The Prince (7 page)

“Smart girl.”

Wesley grinned as his mother reached out and patted Nora on the arm.

“It’s getting late, Mom. Shouldn’t you be in bed?” he asked, worried that his argument with his father had woken her up.

“Yes, Caroline. I think that’s a good idea,” said Wesley’s father in a tone that brooked no argument.

“Yes, sir,” she said, and reached for her husband’s hand. “Put me to bed. Make sure you tuck me in nice and tight.”

“I always do. Gotta tuck you in or you might run away on me.”

Wesley’s mother smiled broadly and her pale face instantly lit up with love.

Wesley couldn’t help but smile, too. He and his father had their differences, but they both worshipped the ground Caroline Railey walked on. That alone kept them from launching the New Civil War on Kentucky soil most days.

“It was nice to meet you, Nora,” she said, glancing over her shoulder as Jackson led her into the house. “Wesley, you make sure she’s got enough blankets. Might get even colder tonight.”

“I will, Mom. She’s out in the guesthouse with me.”

“I did not hear that, young man,” she said, laughing. Wesley glanced at Nora, who grinned at him.

Alone with her once again, Wesley slumped against one of the pillars on the front porch.

“Okay, that went worse than I thought it would,” he confessed. “Nora, I’m so sorry. I can’t believe my dad investigated you and me and—”

She closed the distance between them in two big steps and threw her arms around him.

“Whoa, where did that come from?” He wrapped her tight in his arms.

“Wes, you’re my hero. I can’t believe you talked back to your dad like that. He’s a little on the…” Nora pulled away and mimed the
Psycho
shower-stabbing scene. Wesley could only nod in agreement.

“Yeah, can’t argue with that. He’s a good guy. He is. Just overprotective of me and Mom.”

“Family man. I respect that. My father would have sold me down the damn river to pay off a ten-dollar debt if he thought he’d get a Hamilton for me.”

“Dad only dislikes you—”

“Hates…he hates me,” she corrected.

“Fine, he only hates you because he thinks you hurt me.”

Nora reached up and caressed Wesley’s cheek. He turned his face into her hand and kissed her palm.

“Wesley…I did hurt you.”

He nodded and said nothing else. Nora hugged him again. She held him for a long time, so long he forgot what she was hugging him for. He kissed her hair, inhaled the scent of her—orchids. Nora always smelled like orchids... Someday he’d remember to ask her why.

“I should go.” She pulled away.

“What?”

“I can stay in town somewhere. I don’t want to cause you more trouble than I already have. Nora Sutherlin in the house equals trouble. It’s basic math.”

Wesley shook his head and took her hand. “When did you start doing math? Don’t answer. Listen…you’re not going to cause trouble. We’re going to hang out and relax and spend time together and figure stuff out. No trouble, right?”

Nora sighed heavily. She crossed her arms and leaned back against the pillar behind her.

“Stay a week. Promise me a week,” Wesley said. “If it’s still this bad with my father in a week, then we’ll go back to Connecticut. Okay?”

Wesley watched Nora. She closed her eyes and exhaled through her nose. Was there a more beautiful woman in the world than Nora Sutherlin? Even after driving all day, and wearing nothing fancier than jeans and a tight white T-shirt over those amazing breasts of hers that haunted his waking dreams, and her thick black hair back in a ponytail and with her eyeliner smudged and her lipstick fading...behind that outer layer that drove him wild with one look was her mind, her sense of humor, her spirit no one could crush—not even Søren.

Damn.
No other word for Nora Sutherlin. Just
damn.

“Okay. One week,” she promised, opening her eyes.

“Good. Think you can behave yourself for one week?”

“Probably not. But I’ll try. For your sake.”

“Thank you.”

“No problem,” Nora said, heading toward her car. “I mean, really…not even I could cause any trouble in a week, right?”

NORTH

The Past

For two weeks, Kingsley did nothing but watch Stearns. He went to class, he ate his meals, he pretended to befriend the other boys…but everything he did was a mere ruse, a mask, misdirection. To make up for his behavior on his first day at Saint Ignatius, Kingsley played the saint of the school in the eyes of everyone around him. But he existed solely for Stearns, solely for sin.

But Stearns wasn’t playing along.

