The Made Marriage (9 page)

‘But of course! All the Denzzanis can cook! Our hotel is famous in Italy. Epicures come from all parts of the world to taste our cuisine.’

Owen gave his slow and infrequent grin. ‘But then I’m not an epicure.’

‘No, you are not,’ she answered with candour, ‘but nevertheless you will enjoy my cooking. And now you must remove those great bones from the table and Kate will arrange the table in the dining-room while I add the finishing touches and dish up.’

Again Owen gave his fleeting grin as he straightened. ‘It comes as rather a shock to see that not only are you, as I said, beautiful, but a force to be reckoned with when it comes to domesticity. In fact, you’re full of surprises!’

For a moment she regarded him enigmatically beneath the silky fringe of her lashes. ‘Perhaps I shall surprise you even more one of these days,’ she replied softly.

There was a moment’s silence and Kate saw them exchange a long glance. Now that I’ve fulfilled my role as scullerymaid I’m expected to disappear and leave them to each other’s company, she thought resentfully.

It was then that Owen seemed to take notice of her presence. ‘The men will be in shortly for their meal. Isn’t it time you got things prepared for them and the eggs boiling?’

Utterly taken aback and too flustered to defend herself and point out that she had spent her time in attending Doretta, Kate remained silent.

‘There must be no eggs this evening,’ Doretta put in firmly. ‘The men shall have my risotto for a change and they will love it, you may be sure.’ She made a moue. ‘Eggs, eggs—have Irishmen no imagination?’

‘Perhaps when it comes to yourself you’ll find they have a little too much,’ Owen said dryly.

She gave a gurgle of laughter. 'And now you are being naughty, and I should not have expected that of you. Nicky perhaps, but not the stern serious Owen Lawlor
!’

‘All right,’ Owen said, ‘try your concoction on the men, but I won’t guarantee that they’ll like it.’

‘Oh, but they will,’ she said confidently. ‘It is simply that they have never had the opportunity to try anything else.’

‘Perhaps,’ he conceded doubtfully.

‘No perhaps,’ she said firmly, ‘I know it. There will be no need to lay out eggcups, Kate,’ she said authoritatively. ‘For once the men will taste Italian cooking at its best.’

Kate understood her employer’s temperament well enough by this time to know that although he was faintly irritated by the Italian girl’s attitude he was also considerably intrigued, and as she laid the table she felt growing resentment. So all her efforts to understand and cope with the strange idiosyncrasies and habits of this Irish household had been easily discounted by an Italian beauty in a becoming smock and an imperious air! Fuming, she laid out plates, knives and forks, instead of the eggcups that were an unvarying feature of the men’s evening meal. To her annoyance too the risotto was declared ready just as the men arrived, and she saw their look of pleased amazement as they filed in and as usual placed their caps under their chairs.

Doretta smiled on them brilliantly as she piled a serving dish with the steaming yellow-tinted rice. ‘This evening you are to have an Italian dish,’ she announced. ‘I know you will love it, and I have shown Kate how to make it.’

‘Thank you, ma’am,’ Mick said courteously. ‘Sure it looks grand.’

With another brilliant smile, which she distributed
impartially around the table, Doretta took Owen’s arm possessively
and departed for the dining-room.

As Kate followed, bearing another dish of the pungent concoction, she saw the men gaze in suspicious silence at the steaming plate of saffron-tinted rice.

At the dining-room table she listened with only half an ear as Doretta chatted happily during the meal. She was obviously delighted when Owen asked for a second helping of the risotto and seemed supremely confident that the men would show equal enthusiasm for her efforts. Kate, however, knew from experience that the men were extremely conservative when it came to their taste in foods and preferred meals they had become accustomed to since childhood, and as soon as she got the opportunity she slipped back to the kitchen.

When she opened the door she was met by a tableau of extreme gloom. The men were sitting silently in their places, the dish of risotto untouched except for a minute portion on Mick’s plate. As the eldest he had apparently volunteered to sample the strange foreign food, and when they had received his discouraging judgment the others had refrained from helping themselves.

