The Marriage Test

by Betina Krahn

  “Ooof!” He bent double, emptying his hands to grab his stomach.

  “How dare you sneak into our kitchens to steal food?”

  He reacted instinctively to both the shock and discomfort, grabbing her by the shoulders and shoving her back out the opening and around the corner of the open kitchen wall, out of sight. He clamped a hand over her mouth to muffle her cry of surprise as he shoved her back against the stones and pinned her struggling form there with his body.

  “Hush!” he commanded. She was choking furious and croaking out something that sounded on the order of “miserable … thieving …”

  Then it hit him … the smell of the dog cart filled with kitchen parings and offal that he had fled for a niche in the kitchen … the odor of sun-heated, fermenting waste and burgeoning rot. It slammed through his head and his whole body reacted, contracting in a wave of revulsion and nausea. Groping frantically for his nose clip, he managed to hold down both the feast he had just eaten and the girl he had trapped against the wall while donning the smooth metal clip that saved his senses and sanity.

  After a moment, the onslaught of moldy onions, bloody chicken feathers, and rotting carrot tops and cabbage leaves subsided. He shook his head and forced himself to take a few breaths. Think, he commanded himself.

  She thought he was here just to steal food, he realized, which meant his disguise was working. But a nobleman of his stature couldn’t afford to be caught skulking about a nunnery, stealing food, and being assaulted by the kitchen help. He had to get away. After he learned more about the cook.

  “I won’t hurt you, wench,” he ground out, staring into the girl’s eyes. Big green eyes, that just now contained sparks enough to look like a grass fire in progress. “Nor will I release you until you tell me which is your head cook.”

  She glared mutinously at him and made it clear, as she tried to bare her teeth against his palm, that removing his hand to hear what she said would be unwise. Cursed female. He adjusted his grip to avoid those teeth.

  “Is it one of the old sisters?”

  She shook her head, but the fire in her gaze made it impossible to say whether that meant the cook wasn’t one of the sisters or that she refused to tell him. He growled, fighting the scent of decay still rumbling in his head to think.

  “Is your head cook one of the nuns? Tell me and I’ll let you go.”

  This time his offer made an impact; she quit trying to bite him.

  Again she shook her head.

  “If I take my hand away, do you promise not to cry out?”

  After a moment she nodded and he gentled his grip.

  “What the devil do you think you’re doing?” she snapped the instant his fingers departed her skin. “Sneaking into a convent and stealing food meant for the duke—”

  “What is she like, this cook of yours?” he demanded, craning his neck toward the edge of the wall to look at the sisters collapsed in a far corner.

  “Big enough and mean enough to make you wish you’d practiced your thieving ways somewhere else.”

  “Strapping, is she?” he deduced. Good cooks generally were. They had to be. There was always hauling, mixing, grinding, and pounding to be done. Wrestling massive iron kettles, griddles, and spits about the kitchen required a certain amount of brawn … not to mention the fact that skimmers, tongs, and ladles were the weight equivalent of lances, battle-axes, and maces, and demanded the same kind of stamina.

  “She’ll have your ears for candle wax,” came the wench’s reply.

  “Strong, eh?” He narrowed his eyes, trying desperately to focus his thoughts through the mingling waves of exquisite and onerous sensation lingering on his senses. “But not overly smart … all she could come up with to present to the duke was hedgehogs.”

  The wench’s mouth opened, then snapped shut.

  “The duke brought his son. It was for him she made the hedgehogs, you big oaf. And if you don’t get out of here”—she tried to push some space between them—“she’ll stuff you headfirst into a vinegar barrel and leave you to pickle.”

  The mention of pickling unexpectedly reasserted the memory of the slurry of soured and rotting scents around him and conjured up the remembered scent of brine and vinegar and the half-rotten smell of pickling cabbage … Stop that!

  “Speaks both French and English, does she?” He forced his attention to his other senses … only now realizing that he was pressed hotly against the length of her body … that she was young and soft in the places a woman should be soft … and that he was having to work like the very devil to hold her there.

