“Ran out? Ran out?” Nick kept his temper reined in with an almost superhuman effort. “’Tis funny to me that the surplus ran out so suddenly. When I left three days ago, there was a whole garden of vegetables right out the back door, a smokehouse full of meats, and household monies to supplement our larder should there be a need.” He narrowed his eyes and observed the drunken man through slitted lids. “Though I guess I know where some of that coin went.”
“I ain’t no field hand,” declared Jackson belligerently. “I ain’t gonna grub around in no dirt like that slattern Kathleen you got working here. You got other people to do that. Buy some slaves. I am the cook.”
Nick smiled grimly at the hapless Jackson. “Kathleen is not a slattern, she is a lady too fine for the likes of you to speak her name. And you are right, Jackson. You do not need to grub around in the dirt. As of this moment, you are no longer under my employ. Now collect your things and come to the study for the wages owed you, and be thankful that I am not taking the monies that you spent on drink out of that. Or going to the sheriff about the food that you obviously pilfered from my stores.”
“You cannot do that!” blustered Jackson. “I never stole a thing! I worked my arse off here. And wot does I get for it? Kicked out like a nothing? Who’s gonna cook for ya now, Mr. high-and-mighty? Nobody will even set foot on this place except that hoity-toity Kathleen’s family,” he sneered. “Ever’body knows how ya pushed your lady wife down those stairs!” He spit on the none-too-clean floor. His features distorted with spite, and he even went so far as to stick a grimy finger into Nick’s chest. “You will starve to death afore you find anybody else to come and live at this place of sin!”
Nick’s face froze. His posture ramrod straight, he used his impressive height to tower over the smaller man. “Collect your things,” he said quietly. “And get off of my property.”
Nick spun on his heel and left the room, his mouth tight with suppressed anger. Jackson was a drunk, and he was only repeating the gossip he had heard in the town, but it was damned hard not to punch him right in his slack, drunken mouth.
It was true that some thought him the murderer of his wife, and Nick was having a hard time replacing the cook who had just left him to go and live with her daughter in Kansas. The daughter was having another child to go along with the six other children she already had, and Mrs. Clark was worried for her. He did not blame Mrs. Clark for going to her poor daughter, he just wanted a decent meal, and he had not had one since she had left two months ago.
The first cook he had hired was a slattern who had thought her job was to provide him with sexual favors. She had left in a huff when he had kicked her out of his bed where he had found her waiting one night after he had been up thirty-six straight hours helping one of the mares through a difficult birth.
The second lasted two weeks, then left vowing that she had rather starve than put up with his ill-mannered criticism of her culinary skills. Nick, who had found that a steady diet of burned ham and plain boiled potatoes did not agree with him, did not miss her very much.
The next one could not have found her way to the outhouse without a map and someone to read it for her. When he had gone to seek out a reference for her, having learned from his last two mistakes, her most recent employer had warned him off, saying kindly that the woman was a bit . . . and here he had paused and coughed delicately . . . hen-witted. Nick had waved that away airily. He needed the cook too much to worry about her intellect or the lack of it. But he had soon found out that the man had been all too kind in his estimation of her intellect. Hen-witted did not begin to describe that woman’s befuddled mental condition. He had lost count of the times he came in after working all day, his stomach aching with hunger, only to find the smell