‘May I escort you back to your carriage, Madame Holte?’
‘Oh,’ she gasped. ‘Monsieur André. You startled me.’
‘My apologies,’ he said. ‘Did you find some books to your liking in the library?’
She winced. ‘I did.’
They walked in silence for a moment or two. Then finally she stopped and turned to face him. Shoppers passed around them like a swiftly flowing river around an island. ‘Why did you follow me?’
Then she gasped in shock as she saw his face full on. There was a cut on his lip and a red mark on his cheek that would surely be a bruise in the not too distant future.
‘Did someone attack you?’
He touched a gloved finger to his cheek and smiled. ‘In a manner of speaking, I suppose. I came from the gymnasium.’
‘Pugilism,’ she said.
‘You sound as if you don’t approve. I get very little in the way of exercise in the kitchen, so I come here once a week on my day off.’
‘The result seems more like torture than exercise,’ she said. ‘You could be badly hurt.’
An eyebrow went up. His dark eyes reflected surprise, but his voice was calm and practical when he answered. ‘Not really. Not when sparring. Not if one pays attention.’
‘Then you need to pay better attention,’ she said, starting to walk again.
He chuckled, a deep sound that seemed to curl low in her belly. When she glanced up he looked grave, but his eyes twinkled.
‘You are right,’ he said seriously. ‘I had something else on my mind, I must admit. I promise I will take more care in future.’ There was a seductive note in his voice. A shiver shook her frame. A shudder of pleasure. Horrified, she quickened her pace.
‘It is of no concern to me what you do,’ she said sharply and far too defensively. She drew in a quick steadying breath and stopped, for they had reached the livery where John Coachman had drawn up the carriage and was now chatting with Joe. ‘I thank you for your escort, Monsieur André. Did you need a ride back to Castonbury?’
His face was inscrutable as he gazed down at her and she was reminded of how impossibly tall he was and broad shouldered. And she fleetingly wondered if he showed well in the boxing ring. Canting talk she’d learned from her husband. She repressed the thought instantly.
‘I thank you, madame, but no. I have another engagement.’ He bowed and left.
There had been something significant in the way he had said the word engagement. She didn’t want to think why that was because he was a servant and she was a duke’s sister. It was nothing to her what he did. It must not be. Even if he was the most attractive man she had ever met in her life.
Her course was set. She was to marry a man of Crispin’s choosing this time. Her stomach dipped.
‘Same flea or a different one?’ Becca asked André the next day.
He frowned, then laughed. At himself. ‘No fleas.’
Just frustration. After meeting Madame Holte, he had been unable to so much as look at the saucy barmaid in the Bricklayer’s Arms, let alone give her a tumble.
For some reason, no other woman held the attraction he felt towards Madame Holte. And, he thought, she wasn’t as oblivious to him as she tried to make out which wasn’t helping matters.
But what was it about her in particular, when usually any woman would do? Her delicacy? Or the inner strength he sensed. Whatever it was she was out of bounds to him. The kind of woman he’d spent a lifetime avoiding.
He didn’t believe in titles. Not his own or anyone else’s. What he accomplished, he achieved by his own efforts. And he had every reason to be proud of the result.
At the end of the month he would be on his way back to London, and Madame Holte would no longer trouble his mind. Or any other part.
He brought the cleaver down on the joint and separated the thigh from the drumstick.
The door to the kitchen creaked.
André looked up. The door inched open a fraction more.
He narrowed his eyes. If it was the cursed cat from the barn looking to steal …
A small head poked through the opening, grey eyes darting around the room. The child. Mademoiselle Jane, with her eyes too large for her small face. She had the same hungry look about her that haunted her mother.
Which scarcely made sense for people in their position. ‘Come in, mademoiselle,’ André said.
The child jumped, then stared at the knife in his hand.
He put it down. ‘How can we be of service?’
Becca looked at him and back to the child. ‘You shouldn’t be in here, miss.’
The child backed away.
André put up a staying hand and smiled. ‘It is all right, ma petite, tell us why you came.’
‘I wanted to help you cook. I used to help Mama after my lessons were done.’
Becca made a sound of shock. He should let it go, but the child had roused his curiosity. ‘What sort of things did you help your mother cook?’
‘Everything. She makes jam tarts on Sunday, when she didn’t have any mending to return to the customers in the afternoon.’
Becca’s jaw dropped. ‘Your mother took in mending?’
Damn. That was not the sort of thing Madame Holte would want bandied about by the servants. Noblewomen did not work for money. At least not openly. If they were poor, they simply faded into genteel obscurity. But the fact that she had done something to support her and her child was admirable.
Mrs Holte was clearly different from his own mother. A bitter taste flooded his mouth as a glittering image of a dark-haired beauty filled his vision. Bitterness followed by anger. Only anger kept the pain at bay.
He looked at the hopeful expression on the little girl’s face, a reflection of his own face in the glass of a window a long time ago, and knew he could not turn her away.
With a sigh at his own foolishness, he put the chicken parts in a bowl, covered them with a cloth and washed his hands in the sink. He glanced over at Becca, who was swiping the table aimlessly with her rag. ‘Onions next, Mademoiselle Becca. In the scullery, please, or we will all have sore eyes.’
She muttered something under her breath, but retreated to the small room.
‘Mama hates peeling onions,’ the child announced. ‘They make her cry.’
So she really did cook. ‘They make everyone cry.’
The child nodded gravely. ‘But they make the food taste good, so it is worth a few tears. What are you making today, monsieur?’
Such impeccable manners and her accent was almost perfect.
‘Does your mama know you are here, little one?’
She drew herself up straight. ‘I’m seven and I am tall for my age.’
André kept his face straight. ‘So you are. I thought you were much older than seven. Still, your mother might not like to find you here.’
‘She’s busy with the seamstress and doesn’t have time for lessons. I was fitted already.’ She sounded disconsolate. Lonely.
‘Surely you are happy to have pretty new dresses.’
She made a face. ‘I’d sooner have a hat like that.’ She pointed to his head.
‘A