“The answers to your questions are quite simple, Papa,” Sonia answered in her stead. “Monsieur Wallace and I were not with Tante Lily. We were alone in the Mexican jungle for some little time, then again at the home of the Mexican lady who gave us shelter and then while traveling to Vera Cruz by diligence.”
Her father reared back his head in shock. “Mon Dieu. Your fiancé sent you back to me because you had been compromised.”
“Not at all. He was quite willing to marry me in spite of it.”
“Then you will return to Mexico at once and become his wife. There is nothing else for it, nothing for you.”
“Now there is where you’re wrong,” Kerr drawled. “Dead wrong.”
“You will keep out of this, monsieur. You have caused quite enough trouble.”
“More than you know, Papa. He is the father of the child I will have in something close to eight months.”
Bonneval seemed to swell where he stood. Taking a quick step toward his daughter, he raised his hand.
Kerr moved with the deadly swiftness of a parry in a duel’s heat. He caught Bonneval’s arm, twisted it down and then up again behind his back. He could have broken it, might have if he had not realized, suddenly, what Sonia had said. Shoving Bonneval into a chair, he turned to face her.
She was going to have his child, yet she looked thinner than when he had first seen her, first touched her by wiping black tears from her face. It didn’t seem possible. Regardless, he wanted it to be true with a fierce longing that stunned him, left him naked and defenseless in his need.
“If she marries anyone,” he said, feet spread and knotted fists at his sides, “it will be me.”
Behind him, her father gave a harsh laugh though his features were pinched and gray. “Impossible. I’ll have no Kaintuck for a son-in-law. I’ll disinherit her and her bastard with her. No spawn of such a one will have a penny of what’s mine.”
“Keep it,” Kerr said. “We won’t need it.”
Soft rose color rose in Sonia’s face. Rising, she came to stand beside him, putting a hand on his arm as she turned with him to face her father.
“You are in no position to dictate terms, Papa,” she said, her voice a little husky but steady. “The fate that came to Jean Pierre could also come to you. A gentleman we met on the Lime Rock, Monsieur Alexander Tremont, used his good offices to see to it that your name was not mentioned in connection with these contraband weapons imported by Jean Pierre. It was a matter of friendship, you see, his friendship with Kerr. But he knows, we all know, that you were closely involved.”
“Nonsense,” Bonneval croaked.
“I don’t think so. Rouillard tried to talk his way out of the trouble he was in, you perceive. He told Tremont that you were closely involved, that you arranged to have the guns shipped from upriver while on these business trips of yours.”
“It was an investment, no more,” Bonneval said, grasping the arms of his chair, pressing back as if to get away from the accusations. “I had no idea what was being bought and sold at first. Then it was too late. Rouillard said, he threatened—”
“How it happened makes no difference,” Sonia told him, her voice gaining strength as her father’s bombast faded. “What matters is that it should stop. With war officially declared, the business could well become a hanging matter. And I don’t believe my future husband would care to have that kind of scandal in his family.”
The silence was instant and complete. Bonneval stared at his daughter. Kerr did the same while wild elation spiraled up inside him. She was valiant and intelligent, this woman of his, and she knew how to fight for what she wanted. He had no idea if what she needed was him or simply any man not Rouillard, but he intended to find out before either of them was a day older.
“Have it your way,” her father said. He looked away from her, his face settling into lines that made him seem suddenly old. “Maybe you’re right, maybe this is best. I was never happy sending you to Jean Pierre, but he came from good stock, and placed great value on having you as his wife.” Papa Bonneval stopped, steadied his voice that had developed a quaver. “He hinted at ruin, you know, if I looked elsewhere for a husband.”
“You were afraid of him.”
Her father tried to grimace. “Rather, of what he could do. Once he was married to you, so I thought, our family name would be safe. I had no idea he would ever lift a hand to you. If I had, you would never have left New Orleans. I could not bring myself to watch you leave, even as it was.”
“Oh, Papa,” she whispered, and went to kneel before him, taking his hands in hers.
It was not the kind of thing a stranger should witness. Kerr stepped away and walked from the room.
