Gallant Match

by Jennifer Blake

  On the evening of the fourth day, the tables in the dining salon were set for fewer guests than ever. Soup was removed from the menu because of the difficulty in serving it, and the sound of breaking dishes from the direction of the kitchen came with hideous regularity. The appearance of a cold fish course cleared out several more passengers, as they took one whiff of the odorous dish and left the long room.

  Among those affected was Kerr. He was grim of face and pale around the mouth as he departed, Sonia noticed. She was sympathetic, of course, but also be-mused. That so invincible a man could be laid low while she remained able to function was a small irony of the kind that appealed to her female soul.

  Halfway through the dessert, as the wildly swinging whale lamps threatened to strike the ceiling at the peak of the ship’s roll, a pair of crewmen swept through the salon, extinguishing lamp flames and unhooking the globes to prevent fire. The wicks in a single pair of girandoles at each end were left burning, but the flames danced and wavered, casting more shadows than light. In the semidarkness, the flash of lightning was almost constant. Thunder rolled overhead and wind whipped across the decks along with the surge of building waves. The tops of wind-torn waves dashed against the dining-salon windows. Rain began in a downpour so violent it was almost impossible to be heard above it.

  Sonia felt sure the salon would empty when the meal came to an end, and it very nearly did. No one troubled to clear the space for dancing and the violinist departed with the passengers who straggled out. A few hardy souls refused to give in to the elements, however. Those who remained behind were Tremont, the Reverend Smythe with his prickly beard who had turned out to be on a mission to the Yucatán, an elderly lady knitting on a lapful of puce wool and a trio of card players who commandeered the far end table and laid out a hand of euchre.

  Sonia and Tremont talked in a desultory fashion for perhaps a half hour, lifting their voices above the storm while sitting on facing benches with the table between them. The reverend left then and, shortly thereafter, the elderly woman gathered up her knitting wool to go. As she passed by where Sonia and Tremont sat, she gave them a small sniff of disapproval.

  The lady’s feelings were easily deciphered. To be left the only female among a company of men was highly irregular. It was also uncomfortable for Sonia. Retreating to the noisome cabin she shared with Tante Lily held no appeal, however, and she had no reason to think insult would be offered her under the present circumstances. More than that, she was accustomed to late hours, was often up until dawn during the hectic social round of the saison des visites. She would not be able to sleep for some time yet, even without the wind and rain.

  On the other hand, her position was awkward enough without inciting gossip that might attach itself to her skirts wherever she finally settled. She frowned in indecision.

  “Don’t go,” Alex said, reaching out to catch her hand.

  “It would be best if I did.”

  “I’ll look after you in Wallace’s absence. Surely I can’t be any less suitable for the post.”

  She wore no gloves as they were always removed before dining and she had not donned them again. She had acquired casual habits as the days passed, as well, as if the ship had become home territory. His thumb stroked the fine skin on top of her hand in something very near a caress.

  “I can see how suitable you intend to be.” Firmly but without rancor, she removed her fingers from his grasp.

  “I beg your pardon,” he said, instantly contrite. “It seemed so natural I hardly noticed what I was doing. I will apologize a thousand times, I swear, if you will only stay.”

  “Shall I count, or will you?”

  “Fiend. Charming, yes, but a fiend in lovely human form. I believe you would enjoy watching me grovel.”

  “Immensely, I assure you.”

  It was mere banter, of course, the kind of meaningless exchange that eased formal meetings between men and women. She meant not a word, nor did he. Nevertheless, the accord between them was real enough, as were their smiles.

  Tremont’s faded first. Leaving his seat, he moved around as if he meant to join her on her side of the table. It was not the most graceful of maneuvers due to the rolling of the ship. The deck pitched upward. He caught the table corner and swung around it, coming down hard beside her.

  The bench on which she sat rocked backward. She cried out, snatching at the table’s edge.

  It wasn’t enough.

