Miss Delectable: Mischief in Mayfair Book One

by Burrowes, Grace

  As she’d said, sweet, rich, hot… all the wondrous qualities of passion made deeper by profound caring.

  “I don’t want you to go,” Ann said when Rye lifted up enough to retrieve the handkerchief from the bedside table. “I don’t want to let you out of this bed, much less back into your clothing.”

  Rye tidied up as best he could and shifted to his side, spooning himself around his lover. “Nobody need go anywhere at the moment. Close your eyes and rest, Annie. I will be here when you awaken.”

  She took his hand. “I will dream of you.”

  “And I of you.”

  Except that he didn’t. Rye remained awake, memorizing the rhythm of Ann’s breathing and the curve of her cheek. She was the banquet prepared especially for him, and he was nearly certain he’d have to leave her and go off to France where, in all the ways that mattered, he’d soon starve.

  * * *

  Ann lay in Orion’s arms and suffered nightmares of guilt. She should tell him she’d lost her job, tell him she was soon to remove to her aunt’s household.

  He would be disappointed in her for abandoning Hannah so soon.

  He might also wonder why Ann would give up on her dreams without more of a fight, but she wasn’t giving up. She was retreating, taking stock, trying on a different perspective—wasn’t she?

  “You are awake,” Orion said, glossing a hand over her hip.

  How she loved his touch, and how she would miss it. “Thinking. I am soon to leave the Coventry.” That pronouncement was as graceless as overly salted soup, though Ann was relieved to have made it.

  Orion shifted to crouch over her, though Ann remained on her side rather than face him. “What happened, Annie? You fought battle after battle to gain your post at a prestigious club, and you are invaluable to the Coventry. Who has done this to you?”

  “Jules Delacourt. He has decided that the kitchen isn’t big enough for his talent and my ambition, to quote him.”

  Orion nuzzled her ear. “The boot is on the other foot. The kitchen isn’t big enough for Delacourt’s arrogance and your ability. Shall I have a word with my dear brother-in-law?”

  Sycamore Dorning was first rate at handling the customers, and he kept peace among the waiters, dealers, and footmen. He delegated matters in the kitchen to his chef and would not appreciate Orion’s meddling.

  “You shall not.”

  “Because,”—Orion gently rolled Annie to her back—“you do not want to be the cause of acrimony between me and my family. Dorning is a big boy. He’s up to a little blunt speech from a concerned brother-in-law.”

  “Mr. Dorning’s entire livelihood depends on his club, Orion. He cannot fire Jules without earning the notice of the gossips. The cachet of having a French chef does much for the Coventry’s reputation, which—need I remind you—is that of a supper club that offers other amusements.”

  Orion rolled with Ann so she ended up straddling him. “Illegal amusements. I admit that Dorning has an Achilles’ heel, in that a disgruntled chef could inspire the authorities into making a raid, but you don’t owe Dorning lifelong fealty, Annie. What has sent you from a post you love?”

  This was not where and how Ann had envisioned having this discussion, which showed a poverty of imagination on her part. For Orion Goddard, intimacy was not only of the body, but also of the heart. To deal with difficult matters in bed was of a piece with his notion of an intimate friendship.

  I will miss him until I’m too old to boil my own water for tea.

  “Jules can ruin my prospects,” Ann said, curling down onto Orion’s chest. “He can make it so that not even the gentleman’s clubs will hire me, and no family of any standing will let me so much as wash their pots. He can do this even if he leaves the Coventry, but he won’t leave the Coventry.”

  “Because you have whipped that regimental kitchen into shape, and it more or less runs itself.”

  Well, yes. “As much as any kitchen can run itself. I’ll give Pierre copies of my more popular recipes before I leave, and Jules has said he’ll write me a glowing character.”

  “But he hasn’t yet, has he?” Orion posed the question gently and began stroking Ann’s back in slow caresses.

  “No, he has not.” Ann swallowed past a lump in her throat. To speak of leaving made it more real and made the grief bigger.