“Aristotle,” Father Robert intoned as his broken piece of chalk squeaked on the blackboard, “had a rather unusual idea about the mind, about consciousness. He thought that the seat of consciousness was the heart. The brain was a mere cooling factory—ventilation. Interestingly, the ancient Egyptians also thought the brain was a pointless organ while the heart itself was the seat of soul and thought. Modern science tells us this is wrong. But what does Jesus have to say?”

In the back of his mind, Kingsley knew the answer to this question. He’d never gone to church consistently as a child. But sometimes his mother would take him. A nearby Catholic church had one service in English for all the American expats like her. She’d go not to worship God so much as to bask in her first language for an hour. Kingsley enjoyed those times alone with his mother. His sister, Marie-Laure, never could get out of bed before noon on the weekend. His father, a proud Huguenot, refused to step foot in a Catholic church. So Kingsley had her all to himself. Nothing made him happier even as a small child than having a woman’s complete attention. Although sometimes he had paid attention to the priest and the readings. And something in one of those readings had stuck with him even so many years later. Something about the mind…

The classroom remained silent. Kingsley picked up his Bible and started to flip through it. Maybe if God was on his side, he’d find the page, the verse. Stearns was also in this theology class, sitting off to the side by the window—the coldest seat in the class. He’d been the first to arrive. He could have sat by the fireplace, but he never did.

“No one?” Father Robert turned around and faced the classroom. “Anyone?”

Kingsley saw Father Robert glance at Stearns, who appeared to suppress a sigh.

“Matthew twenty-two, verses twenty-seven through twenty-eight,” Stearns said, when it became clear no one else would speak.

“Very good, Mr. Stearns. Can you recite those verses for us?”

Recite? Kingsley stared at Stearns, who seemed the very picture of scholarly perfection. His school uniform was spotless and not a single hair on his blond head was out of place. No matter how hard Kingsley tried, he couldn’t help but appear tousled and rumpled. Father Henry teased him about always looking as if he had just crawled out of bed—if only.

Without opening his Bible, Stearns opened his mouth.

“Jesus said to him, ‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and the first commandment.”

“Very good, Mr. Stearns. And what does this verse have to do with our discussion of the mind and the heart?”

“Jesus makes a distinction between the mind and the heart and the soul. They are separate entities.”

Separate entities? Kingsley’s eyes widened at Stearns’s words. Who was teaching the class?

“Is this proof that the mind and heart and soul are completely separate and have nothing to do with each other?” Father Robert continued. He waved his hand at the ten students in the class, as if trying sweep answers out of their mouths. None were forthcoming.

“Mr. Stearns?”

Stearns sat up an inch straighter. “Not necessarily. The baptismal formula that decrees to baptize ‘in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit’ was used as proof by the First Council of Constantinople that while the Trinity contained three distinct persons, they were one as well as three. When Jesus tells us to love God with our heart, soul and mind, He is telling us that they are three and one, just as the Godhead.”

“Very good, Mr. Stearns. Now, if you’ll turn in your catechisms…”

As the class opened their books, Kingsley could only continue to stare at Stearns. The clouds outside the window parted a moment and a ray of sunshine—not seen for days—filled the classroom with white light. Kingsley could count every single eyelash that rimmed Stearns’s eyes. And until the sun hid itself behind a cloud again, Kingsley ceased to breathe.

The sun disappeared. He exhaled. Stearns turned his head and met Kingsley’s unapologetic stare.

Kingsley knew he should look away. Politeness demanded it of him. Discretion demanded it of him. If he didn’t stop staring, he had a feeling Father Robert and Stearns himself would demand it of him.

But he couldn’t look away, any more than he could have looked away had he come face-to-face with God Himself.

As Peter read from the catechism, Stearns stood up and, without asking permission, left the classroom. Father Robert didn’t say a word to stop him, merely continued the conversation with the other students. Kingsley’s heart pounded, his hands clenched. Had he been sitting in a Judas chair he couldn’t have been any more uncomfortable.

After ten seconds of trying to hold still, he got up and followed Stearns.

Once in the hall, Kingsley looked around wildly. No
Stearns to be seen. Which way had he gone? Out the front? The back? Upstairs?

