Miss Delectable: Mischief in Mayfair Book One

by Burrowes, Grace

  “I’m talking about a young girl embarking on a profession that will support her well for the rest of her life and also make her happy. A word in your sister’s ear, and Benny can have her dream.”

  Phrased like that, Rye could humble himself to make this request of Jeanette. A commanding officer put the welfare of his troops first. If the officer’s pride suffered, that was of no moment.

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  Miss Pearson rose. “What’s the real reason you are reluctant to see Benny hired at the Coventry?”

  Rye stood as well, as manners required. He’d secured Miss Pearson’s support for the plan, which had been the objective of the interview. That was progress.

  “I have asked you to take her on,” he said, as they made their way from the parlor. “What makes you think I’m reluctant?”

  “You are. I will keep her safe, Colonel. The Dornings do not tolerate bad behavior toward or among the staff. Monsieur will berate Benny regularly and perhaps reduce her to tears on occasion, but he will not strike her, and the footmen and waiters will not interfere with her.”

  “Did Monsieur make you cry?”

  Miss Pearson paused at the front door. “He did, and that was foolishness on my part. No man’s vanity is worth my tears. I would like to see Benny before I take my leave.”

  Some man’s vanity had vexed Ann Pearson exceedingly. Whoever he was, Rye wished him to perdition.

  “Benny is still in the stable,” he said, draping Miss Pearson’s cloak about her shoulders. “Why don’t I leave you ladies to have a private chat, and then I will walk you back to the Coventry?”

  Miss Pearson took her hat from him, but didn’t put it on. “You need not provide me with an escort, Colonel. I am an undercook, not a grand lady.”

  She had made the point before. Rye took her hat and set it gently on her head. “Nonetheless, I have it on the best authority that I am a gentleman, so I will meet you in the stable in a quarter hour. The back terrace is this way. Do come along.”

  He strode down the corridor toward the library, and much to his surprise, Miss Pearson followed him without arguing.

  * * *

  “You had the lavender soap put in Benny’s room, didn’t you?” Ann asked as the colonel ambled at her side along the walkway. He apparently did not expect her to hang on his arm like some mincing ninnyhammer, but he did keep a pace Ann could easily match.

  “What makes you think that?”

  He tended to answer questions with questions, a sign of inherent caution. He would never get eggshells into his batter, but always crack his eggs over another bowl. Would he experiment with the recipes printed in the cookbooks, or keep strictly to the directions and ingredients listed?

  What sort of lover would he be?

  Ann tossed that thought into her mental midden, though she knew it would visit her again.

  “Your housekeeper, Mrs. Murphy, favors chamomile soap, and that’s what Otter uses as well. You, however, prefer French lavender, and now Benny washes with it too.”

  “You’ve met Otter.”

  Apparently not a cause for rejoicing. “He is a perfectly delightful boy, Colonel. How is it the children speak French?”

  “My mother was French. I grew up speaking both English and French, and that ability served me well in the military, for the most part. The properties I hold in Champagne are through Mama’s side of the family, though my paternal grandmother was also French. Through her, I claim rural land in Provence.”

  Hence the luscious soap. “And yet, with all that familial loyalty to France, you joined the British military.”

  His steps slowed as they approached a wider thoroughfare. “The English have no idea the trouble they cause when they go a-plundering. From Scotland to India and over to America, families have dealt with the British menace by assigning one son to each side of any conflict that involves Merry Olde England. Whichever son is on the winning side can salvage the family fortunes when the hostilities cease.”

  And alas for the other son. A military man would notice this aspect of history. “Is that how you ended up with your French holdings?”

  He came to a halt, waiting for traffic on the street to clear. “Some of my maternal family made it to England when Napoleon routed the British forces at the siege of Toulon. Some remained behind, professing loyalty to France. None of those who survived in either land had an easy time of it, but knowing two languages improved their chances.”

  “Is everything with you a matter of survival, Colonel?” A coach and four thundered past, and Ann stepped off the walkway. Before her second foot could follow the first, she was snatched back onto the walkway and plastered against a hard male chest.

