Loe raamatut: «The Queen»

2

Nora’s Last Confession

NORA PULLED BACK from the kiss and saw a dozen or more couples kissing, including Griffin and Michael, who were still kissing.

And.

Still.

Kissing.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Griffin,” Nora said, reaching in front of Søren for Kingsley’s hand. “You two make out as long as you want. The King and I are going to get a drink.”

Nora gave Kingsley the end of the long plaid ribbon she’d tied around her bouquet. As they walked on either side of the happy couple—still kissing, of course—they lifted their hands and passed the sash over their heads like a wedding bower. Behind her she heard Søren speaking to the crowd of guests.

“I’d suggest everyone retreat to the banquet hall,” he said in his most authoritarian clergy voice. “It seems the groom and groom might be a while.”

Kingsley took her arm in his to escort her down the long aisle to the door.

“I heard we have you to thank for the wedding,” Kingsley said, kissing the back of her hand.

Nora winced. “Michael had a little case of cold feet. I beat it out of him.”

“Literally?”

“It took a solid hour of flogging followed by an hour of wax-play. Kid came so hard he almost passed out. Two-hour nap, and he was ready to get married. I love saving the day,” she said. “I’m so good at it.”

They waited in the foyer and soon they were joined by Michael’s mother and sister, Griffin’s parents and three brothers, and Søren. Juliette, wearing a red gown to match Kingsley’s kilt, passed Céleste into his arms. And when Michael and Griffin finally emerged from the Great Hall it was to a hail of applause and a shower of rice. Céleste was the best rice thrower of them all, Kingsley assured his little girl. Michael’s lips appeared swollen from so much passionate kissing and his pale cheeks were flushed, but Nora had to admit, she’d never seen him or Griffin ever look happier. Today was a beautiful day to be in love.

The guests who greeted the couple with hugs and kisses were a hodgepodge of friends and family, or as Kingsley called them, “the freaks and the straights.” Mistress Irina, the first dominatrix Kingsley had trained for The 8th Circle, had sat next to Michael’s aunt and uncle during the ceremony. Michael’s sister Erin had borrowed a tissue from Alfred, Griffin’s white-haired butler, who’d had to surreptitiously wipe his own eyes a time or two during the ceremony. Nora’d been a little surprised he’d come all the way to Scotland for Griffin’s wedding. When she had asked him why he’d made the long trip from upstate New York, he’d answered, “He’s a man-child and a deviant, and he has more money than sense, young lady. So of course I’m here for his wedding to his shamefully younger boy toy. It’s the only sensible thing he’s ever done in his life.” Then he’d stalked off before Nora could hug him or worse, cry in his arms, which would have been an unforgivable affront to his dignity.

“Good ceremony, Father,” she said, smiling up at Søren. “I loved the homily.”

“Thank you. The Lord gives me good material to work with. I suppose He deserves most of the credit.” Leave it to a Jesuit to be simultaneously pious and smug.

“Oops, picture time,” she said. “I should go.”

The photographer was already attempting to corral the wedding party back into the Great Hall. Søren started back into the hall with her.

“You can’t be in the pictures,” she reminded him.

“Michael expects me to be in at least one of the photographs for him and Griffin.”

“Søren...this is not a good idea.”

“Michael’s like a son to me,” he said. “When you have a child, you make sacrifices for them.”

“All right. Pictures it is. In for a penny, in for a pounding, right?” She took his hand in hers. His fingers trembled, and she met his eyes with a question.

“I’m fine,” he said before she had the chance to ask.

“It’s fine if you aren’t fine.”

“I am fine.”

“Your hand is shaking.”

“This kilt is...breezy.”

“It’s like a hundred feet of wool.”

“This castle has an updraft. I’m not used to inclement weather in that region.”

“It’s your own fault for going regimental.”

“Kingsley was. And when in Rome...”

“How do you know Kingsley’s going full Scotsman?” She narrowed her eyes at him. “Did you actually go running this morning or did you two play a game of hide the claymore?”

“I ran,” he said. “Before.”

“I knew it.” She took both of his hands in hers now and interlocked their fingers.

Søren glanced at a grandfather clock and back at her.

