Velvet Night (Author's Cut Edition)

by Jo Goodman

  “There was more to your decision than that,” Rhys said implacably. “What was it?”

  “Rhys…”

  “What was it?”

  “I cannot believe you really want to know.”

  “I do.”

  “It had to be you. If I could respond to you, then…”

  He put a finger to her lips. “I know the rest. It was an experiment then, just as you said.” She nodded and he was thoughtful for a moment. “You would not object if I conducted an experiment of my own?”

  Kenna did not know if she had even responded to his query when Rhys’s mouth crushed hers. There was a hungry sort of passion in his touch, an element of something primitive that Kenna answered without thinking. Her breasts were still tender from their earlier arousal at Rhys’s hands and when he touched them now, stroking them with less than gentle pressure, they swelled and hardened immediately. The comforter fell away as Rhys dragged her against him. A soft moan escaped her as his hand caressed her abdomen then her naked thigh and her arms stole around his neck. She pressed her body to him, reveling in the texture of his clothes against her skin.

  Rhys’s fingers caught a swatch of hair at Kenna’s nape and tugged. Her head snapped backward and the kiss was broken. He looked at her for a long moment, his face expressionless.

  “I must revise an earlier opinion, Kenna,” he said, pushing her off his lap and getting to his feet, “Of those countless women I’ve known, you easily have the warmest body, m’lady. And, without question, the coldest heart.” He walked across the room and opened the door. “I bid you good night and dare we hope, pleasant dreams?”

  Chapter 4

  “But I want to ride this morning!”

  Janet’s expression was incredulous as she listened to her mistress demand to leave her room. “I have strict orders that you are to spend another day in here.”

  Kenna felt mutinous. It had been two days since Doctor Tipping’s visit and everyone was still treating her as if she had to be wrapped in cotton wool. It was the outside of enough. She felt fine; her headache was gone and she was able to keep food down now that Monsieur Raillier had been apprised of his mistake by Janet. According to her maid, the chef was nearly apopletic when he discovered arsenic in the salt and promptly boxed the ears of the kitchen boy who had been responsible for filling the cellars. The reason Kenna was the only person to have taken ill was because her meals were prepared separately at a small table where both the salt and sugar had been contaminated.

  Kenna accepted her maid’s explanation because there was no reoccurrence of her symptoms and because she did not want to believe the poisoning had been anything other than accidental. The alternative did not bear thinking about.

  “How dare Rhys give you orders to keep me a prisoner in my own home.” Kenna said. “He has no right.”

  “I was not referring to Mr. Canning,” Janet said. “Your brother gave me the instructions.”

  “Oh.” She avoided her maid’s speculative glance and wished she had not brought up Rhys’s name. There was no telling what Janet would make of that. Kenna told herself she was glad Rhys had not bothered her with his odious presence. What could they possibly have to say to one another? It was much better that he kept his distance. “Well, Nick hasn’t the right either,” she said, putting a period to her thoughts of Rhys. “I am perfectly capable of knowing when I am well enough to leave my bedchamber.”

  Janet shrugged, a mischievous light in her hazel eyes. “I know what I was told, m’lady, but I suppose if you were to send me on an errand I couldn’t be responsible if you weren’t here when I returned.”

  An impish smile tugged at Kenna’s mouth. “Then you wouldn’t mind finding Henderson and asking him if there was a letter for me from my sister?”

  “I wouldn’t mind at all.” She picked up Kenna’s breakfast tray. “I’ll take this to the kitchen first.”

  The door had barely clicked into place behind Janet when Kenna scrambled out of bed. She washed her face, gave her hair a few quick strokes with a brush, plaited it in a braid, and then dressed for riding. Taking the servant’s corridors to avoid meeting her family or Rhys, Kenna made it to the stables a full fifteen minutes before Janet returned to her bedchamber.