  “And Latin. And Italian.” She ceased shoving and twisting long enough to look up into his face and declare: “The abbess says she’d speak the devil’s own tongue if it meant getting Old Scratch’s recipes.”

  “A better cook than Christian, then.”

  She looked as if the comment outraged her, then abruptly nodded.

  “She learned to cook from gypsies.” She lowered her voice to a fierce whisper. “It was them that taught her to use all manner of secret herbs and eastern spices … like devil’s heat, curry, and paprika. Makes food so hot, it flames a body’s innards like a foretaste of eternal damnation.” Her eyes narrowed. “You should try some. A few bites of her stew and you’d be on your knees praying for forgiveness.”

  She gave another furious push. He just managed to counter it and realized that he was now having to exert every bit of force he possessed to contain her. It registered in his mind that there was a reddish cast to her light hair. That made sense. Red hair always meant a pepper-hot disposition. He found himself wondering if she smelled like pepper, too. Or maybe tasted like it.

  Good God. He quickly put some space between him and the wench.

  “They also say,” she continued in a taunting tone, apparently sensing the tide of power had somehow just turned, “the abbess uses her stew as a final test for the novices before she’ll let them take vows.”

  “Which no doubt explains why you aren’t wearing a habit yet,” he snapped, feeling oddly defensive. “And her temper?”

  “Like a badger in mating season.”

  She was lying, he realized. No one who made almond-and-spice hedgehogs for young boys could have that foul a temper. Only a woman of sensitivity and insight would think to please a father by delighting a son.

  He’d learned what he came to find out: that he wanted—needed—the convent’s cook for his own.

  “You want to see her?” the girl asked with a purposeful edge to her tone. “She’s in with the duke and the bishop and the abbess. I can go and call her for you.” He allowed her to push him back and she bolted out of his reach, turning on him with eyes blazing. “So she can lay a fist to the side of your larcenous head!”

  The instant she turned to run back inside, he wheeled and ran for the back gate.

  Chapter Four

  The old sisters collapsed on stools near the fire bolted upright on their seats as Julia came rushing back into the kitchen, calling out an alarm and heading straight for the dining hall. Midway up the steps, she was inundated by a tide of novices and maidens hurrying back down to the kitchen, their hands filled with empty platters and their heads with excitement.

  They besieged her, all talking at once, recounting every comment and gesture of their guests’ reaction to the meal. She tried in vain to part them and continue on up the stairs. As bits of their news pierced her turmoil, she had time to consider what she was about to report to the abbess and the duke.

  Invaded? By whom? the abbess would surely demand. And what could she answer? A lone beggar who filched food from the kitchen? Scarcely a threat to the sanctity of the convent, the sovereignty of the duke, or the dignity of the bishop. In fact, the only one threatened in any way was herself. Why on earth would a man steal into the convent kitchen to stuff himself witless and—when caught—demand to know about their cook?

  The chaos around her had subsided into expectant stares. She took a deep breath and grasped he
r bearings. She had a feast to finish and an angry abbess to placate afterward. Her gaze landed on the table below where one and a half hedgehogs waited to delight a duke’s son. She clapped her hands for attention.

  “Take the trays and linen to the scullery and tidy your sleeves and hands to serve the final course.”

  As she followed the servers back down the steps, she vowed to personally oversee the distribution of alms later. And if she spotted the wretch who had just assaulted her in her own kitchen, she would see that he rued ever setting eyes—much less hands—on her.

  Half an hour later, under the abbess’s scorching gaze, she presented the barrel-chested duke and his callow-faced son with a pair of charming, if somewhat abbreviated, creatures of the hedgerows. The young boy’s eyes danced with merriment beneath his bowl-cut hair and the duke chuckled and bestowed an approving smile as she began to cut and serve. The bishop was moved to remark upon the choice of a creature of such humility, the confection’s likeness to the real thing, and began waxing on about its suitability as a finale to a meal in a convent, when aged Sister Archibald hurried into the dining hall, curtsied to bishop and duke, then whispered urgently into the abbess’s ear.

