Banquet of Lies

by Michelle Diener

  “Oh.” Gigi waved a hand. “Yes, of course I will live in. How could I do otherwise?”

  Edgars seemed to rally; he drew himself up. “What I have to ask, madam, is do you have references?”

  Gigi blinked. He wanted more than one? She dug in her reticule and brought out Georges’s letter. “References?” The glittering courts of Vienna, the grass-roofed wooden houses of Lapland, the elegant, colorful cottages of Sweden rose in reminder of who she was, and she pulled herself straight, narrowing her eyes.

  “I do.” She handed Georges’s letter to him as if the whole transaction were offensive. “However”—she drew a sharp breath in through her nose—“the only reference of any use is my cooking, monsieur. And that you will become acquainted with tomorrow evening, after I have moved in and prepared le dîner.”

  She turned on her heel and hobbled to the stairs, pulling herself up with the handrail. At the top, she turned back and stood poised above him. “Until tomorrow.” She gave a firm nod, and Edgars had no choice but to nod back.

  Outside it was almost completely dark, and she walked slowly back to the main road to catch a hansom cab.

  She took a last look at Goldfern, sitting squat and large just four houses down, and felt a shiver of trepidation.

  The shadow man would come looking for her here.

  Then she straightened and, despite her foot, walked briskly away. He wanted to find her, but she wanted just as badly to find him.

  3

  There was something about Edgars this evening, Jonathan noticed as he descended the main stairs.

  His butler stood waiting in the hall, hands behind his back, beautifully starched and brushed as usual, but there was a dazed look in his eyes, as if he’d been hit with a club.

  “My lord.” Edgars cleared his throat nervously. “I have found a French cook.”

  Jonathan paused on the last step. “Really?” He accepted his coat from Edgars and looked at him more carefully. “You don’t seem very happy about it.”

  “No, my lord. I mean, yes, I’m extremely happy. The staff were beginning to grumble about the state of affairs, and this will solve the issue, as well as mean that you can dine in again, my lord.” Edgars spoke stoically, looking at a point just beyond Jonathan’s shoulder.

  “But?”

  “She has a few conditions, my lord.”

  For the first time ever, Jonathan saw his butler turn a shade of red. “And they are?” He was suddenly most fascinated. This woman had scrambled Edgars like a bowl full of eggs.

  “She claims she is a better chef than most men, and demands a salary equal to the average salary for a male French chef.” Edgars’ voice shook a little, as if he were reliving the moment the demand had been made all over again.

  “If she is as good or better than a male chef—none of whom have deigned to work for an insignificant viscount like me—then she can have their salary.” Jonathan leaned back against the baluster and crossed his arms over his chest. “And the second demand?”

  Edgars shrugged. “She says she hates being paraded, and refuses to be brought up to receive the congratulations and compliments of your guests after a dinner party.”

  Jonathan paused to think about it, then shrugged as well. “If her cooking is that good, I’m willing to accept that condition. When does she arrive?”

  “Tomorrow.” Edgars took a fortifying breath. “She will be making dinner tomorrow evening, my lord, if you wish to sample her cooking.”

  “I think I will, Edgars.” Jonathan pulled his coat on and gave his butler a grin. “Be nice to have a functioning kitchen again, eh?”

  “Yes, my lord.” Edgars’ voice was a trifle faint. “Very nice.”

  * * *

  Harry and Rob, the two footmen, looked from Gigi’s pile of eight trunks to her with admiration.

  “Don’t travel light, do ya?”

  Gigi quirked her lips. “Naturellement, non.” She was standing in the service alley, where the hansom had dropped her, and she indicated the kitchen door with a wave of her hand. “Thank you for seeing to my luggage, gentlemen.” She walked away from them and knew they were watching her. She had dressed with elaborate care this morning—not too smart, but just smart enough.

  Gigi swung the portmanteau in her hand and pretended not to hear the grunts of strain coming from behind her. The trunks weren’t all hers; some were her father’s, full of books and papers, but she would not tell them that.

