The Mistress (6 page)

8

THE KNIGHT

W
esley stood in the bathroom of the guest room Kingsley had escorted him to and pressed a wet washcloth to the back of his head. He’d seen enough head injuries working at the hospital that he knew his was minor enough he didn’t have to worry about it. He needed a Band-Aid, though. Otherwise, he was going to be bleeding into his hair for a week.

What did it matter? Wesley dropped the bloody washcloth into the sink and went back into the bedroom. On any other day he might have admitted to finding the room beautiful, even opulent. Nora had told him about Kingsley’s house—the four-poster beds in every room. Better for bondage, she’d said, and Wes could see the marks on the footboard, remnants of metal handcuffs probably. Silver and pale blue, the room looked like something out of a Founding Father’s house, one he’d visited as a kid on vacation with his parents. Wes’s foot slammed against something under the bed. He knelt down and found a metal briefcase. Curious, he opened the latches and saw a dozen different types of sex toys, plus condoms and lubricant. Behind so much beauty lay so much sin. He slammed the case shut and shoved it under the bed with such force his head started to ring. Forget it. His pain didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except getting Nora back. He couldn’t believe he had to trust her life to Kingsley, the biggest asshole he’d ever met in his life, and to Søren, who was apparently still unconscious. These were the men Nora trusted more than anyone else on the planet? Her judgment was getting worse all the time. Agreeing to marry him might have been good evidence of that.

He sat on the bed and rubbed his aching temples. His hands shook a little. Was it from low blood sugar? Or from the fear, the bitter aching gaping fear the likes of which he’d never felt before? Both probably. He should be planning his wedding right now curled up in bed with Nora. Not here. Anywhere but here.

This was stupid. He didn’t need to be thinking about the future, anyway. Nothing mattered, nothing at all, except for getting Nora back as fast as they could. Every minute that passed put her deeper into danger. He wished he knew where she was. He’d take her place in a heartbeat.

Wesley jumped as Nora’s cell phone started to ring again. He grabbed at it, praying it was the kidnappers with information.

“Yes?”

“Wesley, this is Grace again. I’m in Kingsley’s house.”

“So am I.”

“Good. Could you help me? He’s trying to kick me out.”

Wesley hung up and raced from the bedroom. He didn’t find Kingsley in his office or anywhere on the second floor. Finally in the front room of the house he found a redheaded woman with freckles arguing vociferously with Kingsley.

“Hey, what’s going on?” Wesley inserted himself between the two of them.

“I’m attempting to rid myself of an intruder in my home,” Kingsley said. “I’ve shown her the door. She simply needs to walk through it.”

“I’m not leaving until someone tells me what’s going on with Nora. No, that’s not true. I’m not leaving until I
see
Nora.”

“I think she means it,” Wesley said, standing at Grace’s side.

“
Mon Dieu,
the entire vanilla world has taken over my house. Fine. Both of you stay. Have tea. Turn everyone in my house boring. If you need me I’ll be trying to find Nora if only to get rid of you two.”

Kingsley turned and stormed out of the front room.

“Charming, isn’t he?” Grace turned to Wesley. “Thank you.”

“So you’re Zach’s wife?”

“That would be me.”

“I’m Nora’s fiancé.”

The look of shock on Grace’s face prompted Wesley’s first laugh in over twenty-four hours.

“I know. Long story,” he said.

“Nora never ceases to shock me. I’m not even going to ask.”

“Good idea.”

“I will ask this—do you know anything about what’s going on?”

“Really,
really
long story.”

“I’d like to know it. This may come as a shock to you, but Nora’s about my only female friend in this world.”

Wesley walked over to the sofa and sat down, sinking deep into the black-and-white-striped cushions. He felt light-headed, tired, lost. He knew he needed to eat something, check his blood sugar, take care of himself. But he didn’t have the energy for it, didn’t have the will.

“Nora doesn’t have many female friends, either. She says she scares women.”

“I’m not scared of her. Maybe I should be but I’m not.” Grace sat next to him on the sofa and spun her wedding band on her finger. “When Zachary and I reunited after our separation, my closest friends were furious at me for taking him back. He’d run off to America, had an affair with another woman. I forgave him but they wouldn’t. The only person who seemed to be genuinely happy for us was—”

“Nora.”

