The Spiral Path (34 page)

By
the end of the day, Kenzie felt as if he'd been drained dry and crushed for
recycling. Each of the scenes between him and Rainey had required several
takes, with the quality deteriorating every time. The first takes were
invariably the best, but every one was wrenched painfully from his and Rainey's
viscera.

His mood was not improved when he
returned to the pleasant country hotel that had been temporarily taken over by
The
Centurion.
His efficient, unobtrusive assistant, Josh, had carefully laid
that morning's edition of the
Inquirer
on the antique desk in Kenzie's
sitting room. Blaring across the corner of the tabloid was a flash proclaiming,
"Kenzie's Past Revealed!"

Praying this was a false trail, he
turned to the story inside. At the top was a sexy photo of Jenny Lyme looking
misleadingly earnest and reliable. "Kenzie's longtime ladyfriend tells
all!" If the
Inquirer
wasn't careful, they'd run out of exclamation
points.

Jenny's "revelations" were the
tragic, colonial past she'd invented the night they had dinner. Though she
mentioned that she was only making an educated guess, Nigel Stone was willing
to race off with her speculations.

He also managed to imply that Kenzie and
Jenny had been lovers more or less continuously since their student days, including
during his marriage, but once again the reporter avoided saying anything
actually libelous. Kenzie tossed the newspaper aside. With any luck, Stone
would follow that red herring off to Africa, and the newspaper campaign would
gradually fade away.

But he couldn't escape the uneasy
feeling that his luck wouldn't be that good.

CHAPTER 19

K
enzie
stood at attention as organ music rumbled through the church. The
elaborate arrangements for Randall's wedding reminded him of why he'd asked
Rainey to elope. If he'd had to go through these complications in real life,
he'd have lost his nerve and bolted.

Of course, even if he and Rainey had
chosen a formal wedding, he wouldn't have received a personal message from
Queen Victoria commending him for embracing wedded bliss, and looking forward
to more fine sons to defend the Empire. Having been pressured to go through
with the marriage by his beloved, both families, his sovereign, and the British
press, John Randall was a basket case by the time his wedding arrived.

Flower girls, bridesmaids, a maid of
honor. It was the Victorians who'd invented the modern white wedding. They'd
even started the custom of having the bride dressed in a gown that resembled a
wedding cake.

As the music crescendoed, Rainey
appeared at the far end of the church aisle on the arm of Richard Farley, who
looked mightily distinguished as her father. She was a beautiful bride, radiant
with the absolute certainty usually found only in the very young. Kenzie forced
himself into John Randall again.

As he watched his bride approach, guilt
almost overwhelmed him. He was filthy, tainted, unworthy of this bright, pure
girl. Allowing this marriage to take place was criminal weakness. As he took
her small hand and they pledged eternal vows, his mind and spirit were hammered
by the dark drum-beats of despair.

It was easy to express that. He'd felt
the same at his own marriage.

The
wedding scenes went so smoothly that there was time to return to Morchard House
for more shooting. The production had made up the time lost in New Mexico, and
gained a full day on the original schedule. To Rainey, having a cushion of
extra time was better than money in the bank, though she wouldn't have minded
some of that, too.

The wedding was followed by the wedding
night. In an elaborately decorated bedroom, Sarah waited in a canopied bed,
dressed in foaming layers of lace and virginal white silk sheer enough to hint
at the equally virginal but eager body underneath.

She sat against the pillows, fingers
locked tensely as the minutes ticked away. Her mother had told her what to
expect of her wedding night. Peculiar though marital activities sounded, Sarah
trusted her husband to guide her. But where was he?

She awoke from a doze with a start when
he finally entered the bedroom. His hair and garments were subtly disheveled, his
expression unbearably bleak.

He swallowed hard before starting to
speak unthinkable words. He'd been wrong to marry her, and they must seek an
annulment. He'd take all the blame, and she'd be left unsullied, free to marry
another man.

Horrified, she slid from the bed and
went to him, touching his chest as she begged for an explanation. His voice
faltered, then died away as he stared down with hungry eyes. One shaking hand
lifted to stroke her arm. Driven by Eve's instinct, she stood on her toes to
kiss him.

His control shattered and he pulled her
down onto the bed, kissing her frantically, crushing her with his weight.
Alarmed, she resisted in an unspoken plea for him to proceed more gently. He
halted, face frozen, groaning, "May God forgive me."

He rolled from the bed and stumbled
across the room. Folding to the floor, he wrapped his arms around his belly and
retched violently.

Kenzie was improvising again. Afraid to
speculate what had inspired a gesture so powerful and disturbing, she joined
him on the floor and drew him into her arms. Their wedding night faded out on
the image of his head pressed against her silk-clad breasts as he wept with
unholy despair.