Jacobin’s doubts about her new job were confirmed when she saw her working quarters, or rather lack of such. The kitchens at Storrington Hall were spacious, well equipped, and fully staffed. There was no vacancy for a specialist in pâtisserie, because no such position had ever existed.
As for the cook, Mrs. Simpson, she reminded Jacobin of a plumper version of her old enemy Mrs. Underwood at the Pavilion.
“I don’t know what’s got into His Lordship’s head,” remarked the cook with an indignant sniff when presented with Jane Castle’s arrival. “He’s always been quite satisfied with my puddings, just like his father before him. Apple tart, fruit fools, and Christmas pudding in season. Good English fare. That’s all we’ve ever served here.”
Jacobin sighed inwardly. It was too much to hope for the kind of friendly acceptance she’d enjoyed among her uncle’s servants. Still, she had no intention of allowing the woman to bully her.
“I don’t know anything about that, Mrs. Simpson,” she said firmly. “But Lord Storrington has engaged my services as a pâtissière and confectionère. Please be good enough to show me to the pastry room.”
“Dear me, Miss Castle! We don’t have any place like that here.” From the cook’s scornful tone, Jacobin might have asked to be shown to a brothel. “There’s a marble slab over there”—she indicated a corner of the kitchen—“I use for rolling out dough.”
“That’s not good enough,” Jacobin replied. “I must have my own room where the temperature can be kept cold enough for pastries and jellies.”
“You’ll have to ask Mr. Simpson. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve dinner to get on the table in two hours, thanks to His Lordship arriving unexpected.”
“Mr. Simpson?”
“He’s the butler,” the cook replied. “And my husband.”
Jacobin kept a rein on her ever volatile temper and decided a temporary retreat was in order. “I will get out of your way then, madame.”
She left the kitchen and went to inspect the rest of the offices. She found an ample ice closet and guessed that a plentiful supply of ice would be forthcoming. Storrington Hall’s location—like that of the Brighton Pavilion—near the chalk downs provided perfect conditions for the storage of ice year-round. Not far from the main kitchen there was a small unused pantry that could easily be equipped as a pastry room.
Diverted by the sound of a visitor at the back door, demanding to see the head cook, Jacobin drew closer to the half-closed door of her pantry.
The steps of the under servant who’d opened the door retreated to the kitchen. After some indecipherable, but clearly irritated, speech, heavier footsteps approached the back door, and Jacobin heard Mrs. Simpson asking the visitor his business.
“I’m inquiring if there’s a new pastry cook been hired on here.” The voice was one of a superior servant.
“What’s that to you?” Jacobin now had reason to be grateful for Mrs. Simpson’s suspicious nature.
“I’m trying to a find a cook named Jacob Léon, a young Frenchman,” the voice continued. “I’ve heard reports he’s taken service in a household near Brighton.”
Zut, Jacobin thought, how could they have tracked her down so quickly?
“We don’t have any Frenchies here,” said Mrs. Simpson firmly. “And no male cooks neither. His Lordship’s new pastry cook is an Englishwoman, just like I am.”
“What’s her name?” The inquiry was relentless.
“You want to know anything else, you go to the steward. Or to His Lordship. Come back here and I’ll give you what for, snooping around His Lordship’s kitchens like this.”
Jacobin’s confidence, on the rebound since Storrington had agreed to employ her without a lot of difficult questions, seeped away. It was bad enough to face the political quicksands of her new position without investigators dogging her footsteps. She needed to keep this job until the furor over Candover’s attempted murder had subsided. Or until they found the real culprit. She hoped the authorities—for she had little doubt it must be the representative of a magistrate or of Bow Street who pursued her—were searching all over Sussex rather than having specific information linking her to Storrington.
Loath to face interrogation by the cook, as soon as the coast was clear she slipped out the back door for a walk in the grounds.
The damp winter chill, stiffened by a purposeful breeze, cut through her worn cloak and echoed the cold fear in her heart. She longed desperately for an ally. At her uncle’s house she’d at least been surrounded by friendly servants. Below stairs she’d found a family. Not one capable of replacing her doting parents, whose love and attention had made her childhood an endless summer of warmth and safety. But her welcome in the servants’ hall had comforted her when she was reeling with grief at the loss of both father and mother within a few months, and alleviated the cruelty and neglect dealt her by her uncle and guardian.
She missed the trivial daily gossip of life below stairs at Hurst Park. She missed the kindly cook who had shown her how to roll out pie crust. She even missed Edgar, her dull but amiable cousin who hadn’t treated her unkindly. Most of all she missed Jean-Luc.
