AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Humph.” March scowled.
Good luck with that, Alice,Nick thought. You’ll never force a smile out of Harold March. I’ve been trying for years.
“Don’t you like marmalade?” she asked.
“He does,” said Bill. “It’s his favorite. He ate three whole jars last month alone. I calculate he’s eaten ten jars already this year.”
“Then give us a smile,” Alice wheedled.
“Might crack his face. He never smiles. He’s smiled a total of... never,” Bill finished with a surprised look. “He’s never smiled.”
Alice laughed. “Then he shall have no marmalade.”
March stalked away, pausing when he noticed Nick watching from beyond the door.
At Nick’s gesture he walked over.
“What’s happening here, Mr. March?” Nick asked sternly.
“A bunch of utter nonsense. She”—he jerked his thumb at Alice’s back as she bent over the pot—“is making the duke some chicken soup.”
“Were you chopping vegetables, March?”
March hung his shaggy head. “May ’ave been.”
Alice turned around at the sound of their voices, and Nick’s heart stopped beating.
The steam had curled her hair in tendrils around her face and painted her cheeks with roses.
Too beautiful.
Too wholesome.
Not mine.
His lovers would never soil their hands with soup ladles. They’d be too afraid of the scent clinging to their clothing. They were far too fine for peeling garlic.
They’d rather die than make their own soup.
He scowled at the cat, who smirked back. She’d led him here knowingly, to this den of temptation and turncoat-ery.
When Nick entered the kitchen, his men took one look at his face and found hasty excuses to leave.
Alice stirred the pot, avoiding his eyes.
With every pass of the ladle through the rich, golden broth, the heavenly fragrance teased his nostrils and made his stomach clench with hunger.
“Now don’t go thinking I’m cooking this for you, my lord,” Alice said in a saucy tone of voice.
She scattered a handful of chopped fresh herbs into the soup and the aroma rose, fresh and clean.
“It’s for the duke, and for Jane,” she said. “She’s doing much better today but she could use a restorative meal, and your cook only seems to know how to make unhealthful meals smothered in cream sauce and butter.”
“Where is my cook?”
“I gave him the day off.”
Nick blinked. The lady was taking charge of the household, it seemed. “I won’t have you superimposing order here. I like the chaos.”
