Chocolate Kisses (4 page)

“And
what little you know you invented. I grew up in this palace, so I shouldn’t
help you in the kitchen. Men are bosses, women cook. It’s a sunny day, so I
shouldn’t want to be with you. Well, here’s a news flash, Claudia. I’m not what
you think.”

“I
don’t know what I think!” She sounded frustrated.

The
light kiss had left him pretty damned frustrated, too. He could tell her what
to think: that some of his happiest memories of growing up at Wyatt Hall had
involved sneaking into the kitchen and keeping Edie, the cook, company while
she whipped up meals. That while his own culinary skills rose no higher than
punching buttons on the microwave, he was a willing learner. That by running
her own company, Claudia displayed a boldness and a commitment that turned him
on as much as her eyes and her lips and her luscious body.

Rather
than tell her with words, he slid his hand into her hair and guided her back to
him. He moved his mouth gently, coaxing, skimming, teasing. When she didn’t
withdraw, he let his tongue slide between her lips.

She
tasted like candy, like those fatefully delicious chocolate kisses of hers. He
felt overwhelmed by the need to devour her, to absorb every morsel of her, to
consume her until he himself was consumed by the passion exploding to life
inside them both.

He
felt a shudder of pleasure seize her. He heard her shaky sigh. Abruptly she
turned away and stared out the side window. She wrestled with her breath for a
moment, then reached for the door handle. “Don’t do that again,” she said
before shoving the door open and climbing out.

Sure,
he thought sardonically. He wouldn’t do that again. Why give in to the desire
that blazed between them? Why do anything as logical as admitting that they
wanted each other?

He
met her at the van’s rear doors. Before he could speak, let alone gather her into
his arms for another kiss, she preempted him by placing into his outstretched
hands a large aluminum tray.

With
a wry nod, he headed for the porch. Peeking through the window next to the
door, he spotted a woman with a moon-round face framed in frizzy silver hair
inside the kitchen. He grinned.

Edie
saw him the instant he saw her. Bursting into a smile, she hastened to the door
and swung it open. “Ned! What are you doing here?”

“I
should ask you that,” he said, easing past Edie’s short, bulky body and setting
the tray on a counter. “Don’t tell me my sister dragged you out of retirement
for this wingding of hers.”

“She
didn’t have to drag me,” Edie told him. “When she told me she was opening the
house for a debutante ball, I insisted on overseeing the cleaning service.
Somebody has to make sure they don’t break everything.”

“Can’t
Melanie handle that?”

“Your
sister, Edie confided, sotto voce, “is behaving like a she-devil. You’d think
it was
her
debut instead of her daughter’s.”

“Poor
Amy,” Ned murmured. He wondered whether his niece had any interest at all in
debuting or was simply a prop in her mother’s ostentatious pageantry.

“Don’t
worry about Amy,” Edie assured him. “She’s never done anything she didn’t want
to do.”

A
knock on the kitchen door interrupted Edie. Ned turned to see Claudia balancing
a tray of meat and watching them through the window. “Let’s prop the door
open,” he said, hurrying over to let Claudia in. “We’ve got more trays to
unload.”

“We?”
Edie asked before scowling at Claudia. “You’re the cook Melanie hired, I take
it.”

“I’m
the caterer,” Claudia introduced herself. She set down the tray and extended
her hand. “Claudia Mulcahey.”

“I’m
Edie Mueller,” Edie said haughtily. “Head cook at Wyatt Hall for thirty-two
years.” She sized Claudia up with a deprecating look, then eyed the trays
disdainfully. “I don’t know why Melanie felt it necessary to go outside for a
cook.”

“She
hired Claudia because you’re retired,” Ned said gently. “She wasn’t going to
ask you to put together a feast for hundreds of people.”

“One
hundred fifty-two,” Edie declared. “And just because I’m retired doesn’t mean I
couldn’t have done it.”

“You’re
one of the family, Edie. Why don’t you relax and let Claudia and me do the
work?”

