“The ferocity of your temper does you credit, Dennis,” Upchurch said, “for that’s exactly the sort of contempt you were meant to direct at our Colonel Goddard. You have all—with your grumbling in Goddard’s direction, your avoidance of his company, and general suspicion of him—assisted our government to perform a favor for a foreign entity faced with a delicate dilemma. The port, if you please.”
Rye had demanded that Unchurch exonerate him of wrongdoing, but Upchurch was turning a brief explanation into some sort of Banbury tale.
While the footmen topped up glasses, the looks sent Rye’s way became speculative.
“What sort of favor has Goddard been involved in?” Lieutenant Haines asked owlishly.
Upchurch considered his drink. “I must choose my words carefully, for utmost discretion is required, but I can tell you fellows this. One of the nations with whom we were allied on the Peninsula became aware that some of its officers behaved in an untrustworthy manner. If the French learned that those officers—let’s call them Hessians, for the sake of discussion—were being investigated, then evasive maneuvers would result, and the truth would never come out.”
“So Goddard was a decoy?” Mornaday said. “A distraction?”
“He was perfect for such a role,” Upchurch said, regarding Orion as if he’d won top wrangler honors three years running. “French on his mother’s side, fluent in the language, and wounded badly enough to carry off a convincing grudge toward the military. Then there were his periodic trips to the Continent after the peace. He certainly had all of you fooled, for which on his behalf I do apologize.”
“So he never sold secrets?” Dennis asked, sounding utterly crestfallen. “Never took coin to keep his French lands safe?”
Upchurch snorted. “Don’t be ridiculous. Goddard had no need to safeguard his family’s French holdings when they were miles away from any fighting. Plundering that far afield was too much effort for even the Grande Armée, but the rumor certainly served its purpose. Goddard suggested it himself.”
The hell he had.
“Is that why Fat George tossed a knighthood at him?” Dennis asked. “Because of service above and beyond?”
Upchurch allowed a dramatic silence to build. “Imagine that you are the Hessian spies and along comes an English officer dwelling under a cloud of suspicion. If that officer were to suffer a fatal accident, all and sundry would assume a traitor had finally met with justice. The colonel’s death could even have served as proof of his supposed guilt. All the while, Goddard’s role was to march about like a man impervious to scorn. The real culprits enjoyed a false sense of security, convinced Goddard was blamed for their crimes. They grew careless and have been apprehended.”
“Goddard did his marching about bit quite well,” somebody muttered.
“Not an easy role,” Upchurch said, “when you know men capable of the lowest conniving wouldn’t mind seeing you dead. For us, the war ended at Waterloo, not so for Colonel Goddard. I am happy to say that our friends on the Continent have finally resolved the situation to their satisfaction, and thus I can entrust you gentlemen with the truth.”
This complete taradiddle had been so convincingly rendered, Rye himself was tempted to believe it.
“A toast, then,” Haines said, “to our Colonel Sir Orion Goddard!”
The usual cheering and thumping resulted, and Rye acknowledged the good wishes with a nod. “Thank you all. I am pleased to be once more in your good graces.” Only pleased, oddly enough. Not elated, triumphant, jubilant, ecstatic or any other superlative.
Pleased. Relieved. Nothing more. To have won Annie Pearson’s heart, though, was cause for profound rejoicing.
“Always said you were a decent sort,” Haines replied. “Your men spoke well of you, and even the Frenchie prisoners respected you.”
“That board of inquiry was just for show, then?” Dennis asked. “A farce?”
Upchurch peered at his drink. “We went to great lengths to make Goddard look both culpable and understandably bitter. Took away his field command, sent him out skulking about the countryside under the quarter moon. Made sure to breathe new life into old rumors every few months. He bore it all without complaint, and at long last, the whole business can be put to rest. Not a word in the clubs, though, gentlemen, and you cannot share what you’ve learned here with the fellows at Horse Guards.”
And thus did Upchurch ensure the story would spread faster and farther than the flames of the Great Fire.