Since Jean-Luc Clèves had taken command of Candover’s kitchen when she was sixteen, he had been her closest friend. He’d reminded her of her childhood in France and taught her to cook. And he’d helped her escape from Hurst.
There was no one to help her now. She, who rarely cried, felt the prickle of tears. Ever since her father’s death she’d had to look after herself. As an eleven-year-old girl Jacobin had propped up her heartbroken mother and arranged their escape from Napoleon’s France. Orphaned soon afterward, she’d suffered years of living with Candover’s hatred, months in the regent’s kitchens in constant fear of being unmasked, and now she was on the run because of a crime she hadn’t committed. A rising sob tore at her breast, and she succumbed to waves of fear, loneliness, and a desperate anger at the injustice of her situation.
For the first time in months she consciously recalled the events that had led to her departure from her uncle Candover’s house.
It was a rare occasion when Jacobin was summoned to her uncle’s presence. In eleven years at the Candover estate she could probably count the number of times on the fingers of her two hands—and without needing the thumbs. Experience told her this encounter would be unpleasant.
She hurried upstairs from the kitchen to tidy her hair and smooth out the creases in her gown created by apron strings securely bound at the waist. At least at this hour of the morning her dress was still clean; several hours in the pastry kitchen would find it dusted with flour and smeared with butter, despite the protection of the large linen cook’s apron. She’d prefer to face Candover looking like the well-bred young lady she was supposed to be, little as he honored her position.
Her mind raced over the possible cause of his displeasure. Although he was usually content to ignore her existence, he seemed to feel the periodic need to berate the niece he’d given houseroom since she was eleven years old.
In a tiny corner of her mind, Jacobin couldn’t help hoping that for once he’d show her an iota of kindness, a small indication that he regarded his sister’s only child with anything but loathing.
She knocked softly at the library door. Candover didn’t trouble to rise when she entered at his curt command. Trying to gauge his mood, she eyed him cautiously. A darkly shadowed chin and the state of his dress told to expect nothing good. At nine-thirty on a Hampshire morning he was slumped in an armchair, still in evening clothes. That meant he’d driven from London by night and was likely still foxed. Sober he was merely cold; drunk he could be vicious.
“There you are.” He looked at her through bloodshot eyes that held a curious gleam, an expression that seemed almost triumphant. “You’re to go and pack. You’re leaving today.”
He was throwing her out.
“Why?” It was the only thought she could utter.
“I have found a position for you.” His slack lips curled nastily.
A position? For a moment Jacobin was glad. Glad to get away from Hurst Park and out of her uncle’s power. But relief gave way to suspicion as she considered what kind of position he meant. It seemed unlikely that anyone would hire her as a governess. Although more than capable of fulfilling the academic requirements of such a post, she was—thanks to Candover—without the feminine accomplishments that gently bred parents expected their daughters to master. Latin, Greek, and a thorough acquaintance with French intellectual thought were not useful qualifications for a young woman seeking employment.
“What kind of position?” she asked.
He gave a crack of laughter. “On your back!”
She wasn’t too naïve to understand the inference.
“Lord Storrington is taking you,” Candover continued. “I had nothing left to wager, so I staked you instead. And lost.”
“He wants to marry me?” Jacobin inquired cautiously, unwilling to believe in the more obvious meaning of his words.
Candover’s laughter was ugly and without humor. “Marriage? To a worthless French slut? You flatter yourself. You’ll be lucky if he sets you up as his mistress instead of taking a quick tumble and throwing you into the gutter as you deserve.”
“Non! Jamais!” she cried, breaking into her native French as tended to happen when her emotions were kindled. “C’est infâme, vil. Vous n’êtes qu’un macquereau immonde.”
Her uncle hated her speaking French, though he understood the language well enough.
“Call me a dirty pimp, by all means,” he sneered. “Knowing such names merely proves what you deserve. You’re no better than a whore so you might as well be one.”
“I am of age,” she said carefully, reverting to English. “You can’t make me do it. You can throw me out of your house but you can’t control my actions. I’d rather starve than agree to such a disgusting arrangement.” Beneath a veneer of calm, panic churned. Without a penny to her name and deprived of even her uncle’s un-loving protection, her future was precarious.
Candover rose to his feet. His body was grotesquely swollen despite the corsets that strove to confine his massive belly. He lumbered toward her and took her arm in a painful grip.
“You could leave here and go to hell your own way—if you could escape me. No, my dear niece”—his sneer intensified—“I promised you to Storrington and I’m a man of my word. A gentleman never reneges on a wager.”
