Page 26 of To Seduce a Stranger

Before she could reply, Edward rose from the table. “You’ll have half the village here for breakfast if you’re not careful, Mari,” he teased. Yesterday’s strain had eased. With a nod of greeting for Charlotte, he moved to take the buckets from Garrick’s hands and carried them to the cistern to fill it. Relieved of his burden, Garrick sat and took up his fork in preparation.

“Well, I only invited Mr. Markham, seeing as he was the one who supplied us with the eggs,” Mari tossed back, never taking her eyes off her task.

That piece of information produced a sharp clang of tin against copper, as if Edward had almost dropped the bucket. “You saw Markham? When?”

“Yesterday afternoon. Where there’s a farm, there’s seed for a garden. And chickens,” she added, at last turning away from the fire with a steaming skillet of coddled eggs. “And, once upon a time, a pig.”

“Markham spared you all that?” Garrick asked in open amazement, shoveling food from the pan onto his plate before Mari had even set it down.

“My cooking always could work wonders.” A smile twinkled in her brown eyes.

Charlotte hid her surprise by busying herself with the coffeepot. So, the hearty slice of pie had not been destined for the Rookery after all. “Where is Mr. Dobbs this morning?” she asked.

“Went back t’ London at first light,” Garrick answered around a mouthful.

“Oh!” Mari turned to Edward. “I thought you meant to go—?” “Two dozen eggs, a flitch of bacon. I suppose Markham gave you the coffee, too?” Edward spoke across her, avoiding the question.

“No. That was among the supplies Mrs. Corrvan sent.”

“Mrs. Corrvan?” This time, at least, he did not stumble over her name. But Charlotte could see by the sudden tightness in his shoulders how he disliked having to speak it.

“That’s right,” Mari confirmed, an edge of defiance in her voice as she turned her attention to dishing up the bacon.

“Ah, yes. Now I remember. Mrs. Cary told me of it yesterday.”

Feeling Edward’s eyes on her, Charlotte poured four cups of the hot, dark liquid and put one at each place, wondering whether he would prove willing to drink it now, given its origins.

But by the time he joined the other three at the table, he seemed to have put his feelings about Mrs. Corrvan behind him. Again, however, he eschewed the sugar bowl; when it came around to Charlotte, she guiltily dropped a lump into her cup, feeling only slightly better when she saw Mari take two.

“Garrick,” Mari asked, passing him the bacon, “is there a hen house here worth the name?”

He waved one hand in the direction of the window and the dilapidated wooden structure beyond it. “Aye, after a fashion.”

“Once you’ve plowed the kitchen garden, see that it’s repaired,” Mari ordered. The man harrumphed noisily, but at last gave a reluctant nod.

“With any luck,” explained Mari, “I’ll persuade Mr. Markham to part with a few chicks next time.”

“I doubt that.” With his fork dangling from the fingers of one hand, Edward looked nothing short of mischievous. “You’re out of ammunition. I finished the beef pie last night.”

“There’ll be something else he’ll need, don’t you worry,” was Mari’s tart reply. Their banter this morning was more amiable than the day before, but still nothing like mere master and servant. “Haven’t I always found ways to take care of my kitchen?”

“That you have, Mari. That you have. So,” he said, pushing back his empty plate, “that’s your day sorted, and Garrick’s as well, it would seem.” Garrick mumbled something around a mouthful of food but made no clear objection. “What of you, madam wife?”

The address made her jump, and her cup rattled in its saucer. “I—I thought I might . . . work a bit on straightening up the house. The family rooms.”

Mari paused, a forkful of yellow egg suspended in the air as she looked from Charlotte to Edward. “The family rooms?”

Rising, Charlotte began to collect the dishes from the table. “If Mr. Cary does not object.”

Edward stood, too, fixing her with blue eyes that still laughed, though some of the openness had left them. “Would it matter if I did?”

A wheeze of laughter came from behind Garrick’s cup. “You ain’t been married long, sir, if you’re askin’ such a blame fool question as that. A woman’s like a horse. Can’t give either one a free rein and ’spect not to get runned away with. Gotta keep the bit firm and the crop handy, if you catch my meanin’.”

The analogy was hardly surprising coming from a stable hand, but Charlotte sensed it nevertheless did not sit well with Edward, whose summery gaze seemed to darken as it shifted to the other man. “I do not believe in whipping horses,” he said flatly. “Or women. Or servants—fortunately for you, Garrick.”

Undaunted by the thinly veiled threat, Garrick slid one grimy nail into the gap between two teeth and sucked on whatever he had dug loose. “Jus’ slaves, then?”

Charlotte hardly knew what came over her. She only sensed that these two men were about to come to blows in Mari’s newly spotless kitchen, and instinct told her that if Garrick went down, it would ultimately be Edward who would struggle to rise again. Mari had been right—he could not afford to earn the censure of the people he meant to help.