Velvet Night (Author's Cut Edition)

by Jo Goodman

  After dinner they went to the music room where Kenna played the spinet while Rhys relaxed in a chair with his feet propped up on an ottoman. He winced, looking over the top of the Boston paper, when Kenna hit some sour notes.

  She made a face at him. “It’s badly out of tune.”

  “I didn’t say anything,” he said innocently and lifted the paper again to hide his grin.

  “Beast!” Kenna dramatically pounded out a minor chord. She rose from the bench and sat on the ottoman, pushing his feet to one side. “Rhys, the servants are all observing mourning.”

  “I didn’t fail to notice that.”

  “Won’t it seem odd if we don’t?”

  Rhys dropped the paper. His features were without remorse. “I have already given my father and brother more attention in death than they ever gave me in life. I did not wish them dead, Kenna, but just because they are does not mean I must forgive or forget the past. If there had been some sort of reconciliation, or an overture on their part when they were in London, I might feel differently now. There wasn’t and I don’t. I will not observe mourning for the sake of appearances. I have too much respect for my father and myself to mock us both.”

  Kenna was stricken by Rhys’s response. “I did not know you felt so strongly about it,” she said quietly.

  He folded the paper on his lap. “I hope you are not going to try to change my mind.”

  “No. It never occurred to me.”

  “Good. Now I wish you would rest your concerns about the servants. This is a trial period for all of us. If you have any problems dealing with them, if their resentment causes you the slightest difficulty, or if you are not satisfied with their work, speak with me about it. We will decide what is to be done then. Does that meet with your approval?”

  “Yes.” She lifted her chin a notch. “They haven’t intimidated me, you know.”

  Rhys’s lips twitched. “I never thought they would. I didn’t marry an insipid English miss. Besides, there are only eight of them. You had more servants than that taking care of the grounds.”

  “True,” she admitted. She gave his knee a squeeze then absentmindedly rubbed his taut thigh. “Are you going to the shipping office tomorrow?”

  “Yes, and the lawyer’s. Do you want to come with me?”

  “I don’t think so. Not tomorrow. It’s certain to be hectic and there will be enough here to occupy me. Will you mind if I have your father’s and Richard’s clothes packed and their rooms aired? I peeked in them earlier. Nothing’s been touched.”

  “Do whatever you want. There must be some charitable organization which would welcome the clothes.”

  “Is there anything I should consider keeping?”

  “No. Nothing I can think of. What made you go in their rooms?”

  Kenna shrugged. “Mrs. Alcott pointed them out when she showed me around the house. I suppose I was curious. I never met either of them.”

  Rhys held back a retort rooted in bitterness and placed his hand over hers.

  “There was a painting in your father’s room. A portrait of a very lovely woman. There was a resemblance…is she your mother?”

  Rhys nodded, “Her name was Elizabeth.”

  “You have her eyes, her coloring.”

  “I know. It’s why I was sent away. My father couldn’t bear to look at me. Do you know I once tried to destroy that portrait? I thought if I could change it, color the hair differently or alter the eyes, my father would not think of her when he looked at me. Even as a child I knew why he resented me. I had lived and she had not.”

  Kenna knew the painting had not been damaged. She had to ask. “What happened?”

  “Father caught me as I was ready to glob the canvas with my brushes. He didn’t say a word. Simply carried me out of the room. Four days later I was on a ship to England.”

  When Rhys made love to her that night there was a certain halting sweetness in his touch that made Kenna want to weep. She felt a sadness for the father who had died loving a canvas and never known the warmth and kindness of his younger son.

  “Put the portrait in the library,” said Rhys.

  “Yes,” she said. “I will.”

