This Stream of Dreams (Mirella, Rashid and Adam Book 2) by Roberta Latow Read Free Book Online Page A

gelée;
huge birds’ nests filled with quails’ eggs, gulls’ eggs, plovers’ eggs; seven chefs preparing individual omelettes for the guests in silver chafing dishes, before their very eyes; fresh Périgord pâté de foie gras with truffles; chicken livers and mushrooms in sherry; pink grapefruit sorbet, elderflower sorbet, peach sorbet, lemon and lime sorbet; sides of Scottish smoked salmon cut paper-thin;
gravlax
, salmon prepared in Swedish style: marinated with dill and cut in thicker slices and served with a hot mustard sauce. There was also to be fresh Alaskan poached salmon, served cold with a cream and horseradish sauce, Russian blini with beluga caviar,
coquilles Saint-Jacques
, lobster thermidor, lobster salad, duck in aspic, cold grilled duck with brandied oranges, duck pâté with plum sauce, galantine of goose, layered pheasant terrine on a bed of corn kernels and served with a
sauce verte
, boned stuffed turkey in a Madeira sauce, spiced kumquats, mango, banana, and lime chutneys, nine different green salads with vinaigrette dressings, the food for nine hundred people. Lili had listened in horror, numbed and deaf, to the list of the desserts and selection of vintage champagnes.
    She hated it all, but gave in, always yielding to Rashid’s plans, because he charmed her with his male beauty andsexuality, found her vulnerable point — vanity and pathological narcissism — and played on it, until she succumbed to all his wishes. But her resentment never wavered.
    Now Rashid picked up her hand and kissed it.
    “I think we have done ourselves proud this day, Lili. Who will ever forget this wedding breakfast, this room, the heavenly scent of an orchard of lilacs, the sound of such regal music? You have been wonderful in your selections. Have you forgiven me for all my extravagances, the spats we had working together for this day?”
    Lili searched the charismatic Rashid’s face for some indication that the wooing of Lili had been for more than Mirella’s wedding, more than just another of Rashid’s pragmatic seductions. There was none. She had been used. She knew it very well, having been the seducer enough times and of enough men in getting what
she
wanted.
    The chief barker, dressed in a red jacket, appeared, a sign for the musicians to close their concert of chamber music. The last strains gone, the barker struck the silver gong for silence and attention in the room, then announced, “Thank you, my lords, ladies, and gentlemen. Coffee is being served on the veranda, if you please.”
    Mirella and Adam rose from their chairs and led the way.
    “I don’t forgive easily,” Lili said to Rashid as one of the waiters standing behind her chair drew it back so she could rise. And, standing up, she continued, “Your self-indulgence in this wedding has appalled me almost as much as the changes in Mirella since she inherited my family’s estate. What’s worse is that I have nearly as much loathing for myself, because I have been seduced by your charm and excesses, and have accepted them, enjoyed them even. You have not missed a thing, not a trick; you are the ultimate host, the ultimate seducer. Much as I hate to say it, you have teased us all into enjoying every minute of your extravaganza.
    “Forgive you our ‘little spats,’ as you call them? Never! Do you really want to know how I feel? No, don’t bother to answer that. I’ll tell you; as if I am being led to the guillotine in the greatest of style. Not, I am sure, unlike most every woman you are involved with, the obvious exception being my daughter.”
    Rashid could only laugh at Lili. They stepped onto the veranda and took demitasse cups of espresso from a waiter’sheavy baroque silver tray. Lili turned her back on Rashid and started to move away. He subtly but firmly grasped her by the arm, and whispered in her ear, “You are a bitch, Lili,” and walked her over to the wooden railings of the porch.
    They stood together in silence for a few