by Sophia Nash
He clucked. “Now, now, Mrs. Ashburton. Is that any way to thank the man who saved your—”
“Yes, no, no, nothing, and no to the rest.”
“Excuse me?”
“The answers you sought.” Thank the Lord she was fully awake now, her wits returned.
“Very good, Mrs. Ashburton. Now would you like me to read this entire overwrought letter Lefroy carried as he tiptoed past my rooms?” He dangled a note in front of her. “Or shall I go straight to the point?”
“You opened a letter to me?” Her fury grew as she tried to snatch the paper from his hands.
He avoided her easily. “It appears your ‘dearest friend in the world,’ Lord help me, a Sarah W., has duped the Marquis of Ellesmere and his wife to provide their townhouse as a temporary refuge. She has apparently confided all your mortal sins to your mutual friends, including that prying dowager duchess. There is some hint of another letter but, frankly, it was such a mishmash of melodrama that I lost interest.” His hooded eyes gave nothing away.
“I’m certain Sarah did not mention mortal sins or prying or duped.” She snatched the note from his hands when he finally lowered it.
“Let’s not bother with trivialities, Mrs. Ashburton. Your friend now thinks to join you here as soon as she can. Lefroy will, of course, be dispatched to tell Mrs. Winters this is not a hotel.”
“Well, I am not a cook, but—”
“On that point we agree, madam.”
“But—”
“And I will thank you to stop seducing my stable master with gingerbread or any other of your bloody concoctions.”
“Mr. Lefroy? You must be joking. I’m—”
“I’ve never seen the man rendered so dull witted in our twenty years of association. You are to stop talking to him too.”
“Mr. Manning?”
“Yes?”
“The next time you interrupt me I shall—”
“What?”
“Boil your eggs in arsenic.”
“Such a temper. You should watch that. You might want to search your conscience to see if that’s what got you into so much sodding trouble in the first place. Oh, and by the by, Mrs. Ashburton…”
“Yes?” she asked, with ill-concealed annoyance.
“This latest round of lies and stupidity? Your penance is to scour the linens tomorrow. It appears my washer maid has departed. Seems she didn’t particularly like the idea of her mother, my former perfectly adequate cook, being sacked by Lefroy.”
She tried to cut in, without success.
“At this rate, I wouldn’t be surprised if the last remaining female here, aside from you, decamps by the end of the week. And then where will you be, Mrs. Ashburton? I fear I see a broom and dustbin in your future. And think of the impropriety. We can’t have you ruining my reputation, now, can we?”
She knew she should be grateful that he hadn’t given away her whereabouts. And for the merest moment she tried to figure out why he had not. He was the most unreadable person she had ever encountered. His eyes held naught but mystery. And yet, while he was as harsh a man as she had known, the end result was that he had not betrayed her. And he had not once touched her since that awful interlude in his carriage—despite his vulgar suggestions, and despite the fact that two short corridors separated their chambers, according to Mr. Lefroy.
He could have unlocked the door earlier and ravished her so easily. There were but five people residing in the main building at night: Mr. Manning, two footmen, one maid-of-all-work next door, and now Elizabeth. She was at his mercy, of that there was little doubt. But for some reason she could not fathom, she almost felt protected. Yes, well, she had thought Pymm a hero, too. At this point, with her former spectacularly erroneous character assessments, she should, indeed, jump out the window.
She smiled to herself as he made his way to the door. “Oh, Mr. Manning? Thank you so much for your gracious hospitality.” She glanced about the bare chamber. Only a simple cot resided there. “I’d be delighted to do your washing, along with all the cooking. And here I had worried I’d be bored, with so much time on my hands.”
He retrieved an old valise from outside the door and dangled it before him. “Well, since you’re adequately grateful, I shall offer you a reward. If you employ all your ladylike embroidering skills on my mending too, then, and only then, will I reward you with this little item Lefroy brought from your friend as well.”
