“I’m doing the French thing. I’m down to one shower a week.”
“Is pissing yourself a French thing?” Marie-Laure batted her eyelashes at Nora and wrinkled her nose like a little girl.
“Your fault for knocking me out. I’ll take a shower if you’ll let me. I have a nice shower back at my house. I can find my own way there. I’ll see myself out.”
Wanting to test the waters, Nora took a step forward and Andrei swiftly and efficiently pushed her into the wall. He did a good job with it—pushed hard enough to make a point, not so hard she hurt herself. Nice technique.
“You promised to be my houseguest, remember?” Marie-Laure reminded her. “The little girl is on her way to my brother’s with her message for my husband. And you’re staying with me. I’m looking forward to it. I don’t spend much time with women. I much prefer the company of men.”
“I don’t have many women friends, either. Less drama, more cock. I get it.”
“You never stop talking, do you?” Marie-Laure tilted her head to the side and studied Nora like she’d encountered some sort of alien species.
Nora replied by saying absolutely nothing.
Marie-Laure nodded. “You’re funny,” she said in an approving tone. “It’s très chère. Is that why my husband loves you? Because you make him laugh?”
“I’m pretty entertaining, but I don’t know if that’s the main reason he loves me.”
“Any theories?” Marie-Laure gave a dismissive shrug that was so very French Nora wanted to slap her.
“None that make sense.”
“That’s what I want to understand.” Marie-Laure looked Nora up and down again. “I want to know … why you? Long ago I thought, peut-être, he could love only another like himself, a man, a boy. I forgave him for not loving me because he couldn’t help it. I even left so he and my brother could be together. But he can love a woman and of all the women in the world—elegant women, intelligent women, women of poise and breeding and loyalty.” At that Marie-Laure glanced down at Nora’s left hand. Nora felt the ring on her finger heavy as deadweight. “So many better women in the world, and he picks you.”
“I know. Nuts, right? If you figure it out, be sure to let me know.”
“We will figure this out, you and I. Come along. You’ll stay with me. But first we have to clean you up. I can hardly look at you. Andrei, bring her, s’il vous plaît.”
Marie-Laure spun around to the door, graceful as the dancer she once was. The man took Nora’s elbow in his stern grip and escorted her to the door.
“Do you mind if I ask where we are?” Nora glanced around the hallway. It all seemed so familiar and yet …
“You don’t know?”
Nora tried not to roll her eyes.
“I know I’ve been here before.”
“Have you? I’m surprised he brought you here. I imagine he comes here as little as possible.”
“Søren brought me here?” As she said the words, Nora noticed a painting hanging in the hallway. A young girl of about eight in a white dress sat in a rocking chair, a small stuffed horse clenched in her hand. The artist had painted a smile on the girl’s face but left her violet eyes empty of hope and happiness.
Nora had seen those eyes before.
“Elizabeth …” she whispered, meeting the painted child’s broken gaze. “We’re in Elizabeth’s house?” Once Nora made the connection, the memories of her one trip here came flooding back. Søren’s father’s funeral. Nora had been only seventeen years old. Ostensibly he’d brought her to the funeral for the sake of Claire, his half sister, who was about her age. But Nora knew better even then. Something had happened in this house, something bad, something Søren wanted to tell her but had been waiting for the right time. When his father was dead and buried six feet under, that had been the right time.
The fireplace poker … now she understood why it had felt like a memory in her hand. An eleven-year-year-old Søren had wielded it against his own father in that room to stop him from raping Elizabeth. And Elizabeth had wielded it herself to stop her father from killing Søren.
“Where’s Elizabeth?” Nora demanded. “And Andrew?”
“Gone.” Marie-Laure waved her hand dismissively. “My husband apparently told her to leave the house and take her sons with her. Too bad. I would have liked to have met my sister-in-law at last.”
“Sons?” Nora caught a glimpse of a family photograph at the end of the hallway. Elizabeth, who was about Marie-Laure’s age, stood under a tree with her son Andrew at her side and a much younger boy in her arms.
“Oh, oui. She adopted another son three years ago. His name is Nathan. You didn’t know?”
Nora shook her head. Three years ago … Back then she did everything she could to stay out of Søren’s life. She knew if she stayed one second too long in his world, she’d never leave it again. Or she thought she’d never leave again if she went back. She thought Søren would never have let her. But he had and now she’d ended up here with his maniac dead wife. Never before had she more longed to be chained up to his bed with nowhere to go. Not for sex this time but for safety.
“I didn’t know. He doesn’t talk about Elizabeth much.”
“Never thought such a brave man would be so scared of his sister,” Marie-Laure said in a tone so taunting that Nora briefly considered trying her luck on a double murder/escape attempt.
“Not scared of his sister. Scarred by his sister. There’s a difference.”
“Scarred? Perhaps. Kingsley told me about Søren and Elizabeth … what they did together as children. He thought it would convince me that I’d married a man too scarred to love. I believed it for a day or two, wanted to believe it. But …”
“But what?” Nora asked, not sure she wanted the answer. Still it seemed expected of her to ask so she decided to play along for the time being.
“Damaged, my brother called my husband. Broken. Lies, obviously. He wasn’t broken. He was stronger than anyone I’d ever met. So I thought perhaps he was too strong to love me. Love makes one weak, makes one vulnerable. Perhaps he didn’t love me because he would not allow himself to be so weak. But he was weak.”
“Søren is not weak. Not now. Not ever.”
“Is that so? Let me show you something.”
Marie-Laure continued down the hall and Nora followed, the bodyguard Andrei right next to her not speaking but never once taking his eyes off her.
She entered a bedroom, large and opulent. One of the nicer guest rooms, Nora guessed, as it held no photographs or personal items that seemed to belong to the house or its inhabitants. Although Marie-Laure had clearly made herself quite at home. She sat on the cream-colored silk covers and gathered her robe around her like some princess in repose. From the nightstand she picked up a Bible with a white leather cover.
“One of the priests at the school gave me this as a wedding gift,” Marie-Laure said, caressing the engraved words on the front. “Father Henry. He even wrote the date of our marriage inside with our names.”
Marie-Laure smiled wanly at the book. She brought it to her lips and pressed them to the cover before looking at Nora again.
“I had such dreams for us. This Bible was my most precious possession. I loved to open it and see our names inside and our wedding date. I thought he wasn’t touching me because we still barely knew each other. I thought