The Queen. Tiffany Reisz

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СКАЧАТЬ 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 СКАЧАТЬ