The Mistress (18 page)

22

THE ROOK

G
race didn’t know the answer to Wesley’s question. She was rather certain she didn’t want to know the answer. Where was Kingsley going? Her heart tried to keep the answer a secret from her mind. If he was going where she thought there might be a chance he wouldn’t come back. She hardly knew the man but it didn’t matter. She didn’t know how much more stress and fear she could live with before she simply broke down.

They returned to the house and Grace left Wesley and Laila talking in the living room. Lovely place, it reminded her of a small English manor she’d visited as a teenager on a school trip. She remembered wandering the halls of that elegant old mansion and thinking it was such a shame it had become a museum. It had been built for a family and a family should live in it.

Although she knew she shouldn’t, Grace opened every door on the first and then the second floor. Her heart clenched when she saw a bedroom that obviously belonged to two little girls. Twin beds, side by side. Pale pink and white walls, everything the color of cotton candy. Over the left bed hung a painted sign. Byrony, it read in block letters. Over the right bed in cursive was the name Willa. On each bed sat a mountain of stuffed animals—lions and wolves, sock monkeys and smiling dolphins. Grace picked up a small brown dog and held him to her chest. She’d had one just like this as a child. Still had it somewhere in her parents’ attic. She’d named him Bernard, “although he isn’t a saint,” she’d tell people, proud of her joke. How she wanted to have a room like this in her house someday—a tiny bed piled with toys with Zachary on story patrol every night. Knowing her husband, he’d read their son or daughter adult novels—Thomas Hardy or Virginia Woolf. At least they’d work to put their little one to sleep.

Grace ran a hand over her stomach and hated its flatness. She ran five miles four days a week, ate right, took her vitamins...and yet every month she failed to conceive. She’d prayed for a miracle, that God would heal the scar tissue inside her enough that she could have a baby. Now that prayer seemed so small, so selfish. Nora was trapped by a madwoman intent on revenge. She could only pray now that God was in the miracle-making mood today.

With reluctance, Grace put the dog back on the pile, and left the bedroom. She noticed a door at the end of the hall now open that she could have sworn was closed when she’d come into the girls’ room. Grace walked to the door and saw that it didn’t lead to a room but a staircase going up. She saw no light switch so in total darkness she ascended the stairs until she could go no farther. Running her hand over the dark door, she found a knob, opened it and discovered she’d come up to the roof of the house.

She stepped out from the landing and looked around. At the farthest corner of the roof stood Søren, staring out into the nighttime forest that surrounded the property. Grace froze at the sight of him so silent and solemn. She should go back and leave him alone with his thoughts. But she’d been alone all day and knew she’d go out of her mind if she didn’t get away from her own voice in her head.

Summoning her courage, she walked toward him and came to stand at his side. He held a steep glass of red wine in his hand, raised it to his lips and drank.

“Do you mind if I join you for a while?” Grace asked, suddenly fearful. Fearful of what, though? That he wouldn’t want her company or that he would?

“Please stay. Your company would be most welcome.”

“I don’t know about that,” she said with a sigh. “I can’t stand to be around myself right now.”

He turned his head from the dark forest before them and studied her face. His gaze felt intimate and penetrating, like he was trying to understand her more than simply see her.

“You’ve been crying.”

Grace raised her hand to her face and ran her fingers under her eyes to wipe away the traces of tears mingled with mascara.

“Sorry. I must look a mess.”

“No, you look beautiful. And troubled.”

“Thank you,” she said with a low and weary laugh. “You aren’t put off by a woman’s tears?”

“Hardly,” he said, raising the glass to his lips and drinking. “I rather enjoy them under the right circumstances. I’m guessing, however, yours weren’t of the variety I’m referring to.”

“No, sadly,” she said, almost blushing at the thought of how Søren would bring a woman to tears. “I made the foolish mistake of wandering into one of the children’s rooms.”

“You and Zachary are still trying to conceive?”

“Yes, actually. How did you know?” Had she been speaking to anyone else, Grace might have been embarrassed at broaching such a personal topic. For some reason she seemed like she could talk to him about anything and it would go no further than his own ears. Priest, she remembered. Of course.

“Eleanor told me. She wasn’t spreading gossip, you should know. She asked me to pray a novena for you.”

“She did?” Grace’s heart clenched at the kindness.

