"Which color would you prefer?" asked the sales clerk in the chic London baby boutique. "Blue is traditional for boys, of course, and pink for girls. But many people choose to switch them today — or prefer something neutral."

I studied the choices of tiny footed sleepwear in soft colors and miniature jumpers printed with bunnies or kittens, and bit my lip. Boy or girl — I had no clue at this point, and wouldn't for some time, but time was of the essence for this occasion. Make a selection, Julianne, I ordered myself. I felt a little bit nervous about it, however, since I needed it to be perfect. I wouldn't take anything less.

"Do you know the child's gender yet?" the clerk asked.

"Um, no," I said. "It's going to be a surprise."

"How about a nice duckling print? Ducklings are always in fashion, and perfectly neutral," said the sales clerk. "It comes with a free toy bath duck, too."

Would ducklings be the right choice? It was pretty adorable, the sleeper printed with baby ducks and soap bubbles, the one the clerk had pulled from the display rack. It was a soft, pale fleece that begged to be touched like a fuzzy stuffed toy. I envisioned it swaddled in tissue paper, the layers parting, the look of surprise as it was opened ....yup, it would definitely produce the effect I wanted.

"Perfect," I said. "Can you wrap it for me?"

"Of course."

Afterwards, I hailed a cab and hurried to the train station. The train to Ceffylgwyn — the village I now called home a year after leaving my old city of Seattle for English shores — was on time for once, leaving me scarcely enough leeway to board it.

Once again, I watched the countryside fly past my window as I thought about how much had changed for me, and how much everything was still changing. First, taking a leap of faith from my old event planning firm in America to become the chief event planner for the Cornish manor Cliffs House. Then my falling in love with professor-turned-gardener (and apparent Poldark look-alike) Matthew Rose, and becoming his wife nearly a year ago — months that had magically flown by despite the challenges my job sometimes provided. Now, things were changing yet again — me training Kitty as a fledgling event planner ... Ceffylgwyn chosen to host one of the biggest summer events in all England ... and that was only the beginning of this year's new happenings, if the tiny gift sack beside me was any proof.

I had hours to reflect on my past, but my mind was firmly back in the present by the time I arrived home again in the evening. There were no cabs in Ceffylgwyn, but I caught a ride with the florist Marian Jones, who was close by, delivering some last-minute floral arrangements to the local church. I checked my watch — if I wasn't careful with my timing, I would miss my chance for today, and I didn't want to wait to see my gift recipient's face when they opened it.

Clutching the handles of the shiny sack decorated with pastel balloons, I hurried inside, a tiny smile twitching around my lips. Even so, I found my nerves were knotting themselves a little in my stomach — was it a mistake, a little too soon to do this? Would it be a welcome surprise?

Too late now, I thought, as I crossed the room's threshold.

"Sorry I’m late," I said. I paused with the gift in my hands. “This is for you.” I held out the sack. The gift tissue rustled inside, the shiny paper sack crinkling as it was opened.

"Why ... how perfectly adorable," breathed Lady Amanda. "What charming little ducklings — and a little bath time duckling, too! Oh, Julianne, you really needn't have."

"I know you haven't told very many people yet ... so I hope it's not presumptuous to go ahead and give you a gift," I said, feeling relieved that she loved it. "When I saw the London boutique, I couldn't resist."

"It was a lovely thought," she said. "I love it. Come, let's go show William our first official baby gift." With one hand resting on the slight bump beneath her frilly pastel blouse, she led the way to Lord William's office, where the lord of the manor was busy with his agricultural schedules.

"What do you think?" she asked him, smiling as she pressed the little pajama sleeper against her stomach. "Isn't it a perfect fit?"

 

****

 

"Are you sure you love it?" Matthew asked.

"Of course I do," I said, indignantly, as I opened the thin, leather-bound book propped on my knees. "It's beautiful. And so thoughtful of you." I brushed aside the tissue paper from the sofa, letting it fall into the gift box on the floor, where the birthday wrapping paper was wadded, too.

"I know you said you were thinking about keeping a journal, but that seemed rather like a resolution made in haste on New Year's than an honest endeavour," he said, his handsome forehead creasing a little with these words, to match his rueful smile. "The necklace I knew you would love, of course. But if you've changed your mind about this gift, you needn't lie and say you love it, too. I won't be upset if you return it."

"To say anything else than what I already have would be a lie," I answered, drawing him close to kiss him. "I intend to follow through this time and seriously keep a diary."

"You already keep a diary," Matt pointed out, teasingly. Having learned long ago that 'diary' in England equals 'appointment book' in America, I replied with a playful whack on his shoulder.

"You know what I meant," I said. "My life here has been wonderful. It's been an adventure. And I've always wished I could put it into words. This place, the events I've planned...and you, of course."

"I'm flattered," he answered. "But I think I'll make a very boring subject on paper. You've seen what plant science becomes in written form — very dry reading for the average audience." Evidently, he had changed his mind about pouring a second glass of wine from the bottle beside my unwrapped birthday presents, choosing instead to ease himself closer to me, his arm encircling my waist.

Until recently, Matt had been working as a horticultural consultant at the northern Cornish gardens of Pencarrow; his two-week holiday had meant lots of time for the two of us, something that was about to come to an end ... but right now, with his arms around me, I was half-glad that Matt's season as a consultant was almost over.

"I beg to differ," I answered, half-whispering. "But I'm not going to show it to anyone in any case. It's just for me." Well, and maybe for a few pairs of understanding eyes, like Aimee's, I added mentally, thinking of my best friend back in the States, who had been a sympathetic ear to all my relationship ups and downs, in Seattle and Cornwall — and knew all but the juiciest, private details of my romance with Matt. "I want to make sure I don't forget anything about this experience."

"Would this be because you expect things to change?" Matt asked, softly.

"Of course not," I whispered back, firmly — well, as firm as I could sound with a quiet tone of voice, anyway.

His fingers brushed away the strands of hair resting against my forehead. "You're happy with everything the way it is?" he asked. "I sometimes feel you've grown to love this life as much as I do. But if it's ever not the case, we need to talk about it. Change isn't necessarily bad, Julianne."

"I know. But I don't want to change anything right now," I answered. "The life we have together, here, is the one I want most." I took a deep breath. "The only thing that worries me is you. You could be a professor on his way to tenure in an Ivy League school, for instance, instead of taking consulting jobs here and there."

He laughed. "You needn't worry about me," he answered. "I'll look after myself. I'm quite used to change, my love, and quite content with it. You know that as well as I." His face rested close to mine, against the cushions of our sofa, his eyes looking into my own. My heart skipped a beat for a second, proof that sparks of my initial attraction to Matthew were alive and well months after saying 'I do.' That was something I was sure would never change.

"Is there anything else you need?" he asked. "Besides my assurance that I'm content?"

"Well...maybe one thing," I said. "I would need your help to do it...it's a two person job, so to speak." I drew myself against him. "I'd look forward to maybe having you teach me a few things in the process, too."

"And what would this be?" he asked.

I moved my lips closer to his ear as I whispered the words, hearing a short laugh of surprise from Matthew in reply.

We had weathered a lot together. Like the time Matt was almost diagnosed with cancer, for instance; or, before that, when his Ivy League past summoned him to a classroom across the ocean. This period of happiness was hard earned in my estimation, since our chances almost slipped away more than once in the past.

So I let myself become intertwined with Matthew as we whispered to each other, and forgot all about putting my thoughts on paper for that evening.

 

****

 

There was plenty to keep my mind busy these days, besides Lord William and Lady Amanda's big news, and my own dilemma. As promised after the major concert hosted here by Wendy Alistair, Ceffylgwyn had experienced a steady uptick in tourism figures — and Cliffs House had been more popular than ever when it came to event bookings. It had definitely kept both me and Kitty busier than ever.

Kitty Alderson, my assistant — the 'event planner in training' at Cliffs House manor ever since the month of Wendy Alistair's performance. Although I never thought I would say it, she had become almost indispensable to me now. Kitty's penchant for surprising ideas continued to impress me — it had been she who came up with the design for the mini fruits-and-flowers centerpieces for the summer orchard wedding, and booked a first-class Cornish folk band for the contradance that gave one of the ale-tasting events a fresh look in place of the polka theme the corporation executives initially suggested.

Of course, there were still a few sharp corners that poked against the formal side of Cliffs House now and then. But she looked as at home in my office as I did while helping me come up with a suitable layout for the work tables in the special pavilion constructed on the green behind Cliffs House's rear gardens.

"Should we face the trees — or the manor?" I pondered, tapping my stylus against my cheek as I looked at the digital plan. "But they'll rearrange it when the camera crew sets up, I suppose."

"Or maybe face the hill and the woods," said Kitty. "That's better — you can see a bit of the stone wall dividing the fields that way. They'll want a bit of the country life in the picture."

I made a note about it — and about following up with the rental place providing the tables and appliances. "Have you spoken to the delivery service about the grocery shipments arriving early?"

"Twice." Kitty held up two fingers. But she didn't give me the 'look' anymore that I used to get for asking obvious questions. Kitty's self-restraint this past month or so had been pretty impressive.

Besides the two international corporations' ale-tasting weekends, we had hosted two private classical concerts and several weddings, along with the usual local charitable fetes. But that was nothing compared to the event that Cliffs House — and Ceffylgwyn — was about to welcome into its arms for one whole week.

My jaw had dropped when I first heard the announcement at the summer’s beginning. "We've been chosen?" I said. "Us — for The Grand Baking Extravaganza?”

“So you’ve heard of it?” Nathan asked. “Lady Amanda said I might have to explain it to you.”

I was tempted to swat him on the arm. "Hilarious," I said. As the estate's event planner, I had helped Nathan draft the proposal for the program when he first presented it to Ceffylgwyn and to Cliffs House.

I might have been behind the times when it came to Poldark, but my days of missing British telly trends was all in the past, thanks to Gemma’s persistence.

“You’d have to live under a rock in Cornwall not to have heard of it," said Kitty, without looking up from the invoices laid out on her desk. "Everyone’s been holding their breath to hear the big announcement, ever since the last broadcast.”

That big announcement was which county and village would be chosen as the site for the competition, of course. Every section of England had its turn already — and some choices of villages for filming were obvious, like Cromer in Norfolk, or Thirsk in North Yorkshire. Locations across England’s two southernmost counties had vied to host the week-long event, featuring the best local bakers and two tough professional judges.

For Cornwall — and Ceffylgwyn — to be the one chosen was, in a word, magical.

Rumor had it the baking auditions had been filmed weeks ago at a secret location in Dartmoor, disclosed only to applicants lucky enough to be among the final pool of would-be contestants from both Devon and Cornwall. That was how the show worked, the try-outs being filmed in one competing county, while the contest events were staged in the other.

“Didn’t I tell you that big things would happen for this place?” Nathan said. “The producers loved our pitch for the village. And wait for the best part — they especially loved this place.”

“Cliffs House?” I said. "You're serious?"

"Over Pencarrow, or Lowarth Heligan, or even a modern ‘hot spot’ like Newquay," said Nathan. "I'm telling the honest truth."

