Velvet Night (Author's Cut Edition) Page 3

  Granted, she told herself, critically surveying her image in the cheval glass, it was not a particularly original idea, and certainly it was a far cry from the Cleopatra costume she had discussed with Yvonne prior to the tower room incident, but it served her purpose well. The more she looked at her reflection the more it seemed reasonable that not even Yvonne would recognize her. The lower half of her face was buried beneath a black wool scarf and the black cocked hat, similar to the ones Nick and Rhys sported, cast her eyes in a shadow. She wore a black velvet jacket from an old riding habit over a white linen nightshirt that had once been her father’s. The hem of the shirt was tucked into a pair of dark breeches which were in turn tucked into a pair of riding boots. The breeches and jacket were a bit snug and the boots pinched her feet but Kenna congratulated herself for not throwing any of them away. The outfit she now wore had been an almost forgotten part of her wardrobe, relegated to the back of her drawers and her memory when she had vowed to give up riding hell-bent across the countryside. The clothes might have been resurrected sooner, for she had reconsidered her rash promise to her father the very next day, but Kenna found that her new riding habit was not as restrictive as she thought it would be. In no time at all she was riding again at a breakneck speed, and Lord Dunne had to be thankful his daughter had a very fine seat.

  Behind the rough scarf Kenna smiled impishly as she considered what a lark it would be to steal Yvonne away from the care of her brother and Rhys. Tucking a loose strand of fiery red hair beneath her hat, she turned away from the mirror and sauntered out of her room.

  Kenna told herself it was not lack of courage, but simply good sense, that made her choose the enclosed servants’ passageway rather than the main staircase. The deserted corridor served to reaffirm Kenna’s intentions. Considering the number of footmen, chambermaids, grooms, gamekeepers, gardeners, stable boys, coachmen, housemaids, cooks, and laundry maids employed at Dunnelly, she thought it a miracle of sorts her path did not cross that of one servant.

  The section of the manor that was the domain of the servants was a veritable maze of rooms. Had Kenna not explored the warren when she was a child she could have been forgiven for thinking that all work at Dunnelly was accomplished by magic. There were rooms for pressing linen, polishing shoes, cleaning and sharpening knives, washing, drying, ironing, and folding. There were separate larders off the main kitchen for meat, game, and fish. There were two sculleries, one for the kitchen and one for the dairy, a pantry and a wine cellar.

  Staying clear of the kitchen and wine cellar, a certain hub of activity, Kenna slipped from the hallway into the lamp room which she knew would be deserted, the lamps having been filled and trimmed earlier in the day. From there she entered the main hallway and walked briskly toward the strains of music in the ballroom, narrowly avoiding a collision with a running footman. Kenna nearly laughed as he hurried on his way, never looking up and never knowing that his single-minded determination to deliver a silver salver laden with crystal wine glasses had prevented her discovery yet again.

  It was not difficult to become part of the squeeze of guests at the ballroom’s entrance. While searching the room for some sign of her father in the hope that she would then avoid him, Kenna mingled with an armored knight and his fair damsel, a red-caped devil, a Roman senator, and two of the four shepherdesses. Looking past the gold leaf medallion on the senator’s shoulder which held his toga in place, Kenna spied her father and sighed with relief. She wasn’t certain how much longer she could have looked at Squire Bitterpenney and maintained her composure. Really, she thought, he would have done better to hide his girth in something less revealing than a toga and sandals. Excusing herself from the squire’s side with a deeply mumbled apology, Kenna moved to the edge of the crowd circling the floor and watched her father take up the next dance with his wife.

  Even if Kenna had not helped Lord Dunne decide upon his costume she would have been able to find him. Her father had a certain presence that made other people seem less significant when he was in the room. It was not simply his commanding height, which Kenna had inherited, nor his serene composure, which Kenna had not, that made his peers look at Robert Dunne with respect and perhaps a shade of envy. It was rumored that his lordship possessed the most uncommon sort of luck; that whatever came to his attention flourished beneath his regard. As a result, the gossips had it, Lord Dunne’s estates were free of debt, his lands were producing, his tenants and servants were loyal to a man, and the bills he sponsored in Parliament were passed nearly without a dissenting voice. The truth, Kenna knew, had nothing to do with luck, uncommon or otherwise, but lay in her father’s brilliance. If he had good fortune he was its own architect, a dedicated planner of his own happiness.

