Banquet of Lies Read online

  He had the impression of someone who knew how to dress well, but he could not drag his gaze from her face.

  He had no context in which to evaluate her. She was in his dining room, looking directly at him, and all he could think was that he had seen her before.

  She was familiar.

  Some old, long-forgotten memory stirred in him, along with a slightly guilty yearning, but although he tried to pin it down, it slipped elusively from him and left him flat-footed.

  Belatedly he rose and bowed, and felt the heat of a blush steal over his cheeks at his poor manners.

  “My lord.” She curtsied and watched him with a cool, composed expression. Then she nodded toward the crystal cup that had held the dessert. “Mr. Edgars says you wish to speak to me?”

  No.

  Jonathan looked from the cup to her, but he still refused to believe it. This could not be his cook. She was supposed to be old and plump and slightly grumpy. He was sure that was compulsory for cooks.

  And yet, it could not be anyone else.

  “Madame Levéel?”

  She nodded. And almost as if she sensed what he was thinking, her lips quirked in a quick smile.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever had a meal I’ve enjoyed that much. Thank you, madame.”

  “De rien.” She curtsied again and then stood, hands clasped together, a growing tension about her.

  “What was this called?” He lifted the crystal cup.

  “Sabayon au muscat.”

  “Well, I can never have enough of it. When in doubt as to dessert, rest assured, you can call on this as a staple.”

  She looked momentarily surprised, and then she laughed. It lit her expression, and the feeling of knowing her rose again.

  “My lord, there are so many desserts to make, I will never be in doubt. But if you wish it again, merely say so to Edgars, and I will make sure you have it.”

  “You are very young, Madame Levéel, to be so accomplished a cook.” He said it as a statement, but there could be no question that he wanted some response from her.

  He saw her brace herself, and wondered if it were because she had heard the comment before and was used to defending herself against it, or whether she was getting ready to lie.

  She paused. “Thank you.”

  No explanation. He admired her for her nerve.

  “How did you come by your skills?”

  She smiled. “The honest way, my lord. Through practice.”

  Enjoying the game of squeezing water from a stone, he grinned back. “Where did you work before?”

  She hesitated, and her ease seemed to drain out of her. “I have not worked as a cook before.”

  He stared at her. “This is your first position as cook?”

  She gave a nod. Then she looked about the room, and he would have thought her bored, if he hadn’t noticed her hands. They were gripping her white cotton apron as if it were her lifeline.

  She must have worked somewhere. How else could she have received her training?

  He wanted to ask her, but she would no longer meet his eye, and he had the strong sense she would rather be anywhere but here.

  He was a man who relentlessly went after answers when he needed them. A man who didn’t trouble himself too much with manners and niceties if they got in his way. And here he was, absolutely unable to ask his own cook where she had learned her craft.

  He shook his head in astonishment.

  He wanted her to be at her ease with him more than he wanted resolution.

  “Well, I won’t keep you from your kitchen anymore, Cook. Thank you again for a wonderful meal.”

  She raised startled eyes to his and then smiled. It was a smile of such heartfelt gratitude, it was clear that she knew he could have asked more probing questions and had not. And that she was very glad of it.

  A cold thought occurred to him. If he probed too much, she could simply leave and find another job.

  She had held excellent references, Edgars had told him—another mystery—and she could walk into any job she chose. After eating at his club far too long, and after the meal he had just enjoyed, Jonathan didn’t want to do anything to jeopardize keeping her.

  She held out her hand, and for a moment, he had no idea what she wanted from him. Her hand was small, delicate. She reached forward and took the crystal cup off the table, and he felt a fool. He had almost taken it to kiss it, while all Madame Levéel had had in mind was washing the dishes.

  If cooks actually washed dishes. He had a feeling the maids did the washing up.

  And had he ever been this much of a lump? Who washed the dishes had never crossed his mind before tonight.

  She started to turn and then changed her mind, stopping to look him boldly in the eye.

