In learning to survive she’d had to cultivate many skills. Long ago she’d learned that to be safe, she needed to be aware of everything and everyone around her. She knew the sound of all sixty-three members of the indoor and outdoor staff of Ainsley Hall, including the members of Ellen’s family when they occasionally came to visit. The man approaching her domain was someone new.
Her puppy, Charbon, barked sharply when she jumped from the chair, startled by her sudden panic. The knife she favored for mutton was in her hand, her face and form in the shadow, when the man stepped into the room.
Her hand felt numb, gripping the wooden handle so tightly. The silhouette in the doorway was shorter than she remembered, thicker. And the hair had thinned drastically.
And then he spoke, and she realized her mistake. An English gentleman wouldn’t enter the kitchen. He’d send his servant.
“Dark in here,” the man remarked.
Ghislaine put the knife down very quietly, moving toward the cheap tallow candles that were considered sufficient for kitchen use and lighting them, one by one, filling the cavernous room with a fitful light. She knew the man was watching her, and if she didn’t sense outright hostility she at least could feel his reserve. This was the man she was going to have to circumvent, if Nicholas Blackthorne was to have the fate he so richly deserved.
She turned back, once she’d allowed him to look his fill. “You must be Mamzelle,” he said. He was a far cry from the usual valets who’d invaded her kitchen. He was street-tough, older, someone who looked as if he belonged in a tavern, not in a gentleman’s employ.
“Yes,” Ghislaine said, not surprised.
“My master’s hungry.”
“Is he?” She thought of the untouched tray. Either he’d sobered up enough to have acquired an appetite, or drunk enough to be hungry again. It didn’t matter. As long as he was ready to eat what she prepared for him, she was chillingly content.
“A cold collation’ll do. Meats, cheese, maybe an apple tart if you’ve got one handy. And where does Lady Ellen keep the brandy around here?”
“She doesn’t.”
“Horseshit,” the man said.
“Lady Ellen has a very fine wine cellar, but no brandy, I’m afraid.”
“You cook with it, don’t you?”
“I do.”
“Send it up. Better yet, bring it yourself. My master says he doesn’t believe Ellen has a female chef.”
Ghislaine was suddenly very cold. He won’t remember, she told herself. It had been almost thirteen years since he set eyes on her. Thirteen years ago, when she was a fragile, skinny child and he was a young man out for his own pleasure and nothing else. He wouldn’t remember.
“You misunderstand,” she said coolly. “I’m not a maidservant. We have no less than seven of them who will be more than happy to deliver your master’s tray, Mr….?”
“Just call me Taverner.” the man replied. “And I don’t believe my master is interested in maidservants at the moment, though I couldn’t say about the future. He’s interested in seeing Lady Ellen’s female chef, and my duty is to satisfy his whims. Right now that whim is you, Mamzelle. So I’ll wait.”
She opened her mouth to continue the argument, then shut it abruptly. She would be wasting her breath, and possibly arousing suspicion, if she continued. Instead, she dropped a mocking curtsy. “Yes, sir,” she said, and the man flashed a startled look at her.
“You ain’t like any servant I’ve met,” he announced.
“That’s because I’m not a servant. I’m a chef.”
“Chefs are men.”
“I’m not.”
“So I noticed,” the man said with a leer, and Ghislaine felt a trickle of cold panic in the pit of her stomach. If this rough manservant was any example of Nicholas Blackthorne’s progress, then he’d simply gone from bad to worse.
She began to busy herself with preparing a plate of cold meats and cheeses, keeping her hands working while her mind was abstracted. “You aren’t much like the valets who come to Ainsley Hall.”
Taverner laughed. “You can bet I’m not. My master doesn’t give a spit about how well he’s turned out. He’s not one of your fancy boys. He needs someone to stand at his back if need be, someone who knows how to dispense a little rough and ready. Someone who’s not afraid of trouble.”
“Does he run into trouble very often?” she inquired coolly. There was no way she could slip a butcher knife into her full skirts, not if he expected her to carry the tray. Which doubtless he would.
“You could say so,” Taverner said with a grin that showed several discolored teeth.
“And you get him out of it.” She took her massive ring of keys and unlocked the door to the closet where she kept her spirits. She had two bottles in there—one of the finest French cognac ever made, the other of a rough cooking brandy. She took the latter and set it on the tray.
