The room smelled faintly as if somebody had spilled brandy on the carpet sometime in the past week.
Jules took the seat behind the desk, and produced a bottle from a drawer and two glasses. “Do not glower at me like that, Pearson. You will have wrinkles. Wrinkles become nobody. Care for a drink?”
“No, thank you.” Ann did take a seat, because she refused to stand about like a naughty schoolgirl waiting for Headmaster’s tongue-lashing. “You owe Henry an apology.” Every person in the kitchen, save perhaps Pierre, was owed an apology for some display of arrogance or meanness by Jules, and Pierre’s turn would come.
“I don’t owe anybody anything,” Jules said, pouring himself a measure of young calvados, based on the apple and pear aroma. “I work for my wages, and Mr. Dorning is happy with the result. You are not happy.”
Ann was furious, and thus her tongue ran away with her good sense. “I am happy with my post. I am not happy with you.”
Jules held his glass up at eye level, and Ann wanted to dash the drink in his handsome face. “Pearson, you are ambitious, which is an unbecoming quality in a woman who also lacks great beauty. I grant you that some of your sauces are quite passable, but the Coventry’s kitchens do not have room for your ambition and my talent.”
Ann thought back over the past fortnight, trying to put her finger on what had brought Jules to the point of making ultimatums and tripping footmen.
“You are jealous of a simple pear compote,” Ann said. “The customers raved about it, as they do not rave about your roasts.”
Jules set the glass on the blotter, rose, and leaned across the desk. “A few women nattering on about a sweet is nothing to trouble myself about. Out in the kitchen just now, you contradicted me before the whole staff.”
“I corrected you because you were in error and directly asked for my opinion.” He’d been lying, though Ann had enough restraint not to make that accusation.
“You were disrespectful, Pearson, and that I cannot have.”
“Then leave your post in high dudgeon,” Ann retorted, getting to her feet as well. “Tell Mr. Dorning the staff has fallen below the standards you need to adequately display your talent.”
Beneath the scent of his shaving soap, Jules bore the vinegary air of a man who habitually over-imbibed. His eyes were bloodshot, his complexion was becoming ruddy, and when he’d held his glass up, his hand had shaken slightly.
“Non, ma petit dragon. I will not hand you a kitchen where I have spent two years attempting to cater to English palates and humoring the incompetence of English staff.” He sat back down and picked up his drink. “I am prepared to be reasonable, for a time. Give your notice in the next fortnight, and I will allow the girl to stay.”
Ann had known this was coming, and yet, the blow still hurt unbearably. “Give my notice? When I have worked for better than ten years to attain the rank of assistant? When I have been at the Coventry longer than you have? I’m to walk away from all of that because you are jealous of a dessert?”
Jules sipped his brandy, watching her over the rim of his glass. He still commanded brooding good looks to go with his arrogance, but his eyes held a reptilian chill.
“Please put from your limited female mind the notion that I in any way care about a few compliments tossed in the direction of your humble mashed pears. You have airs above your station, Pearson. You encourage disrespect in the staff and disrupt my kitchen. To use the English term, you and I simply do not get along. As it is my kitchen, you are the one who must go. You either give your notice in the next fortnight—and make that a convincingly sensible decision—or who knows how many more glasses young Henry will have to pay for?”
In this much at least, Jules was right: Ann did not get along with him, did not, in fact, respect him or trust him, and that wouldn’t change no matter how hard she worked or how humbly she behaved.
She was tired of the battle, one she would lose eventually anyway. Jules had stamina for the fight, better weapons, and dirtier tactics. If Ann continued to thwart him, he could well see her injured or maimed. Then too, Henry had four younger brothers, and his wages were probably supporting them all. Hannah had nobody save the colonel, and he was already providing for too many people.
Orion’s question, about going up the chain of command, came to mind, but Ann had little direct interaction with Mr. Dorning, while Jules’s rapport with the owners was well established.