Ceffylgwyn — where the only ‘fast food’ was the fish and chips and pasty shop in one, and it only took a half hour for news to spread from one side of the village to the other? Where there was only officially one street of shops, and the village’s most exciting event was quiz night championship at the pub? It made Newquay, a haven for 'stag nights' and surfing enthusiasts seem like bustling city life by comparison.

“Anyway, I wanted Cliffs House to know first, because this is big," continued Nathan. "And you guys will have a lot to do to be ready for this.” He sounded pleased with himself; his ‘cheeky’ American confidence tended to linger just beneath his business persona. I remembered it well from this spring, when he’d orchestrated Wendy Alistair’s publicity campaign.

Nathan Menton was an American event promoter, who, like me, was a transplant on foreign shores. He first visited Ceffylgwyn while working for the promotional wing of Wendy Alistair's televised concert in Cornwall. Instead of continuing on with the singer's international tour, however, he had decided to stay in Cornwall and promote its attractions to tourists — Ceffylgwyn especially. He had been the leading voice in crafting the village's proposal for the producers of The Grand Baking Extravaganza, including Cliffs House's part.

My head might still be caught up in surprise, but my event planner self was kicking into high gear nonetheless. “Kitty, we need to contact the council about any site permits or construction permits ... and we’ll need to provide locations that won’t damage the gardens or the existing pathways.”

Kitty reached for her open assistant’s calendar, and, for the first time since his return visit to Cliffs House, Nathan seemed to truly notice my assistant: specifically, that the sleek figure in a dark business suit and patent heels had the same freckled, porcelain face as the girl who had insulted him when he first arrived.

Surprise flickered in his eyes. “If it isn’t Little Red Riding Hood,” he said, in reference to the red sweatshirt Kitty had worn back in the day she was my ‘unofficial’ assistant — and the person who made his first welcome to Cliffs House a cold one, also.

There was no flash of anger from Kitty in reply, except maybe a slightly scornful paling of her cheeks. Nevertheless, her expression never changed as she jotted a note on her memo pad.

“Do you want me to call Linda Green — or wait ‘til you’ve talked with Lord William first?” she asked me, as if Nathan wasn’t here. “You know — get an early start?”

“Wait,” I said. Time was of the essence, but there was such a thing as too early. “There will be plenty of phone calls to make after this is official. Let’s see if Lady Amanda wants to talk about the plan this afternoon.”

“You’re the boss.” Kitty rose from her chair and exited the room, still not deigning to look at the event promoter. I couldn’t help but notice that Nathan sneaked a puzzled glance at Kitty's departing figure, as if he still wasn’t quite sure it was really her.

“She’s your full-time assistant now?” he asked, looking at me. I had definitely been right about the shock in Nathan's reaction.

“She’s the best one I’ve ever had,” I answered. And the only one, I might add, but didn’t.

“Hm.” He stared towards the doorway a moment longer, then seemed to recover himself and offered me his usual business-y smile. “So, some news about the contest, huh?” he said.

“I’ll say,” I answered. "You seem as excited as the village itself will be."

"I'm feeling a little better after this win," he said. "Truthfully, I was a little nervous about deciding to go freelance after the concert. Trying to make a difference in a smaller market is tough. I'm more like the ... unofficial ... event promoter for Cornwall. Plus, working out of Truro feels a little weird after London. But since a train ride from London is pretty rough on the average working day, it was the only thing to do."

"You think you're staying on in Cornwall full time?" I asked.

"Sure. Why not? This proves my instincts weren't wrong. Event promoters basically just work to make attractions bigger, even if the firms and companies here aren't the biggest ones on this side of the Pond. Maybe I needed a change from an international machine like Wendy Alistair's," he said, with a rueful smile that made him seem much more relaxed and human. "Like convincing a popular British program to pick this place as a filming location."

"I told you this place has irresistible charms," I said.

 

****

 

Dear Diary,

Isn’t it weird, writing a greeting to a book? But I guess that’s how you traditionally start one of these, so I’ll give it a chance. I want to show Matt that this is a serious endeavor on my part, and not just a passing thought. Because it was really considerate of Matt. Really. And I’m not just saying it because I loved the amethyst pendant he gave me, either. Regardless of this fact, I love the journal, and I love Matt...and always want to remember everything I can about Cornwall, so I can carry it with me wherever I go in the future.

Nobody knows I'm actually doing this, and I'll probably give up before page two. So keep it a secret for me, okay? — Julianne

 

***

 

 

Kitty:

 

“Katherine, is that you?” From the sound of her voice, my mum turned down the telly in the living room to ask this question. “Nigel, it’s not you, is it? Not shiftin’ about through my pocketbook for a quid, are you?”

“It’s only me, Mum,” I called back. I’d been hoping to sneak in and out without getting caught, but even full decibel sound from Big Brother can’t hide the sound of a squeaky kitchen door from my mum.

I dropped my bag on the floor of my room and slipped off the pair of black heels that Julianne — my sort-of boss — gave me a few months ago when they took me on at Cliffs House. Time to put them back where they belonged after hours: in the closet, with my red sneakers in their rightful place on my feet. I had given the black skirt and coat a quick drape across a hanger, next to a charcoal-colored cardigan and a couple of proper dresses from a shop. The only ones I could afford for this job, but decent enough by my reckoning.

Posh togs compared to my old one at the pasties shop, anyway. No more cycling around with newspaper bundles in my basket, and the smell of fried fish and potatoes clinging to my clothes. Sadly, however, it wasn’t the end of me having to crash at my mum’s place. The ratty black and red sweater and denim leggings I pulled on weren’t the only old clothes of mine lying about this room, which was now more a storage space for my gran's old sewing supplies than a place for me. Old fabric squares and loads of bits and bobs for her dilapidated sewing machine — a treadle one, believe it or not — that hadn’t been touched since she died. Mum was always swearing she’d take up learning it after Christmas was over, or some such time.

“There’s shepherd’s pie in the oven, but don’t touch it — it’s for Nigel when he drops in,” my mum continued shouting. “And give your cousin Saul a ring...he’s been calling your mobile for hours.”

Saul. He was only calling me because he wanted money, most likely. I snorted. All my Uncle Phil's lot was always desperate for cash for some scheme or other. And I wasn’t the least bit surprised that Mum didn’t want me to stay to dinner. The rare boyfriend of the moment usually had her attention, destined to be the recipient of more than one of her awful dishes, since when there was none around we subsisted off frozen pasties and beans on toast. Nigel, a retired salesman and widower, was one of the few men desperate enough not to be driven off by Mum's moods or her cooking.

“I’m going out, Mum,” I shouted, as I pushed open the front door, my canvas and shoulder bag the only things I was carrying, besides the helmet for riding my motorbike.

“Already? Where are you going?” The telly’s sound was still low, but Mum was still reclining on the sofa, I could tell. “If you’ve got an extra quid on you —”

“Gotta go, Mum.” I closed the door behind me.

At my mate Talisha’s birthday party at the pub, I found a quiet corner under some white twinkle lights and curled up with a book and a half pint, after the initial greeting. Talisha and I weren’t close mates, so turning up was mostly an excuse to go out for an evening — and the book was nothing special, just an old book on psychology I found on a shelf. But the pint was good St Austell brew, so I was fine.

The place was crowded with loads of people, and was its usual noisy self as I turned pages on Freudian concepts and Jungian stuff that I imagined would help me understand the sort of crowd that was due at Cliffs House in another week for a mental health conference. One would have to be mental to read much of this, I was certain...but when I lifted my eyes, I wished I’d left them stuck to its pages.

The last crowd of patrons had brought a stranger into the Fisherman’s Rest. Sandy hair spiked with a bit of product, leather jacket, a pair of jeans that had the decency to fit and not look too tailored. I didn’t look twice: not because he wasn’t dishy, but because I’d recognized that odious Yank Nathan Menton without his usual suit.

He’d ordered a drink and was chatting with some uppity types I recognized from school — a few girls who thought Truro was the high life after living in Ceffylgwyn. I turned the page of my book, and pretended not to see that Nathan Menton had noticed me.

Blast. He was drifting this direction. Wishing I was mistaken, and that he’d spotted some chum in the far corner wouldn’t change it, anyway. I tried not to mutter an oath under my breath as I hoped he would walk right by.

He paused. One hand tucked in his back pocket, the other holding a half pint of a pale brew that was no doubt as watery as American beer.

“Kat,” he said.

“Kitty.” I corrected him without looking up.

“Right,” he said. “I meant —”

“If you’re going to do the Little Red Riding Hood bit again, you can leave now,” I interrupted. I gave him a look — not a nice one — to prove I meant it.

I thought he actually turned red with embarrassment, but it was so quick it was probably just the heat of the room. “Sorry, I didn’t mean it to offend you,” he said.

“It offends me more to be called the wrong name,” I answered. Kat was ... well, a name that belonged to a different period of my life. Off limits these days, by my rules.

He glanced around, awkwardly. If he wanted to leave, it was fine. I didn’t know why he was sticking around at this moment, when his sort-of mates were across the room. “Are you a friend of Talisha’s?” I asked. It would feel a bit odd to go on reading with him standing here like this.

“Um, more of a hanger-on,” he said. “You know how it is. New person in town, you take any invitation you get. Some acquaintances invited me to tag along ... I kind of think it’s more about my being single than about actually wanting my company.”

A smile tugged the corner of my lips. “That might be true,” I answered, archly.

“Well, I knew if anybody would agree, it would be you,” he said. “The welcoming committee for my first day in the village.”

My turn to feel a bit awkward. “Er, sorry,” I said. Mumbling a bit, but still, the words made it out of my mouth.

“It’s okay,” he said. He sat down on a nearby chair, which, unfortunately, someone had left close by, and, with elbows resting on his knees, cupped his glass between both hands. A bit close for my taste — we were on eye level now, since I was curled up in the old armchair.

“I apologize for treating you like everybody’s best friend’s little sister,” he said. “It's kind of a reflex, teasing someone I'm uncomfortable around. Not that you make me uncomfortable," he hastened to add, " — in a bad way."

"Nice to know." I tried not to smirk, but it was a challenge.

"You know, I think I'll stop here." Nathan took a long drink from his half-pint. "So there. I apologized."

"Apology accepted." I turned the page in my book. Not a clue what words were printed on the next one, but it gave me an air of indifference, you might say.

"Are you here alone?" he asked. "I'm not implying anything by saying that, before you take offense. Just putting that out there." He held up a hand, defensively.

"I'm friends with some of this lot," I said, glancing towards the crowd. "They're all right. I just felt like being on my own for a bit." I looked the part of a loner, I figured, sitting off in the shadows like this in a noisy pub. I could be playing darts with Charlie and Fez if I wanted, or listen to Talisha's latest moanings about posh customers at the salon, but my closest mates were part of a different crowd. Not that anybody believed I had close mates — even my own mum. And with me, 'close' still had its limits.

"You can hang out with my friends, if you want some company," he said. "We're over there." He pointed towards a group near the bar.

"With Melinda and her lot? No thanks." I shook my head.

"You don't like Melinda?" he asked. "What's wrong with her?"