  Kenna glanced about the crowd and saw there were those few who would begrudge her father his beautiful new wife, thinking it was unconscionable for one man to be so graced, but Kenna imagined there were also those who thought the lovely French émigré, Comtesse Victorine Dussault, was the one most smiled upon by Lady Luck.

  Nowhere in the room was there a more handsome or romantic couple, Kenna thought proudly, if a trifle subjectively. Although her father had scoffed at Victorine’s suggestion that he should dress as a dashing Elizabethan privateer, he held up his hands in good-natured defeat when Kenna and Yvonne approved her plan. Now, in his blue velvet doublet and thigh-high boots, with his silver-handled sword at his side, he might have been Sir Francis Drake himself, escorting the lady of his choice on the deck of the Golden Hind.

  Kenna tipped her hat a shade lower as she watched Victorine follow her father’s lead. In light of their youthful expressions, it hardly seemed possible that either of them had grown children. Victorine was innately graceful, poised, and confident on the dance floor, her steps neatly matching her husband’s so they appeared to be as one. Kenna was entranced by Victorine’s splendid elegance. Wearing a gown she had copied from a portrait in Dunnelly’s long gallery, she looked more Elizabethan than the ancestor who had worn the original. The stiff white ruff about her neck somehow made her skin seem porcelain and her honey hair more golden. The tapering waistline of the emerald dress drew in her tiny waist and the sleeves, billowing at the shoulders and tight at the elbow and wrist, accented her delicate slenderness. The gown was shot through with threads of gold and Victorine fairly shimmered as she went through the steps of the country dance.

  Kenna did not remember her own mother, but she liked to think Lady Catherine had been as gracious and loving as Victorine. How could it be otherwise, she reasoned, else her father would not have proposed marriage to either. All things considered, and Kenna believed she had considered them all, she was very lucky to have a stepmother who was the antithesis of those portrayed in fairy tales.

  Kenna blinked, startled when Victorine faltered in her steps. Then she saw her father’s eyes, teasing his wife in a way that Kenna was beginning to understand bespoke of intimate matters, and she turned away, unaccountably embarrassed by their actions.

  “She’s quite something, isn’t she?”

  Kenna pulled up sharply, belatedly realizing it was the devil speaking to her. She had nearly impaled herself on his trident. “What?” she stammered. “Oh, you mean Lady Dunne, Yes, she’s quite something. A diamond.”

  “Indeed. Pursued her myself once,” the devil went on, leaning on his trident. “She would have none of me. A pity. For me, that is. Robert’s a damn lucky fellow.”

  Eager to leave this particular conversation, Kenna made some unintelligible reply beneath her scarf. Unfortunately for her the devil took it as an assent.

  “Of course she’s lucky herself. It couldn’t have been easy for her, seeing her first husband lose his head to Madame Guillotine as well as her father and mother. Bloodthirsty race, the French. It’s a miracle she was able to flee the country. I understand she and her daughter were nearly victims of the blade.”

  Kenna shrugged, unwilling to discuss Victorine’s escape from France with a stranger, l
et alone one dressed in a ridiculous crimson leotard and blood red cape. Besides, this man was not so well informed. Kenna could have told him that Yvonne had never been in any real danger, having been secreted out of terror-ridden Paris when she was a child. It was Victorine’s refusal to accompany her daughter to England, to the home of distant relatives of the Comte Dussault, that had nearly cost Victorine her life. She followed her husband and her parents to prison when the nobility was jailed and almost followed them in death. The devil was correct in one thing: it was a miracle that Victorine had been able to escape. While Yvonne had been cocooned in England for the better part of her life, Victorine had known hunger and cold, foul living conditions and the constant threat of death until two years ago. The safety and tranquility, the unhurried pattern of country life at Dunnelly’s coastal shore was still new to Victorine, and Kenna, sensing her mother’s reserve, never broached the subject of her imprisonment or her escape.

