Bad Boys of London: The Complete GYPSY HEROES Collection (69 page)

I hear him come up to me and I turn around to face him. He holds out my drink.

‘Thank you,’ I say softly.

He lifts his glass. ‘Here’s to the fireflies.’

I lift mine. ‘The fireflies,’ I repeat, looking into his eyes and knowing that we are not drinking to the fireflies.

First course is Madam’s famous Soupe à l’Oignon Gratinée made to a century’s old recipe. As the dish with a thick golden crust is put in front of me, Shane explains the laborious technique that Madam used to make it.

‘Baguette toasts, half an inch thick, are spread with butter and layered with grated Emmental cheese, sautéed yellow onions, and tomato purée. Over this construct she gently pours salted water. The dish is then simmered for thirty minutes and baked uncovered for an hour at 350 degrees.’

‘No wonder it looks almost like a cake,’ I say.

‘Bon appétit,’ he says.

‘Bon appétit,’ I reply and dip my spoon into it. The inside is so thick and thoroughly amalgamated it is impossible to discern the cheese from the onion or the bread. I put it into my mouth and catch Shane looking at me.

He raises his eyebrows and waits for my verdict.

I exhale and widen my eyes. ‘It’s to die for.’

He grins, happy, wholesome, irresistible. ‘That’s exactly what I think.’

When the soup bowls are cleared away, Madam serves pineapple tartare, finely diced raw pineapple mixed with salt and a hint of chili. It is the perfect palate cleanser after the richness of the starter.

Outside it gets dark and Madam lights candles. I notice that no lights have been turned on anywhere in the house.

‘Is there no electricity this evening?’ I ask.

‘Lights affect the fireflies. It interferes with their mating process so we keep it to a minimum during this season.’

In the flickering candlelight the dressed up Shane seems like the perfect host, sophisticated, charming, and urbane. A beast that can only be admired from afar. I almost wish for the Shane in the T-shirt and jeans that was just good fun.

A spruced up Monsieur Chauband wheels in the main course. ‘Gigot d’Agneau Pleureur,’ he announces proudly.

   ‘It translates as a crying lamb gigot because the meat is cooked in an oven, slowly, on a grill, with sebago potatoes and vegetables placed on a rack underneath it. The meat’s juices, the tears, fall on the vegetables and cook them,’ Shane explains.

I bite into a piece of meat and it is tender and succulent.

‘Tell me about your father. You never talk about him,’ Shane invites as he pours red wine into fresh glasses from a bottle of Merlot that Monsieur brought in.

I pick up my glass and take a sip. The wine is robust and fragrant. ‘I told you a lot about my family and my childhood, but you told me nothing about your family or your childhood. What was it like being from two different types of gypsies?’

He spears a capsicum on his fork. ‘I actually know very little about my Romany heritage. My mother doesn’t speak much about her family. All I know is when she fell in love with my father, she had to elope because my grandfather was so furious with her. Not only had she chosen someone outside the clan, but she had chosen a well known gambler. On the day she got married he disowned her. She could never again go to see her family. Even when her sister died a few years ago her family were forbidden to tell her.’ A shadow of sadness crosses his face. ‘I know my mother misses her family very much, but there is nothing anyone can do while he is still alive.’

‘That’s so vindictive. Didn’t you say your father has already passed away?’

‘My father was murdered, Snow.’

My eyes widen in shock. ‘Your father was murdered? How horrible!’

His face tightens with an old anger that cannot be forgotten. ‘Yes, he made the stupid mistake of stealing from his boss. Unfortunately he was not just any boss, but a mean gangster. So Jake, being the oldest, was forced to go and work for the man who slit our father’s throat from ear to ear, and pay off the debt.’

‘Oh my God,’ I gasp.

‘Yes, it was a very traumatic time for us, our family fell apart after my father’s death. For a very long time Jake was lost to us. He put food on the table and paid all our bills, but everyday he became colder and more unreachable. I think he hated himself and what he was being forced to do. My poor mother used to cry at night when she thought no one could hear, and my brother Dom became an angry rebellious stranger. Only my sister Layla, because she was so young, remained mostly unaffected by our tragedy.

