Read Online Betrayed Countess (Books We Love Historical Romance) by Diane Scott Lewis - Free Book Online

and looked around the cramped kitchen. Three ancient iron pots ant two saucepans hung on a lug pole in the wide stone fireplace. A bent skimmer hung on a hook to the right of the hearth, along with other odd-looking utensils. A broken churn sat in a corner. In a splintered cupboard were several chipped earthenware pots and wooden trenchers. From what she remembered of her brief visits to the kitchens, this seemed a sparse comparison to her Paris home and country château.
    Bettina held the knife to the spud’s brown skin. When she tried to shave it, the knife slipped and clattered on the floor, the potato tumbling after. She snatched it back up and started as she turned to see Ann glaring down at her.
    “Here now, that ain’t no way to peel,” Ann groused. “Give it to me. You never done kitchen work afore, I see. Gonna have fingers skinned in the bowl ’stead of potatoes. Don’t just stand there, stoke the fire, if you can manage that.”
    Bettina stared around the kitchen again. “Where is the wood, please?”
    “Where did you work afore here, Duchess?” Ann bared her snaggled teeth attached to red gums. “Can’t risk the price of wood, nor any coal. We use turf and furze like most people round here does.”
    “I do not understand. What is that, ‘turf’ and ‘furze’?” Bettina tried to conceal her annoyance at the woman’s attitude.
    “The soil and shrubbery, o’ course.” Ann flipped the lappet of her mobcap. “Any fool knows that.”
    “You burn dirt and plants? That sounds the foolish way.” Bettina glanced at the fireplace, suspicious that the woman taunted her inexperience.
    “Ain’t got time for your whining. A village boy brings the fuel once a week. If you see him, have him put it in the ookener. That’s the wood corner. Meanwhile there be plenty to tide us over. Get to it.” Ann jabbed her long finger toward a wooden box in the far corner of the kitchen, then sighed in disgust. “What has the good Lord brought me to suffer now?”
    Bettina dug her hands into the packed dirt slices and grimaced. “I might say the same, Madame.”
     
    * * * *
     
    Slumped at the kitchen table after another endless day, Bettina lamented the floors and linens left to scrub. Her head swam with exhaustion. She sipped a cup of weak tea and tried to nibble at the hard-textured bread laid out for her dinner. Baked in the hot ashes of the brick oven to the left of the kitchen fireplace, this cheap substitute for white bread made from barley was called black bread. The tasteless boiled mutton on the scarred wooden trencher beside the bread turned her stomach. She tried to conger the aroma of delicate fish and veal served in delicious sauces that once awaited her on her mother’s elegant porcelain.
    Flexing her hands, she inspected the cuts and burns on her fingers—badges of dishonor from four days of ineptitude in the kitchen. She ran her fingertips down her dress, over the ribs she’d never felt so sharp beneath her skin before. Unable to choke down the food, Bettina rose and walked into the taproom where Maddie served drinks to a few customers. “Madame Maddie, do you have a cream for my hands?”
    “Just call me Maddie, nothin’ fancy.” The woman walked toward her. She grasped Bettina’s hand, brushed a thumb over her skin and frowned. “You’re hands be too soft when you come, child. Rub hog’s lard on them. I might have some sweet oil I can mix in too.”
    “The grease of a pig, that is good?” Bettina didn’t relish that smell.
    “Aye. I figure next month you can help Kerra and Dory, my other girl, serve out here. This was two crowded gloomy rooms. I opened it up to one, so I can oversee everything. Took over Gifford’s duty of mixin’ drinks. Brung most of the casks out her e—does away with much running back and forth, makes it easier. An’ don’t have to pay potboys.” Maddie squeezed her shoulder. “You best head upstairs to strip the bed in three.”
    “I will do that.”