Never Kiss a Laird (17 page)

Sally, with
her own recent experiences of the challenges of cooking even a very simple meal
was a very appreciative recipient of this recital.
 
“I am astonished that you were able to put
together such a menu with so little notice,” she marveled sincerely.

“This is a
nobleman’s seat,” Mrs. White informed her, a little sternly.
 
“We take pride in what we set before the
Laird and his guests, Aileen.
 
Now you
just keep whipping that until it forms billows.”

Sally
swapped the balloon whisk over to her left hand, shaking out her already tired
right arm.
  
She looked over at Mary, who
was surreptitiously observing her while chopping her carrots.

“Tell me,
Mary,” Sally said in a friendly way.
 
“Have you been at the Castle long?”

“Four
years,” Mary nodded.
 
“Since
I were fourteen.
 
I came as a
kitchen maid, and last year I became a housemaid.
 
I’m only helping out tonight because of Mrs.
White being short handed.”

“So you were
you here when the stove was installed,” Sally mentioned casually, awkwardly trying
to get the topic back to the London
carrier.

“Enough
chatter,” the harassed cook demanded.
 
“When that cream is thickened, Aileen, you start on that bowl of egg whites.”

Sally
sighed, and turned back to her work.
 
She
would have to look for an opportunity to question Mary a bit later.
 
She set the cream aside and began beating the
foamy mass in the copper bowl until she thought her arms were going to fall
off, and when Mrs. White finally approved the consistency of the egg whites,
Sally subsisted into one of the wooden chairs at the table with a sigh.
 

“I have not
been in the way of doing such work, Mrs. White,” she smiled up at the
industrious cook.
 
“My arms feel as if
they were made of lead!”

“No time for
that now,” the cook replied bracingly.
 
“Get upstairs with these silver bowls and give them to James.
 
Through that door there,
and straight down the hallway.
 
The dining room will be on your left.”

Sally took
up the heavy silver serving dishes and gratefully made her escape.
 
She had only been a housemaid for fifteen
minutes, and already her arms felt like jellies.
  
She pushed through the green baize door that
separated the servants’ area from the main house.
 
Sally looked around with great interest, and
decided that Rupert was right about the sumptuousness of the Castle.
 
There was a thick carpet on the floor that
silenced her footsteps.
 
Even the walls
of the hallway that led to the kitchens were covered in silk, and dotted with
oil paintings of men on horses, and spaniels at the hunt.
 
On her left a door stood open, and she
glimpsed a highly polished table, set with crystal goblets, china and
flowers.
 

“Oh good,
put those down here,” a liveried young man called out when he saw her.
  
He came forward and took some of the bowls
from her, and directed her to a large side board.
 
The young footman observed her curiously, and
Sally eyed him in return.
 
He was
probably about
her own
age, Sally considered, but
considerably taller.
 
The tight livery he
wore accentuated his unnaturally thin stature, and the green of the jacket
complimented his red hair.
 
When he
spoke, a very prominent
adam’s
apple bobbed up and
down in his throat. “I’m James, by the way. You must be Aileen.”

“Yes.
 
How do you do,” Sally replied, forgetting her
role.

“Ooh, how do
you do,” the young man mocked, sketching a deep bow.
 
“My, aren’t we fancy?”

Sally
grimaced inwardly.
 
“Nice to meet you,”
she tried.
 

James gave
her a
more friendly
look.
 
“You could be the Queen of England and we’d
still be happy to see you,” he confided.
 
“I thought Mrs. Cameron was going to have a stroke when she found out we
were to have three more houseguests.
 
Normally we’re prepared even with our winter staff, but just now the
other footman has gone to see his sick mother in Aberdeen, and one of the maids was turned
away.”
 
He looked up at Sally.
 
“You’ll have to serve at dinner, you know,
along with me and Mr. Carr.
 
That piece
of information was Mr. Carr’s turn to have a stroke.
 
We’ve never had a maid serve at dinner
before.”

