Miss Delectable: Mischief in Mayfair Book One

by Burrowes, Grace

  “Spain is a place full of memories for me, and I assure you, I have no wish to return there ever, and yet, neither of us has sold our family homes, have we?”

  His question provoked a frown. “I have my old age to consider. A cook’s post is physically demanding and more than a little dangerous. At some point, I will be venerable enough to maintain my own household without causing a scandal. I will have earned my spinster honors and the freedom that go with them. What of you?”

  What of him? Rye racketed from London to France and back, tried to keep an eye on Jeanette without intruding, managed the boys, peddled his wares…

  “Like you, I envision a time later in life when I am not so caught up in plying my trade, in getting and spending and laying waste my powers, to quote Wordsworth. My childhood was happy, and if I ever have children, I want the same for them. Fresh air, a wood to play in, summer afternoons spent reading tales of heroic nonsense.”

  And for the first time, he could envision such a life with a specific woman, the one sharing the bed with him. Why her?

  Because Ann worked hard for the sheer satisfaction of accomplishing something meaningful. Because she’d turned her back on an easy road and pursued a dream instead. Because she had taken Hannah on despite the resulting inconvenience.

  Because she made love like she meant it.

  And yet, Ann had put in her years as an apprentice and earned her way to a prestigious post as a cook. Was she to give that up for the privilege of risking her life in childbed every two years?

  “You are silent,” Ann said. “I treasure that about you. You don’t maunder on to hear your own voice, and you notice what’s around you. I don’t want to leave this bed.”

  Neither did Rye, but a gentleman—especially one without his clothes—did not presume. “Shall I love you again?”

  “We will love each other.” She straddled him, bringing the covers up over her shoulders and then tucking close.

  Rye reveled in caresses to her back, arms, and—when she gave him the room—her breasts, and in delicate explorations of her feminine flesh. She allowed that and reciprocated with cautious attention to his stones and cock. A trickle of desire became a stream and then a river in full spate.

  And yet, he waited, until Ann was undulating slick flesh along the length of his rigid arousal.

  “Must I send an engraved invitation, Annie?”

  “Yes. I haven’t much experience with men who take their time. Send an invitation or give the command, and please do it soon.”

  “Do you cook your best dishes in a hurry?”

  She went still. “Rushing a recipe is a sure means of ruining the result.”

  “Precisely.” Rye shaped her hips, loving the feel of her. “Some meals can be thrown together without much effort, and they nourish adequately. Others must be prepared carefully, and they deserve to be savored. Take your time with me, Annie. You can always try a different approach next week.”

  Her smile was complicated. Clearly, she was pleased with the notion of taking charge of their lovemaking, but sadness lurked in her gaze as well. A next encounter was possible—she had a half day each week—but then what? What of next month or next year?

  Rye could not offer her declarations of undying devotion, but he could offer her pleasure and affection, and so he did. When, after three eternities of fiddling about, she took him in hand and fitted their bodies together, he left the decision of how fast and how deeply to complete the joining to her.

  When she sought his kisses, he gave them to her.

  When satisfaction overtook her, he abetted her pleasure so vigorously she moaned against his chest and clutched his hand for dear life.

  And when she subsided into his arms, panting and flushed, he held her as if he would never let her go.

  Though, of course, he must. He wouldn’t want to, but when the time came, he must let her go nonetheless.

  Chapter Twelve

  Ann had never known exactly how to handle what came after a tryst. The problem had usually been solved by the threat of discovery, which necessitated a hasty return to normal duties. That same haste meant she’d never been so thoroughly satisfied as she was drowsing in Orion Goddard’s arms.

  Or so bewildered.

  She’d lost count of the times he’d sent her spinning off into bliss, sometimes on a gale-force wind, sometimes on a gentle breeze. And always, always, he’d been there to hold her and soothe her when passion eased its grip.

  Orion Goddard was a lavishly considerate lover, tender, skilled, affectionate, and so… so at ease with the whole business.

