Frog Came a Courting

It was after Jojo had gone home for a change of clothes and an attempt to salvage what was left of his business that Maritka showed up on the doorstep. She had enough of her sister and stood there waiting for me to decide her future. I asked her if she wouldn’t mind staying on as the house was too big for me to keep alone which made her beam and me smile as it had never occurred to me anything else would happen for she had always been a part of my life.

I was going through Mother’s papers in her office when a thud on the front door told me Jojo had returned and I flung the door open expecting him to be grinning or scowling depending upon his day. I froze at the sight of a cheerful Gervais standing there holding a bouquet of lilies and I don’t know what shocked me more, the sight of Gervais, Gervais holding lilies or Gervais holding lilies and cheerful. He stepped past me handing the flowers to a frowning Maritka and casually strolled into the drawing room where he made himself comfortable. I followed him in and asked him as coldly as I could what he wanted but we both knew what he wanted, he wanted to make my life a misery.

Gervais revealed no emotion at my cool reception and instead oozed along into his own conversational path, starting by offering me condolences. He asked if I was going to stay in the house or move somewhere smaller which had me rack my brains trying to work out just what he was after so I kept my answers short trying to reveal as little as possible. Gervais however, was not going to be put off by anything as he had his mission and was not going to leave until it was accomplished. He leaned back in the chair giving me the full benefit of his frozen green stare, the eerie look he shared with his sister and cousin while studying me for a minute.

He stretched like a cat as he watched me from the corners of his eyes and I knew he was doing the usual Dubois dillydally before he came in with the kill. He started in a off hand tone that it had come to his attention that Jojo Sedero had been looking after me during my time of grief and I said nothing for I was not about to give him any opening into my world. I was no match for his manipulations at this time so I waited for him to make his point and Gervais did have a point, he always had a point he just liked to sharpen his claws before making it.

He continued speaking, his oily voice calm with power and spite as he let me know that Royce thwarting Elyce had put the future of their business into question but any liaison between Jojo and I would sound its death knell. I knew that Jojo was not going to forgive me walking away again so I told Gervais that their business interests were none of my concern. Gervais lifted an eyebrow as if I was living in a dream world and told me that I should consider how I was going to maintain my standard of living if the man in my life could not support me. I gave him such a look of contempt that he stopped trying this stupid idea as Jojo could always work at the restaurant and as vague as Mother might have appeared to the outside world she knew how to manage her finances and her lawyer already told me that I was well provided for. I realised that Gervais had run out of ammunition and was clutching at straws as he probably had ruined their business the second Royce disappeared with Elyce and was distracting me with threats for whatever obscure reasons he had.

As much as I had guessed he was playing games I think he was also trying to find out what I was up to as Gervais was not going to reveal himself to me one bit. He preferred his threats to be veiled rather than graphic but today I had enough of this game. It has been going on for months and whatever purpose it served him in the past it was now getting in the way of my life. I gave Gervais a stare to match his own and asked him straight out “What do you want from me as nothing you have tried so far has made me want to be part of your life so why don’t you just leave me alone. It’s never going to happen.” As usual I had no idea where I was with Gervais for instead of icy disdain or even hot anger he chuckled with an amusement so real that for a minute his eyes lit up and I saw the good looking guy he could have been if he was human and not a Dubois. Gervais got up, instinctively I stepped back and cursed myself inwardly for letting him see that he still terrified me. He enjoyed his affect on me with his reptilian smile lingering on his lips he said in a light hearted voice “Have you never considered that you are exactly where I want you to be?” With this remark he left and I instructed Maritka to shred his lilies as I went and sat on the terrace to wait for Jojo.

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