Velvet Night (Author's Cut Edition)

by Jo Goodman

  Kenna looked around her, admiring the tavern’s warmth and nautical decor. “This setting is very attractive,” she said, gazing up at the fisherman’s nets that hung from the ceiling. “Rather like being at sea.”

  Tanner rolled his eyes. “Don’t let Forrest hear you say that. He envisioned his tavern becoming a place for rowdy sailors to swap outrageous stories. He hasn’t accustomed himself to the fact that most of his patrons pay for their passage when they sail, and know nothing about trimming canvas or mending split taffrails.”

  Their meal arrived from the kitchen a short time later, scarcely interrupting their laughter at the tales Tanner shared with them about his former galley cook. They dined on stuffed flounder, small potatoes dripping with butter and garnished with flakes of parsley, artichoke halves, and sliced tomatoes sprinkled with cheese.

  Kenna glanced at Rhys secretly several times throughout the meal, her eyes soft with concern, and each time she was relieved to see him genuinely enjoying himself. His rich laughter made her heart lighter and she was glad she had not talked him out of coming. Even when the conversation accidently took a more serious turn as Napoleon’s name was mentioned, Rhys appeared unperturbed by the discussion.

  “It’s hard to credit,” he said, “but Napoleon’s return to power could have been avoided. That is what makes it so difficult for me to comprehend what’s happening in Europe now.”

  “Avoided?” asked Alexis. “But how? Who could suspect he would escape Elba?”

  Rhys chuckled mirthlessly. “Exactly the skepticism I encountered when I tried to tell the Foreign Office that a plot to release him was beyond the planning stages.”

  “Rhys!” Kenna murmured, shocked. “Is this true? You knew of a plot to free Napoleon?”

  “I did,” he said succinctly. “Don’t you believe me?”

  “What I don’t credit is that no one else did!”

  His features softened at the unwavering trust for him in her voice. “You should have been working in the Foreign Office.” He touched her hand beneath the table, squeezing her fingers, and explained to the others. “I overheard the plans for the escape some seven weeks before the event. Oh, the Foreign Office had every right to be suspicious. I couldn’t even present the case myself and I had none of the names of the perpetrators. They dragged their feet too long making a decision, and then, well, you know what happened.” He shrugged. “It scarcely can be changed now. Wellington will have to defeat him in battle.”

  Tanner and Alexis sympathized with his frustration at being unable to have made a difference but Rhys could not fail to notice that Kenna had become withdrawn. During the remainder of the evening her laughter alternated between being brittle and too bright and she drank rather more wine than she was used to. The carriage ride home was taut with silence and Kenna held herself so stiffly that Rhys finally withdrew the arm he had around her shoulders.

  Immediately upon returning home she went upstairs. Rhys would have followed her but Alcott drew him to one side.

  “There are four gentlemen waiting for you in the drawing room, Mr. Canning,” he said, looking more flustered than usual.

  “I don’t want to see anyone. Tell them to leave.”

  “They refused, sir, when I asked them before. I doubt they will go now, especially since you’re here.”

  “Very well.” Rhys sighed. He would handle them rather than risk causing a disruption which was certain to bring Kenna. “I’ll see them. But don’t bother bringing refreshments. They won’t be staying long.”

  Rhys was as good as his word. Britt had brought three of his friends, men Rhys had not yet met but who were due to make his acquaintance on Monday. Rhys showed them that at least in one way he was very much his father’s son: he refused to be moved from his position. He listened politely to their arguments and protests and then repeated his dissolution with Britt and the increase in his shipping rates. Then he showed them the door.

  When they were gone he went to his bedchamber, having forgotten Kenna’s strange mood until she failed to respond to his presence.

