Murder Most Historical, Page 3

  A cook’s knives are her greatest asset, and if they go dull, they are no use at all and should be replaced. As decent knives are hideously expensive, I kept mine in good repair.

  I did not trust anyone with the task of sharpening but myself, so I sat on my stool, alone, and drew a blade across the damped stone. The only sound in the silent room was the scrape of stone on steel and the hiss of the oil lamp beside me.

  The solitude comforted me. I’d had a trying day. Copley’s bunions had played him up, making him more sour than usual, and he’d gone so far as to throw a bowl of porridge at me. John the footman had dropped and shattered a crock full of sugar. The scullery maid had taken sick, so I’d had to do all the washing up myself.

  Because of that, by the time I’d gotten to the market, all the best produce was gone. My bread had over-risen and deflated upon itself while I was out because John had been too stupid to follow the simplest instructions.

  I’d made my disapprobation known, and the others had retired somewhat earlier than usual, leaving me alone with my knives.

  Where Sir Lionel found me.

  “Mrs. Holloway?”

  I peered through the kitchen’s gloom, my comfort evaporating. The master of the house stood at the door to the stairway, his breathing loud and hoarse. He moved across the flagstones to the table where I sat, and gazed at me with eyes that were sunken and petulant.

  I jumped to my feet, annoyed. The kitchen was my demesne. The master might own the house, but a good employer understood that not interfering in the kitchen made for a tranquil domestic situation. Sir Lionel had his rooms above stairs where I did not trespass, and he had no reason to trespass on me.

  “Might I help you with something, sir?” I asked, striving to remain polite.

  “Good heavens, Mrs. Holloway.” Sir Lionel, his voice breathy, looked past me at the table. “What is it you’re doing?”

  Dancing naked upon Hampstead Heath. “Just giving my knives a bit of attention, sir. I like them nice and sharp.”

  “Yes, I am certain you do.”

  Before I could decipher this comment, Sir Lionel had moved abruptly to my side and pinned me against the table. He was stronger than his size let on, and he held me fast with his spindly arms.

  “Mrs. Holloway, I can think of nothing but you. Of your eyes, your hair …” He pulled a lock free from my cap. “Your bosom, so comely. Do you have children?”

  “One,” I gasped, the truth I kept hidden bursting out in my amazement.

  He did not seem to hear me. “My nursery maid had a bosom as large as yours. She let me feast upon her.”

  I scarcely wanted to think about that. I desperately craned my head away from his port-laden breath and bloodshot eyes.

  “Let me feast upon you, Katharine.”

  Oh, this would never do. I groped behind me across the smooth boards of the table and closed my fingers around the handle of a knife.

  It was my carver. I pulled it around and brought it up right under Sir Lionel’s chin.

  Sir Lionel squeaked in alarm. His gaze shot to the knife then back to me, spots of red burning on his cheeks. He must have seen something in my blue eyes he so admired, because he released me and took a hasty step backward.

  “Sir,” I said in a hard voice. “You employ me and pay my wages. I cook. That line should never be crossed.”

  Sir Lionel’s mouth opened and closed a few times. “It should not?”

  “No, sir. It should not.”

  His petulant look returned. “But you are so beautiful.”

  I held the knife point steady, though I was shaking all the way through. “You flatter me, sir. I am a cook, is all. You go along upstairs and to bed. You will feel better in the morning.”

  “No, no …er. I am going out.”

  “Right, then, sir. Off you go.”

  Sir Lionel eyed the glinting knife blade, stared at my bosom with stark regret, turned on his heel, and marched out of the room.

  Not until I’d heard him tramp all the way up the stairs and slam the door above did I let out an explosive breath and drop to the stool, the strength gone out of me.

  “Fool,” came a voice.

  I smothered a yelp as Copley materialized from the shadows. My knife clattered to the table. “What the devil do you mean, skulking about like that?” I cried.

  Copley gave me a sickly grin, his walleye gleaming. “Ye could ’ave gained some favors with ’im, woman. You give ’im a bit, and ’e gives you a rise in wages. Any sensible woman would think it a bit of luck.”

  “I am a sensible woman,” I said firmly. “Which is why I told him to be gone.”

