Chapter Eighteen
Halsey House
Mayfair, London
Inès took the stairs down the next morning to find her mother-in-law and her sister-in-law, young Fee, in the small parlor.
“Good morning, my lady. Fee.”
“Come sit with me, Inès.” The lady indicated the chair beside her own, while Fee gave her excuses and disappeared.
“I am glad we have this chance to talk,” Inès told the lady. “Evan told me this morning, ma’am, that he wishes to host a gathering of his colleagues here tomorrow night. Ten men. The prime minister, too. Evan told me that Pitt has a very finicky palate.”
The dowager winced. “He is ill. Did you know?”
“No. I did not.” She had noticed that Pitt was pale and often did not finish many meals set before him. “Please tell me what he must avoid.”
“I will, my dear. But it is necessary they talk freely and as long as they wish, given the gravity of Austerlitz. The occasion also demands that you quickly gain a working knowledge of the staff. I would like to help do that for you. May we begin this afternoon?”
“I would appreciate that, oui, madame. Please know, I do not wish to usurp your standing with any of them and I wish to go slowly.”
“Thank you, my dear. I welcome your presence. You can take over as you like. You must tell me what you wish to control and how you get on with each one. If to begin, the kitchen is your preference, or the maids, I bow to your desires.”
“I’d like to work with Cook and her staff, if you don’t mind. I like the spontaneity of a good kitchen staff. I would like to be proficient in one aspect of the household, before I move on to another. In the meantime, we must have a menu for tomorrow night.”
The lady smiled at her. “What would you suggest?”
“Nothing too complex. Easy to eat. Easy for the footmen to place and leave so that the men can talk without interruption.”
#
The meeting of the prime minister’s chosen men that evening was but the first. Inès made quick work of doing all she could to make the meetings, including dinners, prompt, hot, and nourishing.
She helped the staff coordinate all the work of such frequent gatherings.
Her mother had been her fine example, running more than twenty servants in their chateau.
Inès relished being able to facilitate the meetings that were so valuable to her new husband.
The house was constantly filled with members of Parliament coming and going at all hours of the day and night.
Their conversations centered in the Halseys’ family house, but others occurred during the daytime at Carlisle’s or Durham’s.
This became the pattern for the next three weeks.
Most often, the men stayed for an hour. Occasionally, they took their leave within minutes.
At least four times, Pitt had left early complaining of stomach problems. Of those dishes served at those dinners, Inès scrutinized each ingredient, banned them from the next menus, then substituted blander items.
She asked Evan about the prime minister’s health. He told her the man had suffered with digestive issues for years. It was not new. He told her not to worry. But she did.
Christmas approached in the next week, but the men did not slow. The demands on the Halsey cook and her staff was wearing them down. The scullery maid took to her bed with a deep cough and red, runny eyes. The kitchen maid, Cook’s sous-chef, developed sneezing fits.
Inès did not indulge herself in the habit that her mother-in-law told her could be hers: she did not sit in bed to eat her breakfast. She was up and about, coffee with Evan, perhaps fruit and a roll.
Then she kissed him adieu and hurried down to the vast kitchen with its glass-domed ceiling, rolled up her sleeves, donned an apron, and helped Cook.
Peggy Brown was an older lady with snow-white hair and a ready grin.
Her hands were usually wrist deep in some concoction that sent delicious aromas through the kitchens and up into the dining room.
Not dismayed by the demands for edibles of all types for the men who came to meet, Peggy readily responded to Inès’s requests for additions to the menu.
To help, Inès often chopped and peeled vegetables.
As time went on and the two kitchen girls were still ill, Inès made the small chocolate cakes that had been her mother’s specialty for everyone’s dessert.
She was no expert at pastry like Giselle, but she created what she knew best to help Cook through the demands of the day.
As things got worse for the overburdened Cook, Inès went out many afternoons to purchase items. Evan was not happy she went into market areas, but she was undaunted.
After all, she had done much worse in questionable places than buy fruits and vegetables from tradesmen.
Dates, oranges, cinnamon, and chocolate topped her lists.