"I didn't say anything was wrong with her."

"Let's just say it's implied."

"She's not my cup of tea," I answered. Why break tradition with a long reply?

"Can I ask why?" He shrugged his shoulders, as if implying he didn't care if I answered. "You tend to be very succinct in your explanations. Did anyone ever tell you that?"

"You can ask if you want. Doesn't mean I'll tell you," I said. "Melinda's a toff. If you like that sort, then it's fine."

Even from here, I could smell Melinda's rich perfume and the polish from her flawless, twice-weekly manicure. It wasn't being part of the Truro-loving crowd that bothered me — it was the keen recollection that Melinda had mocked me plenty of times at school, and probably still did when she was with that crowd.

"Toff. Right. Well, I guess since I'm one of those, I'm with the right group," said Nathan. "According to your definition of me from before."

I think he was waiting for me to say something else, but I wasn't going to contradict him. Not without proof, anyway. "One should always know one's place," I answered, in a fake snooty voice I used sometimes to make Julianne laugh.

Nathan laughed. It surprised me — and him, too, weirdly enough. "Thanks for the advice, Lady Violet," he said.

That must be a Downton Abbey thing. I hadn't a clue. But I hated to tell him I never watched anything on our telly except Britain's Got Talent, which had been the only program Mum and I could mutually endure.

"I guess I —" Nathan began, but now somebody from his group was saying something to him, and I was diving into the pages of some sort of ego versus superego case studies. I pretended I didn't notice him leave, trying hard not to. So what if he looked dishy enough out of his Hugo Boss togs?

I played a quick round of darts with Charlie and drank a shot toast with Talisha at the height of the party — everybody was joining in around the room, but I didn't see the American event promoter among them. I didn't see him again until I had left the pub, where I recognized the back of his jacket as he struggled with the driver's door of a small black car.

He wasn't drunk, I realized. His voice and the steadiness of the palm that smacked his window with frustration made that clear. He glanced at me, his face red with frustration, too.

"My keys are inside," he said. "I was such a moron to forget them — now I'm locked out."

"You could walk."

"To Truro?" He ran a hand through his hair, giving it a frustrated raking.

"Probably not," I answered. I stepped closer, seeing the keys lying on his driver's seat. He hadn't left a window cracked — shame, because that's always easier to manage that way.

"Is there a lock service in this town?" he asked.

"Nope." I reached into the twist of hair at the back of my head, pulling out the two pins that kept the braided part held back from my face. "Hold on a moment."

"What? Why?" he said. I bent the first pin and inserted it in the lock of his car. His ride was a newer model, but too economy to have an alarm system. It took a few seconds for it to pop.

"Did you just — pick my lock?" he asked. Astonished, he lifted the door handle, opening the driver's side.

"Best not leave anything you value lying on the seats when you're in Truro," I said.

"Thanks," he said. "I think." He was still looking at me with surprise. "Um — what do I owe you?"

"Nothing." I shrugged. "It was two seconds." I lifted my helmet from the seat of my bike.

"Is that yours?" he said, noticing my battered motorbike — one that had been a classic with black and chrome before my cousin did a horrible bit of painting on it in streaky seafoam green. Despite this, I thought maybe he gave it an admiring glance.

"Beats a cheap foreign car," I answered, tucking my loose hair out of the helmet strap's way. I started the bike's motor.

"I still owe you," he said. He jingled the keys in his hand, newly rescued from his car's seat.

"Yeah. Two hairpins." With a snort of derision, I pulled away from the pavement before he could do something stupid, like offer me a quid. If that was the sort of daft thought in his head, that is.

 

***

 

Julianne:

 

Ceffylgwyn is a small village — there's only one street of shops in the village, and only the florists and fish and chips besides. So when word spread that the baking contest would be hosted here, it spread fast and furiously. This was bigger than a televised concert special. This was baking.

"I've heard that Jenny Bryce over Falmouth way's been chosen," said Gemma, as she sampled a ginger-poppyseed biscuit. "Her bloke's been bragging about it at all the pubs — bought her a special whisk that's supposed to guarantee an airy scone."

"No whisk would ever make a difference in mixing a scone's ingredients," said Dinah, as she stirred her batter. "That's a lot of nonsense." Her batter sloshed onto the table, an unusual mess on the cook's part.

"Doesn't this recipe take baking soda?" I asked. I hesitated to point this out — after all, my own baking skills were pretty rusty, even after Dinah's coaching. Matt probably discreetly buried my scones when I wasn't around.

Dinah looked at me. "What?" she said. "Oh. Of course. Silly me. I'll go and leave off my own head next." She reached for the jar of bicarbonate of soda, nestled in a pile of flour beside the sugar canister.

"Everybody knew Leeman Lawson would be chosen from Devon — he used to have a bake shop near the border," said Gemma to me. "Moved away five or six years ago, but couldn't resist coming back to show off. His apple tarts were always the talk of the village fete. People fought each other to be first in line for a dozen."

"The last winner had a mean tea cake, as I recall," I answered. "A really good one," I clarified. Sometimes I still forgot myself when it came to Americanisms — more than once I'd accidentally spoken the equivalent of gibberish to the rest of the staff.

"Even my mum's getting into it. Talking about making a proper pudding in grandmother's old tin, just to celebrate when the show's broadcast on telly. And she never cooks anything but bangers and mash."

A dish I was mostly good at burning — but I preferred the charming thought of tarts, pies, and cherry puddings more, anyway. If I were a local baking connoisseur, I would be molding little marzipan cherries covered in sugar, or learning the secret behind a good English pudding, the qualities of which Dinah had enlightened me with my first Christmas in Cornwall ... and in real life, I would produce hopelessly soggy dough and overdone meringues, probably.

"Of course, the judges are tough as old boots, and the way they argue over a sponge puts cats to shame," said Gemma, scornfully. "Butter wouldn't melt in Miss Hardy's mouth, and as for that French chef, he makes a face while chewing English pastry like it's a stack of old laundry."

I tried not to giggle, since I could picture the face she meant. "Still, that's a little harsh, I think," I answered. "Pierre was really nice to the contestant whose Leaning Tower of Pistachio Sponge collapsed into a big heap. He said it tasted delicious, even if it leaned just a little too much." And he hadn't sounded the slightest bit sardonic when he said it.

Pierre Dupine and Harriet Hardy were the two judges for the baking contests in England's southern counties. In every episode, they had been tough critics when it came to flaky pastry and stiff meringue, but especially Harriet Hardy, whose book of English cookery had been on every British cook's kitchen shelf for more than twenty years. I marveled that a woman who made a living crafting biscuit and cake recipes could be as slender as a twig — yet as firm and unbending as a fireplace log when it came to her standards of excellence. As for Pierre, he only seemed laid-back and charming in interviews; the moment he stood in front of a contestant's creation, you could practically hear their bones quaking as the eminent chef sampled it.

A contest winner from Dorset squeaked a narrow victory over other competitors with a perfect cherry chip cake. This one would be just like the other episodes hosted between English counties — a mad, three-event dash by the bakers to complete each task to time and standards as the judges awarded them points, ending with an elaborate recipe that would determine which baker had won.

"What have we here? Savory poppyseed biscuits? That wouldn't be for my cravings, would it, Dinah?" Lady Amanda had joined us, descending upon the platter of freshly-baked treats with relish.

"Help yourself. The ones for the luncheon are already tucked away in the tin," said Dinah, who poured her cake batter into a buttered and floured pan. Needing no prompting, Lady Amanda took three.

"Little Cynthia has such an appetite these days," said Lady Amanda, nibbling the edge of one. Beneath her soft silk caftan-style shirt, the slight outline of a 'baby bump' was now visible. "She won't let me keep anything down, but she insists on being fed regularly, all the same."

"Cynthia? Is that the name you've chosen, if it's a girl?" I asked.

"I'm giving it favor," said Lady Amanda. "I like it better than Violet — that was yesterday's choice. Anyway, it rather feels like Cynthia today. I can sense it in my bones, so I underlined it in the book. Alongside half a dozen others, I'm afraid. Oh, Julianne, I simply can't decide!"

"You have five whole months left," I said. "You've only been thinking about it for a few weeks."

"Yes, I know. Three weeks ago 'Natasha' struck me as a rather intriguing option, so you can see we've made some progress since then." She popped the last bite of the second biscuit into her mouth.

"I've always been partial to Lily," said Gemma. "Lovely name, really. Or Pearl. Then a bloke would always call her 'his Pearl' like in the Hollywood Pride and Prejudice."

"I've never heard a 'pearl' or a 'lily' drop from the lips of the blokes around here," said Dinah. "Blokes around here stick with 'the missus' and 'old girl,' and think those romantic phrases you have in mind are rubbish." She resifted the confectioner's sugar in her bowl, as if she couldn't quite reach the texture she wanted. I was beginning to think this particular cake must be a new recipe for her.

"It isn't rubbish, it's just romance," said Gemma.

"I didn't say it was rubbish, only that it's the opinion of others," said Dinah. Her usual sharpness towards giggling conversations in the kitchen had mellowed ever since Pippa left — Pippa, who had been the dreamiest of the two young women of Cliffs House's staff.

As if reading my mind, Gemma sighed. "At times like this, I miss Pip," she said. "Think how disappointed she'll be that the baking contest's coming here now that she's in Hampshire. She told me she didn't even watch the northern counties' contest on the telly because she was busy working those nights."

"At least she got to see Highclere Castle," I pointed out. Pippa had sent me a dozen photos of her posing excitedly on the grounds — Gavin had very sweetly arranged the outing on a day when they could have tea there, leaving Pippa in seventh heaven.

"It's such a beautiful spot," said Lady Amanda. "I quite enjoyed Downton Abbey. What was the name of the Dowager again? Violet, wasn't it?" She tapped her finger against her lower lip, thoughtfully. Forget Cynthia: I knew its competition would be receiving a double underline in the baby names book tonight.

"Do you think they'll let us sample the leftovers after the contest?" Gemma asked. "I mean, we'll be helping set up and clear away and all — not that any of them can hold a candle to Dinah's recipes, even Leeman himself." At this, Dinah's kitchen utensil let out a furious rattle, ending with a crash between pot, pan, and stirring spoon on the floor.

"Blast!" She seized a dish rag and began mopping it up. "Gemma, mind the chocolate on the stove, please." Gemma sprang to the double boiler as I ran to help Dinah.

"Is everything okay?" I asked.

Dinah paused. Her eyes sneaked a quick look in the direction of Lady Amanda, who was in quest of a clean spoon for the chocolate. "Not quite," she whispered back. "May I — have a word with you?"

It was nervousness in her voice: the first I had ever heard in the usually-unruffled calm of Cliffs House's cook. "Sure," I said. Nonchalantly, I withdrew to the pantry, where Dinah followed shortly. She lifted an extra box of confectioner's sugar from the shelf, then turned to face me.

"I entered the contest," she whispered. "And they accepted me."

My eyes widened. "Really?" I said. "Dinah that's gre—"

"I can't believe it, even after a week," she continued, hastily. "I'm going to be on the program — a woman who's never so much as stirred in the direction of the spotlight before! Whatever shall I do?"

