Miss Delectable: Mischief in Mayfair Book One

by Burrowes, Grace

  “Probably the same qualities you consider obvious about the male?” he replied, collecting slices of cheese.

  “The male? You mean the gender that assumes a tiny set of peculiar appendages renders them the lords of creation, superior in intellect, wit, strength, and all worthy measures?”

  “You disagree?”

  “Superior in stupidity and arrogance, perhaps. What are you doing?”

  “In my stupid, arrogant way, I’m trying to make sandwiches and stave off starvation. The cheese goes between the slices of bread, as best I recall.”

  Was he teasing her? About food? “If we are to enjoy the bread, butter, and cheese, then the sandwiches are better served toasted, and that means the spices must be dusted over the cheese before we melt—” She reached over to remove the top bread slices from the sandwiches he’d proposed to ruin. The colonel did not budge, which meant she nudged up against his arm.

  “You barely come to my shoulder,” he muttered, “and yet, you scold me.”

  “I scold you in the kitchen because I am a professional cook. You might scold me in the stable because your expertise lies there. You will talk to Benny before you do anything?”

  The colonel jammed the cork lid onto the crock of mustard and tamped it down with one large fist.

  “The difficulty,” he said, “isn’t Benny. The difficulty is what to tell the other lads. If they don’t know Benny is female, then they have exhibited all manner of vulgar and unseemly behaviors around her. The lads will be mortified, and Benny will lose her friends, while I will be branded a traitor because I knew and didn’t warn the boys. Morale will suffer. Regimental politics are more complicated than waging war.”

  Something wistful in his tone caught Ann’s ear. “Do you miss the military?”

  “Not in the least. You mentioned spices?”

  “Tarragon, thyme, a dash of dried onion if you have it.”

  He waved a hand toward the pantry. “Explore to your heart’s content, but mind you, I am truly hungry, and all of your subtle art will be lost on me.”

  “It won’t be lost on me.” Ann soon had toasted cheese sandwiches cut into triangles. She served that fare with a plate of peach slices and tankards of summer ale. Peaches were still a rarity in most households and not a fruit Ann had worked with in a professional sense.

  Perhaps… but no. If an idea originated anywhere but in Monsieur’s handsome head, the idea was not worth pursuing.

  “Best eaten hot,” Ann said, taking a seat at the worn table near the hearth. To her surprise, the colonel held her chair. “Thank you.”

  He took the place across from her and bowed his head. “For what we are about to receive, we are pathetically grateful, and that includes gratitude for the company as well. Amen.”

  They ate with their hands, the colonel exhibiting the sort of focused enthusiasm for the food that would gratify any cook. He left not a crumb on the plate, but partook only sparingly of the peaches.

  “Finish the fruit,” he said. “You enjoy it.”

  “I do,” Ann said, picking up another succulent slice. “The peach would go well with cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, perhaps a dash of vanilla, though the fruit flavor is subtle, and thus the spices must be understated as well. This is a fruit that would make excellent dessert sauces, and a peach compote has possibilities as well.”

  He took a considering sip of his ale. “You are passionate about cooking.”

  The colonel offered a mere observation, but Ann’s guard went up from long habit. “Every creature must eat, and preparation of safe and nutritious fare ought to be of central importance to any society.”

  He regarded her in the flickering light cast by the hearth fire. “The kitchen is more than that for you. It’s a calling. You put up with the tyrant in the Coventry’s kitchen because you learn from him, though flattering his vanity grates on your soul.”

  Ann took the last peach slice, wanting to savor it. “Has your soul been grated?”

  “Like a hard cheese upon the reality of military life. I’ll walk you back to the Coventry when you’re finished eating.”

  A mental portcullis had just been dropped. “I’ve no need of an escort, Colonel. I am not your sister, a fine lady who marries into titled families.”

  He gave her an appraising look. If Ann had been one of his subordinates, that look would have inspired her to part with her innermost secrets and most desperate dreams. She’d cast them before him like a child emptying her pockets to exonerate her from a crime that had yet to be named.