  “Maybe ’e’d even marry you.” Copley sniggered, a dry sound.

  “Oh, most like. The gentry don’t marry cooks.” Thank heavens. On the other hand, I might have just lost myself my post.

  Copley scooted close enough to me that I could smell the gin on his breath. “I’ll keep this atween you and me. Can’t let it get about that you cast your eyes upon the master, can it?”

  He’d turn it about and spread that story, simply because he could. “You are a little swine,” I said. “I did nothing of the sort.”

  “But none know it but me, you, and ’is nibs, do they? And I seed ’ow quick you was to shove a knife at ’is throat.”

  “I only meant to frighten him.” I let my tone grow chilly. “I thought it most effective. Didn’t you?”

  Copley’s gaze slid to the knife that rested near my hand, and he faded back from me. “I’ll remember it. I will.” And thankfully, he shuffled away, heading upstairs to his bed.

  I went back to sharpening the blades that had done me so much good tonight, but it was a long time before I could stop shaking. Longer still before I could make myself retire to my tiny bedchamber tucked behind the kitchen and sleep.

  ***

  The next day, Daniel McAdam came whistling down the kitchen steps to deliver a bushel of apples.

  Daniel McAdam had, as we ladies put it, a way with him. I’d known him for about a year, ever since the day he’d stepped into old Mrs. Pauling’s kitchens, where’d I’d formerly worked, to get out of the rain. Daniel ever after paused to flirt with me, harmless like, whenever he made a delivery to Mrs. Pauling’s house, and now to Sir Lionel’s.

  I knew little about Daniel, even after a year. He was a man of all work and a jack of all trades. He delivered goods, carried messages, and ran far and wide about London—once I’d seen him driving a hired carriage, competently maneuvering it through the crowds.

  I did not know where he lodged or where he disappeared to for weeks at a time. He’d only wink and answer evasively whenever I brought up these subjects.

  I knew Daniel wasn’t married because I’d asked him that, point blank. When a man flirts with a woman, she ought to know where things stand.

  Daniel had dark hair and dark eyes and a tall, attractive body. He spoke with a fairly neutral accent—he hadn’t been brought up on the streets, I could tell. He could read and write and was quite clever, though he never admitted to any schooling.

  I concluded that he must be the son of a middle-class gentleman, possibly illegitimate, but he never spoke of his family. He turned his hand to a good many menial tasks, things even a destitute gentleman might shun, which was why I thought him a bastard son. Father genteel, mother a tavern maid or something of the sort, and now Daniel had to grub for a living.

  No matter who he was, Daniel seemed to be happy puttering about London, making friends with everyone he met and doing any odd job he could.

  It was a daft way to live, and I told him so. He only laughed and said: Some of us were born to work and others to keep the devil amused.

  He always said something nonsensical when he did not want to give an answer.

  This morning, Daniel set down the apples and waited with good humor while I wiped my hands of puff pastry dough and poured him a cup of steaming tea.

  Daniel swallowed a long drink and grinned at Copley, who l
eaned against the wall, barely able to stand. “You’ll kill yourself with gin, Copley.” Daniel took a flask from his pocket and dropped a dollop of whiskey into his own cup.

  Copley gave him a sour look. He’d woken with a raging headache and had been sick in the basin twice already. “I were up late. Woke by the master and Mrs. Holloway a’carrying on, weren’t I?”

  Daniel raised dark brows. I dumped a large ball of butter onto my dough and vigorously attacked the mess with my rolling pin.

  “Why don’t you tell ’im, Mrs. H?” Copley rasped. “About ’ow the master tried it on with you, and ye almost slit ’is throat?”

  Chapter Two

  Daniel did not change expression, but his black gaze focused on me. “What happened, Kat?” he asked, his tone gentle.

  Daniel was the only person I allowed to call me Kat. Not that I’d given him permission. He’d simply taken it up, and I’d not prevented him.

  I rolled the pastry dough flat and used my scraper to fold each third in on itself before going at it again. Puff pastry was difficult to get right, and a kitchen full of curious people was not assisting me to concentrate.

  “Nothing as interesting as Copley makes out,” I said crisply.