  The bench tipped over in a slow arc, then slammed to the floor as the sea lifted the ship again. Sonia’s head hit the carpeted decking with a solid thump. Alex landed beside her, cursing. She lay for a stunned instant in a welter of petticoats and skirts and with her slippers pointing at the ceiling.

  The ludicrous picture the two of them must have presented struck her, along with the vivid memory of a less disastrous incident not so long ago caused by wind and water. Her escort had caught her then, but this time he was not here. She began to shake with silent laughter.

  “Sonia—Mademoiselle Bonneval—are you hurt? Here, allow me…”

  Alex rolled toward her, trying to find a place to put his hands for purchase, trying to get his feet under him. His way was impeded by the layers of silk and lace-edged cambric that spread over them both. He reached across her to brace himself against the heaving of the deck under them, but could only grip her shoulder.

  She attempted to help by grasping his sleeve, but the position was so awkward, and she was so weak with tremors of mirth, that she only fell back again. It was then that a shout came from the door behind them.

  “Monsieur! Release her! Release her at once.”

  Gervaise.

  Alex muttered an oath as he twisted his head to look over his shoulder. A groan rose in Sonia’s throat, though she clamped a hand over her mouth to hold it back. Of course it was Gervaise, exactly the kind of quixotic young idiot certain to make a bad situation worse. At least it wasn’t his mother or, worse, Kerr.

  “Release her, I say, or you will answer to me!”

  She sobered instantly as the possibility of blows or even a duel surfaced between the two men. Hot embarrassment caught up with her as well. She bent her knees, struggling to right herself in spite of her corset stays that prevented her from bending her upper torso. “No, no, really, Gervaise,” she protested.

  “Why, you impudent pup, I’ll flay you alive for daring to think…” Alex began.

  Another voice, deeper, richly caustic, joined the fray. “And I will be forced to take on both of you for neglecting the lady.”

  Sonia closed her eyes in dismay. It was Kerr, of course. The man could always be depended upon to show up where he wasn’t wanted.

  An instant later, the sense of his words reached her and her eyes flew open again. He wouldn’t challenge both Gervaise and Alexander Tremont over this ridiculous incident. Surely he would not.

  Would he?

  “The scoundrel has been manhandling Mademoiselle Bonneval,” Gervaise said in outraged condemnation.

  “Nothing of the sort.” Alex’s expression was pained. “It was an accident from the rolling of the ship.”

  Gervaise drew himself up. “He has compromised her and must be brought to account for it.”

  “I doubt it,” Kerr drawled. “The lady is unharmed so far as I can see, the bench in one piece, and Tremont more in need of sympathy than a lesson in manners.”

  “I insist.”

  “That’s my place, I think. Unless you’d care to face my sword, being you’re so set on a fight.”

  The Kentuckian’s manner might be offhand, but his words held a slicing edge of danger only a fool could disregard. The difficulty, Sonia feared, was that Gervaise might be just the sort of heedless young idiot who would consider his pride more important than his life. Fighting her skirts, she tried again to draw her feet down off the bench’s seat so she could achieve a sitting position. The stiff crinoline of her petticoats threatened to fall into her face, even if her corset would allow it. Caug
ht like a turtle on its back, she could not right herself without displaying more of her limbs and undergarments than any had seen thus far.

  “Gentlemen, if you please!” she said in acid annoyance.

  Tremont was closest, with Gervaise a near second. Neither of them moved, nor did they take their regard from the sword master who stood somewhere behind her. She wondered what communication passed between them.

  She was not left long in doubt. A solid tread sounded as Kerr rounded the bench. Leaning over her, he batted her skirt hems aside with more purpose than finesse, then closed long fingers about her waist. She put her hands on his forearms in purest reflex movement, so felt the muscles underneath his coat sleeves as they tightened into steel hawsers.

  A moment later, she was free of the bench and standing on her feet with his firm grasp binding her rib cage like the cruelest of corsets. She stared into the dark, storm-sea gray of his eyes, swaying with him to the wild rhythm of the tempest-tossed ship and some deep, internal upheaval that was like the world shifting on its axis. They anchored her, his eyes, while she hovered between chagrin and unbidden relief that he was there to take charge. Yes, and also the sudden, blind terror that he would always be there and she could never, ever escape him.