“I must think about this,” Ann said. “I’ll want a glowing character from you, and I might need more than two weeks to find a suitable post.”
Jules saluted her with his drink. “You can be sensible. I had hoped that was the case. I will write a character so laudatory that heaven itself would employ you. The gentlemen’s clubs often hire women in their kitchens, I’m told.”
Oh joy. A post in the clubs—venerable institutions that served little other than steak and potatoes with the occasional cherry tart or barley soup.
“I have not made my decision,” Ann said, “and I have food to prepare. Please stop endangering the staff with your displays of pique, Jules.”
“They are my staff,” he said, topping up his drink, “and you are no longer welcome to number among them. Back to your post, Pearson, and think about what I’ve said.”
Ann was only too glad to get back to the kitchen, but she had just negotiated the terms of her surrender, and she and Jules both knew it.
Chapter Thirteen
Hannah wrapped the poultice around Henry’s hand, then held up his glove. “I can make you a fresh poultice later. The honey keeps the wound from festering.”
“And what will keep my temper from festering?” Henry retorted, wiggling his fingers into the glove. “Damned frog martinet. I’ve a mind to have a word with Mr. Dorning.”
“And who will Mr. Dorning believe? The damned frog martinet, or the underfootman who fell on his arse and broke a dozen fancy glasses?” She and Henry were at the long table in the staff hall and had the room to themselves.
The pantry doorway had afforded a clear view of the whole incident in the kitchen, and as sure as Otter’s cabbage farts stank, Jules had tripped Henry. Jules had lounged by the window, seen Henry hustling in from the garden, then waited until Henry had been barreling across the kitchen to stick a foot out at the worst moment.
“I fell on me hands and knees, not me arse,” Henry said. “Though what did I ever do to Jules that he’d take out after me like that?”
“You liked Miss Ann’s compote,” Hannah said. “We all did, and so did the customers. You proposed to marry Miss Ann for her compote.” The colonel would marry Miss Ann even without tasting her compote, of that Hannah was certain.
“I’ll have to cut this glove off,” Henry said, working the kid over his bandage. “Damned Jules will dock my pay for that too.”
“If it hurts, let me know, and we’ll take the bandage off until you’re done for the night.”
Henry rose. “Best get back to work, Han. No telling how long Jules will keep Miss Ann from her post, but the customers show up hungry just the same.”
“Don’t turn your back on Jules,” Hannah said, collecting her journal to add the correct measure of walnuts to her pear recipe, once Miss Ann told her what the correct measure was.
“What’s that?” Henry asked, pulling on his second glove. “A ledger?”
“In a manner of speaking. The colonel gave it to me.” The journal was handsomely bound, the pages smooth and already cut. “Henry, if I asked you to take a note a couple of streets over for me after you finish tonight, could you do that?”
Henry flexed the fingers of his injured hand. “I’m usually working until the wee hours, Han.”
“Doesn’t matter. I want you to deliver the note to a boy who sleeps in a stable. Has to be in the night, or he’s not alone to receive it.”
Henry slanted her a look. “You sweet on this boy?”
“I am not. He smells like horse poop and skips his lessons.” Though Victor coul
d get a message to Otter, and that mattered.
“As long as he’s not trying to turn your head. I saw you first.”
“Away with you, Henry Boardman, and I will give you the note when I take my evening break.”
Henry grinned, made her a pretty bow, and marched off.
Hannah remained at the table, took out her pencil, and carefully tore a sheet of paper free from her journal. The colonel had said to send to home if she ever needed help, and right now, Hannah needed help.
* * *
“That was the best recitation of a poem ever in the history of verse,” Rye said. “I am impressed.”
Nettie curtseyed before the hearth. “Thank you, monsieur. Tante says I am very clever. I will make the poem into French, and you will like it better.”
“You can translate the poem if you wish, but I will want another by heart in English next week,” Rye replied. He would also make sure Tante Lucille’s coal supply had been replenished by next week. “The first half of a Shakespeare sonnet, if the whole thing is too much at once.”
