 I have a confession to make. I am in love with Mr. Darcy. I always have
been. All that smoldering desire for the one woman he can’t have yet can’t
forget. The woman he shouldn’t want because she isn’t good enough for him,
yet he can’t resist her. When I created Maria Martingale, I knew her hero
would have to be that kind of guy. She’s sassy, she’s street smart, she’s
the servant girl back from his past to torment him, so I knew Phillip had
to be titled, haughty, snooty and proper, and still want her so bad he
can’t think straight. That way, when she reenters his life and moves in
right next door, she can mess up his entire life. I hope you enjoy Secret
Desires of a Gentleman. The title kind of says it all, don’t
you think?
top
 
 “Guhrke's
enchanting Girl-Bachelor Chronicles are feminist, sexy and fun, and this
one is no exception. This humorous, intelligent love story is a treat to
savor.” ~
Kathe Robin, Romantic Times :: (posted
9.30.08)
top
Chapter
One
If there be no bread, let them eat cake.
– Anonymous
London, 1895
This couldn’t be right. Maria Martingale came to a halt at the intersection
of Piccadilly and Half Moon Streets, staring doubtfully at the shop on
the corner. It was in an ideal location, appeared to be in excellent condition,
and the sign over the doorway declared the premises had formerly been a
tea shop. It was perfect, so perfect in fact that Maria was sure there
had to be some sort of mistake.
She glanced down at the order to view in her hands, then back up at the
engraved brass kick plate of the door to verify the address. 88 Piccadilly.
No mistake. She was in the right place.
Just come into the market, the agent had told her as he’d given
her the order to view. Precisely what she was looking for. Clean, he’d
hastened to add, handing over the keys, and freshly painted, with a thoroughly
modern kitchen.
Maria had not received these assurances with much enthusiasm. For three
months now, she’d been combing through the streets of London, looking
for just the right place for her pâtisserie, and though
she’d had little success in her search, she had learned a great deal
about property agents and their descriptions. A modern kitchen often meant
nothing more than a closed range and a few gaslights, fresh paint covered
a multitude of sins, and “clean” was a relative term. Even
in the finest neighborhoods, she’d stepped on so many beetle-infested
floors and inhaled the noxious odor of bad drains so often she’d
almost given up the whole venture in despair.
But as she studied the building on this particular corner, Maria felt
a spark of hope. The location was first rate. It had frontage on Piccadilly,
was within the street’s most popular shopping area, and the neighborhood
surrounding it was prosperous. Wealthy, influential businessmen lived here
with their ambitious, social-climbing wives, wives who would willingly
pay to provide their busy cooks with the best in ready-made baked goods.
And Maria intended to provide the best. What Fortnum & Mason was to
the picnic hamper, Martingale’s would be to the tea tray and the
dessert plate.
It was all due to Prudence, of course. If her best friend, Prudence Bosworth,
hadn’t inherited a fortune and married the Duke of St. Cyres, none
of this would be possible. Maria wouldn’t have been able to leave
her position as pâtissier to the great chef André Chauvin
and strike out on her own. But Prudence had pots of money and had been
happy to back her dearest friend in the venture of her dreams.
 Maria
folded the order to view and put it in the pocket of her blue and white
striped skirt, then she walked a few steps down Half Moon Street. As she
viewed the exterior of the shop, her hopes rose another notch. There were
enormous plate-glass windows on both streets, and the entrance, set at
an angle to the corner, boasted a door with glass panels. This design would
provide plenty of opportunity for those walking past to be tempted by the
delightful confections she would have on display. She could see from the
window wells set in the concrete of the sidewalk that the kitchen was in
the basement. Steps on Half Moon Street led down to it through a tradesmen’s
entrance door.
Eager to see the interior of the shop, Maria hastened back to the corner,
opened her handbag again and extracted the key given to her by the property
agent. She walked up the whitened front steps, unlocked the door, and went
inside.
The front room was large, with enough space for the display cases and
tea tables necessary to a pâtisserie. The fresh paint extolled
by the property agent, however, would have to be redone, for it was that
peculiar shade known as yallery-greenery, quite fashionable nowadays, but
most unsuitable for a bakery.
Maria scrutinized the floor and took several deep breaths, breathed deeply,
and her hopes rose another notch. No bad drains, and not a blackbeetle
to be seen. Perhaps this time the property agents had got it right.
There was only one way to be sure. She tucked her handbag under her arm,
then crossed the room, the heels of her high button shoes tapping decisively
on the black and white tile floor. Upon opening the door to the back rooms
of the shop, she found the arrangements typical of a thousand other London
establishments. There was an office, a storeroom, and one set of stairs
led up to sleeping quarters and another led down to the kitchen and scullery.
Maria knew she could hardly expect anything below stairs other than the
damp, depressing hole that usually passed for a kitchen in London, but
when she reached the bottom of the steps, she stopped in her tracks, one
foot on the linoleum floor, staring into the most perfect kitchen she had
ever seen.