“Five thirty,” he said. “Three and a half more hours.”

“It’ll go fast,” she said, smiling a hopeful smile. “Won’t it?”

“It will be the longest three and a half hours of my life.”

For Nora, too.

“They won’t need me at the reception which isn’t a reception. I can wait with you,” she said.

“Thank you.” He kissed her on the forehead. “What would I ever do without my Little One?”

Nora swallowed an unexpected lump in her throat.

“I promise, you won’t ever have to find out.”

Reluctantly she let go of Søren’s hands as the photographer led her and Kingsley toward Michael and Griffin. The first pictures were of the groom and groom, best man and mistress of honor.

Kingsley held out his arm for her and she took it, grateful for his company in the secret they shared.

“How is he?” Kingsley asked.

“He is exactly how you think he is,” she said.

“Never so scared in his life?”

“White-knuckle petrified.”

Kingsley kissed her cheek. “I know how he feels.”

Pictures took half an hour. Kingsley promised to make her and Søren’s excuses to anyone who asked where they were. Michael and Griffin could be told the truth, of course. They would understand. Michael had agreed to a big wedding with one stipulation—no official wedding reception. A party? Sure. Fine. Michael, young artist that he was, found manufactured moments like the ceremonial cake-cutting offensive. The reception was only for people to eat and drink and dance. Once the wedding was over, the wedding party was free to get up to whatever depraved shenanigans they wanted to. And as she and Kingsley were the wedding party, depraved shenanigans were a given.

Nora went looking for Søren and wasn’t the least surprised to find him in the castle’s small stone-and-wood chapel. She stepped inside and strode toward him.

The sun streamed through an octagonal window and cast eight-sided light onto Søren, turning his blond hair into gold in a moment of pure alchemy. In a breath, in an instant, she was fifteen years old again, and he twenty-nine, and he looked exactly like he did the first time she’d laid eyes on him. The sunlight melted the years between then and now. Her hand trembled so it was a miracle she didn’t drop her glass of red wine.

Her footsteps on the stone floor alerted Søren to her presence. He lifted his head and turned back to her. The mask of composure had fallen, and she saw anguish in his eyes. She set her glass of wine on the altar and went to him, gathering him in her arms, holding him to her heart and resting her chin on the top of his head.

“How are you, my sir?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted, looking up at her. “There have been days in my life where I’ve woken up not knowing that later on that very day, my entire life would change. The day I met Kingsley, the day I met you. Usually you don’t know the day or the hour. Today I do.”

“Remember that story I wrote about Queen Esther when I was in high school?”

“How could I forget it? I must have read it a thousand times.”

“You did?”

“An erotic story written by a beautiful sixteen-year-old girl I was desperately and unrepentantly in love with and featuring a hero who looked suspiciously like me? I read it until the ink faded and the pages crumbled.”

It embarrassed Nora how much it pleased her that Søren had loved her story that much.

“I’ll have you know I did not base King Xerxes on you.”

“He was blond. A blond Persian.”

“Poetic license.” She sat at his side in the pew. “Queen Esther looked suspiciously like me, as well. Anyway...writing that story changed my life. I’d never written anything like that before. All I was trying to do was flirt with you and now twenty-two years later I’ve made an entire career from writing. I didn’t know my life would change that day by writing one little story. And yet...here we are. All thanks to you.”

“And Queen Esther. And Queen Eleanor.”

“I’m not really a queen.”

“You’ve always been a queen in my eyes. Especially now.”

“I can’t believe I’m wearing a wedding dress. How do I let Griffin talk me into these things?”

“It’s exquisite. You’re exquisite.”

Søren kissed her lightly on the lips. His mouth shivered against hers. Søren was a man of quiet depth, as if he kept a secret second heart locked away in a glass case. It would explain how much he felt and how strongly and yet how rarely such feelings were allowed to escape from captivity. Sometimes before they made love he would cut her skin with a sharp paper-thin blade and the act was so intimate and harrowing it would leave him shaking. It scared him to take her life in his hands, and yet it was at such times they felt closest to each other. She knew his trembling now was for a similar reason.

“Do you forgive me, Little One?” Søren asked.

“What mortal sin have you committed recently?”

