The Mistress (10 page)

“I’m simply stating the facts, not trying to insult you.”

“Fine, then. Here are the facts. The vanilla mind has a little trouble grasping these facts, but you’re going to have to trust me that I know what I’m talking about. Søren loves me and he loves what I am. He takes pleasure in my pleasure. He no more begrudges me enjoying myself sexually with someone else than he’d begrudge me going out for a nice meal with a friend. Sex is sustenance to me. He’d rather I eat than starve.”

“You say that and yet you lived with your young fiancé for over a year without...feeding on him.”

“I’m capable of some self-control on rare occasion. Wesley wasn’t a virgin because he hadn’t gotten around to getting laid yet. He was a virgin because he wanted to wait for someone special. He has a different philosophy of sex than I do. I didn’t share it, but I respected it.”

Marie-Laure sighed and shook her head.

“Fascinating...” she said again.

“What is?”

“Your capacity for self-justification and rationalization.”

“If it were an Olympic sport, I’d medal.”

“No doubt. I have to say after that speech about my husband’s love for you that I can’t quite understand why you’re so drawn to a young man with whom you have so little in common. Not only drawn to him, but you agreed to marry him.”

“I saw a death threat carved into the barn wall that wasn’t there before we went on our ride together. I saw a shadow moving in the background. I would have agreed to marry Satan himself if it meant getting Wes and me out of that barn safely.”

“You don’t actually love him at all, do you?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Then what are you saying?”

“Not wanting to marry somebody doesn’t mean you don’t love them. Marriage and love are two very different things. Ask a married person. They’ll tell you that themselves.”

“So you do love him?”

“Yes. I love Wesley very much.”

“Tell me why.”

“I can’t.”

Marie-Laure glanced at Damon.

“Wait, whoa. I can,” she said before Damon put her in a chokehold again. “I can and I will. Sorry. My editor kicks my ass when I tell and not show in a story. I’m out of practice with the telling.”

“Show me, then. You did offer me a bedtime story earlier.”

“I write erotica, not bedtime stories.”

“Aren’t they the same thing?”

“Touché.”

Marie-Laure leaned forward in the bed. She put her chin on her hands and smiled angelically.

“Tell me a story.”

“You’re going to have to talk to my agent. She handles all book deals.”

“Damon?”

Damon stepped forward again, knife at the ready.

“In the very olden times there lived a semi-barbaric king...” Nora began, and Marie-Laure sat back in the bed as she fluffed her pillows.

“Not that story. I want a story about you. Tell me a story about this younger man of yours. You have the love of my husband and yet you walk away from it for a boy. There must be a reason.”

“Reasons aplenty.”

“I’d love to know them. Tell me. Be my Scheherazade.”

Nora’s stomach tightened. She remembered Scheherazade’s story, the bride of the sultan who told him a thousand and one stories simply to keep him from executing her. Nora took a deep breath. Damon watched her, his knife in hand. Andrei stood at the door, gun in hand. Marie-Laure watched her, madly grinning.

All she needed now was a story that explained why she loved Wesley. She had hundreds of them. Picking only one of them would be the hard part, but she’d have to pick one of them if she wanted to live to see her next birthday. And with that thought she knew exactly what story to tell.

“Once upon a time,” Nora began again, “I was fucking my friend Griffin when the phone rang...”

14

THE ROOK

G
race sat alone in one of Kingsley’s guest bedrooms and stared at her phone. She should call Zachary and tell him what had happened. She knew she should. And yet something kept her from dialing his number, something much more than a long-distance bill to Australia. It would take days for Zachary to get to the States if he knew what was going on. The flight alone could be an entire day, and it would take him at least that long before he could even get to the airport. All that time he’d be in a panic. She imagined him sitting in the airplane seat with no ability to contact her and find out what was happening. It sounded like misery to her, the purest hell. He loved Nora and it gave her no grief to acknowledge that. He turned to her for advice, for laughs, or simply when he wanted to get in a good fight with someone who wouldn’t back down. She never had to ask who he was on the phone with when she stumbled across him talking to her. No one else got under his skin like she did, got him so passionate, so annoyed.

Perhaps another wife would have been jealous of their friendship. But how could she be jealous when she reaped all the benefits? The minute he hung up, he’d grab Grace by the waist or the wrist and drag her off to the bedroom. Sometimes they didn’t even make it to the bedroom. Married almost twelve years and he still loved bending her over the kitchen table, shoving her skirt to her hips and burying himself inside her. And always after he’d come inside her, he’d pull her close, whisper that he loved her. She knew he did love her. He’d crossed an ocean for her and left Nora behind on the other side.

No, she couldn’t do this to him, bring him into this nightmare and force him to suffer through it in impotence. Ignorance was bliss, he’d reminded her. She’d tell him only if and when she had to. Until then...

After shoving her phone back down into her purse, Grace exhaled with some relief. To call Zachary or to not call Zachary had finally been decided. One less thing to worry about.

