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"That is Anya, his second wife Maggie died of cancer a few years after they er than Eleanor is now and already a er"

"Shit That’s horrible"

"It was He was bereft It’s difficult for those of our kind to find someone we’re compatible with, to find someone who understands our desires and even shares them He was not only a man without a wife, he was a Dominant without a subone into such deepafter the funeral he stepped into this house and didn’t leave the property again for years"

"Years?"

"Years Maggie died and he decided he wanted to die, too He buried hi and vital giving up offended me to my core Catholics abhor suicide not for the death but for the despair I couldn’t allow it to go on any longer I believed Daniel si out there in the world worth living for And if he had a re in this beautiful coffin, he ain So I lent him Eleanor"

"You what?"

Søren took a deep drink of the wine Wesley was about ready to start chugging the stuff himself

"I allowed Daniel to keep Eleanor with him in this house for one week He was allowed any liberty with her he desired--sex, dominance, the infliction of pain and punishree I told hi as he didn’t violate them, she was his for seven days while I went to my conference in Rome"

"And Nora was okay with thiswhy?" Wesley raised his hands in utter baffle to him She did as she was ordered She was not happy about it at first, to say the least"

"Can’t i for lending her to Daniel for a week She was my property and she knew she need only say her safe word, and I would have taken her back hoood for hiraphs of Daniel with his wife and children, it’s safe to say I was right"

"So if giving Nora to soret, what do you regret?"

"I had an ulteriorEleanor to Daniel You may not know this, but when Eleanor was nineteen years old, there was someone else in her life"

"Someone else?" Wesley asked Nora had never told hiuy before

"Yes You weren’t her first brush with a vanilla sort of ro one, had much in common, and he adored her as well he should have Still, she chose ht--I was 32 years old, he nineteen But Daniel--now he could give ht And I assure you he did I never quite trusted Eleanor’s love for ive her so little coether was and is li She and I could never be seen in public together The si for a walk down the street holding hands, stealing a kiss under a streetlaive none of that to her unless I left my life in the church She claiiving up who I was for her I feared that she said that only to be kind If given the chance to take it, I thought she would I feared she would But because I loved her and prized her happiness ave her a chance to be with soive her all that I couldn’t I loaned Eleanor to Daniel I gave Daniel to Eleanor"

"That soundsnice is not the word Hard," Wesley said, finally finding the word he needed "That sounds hard"

"It was very hard letting her co anywhere near that house I grew up in I didn’t want to cory, petulant I was cruel to her in response Cruel on purpose I wanted to give her ample reason to leave oodbye"

"You were stacking the deck," Wesley said, understanding iainst myself And, of course, Eleanor surprised h tempted to stay with him, she came back to me And when I told her that I was surprised she’d come back, she looked at me with so much hurt in her eyes" Søren paused, lifted the wineglass but couldn’t see himself to drink from it "She said, ‘I love you, you stupid ret, putting her through a vain and cruel test of her love for no reason There were other ways to help Daniel I didn’t have to use her like I did That I doubted her loveI regret that I regret it enough that I went to confession over it When I told Eleanor, she absolved ht she went back to you, when she fell on purpose--you knew she was doing it because she loved me"

"Exactly She pushed you away for the same reason I pushed her away That deliberate act of cruelty, like my deliberate act of cruelty to her, was born of love"