Gallant Match (5 page)

Kerr's bow was courteous, but lacked the depth of true humility. “I stand corrected,
madame.
I'm sure your experience in such matters goes beyond mine.”

“Impudent scoundrel.” She gave him a darkling look. “But you mentioned imminent close quarters just now. Pray, what did you mean?”

That was a question Sonia wanted very much to hear answered herself.

“Nothing scandalous, I promise. I only intended to convey that the steamer for Vera Cruz has completed her unloading, taken on new cargo and now awaits only her orders for departure.”

“Oh, dear.”

“You're certain?” Sonia could not keep the sharpness from her voice.

“Oh, quite,” the gentleman from Kentucky said at his most urbane. “All things being equal, we will board tomorrow afternoon and she'll sail with the following dawn.”

“How kind of you to keep us informed.” She thought he relished being the bearer of the news, no doubt because he knew her reluctance to hear it. Not that he was crass enough to make an overt show of it; she would allow him that much. Still, there was something in the expression that played about his firm, well-formed mouth that set her teeth on edge.

“Since I have heard nothing to the contrary from your father, I will be on the
Lime Rock
at the appointed time. If I may be of any help with your baggage, I trust you will let me know.”

“I'm sure that won't be necessary.”

“As you please. Embarkation will mark the beginning of my duties then. I'll present myself when we get under way.”

His voice was calm, without emphasis, yet she had the distinct idea that he was gratified her father had not
dismissed him. She would not give him the satisfaction of realizing she knew it, so said nothing.

“We look forward to seeing you there,” her aunt answered for her in tones a great deal more cordial than necessary. “No doubt the voyage will be as boringly uneventful as anyone could wish. But if not, we will rest easier knowing you are close at hand.”

“I'll make every effort to be worthy of your trust,
madame.
”

The bow Kerr Wallace made lacked true grace but was still gallant and self-deprecating. The look in his eyes was none of these things. It appeared sardonic yet alight with anticipation, from where Sonia stood. And disturbing, most disturbing.

For an instant, she was reminded of her pose as a virago a few days before, also the ruin of her carefully applied face paint by the rain. How embarrassing it had been to catch sight of herself in the mirror when she had returned from accosting Monsieur Wallace in the street. She looked nothing like that this evening. Surely the impression made in her ball gown would wipe the other from his mind.

Not that it mattered. She would not be on the
Lime Rock
when it sailed, would not require Monsieur Wallace's escort, had no cause to consider what he might think of her.

She would be elsewhere when the steamer for Vera Cruz left port and headed down the river to the gulf. Let the Kentuckian find gratification in that, if he could.

K
err lounged on a bench in the barrelhouse a few doors down from his salon with one long leg thrust out before him and a glass of beer at his elbow. Morose, disinclined to talk, he drummed on the scarred tabletop with the fingers of one hand. Christien straddled a chair across the table from him, while men of all stripes sat drinking, talking, filling the stale air with the smoke of cheroots and hand-rolled cigarettes. Kerr hardly noticed. He frowned, all too aware of the faint strains of a waltz from the hotel where the ball they had left an hour ago continued, and would until dawn. Something, some niggling doubt or presentiment, lingered at the back of his mind. He worried at it like a kid with a loose tooth.

Mademoiselle Bonneval had been too quiet, too self-possessed this evening. Her eyes were too veiled, her smiles too practiced. The aversion she had displayed at their first meeting had been set aside, or so it seemed. Yet she was certainly not resigned, he thought, not by a long shot.

The lady was up to something. He would swear to it.

He had almost asked her to dance. To take her in his arms, to hold her for a few short minutes as they whirled around the floor in the intimate contact of a waltz, had been a virulent impulse. What prevented him was the implacable set of her features. She would have turned him down flat, and he had no taste for public humiliation.

“You're all packed? Everything is arranged for this jaunt down to Mexico?”

Christien squinted at him through the smoke as he spoke, Kerr saw, his gaze assessing. A good friend but a bad enemy, was the half-breed. In the manner of those raised in the woods, he missed little of what went on around him, was damnably sensitive to the way the wind was blowing. It seemed he might have picked up his disturbance of mind. It would be as well to deflect him from it.

“All except the last bits,” he allowed with a nod. “Have I thanked you for looking after the salon while I'm away?”

“At least a half-dozen times. Think no more of it. Just make sure you return.”

“My fullest intention, I promise you.”

“And I'll hold you to it. I've better things to occupy my time than disposing of your pitiful belongings to cover your rent.”

“Shouldn't come to that, but if it does…” Kerr's shrug was fatalistic.

“It's a killing matter then.”

“You might say so.”