"What do you mean?" I asked, puzzled. "You're going to be on the show, of course. What else?"

"I haven't a clue which recipes or what flavors I'll choose, to begin with — and I can't help thinking what it means for this place. It means a week of this place shifting with only Gemma in the kitchen, and a temporary cook, since I'll need time to prepare and practice ... they make those contestants work night and day before the grand finale."

"You'll do whatever you have to do to get by," I said. "We'll all be so proud of you. No one will be surprised when you announce it, because everyone thinks you're the best, Dinah. Your marmalade and your saffron biscuits are perfection."

"Pish posh," Dinah scoffed. "It isn't that I don't have confidence in my own skill. But this is television, my girl. And besides, I never dreamed I'd be chosen. I don't go about fantasizing about life, you know." Her voice softened a little. "Once, after I graduated from Paris, I thought about opening a little shop of my own someday — I never really thought about being top chef in a Michelin star restaurant, like the others dreamed. But I sent that application on a lark...I thought I'd just go on being content like always with a few compliments for a tea spread or a proper cake."

"It's lucky they chose you," I said. "You'll have a great time. You might even win, Dinah."

"Against a pack of cutthroat competitors and two sharks for judges?" she said, with a short laugh. "Leeman's not the only professional in that lot besides myself. There'll be proper pastry chefs and confectioners among them, and more than one who's been trained in Paris as well."

"Paris isn't everything," I said, thinking of Pierre's begrudging compliment for a contestant's flaky sweet rolls inspired by mince pies. "I think you being yourself will be more than enough to rival the rest of the group, regardless of your training."

"I'm just glad I've told someone at last," said Dinah. "It's been preying on me for weeks now. I've made daft mistakes in my cooking because of it ... but now I suppose I'll have to go through with it all." She pressed her hand to her cheek — one which was unusually flushed for Dinah.

I squeezed her arm. "Go for it," I said. "I think Lady Amanda will be thrilled. Even if the rest of us are eating pickle sandwiches and shop biscuits for the rest of the week."

 

***

 

On Monday morning, the first delivery trucks arrived with The Grand Baking Extravaganza's official equipment and crew. There was a crowd waiting at the village sign, cheering excitedly as the lorries motored by en route to Cliffs House.

Flour, sugar, icing sugar, rising agents, treacle — all non-perishable goods had been delivered in advance. For the first event, we had arranged for them to set up in the manor house's ballroom, where, thankfully, Wendy Alistair's concert had created plenty of electrical outlets we could use for baking ovens and fridges, once the village electrician made some modifications and extensions. Now, the piano, chairs, and sofa were gone, replaced by matching rental tables covered with neat white cloths — row after row of work spaces for the contestants to lay out their supplies and ingredients. No cooking implements were provided, since each contestant was expected to supply everything they needed for their recipes, from mixing bowls to piping tools.

The only decoration was the program's official logo, featuring the title and a slice of sponge with a fork stuck in it. Two crewmen suspended it from the ceiling in the form of a two-sided hanging sign.

With the lorries of tables and baking ovens, arrived a rental car conveying the two judges. The first to emerge was Harriet Hardy, slim, imposing, and elegant in a rose-colored suit, not a stray curl escaping from her tightly-pinned, sleek hairstyle. Then Pierre Dupine, a swarthy Frenchman who might have looked at home on a pirate ship if not for his tailored suit — the graying hairs in his dark mane and crinkles around his eyes were a sign he was obviously well past middle age, and in another life would be a retired swashbuckler by now.

"There they are," whispered Gemma, as we peeked from behind the lace curtains of the manor's front parlor. "Goodness, Harriet Hardy looks more frightening in the flesh than on the telly, doesn't she?"

"She's imposing," I said, inwardly wincing for Dinah's sake. Dinah, who had taken a week's holiday from Cliffs House starting yesterday, to avoid any accidental conflict of interest as the estate's cook, wasn't here to join us for this sneak peek. "But I think Pierre's the one to watch out for. Eight times out of ten, the lowest marks come from him, no matter what he says about the contestant's bake."

The two judges lingered in the garden, surrounded by Matt and Pollock's most recent effort — an ornamental herb garden featuring the southern counties' plants in particular. I saw Miss Hardy pinch a leaf between her fingers and sniff it, then speak to Pierre.

"Think they're making small talk?" I asked. "Soaking up the sun?" Pierre had complained about the rainy days in England more than once, so maybe the slightly more Mediterranean climate of Cornwall would soften him.

"More likely they're bickering about something," said Gemma.

"Already? They haven't even tasted a soggy sponge." Lady Amanda was behind us, peering through the curtains, too. "Although I could eat a whole one myself at this moment, no matter how underdone its middle." She rested her hand on her baby bump. "Little Violet is famished."

"Violet?" I echoed. "You're back to choosing that one, are you?" I imagined the baby book's predictably crossed-out names and erased lines of negate, but managed not to smile.

"For the moment," said Lady Amanda.

"And if it's a boy?" asked Gemma.

"Anything but Adolf Hitler is a possibility," answered Lady Amanda. "I suppose I must now go greet them as the lady of the house. Wish me luck." She withdrew again, leaving us to our covert observation.

Gemma clutched the curtain. "There are the contestants," she said, excitedly. "Do you see Dinah?"

"Not yet," I answered, feeling my stomach muscles clench a little, as if it was me marching up the pathway with a box of kitchen supplies instead.

They were mostly strangers to me, even the other Cornish contestants and Leeman from the Devon border village. Men and women with armfuls of electric mixers, whisks, wooden spoons, and nesting bowls, filing past the judges and Lady Amanda — and there was Dinah near the end of the line of a dozen or so, a bright yellow stand mixer peering over her box. I was pretty sure her expression of grim determination was pure nerves from steely Dinah.

"Let's go," whispered Gemma.

The contestants were assembled in the ballroom when the two judges, Lady Amanda, and the two of us, joined them. The judges posted themselves at the head of the room.

"Welcome, all, to The Grand Baking Extravaganza," said Harriet, in the precise tone I recognized from the show. "This little gathering will be a review of the contest's rules and schedule, as well as an explanation regarding the filmed portion of the event, so you won't feel quite so lost when the camera crew is present."

Dinah's words about appearing on telly came back to me as I listened, facing the nervous-looking contestants who were doing the same thing. Sheets of paper were being passed out to them by one of the production associates during the judge's speech.

"There will be three major events, with forty-eight hours between each one to allow for practice and preparation. Your score will be tabulated after each judging, and combined with your previous score. As you know, the final event being worth fifty percent of the total points in the contest."

"That's a lot of pressure," muttered Gemma. "No wonder someone always goes a bit wobbly."

"Filming will take place only during the events themselves, of course, so you needn't worry about anyone interfering with your practice. However, this room, and any other sites prepared for the competition, will be off-limits to contestants during the hours between events. Which means you will exit this room as soon as we have concluded our remarks, and will not be allowed to return until tomorrow."

This protected recipes and supplies from sabotage, I supposed. Not that anyone in this crowd looked desperate or devious enough to cheat.

"The rules for the contest are clear and simple. No fraternizing with the judges from this moment until the end of the competition, except at open gatherings where all are present — and even then, no private conservations between any judge and contestant," continued Harriet. "No contestant may give gifts of any kind, or additional baked goods, to the judges. No recipe step for any event completed during the forty-eight hour practice interval may be included in the final presentation. And, last — but not least — of all, no contestant may in any way influence, intimidate, or circumvent another contestant's recipe."

Harriet glanced at Pierre Dupine — evidently it was his turn to speak. "I hope you will all try very hard, and enjoy your time as part of this contest," he said, in his familiar dusky French accent. "I wish all of you good fortune."

The assistant handing out the papers handed me one as well. It was a basic outline of the events, not the detailed dossier which Dinah and the other competitors had been given with their acceptance notification. The days and times for three events were listed: a morning bake, a mid-morning one, and an afternoon bake for the finale. The first was a tea dainties' bakeoff, the second, a grand biscuit challenge. The finale — a centerpiece sponge with the theme of love and passion.

I imagined Dinah tackling this first one. Would she be tearing through her recipe collection one more time, in search of Cornish-themed biscuits or savory treats? Every other contestant was wearing the same expression of shaky composure as they read the list of challenges, a few exchanging nervous whispers.

"Thank you all for coming," said Harriet, so Pierre's speech was at an end. "We will see you all tomorrow morning for the first challenge."

The contestants filed out of the room, leaving behind tables occupied by cooking utensils and stacks of colored mixing bowls. Then Lady Amanda and I locked the main doors to the ballroom.

 

***

 

"The tea challenge should be easy for Dinah," I said. "She's a master of dreaming up little cakes and biscuits and savories — just think of any event we've hosted, and there's an example of Dinah's genius. I think she has a good chance to impress the judges."

"It's far more challenging when you have to face your toughest critics before an audience of competitors," chuckled Matt. "This first one will be the hardest. And it may make or break her chances, psychologically."

"They didn't mention the surprise today," I said. "Do you think there will be one?"

Sometimes, the judges instituted a 'surprise' challenge in addition to the usual three — it meant bonus points, in essence, if the contestants did well, but a major setback if they didn't.

"I hope not. It cost one of the northern counties' contenders their chance of winning," said Matt, grimly. I remembered the 'oozy pudding incident', and shuddered a little for its poor baker's sake.

"Enough worrying about surprises, then," I said, feeling Matt kiss my earlobe as he wrapped his arms around my waist from behind. "Are you ready to teach me a few things?" I teased. "You promised, remember?"

"Only if you're sure you want to go through with this decision," he answered, sighing against my cheek.

"I think it's high time, don't you?" I said, turning to look into his eyes as I leaned into his embrace. "Besides, I thought it would be nice to surprise your family when they come." Matt's 'family' was his sister Michelle and her new fiancé Liam, currently stationed in Asia. "Can you think of anything better?"

"All right, you win," he said. "Open the recipe book to page twenty-two."

My cooking skills were pretty poor when I first came to Cornwall, and even with lessons from Dinah, my talents were still minimal. The baking challenge had made me reassess my woeful limitations and resolve to do better — at least as well as Matt, who was far more comfortable using a decorative sponge mold than I was.

"First step is to sift the flour," said Matt, who handed me one of our kitchen aprons, a very frilly one printed with cherries. "Then we measure our wet ingredients in a separate bowl..."

I succeeded in making a mess with the flour, my kitchen trademark, and had a narrow escape from adding the wrong seasonings to our recipe, Matt rescuing the container from my hand just in time.

"Exact measurements, love," he said, as I trickled molasses — or 'treacle,' as Matt called it — from the cupboard jar into a measuring cup.

"You don't measure things exactly," I pointed out, having watched him make the recipe a time or two. "You use dribs and drabs, and pinches of seasoning whenever you mix it up."

"Trust me, in the beginning, it's better to do it precisely," he said. "You'll get the hang of it over time, and then it's less of a necessity." He opened an extract bottle from one of the cupboards, releasing a pleasant aroma into our kitchen. One of Matt's mum's 'secret ingredients' in her treacle pudding, he had told me once before.

