The Mistress (5 page)

6

THE QUEEN

A
smiling woman stood before Nora. She wore an elegant black-and-purple dress, understated lipstick and a maleficent gleam in her dark eyes. Nora’s chair faced a large window. The sun had already set; the diaphanous curtains moved in the evening breeze like green smoke surrounding her. The woman, whoever she was, looked about forty-five years old and had long dark hair classically coiffed. And for some reason something about the set of her lips, the line of her jaw, reminded her of Kingsley.

“Who are you?” Nora said, her voice groggy with pain. She didn’t follow up with “Where am I?” because she didn’t want to know.

“You don’t know?”

“If I knew, why would I ask?”

Nora pulled on the handcuffs behind her back. She had small hands and could sometimes squeeze out of handcuffs if she had enough wiggle room. But they were clapped on tight, too tight, and no lock pick set or hairpins were to be found. Her heart thundered in newfound panic.

“I’ll give you a hint,” the woman said with a smile that held no friendliness at all. “You’ve slept with my husband.”

“That doesn’t winnow the field down as much as you think it would.”

The woman narrowed her eyes at Nora and something in that look seemed so familiar, she suddenly knew exactly who it was who faced her. Terror, real terror, gripped Nora’s heart with hooked talons.

“You’re supposed to be dead,” Nora whispered.

“You’re Catholic. Haven’t you ever heard of resurrection?”

“Marie-Laure.” Of course she was. She looked so much like Kingsley it was as if she was a house he haunted.

“Marie-Laure Constance Stearns.
Comment ça va?
”

Nora swallowed.

“I’ve been better,” she said in answer to Marie-Laure’s question. “Usually when I’m handcuffed it’s consensual.”

“Only usually?”

“I get arrested a lot.”

Marie-Laure came toward her and bent over. She stood so close and studied her with such scrutiny that Nora could smell her perfume—cypress—and see the crow’s feet mostly hidden by an impressive makeup job under her eyes.

“See something you like?” Nora asked as she leaned back in the chair trying to move her head as far from Marie-Laure’s as possible.

“Simply trying to see what he sees in you. My husband, I mean. I’m not finding it yet.”

“I give great head.”

The retort was answered with a slap, hard and fast, to her left cheek.

Nora winced and blinked her now-tear-filled eyes.

“You are seriously good at that,” she said. “Wow.” Søren had slapped her harder than that but only once ever, on the night she’d gone back to him.

“I thought my husband was a man of refined tastes.”

“In wine and books and music, he is. Terrible taste in women, though. Obviously.”

Nora braced herself for another slap. It didn’t come.

Marie-Laure took a few steps back until she stood at the window again. Something about that window, this room... Nora had a feeling she’d been in this house before, but when? She remembered it like she remembered a dream—all haze and feeling, no substance.

“I was only twenty-one years old when I got married. And he’d turned eighteen on our wedding night. We weren’t much more than children then, so I forgave him for not loving me.”

“How Christian of you.”

“You see...shortly after we married, I discovered the truth about him and my brother. They tried to keep it from me. But I knew. I saw them whispering together at times, saw the way my husband looked at my brother when he should have been looking at me. Kingsley boasted of his female conquests. As a girl I thought he was exaggerating. Then when I knew about him and my husband, I thought he’d been lying the whole time. Embarrassed, a cover-up.”

“Kingsley’s not gay. Neither is Søren. Not that there’s anything...well, you know.”

“I realize that now. Then I thought they were, that they were deeply in love with each other. I knew my marriage was ostensibly for money—that’s what he said, anyway—but I agreed to it because I knew he’d love me eventually. Why wouldn’t he?”

“I can think of a few reasons,” Nora said, determined to piss Marie-Laure off as much as possible. What a fucking lunatic. If she survived this, Nora would kill Søren for marrying Marie-Laure all those years ago. On paper it had seemed like the perfect solution. Marie-Laure and Kingsley had had no money. Søren had his trust fund just waiting for him to get married or turn twenty-one. If Søren and Marie-Laure married, no one could say a word about all the time Kingsley and Søren spent alone together. They could have lived in the same house. And Marie-Laure would have been rich and free to do whatever she wanted with whomever she wanted. But it was Søren she wanted, the one man whose love she would never have. And the plan that looked so perfect on paper, the marriage that meant everyone would win...for Kingsley, Søren and Marie-Laure, it had been the beginning of the end of everything. Maybe even Nora’s life.