Now she only had everything else in the world to worry about. Foremost on her mind was Søren. The look Kingsley had given Søren after reading the note Laila had delivered had been a look she’d only seen once before. Twelve years ago, when the doctor had come into the hospital room to tell Grace and Zachary that there was no hope, their baby was gone, and they’d have to face the fact Grace might never get pregnant again—it had been
that
look.

Sympathy from the executioner.

The note contained a death sentence. She knew it in her soul.

She left the room in search of Søren or anyone else who would give her some company. She couldn’t stand to be in the presence of her own thoughts anymore. Wandering around the house, Grace saw Griffin again, the young man who’d first let her in the house. He paced by a large picture window, his ear glued to his phone. She stayed on the stairs and out of his line of sight. She couldn’t hear anything he said but whatever he’d heard must not have pleased him very much as he abruptly ended the call and threw his phone across the room. He buried his face in his hands and only looked up when a younger man with black hair pulled back in a low ponytail came up to him. The younger man, more a boy than a man, took Griffin’s wrists and gently pulled them away from his face. For a moment they only looked at each other. Grace couldn’t blame either of them. Griffin was undeniably attractive with his chiseled chin, his dark spiky hair, his tattooed biceps peeking out from the sleeves of his T-shirt. But the boy had an ethereal beauty to him the likes she’d rarely seen before. Only teenage boys could achieve that level of lithe loveliness, that almost angelic air. Griffin grabbed the young man by the back of the neck and pulled him into a kiss so powerful, so passionate, that Grace almost gasped aloud. They kissed like the world was about to end. Perhaps it was. Perhaps they should all find someone to kiss like that if only to remember they were still alive. Riveted by the display of near-apocalyptic lust at the end of the hall, Grace didn’t even hear the footsteps behind her.

“New love,” came Søren’s voice from behind her.

“No wonder Kingsley works from home. I’d need twenty-four-hour access to a bed, too, if I was surrounded by sights like that all the time.”

“Kingsley takes near-constant advantage of his twenty-four-hour access to beds.”

“I don’t blame him.” Grace turned away from the scene at the end of the hall. “I don’t blame any of you.”

“Not even me?”

Grace sat down on the top step and put her back to the stair railing.

“Not even you, Father Stearns.” She smiled as he sat down next to her on the step. “My grandfather was a minister in the Presbyterian church. He had a wife, children. Zachary’s brother Aaron is a rabbi and has a wife and children, too. I’ve never understood the Catholic church’s insistence on celibate priests.”

“Celibacy wasn’t always mandatory for the priesthood. New Testament church leaders were reported to have had wives. It wasn’t until the eleventh century that it was spelled out as obligatory in the First Council of the Lateran. The Second Council of the Lateran banned jousting.”

“Jousting?”

“Yes. They were apparently of equal theological weight.”

“You don’t joust, do you?”

“Only with Eleanor.”

“I remember my European history. I don’t think many of the popes even adhered to the vow of celibacy. Rather unfair to enforce it among the priests.”

“It hasn’t been enforced. Not consistently. Most African priests do get married and the bishops turn a blind eye. Eastern Rite priests are allowed to marry. Only the breaches that reach the public are punished.”

“So what’s the purpose of the vow? Psychological torture?”

“There are varying theories. When the church became rich, it had a vested interest in keeping itself rich. Married priests meant sons. Sons inherited money and land. The church wanted to keep that money and land in its own hands. Thus was born the vow of celibacy. Now, of course, most bishops knew the priests would still have lovers and mistresses. But if they weren’t allowed to marry, their children would all be illegitimate and couldn’t inherit.”

“That’s the reason?”

“One of several. I would say it’s the real reason, which is why it’s difficult for those of us who know church history to take the vow as something God intended. The church’s official position is that priests are to be celibate because Christ was celibate. It’s also why women can’t become priests.”

“Christ was also Jewish and circumcised. Do they require all priests to be of Jewish descent and circumcised, as well? If that were true, then my husband would make a better priest than you. And I promise, he wouldn’t. It’s ludicrous to draw the line so fine.”

“I won’t argue with you. The Jesuits have always been more liberal on these issues. A married Catholic woman on birth control is considered unchaste even if she’s faithful to her husband. We tend to overlook those types of glaring absurdities.”

“And overlook the occasional lover?”

Søren started to smile at her question before composing his face once more.

“I know a few Jesuits who also have lovers. Other men, mostly.”

“Do they know about you and Nora?”

“The only Jesuit who knows is the priest who hears my confessions.”

“And what does he say?”

Søren smiled and something in that smile made her toes curl up inside her trainers.

“He says to send her his way when I’m done with her.”

Grace only looked at him before bursting into laughter.

“I’m not joking, I promise.”

“I believe you.”

“He’s in his seventies, my confessor. I’ve warned him a night with Eleanor would mean the end of him. He said he was quite content to go out with a bang and meet Saint Peter with a smile on his face.”

“I like him already.”

“I asked him thirty years ago before I went to Rome if God would let someone like me be a priest.”

“You told him what you were?”

“I did. It might have been one of the more awkward conversations of my life. But he listened, asked a few questions, asked if my needs could be met without intercourse, which they can. I never intended to break the vows of chastity and celibacy.”

“So why did you?”

