Benny was soon to be settled in a new post.
All was right with the entire dratted, bedamned world.
“Cooking is a respectable profession,” Dylan Powell said, slouching low in his chair. “I’m fond of good victuals myself.”
“You’re worse than a biblical plague,” Alasdhair MacKay muttered, propping his foot on a hassock. “Seven years is a long time to be apprenticed. Is the girl in London, or did you send her off to the provinces?”
“I sent her to the Coventry, as it happens. A few streets away from home.” And yet, Alasdhair was right. Seven years, the length of most enlistments, could be an eternity. Benny hadn’t gone off to war, exactly, but she’d be going off alone.
Worse, when she left on Monday morning, she’d be leaving for good. Going out into the world, never to return if matters went well. And Rye had ingratiated himself with no less person than Sycamore Dorning to bring about Benny’s departure.
What the hell was I thinking? “She’ll learn more at the Coventry than she would in just any old household kitchen. She’ll get to use her French.”
“The Coventry has a fancy chef.” Dylan’s observation was ever so casual. “A Frenchman.”
Jules Delacourt. Rye had made inquiries among his émigré connections and heard nothing untoward so far. A bit of a temper, a tendency to drink, the usual shortcomings for a talented chef.
“Benny will be apprenticed to the undercook,” Rye said, “an Englishwoman of irreproachable antecedents.” Though, in point of fact, Rye knew little of Ann Pearson’s family. She dwelled in a respectable boardinghouse, had ambitions worthy of her talent, and had been educated beyond her trade. She’d learned French, for example—and how to kiss.
Rye mentally slapped himself for that observation, but when Ann Pearson had kissed him back, he’d become like a glass of good champagne, imbued with effervescence of the animal spirits and of the heart. Fortified and—had he run mad?—sparkling.
Something about the way Alasdhair crossed his feet on the hassock struck Rye as restless. Then too, his cousins weren’t bickering.
“How’s business?” Dylan asked.
Jeanette had forbidden Rye to bequeath the vineyards to her, claiming no interest in the vintner’s trade. Alasdhair and Dylan were thus Rye’s heirs, and their interest in the business was thus justified.
“Managing,” Rye said. “I’ve agreed to supply the Coventry over the winter, and as it happens, I have the product on hand to manage that easily.” In a fit of optimism, he’d sent off instructions to have yet more inventory brought into the country. His entire market-ready stores were never kept at one location, because warehouses could burn, and a merchant’s life savings would perish with them.
“You have the inventory because the English aren’t buying your champagne,” Alasdhair said. “When was the last time you found a new customer, Goddard?”
“The Coventry is a new customer.”
“Dorning is family now,” Alasdhair rejoined, taking a sip of his brandy. “The Coventry relied on Fournier for their champagne until you came along.”
And why the hell would Alasdhair have bothered to learn that? “Fournier raised his prices, and on a customer who bought increasingly large quantities. Because the Coventry relies on champagne as part of its métier, diversifying the supply is only prudent. Besides, our champagne is better than Fournier’s.”
“Your champagne is cheaper than Fournier’s, lately,” Alasdhair retorted. “Did Lady Meecham renew her order?”
“No.” And she had made it plain that Rye had only received her custom because a hostess who risked running out of champagne punch at her annual ball would never live down the disgrace.
“What about the cloth merchants’ guild?” Dylan asked. “Did they ask you to save them enough crates for next year’s banquet?”
“No.” Rye had snabbled that order because the ship ferrying Fournier’s bottles across the Channel had been blown back to Calais by foul weather and then had to wait nine days for favorable winds. “I’m starting on my rounds for the spring orders. Everything slows down as winter sets in.”
“Try the brothels,” Dylan muttered, crossing his arms and closing his eyes. “A damned lot of libation is consumed in those establishments, and they have the money to pay for it.”
“I am not selling my grandmother’s champagne in furtherance of lechery.”
“Now you take up against lechery,” Dylan said. “I despair of you.”
That wasn’t quite right. Rye’s friends were worried for him. Nothing less than genuine concern would have them posing such pointed questions about the business.
“What aren’t you two saying?” he asked, feeling as if he were prying a confession from Otter or Louis. “Out with it. Is there some