There were oak cupboards, two full walls of them, with shelves, drawers
and bins of every imaginable shape and size. Iron pot racks hung from the
heavy oak beams that crossed the ceiling. Above the cupboards, the windows
she’d spied from the sidewalk above not only let in some natural
light, they also opened at the top for ventilation–something that
would be most welcome in the heat of summer.
Maria moved forward into the room, studying her surroundings in amazement.
The cement walls had been sheathed in a fresh coat of white plaster, and
the linoleum floor beneath her feet was a soft, cheery yellow. To her right
were the ovens, four of them, their cast-iron doors sunken into the bricks
of the wall. A decorative hood of hammered copper hung above them, and
the coal-fired ranges jutted out below, each one fitted with a pair of
burners, a boiler and a tap.
The back kitchen was equally modern. The scullery had two sinks, a dual
water tap, and a long, tin drainboard, and the larder was generous, with
shelves to the ceiling. There was even an ice room for cold storage.
 Maria
returned to the front kitchen, pulled off her gloves, and proceeded to
examine the stoves. She opened the oven doors, turned the hot water taps,
and lifted the hotplates, feeling a bit like a child in a toy shop. She
used the scullery taps to rinse the stove blacking off her hands, and bravely
sampled the water. Of course it tasted fine. This was Mayfair.
She finally stopped tinkering with the various appliances, but she could
not quite bring herself to leave. Her father had been a chef, and she’d
been in all manner of kitchens during her twenty-nine years, but never
had she seen a kitchen quite like this. It was a dream come true.
Here she would create masterpieces–the tenderest, flakiest pastries,
the tiniest, prettiest petit fours, and the most amazing wedding cakes
London society had ever seen. Countless people, her father and André among
them, had told her that because she was a woman, she could never be regarded
as a great chef, but here, in this kitchen, she would prove them wrong.
A shadow moved past the window, a pedestrian walking by, and Maria came
out of her reverie with a start. She couldn’t stand here dithering
all day. She had to go see the property agent and make arrangements for
the lease. Now, this instant, before someone else caught sight of this
lovely kitchen and snatched it away from her.
Spurred into action, Maria caught up her gloves and raced up the stairs,
stuffing them into her handbag as she fumbled for the latch key. Outside,
she locked the front door and shoved the key into her pocket, but even
with her sense of haste, she couldn’t resist pausing for one last
look at the shop. Stepping back from the door, she imagined how it would
look when it was hers. The name, Martingale’s, prominently but tastefully
displayed in gold letters over the door. Bright red strawberry tarts, delicate
pink and white petit fours, and fat golden scones in the windows.
“It’s perfect,” she breathed with reverent appreciation,
still looking at the shop over her shoulder as she started walking away. “Absolutely
perfect.”
The collision brought her out of her daydreams with painful force. She
was knocked off her feet, her handbag went flying, and she stumbled backward,
stepping on the hem of her skirt as she tried to right herself. She would
have fallen to the pavement, but a pair of strong hands caught her, and
she was hauled up against the hard wall of a man’s chest. “Steady
on, my girl,” a deep voice murmured near her ear, a voice that somehow
seemed familiar. “Are you all right?”
She inhaled deeply, trying to catch her breath, and as she did, she caught
the luscious scents of bay rum and fresh linen. She nodded, her cheek brushing
the unmistakable silk facing of a fine lapel. “I think so,” she
answered.
Her palms flattened against the soft, rich wool of a gentleman’s
coat and she pushed back, lifting her chin to look up at him. When her
gaze met his, recognition hit her with more force than the collision of
their bodies had done.
Phillip Hawthorne. The Marquess of Kayne.
There was no mistaking those eyes, vivid cobalt blue eyes framed by thick
black lashes. Irish eyes, she’d always thought, though if any Irish
blood tainted the purity of his oh-so-aristocratic British lineage, he’d
never have acknowledged it. Phillip had always been such a dry stick, as
unlike his brother, Lawrence, as chalk was from cheese.
Memories
came over her like a flood, washing away twelve years in the space of a
heartbeat. Suddenly, she was no longer standing on a sidewalk in Mayfair,
but in the library at Kayne Hall and Phillip was standing across the desk
from her, holding out a bank draft and looking at her as if she were nothing.
She glanced down, half-expecting to see the pale pink paper of a bank
draft in his hand–the bribe to make her leave and never come back,
the payment in exchange for her promise to keep away from Lawrence for
the rest of her life. The marquess had only been nineteen then, but he’d
already managed to put a price on love. It was worth one thousand pounds.
His voice, so cold, came echoing back to her from twelve years ago. This
sum should be adequate, since my brother assures me there is no possibility
of a child.
Shaken, Maria tried to gather her wits. She’d always expected to
encounter Phillip again one day, but she had not expected it to happen
so literally, and she felt rather at sixes and sevens.