Grace nodded. “She’s been a good friend to both of us. I’m sick to my stomach with worry. Zachary’s in Australia at a conference and now the one friend I had in the States I wanted to see is... God, Wesley, what on earth is happening here?”

“I probably shouldn’t tell you.” He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees and his forehead in his hands. He couldn’t remember ever feeling this sick or this tired or anywhere near this scared. “But I guess it doesn’t matter now. When Kingsley and Søren were teenagers, they had a relationship.”

“They were lovers?”

“Yeah. That. They were in school together. It was a—”

“Catholic school, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah, it was.”

“This is starting to sound familiar.”

Wesley told her what he knew of the story. Kingsley and Søren falling in love, the sister, Marie-Laure, coming to visit, Søren marrying her so that she and Kingsley wouldn’t have to live an ocean apart anymore. But the sister had fallen in love with Søren and when she discovered that
he
loved her brother...

“She faked her own death?” Grace asked, aghast.

“By killing a runaway who had the same color hair as her. The body had on her wedding ring. Nobody even guessed it was someone else. Kingsley thinks his sister crossed the border into Canada and lived in Quebec for a while. According to him she was the most beautiful girl in the world. Easy to find a rich man to take care of her.”

“But why all this? Why take Nora now after all these years?”

“No idea. He doesn’t know what set her off, either. Something must have.”

“Where’s Søren now? Can I speak to him?”

“He’s in Kingsley bedroom. Third floor. Door at the very end of the hall.”

Grace stood up.

“I don’t think you’ll get much out of him, though.”

“Why not?” Grace asked from the doorway.

“He’s unconscious.”

“What?”

“Kingsley gave him a shot of something. Apparently Søren was going to call the cops and the rest of the world. Kingsley said it would be the worst idea ever.”

“Unconscious or not, someone should check on him.”

“He’s all yours.”

Grace started to leave but hesitated in the doorway. She turned back around, came to him and dropped a quick kiss on his forehead.

“She’ll be all right. I have faith in her,” Grace said, squeezing his shoulder. It was the first kind thing anyone had done or said to him all day. He could have wept from simple gratitude alone.

“Thank you,” he said, and could barely hear himself speak. Grace said nothing, either, merely smiled at him before leaving the room.

Alone in the front room, Wesley prayed. He prayed helplessly, not even knowing what to pray for other than a miracle. That’s what they needed now. A miracle. A sign from God. Something to tell them everything would be all right, Nora would be safe, the world hadn’t spun out of God’s control even if it felt like it had.

Somewhere nearby Wesley heard the sound of a car door slamming. He ignored it.

If Nora were here she’d tell him to relax, to take deep breaths, to take care of himself.
Stop worrying about me so much,
Nora would say to him, had said to him a thousand times.
I’m a big girl. I can take care of myself.

But he was supposed to take care of her. Søren had entrusted Nora to him and he’d let her get taken by some lunatic with a thirty-year-old grudge. And now he felt forsaken. Losing Nora was his punishment for not taking better care of her while they were together. He’d thought she’d be so much safer with him than with Søren, and now she was gone. Stolen from him. He’d failed her, failed them all.

Please,
he prayed once more.
Give me a sign you’re still listening.

Wesley heard a sound then, a knock on the front door. He waited, not knowing if he should be answering the door in someone else’s house or not. But then it came again, louder this time. The door had a bell. Why was the person knocking instead?

He went to the door and opened it. A girl lay curled up on the landing, bleeding from a cut on her face.

She opened her eyes—bright blue eyes, intelligent and scared.

“Hello?” He knelt down and met her face-to-face.

“I have to deliver a message,” she said, her voice strangely accented.

“From who?” Maybe it had happened. Finally. A message from the kidnappers.

“From God.”

9

THE ROOK

G
race walked down the third-floor hallway, leaving the men of the house to their own devices. They were all terrified—Wesley, Griffin, who’d let her in the house, even Kingsley, although she could see he had much more practice at hiding his fears than the rest of them.