  A curricle barreled along perilously close to the rear of the coach.

  “Steady,” the colonel growled. “Damned fool toffs drive like a trip to the tailor’s is a race to Brighton.”

  Ann could not have moved if she’d wanted to, he held her that snugly, but then, if not for the colonel’s support, her knees might have given out.

  “He almost hit… I almost…” The curricle rattled around the corner, not a backward glance from the driver.

  “You’re safe. A near miss only. Breathe.”

  Ann breathed in lavender and warmth, a hint of saddle leather—the colonel apparently hacked out of a morning—and the soft wool of his coat. She breathed in composure and the steady calm of a man born to command.

  But no, that wasn’t quite right. Not command. In any case, she could not stand in the middle of the walkway parsing the colonel’s scent while half of London gawked at the spectacle she made.

  Ann stepped back. “Thank you. I should be more careful.”

  “Yonder driver should have been more careful.” The colonel did offer his arm, and Ann allowed herself to grasp it. “Let’s take the alley, shall we?”

  He apparently knew where he was going, for by turns and shady backstreets, he brought her to the Coventry’s garden gate.

  “Do you often navigate by the alleys?” Ann asked.

  “Yes. I don’t often recount my French heritage, though it’s common knowledge.”

  “Je dois beaucoup à la langue Française, Colonel.”

  “And why do you owe much to the French language?”

  The Coventry’s garden walls were high—better than six feet—so nobody at the club would see Ann tarrying with her escort. She was peculiarly unwilling to part from him, too, and not simply because he had the reflexes of a cat.

  “I had excellent French teachers at school,” Ann said, “and when I sought a post as a cook’s apprentice, I was hired because the Englishwoman I worked for could not read French. She needed my French, and I needed her instruction. I taught her what I could, because you are correct: A facility with both languages is never a hindrance and often a help.”

  Ann was fairly certain that smiling wasn’t in the colonel’s vocabulary, regardless of language, but his gaze did acquire a hint of humor.

  “You are pragmatic,” he said. “A fine quality in any officer.”

  “I am a cook, and if I want to read Carême’s menus or his articles and recipes, I must know my French. Then too, our chef at the Coventry frequently lapses into French, and one wants to understand his mutterings. Thank you for your escort, sir.”

  The colonel flicked a glance at the closed garden gate. “This is your half day. Why come to your place of work?”

  “I’ll pop in and make sure the kitchen starts its day on sound footing. Our chef arrives in the early evening and remains until past midnight.” Though Monsieur was arriving later and later and in an increasingly unreliable state of sobriety.

  “That’s not the whole reason.” The colonel stepped a few paces away, pivoted, and returned. “Do you fear that if I know where you dwell, I’ll trespass on the knowledge? Dump Benny on your doorstep like a foundling?”

  Ann patted his lapel. She would not normally be so forward, but she wanted to rattle him a little—to see if h
e could be rattled—and she liked touching him.

  “The habit of suspicion has too firm a grip on you, Colonel. I use my afternoons to experiment in the kitchen. Only junior staff is on hand, and my time is my own.”

  “Target practice and drills,” he said, scowling down at her. “Does Sycamore Dorning appreciate what a treasure he has in you?”

  Oh, probably not. Ann was neither French nor male nor—she hoped—a martinet. “I am well compensated for my labors.”

  “Not what I asked. My thanks for looking in on Benny, and I will have a word on her behalf with your employers.”

  Ann anticipated a salute and a dismissive carry on, Pearson. Instead, the colonel bowed.

  “Au revoir, mademoiselle.” He straightened and would have marched off to instruct his urchins on the art of the siege or something had Ann not put a hand on his sleeve.

  She had to go up on her toes to kiss his cheek. “Until next we meet, Colonel. I live in the boardinghouse beside the bakery around the corner. The door is blue.” If he took a good whiff of her cloak, he might divine where she lived. “Thank you for your escort and for preventing me from injury or worse.”