“Hell, no. He can get himself out of most messes. I just like to make sure there’s no backstabbing.”
“Sounds like a most productive life for a gentleman,” she said. “I suppose you wish me to carry the tray?”
“You suppose right. Come on, Mamzelle. My master’s not going to take a bite out of you.”
She hoisted the tray in her small, strong hands. “He wouldn’t like the taste,” she said.
She followed Taverner as he made his way through the candlelit hallways, her soft shoes quiet on the carpeted floors.
“You know, you don’t sound very French to me,” Taverner said suddenly, stopping in the hallway outside the tiny, fussy ladies’ parlor.
Ghislaine felt cold inside. Only the supreme force of her will kept the tray from trembling in her hands; only the supreme force of her will kept the panic from showing on her face. She glanced at Taverner, at the ferret-like face and stained teeth, and told him what she thought of him. In ripe, idiomatic, gutter French. The language she’d learned in the slums of Paris.
Taverner looked impressed. “Yeah, that sounds French all right. Never could understand the lingo.” He opened the door, and Ghislaine realized with horror that for some reason Nicholas Blackthorne had taken up residence in Ellen’s parlor.
She had no choice. She couldn’t turn and run, not without receiving the attention she was so desperate to avoid. She would simply have to keep her head down, her tongue between her teeth, and hope he’d never remember.
For a moment she thought the parlor was empty. The fire provided the only light, and even with the pale silk-covered walls, the room was plunged in shadows.
“You ought to learn French, Tavvy,” a voice said. “Then you might be even more impressed. She called you the son of a rutting ape, lacking several necessary pieces of male equipment, and she suggested you might be better off eating donkey feces.”
Ghislaine dropped the tray.
Fortunately Taverner was in the act of taking it from her hands, clearly believing only he had the right to serve his master, and the tray didn’t fall far. She was still in the doorway, not moving, knowing the light from behind her would cast her face into even deeper shadows, and Taverner moved around her with a disapproving grunt.
He was lounging on Lady Ellen’s pink petit-point chaise. His dusty black boots had already soiled the delicate material, and he clearly had no intention of removing them despite the stableyard debris and dust that clung to them. He had very long legs, but she couldn’t have forgotten that. He’d been quite tall when he was twenty-two, and men didn’t grow shorter as they matured. His breeches were also dusty, clinging to his long thighs, and at some point he’d dispensed with his coat. The white shirt was open at the neck and rolled up at the sleeves, and his long, curly black hair was mussed around his face.
She took the inventory carefully, avoiding that face, those eyes. But she could avoid it no longer. Now that she knew there was no middle-aged paunch on that flat torso she could only hope age and evil had made their mark on his once-handsome face.
Age and evil
had
left their mark. They’d turned a young man of almost unearthly beauty into a satyr, a fallen angel, a man of such powerful attractions that Ghislaine was shocked. She would have staked her life on the certainty that she would never again find a man attractive. And certainly not this man, who’d murdered her family and ruined her life.
The features that had been soft and pretty when he was in his early twenties were now sharply delineated. The high cheekbones, deep-set dark blue eyes, and strong blade of a nose were the same, and yet different. Lines fanned out from those still-mesmerizing eyes; lines of dissipation, not laughter. More lines bracketed his sensual mouth, and he hadn’t bothered to shave in the past day or so. His long black hair was tangled, a far cry from the carefully arranged styles most of Ellen’s male relatives cultivated, and his manner was indolent, insolent, and just the slightest bit dangerous. It had been a long time since Ghislaine had been around a dangerous man. She would have preferred it to be even longer.
“Looked your fill, Mamzelle?” he drawled, a faint smile on that haughty, dissipated face.
She wouldn’t let him see how disturbed she was. “Yes, sir,” she replied evenly, not moving from her spot in the shadowed doorway.
“I, however, haven’t had my chance to look at my second cousin Ellen’s French chef. Step closer, girl.”
She kept her face impassive as chilling panic clamped a hand around her small, hard heart. Willing herself to be brave, she stepped forward, into the murky light, and let him stare.