“You know my sins better than I do.”

“Yes. Which is why I tell you there is no need to beg my forgiveness for anything.”

“You have a forgiving heart,” Søren said. “I have always admired that about you.”

“I know myself. I know my own weaknesses and failures. Jesus was always so kind to sinners and so cruel to hypocrites.”

“Am I a hypocrite?” Søren asked.

“You’re human.”

“You don’t have to be insulting, Eleanor.”

She laughed and rested her head on his shoulder. He sighed so her whole body moved with his. Somewhere behind and above them a bell rang. Six times the bell chimed. Six o’clock and all was well.

Three hours and counting.

“It’s strange, isn’t it?” Søren said.

“What is?”

“Just yesterday Michael was fifteen years old and had barely healed scars on his wrists from when he tried to kill himself in my church. And today...today he’s twenty-one and married. Michael. Married.” He looked at her and half laughed.

“I know. Crazy, isn’t it? I swear yesterday I was fifteen, and I saw my new priest for the very first time, and loved him from the moment I saw him, and knew I’d love him until I died. Today I’m thirty-eight, and I still love him and know I’ll love him forever.” The days danced and flashed around her like fireflies on a summer’s night. “Where is the time going?” she asked him. “How did it all go by so fast? And what if it’s all gone tomorrow?”

“We live each day like it’s our last. But not by running about wildly, attempting to cram every possible experience into one day. Instead...every day we should make our peace with God and each other. Say what needs to be said and not leave it for another time. If I knew I would die tomorrow I’d spend all night telling you and Kingsley how much I love you both, and I wouldn’t let God take me until I was certain you knew I meant every word. I would sing it to you like the angels sing praise to God in heaven—unceasingly.”

“We know. Kingsley and I, we already know.”

“But I would still tell you,” he said softly. “Even if you didn’t need to hear it, I would have to tell you.”

She held him close again, kissed his cheek, his forehead, like a mother kissing a scared child. And he was scared. She could feel it in every touch.

“Talk to me. Distract me. Help me get through these hours.”

“Will you hear my confession?” Nora asked. She turned and met his eyes. How she loved those eyes, the strength and color of steel. “This could be my last chance to confess to you, after all.”

“I won’t leave the priesthood. I promised you I wouldn’t.”

“You were in the wedding pictures. You performed a same-sex marriage. You kissed me in front of two hundred wedding guests, half of them we don’t know. You can tell me all you want that it’s fine, that it won’t matter, but we both know those are not the actions of a man who is planning on being a priest for much longer.”

“I have to tell them. Some things shouldn’t be secrets.”

“You tell them the truth, and they will kick you out.”

“Possibly. I’ve made choices, difficult ones, but I did it in full knowledge of the consequences. Nothing stays the same forever, after all.”

“That’s not true. My love for you is forever. I made that promise, and I will keep it. But tomorrow or next week or next month you might not be a priest anymore. So please...hear my confession and absolve me? One last time?”

He rose from the pew and moved a chair from the side of the chapel and set it in front of her. From the leather sporran of his kilt, he pulled a leather case, unzipped it and unfurled a purple sash. He kissed it and draped it around his neck and over his shoulders. He sat in the chair and pressed his palms together. Nora looked at his hands and saw they were now steady and still.

She smiled and looked up to the octagonal window. The sun would set in under three hours. By nightfall everything could change.

“First of all,” she began, “I’m confessing these sins to you because I committed them against you and only you can absolve me of them.”

“What are your sins?”

Nora loved Søren. This was an incontrovertible fact of the universe, strong as gravity, inevitable as sunrise. She’d told him almost everything there was to tell him about their years apart, everything but this. She hadn’t wanted to hurt him but she didn’t want to keep the truth from him anymore. No more secrets. No more lies. Nothing between them anymore and never again.

“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned,” she began her confession. “When we were apart there were two times I almost came back to you and didn’t.”

“Two?” Søren looked at her, wide-eyed and stunned. Usually she loved shocking him, it was such a feat. Not today. “Why didn’t you?”

“Are you sure you want to know?”

Then Søren said to her the two words she’d once said to him that had changed her life.

“Tell me.”