“My sister likes you,” Dennis said. “She claims you have the air of a brooding hero. It’s the eye patch, makes you look ruthless. I envied you that damned eye patch, Goddard.”
“And the way you speak French,” somebody added. “The ladies love a fellow who can offer sweet nothings in French.”
The list of Rye’s enviable qualities grew as the port in the glasses disappeared, until somebody suggested Rye was deserving of a monument in Hyde Park. He let them maunder on, listening with half an ear.
Upchurch’s fabrication neatly cleared Rye’s name without implicating Melisande or Upchurch himself in wrongdoing, and that was cleverly done. But Upchurch’s loyal officers had believed one set of lies about Rye all too easily, and now, just as easily, they were convinced by another set of lies.
The good graces of such sycophants didn’t, in fact, mean all that much, and never had.
This realization was a greater relief than knowing Rye would never again have to tolerate Dexter Dennis’s righteous glowering. The regard of men like Alasdhair and Dylan mattered far more, as did the respect of the children. They cared nothing for gossip and everything for the fact that Rye kept his word and treated them decently.
Jeanette had never turned her back on her disgraced brother, and Ann had taken a man scorned into her bed and into her heart.
Rye stripped off his eye patch and rubbed at his forehead.
“You wear it for show?” Dennis asked, peering at the scrap of black silk.
“I wear it because bright light gave me terrible headaches for the first few years after I mustered out, and it still occasionally bothers me. I also wanted to spare others the sight of my scars, but those have faded.”
“I don’t suppose you’d be willing to stand up with my sister at some point this Season?”
The request was made ever so casually, and Rye wanted to laugh. “I have a bad hip, Dennis. I might occasionally try a waltz, but something as lengthy as a quadrille is beyond me. You won’t see me dancing much.” And when he waltzed, he’d waltz with Ann or not at all.
“But if you do take a notion to trip it as ye go, on the light fantastick toe, you’ll keep m’sister in mind?”
“Of course, and speaking of the ladies, it’s time we rejoined them.” Rye was hungry for the sight of Ann and the sound of her voice, and weary of the company he’d so long yearned to join.
“Quite right,” Dennis said, finishing his drink, “and the brigadier seems to be of the same mind.”
The footmen collected glasses, and some of the company made further use of the chamber pots as Upchurch decreed the interlude at an end.
“And remember, lads,” he said, “not a word to the ladies.”
Dennis all but charged down the corridor and was whispering to his sister in a corner before the first gentleman was served his tea.
Rye tarried at the parlor door with Upchurch as the other guests greeted the ladies and found chairs and sofas to lounge upon.
“Was any of that fairy tale true?” Rye had told Upchurch to explain that his loyal subordinate had been following orders when on reconnaissance in the countryside, nothing more complicated than that.
Upchurch’s gaze rested on Melisande, who made a graceful picture presiding over the tea tray. “Most of it. I am not the only officer for whom the generals charted a hard course, Goddard, but I wasn’t permitted to tell you. Word came down from Horse Guards recently that the problem on the Continent had been resolved. I’d hoped you could simply slink off to F
rance none the wiser—what soldier wants to know that he’s been used in such a manner?—but then we had that little chat in my office.”
“The chat where you explained that because you and your spouse did not honor your vows, I have been made to dance on a string for years like the generals’ puppet.”
Upchurch watched his wife, who laughed at some inanity from Dennis.
“I have danced as well Goddard, and in addition to my marital woes, there was that little business about all of Europe being embroiled in warfare. Nobody wants to see us reduced to that sad pass again. Though you are right: You deserve to have your good name cleared and your future secured. I will doubtless be taken to task for disobeying orders—unreliable dodderer that I have become—but the war, thank Providence, is finally over.”
Not quite. “You will pay for that champagne, Upchurch. Every crate and bottle. To the penny.”
Upchurch nodded.
“Then I will collect Miss Pearson, bid my hostess good evening, and make a night of it.”
