Above the Bay of Angels: A Novel

by Rhys Bowen

  I observed the earl’s face. He was staring at me with a puzzled frown. I wondered if he had heard something about me that had displeased him until he said, “You remind me of someone, young lady. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but it will come to me.”

  “Your cousin Roderick maybe, my lord?” I said.

  “That’s it. Roddy, when he was young.” He gave me a questioning look. “And you are?”

  “Isabella Waverly, his daughter,” I said.

  “Good God. Fancy that. Is this the girl you’ve been talking about, Giles? Why didn’t you tell me that she was a cousin?”

  “I didn’t know,” Giles said, a confused look on his face. “You said your name was Helen Barton.”

  “That was the name I had to work under when I became a cook at the palace,” I said.

  “A cook?” the earl looked startled now. “You became a cook?”

  “Out of necessity, my lord. My parents died. My sister and I were left with no money and no place to go. I had to support her, so I went into service.”

  “Why the devil didn’t you come to us?” the earl blustered. “We didn’t even know that Roddy had married and had children. We thought he was still in India.”

  “The answer to that is that I knew nothing about you. My father told us he had fallen out with his family and could not turn to them for help.”

  “Stupid boy,” the earl said, glancing at his son. “Your father was not the easiest of men, I’m afraid to say, Isabella. He got into trouble at Oxford. Gambling debts, bad checks, that kind of thing. I gather he ran with a wild crowd, drank too much, lived high on the hog without the means to do so. His own parents were dead. My father was paying for his education. He told Roddy that he’d settle his debts, but he was sending him back to India to make a man of himself. He’d arrange for a commission in an Indian regiment, and then he never wanted to see him again. And we heard no more from him. Presumed he was still in India.”

  “He had to resign his commission and come back to England because my mother couldn’t take the climate,” I said. “I’m afraid that drink was his downfall in the end.”

  He nodded. “Sad business. But you seem to be made of sterner stuff. You have the proper Waverly blood flowing through your veins. Well done, Isabella. And you must call me Cousin George. Come and sit here beside me, and you shall tell us all about the royal household.” He patted the sofa beside him. I caught Lady Mary’s eye, and she gave me a nod of encouragement.

  We chatted. We ate cucumber sandwiches and petits fours, and afterward the earl told Giles to escort me back to the hotel. I couldn’t be sure, but I think he gave Giles a wink.

  “Why didn’t you tell me that we were related?” Giles said as soon as we had left the villa. “I felt like a fool, not knowing.”

  “Because I had to prevent my true identity from being known at that time,” I said, and I related the story to him.

  “Ye gods,” he said. “That’s quite a tale. You poor girl. You’ve been through a lot.”

  “I’m still here,” I replied. “And things are looking up at last.”

  “So what will you do now?” he asked. “You can’t go back to being a cook.”

  “I’m not sure. Your father has invited me to come and stay at Kingsbury, which is awfully nice of him. Lady Mary has suggested I stay with her, and the queen doesn’t want me to leave. It’s all rather overwhelming after feeling unwanted for so long.”

  “I hope you take up our offer,” he said. He was looking at me like an expectant dog, hoping for a treat. “I want to see more of you, Bella. I think my father wants us to be better acquainted, too. I thought you were a splendid girl from the moment I laid eyes on you. And now I know how strong you are; I think you’d make a perfect wife for me. I need someone like you to keep me on the straight and narrow. Father has been pressuring me to settle down and marry, you know, and I think he might like to keep it all in the family, so to speak.”

  “It’s a little early to be talking like that,” I said. “You don’t really know me, Giles.”

  “I’m the sort of chap who makes up his mind quickly,” Giles said. “When I see something I like, I know instantly. And I knew instantly about you, Bella. I think we’d have a grand old life together. I’ll inherit Kingsbury someday. The pater is not without cash. You’ll finally be where you are supposed to be.” He paused, took a deep breath, then said, “I may not be the brightest chap in the world, nor the most athletic, but I’m a good sort. Do you think you could be happy married to someone like me?”

