Chapter One
The kitchen of The Grand Palace on the Thames was usually a soothing oasis of feminine gossip, camaraderie, and industry, and one of Mrs. Angelique Breedlove Durand’s favorite places in the world. Today, however, a chilling snatch of overheard conversation froze her just as she was about to cross the threshold.
She pressed herself against the wall outside the door and surreptitiously listened.
“Two succulent hams, I should think.”
Helga—their cook, of all people!—was speaking in the kind of hush Guy Fawkes likely employed when conspiring to blow up the House of Lords.
“My thoughts immediately went to two roasts of beef.” Dot’s reply was similarly uncharacteristically cagey.
Angelique was mystified. Hams and roasts amounted to the kind of budget massacre Helga would likely never countenance even if the king were to take a room. (And hehadappeared, one fateful day.) For The Grand Palace on the Thames’s budget was a temperamental, intricate thing, requiring tinkering and babying, prone to sudden expansions and shrinkages. Managing it was anart and a science that Angelique and Delilah, the boarding house proprietresses, and Helga, relished.
She thought, furiously. Then she bit back a smile when realization dawned, peeled herself away from the wall, and strolled in.
“Were the two of you discussing the thighs of the footman Mrs. Hardy and I interviewed yesterday?”
Thank God she and Delilah hadn’t hired anyone who could lie glibly. Helga and Dot froze. Their eyes were luminous with guilt.
“Amusing. But if any of these men should become members of our staff, I trust you will refrain from comparing their anatomy to food.” Last night her husband had compared a part of Angelique’s anatomy to a luscious, ripe peach just before he’d nipped it. But it was thecontextthat was important here. “I know you will be as respectful of them as you would hope they’d be respectful of you. Unfortunately, while the man under discussion was indeed possessed of fine thighs, he stole a teaspoon on his way out the door. Captain Hardy was compelled to chase him down the street and pry it from his clutches. Needless to say, we won’t be hiring him.”
Captain Hardy—Delilah’s husband—had also been compelled to give the footman a good whack with it.
Neither Delilah nor Angelique had anticipated that the search for a footman would prove both harrowing and undignified. It was clear that finding a qualified man willing to work long hours for modest wages at a lovely and comfortable boarding house (granted, one in a somewhat challenginglocation near the docks) would be easier if they’d relaxed their standards to include scoundrels, lechers, and the just plain thick.
“A spoon? Thedevilyou say!” Helga was incensed. The kitchen was her kingdom, which meant the spoons counted among her subjects. She hadn’t been present for this theft, as yesterday’s interview had taken place in the reception room. “And don’t you fret, Mrs. Durand. We will be all that is respectful when the right bloke joins us.”
Dot nodded vigorously in agreement.
Getting the “right bloke” to join them was a matter of some urgency now that they’d nearly finished refurbishing the adjacent building, which was now connected to Number 11 Lovell Street (The Grand Palace on the Thames’s street number) by means of a cleverly built passage. Perhaps the most thrilling part of the Annex was the ballroom—Angelique and Delilah hoped to entice Londoners of all stripes to buy tickets to musical evenings held there, which would help recoup their renovating investment. They could begin as soon as the little stage was completed. And it would have been this week, if the workmen they’d hired to build it hadn’t disappeared.
It was possible “disappeared” was a trifle prematurely dramatic. It had only been two days.
Angelique frowned when she realized that one of the kitchen maids charged with slicing apples for tarts was all but motionless, staring vaguely toward the buttery. Every few seconds or so she languidly moved the knife up and down. It missed the apple entirely.
Angelique lowered her voice and said to Helga, “What’s wrong with Maggie?”
Helga spoke in a hush. “Mr. Cassidy returned from Devon this morning and do you know the first thing he did?”
Angelique shook her head.
She crooked her finger for Angelique to move closer. “Hesmiledat her.”
Angelique sighed. “Oh, dear. I do wish he’d be more judicious about his smiles. They ruin the maids for half the day. They walk into walls and collide with each other while they’re dusting.”
“They used to take the bones right out of my knees,” Dot confided. “I once spilled an entire tea tray because he smiled at me!”
Other reasons Dot had spilled an entire tea tray included carrying one when she noticed a spot on the ceiling she fancied looked like an elf; attempting to sing and walk while carrying one; and bending to pet Gordon the Cat with one hand, forgetting both were needed to hold the tray. Dot’s thoughts sailed like a kite into the clouds while her feet were forever consigned to the ground, and the two struggled to work in tandem.
“Now I’m used to them, you see,” she added sagely. “I smile right back.”
“A testament to your fortitude,” Angelique said encouragingly.
“For-ti-tude,” Dot repeated, under her breath.
“‘Fortitude’ means strength and endurance,” Angelique clarified, because once a governess always a governess, even if she was now blissfully and happily married to the notorious bastard sonof a duke. And Dot, who had once been Delilah’s lady’s maid, was the best kind of student: she was all but an educational blank slate andlovedcollecting new words.
Angelique went to stand beside the maid, who was still all but miming moving the knife through the air. “Maggie,” she said softly, as to one sleepwalking. “Maggie? Maggie, dear. It’s Mrs. Durand.”
