The Proviso (60 page)

She kept talking, telling her everything that she
had experienced and done, what had been forced upon her, even the
most shameful of things that no one should ever know about her, the
things no one did know. She told everything to her mother who had
no name, who was here to take care of her and for no other reason,
who would stay with her until she was stronger.

Her mother cried with her and for her and over her,
all through Eilis’s tale and when she was through, she said,

“Sebastian fixed me.”

The Virgin hiccuped. Sighed. Hiccuped again. Finally
her mother said, “Do you love this man, Sebastian?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Because he fixed you?”

“No. Because he brings me hope and joy. He brings me
peace and quiet. He makes me believe that pain and failure don’t
exist, that anything’s possible. He makes my past irrelevant to
me.”

“What do you do for him?”

“I don’t know. Nothing, I guess,” Eilis said and
began to cry again. “I’m too needy, too— I betrayed him. I can
never look at him again. I’m so ashamed. I bring him nothing but
anger and distrust, and he’s right to be angry and distrustful. I
should have abandoned my fantasy when I had the chance and now it’s
too late.”

“I think you should not underestimate this man’s
feelings for you, Eilis.”

“I could never tell him what I’ve told you today. He
would hate me.”

The Virgin took a long, shuddering breath. “You
don’t
know that,” she said with a surety that struck Eilis
as odd. “He fixed you; why would you think any of this would change
his feelings for you?”

“Because it’s horrible.”

“And mostly none of your doing.”

“I’m—” Eilis choked, “damaged.”

“
Everyone
is damaged. He may have secrets
he’s keeping from you. You don’t know.”

Eilis had nothing to say to that.

The Virgin sat quiet for a long time, except for the
sniffles and an occasional hiccup. Then she said, “Eilis, I want to
tell you a story. About when I deceived a man. When I hid from him
for eight months because of my shame. And I ached over him, the way
you ache now. I thought he would never, ever forgive me for the
wrong that I had done him. And I waited eight months because of my
shame. I went to him because my brothers said I should, and I
confessed to him. I thought he would yell at me and tell me what a
horrible person I was and look at me with contempt and walk away
from me, but he didn’t.”

“What did he do?” whispered Eilis, entranced.

“He married me.”

* * * * *

Eilis and the Virgin sat at the table doing a jigsaw
puzzle together, not a word between them, when that man, her
husband she’d called Ares, called at the gate and Eilis let him in.
She had never seen an uglier man in her life, the left side of his
face and his left hand all scarred and twisted; the Man Without a
Face. Pain radiated from those scars and Eilis felt it in her own
skin. She wondered if his entire left side had been burnt. What an
extraordinarily handsome man he must have been before . . .

But there was kindness in that face, a peace that
put her immediately at ease in spite of the name the Virgin had
called him. She could see no war in him. She saw nothing but
empathy and generosity of spirit.

Eilis left the room because he lifted the Virgin up
into his arms; she wrapped herself around him in greeting and they
kissed. Long. Passionately. But she watched around the corner of
the staircase landing with the kind of envy that is wistful and
bittersweet.

“I missed you,” the Virgin whispered to Ares, and
Eilis eavesdropped shamelessly because she had never known married
people who loved each other and were in love with each other. She
didn’t know what it looked like.

Until now.

“I missed you back,” he said, his voice raspier and
more hoarse than it had been earlier, though so full of fire and
desire she could hear it across the distance. Love, lust, a whole
host of things said in four little words:
I missed you
back.

“How is she?” he asked quietly, still holding her
wrapped around him.

“A wreck. And now I am, too. I love her and I don’t
even know her.”

“That’s the way it is with you. You love everyone
you protect.”

I love her.

You love everyone you protect.

Eilis went to her room and lay down to cry. After a
while, the Virgin came bringing her food and drink on a tray.

“Eilis? Do you want me to sit with you?”

“No,” she replied, sniffling. “I need to think.”

“All right.”