"This is really sticky," I said, my fingers tacking themselves to the jar. I licked one of them. "Bit strong, isn't it?" I said, worriedly. I had tasted molasses when I was a kid, and remembered it being less pungent.

"This is extremely strong treacle," said Matt. "I bought it at a roadside stand in North Carolina when I took a weekend excursion along the southern coast. It's the sulfurous flavor you're noticing. 'Blackstrap sorghum molasses,' as they call it in the South. It's an acquired taste, but adds an interesting element in cooking."

I tried not to make a face. "What's next?" I asked.

"Honey," he said. "Just a spoonful or two." He lifted a jar of honeycomb from one of Rosemoor's kitchen corner nooks, near the percolator.

"One of your mom's secret ingredients?" I asked. It wasn't anywhere on the recipe before us. In fact, we'd added several things that weren't mentioned on the pages of Harriet Hardy's Everyday Recipes of the British Kitchen.

"It is indeed," said Matt.

"How many times have you made this?" I asked, as I dutifully stirred in the honey. "Since you know it forwards and backwards, I mean."

"Many times," said Matt, with a smile. "I made it more frequently when Michelle was still close to home. It brought to mind memories of childhood Christmases after only the two of us were left. It was a way to keep part of the past with us."

"Does Michelle know the recipe, too?" I asked. I was nervous about surprising Matt's sister with a dessert that she, too, knew like the back of her hand. I crossed my fingers that I wasn't the only one ignorant around here about the secrets behind English puddings.

"Not as well as I do," he said. "I was usually the one who helped my mother — Michelle was too young those first few Christmases. And when my mother worked, and our finances were limited, our Christmases tended to be rather small. Once, when I was nine or so, I found the cookbook in the cupboard and attempted it myself."

"A dangerous task for a little boy, wasn't it?" I asked. I knew Matt had spent a lot of after school hours on his own while his mother worked. A 'latchkey' kid as the phrase says, without a baby-sitter for him and Michelle many an afternoon.

"Imagine the secret horror of a nine year-old boy's mother when she finds out he's been using lots of electrical appliances and a gas oven while she was absent ... and you have an excellent picture of my mother's face when she first arrived home that evening," said Matt. "The finished product was a sticky mess, I fear, served once the lectures and tears were finished that night. Even so, when it was served, my mother pretended it was brilliant when she took a bite."

I pictured a childhood version of Matt helping in the kitchen. Probably standing on a kitchen stool, pouring ingredients into the bowl as his mother stirred. I had only seen a couple of pictures of the patient, hardworking single mother who had done her best to raise Matthew and Michelle, and who hadn't lived to see how well their lives turned out. Matt had her eyes, I noticed. And there was a little of her in the shape of his cheekbones, too.

"Now for the tin," he said. "It's in the top cupboard, behind the bread pans."

The tin was old and battered, elegant-looking except for a dent in one side. It was Matt's mother's, one of the few things from his childhood that was still around, besides a handful of items tucked in shoeboxes. Somehow, he had saved this one, despite relocating his life multiple times on this side of the Pond and the other. I turned the tin over in my hands, examining it with reverent admiration.

"Now, onto the cooking stage," said Matt. He kissed my cheek as he placed our newly-mixed pudding on the counter beside the stove.

The pudding was more Matt's effort than mine, but we ate it as soon as it was decanted from its mold, with a brown sugar toffee sauce on the side that Matt made to sweeten its flavors for my sugar-coated American tongue. He cut two generous slices and put them on the chipped blue and gold china tea plates I had retrieved from the top shelf of the kitchen cabinet.

After his first bite of pudding, an odd look crossed Matt's face.

"How much treacle did you add, Julianne?"

"Just the amount it said in the recipe," I said. "I topped off the measurement of the cup you gave me." I held up the measuring cup, which was sitting in the heap of dishes to be washed.

"That's not the measuring cup I gave you. I handed you two — one for the sugar, one for the treacle. Didn't you see the measuring cup I set in front of the book?"

"What measurement?"

Matt opened the cookbook again and pointed to the recipe, where the correct amounts were printed, partly obscured by a crusty bit of flour I had spilled earlier. I read it, feeling my cheeks flush at the substantial difference between the recipe's amount and the cup I had erroneously chosen. I had switched the measurements for the sugar and the treacle.

"Oops," I said, cringing. "Sorry."

"At least your sauce will come in handy," he chuckled, spooning a generous helping over his pudding before he took a second bite. "Maybe next time, we'll try sticky toffee pudding instead."

 

***

 

The first day of The Grand Baking Extravaganza dawned with bright summer sunshine, the lush trees and jeweled greens of the garden herbs stirring in the coast's faint breeze off my beloved cliffs. The drapes were open in the ornate ballroom, where the program's camera crew setup had been old hat for all of us, thanks to Wendy Alistair's concert.

All of the contestants were at their marks, all wearing matching aprons printed with the program's logo. Most of them were muttering recipes under their breath, or gripping a whisk or a spatula as if primed to go when the judges gave the word.

Each of them had been given the basic ingredients, but had to supply the rest of what they needed. Their recipe was meant to be unique — their own special twist, not something unaltered out of a standard cookbook (like Harriet Hardy's British Cookery, for instance). And, of course, it must be a dainty selection perfect for serving at tea.

From behind the set, I watched Dinah wait with hands folded for the official start. I crossed my fingers behind my back, and glanced towards Lord William, who had sneaked in also, and was watching with a serious look of anticipation. Lord William had a streak of baker's sympathy, too, I remembered — Lady Amanda spoke fondly of his lemon poppyseed bread which he sometimes made for their tea.

"Each contestant at their place, please. When the bell sounds, you may begin," said Harriet Hardy. As a member of the production crew sounded a single chime, all the bakers sprang into action.

"What did she choose?" Lord William whispered to me.

"I have no idea," I whispered back.

I hadn't seen Dinah since the day before the Extravaganza arrived at Cliffs House — only Geoff Weatherby had, and that was because he had dropped off Dinah's special spice blend which she had forgotten and left at the manor's kitchen. He had reported somewhat reluctantly to Gemma that Dinah's cottage kitchen seemed 'a bit of a mess' at the time. I got the impression that she hadn't been in the most cheery of moods, either.

"Keep those fingers crossed," said Lord William.

I watched as Leeman, the former star baker of Ceffylgwyn's village fete, stirred fresh raspberry juice and sugar together in a double boiler pot. It was certainly the main ingredient for his once-beloved jeweled raspberry tarts, which Gemma had spoken of reverentially.

The bespectacled, goateed figure looked perfectly confident about his chances, as he rolled out a pastry tart with a little French rolling pin without handles. On the other hand, the young woman at the neighboring table had already covered her apron and her hair with generous daubs of flour.

I could definitely sympathize with her.

At her station, Dinah was whisking cream and lemon juice over heat, which I recognized as the base to her lemon curd tarts. They were a delicious recipe, but not one of Dinah's most creative ones, which surprised me. Had she decided against her special orange saffron iced biscuits as too bold? Her basil-thyme scones served with fresh crab meat in rosemary cream as too different? A dozen snacks from the past came to my perplexed mind as I watched her strain the vanilla beans from her custard cream with a tiny sieve. Dinah playing it safe in the face of a cooking challenge — it couldn't be true.

A contestant who looked no more than twelve years old was shaping puff pastry into little frog-shaped cakes, I noticed; meanwhile, a woman in a cotton sari was measuring a yellow-colored spice into a mixing bowl of dry ingredients, with miniature mountains of chopped fruit piled on the cutting board at her elbow.

Dinah was cutting circles of pie crust and pressing them into tart tins. Her hands were shaking less than when she had begun, at least. She seemed sure of herself as she trimmed the edges with her worn-handled kitchen knife. My doubts about her choice of recipe erased themselves when she placed a new saucepan on the stove, and lifted a bowl of oranges onto the table beside it. Anything with Dinah's magic marmalade was sure to impress.

All tea dainties must be finished by noon. There would be a coffee break before judging began, and I knew I still had to finish overseeing the reception room for when the crew and contest participants were finished. I slipped quietly from the ballroom, and made my way to the parlor, where Gemma was laying out stacks of white tea plates and the silverplate coffee service belonging to the manor's service wares.

"Purchased bickies," she said, making a slight face as she laid out the pre-packaged shortbread rounds on a glass platter. "I loved 'em as a kid, but they're not as good as something from a proper kitchen."

"We'll have to make do," I said. "These iced buns from Charlotte's shop will be worth sampling, at least." I had arranged for three dozen filled snack buns to be baked and delivered from the village fish and chips shop — its owner Charlotte made the best pasties in all Ceffylgwyn, and one taste of her homemade dessert buns at a Christmas party convinced me she was the right choice for entertaining the Baking Extravaganza crowd.

The buns were iced in pink, white, and yellow — the baking contest's official colors. Gemma and I hastened to bring in the muffins and crocks of preserves; without saying anything we knew that we were both hurrying to see the finish of the first bake.

"Done," I said, breathlessly. "All that's left is to serve the coffee and bring in two pots of tea."

"Lady A will be pleased enough, although it would be better if we weren't short a cook and a hand in laying out service," said Gemma, stirring her gingery bangs from her eyes with a short puff of breath.

A suitable full-time replacement for Pippa still hadn't been found, and no part-time schoolgirls were available today, it seemed. "I'll have Kitty come down to clear away," I promised. Gemma and I scurried from the sitting room, thankful no one but a production assistant saw us hurrying towards the ballroom doors left open a crack.

"They're garnishing," whispered Gemma, peering through it.

Then it was almost over. I felt a twinge of anxiousness. I could only see the shoulder of Dinah's blue blouse through the crack, then her fingers sprinkling something from a little dish. Gemma and I withdrew before the doors would open and release the contestants for their break.

Dinah was shaking like a leaf. "I've never been so nervous in all my days," she said, accepting a cup of tea from me as the rest of the contestants and judges helped themselves to a treat. "I've never been in greater need of a cuppa, either." She took a long sip from it.

"I'm sure you've done great," I said, reassuringly.

"It's only a little bite of curd tart, I told myself! I've made a wedding cake for artistic royalty, and made scones for that posh footballer and his model wife," she continued. "But it didn't help none. I only hope I remembered the proper ingredients." She took a bite from one of the shop biscuits, and wrinkled her nose a little.

"I know," I said. "Gemma bought them last minute. She was afraid we might run short." I was beginning to wonder if these were last holiday's biscuit tins only newly-discovered in the back of the shop.

"See if Charlotte can do you some savory biscuits for tomorrow," she said. "Or some of her nice cold roast sandwiches on rolls that the American tourists like so much." She brushed the crumbs from her hands. "I feel quite bad that I'm not allowed to help out in between the challenges. If I could just make a bit of something —"

"We don't want any accusations of cheating," I reminded her. I scanned the room, watching the contestants with their cups of coffee. "Who's your biggest challenge?" I asked.

"Leeman's quite good," said Dinah, quietly. "But the girl in the flower print — name of Emily — she's sharp and precise. If her flavors are as steady as her hands, the rest of us are doomed to fall short."

