The Marriage Test Read Online Free PDF Page A

battle-axes, and maces, and demanded the same kind of stamina.
    “She’ll have your ears for candle wax,” came the wench’s reply.
    “Strong, eh?” He narrowed his eyes, trying desperately to focus his thoughts through the mingling waves of exquisite and onerous sensation lingering on his senses. “But not overly smart … all she could come up with to present to the duke was
hedgehogs.”
    The wench’s mouth opened, then snapped shut.
    “The duke brought his son. It was for
him
she made the hedgehogs, you big oaf. And if you don’t get out of here”—she tried to push some space between them—“she’ll stuff you headfirst into a vinegar barrel and leave you to pickle.”
    The mention of pickling unexpectedly reasserted the memory of the slurry of soured and rotting scents around him and conjured up the remembered scent of brine and vinegar and the half-rotten smell of pickling cabbage …
Stop that!
    “Speaks both French and English, does she?” He forced his attention to his other senses … only now realizing that he was pressed hotly against the length of her body … that she was young and soft in the places a woman should be soft … and that he was having to work like the very devil to hold her there.
    “And Latin. And Italian.” She ceased shoving and twisting long enough to look up into his face and declare: “The abbess says she’d speak the devil’s own tongue if it meant getting Old Scratch’s recipes.”
    “A better cook than Christian, then.”
    She looked as if the comment outraged her, then abruptly nodded.
    “She learned to cook from gypsies.” She lowered her voice to a fierce whisper. “It was them that taught her to use all manner of secret herbs and eastern spices … like
devil’s heat, curry,
and
paprika.
Makes food so hot, it flames a body’s innards like a foretaste of eternal damnation.” Her eyes narrowed. “You should try some. A few bites of her stew and you’d be on your knees praying for forgiveness.”
    She gave another furious push. He just managed to counter it and realized that he was now having to exert every bit of force he possessed to contain her. It registered in his mind that there was a reddish cast to her light hair. That made sense. Red hair always meant a pepper-hot disposition. He found himself wondering if she smelled like pepper, too. Or maybe tasted like it.
    Good God. He quickly put some space between him and the wench.
    “They also say,” she continued in a taunting tone, apparently sensing the tide of power had somehow just turned, “the abbess uses her stew as a final test for the novices before she’ll let them take vows.”
    “Which no doubt explains why you aren’t wearing a habit yet,” he snapped, feeling oddly defensive. “And her temper?”
    “Like a badger in mating season.”
    She was lying, he realized. No one who made almond-and-spice hedgehogs for young boys could have that foul a temper. Only a woman of sensitivity and insight would think to please a father by delighting a son.
    He’d learned what he came to find out: that he wanted—needed—the convent’s cook for his own.
    “You want to see her?” the girl asked with a purposeful edge to her tone. “She’s in with the duke and the bishop and the abbess. I can go and call her for you.” He allowed her to push him back and she bolted out of his reach, turning on him with eyes blazing. “So she can lay a fist to the side of your larcenous head!”
    The instant she turned to run back inside, he wheeled and ran for the back gate.

Chapter Four
    The old sisters collapsed on stools near the fire bolted upright on their seats as Julia came rushing back into the kitchen, calling out an alarm and heading straight for the dining hall. Midway up the steps, she was inundated by a tide of novices and maidens hurrying back down to the kitchen, their hands filled with empty platters and their heads with excitement.
    They besieged her, all talking at once, recounting every