The Virgin stayed for a week, Ares coming every
night to sleep with her, though not speaking much to Eilis. It was
as if he thought if he spoke to her, she would break. Once, she
tiptoed out of her room to listen to them make love because she
needed to know that married people did that and it didn’t hurt and
it wasn’t a chore and it could be pleasurable.

But when she heard Ares’s harsh, cruel voice, it
startled her and distressed her, frightened her, even; it triggered
horrible feelings in her she never wanted to feel again.

Go get my tie.

Turn around and put your hands behind your back.

Get on your knees.

Suck my cock. Harder.

Stand up. Bend over the bed. Open your legs so I can
see your pussy. Wider. Wider.

I’m fucking you so you’ll stay fucked.

The Virgin burst out laughing. “You had to break out
the Henry Miller, didn’t you?”

Ares chuckled warmly. “Yeah. Haven’t finished the
Story of O
yet.”

“I’ve corrupted you.”

“Not completely. Come to bed, Wife.”

And though Eilis could clearly hear that the man was
smitten with his wife, and she with her husband, she
hated
their way and it gave her no peace.

She tiptoed back to her room.

I went to him because my brothers said I should, and
I confessed to him.

What did he do?

He married me.

* * * * *

52:
FULL DISCLOSURE

MAY 2007

Giselle finally graduated from law school—not with
honors, but she didn’t care about such things. It was more
important that, except for her last two semesters, she’d worked her
way through without using student loan money to live on. Now,
today, it was enough that she had become an attorney and could
practice once she passed the bar. Though she still occasionally
mourned her bookstore, she had a job waiting for her in two months
and a long-term goal.

Justice McKinley graduated
summa cum laude
with the name she’d made for herself in political circles. She’d
probably head out to Washington to play pundit on TV or
conservative talk radio. Giselle smiled to herself, knowing that
once Knox’s birthday passed in a year and a half, that girl would
open her door the next day and find him on her stoop. Then all
would be right in her world.

And his.

When Giselle pointed her out to Bryce, he thought
Knox had lost his mind. “Not that I have room to talk, mind.”

“Remember,” she said, “I told you Knox falls in love
with souls. He probably hasn’t noticed what she looks like at all
other than the red hair. Trust me, there’s a faery princess
underneath all that frizz and bad fashion.”

Giselle’s entire family, save Fen and Trudy,
appropriated a large section of the bleachers to see her graduate.
“Trudy won’t show up on Knox’s turf,” Giselle told Bryce. “UMKC is
the only place in town he can come and socialize and be treated
well.”

Knox stood on the stage with the other professors,
resplendent in full academic regalia. When Giselle crossed the
stage to get her diploma, he grabbed her to give her a bear hug and
a loud smack on the cheek. He laughed at her shock, and the rest of
the graduates hooted and whistled, the strange hostilities between
Professor Hilliard and Giselle Cox apparently over.

Bryce’s presence in the audience, along with
Sebastian’s, Morgan’s, and Étienne’s, was duly noted. Sebastian
kept people away from him with his trademark scowl, substantially
more threatening than usual. Morgan glad-handed anybody who walked
by and chatted
at
people with great enthusiasm. Étienne
argued vehemently with a professor who dabbled in “making stuff,”
and Giselle shook her head at the man’s foolishness. Bryce cast
baleful glances at her across the auditorium when he found himself
surrounded by professors and graduates clamoring for his attention.
She smiled at him and blew him a kiss.

“He had no idea he was so popular around here, did
he?” Knox said, appearing beside her to watch.

“I told him. He didn’t believe me.”

“Good job, Giselle. I’m proud of you.”

“No thanks to you,” she groused.

He let loose a wicked laugh. “I love poking at you,
especially in public.
Priceless!
”

She huffed, but when he abruptly stopped laughing,
she looked up at him. His mouth tight, he stared into the crowd and
she followed his line of sight. There,
summa cum laude
Justice, alone and unnoticed, walked out of the auditorium, her
head bowed. She felt Knox’s fist clench and unclench against her
and tension radiated from his body. She stopped him with a hand on
his forearm when he took a step to follow her out.

“Don’t,” she murmured. “Just eighteen more months.
You can do this.”