  Pyramid was happy to see his mistress and quite anxious for her to give him full rein. Kenna was not so lacking in common sense that she gave in to her mount. She kept him to a comfortable pace the entire time and thoroughly enjoyed the peace of her trek around Dunnelly. A new, heavier snowfall had covered everything during the previous night and the leafless trees were shaded in white. The air felt surprisingly warm and Kenna welcomed the odd silence of winter. For the first time in days she felt free of Rhys Canning.

  She did not give him any thought at all until she returned to the stables ninety minutes later and saw the stall beside Pyramid’s was empty. “Has someone taken Higgins for exercising?” she asked Donald Adams as he helped her dismount.

  The groom shook his head. “No, Mr. Canning’s man arrived but a few minutes after you left and shortly after that he and the other were tearing out of here, hellbent on reaching London before nightfall. The boys and I barely had the tack off Powell’s horse when we were putting it on again. Your brother offered him a fresh mount but he didn’t want one. Came down to the stables to see them off, he did. Looked a might out of sorts.”

  “Out of sorts how?”

  “Can’t say exactly. Sad, I think. Worried, for sure.”

  “Why did Rhys leave? Didn’t you hear anything?”

  “Not a word m’lady.” Adams rubbed his chin with his hand. “They were here and gone. He didn’t even take his luggage. Left his coach behind, too. Never saw such a rush.”

  “Thank you, Donald,” Kenna called behind her as she hurried out of the stable. There was no sense in trying to pretend she hadn’t left the house so Kenna went straight to Dunnelly’s front door. Henderson greeted her with an ominous, “They’re waiting for you in the study,” and Kenna went in before her courage failed her.

  “Where have you been?” Nick demanded, ignoring Victorine’s imploring look to lower his voice and show a little tolerance.

  Kenna took a seat on the sofa beside her stepmother and accepted the comforting hand Victorine offered. “I was riding, Nick. I had to get out of that room else expire of boredom.”

  “I gave strict instructions that you were not to leave. Must you tempt fate at every turn?”

  Kenna frowned. “What do you mean? I assure you I am feeling quite the thing.”

  Nick swore under his breath and looked at Victorine for help. He had nearly given Rhys’s suspicions away after promising not to.

  “Your brother is naturally concerned that you chose to go out alone, Kenna,” Victorine said softly. “What if you’d had a relapse?”

  “But I didn’t and I was not tempting fate. You exaggerate, Nick,” said Kenna calmly. “Now tell me why Rhys left. I assume he came to say goodbye and found me gone.”

  “I came to tell you he was gone,” Nick corrected. “And that’s when I discovered you had taken leave of the house.”

  Kenna squelched her disappointment, refusing to credit that she could feel any such emotion because Rhys left without trying to say farewell personally. “So why has he left Dunnelly? Adams said something about his valet arriving? I didn’t know his man had gone.”

  “Neither did I,” said Nick, taking a seat behind his desk now that the greater part of his annoyance had fled. “Rhys apparently sent him to London on some sort of business. He rushed back today to tell Rhys there had been an accident involving Rhys’s father and brother.”

  Kenna’s hands went immediately to her paling cheeks. “What kind of accident? When? Are they seriously hurt?” The heavy silence which greeted her questions was answer enough. “Oh, no! They’re dead?”

  “Richard is,” Victorine said. “Rhys’s father was still clinging to life when Powell left London. Rhys doesn’t hold much hope that he’ll still be alive wh
en he gets there, but he had to try.”

  Even though Kenna knew there was no love lost between Roland Canning and his younger son, she could well imagine how much Rhys was hurting. “Of course he had to try,” she said. “What happened, Nicky?”

  “Roland was at the duchess’s townhouse. Sometime during the night there was a fire. It took down three homes before it was contained. There were six other victims. Richard never had a chance. According to the reports the fire started in his room. Roland was quite badly burned when a staircase collapsed under him. He was trying to help get the servants out.”

  “Poor Roland. It seems odd he should be hurt helping others. I always thought him such a selfish ogre.”

  “He was to Rhys,” said Nick. “Richard was everything to him after his wife died. Rhys ranked a poor fifth behind politics, business, and the rest of humanity.”

