29. In His Possession Again

It was as though time speeded up after that. I remember hazily saying my goodbyes to the kind nuns who had taken me in when I was broken and forlorn. I knelt before the Mother Superior and she gently laid her hands on my head in a traditional gesture of bestowing blessings and asked, after a short silence,

"Is this what you want, child?"

I had grown very fond of the old woman who ran the nunnery like a tight ship, but who was equally compassionate and intelligent.

I smiled through my tear-filled eyes and bowed my head to avoid showing her my distress, I nodded, whispering, "He is the father of my children, Mother."

Her all-seeing eyes glimmered, but she remained silent after blessing me and I rose and left the room, my steps heavy, heart filled with foreboding.

Lucien Delano stood waiting impatiently beside a large, dark limousine, and he gave a curt nod in the direction of the Mother Superior, who had made the unexpected gesture of seeing us off. My old friend, Brian Gaulle, came to