  “What? Have they moved the road to Paris?” the reverend mother snapped, tossing her lap cloth on the table. “Now it runs right by our door?” She rose and apologized to the duke and then the bishop: “It seems we have more visitors. If you will excuse me, Your Grace, Your Worship.”

  The abbess hurried along the colonnade with Sister Archibald, who when asked, repeated the nobleman’s name: the Comte de Grandaise. The abbess frowned, trying to recall why the name seemed familiar and where she might have heard it. He wasn’t from the nearby region, to be sure.

  She halted some distance from the inner gate, assessing the trio of armor-clad men standing just inside the entry with their helms in their hands. One spotted her and alerted the others, who turned to her while arraying themselves in formidable-looking phalanx … the two shorter men flanking the taller one … one telling step behind.

  The abbess paused two yards away, face-to-face with a tall, broad-shouldered lord clad in mail armor, wearing what appeared to be a band of metal across the ridge of his nose, pinching it together. Aware that she was staring, she looked quickly down to the coat of arms emblazoned on a silk tabard over his mail. It was unlike any crest she had seen before: grapes, lumps of charcoal, and what appeared to be a wild boar rampant on a split field of pale blue and loden green. The lord’s two companions, who bore the same coat of arms on their tunics, joined him in a light bow of respect.

  “Please forgive the intrusion, Reverend Mother.” The imposing lord’s voice had a nasal quality that drew her attention to the metal band he wore. “I am Griffin, the Comte de Grandaise, of Bordeaux. I have ridden a long way to seek an audience with you.”

  “You arrive at an inconvenient time, sir.”

  “Your Lordship,” the shorter, rounder knight prompted.

  “Your Lordship.” The abbess heeded the prompt a bit testily, backing up a step and inserted her hands into the ends of her sleeves. “We have guests. The Duke of Avalon and the Bishop of Rheims are with us and we must see to their comfort first. Perhaps I will have an opportunity to speak with you after dinner is finished.”

  “Dinner?” the tall, lanky knight whispered with an edge of longing. Suddenly both knights were staring at her with such naked hunger that she was startled for a moment.

  “I suppose you haven’t eaten.”

  “No, Reverend Mother,” the shorter knight declared. “We are famished.”

  “Of course. You would be,” she said flatly, thinking that something about that pair of knights seemed familiar. “You may as well join us in the dining hall for a bit of food.”

  When they reached the dining hall, the abbess gave three of the elder sisters at the head table a private signal to vacate their seats. Then she introduced the count and his knights to the duke and the bishop … which was when she realized why “Sir Axel” and “Sir Greeve” seemed so familiar.

  “You appeared at our door some weeks ago, in a rainstorm,” she said.

  “And you were kind enough to provide us with food,” round-faced Sir Axel responded, beaming with gratitude.

  “What good fortune that we may now share with our seigneur the experience of your kitchen,” Sir Greeve said while glancing wistfully at the sauce-stained trenchers on the tables.

  “Yes. Fortunate indeed.” The abbess watched the trio ogling the food and thought that perhaps she should have demanded to know the count’s purpose straight off, then sent the trio on their way. But, they had left gold pieces to pay for a meat-day supper … “Seat yourselves, good sirs.”

  The knights nearly tripped over themselves hurrying to the seats the abbess indicated, where they waited anxiously for their lord to return from holding the abbess’s chair.

  Julia stood before the head table with a long, sharp knife in her hand, having just served the last hedgehog’s head to the duke’s son. She gripped the bone handle tighter as a chill ran up her spine.

  The man’s size, coloring, and powerful bearing were the same. And that voice … pinched, as if he held his nose … just like the wretch who …

  Then he looked up as he placed his helm on the table across from his place, and she gasped. He had the same dark hair—albeit somewhat tamed—the same angular face, and the same piercing golden eyes. The wretch who assaulted her as a beggar in the kitchen now appeared in the dining hall as a nobleman!

