A Companion for the Count: A Regency Romance by Britton, Sally (story reading .txt) 📗

guests would be impressed. If Lord Atella still had a political victory from making a spectacle of himself, she need not feel entirely guilty. Which was yet another reason she had to attend to him in the kitchens. It was only right.

And the idea of pasta-making and the preparation of food having such importance attached to it did intrigue her.

She left her letter on the desk, trusting the maid to post it, and went to the wardrobe to find an apron. She only wore it on rare occasions—such as strawberry-picking parties. It wasn’t at all like what the upstairs maids wore, or the kitchen staff. Her apron was delicate, made of fine white material, with embroidered bilberries and vines all along its edges. Not at all practical for kitchen work.

A very good thing she didn’t intend to actually participate. The apron was an accessory—a nod to the work being done.

“How do I look?” she asked Josephine after she had tied the apron around her waist. “Ladylike?”

“I think so. But you should probably cover your hair. Grandmama will have a fit if you come to dinner with flour in it.”

“Do you think there’s a danger of that?” She went poking about in her bureau for a cloth she might use to cover her hair.

“It is a kitchen. I know nothing of it. There may be danger of falling into a vat of strawberry jam.” Josephine bounded from the bed with a wide grin. “Do you remember when we used to watch Cook in the London house make biscuits?”

“Barely.” Emma found a long, thin piece of white cloth she had used once as a hair ornament for a ball, braiding it through her hair to create a coronet. “Will this work?”

Josephine took the cloth and put it over Emma’s hair, twisting and tucking things into place. “It will do. But here.” She twisted out a curl. “Very pretty. Like a milkmaid.”

“What do you know of milkmaids?” Emma challenged, narrowing her eyes at her friend.

Josephine tilted her head to one side, appearing thoughtful. “Only what I have seen in classical sculpture and artwork.”

Emma batted away her friend, gave one last shake to her apron to make certain it lay flat, then she went to the door. “Wish me luck. The kitchen is as foreign to me as England is to the ambassador.”

“Fair sailing and good fortune to you,” Josephine sang, then withdrew a handkerchief and waved somewhat dramatically. “Fare thee well, dear friend.”

The ridiculous conversation lifted Emma’s spirits. She went through the castle humming, making her way to the lowest floor of the house, excepting the cellar.

When she came to the kitchens, she found several downstairs staff standing in the hall, peering through the large doorway to the bright workroom. Though she rarely visited the kitchens, she had always loved the large, curved windows that began above the heads of the workers and stretched upward, easily fifteen feet higher, to the whitewashed ceiling. Chandeliers hung low, too, to keep the interior bright even at night.

As she passed through the doorway, the servants drawing back at her approach, she noticed an unusual quiet in the large room.

In the middle of the kitchen were several tables laden with raw foods, knives, and bowls, and several assistant cooks and kitchen maids stood around the tables as still as stone.

The head cook, a French chef de cuisine the duchess had met during a trip to Paris, stood at the center of the room with his hands on his hips. His forehead was deeply wrinkled and his face an unsightly shade of red.

“Already the menu you have changed, why must you also cook? A nobleman—cooking?” He made a strangled sort of sound. “Absurd. Dishonorable. In my kitchens? The staff will not know how to perform their duties with you nearby, my lord.”

Lord Atella stood in front of the cook, taller but somehow less imposing than the bossy Frenchman, with his secretary at his side.

“You would dare,” the secretary said, chest puffed out, “speak against your own duchess’s wishes for my lord to serve her in this way?”

“I dare to think of the sanctity of my kitchen, of the food that must be la perfection! If the rest of the meal suffers for the distraction of my staff, it is not my lord who will be blamed, but moi, Absolon Dupont. Then what will I do?”

Emma had reached the eye of the storm, and she joined the conversation before Mr. Torlonia could speak again. “Monsieur Dupont, bon matin.” She addressed him in French, softening her tone to one of respect. “His lordship respects the importance of the meal, I assure you. Perhaps we could work in the smaller dining room for the staff? No one is eating there at present, are they?”

He pursed his lips and narrowed his eyes at her, responding in his native tongue. “You think to win me over with your pretty French, eh? Miss Arlen, the kitchen is no place for you or him. This is where we work.”

“I promise, we will remain as out of the way as possible.” She switched back to English as she put her hand over her heart. “You have my word.”

The wrinkles in his forehead smoothed, and he raised his hands with a broad shrug of his shoulders. “Very well.” He turned his back and muttered in French, “Even though I am perfectly capable of creating noodles.”

Lord Atella leaned toward her, keeping his voice low. “I did not mean to start a battle with the French in my quest to improve relations with the English.”

It took her more than a little self-control to smother a laugh. “Monsieur Dupont will not view this as an act of war. I’m most certain.”

A kitchen boy came forward, his apron as clean as his youthful face. “Cook says I’m to help with whatever you need. I’m Gerry.”

“Grazie.” Lord Atella opened his mouth to say more, but Mr. Torlonia spoke first.

“Show us to the dining room,” he commanded.

The boy nodded and shuffled quickly away