Miss Delectable: Mischief in Mayfair Book One

by Burrowes, Grace

  Rye hadn’t realized the vulnerability of his position until he’d been under oath, a panel of senior officers regarding him with chilly skepticism.

  “The colonel spoke up for me at the board of inquiry, told them he’d ordered me to keep my eyes and ears open.”

  Ann waved a dismissive hand. “That’s like Jules declaring that my best sauce Hollandaise is not bad. He gives his judgment with a condescending little sneer, so anybody listening concludes the sauce is nearly pathetic.”

  “I could have a word with Jules, a quiet word in a dark alley.” The cat, who had fallen asleep in Rye’s lap, resumed purring, as if he approved of that notion.

  “Jules is unhappy,” Ann replied. “He’s homesick and cooking not at a fancy gentlemen’s club or great house, but at a gaming hell. Oh, the ignominy.”

  “French pride is nearly as formidable as its English counterpart.”

  Ann smiled at him, a conspiratorial, private smile that made Rye want to… well, cuddling up in her lap wasn’t the half of it. An hour chatting before the fire could apparently be a powerful aphrodisiac, and balm to the soul too. Ann had listened, encouraging Rye to sort through his situation more thoroughly than he had when reporting the general outlines to Sycamore Dorning the previous evening.

  More thoroughly than he had in quite some time.

  Who benefits? A question that bore further study.

  “You have been very generous with your time,” Rye said, “and this cat will soon think he owns me. I really should be going.”

  “I did not even feed you.” Ann folded up the shawl that had been draped across her knees. “Some cook I am.”

  Rye rose, yielding his place to the cat, and offered the lady his hand. “You do not need to feed me, Ann. I am fortified by your companionship and keen good sense.” He kept her hand in his when she’d risen, and she regarded him with a frown.

  “I believe you have just pronounced my Hollandaise not bad.”

  Whatever did she…? “I value you for more than your good sense, but I am trying not to make a habit of presuming on your person.”

  She ran the fingers of her free hand through his hair, and how he adored when she did that. Felt it right down to his vitals and understood why some bold felines demanded affection from any passing human. Her touch felt that good.

  “You are trying to be gentlemanly by limiting your compliments to only my good sense?” she asked, peering up at him.

  “I am.” By application of great personal discipline, he did not allow his gaze to stray over her physical attributes. “I see you in my dreams, Ann, and they are very pleasant dreams.” Also disturbing, for a man who typically dreamed of vineyards, ledgers, and battles.

  She leaned into him on a sigh, snuggling close like a cat. “I see you in mine too.”

  * * *

  Ann felt the shift in Orion, when inherent military bearing gave way to the posture of a man holding a woman he cares for. His arms enfolded her gently, and he bent near, drawing her into the curve of his taller body.

  “I told myself that I would not presume this time,” he muttered.

  “You aren’t presuming. To ignore such an attraction would be folly, Colonel.”

  “Rye.” He nuzzled her temple. “If we are to kiss each other witless, please call me Rye.”

  His version of witless kissing began with a sweet little buss to her cheek, then another to her brow. The scent of his lavender soap was stronger this close, and the warmth radiating from him was luscious.

  Ann wrapped her arms around his neck and sank her fingers into his thick, dark hair. He needed a trim; she needed to kiss him, so she did.

  The touch of his mouth to hers was gentle at first, though in no way tentative. He took his time, giving her precious moments to register sensations—his hands low on her back, his shoulders so broad and muscular. His breath a soft heat against her cheek.

  She was melting inside, like caramel left near the hearth, going all viscous and warm. When she felt the first touch of his tongue, spices came to mind—cinnamon and nutmeg, a whisper of cayenne.

  Orion Goddard was stealthy and subtle about his advances, while Ann wanted to plunder and pillage. She wedged a thigh between his legs to emphasize her demand.

  He growled, and the battle was joined. By the time they broke apart several passionate eternities later, Ann’s blood was at full boil, and Orion was panting like a spent steeplechaser.