  She could scarcely see the abbess nod to her, indicating she should retire to the kitchens to arrange food for these interlopers. Peeling her white-fingered hand from the knife grip, she glared at the thieving nobleman and exited to arrange the rogue’s second dinner of the day.

  Every eye in the dining hall was on the three men as they began to eat. The two knights dug into their bowls, trencher, and shared sauceboat with relish, groaning with pleasure as they experienced each new taste. The count, however, carved his food daintily and wiped his fingers frequently, seeming uncommonly restrained in the face of such exceptional fare. Only occasionally could he be seen closing his eyes as he savored an especially tasty morsel.

  Where did the count come from? the abbess asked.

  “The south.”

  Why was he so far from home?

  “Summoned to court.”

  Where was he bound after that?

  “Here.”

  “You have traveled all the way from Paris to come here? To our convent?” The abbess hesitated for a moment, torn between openly demanding his purpose in coming here, and allowing their hospitality to lay bare his motives in a less public manner. “And why have you sought us out, Your Lordship?”

  Matrimony was the most common reason noblemen approached the gates of the Convent of the Brides of Virtue. The Order of the Brides of Virtue was known throughout the continent for taking in the nobility’s destitute daughters and turning them into worthy brides for noblemen unable to acquire wives through more usual channels. Of late, however, the bride market had been a bit slow. The war between England and France had stripped many noble houses of dower lands and marriageable younger sons, and the number of wealthy merchants hoping to improve themselves with a wellborn bride had fallen off dramatically. She had to tread carefully here; she didn’t want to insult a potential bridegroom and miss a chance to plump the convent’s all-too-lean coffers.

  “Have you come for a bride?”

  “Not a bride,” the count declared, pushing back from the table. “A cook.”

  “A what?” The abbess stared at the count as if he just sprouted a second head. “Surely you mean a bride who oversees a fine and worthy kitchen. The sisters of our order have answered the Almighty’s call to train young women of noble birth to be brides, not common cooks.”

  “Oh, there is nothing common about the cook I seek, Reverend Mother,” the count declared, turning to face her. “Whoever stewed this pottage, roasted this
succulent meat, and created this heavenly pink garlic sauce is far from common. And I’ve come to purchase her from you.”

  A communal gasp nearly sucked all the air from the dining hall.

  “Purchase our cook?” The abbess lurched to her feet. “Out of the question.” She looked rattled by the very notion. “Our cook is pledged to God Almighty and to the life of our convent.”

  “I have it on good authority that she has never taken vows.” The count glanced about the dining hall and spotted Julia standing near the kitchen stairs glaring at him. His mouth quirked with recognition as his gaze moved on … searching the dining hall for a woman who looked capable of reducing a nobleman’s ears to candle wax. “She is not a nun, I am told. Which means there should be no impediment to her leaving the convent.”

  “I care not what you have heard, sir.” The abbess’s temper slipped the jess. “If you think you can invade these walls, take advantage of our hospitality, and then demand that we hand over our cook to you, you are sadly mistaken.” She turned to find her trusted assistant standing nearby with an anxious expression. “Sister Archibald, please show these—”

  “I am aware that what I ask is unusual.” The count rose, drawing his wide-eyed men up with him, but showing not the smallest inclination toward the door. “My request is borne out of a great and pressing need.” His words and tone became more entreating. “I have looked far and wide for a cook that meets my requirements, and yours is the first to even come close. I would have her for my cook, and I am willing to be generous with the convent in return.”

  “I will hear no more.” The abbess raised both her chin and the imperative in her voice. “Take your men and leave these grounds immedi—”

  “The Comte de Grandaise?” The bishop’s imperious tones cut through the abbess’s command like a knife, causing her to start. “Of course. Bordeaux. The Grandaise vineyards and wineries.” He motioned to the grapes featured prominently on the count’s coat of arms. “You are that Grandaise.”