Gallant Match (21 page)

“Of course, I could claim to be compromised due to this little jaunt of ours anyway,” she went on in relentless reason. “That's in the event that you are the one to be killed in any meeting between you and my fiancé. But it seems better to be able to speak with the proper authority and…and knowledge.” She swallowed, went on with valiant hardihood. “Yes, and present the proper evidence in…in case it must be proven.”

“You want me to make love to you.”

Her smile was wan and not quite even. “You did promise to protect me. I'm not asking that you refrain from taking me to Jean Pierre, merely that you give me this safeguard against becoming his wife. That is, if it isn't too much trouble.”

T
he look he gave her had the scourging strength of lye water. His lips parted, but he made no reply, only took a quick, close-held breath while silence gathered again between them, around them.

The rain had stopped now. It had been no more than a tropical shower, after all, much like those that fell in New Orleans during June and July. With its passing, a fresh breeze sprang up, bringing the scents of flowers and wet vegetation and a feeling of renewal. As the cool wind swirled in at the door opening, it brought tendrils of smoke and the smell of roasting meat. It also brushed the surfaces of Kerr's shoulders and arms with goose bumps, for she could see them rise on his skin.

Hot juices sizzled as they dripped into the fire. Kerr wrenched away from where he sat, moving to squat beside it and turn the spit holding the bird. He frowned at his task as if it required all his powers of concentration. Done, finally, he used a stick to nudge the plantains deeper
into the coals. His gaze was on what he was doing when he spoke finally with a meditative sound in his voice.

“What about afterward?”

“I don't know what you mean.” She did, perhaps, but it seemed best to be certain.

“What will happen when this is over? Where will you go? Will your papa receive you again in this proper, or maybe improper, state achieved at my hands?”

An undercurrent in his voice, his choice of words, brought the rise of compunction. In quick defense, she said, “I didn't mean—”

“I know. Let it pass. But for the rest?”

“I see no reason my father should know.”

“Too optimistic, I think. The story will come out.”

“Then my grandmother's house in Mobile must be my destination, as before.”

He fed a few more limbs into the fire, his face glazed in shades of orange and blue by the flaring coals. The licking red flames were reflected in his eyes as he turned his gaze to her. “Let's be clear. You don't aim to…leave me with any obligation.”

She thought other words had been his first choice for describing what she might intend. What would they have been? She could not think in her need to reassure him that she would not be a burden in his life. “Naturally not.”

“Naturally.”

He came to his feet with such violent swiftness that she shrank back a fraction, pressing her head to the stone behind her. It was unnecessary. He didn't so much as
glance in her direction, but scooped up his pocketknife from beside the cook fire and walked into the night.

She should be accustomed to these abrupt retreats. This one was more disturbing than any before, for it had the feel of rejection.

She closed her eyes, biting the inside of her lip to contain the tears that pressed behind her eyes. It had required all her courage to speak the words that would leave her without protection against anything he might do. That he wanted nothing from her, would take nothing, was a blow. The pain of it was not only from the defeat of her dream of avoiding her wedding. She had thought, had hoped somewhere in the back of her mind that Kerr desired her. That he would allow her to taste a form of surrender that had nothing to do with two bodies joining out of duty and vows spoken in church, but came from mutual attraction, mutual joy.

He didn't want her, or at least not enough to lay down the burden of his revenge for an hour while they were alone here in this paradisiacal wilderness. It had been a gamble and she had lost. The humiliation of it was blighting, but worse still was the pain. That was something she had not expected. She was grateful that he had left her, for it allowed her to become accustomed in decent and welcome privacy.

It was some time later, after she had tested the bird for doneness and removed it from the fire, that Kerr returned. She heard the soft scuffle of his footsteps and looked up from where she was dividing the plantains and placing them on leaf plates alongside sections of
roast bird. He strode toward her, his gaze ferocious. His bare arms, crisscrossed by scratches, were filled with palm fronds.

