gave himself a mocking bow. Today he was almost unrecognisable as the renegade captain of the
Jezebel
and resolved to avoid the haunts of the
ton
on his way to the City, lest someone recognise him even got up like a respectable cit. He shrugged off the prospect of being known for someone far less worthy, decided breakfast took precedence over old sins and let the smell of Miss La Rochelle’s cooking lure him downstairs once more.
Chapter Four
‘M y guess is that you’re a better cook than Coste or I will ever be,’ Hugh observed as he strolled through the propped-open kitchen door.
‘Which wouldn’t be difficult, given the state of the saucepans and skillets left in the scullery,’ the most unusual cook in England muttered irritably in reply.
‘We never claimed to be domesticated,’ he admitted with a casual shrug.
‘You’d be arrested for fraud if you did.’
‘Very likely, but where did you get all this?’ he asked with a wave of his hand at the largesse spread over the end of the long deal table nearest to the closed stove.
Her self-imposed task had put an attractive flush of colour on her cheeks and he noted thesurprisingly seductive scent of warm woman and the faint suggestion of a gloss of perspiration on her fine, creamy skin. Never having been the sort of man who preyed on his servants, he’d not subjected kitchenmaids to lecherous scrutiny in the past, but the sight of his employer’s exotic mistress, dressed in her scandalous dark breeches with that absurd black shirt clinging to her all the more because of the light bloom of perspiration on her delectable body, was enough to make a monk ache with frustration, and he wasn’t a monk. Wrenching his eyes from the spectacle of all he couldn’t have, he made himself listen to her reply to his question through the thunder of his own blood in his ears and sought refuge behind the table until he had his body in a fit state not to betray him.
‘I dragged your fellow debauchee out of his chair and pushed him under the pump until he stopped screaming like a stuck pig, then told him if he didn’t find me the makings of a very hearty breakfast, I’d tell Kit what a useless excuse for a man he still is, then hope he was sent straight back to the gutter where Kit found him,’ she explained, mercifully all without turning round to turn those shrewd dark eyes of hers on yet another faulty male.
Yet Hugh doubted she’d carry out her threat against his brother-in-iniquity; her shoulders were hunched against his scrutiny, but her very defensiveness argued against her. ‘Where’s Coste hiding himself now, then?’ he asked, as he dared to come out from behind his barricade and pick up a slice of just-crisp-enough bacon from the stack keeping warm on the side of the hob.
‘He’s probably still trying to find a couple of scrubbing women willing to muck out the pigsty you two have made out of this room and the scullery, and another couple to dust and make good the rooms you haven’t yet got around to spoiling. He insisted that he wasn’t ready to eat yet,’ she said gruffly.
‘He won’t know where to start.’
‘I told him where to find a reliable domestic agency and sent a note along with him for the manageress setting out my requirements,’ she said, turning about at last to sharply forbid him to take one more bite until it was all ready, otherwise mercifully keeping her eyes on what she was doing rather than on him. His more-obvious state of arousal had mercifully subsided, but it was his body and he knew very well it was only waiting for the flimsiest excuse to lust after hers once more.‘I expected I’d have to force you into eating anything this morning,’ she said with an ambiguous twist of the lips that might have been a smile and something told him she’d been looking forward to it.
‘Sorry to disappoint you, Miss La Rochelle, but I have a very hard head.’
‘Evidently,’ she replied coldly, as if he didn’t deserve such a
Jezebel
and resolved to avoid the haunts of the
ton
on his way to the City, lest someone recognise him even got up like a respectable cit. He shrugged off the prospect of being known for someone far less worthy, decided breakfast took precedence over old sins and let the smell of Miss La Rochelle’s cooking lure him downstairs once more.
Chapter Four
‘M y guess is that you’re a better cook than Coste or I will ever be,’ Hugh observed as he strolled through the propped-open kitchen door.
‘Which wouldn’t be difficult, given the state of the saucepans and skillets left in the scullery,’ the most unusual cook in England muttered irritably in reply.
‘We never claimed to be domesticated,’ he admitted with a casual shrug.
‘You’d be arrested for fraud if you did.’
‘Very likely, but where did you get all this?’ he asked with a wave of his hand at the largesse spread over the end of the long deal table nearest to the closed stove.
Her self-imposed task had put an attractive flush of colour on her cheeks and he noted thesurprisingly seductive scent of warm woman and the faint suggestion of a gloss of perspiration on her fine, creamy skin. Never having been the sort of man who preyed on his servants, he’d not subjected kitchenmaids to lecherous scrutiny in the past, but the sight of his employer’s exotic mistress, dressed in her scandalous dark breeches with that absurd black shirt clinging to her all the more because of the light bloom of perspiration on her delectable body, was enough to make a monk ache with frustration, and he wasn’t a monk. Wrenching his eyes from the spectacle of all he couldn’t have, he made himself listen to her reply to his question through the thunder of his own blood in his ears and sought refuge behind the table until he had his body in a fit state not to betray him.
‘I dragged your fellow debauchee out of his chair and pushed him under the pump until he stopped screaming like a stuck pig, then told him if he didn’t find me the makings of a very hearty breakfast, I’d tell Kit what a useless excuse for a man he still is, then hope he was sent straight back to the gutter where Kit found him,’ she explained, mercifully all without turning round to turn those shrewd dark eyes of hers on yet another faulty male.
Yet Hugh doubted she’d carry out her threat against his brother-in-iniquity; her shoulders were hunched against his scrutiny, but her very defensiveness argued against her. ‘Where’s Coste hiding himself now, then?’ he asked, as he dared to come out from behind his barricade and pick up a slice of just-crisp-enough bacon from the stack keeping warm on the side of the hob.
‘He’s probably still trying to find a couple of scrubbing women willing to muck out the pigsty you two have made out of this room and the scullery, and another couple to dust and make good the rooms you haven’t yet got around to spoiling. He insisted that he wasn’t ready to eat yet,’ she said gruffly.
‘He won’t know where to start.’
‘I told him where to find a reliable domestic agency and sent a note along with him for the manageress setting out my requirements,’ she said, turning about at last to sharply forbid him to take one more bite until it was all ready, otherwise mercifully keeping her eyes on what she was doing rather than on him. His more-obvious state of arousal had mercifully subsided, but it was his body and he knew very well it was only waiting for the flimsiest excuse to lust after hers once more.‘I expected I’d have to force you into eating anything this morning,’ she said with an ambiguous twist of the lips that might have been a smile and something told him she’d been looking forward to it.
‘Sorry to disappoint you, Miss La Rochelle, but I have a very hard head.’
‘Evidently,’ she replied coldly, as if he didn’t deserve such a
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