Once Upon a Marquess (The Worth Saga 1)

Then he put his arm around her and rested his head against her.

It had all happened swiftly—too swiftly, perhaps. There was still so much unspoken between them. But he’d been right. He was the one person who had understood the way that she’d been hurt, and she couldn’t dredge up the slightest inkling of regret.

“Some time ago,” Christian said, leaning forward to brush a finger against her cheek, “I asked you to not let me hope.”

She exhaled.

“I was wrong. Let me hope. Please, let me hope.” His hand caught hers.

After everything, it turned out that Judith still hadn’t lost the ability to chase castles in the sky. If she could believe she could fall in love with Christian again, she could believe anything.

Hope seemed new and fragile—so fragile that she feared any further discussion.

Still, she kissed him again. “Hope,” she whispered. “I’m learning how to do it myself.”

Chapter Twenty-One

The house smelled of bread when Judith returned.

Real bread. Yeasty bread. Mouth-watering bread, the kind she’d just had at Christian’s house. The sort she’d never eat again without thinking of him and his mouth and his fingers and his promises.

What that delicious smell was doing in Judith’s house, she had no idea.

Clearly something had gone terribly…right? She was unused to the possibility.

Judith walked through the parlor into the kitchen.

Theresa and Benedict stood in front of a loaf. A perfect, round loaf of bread. The only reason Judith knew it wasn’t store-bought was the color—a light chocolate instead of golden-brown.

It seemed out of place in a house that had until now been the site of so much baking infamy.

“Theresa.” She stepped into the room. “This looks lovely. What did you do?”

Theresa jumped and turned to her. “Judith. So, um. Yesterday. I may have added too much water to one of my loaves. I meant to clean it up, but, uh.”

This was not what Judith had expected to hear. She blinked. “I didn’t see bowls in need of washing.”

Theresa waved this off. “Of course you didn’t. I hid them from you until I could clean up. I’m not a complete imbecile, you know.”

“Well, that’s a…um.” Delight? Pleasure? Stabbing headache? Judith wasn’t sure how to finish the sentence.

Theresa bulled on with her explanation. “So. Then, early this morning, I saw it and panicked. It was this big mass of stringy yeast, cobwebby and, uh. Extremely disgusting.” She looked at her sister. “So I punched it down and promised I would clean it out later.”

“I…see.”

“No point wasting your time on pointless explanations! I forgot about it again. The dough got really huge, and I never did knead it at all, and there was too much water and my bread is always terrible, so how could this really be any worse? So I decided to save time, and I just tossed it in the oven. And…” Theresa spread her hands. “This happened. It’s got to taste terrible, but it looks like real bread. Actual bread.”

“It really does.” Benedict prodded it. “I am suspicious.”

“Oh, I am, too. It’s a miracle. It’s as if my laziness and my impatience procreated and gave birth to a loaf of perfect bread.”

Benedict shook his head. “I’m not sure that’s a likely explanation.”

“True.” Theresa frowned. “Let us not consider the mechanics of how that procreation might occur. It sounds utterly disgusting.”

“No.” Benedict grimaced. “Virgin birth.”

“Virgin birth,” Theresa agreed. “Now, shall we try our miracle?”

Judith got a knife. The crust was a little dark, but the bread beneath let out a gust of steam as she sliced. It was the color of pale wheat inside, fluffy with the kind of air pockets one found only in the finest breads.

“Things should not go this well,” Theresa said. “The course of good bread never did run smoothly. Or whatever it was that Shakespeare said. I’m sure he said something about bread.”

“I’m sure he did.” Judith nodded. He’d said something about chickens, after all.

“On second thought.” Theresa frowned. “Now that I think of it, ‘evil elves bewitched my bread’ seems a more likely explanation. You all stand back—I’m going to eat this evil elf bread. If it turns me into a donkey, please don’t sell me for less than fifty pounds.”

She took the heel of the loaf and bit into it. A curious expression passed over her face as she chewed. She swallowed. Her eyes bulged, and then rolled upward. She twitched a few times, let out a choking noise, and collapsed to the floor in a boneless heap.

