He’d been simply Goddard to Fournier, no rank, no title, and he’d preferred to do without them—a realization he would also discuss with Ann when next he called upon her.
“I did not know if offering a tea tray would be coals to Newcastle for a professional cook,” Mrs. Dorning said, smiling serenely from her corner of the sofa, “but you must enjoy the occasional cup.”
For Ann to take tea with Mrs. Dorning would be to cross a social boundary, though not one of unprecedented dimensions. In modest homes, the lady of the house might enjoy a cup of tea with her housekeeper or cook while considering menus or reviewing ledgers. In modest homes, the lady of the house was not the widow of a marquess or married to an earl’s brother.
“I enjoy any chance to get off my feet, ma’am,” Ann said, scooting forward a little on the chair cushions, “and a cup of tea is always welcome.”
Her ladyship—Society would probably afford Jeannette Dorning that courtesy, though she was strictly speaking no longer entitled to it—poured from an exquisitely decorative Sèvres service, all gilt and pink and blue flowers.
“I was hoping you might bring Hannah with you, but then, I did not make that apparent, did I?”
“Shall I fetch her?” The tea was fragrant and piping hot, with a rich reddish hue. Hannah would have enjoyed a cup, though Ann suspected she’d enjoy more catching up on Henry’s endless store of gossip.
“How is Hannah adjusting to her new station?” Mrs. Dorning asked when Ann had been offered good shortbread—her own recipe—and finished her first cup of tea.
Ann knew the civilities expected over tea in part because she’d gone to a proper girls’ school, but also because Grandmama had insisted. Gentry could be higher sticklers than the nobs, or so Papa had often grumbled.
Ann was gentry, landed gentry as it happened. How easy it was to forget that, after two years of Jules’s carping about everything from how thickly Ann sliced a ham to how long she left her croissants to bake.
“Hannah is taking to the kitchen with cautious enthusiasm,” Ann said. “She’s a hard worker, pays attention, and wants to excel. Barring a mishap, she ought to make an excellent cook someday.” Not a chef, of course. Women could not be chefs. They fed the vast majority of George’s loyal subjects, and had from time immemorial, but they could not be chefs.
No matter how competent such a woman might be with both French and English cuisine, no matter that she’d read every word Carême had written, and tried many of his published recipes too.
“Are more apprentices needed?” Mrs. Dorning asked. “I don’t mean to pry, but Mr. Dorning’s approach to the Coventry is to hire good people to manage the various domains and to stand back unless asked to intervene. He focuses on the patrons because that is a host’s singular duty.”
Ann nibbled her shortbread and pondered the possibility that Mrs. Dorning was attempting to spy on her husband’s business operations. That made no sense, when husband and wife were reported to be very much in each other’s pockets.
“The kitchen is always busy,” Ann said, “but your question would be better directed to Jules Delacourt, ma’am. He oversees the whole kitchen.”
Mrs. Dorning made the sort of face that Ann reserved for sour milk. “Monsieur Delacourt has an entire arsenal of flattery to aim at me, but when I want an honest answer, he turns up vague and philosophical. ‘Who can say what is enough, madame?’” She’d taken on Jules’s accent and deepened her voice to mimic him.
“You have him to the life.”
“You should hear Mr. Dorning’s impression,” Mrs. Dorning replied. “As a boy, Mr. Dorning excelled at aping his older brothers. May I tell you something in confidence, Miss Pearson?”
Ann wanted to sprint for the door rather than find herself caught up in a marital intrigue. “Of course, though you must know my first loyalty is to the club.”
“My second loyalty might well be to the club, given what it means to my husband,” Mrs. Dorning replied. “Jules has asked that another undercook be hired, a Frenchman, and they do not come cheaply. Mr. Dorning assented on a trial basis, because he felt that sop to Jules’s dignity necessary after taking on Hannah at my brother’s request. My question relates to the boys in my brother’s household. Has Hannah said anything about them?”
What manner of intrigue was this? “She mentions them by name from time to time. Theodoric—she calls him Otter—likes buttered turnips. Bertie forgets to wash his hands.” John knew all manner of filthy songs. Louis was their scout. A new boy, Victor, seemed to have Debrett’s off by heart as a result of watching from his street corner and memorizing the crests of passing coaches.
“Would they make passable clerks?”
“Mrs. Dorning, I hardly know. Hannah describes the boys as lively. Colonel Goddard has them attend to various chores and activities in the morning because they can’t sit still for lessons in the afternoon otherwise. They are not scholars by nature, to hear her tell it.”
Mrs. Dorning rose and went to the window, which overlooked the street running between her home and her husband’s place of business.
“I want to lighten my brother’s load, Miss Pearson. Orion would never confide in me, never hint that I might be of use to him, but I hear things.”
Orion Goddard confided in Ann, some. She hoped as time went on, he’d confide in her more, but then what? He had domesticity written all over him, while Ann’s ambition was to run the Coventry’s kitchen some fine day. Passion was lovely for an interlude or an affair, but where did Ann see her dealings with Orion Goddard ending?
“What have you heard, Mrs. Dorning?”
She twitched at the curtain sashes, though the two sides of the drapery hung in perfect symmetry. “I haven’t been Jeanette Goddard for ten years. Ladies new to Town know me only as the Marquess of Tavistock’s widow, recently married to the youngest Dorning brother.”
And thus they did not know of her connection to the colonel. “Somebody cast aspersion on Colonel Goddard within your hearing?”
Mrs. Dorning left off fussing the curtains and faced Ann. “Somebody referred to him as the disgraced colonel, which occasioned knowing glances and a slight shake of the speaker’s head, as if to say, ‘What a pity, about poor Goddard.’ Minerva Dennis has no business spreading talk like that, but everybody else in the group appeared to know what and whom she alluded to.”
“Minerva Dennis has been pretending to know all the latest talk since she first flirted with the drawing master at finishing school. She comes around the Coventry with her brother and claims her papa doesn’t mind in the least.” Jules would say such a woman needed marrying, but from Ann’s perspective, Minerva would have been better served with a cauldron and some otherworldly familiars.
“Miss Pearson, how do you know her?”
“We are to trade confidences, then?”
Mrs. Dorning nodded once.
“I attended two years of finishing school with her. She is a cat, and she likely knows nothing about the colonel save some snippet she overheard her brother repeat. Dexter Dennis was in the military, as were many of his friends.” Dennis came to the Coventry to lose money, in the opinion of the waiters, for he was more skilled at draining the champagne glasses and decimating the buffet than placing his bets.