  “It’s so sad,” Kenna said quietly, getting to her feet. “If you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll go to my room.”

  “And stay there,” Victorine added.

  “Yes, of course.”

  Kenna’s thoughts were all for Rhys as she climbed the stairs to her room. It couldn’t be easy for him, no matter that he and his father had never gotten on. And to lose his brother at the same time. How he must ache.

  “Janet!” Kenna cried out, startled when she came out of her reverie and found her maid in the room. “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m supposed to pass this on to you,” she said, holding out an envelope.

  “From Nicky? I just saw him. He didn’t say anything.”

  “Not from your brother. From Mr. Canning. Oh, dear. Such a tragedy. I suppose he’ll be going to Boston now.”

  Kenna took the letter, too weary to marvel at the speed with which news spread at Dunnelly. Rhys had not yet reached his father’s side and the gossip had him taking over the shipping firm already. She turned the letter over in her hand and saw the seal had been broken. “This has been opened.”

  “It was that way when he gave it to me,” Janet said defensively.

  Kenna flipped the letter again and noticed for the first time it was not a missive from Rhys that she was holding, but one from Yvonne. She hastened to her writing table and unfolded the letter, examining the date Yvonne had penned the thing. “Rhys gave this to you?” she asked Janet again.

  “Yes, m’lady. Just before he rushed out of here. Caught me as he was leaving his room.”

  “Yvonne wrote this the same day she received my letter. It must have arrived here days ago. He had no right to keep my mail from me. And to read it was the outside of enough. The man’s nerve is not to be believed. How did he get it?”

  “As to that, m’lady, I found out this morning when I spoke to Henderson that a letter had arrived from your sister the afternoon you took so ill. He was going to bring it to you personally but Mr. Canning was there when the post came and offered to deliver it. I was going to tell you about it when you came back from your ride, but then, well, you know what happened, and he gave me the letter himself. He said you should accept Lady Parker’s offer now that he had to leave.”

  “Is that all he said?”

  “He was rather insistent upon it. Repeated himself twice as if I couldn’t grasp the gist of it the first time,” Janet said. “Tell your mistress,” he said, “that she’s to accept her sister’s invitation to Cherry Hill now that I have to leave Dunnelly. Those are his exact words. Said them twice, like I told you.”

  Kenna thought Rhys a singularly obtuse individual. Surely he must know there was no reason to run off to Cherry Hill once he was gone from her home. He had incredible gall to order her life as if she had naught but space between her ears. “I’d like to be alone, Janet.” When her maid hesitated, she added, “Don’t worry. I’m staying here. Nick was unhappy that I left and I’ll abide by his wishes. You aren’t in any trouble.” She thought she heard Janet’s sigh of relief as she left the room.

  Kenna took her time reading the letter, thoroughly enjoying Yvonne’s rare and humorous descriptions of life at Cherry Hill. The invitation to join her family was wedged somewhere between a tale of how her oldest boy had rescued a nest of sparrows from certain death in the library fireplace and how his younger sister had lit a fire beneath him while he was curled in the chimney. The baby, thank heaven, was too young to be involved in the goings-on but he had a regrettable penchant for slapping at his porridge when the bowl was placed near him. It all sounded wonderful to Kenna and she admitted it was rather silly not to go simply because Rhys said she should.

  She folded the letter and stuck it in a drawer filled with correspondence. After a moment’s more consideration she quickly penned a note to Yvonne telling her to clean up the children, their favorite aunt was on her way.

  Kenna had not anticipated Victorine’s resistance to her plan. While Nick was all for Kenna getting away from Dunnelly, her stepmother raised a number of concerns about Kenna’s health, about her availability to the authorities should there be more questions regarding Tom Allen’s death, and about the advisability in traveling when the winter storms were so uncertain. It was finally Nick who put his foot down and told Victorine that her cosseting was unnecessary; Kenna was no less than an adult and surely capable of withstanding the rigors of the journey to Cherry Hill. As for Old Tom’s death, if the authorities had more questions they could visit her there. It was not as if she were going to the Continent.

