A Warriner to Protect Her

by Virginia Heath

  It was Jack who stepped back and broke the sensual spell she was under. ‘Do not attempt to clean another chandelier without one of my brothers there to help you!’ The gruff tone was a dash of cold water which brought Letty up short. ‘And please try to keep yourself out of trouble for the rest of the day.’

  He turned and strode towards the kitchen, that greatcoat billowing behind him as he disappeared around the corner. Letty heard the door slam as he left the building and realised her foolish idea that he might kiss her had been exactly that. Foolish. The man thought her the greatest of all inconveniences and clearly still did not like her despite her pathetic efforts to try to make him do so.

  More than a little unsteady and now quite miserable, she considered admitting defeat. Jack Warriner would never warm to her and perhaps without the protective aura of her fortune to seduce people with, she wasn’t particularly likeable. A sobering thought.

  A defeatist’s thought.

  Letty had thwarted kidnappers, for pity’s sake. If she could manage that then she could make Jack like her. Perhaps she simply needed to go about it in a different way...

  * * *

  As she had never cooked anything before in her life, the recipe before her might as well have been written in a foreign language, but now that the lower floor of Markham Manor was shining like a new pin, Letty was determined to serve a proper meal in the newly sparkling dining room. One with a sauce. And a dessert.

  Letty had never as much as peeled a carrot before, so to make a meal entirely from scratch would gave her an inordinate sense of achievement. Her uncle had often accused her of being spoiled and having no understanding of the real world. She needed, her uncle explained in that patronising way that he had, a sensible man’s guidance because she was incapable of being independent. Well, thanks to his treachery, she had learned a completely new set of skills recently which she had hitherto not needed. Escaping a moving carriage, for instance. Or dusting. Or doing laundry. Yet she had not only tackled each task with vigour, she had emerged triumphant, as she always did, and excelled at every one, with the exception of yesterday’s unfortunate chandelier incident. Now she would teach herself to cook as well. What was that if it was not independence?

  It had also been nice to be able to do something for this family who had taken her in. She had already developed a great affection for the three younger Warriners, even the taciturn Jamie, and there was no denying the physical attraction she had to their brooding big brother. Since their memorable meeting in the barn, closely followed by the peculiar incident in the hallway, he had been doing his level best to avoid her. That was plainly obvious to anyone with eyes and she clearly still irritated him, as even in the evenings when she sat in the drawing room with the whole family he remained aloof. She chatted and laughed with Joe and Jacob, occasionally Jamie added some pithy comment which made them all smile, while Jack occupied himself with his ledgers and barely grunted if she tried to include him in the conversation.

  And there she had thought they were beginning to get along the other night. Only to spoil it by climbing on that silly table and making herself look inordinately silly in his eyes once again. With Jack Warriner, every time she took a step forward, she seemingly took two steps backwards. She had never been more confused by a gentleman in her life. Men usually courted her good favour. Jack now totally ignored her.

  If she said so herself, making dinner was a stroke of genius. For days now, Jack’s unfriendly behaviour towards her had put Letty on edge. She was not used to being either invisible or disliked. People always adored her—well, on the surface they did anyway. Did they only see Violet, rather than Letty? The very fact that she continually thought of herself as two people, and only Letty was real, did little to ease her unease. Violet was rich, charming and enigmatic. The catch of the Season.

  But Jack did not want her money, or appreciate Violet’s charms, nor did he appear to like Letty very much. The real her. Once again Letty felt like an inconvenient burden to him and she was now so desperate for his approval she was prepared to try anything to get it. Something, she was prepared to concede, which was completely pathetic and said a great deal about her need to belong and, more to the point, her underlying lack of confidence.

  Doing something productive for the family helped to alleviate some of the guilt she felt at straining their already limited resources and, if Jack would not accept her money, he was jolly well going to accept the fruit of her labours...and perhaps, if the way to a man’s heart was truly through his stomach, he might stop treating her like a plague victim come to contaminate them and smile at her again. One of those unguarded, roguish smiles which made his eyes twinkle mischievously. The one which made her heart melt. She frowned. No wonder she needed to keep herself occupied. Every time Letty stopped moving, she found herself thinking dreamily of him. Usually without his shirt on.

