Banquet of Lies Read Free Page A

an inn.”
    He smoothed his mustache. “Would you want to be hidden but still be able to move about, or do you want to hunker down like a fox in a hole?”
    “Why?”
    “There is a job I hear about. I remember it because it is at a house three or four down from Goldfern. Too small a job for me, or most of the chefs in London. No prestige, you understand? Just cooking for one man, Lord Aldridge. He will pay well, but that is not the only reason to take a job. There will hardly be any parties—he is a young man, and has no other family. He will dine out, be invited out. It would be a waste of talent for me, and I am happy where I am, with my fine, high kitchen.” He gave a grin, transforming from a dark demon to a cheeky boy, despite the deep grooves in his face.
    “But for someone like you, who can cook like an angel, but wants time to herself and a place to hide—who would look for the daughter of Sir Barrington in the kitchens of a small town house, almost next door to her family home, eh?”
    To be right near Goldfern. To be able to keep watch on it, and see if the shadow man came to look for her there, invisible under her guise as cook? The rage that was both icy with hate and hot with vengeance rose up in her, and her hands became tight fists against her thighs. “That would be a very good place to hide.”
    “ Bon .” Georges walked through into his study and pulled out a sheet of paper with the duke’s crest on the letterhead. He sat down at his desk. “I will write a reference for you so you will get the position. They will not turn you away after they read this, I promise you.”
    Georges’s brow was raised in an arrogant arch as he scribbled an almost unintelligible list of her virtues in the kitchen, and Gigi found herself wanting to smile.
    “ Voilà! ” He left it to dry and turned to her again. “Do you want to stay here until this job is settled?”
    She looked around her. “I don’t want anyone to know about me, or for there to be any talk.”
    “Bah.” He flicked the air as if she spoke nonsense. “You are my niece, we will say, no? The beloved daughter of my brother. It is not a word of a lie. In my heart, you are like my family, Gigi. You stay for a short while, no problem.”
    She felt the walls of her self-control crumbling, and gave a nod. “My things are in the coach outside. I have to pay the driver—”
    “You sit. Georges will make it right.” He stormed out, as if the coachman were somehow in league with the devil and he was going to bargain for her very soul. Gigi stumbled to a sofa and sank down on it. She closed her eyes, and let exhaustion drag her under.
----
    T wilight had fallen as Gigi leaned against the tree four houses down from Goldfern House and wondered what she was doing.
    Her father had always said sleep was as vital as good intelligence.
    She hadn’t had enough, despite the four hours on Georges’s sofa this morning. But at least she’d had a bath and a change of clothes, food that was fit to grace a royal table, and the first glimmer that things would get better.
    A chill breeze rustled the leaves above her, and she could smell the wood smoke and the river in the cold, heavy air. The rough bark caught at her hair, pulling at the loose arrangement under her wide-brimmed hat.
    She had been too exhausted to avoid a puddle earlier, and her feet were wet and cold.
    She needed to get herself together. She was about to go to her first-ever job interview. Georges had sent a note around to Lord Aldridge’s butler this morning, and she was expected. She had to get this job, and go to ground.
    Her escape, her success in reaching London and her father’s death would be for nothing if she stumbled now.
    She shook her head to clear it and realized she had a headache.
    Goldfern House looked empty. As it should.
    But was it?
    If she were ahead of the man who killed her father then it was only by a small margin.
    He wouldn’t have had a plan in place to get to London, as