Nora...
Grace prayed her name as she neared the bedroom she’d been warned away from. She could put together no other words for a prayer. All the possibilities she could pray against were too terrible to imagine. Wesley said Kingsley’s sister had Nora. His sister...a woman. Better a woman than being taken by a man. A woman kidnapped...surely his sister had help, had men around her. Impossible to think any lone woman could get the better of Nora Sutherlin. Dear God, Nora. It turned Grace’s stomach to even consider what might be happening to Nora right now.

Outside the door to Kingsley’s bedroom, Grace paused and wondered for a moment what she was doing. She merely wanted to see him...this man, this priest, the one person her usually fearless husband ever admitted to being afraid of. Nora seemed the ultimate free spirit to Grace—she trod across the world in leather boots with black sails flying. And yet when she spoke of Søren she called him the man who owned her. Owning Nora sounded as dangerous as owning a nuclear bomb. Valuable and powerful it may be, but who would want that sort of thing under one’s own roof?

Grace turned the knob on the door and peered inside. A small lamp had been left on and pale gold light filled the room. On the floor at the end of the grand red bed sat a man with his blond head bowed as if in prayer. The door made the slightest squeak as it opened but the man on the floor didn’t move. Whatever Kingsley had drugged him with clearly hadn’t worn off yet.

Shutting the door behind her, Grace moved closer to get a better look at the man. Her heart contracted with sympathy. He’d be in agony when he came to. Sitting on the floor had to be uncomfortable, and far worse, when he woke up it would be to a world where Nora was still gone. Kneeling on the floor at his side Grace studied his face.

Good God, Nora hadn’t been exaggerating at all. Is he handsome? Calling this man handsome would be like saying Einstein was fairly decent at his sums. He was so handsome she wanted to demand an apology from him. He had blond hair long enough to run one’s fingers through but still short enough to give him a civilized air. Nora had called him dangerous but Grace couldn’t see the threat at all. He was tall, definitely. Even sitting on the floor with his hands cuffed behind his back, Grace could tell he must have stood well over six feet. But no, certainly not dangerous. In fact, he looked rather kind, especially around his eyes. Nora often extolled his virtues as a priest to her—how he treated everyone at the church with equal respect, how he listened without judging, how he treated the children like adults and forgave the adults like they were children, how he gave and gave and gave of himself to them and asked nothing in return, only that they remember all blessings come from God, even the ones in disguise.

No, he certainly wasn’t dangerous. Perhaps only to someone who tried to harm Nora. But it was madness to have him locked up in this bedroom like some sort of wild animal. Surely she could find the key somewhere. She’d unlock the handcuffs, let his arms relax into a more natural position.

Grace stood up and looked around. There it was, the key to the cuffs hanging on a blue ribbon off the back of the door. When he’d woken up he would have seen the key staring right at him. Cruel of Kingsley to do that if he, in fact, had done it on purpose. And something told her he’d most certainly done it on purpose.

Once more she knelt at his side and reached behind him. It would be awkward getting the key in the lock from this position. She’d practically have to wrap her arms around the man. But he slept on, oblivious to her presence. So Grace turned toward the bed and pressed close to his body. She couldn’t resist breathing in the scent of him. He smelled cool, clean, like a new fallen snow on a deep winter’s night. Nonsense. What was she thinking? The fear and panic were clearly getting to her. Who on earth smelled like winter?

She took a deep breath, shook off her poet’s musings and started to bring the key around his hip. She found the cuffs on his wrist and felt the slight depression of the keyhole.

“Almost there,” she whispered to herself. “We’ll get these off.”

At that he raised his head and Grace found herself staring at the hardest eyes in the most dangerous face she’d ever seen in her life.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

Gasping, she dropped the keys and scrambled back a few feet on the floor.

“Father Stearns,” she said, almost panting from the sudden scare. “I’m so sorry. I only wanted—”

“Welsh accent...you’re Mrs. Easton, yes?” Father Stearns raised his chin an inch higher and waited for her answer. She felt like an utter fool sitting on the floor trying to keep her skirt from riding up her legs while a Catholic priest studied every line of her face.