He took a deep breath and muttered, “I’m outta
here,” before stalking off in the other direction, ripping his cap
and hood off as he went, his gown billowing out behind him.

Giselle had to fight her way through the crowd
around Bryce, collecting angry stares along the way, but once she
reached him and he wrapped his arm around her to kiss her, deep and
hot, the anger turned to astonishment.

“Pass her over this way, Kenard.”

Sebastian picked her up and hugged her, handed her
off to her mother and Aunt Dianne, Morgan, then the rest of the
tribe.

It took awhile for her family to disperse and work
its way toward the exits, but once it had, Giselle found herself
semi-alone with Bryce save the last of the litigation groupies. He
took her hand and brought it to his lips for a kiss.

She blushed.

He laughed, but glanced up over her shoulder. His
smile faded.

Once again Giselle found herself following someone
else’s sight line until she saw Fen at the entrance of the
auditorium. He simply smiled at her and nodded his approval before
turning and walking right back out again. She sighed.

“What was that for?”

“Last year, when I went to his office, he told me he
always wanted to be my father. He’s proud of me.”

Bryce said nothing to that for a moment. Then, “Is
that
what your relationship with him is all about?”

“A good portion of it. Plus, you know how easily
entertained I am.”

That made Bryce laugh.

“I think Fen felt Sebastian was a rival for my
training and wanted to see if he could superimpose his will over
Sebastian’s.”

“Sebastian was a child; Fen wasn’t. It’s an easy
leap to make.”

“I s’pose.”

“You love him, don’t you?”

Her brow wrinkled. “Love? No. I don’t know what it
is, but I’ll miss him when he dies.”

“You mean when Knox ends up killing him.”

She hesitated, then sighed. “Yeah, I guess that is
what I meant.”

Sebastian had offered to host Giselle’s graduation
party and it was in full swing when they arrived, several of her
cousins having availed themselves of Sebastian’s liquor cabinet and
someone else had brought coffee. “And that’s why,” Giselle
explained wryly, “we almost
never
have any parties at
Sebastian’s house. It’s one thing for my aunts to know people go
astray; it’s another for them to see it happening in front of their
faces.”

“Where’s Knox?”

“Probably on his way to the Ozarks to spend the
weekend working out his Justice McKinley issues.”

“Ozarks? Oh, the inn he owns in Mansfield.”

“Half.” She nudged him with an elbow then. “Now say,
‘You were right, Giselle.’”

He glanced at her sharply. “About what?”

“O god of the UMKC School of Law with groupies
galore.”

He burst out laughing then. “That embarrassed the
hell out of me.”

“How many professorships were you offered?”

“Uh, three, I think.”

“And?”

“Oh, hell no.”

“How many resumes got slipped to you?”

“Seven or eight.”

“And?”

He snorted. “I only hire from Knox’s office or if he
sends someone directly to me.”

“Did you two dance that dance even when you weren’t
speaking to each other all those years?”

He hesitated a moment, then grinned sheepishly.
“Yeah, we did.”

The party ran late into the night and finally
Giselle couldn’t take it anymore. She found Bryce up on the rooftop
deck lazing back in an Adirondack chair, looking out over the
Plaza, shooting the breeze with half a dozen cousins. She dropped
in his lap. “Bryce, I want to go home. I’m exhausted.”

Once in the car, Giselle leaned her head back
against the seat and watched the scenery go by. Neither of them
spoke for most of the quick ride home. “Wife?”

“Mmmm?” She was nearly asleep, her eyes beginning to
close, basking in the warmth and love that surrounded her, not only
with Bryce, in that car, but in Sebastian and Knox, her mother and
her Aunt Dianne, the rest of her tribe who had shown up the day of
her wedding to congratulate her, who’d shown up to see her graduate
from law school, supportive as they ever were. Even Fen. A
hundred-plus people using any excuse to have a party because they
enjoyed
each other.

She figured she probably ought not take that for
granted, especially because Bryce so loved and needed her family.
The pack, the tribe—they accepted him, loved him, validated him and
fed his soul.