  “One has to wonder how she feels about our victory at Trafalgar,” the devil said idly. “It’s hard to grasp what these émigrés think when they hear Napoleon has been so soundly defeated.”

  Kenna felt herself bristle. Three weeks earlier the battle of Trafalgar and Admiral Nelson’s death had thrown the nation into a state of celebration and mourning in one stunning blow. Victorine had no reason to feel any differently. Napoleon’s rise to power had not saved her husband or her parents. She relished his defeat as much as any Englishman, perhaps more. Kenna could not believe this man questioned her mother’s allegiance, yet she was at a loss as to how to respond.

  “As you say, sir,” she murmured huskily. “If you’ll excuse me.” Giving Satan no choice, Kenna brushed by him and moved to a less crowded part of the room. She scanned the dancers again and those guests on the edge of floor, sighing with relief when she found Yvonne taking refreshment with a man wearing a forest green domino. The hood, cape, and mask hid his identity from Kenna but he appeared harmless enough and Yvonne was smiling up at him, patently enjoying his company. Deciding it would be cruel to take her away, especially since Rhys and Nick were nowhere to be found, Kenna thought it best to wait elsewhere.

  The gallery afforded the most comfortable place to hide and it was one of Kenna’s favorite rooms at Dunnelly. Lined with massive tapestries depicting medieval myths and commissioned oil paintings of Dunne ancestors, the gallery was imbued with fantasy and history. Kenna rubbed her hands together briskly as she nudged the massive door shut behind her. Obviously no one had thought the guests would find this room because the sculpted white marble fireplace was stone cold. She poked at the ashes for a few minutes, before shrugging philosophically and settling for a lap robe that had been carefully folded over the back of one of the chairs.

  The gallery was nearly fifty feet long and the furniture had been arranged in three distinct settings. When a fire was laid Kenna always sat in the middle section, closest to the hearth. Realizing she was going to be chilled no matter where she sat, she chose the end of the room furthest from the door and huddled on the settee beneath the rug. Checking the time, she promised to give Yvonne thirty more minutes at the masque before venturing back to the ballroom. Perhaps by then Rhys and Nick would remember that Yvonne could not stay past midnight when the masks were traditionally removed.

  “It was very bad of them to say they would take care of Yvonne, then disappear,” she muttered softly. “I won’t forgive them easily for this.” Ten minutes ticked by, an eternity to Kenna as she was hard pressed to keep her eyes open. She slid lower on the settee and yawned sleepily. Comfortably aware that no exploring guest was likely to surprise her, hidden as she was by the rounded back of the sofa, Kenna closed her eyes.

  She had no idea of how much time had passed when frantic, whispering voices brought her awake. Disoriented, Kenna nearly forgot where she was and only just managed to stop herself from sitting straight up and revealing her presence. She knew it was wicked to maintain silence when the intruders thought they were alone, but she told herself since she couldn’t really hear what they were saying it wasn’t as if she were truly an eavesdropper.

  The conversation, which she now discerned was between a man and a woman, was conducted in tones rife with urgency and showed no signs of being over quickly. Biting her lip, Kenna worried about the time and wished the man and woman gone. Because she could not see the mantel clock from where she lay Kenna decided there was nothing for it but to take a peek above the settee’s back. She removed her hat and held it to her breast then carefully lifted her head, stealing a look toward the fireplace. At the same moment, the gallery fell silent.

  Thinking she had been seen, Kenna held her breath and cast a cautious, guilty glance toward the far end of the room. In the blink of an eye a myriad of emotion assailed her. Relief that the lovers had not seen her, caught as they were in an embrace that allowed for no intrusion upon their senses, was replaced by rage when Victorine stood on tiptoe to reach Rhys’s mouth with her own.

