The Proviso (21 page)

He ignored that and rocked back on a heel to rake
her with a glance and gesture at her clothes. “And—and this,” he
sneered. “You couldn’t have dressed properly? You disrespect me in
my own house?”

“Oh, do you mean the house that Uncle Oliver
built?”

His jaw clenched. “Oliver built a shack. I razed it
and plowed the fields and built a plantation.”

“Wasn’t the only field of his you plowed, was
it?”

He slapped her then and she retaliated immediately
with the back of her closed fist, striking him with double his
strength. It forced him to stumble backward, and he held his nose
as blood gushed from it. Though as big as Knox, he was weaker than
she and she had made sure to remind him of that fact, in case he’d
forgotten.

“Well,” she said, breathing heavily and watching him
warily in case he decided to finally show a little courage, but the
flow of blood from his nose kept him occupied. “Now that the
niceties are out of the way, I’ll state my business.”

“Make it snappy. I don’t have time for your
little-girl shenanigans.”

“That’s rich, coming from a guy who murdered his
brother to fuck his wife—and killed an innocent woman who never did
anything to him. And by the way, I’m still mad about that second
hit you put out on me.”

“Yes, and you’ve been sulking about it for the last
three years, so stop it. It annoys me when you sulk.” He stared at
her stonily, waiting, holding a handkerchief to his nose.

“I want to go about my merry business without having
to look over my shoulder. You leave me be. Today. Forever.”

Fen looked at her speculatively. “Kenard.”

She started. “How did you know that?”

“Please. After you pulled a Cinderella and he
rearranged Sebastian’s face? Half of Kansas City’s moneyed thinks
Bryce Kenard is fucking Sebastian Taight’s mistress, and isn’t that
deliciously scandalous. I actually wasn’t sure you wouldn’t go down
that road with him, since
you
don’t seem terribly invested
in a temple marriage anymore and
he
is completely
disillusioned with the church. So since you’re here, I’m going to
assume you’re not sleeping with him. Yet.”

“No and I don’t know if I’ll ever get to,
considering why I was at your party that night.”

He waved a hand. “Oh, I don’t think you have
anything to worry about,” he murmured, still dabbing at his nose.
“Deceit’s not your style.”

“Huh. He doesn’t know me, so that’s not the way he’s
going to see it.”

Suddenly, Fen laughed. “Believe me, he’ll forgive
you for it. Seduction’s not your style, either, though you did
display amazing potential. I knew the minute you led him around
that corner you weren’t playing any game at all, much less the one
Sebastian wanted you to play.”

Giselle huffed. “Look, Fen, I don’t want you wrapped
up in any relationship I might have with him. You and I are not a
package deal and I want your word.”

“If I honor your request and if he doesn’t work out
the way you hope, then you end up with Knox again— All bets are
off. I’ll go back to seeing if you can be killed. Color me
curious.”

She looked at him for a bit, more than willing to
let him think she’d marry Knox in a heartbeat when it came down to
the wire. She nodded. “I’d agree to those terms. But. What I told
you after you killed Leah still stands. Any more of Knox’s women
die, you die. And oh, in case you are elected—not likely—and the
ATF or whoever pulls a Waco on Knox and he dies ever so
conveniently? Being a senator won’t protect you from me.”

He pursed his lips and held his nose and stared at
her, not speaking for a long time. She waited for him to close the
deal, but he didn’t.

“Why,” he finally said, slowly, “couldn’t you have
been my daughter?”

Giselle’s breath caught in her throat and her eyes
widened. “What?”

Fen gestured to one of the wing-back chairs in front
of his desk. He sat in the other once she took the seat he
offered.

“Didn’t you ever wonder why I took such an interest
in your life?”

“I thought you just wanted to boss me around the way
you bossed Knox around.”

Fen grunted. “No. I wanted to be the father of a
girl who took life by the throat and throttled the hell out of
it.”

“I had a father.”

“Who died too young. I will admit, though, that
Sebastian did a very good job of raising you. If he ever has
children, it’ll be interesting to watch him raise them as an adult
and not as a child himself.”

“Sebastian was never a child. He was a man by the
time he was ten.”

He nodded. “That’s true.”

