The Woman in Red: Chapter 45

45. About Family

            Jean-Pierre had ordered breakfast even before Katarina was awake. Meanwhile, he knew her preferences. Three slices of roasted white bread, one with cheese and two with strawberry jam, coffee black and afterward two pieces of fruit, preferably kiwi. Himself, he couldn’t swallow a lot in the morning, nonetheless he forced himself to eat at least one slice of bread.

            The smell of hot coffee had awakened Katarina. She came out of the bedroom, just dressed in her slip. She stretched herself out and smiled at Jean-Pierre. The night’s rest had been good for her. The night before she had thought falling ill. A human being has his limit and after all their adventures around the kidnapping, she had suddenly reached it. Fortunately, a good night’s rest could build a bit  of a reserve;

            Katarina saw a shirt lying around of Jean-Pierre and pulled it smiling over her naked upper body. First she closed every button but when she saw him looking, she teasingly opened some of the upper ones again.

            Jean-Pierre found her so sexy, with her hair in disorder, wearing his shirt and the red slip underneath that he saw now and then. She sat at the table and started instantly eating her slices of bread.

            ‘How are you feeling, Kat?’ He was surprised of her resiliency. It wasn’t evident that a woman who has experienced what she had coped with so fast. Katarina had a strong character. She probably had inherited it from her mother. Despite Jean-Pierre didn’t know what sort of character her father ever had.

            ‘Oh, rather good in our circumstances. I slept very well and I have a lot more energy now.’ In no time, she had finished her slices of bread and she continued skinning her kiwi’s. ‘Thanks for ordering this delicious breakfast.’ The fruit has been just ripe enough and Katarina enjoyed the green fruits.

            ‘I was just thinking that what concern you character you have to resemble your mother’s, or not. Well, after all, I don’t know how your father was.’

            ‘I’ve never known him, but my mother has told me a lot about him. Jean-Luc was a sweet man, naturally soft and he was crazy in love with my mother. It’s a shame that it had to end like that. I think mother hasn’t processed completely, certainly also because Jean-Luc’s family never has helped her.’

            Jean-Pierre furrowed his brow. ‘What do you mean. Did they think it was her fault that they were mobbed,’

            ‘They haven’t said it with so many words, but indeed, I think they thought that. Mother was of a lower class and his family has never accepted that. They have tried everything to take the Chateau from her Jean-Luc had put on her name. She has been harassed for years at a time by her lawyers and other vermin that the family had hired to make her life impossible.

            ‘But they could do nothing about it, certainly if the castle was legally put on her name?’

            ‘No, but at that moment and she never had any proof, someone has repeatedly thrown in some windows and the walls were spotted with words as ‘whore’ and ‘nymphomaniac’.

            ‘How has she started with the services she provided at the castle if I may state it with this euphemism.’

            Katarina sighed a moment. ‘Yes, at a certain moment the treatment they family gave her has finally rubbed her up the wrong way. She said if the family thought she was a whore and a nymphomaniac, she would look for it that her castle would be used to train the best girls and boys for this task. After all, she knew it was just those members of the nobility and the high society that used these services. Revenge is a dish best-served cold and she has reached her goal. Even before the end of the second year she was an established name in her profession. After five years, she was out of the red and still five years later she made more profit that an average good working company. In the meanwhile, she has invested her money in different real property.’

            After this elaborate explanation, Jean-Pierre started to see how things had worked out. At the start, he had thought of the Baroness as an arrogant type of woman. But now that he could form a picture of how she had become like this, he even had some admiration for her and he certainly was sorry for now that she was kidnapped.

            A knock on the door startled him out of thoughts. He went to the door and heard a sort of stumbling in the corridor. Obviously someone had tried the wrong door. To be certain, he opened the door to look inside the corridor. With brute violence the door was fully pushed open and he was catapulted against the wall by the force of it.

            Two men forced their way in and overpowered Jean-Pierre, who from being knocked down was a bit dizzy. Behind him, he heard Katarina yell, but that didn’t last long because he felt the sting of an injection in his neck and everything became black.

© Rudi J.P. Lejaeghere

21/09/2015