“Yes. I’m Zachary’s wife. I was on holiday and called Nora. Wesley answered...” The words poured out her in a wave of nervous energy. “He told me what happened, where he was going. I came straightaway.”

“Have we heard anything about Eleanor?”

Grace’s stomach sank. She would have given anything to be able to tell him any news.

“Nothing anyone’s told me.”

Father Stearns nodded and leaned his head back against the bed with his eyes closed.

“I’m so sorry,” Grace whispered. “Nora, we care about her, Zachary and I.”

“That’s very kind of you to say, Mrs. Easton.”

She smiled. “Please call me Grace. Nora’s told me a great deal about you.”

“No wonder you’re so nervous.”

Grace laughed nervously, proving his point.

“She’s only told me good things, I promise.”

He opened his eyes again and stared at her for a long silent moment, searching her face for something. For what, she couldn’t imagine. But she didn’t quite mind his gaze on her. It felt intimate without being inappropriate.

“I refuse to believe that,” he finally said. “I know Eleanor too well.”

“Well, perhaps it all wasn’t good per se. But nothing bad. Fascinating definitely. She did seem to imply you were the one usually putting the handcuffs on, not ending up in them. I could take those off if you’d like.”

“I would like. But as I said, I don’t recommend it.”

“Why not?” She moved a little closer to him, feeling a bit more comfortable now that they’d started talking.

“I’m a pacifist. I don’t believe nonconsensual violence is ever justified. I am trying to remember that I’m a pacifist so I don’t murder Kingsley where he stands.”

Grace laughed again, less nervously this time.

“I don’t think murder will help the situation.”

“It might not hurt it.”

The words should have been a joke but Grace heard no mirth in his tone.

“I’ll go now if you like.” Grace started to stand. “I didn’t mean to be so nosy, but I saw you on the floor and—”

“No. Don’t go. Please.”

He sounded so humble that Grace couldn’t help but sink to her knees again.

“Of course.”

“Stay and talk to me. Distract me from all the thoughts in my head.”

She heard a note of desperation in his voice.

“I’ll stay. I’ll stay as long as you want me to.” Grace moved a little closer to him on the floor. “Do you want to talk about the thoughts in your head?” she asked, as if she were talking to one of the children in her class. “If they’re half as awful as mine, it might help to get them out.”

He said nothing at first, only opened his eyes and stared at something only he could see.

“We’re all terrified,” Grace whispered. “I’ve never been so scared in my life. This doesn’t happen to people you know. This happens in movies, or in foreign countries and the stories get turned into movies, and it’s all madness. I almost died when I was nineteen having a miscarriage, and I’m telling you now, I’ve never been this frightened.”

“I was eleven years old when I looked death in the face the first time. In my early twenties I spent a few months in a leper colony. I have dug my fingers into a teenage boy’s sliced-open wrists to try to stop him from bleeding to death on the floor of my church. I thought I knew terror before today. I was wrong.”

“I keep telling myself to stay strong, that Nora would be strong for me so I have to be strong for her. Falling apart won’t help her. We can’t despair.” Brave words but all Grace wanted to do was dissolve into tears.

“Don’t despair? That’s usually my line.”

“I imagine even a priest needs words of comfort sometimes.”

“All the time, Grace.”

He fell silent after that and she feared the thoughts in his head as much as she imagined he did.

“I don’t want to know what’s going on in your mind, do I?”

“Terrible thoughts. Vengeance. Brutality. What I want to do to anyone who hurts my Little One.”

“You call her Little One?”

“I always have. She was a teenager when we met. A very ill-mannered teenager. She demanded to know why I was so tall. She insinuated I had grown this tall simply for attention.”

“Only Nora could be rude and flirtatious at the same time.”

“I explained to her that I was tall so I could hear God’s voice better. And since I was taller and could hear Him better, she should always listen to me. That didn’t sit very well with her. She retorted the next day with a verse from Psalm 114. ‘The Lord keeps the little ones.’ Her biblical proof that God prefers short people. I started calling her Little One after that. It helped us both remember she belonged to God first.”

“And you second?”

“A close second,” he said, giving her a quick but devilish grin.

