She battered him with dearness, and Rye retaliated by sending her over the edge again, this time in a blaze of passion as explosive as it was intense. When she was drowsing in his arms, he withdrew and spent on her belly, then tucked close and let himself drift.
As she’d said, sweet, rich, hot… all the wondrous qualities of passion made deeper by profound caring.
“I don’t want you to go,” Ann said when Rye lifted up enough to retrieve the handkerchief from the bedside table. “I don’t want to let you out of this bed, much less back into your clothing.”
Rye tidied up as best he could and shifted to his side, spooning himself around his lover. “Nobody need go anywhere at the moment. Close your eyes and rest, Annie. I will be here when you awaken.”
She took his hand. “I will dream of you.”
“And I of you.”
Except that he didn’t. Rye remained awake, memorizing the rhythm of Ann’s breathing and the curve of her cheek. She was the banquet prepared especially for him, and he was nearly certain he’d have to leave her and go off to France where, in all the ways that mattered, he’d soon starve.
Ann lay in Orion’s arms and suffered nightmares of guilt. She should tell him she’d lost her job, tell him she was soon to remove to her aunt’s household.
He would be disappointed in her for abandoning Hannah so soon.
He might also wonder why Ann would give up on her dreams without more of a fight, but she wasn’t giving up. She was retreating, taking stock, trying on a different perspective—wasn’t she?
“You are awake,” Orion said, glossing a hand over her hip.
How she loved his touch, and how she would miss it. “Thinking. I am soon to leave the Coventry.” That pronouncement was as graceless as overly salted soup, though Ann was relieved to have made it.
Orion shifted to crouch over her, though Ann remained on her side rather than face him. “What happened, Annie? You fought battle after battle to gain your post at a prestigious club, and you are invaluable to the Coventry. Who has done this to you?”
“Jules Delacourt. He has decided that the kitchen isn’t big enough for his talent and my ambition, to quote him.”
Orion nuzzled her ear. “The boot is on the other foot. The kitchen isn’t big enough for Delacourt’s arrogance and your ability. Shall I have a word with my dear brother-in-law?”
Sycamore Dorning was first rate at handling the customers, and he kept peace among the waiters, dealers, and footmen. He delegated matters in the kitchen to his chef and would not appreciate Orion’s meddling.
“You shall not.”
“Because,”—Orion gently rolled Annie to her back—“you do not want to be the cause of acrimony between me and my family. Dorning is a big boy. He’s up to a little blunt speech from a concerned brother-in-law.”
“Mr. Dorning’s entire livelihood depends on his club, Orion. He cannot fire Jules without earning the notice of the gossips. The cachet of having a French chef does much for the Coventry’s reputation, which—need I remind you—is that of a supper club that offers other amusements.”
Orion rolled with Ann so she ended up straddling him. “Illegal amusements. I admit that Dorning has an Achilles’ heel, in that a disgruntled chef could inspire the authorities into making a raid, but you don’t owe Dorning lifelong fealty, Annie. What has sent you from a post you love?”
This was not where and how Ann had envisioned having this discussion, which showed a poverty of imagination on her part. For Orion Goddard, intimacy was not only of the body, but also of the heart. To deal with difficult matters in bed was of a piece with his notion of an intimate friendship.
I will miss him until I’m too old to boil my own water for tea.
“Jules can ruin my prospects,” Ann said, curling down onto Orion’s chest. “He can make it so that not even the gentleman’s clubs will hire me, and no family of any standing will let me so much as wash their pots. He can do this even if he leaves the Coventry, but he won’t leave the Coventry.”
“Because you have whipped that regimental kitchen into shape, and it more or less runs itself.”
Well, yes. “As much as any kitchen can run itself. I’ll give Pierre copies of my more popular recipes before I leave, and Jules has said he’ll write me a glowing character.”
“But he hasn’t yet, has he?” Orion posed the question gently and began stroking Ann’s back in slow caresses.
“No, he has not.” Ann swallowed past a lump in her throat. To speak of leaving made it more real and made the grief bigger.
Orion muttered something about applying mes poings to Jules’s arrogant, French nez and delivering un coup de pied rapide to Jules’s presuming arse.
“You will not use your fists on his nose or deliver any swift kicks,” Ann said, torn between amusement and despair. “Jules will insult your champagne, and he can make those insults matter.”
“I hate this, Annie. Jules is like an officer unfit for command. He turns the unit upside down with his ineptitude and fragile self-regard, takes responsibility for none of the mayhem he causes, and never suffers any consequences. Those who try to correct him are insubordinate, and who should determine their punishment but the very fool whose incompetence necessitated the blunt speech.”
This tirade suggested army life had had tribulations both on and off the battlefield. “Jules is a French chef, and a certain high-handedness is expected from him.” Nobody ever said why that should be, why arrogance and meanness had any place in an art devoted to nourishing the body and soul.
“To blazes with him, then, and the next kitchen you run will be amazed at their good fortune.”
A bedamned tear slipped down Ann’s cheek, because Orion’s confidence in her ability hurt that much. Nobody else had ever offered her such support, and what might she have done with that kind of encouragement?
“That’s the problem,” Ann said. “This is the wrong time of year to be looking for work as a cook, and without that character, I will be lucky to find a post at a lowly coaching inn.” Though what would be the point of employment in a kitchen that never served anything but dubious soup, bread adulterated into inedibility, and cheap ham?
Orion’s hands went still. “Jules needs to meet with an accident.”
How I do love you. “He can be a chef without cooking, Orion. He doesn’t cook as it is. He prowls around the kitchen, tasting this, sniffing that, and cuffing the unsuspecting potboy between trips to the wine cellar. Jules purposely tripped a footman while I watched and then threatened to make the boy pay for the broken glasses.”
“Then you are well away from him. Don’t cry, Annie. He’s not worth crying over. You will find another post come spring. If it’s one thing Mayfair does during the Season, it’s consume food.”
Jules was not worth crying over, and spring would come around again, both were true, but not much comfort. “I feel like a failure.”
And that admission provoked more tears. Orion held her, he used the corner of the sheet to wipe at her cheeks, and he stroked her shoulders and back with exquisite tenderness. Ann did not feel better, exactly, when she regained her composure, but she felt less alone with her misery.