by Jo Goodman
It came effortlessly, but then so did the dream. There was nothing she could do to call back the moment when she caught Yvonne by the hand and dragged her toward the bedchamber so she could change for the masque. She saw her father and Victorine dancing in the ballroom and repeated her conversation with the mysterious devil. She hid in the gallery and witnessed Victorine kissing the highwayman and she took the same route to the summerhouse and to the cave as she had always taken. She crouched low in the antechamber, listened to the argument with growing wonderment, then, without warning, the threads of her dreams changed, creating a new tapestry of terror…
As Kenna watched from the crack in the rock Victorine began to cry, looking pathetically wretched as she buried her face in her hands. Kenna’s stomach churned as her father comforted the wife who had betrayed him in the gallery and held off the Frenchman and Rhys with his pistols. She was afraid for him and afraid for herself. Her fear paralyzed her, made her incapable of acting on her instincts to help her father.
Kenna struggled to her feet, clawing at the rock for support, and edged closer to the entrance to the antechamber. One of the Frenchmen moved almost imperceptibly nearer to her father and his fingers curled for the pistol tucked in the waistband of his breeches. Kenna glimpsed the movement and her breath caught as she waited for her father to respond. When he didn’t, she stepped into the entranceway, in full view of Lord Dunne, Victorine, and Rhys. Though Kenna did not spare a glance for anyone save her father, she saw enough to know neither Rhys nor Victorine recognized her in her highwayman garb. Not so her father. His eyes widened and Kenna swore his face drained of color. Both Frenchmen twisted their heads to see what had captured the attention of the others and when they saw Kenna, they froze.
Their shocked stillness lasted until they realized the intruder was without a weapon, but it was Kenna who leaped first, tackling the Frenchman closest to her. The lantern was knocked over and the chamber was plunged into complete darkness. There were shots and Victorine’s screams covered Kenna’s pained grunt as her nose was broken.
She woke in the quiet darkness, heard the gentle rush of water, and knew what she would find. Her hand had not even touched her father’s sleeve before she began screaming…
Kenna sat straight up in her bed, heart hammering. It took her several moments to orient herself. Her fingers curled around the sheets and found them only slightly damp. She wondered if she had really screamed or if she had merely imagined she had. Glancing at the window she saw someone had opened the drapes but that it was already dark outside. A few logs had been added to the fireplace and they burned brightly, casting distorted shadows on the walls of her room. Nick was leaning against the mantel, half turned toward Kenna, his profile etched darkly against the orange flames. His shoulders were slumped forward and in one hand he held a drink which he kept turning in weary thoughtfulness.
He looks so tired, she thought, and her heart ached for him. She had never considered before how heavily her nightmares weighed on her brother and now it occurred to her that in some way they had affected Nick’s decision not to marry. She had never meant to become a burden to Nicholas, but however unwittingly, it seemed she had. When she thought of how Nick had taken her side against Rhys, refusing to issue an ultimatum of marriage to her, her heart swelled with love.
“Nick?” She held out a hand to him. “Come here. See for yourself that I’m all of a piece.” When he didn’t move or respond in any way she retracted her hand and fingered the braid that hung over her shoulder. “I’m sorry about the nightmare, Nick. I wish it were different; wish I could control it. You’re very good to me, to come like this when you know I’m frightened.” Kenna took the ribbon from her hair and unwound the braid, threading her fingers through the damp tangles at her nape. “It was much the same dream,” she said thoughtfully, reviewing it in her mind.
“But?” he asked.
She smiled. “You know me so well. I remember stepping into the antechamber this time. The Frenchmen turned toward me, ever so briefly. God, how I wish I could recall their faces. Everything happened too quickly. Victorine was there—and Rhys—but they didn’t seem to recognize me. Papa did.” Her smiled vanished. “I’m afraid it’s why he didn’t fire his weapon sooner. Oh, Nick! I think I may have caused it all to happen.”
“No. You didn’t.” He stepped away from the mantel.
Kenna was going to deny his words but as he approached the bed she couldn’t find her voice. Her hand went from her hair to her throat. “Rhys!”
“Yes.”
“But I thought—”
“I know. You thought I was Nick.”
“You let me go on.”
“I wanted to hear about your dream. You’ve never told me about it before.”
Kenna pulled the comforter to her neck. “And I don’t want to discuss it with you now. Why did you come here? What do you want?”
“I thought that was obvious,” said Rhys. His steely gaze was partially shuttered by his lashes but he could see Kenna clearly and she looked incredibly lovely to him. He wanted the right to sit beside her, thread his fingers through her long fall of red-gold hair, and kiss the uncertain frown playing on her lips. He wanted to feel the fullness of her breasts in the palm of his hand and touch his mouth to the invitation of their hardened tips. It was too easy to imagine lying beside her, legs and arms twined in the aftermath of loving. Her head would rest on his shoulder and her slender, curious fingers would trace a narrow path across his chest, his abdomen, and finally lower where she would find him ready to love her again. His body responded to the tenor of his thoughts, swelling and tightening and aching. He would have given his soul for a like response from Kenna, but he saw only fear and quietly he cursed her and then himself.