  Fourteen

  Everyone began talking at once—Tremont, young Pradat, the card players who had witnessed the whole thing, even a seaman who had been passing by. Kerr barely heard them. He was only aware of the pale face of the women he held, and the wine-dark pools of her eyes. More dangerous than the deepest riptide, they drew him like a spell. He could drown in them with never a regret, he thought. He could spend a lifetime following where she led, keeping her eternally safe. How much of a fool could he be?

  “Let me…let me go,” she whispered. “I can’t…breathe.”

  He realized then that she was gasping, her lungs laboring for air under his hands, even as he maintained balance for both of them in the swaying dining salon with its dark, rain-washed windows. He released her at once, his big hands flying wide like a sprung lock.

  She caught his forearms, teetering a little since she could barely move with him in front of her and the bench behind. He took a step back but thought it best to stand firm there while she used him for support until she was steady on her pins.

  “You are unhurt, mademoiselle?” Tremont asked.

  He should have been the one to ask that, Kerr knew. That he hadn’t was not from lack of concern but because the answer seemed obvious.

  “Perfectly,” she said, releasing her grip on him and shaking out her skirts. “My head aches a bit from hitting the floor, but I believe my hair prevented any serious damage.”

  She looked at neither of them nor her young would-be defender, but kept her head bent as she saw to her flounces. Kerr’s gaze rested on the intricate knot of hair at the back of her head. It appeared thick enough to cushion any blow. It was also listing to one side, in danger of slipping its mooring. The need to see that happen, to watch the silken length unfurl down her back in a dark and shining river while he removed the pins tangled in it, to feel its warm weight sliding over his fingers, was an unexpected ache inside him. He clenched his hands at his sides with its force.

  “I’m relieved, since the upset was my fault.” Tremont’s expression was a model of self-blame. “You will want to retire, I expect, mademoiselle. I’ll see you to your cabin.”

  “You’ve done enough for one evening,” Kerr said, his voice as hard as the stare he gave the planter.

  “Oh, but surely…”

  The urge to punch the man in the face was so strong that Kerr took a step toward him. Besides, he’d used up his store of reasonableness on Pradat. “You heard me,” he said in quiet menace. “I’ll take Mademoiselle Bonneval to her cabin.”

  Tremont searched Kerr’s face. Something he saw there apparently convinced him protest was not a good idea. Shifting his gaze to Sonia, he said, “I shall make my apologies in the morning, if I may. I hope most sincerely that you will feel well enough to receive them. For now I’ll bid you good-night.”

  Sonia murmured some reply, said a general good-evening and accepted the bows of the gentlemen at the card table who stood to see her go. Placing a hand on the arm Kerr offered, she allowed him to lead her from the dining salon.

  The passageway leading to the cabins was a dark tunnel lighted only by a single whale-oil lamp swinging in its gimbal. Their shadows dipped and swayed to the ship’s movement, stretching ahead of them, multiplying around them. The sound of the wind and rain was a constant roar.

  Kerr kept one hand on the single brass railing attached to the bulkhead, and Sonia clung to him. Though she walked with her usual smooth glide, he could feel a slight tremor in her fingers that gripped his arm.

  “You sure you’re none the worse for your fall?”

  “I said so before, didn’t I?”

  “Doesn’t make it so.”

  “I’m not going to faint, nor am I going to be ill.”

  Kerr wished he could say the same. He’d not had recourse to a slop jar as yet, but the food smells lingering in the dining salon had made running for one a near thing. What had caused him to crawl out of his covers and hie off to the dining salon, he couldn’t say. It might have been the sound of the bench falling over, but could just as easily have been the quiet after the meal ended and an instinctive feeling that his charge had lingered long enough. Now that the excitement was over, he wanted nothing more than to crawl behind the curtains that enclosed his bunk and close his eyes.