Jacobin spat in his face. “Some gentleman! My father was a gentleman. You are a filthy pig,” she hissed.
Tightening his hold on her arm, he raised his other hand and slapped her face, hard. “Give me—or your new master—any trouble and I’ll sell you to a bordello. At least I’d get a few hundred pounds for you and be rid of your accursed presence to boot.”
Her uncle’s eyes were filled with a kind of madness beyond anger and inebriation. Jacobin wanted to cry out her hurt, to ask why Candover found his closest living relative a curse, but she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing her cower.
Nursing her stinging cheek, she managed to retort through a rising tide of terror, “You can’t force me. There’s no slavery in England.”
“See this bell rope?” he said, reaching for the tapestry pull. “One ring and my valet will come. He knows you’ve been—difficult—and is prepared to tie you up and escort you to my carriage. After that you will be driven to London and delivered to Lord Storrington—unless you would prefer the other place I mentioned.”
Her choice was bleak: a liaison with Storrington—doubtless another dissipated member of the regent’s set—or forced prostitution of an even more terrifying kind.
“Why?” she demanded in a whisper, unable to maintain her defiance. “Why would you do this to your sister’s child? My mother loved you.”
Tramping aimlessly through the park at Storrington, Jacobin sobbed out her loneliness and grief. She was so tired of being strong. She wanted to be home in France. She wanted her parents back.
Candover’s face had reflected only hatred as he reached for the brandy glass that was never far away, even at that hour of the morning.
“You are his child,” he had said.
Why had Candover loathed her father? Auguste de Chastelux had been a hard man to hate. Handsome and brilliant, Auguste had possessed a rare charm that drew everyone he encountered. Her mother Felicity had loved him devotedly and he had been the center of Jacobin’s life for her first eleven years.
She realized now that her father’s love for her mother had never equaled Felicity’s for him. On some level Jacobin had always known that Auguste’s deepest devotion was for her, his only child. Yet Auguste had been a kind and attentive husband, and Jacobin did not believe he’d been unfaithful. It couldn’t have been neglect or cruelty toward his wife that made his brother-in-law hate him.
Besides, nothing she knew of her uncle led her to suspect he’d mind if his sister was mistreated. Really, she thought savagely, given what an unpleasant man he was, she wasn’t surprised someone wished to kill him. But not her. However much she loathed and resented her uncle, she was her father’s child, and Auguste had deplored violence.
As her sobs subsided, she thrust Candover from her mind. Her fit of tears had made her feel better, calmer. Her natural optimism reasserted itself as she took stock of her surroundings. Even in November the grounds at Storrington were beautiful. The path she followed took her up a gentle rise through an extensive stand of rhododendrons. As she emerged on the other side the landscape opened up to reveal a valley with a small lake. At one end the lake was fed by a swift stream, and a rustic watermill took advantage of the race. A decorative stone bridge crossed the stream leading to the far side of the water. And at the other end stood a two-story building of plaster and timber in a French country style.
The scene was strangely familiar, yet Jacobin had never been here before. She stood and gazed at the buildings for several minutes, something plucking at her memory. Then she gave a gasp of recognition. It wasn’t quite the same but very similar. Just on a smaller scale. She’d heard the place endlessly described by her mother and seen drawings of it. She’d even visited it once. It was almost as though her yearning for her native land had been answered.
“L’hameau de la reine,” she said out loud. “The queen’s hamlet.”
“Quite so,” said a deep voice behind her, causing her to start. “Queen Marie Antoinette’s folly, the model village where she played at shepherdess while her subjects starved.”
Storrington must have come up behind her while she stared at this little piece of France in the middle of Sussex. He stood beside her, quite at ease, dressed in casual country attire of buckskin breeches under a warm, knee-length coat. He went hatless, so the fashionable disorder of his hair had been exacerbated by the attentions of the wind. His eyes, appearing more blue than gray in the subdued autumnal landscape, shone from a face glowing with exercise. Her heart gave a little jump as they exchanged glances, then she looked away. But it wasn’t in her nature to be demure or to let a falsehood go unchallenged.
“She never pretended to be a shepherdess, my lord. That was a canard invented by the queen’s enemies.”
“As a daughter of the Revolution,” he said, “I would expect you to be eager to believe anything ill of the French royal family.”
Jacobin shook her head. “I hope my opinions would never blind me to the truth. And in this case you are quite mistaken. I have nothing against the poor queen. And my mother admired her greatly.”
“Mine too,” the earl said, sounding surprised. “In fact I was named after her.”
“Is your name Marie-Antoine, then?”
