“And set broken bones. You cannot say that is a lady’s accomplishment my dear.”
“Well, when I was younger, I wished to be a doctor rather than a lady,” she admitted. “I have never wanted to be a cook.”
“A pity. We are like to starve before Dobbs gets here, then.” He rose and went into the small kitchen in search of something that would require little preparation. After an examination of the pantry, he returned in disgust. “Nothing but pork jelly, bags of flour, salt, and the like.”
“Pork jelly? Ugh!”
“My sentiments exactly, though it is a restorative jelly, whatever that is.” He grinned down at her. “But if we are not discovered before the morrow, we may find that pork jelly has more appeal than we expected.”
“Not for me.”
“Then why don’t you see if you can find anything? Surely you must have watched your cook make a muffin or something—even I did that.”
“Then you be the cook.”
He shook his head decisively. “No. ’Twas at least twenty years ago and I am sure my memory has failed me after so many years.” He caught her look of skepticism and hastened to add, “Dash it, my memory is good, but not that good. However, I would be happy to assist you.”
Reluctantly, she padded back into the bedchamber and got out one of the boy’s shirts, pulled it over her head, and rolled up the sleeves. Then she pulled off a bedsheet, folded it in half and wrapped herself a long skirt, knotting the ends tightly at her waist. It was a trifle confining she admitted to herself as she hobbled into the other room, but it was a definite improvement over a blanket that wanted to slip off one arm or the other.
“Fetching, my dear. Does this mean you are ready to give it a try?”
“If you get the stomachache, do not be blaming me. I want it understood at the outset that I have not claimed to know what I am doing.”
“Agreed.”
He ducked outside with a bucket and found the well. Returning with the half-filled container, he set it on the table. “Thought you might need water,” he explained. “And there are a couple of chickens out there if you need them.”
“If you can kill one and clean it, I will try boiling it,” she decided.
“I?” He raised an eyebrow. “In my home, ’tis the cook who does that.”
“Yes … Well, I am not one of your ordinary cooks, my lord. I do not kill or clean chickens.”
“I see. You are one of the temperamental ones. I suppose I shall have to attend to the matter.” He left for a moment and returned with his pistol. She watched in fascination as he loaded the ball and checked it over. “I hope the powder’s not too wet.”
“What are you doing with that?”
“To kill the little beast.”
“My lord, you do not shoot a chicken—you wring its neck!”
“Aha! You do know about it.”
“Only enough to know that you pick the thing up by its head and twirl it around until the poor creature’s neck is broken. And then you remove its head and pull out its insides. After that, I think you boil it to loosen the feathers and then pluck it. And when all’s done, you can cook it.”
“Sound’s like a good program to me. I shall bow to your superior knowledge on the subject. I shall be happy to watch.”
“I just resigned, my lord.”
“All right,” he capitulated, “but you will have to find me another set of clothes. I’ll be damned if I am going to sit around in dead chicken feathers. And you had better get the water going, too. If we are to revert to the primitive roles of our ancestors, this hunter expects a cook.”
Somehow, he managed to kill and clean a rangy rooster and she managed to cook it. As the aroma of boiling broth floated through the cottage, Ellen had an inspiration. “Alex,” she confronted him, “were there any hens out there?”
“I am not killing another chicken today.”
“Of course not. I did not expect you to. But if there are hens, there might be eggs.”
“And I suppose you expect me to look,” he sighed. “No doubt this cook does not venture out in the rain, either.”
He was gone only a few minutes and returned with several eggs, which he deposited on the table in front of her. “There were more for breakfast, but right now I am most concerned about dinner. What are you serving up?”
“I shall try to make dumplings, but I have no great expectations of success.”
By the time they sat down to eat, either would have been hard put to complain about anything. As it was, the dumplings were considerably on the heavy side and the chicken was quite tough.
Lord Trent gnawed off a piece and masticated it thoroughly before commenting, “Not bad, my dear. While it is not what we are used to, it is certainly not a total failure either.” He watched her chew one of her doughy dumplings determinedly and added consolingly, “At least the flavor is good.”
“Umm—well, no doubt we shall be considerably thinner if Mr. Dobbs does not reach us soon.” She wiped her hands on a cloth she had commandeered for a napkin. “But for a couple of gently bred persons, I expect we have done fairly well.”
After the meager supper, he went to explore the recesses of the tiny hunting box while she cleared the table and washed the dishes. Left alone finally to her thoughts, she listened to the steady beat of rain on the roof and her spirits lowered. Poor Mr. Emmett—left alone, his body lying by the roadside in the cold. And if it had not been for her reckless flight from Brockhaven’s embrace, he would still be alive and warm somewhere in London. She brushed a tear that brimmed onto her cheek.
“What’s this?” Trent came up behind her and reached to take the towel she was using on the dishes from her. “Ellen, you have come too far to feel sorry for yourself now.”
“I—I was thinking of Mr. Emmett,” she told him quietly.
“Oh. Aye.” He sighed. “Emmett was a good man. I’ll seek out his sister when I return to London and give her his pension.” He hesitated a moment and then turned her around into his arms. “Poor Ellen,” he murmured softly as he enveloped her. “Do not worry over what was not your fault. It was an accident caused by the weather and it could have happened anywhere.”