  No, that wasn’t quite right. He was at ease with himself. His day could not be ruined by an insinuation that he’d used too much flour in his béchamel sauce. He could admit errors and fears, and he wasn’t shocked that Ann had chosen a career in the kitchen over rural domesticity.

  But then, rural domesticity with Orion hadn’t been among the options she’d considered. Was it an option now? Did she want it to be?

  “Buttered gingerbread,” he said, stroking Ann’s bum with a warm hand. “With mulled cider if you have it, a restorative after our exertions.”

  His touch was like buttered gingerbread, just as rich, delectable, and smooth. Ann peered down at him, for she was still sprawled on his chest. “You are hungry?”

  “My appetite for certain pleasures in present company knows no limit, but a shared snack would be a paltry consolation for having to leave this bed.”

  So that’s what came next. He offered his flattery with a brisk little pat on her backside, and still, Ann did not want to give up the warmth of his embrace.

  “I have misplaced my self-discipline,” she said, forcing herself to sit up, which put her nether parts in contact with his breeding organs. Rye brushed her braid back over her shoulder, as casually as if ladies perched naked upon him regularly.

  Ann doubted that was the case. His intimate company was skilled, but Orion would never be profligate with his affections.

  “What?” he asked, leaning up to wrap his arms around her. “Do you need to hear that this was special, Annie? That you have forever altered my definition of lovemaking?”

  He was special. She was too much of a coward to say that. “You make me feel special.”

  “Because you are, and if a lover can’t remind a lady that she’s precious and dear, he has no business putting himself on offer to her. If he can provide her such assurances, she might like the fellow, but only a little and only in the privacy of her thoughts.”

  “You are awful.”

  He kissed her nose. “Shall I give the command to charge, Annie?”

  “Please.”

  He spoke close to her ear, not quite a whisper. “I like to think the lovemaking doesn’t end when we leave the bed, just as it didn’t end when we slept side by side. Passion ebbed, temporarily satisfied, but the closeness and warm regard lingered. I want to see your kitchen, Annie Pearson, the kitchen where you make your first pot of tea each morning, where you rummage for bread and butter on Sunday evenings.”

  She held him tightly while another bout of tears threatened. “I’ll show you my kitchen, but I fear somebody must rebraid my hair before I can venture from this room.”

  “You are in luck, for braiding is among my meager store of skills.”

  He had many skills, not least among them the knack of assisting a lady into her clothes while he grumbled about the new boy—Victor—who refused to attend lessons. He chattered about Mrs. Murphy’s follower and about his old cavalry sword having mysteriously gone missing, not that he much cared for the sword itself, but the boys had no need of it, and the damned thing was sharp.

  Ann did not allow him to replace his eye patch—the house wasn’t brightly lit—but she did hand it back to him before they left the bedroom.

  “Not so fast,” Rye said when she would have opened the door. “First, a hug for courage and a kiss for luck.”

  The lucky kiss turned into a sweet, hot, tender reprise of
the kisses they’d shared in bed, and the hug for courage was fortifying but inadequate.

  To withstand Jules’s latest fit of pique in the kitchen would take determination and guile, but Ann was completely without weapons when it came to withstanding the greater threat to her peace that Orion Goddard posed with his tenderness and passion.

  She was still puzzling over that conundrum when Rye sat with her at the kitchen table enjoying fresh, buttered gingerbread and mugs of steaming mulled cider.

  “You’ve been working on menus,” he said, eyeing the ingredient lists and scribblings Ann had spread out on the table the previous evening.

  He leafed through the pages, one by one, studying her recipes. “You are very thorough, but then, I knew that.”

  “I made my usual early call on my aunt this morning. She’s planning a formal dinner for thirty, and everything must be perfect. I provide the menus, and she crows about her talented niece to any who will listen.” Or that was the plan. Ann was no longer confident that a lot of officers and their wives were much interested in fancy dishes and pretty centerpieces, for none of them had ever asked to consult with her following one of Aunt’s dinners.

