The Lost - J. D. Robb [99]
Sebastian played with her hair. “Your hair is so thick I cannot believe you can hold your head up. But when I touch it, it feels like the finest-spun silk.” They kissed, and kissed again.
“Tell me about the convent, Isabelle.”
Tears filled her eyes as she squeezed his hand before pulling hers away. She closed her eyes but nodded, and Sebastian sat back, folding his arms, waiting with the patience of a man who had tested that virtue to its limits.
This was how trust began. Isabelle knew she would have to be the first to give. It was about more than the way a man was made. This man had forgotten how to trust a long time ago.
But he had actually asked, cared enough to want to know how she became who she was.
With her eyes closed, Isabelle pictured the huge convent, now much too big for its small community, with echoing halls and the sound of hymns at all hours. The memory still touched that part of her that longed to be closer to God.
“I went into the convent right after high school. I’m from Nebraska.” She glanced at him. “Do you know where Nebraska is?”
“Somewhere in the American midsection,” he suggested without much confidence.
“The Midwest, yes. My parents had a farm that was fifty miles from everyone else. So they sent me to a girls’ boarding school run by a very progressive order of nuns. Then my mom and dad died my second year of high school and I spent vacations for the next two years with relations who really did not want me.”
“I am so sorry, though I find it hard to imagine anyone not wanting you.” He kissed the top of her head. “That would never have happened here.”
“Yes, Cortez explained your way of caring for children,” Isabelle said, pretending not to understand his meaning. “Your community here is impressive, Sebastian, but it only works on a small scale with an enlightened man at the head.”
“Yes, I think the term is ‘despot.’ ”
She fisted her right hand and gently punched his left arm.
“You try so hard to make me see you as a dissipated, ruined man.” She straightened and raised one finger so he would know she was serious. “I tell you, Sebastian, the man I am getting to know is the one I saw on the beach today with the children. The one who took the blind girl up on his back and made her the leader of the group. The one who let himself be buried in sand.” She folded her hands in her lap and waited pointedly for him to answer.
“Yes, Mistress Nurse, I know you want to think well of me and I am sorry to have to explain to one as high-m inded as you that I play with the children so that when they grow up they will be loyal to me; they will stay and serve me as their parents have.”
“Oh, nonsense. You play with them because they remind you of what you miss the most.”
He laughed. “There is no discouraging you.”
“Oh, yes, there is. I have faced my share of disappointments in my life.”
“And convent life was one of them?”
“Yes.” She sighed and took his hand. “I was so very lucky to have a Mother Superior who understood me. When I was accused, more than once, of inappropriate behavior, she took me aside and counseled me.”
Isabelle rested her head against the wall and wondered what Mother would make of her now. “She knew that I was not flirting in a sexual way, but the priests were men after all. In the end she made me see that I did not want to be a nun so much as I wanted a sense of community, a place where I could belong, a place where I mattered to people as I had to my parents.”
Oh, it still hurt to talk about it and remember the day she had taken her one little suitcase and walked out of yet another home. A tear splashed onto her hand and Sebastian wiped it away with one of his fingers.
“We all want to belong, Isabelle.”
“I suppose so, and I was looking for it in the wrong place. We have something in common that way, Sebastian.”
He did not rise to the bait but asked, “How long were you in the convent?”
“Three years. The