  After Rhys left in the morning Kenna met individually with each of the servants to discover their particular area of expertise. She was tactful, but firm, and by lunch time she was finished walking on eggshells and was confidently in command of the running of the house. She even managed to glimpse a look of grudging admiration on the faces of the butler and his housekeeper wife. While the two bedchambers were being aired and clothes packed, Kenna consulted with the cook about the evening meal. Years of dealing with Monsieur Raillier served Kenna well. She managed to convey her displeasure without stinging Mrs. O’Hare’s pride. During the course of the conversation Kenna learned that the cook was more capable than the meal she served would lead one to believe. Kenna crossed her fingers hopefully and told the cook she could be as creative as she wished.

  After Kenna saw to it that Elizabeth’s portrait was given a place of honor above the library mantel she toured the gardens and the stable. Neither Roland nor Richard had been any great judge of horseflesh and she wistfully thought of Pyramid and Higgins. The groom informed her apologetically that there was no lady’s saddle to be had and Kenna was not prepared to shock him by offering to ride astride.

  Because she couldn’t ride Kenna decided there was nothing for it but to work on her gowns. She had two bolts of rose and cornflower blue muslin that she spread out on the supper table and began cutting. The grim-faced girl who had served dinner the evening before made no attempt to hide her interest when she brought Kenna tea.

  “I could sew that up beautifully for you, Mrs. Canning,” she offered a shade diffidently.

  “Are you a seamstress, then?” Kenna asked, though the words were tangled around a mouthful of pins. She removed the pins and directed Alice to put the tea tray on a chair since the table was covered with fabric.

  “I’m saving for my own shop someday,” Alice said proudly, her sharp face softening a bit. “I have a talent for stitching and design.”

  “And not much opportunity to use it here.”

  “No, ma’am.” Her glance strayed to the material again. “It’s excellent fabric.”

  “Yes, it is. And I’m afraid I will not do justice to it,” she said, sighing. “My skills are merely adequate. Would you really like to work on the gowns?”

  Alice nodded and the ruffle on her cap fluttered a little.

  “Very well. I’ll inform Mrs. Alcott that you’re to have lightened duties so you’ll have time for this.”

  “If you don’t mind, ma’am, I’d rather sew in my spare time and earn something extra if you like my work.”

  “Of course,” agreed Kenna. “I should have thought of it myself since you are saving for a shop. That will be quite satisfactory.”

  Once Alice had removed the material Kenna knew herself to be monumentally bored. Just to pass the time until Rhys came home she went to the library and began searching through his papers, collecting anything of interest on Canning Shipping. In the middle of the pile there was one paper that caught her attention sharply. It was a guest list for the night of the masquerade written in Victorine’s hand.

  Rhys could not fail to notice Kenna’s unusual quietness at dinner that evening. He had expected her to be full of questions about his visit to the lawyer’s and the office, yet she asked very little. He probed gently to discover what was bothering her.

  “This dinner is excellent,” he said. The meal began with a cold soup and later came thin, tender slices of beef cooked in its own juices. The potatoes were roasted and the carrots and baby peas retained all their color and flavor. “You must have had an eventful conversation with the cook.”

  Kenna smiled faintly. “Did you know your father had poor teeth and a stomach condition?”

  “I didn’t know. But what has that to do with anything?”

  “That’s why our meal was so blan
d and soft last night. Poor Mrs. O’Hare has been cooking like that for years to please Roland’s palate. And since Richard never complained she thought perhaps all the Cannings suffered from the same ailment. She was actually trying to please you with the dinner.”

  “Amazing,” Rhys said, shaking his head. “This meal is evidence you were successful convincing her otherwise. You must have had a busy day.”

  “Not so busy. I’m afraid I had some time for snooping.”

  “Oh? And what horrible Canning secrets did you uncover?”

  Kenna put down her fork, unable to do justice to her meal. “I found a guest list, Rhys. I know it was the one for the masque given by Victorine and my father. I recognized some of the names and several of the people are no longer alive. That’s how I knew it wasn’t a recently planned list. Why is it in your possession?”

  Rhys did not answer her question directly. There was something almost accusing in her tone that weighed heavily upon him. “Why do you think it is in my possession?”

