The Gypsy King (25 page)

While she waited head down, she pretended to search for some lost item in her knapsack. She bent down and picked up an empty wine bottle off the street, wiped it as well as possible and acted as if she was drinking from it. It was easy to avoid eye contact. She watched as dozens of fireworks danced and dazzled in the reflection from the store window. Flashes of yellows and whites and blues ignited the street in light. Gunshots and firecrackers popped all around, some startling her enough to make her jump.

Finally, the familiar bright blue apron popped into view through the window. It was her sister, ringing up customers in a flurry of activity. From the look on her face she was the only person working the store tonight. Veronique slipped the empty wine bottle into her knapsack, jostled her way across the street and slid into the store easily.

The back of the store was lined with shelves and, in seconds, she was out of sight of the register, but 255

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could keep an eye on her sister.

Emelie talked, sorted, bagged and smiled as customer after customer came and went. When there were only a few people browsing among the aisles, Veronique casually walked up behind a tall man sporting a black coat and tails and pretended to be looking for a bottle of wine. Once his back was turned and he was immersed in the label of delightful 1925 Bordeaux, she pulled the wine bottle out of her knapsack and held it in her fist for a few seconds, then let it fall to the hard floor. The explosion was loud enough to startle a few

customers, but it mingled nicely with the night’s festivities and was not nearly as loud as Veronique expected.

But it was enough to get Emelie running to the back storeroom for a broom before anyone knew where or who broke the bottle in the first place.

Veronique walked swiftly toward the back storage room and almost ran into Emelie’s back as she followed her inside and closed the door quickly.

“Emmy,” she whispered, just loud enough to get her attention.

Her hands on the broom, Emelie spun. She

froze, then dropped the broom and leapt towards Veronique mid-scream. “Veronique! Merde!

You’re alive! Oh my God! Are you okay? Are you all right? Where have you been? Everyone thought you were…” Her voice trailed off, tears flooded her eyes and she started sobbing. She dropped her 256

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head and put both of her small hands over her face. “I thought I killed you…I’m so sorry, Nikky…I didn’t know…I mean, I
knew
, you know, about you and Ahndray…but I didn’t

know…about Leone. I didn’t know what he would do…I didn’t know he could do something like that…Oh god…I was so stupid…I’m so sorry!”

Emelie collapsed in heaping sobs and

Veronique grabbed her and pulled her to her chest tightly. She pushed her face back, kissed her and hugged her as they stood there together. Emelie looked up and started talking rapidly. “The police are looking for you! Dad and Mom are looking for you, too! Veronique, everybody is looking for you.

Oh my god, I’m so sorry, Veronique, I saw you and I hated you with Ahndray and I went and told Leone and I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.” Emelie’s voice rose, then dropped to a whisper then rose to a shout again.

Through the tears and excitement and ringing in her ears, Veronique couldn’t understand

anything either of them were saying anymore. She forced herself and her sister to calm down.

Veronique talked to her slowly while gently placing her hand over her sister’s mouth to make sure she listened. “Emmy. I’m here. I’m fine now.

It’s okay about Leone. I understand about that.

But I need to find Ahndray. Do you know where Ahndray is?”

“Mmmmmhumpph,” Emelie replied with a

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nod.

Veronique removed her hand and smiled at her.

“Sorry.”

“He almost died, Veronique. But he’s better now. Well, he’s up and walking and he looks great, but…”

The sisters looked at each other for several seconds. Emelie looked at the floor and kicked at an empty box. “I mean, yes, he’s okay. He’s at the Fonteine au Lorier with his parents, you know, giving out wine and champagne to everybody.

We’re headed over to their house later tonight for the party. Everybody is going. But he’s at the town center right now.”

Veronique thought about getting Ahndray’s

attention in the middle of the town square and she stiffened. “Emmy. Can you find him for me? Can you find him and tell him I’m here and I have to see him.”

