A Taste for Scandal (17 page)

“Still recovering from a scratch, my lord? I’d be concerned about your constitution, were I you.”

“Perhaps a good, hearty tea biscuit will help to improve my constitution. I’m convinced a good sweet can cure just about anything.”

This time, things went decidedly better than last. No injuries, no food on the floor or spills on the table. The only moderately difficult part had been the beating of the egg, but even that went more smoothly. Lady Beatrice whisked for a good three minutes before giving in and handing the bowl to Jane, while Raleigh made it to the end this time, though he couldn’t hide the sweat dotting his forehead. She would have said it was hard to bungle a recipe with only eggs, flour, sugar, and lemon rind for ingredients, but last week had proven that wrong.

“Very, very well done, you two.” She smiled in approval at each of them in turn, trying not to linger on Raleigh’s wide, pleased grin. He truly seemed to be enjoying himself. “Now carefully spoon the batter into the buttered pans, filling to about half full.”

Unsurprisingly, Raleigh moved quickly, seemingly unconcerned with the drops of batter dotting the pan, while his sister proceeded with exaggerated caution, slowly but neatly filling each one.

Finishing first, Raleigh lifted the spoon to his lips and took a little taste. “Mmm, that is incredibly delicious.”

Jane wrinkled her nose. “Don’t eat that, my lord—it has raw eggs in it.”

“It is only a little taste, surely it won’t hurt. Haven’t you ever enjoyed the batter?”

Memories of licking the spoon handed to her by her mother flitted through her mind.
Just a taste, Janey.
She smiled softly and nodded. “Once upon a time.”

“Well, since you are still living, surely it can’t be such a bad thing.” He set down the spoon and swiped a finger along the side of the bowl before popping it in his mouth. He closed his eyes and breathed a sigh of pure bliss.

Jane bit her lip against the sudden pounding of her heart. For some reason, she felt as though she was witnessing something she shouldn’t.

“There, all done,” Lady Beatrice announced, dropping her spoon into the bowl with a clatter. The odd moment was broken, and Jane breathed a quiet sigh of relief.

“All right, into the oven they go,” she said, avoiding looking at the earl. Honestly, the man was going to be the death of her nerves. Why did her overactive imagination have to seize onto everything he did?

She opened the oven door and stepped back, allowing them to put their own pans in this week. As gingerly as if she were threading a needle, Lady Beatrice slid her pan in, standing as far away as she could while still reaching the oven door. She turned and grinned, rubbing her hands together.

“I can hardly wait for them to be done—they look so good!” She moved sideways to make room for her brother to add his pan into the oven as well. “I loved the puffs last week, but biscuits are my true weakness.” She took a step toward the worktable, but jerked to a halt as the fabric of her skirt caught beneath her brother’s shoe.

Raleigh, who had been pushing his own pan into the oven, jolted up at her squeak of dismay. In an instant, his arm touched the searingly hot metal of the top of oven, and he howled and jumped back, bending over in pain. “Bloody hell,” he growled through clenched teeth as he covered the wound with his hand.

“Oh my goodness, Richard!” Lady Beatrice exclaimed, rushing to his side but not seeming to know what to do once she got there.

Jane burst into motion, first snapping the oven door shut to prevent further injury before guiding the earl to the nearest stool. Her heart thundered in her ears—she’d done this too many times not to know how awful it felt. “It’s all right,” she soothed, gently tugging his hand away. “Let me have a closer look.”

He resisted her efforts, sucking in harsh breaths between gritted teeth. Jane’s heart went out to him and she bent down to try to catch his eye. When he finally looked up, she slipped her hand over his and held his gaze. “Trust me, my lord. I know how to help.”

He hesitated before giving a quick nod and allowed her to pull his hand away from his injured forearm. The wound he revealed was a two-inch-long bright red line, already beginning to bubble. It looked as though someone had dropped a hot iron across the top of his arm. She cringed at the sight—she knew
exactly
what it felt like.

“Lady Beatrice,” she said over her shoulder, “I’ve some salve in a tin in the larder. Would you mind very much fetching it for me? It’s on one of the shelves toward the back.”

“Yes, of course.” She scurried away, eager to do something to help her brother.

