A couple of days later she was returning from another dreary walk, wistfully recalling the fun she’d had in the Hurst Park kitchens with Jean-Luc and her friends among Candover’s staff. The servants at Storrington barely spoke to her. She sensed that most of them might have been friendly enough, but chose to take their cue from the Simpsons, both of whom continued to treat her with hostility. As she approached the kitchen court she caught sight of a familiar figure and thoughtlessly cried out with joy.
“Charlie! What are you doing here?”
The boy turned, and his eyes were bigger than an owl’s.
“Blimey, Jake. You’ve turned into a girl!”
“Zut.” Jacobin assumed her French accent. “Would you believe I’m in disguise?”
Charlie looked her over from head to toe.
“No,” he said baldly. “I reckon not. I reckon you was in disguise before. You’re a girl all right.” He grinned happily. “I’d love to see Underwood’s face if she knew you was a girl all this time.”
“She mustn’t know, Charlie,” Jacobin said. “Please don’t tell anyone.”
“I wouldn’t peach on you, Jake.” He frowned. “What’s your name anyway? I can’t call you Jake.”
“Oh, please do, Charlie. I miss being Jake. I missed you. Tell me all the kitchen gossip. How did you find me? How did you get here? Why are you here?”
Charlie cast his eyes heavenward. “You really are a girl, aren’t yer? Put on a skirt and you’re gabby as a peep of chickens. I came to warn you. There’s people lookin’ fer yer. Why’d yer run away? Everyone thinks you tried to off that lord.”
“I didn’t,” Jacobin assured him. “But I was afraid they’d find out I was female and I’d get the sack. I swear I had nothing to do with the poison.”
Charlie displayed a shocking lack of concern about her possibly murderous career. “Can’t say I care if you did, Jake. If you tried to kill him I’m sure there was a good reason. But I thought I’d better tip you the wink to keep hugger-mugger.”
“Is it the runners?”
“Them, yes. And some other cove. Came pokin’ around the kitchen askin’ questions.”
“How did you know I was here?” she asked anxiously. “Does anyone else know?”
“I was there when Lord Storrington’s man offered you a job. I guessed you might have decided to take it after all.”
“Oh Lord, Charlie! Dick was with us that day. Does he know I’m here too?” She fought panic. Dick wouldn’t wish to harm her, but neither was he the sharpest knife in the Pavilion’s batterie de cuisine. Creditable prevarication was beyond his skill.
“Dick told the runner you’d had an offer but ’e didn’t hear who it was.” The boy tapped his forehead cagily. “Wot ’e don’t know ’e can’t tell.”
“Someone’s already been here looking for me. Luckily they don’t know I’m a girl. But I can’t stay hiding here for the rest of my life. Whatever shall I do?”
“Well, Jake, if you didn’t try to off the nob, someone did. Reckon they won’t stop looking for you till they find the right man.”
Jacobin groaned. “And they won’t even trouble to look if they think Jacob Léon is guilty.”
Charlie nodded his agreement with this gloomy assessment. “Seems to me you’re goin’ to have to look yerself.”
Chapter 9
Apricot Tartlets
Put four ounces of sugar, two glasses of water, and twelve ripe apricots cut in halves into a middle-sized saucepan, and set them on the fire to boil; when the apricots have thrown up a dozen bubbles, take them out with a fork and peel off the skins. Boil the liquid until reduced to a rather thick syrup. Now make half a pound of flour into a fine paste and roll it out to a little more than one-half of an inch thick. Cut it with a round paste-cutter, of two inches in diameter, into twenty-four circles. Lodge the circles in twenty-four small tartlet molds, then take small strips of paste, one by one, and after rolling them between your fingers and the board, twist them into a kind of screw by rolling one end to the right and the other to the left; then lightly wet the rim of the tartlets and place one of the screws round it; egg the screws only, and put in each tartlet a little pounded sugar, and on this half an apricot with its flat side downward. Put your tartlets in a hot oven, and when the bottoms of them have acquired a fine yellow color, take them out, and put on each of them half a spoonful of the syrup, placing in the middle half a kernel of an apricot.
