Miss Delectable (Mischief in Mayfair #1) - Grace Burrowes Page 0,3

sun had barely set, and Monsieur was already in fine form.

Sir Orion had an elegant hand for a soldier: Young Benny has been hurt and is asking for you. I fear serious injury. Please come with all possible haste, Your Obed Serv, Colonel Orion Goddard.

Only a very upset man would neglect to refer to his knighthood in his correspondence. Ann untied her apron and slipped it over her head.

“What do you know of this?” she asked the boy.

“Benny went missing yesterday—went missing again. He were out of pocket a few weeks ago too. Tendin’ to business, like the colonel says. Colonel says please come double-quick-forced-march-enemy-in-pursuit.”

Monsieur would have three apoplexies if Ann abandoned her post this early in the evening. Henry returned and passed the child a sandwich of cheese, butter, and bread with the crusts still on.

“Best get back to the kitchen, miss. Monsieur’s in rare form.”

Monsieur’s rare form made a nigh nightly appearance. The man was incapable of subtle emotion, and every evening’s buffet was a performance. Jules Delacourt could be funny, but he could also be savagely critical, and needlessly so.

“Wait for me,” Ann told the child.

She gathered up her cloak and waded into the pandemonium of Monsieur’s kitchen. He was still ranting about wilted leeks, so she waited patiently until he’d cursed Haymarket, English roads, English farmers, and the English sky, which felt compelled to produce English rain at least every seventy-two hours.

“You are holding your cloak,” Monsieur said. “I do not pay you to hold your cloak, Pearson. Somebody must oversee the sauces, and that somebody is you. Do not try my temper this evening, or I shall chop you up and add you to the curry, though there is barely enough of you to make a proper curry.”

Monsieur was handsome in the dark-eyed, dark-haired Gallic tradition, and he would age splendidly, for all he’d become tiresome within a week of taking employment at the Coventry. He was a competent chef, and thus his foibles were tolerated.

Were he female, he’d be making one-tenth of his current salary, and he would have been sacked before the first tantrum concluded.

Ann passed him the note. “A child has been injured, and Mrs. Dorning’s brother has summoned me.”

Monsieur read the missive and handed it back. “Are you a surgeon now, tending to clumsy children?”

Ann merely stared at him. Monsieur well knew Mrs. Dorning’s feelings regarding family, and more to the point, he knew Mr. Dorning’s devotion to that same family.

“Don’t tarry on this errand,” Monsieur said with a sigh. “The leeks are atrocious, Pearson. English leeks are a tribulation invented strictly for penitential purposes, and this lot is truly disgraceful.”

Monsieur had doubtless chosen this lot that very morning after no less than fifteen minutes’ deliberation over the entire wagonload.

“Soak them in ice water, and they’ll revive after an hour or so,” Ann said. “Works for celery as well, if that diatribe is on your program tonight.”

Monsieur smiled—or bared his teeth. “How you wound a sensitive soul who has never wished you anything but good. Be off with you, I must save the buffet from a fate worse than Scottish porridge.”

The child who’d brought the note stood in the doorway to the back hall, watching Ann solemnly. The boy was not impressed with a busy kitchen and was not angling for more food. He was silently begging Ann to hurry.

She settled her cloak about her shoulders, snatched up a straw hat, and retrieved a basket of medicinals from a cupboard. Then she followed the lad into the gathering gloom of the evening and started praying.

Chapter Two

“She’s here!” Louis’s shout nearly startled Rye out of his boots. “I brung the lady!”

“Good work,” Rye said, going to the top of the ladder and peering down into the shadowed stable. “Miss Pearson, if you could join us up here? Louis, fetch the lantern and then see to your supper.”

The stable had grown dark while Orion had waited, and memories had crowded in. How many hours had he spent in the infirmary tents, listening to a dying man’s final ramblings or writing out the last letter the fellow would send home? How many times had he refused a fallen soldier’s entreaty for a single, quick bullet?

“Colonel,” Miss Pearson said, arriving at the top of the ladder. “Good evening.”

Orion took the basket from her and waited while the lady dealt with her skirts and climbed from the ladder into the hayloft. Louis passed up the lantern and tried for a gawk. He climbed back down when