But goods from the fishmonger in Billingsgate were on one day’s menu.
Inès took with her the maid Mary, whom she had brought with her from Gus’s household staff. Hawkins, whom Inès and Evan had kept on their staff, acted as her guardian and footman on such missions. Evan was happy to assign him the task of shopping with Inès.
Today, Hawkins carried an iron rod and wore on one hand a pair of steel knuckles. Both had been given to him by Evan, and her initial thought had been that they were unnecessary. But Evan insisted. She gave in.
Inès felt very safe.
“The best man for the fish is in the last stall, my lady,” Hawkins told her, and steered her past five others. “He gives a good price, too.”
Aware now that Evan favored fresh cod, flounder, and oysters, Inès wanted only items fresh from the morning’s catch.
She leaned over to examine the oysters in a large pan. Recalling how her mother would test them from their own mongers, Inès bent to waft up to her nose the aromas of the sea.
“A certain level of salt should sting your nose,” her mother had told her.
Inès paused, her eyes closed, in a paradise of past pleasures with her mama.
Beside her, a presence bumped her arm. “Pardon me, madam.” The words were English but held notes of French pronunciation.
Inès stepped aside to allow the lady a smell of the oysters.
“I would not take those if I were you.” The woman sniffed in derision at the pan, the fishmonger, and turned to Inès.
Perturbed at the woman’s arrogance and her incorrect assessment of the oysters, Inès examined the elegantly dressed lady. “They do smell fresh.”
The woman chuckled, too gay, too familiar with Inès as a stranger. “What they appear to be does not reflect their true circumstances.”
Inès stared at the woman, who had spoken to her in good Parisian French. Noting that, she fell to her instinct and switched to French to reply. “Merci beaucoup, madame. I will discuss it with the fisherman.”
The lady offered a shoulder that suggested she was either indifferent or insulted. “As you wish, Madame le Comtesse de Halsey.”
#
Later that evening, as Inès fingered the keys of the piano to play a sonata she wished to perfect, she remained sitting, confused. Why and how and when had that perfect stranger learned her name…and why had she made such an odd statement?
She brushed off the problem, for she had no answer.
But a few chords into the piece, she stopped.
Newspapers and gossip sheets had reported Evan’s and her marriage.
She was described as a French émigré from the Loire.
But nothing more about her background was printed.
Evan’s friends did not ask for more information.
So how had that woman identified her as the Countess of Halsey?
The question chilled her.
The lack of an answer froze her more.
Was that woman one who would contact her again? Was she the one who would check on her progress?
No.
No. That could not be.
She would have identified herself. She would have asked.
Wouldn’t she?
#
The next evening, Inès had been invited to dine with her husband and his three male guests. “We need your smiling presence,” he insisted, and so she had sat with them. Yesterday, she had thrown off her worries about the stranger in the fish market.
When their guests finished, she rose from the dining room table. Prime Minister Pitt followed, as did Rafe Durham, Lord Carlisle, and Evan.
“I will leave you gentlemen to your deliberations,” she said, and Evan hurried to the door to open it for her.
Inès worried that, during the meal, the four men would let slip secret information.
She did not wish to be informed of anything she should not know.
The old cautions of secrecy still held her in thrall.
Taking it upon herself to introduce interesting topics of conversation to the gentlemen, she’d navigated the dinner hour easily.
Pitt concerned her. He drank too much wine and port, but ate little.
The other men noticed, but said nothing.
Only once had she fretted when Carlisle and Pitt emphasized their greatest frustration.
It was that they had not caught the two most notorious of their suspected French spies in England.
“La Mère is no fool,” Carlisle declared. “She has money, connections. We know this. But she stays out of public sight.”
“She is too successful,” Pitt said, seemingly unaffected by Carlisle’s dismay. “One day she will slip. Then we will have her.”
On these evenings when the men came to dine, the dowager countess and Fee usually took their dinner together in the small breakfast room.
Fee was often invited to routs and Christmas balls, so she and her mother went out often.
Evan and Inès went with them when it was necessary for him to be present to chaperone his young sister.
But they would leave early, with the dowager countess in charge.