The Prince (41 page)

“Your friends…the Raileys,” Talel began and Nora pressed her foot harder on his throat again.

“Careful…” she warned. “You have no idea how much I care about Wes Railey.”

“You’re here and not with the priest. I think I know.”

“What about the Raileys?”

“They wield more influence than any investigators.”

“Wes said his uncle is the governor of Kentucky.”

“And his grandfather is the distinguished gentleman from Georgia.”

Nora rolled her eyes. “Grandpa’s a senator? Lovely. Wesley left that part out.”

“He’s a humble young man. And kind. Too humble and too kind for this ugly business. Too kind for us.”

“Too kind for me, you mean. Tell me something I don’t know.”

Talel lay on the floor in silence. She wanted to kick him in the face and bust it open, but she stayed her wrath. Søren had taught her the lessons of sadism, but he’d taught her the lessons of mercy even better.

“What do you need from me?” she asked, cutting through the conversational niceties. Wesley was an early riser and she’d rather not explain where she’d disappeared to today.

“Can you convince Railey Sr. to make a phone call on my behalf? One call from him would put an end to the investigation.”

“I’ll try. Can’t promise he’ll do it. I’m not his favorite person, but at least I’m not his least favorite person anymore.”

“I’m sure he’ll bend to your will. We all do.”

“I said I’d try. But you killed a horse, Talel. For money. It’s murder…insurance fraud...”

“I’ve easily paid forty million dollars in insurance. It’s my own money they’d give back to me. And it’s hardly fair for a woman with more leather in her closet than I have in my stables to call the death of one animal ‘murder.’”

Nora said nothing as the unpleasant truth of Talel’s words sank in. When it came to issues of morality, she had long ago surrendered the moral high ground. She left that lofty plateau to Søren and his unusual code of right and wrong. Right now she wished Søren was here to tell her exactly what to do. Even during their years apart, she found herself going to him for advice and counsel and guidance, while she ran from his love and power and control.

“Nora,” Talel said, his voice soft and desperate, “they’ll kill me.”

Nora closed her eyes. He was right. When the mob caught up with her father, they’d torn him up with so many bullets cremation had been the only option for his burial. One man…one horse.

“I’ll talk to Mr. Railey,” Nora said, knowing exactly what Mr. Railey would say to her request. She knew what he would say and she knew what she would do. And she knew Wesley would be devastated. Just last night he’d asked her if she’d stay with him or leave. If she did this for Talel, she’d have no choice but to go.

“Thank you, Mistress. Thank you...”

Nora removed her foot from Talel’s neck. He came to his knees and knelt at her feet. Starting at the tip of her toes, he kissed his way up to her ankles, to her calves and up her thighs. Sighing, Nora let him worship her in his favorite manner. She had missed this, missed the foot worship, missed men at her feet. But she couldn’t deny the simple truth that as much as she missed the Underground, she would miss Wesley more.

“But there is a price to be paid for me talking to Mr. Railey for you.”

“I’ll pay it. Anything.” Talel gazed up at her from the floor. Nora tried to not let the sight of his exquisitely burnished flesh and his erotic obedience affect her. She had Wesley waiting at home in bed. She didn’t need Talel underneath her. Wanted…perhaps. But needed, no.

“The price is this.” Nora stepped to the window and left Talel kneeling on the floor. “You’re going to sell every horse you have left. You can keep the money, but you’re out of the horse-racing business. Forever. And you’re banned from the Underground. If I were you, I wouldn’t even set foot in New York.”

Talel stared at her with his mouth agape.

“It’s done, Talel. Don’t bother begging. That shit doesn’t work on me anymore.”

He closed his mouth and visibly swallowed. Standing up, he bowed his head.

“Yes…Nora.”

“Good. You know how much Kingsley loves those dogs of his. You’d be lucky to make it out of Manhattan with your own hide still on.” She hoped the bluff would work. Kingsley couldn’t care less about a dead horse in Kentucky. “You should sell the farm, too, and get out of the state. You don’t deserve to be in the same county as my Wesley. He’d cut off his own hand before he’d hurt anything on earth, for love or money.”

“Then what is he doing with you?”

