The Bride Price

Chapter Sixteen

"No, that is far too much flour," Mrs. Langley scolded gently. "They'll crumble to bits once you've baked them. Now, here." She held up an egg. "We're going to make an egg wash. It will give the biscuits a lovely sheen along with a nice bit of something for the teeth to work with on that first bite."

Emily, her arms coated in flour up to her elbows, watched with a mingling of awe and fascination as Mrs. Langley tapped the egg against the edge of the bowl and cracked it open with only a deft twist of her fingers.

"Now, add water and mix." She whipped the concoction with a whisk, then pushed a brush into Emily's hand and made a brief gesture demonstrating how she was supposed to coat the biscuits with the wash.

Emily's hand trembled. Not from fear of making a mistake in Mrs. Langley's low-ceilinged kitchen, but simply because her arms quivered with exhaustion. For two hours she had worked, kneading dough for bread and cutting chunks of butter into flour and rolling out dough for tarts to their perfect thinness.

"Or else the edges will never crisp as they should," Mrs. Langley informed her as she pointed out the unevenness of Emily's first attempt with the rolling pin.

Once the biscuits were suitably coated with the egg wash and had returned from their brief sojourn in the oven, Mrs. Langley waved her towards the table and set a cup of tea in front of her. "Time for a rest," the older woman said, and pushed a small plate of the still-warm biscuits towards Emily. "They'll be hot, so watch your tongue."

Emily did her best not to sag with fatigue as she picked up the cup of tea and brought it to her lips. A week had passed since the dance at the inn, seven full days since she'd learned that her departure from London had not, in fact, left her history with Lord Marbley behind her. But those seven days had slipped away without another sight of him, or a single word of his existence spoken between William and herself. Instead, they had buried themselves in the work of setting the house to rights, of acquiring furnishings and draperies, of painting and papering the walls.

William had nearly finished clearing the grounds around the house, and had begun repairing the various outbuildings they would need as the seasons moved onward. And all while Emily acquainted herself with the duties of cooking and keeping house for her new husband. They laboured from before sunrise to after sunset, crawling into bed with aching limbs that tangled together and work-roughened hands that searched for one another in the darkness.

"... and Mrs. Shaunessy told me that Lord Marbley, your very own landlord, is planning to hold a ball at his estate!"

Emily blinked and nearly spluttered over her tea. "I beg your pardon?"

Mrs. Langley picked up one of the biscuits and broke it in half. She dipped the corner of one piece into her milky tea and took a dainty bite. "It's set all the young ladies in a tizzy. Why, we've not had something as grand as a ball to look forward to since I was a girl!"

"Well." Emily attempted a smile, but feared it revealed itself on her features as nothing more than a grimace. "That should be... quite."

Mrs. Langley babbled on, speaking of ribbons and lace, of the amount of candles and punch necessary for such an event. Emily listened only as much as her distracted thoughts would allow, her fingers turning a tart over and over in her hand as its crumbs fell and gathered on the plate before her.

She could not fault them for their excitement. A grand personage had suddenly thrust himself upon their small hamlet. A Viscount, no less, and a handsome one; the latter being a fact that might not be enough to win over the elder residents of Crowford, but would certainly be a matter of great importance to all of the young ladies of marriageable age setting their caps at him.