looked up. The door inched open a fraction more.
He narrowed his eyes. If it was the cursed cat from the barn looking to steal …
A small head poked through the opening, grey eyes darting around the room. The child. Mademoiselle Jane, with her eyes too large for her small face. She had the same hungry look about her that haunted her mother.
Which scarcely made sense for people in their position. ‘Come in, mademoiselle,’ André said.
The child jumped, then stared at the knife in his hand.
He put it down. ‘How can we be of service?’
Becca looked at him and back to the child. ‘You shouldn’t be in here, miss.’
The child backed away.
André put up a staying hand and smiled. ‘It is all right, ma petite, tell us why you came.’
‘I wanted to help you cook. I used to help Mama after my lessons were done.’
Becca made a sound of shock. He should let it go, but the child had roused his curiosity. ‘What sort of things did you help your mother cook?’
‘Everything. She makes jam tarts on Sunday, when she didn’t have any mending to return to the customers in the afternoon.’
Becca’s jaw dropped. ‘Your mother took in mending?’
Damn. That was not the sort of thing Madame Holte would want bandied about by the servants. Noblewomen did not work for money. At least not openly. If they were poor, they simply faded into genteel obscurity. But the fact that she had done something to support her and her child was admirable.
Mrs Holte was clearly different from his own mother. A bitter taste flooded his mouth as a glittering image of a dark-haired beauty filled his vision. Bitterness followed by anger. Only anger kept the pain at bay.
He looked at the hopeful expression on the little girl’s face, a reflection of his own face in the glass of a window a long time ago, and knew he could not turn her away.
With a sigh at his own foolishness, he put the chicken parts in a bowl, covered them with a cloth and washed his hands in the sink. He glanced over at Becca, who was swiping the table aimlessly with her rag. ‘Onions next, Mademoiselle Becca. In the scullery, please, or we will all have sore eyes.’
She muttered something under her breath, but retreated to the small room.
‘Mama hates peeling onions,’ the child announced. ‘They make her cry.’
So she really did cook. ‘They make everyone cry.’
The child nodded gravely. ‘But they make the food taste good, so it is worth a few tears. What are you making today, monsieur?’
Such impeccable manners and her accent was almost perfect.
‘Does your mama know you are here, little one?’
She drew herself up straight. ‘I’m seven and I am tall for my age.’
André kept his face straight. ‘So you are. I thought you were much older than seven. Still, your mother might not like to find you here.’
‘She’s busy with the seamstress and doesn’t have time for lessons. I was fitted already.’ She sounded disconsolate. Lonely.
‘Surely you are happy to have pretty new dresses.’
She made a face. ‘I’d sooner have a hat like that.’ She pointed to his head.
‘A chef’s toque? Would you indeed?’ He reached into the drawer where he kept several clean and freshly starched hats. He pulled one out and opened it with a snap. He popped it on her head.
It immediately fell down over her eyes and nose.
‘It’s too big,’ she said sadly, taking it off and offering it back to him, her face full of disappointment.
‘So it is.’ It was a small disappointment in the grand scheme of things, yet the sad face pulled at a cord in his chest. Painfully. He stilled in shock. What was happening here? Why did he care? The child wasn’t his. She was well fed, beloved by her mother, yet still he hated to see her unhappy. He lifted the hat high and gazed at it from all angles. ‘You know, the same thing happened to me once.’
‘What did you do?’
He went to another drawer and pulled out one of the large needles he used for stitching fowl. ‘I used a hat pin.’
‘That’s not a hat pin,’ the child said disdainfully. ‘My mother has a hat pin. It has a pearl on top.’
‘I suppose we could go and ask to borrow it,’ he said with a smile, and raised a brow.
‘Oh, no. She’s busy.’
And besides, she would probably tell the child to go back to the school room, or wherever it was she was supposed to be. André wasn’t fooled for a moment. ‘Or we can see if this will work.’
The little girl nodded.
André folded the hat along its length and then pinned it. This time it fitted her small head perfectly.
‘Better, non?’ He pulled up a stool to the table and stood her on it. ‘I am going to make a chicken pie for your uncle. Would you like to help?’
She nodded. ‘What can I do?’
‘You can make the decorations for the top of the pastry.’
It didn’t take him long to prepare the dough, and soon she was rolling and cutting and generally making oddly shaped little bits covered in flour. She had flour on her hands, on her cheek and some on the tip of her nose. But she seemed perfectly happy.
Becca popped her head around the door, her eyes streaming. ‘Onions are done, monsewer.’
André nodded. ‘Go outside and get some air. It will help with the tears, then there are carrots to scrub.’
The girl scampered off and he heard the scullery door bang shut behind her. He wished there was some way to stop the misery caused by peeling onions, but he’d peeled his share in the past and it was part of her job.
The door into the hallway opened to reveal Madame Holte, who looked terribly anxious, and she had Mrs Stratton right behind her.
‘There you are, Jane,’ the mother said. ‘I’ve been searching everywhere.’
Guilt hit André hard when he saw the panic fading from her eyes.
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