Antonin Carême
Apricots cost a fortune in November. Jacobin had no idea what hothouse had produced the flawless specimens she had discovered at a stall in Covent Garden, but surmised that the fruit was the product of an aristocratic estate. Whether the owner was aware that his gardener was selling off the surplus she neither knew nor cared. The order had come down to the Brook Street kitchen that no expense was to be spared in creating sweets that would make Lord Storrington’s dinner party the talk of London.
“They smell good,” commented the doyenne of Storrington’s London staff. Mrs. Smith was a jovial soul, in marked contrast to her Sussex counterpart. Unlike the irritable Mrs. Simpson, she greeted Jacobin’s arrival from the country with an expansive welcome.
“I have quite enough to do making a dozen dishes for this dinner party without mucking around with pastries and sweets,” she said comfortably. “His Lordship’s gone for weeks, then suddenly he’s invited two dozen for dinner with only a week’s notice. Not that I’m not glad of it. It’s about time there was a bit of life in this house. His Lordship’s kept himself to himself since his previous Lordship died.”
“He’s been observing the mourning period, I daresay,” Jacobin suggested.
“There’s mourning and mourning,” Mrs. Smith said disapprovingly. “There’s no need for a young man like that to give up all his enjoyment. You’d think he’d inherited his late father’s—God bless him—character along with his title. The old lord was a good man, and no one who worked for him would say otherwise, but he wasn’t much for entertaining. Kept himself down in the country except when Lady Kitty was making her come-out.”
Jacobin had heard about Storrington’s sister. She expected to meet Lady Kitty later in the day to gain approval for the dinner menu. She was not surprised that the earl had delegated that particular task, recalling his bafflement under interrogation about his taste in desserts. Jacobin tried not to care that in the two days since her arrival in Upper Brook Street, she hadn’t so much as set eyes on the master of the house.
“If the previous earl didn’t like London, I’m surprised he maintained a full staff in both places,” she observed.
“Lord Storrs—as his present Lordship was then—spent most of his time here,” Mrs. Smith explained. “He used to get up to all sorts of malarkey.” The cook’s tone was one of deep approval. Clearly she didn’t subscribe to the school of thought that felt sprigs of the nobility should behave with restraint and responsibility. “He used to give all sorts of dinners here; bachelor dinners, you understand. There’s no one better to cook for than a lot of young men. They know how to enjoy a woman’s cooking.”
“No ladies?” Jacobin asked with deceptive innocence. She hadn’t missed the cook’s emphasis on the word bachelor.
“Not the kind of ladies we ought to mention.” Mrs. Smith’s repressive tone was belied by a twinkle in her eye. “Oh well! Boys will be boys.”
Before Jacobin could probe further into this fascinating aspect of the reserved Storrington’s character, a new arrival in the kitchen distracted the cook.
“Smithy, the love of my life!”
Mrs. Smith emerged from the embrace of a young man who bore a startling resemblance to the master of the house. He wore a splendid military uniform of dark blue with scarlet facings and an expression of frank mischief. Otherwise he could have been Storrington ten years earlier.
“None of your nonsense, Master James,” said the cook, her plump cheeks glowing pink with pleasure.
A waft of almandine scent drew Jacob
in’s attention to the oven. Heavens! The tarts had better not be burned. Just because she’d been given carte blanche didn’t make it acceptable to waste those ruinously expensive apricots. She laid the tray of hot tartlets on the table and carefully examined the underside of one—thankfully it had achieved the exact shade of yellow demanded by the maître’s recipe. A hand snaked around from behind and reached for the pastries. Jacobin slapped it aside just in time.
“Stop that!” she ordered, pivoting to greet a laughing face and a pair of unrepentant blue eyes.
“My, my, what have we here?” asked the young man appreciatively, and he wasn’t looking at the tartlets. “I don’t believe we’ve met.”
Jacobin placed her back against the table to block marauding incursions and bobbed a perfunctory curtsy.