  The crime of independent dreams, in her case.

  “Mrs. Dorning cannot be blamed for her first marriage,” the colonel said, rising. “Her second marriage was apparently a love match.”

  “You don’t believe in marrying for love?”

  He took the empty plate to the dry sink. “I don’t believe in marrying at all, for the present. What others do is no concern of mine, but if Dorning makes Jeanette miserable, he won’t live to regret it for long. What sort of supplies will Benny need?”

  Ann explained the mechanics of sewing linen around a wad of sponge and affixing a string. She left the details of using the resulting profoundly intimate article to the colonel’s imagination, though he showed no embarrassment with the topic.

  “What of bandages?” he asked. “As I recall, the ladies in camp requisitioned a portion of our old linen sheets and had special… They laundered them separately for reuse.”

  “Have a word with your housekeeper,” Ann suggested. “She and her daughter regularly face the same inconvenience, and they will grasp the situation readily enough.”

  “Not a conversation I look forward to.” He collected Ann’s cloak from the peg she’d hung it on. The garment was warm from the fire’s heat, and he did her the courtesy of holding it for her.

  “We should tidy up,” Ann said, though, in truth, she simply wanted an excuse to tarry. The kitchen and pantries needed a thorough scrubbing if the spices weren’t to take on the scent of dust and the cheese the odor of coal.

  “We should get you back to the Coventry. Dorning will note your absence, and I will be interrogated. Concocting a credible tale to offer him will take some delicacy.”

  Ann donned her straw hat. “Why not tell your sister the truth?” And why not marry? The colonel was attractive in a severe way, he was fastidious, he cared for children, and he owned a profitable champagne vineyard, among other holdings.

  An eye patch and a taciturn disposition were easily overlooked if a man was sober, solvent, and reasonable.

  “Because,” the colonel said, bowing Ann through the back door, “to explain the situation to Jeanette, I’d have to call on her, and this I am loath to do. She has acquired nieces, nephews, and in-laws by the platoon, to say nothing of a shamelessly attentive spouse, and I am de trop.”

  He offered Ann his arm, another courtesy she hadn’t anticipated. She took it, expecting to be half marched along the street, but the colonel’s pace was moderate and matched to hers.

  “What bothers you most about Benny’s situation?” she asked, when it became apparent that the colonel had no conversational pleasantries to offer.

  He was silent for some dozen yards. Around them, London was shifting into its nocturnal rhythms, with fancy coaches replacing mounted traffic and linkboys hustling off to await custom outside the larger gatherings. Near the theaters and in the parks, a different sort of commerce would be getting under way. Might the colonel detour on his route home to sample those wares?

  Ann hoped not, for his sake. He was too grand a man to expire of the diseases that went with casual evening encounters on London’s streets.

  “What bothers me about Benny’s situation,” he said, “once I get past the mortification of not having seen it for myself, is that we must let her go. She cannot remain in the boys’ dormitory, I have no lady of the house to provide proper supervision to her, and yet, Benny is one of ours. She belongs with us, and we must let her go.”

  They
approached the back entrance to the Coventry, which was illuminated with several lanterns. The sadness in the colonel’s voice was all the more apparent for being quietly offered. He passed Ann her basket, bowed, and would have marched off into the night without another parting word.

  Through the Coventry’s open windows, Ann could smell roasted beef, baked potatoes, fresh bread, and sweat—the kitchen was hot and noisy, and for once, she would rather not join the culinary affray.

  “Nobody fretted over letting me go,” she said. “I wasn’t much older than your Benny, and I promise you, Colonel, it will matter to her that you and the boys will miss her. I will call upon you later this week, and we can discuss Benny’s situation at greater length.”

  She hugged him again, because he worried for a girl, because he kept his distance from a sister awash in wedded bliss, because he knew women should not be ordered about.

  “I am in your debt,” he said, his arms closing around her tentatively. “You need not trouble yourself further on Benny’s behalf.”

  Or his. The words went without saying. Ann stepped back after indulging in a good whiff of bracing lavender.

