Gallant Match by Jennifer Blake Page A

wondered if maybe she’d been packing her trunk, possibly adding the evening gown and other unmentionables she’d worn this evening. Her shadow had crossed back and forth over the window a number of times with something in her arms.
    Or could be she was pacing, trying to come up witha way to escape his company. The thought did nothing to ease his mind.
    Taking out his pocket watch, he glanced at it and put it away again. He’d allow her enough time to fall asleep then make his way back to his own bed. And what a double-damned shame that he’d be sleeping alone. The trip ahead of him looked to be a sore trial if he was going to catch fire like pitch pine at every sound or move made by Sonia Bonneval.
    She had appeared pale this evening. It had made him uneasy. That was before he realized her face was free of paint.
    Odd that she would use such artifice at home but not at an evening entertainment. He was forced to wonder if it was not usual for her, if it could maybe have been applied for his benefit. If she’d thought to entice him, she had gone about it the wrong way.
    But, no, that was the last thing she would want. It followed then that her purpose might have been the opposite. She’d miscalculated there, too. Clean-faced innocent or painted sophisticate, she had the same unfortunate effect on him either way. Though having met Papa Bonneval, he could not imagine she had been given the opportunity to be anything other than a model of virtue.
    She would, no doubt, sleep the sleep of the untried virgin, free of all burning, all temptations. Her future husband would relieve her of that innocence, some future gentleman she had not yet met. What a shame and a waste. But the man would not be Rouillard, not if Kerr could help it.
    He’d not reached that exact resolve before in his ruminations. Why it should seem so imperative to prevent the wedding night now was something he’d just as soon not look at too closely.
    He’d been wrong about the lady; she apparently had no thought of avoiding her fate. Why he’d been so sure she was up to something, he couldn’t say with accuracy. It had been a notion, an instinct. Well, and maybe a fear. He couldn’t allow her to get away from him, not after coming this far. He owed her an apology for his suspicion, he supposed. The gesture was impossible without exposing his distrust, and so it would be expressed in silent service. That was all he could allow himself, the reason he had been hired after all.
    The thought had barely crossed his mind when he caught a flicker of movement at the French doors he’d been watching so assiduously. They eased open. A slender figure slipped through, one dressed in a dark coat and pantaloons and carrying a belled top hat in his hand.
    The lady had been entertaining a midnight visitor.
    Not so innocent after all.
    The corners of Kerr’s mouth tightened. He might have known. It certainly explained Mademoiselle Bonneval’s strenuous objections to her arranged marriage, also her papa’s arrangements for a guard to see to it she reached her groom. He had to be scandalously unsuitable, this lover of hers, to make such a thing necessary.
    Kerr could almost pity the poor, dandified bastard, forced to make a last clandestine call by way of farewell. His ladylove would board the Lime Rock tomorrow afternoon—or make that this afternoon—and that would be the end of it.
    It would be as well if he made certain the gentleman understood that point, Kerr thought. There must be no hysterical farewells, no last-minute rescue attempt or doomed heroics.
    Kerr eased away from the wall and crossed the street in swift silence. As he reached the balcony of the Bonneval town house again, he heard a soft tread on the floor above him. He had lost sight of his quarry as he reached the cover of the balcony, but thought the gentleman headed toward the fluted metal support post at the near corner. Kerr positioned himself