“Give me that, you—you lout.” She stretched up on her toes to reach for the bag he held aloft. He was so very tall she had not a chance. And suddenly, he was far too close to her and she realized that she shouldn’t trust her earlier opinion of him. She could see darkness in his eyes, and she could sense the heat and brutal strength of his immense body.
She was such a fool. He had the expression of a great warrior in the midst of battle. A man who knew naught of right from wrong. Of an animal ruled by pure instinct.
She refused to buckle beneath his harsh, hungry gaze. It was impossible to look away. And yet, it was difficult to understand what he sought. If he wanted to ravish her, he was taking his time about it. And then, she heard the crash of her valise falling from his grip to the floor. His hands were now like twin bands on her arms, and the distance between them was closing fast. And yet, she did not a thing to stop him.
He paused a mere inch from her lips and suddenly, just as she expected him to crush her to him, he pushed away in a rush and stumbled back. Rowland Manning reached for her bag at his feet and hurled it into the corner of the tiny chamber. Shocked by his actions, she couldn’t form a word under his hot glare. He tore his gaze from hers and a moment later, he crossed to the door with ground-eating strides, a string of violent curses blooming in the air.
An hour before dawn, Elizabeth woke with a start and jumped from the rumpled bedclothes to make her way to the window of the small bedchamber. Lord, she was exhausted and yet as awake as she had been for more than half the night.
Eliza scanned the darkness beyond the tree branches of the window. “Oh, Sarah…find your way to me. Please, God,” she whispered. Elizabeth longed for her friend, who, six years her senior and the wife of Elizabeth’s father’s commander, had always assumed the role of wise older sister more than any true relation ever could have. Sarah’s steadiness of character had provided an anchor for Elizabeth, whose rash actions had caused them to be cast adrift in the first place. No matter how often Sarah told Elizabeth that she depended on her for her liveliness of spirit, Elizabeth knew she was the root cause of all their worries. Yet, they were like two sisters, one light and one dark, each needing the other for ease.
It had been this way all night. Little patches of sleep between horrid, heart-pounding nightmares of smoke-choked battlefields and running. Running until her lungs burned. And each time she would awaken with a start, sure Pymm’s men were climbing the stairs beyond the door to her room.
Peace was not to be found in the kitchen. At least the loaves of bread had risen properly. Eliza had nicked her fingers raw coaxing nuts from their shells to produce the nut bread the dearest men in her life had favored so much, and then she had tended to the eggs and warm pints of milk the dairy maid had delivered.
The kindhearted, brawny young footman, Joshua Gordon, appeared, eyes wide, smile even wider, especially upon finding Mrs. Vernon gone. “I’ve never smelled anything like this, ma’am,” he said nodding toward the steaming loaves. You are the best thing that has happened here since the day Mr. Manning’s mare won the preliminary race to have a go at Ascot. Actually, I’m thinking the men might think you are the better of the two.” He grinned and whisked all to the dining hall, while whistling a jaunty tune.
Now that she knew the way, Eliza took Mr. Manning’s tray to his cavernous study on her own. With each step she lined up more eloquently the reasons she would give to insist upon Sarah’s presence for the short term. She hoped Sarah remembered their old signal of a lone candle placed to the right of a sill. After a mountain of annoye
d sighs, Mr. Manning had given her the meager remains of a cheaply made tallow candle yesterday.
It had not taken long to see the way of things at Manning’s. To outsiders, to customers with gold lining their pockets, the enterprise appeared the epitome of luxury, elegance, and possessed of the best horse stock in Christendom. But to those who worked there, not a tuppance was wasted—certainly not on superior food, nor on any of the small conveniences of life, and especially not on “gawdamned bloody candles for cooks out to bewitch my men,” as he had shouted at her. Eliza dreaded to think of what he would say when Sarah arrived. He’d probably call her “another damned nuisance.”
The thing of it was that some sixth sense had always whispered to Eliza that she was responsible for her best friend’s future. Her actions were, quite possibly, the root cause of Sarah’s husband’s death, an event that had devastated her friend.
