Knight and Stay (24 page)

He placed the tumblers down and lowered himself to the floor beside the sofa. The last time they'd been together at the lodge had been very different. He'd brought Sophie here then to seduce her, to teach her, and ultimately to free her. Or that had been
his
perception of it. He saw now that he'd got it wrong, in some parts at least. Seducing Sophie had been a mutual pleasure and she'd proved herself an excellent and very willing pupil, but when it came to freeing her he'd failed dismally. He'd freed her from one cheating man, only for her to fall in love with another who couldn't or wouldn't give her what she deserved.

And there lay the heart of the problem. He didn't want to let her go so that she could find the man who could and would give her all of those things. The idea of another man laying his hands on her made his heart stop and his fists itch. He wanted to keep her for himself. He'd tried to let her go, he really had, but he just didn't have it in him to send her away this time. He wanted her here. Needed her, even. It made him all kinds of selfish, but having her close by made things feel right, even when all else in the world seemed wrong.

He studied her face. Everything about the girl was lovely, from the pink tinge in her creamy cheeks to the full, kissable curve of her mouth. She looked innocent and sinful all at once, because he knew just how capable she was of using that mouth to drive him out of his mind with lust. His need for her wasn't going away. The more she gave him the more he wanted; he was well and truly addicted.

Warmth struck Sophie first, followed swiftly by the touch of Lucien's fingers, a slow upward drift from her knee to the top of her thigh. He leaned in as she opened her eyes, tasting her lips for a few moments, the briefest slide of his tongue against hers that set her body on instant high alert. She stroked her hand down the back of his hair, then eased her head away and scooched up a little. Cradling the cognac glass he passed her, she rested her hand on his shoulder.

"You okay?"

Her words were simple, deliberately so, to give him the option of opening up about his father if he wanted to, or not. He shrugged, sighing heavily as he swilled his brandy around in the glass. It was a while until he spoke again.

"I shouldn't have told you he was dead," he said eventually.

Sophie didn't answer, just continued her steady massage of his shoulder in the hope that it was in some way helpful.

"I haven't spoken to him since I was thirteen years old."

"Wow," she said softly. Her own parents were a constant in her life, a given that she'd never had cause to question or rebel against.

"I found her in the kitchen when I came home from school." Lucien didn't lift his eyes from his drink and the unbearable weight of desolation in his voice broke Sophie's heart. "When I was thirteen years old."

Every fibre in her body ached to reach out and hold him, but she sensed that he needed to get to the end of this story first. So she massaged his shoulder and held her silence, her head full of images of the blonde child from the photograph on Lucien's desk and the horror he'd carried around in his heart for all these years.

"She was cold, Sophie. So very, very cold." Lucien closed his eyes for a few seconds and shook his head slowly. "There were pills everywhere, I could feel them crunching under my boots... I was too late."

This time she couldn't hold back. She slid down next to him, her hand against the warmth of his bent neck.

"You were just a baby, Lucien," she said softly. A million questions raced through her mind. What had happened to drive his mother to such desperate measures? Sophie couldn't imagine ever deliberately leaving a child alone, motherless.

He exhaled grimly. "Not after that, I wasn't. I grew up that day. I still have the screwed up picture of my father that they had to prise from her fingers."

He sighed; a heavy, broken expulsion of air as he scrubbed the heel of his palm between his eyes.

"She was fragile. Gentle." Lucien finally lifted his harrowed, bleak eyes to meet Sophie's gaze. Her heart contracted painfully when he reached out and stroked her hair, his mouth a grim twist. "His affair broke her, Sophie." He paused, agonised. "
Love
broke her." The slow, tender stroke of his thumb across her bottom lip spoke volumes. "I don't want to break you," he whispered.

The catch in his voice brought an answering lump to Sophie's throat, and she reached out and clasped his face between her shaking hands.

"You won't break me." Tears scalded her cheeks as she closed the distance between them. "You won't break me," she said again, her lips trembling as she kissed him. He kissed her back. The most bittersweet, poignant of all kisses. The kiss of a grieving man. His arms moved around her, gentle and then fierce, his breath a strangled rasp of emotion in his throat. Sophie held him close, wishing she could take the pain for him. It was little wonder the idea of love scared him stupid, he'd carried his burden alone for so long. To him love was destructive and ugly; it had taken away the one person he needed more than anything else in the world at an age when he was far too young to understand.

They held each other for a long time, the crackle of the fire the only sound in the room. Sophie opened her eyes and watched the flames, stroking Lucien's back as she pieced him together in her mind now that she understood his demons. She might not be able to fix the past, but she was willing to spend a lifetime showing him what love could be: beautiful not ugly, uplifting not destructive, and more precious than diamonds.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

The universal smell of hospitals assailed Lucien as he made his way through the hushed corridors towards his father's room, a vague whiff of disinfectant to sanitise the less pleasant odours.

Talking things over late into the night with Sophie had given him the final push he'd needed to come here. She'd listened without judging him, offered to read the letter to him, even. After all, he'd come to Norway the instant he'd heard of his father's deterioration; there was little sense in making the pilgrimage if he wasn't willing to see it through to the end. If nothing else, it would give him closure. Completeness, Sophie had called it. He'd turned down her offer to accompany him, but that didn't mean he wasn't bolstered by the knowledge that she was waiting for him back at the lodge.

He ran his hand inside his coat, double-checking that the unopened letter was still there.
What would it say?
The prospect of reading it weighed like a stone around his neck, but the prospect of not reading it in time weighed heavier still. He'd spoken with the nurse caring for his father that morning and the gravity of her tone when she'd suggested that he come sooner rather than later had conveyed how very sick he was.