  “Mavis,” she said.

  “Mavis?” He scrambled to keep up.

  “What secret do you share with her?”

  He blinked. “Secret? Oh! The bonbons.”

  She kept her gaze on him. Steady.

  “She’s too thin. And I don’t really like bonbons, but my aunt sends them to me anyway. So I give them to Mavis, a few at a time. But I know Edgars wouldn’t approve, so I told her it was our little secret.”

  “Ah.” She gave a pleased nod, and there was a definite quality to it, as if she had decided on something important. “Good evening, my lord.”

  As she walked from the room, slim, diminutive, with the figure and bearing of a lady, he finally understood Edgars’ demeanor the day he’d hired her.

  Just like she’d done to his butler, his cook had picked him up like a bottle of champagne and shaken him vigorously, and now, at last back down on his feet, he could only stumble about, ready to explode.

  It was a sensation he suddenly craved again.

  * * *

  She did remember him. Or she remembered an impression of him.

  How could she forget? She had thought him the most handsome man she’d ever seen. Tall, with dark blond hair, his shoulders so wide and his eyes so blue.

  He had changed enough she would never have known him out of context. He was a lot taller now, and bulkier—more muscled. A man in his late twenties, not a boy of seventeen. But at the time she had been only ten, and he had seemed like a man to her then. A man with eyes only for her mother.

  Despite everything—her mother’s death, her father’s murder—the thought of him, that long-ago day, making calf eyes at her mother, along with his father and older brother, made her lips twitch. She had been quite invisible. Not one of the Aldridge men had even known she existed, despite her mother’s attempts to draw her into the conversation.

  Seeing him again brought back the memory, as clear as if it had just happened, and that was getting rarer as time moved on. She was grateful and delighted.

  Her mother had claimed the limelight, as she should, but even when she’d all but placed Gigi on her lap to keep her included, the viscount and his two sons had had eyes for no one else.

  Gigi and her mother had giggled like schoolgirls about it on their short walk home, about how the three men, father and sons, had vied for her mother’s attention.

  “One day it will be you, ma chère, who will have the men fighting each other to hand you cakes and give you cups of tea. One day all too soon.” Her mother had stroked her hair and kissed the top of her head, holding her close with one arm.

  It was the last time they went out to tea together. Her mother had fallen ill the following week, and the worst six months of Gigi’s life had begun.

  At least she could be sure that Lord Aldridge would have no recollection of her. He wouldn’t even remember she’d been present that day.

  She sighed as she took the stairs down to the kitchens. He certainly knew she existed now. And she knew he was suspicious of her. For the time being, he’d respected the wall she’d flung up between them, but it might not last.

  She would have to keep a low profile. Become invisible, hiding in her new domain.

  She stepped into the k
itchen to find Babs and Mavis drying and putting the dishes away while Iris washed them.

  The kitchen looked much cleaner than it had this morning, and she gave a nod, rolling her shoulders to loosen the knot of tension that had settled in her upper back. “Bien.”

  She handed the crystal cup to Babs and started making the dough for tomorrow morning’s brioche, ignoring the interested looks of the girls, who were obviously desperate to know how her talk with his lordship had gone.

  She was in a strange situation. Edgars had said there wasn’t enough for the maids and footmen to do, with so much of the house closed up, so she could have their help as she needed it. It meant they would have two masters, herself and Edgars.

  She couldn’t get too friendly with them, if she had to give them orders. But she didn’t want to live in isolation, a fierce dictator like Georges.

  The sound of the front door closing came from the floor above—his lordship going out for the night.

  And for the first time since dinner began, Gigi let herself relax. She worked the dough and then set it in a bowl near the fire for the first rise.

  “You’re not going to make the bread now, are you?” Iris asked, and Gigi looked up to see she was the only one left in the kitchen, putting away the last of the pots.

  “No. It needs a first, quick rise in the warmth, then I’ll punch it down and set it in the cold store to rise again slowly, overnight.”

