Gallant Match (24 page)

“The diligence,” her son said in flat contradiction as he sipped his wine.

“Oh, no,” his wife began, but was quelled by a look.

“The diligence is a mere public coach and quite impossible.” Doña Francesca removed the ash from her cheroot by rolling the end in her bread plate. “Not only do these conveyances smell, but you will be shaken to pieces, thrown about until you are bruised from head to toe, and forced to ride with persons you will not wish to know. Tell them, Father Tomas.”

“Just so, my child,” the priest intoned without raising his eyes from the tournedos of beef smothered in hot peppers and tomatoes that he was forking into his mouth. The calmest of men, with an unlined face and small, cherubic lips, he appeared to have enjoyed the beneficence of his God all his life, and to expect it after death.

The son turned a stolid eye on his mother. “If they take the litter, they are sure to be flung down the mountainside. I know of six people who died that way.”

“And I know of ten who were robbed on the diligence,” his mother returned in languid certainty. “One unfortunate woman was carried off and never heard from again.”

“She probably took up with the bandit captain.”

“What an unkind thing to say.” Doña Francesca turned to Kerr. “Do you not agree,
monsieur?
”

“As to that…”

“I knew you would. You are all amiability.” The lady put her hand on his arm, caressing it, squeezing the muscles, through the sleeve of his coat. “And so strong, too. I'm sure you would be able to discourage any bandit who tried to make off with your lady. Nonetheless, you would be more comfortable in a litter.”

“He'd require extra mules to carry him,” her son said, his expression jaundiced as he let his deep-set eyes slide over Kerr. “And still they may drop him down a ravine.”

“I would prefer mounts if they can be bought in Xalapa,” Kerr said a little loudly. The attentions of his hostess made the tops of his ears burn and left him without an appetite. The son had not, so far, appeared to resent the glances of his mother in Kerr's direction, but he would not be surprised if it came to that eventually. The sooner he and Sonia were gone, the better.

“That's all very well, but you don't know the way through the mountains. You would need a guide. These men who hire out as such are very well in their way, aware of all the trails and watering stops, but are sometimes discovered to be cousins of the bandits.” Doña Francesca spread her hands in a gesture that seemed to say it was only to be expected, after all.

“Regardless of how we go, we can't tarry. We will not impose on your hospitality past tonight.”

“Oh, but you cannot think of leaving so soon.” The
lady clasped his arm again as if she meant to hold on to him by main force.

“I fear we have little choice,” Sonia said, her voice firm as she entered the fray. “Though we are honored by your gracious acceptance of us into your home, it's a matter of some urgency that we move on.”

“But what can be so important? Pray tell me, so I may join you in bringing it to pass.”

“Are you, by chance, acquainted with an American gentleman by name of Rouillard?”

Uneasiness passed over the lady's features and she exchanged a swift glance with her son. “I may have heard the name.”

Kerr watched her, every sense alert as he took up the subject. “In what regard, if I may ask?”

“He has many connections in the government, for a foreigner.”

“He's a scoundrel,” her son said, wiping his mustache with his napkin as if disposing of Rouillard in the same movement.

“Javier, please!”

“He advises, he schemes and worms his way in everywhere. He should be crushed like the low creature he resembles.”

His mother threw a look of embarrassment at Sonia. “It's said this Rouillard is close to that great rogue General Santa Ana, you perceive. Though the general is from Xalapa, Javier has always preferred the politics of his rival, President Bustamente. We really know little of the gentleman from New Orleans except by reputation.”

“Which is quite enough,” her son said with finality. He threw Kerr an oblique glance. “You are not related?”

“By no means,” he answered.

“An excellent thing.” The Mexican shrugged. “One would not like to insult the relative of a guest.”

“There can be no possibility. We have never met, as it happens.”

“There,” Doña Francesca said, her gaze as caressing as her fingers, “I knew you were a man of good sense.”

The cousin, following the conversation with her black eyes bright in her plump face, spoke then in intrigued tones. “I do believe Señor Wallace is no more fond of Señor Rouillard than Javier is of Santa Ana.”

“Can this be true?” Doña Francesca watched him, her eyes bright.

“We aren't friends,” Kerr allowed.

“You will remove him, perhaps, from Mexico and from this life?”

“Doña Francesca, please,” the priest protested, though it seemed a matter of form.

