Eyes were on her then and she knew both of them waited for her reaction. At first she only breathed, her eyes half-closed. But something welled up inside her, a powerful wave of emotion, and for whatever reason, whatever wonderful strange unnamable reason, she started to laugh. It bubbled up to the surface, lifting her heart so high she felt that she’d come off the bed. And two other laughs joined her own until a symphony of laughter filled the room to bursting. Søren pulled her close and kissed her deep.

“Jeg elsker dig, min lille en,” he said into her lips.

“You have no idea how much it turns me on when you speak Danish,” she answered, still laughing.

“Of course I do. Sleep now for a while.”

“Where are you going?”

Søren looked over her shoulder and she turned to see him meeting Kingsley’s eyes.

“Wine,” Kingsley said. “We’re going for wine.”

Wine...of course. They both loved their wine. A glass of red, no doubt. Or two. Wouldn’t take them long to drink it; she might as well sleep as ordered.

She settled into the bed. Kingsley and Søren pulled on their pants and shirts, not bothering to tuck anything in. They both looked so roguish, so dashing, in their disheveled clothes.

Hurry back, she thought but didn’t say aloud. Hurry back could be construed as an order. They gave the orders. She took them. Oh, how she took them.

They’d arrived at Kingsley’s house at midnight. Always safer to travel at night when the likelihood of an evening emergency call had passed. More than a few evenings had been lost by Søren being called away to attend to one of his parishioners. Every hour they spent together they stole. No wonder Søren had wanted her and Kingsley to share this night together. Perhaps in the future, when the church called Søren away from her, she could come here and not have to sleep alone.

But now she slept alone as Kingsley and Søren went to drink their wine.

They never got the wine.

* * *

“So what happened?” Marie-Laure interrupted. “No wine in the house?”

Nora sighed as Marie-Laure’s question ripped her out of the story. How she longed to stay in that memory of the night the seeds of the woman who would become Nora Sutherlin were sown in Kingsley’s bed.

“Oh, plenty of wine in the house. Kingsley has a well-endowed cellar.”

“What happened then, after my brother and my husband had both violated you?”

“I don’t know,” Nora admitted, hating her ignorance on the matter. “Not everything, anyway.”

“But you know something.”

“I know something.”

“Tell me what you know.”

Nora looked Marie-Laure dead in the eyes. This woman didn’t deserve these stories she told her, and for no reason other than to save her own life would Nora reveal such beautiful secrets that rightly belonged only to Kingsley, Søren and her. She’d never told Wesley any of this. She’d told Michael about Søren and Kingsley, because she understood the boy needed to know he wasn’t alone. Wesley would have been horrified by it all, by the thought of Nora getting f**ked by two men at once. He would have considered it, as Marie-Laure said, a violation, something disgusting and vile that only women in  p**n os allowed men to do to them. But that wasn’t why she hadn’t told him any of these stories. They were too private, too special, too sacred, to share even with him.

Nora sighed heavily and silently prayed Kingsley and Søren would forgive her.

“Søren and Kingsley didn’t get the wine. They had gone to another room and f**ked. I knew it when they came back to bed.”

“My brother told you?”

“No.”

“My husband told you?”

“No.”

“Who told you, then?”

“The bruises told me.”

24

THE KNIGHT

Wesley would have rather died than do what he was about to do. But spending a day with Laila made it impossible to ignore for one minute longer the nagging of his conscience. Kingsley was gone, thank God, and so he wouldn’t have to deal with that guy hanging around making snide comments the entire time Wes was attempting to do the hardest thing he’d ever done in his life.

Laila had gone to her room as soon as they’d arrived back at the house. He should probably check on her later. The cut on her face might need to be cleaned again, and in this house with a married Welsh woman, a French pimp and a sadist priest, Laila was like a gift from God sent to keep him sane and focused on something other than all the horrible scenarios running through his mind: Nora tied up in that house, a madwoman keeping her captive, men with guns who would do anything they were ordered to. Wes buried the thoughts under other concerns. They all needed to eat. He could cook something. That was something he could actually do. He could call his parents and let them know everything was fine. Lie, in other words. He could pray like he’d been praying since the moment he’d woken up on the stable floor and found Nora gone.

He wandered through the second floor of the house and didn’t find what he was looking for. As he descended the stairs, he heard strains of music coming from a room he hadn’t entered before. Wes followed the music to a door. Opening it, he saw Søren sitting at a baby grand piano. Only a few candles illuminated the music room. No way was there even enough light for Søren to see the sheet music. But still he played with incredible ease, each note flawless. The sound hit the walls and echoed back, amplifying itself into infinity.