Page 43 of If I Loved You
“Zach’ry! Zach’ry!” She chimed, and immediately set to destroying his neatly tied cravat.
Emma nearly blanched at Bethany’s joy—however was she to take the man from her life when all else she’d known was gone as well? Watching the earl entertain Bethany now, Emma felt immediately that strange and uncomfortable feeling one gets when they realize they haven’t any choice but to do something not to their liking, something they deem quite dangerous. Dread, she thought it might be.
With a sigh that she hoped went unnoticed, Emma asked, “Had you come only to reprimand me?”
This brought the earl’s head up, his eyes, less stormy now, leveled on her. He nearly smiled. “I came as well to be sure you were settling in all right. To see if you had need of anything.”
She had a need, that was for sure. She needed to not be so disturbed by the very presence of this man. She needed to think of him not at all when he wasn’t near her. She needed to forget that his lips felt like heaven upon hers. She absolutely needed to stop thinking endlessly upon the possibility of more kisses.
“We’ve arranged our rooms upstairs,” she said instead. “Bethany will be moving into a child’s bed now.” Shrugging, she didn’t know what else to say. “I see that the pantry and larder have been supplied. Thank you.”
He nodded at this, thoughtful for a moment. Then a strange grin lifted his mouth and made him appear near boyish. “I hate to ask, Emma, but do you even know how to cook?”
She stared, dumbstruck. Her lips moved to answer but no words came forth right away until a bare, “Well, no,” finally did. She would learn. Eventually, she guessed. But with Mrs. Smythe soon to be here, she hadn’t thought to worry about her own present inadequacies. She didn’t know if or what she might tell him about the coming of the Smythes and Langdon. Would he disapprove? Refuse them? Could he?
He chuckled outright at her response.
Emma smiled herself. “It cannot be very hard... can it? A lot of cutting and chopping and—and,” she wavered and then glanced at the vegetables in the baskets, “and a boiling of things.”
Zachary nodded helpfully. “Sounds not difficult at all.” His carefully held façade burst then and he erupted in outrightlaughter just as Emma did herself. Bethany chimed in, having no idea what they conspired in laughter over, but happy to participate all the same.
“I don’t suppose you would be any help to me,” Emma accused when their laughter had begun to fade, but there was a hopeful element to her tone.
The earl looked mildly affronted. “Me? No. Even when I served with Wellington, I had staff to cook for me.” He set Bethany down then as she was wiggling to be free and take up again with the stool. “But you might be right—it shouldn’t be that hard. ‘Get the food hot’ seems to be the basic premise of cooking.”
“Exactly,” Emma agreed, clinging to this tenet as something on which she could build. “I can light a fire,” she told him proudly. She thought for a second then guessed, with less surety, “Bread might be more difficult a task.”
“Mmm,” he agreed with a nod. “And puddings, likely, take some greater amount of knowledge.”
Emma grimaced. “And gravies and pies and porridge and stews—I suppose they might all be rather tricky.” Thank heavens that the Smytheswerecoming. Soon, she hoped.
“Beginning to sound like a problem,” Zach decided in an even tone.
“Hmm, yes.” She chewed her lip determinedly. “But nothing that cannot be remedied, I imagine. We certainly won’t starve in the meantime.”
“No?”
Emma frowned at him.
“I mean, no, of course not,” he amended with a grin.
At this, she laughed again. Aside from his constant affability with Bethany, she’d seen not so much more of his personality than his rude and overbearing person. This was a pleasant, wholly unexpected side of him. Instantly, she was wary; she desired his kisses when he’d been a less than desirable character, and if he turned charming on her now, what more might she crave?
“’Tis a good thing I arrived when I did,” he said into that small span of silence. “I suggest we head immediately for Perry Green and see what sustenance they have to offer.”
Her mind screamed an abrupt,No!, but as he was smiling so handsomely at her, and as he’d showed a boyish charm with his wonderful laughter, she acquiesced.
PERRY GREEN WAS A SMALLbut thriving market town in eastern Hertfordshire, though presently it boasted only one main thoroughfare, High Street. Aside from this, there were two rear access roads, Back Lane and Weir Lane, which allowed vendors to place their wares inside the mostly Georgian-styled buildings. As Hertfordshire was conveniently close to the English capital; much of the area was owned by the nobility and thus the local economy of Perry Green was regularly boosted by this wealth.
This would be Emma’s first good view of Perry Green, and she truly hoped it was all she’d promised it to be to the Smythes and Langdon.
On High Street sat the Crown Inn, a coaching inn which served mostly nobility on their passage from London to theircountry homes. While Emma had always thought the King’s Arms a respectable and well-tended inn, she’d not much to compare it to, her visitation of other inns limited indeed. Thus, she was pleasantly surprised to find the Crown Inn so well-appointed and filled with so elite a crowd. In the next instant, however, surveying the large victuals barroom with its open fireplace, and all the grand people sitting about, she felt uncomfortably like the very poor and non-elite person that she was.
The earl apparently sensed or felt this not at all and steered her to a table near the windows, requesting of the steward a higher chair for Bethany. His very elegant appearance and the obvious air of nobility made things happen rather quickly and very shortly then Bethany was set into a chair which fit perfectly against the table, the seat and arms small enough that she was held snugly within.
Perhaps the earl perceived Emma’s discomfort then—she felt his eyes once again watching her keenly—because he didn’t allow her to have to make decisions but expressed himself to the steward, ordering their meals and beverages. This time, Emma was rather glad for his sometimes high-handedness. It occurred to her suddenly that she had never once sat at this side of the service trade. She felt conspicuous and ill at ease and so, rather without thinking, blurted, “I daresay I might rather learn to cook.”
Zachary Benedict laughed outright at this, a loudness above the general din of the room, though he seemed not to care. “They are no different from you or I,” he said, having correctly interrupted her timid expression.
