Double Dealing(83)
I used my free hand to reach out and take her hand, giving it a squeeze. “You are a wonderful woman, Charani Hardy, you know that?”
“You will make a wonderful Gypsy Queen,” Charani replied. “Come, let us get these inside and unload the rest. After that, I’m making a late lunch for the three of us. Francois can eat when he comes back.”
I helped Charani, but Francois came back before she finished her cooking, looking handsome and happy in his suit. I came over and gave him a hug, as my love at least temporarily overcame my wavering trust in him. Maybe it was the rakish slant to his smile or the way his eyebrows framed his dark eyes so well, but I had to admit that my pulse quickened when he raised my chin up and kissed me softly. “I missed you too, mon chere.”
“I take it things went well at the bank?” I asked, my hands resting lightly on the swells of his chest muscles, and warmth spread through my body.
Francois nodded. “Very. Our system worked perfectly, thanks to Felix's foresight. I even had time to stop on the way home and have an espresso. I'm glad though that I came home when I did. Mother, that smells divine.”
“I'm sure you would come over here and criticize me in at least three different ways, probably including the overuse of paprika,” Charani teased, “but thank you. Go, change, and I will save lunch until after you’re done.”
I set out plates for the four of us, Syeira helping with the glasses while Francois changed, coming back looking like he was prepared for exercise. “Going to do a workout?”
“I was thinking, after lunch, I would like to get the kinks worked out,” he said, playing with the zipper on his Le Coq Sportif running suit. “My back feels good enough to handle some exercise, and I don't want to lose too much.”
“Yes, you might go from superhuman to merely human,” I joked, setting the last plate on the table. “You just want to show off, don't you?”
“Maybe,” he chuckled. “But I would only be able to do that if you were willing to come with me. What do you say? Later I can take you to a little bistro for dinner. Mother, Syeira, you two fine with that?”
“Enjoy the evening,” Charani said with a smile. “It is good to see the youthful fire rekindle some.”
“We do what we can,” I said, looking over at Syeira who gave me a small nod. She understood, and I knew that regardless of the situation, as soon as she knew something, she'd tell me. “But first, let's enjoy some lunch.”
Chapter 36
Felix
Trembling, I knocked on Mistress' bedroom door at precisely eight in the evening as she had commanded me to do. Part of my trembling was caused by pure physical exhaustion, as after my normal morning workout, she’d commanded that instead of coming to see her, I was to be working with Sacha. The burly ex-member of the Russian Army was a bear for work, and had taken me along with two other men out into the forest for what he said was both physical labor and training.
“You three may at some point be tasked with accompanying Mistress Svetlana to cities and other areas off of the property,” he began in his barely understandable Ukrainian. “While she has informed me that all of you have the social grace and skills to be a worthy companion, she can’t evaluate you in the area that I and her uncle Vladimir feel is most important.”
“Which is?” one of the other men, Yvgeiny, asked.
“Vladimir Ilyushin is a man whose business puts him in contact with dangerous individuals,” Sacha replied patiently, like a teacher trying to reach a rather dull pupil. “She’s the closest thing he has to a daughter, and sometimes seen as a target of opportunity by Vladimir's rivals. It will be your job, as her companion and escort, to serve and protect her.”
I nodded, eager to prove my worth. Just the thought of not only being near the Mistress but to stop those that wished to hurt her left my pulse rushing. Sacha, despite his trollish exterior, was intelligent and saw my expression for what it was. “Slow down, pet,” he jeered, refusing to use my name. “Just because you may have the opportunity to be her arm candy doesn’t make you worthy.”
“I understand,” I said in my best attempts at speaking Russian. My accent was horrible, and I was sure my pronunciation was garbled, but he got my meaning. “What do we do?”
“First, let's see how well you can keep up,” he said, pointing. He turned and started running through the woods, away from the river and toward the far off mountains, misty and unfocused in the far distance. The three of us candidates were all wearing fifteen-kilogram backpacks, while Sacha was wearing just the hiking boots and Russian Army fatigue pants that we also wore. Still, he set a hellacious pace, bounding over rocks and fallen trees in the old forest.