At least he had not deserted her. Amazingly, it was enough to lighten her spirits. Her appetite had been absent until that moment, but now it returned.

She gestured toward the food. He gave a brief nod and walked past her to dump his load against the interior wall. Moving back to hunker beside her, he ate with economy and speed, licking his fingers before rubbing them on his trouser legs.

Sonia consumed her share of what had been laid out, and licked her fingers in her turn. When she was done, she threw the green leaves of their plates into the fire and watched them blacken and curl before bursting into flames.

“Come,” he said. “I'll walk you back down to the pool before we turn in.”

It seemed a good idea. She went with him, content to trail a step or two behind in case the jaguar had a similar idea. Along the way, they had recourse to a thicket of brush, as they had at times during the long day. Or at least she did while Kerr kept watch. She could only imagine he had attended to his own needs earlier.

The pool was alluring in the light of the rising moon, but they did not linger. After washing their hands and faces and drinking their fill, they turned away and climbed back toward their shelter.

Sonia's footsteps flagged. She was tired, almost desperately so. Her fatigue grew worse as they came closer
and closer to their chambered ruin. A part of it was the effort of the day, but disappointment and loss of hope dragged at her as well. Conversation seemed too much effort. What else was there to be said between her and the man who walked ahead of her, after all? She could not insist that he make love to her and had too much pride to beg.

Where would she be this time a week from now? Would she be waiting for Jean Pierre to come to her as her bridegroom or mourning, at least officially, his death? Would she be waving goodbye to Vera Cruz or grieving the demise of a gray-eyed sword master?

Shuddering away from the last thought, she kept her gaze on the ground until she could see the red coals of what had been their fire, and the dark maw of the ancient room where they would sleep.

Kerr went ahead of her into the opening. She followed more slowly, hesitating just past the entrance as she saw him crouching over the palm fronds he'd brought earlier. He seemed to be shuffling them into some semblance of a bed, but there was only a single pile. One stocking-covered foot was thrust out behind him. Its bottom was ragged and bloodstained, mute testimony to cuts and scratches he'd taken without flinching or complaint. Gazing at it, she felt an odd pain just under her breastbone.

A movement behind him caught her attention, along with a soft scratching noise that had nothing to do with the mat of greenery he was arranging. The low firelight behind her stretched into the darkness, highlighting a
shape that crawled along on spindly arms and with a raised, crooked tail. Her eyes widened as she recognized the form, and the threat.

If she called out, Kerr might move directly into its path. Yet she had to do something.

Crouching with the slow flex of aching muscles, she closed her hand on a chunk of broken stone that lay to one side. She eased forward with consummate patience, careful not to make any sudden moves. Kerr glanced at her with a lifted brow, but she paid scant attention. Finding her position, she lunged, smashing the stone down with all the speed and strength at her command.

It slammed to the floor, crushing the scorpion with its tail raised to strike. The blow wakened echoes that rumbled into dark space and dust so old and dry that it caught, choking, in the lungs.

Kerr came erect, spinning in his inimitable swordsman's stoop. His gaze centered on the dying scorpion at his feet, lifted to Sonia's face.

The dust settled. Dense quiet drew in around them, and still he didn't speak. His features were immobile, watchful, yet held a thousand uncomfortable questions. The crushed scorpion writhed a last time in its death throes and then was still.

Sonia shrugged with a valiant try at nonchalance, though her lips trembled. “I couldn't lose my escort.”

“No,” he said, his voice even as he straightened slowly to his full height, “that would never do.”

“But you won't be surprised, I hope, if I'm not overjoyed at the thought of sleeping with that thing's kin?”

“I see your point.”

Bending, he caught up the palm fronds and removed them in a sweeping gesture to the slab of stone he had rested against earlier. He spread them like a particularly primitive altar cloth, then stepped away and stood waiting.

