Undercurrents by Tamara McKinley

Author:Tamara McKinley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FIC000000 FICTION / General
Publisher: Quercus

14

Maggie ignored the angry glares being shot between the kitchen lubras and orchestrated the clean–up. There was food and broken crockery scattered on the floor and the congealing remains of egg and bacon stuck to the wall where someone had obviously thrown it.

‘Leave you alone for five minutes and look what happens,’ she hissed as she tipped the dustpan full of broken crockery into the dustbin.

‘You said you were coming in,’ muttered Sam. ‘How was I to know you were going walkabout?’

She slung the dustpan aside and filled a bucket with hot, soapy water. ‘Take this,’ she ordered one of the snivelling girls. ‘And make sure you mop in the bloody corners.’ She watched the girl make a half–hearted attempt at swirling a lot of water around and snatched back the mop. ‘Like this,’ she snapped. ‘You know how, Maisie – so don’t go crook on me.’

The amber eyes were round, the full bottom lip trembling as the girl took the mop and began to wash the floor. Maisie was a past master at the histrionics, but Maggie could not be swayed. She’d seen this carry on many times and was not impressed.

She finally nodded her approval and ordered the other girl to scrub the range while she rescued the bags of sugar and sacks of flour that had been knocked over in the fight. Sam was stacking the remains of the china and counting the knives. ‘So where were you when this took off?’ she asked.

‘Out,’ he replied, his head bent as he counted plates.

Maggie lifted an eyebrow. ‘Out?’ she snapped. ‘Out where?’

Sam slammed the drawer on the knives and leaned against the dresser. ‘I needed some fresh air before I started the day,’ he said blithely. ‘No harm in that, is there?’

He was lying. Sam never went anywhere at that time of the morning unless it involved a fishing line or a horse. ‘Must have been an important phone call if you could ignore the racket going on in here,’ she murmured. ‘But I suppose you’re not going to tell me the truth about that either?’

She looked at him squarely and was gratified to see the colour rise in his face and the way his gaze slid away from her. At least he had the decency to acknowledge he’d been fibbing, she thought.

Sam rolled up his sleeves and washed out the dirty water from the bucket and refilled it. ‘Clean that up,’ he said quietly to the younger girl as he pointed to the mess on the wall. ‘Then you can go.’

‘No, she can’t,’ said Maggie. ‘There’s still the dining room to clear and the washing up to be done. They can both stay on and do it, and perhaps it will teach them not to fight in my bloody kitchen again.’

It was Sam’s turn to raise a questioning brow. ‘Your kitchen?’ he said.

‘Yeah, mine all the time I’m manager here,’ she said firmly as she finished tidying up the flour and sugar and returned the tins of jam to the cold store.

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