The Marriage Test (7 page)

“Mentioning it puts him in a temper,” Axel added in a whisper.

“Hmmm. And is that temper responsible for the fact that he currently has no cook?” She knew she had struck a nerve when the pair drew back and looked as if answering would be tantamount to treason. “Just how many cooks has His Lordship had since Grand Jean died?”

Axel began recalling and tallying them on his thick, stubby fingers.

“Nine, demoiselle,” he submitted.

“That is a quite a number—”

“In seven years.” Greeve put it into perspective.

“Oh.” She swallowed hard and looked to Regine, who blanched.

“But now all of that will change. You will transform His Lordship’s kitchens and satisfy his hunger and sweeten his temper,” Greeve said with something of a forced smile.

“Sweeten his temper.” Julia straightened, thinking of the huge, irascible presence that had flattened her against the kitchen wall. “Of course I will.”

Reassured, Sir Axel and Sir Greeve peeled away to ride back to the front of the column, leaving Julia staring after them with a sense of impending disaster. How on earth was she to cook for a man who held his nose against the world? Half of the pleasure of food derived from the smelling of it!

What if he decided he hated her cooking? She grabbed the planking seat on each side of her and squeezed until her knuckles whitened. What if she couldn’t please him and he packed her up and sent her back to the convent?

After a few moments, her reeling thoughts stumbled on the memory of him as she had first seen him: with gravy down his chin and crumbs all over his tunic. He had already tasted her food and found it so agreeable that he braved the abbess and bishop and Duke of Avalon to purchase her services. Her racing heart began to slow. The old cook they spoke of had managed to satisfy him. She would find a way to pacify his palate, and in pleasing him—

It suddenly occurred to her that while he was her main concern, there would undoubtedly be other people to please as well. His lady wife, for instance. Strange that Sir Axel and Sir Greeve had neglected to mention their lady. How could they forget so important a point in describing her new home?

She swallowed against the tightness that returned to her throat.

What kind of woman would be unlucky enough to be wedded to a powerful, hungry beast of a man who found the world just too smelly to bear?

The day wore on and the cart swayed, pitched, and bounced along the road south, past burgeoning fields of grain and fattening flocks of sheep, through orchards redolent with the fragrance of plum and apple blossoms, and between fields sown with turnips, cabbages, squash, and melons. The count was nowhere to be seen when they stopped, midday, to water the horses and stretch their legs. But as the sun began to lower, he appeared and directed them off the road to a site he had selected for the night’s camp … within sight of a village.

There he ordered a sizeable fire built and metal rods tented above it to hold an iron pot. Nearby he had his squire unroll a leather pouch of knives, fire forks, and ladles and a chest of basic spices of the type carried by noblemen in hunting parties or on military campaign. Shortly, a rider arrived on a donkey fitted with panniers containing loaves of bread and a sack of provisions. Several of the men who had disappeared across nearby fields and into the woods near their camp returned with rabbits, which they laid in a pile beside the fire.

Julia had watched those preparations and the speculative looks aimed at her with mounting dread. When the count himself strode over, she knew what he would say before he opened his mouth.

“My men have provided the game and the fire. It’s time for you to prove your worth and produce something edible for us.”

“I beg your pardon, milord, but producing something truly edible under such crude circumstances would require nothing less than magic.” She folded her arms and raised her chin. “And I am not a practitioner of the magical arts.”

Her refusal clearly caught him off guard. He came alive, growing across her field of vision.

“Indeed?” His eyes narrowed. “I was given to understand that the convent’s cook had learned a hot and spicy bit of magic from some gypsies.”

“Really, Your Lordship.” She looked positively scandalized. “How would I have encountered gypsies while living and working in a convent?”

His features tightened.

“You’ve been acquired at great cost to cook for me.” He pointed to the preparations. “Pick up the knife and the game and do so.”

“I am an artisan. A tempter of palates. A mistress of culinary secrets.” She swept the makeshift campfire with a look of disdain. “Not a rabbit singer who works by the side of the road.”