"We'll see," I said. "They haven't tasted anything yet." I glanced towards the two judges, Harriet Hardy's nose wrinkling as she discreetly disposed of one of the shop biscuits, and Pierre Dupine utterly charming a wide-eyed Gemma as she paused in the midst of refreshing the teapot.

In the ballroom, platters of finished tea dainties awaited the judges. Plate after plate of perfect miniature cakes, scones, and biscuits, garnished with dried fruits or fresh herbs. Harriet Hardy and Pierre Dupine, each armed with a fork, began their verdicts.

The little raspberry tart gleamed like ruby glass in the sunlight as Pierre cut through its surface. Leeman managed not to break into perspiration during the interminable silence that followed as the French judge closed his eyes and chewed his bite.

"Piquant," he said, at last. "Very rich. How you say ... effervescent on the tongue, even." As the judge opened his eyes, Leeman beamed for the benefit of the camera behind the judges.

Harriet Hardy tasted it now. "Too much gelatin, perhaps," she said. "It's very pretty...but it's a bit chewy, don't you agree?"

Pierre made a face that, technically, didn't constitute agreement or disagreement in my book. Leeman looked a trifle less confident.

"But I agree that the flavor is, nevertheless, very lovely," said Harriet, afterwards.

"A fine dessert," declared Pierre, at last.

The frog puff pastries from a boy named Gil were somewhat the worse for wear after baking, with overly-browned edges and not enough minty cream inside. And the savory lamb finger sandwiches by Imera in the blue sari produced a debate between Harriet and Pierre regarding too much turmeric. They tasted cranberry biscuits, lemon-lime spritz shortbreads, and glass candy walnut tarts — and, in line with Dinah's shrewd judgment, found flower print-clad Emily's white chocolate ganache and coconut spirals 'delightful' and 'heavenly.'

Dinah's lemon curd tarts were topped with a layer of her signature marmalade, and a tiny sprinkle of candied citrus peel. She was doing her best not to wring the lap of her apron as Harriet Hardy's fork sliced through the pastry crust.

"A very zesty lemon," she said. "The tartness of the marmalade balances it, however."

"It is the spice that one notices, not the bitterness," contradicted Pierre. "It is perhaps too strong, the citrus and the cream, if not for that tiny bit of heat. We must credit a little cinnamon, perhaps."

"Yes, perhaps, but one cannot have both sweet, and the spices are irrelevant without the true citrus neutralizing the sugared cream," said Harriet. "It's the tartness that carries this off. It's well done for that reason alone." She moved on to the next contestant. I could see Dinah breathe a deep sigh of relief as soon as the judges and cameraman were gone.

After the last tasting, the judges withdrew to a separate table to compare notes before releasing each contestant's score. In first place, Emily Pierce. In second place, Leeman Lawson. And in third place, Dinah Barrington.

"I guess Jenny Bryce is disappointed," said Gemma, who was beaming as she applauded — but only after the ballroom door was safely closed again. "Her magic whisk had only landed her in tenth place."

"I think it was the soggy pastry crust that was responsible," I said.

Dinah had survived round one of the competition. If Matt's estimation of human psychology was correct, she stood an excellent chance in round two.

 

***

 

Lady Amanda had arranged for the judges to have tea with the lord and lady of the manor — the principal staff was invited, excluding Dinah. As soon as the contest judging was at an end, Gemma and I donned aprons in the kitchen and helped Lady Amanda prepare cucumber sandwiches, buttered bread, mini crab-and-cream scones, and iced petits fours with raspberry filling.

"Thank heavens Dinah had some of these tucked away in the freezer," said Lady Amanda, as she split open the herb-flecked scones. "Gemma, mind the soft spot on that cucumber," she cautioned, as she brushed aside crumbs from the serving platter using the hem of her apron — one printed with a cartoon baby wearing a chef's hat and the words 'future bun baker in the oven.' A joking little gift from Dinah, perhaps.

"Did I get the cream dressing right for the crab?" I asked. "Quick, someone taste it —" I held a spoonful towards Lady Amanda, who waved it away.

"Not now," she said. "Little yet-to-be-named has changed their mind about food. I might send back my lunch if I take a bite."

Gemma stuck the spoon into her mouth. "A little more dill," she said. "And I think Dinah garnishes with rosemary. Do we have any fresh?"

"A little," I said, hastening to add the lumps of flaky white crab to the salad's sauce. "If those cakes are fully thawed, there's some raspberry jam ready to pipe in the pastry bag by the icing."

"Brilliant, Julianne," said Lady Amanda. "My attempts to fill piping bags are always too messy." With energy, she began filling the extra little yellow sponge cakes Dinah had saved after a recent charity luncheon.

Harriet Hardy only ate a bite of her bread and butter, I noticed, and one tiny little cucumber sandwich, while Pierre Dupine ate nothing but two cucumber sandwiches. Sampling a dozen tea treats in advance of the hour itself leaves you without much of an appetite, I suppose. The rest of us tucked in with energy, however, as Lady Amanda poured tea for our guests.

"I hope your stay at Cliffs House has been comfortable thus far," said Lord William. "We can't say how terribly pleased we are to have you. The whole village is thrilled, in case you've missed the rather obvious crowd of observers along the drive."

"We are quite used to crowds," said Pierre. "I fear the program's vans draw them wherever they go. Yours seems a very charming village, though."

"If you can tell us," I said, "what is it about Cornwall — and Ceffylgwyn itself — that impressed the producers to choose us?" I sneaked another crab scone from the platter as I asked this question.

"I believe it was the charming photographs in your proposal. A rather zealous young man presented a sort of scenic slideshow to us, emphasizing the 'magic' of this atmosphere for the program," said Harriet Hardy, who stirred a lump of sugar into her tea.

"I believe that would be the American event promoter," said Geoff, who managed not to smile at this accurate description of Nathan. "He's rather enthusiastic about his work, it seems."

To my right, Kitty snorted at this remark, but said nothing as she picked apart her tea sandwich.

"Your beautiful coast is the true reason," said Pierre. "But it helped, of course, that there is a rather popular program that is here ... you must know what I speak of ..."

"Poldark," said all of the women at the table — including Harriet Hardy, I noticed. Her cheeks colored faintly, her expression composing itself behind her teacup, taking another dainty sip. Her intimidating, perfect posture was on display with this gesture — she looked exactly like the picture on the back of her cookbook's jacket, I realized, even twenty-something years after it was taken.

"It is this, yes," said Pierre. "And your village itself is unique. Perhaps not its cuisine — unless I will have the privilege to dine upon something other than the very oily dish I sampled from one of our assistants. It makes the paper wrapped around it very soggy."

I wished that the production assistant had chosen Charlotte's pasties instead of old-fashioned fish and chips. "I suppose English 'fast food' is very different from France's version," I said. "As an American who moved here, I know how different cuisine can seem from country to country."

"True. I remember my first taste of a proper American McDonald's," said Lady Amanda, with a laugh.

"American cuisine is fast," said Pierre. "We have a joke in my city — Americans like the oil, and the English like the boil. Except when it comes to their fish and potatoes, it would seem."

"I think England has produced some of the finest chefs in the world," said Harriet Hardy. "France has always believed itself to possess a monopoly in the world of cuisine, but it's hardly true now."

"That is because the English always believe their good breeding makes them the best," said Pierre. "But in France, we know simply we are the best. It is a simple bite of food which proves it, without words."

"I'm afraid we have the same argument often," said Harriet to the rest of us, apologetically. "We've stumbled into its boundaries once again it would seem. I'm sure you all share my perspective on this, leaving poor Pierre quite in the minority."

"I like French food," piped up Gemma. "Not snails, but, you know, cream puffs."

"Ah, the patisserie," said Pierre, with enthusiasm. "That is where we are undisputed masters, surely. The pastry I taste in your country — forgive me — is heavy and very soft. Sometimes I put my fork into a tart and voila, a wet blanket where there should be crispness, lightness, flakiness —"

"I believe what you are tasting, Mr. Dupine, is merely prejudice against British bakers in general," said Harriet, in a steely tone. "It's nonsense — I've tasted the same pastry crusts you have and most of them are equal to any Paris patisserie I have visited —"

" — and even in Paris, there is patisserie invaded by English cooking," said Pierre, scornfully.

It was just like the arguments they had during the northern competition's episodes of The Grand Baking Extravaganza. I was amazed — it was surreal that it was happening in Lord William and Lady Amanda's private parlor, with her mum's best tea service on the table and an awkward audience of estate employees.

"More tea, anyone?" said Lady Amanda.

 

***

 

Dinah's cottage was a small one tucked in a street mostly converted into flats and lease properties — a small, remodeled, painted one that seemed to have retreated beneath the shade of a nearby tree and some very thick shrubbery. I made my way up its stone pathway, taking care not to jam the heel of my Prada shoes in the cracks between, and rang Dinah's bell.

Day two of the competition was tomorrow — the grand biscuit challenge. I had seen the dossier for the challenge, which required contestants to build a 'gingerbread scene' with at least four separate elements involved. No ordinary gingerbread house would do, apparently; I knew that past competitors had built amazing biscuit creations, including Santa's workshop made from chocolate shortbread, and a Swiss ski lodge from savory rye and white cheddar biscuits.

No one came, so I rang it again. Just when I had given in to the assumption that Dinah had gone to the market, the door opened. On the other side, a slightly disheveled Dinah in a frosting-splattered apron greeted me.

"Quite sorry," she said. "I'm afraid I had just dozed off. Come in, Julianne." I stepped inside and found the 'slight mess' of Dinah's kitchen had found its way into her sitting room. Scissored-through cardboard boxes were piled on an armchair, while sheet after sheet of large paper draped itself across a little study table, where I was fairly certain a geometry compass was driven through them rather savagely, pinning them to the table. A fine dusting of icing sugar on the table, the floor, and a nearby needlepoint throw pillow completed the look.

"Cuppa?" Dinah asked. Despite looking and sounding tired, she managed a note of cheeriness beneath it. "My teapot is here somewhere." She stepped through to the kitchen and rummaged beneath a pile of tea towels and empty flour sacks.

"I just wanted to stop by and see how things are going," I said. "I don't want to disturb you while you're working — I know you're probably really busy practicing —" I noticed the sheets of paper had blueprint sketches on them for Dinah's gingerbread creation. It looked like a castle, possibly.

"I've been working since yesterday afternoon," she answered, with a weary chuckle. "Practically from the moment judging ended on the first, if you can believe that." She had located her tea pot, its cozy's yarn bobble sticking out from beneath a pile of dirty pots and pans. Brushing off some flour, she removed its lid and turned on the cold water tap in the sink.

"Third place, though," I said. "That's amazing, Dinah."

"Rubbish. It was too simple," she said. "It was written all over their faces. I was being far too safe by choosing a curd tart. You saw Leeman's creations — looked like a proper patisserie window, they did. And as for that girl Emily —" she poured water from the kettle into the newly-tidied teapot, " — well, all I can say is, I'm lucky to still be in this thing at all. I'll have to work twice as hard at the biscuit competition if I want a chance."