“Eleanor is convinced I make God nervous and that He’s more likely to take my calls than hers, as she says.”

“So...you’ve prayed for me to conceive?”

“Novena. I’ve prayed for you to conceive nine times.”

“Thank you.” Grace nearly whispered the words. “Zachary wants to give up trying for a biological child. Says it’s too hard on me. He’s fine adopting, but I want to keep trying. But now that dream seems so selfish and small with Nora out there—”

“Don’t, Grace. Don’t think God isn’t capable of giving you a child and bringing Eleanor back to us. He is infinitely powerful, after all. He can handle more than one item on His to-do list.”

“I’ll remember that.” The night air ran its hands over her skin and Grace moved closer to Søren, instinctively seeking shelter. He didn’t move away when her shoulder met his arm. “Although...something like this happens and I can’t help but be a little grateful I’m childless. No child means no child for someone to take. People seem awfully fragile right now to me, the world terribly unsafe. Nora is someone’s daughter and there she is out there somewhere and scared...she must be so scared.”

Søren put an arm around her shoulders as the tears started to fall again. She huddled close to him, resting her head on his chest. She felt like a child now seeking the comfort of a father’s arms.

“Eleanor,” he began as he wrapped both his arms around her, “is the bravest woman I know. She wasn’t even afraid of me when she was only fifteen. And believe me, I did try to scare her.”

“I would have been terrified of you. I
am
terrified of you.”

“She wasn’t. You know her first words she ever said to me...I remember them like yesterday. She said, ‘You’re kind of an idiot, you know that, right?’”

Grace laughed out loud and pulled back from his embrace.

“She said that to you?”

“She took exception to the fact that I didn’t put a lock on my motorcycle. She said I was asking for someone to steal it. Considering that a week after that conversation she was arrested for stealing cars, she did know what she was talking about.”

“Arrested for car theft? That naughty girl. I had no idea she’d been in that kind of trouble. I thought teenage girls got arrested for shoplifting purses and makeup.”

“Eleanor does not do anything the normal way.”

“And you loved her for it.” Grace smiled up at him.

“I did. Utterly and unrepentantly. My heart was so torn after meeting her. Rent in two. I knew I should only love her like a father to a daughter, but her wildness and her beauty made it nearly impossible. I protected her, though, like a father. I always tried to protect her. And I always did. Until now.”

Grace took another step back. She needed some space between her and Søren. Being in his arms felt preternaturally good, unreasonably safe. She wondered if this is what Zachary had felt with Nora—this strange pull toward someone she couldn’t understand, who seemed almost alien. They had some kind of secret knowledge, both of them. Secret insight. They had seen things she couldn’t imagine, Søren and Nora, knew things she would never understand. But how she wanted to see, wanted to understand....

“My heart is outside myself tonight and far away,” Søren said, staring into the darkness.

“How far away?”

“Ten miles between here and Elizabeth’s house. I could run it in an hour.”

“I could run it in fifty-five minutes,” she said, grinning up at him.

“Behave yourself. You’re seventeen years younger than I am. Respect your elders,” he said, clearly trying not to smile at her.

“If I don’t will you turn me over your knee?”

Søren raised his eyebrow, and Grace blushed ear to ear.

“Good God, now you’ve got me doing it.” She buried her face in her hands.

“Be glad Kingsley didn’t hear that. He’d take you up on that offer.”

He smiled as he spoke but she saw sorrow in his eyes, sorrow and fear.

“Where is Kingsley?”

“The last place I want him to be.”

“He’s trying to get Nora back.”

Søren nodded.

“Both Kingsley and Eleanor are out there facing unknown terrors. I’m most content when they’re both near to me.”

“You love Kingsley?”

“I do. Does that shock you?”

“Not at all. He reminds me of Nora. Arrogant, cocky, dangerous, beautiful.”

“Those two—they’ve twin spirits, although they’d deny it with their last breaths. Kingsley’s parents died when he was fourteen. Eleanor’s parents were beyond useless to her as a teenager.”

“You were a father figure to both of them.”

“In a way. And now I’m a father who’d give everything to have them both back safely.”

“They will come back. You have faith I’ll have my child someday. I have faith you’ll have yours.”

“Thank you. Until then...” He raised the glass and took another drink.

