Page 88 of Miss Delectable
He gathered her close and silently cursed fate in four languages at once. “I can protect myself.”
She shifted back enough to look him up and down, her gaze lingering on the scars around his eye.
“I have done something, Orion, and I hope you will not castigate me for it.”
“Tell me.”
“Before you leave London, there is one more invitation you must accept. I insist upon it, for I would not ride into this battle with anybody else at my side.”
* * *
“Ann Pearson has given notice.”Sycamore Dorning handed the tidy little missive to his wife, but no matter who read it, it would say the same thing. “I own I am surprised.”
“You are horrified.” Jeanette glanced at the letter, then set it on the side table. She passed Sycamore one of the throwing knives that adorned their private parlor. “I am none too pleased myself.”
Sycamore took the place beside his wife on the sofa. “If Goddard has enticed Miss Pearson into the bonds of holy matrimony, I cannot object to her decision.”
“You could ask for Miss Pearson to stay on through winter so you have time to hire and train a replacement.”
Sycamore tossed the knife at the cork target across the room, but the throw—smacking the bull’s-eye decisively—brought no satisfaction.
“I very much fear she cannot be replaced.”
Jeanette picked up the embroidery she’d been working on when Sycamore had interrupted her. “You are only realizing that now?”
“I’m realizing it in a new way now. Miss Pearson is the ballast that allows Jules his dramatics. He is the fire and spice, while she is the…”
Jeanette stabbed at the linen with her needle. “He is the expensive advertisement. She is the hard work, common sense, and actual skill necessary to run a busy kitchen.”
Sycamore tucked an arm around Jeanette’s shoulders. “What aren’t you telling me, darling lady?”
“Much, of course. Jules is a sot.”
Sotwas a harsh word, and Jeanette was not a harsh woman. Pragmatic of necessity, but not harsh.
“I am aware that he samples the inventory. How could he prepare fancy dinners without knowing wines and spirits?”
“I overhear the footmen and waiters talking, Sycamore. Jules helps himself to anything and everything in the cellars and blames the results on breakage or accounting errors.”
Sycamore had wandered home from the club at this daylight hour because Ann Pearson’s notice bothered him, and thinking through a bothersome problem was best done with Jeanette’s guidance.
“Jules intimates that the footmen and waiters help themselves to the occasional bottle.” Jules made those accusations out of the hearing of the staff, of course, and with apparent reluctance.
You must not blame them, Mr. Dorning.
They work hard, Mr. Dorning.
In a private home, Mr. Dorning, the remainder of any opened bottle would be consumed in the kitchen.
“Theft can get a man hanged or transported,” Jeanette said. “Rather than bring scandal down on the club by having Jules arrested, you’d let him slip quietly away to France. He knows that.”
And therein lay the bothersome problem: scandal and the club, the club and scandal. In a minor way, the Coventrywasa scandal, being technically illegal as all gaming establishments were illegal. But the Coventry was also entirely different from a dimly lit den of thieves where crooked cards presaged ruin for the unsuspecting.
“I miss Ash,” Sycamore said. “He would know to the penny if accounting errors bore any responsibility for an inaccurate tally of our wine and spirits.”
“I can do an audit, Sycamore. Winter approaches, and Ash has done much better since spending less time in Town.”
Ash, dearest of brothers, suffered periodic, paralyzing bouts of melancholia. “He’s done better since taking a wife, as have I. He’s after me to finish buying him out.”
