Beyond Compare (27 page)

She turned and saw the butler, tray in hand, hovering at the opened door. She felt a blush rising in her cheeks, although she told herself it was foolish; she and Rafe had not been doing anything untoward.

“Come in, Phipps,” she said crisply.

“My lady.” The butler crossed to where they stood
and set his tray on the dresser. “Mr. McIntyre. I took the liberty, sir, of bringing a decanter of brandy, as well as the bandages.”

“Phipps, you are a man in a million.”

“Thank you, sir.” He turned to Kyria. “Do you need my help, my lady?”

“No. I think I can handle it. Mr. McIntyre assures me his wound is nothing but a scratch. You may go on to bed, and tell Joan to retire, as well. I can manage easily enough by myself tonight.”

“Very good.” Phipps glanced at Kyria’s manner of dress, but made no comment. He had worked in the Morelands’ employ for too long to be disconcerted by anything they did. “Good night, my lady. Sir.”

He bowed and left the room. Rafe poured a dollop of brandy into each of the small balloon glasses on the tray and handed one of them to Kyria.

“Here. I think this will help both of us a great deal.”

Kyria had rarely drunk anything stronger than an occasional glass of wine, but this evening she did not hesitate to take the glass and down a healthy swig of it. She could not suppress a little gasp as it burned its way down her throat, but the burst of warmth in her stomach soothed her still-jittering nerves.

She took another sip, then let out a sigh and sank into a chair. “Well, it was quite an evening, wasn’t it?”

“Yes.” Rafe took another swallow of brandy and leaned back against the dresser, his legs stretched out in front of him. “And to think that I always assumed England was dull.”

“It usually is not quite this lively,” Kyria admitted. She sighed. “I had hoped we would answer some ques
tions tonight. But if anything, it seems we’ve only added more questions.”

“We still don’t know who was behind Sid and Dixon’s invasion of your house,” Rafe said. “Or why Mr. Kousoulous decided to bring the box to you. However, if this Keeper fellow is to be believed, we at least know where the reliquary has been all these years and how it came into Kousoulous’s hands.”

“But how did all these people know he had it? And that he was bringing it to me?” Kyria pondered.

“Well, in the part of the world where it was stolen, rumors have probably been swirling from the moment it disappeared. It is no surprise that Habib had heard about it, and he and other dealers may have written to collectors such as your Russian and French friends, hoping to make a sale if they could manage to get their hands on it.”

“I suppose so.” Kyria downed the rest of her brandy, grimacing.

Rafe smiled a little at the face she made, then said soberly, “Unfortunately, Brother Jozef’s tale also gives us another candidate for the person behind Kousoulous’s murder and the invasion of your house.”

“The Keepers?” Kyria looked at him in shock. “You think the Keepers might have done it? But they saved us tonight.”

“I am sure it would not help their cause any for us to fall into the hands of someone else who wants the reliquary,” Rafe said. “That would be ample reason to help us out.”

“That may be. But they belong to a religious order. Surely they would not condone murder and threats!”

“I hope not. However, I cannot overlook the fact that they are desperate to recover the reliquary. Losing it is
a stain on their history, a blot on the good name of their order.”

“Still, it is hard for me to imagine their doing something wicked in order to recover a holy symbol.”

“It is more than a symbol to them,” Rafe countered. “It is their very reason for being, the thing to which they and countless others before them devoted their lives. They are zealots, Kyria, and sometimes zealots are willing to sacrifice everything to achieve the goal of their fanaticism.”

His face darkened, and he levered his body away from the dresser. “Believe me, I have had experience with people with causes, and they usually leave a swath of destruction in their wake.”

Kyria heard the pain that laced his voice, and she rose from her seat, saying, “Rafe?”

He turned to face her. “I had a cause. I was certain I was absolutely right, just as all of us were. I went into battle believing I was fighting a holy war.”

“But you were. Your cause was just!” Kyria exclaimed.

“Is war ever just?” Rafe countered, and his face was drawn with remembered pain. “You know what I realized after a while? Those men on the other side, the ones I was shooting at, the ones shooting at me…well, the funny thing was that they believed they were right, too.”

“You were fighting to free men from slavery.”

“Yeah, and the other side was fighting for their homes. Who wouldn’t fight if an army invaded his land, saying, “You have to do what we tell you’?”

“But, Rafe—” Kyria frowned, troubled “—are you saying that you don’t believe that you were right? That you were justified?”

“I was right. Of course I was right to want to end slavery. If I had to choose today, I would do the same thing. But I wouldn’t be so sure of myself and my righteousness that I would charge in, guns blazing. War would be my last recourse, not my first.”

He turned away, and his voice became low. “A great deal of the war was fought back and forth across Virginia.” He looked at her, and his blue eyes were bitter. “Can you imagine what it was like to have war waged for four long years over the land that was your home? It was devastating. When I went back after the war was over…my uncle’s house, the place where I grew up, was in ruins. My aunt and her daughters were living in what had been the overseer’s cottage. My uncle, the man who took us in, who raised me and sent me to college, had died of pneumonia. My cousins, the boys and girls I grew up with…Annie was left a widow and Tyler had died at Gettysburg. Hank lost an arm and an eye at Chancellorsville. Susannah’s husband survived, but he wasn’t the same man. They moved west to Texas. Our other cousin, James, went with them. There was nothing for them there anymore, just as there was nothing for me. The girl I had loved, the one who gave me back my ring the day I said I was signing up with the Union army, had married someone else and had his baby, and he had died, too. She was only twenty-three the last time I saw her, but she looked forty. There was nothing but bitterness in her face.”

“Oh, Rafe.” Kyria’s eyes filled with tears and she reached out a hand to him. “I am so sorry.”