"I'm sure whatever you're designing is brilliant," I said. "On par with any masterpiece you've created in the manor's kitchen. And you've got a whole day to figure it out, and practically a whole day to complete it in the competition."

Dinah was still frozen at the counter, her hand on the teapot. "I've a bit of a problem with that," she said, at last. Her voice sounded funny.

"What is it?" I asked, concerned. Maybe Dinah's gingerbread design was at a creative roadblock already.

"Have you read the rules for the bake?" she asked.

"Not exactly. I know it's ginger biscuits and construction," I said. "Is there a complication? Some trick behind the assignment?" I imagined that Pierre and Harriet were more than capable of coming up with an extra 'twist' that would cause contestants to scramble to the finish.

"Sort of. They told us beforehand, and I thought my sister and a friend of hers was coming from Leeds. I used to always make a proper gingerbread with her at Christmas....it's a group bake, you see," she said, looking at me. "I'm supposed to have helpers, and assign things for them to do. Part of testing a baker's ability to delegate and unify, I suppose."

Which Dinah could do blindfolded with one hand tied behind her back, I knew; but the judges of The Grand Baking Extravaganza didn't. "What happened to your sister?" I asked.

"Not coming. Her little grandson has the flu, and her daughter and son in law both work," said Dinah. "There goes my crew — felled by germs, for there's no one else to look after the lad. I'll have to tell the judges that I can do it on my own, and see if they'll bend the rules."

"No, you won't," I said. "Dinah, we'll be your crew."

"I couldn't ask it," she said.

"You don't have to ask," I said. "It's already done. You honestly can't think any one of us would leave you stranded in a situation like this?"

"Lady Amanda's already having to make do without a cook while the place is crawling in visitors needing refreshments," Dinah argued. "And there's loads of summer visitors besides, which means there's already a dozen maintenance tasks for everyone."

"And none of that will matter if it waits a day," I said. "All you have to do is assign us our part. And since you've done that dozens of times in the past, what could be better?" I brushed some cinnamon from the nearest chair and sat down.

"It's a great deal to ask," said Dinah, reluctantly.

"You didn't ask, remember?" I said. "Now, show me your designs." I reached for the sketchpad behind the tower of spices.

Gemma volunteered instantly, of course. "Not help Dinah win?" she said. "That would be a load of rubbish, wouldn't it? 'Course, I'm rubbish at baking," she admitted. "I burn biscuits at home all the time. But I can always pipe, of course." She swept the carrots she was chopping into the soup pot — soup was on the menu pretty much every day without Dinah here to bake savories for the Extravaganza's crew.

"And so can I," I said. "And I'll brave the baking part — just don't ask me to mix up the ingredients." I still remembered my bland-tasting treacle pudding from last week. "Kitty, you know how to bake, don't you?" Her previous job had been at Charlotte Jones's shop, where I was sure she must've spent as much time turning out Cornish pasties as she did frying fish and chips.

"A bit," said Kitty. "Charlotte taught me to make the pastry. It wasn't my strong suit, really."

"But you'll do it?"

"'Course I will," said Kitty, in her usual scornful tone. "I'm not heartless. "

"It will be good enough, I'm sure," said Lady Amanda. "All hands on deck for this one, including me — I'm sure there's no conflict of interest, is there?"

"Actually, there probably is," I said. "We need someone else, just so the producers can't say that the estate was favoring one of their own, for instance."

"Geoff. He makes vol-au-vents for the New Year's party," said Gemma.

"I don't think Geoff would agree to appear on a television program, even for Dinah's sake," I said. "Besides, he's helping Lord William with the new field fences — and Lord William, of course, is yet another conflict of interest, so we can't ask him, either."

"Oh, heavens, we will be on the telly, won't we?" Gemma flushed several shades of pink and red. "I can't be on a program — I haven't had me nails done in weeks!"

"With a bit of luck, nobody at home'll notice," said Kitty, dryly. Unlike Pippa, Gemma took the high road and ignored Kitty's remark. I could see her flushed cheeks, however, as she confiscated Kitty's newly-chopped potatoes and dumped them into the soup with a trifle more force than necessary. Even after two months, Kitty and Gemma hadn't become friends in the manner of the original Cliffs House duo.

"What about him?" said Lady Amanda. She was looking through the window, where a man was standing in our garden. Matthew, I thought, who was a master of treacle pudding and decent meat pies at home. Only it wasn't him — it was a figure in a suit, talking on a mobile phone.

"Him?" said Kitty.

Lady Amanda opened the window. "A word, Mr. Menton," she said. He turned towards her, then turned off his phone call and approached.

"Lady Amanda?" he said. "What can I do for you?"

"You can don an apron tomorrow morning and help out Dinah in the contest," she said, smiling brightly.

"Um ... what?" he said. His smile became a puzzled one.

"Please, Nathan," I said. "All you have to do is take a few simple directions from Dinah — just cut some cookies out of some dough, probably. She needs some volunteers for her team if she wants to stay in it."

"You do have an afternoon to spare, don't you?" said Lady Amanda.

Nathan looked as cornered as a mouse in a live trap. I could tell he was desperate to think of an excuse to get out of saying 'yes' ... but even with his awkward body language signals, he wasn't quite escaping this one. After all, it had been his idea to bring the baking contest here in the first place — and to leave part of Cliffs House in a lurch after all his talk of fondness would be nearly impossible.

"We're all chipping in," said Gemma. "Even Kitty, for all her prickly ways." She shot an arch glance in Kitty's direction, where Kitty was pretending suddenly to be very hard at work chopping up leeks. I could see the event promoter was wavering.

"Please, Nathan," I said.

 

***

 

Challenge number two took place in Cliffs House's grand dining hall — an impressive room that generally hosted luncheons for conferences, not baking challenges. But now, with the massive mahogany table and damask chairs removed, it played host to the signature rows of white-clad tables, colorful stand mixers, and mounds and rolls of gingerbread dough.

The contestants had teams of friends and family with them — no more than four were allowed to a baker. Dinah had exactly four: me, Gemma, Kitty, and Nathan.

Dinah's blueprints unfurled across the table like a massive treasure map. "This is it," she said. "I call it, 'the Grand Cornish Castle.' It's based on a print in a book I had as a little girl, actually," she added, with a slight blush. "I always loved it. This one's made up of a lot of pieces — but there's a whole afternoon, so it won't be impossible."

We were all gathered around, wearing logo-printed aprons provided by the program, staring at a sketch of a towering, multi-tiered gingerbread castle with jagged towers that looked as imposing as the snow queen's fortress. A large dragon with biscuit wings inserted on his back was partway wrapped around it, and a row of horseback knights filed from its open drawbridge.

It was massive, impressive ... and maybe a tiny bit ambitious for a crew of relatively inexperienced bakers? I felt a tiny wish dawn inside of me that Dinah's sister would suddenly show up with her magic gingerbread skills.

"It'll be simple enough," said Dinah, reassuringly. "I've got the recipe here for the dough, and all the spices and dry goods are measured out in these bags. I'll need someone to mix and to bake, to make the construction icing, and some to help assemble the smaller pieces. I'm going to cut the pieces out myself, and put the main pieces together." As she spoke, she removed a series of cardboard templates from her bag, a lot of complicated pieces that reminded me of a jigsaw — the only ones I remotely recognized on their own was a dragon's head and a miniature horse.

"I'll bake," I said, hastily. I was more adept at not burning stuff, in my estimation. And construction gingerbread was meant to be crisp, right? "Gemma can mix," I added, since I knew her dread of burned baked goods.

"If she can make the construction frosting, that would be lovely," said Dinah. "You always make good icing, love," she said to Gemma.

"I can roll out dough," said Kitty, who was pinning her dark curls up as she spoke. "I've got a strong arm, Charlotte always said."

Now Nathan snorted. "Really?" he said, raising one eyebrow.

"What's that supposed to mean?" said Kitty.

"That I'm looking at a skinny arm in that sleeve —"

"I'll need you two on the assembly line," interrupted Dinah. Her drill sergeant self in the kitchen was back now, taking charge in a way that had been missing these past few weeks at Cliffs House. "There's the horse and the knights, and the little stands that hold them up.

"Assemble things?" said Nathan. "You mean stuff that will actually be on display?"

"Well, I don't mean to hide it under the table, no," said Dinah. "It'll be simple. Mix a bit of frosting and put them together. Gemma will be doing the decorative piping on those, and I'll be doing the castle, and the head of the dragon."

"Attention, everyone," said Pierre Dupine. The room fell silent, suddenly. The camera crew was in place, making us all terribly self-conscious as the little red power lights became noticeable, and the judges took their places for opening the challenge. I wondered if the stubborn little frizzy curl I hadn't been able to tame this morning was sticking up on the crown of my head, but I couldn't bring myself to find out. Beside me, Gemma pasted on her best close-lipped magazine smile. Even Kitty made a self-conscious swipe towards her makeshift hair knot, as if to check it. I couldn't help but notice that she was wearing a touch of lipstick today.

"We have seen your blueprints and your templates," Pierre said. "We have confirmed your designs and your assistants. Now you will have until five o' clock to bring your creations into fruition. We wish you luck."

The bell sounded for the challenge's beginning. Gemma turned on one of the mixers and began creaming butter and sugar. Around us, the room was alive with the hum of electric motors and the scent of cinnamon and cloves as all of the teams sprang into action.

 

***

 

Dear Diary,

There I go with that corny introduction again. You're not real, you’re just a diary, so I have to stop addressing you like you're a person.

I had a dream last night that I was being attacked by gingerbread men. I think it was inspired by Dinah's sketches of her imposing gingerbread castle, which looks like something that gingerbread Game of Thrones characters would probably live in. Dinah is in the top five, so we're hoping to help her advance. Of course, I don't know anything about baking, but Gemma's been Dinah's assistant forever — and Kitty knows a thing or two, not that she's willing to admit it. I think she's forgotten how well I know Charlotte Jones.

Then again, I think Kitty's always afraid that everybody knows about her past.

— Julianne

 

 

 

 

***

 

Kitty:

 

"Any clue what you're doing?" I asked Nathan.

"Of course," he said. "Relax. I've baked before."

"Frozen dinner trays?"

"No," he answered, sarcastically. "I used to help my grandma make gingerbread cookies." He paused. "Well, I used to help cut them out and put sprinkles on them, anyway. So practically baking, right?"

He cracked a smile for his joke. I didn't, but only because I was too busy trying to get the edges just right as we cut little horses out of the sticky dough. When it got a bit warm, it tended to tear, so I was having to chill little rounds of it in between cutting. After my second horse tore in half, I wadded the rolled dough into a ball and swapped it once more.

"Let me." Nathan rolled up his shirtsleeves and reached for the rolling pin. "We'll save your strong arm for after I'm worn out."

"Right."

"You can talk to me, you know," he said. "I don't bite. I know you do, but I'm willing to put up with that."

The teeniest edge of a smile now. I couldn't help it, really. "I don't bite," I said. "I just don't have much patience with prats. There's always plenty of them about. I guess I tend to think of everyone that way. Not exactly fair, I know."

He didn't say anything now. But the dough was more or less a thick oval waiting for cutting at this point, so maybe silence was better.