“Might I have a tea cake, Tante?”
“You are too forward, Nettie.” Tante passed over a tea cake nonetheless. She still wore only the one shawl, but she’d also draped a robe across her lap. “Back to the nursery with you, and take a tea cake for Nurse too.” The second tea cake she wrapped in a table napkin.
“Nurse will be proud of me for the rainbow poem.” Nettie hugged Rye about the neck and skipped from the room, waving her tea cake.
Tante took a placid sip of her tea. “The child will fall and choke. She will leave crumbs on my carpets. She will gobble both cakes, and Nurse will never be the wiser.”
“She will arrive at the nursery in great good spirits,” Rye said, trying to find a way to sit in the venerable wing chair that didn’t annoy his hip, “share her booty with Nurse, and know an entire sonnet from memory by this time tomorrow.” Nettie would be proud of herself, too, and to a child, that mattered.
To anybody.
“Why are you sad, Orion?” Tante asked, setting her cup and saucer on the tray. “You watch Nettie like a man going off to war watches the children playing in the churchyard.”
Tante had seen too many men go off to war. French and English, and both nationalities had doubtless watched the children playing in the churchyards with the same wistful heartache.
“You have suggested I could take Nettie back to France, but I don’t want to uproot her.”
“Children adjust. I will not live forever.”
Rye told himself that Nettie and her playmates kept Lucille young. Tante had left her homeland more than a quarter century ago, though, and the intervening years had been difficult. This refrain—I will not live forever—had become more frequent of late.
“Are you well, Tante?”
“I am tired, Orion. The English weather ages a woman.” Had this pronouncement been accompanied with sighs, pleas sent heavenward, or other dramatics, Rye could have dismissed it as commonplace histrionics.
But English winters were miserable to old bones, and to not-so-old bones.
Poverty was a weight no woman should have to bear, much less in her later years.
And homesickness tore at the heart, regardless of age.
“I might well be returning to France for a time, Tante. Would you like to accompany me?”
Lucille considered him. “To Provence?”
“I can escort you there if you’d like to return. Nettie’s siblings are there.”
“First, you say your customers are here, then you say you can return with me to Provence. Not long ago, you were tarrying in Champagne with Jeanette’s young relatives. What is afoot, Orion?”
Why did he prefer the women who dealt in honesty to the pretty flatterers? “The business with Deschamps has escalated. Somebody has stolen a substantial amount of champagne from my warehouse, and that same somebody took my cavalry sword from my very home.”
Tante sliced into the apple tart Orion had brought from Roberts’s bakery. “You had Monsieur add the calvados. I can already smell the fragrance.”
“He offered me a choice of pommeau or calvados. You had specified calvados.” The cost of the tart had been outrageous, but Roberts would put the rest of the bottle to good use, and Tante would invite her friends over to sample the sweet.
“A good, robust calvados too,” she said, cutting a small serving. “You must try it.”
“Another time, when I haven’t overindulged in tea cakes.”
Tante’s look said she could count to two in several languages, thank you very much. “Tell me of Deschamps.”
A goddamned snowflake wafted past the window, a warning shot fired by the approaching winter. The air wasn’t cold enough that the snow would accumulate, but the weather had turned, and Channel crossings henceforth would be rough.
“I’m not sure Deschamps has anything to do with my situation, but I’ve noticed a pattern. When he’s in London, the rumors start up again. This has been going on for more than five years. I looked back over my journals, and the connection is plain.”
“Or the coincidence. Have you spoken with him?”
“He denies the charges, though I sensed he was lurking in the park for the express purpose of accosting me.”
Tante closed her eyes as she ate a morsel of the tart. “Most men lurk in the park to meet the ladies. You might consider doing that yourself, Orion. Take a wife and forget about the rumors. We can find you a nice French girl when we are in Provence. Monsieur Roberts has outdone himself.”
She did homage to the tart while Rye admitted to himself that no nice French girl stood a prayer of catching his eye.