“You’re
one of the family, too, Ned,” Claudia remarked, putting a frost on the words.
“Why don’t you both relax?” Pivoting on her heel, she stalked out of the
kitchen.

“Feisty
little snip, isn’t she?” Edie muttered.

Ned
gazed after Claudia and sighed. “Yeah,” he said, picturing the flash of ire in
her eyes. She could act as aloof as she wanted; her eyes gave her away. They
seethed with emotion: sometimes anger, sometimes amusement and sometimes
irrepressible longing.

“Your
sister should have let me handle this party,” Edie groused. “Allowing a stranger
to take over my kitchen… She should have let me do it.”

Ned
could have argued that, for all her skill as a cook, Edie had never concocted
anything quite as exciting as Claudia’s chocolate kisses. But that would only
have increased Edie’s resentment.

“My
sister,” he said with a genial smile, “obviously wanted you to be in charge of
monitoring the cleaning crew. You can’t do everything, so Melanie asked you to
help out where she needs you the most.”

“Well,
I suppose,” Edie conceded, puffing up a bit at the magnitude of her
responsibility.

“In
fact, you’d better go see what they’re doing,” he urged her. “And check their
pockets. You never know what they might steal.”

As
Edie scurried off to guard the cleaning crew, Ned went back outside to the van.
He found Claudia trying to balance two trays of shrimp and took one from her.
“Edie’s been with my family for ages,” he explained.

“How
lucky for you,” Claudia said archly.

“It’s
just that she doesn’t like the thought of being replaced.”

“You
can assure her that I’m not replacing her,” said Claudia. “I’m a caterer. She’s
a cook. That may be putting a fine point on it, but—”

“Claudia.”
His temper was unraveling and he clung tightly to the platter of shrimp to keep
himself from grabbing her by the shoulders and giving her a hard shake. “What
are you getting at?”

Claudia
gave him a deceptively innocent look, her eyes round. “Nothing, Ned. I think
it’s just lovely that your family has servants. I think you and Edie ought to go
somewhere and watch reruns of ‘Upstairs, Downstairs.’ I’ll take care of this.”
She lifted her tray and stalked toward the house.

Ned
ground his teeth and chased after her. “I’m going to help you.”

“If
you keep swinging that tray back and forth, you’re going to spill those shrimp.
And if you do that, I swear, Ned, I’ll dump the new batch of yogurt dip on your
head.” She stomped into the kitchen and let the screen door slam shut behind
her.

He
took a deep breath and another, until his irritation began to wane. All right.
He’d been a rich kid and he’d made it all the way to rich adulthood without
ever having to sling hash at a diner like her father’s. That was a fact. He
couldn’t change it. he was a Wyatt.

And
she was a Mulcahey. And she was working for his sister.

It
was a professional arrangement, just as his parents’ employment of Edie Mueller
had been a professional arrangement. Just as certain business people’s
employment of Ned was a professional arrangement. He billed them for his
services and they paid him handsomely for his talents. Did that make him a
servant?

When
you were a Wyatt, he supposed, you were born into a certain social class and it
didn’t matter what you did—that class always remained with you.

Ned
would just have to prove to Claudia Mulcahey that class could mean many
different things.

***

“THERE
YOU ARE!” Melanie squawked.

After
leaving her tray of shrimp on the kitchen counter, Claudia had walked down the
hall to the dining room to see how the buffet was going to be set up. The room
was large, with cherry wainscoting and hunter green walls, a Queen Anne’s table
polished as bright as a mirror and long enough to seat thirty comfortably, and
three crystal chandeliers. While regal, the room was oddly oppressive. Claudia
couldn’t imagine eating in it.

The
room transformed to stultifying when Melanie Wyatt Steele swept in from the
ballroom. Almost at once, Claudia noticed the resemblance between Melanie and
her younger brother. She and Ned both had handsome features, but on Ned they
looked, well,
handsome.