  “I think I probably could,” I said cautiously, “but let’s take it one step at a time, Giles.”

  “Of course,” he agreed, nodding. “I don’t want to rush you. At least say you’ll come to stay . . .” He took my hand, holding it between his own. “And we can take it from there.”

  Wasn’t this what I had wanted, dreamed of? Of course it was. Mistress of a grand house. All the leisure in the world. Money for clothes. Money to travel. And yet I hesitated.

  “Carpe diem, Bella,” said my father’s voice.

  “Of course I’ll come to stay,” I said. “But I can’t leave the other cooks in the lurch here. You’ll have to wait until we return to London.”

  “I can wait, as long as it takes, if I have you to look forward to,” he said, squeezing my hand now.

  I changed out of my good dress and stumbled back to the kitchen in a daze. I started making a pudding for dinner, mechanically stirring in ingredients . . . Was this what I wanted to do all my life? Cook for other people? Be a servant when I could have people to wait on me?

  “Attention. Pay attention,” a warning voice said sharply behind me. “You are burning the butter.”

  I jumped, pulled the pan off the flame and turned to see Jean-Paul standing behind me.

  “I was watching you,” he said. “You have your head in the clouds today. It’s not like you to burn the butter.” He was looking at me with concern. “What is wrong? Are you still worried? I understood that you are not being held responsible for the death of that nobleman. They are saying now that he took his own life. Drugs, so I hear.”

  “Is that what they are saying?” I asked. “I’m sorry. I’m a little confused today. I think I just received a proposal of marriage.”

  “You think?”

  “It wasn’t a formal proposal, but a proposal nonetheless.”

  “And did you accept?”

  “I might have indicated my willingness to accept,” I admitted.

  “Who is this man?” His voice was sharp now.

  “An English milord,” I said. “I shall become a viscountess and live in a fine house.”

  “And what of your passion?” he demanded. “It has disappeared? You will no longer cook. You will have someone to do that for you. You will accept mediocre food, knowing that you could have cooked it better. You will sit and do embroidery or gossip to while away the time until the next meal. Is that what you really want?”

  “You are shouting,” I said. I realized the kitchen had become very still and the others were watching us.

  “Come outside.” He took my arm and forced me from the kitchen.

  “Let go of me, you’re hurting me,” I said.

  “We cannot discuss this in front of the others.” He propelled me along the hallway. We came into the open air at the back of the hotel. Seagulls were whirling in the breeze, crying above us.

  Jean-Paul turned me to face him. “Tell me this is what you want. What you really want.”

  “I shall miss cooking,” I said slowly. “But I have to think of my future. I had to work like a slave from the time I was a young girl because I had nobody to take care of my sister and me. Who would turn down the chance for a life of luxury and security?”

  “Do you love this man?” he asked.

  “I hardly know him. He seems pleasant enough.” Even as I said the words, I heard Giles’s voice saying that he needed a strong woman to keep him on the straight and narrow. Did he have
problems with drink and gambling, as my father had done? Was this something that ran in the family? I realized how very little I knew about Giles.

  “Pleasant enough? Is that what you want in a husband?” His voice had risen again. “A milquetoast little Englishman who minces around with lace on his cuffs and doesn’t know what to do with a woman?”

  “How do you know what he is like?” I was shouting back at him now.

  “Because I see the English milords. They are spoiled little boys, not real men. Will he ever kiss you like this?”

  He grabbed me and brought his mouth against mine with such force that I couldn’t breathe. I tried to push him away, but I realized I wasn’t trying very hard. When we broke apart, he stood looking down at me with those dark eyes burning with passion. “Will he make you feel alive?”

  When I didn’t answer, he said softly, “Don’t make a mistake you will regret for the rest of your life.”

  “What if it’s my one chance at happiness? What if I turn him down and then one day I become sick or injured with nowhere to go and nobody to look after me?”