Kenna shrank from the resentment she saw in Rhys as he stepped nearer. His body was corded with tension and a muscle leaped in his clenched jaw. Though she wanted to escape, she felt drawn to him, powerless to look away.
“How can I convince you?” Rhys asked, drawing up a wing chair and sitting on its very edge. He leaned forward, folding his hands on his knees. “I mean no harm to you, Kenna.”
She opened her mouth to tell him there was nothing he could do, yet the words she heard herself speak were vastly different. “If only you did not glower so. You are always so put out with me.”
“Am I?” He smiled slightly and relaxed. “Perhaps I am. But then there is a measure of self-defense in that guise. You are always angry with me.”
“I don’t think it’s anger.”
“What then? No, don’t answer. You think you hate me. Mayhap someday I will argue that hatred is not so deliberate as you practice it. I have never known anyone to use it as a shield the way you do. It makes one wonder what would happen if you were to discard it.”
Kenna could think of no reply to make to that, so she returned the conversation to his purpose in her room. “Your presence here is not obvious to me. Does Nicky or Victorine know you’re here?”
Rhys leaned back in the chair, stretching out his long legs and crossing them at the ankles. He took some small pleasure in seeing how his comfortable posture irked Kenna. “No. Neither know I came. It’s been hours since everyone went to bed.” He saw Kenna’s eyes wander to the clock on the mantel and confirm his statement for herself. “You slept through dinner and the light repast Victorine brought you before she retired. Would you like me to bring something from the kitchen for you?”
“You didn’t come here to feed me,” she said, shaking her head.
“No. I wanted to speak to you about what the doctor told us this afternoon.”
“What of it?”
“Nicholas and Victorine were most distressed by your use of arsenic.” He looked at her expectantly and when she made no reply he continued. “I understand you’ve agreed never to use it again.”
“Of course I won’t.”
“Of course,” Rhys said, a wry smile twisting his lips. “That won’t be hard, will it? Since you�
��ve never used it before.”
Kenna was too startled to prevaricate. “How did you know?”
“Credit me with some sense, Kenna. You’ve never been vain about your appearance. I doubt you even know how rare your beauty is.”
“Don’t tease me,” she said sharply. “It’s unkind of you.”
“I am not teasing,” he replied easily. “But that you think I am proves my point. It would be out of character for you to try to enhance loveliness you don’t believe exists in the first place.”
Kenna smoothed the comforter over her lap, tracing its snowy pattern so she did not have to look at Rhys. “Please stop this talk. It is of no account.”
“But it is,” he continued resolutely. “If you did not use the arsenic, where did it come from? And why did you lie about it? The doctor showed Nick the bottle your maid gave him. What was in it, Kenna?”
“A few grains of bath salts.”
Rhys sighed. It was much as he had expected. “I think you had better tell me the whole of it.”
Kenna related everything then, not because she trusted him, an inner voice insisted, but because she wanted him gone and there seemed but one way to achieve that end. “And Janet said she would speak to Monsieur Raillier,” she concluded a trifle breathlessly. “There is no need to alarm Nick. Everything will be taken care of.”
Rhys said nothing and his face gave none of his thoughts away. It had never occurred to him that he would ever want to accuse Kenna of being too trusting. She gave him none of it, yet bestowed it indiscriminately on others. “You believe your maid’s explanation?”
“I—yes, I believe her. Why shouldn’t I?” she added a little defiantly. “Janet has taken care of me for years. Since just before my father died. She is more confidante than servant.”
“Powell is like that,” said Rhys. “My valet. He rather inspires loyalty. Tell me, do you often mention your nightmares to Janet?”
A tiny frown lined Kenna’s brow. “I fail to see—”
“Humor me.”
“Yes, I talk with her about them, though surely that is my affair. She is a good listener, not at all critical,” she said pointedly.
Rhys ignored the barb. “I see.”
“I doubt you do. You cannot know what it is like to ever be haunted by events of the past and powerless to make a difference.”
“Don’t I?” he replied enigmatically.
“What do you mean?”
Rhys shrugged. “It’s of no import now.” He rose from his chair, searching Kenna’s face, and knew himself reluctant to leave. “Will you be able to go back to sleep?”
“I think so.”
“I could stay a while.”
“No. It’s better that you go. Nick is a light sleeper. It is surprising he did not hear me scream.”
“But you didn’t.” He could not help himself. He reached out to touch the brilliant wave of hair that fell across her shoulder.
Kenna watched his fingers curl in her hair. She could not breathe or move as he stroked the feather-soft ends.
“I was going to wake you when I came here. I had not meant to watch you sleep,” Rhys said huskily. “But you seemed so peaceful. You didn’t move or make a sound. I never knew until you sat up how tortured your thoughts were. Do you usually wake up screaming?”
She nodded, unable to speak as his hand stilled close to her breast. The comforter seemed no protection at all. She could feel the heat of his hand through it.
“I wish I could make it different for you, Kenna.” His hand dropped away abruptly. “I must leave.” He turned to go and was halfway to the door when she called to him.
“Am I a cold woman, Rhys?”
