The Way to a Gentleman's Heart - Theresa Romain Page 0,2
her hands into the flour and butter, now coming together smoothly. “I have sisters too. Haven’t seen them in a long while, but I remember learning those old rhymes with them.”
But where is the boy who looks after the sheep?
He’s back in Lincolnshire. Do not weep...
No, that wasn’t right. That wasn’t right at all.
A knock sounded then on the door to the tradesmen’s entrance. The kitchen was a few rooms away, but the servants’ quarters were quiet at the moment. The footmen were likely upstairs, while Mrs. Hobbes, the housekeeper, would be making the rounds of the students’ chambers as the maids were cleaning them. She’d a keen eye and would come down hard on any maid who hadn’t done her work well. Her husband, the old butler, had grown hard of hearing in recent years. If he were polishing silver in his pantry with the door closed, he wouldn’t hear a Catherine wheel going off two feet away.
“Are we expecting another delivery, ma’am?” Sally asked with mild curiosity.
“Of kitchen goods? Not until I do tomorrow’s shopping.” Marianne eyed her butter-covered hands, then the pile of apricots her assistant had left to split and prepare. “I’ll answer that door. Back in a moment, Sally.”
She wiped her hands on her apron and wound her way past the servants’ stairs, their hall, and the housekeeper’s room. Unfastening the door to the area, she lifted her brows, prepared to scold a lost delivery boy for interrupting her work.
But it wasn’t a delivery boy at all.
Her startled brain took a moment to understand the sight before her. The thoughts went like this:
Oh! It’s a man.
A handsome man.
He looks familiar. Does he work for the fishmonger?
No, he’s not holding fish. Strawberries! He got those strawberries I wanted of the greengrocer. Look at him holding them, juicy and red, in that little basket. Does he work for the greengrocer?
Of course not. I’d have noticed him there.
No, he looks like...like...
And then she knit all the pieces together, and her jaw dropped.
“Jack,” she said faintly. “Jack Grahame. Why are you here?”
“Marianne. I brought you strawberries,” said the man she’d loved and hoped never to see again.
When he held out the little basket, she took it, bemused. She looked from the strawberries to the face of her first lover, her only lover, dressed as fine as ever and handsome enough to be in a painting. Then back at the basket. And then she remembered that her hands were greasy from butter, her apron had a bit of everything she’d cooked today upon it, and her hair—her long dark brown hair that he’d once run his fingers through, lovingly—was sloppily confined under a cook’s cap, and her cheeks were flushed from the heat of the ovens.
Ah, hell. If one’s long-ago love showed up unexpectedly at one’s door, it ought to be at a time when one looked one’s best. But Marianne was a cook now, and a cook was what she looked like.
She lifted her chin. Closed her hands around the basket of strawberries. Did he remember she liked them, after all this time? Bright as rubies, and she’d rather have them than gemstones.
“Well. Thank you,” she said with as much dignity as she could manage. “Is that all? As you’re here, you know I’m working as a cook. And since you were always a bright fellow, you must guess I’ve got to get back to work.”
“Since you asked, I’d like to come in and speak to you. Do the strawberries win me a little of your time?” His brows were puckish, his mobile mouth always at the edge of a grin.
So he did remember. “Time enough for you to say you’re sorry for keeping away so long.” She tried not to sound as soft as she felt, but her own words betrayed her.
The humor on his face melted. He looked at her with grave gray eyes and said, “I’m not here to apologize, Marianne. But I do want your forgiveness.”
HE’D ALWAYS LIKED HER eyes. In a face as calm as any cameo painting, her changeable eyes had betrayed her true feelings. If he read their green depths correctly now, he’d caught her by surprise, and she wanted to flay him alive.
But she also wanted to pop those strawberries into her mouth.
She teetered between the two urges. The strawberries made the difference; Jack could see the moment when they decided her. Her fingers tightened on the basket.
“Come in, then,” said Marianne in a harassed tone. “I’ve not a moment to