“Let me say this, Goddard, because you won’t hear it from anybody else: Thank you. A lesser man would not have withstood the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune half so stoically, but a whole ring of bad actors has been brought to heel because of your sacrifice.”
I don’t care. Rye would care, maybe a little, soon, but right now, all he wanted was to be alone in a coach with Ann.
“You and the generals are not welcome,” Rye said. “You had no need to keep me in the dark as you did. You did that to spare yourself humiliation. I would gladly have played the role assigned to me, but I wasn’t given a choice.”
“Understood,“ Upchurch said. “You might find yourself flooded in the coming weeks with orders for champagne.”
That, Orion did care about. “I live in hope.” He strode off to find Ann holding forth near the hearth about the wonders of herbes de Provence. She concluded her rhapsody as Rye offered her his hand.
“Miss Pearson, I am felled by fatigue. Would you mind very much if we took an early leave?”
Ann rose gracefully. “Of course not. I am unused to such entertainments myself and would gladly bid our hostess good night.”
Countless eternities later, Rye had Ann bundled into the Dorning town coach.
“What happened?” she asked. “The men stalked off to the library glaring daggers at you. In less than thirty minutes, you become the toast of the regiment.”
“I’ll explain later. The whole tale approaches farce, but suffice it to say, I am the toast of the regiment at present, and I do not care one moldy cheese or wilted leek that it should be so. Kiss me.”
Ann obliged, and as lovely as the meal had been, her kiss was a greater source of sustenance.
“Will you spend the night with me, Ann?”
“Yes.”
“I haven’t even told you what Upchurch had to say behind a closed door. I’m not going to France, not to stay.”
“Then neither am I. Kiss me.”
Rye obliged, at length, enthusiastically, and when Ann finally cuddled next to him on a contented sigh, he could honestly agree with Upchurch about one thing at least.
The war was over. The war was finally, absolutely over.
* * *
“You want me to take on the post of chef at the Coventry?” Ann asked.
Mr. and Mrs. Dorning had called upon her at her home, and Ann had no doubt Miss Julia and Miss Diana were listening at the keyhole.
“I do,” Mr. Dorning said. “We do, rather. Jules Delacourt has succumbed to a serious bout of homesickness and is packing up his effects as we speak.”
Sycamore Dorning could exaggerate a point for the sake of emphasis, but he wasn’t given to outright lying. “Why is Jules leaving in such haste?”
Mrs. Dorning sent her spouse a look.
“I could tell you,” Mr. Dorning said, “that Jules is at pains to avoid an awkward interview with the magistrate, and that much is true. My fancy French chef colluded with Brigadier Horace Upchurch to steal four hundred cases of champagne from Colonel Goddard, though I believe Upchurch will see most of the goods returned and pay the purchase price for any missing bottles.”
“He had better,” Ann muttered, getting up to pace. “Does Colonel Goddard know of Jules’s involvement?”
Orion had escorted Ann to her doorstep at dawn. They’d spent the night loving, talking, and drowsing, but he had neglected to mention Jules’s hand in the theft of the champagne—if he’d been aware of it.
“He should know,” Mr. Dorning said, “but the champagne isn’t the half of it, Miss Pearson. You haven’t been to the Coventry today, have you?”
“Not yet. I planned to look in on Hannah this afternoon.” Orion was paying a call on Deschamps this morning, and then he’d promised Ann he would call on her too. They had more to discuss.
Much more.
“We saw firsthand what happens in the kitchen when you aren’t there,” Mrs. Dorning said. “Pandemonium wrapped in chaos tied up with mayhem. Hannah and Henry were of more use than Jules or his so-called sous-chef. That the guests were fed at all is only because you left instructions and set enough of a good example that some of the staff could carry on in the face of utter uproar.”
The Dornings had declined a tea tray, which was fortunate, because at that moment, Ann was so muddled, she could not have managed the sugar tongs.
“The staff works hard,” she said, resuming her seat. “Jules is truly leaving?”
“He’ll be on a packet headed for Calais on tonight’s outgoing tide,” Mr. Dorning said. “Will you take the post of chef?”