His fists were clenched at his sides as he leaned over her, adding the considerable persuasion of his physical power to his argument.

“You are my cook,” he ground out. “I am ordering you to
cook.”

She raised her gaze to his and thought she must have lost her wits. He was big and forceful and right now was overpowering her senses and rattling her teeth in their sockets. Then through her rising panic, inspiration struck.

“I will comply with your order, milord”—her gaze focused on that band of metal that clamped his nose together—“if you will agree to remove the band from your nose and smell what you are eating.”

His shoulders swelled like rising bread.

“I’ll do nothing of the sort. Who do you think you are, to lay down terms and conditions to me?”

“Your head cook, milord. You must be willing to trust me with your senses as well as your health and well-being. If you do not trust me to cook agreeably for you here—this humble fare—then I will not cook here.”

For a moment, it looked to her as if he might try to enforce his order physically. Then he wheeled and stalked back through the camp, barking orders for his men to cook their own game. As he disappeared into the nearby woods, she felt every eye in the camp turn on her in confusion.

“If she’s the new cook”—mutters reached her ears—“why don’t she
cook?”

Her cheeks burned, her fisted hands throbbed, and her legs might have given way if she hadn’t been leaning against the cart. She climbed up onto the cart again and sat on the rear board watching the men’s progress toward dinner and enduring Regine’s baleful looks.

“I have to make him respect me and my work,” she defended her course.

“And what about them?” Regine gestured to the men gathered glumly around the fire. “Don’t they deserve a bit of help?”

“They’ve managed to feed themselves up to now.”

“You know, hoarding talents is serious business with the Almighty,” Regine mused, rubbing her own hollow middle. “Not to mention the fact that we will have to eat what they produce.”

Regine had a point; they would have to eat his men’s cooking for the week it would take to reach the count’s home. That observation, along with the disappointment Sir Axel and Sir Greeve tried valiantly not to show, softened her determination. She left the cart to venture closer to the campfire and heard the arguments taking place among the men charged with cooking.

They had cleaned the rabbits and now debated whether they should stick them on a spit, as usual, or toss them into the great pot hung too close to the flame … where they would undoubtedly sizzle and scorch into a charred bit of rabbit leather. Heaven knew what they intended to do with the onions, cabbage, and parsnips piled nearby.

She paused by the basket piled high with bread and tested a loaf with her thumb. The crust gave nicely, surprising her, and the loaves smelled wheaty and fragrant. Next, she paused by a small barrel that stood nearby, wetted her fingers with the drips from the wooden spigot, and sniffed. Wine. Snagging the tin cup that hung on the barrel, she filled it and sipped. It was deep in color and redolent of raspberries and a hint of spice in a fine fume of oak.

Sir Greeve caught her standing there with the cup in her hand and a frown on her face. “If he doesn’t mind buying bread and wine from locals, why doesn’t he buy a decent joint of meat? Some pork or lamb for a proper meal?”

“He’s … not partial to hung meats.” Sir Greeve winced.

Julia blinked. That made as much sense as saying he didn’t like water because it was wet. Aging meats by hanging them in a cool place and allowing them to tenderize was a cornerstone of good cooking. Half of the meat recipes Sister Boniface had imparted to her began:
“Take some well-hanged meat …”

“He says if you hang pork it turns to worms. And lamb goes green and slimy.” Axel appeared on the other side of her and sighed. “Won’t even let us hang game birds … quail, wild geese, swans. Insists they be fresh killed.”

“So, you have to find fresh meat when traveling with him.”

“And we don’t have time much for hunting. So if we can’t find an agreeable cottager, we eat mostly small birds and rabbit,” Greeve put in with a rueful look. “Very bad rabbit.”

Julia looked at the stoic faces of the men crouched around the fire and felt compelled to do something. It wouldn’t take much. Deciding, she drew a cup of wine from the barrel and strolled over to the cooks, missing the way Axel and Greeve grinned and elbowed each other behind her back.

“A pity you don’t have a bit of bacon to season that pot before you chop up the meat and toss it in,” she said, peering over them toward the pot.

