home, we are your regiment. If you take a mad fit and commit regicide, the first place you turn for help is here. If you gamble away the crown jewels, you come here to lament your folly. Do we have an understanding?”
Not exactly. Benny wasn’t sure what committing regi-whatever meant, but she grasped that the colonel was saying something man-fashion that had to do with belonging and safety.
With caring.
She darted across the room before her courage deserted her, seized the colonel in a hug, which was like hugging one of the oak beams that held up the barn roof, and then scampered for the door. She wasn’t to be sent away, and someday, she might learn to make blueberry crepes.
As she pulled the door closed behind her, Benny made a mental note to ask Miss Ann what resilient meant. The colonel had said the word as if it were a good thing, so Benny wanted to know what it signified.
“Six courses,” Ann said, quite firmly. “The traditional progression plus cordials after the dessert.”
“No extra removes?” Aunt Melisande asked. “At Helene Craighead’s last formal dinner, she had extra removes and another cold dish after the entrées. People talked about her extravagance for a week.”
“You want them talking about the menu,” Ann replied. “The exquisite pairing of the wines and course selections, the beautiful presentation, the faultless service, and the gracious conversation. Guests stop tasting what you put in front of them when the menu is too lavish.”
A truth too many hostesses never grasped.
“You are certain?” Aunt set aside the menu Ann had spent hours researching and testing. “The brigadier gives me great latitude with my entertainments. He expects food worthy of our standing.”
When had a lot of retired generals and their wives and daughters become more finicky than a pack of dowager duchesses?
“I am absolutely certain, Aunt. You could feed your guests buttered bread and mulled cider, and if you made them feel welcome, provided interesting conversation, and sent them away full, they’d enjoy the evening.”
“You have little grasp of polite society if you believe that.”
When Aunt frowned, she conjured up both the spoiled young woman she’d been prior to marrying Uncle and the settled matron she was becoming. She was still beautiful—a wife nearly twenty years younger than her husband was well advised to remain beautiful as long as she could—but Melisande was perpetually discontent, and that showed.
“I feed polite society every evening, Aunt. I see what disappears from the buffet a quarter hour after it’s served, what remains unfinished at the end of the evening. I know which dishes are all clever presentation—popular the first time we set it out, not of much interest thereafter—and which are constant favorites. At the Coventry, I can experiment without anybody the wiser, and I take advantage of that privilege.”
Aunt poured herself another cup of tea, a stout black that had beery notes on the tongue. “You should not be working in that place, Ann. If anybody learned that my niece…. Suffice it to say, the brigadier is not happy with the situation either.”
Ann had been hearing this refrain for three years. “I am well compensated for my time. I get to cook to my heart’s content, and I am learning much.” A small falsehood. Jules had stopped presenting new recipes less than a year after he’d taken over as chef. “Have you had a chance to pass my menu suggestions to Mrs. Bainbridge?”
“Yesterday. She was intrigued. An apple cider glaze for scallops would certainly be novel.”
The glaze was delicious. “That recipe is also simple to prepare, which matters, and can be made with ingredients common to any country kitchen.” Honey, dark vinegar, pepper, spinach, bacon… nothing fancy, though the results were impressive.
Impressive mattered to a London hostess more than flavorful, nutritious, or cheap to prepare, while for Ann, expense would always be a consideration.
The Pearsons were gentry, but Grandpapa had been wealthy enough to afford London seasons for his daughters. Mama had married a solicitor, and there had been ample funds to send Ann to various schools and academies, each more pretentious than the last. She had run away for the final time at age fourteen, and by then, Mama and Papa had succumbed to influenza, Grandpapa had been ailing, and Aunt had been following the drum in Spain as the dutiful wife of the brigadier.
Ann tried a bite of shortbread and wished she hadn’t. “You can tell Mrs. Bainbridge I am available to discuss the menus at her convenience.”
Aunt set down