  Also smiling, as if he’d just been granted the keys to the celestial kingdom. “My eye patch, please.” He held out a hand.

  Ann surrendered the requested item. “I want to remove more than that from your person.” Much more.

  He used the windowpane as his mirror, tying his eye patch back in place. “What I want at this moment shocks me.”

  That was encouraging. “I am not without experience, Colonel. I assume you aren’t either. Nobody need be shocked.”

  He snapped off a bloom from the bouquet on the windowsill and tucked the stem through his lapel. “The mechanics of intimacy, pleasurable though they are, do not occasion shock, Annie Pearson. It’s here,”—he tapped his chest—“where you wreak the worst havoc.”

  “Do I?” She liked the sound of that very much, and she liked as well the sight of him, tall, weathered, a trifle disheveled, a fading rose on his lapel. “Do I truly?”

  “You listened to me,” he said, bracing his hips against the windowsill. “Let me prattle on like a schoolboy retelling the Battle of Hastings. You ply me with soft cushions, a warm hearth, and a shameless cat. You kiss me as if…”

  He rose and turned away—very rude, that—but Ann had the sense he needed the privacy to gather his thoughts.

  “As if you are my favorite dessert,” Ann said, crossing the room and wrapping her arms around him from behind, “and somebody has finally perfected the recipe.” She pressed herself to the hard planes of his back, her embrace a little desperate. Holding Orion felt good and right, but did nothing to stem the tide of desire that threatened to engulf her.

  Where had this passion come from, and what was she to do about it?

  He turned and looped his arms around her shoulders, resting his chin on her crown. “We ought not to be carrying on like this before the window, Annie.”

  “This is not carrying on. Not nearly.”

  He took her hand and pressed it to an impressive bulge behind his falls. “Very nearly. The sooner I subject myself to the bracing effect of the elements, the more likely I am to survive this ambush without… without behaving rashly.”

  Ann itched to caress him intimately and learn just how rashly they could enjoy each other.

  “I should be getting to the Coventry,” she said, giving him a single glancing pat. “Did you want me to listen for any particular sort of gossip?”

  He twitched her shawl up around her shoulders. “A fellow named Philippe Deschamps has graced the Coventry’s tables a time or two. He might well be spreading talk about me, or his presence might be provoking others to talk. He was the French officer most likely to have met with any spy from my camp.”

  “The waiters repeat nearly everything they hear at the tables. I’ll pay attention to them for a change. I don’t want to move.”

  “Do Miss Julia and Miss Diana make a weekly venture of their library sortie?”

  “Without fail.”

  “Might I call again next week, Annie?”

  Annie. She’d never had a nickname before. “If you don’t, I will have to call on you.”

  “We keep the cellar stairs unlocked during daylight hours for the trades.” He murmured the words close to her ear, inspiring visions of daylight raids and wild interludes in his study. “I ought not to have said that, because it implies that all I seek from you is… Tell me to hush, Annie. Tell me not to be presumptuous and impulsive.”

  Ann’s grip on him became fierce, because he was right: Physical arousal was a formidable distraction, but the feelings… oh, the feelings.

  “We are lonely
,” she said. “Tired of being lonely, tired of solitude and self-sufficiency, but what draws us together is more than that.”

  He put a finger to her lips. “Not another word. You are due at the Coventry, and I must resolve once and for all the small matter of somebody trying to destroy my reputation and my business. I will call on you again next week, if you’ll allow it.”

  “I will allow it.” Ann would be counting the hours, which bothered her. On the one hand, she never wanted to turn loose of Orion Goddard. On the other, she had toiled for years to achieve professional standing one step shy of the foremost honors to be had in a kitchen.

  She desired Orion Goddard, respected him, liked him, and was even a little besotted with him, but he was right: Indulging her impulses with him could come at a price much higher than she was prepared to pay.

  Ann pondered that lowering thought while Orion escorted her the short distance to the Coventry’s back gate and then right up to the back door.

