Gallant Match by Jennifer Blake Page B

just under that point and set himself to wait.
    The railing overhead creaked as weight was placed upon it. Booted feet appeared, first one, then the other. A pause ensued, then the feet were lowered, the ankles wrapped around the pole as the gentleman prepared to slide to the ground. Something about the trimness of those ankles, some warning, brushed the edges of Kerr’s mind.
    Too late. He was already moving, reaching out to grab the scoundrel in a bear hug and drag him to the ground.
    His hands were filled with firm, resilient curves, his senses with the fragrance of soap and violets. His quarry yelped and let go of her hold. Kerr stumbled backward, sprawling on the ground. His breath left him in a hard grunt as Mademoiselle Bonneval, caught to him by a hard arm around her waist, landed squarely on top of him with her hips pressed to his groin.

Five
    S onia lay motionless for a stunned instant. Rage and terror burst over her then. She flailed, kicking at the man who held her, clawing at his arm as she tried to break his hawserlike grip on her midsection. Her breath came in wheezing gasps and the edges of her vision grew dim. It wasn’t fair that she had escaped the house to be caught by some drunken seaman or sot reeling homeward. It wasn’t fair…
    â€œBe still, or I swear I’ll…”
    That voice, the damnably American-accented voice.
    Kerr Wallace. It couldn’t be, shouldn’t be, but it was. She redoubled her efforts, managed to ram an elbow backward into his ribs.
    â€œBloody hell.”
    The world shifted around her in a whirl of black and red, tan and brown. She landed on her back, dragged a single whistling breath into her lungs before a hard-muscled form landed on top of her. Long legs tangled with hers, holding them straight. Her wrists were grasped inviselike fingers and pinned to the ground on either side of her face. A hard chest, banded with thick muscle, pressed into her breasts, holding her immobile.
    She closed her eyes tightly, unwilling to look, not wanting to see. Through stiff lips, she said, “Get off me at once. Let me go.”
    â€œGo where?” he demanded as he pushed up to rear above her. “What are you about, dressed in boy’s garb like some beardless kid on a spree, target for every scoundrel from here to Levee Street? You’re lucky I was keeping an eye out for you.”
    â€œLucky.” Her lashes flew up and she glared up at the Kaintuck . “If it weren’t for you, I’d be—”
    â€œNot on board the Lime Rock, I’ll be bound,” he said as she came to an abrupt halt. “So where were you off to without satchel or carpetbag to your name? If it’s an elopement, banish the idea from your mind.”
    â€œAs if I’d have use for such a thing! The last thing I want is a husband or man of any kind.”
    Stillness gripped him, a strained lack of movement that seemed rife with things better left unspoken. She was suddenly aware of his heat and weight pressing against her, particularly the too-firm heaviness at the juncture of her thighs. His scent, compounded of starched linen, warm wool and clean male, surrounded her. She felt incredibly open to whatever he might do, vulnerable in a way so foreign to anything she’d ever known that it sent panic thudding through her. Her heart thundered against her ribs. Her chest heaved with her every breath, pressing her breasts against him so shewondered if he could feel their hardening tips. Fury, distress and wild yearning clashed so violently inside her head that the backs of her eyes stung with acid tears.
    A soft curse feathered the air above her.
    Kerr Wallace lifted off her with a wrench of hard muscles, getting one knee under him somewhere between her knees. An instant later, he surged to his feet. Retaining his grasp on her wrists, he hauled her up to face him.
    Unprepared for the sudden upright position, she stumbled against him. His arms closed