Kingsley had no idea why he’d been seized with this mania, this absolute need to follow Stearns. But he’d done it now, left class without permission. No going back.

He heard the ringing of footsteps on the tile floor echoing off the concrete walls. Racing toward the sound, Kingsley found Stearns pacing the foyer between the third and fourth stories, a small Bible in his hand.

Stearns stopped in his pacing and faced Kingsley. He didn’t speak. Kingsley opened his mouth. Nothing came out.

“You left,” he finally said, reverting to French.
Vous avez quitté.

Vous?
They were the same, students in the same school. Why did Kingsley automatically use
vous
instead of the more familiar
tu?

“Tu as quitté aussi.”
You also left.

Tu.
Not
vous.

“I followed you.” Kingsley felt beyond foolish, stating the obvious. But he had no other words, no other reason. What could he explain? He was here because he was here. “Why did you leave?”

Stearns glared at him before turning back to his pacing.

“I’m allowed to leave.”

“I know that. You’re allowed to do anything you want. But that doesn’t answer the question.” Kingsley stared at him, dropped the English and asked again in French.
“Pourquoi?”

“You were staring at me.”

Once, Kingsley had heard some phrase about discretion and valor, something his mother had said in English. He had forgotten how it went, however. Didn’t matter. He was beyond discretion now and couldn’t care less about valor.

“
Oui.
I was.”

“Why do you stare at me all the time?”

“Why do you care?”

Stearns didn’t answer for a moment. Finally, he met Kingsley’s eyes. “I don’t know. But I do.”

Had he been offered a million dollars at that moment in exchange for un-hearing those words, Kingsley would have said “Keep the money.”

“You should go back to class,” Stearns said, turning his attention back to his Bible.

Kingsley rolled his eyes. “Does it bother you that Father Robert treats you like that?” He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the wall.

Stearns turned around again.

“Like what?”

Kingsley shrugged. “I don’t know. You do all the work in class. No one else answers any questions but you. He made you recite Bible verses. Recite them. Not read them. You perform for him.”

After looking at Kingsley a moment, Stearns resumed his pacing and reopened his Bible.

“He’s not making me perform. Father Robert loathes silence. No one here makes me do anything.”

“I’ve noticed.”

“And what is that supposed to mean?” Stearns leveled his steely gaze at him again. Something in that stare caused Kingsley’s courage to falter. He took a quick breath and pushed ahead. This was the longest conversation he’d managed to have with Stearns since that first terrible day here. Even if he infuriated him, at least it would keep him talking.

“It’s only…you can come and go as you please in the classes. No one else can do that. You never eat in the dining room with us, although Father Henry said it was required for us all. Curfew doesn’t seem to apply to you. Why?”

“The rules are designed to keep students in line and safe. The Fathers know that if I stay up after curfew it’s because I’m reading. If I leave class it’s because I have other work to occupy myself. I eat with Father Aldo in the kitchen as it’s the only time we have for my Portuguese lessons.”

Kingsley shook his head. “No. It’s different. There’s more. You get special treatment here, and I want to know why.”

“It isn’t special treatment. I’m treated like an adult. And I’ve earned that. Behave like one, Kingsley, and you might earn it, as well.”

Stearns gave him one last glare before brushing past him and taking the steps down.

Kingsley knew he should go back to class. He wanted to follow Stearns but something told him Stearns had met his quota of words and wouldn’t be giving up any more to Kingsley today. Maybe tomorrow. Or the day after. He’d keep waiting, keep watching... Kingsley could tell he annoyed Stearns. Not the reaction he was going for, but better than nothing. Stearns usually walked around as if no one else in the world existed but him. To get under his skin was step one. Into his bed, that would be step two.

“King? What are you doing out here?”

Kingsley glanced over his shoulder and saw Christian coming down the hall. He and Christian had become fast friends almost by default the past two weeks. They were two of only five of the boys at Saint Ignatius who apparently had any experience with girls whatsoever. Christian also had a dirty sense of humor and the foulest mouth in school, when the priests weren’t around, that is. The virgins at the school gave them looks of awe mingled with jealousy when he and Christian and a couple of the others swapped stories of girlfriends and blow jobs and brushes with furious brothers and jealous boyfriends.