“I think that’s what I meant when I said there would be no divorce,” he said dryly.
“No divorce,” she echoed, drawing him down on the mattress and snuggling close. “You said something about this being forced on me the first time. What did you mean?”
“I gave you that ring when we were married. I gather you don’t remember.”
“No,” she said sadly. “But I wish I did. So much of that time is vague.”
“It’s just as well. It was not exactly filled with pleasantness.”
Kenna refused to dwell on that unhappiness. “Tell me about our wedding. I think I recall what I was wearing and I remember a ride to the church. Someone was with me, holding me.”
“That was Polly. I wish you had been able to know her, really know her. There is not another like her.”
Even with a ring on her finger Kenna was not so secure that she cared to hear the virtues of another woman, especially one she thought held a great deal of her husband’s affection. She wondered why she was plagued by the vision of the women Rhys had held in his arms when there were so many things she had forgotten.
Rhys was blithely unaware of the turn of Kenna’s thoughts. “It was Polly who arranged the marriage. She knew a priest, you see, who regularly tried to save those souls living at the Flower House. She convinced him it was his duty to marry us.”
Kenna frowned, thinking hard. “Rhys, whoisPolly? Andwhatis the Flower House?”
“You have forgotten rather a lot, haven’t you? The Flower House is an establishment much like Mrs. Miller’s and Polly Dawn Rose is the proprietress.”
Kenna couldn’t credit it. “Do you mean that I was rescued from one brothel and hidden in another?”
“Does sound rather unlikely, but that’s the gist of it. Of course no one at Polly’s was preparing you for—” he groped for a delicate word—“for service. The girls there simply wanted you to get well. When they took you from Mrs. Miller’s they hadn’t the slightest notion who you were.”
“This is a Banbury tale if ever there was one.”
“Quite. Now do you want to hear about our wedding?”
“Later,” she said, intrigued in spite of herself. “If they didn’t know me, why did they bother taking me from Mrs. Miller’s? Was that your doing?”
“No,” Rhys sighed, realizing he was going to have to explain the whole of it. He told her everything, beginning with the search for her that covered all of London and finally how he found her at Polly’s and his connection to the Flower House.
Kenna was shaking her head when he finished. “It’s as if it happened to someone else. I am going to compose a letter on the morrow, thanking Miss Rose and the others, and send it on the first packet back to London.”
Rhys grabbed Kenna’s wrist, unaware he was hurting her. “No! No letters. Polly is the only person in all of England who knows you’re alive. Even her girls think you’re dead. If one of them came across the letter and spoke without thinking, you would not be safe.”
Kenna stretched her fingers when Rhys let go of her wrist. “No letter, then,” she said.
“I’m sorry. Did I hurt you?”
“No.”
Rhys massaged her slender wrist anyway. “Why are you smiling?”
She shrugged a trifle self-consciously. “I was thinking how fierce you can be at times, then so tender. I like you both ways.”
“You can be fierce yourself.”
She had no illusions as to what he was referencing. She could hardly deny that she had bitten his shoulder earlier.
She kissed him where she thought the mark should be. “And tender, too.” She laughed when he made a playful grab for her. “I think you’d better finish telling me about our wedding,” Kenna held her hand a few inches from her face as he spoke, letting the candlelight catch the burnished gold. When he was done she turned her face to him. “I’m glad you didn’t wait until Boston to give this to me, Rhys. I didn’t know how much importance I had placed on a ring until tonight. It’s ridiculous, but it’s as if there is more permanence now. I’m not so afraid.”
“It’s not ridiculous,” he said softly. “I didn’t know you were afraid.”
She nodded. “Sometimes, when I wake and you’re gone, I think you’ve left me. Then I’m frightened.”
Rhys understood that emotion. He had thought Kenna was lost to him for so many years that when she wasn’t in his sight it had the power to chill him. “I’m not going to leave you, Kenna.”
