“You are awful.”
He kissed her nose. “Shall I give the command to charge, Annie?”
“Please.”
He spoke close to her ear, not quite a whisper. “I like to think the lovemaking doesn’t end when we leave the bed, just as it didn’t end when we slept side by side. Passion ebbed, temporarily satisfied, but the closeness and warm regard lingered. I want to see your kitchen, Annie Pearson, the kitchen where you make your first pot of tea each morning, where you rummage for bread and butter on Sunday evenings.”
She held him tightly while another bout of tears threatened. “I’ll show you my kitchen, but I fear somebody must rebraid my hair before I can venture from this room.”
“You are in luck, for braiding is among my meager store of skills.”
He had many skills, not least among them the knack of assisting a lady into her clothes while he grumbled about the new boy—Victor—who refused to attend lessons. He chattered about Mrs. Murphy’s follower and about his old cavalry sword having mysteriously gone missing, not that he much cared for the sword itself, but the boys had no need of it, and the damned thing was sharp.
Ann did not allow him to replace his eye patch—the house wasn’t brightly lit—but she did hand it back to him before they left the bedroom.
“Not so fast,” Rye said when she would have opened the door. “First, a hug for courage and a kiss for luck.”
The lucky kiss turned into a sweet, hot, tender reprise of the kisses they’d shared in bed, and the hug for courage was fortifying but inadequate.
To withstand Jules’s latest fit of pique in the kitchen would take determination and guile, but Ann was completely without weapons when it came to withstanding the greater threat to her peace that Orion Goddard posed with his tenderness and passion.
She was still puzzling over that conundrum when Rye sat with her at the kitchen table enjoying fresh, buttered gingerbread and mugs of steaming mulled cider.
“You’ve been working on menus,” he said, eyeing the ingredient lists and scribblings Ann had spread out on the table the previous evening.
He leafed through the pages, one by one, studying her recipes. “You are very thorough, but then, I knew that.”
“I made my usual early call on my aunt this morning. She’s planning a formal dinner for thirty, and everything must be perfect. I provide the menus, and she crows about her talented niece to any who will listen.” Or that was the plan. Ann was no longer confident that a lot of officers and their wives were much interested in fancy dishes and pretty centerpieces, for none of them had ever asked to consult with her following one of Aunt’s dinners.
They mentioned their menus to Melisande, who conveyed requests to Ann only indirectly.
Orion perused the nearest recipe. “No fricassee of gryphon wings or chimera tails in aspic?”
“The guests will be mostly former military. Beef will figure prominently on the menu, as will fowl, and all manner of fancy potatoes. Aunt Melisande’s cook is a good soul, but somewhat lacking in imagination.”
Orion licked butter off his thumb. “Melisande? That’s an unusual name.”
“She and Uncle Horace, along with their young daughter, are my only family. If Aunt had made a great enough fuss when I started my apprenticeship, I would have been bundled back to school for more deportment, drawing, and drivel. Aunt and Uncle were in Spain at the time and left me in peace, but for the occasional epistolary sermon. In their absence, the solicitors kept an eye on me.”
Orion put down the rest of his slice of gingerbread. “Melisande is married to Horace, and he’s former military? Would this be Brigadier Horace Upchurch, by any chance?”
Gingerbread and cider were a good combination, but Ann would not have wanted to consume her portion without butter. Butter smoothed out the spices, curbed the sweetness, and made a little meal where a snack might have been.
“The very one. Uncle Horace was in Spain for the whole Peninsular campaign,” she said, “and Melisande followed the drum. She’s quite a bit younger than Horace, but they seem devoted. Do you know him?”
Rye took another bite of gingerbread and chased it with a sip of cider. “Our paths crossed. I can taste the cinnamon in the cider, but what other spices do you use? The combination is delectable.”
Ann prattled on, pleased that he would ask. He took his leave fifteen minutes later on a spicy kiss and another fortifying hug, as well as a request for permission to call again next week.
Permission she had granted. While all might not have been precisely right with Ann’s world, she dreaded her return to the Coventry’s kitchen far less than she had before Orion Goddard’s call.
She was precious and dear, and so was Orion Goddard, and for now, that was enough.
Horace Bedamned Hellishing Upchurch was Ann’s uncle.
Well, blast. Blast and damnation. Rye had nearly choked on his gingerbread, so shocked had he been. He ducked into the bakery to pick up a second loaf, and the baker’s assistant had to ask him twice what he’d come to purchase.
Rye bought the gingerbread and left the change on the counter.
Would Dear Uncle Horace put in a good word for him with Ann, or warn Ann off a former soldier of dubious repute? Why hadn’t Rye admitted his connection to the brigadier on the spot? But then, why had Horace taken to denying the connection generally?
“I coulda nicked that loaf right outta your hands,” Otter said, falling in step beside Rye. “Or your pocket.”
“I told you to stay home, Theodoric.”
“You tell me a lot of things, but don’t worry. I keep my mouth shut. I could carry the gingerbread for you.”
“So generous of you, but then half the loaf would disappear between here and Mrs. Murphy’s pantry.”
Otter grinned as they waited on the street corner for a pause in traffic. “Only half. I’m not greedy.”
No, but the boy was insubordinate, also loyal. A complicated puzzle. Rye flipped a coin to the crossing sweeper, who looked to be no more than eight years old.
“The next time I tell you to stay home, you will follow orders, Otter.”
“Like hell I will. Your sword has gone missing. We’ve a sneak thief in the camp, and you’re too busy making sheep’s eyes at Miss Ann.”
Rye had done far more than make sheep’s eyes at the woman, but Otter was being delicate. “It might have escaped your notice, but I am of age and have independent means. Calling on the occasional lady should be part of the blessings attendant thereto.”
“You’re sweet on her,” Otter said, dancing ahead on the walkway. “We all are. You could marry her, and we’d be fat as lords in a month. Something is off about the warehouse inventory.”
Marry her. Rye hadn’t stumbled across those words in his mental peregrinations, and they were fine words in the right circumstances. Ann deserved commitment and devotion, despite her fierce independence. Becoming her ally, much less her spouse, would be a challenge.
She loved her cookery, had fought hard for it, and shouldn’t have to give it up. But marriage generally meant babies, and…
Rye’s steps slowed, though he wasn’t approaching any street corners.
Babies, with Ann. He’d been dutiful toward his various properties and toward the business he’d inherited, but to have a family with Ann… to build something for that family…