She wouldn’t, couldn’t meet his gaze. She kept her hands clasped loosely in front of her, her eyes on the fire, as she felt his eyes run over her slender body. With luck he wouldn’t notice the faint trembling that she couldn’t quite control. With luck he wouldn’t see the defiance in her shoulders and the murderous hatred in her heart.
“I wouldn’t call her a diamond of the first water, would you, Tavvy?” he drawled, sounding blessedly bored.
“No, sir,” Taverner replied, busying himself with the tray of food. “I don’t believe I’d heard that she was anything special. There’s an upstairs maid name of Betsy that’s quite a saucy piece…”
“I don’t think I’m interested.” He sounded abstracted. “Still, there’s something about the girl. Wouldn’t you say so?”
She gritted her teeth just slightly, unable to move, as the men discussed her.
“I wouldn’t know, sir. She’s not to my taste. I like ’em with a little more meat on the bones. A warm cuddle on a cold night, and all that.”
“So do I,” he said, and she could tell by the sound of his voice that he was rising from his lazy perch. Rising, and moving closer. “But there’s something about this one…”
He put his hand on her. His large, elegant hand under her chin, forcing her face around to his. And then he dropped his hand with a startled laugh, moving away. “Such anger, Mamzelle,” he said softly, in French. “Such hatred. You quite astound me.”
She wouldn’t speak French with him. She wouldn’t look at him, wouldn’t breathe the same air he breathed. If he touched her again she would take the knife from the tray that she’d carried and plunge it into his heart.
“May I go, sir?” she requested quietly, eyes still downcast.
“Certainly. I have no wish to bed an angry female. At least not tonight.”
That surprised her into looking at him, her mouth dropping open in shock. There was a speculative expression in his dark eyes, one that was almost more disturbing than his brief touch had been.
“Monsieur is mistaken. I am the chef,” she said. “Not a whore.”
She didn’t wait for his reply, or her dismissal. She turned on her heel and left the room, closing the door very quietly behind her. The walk back down to the kitchens was a long one, and she moved steadily, silently, fighting the urge to run as if her life depended on it.
I am not a whore, she’d told the man who’d made her become one. And she knew, before another day passed, that that day would be his last.
Lady Ellen Fitzwater wasn’t happy. She hadn’t wanted to leave Gilly behind, but she’d learned, early on in her relationship with her chef and friend, that there was no one more stubborn than a Frenchwoman. They’d had their disagreements in the year since they’d met under decidedly bizarre circumstances, and doubtless they’d have more. And Lady Ellen Fitzwater, a woman of a certain age who considered herself strong-minded, had lost every single one of those battles.
As she’d lost this one. She’d had no option but to withdraw. Not that she was afraid of a wrong ‘un like Nicholas Blackthorne. Fortunately she wasn’t the sort of woman to attract a man like Nicky. He wouldn’t offer her a carte blanche, a slip on the shoulder, or any of the other myriad insults offered to an attractive lady of
a
certain age.
Unfortunately the world didn’t recognize that she was safe from Nicky’s advances. Had she stayed under her own roof she would have been branded a fallen woman. Her brother, Carmichael, would have been forced to take a stand, and if she weren’t careful she’d find herself married to someone as eminently unsuitable as Nicholas Blackthorne.
Not that he didn’t have his advantages. He was devilishly, wickedly attractive, even she recognized that. And he paid absolutely no attention to the rules of society, another salient point. She was already so bound by society’s stupid rules that she was being run out of her own house because of them. It would be marvelous to snap her fingers at the prosing old gossips.
However, there was a certain lack of harmony in Nicholas Blackthorne’s nature. A distressing abundance of scandal, close calls, and a certain mocking nature made him a most uncomfortable candidate for marriage. Here he was at almost six and thirty, past time to be settling down and begetting an heir, and what was he doing? Running away from a duel, for heaven’s sake! And if he killed his man, which was still not out of the question, then he’d be off to the continent again, for heaven knew how long.
Not that an absentee husband might not be quite pleasant, Ellen mused. But even a day spent with someone as unsettling as Nicky would be more than her temperament could handle.
It would be just as well for everyone if Jason Hargrove did cock up his toes. She’d only met him once, and she hadn’t liked him a bit. A slimy piece of goods, he was the sort of man who stood far too close, whose hands lingered, whose mouth was always wet. And he cheated at cards, or so Carmichael said.