  “Why should it be your one chance?”

  “I am an under-cook. I sleep in a narrow little bed, and I do what I am told. Maybe I want more.”

  “You could always stay here,” Jean-Paul said at last.

  “What do you mean?” I looked up, seeing those dark eyes looking at me with intensity.

  “When the queen and the milords go home. You like it here.”

  “You’re right. I do like it. But I can hardly stay here and work at the hotel. You have no female chefs.”

  “I was thinking the time might be right for me to open my own restaurant,” he said. “You could come and work with me.”

  I gave a nervous little laugh. “I don’t think that would be proper. Where would I live?”

  “We could get married, of course,” he said.

  “You and I?”

  “You and I,” he said. “Why not? You like me. I know you do. I did not see how I could ever marry, because it would not be fair to a wife to have a husband who is never at home in the evenings. But if I had a wife who worked beside me, who shared my passion—think what we could do together.”

  “You’re only saying this because another man has asked me to marry him,” I said uncertainly. “You don’t want me to marry an Englishman. You don’t really mean it.”

  “Chérie, I have wanted you from the first moment I set eyes on you,” he said. “But I told myself that you were not attracted to me the way I was to you. So I said nothing.”

  “You’d really want to leave this position at the hotel?” I asked, still trying to come to grips with his proposal and my own building excitement. “Isn’t this a plum job?”

  “Of course,” he said. “But more and more foreigners are coming to Nice now. There are good restaurants but no outstanding restaurants. No Cordon Bleu. No reason for fashionable people to come down from Paris or Berlin. The time is right. I think it could be a magnificent success.”

  “Starting a restaurant would take money,” I said, still not wanting to trust my instinct.

  “I am not without money,” he replied with a proud toss of his head. “My father has done well. I have done well. You would not starve, ma petite, I promise you.”

  “You only want me to come and cook with you,” I said.

  “Why are you saying these things?” he demanded. “If you do not wish to marry me, say so now and put me out of my misery. But please accept the truth. I want you,” he said simply. “I think we could have an incredible life together. I guarantee you would never be bored. So what do you say?”

  What could I say? I, who had despised my sister for marrying into trade, who had the chance to become Viscountess Faversham, heard myself saying the words, “I think I would like that very much.”

  “You are leaving my service to marry?” the queen asked me. It was April, and her time in Nice was drawing to a close. “Is it the young Waverly boy?”

  “No, ma’am. I’m afraid I’m going to marry a Frenchman and stay here.”

  “Gracious me. And where did you meet this Frenchman?”

  “He is the head chef at the hotel, ma’am. We are going to open a restaurant together.”

  “You are full of surprises, Miss Waverly. I hope you know what you are doing, settling down so far from home.”

  “Lady Mary married a Frenchman and seems very happy,” I said.

  “Yes, but he is a nobleman. You will be working hard for your living.”

  “I told you once that I want to be occupied, and cooking beside my husband seems perfect to me.”

  “Then I wish you well,” she said. “Having a good man at your side is the best any woman can hope for. May you be as happy with him as I was with my dear Albert.”

  And shortly after that, I had another encounter. I was walking along the Promenade des Anglais, admiring the incredible blue of the water, dotted with the white sails of yachts and the red sails of fishing boats. The light sparkled and danced. It was almost too heady to be real. And suddenly I found myself thinking about Helen Barton. If she had been alive and taken her rightful place in the kitchen, maybe she might have been standing here at this moment, not me. And a great wave of pity came over me that her life had been snuffed out so young and she never had a chance for love or happiness. I wanted to do something for her, something in her memory. But I knew she had no family apart from her brother. I turned away from the ocean, and coming towards me was Ronnie Barton himself. His face took on that sarcastic smirk I had so loathed. It was a face I had wanted to smack so many times.

  “Well, if it isn’t my long-lost sister,” he said. “We heard there was a spot of scandal that involved you. Some bloke died? Something to do with poisoned mushrooms?”