  Orion muttered something about applying mes poings to Jules’s arrogant, French nez and delivering un coup de pied rapide to Jules’s presuming arse.

  “You will not use your fists on his nose or deliver any swift kicks,” Ann said, torn between amusement and despair. “Jules will insult your champagne, and he can make those insults matter.”

  “I hate this, Annie. Jules is like an officer unfit for command. He turns the unit upside down with his ineptitude and fragile self-regard, takes responsibility for none of the mayhem he causes, and never suffers any consequences. Those who try to correct him are insubordinate, and who should determine their punishment but the very fool whose incompetence necessitated the blunt speech.”

  This tirade suggested army life had had tribulations both on and off the battlefield. “Jules is a French chef, and a certain high-handedness is expected from him.” Nobody ever said why that should be, why arrogance and meanness had any place in an art devoted to nourishing the body and soul.

  “To blazes with him, then, and the next kitchen you run will be amazed at their good fortune.”

  A bedamned tear slipped down Ann’s cheek, because Orion’s confidence in her ability hurt that much. Nobody else had ever offered her such support, and what might she have done with that kind of encouragement?

  “That’s the problem,” Ann said. “This is the wrong time of year to be looking for work as a cook, and without that character, I will be lucky to find a post at a lowly coaching inn.” Though what would be the point of employment in a kitchen that never served anything but dubious soup, bread adulterated into inedibility, and cheap ham?

  Orion’s hands went still. “Jules needs to meet with an accident.”

  How I do love you. “He can be a chef without cooking, Orion. He doesn’t cook as it is. He prowls around the kitchen, tasting this, sniffing that, and cuffing the unsuspecting potboy between trips to the wine cellar. Jules purposely tripped a footman while I watched and then threatened to make the boy pay for the broken glasses.”

  “Then you are well away from him. Don’t cry, Annie. He’s not worth crying over. You will find another post come spring. If it’s one thing Mayfair does during the Season, it’s consume food.”

  Jules was not worth crying over, and spring would come around again, both were true, but not much comfort. “I feel like a failure.”

  And that admission provoked more tears. Orion held her, he used the corner of the sheet to wipe at her cheeks, and he stroked her shoulders and back with exquisite tenderness. Ann did not feel better, exactly, when she regained her composure, but she felt less alone with her misery.

  “You are not a failure,” Orion said. “You are making a tactical re-evaluation of the terrain. Smart officers always reassess battle plans as the fight progresses, and you are no different. I’ll be doing some of that myself over the coming months, which we can discuss later. You can spend the winter cooking for Miss Julia and Miss Diana and impressing all of their friends.”

  Ann sat up, though she knew her cheeks were splotchy and her hair was a fright. “My aunt has said she will introduce me to her friends, and they are all hostesses of some repute, at least in military circles. I have a silly hope that I can offer the ladies guidance regarding menus and presentation and that they will regard that advice as worth paying for.”

  Orion brushed her hair back over her shoulder. “If you were a fussy, arrogant Frenchman, they would start catfights over who got to hire you first.”

  “But I am simply Ann Pearson, spinster at large, and thus I hesitate to join my aunt’s household, even temporarily. I fear I will become the dull companion she longs to make me into and
never escape that fate. She and her friends will flatter me into giving up my recipes, and I will have nothing to show for years of hard work.”

  And all over again, Ann would be that schoolgirl longing for escape, longing to read cookbooks by the hour.

  Orion levered up to wrap her in a hug. “You are thinking of joining the Upchurch household?”

  “For a time, if I must.”

  His arms tightened around her. “Perhaps that’s for the best, but, Annie, that is one place where I could not court you, even if I were to remain in London.”

  Ann pushed him to his back and pinned his wrists. “Explain yourself.”

  He kissed her, sweetly and lingeringly, the note of farewell breaking Ann’s heart. “Perhaps we’d best get dressed, Annie my love, and fortify ourselves with some apple tart.”

  Ann climbed off the bed, though for once, the prospect of sampling a delectable treat held no appeal.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “Horace, I would never disobey you,” Melisande said, trying for a humble note, “but do you think it’s easy to come up with different offerings for every dinner?”