Rhys stopped, uncertain he had heard correctly. At his side his fingers curled into white-knuckled fists but he did not face her. “What did you say?”
Kenna was already regretting her question and the mad impulse that made her voice it. It had been at the back of her mind since she discovered it was not her brother in her bedchamber, but she had never expected to speak the thought aloud. She looked at Rhys’s back, the taut broad shoulders and the still, expectant posture, and wanted to call back the words. It was obvious she had taken him by surprise, even embarrassed him, to say nothing of the humiliation she had heaped upon her own head. She worried her lower lip, saying nothing, and waited for him to continue on his way.
Kenna’s silence forced Rhys to turn toward her bed as nothing else could have. He saw the way her teeth caught her lip, the uncertainty in eyes that seemed impossibly large for her face. “Kenna?” He spoke her name gently.
The question tumbled out again. “Am I a cold woman?”
Rhys covered the distance to her bed quickly and sat beside her, taking her hands in both of his. When she tried to pull away he would not let her. “What makes you ask such a thing?”
That he had not answered her question immediately made Kenna feel as if he were playing for time, searching for a way to spare her. “I don’t know,” she lied. “Sometimes I think I am not as other women,” she said, echoing Victorine’s words. “I don’t think I would suit any man.”
Not any man, Rhys thought. I don’t want you to suit any man. Only me. “So you think you may be cold, is that it?”
“Yes.”
“I could tell you you’re wrong, but then you rarely believe anything I tell you. Why should this be different?”
“You’re right, of course. It was silly of me to ask you.”
“I could show you. All you would have to do is feel.”
“You mean—” But she had only to look at his darkening eyes to know what he meant. “It would be wrong.”
“Would it?” He doubted anything would be more right but he refused to pressure her into something she would regret.
“Yes.” But there was no certainty in her voice.
“Very well.” Rhys released her hands and began to edge off the bed.
Kenna caught the sleeve of his jacket. “No. Don’t leave. I want to know. I must know.”
“Why ask me, Kenna?”
“There is no one else,” she said simply.
Rhys had not thought the truth would cut so deeply and he nearly winced with the pain Kenna unwittingly inflicted. He touched her chin with his hand, lifting her face to him. “You haven’t so much as a sliver of ice in your body. Let us leave it at that.”
“How can you be sure?”
“I’ve kissed you, Kenna. I know. And so should you.”
“But you left me.”
“I am not such a libertine as you think. On occasion I have a gallant streak. I did not leave you because I found you cold. Quite the opposite, in fact.”
“Then show me,” she said. “Now.” As an after-thought, she added, “I demand it.”
Rhys’s laughter was brilliant, softening the hard planes and angles of his face. “You are not so different from the girl I remember,” he said when he caught his breath. “I had thought otherwise.”
Kenna pushed the comforter aside as she leaned forward. Her white linen gown lay like a whisper against her skin. “I am not a girl any longer,” she said earnestly, willing Rhys to look at her fully and see the truth for himself. “I know what I want.” There was more, much more she could not say, and she could not let Rhys guess the gist of her thoughts. If he suspected how she was using him he would leave her and she would never know if Victorine spoke the truth. It had to be Rhys who introduced her to the rites of loving. If she could respond to him, a man she had reason to despise, then Kenna believed she could respond to anyone. She would not have to remain on the shelf, nor would she be trapped into accepting the only man who had offered for her. Rhys could give her the confidence to leave the cloister she had made of her home. In time, perhaps with the understanding of a loving husband, the nightmares would take care of themselves. “I know,” she repeated, her large dark eyes steady on his face.
“Do you? Do you really?” He could not lift his glance from her provocative mouth.
> “Must I beg you, Rhys?”
He thought of the things he could say that would sober her. He could remind her that she considered him her father’s murderer. If he asked her to marry him, what would she say? He could mention Nick, only a few rooms away, or Victorine in her nearby suite. But he knew he did not want to stop her, so he said nothing to make her reconsider her recklessness. “No,” he said, his eyes dropping to the curve of her throat then her breasts. “No. You don’t have to beg me. God knows it’s what I’ve wanted, too.”
Rhys’s hand trembled as he cupped the side of Kenna’s face. His thumb traced the line of her mouth, parting her lips with light insistence. “You have a beautiful mouth, Kenna,” he whispered as his head lowered to meet her lips. They were petal soft, deliciously moist, and one small taste was not enough. Her response was uncertain but she did not pull away, not when he deepened the kiss, nor when he eased her down on the pillows and stretched out beside her. Her mouth opened beneath his, allowing him to explore her sweetness at his leisure. His tongue caressed her and when she answered in the same way Rhys knew Kenna could shatter his precarious control.
He drew back, planting small, teasing kisses on the corner of her mouth. Kenna moved a shade restlessly beneath him, wanting the return of the full pressure of his lips, the gentle stroking of the rough edge of his tongue. She had to be satisfied with his mouth traveling over her face, tracing the contours of her cheek and the smooth line of her jaw. His teeth caught her earlobe and tugged with sublime tenderness. He smiled as he heard her faint sigh of satisfaction.
