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.
Not ten minutes later, S?ren and Claire’s mother were loading suitcases into her car. He heard her saying something about going to her parents, and S?ren replied with one word—attorney. No matter what she did, where she went, her first phone call needed to be to a lawyer.
When it was time to go, Claire wouldn’t let anyone but Kingsley put her coat and shoes on her. S?ren watched him while he tied her tiny laces and zipped her into her coat. He had to tell her five times to stop wiggling her fingers, so he could get her mittens on her hands. But finally she was dressed and warm, and he swooped her into his arms and carried her out to the car, S?ren and Annabelle behind them.
Annabelle held the door open for them, and Kingsley buckled Claire into her seat. He made sure she had her blanket and her unicorn tucked in with her before tapping the end of her nose in a goodbye.
“Thank you,” Annabelle said. Her face had a ghostly pallor. She seemed on the verge of tears, or worse—getting sick all over the place. He couldn’t blame her. If someone showed up at his doorstep and said someone he loved was a childmolesting rapist, he might have trouble keeping his breakfast down, as well. She gave S?ren a phone number—Kingsley guessed it was her parents where she would f lee now with her daughter. S?ren promised to keep in touch, and he asked her to write him at school and tell him about his sister. Annabelle pledged that she would and then swore to him with all her heart that she would make sure his father never knew he’d come to see her.
“He wanted a son and was beyond disappointed that I had a girl. He’s been—” Annabelle stopped and looked panicstricken.
“Are you pregnant?” S?ren asked, not the question a teenage boy would ever—should ever—ask a married woman in her thirties. But he asked it with authority, and bowing to his authority she answered it.
“No,” she said. “I lied and told him I wasn’t on birth control anymore. I’m not ready for another one. But he’s dying for a son.”