It would be foolish to answer with the truth, Kerr thought. “I doubt it will come to that.”

“But you could.” The eyes of his hostess fairly glowed and she clutched his arm with both hands, kneading it.

“Of a certainty, he could,” the cousin said in forthright tones. “He is a swordsman. Only look at his hands.”

The table fell abruptly silent. Every eye turned in Kerr's direction. Without intending it, he curled his hands into fists with the calluses on his palms and the edges of his fingers folded inside.

“Have you killed your man,
señor?
”

The question came from Doña Francesca's younger son, a sallow waif in hot-looking black velvet. It referred to a fatality that took place in a duel, and could apply to any gentleman forced to defend his honor. Kerr could have answered without going into detail, but refused to deny his calling. “I have,” he said quietly, “and may be forced to do it again, being a sword master by trade. But it isn't a matter for boasting.”

“Naturally not,” Doña Francesca said with a frown for her son. “Nor is it a suitable subject for the dinner table.” She turned back to Kerr. “Now that it's been broached, however, you must tell us what it is like.”

“You would be bored, I'm sure,” he answered, searching his mind for a diversion. “A better topic might be the war declared between our two countries.”

Consternation swept along the board as the diners looked at each other in frowning dismay. Not surprisingly, it was Doña Francesca who recovered first.

“War? We are finally at war? Tell us at once, for we are so out of touch here that we have heard nothing of it.”

In her excitement, his hostess carried his hand to her full breasts, pressing his knuckles between them. Sonia's lips tightened as she met Kerr's eyes, and she gave him a look chill enough to cover him with frost from top to toenails. It was she who came to his rescue by answering the query.

“We know little more than the bare fact that open war
has finally come after so many months of hostilities. Still, it's the major reason we must leave as early as possible for Vera Cruz.”

That was not the end of it. More questions, more pleading that they stay came Kerr's way. Nevertheless, he was glad to see that Sonia agreed with him on something, even if it was only the need to go.

It was well after midnight before the interminable meal was over. Kerr was invited to smoke a cheroot and sip a brandy on the gallery with Javier. In this pleasurable pastime they were joined by Father Tomas. He expected the interrogation into his plans to continue, but it did not. Instead, they discussed the consequences and probable direction of the war.

Javier, for all his refined lack of animation, seemed to have a good grasp of the fundamentals of the conflict. It was his opinion that Vera Cruz would be the point of invasion for a march on Mexico City. His countrymen would fight with much honor and tenacity, so he said, but he could not envision victory if the United States was determined to take what belonged to Mexico, namely, Texas, and the country that stretched from there to the Pacific Ocean.

Kerr, sitting on the gallery railing with his back to a post, watched the red glow of the cheroots in the hands of the other men and the smoke from his own as it drifted into the night. It was so peaceful here, so quiet and pleasant a life. He wondered if the much-married status of Doña Francesca was responsible for the isolation of her house and her family, or if it was simply a
matter of choice. He'd probably never know. Still, it seemed obscene that such a paradise should be disturbed by the ambitions and petty posturing of men and their wars.

Was that how Sonia saw his involvement with swords as a master at arms, a matter of posturing and ridiculous gestures for the sake of pride? He supposed she did—and so it was, in its way. He could give it up, he realized in some surprise, for the sake of a home like this, one where a lady graced the head of his table, ordered their meals, their children and their lives according to her lights and his occasional request.

The lady he saw in his imagination was Sonia. How big a fool could he be?

Tossing away the stub of his cheroot, he excused himself with all the polish he could manage and went to find her.

She had left the company of the ladies, retreating to their rooms. When he joined her there, she had already undressed for bed and was sitting on a window seat in nightgown and wrapper, staring out into the darkness.

He leaned in the doorway, watching her, looking at the scratches on the bottoms of her bare feet that were turned toward him, also her knife slash that had begun to heal. Until she whipped her head around as if sensing his presence.

“I didn't expect you for some time yet,” she said in waspish tones. “Could Doña Francesca find no more excuses to paw at you?”

“Seemed best not to give her the chance.” He began
to shrug out of his tight jacket. A seam parted, but he didn't care.

“Too bad. I suspect you could have been husband number five if you wanted to try for the job. Or would it be six?”

“Didn't take much notice as I wasn't in the market.” Tossing the coat in the general direction of the slipper chair, he began to unfasten his shirt studs, dropping them on a nearby table.

