Julia and Brina stood just inside the kitchen doorway at the house in front of the school, staring at what was before them—a wide, oval-shaped fireplace with a small oven built into each side. The hearth, elevated about a foot, extended out from where the fire would be. An iron-framed cooking rack had been placed on it. Wood was stacked neatly on the floor. Pots and pans of varying sizes and odd-looking cooking utensils hung on the walls. Neither of the ladies had ever been in a kitchen. It simply wasn’t a place a lady should ever find herself.
Especially if there wasn’t a cook or a scullery maid in sight.
A sizable worktable stood in the middle of the room, and much to Julia’s relief, a bowl filled with cabbage, potatoes, celery, and other vegetables had been placed in the center of it. Three arched doorways led to three separate and narrow rooms: a dry larder, a wet larder, and a pantry where china, crystal, and cutlery were stored. That was about the extent of Julia’s knowledge of the kitchen.
She and Brina had decided this was the perfect day to cook. There was a fair in Hyde Park. Julia had given Mrs. Lawton the day off and enough money to enjoy all the exhibits and foods. She was extremely appreciative. That would give them plenty of time to cook the food and clean up so no one would ever know they had been in the kitchen.
But the best thing was that Julia hadn’t seen Mr. Pratt for an entire week. She had no idea why he hadn’t come back. She’d only felt grateful for it. She didn’t know if the duke had had a change of heart after he sent her the letter saying the man would continue or if for some reason Mr. Pratt had decided the job of taming Chatwyn was far too difficult. No matter which, Julia was pleased the lessons had stopped. She had left Miss Periwinkle strict orders to come get her immediately if the man should happen to return.
“If I didn’t know better,” Julia said, her gaze resting on the filled bowl in the middle of the table again, “I’d swear Mrs. Lawton knew we were going to be making vegetable soup.”
“What do you think she will she say if we use the vegetables? She’s bound to wonder what happened to them.”
“I doubt she will bother either one of us about them,” Julia said, pulling two white, crisply starched aprons off a peg near the entranceway and handing one to Brina. “However, if she asks, I’ll tell her the truth. That I gave it to the school. Since that is exactly what we plan to do, it won’t be a fib.”
“Good. We’ve settled our first problem of the day.” Brina tugged the neck of the apron over her head and fitted it around her body. “Where do you think we should begin?”
Julia’s gaze made another sweep around the room.
“Let’s start with the fire,” Julia answered, tying the sash at her lower back. “Mrs. Lawton would never leave a fire burning knowing she’d be gone all day. We’ll have to rekindle it.”
Brina’s brows pulled together in a studious way. “Do you know how to do that?”
“Of course,” Julia said, feeling somewhat confident she could manage this part. “Not that I ever have. When I was a girl, at wintertime the maid would come into my room each morning to light the fire. I’d sit up in bed and watch her. Now, you can watch me so you’ll know how to do it, too. First, let’s get the cooking rack out of the way so I can begin.”
With more effort than Julia had thought it would take, she and Brina lifted the rack and set it off to the side. Julia knelt in front of the ashes and started carefully brushing them away from the embers with the fire brush while Brina hovered over her shoulder. After she’d uncovered a sizable glowing bed of coals, Brina handed her three pieces of kindling. Julia placed them on top of the coals. She blew long, steady breaths until the first piece of tinder caught fire. Moments later the others were flaming, too.
By the time Julia rose from the hearth, the flames had taken hold and were blasting an enormous amount of heat into the room. Without thinking, she ran her hands down her apron, smearing it with ash and soot. “Oh, heavens to stars,” she grumbled to herself. “I had no idea all that was on my hands. I was so careful.”
She tried to brush it off, but that only made the marks bigger and longer. That’s when she caught Brina smiling at her.
“Perhaps this isn’t the time for me to tell you it’s on your face, too.”
Julia grimaced and took in a deep exasperated breath. “No, it isn’t.” She picked up the tail of her apron and wiped both cheeks. By the expression on Brina’s face, she was only making it worse as well. “I’ll wash up later,” she insisted. “Let’s put the rack back in front of the fire and fill the kettle and teapot so the water can start getting hot.”