  They mentioned their menus to Melisande, who conveyed requests to Ann only indirectly.

  Orion perused the nearest recipe. “No fricassee of gryphon wings or chimera tails in aspic?”

  “The guests will be mostly former military. Beef will figure prominently on the menu, as will fowl, and all manner of fancy potatoes. Aunt Melisande’s cook is a good soul, but somewhat lacking in imagination.”

  Orion licked butter off his thumb. “Melisande? That’s an unusual name.”

  “She and Uncle Horace, along with their young daughter, are my only family. If Aunt had made a great enough fuss when I started my apprenticeship, I would have been bundled back to school for more deportment, drawing, and drivel. Aunt and Uncle were in Spain at the time and left me in peace, but for the occasional epistolary sermon. In their absence, the solicitors kept an eye on me.”

  Orion put down the rest of his slice of gingerbread. “Melisande is married to Horace, and he’s former military? Would this be Brigadier Horace Upchurch, by any chance?”

  Gingerbread and cider were a good combination, but Ann would not have wanted to consume her portion without butter. Butter smoothed out the spices, curbed the sweetness, and made a little meal where a snack might have been.

  “The very one. Uncle Horace was in Spain for the whole Peninsular campaign,” she said, “and Melisande followed the drum. She’s quite a bit younger than Horace, but they seem devoted. Do you know him?”

  Rye took another bite of gingerbread and chased it with a sip of cider. “Our paths crossed. I can taste the cinnamon in the cider, but what other spices do you use? The combination is delectable.”

  Ann prattled on, pleased that he would ask. He took his leave fifteen minutes later on a spicy kiss and another fortifying hug, as well as a request for permission to call again next week.

  Permission she had granted. While all might not have been precisely right with Ann’s world, she dreaded her return to the Coventry’s kitchen far less than she had before Orion Goddard’s call.

  She was precious and dear, and so was Orion Goddard, and for now, that was enough.

  * * *

  Horace Bedamned Hellishing Upchurch was Ann’s uncle.

  Well, blast. Blast and damnation. Rye had nearly choked on his gingerbread, so shocked had he been. He ducked into the bakery to pick up a second loaf, and the baker’s assistant had to ask him twice what he’d come to purchase.

  Rye bought the gingerbread and left the change on the counter.

  Would Dear Uncle Horace put in a good word for him with Ann, or warn Ann off a former soldier of dubious repute? Why hadn’t Rye admitted his connection to the brigadier on the spot? But then, why had Horace taken to denying the connection generally?

  “I coulda nicked that loaf right outta your hands,” Otter said, falling in step beside Rye. “Or your pocket.”

  “I told you to stay home, Theodoric.”

  “You tell me a lot of things, but don’t worry. I keep my mouth shut. I could carry the gingerbread for you.”

  “So generous of you, but then half the loaf would disappear between here and Mrs. Murphy’s pantry.”

  Otter grinned as they waited on the street corner for a pause in traffic. “Only half. I’m not greedy.”

  No, but the boy was insubordinate, also loyal. A complicated puzzle. Rye flipped a coin to the crossing sweeper, who looked to be no more than eight years old.

  “The next time I tell you to stay home, you will follow orders, Otter.”

  “Like hell I will. Your sword has gone missing. We’ve a sneak thief in the camp, and you’re too busy making sheep’s eyes at Miss Ann.”

  Rye had done far more than make sheep’s eyes at the woman, but Otter was being delicate. “It might have escaped your notice, but I am of age and have independent means. Calling on the occasional lady should be part of the blessings attendant thereto.”

  “You’re sweet on her,” Otter said, dancing ahead on the walkway. “We all are. You could marry her, and we’d be fat as lords in a month. Something is off about the warehouse inventory.”

  Marry her. Rye hadn’t stumbled across those words in his mental peregrinations, and they were fine words in the right circumstances. Ann deserved commitment and devotion, despite her fierce independence. Becoming her ally, much less her spouse, would be a challenge.

