Page 2 of A Cinderella to Redeem the Earl
When she didn’t move, he glowered and gestured impatiently. ‘Inside.’
The man’s peremptory tone was not a good sign at all.
Heaven help her, she really didn’t have a choice.
Feet dragging, she walked past him into the house. The strong smell of brandy wafted on the air along with the heat from his body in the confined space of the narrow entrance. She sidled through, far too aware of his masculine presence for comfort.
Her breath caught in her throat. How could she find him attractive after his rudeness?
‘This way,’ he said, and squeezed past her again, his shirtsleeves brushing against her. Shivers darted down her back. Reproach rippled through her. How could she respond to this man in this manner? Perhaps Alan had been right.
She pushed the thought aside. She had far more important things to be concerned about. Such as exactly what sort of household she had arrived at.
Apparently, completely unaware of their physical contact, he plucked a lamp from a small hall table, and led the way down a set of stairs into another narrow corridor. He paused at a doorway and the lamp afforded her a glimpse of an enormous kitchen, all neat and shiny.
Pamela peeped in and glanced around in awe.
‘This is the main kitchen,’ he said. ‘Yours is this way.’
Puzzled, she followed him as he held the lamp high to help them see their way. He turned into an even narrower corridor which ended in what was only a slightly larger kitchen than the one in the cottage she and Mother had rented for a short while after her beloved scholarly father died suddenly, leaving them destitute.
A week after his death, her hopes for marriage and a family with her fiancé Alan had been dashed—her parents had informed her of the terrible news of his death by a fluke accident. What an idiot she had been to let her passion overcome good sense and anticipate their wedding vows. Having grown up in a vicarage, she’d been taught better. But then, whoever would have predicted he would be killed by a runaway gun carriage?
Her world had tumbled about her ears. No longer marriageable because she had let herself be ruined, and not penny to her name, she had thought that not even her connections could overcome such disadvantages. She and her mother faced a life of poverty.
Until her mother married a widower she had described as a beau from her salad days within a few months. While the speed of her mother’s marriage had been a surprise, the fact that she had chosen a wealthy husband had not. Mother had been very disappointed by her father’s lack of ambition and his tendency to give their money to people less well off than himself. Pamela often wondered if their blazing row about money she’d overheard a few days before his death had been part of the cause of his fatal apoplexy.
Certainly, her mother’s new husband was wealthy and a peer, and just as keen as her mother to see Pamela wed to one of his friends, a rather elderly bachelor, who was in need of an heir.
After enduring a Season in London as a debutante and with her suitor likely to make her an offer at any moment, she had done the only honourable thing she could think of: she’d fled London and hired herself out as a cook.
And why not? She loved to cook and was good at it, too.
While her mother had tried to discourage her visits to the kitchen, seeing it as beneath one of her station, her father had not minded and the cook at the vicarage had been only too pleased to pass on her skills to so willing a pupil. Together they had preserved fruits and vegetables, made pastries and pies and custards as well as roasted and fricasseed all sorts of meats. She had even begun experimenting with her own recipes. Not to mention that it saved the family money since they did not need to hire extra help.
Her interest had certainly proved fortuitous after she and her mother had been forced to leave the vicarage to make room for the new incumbent. Pamela had discovered she loved being in charge of her own kitchen. However, the moment her mother married again, all that was over. Pamela was back to being someone who was meant to care only for the latest fashion and how many invitations she received in a week.
A tug at her heart made her breath catch. A sense of betrayal. Nothing she said, no excuse or request for delay, dissuaded her mother from insisting Pamela marry the man she had chosen. When Pamela finally told her mother she could not bear the idea of being touched by such an old man, her mother said she was being ridiculously missish. That was when she knew her fate was sealed, unless she took matters into her own hands. Now she was in charge of her own future.
And yet sometimes, like now, she felt lost. She felt a yearning for her old life. For family and the comfort of home.
No. She would not think of that now. This kitchen washerdomain. She glanced around. Unwashed pots filled the sink. The stove needed a good scrub. And on the scarred wooden table running down the centre, sat the remains of a roast that was little more than a charred lump.
‘It used to be the summer kitchen,’ he pronounced. He gestured at the table. ‘The last cook was a bit of a disaster.’ His chuckle sent a pleasurable tremor down her spine. Heavens above, this really would not do. She frowned, but whether at her reaction to him or at the mess, she wasn’t exactly sure.
She pulled herself together. ‘A mess indeed, Mr—I am sorry I did not catch your name.’
A mischievous grin lit his face. Her insides fluttered. ‘I didn’t give it. I am Dart.’ His words stopped her cold.
Dart? Why on earth was the Earl of Dart answering his own door? What sort of establishment was this that he had no servants?
It certainly looked as if the last cook had left in a hurry. Perhaps she had jumped from the frying pan into the fire.
‘My lord.’ She sketched a curtsy. ‘I am curious as to why you use this kitchen when the other is so much better?’
He shot her a hard look. ‘I hope you do not plan to question my every decision.’
Taken aback at the swift change in his demeanour, she stared at him.