  When she had informed Jamie several hours ago of her intention to make dinner, his only reaction was to quirk one eyebrow, then disappear into the courtyard. When he returned a few minutes later, he handed her two dead chickens which were still warm, their broken necks swinging menacingly as she held them tenuously by their feet. ‘There are vegetables in the pantry,’ he had said and then had promptly disappeared outside again.

  It was just as well. Cooking was proving to be much more troublesome than polishing and dusting, and the ancient cookbook she had found in the long-forgotten library was not a great deal of help. The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Simple was a misnomer. The recipe for ‘Fowl à la Braise’ was neither plain nor simple and took it for granted that the reader knew the fundamentals of the culinary arts before commencing. What, for example, did ‘reduce’ mean? And how could one ‘add enough flour to make a thick sauce’ if one had never made a sauce of any sort before? How much, exactly, was enough? In desperation she had added spoonful after spoonful to the pan, only to watch it congeal into lumps before her very eyes. Far from being in a sea of thick, delicious sauce, her fowl à la Braise was now floating in a stagnant pond in the middle of a heatwave. And with less than half an hour before dinner was due to be served, she was beginning to lose all hope of the final dish being edible.

  * * *

  Jack worked himself into a state of exhaustion. He had not needed to spend an hour in the barn chopping wood, the wood pile already being quite healthy, but he could not face going back to the house until it was absolutely necessary. Not while she was there, tempting him with her glorious riot of corkscrew curls and still wearing his breeches. Looking and not touching was killing him. Looking, while not appearing to look, was driving him insane. He had never been so frustrated in his life. Unfortunately, as it was almost dinner time it was absolutely necessary to go back inside so he could not put it off any longer.

  With a sigh he piled up the last of the wood and shrugged on his coat. The last three days had been tortuous. He was wary of even glancing at Letty in case Jamie had been right and he did openly gape at her with his tongue out, drooling, and after he had shamelessly enjoyed the feel of her in his arms yesterday and had very nearly kissed her because he was so consumed with lust, the only course of action available to him now was to have as little to do with the temptress as possible.

  In the mornings, Letty’s company had been more bearable because he had a distinct purpose—eat breakfast and then leave as quickly as possible. But in the evenings...well, frankly they made him cringe. If sitting silently through dinner trying not to explode while conversation wafted around him wasn’t painful enough, at the end of the evening he would then have to watch her perfect bottom sway up the stairs, in his breeches, on her way to bed. His bed. Both things drove him mad with unfulfilled desire. It was all he could do to mutter goodnight.

  Things would be a lot easier if she was an ordinary-looking girl, but of course he was never that lucky. Instead she had those lovely, big green eyes and those plump, pink lips which appeared
to have no difficulty talking. There was an animation about the way that she spoke which made even the most mundane topics sound interesting. But that was entirely the problem. Her life had been far from mundane. She knew everyone in London, had been invited to every ball, had danced with dukes and solvent earls, and even the Prince Regent himself.

  Twice.

  How exactly did a humble, financially embarrassed farmer from dankest Nottinghamshire even begin to compete with all of that? She positively reeked of effervescence. Jack probably stank of the sheep he wrestled like a savage. Half the time he felt unworthy, the other half merely miserable. Letty was perfect. There was no other word for her. And perfect, when you were a penniless Warriner with an incurable case of lust and no prospects, was intimidating. Jack used to be master of the house, but now he was reduced to being a slave to his urges, and a mute slave to boot.

  Despite his inability to reciprocate conversationally like a civilised gentleman, or indulge his rampant desire, having Letty in the house made everything about the place seem a little brighter. Not to mention cleaner and more...homely. It was almost as if she belonged at Markham Manor—which was, of course, ridiculous. An incomparable did not belong here. With him.