Kerr was not one to talk about himself or his busi
ness. The fewer who knew what he was about, the better. It was a family trait, that taciturn attitude; his father had been the same, and his father before him, all the way back to the Clan Wallace in the Highlands of Scotland. Stiff-necked pride and the need to keep a firm hand on the reins, his mother had always called it. She may have been right.

“The lady didn't look overjoyed at the news of the
Lime Rock
's departure.” The light from soot-dulled lanterns slid over the black waves of Christien's hair as he tipped his head.

“Not particularly.”

“Can't say I envy you the voyage with her under your wing.”

Kerr gave his friend a skeptical look. “If you think I believe that…”

“God's truth, I swear it. I prefer my women softer and more biddable.”

“Careful, my friend. The old gods enjoy serving up a man's past words with trouble as a sauce.”

“You're learning that, are you?”

“Meaning?”

“Aren't you the man who has dodged and ducked for years to avoid the matchmaking of his friends' wives? The staunch frontier gent with no use for a pampered Creole belle, no time for hanging on the sleeve of one? Now look at you.”

“I signed on to deliver the lady to her wedding, and nothing else.”

“But you'll be looking after her, keeping close watch,
making sure nothing happens to her. First thing you know, you'll be trailing after her like a sick pup.”

Kerr gave him a straight look. “I wouldn't put money on it.”

Christien went on as if he had not spoken. “Yes, or running up and down, swearing a blue streak and wondering where she's got off to while your back was turned. Mademoiselle Bonneval has the look of a lady with a mind of her own. She's not likely to stay put like a horse you can ground tie and expect to find when you come back.”

“For that gem of wisdom I thank you, not being able to figure it out for myself.”

“Oh, you're up to every trick, I don't doubt. The thing is, so is the lady, and she doesn't look happy with her lot. You and that papa of hers don't look out, she'll bolt on you.”

The back of Kerr's neck tingled and alarm slid down his spine. Christien had just put into words the feeling that had him blue-deviled. It was what had bothered him about Sonia Bonneval's mood this evening, her composure, the unruffled way she had taken the news of the
Lime Rock
's sailing date after her first start of surprise.

She didn't intend to be on that ship. She meant to run out on her wedding and on him.

The legs of his chair screeched on the flagstone floor as he surged to his feet. Thrusting a hand into his pocket, he tossed a few coins on the table and turned for the door.

“Hold on, where're you going?” Christien called after him.

“To check on my charge,” he said over his shoulder.

“You saw her leave the ball before we did. She'll be at home, tucked up in her bed.”

“I'll just make sure of it.”

Behind him, Christien said something under his breath. Kerr didn't wait to hear it. But he thought it had to do with hearing old gods laugh.

Some hours later, Kerr was still turning that conversation in the barrelhouse over in his mind as he leaned against the plastered storefront across from the Bonneval town house. He'd got the wind up while talking to Christien, and that was a fact. He'd been so certain Mademoiselle Bonneval meant to leave him holding the bag. Sure as God made little green apples, she'd be packing her traps and sneaking out to hide with some friend or relative. Or so he'd thought.

Now he wasn't so sure. The night was almost gone, and he was still holding up the wall with one shoulder, loitering like a lovesick fool and watching her window. Hell, all he needed was a guitar and a song to yodel and he'd look as if he was courting the lady, Creole style. Not that there was any hope of that since he couldn't carry a tune in a sack. Maybe he should have found himself a Jew's harp or fiddle, something as an excuse for being still at his post next time the gendarmes made their rounds.

If he had a lick of sense, he'd slope off to his rooms over the salon, get himself some sleep. Another hour and he'd do just that. Dawn would be breaking by then. Chances of her making off in daylight seemed doubtful.

Could be she'd never intended such a thing. Where would she go, after all? Who would take her in when they knew they'd have to face Papa Bonneval?

What an old stick he was, her father. Marrying her off to a man she hardly knew was bad enough, but to send her away to a foreign country in the middle of a war? Anything could happen. Armies weren't known for being too polite when civilians got in their way, particularly enemy civilians. Being tied to Rouillard was downright chancy, too. Who knew how he might treat a woman? His wife would have nowhere to go, nobody to turn to for help if he cut up rough.

Not that it was likely to come to that. The marriage would be over before it began if he had his way. And he intended to have it.

Too bad he couldn't just tell her she needn't worry, that she'd be a widow before her wedding night. Problem was, he couldn't guarantee it; Rouillard might be the one to come out of this alive. For another, women were unaccountable. She might simply be miffed because her husband-to-be hadn't bothered to court her in proper style. If she learned of the threat to him, she could feel duty-bound to shout it out the instant she clapped eyes on him. Then where would they be?