“Let’s simply say that a young Eleanor Schreiber drove a hard bargain. Fifteen years old and she was already trying to get me into bed. I should have taken her up on it, not made her wait for four years for me. All that time we could have been together...and now time is running out.”

His words, so simple, so sorrowful, hit her like a fist in her stomach.

“We can’t think like that.” Grace shook her head. “
You
can’t think like that. We know where she is, don’t we?”

“Yes, we do.” He pulled Laila’s necklace from his pocket and opened it. Grace leaned in close to look at the pictures inside.

“Your mother was beautiful.” No one could doubt the young mother in the pictures had given birth to the man sitting next to her. They had the same intelligent eyes, the same complexion, the same coloring, the same Nordic beauty. He’d even inherited his mother’s mouth...the lips sculpted and inviting.

“She was. Laila looks very much like her. My God, I can’t believe Marie-Laure stooped so low to make my niece a pawn in this.”

“How did she get here?”

“Marie-Laure got into Eleanor’s email somehow. Laila and Eleanor email each other all the time. Laila thought Eleanor was bringing her to the States to surprise me. Nasty surprise.”

“That poor girl. Is she all right?”

“She will be. I made her call her mother and tell her she was visiting me. Laila refuses to go back until we find Nora, and I don’t have the heart to make her. Laila...she’s worked at a veterinary clinic after school every day for four years. My sister, Freyja, is very well-off.” He smiled faintly and swallowed hard. Grace wanted to touch him for comfort but pulled her hand back at the last moment. “So Laila doesn’t have to work. She was out walking one day and found a dog on the side of the road. He’d been hit by a car. That fourteen-year-old girl picked him up and carried him into town to the vet’s office. That’s how she got the after-school job. Because when the vet asked her why she’d carried this stray mutt so far Laila said that not even a dog deserved to die alone.”

“My God, what a beautiful heart she has.” No doubt Laila was distraught at this very moment, worried her own aunt might die alone.

“She does. She takes after my mother in more than her appearance. My mother survived a great deal of trauma and tragedy and went on to have a happy life.”

“Is she still alive?” Grace asked before she let her mind wander any farther down any path that ended at Søren’s mouth.

“No. She died a few years ago.”

“You loved her very much. I can tell.” His eyes softened when he spoke of her. She rather liked seeing that.

“I did. She...” He paused and closed the locket. “It’s a long, ugly story. I won’t bore you with it.”

Grace nearly laughed at that.

“You couldn’t bore me if you read me the phone book. Talk to me. I’d rather hear your words than the thoughts in my head.”

He nodded sympathetically. He must have felt the same. Better to talk of anything except what was happening right now.

“My mother came to America on a music scholarship and took a job with my father and his wife as an au pair for my half sister Elizabeth.”

“And he fell in love with her?”

“No. He raped her.”

Grace covered her mouth with her hand.

“My father was a bitter man. A penniless English baron of all things.”

“Are you serious?”

“Quite. His father squandered the family fortune. He came to America and leveraged his title to marry wealth. He tried to recapture the glory he thought should have been his. He made everyone call him Lord Stearns.”

“I live in England where we still have a peerage, and I can’t even imagine growing up in such an environment.”

“He was an evil man, my father. Highly manipulative, charming. He commanded respect wherever he went. No one would cross him. No one would dare. They had no idea what kind of person he was.”

“But you knew.”

“I knew.” He tightened his fingers around the locket. “I knew my mother feared him. I learned to fear him, too. Most mothers tucking their children in tell them bedtime stories. My mother recited her full name and address back in Copenhagen to me every night. That was my bedtime story. Her name, her address, her father’s name, names of relatives.
Gisela Magnussen, datter af Søren Niels Magnussen, 23 Halfdansgade 2300 København S....”

Søren closed his eyes as he recited his mother’s bedtime story to him. Grace stopped breathing as his voice dropped to a whisper. She saw the girl, only eighteen, pale hair, gray eyes, sitting on the edge of a small boy’s bed. She watched the young, scared mother bring the covers to his chin as she whispered to him in a language no one else in the house spoke. Did she tell her young son why she made him learn names and addresses by rote? Or did she make a child’s game of it?

“Every night she told me the same story. Every night I had to repeat it all back to her. She knew it was only a matter of time before he shipped me off to school and tired of her.”

“She feared you two would be separated?”

“She thought he would kill her.”

Søren met Grace’s eyes a moment before looking away again.

“Instead, he simply let her go and moved on to a new victim.”

“My God, what your mother must have suffered....”

“It’s unbearable to think about. She loved us, my half sister Elizabeth and me. That’s why she stayed and didn’t leave, didn’t run away. Love kept her a prisoner in that house. Love for me.”

“Were you separated?”

“When I was five. He sent me to an English boarding school. My mother was summarily dismissed and returned to Denmark. She married and had my other half sister Freyja. I didn’t see her again or meet my half sister until I was eighteen.”

“What was it like when you saw her again?”

He paused and seemed to ponder the question.

“I can only answer your question by saying that I hope heaven is full of half the joy our hearts were that day. Even now that she’s gone, I still hear the echoes of that joy, still feel the aftershocks.”