  Kenna’s stomach gave a violent turn and she brought up her hand to stem the harsh gasp that was caught in her throat. She was not witness to an affectionate kiss between acquaintances, but a lover’s kiss, and she wished she were too young to know the difference. Victorine’s small hands were buried in Rhys’s dark hair and his long fingers were running the length of her spine. Had the couple been any other two people, Kenna would have watched unabashedly, perhaps even finding an answer as to how the kiss was accomplished without bumping noses. But this display of infidelity shocked her so that she closed her eyes tightly and forgot all about noses. Falling back on the settee, Kenna buried her face in her hands, weeping without sound until the gallery door was opened and closed and she knew herself to be alone again.

  Sniffing loudly, Kenna wiped her nose on her sleeve and sat up. How could Victorine betray her father so vilely? How could Rhys? If she hadn’t seen their tryst she could not have been convinced they were capable of such a thing. Even now she wondered if her eyes had somehow deceived her. Admittedly she was tired; mayhap it was a horrible dream. But it wasn’t, a tiny voice told her. You weren’t dreaming. Victorine was kissing Rhys and Rhys was returning it measure for measure. Though she did not understand its nature, Kenna recognized a hurt beyond the pain she felt for her father.

  Jamming her hat on her head, Kenna threw off the lap robe and rose on shaky feet. Uncertain of where she wanted to go or what she intended to do, Kenna knew only that she had to leave the gallery. She glanced at the clock and saw it was ten minutes past midnight. Rhys and Victorine had left in time to be part of the unmasking and if Yvonne had not thought to take safety in her bedchamber by now, it was too late to help her.

  Practically running from the gallery, Kenna did not spare another thought for anyone but herself. She strode right by the ballroom without a glance in the direction of the laughter and music. None of it sounded as bright and engaging as it had a mere hour ago. She pushed past Henderson without acknowledging his inquiry about her cape or her coach and walked outside. She kept walking, past the curricles and barouches lining the driveway, past the carefully clipped boxwood hedges, past the colored lanterns strung along the main gate. As if in a trance, Kenna saw all of it and remembered little.

  Once, she stopped and looked over her shoulder at Dunnelly Manor. As if liquid, more than fifty lighted windows, shimmered and danced before her eyes, yet she knew it was her vision causing the face of her home to blur alarmingly. Icy air swept up from the Channel, tore at her thin coat and stung her eyes, reminding Kenna she was ill-prepared to spend much time out in the cold, no matter how numb she had been to the elements when she first stepped out of doors. Cursing under her breath, Kenna turned away and changed her direction. She was not ready to return to the house but neither was she prepared to walk forever without a plan.

  Retracing part of her path, Kenna circled around the manor and went directly to the summerhouse. Some of Kenna’s clearest childhood memories were of playing there, pretending she was the grand lady
of the pristine white cottage. The gardener’s son tended the roses on the lattice for her and the head groom’s young nephew kept her pony by the apple tree which was designated as the stable. And when the three of them tired of the play, which was not long because Kenna found it dull to be in the house with her dolls, they explored the slippery trail of rocks that led from the summerhouse’s back door to the narrow beach nearly a hundred feet below.

  For hours they played at being smugglers or pirates, hiding among the jagged boulders and searching out treasure in the deep caves that dotted this section of the beach. They carried on one entire summer in such a manner, blithely unaware of the danger of their game until Lord Dunne surprised them by waiting in one of the caves. Kenna would have liked to discover how her father was able to get there without passing them or why his feet and clothes, unlike theirs, were suspiciously dry. She never had a chance to voice her question, since she was hauled without explanation onto her father’s lap and spanked soundly right in front of the gardener’s son and the head groom’s nephew. Pride made her remain silent while the slaps echoed eerily around the cavern’s damp walls. After it was over she was hugged within an inch of her life and carried out of the cave. Her two playmates, much subdued by the sharp look in Lord Dunne’s eyes, followed at ten paces. As far as Kenna knew it was the last time any of them had ventured on the rocky coast.

  Fully expecting the summerhouse to be locked, Kenna automatically reached for the key that was always kept lying atop the door frame. In spite of her height it was still a stretch and when she gave a little hop to get it she was surprised to see the door swing open of its own accord. Curious now and not a little wary, she forgot the key and walked inside.