Once that was accomplished, Julia said, “The first thing we need to do is make the bread. While it rises, we can chop the vegetables and put them into the kettle. By then, the bread should be ready for the oven, and we can clean up the kitchen while it cooks. That sounds simple enough, doesn’t it?”
“Perfect. I was thinking the same order of things. Thank you, Julia. This has me so hopeful. I’ve been feeling quite miserable about how little I do for myself and others. Already I’m feeling better.”
Julia smiled. If only she was settling her own issues as easily as she was Brina’s. “I’ll get the things we need out of the dry larder while you find a recipe book.”
Brina nodded and went in search of a recipe while Julia gathered a tall canister filled with flour, a large bowl, a salt cellar, and a cake of yeast a little larger than a teacup saucer. Mrs. Lawton was very organized, so everything was easy to find. Julia carried it all to the worktable and laid it down.
“I’ve searched every cupboard, drawer, and shelf,” Brina said, lifting her hands in frustration as she rejoined Julia. “I’ve looked under things, behind things, and inside things. I can’t find a recipe book of any kind. Not even a little piece of paper that’s been written on.”
“That seems odd. There has to be one. Mrs. Lawton is an excellent cook. I’ll help you look.”
However, after following Brina’s path and turning over everything in the kitchen and the dry and wet larder at least twice, Julia was ready to accept defeat when Brina offered, “We’ll have to do it from what you remember by watching when you were a little girl.”
Julia’s throat tightened a little. “I never managed to do that. Bread was made the first thing every morning. I never came belowstairs before sunrise.”
“They make bread that early?” Brina questioned as much with her expression as her words.
Julia put her hands on her hips and studied the ingredients before her. Suddenly she felt the gravity of what they were about to attempt and the reason for it—so that Brina would know she could do the work should she decide to join the sisters. This task had seemed so much easier when she was just thinking about doing it. Now that it was time to do the deed, she wasn’t as sure.
Inhaling deeply, Julia swallowed down her hesitation. “Well, it can’t be that difficult, can it? Cooks do it every day. I know it doesn’t take a lot of yeast or salt to make bread rise, so let’s see how much flour this bowl will hold and we’ll go from there. I’ll put everything in and you stir it all together.”
Julia took the top of the tin to pour. The flour fell to the bowl with a heavy splat and poofed flour all over her and Brina.
“What did you do?” Brina asked coughing and waving the white cloudy mist away.
“I don’t know.” Julia started laughing. “It’s all over your face.”
“It’s on yours, too,” Brina added with a snicker of amusement. “And in your hair.”
Julia brushed her hand across her hair.
“Now it’s worse.” Brina smiled.
Julia laughed softly. “So now I’m covered in soot, flour, and ash. I’ll clean up later.” She looked down at the bowl. “I don’t think that’s enough flour to fill a pan. I’ll add more.”
They both looked down at the bowl as she tilted the canister again. A double handful of it plopped on top of the first pour and it dusted them again.
“Are you doing that on purpose?” Brina questioned in disbelief.
“Of course not,” Julia defended herself, and put the canister down with a clatter. “Do you think I want flour all over my face and hair? Look, it’s even on our sleeves.”
“All right,” Brina answered in a calmer voice. “As you said, we’ll wash up later. Let’s get this made so it can rise.”
After discussing at length the amount of milk, yeast, and salt they should use, they began.
It didn’t take long before the mixture in the bowl became a white sticky paste that was clinging to the sides of the bowl and the spoon in wet clumps.
“This is getting too difficult to stir and it won’t hold together,” Julia offered. “I think we need to stop the milk and add more flour.”
“I’ll pour this time,” Brina said confidently, “and you stir.”
“Yes, of course,” Julia agreed with a roll of her shoulders. “You need to know how to do it all. It will be good practice for you.”
They changed places and Brina lifted the canister. She gently shook out the tiniest amount. Julia stirred. The effort was repeated until Julia said, “I think we have enough. Let’s spoon it onto the table and then you can knead it.”