“You wanted to send me to a girl’s school and turn
me into a debutante. If you like me for who I am, if you like how
Sebastian trained me, why would you want to change me?”

He thought about that for a moment, staring off into
the distance. “Sebastian went on his mission when you were fifteen.
You’d learned all you could from him and I thought you could use a
little balance. I just assumed you’d hit your sweet spot on your
own, which you did. I didn’t know Knox was already teaching you
those things.”

Neither said anything for a moment, then Giselle
asked, “Fen, I’m curious. How long have you and Trudy been
lovers?”

“Since 1964. Oliver was gone to ’Nam. She was
lonely. I was available and all too willing to climb in bed with a
beautiful woman who wanted me there. Then I went in ’67 and that
was about the time Oliver came home.”

“So, Knox . . . ?”

“Not my son. Wasn’t possible because I was in
Vietnam then.”

She sat quiet a moment, trying to digest that.
Then,

“Why’d you have to kill Oliver? That was dirty
pool.”

He looked straight at her and said, very
deliberately, “Giselle, there comes a time in a man’s life when he
has to protect the people he loves. You of all people should know
how that feels. And if you ever repeat what I’m about to tell you,
I’ll put you in the ground myself.”

Giselle smirked. “I’m listening.”

“Oliver was a bastard. He had fists like hams and he
used them.”

Giselle gaped at him, her mind suddenly whirling.
She had never seen evidence that Knox’s father had been abusive and
Knox’s only complaint had been Oliver’s distance and unavailability
while he was busy building OKH.

“Did you
see
this for yourself?” she asked
carefully.

“No, Giselle,” he drawled as if she were slow. “A
man doesn’t beat his wife in front of witnesses if he can help it.
Trudy was terrified.”

Giselle’s confusion cleared immediately. Trudy. That
explained
everything
, but she didn’t dare cast aspersions on
her aunt. Trudy was Fen’s line in the sand and Giselle didn’t want
to give him a
personal
reason to kill her.

“I see,” she finally said. “I didn’t know.”

“I’m not sure anyone does; if they do, nobody’s
talking. Killing Oliver wasn’t about my affair with Trudy and it
wasn’t about OKH. It was about keeping Trudy safe and I didn’t feel
Knox needed to know what his father was doing to his mother. When
she kicked him out of the house, it was to protect him in case
Oliver got it into his head that Knox was my son. There were no DNA
tests at that time, remember.”

Oh, that was just too much.

“Fen, you know that’s bullshit. She’s always thought
of Knox as a nuisance. You didn’t want Oliver to come down on you
if he caught wind of your affair.”

He shrugged. “Okay, point taken. But,” he added,
spearing her with a glance, “if you’d kept your mouth shut, it
would’ve ended with just Oliver dead, no one the wiser, and no
proviso to fight over.”

Giselle ground her jaw, but didn’t say anything,
because that was absolutely true. She’d spent the last two decades
carrying the guilt of a fourteen-year-old girl’s mistake.

Walking in on Aunt Trudy making love with Uncle
Oliver’s brother, “Uncle” Fen.

Throwing up on the carpet.

Covering her ears while Aunt Trudy yelled at “Uncle”
Fen to get out.

Getting slapped halfway across the room by an
enraged Aunt Trudy, cowering in front of her, crying, “I’m sorry,
Aunt Trudy, I’m sorry” over and over again.

Telling Knox when he found her hiding, crying at the
back of the estate because she was too shocked he’d tracked her
down to think up a good lie.

Reluctantly stumbling along behind Knox as he
stormed into the mansion to confront his mother.

Walking off of the Hilliards’ Ward Parkway estate
with Knox, frightened by Aunt Trudy’s violence and ashamed that she
had caused Knox to be cast out of his home and lose everything he
owned and loved.

Riding the bus all the way home to the east side,
silent, clinging to him and he her.

Lying to her mother about how she’d gotten a bruise
over half her face, afraid her mother would say she got what she
deserved, only to get wept over and hugged and rocked like a little
baby when Knox made her tell the truth.

And then years later, finding out that Fen had
killed Uncle Oliver because she had opened her mouth . . .