  “I know you’re not sleeping,” he said as he stripped of his clothes, taking note of her stiff form beneath the bedcovers. He sighed heavily as she turned on her side and gave him her back. Rhys put on a nightshirt and walked around the four-poster, slipping between the cold sheets. He lay on his back, staring at the play of shadows on the ceiling made by the fire in the grate. “I’m of no mind to tease you from this mood, Kenna. I wish you would tell me what has upset you and be done with it.” She was silent so long that Rhys thought she had no intention of answering him, then he heard her muffled sob and realized she could not speak.

  His impatience faded and when he spoke it was with gentleness. “Why are you weeping, Kenna?”

  “Why did you n-never tell m-me?” she choked out, lifting a corner of the sheet to wipe her eyes.

  A thread of impatience returned to his tone. “Tell you what? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Tears spilled through her lashes again. “N-Napoleon. You n-never said a w-word.”

  “It never came up before tonight. I put it all behind me once we sailed for America. Why should it bother you?”

  Kenna’s fist hit her pillow in frustration and she sat up, drawing a deep breath. “B-because the conversation you heard happened at Dunnelly!” Even through her tears she could see Rhys’s surprise as his mind worked furiously to discover how she knew.

  “I never said it did,” he said slowly.

  “Seven weeks! You said you heard it seven weeks before the event. You were at Dunnelly then!”

  “Kenna! Calm yourself!”

  She came very close to raising her hand against him then. Instead her fingers curled into bloodless fists. “Oooh! I will not calm myself! Who spoke of the plans for escape, Rhys? Was it one of the servants? Mayhap you think it was Nicholas. Is that why you came to Dunnelly? To spy on my family, listen at keyholes, and poke your nose into my brother’s private papers?” She gave him no time to respond as anger fired her senses, “You lied to me, Rhys. Not once, but twice. You first said you came to Dunnelly to get away from your father in London. Then you told me, oh, so sweetly, that you were there because of Yvonne’s letters. To protect me, you said!”

  “Those were not lies, Kenna,” Rhys denied, sitting up himself. “They were but two parts of the truth.”

  Kenna’s eyes darkened and widened. Her brows lifted disdainfully and her laughter was mocking. “Two parts of the truth? Since when is the truth divided like a recipe ingredient? What do I add? One part confidence? Equal portions of faith? A dash of deceit?” She knuckled a tear that dripped from her eye. “Tell me, Rhys. How many parts make up the whole? Three? Four? How many, damn you?”

  Rhys got up from the bed and poured himself a measure of brandy from the cabinet beside the window. He gulped it back quickly, poured another, and stood at the window, watching the moon scatter its white light on the edge of the clouds.

  “Do you think what I had to do at Dunnelly is the sort of thing I could talk about?” he asked quietly, turning slowly in her direction. “The Foreign Office frowns on that kind of sharing.”

  “So you were sent to Dunnelly.”

  His expression was bleak and pale in the moonlight. “I thought you didn’t have any doubts.”

  “I didn’ t…I don’t.” Her eyes pleaded with him. “Please, Rhys, tell me what your purpose there was. I cannot bear these half-truths and you knowing things about Dunnelly that affect me, too. Don’t let there be any more secrets between us.”

  “The secrets had to be there, Kenna,” he said slowly, putting down his drink. “I could only tell you what you could bear to hear.”

  “That’s no excuse.”

  “No, it’s not.” He sat on the edge of the bed beside her. “Do you remember the first morning of my visit? You asked me there in the wood what my purpose was for being there. Could I have told you then that I was there to protect you? Would you have believed t
hat someone was trying to end your life? More to the point, could I say that I loved you when you only felt hatred toward me? Those were things you could not listen to, Kenna, so I compromised and told you what you could hear. And it was no lie. My father’s presence in London was enough to send me packing for Dunnelly even had there been no other reasons.”

  Rhys lifted his legs on the bed and sat cross-legged in front of Kenna, leaning a little forward with an earnestness about his posture. “And on the ship, when you were finally able to hear another truth, that I had gone to Dunnelly to see that you were safe, could you have listened to me tell you that protecting you was irrevocably intertwined with finding a traitor, perhaps a member of your own family? Could you have listened and believed me then, when you didn’t even realize I loved you and would never do anything to harm you?”

