Free Casa Dracula 3 - The Bride Of Casa Dracula by Marta Acosta

and Spanish.
    “Here you are.” The maître d’ gave a game-show-hostess wave toward a table crammed into the corner of the kitchen. A Latino busboy was hastily setting it for six.
    “Thank you, Roberto,” Ian said graciously to the maître d’.
    The maître d’ left just as a waiter appeared with a bottle of red wine. “Pally will be with you in a minute.”
    I saw Ian looking at the ring on my finger. I said, “I didn’t want any muggers to be tempted by my engagement ring.”
    “Once on subway, a man try to steal my makeup kit,” Ilena said flatly. “I kick the onions and he is crying like a pig baby. It was Chanel samples I send to my sister.”
    The waiter poured the wine, dark as blackberry juice, into our glasses, but Ilena held her hand over hers and said, “Water with lemon.”
    After the waiter left, Ian asked me, “Is this table all right?”
    “They put the Mexican girl in the kitchen to eat with the help,” I commented, noticing a few Latinos working around me. “But the food smells like heaven.”
    Ian grinned as if I’d said something funny, but the food did smell incredible. He lifted his glass to me and drank.
    I sipped the wine. It tasted of berries and earth. I wanted to bathe in it.
    “I don’t like the eating,” Ilena commented. “Always the same, in the mouth, out the body. What is point?” She gazed with open hostility at the basket of freshly baked breads that had just been placed on our table.
    “The point, my dear Ilena, is pleasure,” Ian said as he passed the bread basket to me. “How is Edna?”
    “Still full of spit and vinegar and leaving the ranch far too often with her addled younger lover.”
    “I adore that woman.”
    Ilena’s eyelashes flickered despite the heavy weight of mascara on them. “Who is woman you talk of, Ian?”
    “A dear old friend, darling,” he said.
    Someone bellowed, “Ducharme! You filthy bastard!”
    We turned to see one of the kitchen staff hurtling toward our table. Ian stood and the tall, gaunt man flung his arms around him. His sandy hair might have been hacked off with a cleaver. He looked as if he’d been very handsome about a thousand parties ago.
    “Pally, so good to see you again.”
    “Where the hell have you been? We tried to call you when Rafe and I went fishing for glass eels. You missed a helluva fryup.” While Pally was talking, he glanced at Ilena and her water, and took a lingering look at me as I bit into a thick rosemary bread stick.
    “I’ll make it next time,” Ian said. “You’ve met Ilena, and this is Milagro, visiting for a few days.”
    Pally took Ilena’s hand and gave it a shake-“Good to see you again”-and then he stood before me with his arms out.
    I made the mistake of letting him hug me, and he enthusiastically ground his body against me. A few of the guys in the kitchen hooted and whistled. “You feel like a girl who likes a good meal.”
    I extricated myself and said, “Does your boss allow you to molest customers?”
    “Only the succulent ones.” He licked his lips lasciviously and the others laughed, but I was sensitive to people seeing me as an item on a menu. Pally grabbed Ian’s wine and drank it in two large gulps, then wiped his mouth with the corner of his white jacket. “I gotta get back to work. I’ll send some chow over and some friends are gonna sit here, too, if that’s cool.”
    “But of course,” Ian said.
    Ilena let her wrap slip down to the chair and slightly rotated her left arm so that I could see the purple and ochre bruise on the inside of her elbow. When she was sure that I’d noticed it, she leaned against Ian. His hand went to the bruise, and his thumb stroked the mark. Satisfied that she’d claimed her territory, she said, “Ian, no one sees me here. I will be at bar for nob-hob with pretty boys and girls.”
    “Have fun, darling.” When she was gone, Ian said, “How have you been?”
    “Good. Busy. I’ve been writing, and then there’s the wedding