“I think we might have a bit of bacon,” one of the men declared, rising and pouring through the contents of a bag of provisions lying nearby. Producing a slab of bacon and a knife, he cut several thick strips from the slab and looked to her. She merely glanced at the pot, and he took the hint and tossed them in. They sizzled violently as they hit the hot metal and she suppressed a smile.

“Of course, if it were my kitchen, I’d say the pot was much too close to the flame. It will cook meat too fast and either burn it or make it tough.”

Instantly, the men set about raising the pot and lowering the coals, looking to her until she nodded.

“And onions in the fat and a bit of garlic sweeten and impart flavor to whatever is added next. Lots of onions for wild rabbit stew.”

A bullnecked fellow with a wild shock of salt-and-pepper hair, called “Heureaux” by the others, seized several onions and a few cloves of garlic from the spice chest, and sliced them into the hot grease. A pleasant aroma began to waft from the pot after a few moments, and as she gave the contents a look, she casually tipped the cup of wine she held into the pot.

“Oops.” She shrugged with a scarcely apologetic little smile. “Well, it won’t hurt those rabbits to have a bit of wine to simmer in.”

Catching on, the men added four more cups of wine while looking to her, stirred the contents, and then looked to her again. In went the rabbit meat. Then the carrots. And some water. Then the lid went on. Parsnips were readied and added as the stew cooked. When a pleasant aroma issued from the pot, she stopped by the spice box and suggested a bit of salt, a few cracked peppercorns, a bit of cumin, and some lemon savory might improve the taste of the stew. When the spices had been added and given a chance to impart their flavor to the mix, she looked to the heat-reddened faces of the men collected around the fire.

“I think it needs to be tasted.”

Sir Axel eagerly volunteered. When his eyes closed and he moaned softly the others laughed and headed for the loaves of bread in the nearby basket.

She appeared by the pot to help the first fellow slice his great round loaf in half, then she plunged her fingers in to pull out a great hunk of the soft middle and fill the opening with a cup of the stew. She repeated the process with the second half and carried it to Sister Regine, who fairly melted with longing as Julia thrust it into her hands.

“It smells wonderful.”

“Not so bad,” Julia said perching on the end of the cart with a mischievous grin, “considering what we had to work with.”

Later, as dark was settling over the camp, the count reappeared and strode over to the fire, where the stew pot had been kept warm in the dying coals. He seized a hunk of bread and a cup of wine and headed for the sleeping canopy erected by his squire.

“Here, milord,” Sir Axel said, calling after him, “we’ve saved you some of the stew.” All eyes were on the count as he halted and glanced back at the fire.

“Bread is enough for me,” he declared.

“Are you sure, milord?” The soldier Heureaux came up from a sitting position to his knees. Several others came alert with him.

Griffin of Grandaise glanced hotly across the camp to where his stubborn cook and her chaperone were settling into a pallet of blankets placed over a mat of dried grasses on the cart bed.

“I’m sure.”

The words unleashed a scramble for the stew pot still warming in the coals. The men snatched up remnants and cuttings from the bread basket and scrambled to dunk them into the pot.

He watched in consternation as they gobbled the contents down like greedy children. As the rush slowed, he stalked back to the fire and peered into the emptied pot. There was one streak of sauce, one small morsel of meat left at the bottom. He tore a piece from his bread and sopped it up. Studying it for a moment, he cautiously took a bite.

It tasted of garlic and onions … bacon … salt and pepper … rabbit … and wine. His mouth defied him to water, anticipating more when there was none. When the hell did any of his men learn to cook like—

He wheeled to look at Axel and Greeve, who were suddenly busy rolling out their pallets for sleeping. Then he looked to his guardsmen. Heureaux intercepted his scrutiny and, with a smile, directed his glance across the campfire to the cart. It took a moment for the sense of it to register.

She was responsible. She might not have cooked exactly, but she’d done something to make their usual disaster edible. And he’d missed it.

He reddened and stalked for his cot with his stomach rumbling for more.

Dammit.