Judith’s heart stopped. “Oh my God. Theresa.” She fell to the floor beside her, fumbling to loosen her corset, raising her hand to her lips to see if her sister was still breathing—

Her sister’s eyes popped open. “Needs salt,” she said.

Judith stared into her sister’s eyes for a moment, her heart racing in misplaced panic. Theresa had faked her death. Judith should have known she was faking it.

Judith grabbed a towel off the table. “Wait.” She set one hand on her sister’s head as her sister tried to sit up. “Wait. Lie back. I think something’s wrong. Really wrong.”

“What?” Theresa frowned.

“There’s something on your tongue. Let me see it.”

Slowly, Theresa stuck out her tongue.

“Further,” Judith said. “It’s right—” She kept her expression sincerely afraid, and Theresa’s eyebrows rose in mirrored trepidation. Judith flexed her fingers beneath the towel and leaned forward. “It’s here.”

Before Theresa could react, Judith reached out and grabbed her sister’s tongue through the towel. Theresa tried to pull away, but the cloth held her tongue firmly in place.

“Hey! What aw you do-egg?” Theresa exclaimed through the towel.

“Holding your tongue,” Judith said. “You said it literally couldn’t be done. It can. Never doubt me.”

Her sister flapped her arms. “That’th got fair!”

“Nothing’s fair,” Judith said cheerfully, relinquishing the cloth.

Theresa sat up. “That was brilliant. I didn’t know you could hold tongues like that. Here, let me try.”

Behind them, Benedict just shook his head. “You two are missing all the bread. It’s wonderful. Not enough salt, but…” His face suddenly went blank. “Oh. Yes.”

“Everything is better with salt,” Theresa said with a nod.

Benedict stood up. “Everything is better with salt.”

“Everything is better with salt,” Judith agreed. “Why are we all saying that everything is better with salt?”

“Because.” Benedict smiled, a bright wide smile. “Don’t you understand? Everything is better with salt.”

“Yes,” Judith said. “We all know. But—”

“Everything is better with salt!” He pumped a fist in the air. “Theresa, Judith—we’ve figured it out. Don’t you see? Everything is better with salt. And do you know how to make something even better than adding salt?”

Judith frowned. “No?”

Benedict cackled. “More salt!”

“Daisy!” Never had Judith been so happy as to see her friend waiting fo

r her on the way to the market as she was the next morning. “I wasn’t sure you would be here.”

It had been a while since Daisy met her, and Judith had begun to worry. Her friend raised an eyebrow and held out a gloved hand. “The queen’s visit was inconvenient, taxing, and incredibly boring—talking of matters of state does become so tedious. But while I feared I would perish of yawning, there was little danger.”

“Are you settled in, then?”

“My mother and I are sharing a room, yes,” Daisy sniffed. “It’s closer to the seaside. The fresh air will do her good.”

The docks, Daisy meant, which were hardly a source of fresh air. Still, Judith was relieved to hear her friend was well. Or at least not out on the streets.

She must not have hid these thoughts, because Daisy took her hand. “We’re as well as can be,” she said in a lower voice. “We’ve less space, but it’s a blessing. With what you gave us, we’ll have a nice, comfortable purse to hold on to, in case of difficulties. I won’t have you worrying over me, Judith.”

“Why not? I care.”

“I know.” Daisy squeezed her hand. “But worrying and pining never changed anything. Make me laugh instead.”

“Theresa made bread,” Judith said.

“Goodness.” Daisy lapsed back into the game. “She is quite the accomplished young lady, is she not?”

“Well, up until yesterday,” Judith said, “I had thought she was practicing the trade of brick-making.” She went on to tell the whole story—embellishing, of course, the kittens into exotic cats, the crockery into priceless vases, and the punishment bread into… Well, the punishment bread needed no embellishment. It was embellished enough on its own. Daisy laughed the whole way to the market.

“And now I need to purchase ginger, ginger, flour, salt, and more ginger,” Judith said.

“And gold leaf?”

“And concentrated citrate of magnesia,” Judith said. “Really. Please don’t ask about it.”

Things must not have been altogether dire for her friend, because she purchased a ham hock in addition to her potatoes and parsley.

“So,” Daisy said slyly on the way home. “Tell me about your marquess.”