Customers began grousing, and their shouts

echoed through the door to the storeroom. Emelie grabbed the broom and dustpan and looked up at her sister anxiously. “I have to go. Yes. I’ll clean this up and close the store early tonight. It will be okay when everybody realizes why. I know where Ahndray is. But where will you be? How is he going to find you?

“Tell him to meet me at his house. Nobody will be there and I have a key. There’s still an hour or two before the party starts, right?”

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Emelie nodded.

Veronique held her sister by the shoulders and looked sweetly into her eyes. “And Emmy. This is very important. You cannot tell anybody you saw me yet, except Ahndray. The police are looking for me and there is no telling what they will do when they find me. “ Her voice trailed off and she was trembling. “And Emmy?” She didn’t want to ask, didn’t want to even mention his name, but she had to know. “Where is Leone?”

Veronique saw anger flash in her sister’s eyes and watched in surprise as she gripped the broom handle and thrashed it like she was beating someone with it. “He’s gone. That bastard packed what he could carry and left, Nikky. I can’t believe you were going to marry that animal! I heard his father told him never to come back and the next day he was gone. There was nobody here to say that it wasn’t a fair fight and he said Ahndray attacked him. The police couldn’t do anything, and Ahndray was barely alive, and we thought you were dead, and there was nothing we could do.”

Veronique was too numb to say anything. She gritted her teeth, took several deep breaths and then hugged her sister tightly. “Okay. Go find Ahndray and tell him I’m at his house. Go!” She opened the door and anxiously pushed her sister through it, then slammed it shut. Veronique steeled herself and slipped out the back of the 259

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store. She walked toward the Rodell estate. In less than twenty minutes, she was standing at the hedgerow, peering cautiously through the French doors of the patio.

She was right, the house was empty of people and it sparkled and shimmered in preparation for a beautiful holiday celebration. She easily unlocked the door and walked through the back patio, then crept through every room on the first floor until she was satisfied nobody was home.

She scampered up the stairs and, with a giggle, turned the knob of Ahndray’s room, and went inside.

His room was the same as she remembered, but something was very different. She froze, then exhaled as tears began filling her eyes. A bedroom armoire, her armoire, stood next to his window with both of its doors flung open as if inviting her to come and choose the dress she wanted to wear for the party.
How did he do this? How did he get her
stuff over to his house?

She silently fingered at least a dozen of her dresses, several blouses and skirts, then marveled at how her shoes were lined up in the bottom of the wooden closet. On each shelf rested pictures, ribbons, brushes, some of her jewelry, almost everything she really loved was here in his room waiting for her to return. There was even a pack of Gitanes and her silver lighter!

As she wiped away tears, her fingers strolled 260

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through her clothes. She savored the mingling smells of perfume, cloth and wood. She picked out a stunning full-length gown for the evening, then dashed to the bathroom, ran a hot bath and spent the next two hours scrubbing her skin until it tingled and burned. She felt clean and ready to see him again.

Relaxed and sexy again, she was already

dressed and tying a red silk ribbon in her hair when she began hearing voices downstairs.

Finally!

She stood in front of her armoire mirror and heard Mr. Rodell’s deep, rich tenor bellow from the formal room below while Mrs. Rodell’s heels popped and clacked on the hard oak wood floors.

Veronique closed her eyes and could imagine Anhdray’s mother dashing from kitchen to living room to library to bathroom, making sure

everything was perfect. More guests arrived in a steady flow and Veronique put the finishing touches on her gown and waited patiently.

The party downstairs grew louder and was in full celebration when she was sure she heard faint footsteps climbing up the stairs. She was ready to pull open the door and jump into Ahndray’s arms as soon as she heard his footsteps, but was surprised, then disappointed, when they stopped and retreated.

Once again, the stairs were silent.

As raucous revelry rang out in the living room 261

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downstairs, Veronique could tell guests were pouring into the house and even out and onto the patio and the grounds in the back. She could hear.

Mrs. Rodell talking excitedly while she opened and closed baking ovens and cabinets. The heavy aromas of hazelnuts, cheese, croissants and pate wafted up on the warm air pushed by a huge fire that Mr. Rodell had roaring even though it was the middle of July.