This same sense had made Elizabeth insist that they walk as far and as fast as possible through the war-ravaged forests and fields of Spain, to the coast, where Sarah and she had spent a few of their meager coins to convince a fisherman, with obvious smuggling intentions, to navigate the strong currents of the Bay of Biscay to deposit them on the opposite coast. And Sarah had followed her without question.
Mr. Manning’s office was empty of his person, and Elizabeth noticed with amusement how dull it appeared without him. Remembering the bluster of yesterday’s short and to-the-point conversation concerning the stump of the candle, followed by the bizarre encounter in her chamber in the wee hours, Eliza smiled. She then balanced the tray on her hip and cleared a small space on his desk, which held mounds of paper and ledgers.
Small words were carved into the inner edge of the desk. Setting the tray on a stack of papers, she looked closer to read FORGET NOT-WANT NOT.
The sound of the door opening made her turn abruptly and she felt unaccountably like a child caught, candy in hand. “I should have told you, ma’am, that Mr. Manning is not about,” Joshua Gordon called to her. “But Mr. Lefroy said to leave Master’s breakfast here.”
“And where is Mr. Manning?”
“In the stables, but he’ll be back soon.”
Six hours of organized chaos followed. Ever practical and efficient, Elizabeth oversaw the effort to reorganize the kitchen. A pair of superior barn cats had been pressed into service and had tackled the whiskered enemies of the cold rooms below. Joshua Gordon was sent to the market to purchase fresh foodstuffs, and to an employment agency to search for a worthy cook, while Elizabeth and a stable hand scoured the pantries, before she alone turned to the task of supper. Fragrant plum pudding ended a meal of curried lamb with grapes and artichokes. Mr. Lefroy, along with the delirious stable hands from the hall, had nearly cried with gratitude.
Elizabeth carried the second tray of boiled eggs prepared to the minute and a portion of nut bread to Mr. Manning’s study. Her perverse nature made her hope he had caught fragrant wafts of the meal the others had shared in the dining hall.
Good God. His breakfast still lay untouched where she had left it. Stone cold.
She wasn’t sure what made her so angry. Perhaps it was that a cook’s only pleasure was words of thanks and occasional praise, combined with the knowledge that she was nourishing a fellow being in body if not in soul.
Yet, why on earth should she care if he didn’t like the food she had so carefully prepared to his exact specifications? Well, almost to his exact specifications. She had so wanted to hear one meager, grudging word of praise from the horrid, arrogant taskmaster that she’d cheated by making her special nut bread. She noticed the remains of an apple in the waste basket beside the table. Irritation mounted and her cheeks burned with frustration.
She shouldn’t care. She had something more important to concern her—her plan to leave London, first and foremost. She should know better than to dally where danger could only be found. These thoughts did not deter her from confronting the enemy. It never had before, had it?
The second tray still in her hands, she crossed to the door and stuck her nose outside for the first time since arriving here.
Beyond the meticulously groomed boxwood garden, an immense central yard yawned before her. A vast expanse of very clean, and very new looking stables and fenced pasture beckoned beyond. What Manning’s lacked in comparison to the prime location of famed Tattersall’s it more than made up for in sheer size. It rested grandly on the outskirts of London, where wilderness met the sprawl of the city. But it was the gleaming, prime horseflesh one spied in every direction that explained its attraction to the masculine fast set.
Long shadows fell from the structures, revealing the lateness of the day, quickening Elizabeth’s steps. Ducking past a dozen gentlemen flocking several pens, she negotiated the maze of stables toward a door where one of the men suggested she might find Mr. Manning.
She turned and knocked once with the heel of her foot and then wheeled about to enter without waiting for an answer. She refused to notice the colossal amount of paperwork before him.
“I’m sorry to inform that it’s time to face the trial of my cooking again, Mr. Manning.” She plopped the tray in front of him, obliterating the ledgers and papers from his view.
He had not moved a muscle. Finally, his unusual pale green eyes peered up at her, and for the barest hint of a moment she was certain she spied something so raw and primal in them that she took a step back before she recollected herself and lifted her chin. “Well?” she asked, a little deflated.