  The brigadier did not immediately answer her question, but instead gazed upward, as if hoping the heavenly intercessors would fly forth with needed reinforcements bearing wagonloads of marital patience.

  When Horace deigned to return to the topic at hand, he spoke in the clipped, quiet tones that he usually reserved for a footman who’d buttoned his coat incorrectly.

  “There are cookery books without number, Melisande, and your accomplishments do include literacy.” His tone implied that she had few other accomplishments to equal even that humble achievement.

  Melisande stared at her husband, who in his own mind was doubtless a warrior aging with dignity. To her eyes, he was becoming a pompous old nincompoop, and if she did not take him to task for his nincompoopery now, she’d spend the rest of her life pretending his insults and arrogance didn’t wound her.

  “Despite my limited accomplishments,” she said, rising and bracing her hands on the desk, “despite my many shortcomings and errors, I have been a loyal wife to you, Horace Upchurch.”

  He looked away, and that small gesture confirmed that Melisande need not be more specific. She could have abandoned him in Spain, deserted the almighty regiment and taken up with a handsome, passionate, French officer. Scandals of that nature had been commonplace, but she’d spared Horace such a resounding defeat.

  They’d negotiated a truce only because she had been loyal to her spouse.

  “I have been loyal to you as well, Melisande. I don’t see what ancient history has to do with you demonstrating unbelievably bad judgment by allowing Orion Goddard onto your guest list.”

  Horace had been loyal too. In Spain, he had not been faithful—his infidelity predating Melisande’s, in fact—and thus his righteous ire at her straying had been tempered with reason. He had neglected his wife, leaving her to the flirtations of his junior officers. He’d also left her to suffer all manner of sly looks and unkind talk from the regimental tabbies, and for that, Melisande had been hard put to forgive him.

  “Horace, you and Emily Bainbridge have kept company at the Coventry.” The shock registering in Horace’s eyes was pathetically gratifying. “She chatters, to put matters kindly, and Ann works at the Coventry. Imagine a situation where Ann has to nip out from the kitchen to monitor the state of the buffet, and she sees you and smiles at you.”

  “Women smile. That signifies nothing.”

  Good God, when had Horace become such a nitwit? “There are smiles and there are smiles, and believe me, Emily Bainbridge can tell them apart. Ann’s smile would be genuine and familiar, and in a moment of surprise, she might greet you with a pleasant, ‘Good evening, Brigadier.’ If she was harried or exhausted, which I gather she frequently is, she might forget herself so far as to greet you as Uncle Horace.”

  “She would never.”

  Melisande wanted to slap her husband. The urge was both tempting and terrifying. “You hang my entire standing and reputation as a hostess on that ill-informed assumption, Horace. Your invitations are universally accepted, but let word get out that some young woman at the Coventry is calling you uncle, and we would become objects of speculation.”

  “Ann has more sense than to… to… acknowledge me in her place of work.”

  “Ann,” Melisande said, leaning closer, “while still very much a girl, found herself a post as a London apprentice, saved years of quarterly allowances with nobody the wiser, ran off to London from one of the most exclusive boarding schools in the Midlands, and completed a lengthy apprenticeship you were certain she’d abandon in the first three months.”

  That recitation would be enough to inspire admiration, were Ann not also such a source of vexation.

  “She’s headstrong. She’s not stupid.”

  “Fine,” Melisande said, straightening. “She is not stupid. Her discretion would never falter at the Coventry, though of all the clubs in London, I have no idea why you’d want to frequent that one… Unless the choice of which venue to visit wasn’t yours.”

  Horace was so rarely flustered that to see him at a loss was curious. He cleared his throat, he looked out the window. He reached for his pocket watch, but must have realized that he was betraying guilt.

  “Emily Bainbridge gambles,” Horace said. “Her husband has asked in confidence that those of us in a position to do so help her moderate her impulses. As his former commanding officer, I felt a duty to…”

  Melisande cocked her head.