At
the moment, Melanie was clad in an expensive-looking warm-up suit and appeared
frantic. “Have you brought the cakes?”

“I’m
afraid not,” Claudia said with uncharacteristic diffidence. For all she knew, this
could cause Melanie Steele to blackball her all over town.

“I
want everything perfect tonight,” Melanie went on, fussing with the pile of
neatly folded lace napery that lay waiting on the sideboard. “My daughter and
her friends have been looking forward to this moment all their lives.”

I
doubt that,
Claudia
thought.

“And
the cakes—when you described those valentine-shaped cakes, well, that was what
won you this commission, Claudia. Everything has to be perfect, especially the
cakes.”

“Everything
will be perfect,” Claudia promised.

“Because
there will be
tears
if something goes wrong.
Tears.
” The way she
stressed the word implied that if one girl shed one tear that night, Claudia
would be sentenced to death.

“My,
my,” came a deep, husky voice from just beyond the doorway. “You’re certainly
on today, Mel.”

“Ned!
What are you doing here?”

Ned
sauntered into the room. His gaze flickered toward Claudia before coming to
rest on his sister. “I’m helping Ms. Mulcahey,” he said, turning to Claudia.
She might have just imagined it, but she thought she saw him wink. “Should the
meat be refrigerated, or does it go in the oven?”

“I’ll
take care of it,” she mumbled.

“Wait
a minute,” Melanie said as Claudia neared the doorway. “What’s going on, Ned?”

Ned’s
smile grew roguish, one corner of his mouth rising higher than the other, the
way it had earlier that day. “Nothing’s going on with me. What’s going on with
you?”

“So
help me, if you’re trying to interfere with Claudia’s work—”

“Interfere?
Me?”

“I’m
warning you, Ned. Tonight’s too important for you to be getting in Claudia’s
way. Run along now, Claudia,” Melanie imperiously dismissed her. “You take care
of the meat. I’d like to talk to my brother.

Run
along now,
Claudia repeated
silently, doing her best to stifle her annoyance. Pressing her lips together,
she headed for the door. Ned stepped aside to let her pass, but he discreetly
reached out and gave her hand a squeeze.

Her
palm burned where his thumb had pressed into it. Her fingers tingled. She
loathed him as much for having such an effect on her as she loathed his sister
for behaving so condescendingly toward her.

Halfway
down the hall, she paused to compose herself. God knew whether that gorgon of a
cook would be lying in wait for her in the kitchen. She closed her eyes and
inhaled deeply.

“Good
God, Ned.” Melanie’s voice was muted, but Claudia was able to make out the
words. “Don’t you have enough to do today? You shouldn’t be fooling around with
that girl. You were supposed to go to Mother’s and keep her happy until I could
get over there and help her with her dress.”

“It
amazes me that you can run everybody’s life so well,” Ned said caustically.
“Mellow out, sis. You take care of you and I’ll take care of me. And I’ll take
care of Mom, too, although you know as well as I do that she doesn’t want
anyone taking care of her.”

“And
for God’s sake, stay away from the caterer. I know she’s cute in an Irish sort
of way, but really, Ned—don’t waste your time.”

“I’ll
decide what’s worth my time and what isn’t.”

“Trust
me, Neddy—
she
isn’t. If you’re looking for fun and games, go back to New
York. Here in Glenwood people take these things seriously. I won’t have you
tarnishing your reputation—”

“My
reputation? If I have a reputation, I’m sure it’s already tarnished beyond
redemption. At least, I hope it is.”

“Don’t
joke about it. You’re thirty-four years old and you’re still single. People are
going to start wondering.”

“Wondering
what? That I’m gay or that I’m a sleazy womanizer?”

“Both,
probably.”

“Wow.
That’s a lot to live up to.”

“I’m
serious.”

“Indeed
you are, babe. You’re beyond serious. You’re critical.”

Hearing
footsteps approaching the doorway, Claudia turned and raced down the hall to
the kitchen. To her great relief, the room was empty.