Page 3 of Miss Delectable
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“The lad sayshe’s come from Colonel Orion Goddard,” Henry announced. “Says he needs to talk to you, Miss Ann. Won’t talk to nobody else.”
Henry was cheerful and energetic and subscribed to the universal understanding at the Coventry that footmen were entitled to flirt with maids, customers, char girls, and other footmen. He’d learned—as they all learned—not to waste his time flirting with Ann.
Colonel Goddard’s emissary, by contrast, was a spare, lean lad of ten or twelve years. With the poor, guessing an age was chancy. Generations of inadequate nutrition resulted in delayed development and less height.
“Are you hungry, young man?” Ann asked.
The boy shook his head, but peered past her into the vast, bustling kitchen.
“Henry, please have Nancy put together some bread and butter for the lad. What is your name, child?”
“M’name’s Louis. The colonel gimme this for ya.” A surprisingly clean paw held a folded and sealed note.
Ann knew two things about Colonel Sir Orion Goddard. First, he had come to his sister’s side when called. He’d sat with Jeanette, Lady Tavistock, now Jeanette Dorning, for more than an hour while Sycamore Dorning had been unable to guard his lady. The colonel hadn’t taken so much as a sip of tea or a crust of bread while on duty at his sister’s bedside.
Nor had he lingered when it had become apparent that the lady was on the mend. He’d asked Ann to send word if he was needed again and slipped away without bidding his sibling farewell.
That had been several months ago, and Ann hadn’t seen the colonel at the club since.
The other fact she recalled about Colonel Sir Orion Goddard was that he favored good old lavender soap, and plenty of it. He did not merely douse himself with lavender water and pretend that passed for washing. He scrubbed himself thoroughly, the scent emanating from his hair and his clothing, as well as his person.
The soap he used was French rather than English, based on the aroma of the lavender, and hard-milled French soap came dear. Ann did favor a man who took cleanliness seriously enough to pay for good soap.
She slit the seal on the note. In the kitchen, Monsieur Delacourt began yelling about the impossibility of finding fresh leeks—fresh, not three days old!—in the foul blight upon the face of civilization known as London. The 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.”