  No, that wasn’t strictly true. What he’d really like was to take the lady at his side with him and hold her while the sea tossed them back and forth, rocking them both to sleep. He could be sure she was safe then, instead of plotting some other start that would make all his carefully laid plans as useless as Mexican sand. The best way to make certain of it would be to strip away the layers of clothing that encased her so she was naked against him. She would be warm and soft, tender and wild under his hands, under his body, surrounding him.

  “If you’re going to be unpleasant, you may as well get it over with,” she said, her expression strained and mutinous in the dimness.

  “Now, why would I do that?”

  Kerr clung to the railing as a particularly vicious wave lifted the ship on one side. He could hear the whine of the paddle wheel on the canted port quarter as it spun uselessly out of the water, and the groan of its mate to starboard as it plunged so deep turning became almost impossible.

  “I can’t imagine, seeing you have no right. It seems a habit with you.”

  “My job is to see you to Vera Cruz. One way or another.”

  “And heaven forbid that you should fail.” The last word was a short gasp as the ship wallowed again and she caught his arm with both hands.

  “I don’t intend it.”

  “Monsieur Tremont made an interesting observation. You are not, he said, the kind of man to take on such a commission for money alone. Why is it, again, that you wish to reach Mexico?”

  “I’d think you’d have better things to discuss with Tremont.” He flexed his bicep to prevent her from being dragged away from him, aware of ten spots of fire that were her fingertips pressing into it.

  “That’s an evasion, I think.”

  “Like your question, you mean? I’ve pledged not to be unpleasant, but am curious as to how you came to be entangled with Tremont and a fallen bench.”

  “Purest mischance. Oh!”

  Her exclamation came as the ship was tossed in the opposite direction, throwing her against him. He freed his arm in a swift move and swept it around her waist to clamp her to him. A glancing suspicion touched him that she had taken advantage of the moment to distract him. Was it possible? Had she arranged this reenactment of their embrace of the other night?

  He didn’t know, nor did he care as he pressed his shoulders to the wall and spread his feet, holding her wedged between his thighs while the sea tried to drag the ship to the bottom. He’
d learned something since their last such encounter. Yes, and since seeing her lying in a welter of petticoat ruffles, stockings of whitest silk and rosebud embroidered garters. He would take any opportunity to hold her that came and damn the consequences. He might well make another himself, if it came to that.

  She stared up at him, her eyes like drowned violets, lips parted, lush and moist, as if begging to be kissed. That was only in his mind, he was almost sure, but it mattered not a whit.

  He took her mouth like a man dying of thirst. The surfaces of her lips were smooth, so smooth and cool yet lusciously inviting. He swept inside, seeking remembered sweetness and delicate intoxication so subtle it destroyed mind and will in an instant, obliterated every good intention. Her sigh whispered over his beard-stubbled cheek, lodged in his heart. It wasn’t surrender but felt like its cousin, a flammable curiosity that defied logic.

  She despised him, longed to be shed of him with a fierceness that made her a warrior woman, and yet she caught the lapel of his coat and twisted it in her grasp as she met his desire, yielding to it in all the small ways women used to say they might yield completely. He drew her closer, needing the press of her breasts against him, dying to feel her pulsing heartbeat, the heat and scent and glorious promise of her. And all the while, his mind retreated, growing cooler, more distant, as he asked himself a single burning question.

  Why?

  He didn’t want her to come to him for a purpose. Well, yes, he wasn’t really that choosy. He would swallow every objection and bury himself in her to the hilt if she took his hand and led him to her cabin. But he wanted her to want him, not simply to use his undeniable attraction to her as a part of whatever scheme her fertile mind had hatched this time. And the chances were about as good as those of a drunken seaman stepping overboard into this gale.

  The Lime Rock righted itself, shuddering like a dog shaking off water, then continued with the steady beat of its engine. Kerr braced himself and caught her wrist, pulling it away from his lapel, holding it captive in the prison of his fingers. Lifting his head, then, he gazed down at her, at the rosy moistness of her mouth, the dazed look in her eyes, the flush that mantled her skin.