“Come away, Kenna. Let these men see to their father. I’ll send someone from Dunnelly for the authorities.”
Kenna shook off Rhys’s touch and began searching the area, kicking up snow with her feet. “Where is the trap?”
“Kenna.”
“No, dammit! Don’t patronize me! Where is the trap? Tom came here to catch the poacher and I owe it to him to find the thing. Jack or Young Tom may be able to identify it.”
There was nothing for it but to assist her search, though none of the men had much hope of finding it. After a few minutes they stopped.
“We can’t find it now, Lady Kenna,” Young Tom said heavily, taking a swallow from his flask then offering it to his brother. “Jack and I will look again in the morning. If it’s around, we’ll get it. Do as his lordship says and go back to Dunnelly. We’ll send your curricle around in the morning.”
Kenna nodded wearily, not bothering to correct Young Tom’s assumption that Rhys was titled. “I’m so sorry,” she said, hating the inadequate words. “I wish—”
Jack reached out and touched her hand. “We know, m’lady. We’ll find the poacher and when we do, well, hangin’s too good for his kind.”
Rhys put one arm about Kenna’s back, nodding to Jack and Young Tom. “I’ll talk with you both tomorrow. Mayhap we can make some sense of it.” Gently he led Kenna away before she could see them lift Tom’s lifeless body on the litter. “Higgins is waiting on the edge of the wood.”
Kenna made no reply and allowed herself to be seated on Rhys’s saddle in front of him. The chill she felt had nothing to do with the dropping temperature. The closeness of Rhys’s body did little to assuage the cold and she bit her lip to keep her teeth from chattering. Rhys’s arms slid around her to gather the reins and she shifted uneasily, not wanting him to touch her. She doubted she would ever forget the humiliation she had suffered at his hands this morning. Before they had gone very far her body ached because of the stiff way she held it. A vague fear kept her still as surely as Rhys’s arms beneath her breasts.
“What were you doing there?” she asked. She could not help the suspiciousness in her tone.
It was the question Rhys had been waiting for and dreading. The way she asked it told him she had already reached her own conclusions. He sighed, feeling a headache begin to develop behind his eyes. “Victorine decided she did not want to ride this afternoon so I went alone.”
“There are many places you could have ridden. Why there?”
“I wanted to get rid of the trap. It was dangerous.”
“I don’t understand,” she persisted. “It had already been sprung. There was little danger in it.”
“I didn’t want the poacher resetting it.”
“You have an answer for everything, Rhys.” Kenna twisted her head to look at him.
Rhys kept his eyes straight ahead, refusing to meet her questioning, accusing glance. “And you never believe anything I say. Why ask?”
“Tell me you didn’t kill Old Tom.”
Rhys felt as if the breath had been knocked from his lungs. His eyes closed for a moment, shuttering his pain. “Believe what you will, Kenna.”
As if to prove her wrong he gave her what was, in effect, no answer at all. The vision of Rhys bending over Tom, his hands on the old man’s shoulders slowly gliding toward his throat, stayed with Kenna long after she had retired to her room for the night. She left Rhys to seek out Nick and Victorine and do the explanations. It occurred to her once again that he was good at them. No doubt he would convince the authorities he had chanced upon Tom’s body while out for a leisurely ride. She would be the only one to doubt him.
Sitting at her vanity, brushing her hair with hard, impatient strokes, Kenna stared critically at her reflection and wondered where she had found the temerity to confront Rhys with Tom’s murder. Her face seemed singularly lacking in the character that had marked it in its youth. What made her believe she could talk to Rhys in such a fashion and be spared his retribution? She admitted she had no proof that Rhys was doing anything but trying to help Old Tom, yet it struck her as odd that he was in the wood in the first place. She didn’t believe for one moment he was there to remove the trap. More likely he had followed her for some unnamed reason of his own.
The longer she thought about it the more convinced she became that Rhys was bent on hounding her. Hadn’t he met her on her morning ride? Kenna slowly set her brush on the vanity as a thought that would not be contained came to her. If her own horse had found the trap instead of the unfortunate fox, would Rhys have been so eager to help? Mayhap he would have stayed long enough to watch Pyramid trample her. A frisson of alarm touched her and she shivered as she imagined Rhys touching her broken body only to be certain she was dead. Kenna tightened the belt of her dressing gown and the action seemed to ease the hollowness in her stomach though her knuckles remained white against the red velvet knot. She looked once more at her pale reflection in the glass, taking in the bruised shadows under her eyes and the colorless curve of her mouth. Why would Rhys try to kill her now? Didn’t he understand she had died inside the night he murdered her father?
It occurred to Kenna that she should tell him what she suspected. Nicky or Victorine would not believe her; they would humor her and invent excuses for Rhys. But if she confronted Rhys directly, told him that she knew what he was attempting to do, then perhaps he would be startled into a confession. Not that he would actually say anything, but an unguarded look, a movement born of surprise, might give him away. She had no idea what she would do then, or for that matter, what he would do. A sad, ironic smile touched her lips as she thought of offering him her throat.
She heard Victorine’s light footsteps in the hallway. There was a brief pause at her door as if her stepmother were debating the wisdom of coming in to offer some comfort to Kenna for her part in this night’s work. The steps continued and Kenna realized she was glad. Victorine would not have truly understood how Kenna felt about Old Tom’s death. It was a tragedy, to be sure, but not something that should have affected Kenna deeply. Who was Tom Allen after all?
When Victorine’s presence faded as she continued toward her own suite of rooms Kenna marshalled her courage and slipped from her chamber before she could think better of it. Her bare feet made virtually no sound as she padded down the carpeted hallway to Rhys’s room. At the door she hesitated, cautiously listening for sounds that would indicate Rhys’s valet was inside. Hearing nothing, she quickly went in, her heart hammering as she shut the door behind her.
Once she was in Rhys’s chamber the enormity of what she was doing struck her. If one of the servants had seen her, or God forbid, Nicholas or Victorine, she would have hopelessly compromised herself. It wouldn’t matter that Rhys himself was not in the room yet. Her intent, or rather the meaning they would have placed upon her intent, would have been clear. At the moment, dying at Rhys’s hands seemed infinitely preferable to falling into them.
The chamber was dark save for the glow of coals in the grate. Kenna scanned the room rapidly, looking for a place to hide until Rhys dismissed his valet. The only item in the room that offered some protection was an empty copper tub behind the silk dressing screen. Kenna climbed into the tub and waited for Rhys. Somewhere in the room a clock ticked off the passing seconds and for want of something better to do, Kenna counted them until much against her will her eyes drifted closed.
She had no idea how long she slept, indeed, it seemed impossible to her that she could have slept at all, given the discomfort of her hiding place and the pounding of her breast. It took several seconds to clear her muzzy mind as the door to the chamber was jerked open and Rhys entered the room, followed by the shuffling steps of his valet. With some sense of self-preservation Kenna slid more deeply into the tub, tucking her head beneath its copper rim and folding her arms awkwardly about her knees.
“Just help me out of this damn coat, Powell, and you can be off to the comforts of your own bed.” Rhys was carefully enunciating every word as drunks often do when they want to prove sobriety.
