He set down the candlestick and switched on the gas lamp. The small kitchen was more or less the same, yet altogether different. Someone had cracked a hard whip, for he’d never seen the place so spotless; even the narrow slats of usually blurry windows, set high in the wall and looking out to the surface of the road, glistened like a newborn’s eyes.
The disheveled collection of pots and pans on the dresser had been replaced by heavy cast-iron skillets and gleaming copper molds. The stoves, otherwise cold at this hour of the night, heated not one but two stockpots of broth. On the narrow worktable at the center of the kitchen rested a large round bowl, containing a spongy-looking piece of rising dough covered by a moist towel—Mrs. Abercromby, an admittedly weak baker, preferred to purchase bread from a nearby bakery.
In the holding cabinet where leftovers from the servants’ dinner were kept, there was no fried sole, no roasted venison, no gratinéed potatoes or flambéed fruit. His imagination had indeed been getting the better of him. Instead, there was a small beef pie baked in its own ramekin, stewed celery, and a modest portion of apple suet pudding—humble foods, and emphatically not French.
He broke off a piece of the beef pie’s crust. It melted in his mouth, crispy, flaky, its underside moist with flecks of a perfect gravy that made all the other gravies he’d ever had in his life seem either as heavy as macadam or as thin and listless as the heroine of a gothic novel.
He closed his eyes as the flavors rippled. Before Madame Durant, he couldn’t remember the last time sensual enjoyment so overtook him, and so powerfully focused his attention on the corporeal side of his existence.
Trying a piece of the stewed celery, he sighed again. She had a marvelous touch with vegetables.
He ate half of the beef pie, most of the stewed celery, and all of the suet pudding—it was simple, homey, and welcome, like the sight of a cottage with smoke rising from its chimney to a traveler who’d been lost days in the wilds.
And therein lay the danger of Madame Durant and her cooking—not that it was delectable, but that it was evocative, and made him think far beyond food. The rediscovery of taste was as perilous as he’d feared it would be, rousing other dormant, dangerous longings for everything he did not have, everything he’d hoped to hold dear and could not.
Her, of course; her always. His mother, who promised him that she would visit often and never did. His brother, who’d once been a brother, not an enemy. All loved, all lost, all gone, leaving only him to remember them in the dead of the night, hungry no matter how much he ate.
Chapter Eleven
As Lizzy’s afternoon would be taken up receiving calls of congratulations, Mr. Marsden came in the morning. She took great care with her toilette and selected an especially fetching gown. She told herself it was because she always felt more powerful when she looked more beautiful—only to be peeved when he sat down to business with scarcely a glance at her. “I’d like for us to divide the tasks today,” said he. On the index finger of his right hand, he wore a heavy gold ring in the shape of a lion’s head. The lion had rubies for eyes. “I’m sure the last thing either of us wanted is to work in duplicate.”
“Certainly not,” Lizzy said.
No, the last thing either of them wanted was to be revealed for who they were beneath the facades they presented.
“I’ve made a preliminary list of items needing attention.” He pulled out a longish list. “I assume that you’ll wish to take in hand matters pertaining to your gown, your trousseau, and your personal ornamentation.”
“Quite so.”
“And I assume you’ll want to delegate the wedding breakfast to Madame Durant? There is no other cook to rival her in all of England, unless it is Monsieur Escoffier of the Savoy perhaps.”
Did she hear an odd inflection in his voice? The last time he’d mentioned Madame Durant, it had been in conjunction with the innuendo that Lizzy might like to bed the somewhat notorious woman.
“I’m amenable to the idea, but I will need to approve of the menu.”
“I will make your wishes known to Madame Durant. And ask whether she can take on the wedding cake too.” He uncapped a pen and jotted down a few words. The ruby eyes of the golden lion glittered as he scratched away. “St. George, Hanover Square for the wedding?”
“Yes.”
The church was just down St. George Street, a stone’s throw away. Her family had been in attendance for generations.
“I’ll have a date reserved. Banns or license?”
“License, of course.” Everyone who was anyone married by special license.
Mr. Marsden made further notations.
From the public gallery, she’d watched Stuart give speeches in the House of Commons—Stuart at work was very much the same man he was at leisure, thoughtful and measured. Mr. Marsden, however, was a different man altogether.