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 afternoon—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.
The railing overhead creaked as weight was placed upon it. Booted feet appeared, first one, then the other. A pause ensued, then the feet were lowered, the ankles wrapped around the pole as the gentleman prepared to slide to the ground. Something about the trimness of those ankles, some warning, brushed the edges of Kerr’s mind.
Too late. He was already moving, reaching out to grab the scoundrel in a bear hug and drag him to the ground.
His hands were filled with firm, resilient curves, his senses with the fragrance of soap and violets. His quarry yelped and let go of her hold. Kerr stumbled backward, sprawling on the ground. His breath left him in a hard grunt as Mademoiselle Bonneval, caught to him by a hard arm around her waist, landed squarely on top of him with her hips pressed to his groin.
Five
Sonia lay motionless for a stunned instant. Rage and terror burst over her then. She flailed, kicking at the man who held her, clawing at his arm as she tried to break his hawserlike grip on her midsection. Her breath came in wheezing gasps and the edges of her vision grew dim. It wasn’t fair that she had escaped the house to be caught by some drunken seaman or sot reeling homeward. It wasn’t fair…
“Be still, or I swear I’ll…”
That voice, the damnably American-accented voice.
Kerr Wallace. It couldn’t be, shouldn’t be, but it was. She redoubled her efforts, managed to ram an elbow backward into his ribs.
“Bloody hell.”
The world shifted around her in a whirl of black and red, tan and brown. She landed on her back, dragged a single whistling breath into her lungs before a hard-muscled form landed on top of her. Long legs tangled with hers, holding them straight. Her wrists were grasped in viselike fingers and pinned to the ground on either side of her face. A hard chest, banded with thick muscle, pressed into her breasts, holding her immobile.
She closed her eyes tightly, unwilling to look, not wanting to see. Through stiff lips, she said, “Get off me at once. Let me go.”
“Go where?” he demanded as he pushed up to rear above her. “What are you about, dressed in boy’s garb like some beardless kid on a spree, target for every scoundrel from here to Levee Street? You’re lucky I was keeping an eye out for you.”
“Lucky.” Her lashes flew up and she glared up at the Kaintuck. “If it weren’t for you, I’d be—”
“Not on board the Lime Rock, I’ll be bound,” he said as she came to an abrupt halt. “So where were you off to without satchel or carpetbag to your name? If it’s an elopement, banish the idea from your mind.”
“As if I’d have use for such a thing! The last thing I want is a husband or man of any kind.”
Stillness gripped him, a strained lack of movement that seemed rife with things better left unspoken. She was suddenly aware of his heat and weight pressing against her, particularly the too-firm heaviness at the juncture of her thighs. His scent, compounded of starched linen, warm wool and clean male, surrounded her. She felt incredibly open to whatever he might do, vulnerable in a way so foreign to anything she’d ever known that it sent panic thudding through her. Her heart thundered against her ribs. Her chest heaved with her every breath, pressing her breasts against him so she wondered if he could feel their hardening tips. Fury, distress and wild yearning clashed so violently inside her head that the backs of her eyes stung with acid tears.
A soft curse feathered the air above her.
Kerr Wallace lifted off her with a wrench of hard muscles, getting one knee under him somewhere between her knees. An instant later, he surged to his feet. Retaining his grasp on her wrists, he hauled her up to face him.
Unprepared for the sudden upright position, she stumbled against him. His arms closed around her to keep her from falling. It was like being surrounded by a wall of stone. His chest was solid, ridged with muscle; his arms had no give in their support. For a single instant, she felt sheltered, protected, safe from all possible harm. The need to lean into him, to rest within that strong haven, was so urgent that she felt light-headed with it.
That lapse was more frightening than anything that had happened before. She shoved away with such revulsion that her back came up against the balcony pole behind her, rattling it in its supports. With a hand to her tight throat and her eyes narrowed to slits, she drew a knife-edged breath.
“What now?” she demanded. “Will you ring the bell and hand me over to my father?”
“Why? So you can climb down again the minute his back is turned?”
That had been her exact thought. It did nothing for her despairing resentment to have him guess it. “You could always recommend he tie me up until the Lime Rock sails. Only think what a lot of trouble that would save you. You could cart me off tomorrow like a pig to market.”
“Now, there’s an idea,” he drawled.
She had thought matters could not be worse. She was wrong.
Bending toward her as if with some perverted bow, he grasped her wrist again and pulled her toward him. Her breath left her in an unladylike grunt as her solar plexus struck his hard shoulder. When he rose to his full height again, she dangled over it. He clamped a hard arm across her knees and swung around, heading off down the street in the direction of the river.
