did not spout poetry and he didn’t gawk! ‘No,’ Owen said, rallying, ‘it is merely that I did not wish to intrude, madame, since you clearly do prefer to be alone.’
‘I’m waiting for someone, actually.’
‘Then with your permission, I would be delighted to act as your chaperon until they arrive,’ he said, taking a seat. ‘Allow me to introduce myself. I am Owen Harrington.’
‘Ah, you are English?’
‘As English as you are, judging by your French, which is excellent but not without accent,’ Owen said, reverting with relief to his native language.
‘My name is Phoebe Brannagh, and I’m actually Irish.’ She poured him a glass of wine. ‘À votre santé, Mr Harrington.’
‘À la vôtre, Mrs Brannagh.’
‘It’s Miss Brannagh.’
‘Miss Brannagh.’ He touched her glass, taking a sip of the very quaffable wine. Her voice was cultured. Her clothes were expensive, as was the little blue-enamelled watch she was consulting. Miss Phoebe Brannagh was most certainly not a member of the demi-monde, which made her presence here rather shocking. ‘You are waiting for a friend, a relative?’ he hazarded.
She snapped shut the watch, rolling her eyes as she returned it to her reticule. ‘He is very late. As always,’ she said ruefully. ‘I’m waiting for Monsieur Pascal Solignac.’
She enunciated the name with such reverence, Owen was clearly expected to know who the gentleman in question was. ‘I’m sorry, I’m afraid...’
‘The celebrated chef. Perhaps you’ve not been in Paris long?’
‘A week.’
‘And you have not dined at La Grande Taverne de Londres? My goodness, where on earth have you been eating?’
‘At places like this, by and large.’
‘Oh, the Procope is all very well if you like honest hearty fare, but really, Mr Harrington, one comes to Paris to dine, not to eat. Have you heard of Monsieur Beauvilliers, the author of L’art du Cuisinier, the bible of French gastronomy? My sister bought me one of the first English editions. Monsieur Beauvilliers’s restaurant closed some years ago, following his death, but La Grande Taverne de Londres has reopened with Pascal at the helm—Pascal Solignac, I mean. He has elevated cooking to another plane and is the talk of Paris, Mr Harrington, I can’t believe that you have not heard of him. Perhaps you prefer to drink rather than eat?’
‘I eat to live, I’m afraid I don’t live to eat, which probably makes me a culinary philistine in your eyes.’
She gave a burble of laughter. ‘I love food with a passion. If it were not for the heat of the kitchen and all the running around, and being on my feet for fourteen or fifteen hours at a stretch, I should be as fat as a pig at Michaelmas.’
‘Good lord, are you a chef?’
‘Not yet, but I hope to be some day. I’ve been incredibly fortunate to find work in Pascal’s kitchen for the last nine months. I’m on the patisserie station at the moment.’
Owen hardly knew what to make of this. ‘I’m no expert, but I’m not aware of any female chef working in a restaurant kitchen in London.’
‘It’s very unusual, even in Paris. In fact, I am the only female in the brigade.’
‘And how do the other staff react to having a beautiful woman in their midst, and English to boot—I beg your pardon, Irish—my point is that you are not French. Do they see you as a interloper?’
Once again, she laughed. ‘I have earned my stripes the hard way, peeling sacks of potatoes and chopping mountains of onions—that is a rite of passage in a professional kitchen, Mr Harrington. Fortunately, my eyes don’t water, for I’ve been chopping onions and peeling potatoes since I was this height,’ she said, touching the table top.
‘You astonish me. It is obvious from your accent that you are well born.’
She gave a pronounced Gallic shrug. ‘Oh, I’m born well enough, I suppose, though what matters to me is not the colour of the blood in my veins but my determination to live life to the full. In that sense, I take after my mother.’
‘So she approves of your being here?’
Her face fell. ‘I believe she would, if she were alive, but I lost both my parents and my little brother six years ago. I hope she would have been proud of me, for I’ve already achieved far more than I expected in such a short time. In a restaurant kitchen, you know, a strict hierarchy exists. You have to earn your place, and any promotion. To reach patisserie in just nine months is almost unheard of. To be honest, there are days when I have to pinch myself to make sure I’m not dreaming.’
There was pride in her voice and a gleam in her eye. ‘You are obviously passionate about your chosen vocation,’ Owen said, a little enviously.
Miss Brannagh beamed. ‘It is all I’ve ever wanted, all I’ve ever dreamed of—and that’s all it was, until last year, a pipedream. Were it not for my sister’s generosity, I wouldn’t be here, learning from Pascal.’
Pascal. It was not only admiration that he could hear in her voice, Miss Brannagh was in thrall to her mentor. Lucky man, Owen thought. He hoped Monsieur Solignac, who he had already irrationally and instantly taken a dislike to, appreciated his protégée and did not take advantage of her obvious reverence for him. ‘The same sister who gave you the famous recipe book?’
‘Yes, Eloise my eldest sister. The Countess of Fearnoch.’ Miss Brannagh chuckled. ‘Goodness, I still find it quite strange, calling her that. She made a most excellent marriage just over a year ago, which allowed her to settle a small fortune on myself and Estelle.’
‘Another sister?’
‘My twin.’ Miss Brannagh’s smile softened. ‘We were a such a close-knit little group until recently—the Elmswood Coven, Estelle called us—myself, Eloise, Estelle and Aunt Kate—she is Lady Elmswood and our aunt by marriage. She very kindly took us in when we lost our parents and there we lived, cosily and very contentedly for five years, until Eloise’s wedding.’
‘I presume that the appeal of cosy and contented began to wane?’
Miss Brannagh chuckled. ‘Though I love Aunt Kate with all my heart, why on earth would I choose to stay in the wilds of Shropshire when I could come to Paris and chase rainbows?’
Chasing rainbows, wasn’t that exactly what he was doing, Owen thought, utterly charmed. ‘What pot of gold lies at the end of your rainbow, may I ask? Becoming the top chef in Paris?’
‘I aim to become the second-best chef and part-owner of the pre-eminent restaurant in Paris, along with Pascal.’ Miss Brannagh’s smile faded slightly. ‘The proprietor of La Grande Taverne de Londres is just a little too traditional in his thinking for Pascal, you see. Our intention is to buy him out, so that Pascal’s genius can flourish unhindered, and if he will not sell, then we will buy new premises and start from scratch together.’
‘You will not mind playing second fiddle to