“Everyone loved me at that school. I had every boy there falling all over himself for me. When I knew my husband had no interest in me, I even took one of them up on his offer. One of the students, a boy named Christian. Perfect,
non?
Oh, and one of the priests.”

“That’s shocking.”

“They’d never seen a girl as beautiful as I was. How is that shocking?”

“Other than Søren I’ve never met a priest who was interested in women.”

Marie-Laure gave her a smile so sweet Nora almost wished the woman would slap her again. Anything other than that smile.

“He must love beating you.”

“He’s a sadist. Of course he does.”

“Does that bother you? That he’s a sadist? That he needs to inflict pain to become aroused?”

“You’re going to interrogate me about my relationship with Søren?”

“You have other plans?”

Nora had her hands cuffed behind her back and it felt like the cuffs themselves were attached to the chair.

“Guess not. What do you know about Søren, anyway? You haven’t seen him in thirty years. How do you even know what he’s into? How did you even find me? What do you want?”

The questions finally poured out of Nora as she gave in to her fear.

“What do I want?” Marie-Laure repeated the final question. “That I will tell you. I want to have a long talk with my husband.”

“You could have called him. Phone at the rectory. He’s got a cell phone, too, although the church pays for it so he tries not to use it for personal calls. He’s anal like that.”

“No...I tried to talk to him before when we were together. I asked him over and over again what was wrong with him that he didn’t want to be with me.”

“Maybe he just wasn’t that into you,” Nora offered, but Marie-Laure ignored her.

“So if I had someone he loved here, someone he wanted to protect, then perhaps he might finally answer the questions I have. I can’t quite believe he does love you, though. Especially now that I’ve met you.”

Nora looked down at herself, her stained jeans, her bloody white tank top, her hair in lank, dirty waves. No doubt she looked as bad as she felt.

“This isn’t me at my best, I promise.”

“I’ve seen you at your best. I still wasn’t impressed.”

“Jesus, tell me how you really feel.”

“I cannot quite fathom that he cares as deeply for you as I would need him to, so I brought in a little...what’s that phrase? Backup?”

She called out a name then; it sounded like “Damon.”

A man entered the room. She knew it was a man from the sound of his footsteps even though Nora couldn’t see him.

He and Marie-Laure spoke to each other in French, which Nora caught most of. She heard “handcuffs” and “Bring in the girl.”

The girl? This couldn’t be good.

Whoever he was stood behind Nora and uncuffed her from the chair.

Nora brought her arms around and massaged her wrists. She almost felt more secure cuffed to the chair. If they uncuffed her it was probably because they weren’t afraid of her. She didn’t like being the woman in the room no one was afraid of.

Nora stayed in her chair and didn’t turn around when she heard the door open behind her again. But when the door opened a third time, she heard the pained cry of a young woman. She stood up and spun around.

“Laila?” Nora recognized the girl at once—Søren’s niece. The man let Laila go, and she rushed into Nora’s arms.

“Tante Elle,” Laila cried as they sunk to the floor together. Nora pulled her close and held tight to the girl’s trembling body.

“You psycho bitch, what the fuck are you doing?” she demanded, turning back to Marie-Laure.

Laila clung to Nora, who could only pull the girl closer and rock her in her arms. She seemed mostly unharmed. A cracked lip, a bloody bruise on her cheek. She must have fallen in some sort of struggle.

“Are you all right?” she whispered to Laila in the little Danish she remembered.

“Okay,” Laila whispered back. “I was at Onkel Søren’s house. They grabbed me and—”

“You two look very sweet,” Marie-Laure said. “And aren’t we a lovely trio? We have the wife, the mistress and the niece all here together. I thought about taking one of his sisters, but the little girl’s better. Men always do prefer the younger ones. Look at you...” Marie-Laure studied Laila’s face. “Such a beautiful thing. You look like him. Different eyes, though. Sweet blue eyes, not gray. All the boys must be in love with you.”

Laila shuddered in Nora’s arms.

“No one is in love with me,” she said, and Nora kissed the top of her head and whispered,
“Jeg elsker dig”
into Laila’s ear—
I love you
.

“Don’t worry. Love is overrated. But tell me something about love, Laila,” Marie-Laure said, coming close to where Nora and Laila sat huddled on the ground. She sensed the man hovering behind them so she made no move to escape. It was too dangerous, especially now with Laila there shivering in her arms almost paralyzed from fear.

