“You’ll get settled in no time,” Zelda assured me.
“I’m sure I will.”
I have been asked to inform you that you will be dining with Mr. Volkov tonight. I believe he wishes to hear if the facilities meet your expectations.”
“I am more than happy with everything so far.”
“Good you can tell him yourself.” Zelda paused and pushed those severe glasses up her nose. “I wish to welcome you to the house. I will do whatever I can to ensure your success. I am on call twenty-four hours a day, so all you have to do is ask.”
I smiled despite myself. While Zelda didn’t look like a ray of warm sunshine, she seemed to have a heart somewhere inside that tailored suit.
“It’s almost lunch now, so I’ll take you to see Yulia and you can have your first meal together. I believe you have already informally met her.”
“Yes, I have and that will be wonderful.”
A few minutes later and I was shown to the dining room.
Chapter 8
April
The six-year old princess was already waiting for me dressed in clothes that most other girls her age would prize as star outfits. She nodded solemnly to me.
She had an adult grace to her that I found almost disconcerting. I looked around at our surroundings. The whole room had been decorated with the kind of formal elegance that intimidated even me. The table was far too long and high for the child, the chairs too grand and heavy. The chandelier, well, it had more bulbs than a forty-foot Christmas tree.
“What do you think, Yulia, too much? Shall we find somewhere cozier?”
The little girl’s eyes widened, then she nodded eagerly.
I turned to Zelda. “Can we move to that sunny room next to the kitchen? I believe there is a table there that’s just our size.”
Zelda frowned. “That is where the children of the kitchen staff eat when they come around.
“No wonder I thought it was perfect.”
“Fine.” She gave instructions in Russian to Margot who was hanging around at the entrance of the door. Her eyebrows arched, but she nodded and disappeared.
I led my charge into the bright little room with windows that overlooked an apple tree full of fruit. As we sat down, Yulia gave me a secret little smile. Lunch was chicken, mashed potatoes, and vegetables.
Yulia gracefully forked green beans and mashed potatoes in her mouth.
“You eat your vegetables so well,” I said. “Do you like vegetables?”
She shook her head in response, and returned her attention to her meal.
“Then why do you eat them so well then? I mean it’s amazing that you do, you need them to grow into a beautiful young woman, but it is unusual for a child to be so good about eating what’s good for them.”
She withdrew her notepad from the little pink purse she had slung around her body and began scribbling.
He
I was confused. “What do you mean?”
She didn’t respond. She just went on with her meal, sipping slowly from her glass of freshly squeezed orange juice. Her shoulders however, couldn't hide the weight her words held over her as they slumped forward.
This ‘he’ was a concern for her, whoever it was. Whether that was positively or negatively, I needed to know. “Who is he?” I asked, but she didn't respond. She didn't even spare me a glance. So, I slid the notepad towards me and wrote my question down on it.
Who is he?
She glanced at it and then at me, and expressionlessly, returned to her food.
I felt as though I was speaking to an adult who seemed more in control of her emotions than I was.
Her sudden move away from the thrilled child that had smiled at me just a few moments ago to this coldly aloof creature troubled me deeply. I decided she needed more time. I moved back into clearer waters. “You have a free hour after lunch. What do you want to do?”
She came alive then, and wrote on the notepad.
Red hair. Like yours.
Her eyes pleaded with me to make it happen.
I knew instinctively that she was trying to manipulate me. Children are masters at that. It was obvious she had already asked an adult and been rejected so she was trying her luck with me. Normally, I wouldn’t even consider coloring a child’s hair, but I also understood it would be a bonding exercise for us. I needed her to trust me and let me get closer to her. I decided to think this one out. “I will see what I can do, okay.”
The light died from her eyes as if she knew I would be asking the other adults and it was unlikely to happen, but she nodded anyway.
After lunch, I took Yulia to the activities room where we started a game of tic-tac-toe. While I expected to have to subtly, allow her to win, Yulia proved a bit of a champion at this game. For a six-year old child she seemed to have a natural affinity for spatial relationships and she won, or drew half the time.
After a while, I decided to do something else with her. We filled tumblers with water and I got her started on water color painting. Her painting tugged at my heart. It was a painting of three people in front of a house. The woman was wearing a pink dress and the man was wearing a blue shirt, and black trousers. They were both holding the hands of a little girl with curly brown hair. There were big smiles on all their face. A big yellow sun was shining and there were flowers next to them and behind them was a house with a red door. I assumed they were her parents, but I was careful not to ask about them. Something must have happened to them if Yuri was now her guardian.
Soon it was time for tea.
While Yulia listened, I spoke about tea and the British love affair with the afternoon ritual. I talked about where tea came from, how the different varieties were cultivated and graded. I told her about the tea picker in Sri Lanka. How the women tied baskets on their backs and went up the hillsides to pick the leaves. I told her that at every hour of the day and night, someone, somewhere was having tea.
By the time tea was over, Yulia had heard a great deal about tea and the history of tea, but she hadn’t said a word.