  Kenna closed her eyes, wishing she could answer him differently. “You know I wouldn’t have believed you,” she said, defeated. She raised her eyes to him. They hinted at her pain. “I can bear it now. I promise I can listen to you.” She reached out impulsively, touching his arm. “I must know, Rhys. Why did the Foreign Office send you to Dunnelly?”

  Chapter 9

  Rhys admitted to himself it was time to tell Kenna everything, yet he wished this moment had not come. Almost immediately he wondered if that were entirely true. Perhaps he had wanted to share this with her, else why had he spoken of the overheard conversation at dinner? He sighed, thinking reflection in this instance was not productive, and Kenna was still pleading her question with her beautifully eloquent eyes.

  “In order to answer you I must go back more than a decade,” he said finally, his voice heavy.

  “To my father’s death?”

  He shook his head. “Before that. To the fall of 1804, when I went to the Continent.”

  Kenna nodded wisely and spoke, thinking to save him a painful explanation. “I know why you went to France, Rhys.”

  “You do?” he asked, brows lifting.

  “Nick told me.”

  That clearly shocked Rhys. “He did?”

  “Yes. He told me all about his love for poor, mad Lara and how you fought the duel in his place while he acted as your second.”

  “I see,” Rhys said thoughtfully.

  Kenna frowned at his tone. “It’s true, isn’t it?”

  “It’s true. Or rather it’s the truth as Nick knows it. There are other things which I could never speak to him about, things that I must tell you now if you’re to understand.” His eyes did not waver from hers. “When I finished at Oxford your father approached me, asking if I would be interested in working for the Foreign Office. The position as he outlined it entailed going to France and acting as a conduit for highly sensitive information between Napoleon’s government and the crown. More simply, I was being asked to spy for England. There was nothing I would not have done for your father, Kenna, but I cannot lay my acceptance of the request solely at his door. In truth, I found the idea intriguing and I felt, as your father did, that I was highly suited for the task.

  “My American citizenship would make me more acceptable to the French and my command of the language was excellent. But my relationship to the Duchess of Pelham was bound to be remarked upon should it be discovered. Neither Robert nor I thought it would be wise to dismiss the possibility. It therefore remained for me to find a reason for going to France that would not be questioned.”

  “The duel,” she breathed softly.

  “Yes. You must believe I didn’t plan it to happen the way it did. When Lara’s brother asked Nick for satisfaction I took responsibility for the affair and offered to meet him. I honestly don’t know if I would have acted in the same manner if it were not for the other problem. I like to think I still would have stood in Nick’s stead, for we both know he is a poor shot and Lara’s brother was intent upon murder. But it is hardly debatable because the other problem did exist and I responded accordingly.”

  Kenna did not agree. She touched his knee lightly. “You would have helped Nick. I know it.”

  “Thank you for that.” Rhys’s bleak smile faded slightly as he basked in Kenna’s confidence. “The wound to Lara’s brother was more severe than I intended. I did not anticipate he would flinch at the last moment and I was thankful I hadn’t killed him. Dueling was all that was necessary, not murder. I believe you know what happened next. I fled to France with my great-grandmother’s blessing. She expressed an interest in never seeing me again and formally broke all ties with me. Your father as well made it publicly known I was not welcome in his home. My grandmother was sincere, Robert only appeared so.”

  “Nick said father was gravely disappointed in you both.”

  “He was disappointed in Nick, for he knew the reason I had taken your brother’s place. He thought I was reckless and gave me a stern dressing down. Afterwards he shook my hand and wished me luck.”

  “What did you do while you were in France?”