She moistened her lips as she watched his busy fingers. “I can't imagine why not. She must be a wealthy woman, and I had it from one of the maids that she's barely forty.”

He paused in the act of pulling the shirt from his trousers, caught by the scorn in her voice. The cause that presented itself stunned him. She sounded almost jealous, maybe from thinking that he might have considered making love to the widow. As if he could think of such a thing while she was in the same house, the same country, maybe the same world.

“Lady must have married early,” he answered, his voice mild and to the point as he dropped his shirt on the floor.

“At fourteen, to a man thirty years her senior who promptly died. She liked being wed so well, however, that she made a habit of it.”

“But she would not, I imagine, care to add a Kentucky mongrel to her list.” The words were carefully chosen to see how Sonia would answer. It was suddenly important to know if Doña Francesca's preference might have encouraged her to see him as an acceptable entrant in the marriage stakes.

“You aren't—” she began then closed her lips tightly on the words.

“Oh, but I am,” he answered, his mouth curving with satisfaction as he kicked out of his leather sandals. Un-fastening his trousers as he walked toward her on bare and silent feet, he went on, “I am the dirtiest of dogs because I fully intend to take advantage of the borrowed title as your husband.”

“You do.”

“Oh, yes.” He went to one knee in front of her, bent his head to lick the cut made with his knife on the bottom of her foot, washing it with the hot, wet heat of his tongue before rubbing it gently with his thumb. He kissed her knee, put his hands on her thighs as he insinuated two thumbs between them and rubbed slowly up and down, widening the space between them. His eyes were dark, rich with purpose, as he raised them to meet hers. “If you're going to object, it had better be now. In a minute or two it's going to be too late.”

“It was too late when you came through the door,” she whispered, and drew him into her arms.

I
t was another full day before they could shake off the fetters of Doña Francesca's hospitality. Even so, they were forced to accept the escort to Xalapa of her son, Don Javier, who felt it incumbent upon him to transport them in his carriage. Doña Sonia, the lady wife of Don Wallace, would be more comfortable, he said, and she could only agree. Since Kerr did the same, they entered the mountain town in conspicuous style, with several outriders and a servant in livery riding on the back.

Don Javier was most pleased that they intended to take his advice concerning journeying by diligence to Vera Cruz. Unknown to him, his recommendation had no bearing. Time of travel was the deciding factor. Closer questioning had revealed that the
literas,
or litters, swaying contraptions not unlike sedan chairs though they were slung between two mules, would require some eight or nine days of tedious travel, while the diligence could make the trip in only four, five at most.

Don Javier's approval of them was so great that it
seemed he might insist on conducting them to Vera Cruz in his carriage for the continued joy of their company. Only the sad reflection that this fine vehicle would likely be shaken to pieces on the rough roads dissuaded him. To compensate, he insisted on procuring their seats in the diligence departing the following morning, also arranging their room at the small inn where he left them. He might have stayed with them through the night, waving them off with the dawn, except for the need to gather the items on the list handed him by his mother on his departure. At last he bowed himself back into his carriage, and they were alone.

“Your conquest this time around, I think,” Kerr commented as they stood waving goodbye.

“Don't be ridiculous,” Sonia said on a laugh. “Don Javier is married.”

“Doesn't keep him from sighing after what he can't have.”

She turned her head, searching Kerr's face. He was watching the dust kicked up by the carriage, his gaze clear and uncomplicated. If he meant anything more by his comment, it was not apparent.

The air in Xalapa was cooler than at the Casa de las Flores. The flowers were brighter and more highly scented as well, no doubt from the increase in altitude. Streets in the town were narrow and winding, branching off without plan into mysterious alleys and culs-desac. Clouds seemed to hang low, enveloping everything in a fine and floating mist that their landlady called the
chipi chipi,
though she promised a view of the ancient
volcano of Citlaltépetl, lord of mountains and tallest in the country, should it lift.

They were not so blessed. The mist drifted over the town, dripping from the eaves of the inn throughout the night. She and Kerr listened to it as they lay together on a rough mattress of corn husks slung on ropes. To Sonia, it had the sound of falling tears. And it was still with them at dawn when, shivering in the chill mountain air, they climbed into the heavy diligence and began the last leg of their journey to Vera Cruz.