  Iris gave a nod. She moved toward the passageway that would take her to the servants’ staircase, up to her room at the very top of the house, but slowly, as if she was working up the nerve to say something before she left. “About Mavis.” She stopped and bit her lip.

  “It’s all right.” Gigi waved a floury hand in her direction. “I should have realized it involved food, the way she attacked her dinner.”

  “Wot?” Iris frowned.

  “I questioned his lordship during our little chat.” Gigi dipped her hands into the cold water in the sink, and rubbed them to get the dough off. She pronounced little as leetle and nearly snorted at herself. Really, her mother would be laughing so hard she’d be crying if she could hear this.

  “You . . . asked Lord Aldridge what he was up to with Mavis?” Iris’s voice was strained.

  Gigi gave a nod, turning to look at her over her shoulder. “He sneaks her his bonbons. Says he can’t stand them, and he can’t stand to see her so thin.” She finished washing her hands and picked up a cloth to dry them with. “He’s not doing anything that he shouldn’t be doing.”

  “He just told you, straight out?”

  “Yes.” Gigi shrugged. “Why wouldn’t he?”

  “I don’t know.” Iris backed away. “Maybe because he’s Lord Aldridge. And he can do whatever the hell he likes.”

  Gigi paused. Gave another shrug. “I don’t really care who he is. If he was abusing Mavis, I wanted to know about it.”

  “Cor.” Iris finally stood just within the passageway. “I ’eard the French don’t care for their nobs. Guess that’s right.”

  Gigi lifted her head, startled. “I don’t mean it like that.”

  But Iris was already gone, and Gigi was staring at the dark shadow of the doorway.

  She shook her head. It was true, anyway. The French most certainly didn’t care for their nobs.

  She knew that full well, her mother being one of the nobs they had wanted to kill.

  6

  “Are you humming?” Durnham looked up from the glass of whisky in his hand and waited for Jonathan to take a seat opposite him.

  Jonathan grinned, making himself comfortable in the large, overstuffed armchair tucked in a quiet, dim corner of the club.

  Durnham caught the smile and lifted a brow. “Bit late for dinner, too, aren’t you?”

  “If I play my cards right, I’ll never have to eat the slop they pass off as dinner here ever again.” Jonathan stretched out his legs and placed both hands on his stomach.

  Durnham leaned forward. “Finally found a French chef, eh?”

  “A French cook, actually. And I can’t see how the meal she produced this evening could possibly be improved upon.”

  “She trustworthy? You know where she’s from?” An edge crept into Durnham’s tone.

  Jonathan stilled and then straightened in his chair. “What do you mean by that?”

  “I don’t need to tell you we’re at war with France. You’re a member of the House, and it’s widely known you’ve been looking for a French chef for months. If they could sneak a spy across—which we know they can—it’s conceivable they could plant one in your house. Even if they didn’t know you’ve started working for me and Dervish on the side, you’d still be a source of useful information, if you were careless with leaving papers about the house.”

  Jonathan narrowed his eyes. “I’m never careless.”

  Durnham shrugged. “It was just a word of caution. I can have her checked, if you like. Ask the Alien Office to take an interest.”

  Jonathan sat forward, his hands fisted on his knees. “Let me get this straight, Durnham. You want me to agree to subject the woman who prepared me a meal I’d be happy to get in heaven itself to the suspicious, ham-fisted idiots of the Alien Office, just in case, being French, she is here to spy on a viscount with barely any influence in government and who knows almost nothing?”

  Durnham pursed his lips. “You don’t know almost nothing. You know more than a little about certain aspects of the war, and we’re grateful for your help. How old is this cook, and how good is her English?”

  Jonathan hesitated. And it wasn’t because of her distinct lack of enthusiasm for answering perfectly reasonable questions, damn it. He took a breath. “Her English is excellent. She’s spent quite some time here, I’d guess. She is also hardly a day over twenty.”