  “I will call on you Wednesday nonetheless. Even undercooks have a half day.”

  No emotion registered on his lean countenance, not relief, resentment, nothing. “Until Wednesday, then.” He bowed again, but waited at the foot of the back steps when Ann expected him to stalk away.

  More courtesy, more gentlemanly consideration. His polite gestures wrapped her in warmth as substantial as any hug.

  “Good night, Colonel.”

  “Good night, Miss Pearson, and thank you.”

  He would wait in the night air until Domesday, a conscientious sentry, so Ann slipped into the Coventry and traded her cloak for an apron. She had the oddest sense that the colonel had been thanking her for attending the girl and also for feeding him, sharing a meal with him, and perhaps—maybe—for hugging him.

  Chapter Three

  The Aurora Club was not in St. James’s proper, nor was it in the first stare of fashion. Members joined for the decent cooking, the quiet ambience, and the company of men who were honorable, but not too virtuous. Not all were former military. A few were younger sons seeking respite from the more fashionable venues patronized by older siblings and papas.

  Rye was joined at table by two men he would cheerfully have taken a bullet for—his cousins, and much more than mere cousins—though explaining Benny’s situation even to them had to wait until the brandy was making the rounds.

  “Bit of a contretemps on the domestic front,” Rye said, offering the decanter to his companions.

  “Putting your handsome foot in parson’s mousetrap, are you?” Captain Dylan Powell asked, shaking his head at the proffered libation.

  Powell was the sweetest of men, his voice imbued with the musical signature of the native Welshman. He was above medium height, blessed with rakish dark hair and a dimple, and could flash a smile to melt the reserve of the sternest dowager.

  Powell was a dissenting preacher’s son sent to the army to sow his wild oats, and he often made the sentimental declarations other men didn’t dare even think. He was easy to like, but his temper—slow to ignite, terrible to behold—made him not as easy to befriend.

  When he got to muttering in his native tongue, prudent men located the nearest exit.

  His friends at the Aurora were not particularly prudent.

  “I’ll have a nip,” Major Alasdhair MacKay said. “Or more than a nip. The English weather makes a man old before his time.” MacKay was what the regimental ladies had called a braw, bonnie laddie, with dark chestnut hair and Viking-blue eyes. As a younger man, he’d been a dedicated flirt, and like Powell, he had a temper. Unlike Powell, MacKay’s wrath was often a function of nothing more serious than an empty belly.

  Drunk or sober, wielding a Baker rifle, MacKay could also hit the epaulette on a galloping cuirassier from three hundred yards.

  A desultory rain had begun as Rye had made his way to the club, just enough wet to turn the cobbled streets slick, not enough to deter him from the prospect of an excellent beef steak. Sandwiches with Miss Pearson had made a fine appetizer—exceptionally fine—but only that.

  Rye passed the brandy to MacKay, who took only enough to be polite.

  “The Scottish winters make a man dead before his time,” Powell observed. “If you want well-behaved rain, come to Wales. You can’t see it coming down, it’s so gentle, and the rainbows are magnificent.”

  “And you can’t keep the Welsh rain from soaking your entire kit,” MacKay replied, swirling his brandy. “You getting hitched, Goddard?”

  The question was casually put—both times—but an unspoken tension had arisen at the table. To break ranks was bad form, while to lead a charge showed memorable courage. The first of Rye’s circle to marry would do a little of both.

  “Who would have me?” Rye asked. “My problem is Benny.”

  “The nipper who wears the cap?” MacKay asked. “Delicate lad. Is it his lungs?”

  Rye rose, drink in hand. “Let’s take this to the reading room.”

  The reading room was predictably deserted, also poorly named. Little reading happened here, but for the occasional newspaper perused of a morning. The Aurora’s members more often read their papers in the dining room, each man for the most part at a solitary table. An occasional comment would be offered to the room at large about the latest scandal or feat of government stupidity, but the object of the exercise was to be alone together.

  The reading room was for drinking not-alone together.

