The Marriage Test Read Free Page B

from the fire and the old sisters turned away to supervise, he stuck his arm up and snatched a small leg of lamb … that burned his hands!
    He fell back against the floor and dropped the meat on his chest to keep it from meeting the same fate. On the way back to his hiding place, he grabbed a napkin to save his hands, a loaf of bread, and one of the small pewter boats filled with what appeared to be a pink sauce. Emboldened by his success, he ventured still farther … determined to collect one of those pasties and to empty part of a tray of stuffed dates, almond tarts, sugared walnuts, small round cheeses, and what appeared to be spice-dusted crisps.
    Then he spotted what appeared to be a pair of small animals—hedgehogs—sitting on a tray of greenery, apart from the others.
    Hedgehogs? She cooked and presented
hedgehogs
to a duke? Opening the doublet he wore over his tunic, he tucked the sweetmeats inside and crept over to investigate. On closer inspection, the hedgehog quills were too thick and not nearly as sharp as they should be and the eyes seemed to be all crinkled and the nose bulged oddly. Edging still closer, he realized they weren’t quills at all, but almonds—fried almonds! It was a hedgehog conceit, made out of edibles, intended for presentation to the duke!
    Not an elegant peacock or swan or pheasant, but a
hedgehog.
It could be seen as whimsy. Or disrespect. He scowled. This cook had either some skill or some nerve.
    The sound of voices rumbling back toward the kitchen warned he was about to be inundated with cooks and servers once again. Frantic to taste this ambitious creation, he yanked out his knife and sliced off one of the hedgehogs’ hindquarters.
    Crowded back into his hiding place, he spread out the napkin he’d snagged and deposited the lamb and sauce boat on it, then began to pull the rest of his booty from his doublet. Then with a half-uttered prayer, he sank his teeth into the lamb shank and closed his eyes. Grease dripped down his chin, but he scarcely felt it. He was too focused on the flavor sliding down his tongue and then rising up an aromatic back door into his brain.
    For the first time in weeks—
months!
—he wanted to smell something. Fresh, tender lamb cooked to perfection … rubbed with garlic and stuffed with mint. He swallowed, ripped off another piece, and dipped it into the pink sauce. Pepper and garlic … in an almond milk base … with lamb juices and a hint of sweet grape for color and richness. Suddenly he was desperate to smell it, had to know the full effect of it, for good or for ill.
    He reached greasy fingers up to the steel band he wore habitually across his nose and slid it off. Bracing himself, he held the lamb under his nose and inhaled. The scent of perfectly seasoned and roasted meat staggered him. He turned the hot lamb shank over and over, sniffing, absorbing, and luxuriating in every nuance of the combined meat, flame, and spice.
    Biting off another huge chunk, he grinned and chewed enthusiastically, savoring every precious moment the meat was in his mouth. After several large bites, he turned to the pie again, smelling it this time before slicing and tasting. Cinnamon and saffron … oh, beautiful plums … tender, juicy pork … flaky crust with just the rapturously right amount of seasoning. Then he went to the purloined pasty that proved to be filled with chicken seasoned with sweet leeks and layered with spinach and what looked like a light-colored cheese. He sniffed—gratified to detect recently milled flour, new cheese, and fresh fat used in the frying—and dipped and sopped and devoured, growing steadily more enthralled.
    It was nothing short of miraculous. Every dish, every sprig or dash of spice, every aroma blended uncannily with the others … not only in the same dish, but with all of the others in the whole meal. The pottage blended with the pasties, which blended superbly with the pies, then the lamb and the pork with the pink garlic