  “Perhaps she would like to go with me,” Kenna told Nick a week later as she was going through her wardrobe and selecting gowns to take with her. She had delayed her trip long enough to stay with Victorine while Nick attended the Cannings’ funeral in London. Her stepmother disliked funerals intensely and Kenna had no wish to see Rhys, even to offer her sympathies. It would hardly matter to him that she did not come, after all he believed her to be the most cold-hearted of women. That criticism still had the power to sting. He would never have to know how she had grieved for him when word came back from London that his father had also died. “Yvonne would probably like the surprise and I would be grateful for the company on the journey.”

  Nick laughed. “You are too kind-hearted, sprite. Yvonne would hate the surprise and you need a rest from Victorine’s well-intentioned worrying.”

  “No doubt you’re right. Yvonne once confided in me that her mother is a little critical of the children’s playfulness and Yvonne’s own desire to spend so much time with them. As I recall, Victorine never had much patience for the pranks we got up to before Papa died.” She held up a day dress the color of jonquils and saw Nick wrinkle his nose. With a shrug she put it back in the wardrobe. “Still, I don’t like leaving her alone.”

  “Well, thank you very much.”

  “You have to admit you aren’t much company at times, Nick. Victorine needs to find someone she can dote on. She should remarry.”

  “I have said as much to her.”

  “Have you?” asked Kenna, much impressed her brother would broach the subject with Victorine. “What did she say?”

  “She says she cannot leave Dunnelly.”

  “Why ever not?”

  “She says you need her.”

  Kenna leaned against the wardrobe, hugging a blue silk dress to her middle, a sad, thoughtful smile playing on her lips. “Oh, Nick. I’ve become a veritable albatross about her neck. And yours. How awful for both of you!”

  Nick shook his head, indicating the dress. Kenna stamped her foot and put it away. “You are nothing of the sort,” he said. “I know it’s shocking but I’m quite content with my life. I hardly live like a monk, you know.”

  “Yes, but actresses and opera singers are hardly proper marriage prospects. I hear stories, Nick,” she added when he looked faintly shocked that she knew about his women. “A little bit of gossip always finds its way back to Dunnelly whenever you’re in London. Most of it does not bear repeating.”

  Nick looked a shade uncomfortable. “Most of it does not bear an element of truth, I’ll wa
ger.” He hesitated, searching Kenna’s face. “Kenna, there is something you should know, perhaps it will soften your feelings for Rhys and help you understand why I hold him with such affection and regard.”

  “Must we talk of Rhys?” she asked tiredly. “I thought we were speaking of your life.”

  “We still are.” He went on rapidly before she could object. “There was something of scandal a number of years ago, before Papa married Victorine in fact. I doubt you remember it; you were so young yourself and it was mostly hushed.”

  Kenna thought about that for a moment. “I know,” she said, clicking her fingers. “When Rhys disappeared to the Continent Is that it?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did he do?”

  “That’s just it, Kenna. Rhys did nothing save take the blame for me. I had compromised a young woman from a good family and when I refused to marry her, she killed herself. You must believe me. I have nothing but disgust at the memory. I used her most poorly and made promises that should never have been spoken. She was a beautiful girl, Kenna, possessed of the loveliest laughter, totally without guile. Lara was an innocent in every sense of the word and I was bewitched by her. To my everlasting regret I also discovered she was quite mad.”

  “Oh, Nick,” Kenna said, coming to sit beside him. She put a hand on his arm. “How did you know?”

  “Rhys warned me that she was not always as she seemed. I think they had words once and she flew into a rage all out of proportion to the disagreement. I didn’t believe him. I was too spellbound. But then I began to notice peculiarities in her behavior that could not be dismissed. I slowly came to realize that no matter what had happened between us, I could not marry her. When she killed herself her brother came to me and demanded satisfaction. That was when Rhys interfered. He said Lara had broken off with me some time ago and that he had been secretly meeting her. He took responsibility for her depression and her death.”

  “And you let him? How could you?”