  “Until next week,” he said, bowing correctly over her hand. “I will see you in my sweetest dreams.”

  She curtseyed. “Until next week.” She slipped through the door lest she make free with his person on the very doorstep, but hadn’t so much as unbuttoned her cloak before Jules, looking irascible and smelling strongly of overindulgence, blocked the hallway to the kitchen.

  “Pearson, you are late, and that is no sort of example to set for your new apprentice.”

  Ann looked him up and down, in no mood for his tantrums. “While you are for once on time. Would you also like to choose tonight’s menu for a change, or shall I just go ahead and do that, the same as I have for the past fortnight?”

  She brushed past him, knowing she ought not to provoke him, but no longer willing to pretend he was the kitchen’s indispensable talent.

  Because he wasn’t and never had been, and that he’d ruin her great good spirits with his petty tyranny vexed her exceedingly.

  * * *

  Agricola had not initially shared Rye’s enthusiasm for some exercise on a cold, still morning, but as they’d approached the park, the gelding had caught sight of open expanses of grass covered in sparkling hoar frost. He’d gone so far as to give a ponderous buck and shimmy and to whinny to his kin on the bridle paths.

  “That’s my boy,” Rye said, patting Agricola’s muscular neck. “Let’s have a gallop, shall we?”

  They had more of a canter, albeit a brisk canter. Agricola was winded and had broken a light sweat by the time Rye brought him down to the walk.

  Rye turned his horse up a quiet bridle path, because ambling a few streets in the morning air would not be enough to cool out his mount. Then too, Rye wanted to linger in the quiet of the park the better to savor memories of his latest encounter with Ann Pearson.

  Beneath her tidy, sensible mien beat the heart of a passionate woman. And Ann wasn’t merely sensible, she was smart. Observant, as a good scout ought to be, and logical.

  Who benefits from keeping you in disgrace?

  Years ago, any other officer might have enjoyed seeing Rye fall from favor. He wasn’t from a military family, he was half French, he had no great wealth. He’d had no chance of ever becoming one of Wellington’s direct reports, because he wasn’t one of the bluebloods who could trace their lineage back to the Domesday Book.

  Rye wasn’t from the enlisted ranks either, but he’d tramped across Spain right alongside the men who’d served under him. He’d been neither a harsh disciplinarian nor one to shirk battlefield duty. Rye could not see the rank and file bearing him any serious grudges, or having the social standing to put him in disgrace.

  Something more than a grudge was at work.

  Agricola whuffled as Rye steered him around a bend in the bridle path. They were working their way to the northeast corner of the park, putting off a return to London’s busy streets as long as possible.

  A horse and rider came toward them at the trot, and Agricola sidled off the path in a creaky semblance of good spirits. The other horse—a chestnut with a graying muzzle—whinnied in response.

  The rider looked to have every intention of trotting on past, but the horses had other ideas. The chestnut stopped and craned its neck, and Agricola did likewise. Nostrils flared, ears pricked.

  Rye sat calmly through this reacquainting ritual, while Brigadier Horace Upchurch hauled hard on his horse’s reins.

  “Stop that, Egret. Behave yourself at once.”

  Egret stood a good eighteen hands, and his great size had been much envied by junior cavalry officers. A horse that tall—six feet at the withers—put his rider literally above the affray of battle, and galloped into any conflict with nearly a ton of momentum. Egret had enough draft horse in him to add muscle to that momentum and enough of the riding stock to be nimble as well.

  Though even the brigadier’s mount was showing signs of age. His muzzle was gray, and he’d apparently developed a stubborn streak. All the brigadier’s blustering did not deter Egret from properly greeting his old friend.

  “They don’t forget,” Rye said when the mutual sniffing concluded. “How are you, sir?”

  “I am well, Goddard. And you?” Upchurch was very much on his dignity, as usual. He’d fallen into the stern-but-fair category of senior officer, and Rye had respected him for that.

  “Managing. Might I ride with you for a bit?”