  He took a calming breath and then opened the door.

  ‘Letty has been cooking!’ announced Jacob with a grin.

  Letty was stood at the table looking lovely, a leather-bound tome entitled The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Simple at her elbow and a huge smudge of flour on her cheek. It was quite an arresting sight. She looked like a beautiful depiction of the perfect farmer’s wife. Jack managed a smile despite the sudden tightness in his chest. Farmer’s wife? Where the hell had that come from?

  ‘So I see.’

  Joe was stirring a big pot on the range and appeared to be on the cusp of hysterical laughter. ‘She has made Fowl à la Braise and potatoes—which is apparently a fancy name for a chicken stew from what I can make out. For pudding we have baked apples with cream.’

  ‘It sounds delicious,’ he said carefully, although it did not actually smell particularly delicious. It smelled burnt—and ever so slightly fetid.

  ‘Why don’t you sit down, Jack?’

  With a sinking feeling Jack realised he was trapped. He had to make conversation now after she had plainly gone to so much trouble. It was expected. ‘Have you had a good day?’ It was a reasonable start.

  She smiled at him and gestured to the mess around them with a spoon. ‘I have been learning to cook. I did not realise that it was so complicated—but it has proved to be very entertaining. I had originally intended to make an apple pie for pudding, but I am afraid that the pastry proved to be a little too challenging.’

  ‘I see.’ Dull. Dull. Dull. Jack racked his brain for another topic. ‘The rain has stopped.’ Good grief, could he be any more boring?

  ‘It has?’ This news appeared to cheer her. ‘That will make your work easier.’

  ‘I hope so, though it could take a day or two for the water to subside. Once it does, I should be spared from rescuing sheep for a few days. Three of them got stuck in the mud today. Sheep are such stupid creatures.’ Much better. He had actually managed to string several sentences together quite effectively.

  ‘They taste good, though, so that is some consolation.’

  She gave him such a lovely smile and he found himself grinning back at her like an idiot before he checked himself. ‘Indeed it is.’ Jack took a grateful gulp of his tea.

  ‘I think that the potatoes are done, Letty,’ Jacob called from across the room. ‘You had better get those plates ready, Jamie.’ When Jack stood up, intending to help her, Letty turned to him and stayed him with her hand. It touched the back of his briefly and sent tingles up his arm.

  ‘Sit down. The three of us can manage well enough. You work too hard, Jack.’

  Letty insisted they all eat in the formal dining room so the brothers carried the steaming pots to the table, but when the lids were removed she stared at her creation with a sinking heart. They all did. It might well smell like food, but it looked terrible. The sauce around the chicken was thin, lumpy and grey in colour. The two chickens looked anaemic. The least said about the accompanying vegetables the better. Mush was a more fitting word for them now. Bland, pale, unappetising mush.

  Jack politely served himself a chunk of the chicken. As he lifted the sorry-looking portion on to his plate Letty could see the tell-tale signs of feathers still on the greasy, gelatinous skin and winced. The spoonful of mush Joe served him landed on his plate with an ominous-sounding splosh.

  ‘This looks lovely,’ he said with the falsest smile she had ever seen and then he proceeded to help his brothers load their own plates with a completely straight face. Letty wanted to curl up and hide as she watched them all pick at the food dubiously. Poor Jack had no option but to fill a fork with the slop and choke it down.

  ‘Mmm...’ For good measure he nodded sagely, rolling his eyes at his siblings as if his mouth was filled with the nectar of the Gods and she realised he was actually being kind. To her. Letty wanted to die. But they all made a polite and valiant attempt at eating the meal despite the fact it was beyond awful. Jamie curled his lip in disgust and shovelled the food in fast, a technique he had probably learned in the army when the rations were terrible. Jacob and Joe appeared so disappointed upon swallowing their first mouthful, but they looked to their elder brother, who kept making encouraging sounds as he attacked his plate with gusto, and they did the same. At one point his eyes rested on hers. For once, it was not irritation she read in them, nor was it disappointment at the shameful ruination of good food at her clumsy hand. To her complete surprise he seemed to find the whole thing very funny.