Raleigh took a deep breath, his muscles flexing beneath Jane’s fingers as she turned his arm for a better view. His crisp, citrusy scent teased her senses, even as she tried to remain clinical in her inspection.

“You must think me the clumsiest man in all of Britain,” he said, his voice gruff despite his clear effort to infuse levity.

She smiled and shook her head. “Of course not. Perhaps in London, but certainly not the whole country.”

This earned her a small chuckle. “My, how kind of you to say.” He breathed out a gust of air, clenching the fingers of his right hand into a fist. “I’ve never been burned before. I don’t think I’ve ever felt anything quite so painful in my life.”

“Not even a grated finger?”

“Well, there is that. Fate worse than death, and all that. Somehow, however, I don’t think this will heal quite so quickly.”

He was right about that. She lifted her arms to his view so he could see the scars branding her forearms. “Not so quickly, and definitely not so pretty.”

Richard drew in a breath, noticing for the first time the faint lines marring her beautiful skin. It seemed a travesty. Without thinking, he reached out and traced the darkest one, its edges slightly puckered against the smooth silk of her skin. She held utterly still, not even seeming to breathe as he explored the scars her profession had wrought.

She was a warrior, his little baker. New admiration filled his chest, pushing back against the pain that pulsed in his arm. To some, the scars may have looked ugly. Actually, they may have been ugly to him only a few weeks earlier. But looking at them now, as the razor sharp heat of his own wound burned like fire, they seemed like trophies of her strength. Was there anything that she couldn’t handle?

He looked up, taking in the curve of her jaw, her straight slender shoulders, and the place where their skin touched, and he was struck by how remarkable she really was.

“On the contrary,” he said, his voice low and tender, “I see nothing but beauty.”

Her eyes, which had been trained on his hand, snapped up to meet his.

“Here it is,” Beatrice announced, emerging from the larder.

They both started and Jane snatched her arms back. Damn his sister and her wretched timing. The pain that had seemed suspended as his attention had been wholly on the woman beside him roared back to life. He wouldn’t have been surprised to look down and see a bloody pitchfork jammed into his arm.

Jane rose and met Bea, accepting the tin. “Thank you, my lady. And if you don’t mind, there is some white cloth in the cabinet behind the counter in the shop that we can use for bandage.”

Bea nodded and went to do her bidding. Richard very much wished she would go upstairs and stay there, giving him the time he craved with Jane. Even through the screaming pain in his forearm, his fingers still longed to touch her again, to feel the warmth of her body against him. More important, he wanted to know what she was thinking as he caressed her. In that moment, she had seemed to soften toward him in the most promising way.

Dragging a stool over next to his, she sat and opened the tin. The vilest stench he’d ever smelled assaulted him, and he pulled back. “You can’t possibly want to put that on my skin—unless your plan all along was to poison me at my weakest.”

He could tell she was holding back a smile as she shrugged. “There is only one way to find out.” She dipped her fingers into the yellowish, greasy cream and scooped some out. It looked like gelatinous horse piss. But all thoughts of disgust fell away as she pulled his arm across her knee and began dabbing the salve onto his burn. Her touch was light and sure, and would have been pleasurable if not for the pesky shooting pains emanating from his wound like liquid fire.

“There, is that better?”

He looked at her bowed head, taken by the half-moon of dark lashes hiding her eyes from his gaze. “Will you stop if I say yes?”

Jane froze, her brow drawn in concern. “Yes, of course.”

“In that case, no, it’s not better at all.”

Her laughter was as light as her touch. “Must you always be so incorrigible? I’m trying to tend your nasty little burn, and you’re teasing me.”

“I can’t help it—you’re eminently teasable, you know,” he said, letting his arm slide the tiniest bit across her knee.

She wiped her fingers on a rag, keeping her eyes on her task. “Teasable isn’t even a word, my lord.”

“I never let the limitations of the English language hold me back.”

“I don’t imagine you let anything hold you back.”

Her tone gave him pause. He couldn’t tell if her words were meant as compliment or insult.

“I’m beginning to think nothing could hold you back as well.”

That got her attention. She tilted her head, regarding him suspiciously. “Oh?”

She didn’t trust him yet. He let the humor fade from his expression as he held her gaze. “Anyone who could single-handedly run this business, survive those burns, and hold their own against the likes of me must surely be a force to be reckoned with.”