“I’m Jane Castle and those tarts aren’t for you. I don’t have time to make more,” she said sternly. “Besides, I doubt I’d find any more apricots in the market.”
“I am delighted to meet you, Jane Castle. I perceive that you are as precious as an apricot in November. I’ll give you a kiss in exchange for one.”
While having no intention of agreeing to this brazen suggestion, Jacobin was hard put not to smile. The young officer was clearly a born charmer. She kept her expression stern.
“Is that supposed to be an irresistible offer?”
He shrugged ruefully. “I thought so, but I see I was wrong. You are a cruel and heartless woman, not like Smithy. She has never refused me a treat, not since I was a scrap of a lad.” He glanced at the cook, who was regarding him with indulgent fondness, then turned his dancing eyes back to Jacobin.
“You won’t get the better of me, Miss Castle. If I can’t steal your pastries by foul means I’ll resort to fair, by taking tea with my brother.” Waving carelessly at the denizens of the kitchen, he sauntered out of the room.
“I didn’t know His Lordship had a brother,” Jacobin remarked. “He looks a good deal younger.”
“Master James—Captain Storrs I should say—is ten years younger than the master.”
“I had no idea,” Jacobin commented with interest, “that Lord Storrington’s father had married again. Did his second wife die also? How tragic!”
“Oh no!” replied the cook. “The old lord was only wed the once. Her Ladyship gave him three children—His Lordship, Lady Kitty, and Master James. Poor little mite was only two at the time of the accident.”
“For some reason I thought she’d died earlier.” Jacobin frowned. She was positive Lord Storrington said he’d lost his mother when he was five. “What kind of accident?”
“Her Ladyship was drowned in the millrace at Storrington Hall. There was a terrible storm.”
“She was alone? And out in foul weather?” On the face of it, it was an odd story, a thought confirmed by a shuttered expression falling on the cook’s open countenance.
“We don’t like to talk about it,” Mrs. Smith said flatly. “I was only a kitchen maid on the estate then, but I remember it to this day, all of us do. The master was never the same again.”
She no doubt meant the former earl, but Jacobin wondered if the same could be said of the title’s present incumbent.
“The captain seems quite—forward.” She tried to put her question delicately. “Do the female staff have any trouble with him?”
Mrs. Smith merely laughed. “Dear me, no! That kissing offer wasn’t serious. Pay no attention to his nonsense. It’s all in fun.” She looked earnestly at Jacobin. “You’re a pretty girl but you have nothing to fear here. This is a respectable household, and the captain would never lay a finger on one of the servants. Not His Lordship neither.”
Considering that His Lordship had laid rather more than a finger on her a few days earlier, Jacobin found the statement less than entirely convincing.
“Who’s that beauty you’ve got stashed away in the kitchen?”
Anthony usually greeted his brother with pleasure, particularly when he hadn’t seen him in several weeks, but James’s opening question raised his hackles.
“I trust you know better than to begin an intrigue with a servant in this house?” he asked brusquely.
James looked astonished. “Whoa there, Tony old boy! Who said anything about an intrigue? I merely stopped in to see Smithy and discovered this ravishing female. Forgive me for having eyes!”
Anthony clenched his hands together where they were concealed from view behind his desk and made a conscious effort to calm down. There was no reason to take offense at James’s casual reference to Jane Castle. It wasn’t his brother’s fault he had a guilty conscience where that particular servant was concerned.
“Sorry, James.” He leaned back in his chair, and waved a hand expansively at a wing chair on the other side of the desk. “Take a seat and tell me how you are.”
“You know what, Tony? You need a woman. How long ago did you give Rosa her congé? Must be two years. You’ve become a bloody monk. Abstinence isn’t good for the temper.”
Perhaps James was right. Maybe this whole unsuitable attraction to Jane Castle was a sign that his libido, depressingly dormant since his father’s death, was making a reappearance.
“Rosa was a luscious piece,” James went on. “I never could understand why you broke with her.”