He slowed his step, his hands shoved into his jeans pockets as the numbers pinned to the closed doors indicated he was nearing the one his father lay behind.

So this was it. Eighteen years had passed since Lucien had turned his back on his father, and he'd never accepted any of the olive branches that had been held out in the intervening years.

Where his father was concerned, his feelings hadn't progressed beyond those of that scared, bereaved boy; barely a teenager, yet forced to make life changing decisions. His gut reaction back then had been to lay the blame at his father's door, and the benefit of maturity had done little to mellow his viewpoint.

He paused, cleared his throat, and then pushed the door of his father's room open resolutely.

The nurse attending to his father's drip looked up as he entered the room, startled by the sudden appearance of this outlandishly beautiful visitor to her patient.

Lucien nodded to her briefly, a distracted greeting before he lowered his eyes slowly to the man lying in the hospital bed. His eyes were closed. It was impossible on first glance to know if he was unconscious or merely sleeping. Lucien studied him, trying to reconcile the man in the bed with the man in his memory. Where there had been bulk and muscle, now there was only skin and bone. Where there had been vitality and laughter, there was only dullness and paper-thin skin; the grey death mask of a man barely clinging to life.

"Are you his son?"

Lucien looked up at the sound of the nurse's voice and nodded grimly.

"He's been waiting for you," she said, her soft Norwegian tones carefully non-judgmental. Lucien caught the implied criticism all the same, and swallowed down the instantly defensive answer that burned in his gut. He shrugged out of his coat instead and moved to sit on the vacant plastic chair next to his father's bed, then let his eyes linger on the barely recognisable man prostrate beside him.

He just seemed so
small
. Had illness reduced him, or was the illusion of time playing tricks? Was it simply that he was looking at his father through the eyes of a man now rather than a boy? Whichever it was, it came as an unnerving shock.

"I'll leave you alone. There's a buzzer just there." The nurse indicated a switch above the bed with a nod. "He's drifting in and out of consciousness now. Press it if you need me."

The door closed silently behind her, and Lucien brought his hands up to either side of his face and rubbed his jaw.
What was he supposed to do now? Would his father hear him if he spoke? Would he wake up?

There seemed little point in pleasantries. "Olaf gave me your letter."

If his father heard him, he gave no outward signal. His chest rose and fell harshly with the aid of the machine beside the bed, and his arms lay bone still atop the starched white sheets. Lucien considered the idea of touching his hand but found that his fingers wouldn't obey his brain, so he reached instead for the letter inside his jacket on the back of the chair.

"I haven't read it," he said, turning the envelope over in his fingers. His own name was the only word written across the front of it, his father's handwriting familiar from the many letters received and unanswered across the years.

Lucien had carried the letter around ever since Olaf had handed it over. He hadn't especially planned on opening it at his father's bedside, yet he found himself unpicking the edge anyway.
Where else would he do it?
He'd almost opened it several times, but suddenly, here in the presence of the man who'd written it seemed the only appropriate place. He lifted his eyes from the envelope as he eased the folded sheet from its confines, and for a moment he thought he saw the slightest flicker of movement behind his father's eyelids. He studied him closely for a few seconds, but his stillness was so absolute that Lucien felt certain he'd been wrong.

The sheet of paper tried to fold itself back into the position it had held for so many years. Lucien smoothed it out against his knee, and with a last uncertain glance up at his father, began to read aloud.

Dearest Lucien,

I have tried so many times to say sorry. Please know that I understand why you have never felt able to accept my apology, and know also that I do not blame you for that choice. I admire you. I know that you loved your mother very much, you have always been so much more her boy than mine. You have her wonderful courage, her conviction, and her ability to see what is really there.

I have no right to expect you to believe me when I tell you that I loved your mother very much, but it is the truth, nonetheless. What happened to her was entirely my fault. I am a weak man, son, and I have lived my life crippled by regrets. She lost her life, you lost your mother, and I lost you both because of one meaningless indiscretion.

I have watched you grow into a man that she would have been incredibly proud of. Did you know that we chose to name you Lucien because it means light? As a Norwegian man you will understand how precious light is. You were her light, and mine also.

You are not a weak man, Lucien. Do not live your life consumed by hatred. Be your mother's son and let the light in.

Courage always, my child.

Pappa

When Lucien glanced up again his father's eyes were open and full of watery tears, and, without hesitation this time, Lucien reached out and gripped the weakened hand on the sheets.

"Pappa."

A small, serene smile warmed the features of the man in the bed. As Lucien dropped to his knees and pressed his face against the back of his fathers hand, the machines around them flat-lined, beckoning the nurse as if she'd been waiting outside, expectant.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Sophie paced the floor of the lodge, unable to settle. Lucien had been gone for the majority of the day, and given the update from the hospital before he'd left that morning it was unlikely that he would return with anything but the worst news. They'd talked long into the night, and Sophie had woken this morning with a new understanding and respect for the man still sleeping beside her.

He'd lived two lives. One ordinary life, before his mother's suicide, the other spent fighting a constant battle to make peace with his demons. Anger at his father. Guilt that he hadn't returned home from school in time to save his mother. And grief, because he'd lost them both at the same time, in one way or another. The sudden change he'd endured from happy child to troubled orphan was unbearable to contemplate, making Sophie wish she could reach back across the years and hug him. She could only wait and hope that visiting his father after all of these years would bring him some kind of solace.

The only thing they hadn't discussed at all last night was their relationship. Things had changed between them since her arrival here in Norway. Lucien had reacted very differently from the way she'd anticipated. He hadn't put up a fight or thrown up barriers; there was only relief in him, and gratitude, and gladness. He'd kissed her as he'd left for the hospital that morning, slow and agonisingly tender before he'd crushed her against his chest.