He pauses and takes a sip of wine.

‘Then one day for no reason, Dom turned over a new leaf and that made my mother a bit happier, but things really turned for the better when Jake was nineteen. That was when he fought back and took over the organization. Once he had done that he streamlined everything, moved away from all the illegal aspects of the business, and concentrated all his attention on gambling dens and strip clubs. He started to make a lot of money, and I mean really a lot.’ He pauses and smiles, a clean, gorgeous, heart-throbbing smile. ‘That’s when he got both Dom and me in to act.’

‘So you got into strip clubs and gambling dens too?’

‘Not gambling dens. Not even Jake does that anymore. Our family invests mostly in property and aspects of the entertainment sector: restaurants, gentlemen’s clubs, and normal clubs.’

‘Hmmm … so you must meet a lot of beautiful girls.’

‘Yes, I do,’ he says with a cheeky grin. ‘But when you own a candy store you don’t actually eat all the sweets in it.’

‘This reminds me of a joke,’ I say so lightly, it trips off my tongue.

‘Yeah?’

‘A woman treats her husband to a strip club on his birthday. At the club the doorman says, “Hey, Jim. How are you?” The wife looks at Jim and asks, “How does he know you?” “I play football with him,” he tells her. Inside the bartender asks, “The usual, Jim?” Jim turns to his wife, “Before you say anything, dear, he’s on the darts team.” Next a stripper comes up to them and touching herself sexily says, “Hi, Jim. Do you want your special again?” In a fit of rage the wife storms out dragging Jim with her and jumps into a taxi. And the taxi driver says, “What’s up with you, Jimmy Boy? You picked up an ugly one this time.” Jim’s wife gave him a very nice funeral though.

Shane throws his head back and laughs and I do too, a little, but when the laughter dies down, he looks at me teasingly. ‘You won’t have to give a nice funeral, Snow.’

 ‘Don’t worry, I’m not holding it against you, but I could tell the moment I laid eyes on you that you’re a playboy.’

He fixes his gaze on me. ‘I’m not going to pretend I’m some saint. I’m a man and I have needs, and sure, there are always women willing to satisfy them, but I happen to want you.’

‘So that’s what I’ve become. Part of the horde of women always willing to satisfy your needs.’

He stares at me curiously. ‘Don’t you think we’d be real good together?’

‘I have not thought about it,’ I lie.

‘I think we’d be earth-shatteringly good together,’ he says softly.

My heart thumps in my chest.

‘You know you want me too.’

I open my mouth to protest and he raises his hand. ‘There’s no reason to be ashamed of your body’s urges, Snow. When you’re ninety you’re never going to think oh hell, I wish I hadn’t slept with that Shane guy. You’re going to regret every opportunity you didn’t take.’

‘So sex with you has become an opportunity, has it?’ I scoff.

‘Don’t knock it until you try it, sweetheart.’

‘Just because you’re handsome—’

‘First I’m sexy, now I’m handsome too …’ he says, a playful glint in his eye.

‘In an obvious playboy sort of way, of course,’ I say.

‘Of course. What other way is there?’ he drawls.

Before I can respond, Madam Chaumbond appears at the door, her demeanor, formal. ‘Etait-il bon?’ she asks, her voice carrying over the vast space.

Shane turns to me. ‘Madam would like to know if you enjoyed your food.’

‘It was incredible,’ I say sincerely.

He turns to her and translates.

And in the small smile of satisfaction that she permits herself, I realize that Shane is right. She does have a soft spot for him. It was there all along in the big portions, the care with which she served him, the details she lavished on the food.

‘Bon,’ she says with a dignified nod, and withdraws, her black clothes swallowed by the shadows that have lengthened around and inside Saumur.

Shane picks up his wine glass and turns to me, his eyes glittering. ‘Are you ready to go into the forest with the big, bad wolf, Snow?’

‘You’ve got your fairy tales mixed up, but yeah, I’m ready.’

Fifteen

SNOW

T
he air is fragrant with the smell of flowers. Carrying torchlights we set off for the dark forest. It feels cooler under the canopy of leaves.