  “I attached myself to a circle of people which included some of Napoleon’s confidantes as well as Josephine’s. I listened to every small bit of information that came my way, whether or not it seemed to have any significance at the time. All that was expected of me was that I report what I heard, not analyze it. Interpretation was left to agents more skilled than I or the Foreign Office. As I proved myself I was given more responsibility and eventually I was chosen to lead an important operation. There were still a number of men and women of noble birth in France who had offended Napoleon in some way. Some were in prisons; others were closely watched on their estates by Napoleon’s spies. For obvious reasons they were not able to leave the country. My assignment was to provide the means for them to do so.

  “From the time of the Terror on, your father was involved in helping people flee France. His political influence and financial support was crucial in making the operation a popular one. Your sister, as I discovered much later, was one of the first children brought out of Paris with his help and years later Victorine was able to follow. When we were reviewing the guest list the other day you pointed out the Comte and Comtesse Lescaut. They left France under my direction, as did Michael Deveraux and Paul Françon.”

  Kenna shook her head wonderingly. “You never said a word. It did not seem then as if you even knew them. Why didn’t you tell me how you had helped my father?”

  “It was not relevant at the time,” he said simply. “I was more interested in what you knew about the guests.”

  Kenna had to accept that explanation. “You do tend to be bloody single-minded,” she said, sighing. “Tell me how it came to pass that you returned to England. I should have thought your work on the Continent would have lasted longer than one year.”

  “It should have,” Rhys agreed. “But I received a communiqué from your father, asking me to return to Dunnelly. He did not relate much information in the missive but I understood its urgency. He mentioned the plans for the masquerade and said I should make every effort to arrive before that night.”

  “And you did.”

  “Just. I reached Dunnelly only an hour before the ball was to begin. It did not give Robert much time to speak with me privately. It was agreed between us that I should pretend to be there at Nick’s invitation, for your brother had also written to me of the masque and asked me to come. Nick, knowing nothing of my work in France, was of the opinion I had been away long enough.”

  “Why the subterfuge? Why not simply say it was my father who invited you?”

  “Robert thought it was necessary in the event I would return to France. He did not want anyone to know he approved of my presence in his home.”

  “I see,” she said slowly, trying to take in the depth of caution intrinsic to Rhys’s work. “And why did my father want to see you?”

  “He suspected that Dunnelly’s coast was being used as a location for Napoleon’s spies in England to pass information. It was a dangerous place for the spies to use, given Lord Dunne’s influence, but it was in the same respect a v
ery safe place, because who would think anyone would have the backbone to use it?”

  “Obviously my father did.”

  “Yes, Robert was suspicious, though he never had time to tell me what was responsible for his concern. He related only that he anticipated contact would be made during the masque, in Dunnelly’s coastal caves, and that all his guests were suspect.”

  “Only his guests?” Kenna asked shrewdly.

  After a moment’s hesitation Rhys surrendered to her sharply discerning gaze. “His words as I recall were that everyone at Dunnelly was suspect.”

  “And you took that to mean the servants and his family?”

  “Yes. If Robert meant to exclude anyone I believe he would have said so.”

  “Perhaps,” she said, though it was clear she was unconvinced.

  Rhys did not comment upon her skepticism, recalling his own at the time. “As I said, my time alone with your father was limited. He asked me to be his second pair of eyes that evening, looking for anything beyond the ordinary. Of course I agreed, though I hadn’t the slightest idea what to expect. I dressed for the masque, talked very briefly with Nick, and started downstairs, only to be waylaid by a young miss with a scheme in her eye.”

  “You went along with my plans,” she reminded him.

  “Yes, I admit to a soft spot in my brain as well as my heart where you were concerned. The guests had not all arrived by that time and I could see that little would be lost if I delayed my arrival downstairs by a few more minutes. I also had hoped Nicholas would take more responsibility for looking after Yvonne. He was helpful in the beginning, but when I saw him desert her and disappear from the ballroom I took her to one side and asked her to return to her room. Thinking that she would do as I requested I went in search of Nicholas.”