“Beautiful,” Rhys responded dutifully, though he realized it was also true. A few years younger than he, P.D. Rose displayed an excess of sensuality in every one of her petite curves. Her features were softly rounded and though she bemoaned her figure as plump, her weakness for chocolates meant nothing would change. She wrinkled her upturned nose at Rhys as she reached for a chocolate now and plopped it into her tiny bow-shaped mouth.
“I have to return to Dunnelly soon,” Rhys remarked, shaking his head as Polly got up from the vanity and offered him the box.
She put the box aside and sashayed over to the bed. Polly never walked when she could sashay. Her training had come very early and she was doing the only sort of work she had ever known. “How soon is soon?”
“A few days. Perhaps tomorrow. I’m not certain.”
“You’re awfully tense,” she noted. “Are you sure you won’t let me ease some of that for you?”
“That’s not why I come here, P.D.”
She laughed, a bright, tinkling sound. “Don’t Oi know it, guv!” she said, slipping into the speech of her past. “One can’t give up ’ope!”
He gave her arm a light squeeze as she sat beside him. “You’re incorrigible.” Rhys sighed. “I won’t be back for a while. My name has been linked to yours.”
“I should hope so. You’re one of my regulars. Though hardly my usual sort. Most men want a tad more than conversation.”
He smiled. “Nick thinks I’ve set you up.”
“Lord Dunne?” She was thoughtful. “Now there’s a man I wouldn’t turn away from my establishment. He’s a looker. I’ve seen him once or twice. What does it matter if he thinks you’ve set me up? It’s the truth.”
“He thinks you’re my mistress.”
Polly clapped her hands together, her mouth opening in a delightful O of pleasure. “How lovely!”
“Polly,” Rhys said warningly. “I don’t know how the stories get turned by the time Nick hears them, but I doubt he’d be pleased if he knew I helped you open this house. He could accept you as my mistress long before he could accept that you are a…professional businesswoman. He would certainly think twice about the wisdom of having me for a brother-in-law.”
“Brother-in-law!” she exclaimed. “Then you asked for Kenna’s hand! How wonderful! When is the wedding?”
“I have no idea. Nick was not a great deal more receptive to the idea than his sister.”
“She turned you down?” It was difficult to believe.
“Emphatically.”
“Then she doesn’t deserve you!”
“I think you mean that,” said Rhys.
“I do! You’re noble and kind and generous and…and I would have been dead years ago if you hadn’t come to my aid. You’re rather like my personal guardian angel.”
Rhys glanced at the cherubs overhead. “God forbid,” he said feelingly.
“Be serious. It was as if heaven sent you the night you came to Mrs. Miller’s place.”
Rhys remembered the meeting well enough. It had been two years ago, shortly after his return from the Peninsula and his visit to Dunnelly. He was depressed and lonely and feeling rather sorry for himself. The Foreign Office was after him to spy for them in America, a request he found repugnant, and his father and brother wanted him to come to Boston and fight the English. While Victorine and Nick welcomed him to Dunnelly, Kenna wanted nothing from him, and that knowledge cut more deeply than anything.
It was that realization that triggered his bout with several bottles of whisky and a wild gambling spree that cost him thousands of pounds. He had not understood how much Kenna’s approval meant to him until he saw her again. Though he had thought of her often during the years he was away, and knew a little about her from his correspondence with Nick, he was unprepared to face the fact that he had truly come to love her with more than platonic affection. The promise of her fiery beauty had come true and though her spirit had dimmed and her playfulness had disappeared, she managed to hold his heart. The time he spent in her company during that visit was pure torture and if it had not been necessary to explore the caves of Dunnelly he would have left after only a few days.
When he did depart the world seemed to fold around him and, as quickly as some of his friends good-naturedly suggested a sporting visit to Mrs. Miller’s he took them up on it. Had he been sober at the time he doubted he would have done it, but upon reflection it had turned out to be a good thing because he met Miss Polly Dawn Rose.
He did not remember choosing Miss Rose as his partner that evening, but he found himself in her room nonetheless, and though she seemed to be enthusiastic about the encounter, Rhys found he was not. Instead of making love to the wriggling bundle of femininity in his arms he poured out his troubles in a somewhat drunken though perfectly coherent manner. He had no idea if Miss Rose was a good lover, but she was an excellent listener. He went back to visit her several times, just to talk, and though he knew she thought him peculiar, she seemedto enjoy his company.
It was on his fourth visit that he was told Polly was not available. When he said he would wait for her he was finally told she was ill. Demanding to see her caused more of an uproar than he expected and he was nearly ejected from the brothel by the madam’s two footmen. In the end he had his way by holding a primed pistol to Mrs. Miller’s head.
Polly was lying on her bed, her face vacant of its usual rosy glow and her features so sunken that her cheekbones stood out sharply. The sheet that covered her was as white as her neck and shoulders except where it covered her thighs. There it was blood red. It only took Rhys a moment to assess the situation which was confirmed by the madam at once. One of Mrs. Miller’s physician clients had performed an abortion on Polly and she was hemorrhaging.
Rhys did not waste any time. He covered Polly in several blankets and carried her out of the brothel to his waiting carriage. He had to draw his pistol again when the physician he summoned did not want to care for Miss Rose. In the end he was also persuaded.