‘It will rain later tonight,’ Shane says.

‘How do you know?’

He glances at me. ‘The weather forecast.’

‘Right,’ I say embarrassed. I got caught up in the idea that we were in a magical place far away from civilization. Besides, there are, after all, people who can tell it is going to rain by the ‘feel’ of the air or by looking at animal behavior or observing the sky.

We take a path that is so narrow it will only accept one person at a time. I follow Shane’s broad back until we come upon a clearing with a spooky log cabin. It’s exactly how I had imagined the witch’s hut that Hansel and Gretel found in the forest would look.

Shane opens the wooden door and we are standing in a rectangular room roughly about fourteen feet by ten with a wooden board floor. The planks make a creaking sound as Shane walks on them. A large blackened stone fireplace is set into the back wall.  A fire is lit, but it is low with bits of charred wood and plenty of ashes.

‘What’s up with that?’ I ask shining my torch towards a huge black cauldron hanging to one side of the fireplace.

He grins. ‘Authenticity. You can’t have a witches hut and no cauldron.’

‘Right,’ I say with a smile and shine my torch all around the room. There is a single bed with a blue and yellow bedspread at one end, and a small wooden table and four chairs in the middle. The wooden shelves have stuff on them, an axe, nets, knives, tin boxes, bowls, worn books, mortar and pestle, wooden spikes, dark gunny sacks. I guess they are a hunter’s utensils.

Shane opens a box of candles and lights some. There are windows, but their shutters are closed. Strands of mushrooms are drying from a string hung across the firewood. There is the smell of earth and burning wood. In another corner there are bunches of herbs hanging from the ceiling. There is a large rocking chair next to the fireplace. It has an old cushion on it.

‘Monsieur Chevalier uses this cabin a lot during the truffle hunting season,’ he explains with a smile. ‘I think it gives him a break from Madam.’

I chuckle quietly.

He takes a brown bottle from a shelf and hands it to me. ‘Mosquito repellent made of herbs.’

I rub it on my hands and legs and it smells pleasantly of lavender.

He snatches a couple of blankets and a basket and we set off again. We reach another clearing where there is a round flat surface with a green plastic covering. Shane flicks the covering off it and reveals a round bench with a flat round mattress and lots of cushions on it.

‘Go on. Climb aboard,’ he urges.

I get on the mattress and lie back. The sky is alive with stars. He switches off the torches and lies next to me. I can hear sounds in the forest, foraging animals, insects, and I can hear him breathing next to me. My whole body tingles with hyper awareness. He turns his head and looks at me. His eyes are gleaming in the dark. I inhale suddenly.

We’re going to have sex in the forest.

And then it happens. A tiny light comes on close to my head. Startled, I gasp and jerk my head around. Why, it is a firefly. The little creature flashes and then goes dark. And then flashes again. Magical.

‘Look Shane,’ I whisper in wonder.

‘Look, mate. This one’s taken, go flash elsewhere,’ he tells the firefly.

I laugh, a laugh of sheer joy and enchantment and reach up with my cupped hands.

It darts away.

‘Oh,’ I say disappointed, but I realize that others are dancing into view. They glow and flicker in trees and in the air, and slowly they light up the whole forest like a Christmas tree giving enough light that I can make out Shane’s features. Between the blades of the tall grasses and dandelions, hundreds of lights twinkle as if all the stars in the sky have fallen to earth.

‘It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve seen. I’ll never forget this night as long as I live,’ I whisper in an awed voice. ‘Thank you, for bringing me here.’

‘The show’s not over yet, honey. I’ve still got a bit of flashing to do myself,’ he says lazily.

The words die in my throat when I see his shadowy face loom over me before warm soft lips are kissing me.

SHANE

We Irish believe in faeries. The Irish fairy is not like Peter Pan’s Tinker Bell. An Irish fairy can take any form she wishes, but prefers the human form. Our elders claim that they are beautiful, powerful and impossible to resist, which really, is a crying shame, because most Irish faeries love to bring misfortune and bad luck to the mortals who come near them. At that moment in the glow of the fireflies, Snow looked like an Irish fairy.