She’d long ago given up any thought she’d see Lawrence again,
for she’d read in some scandal sheet years ago that he’d gone
off to America. His older brother, however, was a different matter. Phillip
was a marquess, and he mingled with the finest society. Given all the balls
and parties where she’d served hors d’oeuvres to aristocrats
while working for André, Maria had resigned herself long ago to
the inevitable night she would look up while offering a plate of canapes
or a tray of champagne glasses and find his cool, haughty gaze on her,
but oddly enough, it had never happened. Twelve years of beating the odds
only to cannon into him on a street corner. Of all the rotten luck.
Her gaze slid back upward. Phillip had always been tall, but standing
before her was not the lanky young man she remembered. This man’s
shoulders were wider, his chest broader, his entire physique exuding such
masculine strength and vitality that Maria felt quite aggrieved. If there
was any fairness in the world at all, Phillip Hawthorne would have gone
to fat and gotten the gout by now. Instead, the Marquess of Kayne was even
stronger and more powerful at thirty-one than he’d been at nineteen.
How nauseating.
Still, she thought as she returned her gaze to his face, twelve years
had left their mark. There were tiny lines at the corners of his eyes and
two faint parallel creases across his forehead. The determination and discipline
in the line of his jaw was even more pronounced than it had been a dozen
years ago, and his mouth, a grave, unsmiling curve that had always been
surprisingly beautiful, was harsher now. His entire countenance, in fact,
was harder than she remembered, as if all those notions of duty and responsibility
he’d been stuffed with as a boy weighed heavy on him as a man. Maria
found some satisfaction in that.
More satisfying was the fact that she had changed, too. She was no longer
the desperate, forsaken seventeen year old girl who’d thought being
bought off for a thousand pounds was her only choice. These days, she wasn’t
without means and she wasn’t without friends. Never again would she
be intimidated by the likes of Phillip Hawthorne.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded, then grimaced at
her lack of eloquence. Over the years, she’d invented an entire repertoire
of cutting, clever things to say to him should they ever meet again, and
that blunt, stupid query was the best she could do? Maria wanted to kick
herself.
“An odd question,” he murmured in the well-bred accents she
remembered so well. “I live here.”
“Here?” A
knot of dread began forming in the pit of her stomach as his words sank
in. “But this is an empty shop.”
“Not the shop.” He let go of her arms and gestured to the
front door of the first town house on Half Moon Street, an elegant red
door out of which he must have just come when they’d collided. “I
live there.”
She stared at the door in disbelief. You can’t live here,
she wanted to shout. Not you, not Phillip Hawthorne, not in this house
right beside the lovely, perfect shop where I’m going to live.
She looked at him again. “But that’s impossible. Your London
house is in Park Lane.”
He stiffened, dark brows drawing together in a frown. “My home in
Park Lane is presently being remodeled, though I don’t see what business
it is of yours.”
Before she could reply, he glanced at the ground and spoke again. “You’ve
spilled your things.”
“I didn’t spill them,” she corrected, bristling a bit. “You
did.”
To her disappointment, he didn’t argue the point. “My apologies,” he
murmured, and knelt on the pavement. “Allow me to retrieve them for
you.”
She studied his bent head as he righted her handbag and began picking
up her scattered belongings. So like Phillip, she thought, watching as
he gathered her tortoiseshell comb, her gloves, her cotton handkerchief,
and her money purse and began placing them in her handbag with careful
precision. So like Phillip, she thought. God forbid one should just toss
it all inside and get on with things.
After all her belongings had been returned to her bag, he closed the brass
clasp, and reached for his hat, a fine gray felt Bromburg which had also
gone flying during the collision. He donned his hat and stood up, holding
her handbag out to her.
She took it from his outstretched hand. “Thank you, Phillip,” she
murmured. “How–” She broke off, not knowing if she should
inquire after his brother, but then she decided it was only right to ask. “How
is Lawrence?”
Something flashed in his eyes, but when he spoke, his voice was politely
indifferent. “Forgive me, miss,” he said with a cool, impersonal
smile, “but your use of Christian names indicates a familiarity with
me of which I am unaware.”
She blinked, bewildered. “Unaware?” she echoed and started
to laugh, not from humor, but from disbelief. “Phillip, you’ve
known me since I was seven years old–”
“I don’t believe so,” he cut her off, his voice still
polite and pleasant, his gaze hard and implacable. “We do not know
each other. We do not know each other at all. I hope that’s clear?”
She made a sound of indignation, but before she could reply with a few
scathing words of her own, he spoke again. “Good day, miss,” he
said, then bowed and stepped around her to go on his way.
She turned, and her eyes narrowed on his back as he walked away. He knew
precisely who she was, he was only pretending not to. Arrogant, toplofty
snob. How dare he snub her?
“It was delightful to see you again, Phillip,” she
called after him, her voice sweet as honey. “Give Lawrence my best
regards, will you?”
His steps did not falter as he walked away.
Secret Desires of a
Gentleman can be ordered at the following sites.
» Amazon
» Barnes & Noble
» Borders
E-book editions of Secret Desires of a Gentleman are available in the following formats:
» Adobe eBook Reader from HarperCollins.com
» Microsoft Reader from HarperCollins.com
» MobiPocket from HarperCollins.com
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