A strangled cry was torn from her as fury beyond anything she’d ever known engulfed her. She jounced and swayed with his every long step. His arm was like an iron barrel hoop around her knees and his long fingers bit into one thigh above it. The blood pooled to her head so her temples pounded and she had to swallow her gorge. Her hat had been lost in her fall, and now her hairpins began to loosen their grip. They pinged down on the banquette so the heavy coil of hair slipped its moorings. She beat on his back with her fists but he seemed not to feel the blows. The movement made her slide on her precarious perch so she had to grasp handfuls of his coat to keep from falling headfirst.
“What are you…doing?” she jerked out. “Put me…down. My father will…”
“He’ll what? Give me a medal?” He hefted her forward from where she had slipped, so the cheek of her bottom was pressed against the hard line of his jaw. “Scream for your papa, why don’t you? Unless you would rather not face him.”
He was right. The last thing she wanted was for her father to see her like this, to learn what she intended before she could manage her escape. That knowledge was so devastating it left her throat too tight for sound.
It was infuriating yet terrifying, the ease with which Kerr Wallace strode along with her. He was like some unstoppable force of nature. A shiver moved over her, becoming a trembling that shook her from her head to her toes. “You…you have to listen, monsieur. I can pay…pay you. My grandmother—”
“That where you were headed, to your grandmother’s?”
“She…she’ll take me in if I can get to her. She lives—” She stopped, fearful she was saying too much.
“Not in New Orleans, I’ll be bound, else you’d have thrown yourself on her mercy before now. Besides that, you’d not need britches to get to her? Where then? Upriver, maybe? Natchez, Saint Francisville? Or maybe downriver toward Mobile?”
She stiffened at his lucky guess; she couldn’t help herself. If she’d hoped he wouldn’t notice, she was soon disabused of the idea.
“Mobile, right. The packet for there arrived just before the Lime Rock and leaves tomorrow afternoon, now I think on it. Guess you were counting on that. Too bad.”
Desolation shifted inside Sonia. Her grandmother, her mother’s mother, had been her hope, her one chance for refuge. Her letter, delivered when the steam packet docked, had held the precious offer of shelter with her.
Mémère had never cared for the man her daughter, Sonia’s mother, had married, had opposed the alliance when it was proposed, but
been overridden by Sonia’s grandfather. She blamed Simon Bonneval for her daughter’s death. He had never cared for her properly, she said, had expected her to recover within mere days from the miscarriages that had plagued her so he could get her with child again. He had been disappointed at the birth of a daughter instead of the son he craved, and shown it too clearly. He had been an autocratic, judgmental husband, always finding fault, never able to see what had been done for pointing out what had not. He had taken the joy of life from her mother, so Mémère had told Sonia, and when she had lost yet another baby son, the sixth in the twelve years following Sonia’s birth, she simply let go of living.
Sonia, who had taken her mother’s place as her father’s housekeeper in the past few years, thought the things her grandmother said might well be true. She had seldom, in all that time, managed to please him.
“Monsieur Wallace, I beg you,” she whispered, her voice a mere rasp in her throat.
His stride broke for a bare second; she was sure of it. He didn’t stop, however, gave no other sign he heard.
Her anger of moments before was nothing to the rage that consumed her now. She bitterly regretted her moment of weakness. This Kaintuck was a monster, a heartless, ignorant barbarian; she’d been a fool to imagine otherwise. For what he was doing, she would make him pay a hundredfold. This she swore on her mother’s grave.
They reached the open area of the Place d’Armes, which fronted the cathedral and the Cabildo, or government house. Kerr Wallace turned there, making toward the levee. It was then she knew just where he was taking her.
A few minutes more and they were at the dock where the Lime Rock lay quiet and peaceful at its moorings. Her captor came to a halt. Bending forward, he set her on her feet but grasped her forearms for a second while she gained her balance. Giddiness assailed her as the blood pooled in her skull drained away, but she refused to show it, glaring up at him in half-blind defiance.
The levee was just coming to life at this predawn hour. Stretching away from them on either side, the long, curved embankment was lined with steamboats and sailing ships as far as the eye could see. Their signal lanterns gleamed like some earthbound Milky Way, bobbing with the wash of the river current, reflecting in its sliding surface. Stacks of merchandise, boxes and barrels and acres of baled cotton, sat ready to be loaded come good daylight.
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