The trip was every bit as horrendous as Doña Francesca had warned. The wide iron wheels of the coach ground through deep sand, jolting over hidden rocks with tooth-rattling thuds. The great wooden body, minus any pretense of springs, swayed in a sickening manner, leaning out over chasms and tipping forward as they descended inclines. Its leather seats smelled of sweat, chicken feathers, the moldy hay that covered the floor and the manure scent of the mules that wafted back to them. The hooves of the mules also threw up great clouds of dust that settled in a gray-brown and gritty pall over every surface. No other passengers shared their misery due to the good offices of Don Javier who had apparently hired the entire conveyance, but that was the only consolation.

Sonia was jostled from one side to the other, jounced high so her head hit the coach ceiling, and thrown to the floor when she failed to catch the knotted rope that served as a handhold. After the third or fourth time that she slid off the seat, dangling only by the rope, Kerr
caught her up and disentangled her hand before plunking her down beside him. He encircled her with a hard arm, clamping her to his side while bracing his feet on the forward bench.

She tried to sit up straight so he need not support her weight. He only growled and drew her close again, throwing over her the serape he had acquired at the inn.

She was just as happy to subside against him. His chest on which she lay was broad and padded with muscle, his arm unyielding in its hold. From that more secure vantage point, she was able to take greater interest in what slid past the diligence windows.

It was an exotic panorama, from the cloud-shrouded peak of Citlaltépetl, pink-tinged in the morning light, to the mountain track that led to Perote Prison from which those who had been captured during the Mier Expedition had recently been released. In it moved donkeys with panniers slung on either side in which rode bright-eyed, dark-skinned children, also mule trains driven by horsemen with wild faces and saddles decorated with silver, tumbling waterfalls and a bird with a tail so long it seemed impossible it could fly. But these were the highlights in a landscape that was otherwise the same, made up of trees, rocks and the winding road that stretched ahead of them. After a time, Sonia grew sleepy. Closing her eyes, she kicked off her borrowed slippers, lifted her feet to the seat and snuggled into Kerr's side.

So the long days of travel passed, in a blur of fatigue and swaying, jouncing progress. They alighted now and
then to stretch their legs while the mules were changed. At night they slept at small inns where the only comforts were cold water to remove their dirt, scrawny chickens cooked with oil, garlic and
frijoles,
and a wooden plank for a mattress.

Gradually, they descended into warmer levels where lovely green valleys appeared, palms thrust their umbrellas of fronds toward the sky and trees hung with vines dripped spent blossoms onto the roadway. Though the land flattened by degrees, the road did not improve but grew dustier still. The heat steadily increased as well, becoming a stifling pall. At last, at the morning stop on the fifth day, the coachman announced that they would sleep that night in Vera Cruz.

Vera Cruz.

Sonia could feel her nerves winch tighter at the very sound of the name. Dread formed a hard knot in her stomach as the diligence jerked into motion once more. Kerr reached for her, and she leaned against him, letting her head fall back on his shoulder, feeling the strength of his protection, listening to the steady beat of his heart.

She should not be so compliant. She should be planning some way to escape him now that they had returned to civilization. It would have been less than intelligent to chance it on the long trek down from the mountains to the seacoast, but surely it might be managed nearer to Vera Cruz? Vessels left from there to other parts of the world every day. The war had not changed that unless there was a blockade, and it seemed unlikely such a thing could have been set in place
already. If she could arrange passage to Havana, it should be easy enough to transfer there to a packet bound for Mobile.

She had no money.

That was a drawback, yes, but not an insurmountable one. With luck her aunt might have arrived at the port. She would know how to apply for funds, even if she had not managed to save her small hoard when the
Lime Rock
sank. It would require time and some subterfuge to gain her father's assistance but, once it was forthcoming, she and Tante Lily could go where they wished.

That was, of course, if she could avoid Jean Pierre while she remained at Vera Cruz. Yes, and Kerr as well.

How very tiring it all sounded, and childish as well. Hiding, lying, sneaking about like a thief, worrying that someone would snatch her back into some variety of imprisonment. Where was the freedom in that?

No, she was done with such things. She would face whatever came. She would do it standing at Kerr's side while he achieved what he had come so far to do. She owed him that much for the care he had given her. Whatever happened, he had shown her what love could be like between a man and a woman, and loving.

Love.

She loved him. It was strange but true.