At least she wasn't making the voyage alone. She'd have the support and comfort of her tante Lily. He had no idea if she meant to stay with her niece or return to New Orleans, but it still made him feel less guilty.

A shadow moved across the jalousie blinds that covered the French door of the second-floor bedchamber
across the way. He knew it belonged to Sonia because he'd seen her earlier as she stepped to the French doors to pull the draperies across them. She'd had on a wrapper over her nightgown, and her hair had trailed down her back in a long braid that swung thick and heavy against her hips. Though he'd had only the briefest of glimpses, he thought the vision had scarred his eyeballs. Right now, just thinking about it, he felt such heat in his groin that he shifted uncomfortably against the plaster behind him.

What kind of nightgown would she wear? Something thin, lacy and easy to remove, like the handful of silk he'd taken off an accommodating actress from the Saint Charles Theater? Not much hope. It would be serviceable cotton lawn, he suspected, and buttoned up to the throat with the kind of pearl bits that made men cuss, plus scratchy with white embroidered stuff around the neck and wrists that was done by nuns. That would be it exactly.

So why in hell did the idea of it make his heart clang like a hammer striking an anvil?

As he watched, the lamplight faded away behind the blinds. She was going to bed at last. It had taken her long enough. The delay was the main reason he still stood there in the shadows. He wondered if maybe she'd been packing her trunk, possibly adding the evening gown and other unmentionables she'd worn this evening. Her shadow had crossed back and forth over the window a number of times with something in her arms.

Or could be she was pacing, trying to come up with
a way to escape his company. The thought did nothing to ease his mind.

Taking out his pocket watch, he glanced at it and put it away again. He'd allow her enough time to fall asleep then make his way back to his own bed. And what a double-damned shame that he'd be sleeping alone. The trip ahead of him looked to be a sore trial if he was going to catch fire like pitch pine at every sound or move made by Sonia Bonneval.

She had appeared pale this evening. It had made him uneasy. That was before he realized her face was free of paint.

Odd that she would use such artifice at home but not at an evening entertainment. He was forced to wonder if it was not usual for her, if it could maybe have been applied for his benefit. If she'd thought to entice him, she had gone about it the wrong way.

But, no, that was the last thing she would want. It followed then that her purpose might have been the opposite. She'd miscalculated there, too. Clean-faced innocent or painted sophisticate, she had the same unfortunate effect on him either way. Though having met Papa Bonneval, he could not imagine she had been given the opportunity to be anything other than a model of virtue.

She would, no doubt, sleep the sleep of the untried virgin, free of all burning, all temptations. Her future husband would relieve her of that innocence, some future gentleman she had not yet met. What a shame and a waste. But the man would not be Rouillard, not if Kerr could help it.

He'd not reached that exact resolve before in his ruminations. Why it should seem so imperative to prevent the wedding night now was something he'd just as soon not look at too closely.

He'd been wrong about the lady; she apparently had no thought of avoiding her fate. Why he'd been so sure she was up to something, he couldn't say with accuracy. It had been a notion, an instinct. Well, and maybe a fear. He couldn't allow her to get away from him, not after coming this far. He owed her an apology for his suspicion, he supposed. The gesture was impossible without exposing his distrust, and so it would be expressed in silent service. That was all he could allow himself, the reason he had been hired after all.

The thought had barely crossed his mind when he caught a flicker of movement at the French doors he'd been watching so assiduously. They eased open. A slender figure slipped through, one dressed in a dark coat and pantaloons and carrying a belled top hat in his hand.

The lady had been entertaining a midnight visitor.

Not so innocent after all.

The corners of Kerr's mouth tightened. He might have known. It certainly explained Mademoiselle Bonneval's strenuous objections to her arranged marriage, also her papa's arrangements for a guard to see to it she reached her groom. He had to be scandalously unsuitable, this lover of hers, to make such a thing necessary.

Kerr could almost pity the poor, dandified bastard, forced to make a last clandestine call by way of farewell. His ladylove would board the
Lime Rock
tomorrow af
ternoon—or make that this afternoon—and that would be the end of it.

It would be as well if he made certain the gentleman understood that point, Kerr thought. There must be no hysterical farewells, no last-minute rescue attempt or doomed heroics.

Kerr eased away from the wall and crossed the street in swift silence. As he reached the balcony of the Bonneval town house again, he heard a soft tread on the floor above him. He had lost sight of his quarry as he reached the cover of the balcony, but thought the gentleman headed toward the fluted metal support post at the near corner. Kerr positioned himself just under that point and set himself to wait.