I had once considered myself reasonably clever. I had never failed to entertain children and elicit squeals, laughs and chatter. From Yulia, I got nothing. The girl did smile once in a while, but she contributed absolutely nothing to the conversation, not even by writing on her notepad. I wasn’t discouraged. I had never expected a miracle. Trust would be the key to unlocking the little girl’s fear of speech.
By six, Yulia showed signs of fatigue so I fed her, ran her a bath, and read her a couple of fairy tales from one of her books. She smiled at me sweetly as I tucked her into bed. I wanted to hold her and kiss her vulnerable little face, but I knew I needed to give her some time, so I just smiled back and wished her a goodnight.
I went back to my room and found I still had time to have a shower and change before dinner. I walked my fingers through my limited wardrobe and gauged the sex appeal of the two dresses I had brought. Neither could be classified as a come on, which was a good thing. After that kiss and our agreement to keep it clean, I didn’t want to give Yuri ideas. I settled on the black dress with the high neckline, then slipped into a pair of sensible flats.
It was just a casual dinner.
Nothing more.
Chapter 9
April.
I headed down the marble stairs, my hand slippery with nervous sweat on the smooth banister. Dinner had begun about seven minutes earlier, but just as I was about to walk out of the door vivid memories of what had transpired between us the previous evening suddenly came back to torment me.
I felt haunted and unsure of my own convictions. I still hadn’t been able to make up my mind about how I intended to deal with him, and until I did, I knew I was going to be vulnerable to his lure. Eventually, I forced myself out of my room. I’d never been a coward, and I wasn’t going to start now.
Straightening my spine, I stepped into the vast dining room.
The silver shone, and the crystal glasses glistened under the great c
handeliers. Yuri was already seated at the head of the table and smoking a cigarette.
My eyes skittered over to the other place setting at the other end of the table. The table was so long it seemed as if he was half a mile away, which would be a plus since his effect would be less potent.
“Come and sit next to me,” he invited in that smooth, velvety voice of his.
I stilled. The much-needed distance from him I’d hoped for was fast disappearing. “If you don't mind,” I began, unable to look directly at him. “I would prefer—”
“But I do mind,” he cut me off.
In that moment, our gazes met. Blue curls of smoke rose around his dark face. His eyes glittered like ice and I felt as if there wasn’t enough oxygen in the room. I found myself sucking in a big gulp of air. It seemed insane, but I had to admit to myself that in the mere space of a day I had missed him. The way his powerful personality affected me was incredible.
Almost unbelievable.
I’d hoped my memory of how strongly he affected me would be rendered inaccurate on second reflection as something that my mind, nervous about the job interview, had exaggerated.
I was wrong.
If anything, he appeared even more swoon-worthy. He must have just had a shower; his sinfully dark hair was damp and swept away from his brow, the top two buttons of his white dress shirt unbuttoned. The exposed, tattoos on the bronzed, toned flesh of his chest made my mouth go dry. His sleeves were folded up his arms. My eyes caressed the corded muscles of his forearms. There were intricate blue tattoos there too.
My gaze shifted up to his face.
A vein in his jaw popped and throbbed as he looked at me through the veil of smoke.
It held my attention for longer than was necessary. Was he as affected by me as I was by him? I couldn’t pull my gaze away. It was as if my eyes needed to drink him in. It seemed almost indecent, this sexual attraction already brimming in the air between us.
He took one last drag of his cigarette and killed it in his ashtray.
Clearing my throat and holding my head up high, I walked to the seat beside him.
Orlov appeared out of nowhere, and with excessive politeness seated me and laid a napkin onto my lap.
I turned my head and looked at Yuri. Our eyes locked. It was like looking into the devil’s eyes. For a few seconds, I became lost in his gaze. I got a sensation as if I was on my hands and knees crawling around on the floor searching. Searching, for my lost heart or soul. It brought back the lines from an old poem:
You remind me of eyes I’ve seen before.
Eyes I’ll always love.
Eyes I’m afraid of.
A noise of cutlery shook me out of my trance and I hurriedly dropped my gaze in confusion. What was happening to me? Why was I so out of control? Did this man possess some kind of magic or was I just losing my mind?
I drew a ragged breath to steady my nerves and his scent filled my senses. It commanded the hairs on my arms to attention. Truly, I hadn’t lied when I told Charlotte I could smell this man’s desire for me. My mind felt restless and my body fevered. I stared straight ahead, as Orlav reset the place setting in front of me.
“Red or white?” he asked from my side.
“Red,” I replied, and my voice sounded raspy, out of control.
Expertly, he filled my glass with wine from a decanter.
“Thank you.”
Yuri lifted his glass in a toast. A slow, knowing smile lifted the corners of his sensuous lips. “To our health.”
“To our health,” I whispered. I tasted the wine, which must have been excellent, but it could have been water, all I knew at this moment that it was wet. I peered at him over the rim of my glass. “I apologize for being late.”