  Again, the kitchen door was partly open, and she pushed it and stood on the top step, looking down into her new domain.

  “Bonjour, Monsieur Edgars.”

  Edgars was standing in the same doorway she’d seen him emerge from last night, and at the sight of her, his mouth snapped shut.

  She could see him taking in her smart clothes, her hair drawn up and off her face in a very French style under her hat. There was no mistaking his look of approval. And trepidation.

  She started down the stairs, tugging off her gloves as she went, and looking around the kitchen in the light of day. “You can show me to my quarters?”

  “Of course. This way, madam.” He walked briskly across the room and opened a heavy wooden door; she followed him into a small sitting room done in dark green and white. “This will be your private room, and then your bedroom is beyond.” He indicated the second door with his arm but did not follow her as she stepped through it.

  It was a very large room, set below ground level, like the kitchen. There was a large window that faced out onto a wall, and she lifted the lower pane and stuck her head out, turning her neck to see where she was.

  It was the back of the house, and above her stretched a short, wide bridge from the ballroom, which appeared to be directly above her rooms and the kitchen, into the garden. A kind of moat had been dug around the lower floor to let light into the kitchen, her own rooms and, she guessed, Edgars’ rooms, as well as the staff dining room and general sitting room.

  The brick paving and wall in front of her were very bare. She would have to get some pots and flowers.

  She set her portmanteau on the large bed, took out a soft white cap, unpinned her hat and put the cap on, then took out her knives, rolled up in thick white cotton. She walked back through into the kitchen, where His Edginess waited for her.

  “I would like to open the windows. And have them cleaned. Please send me the people who will do this so I may learn their names and give them their instructions. And tell me, how many for dinner tonight?” She rolled out her knives on the kitchen table as she spoke, and lifted her head when Edgars didn’t answer.

  He was staring at the knives.

  “We have knives,” he said.

  She made a sound of disgust. “No chef would travel without her own knives. I use my own, thank you very much. And woe to the person who touches them without my permission.” She pulled out her largest knife as she said this, and held it out to the dim light filtering through the filthy windows. When the honed blade gleamed as she turned it, she gave a nod and slid it back into its place.

  Edgars was staring at her.

  “Window cleaners,” she said to him, just barely restraining herself from snapping her fingers in her impatience to get some decent light. “And how many for dinner?”

  Edgars pulled himself together with an effort. “Just his lordship for dinner. And you’ll have to wait for Harry and Rob to finish with your trunks. They’ll clean the windows.”

  “I see you are not including the staff in the dinner plans, but I do not know how many there are. How many for dinner, including the servants?”

  He flushed. “You’ve met all the servants but one. There’s Iris, Barbara and Mavis, the scullery maid, and Harry and Rob, and myself. That’s everyone.”

  That was why no chef would work here—Gigi finally understood. The house must be all but closed up. This was a place run for one bachelor and would simply not be enough to challenge an ambitious chef or give him any acclaim.

  But it would be perfect a
s a place to keep a watch on Goldfern, and to hide.

  She lifted a smaller, extremely sharp filleting knife out, examined it critically—and gave a smile that came straight from the spring of hot, bitter grief inside her.

  This place would do very well.

  4

  Gigi stepped into the staff dining room and took a seat, pleased to see that silence reigned as Babs, Iris and Mavis ate their dinner.

  Rob, Harry and Edgars were busy upstairs, serving his lordship his own dinner.

  Her arms held a good ache, the result of whisking the sabayon au muscat, stirring the beef stew and straining the consommé, and she let herself rest a moment before helping herself to the bowl of onion soup in front of her.

  “What’s in this stew? It’s lovely.” Babs spoke around a mouthful of food. Her soup bowl was scraped bare and pushed to one side, and she had a piece of bread in her hand.

  Gigi was sorry the bread was bought. She simply hadn’t had time to make any, but tomorrow that would change.

  “I think you’re tasting the Burgundy in the stew. The red wine.”

  “Wine? Cor.” Babs took another, even more appreciative bite. “Never ’ad wine before. What’s it called, then?”