“I should have thought of that,” she said, nodding at the wine. “Better than crying over a stuffed dog.”

Søren smiled subtly and held out the glass to her.

“Take it. I shouldn’t have any more.”

Grace hesitated a moment before taking the wine from his hand. It seemed an unbearably intimate thing to drink after him. Still, she took a sip.

“Merlot. Very nice.”

“Daniel has a decent cellar. His late wife, Maggie, was something of an oenophile.”

“Then I’ll drink it in memory of Maggie.” She raised the glass for another drink.

“Sláinte mhaith,”
Søren said, his pronunciation of the Celtic words so perfect even her Irish mother would have been impressed.

“Sure you don’t want it? Happy to share.”

“I’ve already had five glasses tonight.”

“Five?” Grace repeated, aghast. “I’d be underneath a table in a coma after five glasses of Merlot.” Four glasses equaled an entire bottle.

“I rarely drink this much. One glass a day at most.”

“It’s wonderful for occasional stress relief. If it was Zachary trapped in that house, I’d have to have an alcohol IV inserted in my arm.”

“I usually find far pleasanter means to reduce my stress than alcohol.”

Grace laughed as she took another deep drink of wine, willing it to go to her head as quickly as possible.

“I’m sure you can. A night with Nora must make for excellent therapy.”

“You have no idea....” The smile that crossed his face was so amorous that Grace felt her knees nearly buckle. Potent wine. Must be the wine.

“I am a very happily married woman with a husband who’s a spectacular lover.
And
I’ve read all of Nora’s books. I think I have some idea.”

“I’ve read her books, too.”

“Scandalous,” she teased. “A priest who reads erotica.”

“Only Eleanor’s.”

“She’s certainly my favorite author.”

She sat on the ledge of the roof and put the forest to her back. She’d much rather look at Søren, anyway. Never in her life has she been attracted to blond men but something about him was so utterly arresting. Even at night he cast a shadow. Strange to see him like this—a white shirt and no Roman collar and yet still he seemed priestly to her, sacred.

“May I ask you a question?” Søren gazed down at her.

“Of course. Anything.”

“Why don’t you hate Eleanor?”

“I might need a lot more wine to answer that.” She tried to laugh but it didn’t quite come out. Søren waited, his eyebrow raised. “All right... My marital problems with Zachary began long before he met her.”

“But they were lovers,” he reminded her.

“I’m well aware of that. She hits on him every time they talk. I know this because she tells me my husband is being mean and won’t put out for her anymore.”

“And that’s not infuriating?”

“It would be if I genuinely thought she was a threat. I think she would be heartbroken if Zachary and I broke up.”

“She would be. She loves you both.”

“She flirts with him and she flirts with me, and if given the chance I think she wouldn’t say no to another night with him but it’s only a game with her, it’s play.” Grace stopped talking when she realized what she’d said and to whom she said it. “I’m sorry. I’m sure the last thing you want to hear is about Nora flirting with—”

“Don’t be sorry. I have never begrudged Eleanor her dalliances. The sacrifices she’s made to be with me are so profound that I would be the worst of men if I demanded complete fidelity from her.”

“I wish more people were as open-minded as you and Nora. A few of Zachary’s friends, well, ex-friends now, hate me because I dated someone while we were separated. No matter how many times he tells them he was involved with someone else, too...boys will be boys but a woman who has sex with anyone other than her husband, that’s an unforgivable sin.”

“Not to me. And not to God, either. Eleanor and I have always had an open relationship, and it was entirely at my instigation. Because of what I am—”

“And what are you?”

He crossed his arms over his chest and stared down at her. She suddenly felt like a naughty schoolgirl about to get scolded.

“You know what I am, Grace.”

“I know you’re a sadist. That’s what Nora says. And I also know you’re a good man and a wonderful priest. Which she also told me.”

Søren sighed and sat next to her on the roof ledge. She studied his profile as he weighed his words. It had been years since she’d taken pen to paper and written a poem. She’d been quite a good poet in her university days and had dreamed of making poetry her life’s work. But marriage, her career, the real world, had taken that dream from her. Now she suddenly felt inspired to try to write again. She knew she would remember this quiet moment on this roof with this priest for the rest of her life. The still-forming memory fluttered about her head like a moth. She would net this night with words and pin it to paper so it would stay in place forever.