He didn’t go far, only to the far corner of the gallery. Putting his shoulder to the post there, he pulled a leaf from the wisteria vine that twined around it. He stood shredding it, dropping bits into an empty bird’s nest just below the railing, as he watched the noonday shadows grow shorter in the courtyard below.
He knew to the second when Sonia left the salon at last and began to walk toward him. Turning, he watched her approach, the graceful glide of her walk, the rippling edges of her skirts, the way she smiled, the way she held her head—not with pride as he had once thought but with confidence. His body reacted in the way he’d grown used to, with sudden hardening and a drawing ache of yearning. But beneath it was something different, something richer and truer that approached reverence.
That he had held her in his arms and made love to her in all the myriad ways that a man with time on his hands could imagine was a miracle to him. He would never forget it as long as he could draw breath. That it might never happen again was a desperate darkness in his mind. But he could not allow her to sacrifice herself to his desire in this any more than he could have, finally, in Mexico.
Thirty
“Here you are,” Sonia said as she neared Kerr. A little of her glad assurance faded as she surveyed the grim look on his face. “I was afraid you had gone.”
“I wouldn’t do that.” Folding his arms over his chest, he put his back to the gallery post. “You made things up with your papa?”
“He seems all right now with whatever I do.” She gave a small shake of her head. “He isn’t a bad man or even an unreasonable one, really. It’s only that he isn’t used to thinking of how others may feel, and he turns stubborn when he knows he’s in the wrong.”
“A lot of us are like that,” Kerr answered at his most laconic. “I waited because there are things that need to be said between us.”
Hope, so very new inside her, faltered along with her smile. “Yes, I…I owe you an apology. I should have told you about the baby.”
“You should,” he agreed evenly.
“I was afraid you would feel responsible.”
“And why not? I am responsible.”
She looked down at her clasped hands. “You see? I knew how it would be.”
“Some things a man has to own up to if he wants to call himself a man.”
His voice had softened a fraction. It gave her the courage to at least try to explain. “But I didn’t want you to feel caught by it like another shackle holding you. I still don’t. Despite what you said to my father, you are not obligated to marry me.”
“What if I want to be caught, if I can’t wait to be obligated?”
She looked up, her eyes widening. “You really mean…”
He gave a hard nod, speaking with such precision every syllable seemed etched in stone. “More than anything on God’s green earth, I want it. I want to hold and protect you all your days, Sonia Bonneval, to take you and our babe back to Kentucky with me and make a home there you’ll never want to leave. I want to lie with you warm and safe in our bed while the rain falls on the roof and the winter winds howl. I want to stand with you on the porch while we watch our cotton bloom and our children grow as tall and strong as the mountains. I want—”
“You want to turn me into a Kaintuck woman,” she sai
d while tenuous joy unfurled inside her. His declaration was a tribute beyond price for such a man of few words.
“It’s a fine thing to be, I promise. Kaintuck women are proud and free. They speak their minds and make people listen. They love hard and they love long, they latch on to what they want and never let go. They stand by their men and fight for what’s right—and they teach their children to be just like them.”
“They love?”
“Something desperate,” he answered at once, “especially when they have a man who adores them from the topmost hair on their head to the smallest scar on their heel. I do adore you, Sonia, with every breath I take and every last beat of my heart.”
She closed her eyes because not being able to see his face was the only way to say what she must. “Particularly since I’m going to have your child.”
“You don’t believe me. You think it’s duty talking. I would have spoken during our days at sea, but thought you didn’t need me, that there was no place for me in your life.”
“You thought our agreement was at an end, and your position as my escort along with it.”
“You could put it that way. Dear God, Sonia, to be near and not touch you was impossible, yet any hint of a tie between us on board ship would have been fodder for the gossips by the time we docked in New Orleans. The best thing I could do for you was to keep well away.”
“So you may have thought,” she said as she lifted her lashes, meeting his eyes with all the anguish she had felt during the long weeks at sea, “but you didn’t ask me.”
He opened his mouth as if he would demand to know how she would have answered, then closed it tightly again. Reaching into his frock-coat pocket, he drew out a parcel wrapped in ivory silk brocade. He stood for a moment, gazing down at it. Abruptly, he thrust it toward her.