Sally turned
a little pale.
 
“I’m serving at
dinner?”
 
she
repeated in a horrified tone.
 
“Isn’t
there anyone else?
 
What about Mary?”

“Mary went
into hysterics at the idea.
 
It took half
an hour for her to stop.
 
Mr. Carr even
considered one of the grooms.
 
But he
broke two crystal goblets the first time he tried to carry a tray, and Mrs.
Cameron banished him back to the stables.
 
The only bit of good news all day was that of your arrival.
 
Mr. Carr is so grateful for another body that
he is graciously overlooking the fact that you’re just a housemaid.
 
You’d better get back to the kitchen and eat
your own meal before we are needed.”
 
He
consulted his pocket watch.
 
“Dinner in
less than an hour,” he proclaimed as one might mention a death in the family.

Sally walked
back to the kitchen with dragging steps, seriously considering emulating Mary’s
hysterics.
 
Mrs. Cameron pounced on her,
and set her to basting the partridges and quails, all the while giving her a
string of instructions.

“You always
serve from the left.
 
Start with Miss
Riding, who will be on the Earl’s right.
 
Proceed around the table from there, and don’t look up, you keep your
eyes on the food.
 
No matter what you
hear the Quality say, you keep on working, and you do not listen in to their
conversation.”
 

Sally nodded
as the litany went on.
 
Mrs. White was
putting the perfectly roasted birds into covered dishes, along with a
succession of vegetables, bread rolls, raised pies, all of which James was
competently ferrying up to the dining room.
 
The succulent smells in the air were starting to make her stomach growl,
and she realized that she had not eaten since lunch.
 
 
Fortunately, Mrs. White had assembled a hasty
meal of leftover game pie for the staff, and Sally received her portion
gratefully.
 
Even the worry about how she
was going to get through dinner was not enough to dampen her appetite.
 

Distraction
in the form of Mrs. Cameron interrupted her thoughts. “They are coming to
table,” she announced in a harassed voice.
 
“James is serving the soup, and Aileen, you must be prepared to go in to
help serve directly.”

Sally gulped
and realized that her knees were actually shaking.
 
She only hoped that Rupert would not betray
her when she appeared in the dining room dressed in Bridget’s black maid
dress.
 
Her sense of humor came to her
rescue, and when Mrs. White handed her a covered dish containing perfectly
roasted potatoes, turnips and
brussel
sprouts in an
herbed butter, Sally was trying not to giggle as she resolutely trod down the
hall, pushed through the green baize door, and approached the dining room.
 
Pausing outside the open door, she took a
deep breath, shaking her head slowly in disbelief of what she was about to
do.
 
She put one hand up to straighten her
maid’s cap, almost tipping the cover off her bowl of vegetables as she did so,
made a quick recover, and entered the room.

It was an
impressive chamber; the wood panels on the walls were ornately carved and the white
plastered ceiling edged with gilt.
 
The
room blazed with hundreds of candles, causing the facets of the mullioned
windows to sparkle.
 
Masterpieces hung on
the walls, and the intricately carved chair backs shone with their recent
polishing. Sally surveyed the seated guests.
 

Clarissa
Riding looked even more impressive close up than she had appeared riding the
dashing white mare.
 
She wore a sea-foam
green gown that made her wide-open eyes glitter like emeralds.
 
Her pale gold hair was secured with a jeweled
pin on top of her head, but two ringlets had been allowed to fall over one
delicate, sloping shoulder.
 
Her face was
a perfect oval, her nose small and straight, and her rosebud mouth an alluring,
pert pink.
 
She looked impossibly lovely,
and Sally was acutely aware of her unflattering black stuff gown, and that she
had not so much as seen a mirror since much earlier in the day.
 
She stiffened her spine and glanced at her
brother’s back, and then past him to a well dressed middle-aged couple.
 
 
She
assumed they were the lovely girl’s parents, and moved on towards the figure
seated at the head of the table, and there she was stopped in her tracks.
 
