“We can make love,” she whispered. “I want to. I know it’s the same for you.” Her head shot back from the curve of his shoulder as Rhys began laughing.
“Do you know where we are? If I want to make love I can have Polly or Sheila or Pamela or Loreta or Deborah…”
“Damn you!” Tears sprang to her eyes.
“And damn you, Kenna Dunne!” Rhys responded feelingly.
“Please, Rhys!” she begged again. “I must have my medicine. I hurt so badly. Please! Nothing is right without it!” She sobbed against his chest. “I’ll do whatever you want. Just give me the bottle.”
Rhys made no move to hold her, afraid to trust her tears. “Marry me.”
Kenna did not hesitate. “Yes.”
“Now. Today.”
“Yes. Of course.” She wiped away her tears with the back of her hand. “Now give me the bottle.”
He shook his head. “After we’re married.”
“But—”
“After.” He saw her resist for a moment, then it faded as she listened to her greedy addiction speak. “Go back to bed, Kenna. Try to sleep. When I return we’ll be married.”
Polly was shocked by Rhys’s plan but was persuaded to help him. “She’ll be furious when you don’t give her more of the drug,” she told him as she cleaned the scratch on his cheek.
“I’m willing to face that.”
“Very well. There is a priest I know who will perform the rites.”
One of Rhys’s eyebrows kicked up. “A visitor to the Flower House?”
“Frequently.” She winked at him. “But he comes to save our damned souls. I think he would be most cooperative if he thought he was helping one of the fallen angels give up her profession.”
“Then arrange it for this evening. I will meet him at his church with Kenna. I’d like you to be there as a witness.”
“You couldn’t keep me away, Rhys.”
“I will take Kenna immediately to the ship afterward. You will have to explain her death to your girls alone.”
“I can manage the thing. I only hope you do as well.”
Rhys came back for Kenna after midnight. Polly made certain her girls were all occupied with clients and would be for several hours. Kenna was drowsy from another small dose of the drug which Polly had administered an hour earlier and therefore cooperative. She allowed herself to be dressed in a lemon yellow dress with a garland of flowers embroidered at the hem. An ivory fichu was draped over her shoulders and gloves of the same color covered her arms from the tips of her fingers to several inches past her elbows. Polly fastened the redingote at Kenna’s throat and lifted the collar so the fur trim framed her neck and brushed the curling tips of her hair. Rhys carried her out the back of the Flower House and placed her in his coach. He held out a hand for Polly and helped her in. She supported Kenna’s head in her lap as Rhys took the driver’s seat and wound the carriage through narrow London alleys and streets to get to the church.
The Anglican priest was waiting for them in his private rooms affixed to the church. He had prepared an altar and wore his vestments. The necessary papers were waiting for signatures on his desk. He made a few token protests about the impropriety of the situation but when Polly gave him her cherub’s smile he ceased complaining and cleared his throat, looking at the participants expectantly.
Kenna stood to one side of Rhys and a little in front of him so he could support her. He whispered in her ear. “Do you know what you’re doing?”
“Yes. We made a bargain.”
Rhys was satisfied it was what she wanted, even if it was for the wrong reasons. He told the priest they were ready.
The ceremony was brief. Polly shed a few tears and had to nudge Kenna to make her respond to her fictitious name. The ring Rhys placed on Kenna’s finger was a fraction too large and it kept slipping down to her first knuckle. Rhys recited his vows in clear tones; Kenna stumbled a bit over the words. The kiss that sealed their promises was brief. Rhys helped Kenna sign her name to the registry while Polly occupied the priest with conversation. Though she wrote her own name, with Rhys’s assistance it was nearly illegible and the priest would never think it said anything but Diana Dome. Rhys kept a record of the ceremony for himself which he quickly put out of Kenna’s reach. Signaling to Polly that everything was accomplished, they took their leave a few minutes later.
On the way back to the Flower House Kenna became more alert and the empty ache she felt inside warned her it was time for more of her medicine. It tore at Polly’s heart to see Kenna beg but she remained unyielding. When Rhys helped her down from the carriage she told him Kenna was sick for it again.
Rhys glanced inside the coach and saw Kenna curled on the padded seat, her knees to her chest. He took Polly’s hand and led her away. “I have your instructions. I know what to do. She’s going to be fine, Polly.”
“She has to want to get well, Rhys,” Polly said with some urgency, taking his hands in hers. “You cannot force her recovery on her. At the moment she wants no part of your good sense. It is my experience that some of the girls who stay on the drug do so because life with it is infinitely preferable to life without. It dulls the hard edges of reality. I would not have thought it would be true in Kenna’s case, her being quality and all, used to every luxury. But I think I erred in judging her life. She has been fighting us tooth and nail because she does not want to return to the way things were. I don’t think she was a happy woman, Rhys. She can forget it with the drug.”