  “There’s nothing between me and Emily Bainbridge, Melisande. She’s vain and silly, but I came across her on the walkway as I returned home from my club, and she inveigled me into joining her party.”

  That much was probably true. Emily did not care for Horace’s excessive dignity and would have delighted in dragging him into a fashionable gaming hell.

  “Back to Ann,” Melisande said. “Over the years, between here and Spain, you have asked me to coordinate perhaps forty of these regimental dinners. Assume the average number of courses is eight, though some have ranged as high as twelve, and assume each course requires a wine pairing. That is more than three hundred recipes, Horace, all chosen to create a memorable menu, not simply an edible dish. That is dozens and dozens of wine selections, dozens of different centerpieces and flower selections.”

  “I know it’s not as simple as telling Cook to put on a roast, Melisande.”

  “You don’t know, and I have made it my business to spare you the effort of knowing, Horace. In all the years of our marriage, my pin money has never been increased.” To bring this up was very nearly to pick a fight, but when Horace was larking about a gaming hell with one of the biggest gossips in London, some plain speaking was long overdue.

  Horace rose, perhaps because a gentleman did when a lady was on her feet, perhaps because he sensed Melisande was circling around to his exposed flank, and he needed to take evasive maneuvers.

  “Your pin money was spelled out in the settlements, Melisande, and what this has to do with the great awkwardness of entertaining Orion Goddard under my own roof, I do not know.”

  Melisande went to the window, rather than allow Horace to appropriate the vantage point. “The settlements, sir, spell out that the quarterly sum will be adjusted annually to allow for increased prices as may be encountered from time to time. Prices have done nothing but increase, even more so since the peace, and you tell me our investments are not performing to standards. And yet, you want these impressive dinners four times a year, parade dress, cannon at the ready.”

  “Four dinners a year doesn’t seem like much, Melisande.”

  Melisande could not exactly rail against Horace’s high-handedness when his ignorance of household matters had afforded her much latitude in the domestic domain.

  “You insist on maintaining a coach and four when we seldom go any distance,” Melisande said. “We keep this grand house, for three people, Horace, one
of whom is a child. You employ a valet when I am more than capable of looking after you, and… If you think these dinners are a mere incidental expense, I can tell you they easily cost as much as an entire quarter’s budget to feed the whole household.”

  Horace braced a hand on the mantel and stared into the fire. “An entire quarter’s budget… for one meal?”

  A formal dinner generally contemplated thirty guests. Had Horace thought thirty could dine in style with full regalia as cheaply as one couple, a little girl, and some staff dined on mundane fare?

  Apparently, he had. “I will show you my budgets and show you how the expense for one dinner was halved when Ann took a hand in the planning. She knows how to produce impressive results without bankrupting me. She has a sense for wine pairings that impress without emptying the cellar of our best vintages. She plans fewer courses and somehow makes the whole affair more lavish. I don’t know how she does it, but your dinners are the envy of our friends because of Ann.”

  To say that hurt, but then, Ann was involved only because Melisande saw the potential benefit of soliciting her help. Besides, Ann liked to cook, liked to fuss with saucepots and spices and so forth. Giving Ann a chance to do what she enjoyed was hardly taking advantage of her.

  Far from it.

  “An entire quarter’s budget…” Horace rubbed his forehead. “I had no idea.”

  “I should not have troubled you with a matter as trivial as household finances,” Melisande said, “but you mentioned the investments. I need Ann to help me maintain standards, Horace, and inviting Goddard was her one condition for assisting me. If we can endure his company for one evening, I will be in a position to pry Ann loose from the Coventry.”

  Horace was looking tired and a little bewildered. “How d’you figure that?”

  “She went straight from boarding school to kitchen work and has never had an opportunity to live the life of a lady. I will show her what she’s missed, introduce her to some of the more gallant bachelors, and prevent her from ever going back to her chopping and peeling. If word gets out that she’s a glorified scullery maid, we might eventually recover from the gossip, but Ann will never make the sort of match she deserves.”