  Upchurch glanced around. “If you must. One doesn’t like to encourage bad behavior in one’s mount, and Egret has forgotten his manners.”

  “You don’t want to be seen with me.” The conclusion should not have hurt, but it did. Upchurch had quarterly officers’ dinners, rotating the invitations through all of his former direct reports and many of his peers. Rye had never received an invitation.

  He’d attributed that slight to an oversight, to his frequent travel on the Continent, to Melisande Upchurch’s sense of who would socialize well with whom, to his lack of participation in the Hundred Days…

  Never to his own commanding officer’s distaste for him.

  “You’ve heard the talk,” Rye said. “What exactly is being said?”

  Upchurch turned Egret in the opposite direction Rye sought to travel. “If you must know, the whispers are that you kept your vineyards and farms because you betrayed your country. That your father’s business was failing until you bought your colors, and within a year of you reporting for duty in Spain, those fortunes began to improve. That you yet prosper because the French recall how useful you were to them.”

  “My father lost those vineyards and farms,” Rye said, “and they came to me only after the peace, when it became apparent no French heirs had survived to claim them.”

  “I know that,” Upchurch said, “and you know that, but circumstances conspire to put you in a bad light, Goddard.”

  A bad light? A bad light? “The talk has worsened lately. Any idea who might be behind it?”

  Upchurch fussed with his horse’s mane. “Who knows? The longer we’re at peace, the more adept the typical officer becomes at gaming, wenching, and gossip.”

  Was that how Upchurch spent his time? “My sister’s dowry brought my family’s finances right and bought my commission,” Rye said, though he ought not have to remind Upchurch of those facts. “But for Jeanette’s marriage to the marquess, my father might well have died in debtors’ prison.”

  Upchurch peered about as if he’d not been hacking out in Hyde Park on sunny mornings for years. “Melisande mentioned as much.”

  So Upchurch had discussed the situation with his wife. The fair Melisande had chafed against military life, then settled down to become the consummate officer’s helpmeet. She’d enjoyed the attentions of all the gallant young officers, but the marching, mud, and battle hadn’t appealed to her at all.

  “Would Melisande consider buying her champagne from me?” Rye asked, half ashamed of himself for the question. “My business does not, alas, prosper. I bottle the finest champagne to be had in London, and increasingly, nobody wants i
t at any price.”

  Upchurch looked at him for the first time in the entire exchange. “Your business is suffering?”

  “I am not French enough for the customers who want the cachet of a French merchant for their fine wines, and I’m not a loyal enough British subject for those whose snobbery runs in a different direction.”

  “You were always loyal.” Upchurch made the words a grudging admission rather than a ringing endorsement.

  “I remain loyal.”

  “Perhaps that’s the problem.” Upchurch gathered up his reins. “Have you considered a remove to France, at least until the talk dies down? Retreat can be the wisest course, Goddard. Live to fight another day.”

  “As far as I know, nobody’s trying to kill me.” Kill his reputation, his business, his ability to support his dependents, and—worst of all?—his chances of more than a passing liaison with Ann Pearson.

  “Nobody is trying to kill you yet,” Upchurch said, “but if some hotheaded lieutenant gets to drinking and misremembering, or some old general who sat upon the board of inquiry takes to spreading gossip in the wrong places, you might well find yourself challenged.”

  Had Upchurch heard something Rye had not? “Challenged over what?”

  Upchurch glanced around, though this corner of the park was deserted by all save the birds and squirrels. “You recall the ambush of that patrol scouting along the Bidasoa river?”

  “Of course.” Every single soldier had been taken prisoner. The war had ended within a year, and all of them had made it home—Rye had made sure of that.

  “They were your men, Colonel. Scouting parties explore the terrain assigned to them.”

  “They were ambushed attempting to cross the river. That’s a notoriously exposed moment in any mission.” And Rye hadn’t told them to cross the river, only to locate places where it might be safely forded by mounted forces.

  “Every man on that patrol fell into French hands, and most of them yet live to tell about it. Perhaps they are the source of your troubles.”