  “Boeuf bourguignon.” She broke through the crust of cheese and bread on the soup bowl, dipped her spoon in and took a sip. Of course she’d tasted it many times before she allowed it to be sent up to Lord Aldridge, but she rolled the liquid over her tongue critically, testing for any imperfection.

  Perhaps a little more rosemary in the bouquet garni next time. But it was a minor complaint.

  Rob came in, eyes only for his own place at the table. “His lordship sends his highest compliments.” He fell on his soup without even looking her way.

  “Harry has taken up the sabayon?”

  He made a noise that could have been a yes. His bowl was clean before she had eaten even half of hers. He leaned back with a sigh and began spooning up stew. “Tastes as good as it smells. Harry and meself had a time disguising our rumbling tums while we were servin’ up. Thought His Edginess was going to have a little heart attack about it, ’til I realized he was rumblin’ just as loud as we were.”

  Iris grinned. “His lordship happy at last?”

  “As a clam at high tide.”

  “Thank the Lord for that,” Babs muttered.

  Harry came in and groaned as he sat in his chair. “Been dreaming o’ this moment since all those smells started wafting about the place this afternoon. If His Edginess hadn’t told me to come down while he waited for his lordship to finish the sweet course, I’d have started looking at the tablecloth as a snack to tide me over ’n’ all.”

  There was silence for a full five minutes while they ate.

  Rob ate steadily but fast, as if he were about to be separated from his meal at any moment, and sure enough, the bell rang for him before he’d finished. He stood reluctantly. The jangle came again and he left, looking back at his plate wistfully.

  The moment he’d gone, Babs lifted his plate up and put it down on Edgars’ chair, out of sight. Then she carried on eating again as if nothing had happened.

  “Put it back.” Gigi was in charge of the kitchen, and while they could play pranks on each other without her knowledge, she wasn’t going to let it happen in front of her.

  Babs kept eating, but Gigi could sense there was a wariness about her now.

  She said nothing, waiting it out, and Babs finally put down her spoon, retrieved the plate, and set it back, then shot her an uncertain look.

  “Thank you.” Gigi had only served herself a small amount of stew, and she mopped up the last of it with the passable bread.

  Then she stood and went into the kitchen to get the dessert she had made for the staff, a light flan with raisins and cinnamon. No sabayon for them. She hadn’t even suggested it. Edgars had been almost faint with the notion they were to have the same boeuf bourguignon she was serving his lordship, with its healthy dose of Burgundy, as it was.

  The bell rang again, and she heard Harry’s chair scrape back as he left the table and came through the kitchen. He caught sight of the flan and changed direction mid-stride to have a look.

  “Cor, that isn’t for us, is it?”

  She nodded and he smiled at her, the light, happy, genuine smile of a man with the prospect of an excellent dish in his near future.

  She laughed as he jogged off to get his duties over with more quickly, and took the flan into the staff dining room.

  Iris breathed in deep. “Smells wonderful.”

  Gigi looked at her, Babs and Mavis, and decided she wouldn’t get a better chance than now to find out more about Lord Aldridge. They wouldn’t talk freely with Edgars, Harry and Rob here, and she was interested in what the women in his house, the most vulnerable members, had to say about him.

  It would be useful to know if she could trust him, if she had to.

  “Tell me, is Lord Aldridge good to work for?” She cut a slice of flan and handed it to Babs. “Or is he difficile?”

  “He’s all right, is his lordship. Bit of an off sense o’ humor, sometimes. He’ll say summat and look at you as if waiting for you to laugh—only it ain’t funny.”

  Iris laughed. “He is funny, Babs. You just don’t get his jokes, and now he makes a point to try out new ones on you. He’s determined to get you to laugh at one.”

  Babs took a big bite of flan. “Mad, I call it. Bet you’ve seen a few mad ones, ’ave you?” The maid looked at her sidelong, her mouth full.

  Gigi gave a smile, thinking of the many people she’d met while touring with her father through Europe, Russia and Scandinavia. “I have.”

