The Prince

Søren’s eyes darkened at the question, but his face remained composed. “My father’s house had a large staff to take care of it. My sister Elizabeth and I were required to keep our rooms neat. Other than that, we had little in the way of chores. Other than surviving under that roof.”

“That bad, was it?” Kingsley asked, hoping to draw more secrets out of Søren about what had happened between him and his sister.

Søren nodded as he kept working. His hands never stopped. He seemed like a being of pure determination as he ran the soapy rag over the table.

“Being the only son in a family controlled by a child-raping madman is an unenviable position.”

Kingsley dropped the sponge. “You said…you’d said he raped your mother. She was—”

“Eighteen,” Søren stated, still cleaning. “But my sister was eight. Only eight.”

“Mon Dieu.”

“Non. Pas du tout. God has much more to do with us than he had to do with that. The monster who calls himself my father raped her. I was away at school in England while this all was happening, otherwise I would have two lives on my conscience instead of one. But I’d rather not talk of that. Tell me about your sister.”

Kingsley swallowed. He wanted nothing more than to hear about Søren’s childhood. As wretched as it sounded, it was still him, his life, his past. Kingsley drank up every precious revelation like wine. No one at school knew anything about Søren—not even his real name. They heard rumors, told stories, but no one knew him, the real him. The intimacy of the secrets was almost as potent as Kingsley’s and his two nights together.

Almost.

“Marie-Laure…” Kingsley pulled his eyes away from Søren, who seemed to be deeply engrossed in cleaning the stones of the hearth. “She’s beautiful. I’m her brother, and even I will admit she’s the most beautiful girl in the world. She dances.”

“Dances?”

“Yes. She’s a ballerina. In the chorus of the Paris ballet. But she’s good. Very good. She’ll be a prima ballerina someday.”

“Do you miss her?”

“Very much. She’s all I have left now, really. My father’s parents have been dead for years. My mother’s parents—they don’t even speak French. And they never liked Papa. It’s hard to be close to them. Marie-Laure feels like my only family. She sends me letters every week. Horrible letters. I can barely read them for all the smears.”

“Smears?”

“She cries when she writes me. Cries about Maman and Papa. Cries about us being apart. I thought she would kill me at the funeral…”

“Convenient place for a murder.”

“Very.” Kingsley grinned even as the memory of that horrible day came back to him. The two urns side by side on the altar. The seemingly endless parade of mourners, most of whom Kingsley had never met before. His father’s business associates. His mother’s friends. All of them had hands that needed shaking, cheeks that had to be kissed. And all he wanted to do was collapse onto the floor and sob for days and weeks and months and years until he died and could be with his parents again.

After, his mother’s parents came for him. Their solemn ‘It’s time to go now, dear,’ were the six most painful words spoken to him since those other five terrible words Marie-Laure had whispered three days earlier: “Maman and Papa, they’re gone.”

Kingsley had let them lead him away, his mind in a daze. But his dazed state shattered when he felt ten sharp fingernails digging into his arm.

“Non. Non…” Marie-Laure had cried, clinging to him as if her own life hung in the balance. Her beautiful face twisted in agony and her vocabulary was reduced to a single word—non. For ten minutes she’d held fast to her little brother, weeping on his shoulder, stroking his hair... And Kingsley had finally cried then, too.

Their parents had gone away on a second honeymoon, to Tuscany. That had been the plan. They’d never even made it out of Paris. And now he and Marie-Laure had only each other. And he would be taken from her, to live in America.

“Marie-Laure…she went mad after the funeral. I’d never seen her like that. Both my arms were streaming blood by the time our grandparents finally pulled her away from me.”

Kingsley worried about his sister. She loved too much. Far too much. Him. Their parents. Anyone she turned her attention to. He wished she could come be with him in America. It would calm her down, settle her nerves. Perhaps she would start to heal here, as he had.

“Sometimes inflicting pain is the only way to show love.”

Kingsley looked up sharply at Søren. “Is that why you hurt me?”

Søren’s face didn’t betray anything. He showed no expression at all when he answered simply, “I certainly don’t hurt you out of hate. But go on. What of Marie-Laure?”

“She’s not doing well. She worries about me. When I got hurt at school, she started selling Maman’s jewelry so she could afford to come visit me. She has no money. Papa had debts. They left us very little when they died.”

“You sound equally worried about her.”

Kingsley focused his attention on the table. “I am. She’s emotional. Not weak. She’s very strong, really. Strong passions. Everyone she loves she loves as if she’ll die without them. It’s not…it’s not good to care that much about people.”