  He thought back to his meeting with Madame Levéel an hour ago; the way her eyes had refused to meet his when he asked for her former place of work. And the first, niggling worm of doubt began to eat at him. “You can really ruin a man’s mood, Durnham.” He flopped back into his chair.

  “She pretty?” Durnham asked, and there was something in his expression that shot a bolt of searing anger through Jonathan.

  And possibly, shame.

  “God damn you. Yes. She’s beautiful. Stunningly beautiful. And there’s something about her. I’m almost sure she’s familiar to me, but I can’t place her.”

  Durnham crossed his arms over his chest. “What were her references?”

  Jonathan stood and was shocked to find his hands were shaking. “I didn’t see them myself, but they were from the Duke of Wittaker’s chef, Georges Bisset.” He pointed a finger at Durnham.

  “Whatever plans you had for me on the committee, you can strike me off the list. If assisting the Crown means I have to answer to someone every time I hire a servant, and have insinuations about my conduct and relationships with my staff leveled at me in my own club, then—”

  “Jonathan, I’m sorry.” Durnham leaned back and rubbed his hands over his face. For the first time, Jonathan could see he was hollow-eyed. “Sit. Please.”

  Very reluctantly, he complied, drumming a heel on the floor to help work off the anger.

  “I’m the least diplomatic person in London, you know that. I didn’t mean to insult you or ruin your mood.” Durnham sighed. “My wife is the only person who seems to delight in my blunt talk, and even then, I’ve managed to anger her a time or two.”

  He looked down at his hands. “That’s why I’m here right now, truth be told. I’ve more or less been kicked out until she cools off.” He looked up again. “I’m dealing with a hell of a mess at the moment, involving the death of someone I respected very much, and I can’t seem to put a brake on my mouth. I just meant, be careful. That’s all. If you knew some of the things I do. . . . Well, just be careful. I don’t need another friend dead while in the service of his country. Someone just doing us a favor, killed in cold blood.”

  Jonathan blew out a long breath
. “Apology accepted. Can I help you with this matter?”

  Durnham looked past him, and Jonathan turned to see Lord Dervish coming in the door. He searched the room, turning slowly, as if the walk up the stairs had exhausted him. When he saw them, he lifted his brows and walked over.

  As he came closer, Jonathan could see the lines bracketing his mouth were deeper than usual, and there were dark smudges under his eyes, a match to Durnham’s. He took the last chair in the grouping, almost falling into it, and Jonathan had the sense of a meeting called to order.

  “Aldridge doesn’t know yet,” Durnham said. He lifted his whisky and tipped the last of it down his throat.

  “Do you know Sir Eric Barrington?” Dervish asked, turning in his chair a little to face Jonathan. “The folklorist?”

  “Barrington?” Jonathan nodded. “Yes. Lives a few houses down from me. Although he’s hardly ever there.”

  “Does he?” Durnham sat straighter. “That might be useful.”

  “Useful for what?”

  “We may need to watch his house.”

  “What the devil for?” Jonathan tried to remember Barrington. A man of medium height, with an intense intelligence burning in his eyes. It had been years since he’d seen him. He’d seen his wife only a few times as well, before she’d died suddenly and tragically. She and her husband had attended the usual balls, and his father had invited her to tea once, he remembered. One of the kindest and most beautiful women he’d ever met.

  Something tugged at his memory, just like earlier when he’d spoken to his cook, but was every bit as elusive as it had been then. He put the connection down to them both being beautiful and French. “I can’t believe Barrington would have done anything to warrant suspicion.”

  Dervish shook his head. “Barrington is—was—one of the most loyal men I’ve ever worked with. Although he didn’t actually work for the Crown, he just lent a hand now and then, when needed. Because of his studies and the places they took him, he was often in a country where it was useful to have a man on the ground, or else he was going from one place to another when it was useful to have someone above suspicion carry a message or document.” Dervish rubbed his temples with stiff fingers.