  “I’ve had a few meself, but not ’ere.” Iris tipped back in her chair a little, the expression on her quite lovely peaches-and-cream face unreadable. “The only strange thing ’bout his lordship is ’e don’t like good English cooking.”

  “Tonight you don’t seem to have minded good French cooking, though.” Gigi rolled each syllable over her tongue.

  “Weren’t half bad. Finally can see what the big carry-on is all about,” Babs said, then took her last bite of flan.

  “And you, Mavis?” The girl was young, only fourteen or fifteen, and she hadn’t said a word all evening. She’d eaten with the concentration of a champion training for a big event. She was far too thin, and Gigi wondered if she was being starved here. It hardly seemed possible, and she didn’t think Iris was someone who would stand for that, but the evidence couldn’t be dismissed.

  “I don’t mind what I eat, Cook. It’s all good to me.” Mavis blushed at being spoken to directly, and fiddled with her straight brown hair. “Never had too much at home. Too many of us, see? Five brothers and two sisters. And me brothers, they took as much as they could grab. Never was much left for us girls.”

  “We’ve been fattening Mavis up,” Iris said, and something in the way she said it made Gigi go very still.

  If this was evidence of Mavis with more meat on her bones, she must have been a walking skeleton when she’d gotten here.

  There’d been deep, cold anger in Iris’s voice, and she looked across at her. Their eyes met, and Gigi felt a sense of connection bloom, their mutual anger and horror at Mavis’s suffering binding them together.

  “And his lordship?” she asked. “No complaints about him?”

  Mavis blushed again and looked away, the red flush creeping up her neck and into her cheeks, hot against her too-pale skin. “No, Cook. Ever so nice to me he is.” There was a flash in her eyes, an almost secret delight as she spoke, and something stuttered in Gigi’s chest.

  He couldn’t be taking liberties with her, could he? And using her complete lack of self-confidence to make her eager for it?

  There was something going on there.

  Iris was sitting straighter, her eyes on Mavis as well, as if she had just seen what Gigi had. She turned her head to look at Gigi and an understanding flashed between them again.

  They would get
to the bottom of this.

  Whether Mavis wanted them or not, she suddenly had two guardian angels, although Gigi would have wagered Iris had been watching out for her from the moment she arrived.

  Edgars went up in her estimation as well, for taking on a starving, skeletal child. Mavis couldn’t have looked strong enough for the work when she came in. She hardly looked strong enough now.

  Gigi stood and went into the kitchen, and at that moment Harry and Rob came down the stairs, laden with the used dishes. They set them down and went to finish eating, calling rudely to Babs about how much flan was left for them.

  Edgars came a few minutes later, a half-empty bottle of wine in one hand and the fruit plate in the other.

  “His lordship is most pleased with the meal, Cook. Would you please go up and speak with him?”

  She’d expected at least one meeting. And what better way to get a sense of whether he could be trusted than to speak with him herself?

  “Of course,” she said, and straightened her apron, then lifted a hand to her hair to make sure it was still secure under her cap.

  Iris had come into the kitchen, and as Edgars set down the wine and the fruit plate, she fetched his soup, which had been sitting near the fire to keep it warm, and handed it to him. Gigi saw his eyes widen in surprise.

  “Most kind. Thank you, Iris.” He looked flustered, more human than usual. “Do you know the way, Cook?”

  Gigi shook her head.

  “I’ll show you,” Iris volunteered.

  Gigi murmured her thanks and waited for Iris to precede her up the stairs.

  And at last, the sense of playacting, of playing dress-up, left her. She had to be believable. She had to convince Lord Aldridge she was a French cook.

  Her life might depend on it.

  5

  A woman stepped through the door into the dining room, and Jonathan was suddenly at sea.

  Dark hair, beautifully coiffed under a white cap, and strangely light, hazel-green eyes fringed with thick lashes. There was a flush of color under the cream of her cheeks, and she regarded him with the same intensity with which he was watching her, her head tilted to one side on a long, slender neck.