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“I need you, too,” he said. “I need you to do as I tell you. Stay there. Stay safe. You’ll be home
soon.”
“Promise?”
He paused before answering. He could promise her nothing now, should promise her nothing.
“I promise.” Sometimes a needful lie was less a sin than the truth.
He hung up the phone and forced thoughts of Juliette from his mind. No time for emotion or
sentimentality. No time for love, not when he had a job to do. And while no one on earth admired or
adored women more than Kingsley, a battlefield was no place for them and he could not deny that his
world had turned into a war zone. He and Søren would find a way to get Nora back. And her fiancé,
Wesley, who was young but certainly no coward. Any man who braved the bed of Nora Sutherlin and
the wrath of le prêtre could be called many things, but not a coward.
Kingsley stood up straight and took a deep breath. He felt better now. Juliette was safe and far
away from all this madness. The three of them—Wesley, Søren and he—would find a way to deal
with this crisis on their own. They’d put no more women at risk. He should ban them all from the
house for the time being. He would exile them, send them all away. They were too fragile, too at risk
in such a dangerous time.
He started toward the door to his office but it opened before he got to it.
A beautiful redheaded woman, her pale skin painted with freckles, swept into the office ahead of
Griffin.
“Ma’am, you can’t barge in—” Griffin said, and Kingsley raised his hand.
“Hello,” the woman said, facing Kingsley.
“May I help you?”
“Yes, you can tell me what the hell is going on. Where’s Nora?”
“I would tell you if I knew, madame. Perhaps you could tell me who the hell you are?”
“My name is Grace Easton, and I know that means nothing to you, but I’m friends with Nora. I tried
to call her and got Wesley. He told me someone had taken her and...”
She continued speaking in her light and musical accent. While she spoke Kingsley walked over to
one of his filing cabinets, opened it and thumbed through files. He pulled one out, walked back over
to her and let her finish her speech.
“...and I’m not leaving until someone tells me what’s going on or at least lets me speak to Wesley. I
know I seem like a madwoman showing up out of nowhere and you have no idea who I am but I
promise—”
“Grace Easton, neé Rowan, age thirty,” Kingsley said, opening the file. “Irish mother. Welsh father.
Fluent in Welsh, I see. I think that’s the one language le prêtre doesn’t speak. You’re much more
beautiful now than you were back in school, and you were très jolie back in your school days. No
wonder Professor Easton deflowered you on his desk. Although had it been me, it would have been
the desk, the floor, the wall, back on the desk but from behind...”
He pulled a photograph of a twenty-two-year-old Grace Easton on her graduation day standing
with her husband, Zachary Easton, and held it up to her.
She stared at it with wide turquoise eyes.
“My God...Nora wasn’t exaggerating.”
Kingsley put the photograph back into the file.
“Welcome to hell, Mrs. Easton. Now if you wouldn’t mind, get out.”