Page 14 of A Change of Location
Chapter 5
The bright and spacious kitchen impressed Hannah with its contemporary wooden cabinetry and state-of-the-art appliances. Beneath well-positioned light fixtures, the milky marble worktops gleamed.
“I wouldn’t call this Jacobean.”
“Elizabethan.” He grinned. “Elizabeth the Second. This used to be the servants’ dining room, formerly connected to the old kitchen and its adjacent components. My late uncle had walls bashed down to create this space for cooking, eating, and entertaining. I upgraded the equipment, changed the cupboards, and called in the painters. You’ll be relieved to know that the original and quite historic areas are basically intact. Stillroom, buttery, pantry, and so on.”
Ariel stretched out on one of the floor mats, inserted her muzzle between her paws, and watched her master. He opened drawers and removed the necessary utensils with a confidence surprising in a man who employed servants.
When Hannah asked how often he cooked for himself, he replied, “In the evening, when it’s usually just Ron and me, we take turns. Jan comes early enough to do our breakfast, then lunches for me and the staff, and tea before she goes home. She does the shopping and keeps me amply stocked with the choice items I request, though not without grumbling. She’s a proponent of plain cookery. Yet she was busy all afternoon with a chocolate thingummy meant to astonish you. Not only did she lecture me on properly turning it out of the pudding basin, she left written instructions for heating the sauce.”
Hannah liked that he referred to his employees as though they were family members. “How can I help?”
He looked up from his blob of dough. “You could pour the wine into that jug and place it on the table.”
She filled the colorful ceramic pitcher as instructed and carried it to the dining area, her heels clicking against the stone floor. An enormous trestle table, a modern reproduction of the antique version, surrounded by ten chairs, was set with two square plates, cutlery, and stemware.
“There’s a wine cellar,” she guessed.
“A subterranean vault, my uncle’s pride and joy. Ron deals with the brokers and makes recommended additions. Me, I nip into the wine shop in Milverston—mainly for prosecco, in memory of my time in Venice. For about a year I worked in a restaurant on the Grande Canale, where I committed various brutalities against seafood. Already dead, of course.”
Hannah could easily picture him in a white apron, cleaving off fish heads like a manic food channel chef.
“In Naples I studied the art of pizza-making.” With experienced hands he flattened out a thin crust. Painting it with a light coating of what appeared to be puree of fresh tomatoes, he displayed all the joy and artistry she’d lacked during her stint in a busy college town pizza parlor.
“Oven door, please.”
She confronted the bewildering selection. “Which one?”
“Second one down, on your right. Then you can get my mozzarella. There’s prosciutto, too, if you like it.”
The stainless-steel fridge was stocked with British staples and an array of interesting foreign foodstuffs. She located the lump of pale cheese and thinly sliced ham wrapped in greaseproof wrapping.
He studied the salad greens spread across the counter. “Rocket and chicory. Well done, Jan.”
“Let me prep your ’shrooms.” She cleaned and sliced them, tossing neat slivers into the salad bowl with the halved cherry tomatoes. “My restaurant job wasn’t as exotic as yours.”
“That makes us even. I once did a job on a film. If you count lugging camera equipment through jungle thickets.”
“Really? Where?”
“Thailand. I joined a documentary crew for a fortnight. Interesting blokes, ever so glad of an extra pair of hands and a strong back.”
“Venice and Thailand? That was some gap year. Your—” she hesitated, uncertain about the correct terminology. “Poppy said you were adventurous.”
“My vagabond days came after university, from which I made a premature departure. Two years at an Oxford college persuaded me to pursue life studies instead of my degree.”
“Your parents let you drop out?”
“My father died while I was at Eton and thus was spared the humiliation. After my mother fell sick—she’s all right now, thank God—I couldn’t concentrate on my reading or my lectures. My tutor must’ve been relieved when I packed it in.”
“It’s not as though you needed a diploma. You were destined to inherit this place. And that street in London. Latimer Row.”
“Exactly what Uncle Rufus said.”
Leaving her to toss the salad, he removed the partially baked pizza from the oven. Hannah watched him lay on slices of mozzarella, prosciutto, fresh basil and oregano, her hunger pangs intensifying.
“A few minutes under the broiler,” he said, returning his creation to the oven.
