Emerald did and watched as Rebecca moved efficiently around the kitchen. She took the loaf of bread out of the oven, and turned the loaf pan upside down. Then she busied herself grabbing some butter, putting the kettle on.
“Tea or hot chocolate?”
“I would… I’d like a hot chocolate,” she whispered.
“Wonderful. That will be a nice late-night treat.”
“Have you been working like this at the house even without Andrei here?”
“No. I received a message that the house was being opened up again, and I hoped it was for him. I came the week before to make sure everything was good for him. He was such a lovely boy.”
She couldn’t help herself. She laughed. “He is… A slightly different sort of man.”
Rebecca made a regretful sound. “I was worried about that. I always hated that with the children who would visit. Eventually, they would become so hard. By the time they were fifteen almost all of them had killed someone on behalf of their family. An initiation into that life.”
“Did you always work for families of organized crime?”
She shrugged. “It was often the most secure work here in this part of the world. I always served the Ardelean family. And so, the money that I have always gotten is blood money. Though, all of that changed when Andrei’s father died. But he left us money. His staff was cared for in the end.”
“That seems such a contradiction. That someone could be so ruthless, and yet remember the people who worked for him with so much loyalty.”
“That is the attraction of it. You make for yourself your own kingdom, your own people, your own laws. And you offer fearsome loyalty in return.”
“But it’s all dangerous.”
She shrugged again. “Life is dangerous. As I said, I think the most tragic part is watching the children lose their softness. Because the men in this world, they are so hard. The women too, some of them. Andrei’s mother was a great beauty. He has the look of his father in his eyes, but, his mother’s features. They fought bitterly, the two of them. And yet they loved fiercely. Or at least they were obsessed with one another.”
Emerald’s stomach turned. “That sounds like a terribly brutal way to love.”
“I suppose it is,” Rebecca said. “But then, I think none of them knew another way to be. I think none of them knew another sort of life. Except this painful, life-and-death allegiance.” She set the cup of hot chocolate in front of Emerald, and then, slipped the loaf from the pan without using an oven mitt, her hands obviously toughened from years of cooking.
“Do you have a family?”
She shook her head. “No. I was devoted to the children who came here. When they left, I lost everything. I helped raise Andrei’s father too. Andrei was different. He was kinder from the beginning. When I heard that he had escaped, when I heard the news of him being in your country, I rejoiced. I had hoped that it might make him less feral.”
“I thought you said he was lovely?”
“He was. Lovely, and feral.”
“Well, some of this is my fault.”
“I find with passion it is often just messy.” She slid a slice of bread in front of Emerald, who buttered it generously, the butter melting, pooling on the sweet bread, and she picked it up and ate it fiercely.
“Well. It’s complicated.”
“I’m certain. Something is making you sleepless.”
“It could just be the events of the day.”
“There is a library, just to the left of the dining room. You might find something to help you while away your sleepless hours.”
“Oh. That sounds lovely.”
“It is,” Rebecca said cheerfully. What life must it have been, to serve generations of mafiosi, to constantly be around the fringes of so much violence, but to be the one providing softness, food for the children.
It was such a strange thing. Emerald hadn’t had a life free of struggles. She had lost her parents, and it had affected her deeply. But her life was quite limited in its scope.
There were things she never had to consider, like how she would make money and survive without the aid of the Crown.