They turned hopefully as Kate entered. She was someone to whom they could express themselves freely and they greeted her arrival with enthusiasm.

‘You
don’t
care for the risotto
?
’ she ventured unnecessarily.

‘Risotto, so that’s what it’s called! Well, it do have a powerful horrible taste,’ Mick announced portentously. All his good-humour seemed to have deserted him. ‘It would put you in mind of onions, and it’s sugar I have with my rice pudding.’

‘No doubt the foreign lady meant well,’ Dan put in soothingly, although he too appeared depressed.

‘Well, what would you like instead?’ Kate asked a little helplessly.

‘
There’s a nice piece of cold pig’s cheek in the larder. I seen it when I passed the door,’ Joe said slyly.

‘I was keeping that for tomorrow,’ Kate said doubtfully.

‘There’s no point in doing that, miss,’ Dan pointed out, ‘for it’s my belief if we was to eat
t
hat yellow stuff there would be none of us here tomorrow. It’s to our wake you’d be coming.’

There was a short pause as the men brooded gloomily on this dire prophecy, and Kate had to rush to the pantry to hide her laughter.

However, her amusement was short-lived, for as she sliced the pig’s cheek and supplied the men with thick slices of soda-bread and their beloved strong black tea it occurred to her that Doretta no doubt before her departure would visit the kitchen to bask in the praise and admiration she would be so certain the men would bestow on her for providing them with such a delicious and exotic meal. She whisked the plate of now cold and congealed risotto from the table and placed it on a shelf on the dresser. Later on when the coast was clear, she would dispose of it, she told herself and hoped fervently that the men would be finished and all traces of the pig’s cheek cleared away before Doretta descended on them.

But to her dismay the men dawdled over their meal and showed no signs of departing. Dan took out his pipe and lit up and, obviously relieved at the happy outcome of what they regarded as a distressing and embarrassing incident, they began to discuss the state of the crops and the affairs of the neighbouring fanners.

It was as Kate was pouring Mick’s fourth mug of tea that there came the sound of trilling laughter from the kitchen passage and Owen’s answering amused tones; the door was pushed open and Doretta, radiant and smiling, stood in the threshold. She looked, Kate decided, like a great actress confidently awaiting the tumultuous applause of her worshipping audience.

At her entrance all laughter and chatter ceased abruptly and an uncomfortable silence fell on the men about the. table.

Doretta’s smile slowly faded as her glance went to the remains of the pig’s cheek, standing conspicuously in the centre of the table. ‘So,’ she said slowly, ‘you no like my cooking and instead Kate gives you this—this—’ As usual in times of stress she seemed temporarily to lose her command of English.

‘Pig’s cheek, miss,’ Joe told her helpfully.

‘Pig’s cheek
!’
Doretta repeated disdainfully. ‘So this barbaric food is preferred to my risotto?’

‘Well, not entirely, miss—’ Dan was beginning conciliatingly when he was interrupted by the sound of a crash from the direction of the dresser and they watched fascinated as the piled dish of risotto crashed to the floor as though propelled by a supernatural agency. They waited in silence as Bedsocks emerged backwards from the shelf, her white paws and whiskers liberally bespattered with yellow rice. Joe gave a guffaw of laughter, then suppressed it as Dan glanced at him severely.

Doretta drew in her breath with a hiss and her face darkened with rage. ‘So my cooking is only good enough for your cat
!’
she shrilled. ‘This is the reason why you leave the table so quietly so that you can insult me by feeding your wretched pet on my risotto
!
I am a fool to waste my time preparing a dish for your cat!’ In her rage and frustration she looked more beautiful than ever. She then dissolved into a spate of Italian, and although they were unable to understand the language no one was in any doubt that her words were anything but complimentary. She then dissolved into a flood of tears.

With muttered excuses the men took their caps from under their chairs and eased as silently and inconspicuously from the kitchen as possible.

How like Doretta to look radiantly beautiful even in floods of tears! Kate thought. Now if I were crying I’d look like a red-eyed lobster! But not Doretta! She somehow managed to look even more beautiful, her eyes like brilliant dark jewels.