  “Even so, tell me.”

  When Daniel McAdam spoke in that voice—quiet and friendly, yet full of steel, people tended to obey him. I stopped pounding at the dough, which needed to rest and cool anyway, and gave him an abbreviated account of the incident. Copley snorted a few times and inserted foolish comments at intervals.

  Daniel helped himself to another cup of tea, minus the whiskey this time, and sipped it as I talked. When I finished, Daniel rose from the stool where he’d been sitting and set the cup on the draining board by the sink. “Copley,” he said in that steely voice. “A word, if you please.”

  Copley looked surprised, but as I said, people tended to obey Daniel without quite knowing why.

  Copley followed Daniel across the kitchen and out the scullery door. The scullery maid, sniffling with her cold, let dirty water drip all over the flagstone floor while she watched Daniel with lovesick eyes.

  I have no idea to this day what Daniel said to Copley, but when Copley returned he was subdued. He skulked across the kitchen without looking at me and stomped up the stairs.

  ***

  The very next morning Sir Lionel started taking his vengeance on me for not only rejecting his advances but putting my knife to his throat. He did nothing so direct as sack me—oh, no. He went about it by more subtler means, trying to vanquish me, if you like.

  Now, you may wonder why I did not simply pack up my knives and march out, but while good cooks are in demand, good places aren’t all that thick on the ground. As horrible as Sir Lionel was, he lived in London, where I needed to stay, the wage was decent, and I had my many days out a month, which was the most important thing to me. So I stayed and put up with him.

  Sir Lionel did not come to the kitchen again—he’d learned that lesson. He sent his demands through Mrs. Watkins, the housekeeper. Sometimes Copley delivered the messages, but even Sir Lionel realized that Copley couldn’t be trusted when he was befuddled with drink, so Mrs. Watkins brought down most of his orders.

  Mrs. Watkins had worked in this house for many years, previously for Sir Lionel’s uncle, and she didn’t think much of the current master. She was straight-backed and pinch-nosed and set in her ways, and didn’t hold with all this cooking nonsense—a bit of boiled mutton was all a body needed, and any simpleton could buy that in a shop. For all her decided opinions, Mrs. Watkins wasn’t a bad sort, although she didn’t approve of cooks being as young as I was.

  I couldn’t help my age—I’d been assistant to one of the best cooks in London at fifteen, and had proved to have a talent for the job. That cook had passed on when I’d been twenty, word had spread that her apprentice could replicate her meals, and agencies fought to have me on their books.

  However, I had to be choosy where I worked, and my situation with Sir Lionel, unfortunately, was ideal. Except for Sir Lionel, of course. Mrs. Watkins made it plain that Sir Lionel was a disappointment after his uncle, who’d been a true gentleman, she said, but Mrs. Watkins, like me, needed the position.

  Sir Lionel began his game of revenge by sending down odd and impossible requests for his dinners—wild birds that wouldn’t be in season for another few months, tender vegetables that had gone out of season months before, and dishes even I had never heard of. I had to read through my treasured tomes to find recipes for what he wanted, and some I simply had to invent. Even the exhaustive Mrs. Beeton failed me from time to time.

  Some days I’d nearly make myself ill getting the meal finished to his order—I had my pride, after all—and he’d send word at the last minute that he would dine at his club and wouldn’t be back until morning.

  The delicate meal wouldn’t keep for a day, so I and the household staff ate it. I had to watch John the footman bolt my coq a vin like it was mutton stew and listen to Mrs. Watkins complain that food should be simple without all this fuss. Copley would eat steadily, then follow the meal with a mug of gin and belch loudly.

  The morning after, Sir Lionel would send down a sternly worded note that I’d spent far too much money on foodstuffs and threaten to take it out of my wages.

  A lesser cook would have fled. But it built up my pride that I was mostly able to fulfill his bizarre requests and build a meal around them, no matter how much Sir Lionel made clear he did not appreciate it. I rose to the challenge, wanting to prove he could not best me.

  Where he came up with his ideas for what he wanted me to cook I had no idea. Sir Lionel did not strike me as a refined gentleman with cultivated tastes. Likely he found descriptions of dishes in books, or he had a friend who made up the meals for him, laughing about the good trick they were playing on a cook who needed to learn her place.

