along.”
He strode down the corridor toward the library, and much to his surprise, Miss Pearson followed him without arguing.
“You had the lavender soap put in Benny’s room, didn’t you?” Ann asked as the colonel ambled at her side along the walkway. He apparently did not expect her to hang on his arm like some mincing ninnyhammer, but he did keep a pace Ann could easily match.
“What makes you think that?”
He tended to answer questions with questions, a sign of inherent caution. He would never get eggshells into his batter, but always crack his eggs over another bowl. Would he experiment with the recipes printed in the cookbooks, or keep strictly to the directions and ingredients listed?
What sort of lover would he be?
Ann tossed that thought into her mental midden, though she knew it would visit her again.
“Your housekeeper, Mrs. Murphy, favors chamomile soap, and that’s what Otter uses as well. You, however, prefer French lavender, and now Benny washes with it too.”
“You’ve met Otter.”
Apparently not a cause for rejoicing. “He is a perfectly delightful boy, Colonel. How is it the children speak French?”
“My mother was French. I grew up speaking both English and French, and that ability served me well in the military, for the most part. The properties I hold in Champagne are through Mama’s side of the family, though my paternal grandmother was also French. Through her, I claim rural land in Provence.”
Hence the luscious soap. “And yet, with all that familial loyalty to France, you joined the British military.”
His steps slowed as they approached a wider thoroughfare. “The English have no idea the trouble they cause when they go a-plundering. From Scotland to India and over to America, families have dealt with the British menace by assigning one son to each side of any conflict that involves Merry Olde England. Whichever son is on the winning side can salvage the family fortunes when the hostilities cease.”
And alas for the other son. A military man would notice this aspect of history. “Is that how you ended up with your French holdings?”
He came to a halt, waiting for traffic on the street to clear. “Some of my maternal family made it to England when Napoleon routed the British forces at the siege of Toulon. Some remained behind, professing loyalty to France. None of those who survived in either land had an easy time of it, but knowing two languages improved their chances.”
“Is everything with you a matter of survival, Colonel?” A coach and four thundered past, and Ann stepped off the walkway. Before her second foot could follow the first, she was snatched back onto the walkway and plastered against a hard male chest.
A curricle barreled along perilously close to the rear of the coach.
“Steady,” the colonel growled. “Damned fool toffs drive like a trip to the tailor’s is a race to Brighton.”
Ann could not have moved if she’d wanted to, he held her that snugly, but then, if not for the colonel’s support, her knees might have given out.
“He almost hit… I almost…” The curricle rattled around the corner, not a backward glance from the driver.
“You’re safe. A near miss only. Breathe.”
Ann breathed in lavender and warmth, a hint of saddle leather—the colonel apparently hacked out of a morning—and the soft wool of his coat. She breathed in composure and the steady calm of a man born to command.
But no, that wasn’t quite right. Not command. In any case, she could not stand in the middle of the walkway parsing the colonel’s scent while half of London gawked at the spectacle she made.
Ann stepped back. “Thank you. I should be more careful.”
“Yonder driver should have been more careful.” The colonel did offer his arm, and Ann allowed herself to grasp it. “Let’s take the alley, shall we?”
He apparently knew where he was going, for by turns and shady backstreets, he brought her to the Coventry’s garden gate.
“Do you often navigate by the alleys?” Ann asked.
“Yes. I don’t often recount my French heritage, though it’s common knowledge.”
“Je dois beaucoup à la langue Française, Colonel.”
“And why do you owe much to the French language?”
The Coventry’s garden walls were high—better than six feet—so nobody at the club would see Ann tarrying with her escort. She was peculiarly unwilling to part from him, too, and not simply because he had the reflexes of a cat.
“I had excellent French teachers at school,” Ann said, “and when I sought a post as a cook’s apprentice, I was hired because the Englishwoman I worked for