“Ah,” Fen murmured, suddenly smug, “I see you’ve
been flagellating yourself for this entire fiasco. Good. Keep at
it.”

She sighed. “Why didn’t you tell the bishop all this
when you laid it out for him? Why didn’t you tell us this when we
confronted you? It’s not like we wouldn’t have understood, all
things considered.”

“By then it was irrelevant. I didn’t feel guilty for
killing Oliver. I felt guilty for taking his company and liking it
and resenting a fifteen-year-old kid for that damned proviso Oliver
slipped in when I wasn’t looking. Why do you think I paid for
Knox’s education? It wasn’t his fault and I daresay it’s as
burdensome to him as it is to me.”

“But you didn’t feel guilty enough to give it up,
and now you’ve sunk to the level of murder to keep it. There’s no
honor in that.”

“True.” He rose then, which cued her to do the same.
“It’s a deal, Giselle,” he said, offering his hand for her to shake
and she did, firmly. “As long as you and Knox don’t get back
together.”

“You understand this doesn’t nullify my
warning.”

“Yes. And you understand you keep your mouth shut
about Oliver. I think you’ve learned your lesson about speaking out
of school.”

Her mouth tightened. “Done.” She turned to go.

“Giselle?” She looked over her shoulder at him and
he had that hard gleam in his eye again. The wannabe father had
vanished. “Don’t ever come back here armed. And next time? Wear a
damned dress.”

She flashed him a wicked smile, winked, and walked
out, unwilling to let him see how his chastisement had shaken her.
Fen was right; she’d definitely learned her lesson about keeping
her mouth shut.

* * * * *

21:
MISFIT SO ALONE

Once Giselle told Bryce’s frigid assistant her name,
she warmed instantly, eager to tell her where he could be found.
Giselle found that encouraging and very . . . amusing.

Half of Kansas City’s moneyed thinks Bryce Kenard is
fucking Sebastian Taight’s mistress.

She chuckled.

Giselle patiently subjected herself to the search at
the courthouse, surrendered her weapon, and resentfully dug out her
permit when demanded. Frisked, wanded, and all but tossed on the
x-ray conveyor belt, she was finally allowed in the courthouse.

All the way through the building, up stairs, through
doors, she garnered stares. Some of these people knew her from law
school and gaped at her leathers, her intensity. Kevin Oakley saw
her, tried to catch her attention, but she ignored him. Though she
hadn’t spoken with him since the day he’d declined to charge her
with homicide, he could wait. Politics could wait.

She got to the right division before she slowed at
all. Her heart pounding and her mouth dry, she ducked into the
restroom to calm herself a bit before getting on with her business
here. Leaning back against the wall, she bent over and took some
deep breaths, not thinking about what she intended to do. If she
thought about it at all, she knew she’d change her mind and then
she’d regret it for the rest of her life.

She looked in a mirror once her breathing had slowed
and she felt more capable of acting like a civilized human being.
Her face was red, as she had expected, thus hid any marks Fen’s
hand might have made. She bent down to splash cold water on her
face and gargle some of it to ease the dryness of her mouth.

The restroom door opened suddenly and though Giselle
took no real notice, a flash of dull, frizzy, indeterminate red did
catch in her periphery and she looked up into the mirror.

“I’ll be damned,” she breathed when she caught
Justice McKinley staring at her, frightened determination written
all over her face.

Giselle locked glances with her in the mirror,
wondering if she knew or suspected what Giselle had done for her or
if she knew about her connection with Knox. She couldn’t think of
any other reason the girl would detain her, now of all times and
here of all places.

Couldn’t she have done this at school, when she had
unlimited access and time?

“Can I help you, Justice?” she asked gently.

Justice, looking very young and naïve, swallowed a
bit. “I— I want—” She pursed her lips and looked away, shaking her
head. “Never mind. It’s stupid.”

Giselle turned, leaned back against the sink, and
crossed her arms over her chest. “Say whatever you have to say to
me, Justice,” she demanded not-so-gently this time, impatient to
get on with her goal. She wouldn’t suffer being waylaid too long,
even by this girl, especially when she could talk to her any day of
the week.

Justice started and opened her mouth. “I want to be
like you,” she blurted finally.