Gallant Match by Jennifer Blake Read Free Book Online Page A

him that much. Still, there was something in the expression that played about his firm, well-formed mouth that set her teeth on edge.
    â€œSince 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.”
    â€œI’m sure that won’t be necessary.”
    â€œAs 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 notdismissed him. She would not give him the satisfaction of realizing she knew it, so said nothing.
    â€œWe 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.”
    â€œI’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.

Four
    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.
    â€œYou’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.
    â€œAll except the last bits,” he allowed with