“What?” Laila asked, her voice quaking. Nora ran her hand up and down Laila’s back, trying to instill some comfort into the girl.

“Does your uncle love this woman?” She inclined her head toward Nora. “This whore of his? Does he love her?”

Laila looked up at Nora, who only nodded her head, indicating Laila should tell the truth as best she could.

“Yes,” Laila said. “Of course he does. She’s...” Laila’s voice broke and tears started to stream down her face. Nora started crying then, too, in simple fear for Laila. “She’s everything to him. She’s like his wife.”

Marie-Laure’s eyes flinched but she only turned back to Nora.

“What about her?” Marie-Laure said to Nora. “Does he love his niece?”

“Of course he does, you lunatic. She’s like a daughter to him.”

“The pretend wife or the pretend daughter? So hard to choose... I need to keep one of you here. But one of you needs to go to him and deliver a message. But who does he love more? Whom should I keep? Whom should I send? Whoever stays, we’ll have a wonderful time together, me and my houseguest.”

The man, Damon, stepped forward and into Nora’s field of vision. Had she seen him on the street she would have thought him homeless as gaunt and bitter as he looked. Thin and short, but those traits only made him look more menacing. He had a deadly tilt to his mouth and a roughness about his edges despite his expensive gray suit. He had the same look in his eyes that Kingsley had—the look of a man who’d killed without caring and could still sleep at night.

“I know...” Marie-Laure continued. “I’ll let you two decide. Choose. Who stays? Who goes? Quick, quick. Tell me.”

A smile of pure malice swept across Marie-Laure’s face. Laila gasped and started to speak.

Nora clapped her hand over Laila’s mouth.

“I’ll stay,” Nora said immediately and without hesitation. “Send Laila with whatever stupid fucking message you have. I’ll be your houseguest as long as you want.”

Marie-Laure shrugged seemingly unimpressed and unsurprised by Nora’s answer.

“
C’est la vie
. I think you’ll be more fun to play with, anyway. Damon?”

The man stepped forward, grabbed Laila by the arm and hauled her to her feet. Marie-Laure met her eye to eye.

Nora started to stand up but Damon shot her a warning look. Nora sank back down the floor. Instead, she reached up and clasped Laila’s hand.

“Tell your uncle, my husband...” Marie-Laure dropped her voice to a whisper. “That I gave him my death as a gift. And now I’m taking my gift back.”

7

THE KING

E
ven knowing how futile it would be, Kingsley made phone calls to a few of his better sources—one in the upper echelons of the NYPD, another in the FBI. They both pledged to quietly investigate but they made him no other promises. He would have made more calls but couldn’t afford the risk. Only being a priest brought Søren the same measure of peace that owning Nora did. If it got out that not only was Søren still married somehow but also had a lover, the justice of the church would come down swift and merciless. Only last year Kingsley had read a story in the news about a Catholic priest who’d fallen in love with a woman and married her. The consequence? Excommunication. Strange justice. Priests who molested children were put into counseling. The priests who fell in love with adults were damned. And Søren wondered why Kingsley had never converted.

Not a week ago Kingsley had wished to see a world without Nora Sutherlin in it. Had that stray, bitter whim brought this upon them? He was no fool. A world without Nora Sutherlin was a world without Søren. If the priest lost his Little One, especially if her death happened because of something Søren had done, no matter how inadvertently, it would mean his destruction. Søren couldn’t live in a world without Nora. Kingsley couldn’t live in a world without Søren. Her death would be like the sinking of a great ship. She would take them all down with her.

Marie-Laure... Kingsley sat on the edge of his desk, his forehead in his hand.
Ma soeur,
what have you done? And what had they done, he and Søren, as boys? How much guilt did he bear for this crime? He knew Søren had told Marie-Laure their marriage would be one in name only. It would be for the money and nothing else. But Marie-Laure, vain and mad with love, refused to accept that.

Did he say he loved you?

Non...
but he should. He must. He’s my husband.

He told you why he married you. He did it for us, Marie-Laure, to help us.

I don’t want his money. I want him.

You can’t have him.

Why not?

And to that question—
pourquoi pas?
—Kingsley had no answer. No, he did have an answer but one he couldn’t tell her, wouldn’t tell her.
Because he’s mine, not yours,
he could have said.
Because he loves me, not you,
he wanted to say.
Because I’d rather see you dead than let him touch you the way he touches me.

