The Forest Bull (The Fearless) Page 24

  A single nod from the client, who picked up gloves made of buttery leather, pulled them on, and then gathered her things. She was close enough to kiss him, and she did, chastely, on the cheek.

  “’You have served me very well through both wars, Dieter. I am not ungrateful. You should be proud of this. So few have met my exacting standards through the years.” She patted his cheek once, the leather faintly touching him and trailing to his neck with an intimacy few people knew he was capable of.

  “It is my honor and my pleasure to serve you in any way that I may, Mother. You need only call, and I am at your service instantly.” He radiated with pride at her compliment and the opportunity to serve at her feet. It was his mission, his instinct, becoming reality, here and now.

  “Such a good boy. Yes, I think you shall be rewarded with a position in my next little endeavor. It will require some preparation on your part. You have, I think, until the summer to be fluent in Creole. Be ready for a move, and have all the resources necessary for the acquisition of property and quiet spaces. If you are not properly ready, I shall be-how did I tell your father after the first war--vexed? Yes, vexed.”

  Herr Kreiger paled. His father had died screaming in a rocky room beneath a café, his dying voice saturating the walls even as his blood ran rivulets into a stone trough. It had not been a swift death, either. Dieter tried, every day, to forget what disappointing his mother could bring to his doorstep.

  “I shall be ready, Mother. I promise.” He was earnest, and riddled with horror.

  “There’s a good lad. Until we visit New Orleans, then”. Elizabeth walked from the vault, her heels on the carpet leaving no trace of her, save the spindrift of her perfume.