“These are good thoughts. Keep telling me good thoughts. Maybe we can get you over your murderous inclinations and out of the handcuffs.”

“I have no good thoughts right now.”

He fell silent and closed his eyes. Grace knew that whatever was going on in his mind right now was nothing she wanted to know.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he said, his eyes still closed. “It’s not safe here. You should be with your husband.”

“Zachary’s at a conference in Australia. And I’m not going anywhere, not until Nora’s back. I don’t care if my husband divorces me, Kingsley has me arrested and I get fired for missing school, I’m staying.”

“Missing school?”

“I’m a teacher. School starts next week. But it will start with or without me.”

“What do you teach?”

“Year 11 English Lit. Teaching Shakespeare to seventeen-year-olds is not unlike herding cats.”

He smiled then and opened his eyes.

“I used to be a teacher,” he said. “I taught Spanish and French to ten- and eleven-year-old boys.”

“Sounds like hell.”

“It was. I rather liked it, though.”

“It is rewarding in its own way. If you get through to one student a year, see that spark of understanding, see that little hint of the adult they’ll become and you know you’ve somehow helped him or her along that path...it’s worth all the work, all the sacrifice.”

“It was like that with Eleanor when she was a girl. The moment I saw her at age fifteen, I saw exactly who she would become.”

“No wonder it was love at first sight.”

“Love, lust, fear, wonder and joy—such joy. I considered it my mission in life to make sure she survived her teenage years to become the woman I saw in her.”

“Survived? I recall being a teenager as rather difficult, but certainly not life-threatening.”

“Eleanor’s were not the typical teenage years.”

“I don’t believe Nora has had a typical anything her entire life.”

“That would be an accurate statement.”

“If it helps any, I think you did a good job with her. She’s a rather impressive person.”

“I tried not to fail her. Everyone else in her life had—her father was a criminal, her mother considered Eleanor a mistake. It gave me great pleasure to take her from them. More pleasure than I should admit to.”

“You smiled. Would you like me to take the handcuffs off now?”

“I would like that, but I’m still picturing Kingsley in the morgue. And of course, I’m only focusing my anger at him because he’s here. I know I’m not actually angry at him. I keep trying to tell myself that.”

“He was trying to save you from yourself. You are a priest, after all. Can’t be telling the police and the FBI and the whole wide world that someone has your lover.”

“I couldn’t begin to care less what the whole world thinks of my relationship with Eleanor. All that matters is getting her back.”

“Of course,” she said, smoothing her skirt over her knee. “But will the police help? I’m asking a genuine question. If you think they could help, I’ll call them myself and Kingsley be damned.”

Father Stearns turned his eyes from her and exhaled.

“No, they won’t help. They can’t. It’s been thirty years, but I haven’t forgotten what Marie-Laure was like. Obsessive nature. Clearly she wants revenge. On me. On Kingsley. Eleanor will be that instrument of revenge. She’s not trying to steal a jewel and abscond in the night. She wants to hurt us. She’s died before. I don’t think she’s afraid to die again. My fear is that she plans to take Eleanor with her. Police involvement will only put Eleanor’s life at greater risk.”

“Marie-Laure...Kingsley’s sister was your wife?”

“Was...
is
my wife apparently. Kingsley missed her terribly back when we were in school. After their parents died, he and Marie-Laure had little but each other and even then they were separated by an ocean—she in Paris, he in America. I thought it would make him happy to see her again.”

“She came to your school?”

“I arranged to bring her over. It had been over a year since they’d seen each other—brother and sister. And yet less than a week after being reunited, Marie-Laure simply announced that she was in love with me.”

“That must have been something of a shock. For you and Kingsley.”

“It was an unpleasant shock. My heart was very much elsewhere, but I didn’t want to hurt the girl. Kingsley seemed so happy to have her back with him. I remember that day like yesterday. I’d gone for a walk alone. Marie-Laure followed me, asked if she could join me. We’d barely gone a mile when she stopped and confessed she’d fallen in love with me. I tried to stay calm, rational. I said to her that I was sorry, but I didn’t feel the same. But she shouldn’t take it personally. I told her I wasn’t capable of loving her like someone else could. She said she didn’t care.”