  ‘I am so sorry about dinner,’ she blurted out and then instantly blushed from the roots of her hair down to the tips of her toes, ‘It is a travesty.’

  Those intense blue eyes lifted slowly from his plate and regarded her with obvious amusement. ‘A travesty is a bit harsh.’

  ‘How would you describe it, then?’ Letty’s cheeks were burning hot, but she forced herself to meet his gaze. ‘I have even ruined the saucepans.’

  For a moment he shrugged, then a devastating boyish grin transformed his face. ‘There are some redeeming aspects. You make excellent tea—so the beginning part of the meal was very good.’

  To her horror, both Joe and Jacob burst out laughing. Even Jamie smiled. ‘In the army I had to eat some pretty inedible things, Letty. But this? This is by far the worst meal ever to pass my lips.’

  Letty buried her face in her hands and groaned. ‘It all appeared to be so straightforward in the book.’

  Jack’s eyes were still laughing, but he spoke kindly. ‘Perhaps you should have started with something simple first. I confess I have never heard of fowl à la Braise before today, but I think you should master something basic like roasting a chicken before you move on to something as advanced as trying to cook it à la Braise.’

  ‘Would you consider boiled potatoes and carrots advanced? I ruined those, too.’

  ‘You are being too hard on yourself.’ The three other Warriners nodded enthusiastically, in a valiant attempt at making her feel better which failed completely. Feeling inordinately stupid and angry at herself, Letty stood and began to snatch up the still-full plates, stacking them in a pile in front of her.

  ‘The baked apples might taste better!’ Although she did not hold out much hope. The acrid smell of burning fruit was unmistakable.

  To compound her misery, Jack started laughing. ‘I thought the stewed chicken feathers were a particularly nice touch. I have never seen that before. Was it in the recipe or a little twist of your own?’

  ‘I enjoyed those, too,’ said Joe, fishing one from his mouth and waving it for emphasis. ‘They gave the meal a little extra something...’

  ‘Texture.�
� Jacob was holding his ribs, he was sniggering so much. ‘If you ask me, there are not enough feathers in food. They are wasted in pillows.’

  Letty pouted in consternation. ‘I have never plucked a chicken before,’ she admitted with the beginnings of a smile because it was funny. ‘It was horrible. They were still warm. I gave up plucking when I thought one of the birds was still twitching. I foolishly thought the remaining feathers would burn off as they cooked. But at least I got one thing right. My fowl à la Braise was accurately named. It was truly foul.’ The infectious sound of Jack’s laughter was interrupted by the sound of a fist pummelling on the front door.

  Chapter Twelve

  Twenty days left and all is not well...

  The five of them stared at each other, although Letty appeared truly terrified. She needn’t have worried. Jack would slay dragons before he ever let anyone get near her.

  ‘Go upstairs. Stay out of sight. We’ll deal with this.’ She didn’t have to be asked twice and sprinted from the dining room with her lovely eyes wide.

  The fist pummelled the door again and the four of them walked warily towards it. ‘I’m coming!’ Jack shouted with feigned irritation, conscious that his heart was threatening to beat its way out of his chest. This was his fault. No doubt the change in the weather had influenced this visit. For once, Jack was not pleased the incessant rain had stopped now that they had a fairweather search party at the door. He chastised himself for not realising this was bound to happen. Thanks to his own stupidity, he had inadvertently put Letty in danger. But he could flagellate himself later, when the threat was gone.

  He turned to his brothers and whispered instructions. ‘Whoever it is, we know nothing. We have seen nothing.’ They nodded and headed into the great hall, led by Jamie. When Jack saw they were all sat in their usual places, pretending to be reading something, he slid open the latch and the heavy front door swung open. There were three men standing on the dark threshold, all with lanterns in their hands. Jack recognised only one of the men.