“Even you said I was bad luck,” she sniffed, and then stiffened to push him away, “and this is most improper.”
“Here I offer you what I offer no one—the opportunity to cry on me—and you think of propriety.” She looked up and saw him smiling ruefully. “Aye, Ellie, and I would offer something else I’ve offered no other female: I would stand your friend!”
She could feel the solidness of his body and the strength of the arms that held her, and she could not deny the attraction she felt to him. Resolutely, she stepped back and managed a tremulous smile of her own. “Thank you, my lord,” she managed. “I—I must be blue-deviled from the rain or something, but I will be all right.”
“You have been through more in two days than any gently bred female ought to have happen to her in a lifetime, my dear, so I shouldn’t wonder if you are in poor spirits.” He pushed her toward the table where they’d eaten. “Here—you need a diversion, Ellen, and I have found some cards. What say you to a few games of faro?”
“Ladies do not play faro, my lord,” she reminded him primly, and then let her face break into a watery smile. “But I am willing to learn if you have the patience to teach.”
“I warn you that I am quite good, my dear.”
“Then I might as well learn from a master.” She looked up and caught the almost-boyish smile of encouragement that lit his blue eyes. It was no wonder he had such a way with women; she had seen none to compare with him. “Mayhap if my aunt rejects me, I can become proficient enough to be a female gamester on the Continent,” she told him lightly.
“You would not like the life,” he answered as he took the chair opposite and began to shuffle the cards. “And Augusta Sandbridge would not let a niece of hers sink to such depths, I promise you.”
She proved an apt pupil and soo
n they were able to enjoy the game. While she shuffled, he rummaged through the closets and managed to find the absent owner’s cache of wine and appropriated a bottle of burgundy to share over the cards. He poured them both a glass and then noted her hesitation.
“Go ahead,” he urged. “It will ease your mind and body after all you have been through.”
“Are you trying to ply me with drink, my lord?” she asked suspiciously as she eyed her glass.
“Lud, no! I had already told you on several occasions that you are not in my style, my dear, and seduction is the last thing on my mind now. But if we are to be friends, after all, I see nothing wrong with splitting a bottle over a few hands of faro.”
“You know that I should drink ratafia.”
“But I didn’t find any of that, so burgundy will have to do.”
After the first few sips, she had to own that it was really quite good. And when she won a few hands, she began to feel quite comfortable and cosy in the tiny kitchen. The thought crossed her mind as she watched him shuffle his turn that if anyone had told her only two days before that she would be alone and half-dressed in the company of a dangerous rake—a handsome dangerous rake, she amended—and that they would be playing cards, she would have thought the teller patently mad.
For his part, Alexander Deveraux studied Ellen under heavy lids and found himself thinking that she was the most unusual female he had ever met—a true Original, and certainly the first of her sex to keep him even mildly amused without providing him physical intimacy. Damn Basil Brockhaven! The fat pig had no business with a girl like her. Careful, a voice in his brain seemed to warn him, if you do not mind yourself, you are in danger of becoming softhearted. He watched her win yet another hand and threw down the rest of the deck in mock disgust. “You did not warn me you were a Mister Sharp,” he reproached her.
“Mistress Sharp,” she corrected him happily. “And I did not know it myself. Are you absolutely certain that you are not letting me win?”
“Word of a Deveraux,” he pronounced solemnly while he poured them another glass.
“Are we getting foxed, my lord?”
“Not yet. Are you sleepy?”
“No, and if I go to bed, I will just feel sorry about this whole mess.”
“You can scarcely be held accountable for a bad storm. Drink up and deal, my dear.”
“If we were seen, what would people say, do you think?” she asked thoughtfully.
“Believe me, if we were seen sitting here like this, none of my acquaintances would trust their eyes and more than one would swear off drink. Your deal,” he reminded her again.
“I suppose I could be a musician,” she mused as she handed out the cards, “for I truly am quite good on the pianoforte, you know.”
“No. If Augusta Sandbridge repudiates you, Ellen, you cannot become a musician, either, for they usually end up as rich men’s mistresses—or worse.”
“You make it sound as though all women who do not marry wind up as somebody’s mistress. I cannot credit that, my lord, for not all unmarried females are immoral, do you think?”
He stared at her critically. In the soft candlelight, she seemed very innocent and vulnerable in spite of her brave words. It was an illusion, he told himself, for Ellen Marling had greater strength and more courage than all of the shallow misses of the haut ton. Almost without thinking, he asked abruptly, “Have you ever been in love, Miss Marling?”
Her violet eyes widened and she eyed him for some devious intent before she could bring herself to answer. “No,” she decided positively, “I am sure I have not. And after this escapade I doubt I shall ever be.”
“Why?” he asked bluntly.
“My lord, you have gone to great pains to point out to me that I shall never have the chance with any respectable gentleman. And in spite of what you might think, I cannot see myself as anyone’s mistress.” She made her points and laid down her cards. “And you, my lord, have you ever been in love?”