She appraised his handiwork. Slowly, she lifted her lashes. “Mine,” she asked in tones like tinkling glass chimes, “or yours?”

For answer, he took out his pocketknife and flicked it open, then made a swift gesture with the blade before his face like the salute of one duelist to another. “Turn,” he said quietly.

She held her place. “What?”

“Unless you don't trust me, after all.”

It was a challenge and a reminder. To both, there could be only one answer. She revolved slowly to put her back to him. Then she held her breath while she waited to see what came next.

The legs of his trousers whispered together as he stepped closer. With gentle fingers, he lifted the weight of her hair that spilled down her back and moved it aside, looping it over her shoulder so it tumbled down over her breast. He skimmed his shirt from her shoulders and down her arms, then tossed it to the foot of their bed. Inserting the fingers of one hand between her skin and the top of her corset where it fastened up the back, he pulled that undergarment taut. With a single, quick move then, he dragged his knife blade down through her corset laces.

They parted with a sound like distant pistol shots. Her
corset sprang open at the back, the release so sudden that she gasped with a hoarse, strangled sound.

The whaleboned span of fabric fell to her waist.

She caught it with an arm across her middle, but he pulled it from her grasp with a quick tug and tossed it after his shirt.

“I've wanted to do that since we left the
Lime Rock,
” he said with satisfaction.

She faced him again, searching his face in the light of the dying fire. Her voice a mere wisp of sound, she asked, “And what else?”

He eyed the knife in his hand, looked with narrow-eyed speculation at the corset cover.

“No,” she said in haste, clapping a hand to the space between her breasts. “I need some cover left to me.”

“Too bad,” he murmured, and closed the knife, slipping it into his pocket.

Was she reading him correctly or was his only intention to add to her comfort? She had no way of knowing.

All she could do was ask. “You have decided…?”

“That you are right. An excuse for a meeting is some thing to be valued.”

“And afterward?” She deliberately repeated his words spoken earlier.

“Afterward I'll ask no more than you are willing to give.”

It was the answer she had wanted. Why did it seem so empty? She would not refuse it, however, could not afford that gesture. Greatly daring, she crossed her arms
and reached for the hem of the corset cover. With a swift movement, she drew it off over her head.

He was still for the space of a deep, slow breath while his eyes darkened to secretive pools. His lashes swept down and he reached with care to spread the long fingers of his left hand over her rib cage, smoothing upward until he cupped her breast. His touch was sure but gentle, with something in it of reverence. Bending his head, he blew warmly on the nipple, touched it with his tongue, drew back enough to watch with hooded eyes as it beaded, nudging against the web between his thumb and forefinger. As if drawn, unable to help himself, he dipped his head again and took the knotted berry of it into his mouth. He laved it with his tongue, testing it carefully with his teeth, before drawing it deeper into his mouth as if savoring the most succulent of fruit.

The sensations that rippled through her were ravishing, incredible, too urgent to resist. She swayed toward him, her knees losing their strength. He caught her with one arm under her thighs, the other behind her back. Straightening, he swept her high against him, held her for a long moment while his gaze turned possessive, devouring. Stepping to the bed he had made, he put her down with care. He vaulted up beside her then, stretching his long length out on the frond-covered stone altar and drawing her close so they were molded together from chest to ankle.

Sonia's doubts vanished while glad anticipation rose in their place. Drawing air deep into her lungs, she let it out in a sigh as she pressed closer, needing to feel his
power, the strong columns of his legs against hers, the faint abrasion of his chest hair on the sensitive curves of her breasts, the heat and firmness at the juncture of his thighs. Shivering with the unexpected gratification of impulses she barely recognized, she smoothed a hand over the hard curve of his shoulder, clasped the rigid bulge of his upper arm, the corded strength of his forearm. In that moment, she understood why a Roman woman might have slipped away to lie with a gladiator before he entered the arena. There was something deeply seductive in male perfection of form allied to deadly strength.