Kenna stepped into the entrance. She could not let father and son go against one another. She had to try and stop them. There must be an explanation for Nick’s actions. Her movement startled the Frenchmen. The lantern was pushed from the ledge it rested on but as it fell Kenna looked up in time to see a hand come down hard on her father’s wrist, making him lose his grip on one of the pistols he held. Before the pistol reached the cave floor the lantern crashed, plunging the chamber into unrelieved darkness…
“Nicky. Oh, no! Don’t Nicky!”
“Kenna!” Rhys shook her shoulder. “Wake up! Kenna!” He grabbed her flailing arms and threw a leg over her calves to keep her from kicking him again. “You’re dreaming.”
Tears trickled down her cheeks. She sobbed brokenly, trying to catch her breath. “Rhys! It was Nick! It was Nick in the cave with Victorine!” She repeated it over and over, shaking her head from side to side, until she exhausted herself.
As soon as she was quiet Rhys leaped from the bed and poured a brandy for her. With hands that shook he held it out to her as she sat up. “Here. Drink this.”
“I don’t want any.”
Rhys’s arms remained extended. “Drink.”
Kenna took the glass and sipped from it cautiously. It was like fire going through her veins but it cleared her head and calmed her nerves. “I had the dream again,” she said unnecessarily.
Rhys said nothing. He pulled at the covers, arranging them as he should have when they had first gone to bed, then he took the brandy from Kenna’s hand, set it on the nightstand, and got in beside her. He took her clammy hands in his, massaging them. “Whenever you want to talk about it, I’ll listen. Whatever you want to tell me is enough.”
If he had demanded to know her dream Kenna would have balked and told him nothing. His gentleness was her undoing and the words tumbled out so quickly she could barely make sense of what she was saying.
Rhys understood enough to realize Kenna was accusing Nick of killing their father. With the same fervor and assurance she had once leveled her accusations at him, she was now making the same claim about her own brother. Was it true? he wondered. Is this what she had fought so hard not to remember or were her dreams confusing her again? Was Nick the murderer as well as the traitor?
Rhys considered a number of things while Kenna spoke. Nicholas had never really investigated the tampering of Pyramid’s girth that led to Kenna’s near fatal fall. Nor had he pursued any of the other incidences. He either genuinely believed they were accidents or he was responsible for them. He could not take the middle ground. There was the pistol ball that had wounded Tom Allen. An accident? Nick was never much of a shot. The poisoning? If he were in league with the French then Monsieur Raillier was probably his accomplice. Rhys could not forget trying to carry out Kenna’s broth to see if it was tainted, only to bump into Nick and lose it all. Nicholas could have easily arranged Kenna’s abduction. Mason Deverell, Thompson, and Sweet were merely his hirelings. But Nick had searched all of London for Kenna. Was he only acting? If that were the case then Nicholas Dunne had missed his calling. He belonged on stage.
“I don’t know, Kenna,” he said when she finished. He could not point to what troubled him, only that something did. “I just don’t know any more.”
It was not the response she had expected. “How can you say that? Haven’t you heard what I’ve said. You told me I knew something I did not want to remember and now that I’ve remembered it you doubt me. Do you think I want to accuse my own brother? Dear God, Rhys. What sort of person do you think I am? Do you realize what I am saying? Nick killed our father. He is a traitor. And he tried to murder me.” Kenna’s features contorted with pain and she buried her face in her hands.
Gently Rhys pried her hands away and drew her into his embrace. She sobbed on his shoulder. “Think, Kenna. What prompted your dream tonight? Why did you suddenly see Nick as the devil when you have never done so before?”
“The costume at the party tonight.”
“Precisely. And I was the one who suggested he looked like Nick. It never occurred to you.”
“What are you saying? Don’t you believe what I’m telling you?”
“I believe you believe it, Kenna. Beyond that, I don’t know.”
“Don’t you see, Rhys? I always knew it was Nick. Always! But I could not admit it. You said so yourself. That is why Nick was dressed as a highwayman in my nightmare. It made it convenient for me to confuse him with you. When I was thirteen and was forced to choose between my brother and a dear friend, I protected my brother. I loved Nick, Rhys. God help me, I still love him. But I love you, too. It is no longer convenient to remember Nick as a highwayman. He was dressed as Satan that night and that is how I finally remember him. I saw him with Victorine in the gallery. Do you a understand, yet? Victorine was the married woman my brother loved! You told me you saw them yourself in the garden, talking earnestly. He must have been trying to break off with her.”
Rhys remembered how long it had taken Nick to join him in the caves on that occasion. Had he been slow to come because he wanted to make certain his father and the intruding highwayman were dead by the time he arrived with help? Rhys did not know the answer. He was silent for so long that when he finally spoke his voice was rough. “If I told you I was going to write to Powell, informing him of what you’ve said this evening, that Nick is the traitor we’ve been searching for, would you still swear that your dreams are true?”
Kenna gasped. “You wouldn’t!”
“Answer my question, Kenna. Do you have that much confidence in your dream that I would not be accusing your brother unjustly?”
When Rhys put it before in such a manner, Kenna found herself wavering. Hadn’t she already claimed Rhys was the murderer? Was she any more certain she had the truth now? “No,” she admitted. “I do not have so much confidence.”
“Neither do I,” he said softly. “Perhaps I was wrong to rely so heavily on your dreams, for I find I cannot accept this explanation either.”
“Why?”
“There are many things I could name that would seem to incriminate Nick, but I cannot forget how he looked when he told me you had been abducted. Have you ever thought Nick much of an actor, Kenna?”
“No. He is not adept at hiding what he feels or pretending to feel something he does not.”
“That is what I think, too. He was shattered that day he came to see me. I cannot make myself believe he had a part in any of it. It’s odd, you know, but before tonight I would have wagered Canning Shipping that Nick was the one. Now I wouldn’t put a farthing in on it.”
“What happened tonight to change your mind?”