  Then came the day I nearly threw down my apron and ran out the door to never come back. Mrs. Watkins, at seven o’clock in the evening, brought me down a note telling me he wanted truffles a l’Italienne with beef in pepper sauce that night.

  “Truffles?” I bellowed. “Where does he think I will find a handful of black truffles at this time of day?”

  “I couldn’t say.” It was obvious Mrs. Watkins had no idea what a truffle was. “But he is adamant.”

  It was impossible. I knew all the good markets and who might have decent exotic fungi, but I had no time to get to them before they shut up for the night.

  As luck would have it, an urchin I’d seen helping Daniel unload his goods a time or two was hanging around the scullery door. He’d been hoping for scraps or a chat with the scullery maid, but I stormed out to him, seized him by the ear, and told him to find Daniel for me.

  “Scour the town if you must,” I said. “Tell him Mrs. Holloway desperately needs his help. There’s tuppence in it for you if you hurry.”

  The urchin jerked himself from me and rubbed his ear, but he didn’t look angry. “Don’t worry, missus. I’ll find ’im.”

  The lad was true to his word. Daniel came knocking within the hour, and the lad happily jingled the coins I dropped into his hand.

  Daniel listened to me rant, his warm smile nearly enough to calm my troubles. Nearly. When I finished, Daniel held out his hand.

  “Give me your list, and I’ll find the things for you,” he said.

  “How can you?” My voice rose, tinged with hysteria. “In half an hour?”

  Daniel only regarded me calmly as he took the paper upon which I’d written ingredients. “The sooner I am gone, the sooner I can return.”

  I let out my breath, my heart in my words. “Thank you. I don’t know who you are, Daniel McAdam, but you are a godsend.”

  Something flickered in his dark blue eyes, but his crooked smile returned. “I’ve been called much worse, Kat, believe me. Back in a tick.”

  He did return very quickly with a bundle of all I needed, including the finest truffles I’d ever seen and
a small bottle of champagne, which Sir Lionel never stocked in his cellar. I did not like to ask how Daniel had come by the rarer things, and he did not volunteer the information.

  Daniel tried to refuse money for the foodstuffs. He held his up his hands, spreading his fingers wide. “It was a challenge, Kat. I never knew the intricacies of food purchasing or how many markets we have in London. Keep your money for the next meal he demands.”

  “Don’t talk nonsense. I’ll not take them as gifts. Stand there while I get you some coin.”

  I hurried down to the housekeeper’s parlor where we kept a locked tin of cash on hand for extra expenses. Only I and Mrs. Watkins had the key to it—Copley couldn’t be trusted not to spend the money on drink.

  Daniel hadn’t given me a tally, but I counted out what I thought would be the cost of the goods and rushed back out, to find Daniel nowhere in sight.

  “Where is Mr. McAdam?” I asked the urchin, who’d remained to make sheep’s eyes at the scullery maid.

  “’E’s off,” the urchin answered. “Said ’e couldn’t wait.”

  “Blast the man,” I said fervently.

  I put the money back into the tin but vowed I’d force it upon him somehow one day. A woman couldn’t afford to have a man do her expensive favors, especially a man as beguiling as Daniel McAdam. I’d learned all about the dangers of pretty men at a very young age, and I’d had enough of that.

  ***

  Sir Lionel’s next unreasonable dinner demand came the very next day. He decided, at five o’clock, if you please, that he’d entertain friends at his dinner table at seven. Mrs. Watkins brought down the order and stepped back as I read it.

  Leek and cream soup, whitefish in a velouté sauce, green salad, squab stuffed with peppercorns, beef in a wine sauce, asparagus with egg, fricassee of wild mushrooms, soft rolls, a chocolate soup and a berry tart for pudding.

  “Has he gone mad?” I screeched. “I haven’t a scrap of chocolate in the house, no hope of fresh fish or game birds today.” I flung the paper to the table. “That is the last straw, Mrs. Watkins. Either we come to an understanding or I give my notice. I ought to simply give it now and leave, let him and his guests do with salt pork and potatoes.”