When had it happened? She could not be certain. It might have been when she first caught sight of him in the lantern glow at the town house. Yes, or when he gave her the choice of walking up the gangway of the
Lime Rock
instead of being carried. It could have been the
night he forced the seaman overboard for daring to lay hands on her, or the afternoon when he had swum in the pool with dragonflies floating above him. So many choices, so many memories that she could not separate them. She would save them, however, pressed in the memory book of her mind to be taken out when she was very old, and sighed over as she sat before a winter fire.

Stirring a little, she tilted her head so she could see his face. He was staring out the open window, his gaze unfocused. His hand, where he held her to him, smoothed over the turn of her waist in an endless caress. She wondered if he realized it.

Alerted by her gaze, he turned his head to look down at her. “What is it?”

“I was thinking, wondering what you intend to do when we reach where we're going.”

“Discover if your aunt is in residence, and her direction.”

“And if she is with Jean Pierre?”

“Then we'll go there.”

She searched his eyes, trying to guess at the thoughts that moved in their shadowed gray depths. They were as closed to her as before she knew she loved him.

The thought of a confrontation between him and Jean Pierre was disturbing, more so than anything she could imagine. “Do you think…” she began, then stopped.

“Probably not, but what?”

“Do you know if Jean Pierre realizes you blame him for your brother's death?”

“He'd not have run from me all these years other
wise, wouldn't have left New Orleans so soon after I arrived. Or stayed away, for that matter.”

“He doesn't know you're coming, or didn't. Suppose Tante Lily
is
with him. Suppose she has let fall that you are my escort?”

“It can't be helped. He'll either run again or stand and face me.”

“What then?” she asked, the words so soft they barely stirred the air.

“Depends on what passes between us, and what he does about it.”

She could not think the outcome would be anything less than a duel. Nor was it possible to imagine that Jean Pierre would prevail against Kerr's superior strength and skill with a sword. The best she could hope for was that the meeting would end at first blood and with, perhaps, an apology from her future husband.

Would that suffice? Would Kerr accept it and go on his way?

She opened her lips to ask him not to leave her with Jean Pierre, no matter what happened, but to take her with him wherever he went. The words would not come. She could not risk a refusal. Hearing it would be too great a disappointment to bear.

“Don't look like that,” Kerr commanded, his voice gruff, made uneven by a jolt of the wheels into a hole in the road. Hard on the words, he lowered his head and took her mouth.

She opened to him as naturally as a flower to the kiss of the sun. Yet her manner was not so calm or innocent.
Frantic need gripped her. She wanted him as she had wanted nothing else in all her days. Her heart ached with it; her breath was strangled by unshed tears. Every inch of her skin tingled in anticipation of his touch. It came, the light clasp of his hand on her hip as he drew her against the lower part of his body, and she shuddered with the pleasure that swept through her.

His serape had been discarded that morning, becoming a pillow for her to rest against. The edges of his waistcoat parted as she slid her hand between them, flattening her palm on his linen-shielded chest. She smoothed over its hard planes while a soft moan of frustration sounded in her throat. She wanted to press against him, needed to feel the heat of his naked skin against her breasts, the abrasion of the curling hair that grew there. A moment later, she twisted her fingers in the placket of his shirt, jerking the studs from their holes.

He groaned, every muscle tensing, hardening under her hands. She dragged open the edges of his shirt, even as she nipped at his lower lip, trailed a string of kisses down his chin to his neck. The hollow at the base of his throat enticed her and she dipped inside, tasting the salty flavor of him, feeling his pulse throb against the tip of her tongue.

She could not be sidetracked for long. Shifting, she angled her head and laved the hard bead of his nipple with her tongue, worried it delicately with her teeth while reaching lower to press her hand to the hard, hot length that stretched the front of his trousers.

His harsh gasp, barely heard above the clatter of
hooves and rattle of harness, was her reward. Also the feel of his hand sliding down her thigh, gathering her skirts, finding warm flesh underneath them.

She inhaled with a soft sound as he found her, parted moist and heated folds. Without volition, she pressed against him, seeking the incursion of his long fingers. And it came, so quickly, so surely that she melted, straining to take him deeper.

With a soft curse, he dragged her higher, brought her up to straddle him. Releasing the waist of his trousers, spreading them open, he urged her to cover him. She sank upon him, moaning, bending her neck to press her forehead to his. The sense of control the position gave her was astonishing, the increase in sensation astounding. She wanted to stay there, locked upon him forever.