  “I don’t know,” she said honestly. “At first I thought you must have helped Victorine plan the list, then I realized how impossible that was. You were on the Continent then.”

  “Why in the world would it even cross your mind that I would help Victorine plan her gala?”

  Kenna bit her lip then blurted out, “You were her lover.”

  “What!”

  Rhys’s astonishment was genuine but Kenna didn’t know if he was denying the charge or only surprised that she had discovered it. Still, her poise faltered under his glaring expression. “You and Victorine were lovers then.”

  “No, we were not. I met Victorine briefly before she and your father were married and I went to the Continent. We were not lovers then nor when I returned.”

  “But I saw you kissing her in the gallery,” she insisted.

  “The way you saw me at her side in the cave?”

  Kenna ignored his question. “And you and she had been in the summerhouse!”

  “Did you see us there also?”

  “No, but I could smell her perfume and the bed was mussed. I know she took her lover there.”

  “She may have taken a lover there, but I was not that man. Have you seriously thought all these years that Victorine and I cuckolded your father?”

  “Not all these years,” she said, choking on the words. “Victorine only began to appear in the dream recently.”

  “About the same time the attempts on your life began?”

  “Yes…no. I don’t know. Victorine can’t be responsible. She would never harm me.”

  Rhys gave her his handkerchief to wipe her glistening eyes. “Where is the guest list?”

  “In the library. I put it back with your papers.”

  He stood. “Stay right here. I am going to get it.” He returned in a few minutes and saw Kenna had taken him literally and had not moved so much as a fraction.

  She looked up when he came in the room. “Rhys, I’m sorry. I don’t know why finding it upset me so. I suppose I thought I had put it all in the past. It was a shock seeing that list among your things.”

  Rhys sat down beside her and smoothed out the paper between them. “That’s why we are going to settle this now, Kenna. This list is not the original and if you had looked more carefully you would have noted it. I asked Nick to supply me with these names the last time I was at Dunnelly before my father died. Victorine composed the list for him. Your brother did not have the time to look over it. You disappeared then and his mind was naturally on that. This is the first time I’ve seen it since he handed it to me. Quite frankly, I forgot its existence.”

  “Why did you ask for it in the first place?” She tucked the handkerchief in her sleeve and stared at the names scrawled on the paper.

  “I had hoped it would give me some clue as to your father’s murderer and eventually lead me to the person responsible for the attempts on your life.”

  “But surely these people were questioned at the time of the murder?”

  “Many of them were. But there was a lot of confusion that night. I was going to seek the guests out and speak with them again. You would have been safe with Yvonne. It seemed the perfect time.”

  Kenna nodded, her eyes misting again at the thought of all he had tried to do for her. She pointed to the third name on the list. “Squire Bitterpenney,” she recalled fondly. “He made the most ridiculous Roman senator that evening,” Her finger dropped to the next pair of names. “And here is Lord and Lady Dimmy. I don’t remember what he was wearing but she was one of the shepherdesses. Oh, and Lady Barthel! She was another. Here is a name that is not familiar. Michael Deveraux. Probably an émigré friend of Victorine’s. She kept in close contact with others who fled the Bonapartists. See, here is Paul Françon and the Comte and Comtesse Lescaut. My father was instrumental in helping the Lescauts leave Paris. They stayed at Dunnelly for several weeks while the Comte recovered from the ill-treatment he received in the French prisons. They live in New Orleans now so you wouldn’t have been able to talk to them.”

  “What other names do you recognize?”

  Kenna continued to go through the list and point out people she knew and their connection with either her father or Victorine. “It’s not been very helpful, has it?” she said when she was finished.

  Rhys folded the paper and slipped it in his pocket. “At least I know a few names of those it couldn’t be. The Lescauts, for instance, since they’ve been in the United States for several years. And Lord Rilling. He left for India about the same time I went to the Peninsula. Seven of the guests have passed away which I didn’t know before this evening. It narrows the list a little.” He put Kenna’s fork in her hand. “I insist we both eat something before Mrs. O’Hare decides we don’t care for this either.”

