The Prince (9 page)

Kingsley opened the bedroom door again and studied the carnage. Nothing at all remained of the bed. He couldn’t even grasp how the perpetrator had managed to burn only the bed and leave nothing else damaged. Such a conflagration should have burned the house down. Ashes on the floor. Ashes on the wall. Nothing else out of place.

Love thy sister.

It sounded almost biblical. Love thy neighbor. Love the Lord thy God. What did it mean? Was it an order? Or a signature?

Love, Thy Sister.

The rest of the room remained untouched. As a child Søren had sat at that small ornate desk and practiced his English. As a quiet form of revenge, his mother had taught him Danish but not English. When his absentee father discovered his five-year-old bastard son didn’t understand a word of English, Søren’s mother had been sent back to Denmark. And every language but English had been banished from the house. Kingsley sometimes wondered if that act had been the root of Søren’s obsession with learning languages.

Next to the desk sat a bookshelf. On it were many classics of children’s literature in beautiful leather-bound editions, very likely worth a small fortune in their mint condition. Mint condition because young Marcus Stearns had never touched the books, never cracked the covers. He’d read the Bible as a child. Shakespeare, Milton. No George MacDonald or C. S. Lewis. Only Lewis Carroll’s books had gotten Søren’s attention at all. Considering Carroll’s obsession with young Alice Liddell, and a young Eleanor Schreiber’s obsession with the books, it seemed rather fitting.

Next to the bookshelf was the window that looked out on the rolling manicured lawns. A small wooded area bordered the back of the house. Søren had confided to Kingsley years ago that he and Elizabeth would often take their activities into the woods, far from the prying eyes of the household staff. There they were, just two children playing in the forest. So innocent. So bucolic and pastoral. If only the maids had known what passed between them behind the veil of those trees.

“The trees…” Kingsley said, gazing out the window onto the lawn.

“What of them?” Søren asked, still steadfastly refusing to cross the threshold and enter his old room.

“Whoever got into your room came from the trees.” Kingsley stood at the window and pointed. “He couldn’t have come through the doors. Elizabeth keeps them locked and alarmed. Had to come in the window. To avoid the cameras, he must have come through the woods. No other logical possibility.” Kingsley looked back at Søren. “Shall we?”

Søren didn’t answer. He stepped from the threshold back into the hall. Kingsley followed him down the stairs and out the rear door. They strode across the lawn in silence.

“I can go look alone if you prefer,” Kingsley offered. “I know this isn’t your favorite place.”

“It’s in the past, Kingsley. All in the past. If Elizabeth can stomach living here, I can certainly survive a day on the premises.”

“When did you come here last?”

“My father’s funeral…years ago.”

“Did you go into your room then?”

“Yes. My father was dead. It seemed a fitting celebration.”

They stopped speaking when they entered the copse of trees adjacent to Søren’s old bedroom window. The forest ground did seem recently disturbed, but with Elizabeth’s two sons living in the house, there was no telling if it had been done by them or the perpetrator.

The two men wandered a few minutes through the woods until they came to a clearing. Kingsley saw footprints in the dirt, small ones. Most likely Andrew’s—Elizabeth’s eleven-year-old son. They could belong only to a boy or a very petite woman.

Kingsley gazed up at the trees and breathed in the scents of the forest.

“Pine…” he murmured. With a deep inhalation, he took in another lungful of the clean, sweet air. Closing his eyes, he became sixteen years old again. He’d been scared that day in the forest, more scared even than today. And out of fear he’d run deep into the woods. He’d run then not to get away, but only to build the anticipation, to delay the inevitable. And to save a little face. He’d wanted it to happen, but there was no reason for Søren to know quite how much. But then…he’d been caught. He could still feel that iron grip on his neck, those fingers against his throat. The hard forest floor biting into his back and the mouth at his ear.

“Kingsley, really.”

Laughing, Kingsley looked at Søren. “I can’t help myself. The memories are too potent.”

“Try,” Søren said, although Kingsley could see the hint of a smile on his lips.

“Do you never think of it?” Kingsley asked, leaving large bootprints in the marshy soil as he strode toward him. “That night in the woods at school? That day changed us both, changed everything.”