That final treacherous thought was the one that haunted Kingsley for the past thirty years. He never uttered it, only in his mind, his heart, and yet he still carried the guilt of how much he’d meant the words at the time. Sitting on the edge of his desk, staring out onto the midnight city, he conjured that horrible memory of his sister’s body in the snow on the ground. His targets were all demons back in his days as a Jack-of-all-deadly-trades for the French government. The world slept better when Kingsley put a bullet in those chests. He aimed for the heart and left easily identifiable corpses. They might be demons but they came from somewhere and he knew someone would want a body to bury in an open casket. He could at least give them that. After all, the body he’d seen at his feet the day he thought Marie-Laure had died...nothing before or since, not even seeing his parents in urns, had turned his stomach like that. The rock had shattered her face. Nothing but gray matter oozed from the broken skull. The body, too, was broken, nothing but a bag of bones. Only her left hand had survived the fall. The wedding band on the ring finger had shone clean and bright and golden in the sunlight. Not dented, not scraped, not bloodied. That’s how he should have known the ring had been planted on the dead girl’s hand.

And the dead girl...who was she? Kingsley had barely glanced at the newspaper article Søren had uncovered. A young runaway from Quebec coming to America for a better life. What did she run from? An abusive father? A broken heart? Poverty? Or was she running to something, or someone? Whatever reason, she deserved better than to die like that, her body so torn up by the rock that had killed her they’d had to carry her away in two bags. It seemed too convenient to imagine the girl had been the victim of a simple accident, falling from the cliff to her death. He and Søren had had to abandon the hermitage where they’d had their assignations. Perhaps the girl had taken refuge there in the winter and Marie-Laure had met her on one of her long walks. Had his sister befriended the girl? Had they shared confidences? Did Marie-Laure tell the girl all about her marital troubles? The husband who wouldn’t touch her? Did Marie-Laure lure her to the edge of the cliff and push her to her death? Her shock at seeing him and Søren kissing seemed genuine at the time. Kingsley had wanted her to see them together, had timed his confrontation with Søren in the hopes Marie-Laure would discover them in some state of passion or undress. Then she would know the truth without either of them having to tell her. Then she could see how much Søren loved Kingsley, not her. Then she would understand the truth and move on.

Foolish boys they were. Children playing dangerous games after dark, as Søren had said. So foolishly wrapped up in lust for each other they never even noticed that Marie-Laure was playing her own dangerous game with them.

Now Nora could end up like that runaway on the snowy ground. And that left Kingsley with no choice but to do now what he merely fantasized about thirty years ago.

He would see his sister dead.

The phone rang and Kingsley answered it in an instant.

“Report.”

“I miss you,
monsieur,
” came a rich, honeyed voice on the other end of the line. “How is that for a report?”

Kingsley sighed as he felt tension releasing from his body like air from a popped balloon.

“Jules, you’re breaking the rules,” he teased. Hearing her voice, her laugh, was everything he needed and the last thing he wanted.

“You can punish me for it when I come home. I know you told me not to call until you said I could, but I had to hear your voice. It’s been a week.”

“A very long week, my Jewel. And it’s only getting longer.”

Kingsley ran a hand through his hair and wished it was Juliette’s hand on him. Søren had destroyed him during their night together. He needed Juliette’s touch to restore him again. But that would have to wait.

“Let me come home. Let me take care of you. It’s my place.”

“You have to take care of yourself now. It’s not safe here.” He wanted to say more, to tell her the truth of what had happened. The risk was too great, however. No woman in the world submitted more beautifully in the bedroom and acted so independently outside of it. If she knew how bad it had gotten, she’d be on the next flight back to the city, his orders be damned. “You can come home when it is safe. No sooner.”

“Is it going to be like this from now on?”

“Oui,”
he said without apology.

“Have you told
le prêtre?
”

“
Non
. He has too much on his mind now.”

“You try to protect us all,” Juliette said, and he heard the love in her voice—the love and the exasperation. “You must let someone take care of you. Let me take care of you.”

“I’m fine. I am. We all are.”

“Is he? Did Nora come back?”

Kingsley swallowed. He hated lying to his Juliette. She was as much his confessor as Søren was Nora’s.

“He’s been better. And
non,
she is not back yet. Juliette...” He paused to gather his words. With so many lies he had to give her some truth. “Søren and I, we were together.”

