The King (The Original Sinners: White Years, #2)(87)

“It’s a house.”

“It’s a big f*cking house.” Grand, breathtaking, magnificent and imposing. Not unlike S?ren.

“I hate it.”

Kingsley sighed. S?ren had told him about life in that house.

“I don’t blame you, mon ami.”

The car drove down the long stretch of driveway. Kingsley sensed S?ren tensing as they neared the house.

“What can I do?” Kingsley asked. “To help you, I mean.”

“Stay in the car. If I need you to vouch for my identity, I’ll come for you.”

The car stopped in the bottom of the U of the driveway. The driver got out and opened the door for S?ren. A blast of frigid air slapped Kingsley in the face. It would snow soon. Kingsley hoped it would snow. Then he and S?ren would have to get a hotel room—maybe stay in it for days…

“Hey,” Kingsley said, and S?ren turned around. “Can I meet your sister?”

“Claire’s not even three years old. If you want to f lirt with my sister, we’ll have to visit Elizabeth.”

“I wasn’t going to f lirt,” Kingsley said, stung that S?ren apparently thought sex was his only interest in life. It was his biggest interest, of course, but not his only one. “I like kids.”

S?ren narrowed his eyes at him and pointed at the seat of the car.

“Wait,” S?ren said, as if Kingsley himself were the preschooler here.

The driver got back in the car. Kingsley got out and stood in the frigid late-autumn wind. S?ren’s long coat whipped around his legs as he walked to the house. His head was high and his eyes stony, but for all that, he looked like a condemned man walking to his own execution.

He rang the doorbell and the door opened. A woman stood on the threshold. S?ren’s father would be in his fifties by now, but this woman looked barely thirty. Young and beautiful, dark-haired and shapely. What did they call these women? Trophy wives? He’d heard that somewhere. A young woman marrying a much older man for his money. Would she even care that her husband had raped his other daughter? Or would she consider that a risk worth taking for the chance to live in such opulence?

Whoever she was, whatever her name, she seemed willing to listen to S?ren. She didn’t invite him in, but she didn’t slam the door in his face, either. Who would slam the door in such a face? It would be like spitting on Michelangelo’s David.

A smaller face appeared in the doorway. A little girl with her hair in curls and something in her hand—a stuffed toy? She gazed up at her mother, and the woman put her hand on top of the little girl’s head. Kingsley didn’t know what possessed him to disobey S?ren’s order, but without thinking he walked to the house and stood behind S?ren on the porch.

“Oh, this is my friend Kingsley,” S?ren said to the woman. “I brought him to affirm I am who I say I am. I know what I’m telling you is—”

“I knew who you were the moment I saw you,” she said, her voice shaking. “You’re just like him.”

Kingsley sensed S?ren recoiling inwardly at the comparison.

“Forgive me,” she said. “I mean…you look like him. That’s all. I can see you’re his son. I’m Annabelle.” She gave Kingsley a faltering smile.

“And this is Claire, my sister,” S?ren said, nodding at the little girl who looked up at the three people arrayed on the porch, her eyes great with innocent curiosity.

“She’s a little shy at first,” Annabelle said. “But once she starts talking, you can’t get her to shut up.”

“Sounds like you, Kingsley,” S?ren said. “Kingsley?”

Kingsley ignored him and knelt on the ground.

“I like your unicorn,” he said, tapping the purple beast she clutched on the tip of its horn. “What’s her name?”

“Claire.”

“That’s your name.”

“I named her after me,” Claire said in a small, proud voice.

“I should… I’ll go pack our bags now,” Annabelle said. She picked the girl up into her arms. “Would you like to hold your sister while I pack?”

“I…” S?ren began and stopped. Kingsley had never dreamed he would hear S?ren stammer in nervousness. “I’ve never been around small children. I’m afraid I’ll hurt her.”

“I’ll take her,” Kingsley said, and Annabelle passed Claire to him. She wriggled around in his arms until she found a comfortable spot.

“Come in, please. Both of you.”

S?ren and Annabelle disappeared up the stairs to talk more and pack some things while Kingsley played with Claire. Anything he did made her giggle, especially when he spoke English to her and French to her unicorn. She also liked it when he bounced her unicorn on top of her head. She snatched it from his hand and attacked him with it. He played dead, which sent her into a giggle fit.

Claire acted as a tour guide for Kingsley. She pointed at everything that could possibly be of interest to him—the fireplace, the logs, the chairs, the picture of her papa. Kingsley peered at the photograph—a black-and-white eight-by-ten of a regal-looking man in a British Army officer’s uniform. S?ren looked so much like the man in the photograph that Kingsley couldn’t look away at first. Same strong jaw and nose, same intense eyes, same noble and aristocratic bearing. And yet for all the similarities, Kingsley knew in his soul that this man and S?ren could not have been more different. The father had done a lifetime of damage to his eldest daughter, and here was the son trying to stop it from happening to the youngest.