Eudes smiled. “Black bean soup with a little pork fat. I’m roasting capons and I’m experimenting with a hot spiced wine. Mignon gave me the idea.” He indicated Mignon.
Georgina eyed Mignon, barely five feet and thin. “Did you, now?”
Mignon nodded, her hands covering her papers.
Eudes, wishing to promote this woman who touched him, boasted. “Georgina, since she came to us, I have gotten more done, more ideas. But I need a serving boy who isn’t asleep at noon.” He pointed to the big clock on the wall. “Twenty to noon. Where is Binky?”
As if on cue, a young handsome fellow pushed open the doors with one hand, buttoning his shirt with the other.
Seeing the boss, he fashioned his best grin. “Miss Georgina, and in blue. Matches your eyes.”
“You worthless thing.” She glared at him but did like the compliment. “You were up there with Deborah. Well, set the table and right now. Eudes,” she looked at her cook, “has the full complement for a nasty day. Hot soup. And put out small glass cups for spiced wine and do it now. My God, can’t you keep that thing in your pants! I ought to charge you for fooling with that girl.”
“I love Deborah. She loves me.” He protested as only a young man can.
“Love you she might, but she has customers to serve. Now get out there.” As he left, Georgina turned to Eudes and Mignon. “My girls need to keep their strength.” She glanced at the clock, one of the weights shaped like a pinecone dangling a touch longer than the other. “Half the girls are still asleep. Well, our afternoon crowd will have choices but don’t forget, Friday. Tonight we will be packed unless a storm comes up.” She smiled. “Cold weather encourages a man to get warm.”
With that wisdom she left the kitchen. Eudes just shook his head.
Mignon breathed relief. “I was afraid she’d see my papers.”
“Georgina doesn’t care if you learn to read, but she will care if she sees you do anything but work. I’m the one that needs to be more careful.” He walked to the open fire, bread openings on the side of the laid brick. This way he could make biscuits, bread, anything needing dough while he cooked soups. The capons crackled in an oven, wood fired. The wonderful hickory often infused the meats.
Many men stopped by Georgina’s for a hot midday meal but did not hire a girl afterward. Apart from the girls, the place had a reputation for conviviality and excellent food. Eudes’s creations were so good they brought the people in.
Most of the sex customers crowded the place at night after the cares of the day vanished. Or perhaps they hadn’t vanished—but an hour or more with a good-looking woman banished them temporarily.
Eudes and Mignon worked side by side. She knew exactly what to do. He ladled the soup in a big silver tureen. She dressed this up by putting small pine boughs around the tureen. She kept a supply of greens and dried flowers to set alongside dishes. To keep the biscuits warm she folded over the heaviest, prettiest dish towels, carefully covering the biscuits with a ridge in the middle so the towel could be easily lifted.
Eudes enjoyed this. He had help in the kitchen before, but Mignon anticipated his needs as no one else had done, plus she enhanced the look of the dishes. He didn’t need to manage her.
An hour later, Binky came back in, his shirt still neatly tucked inside his pants. “More spiced wine. They are drinking like fish.”
Eudes turned to the long stove on the wall as Mignon quickly washed out the large jug. This was the sixth refill and the noise outside the door testified to the good spirits the wine provided.
Binky, finger through the top piece, dashed back outside.
Mignon couldn’t help it. She peeked out the doors, then quickly ducked back in.
“Eudes, my master is out there.”
“What?” His face darkened.
“My master. Jeffrey Holloway. The true master is the Missus, but Mr. Holloway married her soon after her husband was killed.”
“Does he know who you are?”
“I don’t know. He didn’t come into the kitchen but he could have seen me. I’m hard to miss.” She knew her small size distinguished her.
“How big is your reward?”
“One hundred dollars. I mean, that’s what the good people who took me in told me.”
“Is he a brutal man?”
“No. He’s at least twenty years younger than Mrs. Selisse. He spends his time in the carpentry shed.”
“Don’t leave the kitchen. When he goes, you’ll be fine. Describe him.”
“He’s in his twenties, English-looking, handsome. Lean. Thick, wavy hair, a touch of chestnut. He’s a quiet one.”
Eudes stepped outside the kitchen, instantly recognized Jeffrey, who was listening carefully to Samuel Udall, a banker on the make, a different generation than the moneymen of ten years ago. “Mr. Holloway, I know your estimable wife has a good head for numbers. Expansion needs to be prudent, security is all important. If I can be of any service in the protection of your funds, I am happy to do so.”
“I appreciate your advice, Sir, which I will share with Mrs. Holloway. As the daughter of a banker, her knowledge is considerable. She was saying to me a few days ago that she wished her father were here to help make sense of our financial contradictions.”
“Contradictions.” Sam’s heavy eyebrows lifted.
“The entire nation. Europe, too. She says the world is changing so rapidly. Also, a skilled slave woman has run off, a person of value. My lady is quite upset.” He paused, his light hazel eyes flickered. “You may find this heretical, Mr. Udall, but I feel the effort, energy, and watchfulness over a person, free or slave, who doesn’t want to be in your service undercuts their value.”
Sam, fork in hand, paused. “It is a conundrum. I prefer indentured servants from England, Ireland, Scotland, or Wales myself. I have four such individuals working in the bank. They came highly skilled.”
“You are wise.” Jeffrey smiled. “Unfortunately, with a large estate like Big Rawly, we need those who are skilled and those whose primary value is a strong back.”
Eudes knew Sam, watched the two men in rapt conversation, and then went back into the kitchen. “Your old missus. Rich?”
“Very. Rich as the Garths.” She paused, realizing Eudes did not know central Virginia. “Rich as the Randolphs. The old Tidewater families. Rich and cruel.”
“Vain?”
She smiled. “Don’t men think all women are vain?”
“Not at all.” Eudes peered through the crack between the two doors again. “I’d say Sam Udall has a fish on the line.”
Finally, the tables cleared as most of the men left to complete their day of business. A few stayed behind, having selected their human dessert. Jeffrey departed with Udall after leaving a nice tip for the serving girls on top of a printed description of Mignon and the reward amount.
“Mignon, he’s gone.”
“I will be extra-careful,” she whispered.
“I’ll find out if he returns. The good thing is he doesn’t live here. But he knows about Georgina’s, so I expect he will be back sometime. Funny, he doesn’t want a girl, I mean if his wife is old.”
“Middle-aged. Good-looking. A bit plump, but riches make anyone beautiful.”
Eudes laughed.
Binky brought the last of the china to the sink. He rolled up his sleeves. “Not a crumb left.”
Eudes, happy, nodded. “Cold weather raises an appetite.”
“So does a good cook.” Mignon raked the coals in the fireplace.
“Well, we’ve got about four hours before they come back, and Georgina is right, it will be a big night. A night for roast lamb with mint jelly.” He watched Binky. “Boy, you got a good job here with prospects. A man can rise, run things, make good money. Don’t throw this away on Deborah.”
“I’m not. She loves me. I love her.”
“It’s her job to tell men she loves them, to tell them no one is as good as they are.”