He gave her a wicked grin.
She waved at the wagon she’d passed. “Go unload your delivery wagon.” She started to move around him.
He moved with her, arms crossed in a cocksure way that annoyed her to no end.
“I have no time for your play. Move.” She glared upward. “Now.” Her voice was ice.
He just stood there.
“I said,move, you oaf!” She jammed her elbow into his side and hit solid muscle, which she hadn’t expected, especially in someone so big. He laughed quietly, which she should have expected, but she didn’t care to hear it. She looked up, gave him an overly sweet smile, blinked like Phoebe, and stomped on his instep with her squat heel.
He swore and moved out of her way.
She grabbed her skirts and swished past him, but found herself listening for some response, some cocky word from behind her. All she heard was the distant sound of the party, so she walked on, willing that handsome face of his to disappear completely from her memory, and a minute later she entered the kitchen doors at full steam.
The door banged against the walls and she stood there, hands on her hips. The servants were standing around talking.Talkingwhile her gala was on the brink of failing. She clapped her hands twice and the voices drained away.
“Horace?” she said in a firm and even tone. “Are you my butler or a social secretary?”
The servant had the good sense to flush.
“Is there more champagne?”
“In the icehouse, Miss Bayard.”
“Then get it.” She gave the closest maid an icy nod. “Emily, the lobster and crab trays are empty. And, Muriel,” she said to another, “I suggest you get those loaves of bread that were cooling in the pass-through sliced and out to the tables immediately. There’s no butter or cheese and the caviar dishes are not full.” She scanned the kitchen. “Where is the beef I paid a fortune for?”
Three cooks shifted and grabbed for an oven door.
She sniffed the air for a moment, then spun around to glare at one of those cooks. “Surely those aren’t crab cakes I smell burning?”
She let the sudden stillness of the moment work for her, then she clapped her hands once more. “All of you... move!Now!”
The kitchen was a sudden flurry of motion and commotion. Cooks opened and closed the cast-iron oven doors, silver serving trays clanked against the counters, and servants scattered around the hot room like frightened quail. Within minutes they were barreling out the various kitchen doors with heavy serving trays that held fish dishes and huge hanks of rare beef, sparkling long-stemmed crystal, or chilled bottles of wine balanced on their stiff and uniformed shoulders.
Satisfied, Georgina left the kitchens and took the flagstone path that led back toward the party and to John Cabot, who probably needed to be saved from the bills and coos and dizzying eye flutterings of more-money-than-she-can-count Phoebe.
Georgina turned at the corner of the kitchen building and stopped. It was almost as if she knew what she’d see before she ever turned that corner.
He was still there. Now he leaned against the side of the brick building, one booted ankle crossed over the other. One arm was resting on the open shelf of the serving pass-through while the other held a loaf of warm crusty bread—her guests’ warm crusty bread.
He was looking right at her with an expression that said he’d been waiting.
She took a deep breath and planted her hands on her hips. “Still working hard, I see.”
He saluted her with what was left of the bread loaf.
“I thought I gave you an order.” She used her haughtiest voice.
“Aye, that you did.” He took another mouthful and grinned at her while he chewed, appearing for all the world to not care a whit what she said or did, no matter what her tone.
She started to move.
“You give orders well, George.”
“Pardon me?”
He nodded at the pass-through. “All you have to do is clap your hands and they all jump to obey you.”