He’d surprised her. Her lips parted as if she were about to say something, but his sister ruined the moment when she reappeared at the top of the steps, white cloth in hand. She picked her way down the stairs and handed the bundle over.

“Thank you, my lady,” Jane murmured absently before she set into tearing the cloth into strips.

He cocked his head, watching her as she labored on his behalf. “Beatrice,” he said, turning his attention to his sister, “would you agree that after putting up with our lessons, cleaning up our messes, and tending our wounds, Miss Bunting has rather earned the right to do away with the lord and lady nonsense?”

Bea’s eyebrows shot up in surprise, and she cut a quick glance to Jane, who had frozen midtear. “Er . . .yes?”

Richard smiled—she couldn’t very well have said no, what with the way he phrased the question. “Good. It’s settled, then.”

“Oh, no,” Jane stammered, shaking her head. “I couldn’t possibly.”

“You can, and you shall. It’s silly for Beatrice and me to call each other by our given names, while you’re saddled with such formality.”

“No, really, it’s not prop—”

“I mean, after all, I think I’ve quite proven that the only thing I’m lord of is fools.”

Her mouth snapped closed at his outrageous comment, and he took advantage of her surprise. “And it’s not as though anyone will know, here in the confines of your kitchen. Besides, we are practically comrades in arms, what with the injuries we’ve sustained in this kitchen.” He lifted his arm.

“I wouldn’t argue with him,” Beatrice said, then lowered her voice conspiratorially. “Especially about the ‘lord of fools’ part.”

Jane pressed her lips together, mirth turning her eyes to brilliant green. Finally she nodded with all the regality of a queen. “Very well.”

Success! Richard didn’t even try to keep the satisfied grin from his face. “Excellent.”

She lifted a strip of cloth and said, “Now, may I dress your wound?”

“May I dress your wound . . . ?” He trailed off, prompting her shamelessly.

She closed her eyes for a second as she shook her head. “May I dress your wound,
Richard
?”

Savoring the purr of pleasure that slipped through him at the sound of his name on her lips, he proffered his arm. “I’m all yours.”

Chapter Fourteen

Days later, Jane found herself whispering the earl’s name to herself as she cleaned the pans from the day’s baking.
Richard
. She liked the way the word fell from her lips, which pursed as if preparing to give a kiss with the round tone of the R.
Richard
. She wasn’t even sure how she had come to be on a first-name basis with the man; it just sort of happened. Things tended to happen that way when he leveled those mesmerizing silver eyes on her. She paused, her hand still holding the sponge against the bottom of her pewter pan.

Perhaps she should just close her eyes the next time he suggested something. She grinned to herself at the thought of trying to teach them how to bake with a blindfold covering her eyes. Above her, the door opened and Weston appeared at the top of the stairs with a gigantic basket in his hands.

“Oh my goodness, what on earth is that?” she asked, marveling at the sheer dimensions of the thing, which he grasped in both hands as he carefully descended the steps.

“It’s blasted heavy, I’ll tell you that.”

“Weston! Watch your language, young man.”

“Sorry,” he grumbled, just as the sound of chuckling behind him caused her to look up.

Emerson shook his head from the doorway. “Don’t blame the boy. I’m certain he picked up the habit from me.”

She grinned at her cousin. “Such a bad influence. However, if you are bearing gifts, I suppose I must forgive you. What have you brought me?”

As Weston stepped down onto the brick floor, Jane hurried to the table, anxious to see inside. Already, the unmistakable smell of spices filled the room. Surely the whole thing wasn’t filled with food. She pulled back the lid and gasped—a pineapple! There were also melons and grapes, and jars and tins of all sizes tucked below. How absolutely divine!

Emerson pulled a face. “I haven’t brought you a thing, save my lovely presence.”

She looked to him in confusion, her head tilting to the right. “What do you mean you didn’t bring anything? Weston, you didn’t buy all that. Please tell me you didn’t.” There was no way they could afford such extravagance.

Her brother rolled his eyes. “Gads, no. What would I want with all this stuff?” He scrunched up his nose as if the basket held ribbons and bows instead of the finest culinary delicacies.