“No good will come of us discussing this, as you know. The past must stay in the past.”

Kingsley shook his head. “
Non.
The past will stay in the past unless it doesn’t want to. Something in your past doesn’t want to stay there.”

“What do you mean?”

“It was Eleanor’s file that was stolen, out of the thousands of files I have. It was a photograph of you and me that I received in the mail. And it was Elizabeth’s house that was broken into and defiled. Eleanor, Elizabeth and me...what do we all have in common?”

Søren glanced down at the prints on the ground. Right next to Kingsley’s large bootprint was a much smaller bare footprint, lined up side by side.

From there Søren looked up to the heavens and closed his eyes. Kingsley said nothing and let him pray.

Slowly, Søren exhaled and opened his eyes.

“Me.”

SOUTH

For the second time that night, Nora’s jaw hit the ground and stayed there.

“Wes.”

“Nora?”

“Seriously?”

“What?”

“You said you stayed in the guesthouse.”

“This is the guesthouse.”

“It’s bigger than my house in Connecticut.”

“We have a lot of guests.”

Nora dropped her bag in the foyer and gazed around. The guesthouse looked nothing like the main house, but was no less grand in its own smaller way. The rough stone exterior masked an exquisite interior replete with plush tan and black furniture, well-matched and comfortable. Nora counted two stories, although she sensed a basement lurking underneath them. One entire wall in the living room consisted of a massive stone fireplace that climbed all the way to the ceiling.

“Wesley, this is a little ridiculous. What is this place?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“Tell me anyway.”

“These are the old slave quarters. Refurbished, obviously.”

Nora’s eyes went wide. “Are you serious?”

He nodded. “Kentucky was a slave-holding state. We didn’t secede during the Civil War so the Emancipation Proclamation actually didn’t apply to us.”

“You’re telling me that you live in actual slave quarters? Actual slaves lived in this house?”

Wesley grimaced. “Well…if you can calling it living.”

Nora gazed around and nodded in approval. “Kinky.”

“Come on. I’ll show you your room.”

“Is it a slave room?”

“Probably.”

“Are you going to beat me and make me change my name to Toby?”

“How racist are you, Nora?”

“My lone female friend is Haitian, Wes. We like to watch
Roots
together and chug our vodka every time someone says Toby.”

“That’s it. Motel 6 time.”

Laughing, Nora threw her arms around Wesley again and pulled him into a hug. She couldn’t seem to stop doing that. The reality of him still shocked her. Fifteen months apart and suddenly…here he was right in front of her. In her arms. All six feet of his beautiful, twenty-year-old body. Nora sighed against his shoulder and basked in the warmth of him, the scent of him.

“Summer…” she whispered as she inhaled deeply. “You always smell like summer. Did I ever tell you that?”

Wesley chuckled and Nora smiled when his chest vibrated with the sound.

“You have. You told me that the first night I stayed at your house. You were out on the back porch sniffing the air. You said it smelled like…”

Nora looked up at him. “Søren.”

Wesley nodded. “Yeah. That guy.”

“You met him. Finally. What did you think?” Nora pulled away and sat on the back of the couch.

“I think he’s too tall.”

She crossed her legs at the ankles and smiled. “You can tell me the truth. There is no horrible thing you can say about him that I haven’t already heard or already thought and probably already said to his face.”

“Fine, then. I think he’s an asshole. He’s arrogant and cold, and he really truly believes you are his property. You get that, right? I know you kinky types like to play the property game. ‘He’s my slave.’ ‘She’s my pet.’ It isn’t that. He thinks he owns you. A hundred and fifty years ago, you’d be staying in this house when it was real slave quarters, and he would rape you and whip you whenever he felt like it.”

“Probably.” She didn’t argue, couldn’t argue. “Good thing it’s the twentieth century, right?”

“Twenty-first.”

“He’s not a bad person. He isn’t. He is, in fact, the best man on earth, not that anyone ever believes me when I tell them that.”

Wesley exhaled slowly. Nora cocked her head and smiled at him. She wasn’t sure if he saw the smile and she didn’t care. She just couldn’t look at him without smiling. That face of his, so sweet and handsome. Those sweet eyes. That goddamn too-long hair she was going to cut the second he let his guard down.