  She loved her cookery, had fought hard for it, and shouldn’t have to give it up. But marriage generally meant babies, and…

  Rye’s steps slowed, though he wasn’t approaching any street corners.

  Babies, with Ann. He’d been dutiful toward his various properties and toward the business he’d inherited, but to have a family with Ann… to build something for that family…

  “We going to the warehouse?” Otter asked, shoving his hair out of his eyes.

  “Why would we do that?”

  “Because the tally is off by four hundred cases.”

  “What?”

  “The tally is off by four hundred cases, guv, as in cases missing. Somebody helped themselves to half your goods.”

  Not half of Rye’s goods, not even half the goods he had on hand in London, but certainly a good portion of his profit. “Did Dorning take his order from the warehouse rather than the dock?”

  “Bertie says not. He kept an eye on the unloading, lest somebody get light-fingered between the dock and the wagon.”

  Bertie had doubtless kept an eye from some rooftop when he should have been practicing his penmanship.

  “Why did Bertie take it upon himself to oversee the transfer of goods?”

  Otter glanced about, and it occurred to Rye that the boy had purposely raised this topic on the street, away from home, and away from the others.

  “Somebody has it in for you, guv. We all know that. Dorning seems like a good ’un, but we hear things.”

  Rye resumed walking. “What things?”

  “Whispers. The Coventry has its problems.”

  Ann worked at the Coventry, and thus Rye knew some of those problems. “The chef is an idiot. What else?”

  “How did you know that?”

  “You aren’t the only person with eyes and ears, Otter. Jules Delacourt is probably skimming from the pantries, if not the pantries and the wine cellar.” Would he steal from Rye in an attempt to protect Fournier’s interests? Vive la France and all that?

  Somebody had certainly stolen from Rye. The warehouse, usually stacked to the ceiling with cases of champagne and other wines, showed a gaping emptiness near the sliding doors that opened into the yard.

  “The thieves weren’t subtle,” Rye said. “They didn’t even try to hide what they’d done.” Warehouses were all too easy to steal from, and artfully rearranging the contents could hide the theft for a considerable period. These thieves had wanted Rye to notice the missing invent
ory immediately.

  “Only the champagne was stolen?” he asked.

  “Aye.” Otter ambled off between rows of wooden cases, his voice floating through the gloom. “The other vintages weren’t touched. Louis and I checked twice.”

  “When did you check?” The warehouse was a cavernous structure, the better to keep the inventory cool. Rye had chosen a building distant from the wharves because wine preferred dry air and because the risk of theft was less.

  Or should have been.

  “We came here at first light, and no, your watchman didn’t see us. He were fast asleep, and anybody with a decent set of picks could have got past the lock on your barn door.”

  “Fast asleep?”

  “He’s old,” Otter said. “Older than you.”

  Nicolas was one of Lucille’s many relatives and connections. His instructions were to sound an alarm if he detected intruders, not to put himself at risk over a few bottles of champagne.

  “Fetch Dorning to me,” Rye said. “And fetch him now.”

  Otter emerged from between stacked cases halfway down the row, something in his hands. “Found your sword, guv. Was lying atop a case of the merlot. Scabbard and all.”

  Rye unsheathed the sword far enough to see the Goddard family motto. Cervus non servus, which translated to something like a stag forever free.

  Unease uncurled in Rye’s belly as he set the sword against the remaining cases of champagne. “I did not steal my own inventory.”

  “I know that,” Otter said, “but somebody made off with a powerful lot of your good wine, and that same somebody was in your study. The lads won’t like this.”

  Rye loathed the idea that his citadel had been breached. Children slept in his house, for God’s sake. “Do you trust Victor?”

  Otter surveyed the warehouse, his gaze unnervingly adult. “You recruited him. He didn’t come begging to us. He has nobody else, and he’s not stupid.”

  “That’s not a yes, Otter.”