Gently Owen put his arm about the weeping girl and led her from the kitchen. But before he left he turned and surveyed Kate frowningly. ‘I’ll talk to you later, Kate. It’s not a Lawlor tradition to be gratuitously insulting to a guest. I think you have some explaining to do.’

Kate swallowed, at a loss for words at the unexpectedness of the attack. Did he really believe Doretta’s ridiculous accusation that she had deliberately fed the risotto to Bedsocks
?
Surely he knew as well as she did how intolerant the men were of any change in their regimen? But as she opened her mouth to defend herself he shut
the
door firmly behind him, leaving Kate, furious and frustrated, to wash up.

Angrily she clashed the dishes in the large aluminium basin. No doubt Doretta’s tears had already dried up, now that she had manoeuvred to obtain Owen’s full attention, and was seated cosily across the fire from him in the small sitting-room, discussing plans for the coming trip to Blarney.

Gradually her anger evaporated and as she slowly dried the dishes she felt a growing pity for herself. It would have been nice to have kissed the Blarney stone, something to mention in her letters to Margot, and perhaps too, she thought a little acidly, it would have given her the ability to spring to her own defence. The domestic help, however, was not to be included in the outing, but then he hadn’t wanted her in any capacity to start with. Perhaps it would be as well if Mrs. Murphy recovered as soon as possible and she were to regain her freedom. For a moment she gloried in the thought of telling Mr. Owen Lawlor just what she thought of him before shaking the dust of Laragh from her heels. Then she had to re-wipe a plate, for somehow, unaccountably, a tear had dropped.

Later, when she had tidied up the kitchen and was passing through the hall, Kate saw through the open hall door Owen getting into the big Fitzpatrick car with Doretta. So he was taking the opportunity to drive her back to Ballyfeeny! As the sound of the engine died away, somehow the idea of retiring to her room no longer appealed to her. She was alone in the house now, her difference with Owen still unresolved, and in spite of her indignation at
h
is attitude, she felt restless and unsettled.

She wandered into the sitting-room where the embers of the wood fire still glowed red. Owen and Doretta had sat chatting by it in the cretonne-covered armchairs while she had worked in the kitchen, she thought sombrely. She scanned the small bookcase beside the window. She would take a book up to bed, she decided. But
w
hen she surveyed the contents her heart sank. It was typical of Owen Lawlor that his reading matter was that of a man who so despised romance that his bookshelves contained nothing but farming journals and depressingly heavy volumes in gilt red leather. There was nothing here that would hold her interest, she decided. Then her eye was caught by a woman’s magazine tucked underneath a pile of geographical journals. No doubt something left behind by Mrs. Murphy or by one of her predecessors, thought Kate, for it was certainly not the type of reading material her employer would approve of. As she riffled through it her eye was caught by an attractive recipe for a casserole dish: it looked the sort of meal the men might approve of. She stretched out on the sofa and tucked a cushion behind her head. It would be more cheerful to read it here than in the isolation of her room and she would make certain to disappear before Owen had strolled back from Ballyfeeny by the numerous short cuts through fields and leafy laneways.

In spite of her resolutions she had not read more than three or four paragraphs when the cosy glow from the red embers of the fire and fatigue from the emotional wear and tear of the day lulled her to sleep and the glossy cover of the magazine slipped from her lap.

It was quite dark when she awoke with the startled feeling that she was no longer alone. As her eyes blinked open with sudden alarm she saw that Owen was standing over her regarding her in silence. She jerked upright, alarmed at his silent scrutiny. His eyes looked different, she thought bemusedly: somehow they had lost their steely expression. ‘I must have fallen asleep,’ she muttered confusedly. ‘I didn’t intend—’ She stopped
abruptly
as she realised that, with her mind clouded with sleep, she had been on the point of saying that
s
he
had intended to reach the security of her room before his return.

She saw him straighten, his grey eyes resuming their habitual expression of cold detachment.