  “Has the lad run off?” Powell asked. “Boys and mischief can’t seem to resist each other.”

  Rye took the wing chair closest to the hearth. MacKay took another, while Powell wandered the room.

  “The lad is a girl,” Rye said, small words to describe a large problem. He took off his eye patch, stuffed it into a pocket, and scrubbed his brow.

  “And how,” MacKay said carefully, “did you stumble upon that revelation?”

  A slight menace underlay the question. MacKay was nothing if not protective of the ladies. Rye suspected a matter of the heart drew MacKay to London as winter approached, for clearly, the man was homesick for his chilly Highlands.

  “The female indisposition befell Benny,” Rye said, “and I gather she had no idea what was amiss. Poor lad—nipper, girl—thought she was dying.”

  Powell said something in his native Welsh.

  “I heard that,” MacKay replied, tacking on something unintelligible in the Highland tongue. They could mostly understand each other, which was fortunate when Powell’s temper flared. MacKay would offer some terse guidance in Gaelic, and Powell would regain his composure—sometimes.

  “Helluva thing,” Powell said, “to find a female lurking undetected among the infantry.”

  “But it happens,” Rye replied. Sometimes the ladies joined up to avoid starvation, sometimes they took the king’s shilling to pursue the man who’d stranded them at the altar, but it did happen, and became the stuff of late-night camp stories. “Benny was miserable.”

  “’Tisn’t fair, what the ladies endure,” Powell observed. “Eve offered Adam the apple, and so every woman is relegated to suffering. If Adam had been a better husband, he’d have told her, “Evie, me love, I’d rather have your kisses than that stupid apple.’ He’d have chucked the fruit and kept paradise for us all. But no, he was useless to her when she needed him to show some sense, and what was he thinking, allowing her to wander off on her own in Eden?”

  “Dissenters,” MacKay muttered. “Goddard has a problem, so please don’t start spouting Scripture.”

  “My problem,” Rye said, “is complicated. If the other boys know Benny is of the female persuasion, then I can intimate that I knew, too, and was waiting for Benny to say something. If they didn’t know, I have to extricate Benny from the household without anybody’s feelings being hurt or secrets being betrayed.”

&nbs
p; “I care naught for secrets,” MacKay said. “But you can’t blame the wee lassie. London is—”

  “Hell’s privy, for an orphaned female,” Powell finished for him. “We know, MacKay.” He took the chair between Rye’s and MacKay’s. “What does young Benny have to say for herself?”

  “I’m giving her time to sort that out.”

  Powell shoved Rye’s shoulder and sank into a reading chair between Rye and MacKay. “You’re at a complete loss and stalling your arse off.”

  “That too. She was uncomfortable. Physically uncomfortable.”

  “Cordial with a tot of the poppy,” Powell said. “My sisters, who know everything, swear by it.”

  “If you were my brother, I’d take to tippling too,” MacKay replied. “You need a woman, Goddard, to speak to the lass. To explain the things men don’t know.”

  “What don’t we know?” Powell retorted, crossing his arms and putting his booted feet up on a hassock. “If that girl spent any time on the streets, she knows where babies come from. Live demonstrations take place nightly mere steps from the theaters.”

  “There’s more to it than that,” MacKay said. “Mess and pain, calendars and tisanes. Mysterious female whatnot. What will you do, Goddard?”

  “I thought I’d consult men with more experience than I have.” The sight in Rye’s left eye was improving, at least under low light. Compared to the months immediately following his injury, when he’d dared not open his bad eye in full sunlight, he’d come far.

  “Consult your sister,” Powell said, closing his eyes. “Sisters know everything. They are born knowing everything. Witness, my sister Bronwen suggested I join up. Wellington would still be toiling his way across Spain if I hadn’t lent him a hand.”

  MacKay smacked Powell’s arm. “Wellington was dead stuck until I arrived, and you know it.”

  Rye had been dead stuck until these two had shown up in the officers’ mess. He’d been close to them in his youth, and they’d brought with them memories both happy and embarrassing.