“I’m a dead man to them,” Rafe said tightly. “After I started making money, I tried to send them some, and they refused it. My aunt sent a note saying she couldn’t
take blood money. I tried going back there this year, but…” He shrugged. “I don’t have a home.”

Kyria went to him, wrapping her arms around him and leaning her head against his chest. Her tears soaked his shirt. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

His arms went around her convulsively, and he bent his head to rest it on hers. She felt his lips brush her hair. She stroked his back soothingly. A quiver of desire ran through her as she touched him, and she felt ashamed that she felt such a thing at such a moment, when he needed comfort.

“You aren’t to blame for what happened to them,” she murmured, releasing her hold on him and stepping back a little to look up into his face.

“No,” he agreed hoarsely. His hand cupped her cheek briefly, then fell away and turned aside. “I did what I thought was right. They did what they thought was right. A whole country did that. And everyone was too stubborn, too convinced of their own rectitude, to do anything but go to war over it.”

He moved to where the brandy sat and poured himself another drink. “It’s over. There’s nothing to be done now.” He took a sip and turned back to her. “But I know one thing—zealots can be very dangerous men. They are far too prone to think that the end justifies the means.”

“All right.” Kyria wished that she could make him feel better, that she could bring him comfort and peace. But she could tell that he was finished with the subject. In the way of men, he was probably embarrassed that he had revealed as much as he had. So she smiled and said only, “I promise that I shall be suspicious of the Keepers. Still, I can’t help but think that perhaps they have the best right to the reliquary.”

Rafe nodded. “I know.”

“I just wish I knew whether Theo had anything to do with it. I can’t imagine why else Mr. Kousoulous would have brought the reliquary to Broughton Park. I hate to do anything until I have talked to Theo.”

“The Keepers have waited this long,” Rafe pointed out. “I’d say they can wait a little longer. You’ll get a letter from Theo or he’ll show up.”

Kyria frowned, admitting for the first time the trouble that had been rattling around in the back of her mind for some days now, “Unless he can’t. Unless something happened to Theo, too.”

“No.” Rafe set down his glass and crossed to her, taking her arms. “Don’t think that way. There’s no reason to think that anything has happened to your brother.”

“I hope you’re right.”

“Of course I am.”

Considering the conversation they had just had and Rafe’s questions about his own self-sureness, both of them had to laugh.

“All right. There you are. Despite it all, I can’t escape it,” he said lightly. “I am destined, clearly, to be positive I know it all.”

“Let’s just see how right you are about your arm, then,” Kyria responded. She turned and went to close the door. “You take off your shirt and let me look at your wound.”

Rafe unbuttoned the front of his shirt, and as he tried to free his injured arm, his face contorted with pain.

“Here, let me help.” Kyria crossed the room quickly and grasped the end of the sleeve on the uninjured arm, pulling it down as he pulled out his arm.

She tossed the shirt back, and his chest was exposed,
browned by the sun and firmly padded with muscle. She caught her breath, hoping he could not sense how desire had twisted through her at the sight of him. She remembered the feel of his back beneath her hands only moments earlier, and the way her insides had tightened.

Kyria purposely kept her eyes on Rafe’s injured arm as she began to pull down that sleeve. She did not want him to see in her face the way she responded to the sight of his naked body. She reminded herself that she was supposed to be tending to his wound, not thinking about his bare chest and the fact that she wanted to move her hands all over him as he had done to her the night before.

His sleeve stuck to his arm where the blood had dried on it. She tugged gently, but it did not move, so Kyria wet a cloth from the pitcher on the washstand and pressed it gently against his arm. As she stood there, holding the cloth to him, she glanced up into his face, and the look of raw hunger she saw there stopped the breath in her throat.

She quickly glanced away, swallowing hard. Her heart was galloping in her chest. She could not help but think of the way he had looked at her the night before, with the same deep hunger. Kyria had never felt anything like what she had experienced with him last night. From the moment it had happened, she had been wanting to experience it again—and more.
Why did he stop when he did?
She had tried to tell herself that it was because, being a gentleman, he had not wanted to take advantage of her. But she had not been able to expel from her mind the thought that perhaps he had not felt the same desperate intensity that she had. What if she had not pleased him?

Kyria set the wet cloth aside and pulled gently at the
sleeve again. It came loose this time, and she slipped his shirt the rest of the way off and tossed it onto the nearby chair. She picked up the cloth again and rewet it, using it to clean the long red wound across his upper arm where the knife had sliced him.

She realized that he was right; the wound did not appear to be very deep or serious as she cleared the blood away from it. Up higher on his arm, where the rock had struck him, was a large bruise, and she suspected that area would be stiff and sore tomorrow, perhaps even more so than the cut.

Rafe looked down at Kyria as she worked over him. Her head was bent; her hair brushed his arm now and then as she moved, as light as butterfly wings and soft as silk. Her fair fell into her face and she flicked it back over her shoulder, and the ends swept across his bare chest. Desire sizzled through him, hot and immediate.

He felt as if something inside him, some hard, brittle thing, had loosened earlier when she slipped her arms around him to comfort him. He had never spoken of the war to anyone, even Stephen, had never expressed the heartache that had lain inside him all those years. He had chosen his path and had accepted the consequences, and he had thought that he would never reveal it to anyone. Then somehow, with Kyria, it had just slipped out, and when it had, something within him had softened. He felt more vulnerable, and curiously, the feeling did not really bother him.

He felt, too, as if his willpower had drained out of him with the rest of it. He knew that he should step away, should put Kyria aside before he did something he regretted. But his thoughts went no further; he did not move. It seemed all he could do to hold himself
still and not pull her to him and bury her mouth under his.

“Maybe…” His voice came out hoarse, and he had to clear his throat before he spoke again. “Maybe you ought to dab some of that brandy on it. I’ve found liquor works wonders for healing.”