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‘Too hot.’ Adam leaned across her and lifted the pan off the heat while the egg spluttered and went white with an uneven frill of brown around the edges.
‘It’s spoilt,’ Decima said, alarmed to find that her voice trembled.
‘No, it’s not.’ Adam slid it out onto the platter where it sat, the yolk looking decidedly underdone in its hard brown-and-white ruff. ‘I’ll wash and then take Bates’s food up. I will not be a minute.’
Decima buttered toast and put it with bacon, a pot of jam and a mug of coffee onto a tray, pushing it across the table to Adam as he emerged from the scullery. ‘I hope he feels better this morning and his leg is not paining him too much.’
‘More likely his head.’ Adam grinned and lifted the tray. ‘I’ll check on Pru while I’m up there.’
Automatically Decima set the table, buttered the rest of the toast, put out the jam and the platter of bacon. It looked decidedly overcooked, but somehow, against all the odds, the kitchen table seemed homely and charming with the fragrant bacon and the chairs close to the warmth of the range. Why that should so overset her she had no idea, but her eyes filled with tears, a sob caught in her throat and before she knew what she was doing she was sitting down, her face in the apron, weeping.
‘Hey! What’s this? Decima?’ Adam was on his knees by her side, gently prising the apron from her face. ‘Have you burnt yourself?’
‘No, I am sorry, this is ridiculous, I’m not crying, I never cry.’ She tried to hide her face again and was firmly prevented. Adam pressed a large white handkerchief into her hands.
‘Never?’
‘Never.’ Her voice wavered. This was dreadful. Her nose would be red, her eyes red, her face blotchy.
‘Oh well, then, if you aren’t crying,’ Adam said briskly, ‘you are sick of the mulligrubs. That is easily cured.’
‘The what?’ Decima emerged cautiously from the shelter of the white linen.
‘Mulligrubs. Look, come and eat something, that’s the best thing to cure them. It ought to be cake, or sweets—the stickier the better—but bacon will do.’ He heaped a plate and pushed it towards her. ‘Go on.’ This had to be some kind of dream. A viscount, sitting in his breeches and shirtsleeves at a kitchen table, eating her burnt offerings and discussing mulligrubs.
‘But what are mulligrubs?’ The bacon smelled delicious. Decima took a forkful, chewed, followed it with a bite of toast and the wobbly feeling inside subsided.
‘I am not sure exactly.’ Adam was gingerly cutting into the egg. ‘It’s what my old nurse used to call it when I was a little boy and was cast down or in the dumps for no good reason. But food always works.’
‘Do you…do you get the mulligrubs often now?’ she enquired. He ate the egg without any expression of revulsion; perhaps her cooking was not that bad.
‘I haven’t had them for years. I suspect they go away if there isn’t anyone around to cure them with a dose of toffee. Bates is awake and appreciating your bacon, too. He says that his blanking leg is hurting like blank, if his lordship will excuse him saying so, and he’d have done a better job himself on a dog, but he is sure his lordship did his best considering he hasn’t had much practice. Pru fortunately slept through that expression of gratitude for our efforts.’
‘Is he always that outspoken?’ Decima blew her nose and stuffed the handkerchief away.
‘Usually he just grunts. It was one of the longest speeches I have ever heard him make, other than that tirade when I carried him in last night. I inherited him from my father, another man of very few words, who took him on as a half-starved brat. I think they suited each other. He’s tough, loyal, damn good at his job—all qualities I would put before obsequiousness or a tendency to chatter.’
‘Indeed, yes.’ Decima pushed away her greasy plate and reached for the preserve jar. The memory of breakfast the day before and her sudden resolution came back to her. ‘Do you know, it is New Year’s Day tomorrow?’
‘So it is. We must do something to celebrate.’ Adam took the jar and began to heap gooseberry jam lavishly onto his toast. ‘We could bake a cake.’
‘No eggs. Even I know you need eggs for a cake.’
‘True. Then we will play in the snow.’
‘In the snow? But what can we do?’
‘I will think of something. Now, you are going back to bed.’ Adam poured another cup of coffee and pressed it into her hands. ‘Off you go.’
‘But I have only just got up! It is nine o’clock and there is goodness knows what to do.’
‘Such as?’ He began to push her gently towards the door. ‘Bates will be scandalised if you try and nurse him, Pru’s asleep, the horses are fine until this evening. If Pru needs you, I will wake you.’
‘But…’ Decima dug her toes in on the threshold and waved a hand at the kitchen table.
‘A few plates and some knives and forks are not going to exhaust me. They may ruin my lily-white hands, of course, if the lanolin runs out. Now go on. You are tired out.’
‘But—’