“Not even in my salad days,” he admitted. “Every female, no matter what her station, always wanted to hang onto my purse rather than me.”
“Your mirror ought to tell you a different story,” she retorted.
“You know, you are the queerest female I ever met, Ellen Marling. You do not flirt, you do not faint, you do not throw tantrums, and you are devilish plainspoken. I swear I cannot see what Brockhaven saw in you except for your youth and your eyes.”
“Well, thank you very much, my lord. You have again reminded me that the Deveraux, for all their other estimable accomplishments, have no manners.”
“My apology. What I meant to say, Miss Up in the Boughs, is that I should have thought he would have preferred a more biddable female. You require a man of more strength than Brockhaven.”
“Are you sure you are not trying to set up a flirtation with me, my lord?” she demanded suspiciously.
“Word of a Deveraux. I told you, I consider you a friend.”
“And I think I have had too much of this stuff.” She eyed her glass sleepily. “I think I should retire, my lord.” She pushed her cards away and rose, weaving unsteadily for a moment. “Yes, I believe I have definitely had too much.”
“Do you need help to your room?”
“I shall make it by myself, thank you, but it will be an effort, I think,” she murmured. Her speech was soft and slurred from the effects of the wine.
He watched her muster her dignity and make her way unevenly out of the kitchen, through the open area, and into the chamber she’d taken. He turned back to pour himself another glass and noticed that they had nearly drunk it all. Poor Ellen Marling! She was going to have a devil of a headache on the morrow, but for tonight at least, she would sleep.
He sat staring for a long time into the red liquid in his glass. Damn females, anyway, he decided, and the sooner he got rid of the violet-eyed Miss Marling, the better. The chit was beginning to give him a conscience.
6
ELLEN WOKE TO the sound of the marquess pounding on her door and asking if she intended to sleep away the entire day. She stretched reluctantly and became aware of the awful ache in her head. Pulling a pillow over her head to shut out the sound of the incessant pounding, she tried to ignore the noise.
“Aren’t you hungry?” he called through the door.
“No,” came the muffled reply. “Go away.”
“Well, I am. So ’tis time for the cook to arise.”
“‘I thought dissipated lords slept all day,” she muttered back.
“Only after dissipation, my dear, and I did not have enough wine last night.”
“Well, I did. My head aches as though it could burst.”
“Poor Ellie,” he sympathized. “Now you have had but a small taste of what too many of us experience far too often.”
“Then I cannot imagine why you drink the stuff. I can assure you that I shall not again.” With a jolt, she realized his voice had come from close by. She rolled over and opened her eyes to see him standing expectantly by her bed.
“Well, do you get up or do I pull you out?”
“Oh, very well!” she snapped crossly as she swung her legs over the side of the bed before she thought. Wearing only a borrowed shirt, she exposed quite a bit of leg.
“You are longer of limb than I thought,” he murmured appreciatively, and grinned.
“And you are insufferable, my lord!” She hastily pulled the covers over her bare legs. “What do you think you are doing in my room, anyway?”
“Very well.” He shrugged good-naturedly. “I just thought you might be wanting these, unless, of course, you prefer to get up and get them for yourself. I would not particularly mind another glance at those long legs of yours.” He deposited her dress, petticoat, chemise, and pantalettes on the foot of her bed.
She reddened and averted her face. “I can assure you that I am capable of getting my own clothing.”
“All right. Let me but return them to the other room and you may come aft
er them.”
“Listen, you big boor, you unfeeling—”
“Cad?” he supplied with another grin. “Obviously you lack the training of the rest of your sex if that is the best you can do for a tantrum. Your choice of words is too tame by half. I am used to being railed at with far more color.”
“Oooh!”
“Look, Ellen, my only intent was to spur you to making our breakfast. There is no need for us to fall into carping.” He gave her a cheerful nod and then left, closing the door after him.
She scrambled from beneath the covers and dressed with remarkable speed, given the condition of her head. Only when the last button was safely fastened did she take her eyes off the doorway. Her sense of ill usage grew as she dragged her purloined comb through the tangles of her hair. The unfeeling Trent had dragged her out like a common servant merely to cook his breakfast.
“I have warmed some water over the fire so you can wash,” he told her conversationally as she stalked in.
“You are so kind,” she muttered sarcastically.
“Well, I intended to be, my dear, but if you insist on behaving like a spoiled child, I will be tempted to abandon you to your fate and set off on our only horse without you. After all, ’tis well past noon and I am hungry.”
“Noon?” she retorted indignantly. “Eight, more like.”
“Noon.” He took out his watch and checked it. “See for yourself.”
“And what am I to prepare for your lordship?” she capitulated with ill grace. “I do not think I could eat a morsel myself.”
“ ’Twill help your head if you do, word of a Deveraux. And I should like a seven-course meal, of course. However, knowing your limitations, I suppose I shall have to be content with a couple of eggs.”
“Is there no sign of Mr. Dobbs?”
“None, I am afraid. So you will have to cook breakfast or we will starve.”
“And has your lordship collected the eggs?”
Anita Mills Page 7