A year ago, that question would have embodied every hope and aspiration Ann’s heart held. A year ago, she would have answered with an unreserved yes, and part of her still longed to.
“May I have some time to think about it?”
Another look passed between husband and wife, one suggesting that Mrs. Dorning had predicted that Ann would not immediately accept the post.
“Provided you continue running my kitchen in the meanwhile, you may ponder the question as long as you please,” Mr. Dorning said, getting to his feet and offering a hand to his wife. “My soul shrivels to contemplate the state of the kitchen last night, Miss Pearson.”
“As does mine,” Mrs. Dorning added. “Matters were truly dire, but Hannah rescued your instructions from the rubbish bin, and we muddled along with extra champagne rations for the guests. There is many a sore head in Mayfair this morning thanks to your departure from the kitchen, Miss Pearson. We really do need you.”
Ann saw her guests to the foyer and was just offering them a farewell curtsey when a hard rap sounded on the door. Mr. Dorning performed the butler’s office and stepped back to allow Orion to join the small crowd in the foyer.
“Dorning.” Orion’s bow was little more than a nod. “And Nettie.” He kissed his sister’s cheek. “A pleasure to see you, but what brings you to Miss Pearson’s abode so early in the day?”
Mr. Dorning drew in a breath as if to hold forth about pandemonium and mayhem, but his wife passed him his hat before he could launch his diatribe.
“We came to ask Miss Pearson to take pity on our kitchen,” Mrs. Dorning said. “I fear we are too late, for it appears she’s had—or is about to receive—a better offer. We’ll bid you good day. Come along, Sycamore.”
She all but pulled her husband with her through the front doorway.
Orion set his hat on one hook and draped his cloak over another. He looked well, if tired, and he wasn’t wearing his eye patch.
“You are upset, Annie. If Dorning offended you, I will have a very stern word with him. He’s my brother-in-law, so I can’t thrash him outright, but a short discussion—”
Ann wrapped her arms around Orion and held fast. “They asked me to be the chef at the Coventry. Jules helped to steal your champagne, and I gather last night did not go well in the kitchen.”
“Jules is not my brother-in-law. He’d best be on his way back a
cross the Channel, or I will take a potato masher to his handsome French phiz. Let’s sit down, shall we? I’ve a need to hold you in my lap.”
“Orion,” Ann said, not turning loose of him, “Sycamore Dorning offered me the post of chef at the Coventry.” She needed to hold on to him while they had this conversation.
“You already are the only chef worth the name at the Coventry. What you mean is, he’s offered to pay you what you’re worth. Come.” Orion took Ann by the hand and led her not to the guest parlor, but to the family parlor.
“Orion, be serious.”
“You did not get enough sleep last night,” he said, closing the parlor door and scooping Ann into his arms. He settled into a wing chair with Ann in his lap and rested his cheek against her temple. “I apologize for that, but when we marry, you might occasionally go short of sleep. You can turn Dorning down, you know. Just because you will be family to him by marriage doesn’t mean you have to indulge his little dramas. There are other cooks in London who can put on a fancy buffet—though, of course, none as talented as you.”
“You speak as if I could accept his offer.”
“Do you want to accept his offer?”
The previous night should have made it plain that Orion Goddard liked to leaven complicated discussions with affection. He’d told Ann the details of Uncle Horace’s situation, including Aunt Melisande’s straying and Emily Bainbridge’s role.
“I thought you and I were to be married, Orion.”
“I desperately hope we are. But what has making me the happiest man on earth to do with making profiteroles to inspire envy from the angels?”
He did not sound as if he was being purposely obtuse. “This is not France. If I am your wife, people will expect me to stay home and have your babies.”
“I already have half a dozen babies of the half-grown variety, and no wife stays home with them. Melisande has a child in the nursery whom she doesn’t even see some days. What do you want, Annie? What would make you happy?”
“I love to cook, and I want to be your wife.”
Miss Delectable: Mischief in Mayfair Book One Page 29