“Well what, madam?”
“Look, it’s half past five o’clock. Don’t play the sullen spoilsport. I’ve made what you asked. It’s your job to eat it.”
“The sullen—” He stopped, then glanced at the tray for a long moment before moving it to one side of his desk. “I asked for the meals to be left in my study.”
“Mr. Manning,” she said impatiently. “You are not going about this properly. Men have only to do three things in life: fight or work, in your case, and then eat, and sleep.”
“Really? And what are women to do?” he drawled.
“Well, for most females, we must cook, eat, and sleep.”
“You’ve forgotten one important element, madam.”
“Now Mr. Manning, do stop avoiding the task at hand.”
“You neglected to add the need to rut, Mrs. Ashburton.”
She sighed dramatically. “If you think to disarm me with such talk, I should warn you that there is precious little you can say that will surprise me. In fact, I could probably tell you a thing or three after a lifetime spent surrounded by—” She stopped herself abruptly. What on earth was she thinking?
“I’m all ears, Mrs. Ashburton,” he said, his voice as lazy as his eyes were not. “Surrounded by men, were you? No wonder those officers appeared to know you.”
She recollected her mission. “Botheration. Eat the food I prepared, you stubborn mule.”
“Hmmm. All those years surrounded by infantry and cavalry and you’ve never heard the old proverb about leading a horse to water and trying to make him—”
“Drink?” she interrupted, with impatience.
“No”—he smiled with a devilish grin—“jump.”
She stepped to the edge of his desk and grabbed the nut bread, poking it under his nose. “Jump over this. I dare you.”
He had to give her credit. She was one of the few—no, the only woman—who had the nerve to talk to him thusly…Most were afraid of him, or the reverse: interested only in all manner of sexual perversion. He suddenly grinned, unused to the feeling of his mouth stretching into a smile.
At that moment she shoved the intoxicating bread into his mouth. He could not help but to chew convulsively and swallow. It took a hill of determination not to stuff the rest of the blasted, heaven-made delicacy down his gullet. “A little dry, don’t you think?” A tinge of hoarseness tickled his voice.
“It’s perfect, you oaf.”
“Such coarseness, Mrs. Ashburton. And such undign
ified behavior. Careful, you—yes, Tommy?”
A young boy poked his head inside the cramped office. “It’s Gray Lady. Mr. Lefroy bade me fetch you. She’s a-pacing and not droppin’ as fast as he’d like.”
“Idiot,” he spewed as he knocked back his chair to stand. “I was to be alerted at first sign.” He turned and poked her in the chest. “This is your fault. That bloody food of yours is addling my men’s brains. And by the by, Mrs. Ashburton, since you’re so damned fond of the army, may I remind you that an order is an order? Leave those sodding trays of yours in the study. And find me a new cook before the end of the week, or else my men will eat what I prepare.” He stalked out and the boy stared at her with huge gray eyes, obviously amazed at her ability to withstand the force of his employer’s hurricanelike wrath.
“Ma’am? Don’t worry about the master. Mr. Lefroy slips him apples and carrots, he does,” the boy whispered.
“Perhaps if he keeps eating such fare, he’ll grow a tail and hooves and you can parade him around the yard and sell him to the highest bidder.”
The boy grinned. Before darting away, he added, “Can I takes the bread, mum? Might be the last I gets, the way things be a-lookin’.”
She was being ridiculous, she knew. Lord knew the man ate. Why, he was the height of one of those legendary Spartan warriors and just as ruthless. Still…there were those gaunt cheeks of his, and not a spare ounce of fat on him. Why, his aristocratic half brother appeared much more hale and hearty.
She gave the boy the bread, covered the tray, and departed with it in hand. But, curiosity got the better of her. A small group of men were gathered before a huge stall at the back of the stables. Eliza set the food aside and joined them.
A mare paced within, but halted momentarily at Eliza’s approach, and whickered. The mare snuffled the straw strewn about the confines of the enclosure and resumed her pacing.