“Me?” Brina asked, looking down at the wet sticky flour.
“Of course, you. We’re doing this for you. Put your strength into it.”
They scraped the mixture onto the table. Brina squeezed her hands into fists and the dough squirted through her fingers. Seconds later the dough started sticking to the table and then to her hands in knobby clumps. Julia added more flour but the consistency didn’t get better.
“What happened to it? I can’t get it off.” Brina tried to wipe the dough from her fingers and ended up, sending more of if flying.
“There’s only one thing to do.” Julia walked over and grabbed a pan off the wall. “It doesn’t matter how it looks or feels. It’s how it tastes that matters. Let’s get it into the pan so it can rise.”
“And say good riddance,” Brina whispered under her breath.
After the dough was in a pan sitting on a table near the fire, and their hands were washed clean, it was time to cut the vegetables. They decided to clean up the flour from the table and floor after the vegetables were in the kettle.
Surely making soup had to be easier than making bread. There would be no measuring or sticky stuff to worry about.
Julia saw steam coming up from the kettle on the cook rack. “The water’s hot.”
“It’s getting hot in the kitchen, too,” Brina grumbled, wiping her forehead. “I think you made the fire too big.”
“I knew we had to have enough heat to cook the food,” Julia argued. “There was nothing to be done about that.” It surprised her how testy one could get while cooking.
By the time they finished chopping the cabbage, two potatoes, three onions, and several mushrooms, they had three large bowls of vegetables and one medium-size kettle of water boiling.
“Why does cabbage become so much more once it’s been cut up?” Brina asked as she looked at the mountain of food. “What are we going to do with all this?”
Julia had no idea but agreed it defied logic that something that looked relatively small could turn into a mammoth mound. But then, who would have thought baking bread could be such a chore, or that two little cabbages could look like they would feed Wellington’s army once they were chopped?
“Should we fill another kettle?”
“It will take too long for the water to heat.” Julia was ready to finish this and get out of the kitchen. “Let’s fill this one to the top with as many vegetables as we can get in it. We can take the rest of it over to the school and they can cook it tomorrow.”
“That’s a better idea.” Brina gave Julia a grateful smile.
Julia looked over at the bread and gasped. It had risen out of the bowl and had fallen over the sides of the pan and onto the table.
Brina looked at Julia and together they said, “Too much yeast!”
Julia took in a deep breath, determined not to let making bread get the best of her. “We’ll fill more pans and bake it.”
Finally, the bread was in the oven and the vegetables in the kettle. “The school will have enough bread for a week,” Julia said, washing her hands in a tub of water.
“Soup, too,” Brina added, dabbing a towel to her forehead. “I suppose we should clean up, but I would really rather sit down and have a cup of tea first.”
Julia surveyed the table, sticky with drying flour and dough, and littered with bits of cabbage, potato, and onion peelings and greenery from the celery. She thought she might never want to eat again. Especially if she had to do the cooking. It was too much work, and she simply didn’t want to eat that badly. And she had as much experience cleaning as she had cooking—which was none.
“I need something stronger than tea,” Julia said, brushing a fallen strand of hair behind her ear. “I need to be fortified before I attempt cleaning that table. Port is a fortified wine. There’s an open bottle of it in the drawing room.”
“Excellent idea,” Brina agreed.
After a few minutes, a few laughs, and a few dry bits of humor about how they looked, Julia and Brina were well on their way to finishing their second glass of port. Tiny glasses emptied quickly.
When their chatter about the enlightening experience faded away, Garrett crossed Julia’s mind and she started feeling somber.
“I didn’t tell you, but Garrett and I have kissed and touched and much more,” Julia said softly.
Brina sat up straighter in the settee. “I thought as much, but didn’t want to pry.”
“When we were together it was hurried, frantic, but so magical I can’t stop thinking about it or stop wanting it to happen again and again even though I know the dangers of getting caught or getting in the family way. Either one would ruin my life with my son and that’s what I’m working to protect. My mind keeps saying, Be sensible. You have so much to lose, but my body, my heart keeps telling me what he makes me feel is worth the chance.”