  I gave him a hard stare. “I’m afraid you have it wrong. It turned out to be nothing to do with mushrooms at all.”

  “Lucky for you, eh?” he said. “I bet they’d have been interested to know you were involved in another death before this. Do the French still have the guillotine?”

  “Why don’t you give up these silly threats?” I said. “There is nothing you can do to me.”

  “Really?” he said. “Actually I’m glad you were not found guilty of poisoning.” He paused, then added, “You’d be no use to me in a French prison, or with your head chopped off.”

  “I will be no use to you whatever from now on,” I said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me . . .” I tried to walk past him. He blocked my path.

  “I hear the queen’s going home next week. I may be coming to visit you in London. I can think of a couple of little favours I may want from you.”

  “The queen may be going home, but I’m not,” I said.

  “Ah, so they found out about you, did they?” He was grinning now. “Kicked you out at last, poor dear. So what are you going to do with yourself?”

  “I’m actually taking another name,” I said. “I have grown tired of being Helen Barton.”

  “What did you do—push another girl under an omnibus?”

  I was about to answer when I heard my name being called. I turned to see Jean-Paul running towards me. “A thousand pardons for keeping you waiting, chérie,” he said and kissed my cheek. “But I have exciting news. A building that I think will be perfect for us.” He stopped, noticing Ronnie standing in front of me.

  “And who is this?” Jean-Paul asked me, still in French.

  “An Englishman who has been annoying me for a long time,” I said. I looked Ronnie directly in the eye. “I am about to be married, Mr Barton. This is my fiancé. He is a famous chef. And his family is very influential in Nice. His grandfather was mayor once.”

  Jean-Paul was sizing up the skinnier, slighter man. He stepped forward. “And I do not like anyone who upsets my bride,” he said in surprisingly good English. “She is right. I am a famous chef, and I am extremely talented with a knife. If I can bone a duck in two minutes, just think what I could do to you. Do not l
et me see you again.”

  He took my arm. “Come, chérie. We have a restaurant to buy.”

  “Good luck to you, marrying a frog,” Ronnie called as we moved past him. “You’ll be begging to come home to England in no time at all.”

  I couldn’t resist turning back to him. “You don’t know me, Mr Barton. You’ve never known me. I can think of nothing more splendid than living here with a man who loves me. And one day I expect the prince will find out the truth about you and you’ll get what you deserve. But I won’t be the one to tell him. Good day to you.”

  Then we walked away without looking back.

  On the third of June, I married Jean-Paul Lepin in the church of Notre Dame of the Immaculate Conception, behind the old port. Lady Mary outfitted me for the occasion. The queen gave me a set of pearls. My fellow cooks were more practical and sent a set of jelly moulds, in case they were not obtainable in France. My sister and her husband came over for the wedding. She really was expecting a child this time and looked positively radiant.

  “Billy has put off the idea of going to Australia until the little one is born,” she said. “Maybe he’ll have a cousin someday soon.”

  And that wistful look came into her eyes again as she realized that the cousins would be thousands of miles apart.

  After we returned from our honeymoon on the Italian Riviera, we opened a restaurant that I insisted on calling La Belle Hélène just off the Promenade des Anglais. It was my small tribute to Helen Barton. It has large arched windows that look across gardens to the bay, and we designed it with intimate booths around the walls. We have made local seafood dishes our specialty, and I have learned to create a really good baba au rhum. As Jean-Paul predicted, it has been a magnificent success. People come from all over the Riviera to dine with us, including the Prince of Wales, with his latest conquest. (I wisely stayed in the kitchen, just in case.) And I am able to pursue my passion for cooking, but I have recently found a new love in my life. He is called Louis, after Jean-Paul’s father and my sister, and he lies contentedly in his cradle while his parents create timbales, terrines and soufflés. Sometimes I let him suck on my finger when I have created a particularly delicious batter or sauce. He is clearly going to inherit his parents’ palate.