Hannah curtseyed, while Henry glared daggers. The footmen did not in theory work for the kitchen, so Henry wasn’t at risk for losing his post, but he was clearly at risk for losing his temper.
Ann followed Jules up the steps and along the corridor to a cozy office that faced the stable. A fire burned in the grate. The shelves behind Jules’s desk were stocked with cookery books in French, Italian, German, and English, as well as unbound treatises on cooking.
The room smelled faintly as if somebody had spilled brandy on the carpet sometime in the past week.
Jules took the seat behind the desk, and produced a bottle from a drawer and two glasses. “Do not glower at me like that, Pearson. You will have wrinkles. Wrinkles become nobody. Care for a drink?”
“No, thank you.” Ann did take a seat, because she refused to stand about like a naughty schoolgirl waiting for Headmaster’s tongue-lashing. “You owe Henry an apology.” Every person in the kitchen, save perhaps Pierre, was owed an apology for some display of arrogance or meanness by Jules, and Pierre’s turn would come.
“I don’t owe anybody anything,” Jules said, pouring himself a measure of young calvados, based on the apple and pear aroma. “I work for my wages, and Mr. Dorning is happy with the result. You are not happy.”
Ann was furious, and thus her tongue ran away with her good sense. “I am happy with my post. I am not happy with you.”
Jules held his glass up at eye level, and Ann wanted to dash the drink in his handsome face. “Pearson, you are ambitious, which is an unbecoming quality in a woman who also lacks great beauty. I grant you that some of your sauces are quite passable, but the Coventry’s kitchens do not have room for your ambition and my talent.”
Ann thought back over the past fortnight, trying to put her finger on what had brought Jules to the point of making ultimatums and tripping footmen.
“You are jealous of a simple pear compote,” Ann said. “The customers raved about it, as they do not rave about your roasts.”
Jules set the glass on the blotter, rose, and leaned across the desk. “A few women nattering on about a sweet is nothing to trouble myself about. Out in the kitchen just now, you contradicted me before the whole staff.”
“I corrected you because you were in error and directly asked for my opinion.” He’d been lying, though Ann had enough restraint not to make that accusation.
“You were disrespectful, Pearson, and that I cannot have.”
“Then leave your post in high dudgeon,” Ann retorted, getting to her feet as well. “Tell Mr. Dorning the staff has fallen below the standards you need to adequately display your talent.”
Beneath the scent of his shaving soap, Jules bore the vinegary air of a man who habitually over-imbibed. His eyes were bloodshot, his complexion was becoming ruddy, and when he’d held his glass up, his hand had shaken slightly.
“Non, ma petit dragon. I will not hand you a kitchen where I have spent two years attempting to cater to English palates and humoring the incompetence of English staff.” He sat back down and picked up his drink. “I am prepared to be reasonable, for a time. Give your notice in the next fortnight, and I will allow the girl to stay.”
Ann had known this was coming, and yet, the blow still hurt unbearably. “Give my notice? When I have worked for better than ten years to attain the rank of assistant? When I have been at the Coventry longer than you have? I’m to walk away from all of that because you are jealous of a dessert?”
Jules sipped his brandy, watching her over the rim of his glass. He still commanded brooding good looks to go with his arrogance, but his eyes held a reptilian chill.
“Please put from your limited female mind the notion that I in any way care about a few compliments tossed in the direction of your humble mashed pears. You have airs above your station, Pearson. You encourage disrespect in the staff and disrupt my kitchen. To use the English term, you and I simply do not get along. As it is my kitchen, you are the one who must go. You either give your notice in the next fortnight—and make that a convincingly sensible decision—or who knows how many more glasses young Henry will have to pay for?”
In this much at least, Jules was right: Ann did not get along with him, did not, in fact, respect him or trust him, and that wouldn’t change no matter how hard she worked or how humbly she behaved.
She was tired of the battle, one she would lose eventually anyway. Jules had stamina for the fight, better weapons, and dirtier tactics. If Ann continued to thwart him, he could well see her injured or maimed. Then too, Henry had four younger brothers, and his wages were probably supporting them all. Hannah had nobody save the colonel, and he was already providing for too many people.
Orion’s question, about going up the chain of command, came to mind, but Ann had little direct interaction with Mr. Dorning, while Jules’s rapport with the owners was well established.
“I must think about this,” Ann said. “I’ll want a glowing character from you, and I might need more than two weeks to find a suitable post.”
Jules saluted her with his drink. “You can be sensible. I had hoped that was the case. I will write a character so laudatory that heaven itself would employ you. The gentlemen’s clubs often hire women in their kitchens, I’m told.”
Oh joy. A post in the clubs—venerable institutions that served little other than steak and potatoes with the occasional cherry tart or barley soup.
“I have not made my decision,” Ann said, “and I have food to prepare. Please stop endangering the staff with your displays of pique, Jules.”
“They are my staff,” he said, topping up his drink, “and you are no longer welcome to number among them. Back to your post, Pearson, and think about what I’ve said.”
Ann was only too glad to get back to the kitchen, but she had just negotiated the terms of her surrender, and she and Jules both knew it.
Chapter Thirteen
Hannah wrapped the poultice around Henry’s hand, then held up his glove. “I can make you a fresh poultice later. The honey keeps the wound from festering.”
“And what will keep my temper from festering?” Henry retorted, wiggling his fingers into the glove. “Damned frog martinet. I’ve a mind to have a word with Mr. Dorning.”
“And who will Mr. Dorning believe? The damned frog martinet, or the underfootman who fell on his arse and broke a dozen fancy glasses?” She and Henry were at the long table in the staff hall and had the room to themselves.
The pantry doorway had afforded a clear view of the whole incident in the kitchen, and as sure as Otter’s cabbage farts stank, Jules had tripped Henry. Jules had lounged by the window, seen Henry hustling in from the garden, then waited until Henry had been barreling across the kitchen to stick a foot out at the worst moment.
“I fell on me hands and knees, not me arse,” Henry said. “Though what did I ever do to Jules that he’d take out after me like that?”
“You liked Miss Ann’s compote,” Hannah said. “We all did, and so did the customers. You proposed to marry Miss Ann for her compote.” The colonel would marry Miss Ann even without tasting her compote, of that Hannah was certain.
“I’ll have to cut this glove off,” Henry said, working the kid over his bandage. “Damned Jules will dock my pay for that too.”