Rhys could not fail to notice Kenna’s unusual quietness at dinner that evening. He had expected her to be full of questions about his visit to the lawyer’s and the office, yet she asked very little. He probed gently to discover what was bothering her.
“This dinner is excellent,” he said. The meal began with a cold soup and later came thin, tender slices of beef cooked in its own juices. The potatoes were roasted and the carrots and baby peas retained all their color and flavor. “You must have had an eventful conversation with the cook.”
Kenna smiled faintly. “Did you know your father had poor teeth and a stomach condition?”
“I didn’t know. But what has that to do with anything?”
“That’s why our meal was so bland and soft last night. Poor Mrs. O’Hare has been cooking like that for years to please Roland’s palate. And since Richard never complained she thought perhaps all the Cannings suffered from the same ailment. She was actually trying to please you with the dinner.”
“Amazing,” Rhys said, shaking his head. “This meal is evidence you were successful convincing her otherwise. You must have had a busy day.”
“Not so busy. I’m afraid I had some time for snooping.”
“Oh? And what horrible Canning secrets did you uncover?”
Kenna put down her fork, unable to do justice to her meal. “I found a guest list, Rhys. I know it was the one for the masque given by Victorine and my father. I recognized some of the names and several of the people are no longer alive. That’s how I knew it wasn’t a recently planned list. Why is it in your possession?”
Rhys did not answer her question directly. There was something almost accusing in her tone that weighed heavily upon him. “Why doyouthink it is in my possession?”
“I don’t know,” she said honestly. “At first I thought you must have helped Victorine plan the list, then I realized how impossible that was. You were on the Continent then.”
“Why in the world would it even cross your mind that I would help Victorine plan her gala?”
Kenna bit her lip then blurted out, “You were her lover.”
“What!”
Rhys’s astonishment was genuine but Kenna didn’t know if he was denying the charge or only surprised that she had discovered it. Still, her poise faltered under his glaring expression. “You and Victorine were lovers then.”
“No, we were not. I met Victorine briefly before she and your father were married and I went to the Continent. We were not lovers then nor when I returned.”
“But I saw you kissing her in the gallery,” she insisted.
“The way you saw me at her side in the cave?”
Kenna ignored his question. “And you and she had been in the summerhouse!”
“Did you see us there also?”
“No, but I could smell her perfume and the bed was mussed. I know she took her lover there.”
“She may have taken a lover there, but I was not that man. Have you seriously thought all these years that Victorine and I cuckolded your father?”
“Not all these years,” she said, choking on the words. “Victorine only began to appear in the dream recently.”
“About the same time the attempts on your life began?”
“Yes…no. I don’t know. Victorine can’t be responsible. She would never harm me.”
Rhys gave her his handkerchief to wipe her glistening eyes. “Where is the guest list?”
“In the library. I put it back with your papers.”
He stood. “Stay right here. I am going to get it.” He returned in a few minutes and saw Kenna had taken him literally and had not moved so much as a fraction.
She looked up when he came in the room. “Rhys, I’m sorry. I don’t know why finding it upset me so. I suppose I thought I had put it all in the past. It was a shock seeing that list among your things.”
Rhys sat down beside her and smoothed out the paper between them. “That’s why we are going to settle this now, Kenna. This list is not the original and if you had looked more carefully you would have noted it. I asked Nick to supply me with these names the last time I was at Dunnelly before my father died. Victorine composed the list for him. Your brother did not have the time to look over it. You disappeared then and his mind was naturally on that. This is the first time I’ve seen it since he handed it to me. Quite frankly, I forgot its existence.”