Only Nora’s training as a Dominatrix kept her from flinching visibly at Talel’s words. But Talel hadn’t been the first man to wound her to the core of her being. That had been Søren. Had Søren said something like that to her, she would have responded with fury or tears. But Talel didn’t merit such a reaction. So instead she merely smiled.

“I ask myself that same question every day, Talel. I’ve decided not to answer it.”

Nora walked back to him and stood in front of his kneeling form. For that comment, for making a liar out of her to Wesley, and most importantly, for killing Spanks for Nothing, she gave him one very special farewell.

“Kingsley was right. I should have kept you as just a paycheck.”

With a well-placed swat of her riding crop, she hit Talel squarely in the testicles with brute force. He lay on the floor in the fetal position, writhing. He’d be down there for the next hour or two.

Good.

All the way back to The Rails, Nora’s conscience gnawed at her—a strange sensation, as up to that point she hadn’t been entirely certain she had a conscience. What else could she have done? she asked herself over and over again. Turn in Talel? He’d be fined for killing his horse and perhaps banned from Thoroughbred racing. Proving intent to commit fraud would be a case no one would bother making, especially since admitting to electrocuting Spanks for Nothing would mean the insurance claim was null and void, anyway. A slap on the wrist…no more. What she’d done to him had been a far more severe punishment than any racing commission could impose on him. Kingsley Edge had a far reach. Banning Talel from the Underground meant no legitimate establishment of kink would ever let him through their doors again. For a man like Talel who couldn’t be himself in his world, cutting him out of hers was akin to a death sentence—a spiritual one, at least. She’d felt something like it during her year in hiding after leaving Søren. For those like her and Talel, their sexuality was almost a sixth sense. Being cast out from their dark paradise would be like losing one’s sight or hearing. Without Søren, without the Underground, Nora had felt blind for a year. Her eyes hadn’t worked. As deeply as she grieved, she hadn’t been able to cry.

Nora returned to The Rails. Instead of driving straight to the guesthouse, she went to the main house, knocked politely on the door and waited. Wesley’s father himself opened the door.

“Weird,” Nora said the second she saw him.

“Good morning to you, too, young lady,” Mr. Railey said with confusion, but not his usual animosity.

“I’m sorry. Just thought you’d have a housekeeper or secretary or something to answer the door.”

“Don’t need one. Learned how to open a door a long time ago. Never forgot how.”

Nora laughed. “It’s just like riding a bike, I guess. Never learned that, though.”

“You don’t know how to ride a bike?”

“Do motorcycles count?”

“No, they do not.”

Nora sighed. “Damn. Can I talk to you for a minute?”

Mr. Railey stared at her before taking a step back and ushering her into the house.

“Ohh…beautiful. Nice chandelier.”

“Thank you. It’s from Versailles,” he said as she followed him upstairs.

“I thought it was pronounced
Ver-sayles?
”

He glanced over his shoulder at her and raised his eyebrow.

“Oh,” Nora said, wincing. “The real Versailles.”

“That’s a fact. Now what can I do for you?” Mr. Railey asked as they entered what had to be his personal office. He waved at a chair as he sat behind his desk.

“Nice house,” she said, making the understatement of the century.

“We try to keep it up.”

“So far so good.” Nora glanced around the office and took in the various photographs of horses draped in blankets of roses. So many of the pictures included Wesley. In four feet of wall he aged from eight to eighteen. He got taller, got broader, but those eyes of his never changed—sweet and innocent in every last photo.

“I suppose asking you for a favor is a bit presumptuous of me,” she began without further preamble. “But I promised I would do it. And keeping promises is, for me, incredibly uncomfortable. I treat them like Band-Aids and let them rip.”

“A good philosophy, I suppose.” He leaned back in his chair and studied her. “Go on.”

“Talel killed his horse. He admitted it to me. Wasn’t an accident. He’s getting out of racing for good and selling all his horses. Getting him in trouble with the racing commission won’t do any good and would just cause a lot of trouble where none needs to be. Would you be willing to make a phone call or two to get the investigation called off?”

“Why would we call the investigation off? And why would you want them to?”

“Talel is an old, dear friend of mine. And he’s in some trouble. Serious, dangerous trouble that could get him killed. And that trouble will go away if we all pretend Spanks for Nothing died by accident and no other reason. Horses die pretty easily, right?”

“On occasion. They’re fragile animals.”