“Does somebody wish for you to shoot Deschamps, perhaps?” Tante asked. “They instigate mischief against you, hoping you will call out Deschamps?”
An interesting theory. “Not a reliable or efficient plan, is it? As you say, Deschamps is quite skilled with both pistols and swords, while I am impaired by poor hearing, bad eyesight, and an unreliable hip.” None of which affected Rye’s aim with a pistol, but all of which impaired his fencing.
“You are even more impaired by a soft heart. You are done with the killing. Hence, you retreat to the land of your mother’s people.”
The longer Orion discussed the situation with Lucille, the more heavily the choice weighed on his heart.
Who benefits? Ann’s question came back to him, but as usual, no answer accompanied it. “You mentioned that Deschamps had woman trouble. Can you give me any details?”
“I am speculating. He is handsome, angry, and subjecting himself to the society of his enemies. London is not a cheap place for a foreigner to visit, nor particularly welcoming. But he is here again, is he not? Lurking in the park, brooding at his club. Just as you wonder why somebody would steal your champagne and your sword, I wonder why he’s underfoot when he could be tucked up in his mama’s chateau, flirting with the maids and reliving the glories of fighting for l’empereur.”
She took another tiny bite of her tart, no doubt tasting the days of her own glory.
“I’ve met somebody.” Rye hadn’t planned that admission, but Tante was wise and kind, and he needed her counsel. “A woman. She cooks.”
And Annie Pearson kissed and made love and had her very own pair of fierce old godmothers.
“How did you meet this woman?”
“Through Jeanette, indirectly.”
“That is the best way, through family and friends. She is English, this woman who cooks?”
She was marvelous. “Yes.”
“And her people are here, her kitchen is here. Would she go with you to France?”
Rye shook his head. He would ask, or he hoped he would, but Ann ought not to go with him. That would mean marriage, and he was a man somewhat the worse for past battles. His business prospects were floundering, enemies lurked on the edge of his camp, and all manner of obligations beset him.
Ann ought to stay in England, making her kitchen magic, and Rye
ought to leave for France on the next packet.
“How did you do it, Tante? How did you turn your back on everything and everyone you knew and loved, put your whole life into a few trunks, and leap into a foreign land that would never be your home?”
She took a third nibble of her tart and set the plate aside. “One grew tired of the savagery, Orion. The Terror spread its tentacles out from Paris, and nobody was safe. Women, children, the infirm… The bloodlust spared nobody, and we could see no end to it. We had murdered our king, a reasonable man who loved his country, and we dispatched his wife and children as well.”
She sighed softly, her gaze on the past. “There is no justification among decent people for murdering and mistreating children. Then we turned on one another. The Austrians were encroaching, England has never been our friend for long, the Prussians weren’t to be trusted, and I was exhausted. I made the right choice to come to this island. A time arrives when bravery is foolishness. If now is that time, then live to regret your decision, but don’t be so brave you end up needlessly dead.”
“You counsel retreat.”
“If you die with a sword to the heart, nobody will be left to spoil me and bring me tarts, non?”
Ann could make that tart and would enjoy experimenting with its variations. She had, in fact, battled long and hard for the privilege of making tarts and wasn’t likely to walk away from her victories for the sake of marriage to him.
“Has Jeanette brought her husband around?”
“Oui. Mr. Dorning est trés charmant—et astucieux. Charming and shrewd, as the English say. He is in love with Jeanette, and she with him. Nettie likes them both.”
That was good, and painful. “Jeanette is family to Nettie, and they should know one another.” Orion rose, and three more snowflakes drifted past. He felt abruptly old and sad, though he had much to be grateful for. “I will come for my sonnet next week.”
“See yourself out,” Tante said. “The hallway is cold, and the tea is still warm. If I had to choose between winter in Provence and winter in London, I know which one I would pick, Orion. Which one anybody with sense would pick.”
Miss Delectable: Mischief in Mayfair Book One Page 22