Neither could Anthony, specifically. “You know women. Leave them before they leave you. They always do in the end and it saves a lot of grief in the long run if you end it first.”
His brother snorted. “And when, exactly, did any woman leave you? It must have been when I was still in the nursery because I certainly can’t recall it happening. To my knowledge you’ve left a string of fashionable impures heartbroken.”
Anthony didn’t want to discuss his inner feelings about women with James, or anyone else for that matter, but he couldn’t leave a statement like that unchallenged. “Heartbroken! Not in a thousand years. The only thing I’ve ever hurt by leaving a woman is her purse, and then not badly. I hope you know me better than to believe I’m in the habit of abandoning my mistresses to the gutter.”
“And I was looking forward to seeing you today but I can see you’re in a devilish mood. I’d better leave.”
Anthony could see he’d upset his brother. He didn’t know why he was so irritable but he needed to get a grip on his temper. “Ignore me, James. It must be the weather. Sit down and have a drink, for God’s sake.”
The library in Upper Brook Street was Anthony’s favorite room in the house and one that invited masculine informality. Soon the brothers were lounging comfortably with their feet up and ankles crossed on the desk between them, nursing glasses of the best French brandy imported by their father thirty years earlier.
James was not long to be distracted from the subject of the new pastry cook. He didn’t fail to twit his big brother about his lack of a sweet tooth. Anthony, who was getting tired of defending himself against the charge of Insufficient Fondness for Puddings, explained how he had come to hire the woman.
“So you see,” he concluded, “It turned out that Jacob Léon, French cook, was really English, female, and named Jane Castle.”
“You’re mad,” interjected his brother bluntly. “The woman may be a poisoner. Has it occurred to you that you might wake up dead one fine morning?”
“Nonsense,” Anthony replied. “First, she likely had nothing to do with Candover’s poisoning. Her need to maintain her disguise seems a perfectly good reason for her to leave the prince’s kitchen.” Ignoring James’s look of skepticism, he counted out his arguments on his fingers.
“Second, even if she did, for some bizarre reason, try to murder Candover—and I’m hard-pressed to discern a motive—it doesn’t follow that she would wish to do the same to me. Before I offered her a job she didn’t know me from Adam. And third”—he spoke over James’s grunt of derision—“she doesn’t seem the criminal type.”
James’s face wore an expression of mingled disbelief and resignation. “It’s your decision, Tony,
but I’m glad she wouldn’t let me steal a tartlet from her. I might be writhing in agony on the floor even now. I hope your precious dinner party doesn’t end with half of London dead. Has Candover been invited?”
“As far as I know he’s still in Brighton. But I’m counting on the news of a spectacular display of desserts to reach his ears. I thought I’d invite him down to Storrington for a few days. Once I’ve got him there he won’t be able to resist another game of piquet.”
“I still find it strange that he’s avoided a rematch for so long,” said James. “Given his usual luck at piquet, you’d think he’d be raring to recoup the twenty thousand he had to pay you.”
Anthony frowned. “I don’t know where he got the money. As far as I’ve been able to discover he didn’t sell anything to raise the ready. It bothers me that he has resources I know nothing about. Ruining him may be harder than I thought. But I’ll do it in the end. I must.”
“Just don’t do anything foolish,” James said, his tone unusually grave. “You know how I felt about playing cards for the man’s niece. I still don’t understand why you accepted that bet, Tony.”
Anthony wasn’t sure himself. Had he been told about another man making such a wager, he’d have been shocked, even disgusted. But when Candover made the offer, and then mentioned his mother, he’d been overcome by rage. He now knew exactly what people meant when they referred to “seeing red.” He’d seen it. Even thinking about that moment shook him to the soul and made him ready to do anything—anything—to revenge himself on the man who’d destroyed his family. Sometimes it frightened him to think of what he might do to achieve his goal.
“I wish you’d give it up,” James said. “The whole business is making you behave strangely. You haven’t been near your mathematical friends in two years. Completely abandoned your investigations in that area. I might think they’re outlandish, but they used to give you pleasure.”
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