Sally had seen the Earl in his riding
clothes, she had seen him disheveled in her own bed, but she had not seen him
in full evening dress, and he took her breath away.
 
His dark locks had been carefully arranged, a
snowy white cravat cascaded over his chest, and his broad shoulders were
encased in a severe black jacket.
 
A single
ruby twinkled in the folds of his neck cloth, competing for brilliance with the
glint in his deep brown eyes.
 
The planes
of his face were accentuated by the dark attire, and to Sally he looked more
handsome than ever.

Hugh turned
to the door and saw Sally holding a covered tureen and dressed in Bridget’s
black dress, and his mouth fell open and he dropped his soup spoon.
 
James hurried forward to provide him with a
clean one, and Hugh murmured a distracted thank you.
 
Their eyes met, and Sally regained her senses
and shook her head with a very small but compelling message.
 

At that
moment Rupert looked up from his soup, saw the stunned look on his host’s face
and turned to see who had caused it.

“Dash
it!”
 
he
exclaimed.
 
‘I say!”

“Rupert,”
Hugh warned.
 
“You are neglecting your
lovely dinner partner.”
 
He stared at
Rupert, who gulped noisily, but followed his host’s lead.

“
Er
, I say, my apologies, Miss Riding,” Rupert put one
finger into his collar, and pulled, shifting his chin side to side.
 
“How did you find the soup?”
 
he
blurted at
random.

“Delicious,”
Clarissa enthused, setting down her spoon.

“Just what I
was about to say,” Rupert stuttered.
 
“Don’t
know when I’ve ever enjoyed a bowl of soup as well.”
 
He leaned back in his chair, allowing James
to remove his bowl, raising his serviette to dab at his suddenly damp forehead.

 
As James cleared all the soup bowls away, Mr.
Carr lifted the covers off the bowls and platters on the table.
 
The tempting aromas of Mrs. White’s carefully
prepared first course filled the air.

Sally,
mindful of her instructions, moved to where Miss Clarissa Riding was seated.
 
James lifted the cover from the bowl she
carried, and handed her a large silver spoon and fork, and then went to the
sideboard to pick up his platter.
 
Sally had
seen this done countless times.
 
She took
the large utensils in her right hand, forming them into a sort of pincher.
 
Standing correctly to the left of Miss
Riding, Sally reached into her bowl for a perfectly roasted potato.
 
She scooped with the spoon, and then used the
fork to balance it, and as she lifted, she lost her grip and the potato fell
back into the bowl.

Sally looked
at Clarissa with a charming smile of apology.
 
“Ma’am,” she muttered politely.
 
She looked up and saw Rupert’s horrified face goggling at her, and
frowned meaningfully at him.
 
Taking a
firmer grip on her utensils, and resolutely not looking over at Hugh, Sally
tried again.
 
Once more she chased the potato
around her bowl until she had it between the spoon and fork again, and, taking
her under lip firmly between her teeth, she lifted the vegetable, and, bending
at the knees, slowly and carefully carried it from the bowl towards Miss
Riding’s plate.
 
When she was within
inches of her goal, however, her fingers cramped up and she lost control of her
utensils, and the potato fell from her grasp, dropping first onto the table
cloth before rolling onto the floor.

A snort of
laughter caused Sally to look up, and she met the eyes of the Earl, who was
trying manfully to turn the laugh into a cough.
 
Sally looked at his shaking shoulders, and the brown eyes that were
starting to tear up as he fought to keep his countenance, and a bubble of anger
began to build in her.
 
After all, it was
his fault entirely that she had been put to the expedient of assuming the guise
of a maid.
 
He had not interceded when
Bridget was put out of a job when she had transgressed in a way in which the world
disapproved.
 
Transgressed in a way,
Sally thought bitterly, that he was only too happy to indulge in himself.
 
He met her blue eyes, which had narrowed and
were shooting daggers at him, and he cleared his throat, and finally was able
to regain a semblance of a straight face.