“Certainly not,” Storrington replied. “I am English, and Englishmen are not named Mary. My father would have had a palpitation at the very notion. My Christian name is Anthony.”
“The house here is very like la maison de la reine at the queen’s hamlet, yet somewhat smaller, I believe.”
The earl looked at her curiously. “Did you ever visit it? The original I mean, at Versailles.”
“I grew up hearing about it from my mother. It was she who told me the queen enjoyed visiting the farm and using its produce at her table, but she never did the work herself. I went there just once, as a child, when it was turned into a restaurant after the Revolution. It was rather sad, I think.”
“Was your mother in service to the queen? Is that how she came to visit the hamlet? I understand that only the privileged few were invited there.”
“My mother was with another lady who was visiting the queen,” Jacobin replied, regretting she’d said so much. It was a joy to speak of France, to recall happier days. And it didn’t hurt that a very attractive man was listening to her with rapt concentration and regarding her with a fascinated gaze. Her attention-starved soul blossomed in the sun of Lord Storrington’s interest. She fought an urge to confide in him, to share her troubles with a sympathetic ear.
Sympathetic! There must be windmills in her head to forget, even for a minute, his own role in her plight. It was vital she not give away her identity and reveal her connection to Candover. She shouldn’t have let herself be carried away and speak so much of her mother.
“How do you come to have the Queen of France’s village in this English park?” she asked.
A flicker of sadness passed over Storrington’s face. For a moment he appeared vulnerable and very human.
“My mother loved France.” His voice was smooth, and Jacobin wondered if she’d imagined his distress. “As I said before, she admired the queen. The mill was already here and my father built the Queen’s House to please her. To try and make her happy.”
“And did it?” she inquired, not daring to ask why the late Lady Storrington should have been unhappy.
“No. She died not very long afterward.” His voice was matter-of-fact, but the expression on his face was forlorn.
“You miss your mother, don’t you? Tell me about her,” she said gently.
Once again his willingness to confide in her surprised Anthony. She was still dressed in the drabbest of gray gowns, but she had a face that couldn’t look gray under any circumstances and possessed an exotic cast that spoke of her French blood: wide, brandy-brown eyes with thick dark lashes; flawless skin two shades darker than the typical English complexion; a perfectly straight and symmetrical nose; plump, curving lips; the small but determined chin decorated with that intriguing cleft. Chestnut brown curls that fluttered in the wind topped it all off.
He was attracted to her, of course, which was why he had, against his better judgment, pursued her through the park. And there was something more. Something about his newest employee elicited his trust.
“My mother was the most delightful person in the world. When I was very young she’d fetch me from the nursery and we’d go on picnics. She took me bathing in the lake here and played hide-and-seek. She’d tell me stories, and she would laugh and laugh.” He felt his heart squeeze tight with mingled pain and pleasure at the recollection of those lost halcyon days.
“What happened?” she whispered, standing close to him. Her eyes were huge and glowed with sympathy. He could drown in their chocolate depths.
“I don’t know,” he said bleakly. “My father took her to France after my sister was born, and when they returned she was different. I don’t think she ever smiled again.” He turned away from her and stared unseeing at the hamlet. He could feel the weight of incipient tears behind his eyes. Instinctively his shoulders hunched and his head dropped to hide his grief.
Damn it, where had this sudden weakness come from? He was never sentimental. He faced life as he found it and did what needed to be done.
“It was a long time ago,” he said, stiffening his spine. He wanted to reject Jane Castle’s compassion. He didn’t need it. “There’s no point dwelling on it.”
Forcing his emotions into the deep recesses of his mind where they belonged, he made his voice as un-yielding as his stance. “I was going to summon you later to discuss a house party I am planning. We might as well do that now. I want my guests to enjoy the best confections you can produce.”
She gave him a look that, he feared, meant she wasn’t fooled by his change of subject and knew exactly how affected he had been. But she didn’t say anything. How could she? She was only a servant, after all.
“Certainly, my lord,” she answered agreeably. “What dishes would you like me to make?” The wicked glint in her eye told him she wasn’t letting him off entirely. She was well aware he had no idea how to answer that particular question.
He waved his hand dismissively. “I leave that for you to decide, Miss Castle. Earn your princely salary and impress my guests.”
She tilted her head proudly. “I assure you, my lord, I can impress anyone.”
He had the urge to ruffle her composure, to repay her for the turmoil in his heart caused by speaking of his mother.
“One of the guests will be a particular connoisseur of your art, a lover of confectionary on a par with the Prince Regent,” he said. “Lord Candover.”
He watched closely for her reaction and wasn’t disappointed. She blanched.