“I’ll say one nice thing about him,” Wesley finally said. “He did let you come with me.”

Nora swallowed. “There was no letting me. Wes, just the thought you were within a hundred yards of me…no army in this world or the next could have stopped me from getting to you.”

She met his eyes and saw the surprise in them. The surprise quickly changed to something else.

Wesley took a step forward. Then another. Nora didn’t make him take the third step. She stood and reached out for him and was in his arms once again. But this time no one stopped them when his lips crashed down onto hers. He tasted like summer and his touch burned her body like the sun.

His tongue sought hers with such tentativeness she nearly giggled. Poor kid. He had no idea how much he could give her, how much she would take from him. Digging her hands into his too-long hair, she pulled them even closer together, sighed into his mouth and rejoiced silently when Wesley took the hint. His hands slid down her back and cupped her bottom gently. The intimacy of his touch resonated deep within her. Some part of her had missed this…whatever it was, this tenuousness in him, this respect she felt in his hands, on his lips. He was careful with her. That was it. He touched her as if he worried he’d break her.

She’d never been with a man who hadn’t wanted to break or be broken by her.

This would take some getting used to.

“You’re so beautiful,” Wesley whispered in her ear. “I haven’t stopped thinking about you since the second we broke up.”

He wove his hands into her hair and held her to his chest.

Okay, she was already used to this.

“I missed you, too. I know you might not believe that, but I missed you every damn day. I…” Nora held on to Wesley as if her life depended on it, and in that moment she thought it might. “I love Søren. I won’t lie to you. You don’t get what we have, and that’s fine. Very few people do. But when I was with you...Wesley, I liked who I was when I was with you. You make me a different person, a better person. And then you were gone and that Nora was gone, too. I missed you, yes. So fucking much. But I missed who I was with you just as much.”

Wesley kissed the top of her head. Taking her by the shoulders, he stared down at her.

“There’s only one Nora Sutherlin—the smart, funny, sweet, silly running-around-in-penguin-pajamas Nora Sutherlin who cares about writing and me and getting in two naps a day. The Nora you were with me was the real Nora, is the real Nora. Not the sadist Nora. Not the infamous Nora. Just…my Nora. If I don’t do anything else this week, I will convince you of that.”

“Good luck.” She smiled at him through tears. “That’s going to take a lot of convincing.”

“Then I better start right now.”

“It’s kind of late. Bedtime, kiddo.”

Wesley cupped the side of her face and brushed a tear off her cheek with his thumb.

“You’re right. It is late.” His hand moved from her face to her neck and down to her waist. His fingers hesitated only a moment before digging into the fabric of her T-shirt and starting to pull it up. “Let’s go to bed.”

Nora inhaled in shock and almost coughed. “Really?”

Wesley nodded and grinned.

“Really. Seriously. And I need you to believe that, ’cause I’m not going to be able to get this off of you without a little cooperation on your part.”

“Oh, yeah. Sorry.” Nora lifted her arms and let Wesley pull her shirt off. She stood in front of him in the living room in her jeans and a black bra. She felt grimy from driving, exhausted, sore…and so turned on she could scarcely see straight. Reaching up, she unbuttoned the top button on Wesley’s wrinkled French-blue oxford shirt. “You know, I’ve always loved this color on you. Don’t know if I ever told you that.”

“You did once,” he said, running his hands up and down her arms. His fingertips on her suddenly bare skin sent shivers through her entire body. “Two years ago. That’s why I wore it.”

“You bought a French-blue shirt just to wear for me? Not even knowing if you’d see me again?”

“No.” Wesley dipped his head and kissed her quickly on the lips. “I bought five of them.”

Nora didn’t speak. She’d lost all power to. All she could do was keep unbuttoning. With each open button she pushed a little more of his shirt off his shoulders, until it came down his arms and hit the floor.

“Looks even better there than on you,” she said.

“I think all your clothes will looking amazing on the floor.”

Nora kissed his bare shoulder. “Let’s go find out.”

She reached for his hand and started to drag him toward the stairs. But he yanked her to him instead and lifted her in his arms.