The Louise Allen Collection: The Viscount's Betrothal / The Society Catch. Louise Allen
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‘First one to Ajax’s tail gets the egg, then.’
‘Which egg?’
‘The one and only hen’s egg left in the larder!’
Laughing, Adam pressed on. They met at the door into Ajax’s stall, Decima diving in first to seize the brushes so he was forced to rummage for those in the stall next door.
‘Cheat,’ he grumbled. ‘Look, you’ve left me with all of his mane.’
‘I will do his face.’ She sounded breathless now, half with effort, half with laughter at this ridiculous race. ‘Loser gets the tail.’
‘Where’s the leather?’
‘What leather?’ For a moment he was deceived, but only for a moment. He was getting to know Decima.
‘The one you are hiding.’ He ducked right under the hunter’s belly, surprising her so that she jumped back with a squeak, but not before he saw the yellow chamois leather flick behind her. ‘Come on, you’ve finished with it.’
‘Find your own.’ She was laughing at him, her generous mouth wide to show even white teeth.
‘No, you’ve got what I want,’ and he lunged for it.
Decima found herself pressed against Ajax’s shoulder, the solid bulk of the horse unyielding at her back. Adam was right in front of her, a laughing challenge in his eyes. ‘Come on, hand it over.’
His shirt was open at the neck, showing a tantalising glimpse of dark hair, the sleeves were rolled up, exposing strong forearms with elegantly long muscles, his hands were raised in mock menace and he was smiling with absolute confidence that she would yield. His body heat seemed to wash over her, bringing the startlingly arousing scent of fresh sweat, hot man and leather.
Decima thought wildly that she had never seen anything more male in her life, and that included the stallion in the next stall. Suddenly she knew she could not deal with this; she was out of her depth, playing with forces she did not understand, and whatever happened next she was about to make an utter fool of herself.
‘Here.’ She thrust the leather into his hands and slid down, under the horse and up the other side where, thank God, it seemed possible to breathe. ‘You win. I’ll go and cook breakfast.’ Her exit from the stables was, she was certain, anything but dignified.
Any fool could cook bacon and eggs, surely? Even a fool who let herself be entranced by a virile man who had nothing else on his mind other than passing a few days’ isolation by flirting with an old maid. Decima peered miserably into the mirror that hung in the scullery above the small basin where she was scrubbing her hands.
‘Look at you,’ she muttered angrily. Her nose was pink, her cheeks flushed. The beastly freckles stood out as though each one had been individually touched in with sepia ink. Her hair was all over the place and she looked positively haggard from lack of sleep. In fact, she looked every one of her twenty-seven years, if not more. She pulled a face at herself, then winced at the way it widened her mouth. Her wide mouth was not the worst of her faults, she had been given to understand, just one of many, but it did not help. Fishy lips, her unkind young cousins had called her when they were children.
She realised that she was having to stoop in order to look in the mirror that the housekeeper and the maid used every day. Doubtless they were normal-sized women, not fairground oddities.
Fool, fool, fool. How did she think she could turn herself from the passive, quiet freak of an unmarried sister into an independent, assured woman who experienced life on her own terms? Possibly it was achievable, but not in the space of a day and a night, not in the company of an experienced man of the world who was just too much of a gentleman to laugh at her.
He laughs with me, the pathetic little inner voice mumbled, he finds me amusing. The old, cynical destructive voice snapped back, Just like you’d find a child aping its elders amusing, no doubt. It hadn’t needed that brandy last night to turn her head, she had been drunk on freedom and excitement and the edge of danger and she had behaved like…like a fool. Why search for another word when that one summed it up so neatly?
Decima scrubbed her hands viciously on a towel, threw off her shawl and found an apron. Bacon, bread, the one egg. Enough for three, for Bates must surely be awake and hungry by now.
Knife, bread board, toasting fork. What do you cook bacon in? A frying pan, presumably. Fat.
She moved around the larder, gathering things up, forcing herself to work out timings to keep the apprehension at bay. He would be back in a minute, wondering why she had fled in that idiotic way.
In the event there was a pile of only slightly charred toast on the table and the bacon was sizzling nicely—provided one had a fancy for it crispy—by the time the back door opened.
Decima kept her back to the door, busying herself pouring hot water over the coffee grounds.
‘All done,’ Adam said cheerfully, as though she had not just fled in disarray from a game she had initiated. ‘That bacon smells good.’
Hastily, Decima flipped it onto a platter before it went any blacker. How did one fry eggs? Tentatively, she cracked it on the edge of the frying pan, then leapt backwards as the contents landed on the fat in an explosion of spitting droplets.
‘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