“What is this?” she asked, taking it carefully in her hands.
“Open it.” The words were gruff, determined.
She did so with care, folding back the silk wrapping, pulling the edges aside. When she was done, she held a confection of lace-edged white silk attached to carved ivory sticks and decorated with a silk tassel. A low sound, part sigh, part sob, left her throat.
“I took your fan while we were on the Lime Rock. You could call this a replacement, if you like.”
She lifted her gaze to his, her eyes wet with unshed tears. “But it’s a wedding fan.”
“So the old gentleman said who sold it to me. It came all the way from Spain where it was made by the nuns. He said it would make a good beginning for a wedding basket, the corbeille de noce a man gives his bride in places like New Orleans. That’s if I was so minded.”
The strain in his voice, and the pain, reached her through the distress in her mind. She searched his face, seeing in it lines of sleeplessness that matched her own, also the ache of uncertainty.
She thought the love and compassion inside her would cause her heart to burst.
“Were you?” she whispered. “Were you so minded, that is?”
“I was. Then I remembered how one morning on deck I watched that fan of yours fluttering in the wind while I held it in my hands. Seemed it was trying to get away from me, just like you had been doing.”
“You kept it safe regardless.” The point was important, at least to her.
“Until I lost it when I stripped off my coat after the ship sank.” He shook his head. “The thing is, you’re still being held. It’s not me that’s trapped here.”
“You think I’m trapped because I’m going to have a baby?” She lifted the fan from its silk wrappings before draping them over the nearby railing. Carefully, then, she spread the sticks so the strong yet delicate beauty of the lace was displayed. It was a lovely thing, but lovelier still was the thought behind it, and the implied vow.
Kerr Wallace did not take such things lightly. He never would. Nor would she.
“Aren’t you? Your papa, your friends, your people will all expect you to marry. I’d be proud and honored to stand beside you, but don’t know that you want me for a husband any more than you wanted Rouillard.”
“Oh, Kerr,” she said, her lips forming a tremulous smile. “We are all trapped in our fates. Whether they are mean and evil or good and joyous depends on the choices we make. Being truly trapped means never having a choice, or never making one. I have alternatives, really, I do. Hippolyte Ducolet would probably marry me if asked, and would be an amiable and un-demanding husband. I could travel abroad a few years and return with a tale of being widowed. Or I could give birth at a French convent and allow the baby to be adopted. All these things would mean a return to boring respectability. I don’t want that, I never did. I made my choice in a jungle temple in Mexico. Oh, yes, I gave you careful reasons, but never the one that mattered most. The truth is, I wanted you then and I want you now. I choose you as my husband, Kerr Wallace. Though I would like to return to New Orleans now and again to see my papa and Tante Lily, I want to live with you in Kentucky, to be with you for all the things you described. I want, so very much, to be a Kaintuck’s woman.”
The gladness that rose in his face was like a shout. Still, his gray gaze remained shadowed, as if he was not entirely convinced. Stepping closer, he waded into her skirts, setting his hands at her waist to draw her against him. “You’re sure?”
“Quite sure.”
“Atrocious French accent and all?”
“I’ve grown quite fond of the way you speak, particularly when you say…” She whispered the words against his ear as she flowed against him, clasping the precious betrothal fan in one hand as she slid the other behind his head.
He groaned and pulled her closer, taking her mouth as if dying for the taste of her, the contact, the merging. She clung to him, sliding her arms around his neck and returning kiss for kiss, pressing against him as she had longed to for these many weeks, unable to get close enough. The pain of it was very nearly equal to the glory, even as it threatened to escalate beyond what might be respectable even for a newly engaged pair.
“God, Sonia,” he whispered in entreaty as he released her lips, “when can we have the wedding?”
Drawing away a fraction, she swept her fan back and forth between them, cooling the searing flush that mantled her cheeks as well as the heat she could feel across the back of his neck. “Soon, mon cher Kaintuck,” she murmured, her smile bright, the words glorious with promise. “Soon.”
ISBN: 978-1-4603-0500-3
GALLANT MATCH
Copyright © 2009 by Patricia Maxwell.
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