  She lingered near enough to inhale the sunny essence of Provence one more time, then eased back.

  The colonel’s expression gave away nothing. Not dismay at her forwardness, not pleasure at her friendliness. If he was pleased, offended, bemused, or annoyed, she’d never know that from his gaze.

  He touched her cheek with a gentle brush of his fingers. “Dorning and his club don’t deserve you.”

  Then he stalked away.

  All manner of odd feelings did battle inside Ann as she watched Colonel Sir Orion Goddard march off to his next battle. The emotional melee followed her inside as she divested herself of cloak and bonnet and washed her hands.

  The season had passed for blueberries, but the pear harvest had been good, so she set out the ingredients for a batch of crepes and sorted through her impressions of the colonel. His manners wanted polish, he lacked any semblance of good cheer, and his own commanding officer would apparently not receive him.

  But the colonel saw clearly what Ann herself hadn’t wanted to admit: She was pulling more than her share of the load at the Coventry and getting far less than her share of the credit.

  She admitted something else too: As a lover, Orion Goddard would be tender, tireless, and passionate. So very, very passionate.

  * * *

  Rye took himself around to the main thoroughfare and paused for a moment of reconnaissance. The Coventry enjoyed a fashionable address, and the street was thus busy. A crossing sweeper dodged between vehicles to retrieve steaming treasure from the cobbles, narrowly avoiding the wheels of a barouche. The lad was tired or drunk, gin being cheaper than bread and more readily available to such as he.

  “Is Dorning home?” Rye asked, flipping the child a coin.

  “Aye, Colonel. So’s his missus. The ’ousekeeper went to market at first light and came back midmorning. A pair of grooms is down the pub ’aving a pint.”

  “And you’ve been here since dawn?”

  The boy nodded. “Small pickin’s, Colonel. The ponies ain’t poopin’ on my watch. The Quality has gone off to the grouse moors and ’ouse parties.”

  Rye passed him two more coins. “The ponies will trample you if you don’t get some rest.” Rye put his fingers to his lips and let out a sharp whistle. “Louis will spell you while I call on my in-laws. How are things at home?”

  The boy, whose somewhat humorous nom de guerre was Vulture, sported more than the usual number of bruises beneath his grime.

  “Pa got slapped into the sponging ’ouse. Ma took the weans to her brother’s, and Uncle don’t like me much. I’m on me own for a time.” This recitation was made with the perfect indifference of a scout who’d seen the entire French host approaching, arms at the ready.

  The boy wasn’t twelve years old, if that.

  “You leave your barrow and shovel in the Coventry’s stables of a night and come around to my house to bed down and take your meals. If you don’t want to come inside, you can take the night watch in my stable. Louis will tell you we’re a man down, though don’t press him for details.”

  Vulture peered up at Rye with the combination of banked hope and bravado that betrayed a child on his last prayer.

  “I don’t care for baths, Colonel.”

  “Then take night watch in the stable,”—where the boy would find adequate warmth and safety and an abundance of blankets—“but you will wash your hands before eating, or Mrs. Murphy will report you for breach of manners.”

  A fortnight around the other boys, another two weeks of increasingly cold nights, and Vulture would submit to regular bathing. With any luck, he’d soon join the boys at their afternoon lessons, and they’d feel Benny’s impending absence less keenly.

  Louis trotted up from the discreet distance he’d maintained on the trek from Rye’s house. “Vulture.”

  “Fat Louie.”

  They grinned at each other, clearly prepared to engage in a battle of insults, which would probably escalate to shoving, profanity, and fisticuffs, though Rye hadn’t the time to indulge their good spirits.

  “Vulture is late for his nooning, Louis. You will please take over for him while I call on my in-laws. Vulture might well be biding with us for a time, in which case I will need another sentry to keep watch from this post. I leave you gentlemen to discuss suitable resources for that office.”

  Vulture shot Louis a puzzled glance.

  “He means you have to pick a lad to take over watching and sweeping for when you aren’t here,” Louis said. “A reliable lad with sharp eyes.”