The cheerful clinking of glasses and champagne corks popping became background noise as she fumbled with, and finally fastened, a beautiful necklace that Isabella had given her. It was a thin, simple gold chain that held a shiny, golden sun inset with a blood-red garnet. It looked almost as good between her own tanned, caramel breasts as it did when she first saw it on Isabella.

Footsteps started up the stairs again.

Whoever was coming up the stairs was not in any hurry, not bounding up the flight of steps in excitement like she had imagined for the last few hours, and she began to worry.
Had something gone
terribly wrong?

But as the shoes grew louder, she turned from the small armoire mirror and listened.

Anticipation conquered panic and her heart

pounded in her ears and throat.
It could be a
drunken guest looking for a washroom or Mr. Rodell
checking upstairs for something or what if someone
heard her humming as she got dressed? How could she
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possibly explain what she was doing in Ahndray’s
room? Pretend she had been hiding under the bed for
the last three months?

Without a sound, she walked to the door and listened to the slow and even footsteps reach the top of the stairs, then continue until they stopped on the other side of the door. She couldn’t take it anymore. She pulled the door open just as the knob began to turn and there he was.

His smile was the first thing she noticed—it was bright, happy, genuine and warm. Ahndray stood in front of her sporting an elegant tuxedo, complete with tails and what she usually

considered a ridiculous black top hat. But she had to admit, he looked not only dashing and

sophisticated—he looked delicious!

The first thing she noticed other than his

clothes, was his breathing, which was raspy and stunted. She slowed herself down and tentatively tried to assess the full impact of his injury before she lost all control, jumped up in his arms and knocked him back down the stairs.

He had lost weight, at least ten pounds by her quick estimation, and his breathing was indeed,
labored
. She tried hard to ignore a guilty, lust-provoked spate of selfishness.
I just may kill him
when I get my hands on him, and what will happen
when I get him in me?

She walked toward him slowly and looked

deep into his eyes to see how he was feeling about 263

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seeing her ghost. He met her gaze and smiled brighter than any fireworks exploding outside.

She knew in that instant she had made the right choice in coming back.

Her gaze dropped to his black cane. Its gold, beautifully detailed duck’s head poked out from beneath his clenched fist and, as he leaned on it, he looked like he was off balance, maybe even dizzy. Her heart went out to him and any

hesitation was lost as she burst across the few feet separating him from her and was met with open arms. All she cared about was that he was right in front of her and he was
alive
!

He braced himself and coughed out her name,

“Veronique.”

In spite of herself, she nearly knocked him over with a crushing hug that she had been dreaming about giving him for over three months.

“Ahndray!” she gushed in a muffled voice. She wanted to scream, but she couldn’t take a chance that anybody would hear their secret rendezvous.

With a fervor and eagerness that had her shaking in her skin, he hugged her so hard it reminded her of their first evening together—rolled in a blanket gasping for air on the banks of the Chamois.

His cane fell to the floor as he brought both arms up and gave himself to her completely.

She pulled him closer, wrapping herself around him swiftly enough to topple his hat off the back of his head. The loud thud on the wooden floor 264

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startled them both. They giggled together, burying themselves in the familiar warmth of each other.

After a long silence, Veronique was sure she was ruining his jacket with what felt like a river of hot, soul-shaking tears. She looked up to find Ahndray’s eyes also wet and misty. After several more minutes words would still not come, so she held him and simply breathed deep, long breaths and took in everything she loved about the man she was sure she had lost forever. He smelled like warm wheat fields with notes of hickory and spice, and she was deeply pleased as his grip on her strengthened instead of loosening.

As she inhaled all of him and began relaxing against his strong, muscular chest, he grunted and pushed his hips into her dress and she could feel him bulging already.
Three months!
Visions of him on top of her, beneath her, behind her, raced through her sultry mind causing her to tingle and clench her teeth tightly in frustration. She thought better of making any comments about his strength and instead, let him shuffle her somewhat meekly, toward the open door of his room.