It made them seem as if they held a meaning hidden from her. She tried to pierce the bars that made up the visor of his helmet, but could catch no more than a jet glitter where his eyes should be.
    “But can’t you see? I am a knight painted black, a dastard, the foe of good and master of evil; an outcast. Won’t you take pity on me? Allow me to bask in the warmth of your favor; dance with me!”
    His tone was light and his touch the same, not at all restraining, she discovered, though she would have sworn a moment before that the hold was unbreakable. For a breathless instant she was assailed by a sense of overwhelming, inescapable intimacy. So disturbing was it that she jerked her arm free, turning away once more. “I fear it would not be wise.”
    “But when have you been that, Anya?”
    She swung back toward him so quickly that her long thick braids flew out to strike soft ringing blows against his metal cuirass. “You know me?”
    “Is that so strange?”
    “I find it more than odd that you can recognize me while I am masked, yet you still remain unknown to me.”
    “You knew me once.”
    It was an evasion. “If this is a guessing game, you must hold me excused; I don’t care for such play.”
    She stepped quickly around him. This time his hand shot out to capture her wrist, and it was not a light clasp. She was whirled back against him so that her shoulder landed hard upon the metal that covered his chest. She stared up at him through the slits of her demi-mask, her eyes wide and startled as she recognized the superior strength he held in leash, and also the sheer radiating force of him as a man. Her pulse began to throb. A soft apricot flush rose to her cheekbones, and her eyes darkened slowly to deepest cobalt with rising anger and the strange distress that increased it a hundredfold.
    The man in black stared down at her with a tight feeling in his chest. His gaze caught and held for a long instant on the delicate color of her face, the lovely and smooth contours of her mouth. He was a fool; if he had not known it before, he knew it now.
    His voice rasped as he spoke.