  “Get something to eat,” Rye said. “And I do mean food, Vulture, not just drink, or you’ll end up in the sponging house, or worse.”

  The boy trotted off, while Louis surveyed the street. “His pa isn’t in the sponging house, Colonel. His uncle set the watch on his pa for cursing the king. Half the Cock and Hen heard him.”

  And taverns, being full of the crown’s spies, were stupid places to express honest sentiments regarding the monarchy’s excesses.

  “Vulture can bide with us for now. Please explain the rules to him, and he’ll need a name once he starts sleeping in the house.”

  “Aye. His name’s Victor. He don’t use it much.”

  “Doesn’t. Set a good example for him, Louis. I shouldn’t be long.”

  Even if Rye spent only fifteen minutes in his sister’s household, the time would be long. He crossed the street and rapped the knocker stoutly anyway. To his eternal frustration, Jeanette’s husband opened the door—Sycamore Dorning’s grasp of protocol was sadly lacking—and Rye thus found himself behind enemy lines without allies.

  A daunting if familiar place to be.

  “Colonel, good day.” Dorning’s tone was anything but welcoming. “Jeanette is napping, and not even for you will I wake her. She will interrogate me regarding the purpose of your call, so prepare to endure my company, and do not think to blow retreat. We are family now, and Jeanette will expect us to act like it.”

  He grabbed Rye by the sleeve and yanked him into the house.

  Chapter Five

  “Ann came around again?” The brigadier posed the question mildly over his luncheon soup, but then, his manner with Meli was invariably courteous.

  “Ann makes her weekly call early enough in the day to not be seen,” Meli replied. “Does this bisque need salt?” Of course it did not. Ann’s recipes were, without exception, delicious. She quantified every ingredient, in so far as one could, and left no steps to the cook’s imagination.

  “The soup is fine. My compliments to the kitchen.” The brigadier patted his lips with his table napkin and put his empty bowl aside. “You always set such a fine table, my love, and I hesitate to broach any topic that implies remote criticism of your choices, but is it necessary to see Ann so frequently?”

  Well, yes, it was, if Meli was to continue col
lecting the recipes that gained her increasing cachet in all the right circles.

  “I am her only relation, my dear. She is young and without guidance.”

  The brigadier flicked a glance at the footman collecting the soup bowls. Thomas bowed and withdrew, closing the parlor door behind him. Meli’s husband would always have the subtle air of command, a trait she’d found dashing as a new bride. Now, Horace seemed a trifle rigid to her and in need of obedience in even small matters. The staff respected him. Meli was fairly certain they did not like him.

  The brigadier’s hair was increasingly gray, and he kept threatening to grow a beard, which would be entirely gray.

  “Ann is no longer a reckless, bereaved child,” he said, “intent on daring all for a London post. I indulged her in that regard because she presented us with a fait accompli, and war is uncertain. If anything had happened to me, Ann would have been at the mercy of courts and solicitors. A cook has a respectable trade, but I never envisioned…” He gazed down the length of the table at Meli.

  “You never envisioned her serving out her apprenticeship and actually plying her trade.” Meli picked up her glass of wine and moved to the place at Horace’s right hand. “Neither did I, but she enjoys what she does, and she is of age.” Ann also had a modest fortune, which was hers to manage now that she had reached the antediluvian milestone of five-and-twenty.

  “Can’t you find her a husband, Melisande? Sooner or later, somebody will learn that she spends her days chopping cabbage and plucking geese in a gaming hell. I dread the explanations we’ll have to make.”

  Meli dreaded those explanations too. “What few people I mention Ann to believe her to be my retiring, rustic niece cantering toward spinsterdom at the family seat. You need not worry.” Meli patted his sleeve. “I have sent out the invitations to your autumn supper.”

  “Have you now?”

  Horace’s quarterly officers’ dinners were the high point of his social calendar, bringing together the best and brightest of his former comrades and direct reports. Wellington held such dinners, and Meli had had the inspired idea of taking up the tradition.