‘
You mean you intended to scut
tl
e up to your room, safely out of my way, so that you wouldn’t have to explain your discourteous behaviour to my guest?’ He glanced at the magazine on the rug. ‘However, your fatal propensity for romance seems to have betrayed you.’

Following his gaze, Kate saw that it had fallen open at a colourful illustration of a girl and boy wrapped in a close embrace.

‘I was reading a cookery recipe,
’
she said with dignity. ‘And now I think I’ll go to my room.’

She swung her legs on to the floor and attempted to get to her feet, only to find herself pushed back on to the settee by Owen’s none too gentle hands.

‘
You’ll do nothing of the sort until you explain your gratuitous insult to Doretta.’

Her intention of withdrawing from the situation completely disorganised by this arbitrary manoeuvre, Kate blinked up at him in confusion. ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she said lamely.

‘Oh yes, you do! Do you think it was showing courteousness to our guest to allow Bedsocks to consume the meal she had taken time and trouble to make? It was a pretty obvious attempt to insult her. However, I must say she took it very well. She made light of the whole wretched business and didn’t refer to it again, which I think, all things considered, was pretty big of her.’

Kate sniffed. Yes, she could imagine Doretta being all generous and forgiving, no doubt begging Owen not to think too harshly of his new domestic help, her dark eyes doe-like and pleading in the leaping flames of the wood fire! Apart from that she would have more interesting things to discuss with her host—for instance, the forthcoming trip to Blarney! However, Kate forbore to say .these things, as
she
had the feeling that in his present mood her employer would not receive any criticism of his charming guest sympathetically.

‘How should I know Bedsocks would eat her risotto? I deliberately put it in the dresser as I guessed she would come in for—’ Kate gulped down the words that rose to her lips. For applause, she had been on the point of saying, but had realised just in time that it would be, considering the circumstances, an unfortunate choice of words. ‘I guessed she’d come into the kitchen before she left,’ she ended hurriedly.

Owen frowned. He distrusted the innocent expression and her obvious evasion.
‘
You don’t make sense,’ he said abruptly. ‘What on earth was it doing on the dresser instead of being on the table so that the men could help themselves?’

‘Because they didn’t want to help themselves,’ Kate announced triumphantly, so that he found himself resisting the temptation to give her a sound shaking.

‘
You see,’ Kate continued, ‘the men simply hated it: they said it tasted like rice pudding with onions—at least,’ she added with an air of strict veracity, ‘Mick did.’

‘Then Mick’s a fool,’ Owen said shortly. ‘I found it delicious.’

‘But
they
didn’t,’ Kate pointed out, ‘and as Joe had spotted the pig’s cheek I had in the larder, there was nothing I could do but let them have it. I had intended serving it tomorrow,’ she added with an air of virtue.

‘Well, why in heaven’s name didn’t you?’ he gritted.
‘
You would have found Joe wouldn’t have been so finicky if he’d realised there was nothing else on the menu.’

‘I don’t believe they would have taken it,’ she said defensively. ‘It’s the sort of dish the men hate. I know their likes and dislikes now and can almost tell when I read a
recipe if it’s the sort of thing they would really enjoy.’

‘Well, must you be so smug about it?’ In exasperation he swung around and surveyed the dying fire, then, with more violence than was necessary, hurled a log on to the embers so that a shower of vermilion sparks darted up the wide chimney.

Sudden tears started to her eyes. If only her employer would treat her with even a modicum of the courtesy he showed to Doretta Denzzani her situation would be made so much more tolerable. But then
w
hy should he? As far as he was concerned she was an unwanted incubus foisted on him by Nicky’s trickery. To a man like Owen there would be no reason why he should dissimulate, or attempt to hide the fact that he found her presence a continual exasperation. She felt a tear trickle slowly down her cheek and was glad that darkness hid it from his keen eyes.

For a moment longer he kept his back towards her, frowning thoughtfully at the leaping flames that were now licking around the rough bark of the beech log. Then, turning, he pulled down the brass oil lamp that hung on a weighted chain from the ceiling. ‘It’s time we lit up. I find it most unsatisfactory to conduct a row in the dark.’ He sounded wry and with only a faint hint of his former exasperation.