He heard that musical laugh of hers all the way from Haiti.

“No wonder you sound so tired.”

“It’s part of it,
oui
.” He laughed, too, but the laugh quickly died. “My Jewel, you know—”

“I know,” she said quickly and simply and without the slightest hint of judgment or fear in her voice. “I know you love him. I know he loves you, too.”

“He loves me? From your lips to God’s ears. He loves only her.”

“You forget we love more than one person. You do, she does, he does...I do.”

“You’ve fallen in love already?”

“
Bien sûr
. You’ll have to share me now.”

“As long as I have you at night.”

He pictured her now, his Juliette, standing on the balcony staring at the ocean, her statuesque beauty, her dark skin glowing in the fading evening sunlight. They’d met on a beach at the edge of the ocean, and he couldn’t see rising water without thinking of her. He’d never forget the first time he saw her. Some children on vacation had been pelting a native bird’s nest with stones. Juliette decided to give them a taste of their own medicine. A grown woman throwing rocks at the spoiled scions of white American tourists. He’d been doomed from the start.

“Every night, my love. All my nights are yours.”

Kingsley heard the front bell at the door and voices in the hall—Griffin and a woman’s voice. A woman’s voice he’d never heard before.

“I must go. No rest for the wicked,” he said.

“Mon roi,”
she whispered, and Kingsley’s heart clenched at the name she called him only in their most private moments. “Please, be safe. I need you.”

A thousand times she’d whispered that to him...breathed it across silk sheets as she crawled to him, moaned it into his ear as he entered her. But those words had a new meaning now that had nothing to do with passion anymore.

“I need you, too,” he said. “I need you to do as I tell you. Stay there. Stay safe. You’ll be home soon.”

“Promise?”

He paused before answering. He could promise her nothing now, should promise her nothing.

“I promise.” Sometimes a needful lie was less a sin than the truth.

He hung up the phone and forced thoughts of Juliette from his mind. No time for emotion or sentimentality. No time for love, not when he had a job to do. And while no one on earth admired or adored women more than Kingsley, a battlefield was no place for them and he could not deny that his world had turned into a war zone. He and Søren would find a way to get Nora back. And her fiancé, Wesley, who was young but certainly no coward. Any man who braved the bed of Nora Sutherlin and the wrath of
le prêtre
could be called many things, but not a coward.

Kingsley stood up straight and took a deep breath. He felt better now. Juliette was safe and far away from all this madness. The three of them—Wesley, Søren and he—would find a way to deal with this crisis on their own. They’d put no more women at risk. He should ban them all from the house for the time being. He would exile them, send them all away. They were too fragile, too at risk in such a dangerous time.

He started toward the door to his office but it opened before he got to it.

A beautiful redheaded woman, her pale skin painted with freckles, swept into the office ahead of Griffin.

“Ma’am, you can’t barge in—” Griffin said, and Kingsley raised his hand.

“Hello,” the woman said, facing Kingsley.

“May I help you?”

“Yes, you can tell me what the hell is going on. Where’s Nora?”

“I would tell you if I knew,
madame.
Perhaps you could tell me who the hell you are?”

“My name is Grace Easton, and I know that means nothing to you, but I’m friends with Nora. I tried to call her and got Wesley. He told me someone had taken her and...”

She continued speaking in her light and musical accent. While she spoke Kingsley walked over to one of his filing cabinets, opened it and thumbed through files. He pulled one out, walked back over to her and let her finish her speech.

“...and I’m not leaving until someone tells me what’s going on or at least lets me speak to Wesley. I know I seem like a madwoman showing up out of nowhere and you have no idea who I am but I promise—”

“Grace Easton, neé Rowan, age thirty,” Kingsley said, opening the file. “Irish mother. Welsh father. Fluent in Welsh, I see. I think that’s the one language
le prêtre
doesn’t speak. You’re much more beautiful now than you were back in school, and you were
très jolie
back in your school days. No wonder Professor Easton deflowered you on his desk. Although had it been me, it would have been the desk, the floor, the wall, back on the desk but from behind...”

He pulled a photograph of a twenty-two-year-old Grace Easton on her graduation day standing with her husband, Zachary Easton, and held it up to her.

She stared at it with wide turquoise eyes.

“My God...Nora wasn’t exaggerating.”

Kingsley put the photograph back into the file.

“Welcome to hell, Mrs. Easton. Now if you wouldn’t mind, get out.”