He smiled a perfect smile and he lifted one side of his broad shoulder nonchalantly. “It is the prerogative of a beautiful woman to make an entrance.”
I felt my cheeks burn with ridiculous pleasure at the compliment. “Thank you.” Beneath the table, I made sure to keep my knees away from his and on the table top, I avoided any sort of contact with his hand. It looked dark, masculine, and lazily powerful resting on the snowy white table cloth.
I knew there was only one way this night would end if I didn’t take matters into my own hands and lead the evening the way I wanted it to go. I took my slightly trembling hand away from the table and clasped them on my lap. “Yulia is a lovely girl,” I began. “Talk to me about her. What happened to her parents?”
“They died a year ago,” he said abruptly. His eyes were suddenly like cold stones. Flat and utterly dead.
I thought about the little one’s drawing and my heart ached for her. I lost my mother when I was six, so I knew how painful losing even one parent could be. “I’m so sorry to hear that.”
He nodded distantly, but his fingers were gripping the stem of the glass hard enough to break it.
I could see he didn’t want to talk about it, but I had to know as much as possible if I were to understand what was going on with Yulia. “How did she take it? Did she comprehend that they were gone forever?”
He sighed. “She’s never once asked for either of them from the moment I told her about their passing. She’s a child but sometimes she seems as aware as an adult.”
I nodded in agreement. “I sensed that while spending time with her today too. She chose the questions she wanted to answer.”
“She wasn’t always like that. Once she was very close to me. She used to wait for me to come to her house and take her in my car. I would draw back the sunroof and let her stand on the seat. She loved it.”
“She doesn’t do that anymore?” I asked.
“No. She’s only interested in solitary activities now. Reading, drawing, playing games on her own.”
“Right. Her parents died a year ago, but Yulia stopped talking six months ago?”
He frowned. “Yes. It happened while I was away on a business trip for four days. When I left she was talking normally, but by the time I returned, she had completely stopped talking.”
“Did something happen while you were away?”
He shook his head. “Not according to my staff. They claim, and I believe them, nothing extraordinary happened while I was away. Yulia just woke up one morning and had either lost her ability to speak, or decided for whatever reason she no longer wanted to. I’d thought she was playing at first, but as time went on…”
“And it’s not anything physical?”
“It was the first thing I checked out. All the necessary tests have been done. It’s not her hearing or anything physical. All of that’s perfect. Her psychologist called it delayed trauma, which if she wasn’t the best in her profession I would suspected was something she made up on the fly.”
He paused, creases in his forehead.
“I guess that analysis would have made sense if Yulia hadn’t had a grieving period. That isn’t the case. She cried and it took many months for her to come out of her shell, but she did. She was improving day by day, and moving towards a place of acceptance and all of sudden, boom, she turned silent. I’ve tried enticements, including a trip to Disney World, but nothing I offered made any difference. She refuses to engage in any meaningful way. Sometimes, she gives me the impression she is waiting for something to happen.”
“Her parents…was it an accident?
Again, his face became a hard mask. “I don’t think that matters. Bringing it up will only cause her more pain.”
The curtness of his reply both surprised and stung me. I tried not to take it personally. As my employer he had simply reserved the right to withhold information as he deemed fit, but by his unwillingness to talk about the issue made me certain their deaths was in some way connected to Yulia’s condition.
Orlov and another waiter arrived at the entrance of the room carrying dishes. A shallow bowl of cream soup with a thin garlic bread baked in the shape of a net placed on top of it was put in front of me.
I thanked the waiter and picked
up my spoon.
“Good?” Yuri asked.
“Yes, it’s very tasty,” I lied. The soup felt like warm mush in my mouth.
For a while, no words were exchanged between us, just the low chink of our spoons against the bowls.
“I hear you took Yulia to eat lunch in the room next to the kitchen,” he said.
“That’s right, I did.”
“Why?”
“I thought this room a bit intimidating for a child and I wanted her to relax.”
“I see, but she will have to eat here when she eats with me.”
“Or you could eat in the kitchen.”
“Indeed, I could, but then, Margot would know all my secrets.”
“As if she doesn’t already,” I shot back.
Amusement glinted in his eyes. “Touché.”
Before I could answer, Orlov arrived with the second course. Duck with raspberry sauce, buttered samphire and red potatoes. I must have relaxed a bit because I could actually taste the food and it was the most delicious thing I’d eaten. “What about school?” I asked. “Do you intend to send her? The interaction with other children could be valuable.”
He folded his arms across his chest. The strain of his perfectly sculpted biceps against the white shirt instantly dissolved my train of thought and I had to refocus to listen to his answer.
“In her present condition it would be a punishment. I won’t take the risk of the other children being cruel to her. Why put her through that after everything she has had to suffer? Besides, I’m confident Yulia will talk again. She just needs some time.”
“What about outings? Do you take her to the museums and theaters?”
He frowned. “No, as I said before she hasn’t wanted to go with me. But she might go with you.”
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