They were quiet for a few moments before Brina leaned back against the settee cushion. She then drained her glass, placed it on the table in front of her, and asked, “Do you love him?”
“Sometimes I think I must, but I really don’t know. I desperately want to be with him again and feel those earth-shattering sensations. Yet there are the issues with the duke. And there’s the matter that Garrett is an adventurer. He could sail away again at any time and leave me with a broken heart.”
“Do you really think that’s the kind of man he is?”
“I don’t know the answer to that, but I do know he doesn’t usually stay in London very long. You’ve heard the gossip about mistresses and leaving young ladies with broken hearts.”
“I think the sea has been his only true mistress,” Brina said. “He has been good to help you with finding the duke’s documents and trying to understand the ledger. I don’t think he’s going to sail away.”
“I can’t be sure,” Julia answered.
“Then you must enjoy the time you have with him. Before the duke returns, before Mr. Stockton leaves.”
“That’s what I’ve been thinking, too.” Julia swallowed hard and set her glass on the table, too. “What about you, Brina? If you go to live at Pilwillow Crossings, you will never have the possibility of being kissed again. Never have that feeling as if you’re walking on air again.”
“That’s what I’ve believed since Stewart died,” she said thoughtfully. “Now, when I hear you talking about how Mr. Stockton makes you feel, I wonder if I’m sure.”
“You must be—” Julia suddenly felt as if her stomach jumped to her throat. Was something burning? She turned and looked toward the doorway and sniffed.
“The bread!” Brina exclaimed.
They rose and raced each other down the corridor. Their elbows knocked, shoulders bumped, and skirts swished as they passed the dining room, the breakfast room and stopped inside the kitchen doorway.
Smoke billowed from the ovens on either side of the fireplace. Liquid from the soup was sputtering and bubbling over the top of the kettle and puddling on the floor. The stench of charred bread mixed with the harsh odor of burned wood and cooked food swirled in the air. Julia opened a window, grabbed a towel and started fanning the gray cloud.
“I’ll get the bread out of the oven. You take the soup off the rack.”
Julia couldn’t see into the oven to reach for the pans. She fanned harder.
“I can’t lift the soup by my—ouch!”
“Are you burned?” Julia asked.
“Only a little. It splattered on my hand. I’m all right, but the handle’s too hot. The kettle is too heavy. I need your help.”
Julia swung toward Brina. The ovens were going to continue to smoke until she got the bread out of them, but she was afraid Brina might hurt herself. She needed to help her first. Julia wrapped her cloth around one end of the handle of the kettle, Brina the other. They were trying to move when she heard booted feet running down the corridor.
Garrett.
He rounded the doorway and stopped, instantly taking in the situation. “What in the name of Hades are you two doing?”
“How did—”
“Not now,” he ordered. “Stand back before you catch your dresses on fire or get burned.”
Julia and Brina stepped away and watched him lift the scorching hot kettle from the rack as if it were empty and place it onto the far side of the hearth. He then pulled a bread paddle off the wall and slid it into the oven, bringing out the pans and tumbling them into the tub of wash water.
The damage of what almost happened flashed before Julia’s mind. She was furious with herself for what she’d allow to happen. What made her think she and Brina could cook anything? They could have burned down the house! Why did her best intentions always seem to turn out wrong?
The smoke was clearing. Garrett looked at Julia and Brina. His brow furrowed deeply. “What the devil are you two doing in here? Where’s your housekeeper?”
Julia swallowed hard. It was a rather awkward position she was in. As was often the case with her impulsive ideas, she’d landed herself in a predicament that was proving more difficult than she’d believed it would be. And it appeared there was going to be no easy way to get out of it.
“Hello,” came a girl’s voice from the back door. “We saw smoke coming out of the window. Is the kitchen on fire?”
Julia heard quick footsteps which was followed by two girls from the school. They stopped and looked at the soup and flour all over the floor and the leftover vegetable trimmings scattered across the worktable, and then their gazes settled on Julia.
“Mrs. Lawton is going to be mad at someone when she sees what’s been done to her kitchen, but it’s not going to be me she’s mad at.”