“I’ve noticed.”

“Sons are fragile, as well.”

“I’ve noticed that, too.”

Nora stopped talking. She had a feeling saying another word would work against her cause. Instead of speaking, she merely braced herself for the inevitable.

“I don’t like you, Miss Sutherlin.” Mr. Railey looked her dead in the eyes as he said the words. Nora kept silent, neither questioning nor complimenting his taste in women. “But I don’t hate you.”

“I appreciate that, sir,” she said, and closed her mouth again.

“You did something last night I’d never seen before. That took nerves of steel and an iron will to get our Track Beauty back on her feet again. I’ve registered Bastinado’s name already. And I haven’t said a word to my wife about how close we came to losing her four-legged baby.”

“I’m glad everything turned out okay.” Nora clenched her jaw. This not saying everything she wanted to say was more painful than getting flogged. Would this be life at The Rails? Behaving herself? Not talking back? Not making waves or causing trouble? Perhaps it really was for the best that
Mr. Railey would trade doing this favor for her in exchange for her promise to leave Wesley once and for all.

“So am I, young lady.”

Mr. Railey said nothing more and Nora waited, biting her tongue.

He smiled, sighed and shook his head.

“‘Four things greater than all things are…women and horses and power and war.’”

Nora stared at him.

“That’s Rudyard Kipling,” Mr. Railey explained. “One of my favorite sayings. Women and horses and power and war…story of my life.”

Nora smiled. “Mine too these days. Apparently.”

“Did you need anything else?” Mr. Railey asked, tapping his desk with obvious impatience.

“No…that was it. Just…”

“Go on back to bed. It looks like you could use a few more hours sleep. I’ll make your phone call. But your friend better never step foot onto a race track ever again.”

“He won’t.”

“Good. Go on now. I’ve got work to do.”

Nora opened her mouth and closed it again just as quickly.

“Thank you, Mr. Railey.” She bobbed a curtsy for no reason she could explain, other than the moment seemed to demand it. Mr. Railey laughed as he shooed her from the room.

At the bottom of the stairs, Nora peeked into the drawing room. Wesley’s mother sat at a petite desk with a fountain pen and a stack of cards, white with red trim, in front of her. With Mrs. Railey engrossed in her writing, Nora took a moment to look at her. Lovely lady really, with eyes as big and brown as her son’s.

She glanced up and smiled at Nora.

“I didn’t mean to interrupt,” Nora apologized before
Mrs. Railey could speak.

“You can interrupt the thank-you-note writing anytime you wish.”

Nora whistled at the stack of thank-you cards in front of Mrs. Railey. It looked like she’d written a hundred notes and still had another hundred to go.

“Writing that many thank-you notes is my definition of hell.”

“Mine, too,” Mrs. Railey admitted, capping her pen. “But we had two hundred people donating exorbitant sums to The Rails Foundation. Have to say ‘thank you.’”

“I’d tell them to keep the money.”

Mrs. Railey nodded. “I’ve wanted to a time or two. Have a seat if you like.”

“I won’t stay and bug you. This is just the first time your husband let me in the house.”

Mrs. Railey’s smile broadened. “My husband is as stubborn as a mule. He’s a good man. Only…difficult.”

“I’m well-versed in good, stubborn and difficult men.”

“Never considered my son to be difficult. He was, still is, the sweetest child you could ever hope to have. He gets that from me,” she said with a wink.

“I can see that. It’s the sweetness that makes him so difficult.”

With a sigh, Mrs. Railey sat back in her chair and gave Nora a long searching look. “You’re not planning on staying around these parts, are you?”

“I…” Nora shrugged. “I don’t really plan much.”

“I can see that about you. You look like a woman who never completely unpacks her suitcase.”

Nora opened her mouth to protest and then shut it again. Ruefully, she laughed her agreement.

“Someone called me a pirate once,” she said, not wanting to say Søren’s name to Wesley’s mother for some reason. “A born marauder destined for the high seas.”

“Even a pirate needs a safe harbor.”

“But is that harbor still safe when the pirates dock their ship?” Nora would have smiled as she asked the question but for the sudden lump in her throat.

The look Mrs. Railey gave Nora would have impressed even Søren. “I just don’t want to see my boy hurt again.”