  Their dinner was cold by now but Kenna ate dutifully under Rhys’s watchful eye. “You’re not angry, are you, about what I said?”

  “You mean about me being Victorine’s lover? No. I’m not angry. I wish that you had mentioned it before. I suppose I should have realized you believed some such nonsense. You’ve connected her name and mine on several occasions. I never understood why until now.”

  “I couldn’t confront you with my suspicions,” she said softly. “Or Victorine. I think I was afraid of what you would tell me.”

  “And now?”

  “I believe you, Rhys, and feel foolish for all the times I did not.”

  They shared a glass of wine later, sitting on the floor in front of the hearth in their bedchamber. The spring nights were still cool and Kenna welcomed Rhys’s suggestion of a fire in the grate. She was wearing one of the gauzy nightgowns that Rhys bought her and didn’t suspect that his offer to build the fire was prompted in part by his desire to keep her out of her less revealing robe. She sat with her legs curled to one side and Rhys’s head rested in her lap. Her fingers threaded through his hair absently as she stared at the ephemeral shapes made by the flames.

  “I was not very good company at dinner,” she said. “Will you tell me about your day?”

  “The lawyer had better news than we suspected. There is a large reserve of funds he had been urging my father to put back into the line. Enough to build several ships the equal of the one we saw yesterday in the harbor. My father wanted to move ahead more cautiously, waiting for the economy to strengthen. Mr. Britt was too polite to say it outright but I gather my father had lost interest in the line. His political aspirations had taken precedence in recent years and he was grooming Richard for a position of greater responsibility in the government. The day-to-day decisions concerning the business were left to Joshua Grant, a capable man by all accounts, but without any real authority to bring about change.”

  “Did you meet Mr. Grant?”

  “In the afternoon. He impressed me as knowledgeable and reliable but also as the sort of man more comfortable receiving directives rather than issuing them. His relief was almost palpable when I said I would be taking responsibility for the
operation. I discussed plans with him to build two ships, both with large cargo holds, as well as your idea about the schooner runs to the Indies and South America. He believed both were excellent ideas.”

  “Was he merely saying that because he thought it was expected of him?”

  “No.” Rhys chuckled. “He must have seen that I wondered that also. He summoned all his stiff Boston pride and informed me rather coldly that he had been offered a position with Garnet Lines on several occasions. If he didn’t like what I was doing he could say so without fear of being unemployed for long.”

  Kenna smiled, imagining Rhys’s response. “You increased his salary, didn’t you?”

  “Of course. I was not going to let him be lured away. How did you know?”

  “It’s what I would have done,” she said simply.

  “I had no idea I had married such a shrewd businesswoman. Your ancestors must be appalled. Imagine, one of the Dunnes in trade.”

  “My father would be proud,” said Kenna wistfully.

  Rhys took her hand and held it to his lips. “Yes,” he said gently. “Yes, he would.”

  In the morning Kenna went with Rhys to the harbor. The offices of Canning Shipping occupied several rooms on the second floor of a warehouse along the wharf. The odor from hundreds of barrels of cured cod being transported from the warehouse to a waiting ship permeated the office. Kenna had a scented handkerchief in her reticule but she refused to take it out and hold it to her nose.

  “It takes some getting used to,” Rhys told her when he caught the pained expression on her face.

  “I wasn’t complaining,” she said tartly.

  “I wouldn’t expect you to.” He picked up some heavy ledgers that were lying on top of an oak filing cabinet and placed them on the desk. “Are you certain you want to go over these by yourself? I could help you with them later.”

  “No, let me sort out the accounts. I like working with figures and you know you don’t. More to the point, I would probably be a hindrance to you if I attended your meeting with the merchants. Not everyone will appreciate my interest in the line’s operation.”