As he removed the glass chimney and applied a light to the wick Kate took the opportunity hastily to buff her eyes. Not for worlds would she let him see how vulnerable she was to his displeasure and how she longed for his approval.

As the light grew stronger gradually even the lingering shadows were filled with a warm mellow glow. It was one of those cosy old rooms that creak with use and age like a galleon. Even in winter should the storms howl about Laragh it would be a calm haven, and here for centuries the Lawlors had lived and farmed. Here was a security she had never known, how impossible for Owen to fathom the misery and isolation she felt or guess how she longed to bask in the warmth of his approval! Yet pride made her hold back the tears. Slowly she got to her feet. ‘I’ll go upstairs now,’ she said dully. ‘I expect you have the books to do.’

‘No, not tonight.’ He watched her thoughtfully as she walked towards the door. ‘By the way, you’ve forgotten your magazine. You’ll have no nice consoling romance to lull yourself to sleep with.’ As he bent down and retrieved the magazine, he sounded quizzical and faintly puzzled. All fight had suddenly left her and there was a listless droop to her shoulders.

She paused at the door without turning. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said. In spite of her efforts, she knew her voice sounded stifled and unnatural. ‘I really won’t have time for reading. I’m going to be frightfully busy tomorrow. It’s high time I began the spring-cleaning.’

‘Damn the spring-cleaning!’ he said harshly.

Surprise made her swing around, her mouth forming an O, her eyes wide and shining with the tears that had barely dried.

For an instant silence lay between them, then he said brusquely, ‘So you’ve been crying!’

She was on the point of protesting when he said with a return of something of his old acerbity, ‘And don’t pretend you haven’t been! I think I know you well enough to know when you’ve been crying.’

Kate shook her head and blinked rapidly. There was something in his voice that seemed to break down all her defences and she had the horrifying conviction that if he continued to speak to her in that particular way She would burst into floods of tears. Better to hold on to her dignity
and retreat to her room with banners flying. ‘I expect I’m I tired,’ she said with an attempt at hauteur, and turned once more towards the door.

In two strides he was beside her and catching her by the shoulders had turned her towards him. ‘Yes, you have been crying
:
your eyes are big and shiny. So don’t deny it!’ Surprise at his words held her in momentary confusion. How strange that a man like Owen Lawlor
s
hould have noticed that tears made her eyes large and shiny! Yet caution made her hold herself rigid and upright.

He felt a faint grudging admiration as he saw the proud tilt to her chin. So there was much more to Kate Norbert than he had bargained for! He had always suspected that, but the knowledge gave him a strange irrational desire to find out what went on under that thatch of honey-coloured hair. ‘So I’ve been rude,’ he said hoarsely. ‘But then don’t you consider that Doretta is a girl well worth defending?’

The words, she knew, were a test, and she resisted the temptation to lean her head on his broad shoulder and burst into releasing tears. His eyes were close to hers, piercing and challenging, and she tried to hold her voice steady as she said, ‘But of course she’s very charming and beautiful, but it really wasn’t my fault the men hated her cooking. I didn’t do it out of malice or jealousy. As your employee it’s my duty to feed the men and run your house and I’m simply trying to do it to the best of my ability.’

In spite of her efforts her voice gave a betraying quaver and with a sudden movement he pulled her towards him. ‘Dear, earnest little abigail
!’
His voice was harshly tender. Then, as suddenly, he pushed her away from him so that she staggered back and clutched at an armchair for support. ‘Perhaps it’s time Aunt Florrie made her appearance.’ His voice held his usual sardonic tones as he turned and
began to fill his pipe from a green majolica jar on the fireside table.

Kate gazed at him in dazed wonder. Had he really taken her in his arms and called her his little abigail? Somehow those dry tones seemed to belie the whole incident.

She walked up to her room in a dream, then closing the door leaned against it feeling a warm happiness suffuse her whole being. It was as though she could once again hear the brusque tenderness of his voice as he held her against him.