"I can see baking as a nice hobby," he said, laying a knight on the baking sheet. "You know, maybe learn how to knead bread. Roll out pasta. I love fettuccine, tortellini."

"Those aren't baked pastas."

"Did I say 'bake'? I meant 'cook.' Boiling stuff, baking stuff. It's all good." He laid another knight beside the first.

"Further apart," I pointed out.

"Why?"

"So they don't grow together in the oven," I said. "They'll spread. Even after chilling."

"Right," he said. He moved it an inch to the side, and it tore in half across its middle. I bit back a smile and kept cutting horses as Nathan's cheek twitched with irritation. He wadded his biscuit into a ball and started again.

"So, do you bake? Boil? Cook in any form?" he asked.

I shrugged. "No one bakes in my house," I said. "Mum's a bit of a processed foods nut. I'm never home long enough to care whether there's flour or sugar in the cupboards."

"Somebody told me you worked in the pasty shop in the village, though," he said.

"Why did they tell you that?" A tiny bit of suspicion in my voice — can't help it, honestly, since my ears are usually burning from village gossip about Kitty Alderson's checkered past.

"Um...uh...it came up in conversation," he said. "We were talking, and something was said about your old job. Where you worked before you worked here."

"Oh."

"Nothing bad, I swear," he said. "Julianne was talking about how your potential was getting lost behind a fish fryer until you found your calling as an event planner in training."

"More like she found it for me," I said, half-muttering. I paused in cutting. "That is ... Julianne gave me a shot. Not many in this village would do the same. I figure you can guess the reasons why."

He laughed a little. "I'm not as connected to the village grapevine as you think I am." He cut another cookie. "Does 'grapevine' have the same meaning over here?"

I glanced towards Julianne, who was busy trimming the rough edges of Dinah's gingerbread castle. I had hoped that Dinah would assign me to work with her — or work with Gemma, even — rather than stick me in this situation.

Nathan broke the silence. "I'm trying to end the tension," he said.

"What tension?"

"Very funny," he answered. "I'm just trying to be friendly. Nice. I thought maybe since we work together sometimes, we could have a civil conversation."

"About the cooking skills we don't have, eh?"

He sighed with frustration. "You know, you don't have to be such a —"

"Relax. I'm kidding." I broke into a grin — pretty rare for me — and gave him a look. "Talking's fine. I don't dislike you. I don't even know you, so how could I?"

"You are a very weird girl," he said. But in a way that sounded like my mate's brother when he talked to his sis — not the way he talked to her annoying friends. There's a difference.

"And you're cutting your knight's arm off."

"Oh. Hm. I'll just kind of smush it back on him. There."

That would never hold, but I didn't tell him.

After cutting, we helped mix more dough, then more icing, as the biscuits chilled again. Two hours had already passed, and it was time for the midday break before the second half of the challenge. And with four times the crowd in the sitting room, that was a long line and a quick cuppa.

"Where's Dinah?" said Gemma, who had snagged one of Charlotte's buns from the trays that Lady Amanda was hastening to refresh.

"Still working on the castle," said Julianne. "It's still threatening to topple on one side."

"What about the dragon?" said Gemma. She lowered her voice. "It's a bit complicated, isn't it? How will she ever get it to stand upright?"

I had seen Dinah's drawings, and it looked tough. But I'd also seen the other competitors — one of them building a gingerbread replica of Whitehall, even. Dinah had looked quite rattled for a second when she saw it.

Ten minutes after break, Julianne baked the biscuits me and Nathan had cut. Rows of little horses and knights, fresh from the oven, were cooling in front of oscillating fans — some were a bit burnt, but not badly. I mixed decorative icing for piping as Gemma mixed construction icing for Dinah's towering castle — Julianne was holding up one of those tricky pointed towers as Dinah tried to cement it in place with the hardening sugar paste.

The little knights and horses were merely piped outlines with a bit of fancy work where the armor should be. Dinah showed me how, and put one together for me and Nathan as Gemma piled the cooled gingerbread cookies beside us.

"This should be simple." Nathan lifted a bag of construction icing and snipped its tip. A little big, but it would do, so I didn't point out that he'd be shooting great gobs of frosting on his target.

"It takes a lot of icing to hold these together," he said, as he glued a knight to the horse along the little space between the knight's legs, then glued the horse to its stand. "He looks like he's wading through the snow."

"Just keep gluing," I said. Dinah would probably fix that part later. Besides, it was closing upon two o' clock, and we only had a quarter of our army glued together properly.

"I'm gluing," he said. "Only they're falling apart." One soldier slid off his horse and lay sideways in the clotted icing, like a Norman conqueror fallen in the snow — just like a picture I remembered in an old history book of my gran's.

"Hold him together," I said. "I'll put a bit more icing around its feet."

"I think the horse's feet snapped off," said Nathan. "It'll be shorter than the rest."

"It's a pony, then." Something was wrong with this icing, obviously. Gemma must have mixed up the wet ingredients when compounding it.

"Darn. I killed another one." Nathan's soldier had snapped in half at the knees. He looked a bit depressed — Nathan and the soldier — as the biscuit pieces fell amongst the globs of icing. I snorted back a laugh. It really oughtn't be funny that everything was going wrong.

"I'm mixing up new icing," I said, dumping ingredients in the bowl as I spoke. "This stuff will never hold. Pipe some design on those last soldiers while I'm working."

"Hold on. Whoa. I'm not a decorator," he said. "I don't pretend to have any knowledge about glitter glue or scrapbooking, so I'm not the person to ask to dress up toy knights with frosting."

 

"It's just a few lines and squiggly bits," I said. "And you've got to do it, because we're running out of time, and there's still the dragon to finish."

The dragon, thus far, was nothing but a three-sided biscuit frame with lots of scaly things piped on it. Dinah was trying to attach its tail, which didn't want to go on it, but simply fell over on the newly-piped moat door instead.

Nathan looked doubtfully at the piping bag I handed him, as if it contained a snake instead of frosting. With a grimace, he put a bit on the coat of the nearest knight.

He wasn't bad at it, really. He drew nice little lines that looked almost like proper chain mail. Even a little sword belt and sheath outline on one, instead of the little curly things and rivets we'd been painting on the rest.

Bite your tongue, Kitty. If I said a word, he'd probably muck up the rest of the lot due to stupid masculine pride or something, and we needed every good bit coming our way. One table away, the little gingerbread carousel now had multicolored biscuit animals circling its turning post. Leeman Lawson's legendary signature design, as all Ceffylgwyn knew.

"What's this piece for?" Nathan said, lifting an odd-shaped long gingerbread biscuit from the pile. "This one spread way, way out of control. I think it must be two or three cookies in one."

The 'cookie' sagged a bit, then snapped in half. Nathan looked startled. I couldn't help the laugh that escaped me.

"It's an extra piece," said Nathan. "I'm sure. We'll just toss it or something."

"It's not ours ... oh, blast it, it's the dragon's," I said, dropping my voice to a hush. I heard a gasp from Gemma just then — but it was for a castle tower that attempted a nosedive.

"Hold it up, quick now!" said Dinah, who leaped to its rescue. None of them noticed the two of us and the broken bits in Nathan's hands.

"What part?" he said to me. "This doesn't look like a dragon in any way, shape, or form."

"I dunno. It's the neck, or a bit of a leg or something, but that's what it is," I said. "Dinah's not even begun the part of it that's supposed to be upright."

"No problem. Nope," said Nathan. "We'll just glue it back together." He flipped the pieces over, and I put some glue along the seam.

"It's oozing out the front."

"She'll cover that part with decoration," he said. "Put a lot on there."

"She'll kill us, you know. The dragon's the important part of all this."

"It'll be fine," said Nathan. "Just let it dry a little." He grabbed the fan and held it close to the frosting.

The glue might have held the pieces together — but it also fastened them to the parchment below. I heard a ripping sound as we tried to peel it away a minute later, and then a snap as another piece of the biscuit came free.

We were huddled too close for my comfort, pressed even closer when he reached for the frosting bag again. I could feel Nathan brushing up against me by accident, and noticed there was a decent bit of muscle evident beneath his rolled sleeve — I admitted to myself that he was probably better at rolling gingerbread. The dining room felt terribly hot, suddenly, from all the ovens crisping the gingerbread. I edged away from Nathan a little.

"Darn," said Nathan, who was trying to peel the bits of paper off now. "Quick, get some more icing —"

"What is that?" said Dinah. "What are you two — oh, for heaven's sake! Put that down," she said to Nathan. Her eyes were wide as saucers at the sight of our handiwork on the dragon's missing part.

"I'm sure it can be fixed," he began.

"It's in three pieces!" she said. She closed her eyes. "Never mind it — we'll salvage what we can. Hand me a knife," she said to me. "We'll shorten his neck and see what else can be done." She sliced away the jagged edges, reshaping the pieces.

The dragon ended up with gills extending from its face, and a neck that now hugged around the castle rather than towered above it. It was Dinah's piping and a bit of extra shaping on the leftover pieces that saved it. Plus, the nice curly tail had managed not to break.

"Soldiers in a line," panted Dinah. "Two by two out of the moat. Quick now," she said, glancing over her shoulder at the clock: a quarter to five. She swept away the bits of icing left around the castle.

It looked a treat, especially the massive dragon. But it didn't stand a chance against the working carousel, we all knew, as we watched the little colored animals turn to the sound of a music box tune. And maybe not against the toy box or the gingerbread lighthouse that Jenny Bryce was sitting smugly behind.

"It's practically cheating," muttered Gemma under her breath. "Leeman used to build that same carousel every year for his shop window. He used a set of shop biscuit cutters, too."

I saw icing on the bridge of her nose, and wondered if she knew the camera was on us right now. At the same time, I felt something brush against my hair — Nathan's fingers were responsible.

"Just a little frosting," he said. "Thought I'd take care of it for you." He hadn't bothered to clean the icing sugar from his own person yet, I was tempted to point out to him.

Dinah's dragon was good enough for fourth, even beating the pirate ship made by the boy whose frogs had turned into burnt little lumps last round. Fourth was good enough, judging from her relief when the judges announced it. The rest of us had a proper cheer when it was announced, and got crushed into the fold of a group hug by Julianne.

 

***

 

Julianne:

 

"A little more to the left," I told Kitty. "There. That's got it."

Now that the grand biscuit faceoff was over, we were rearranging the dining room's tables to take up less space without teams to occupy them. I had assumed we'd simply have them moved until the day of the final challenge — but that wasn't what the producers had in mind.

"Gemma was a little hard on Leeman Lawson's carousel," I said, as we straightened the tablecloths. "I don't think it's necessarily cheating since it's really his own design."

"It's only because Leeman was a bit of a snob in the village," said Kitty. "He rubbed in the fact that his recipes were the best, and always said he'd take his secrets to the grave. But his carousel was always a proper job. When I was a kid, he used to put it in the bakery window every spring. I wasn't even as tall as me mum's knees, so she'd lift me up to see it."

A nice memory, I thought. Leeman might have held up his nose a little too high for Ceffylgwyn, but it hadn't prevented his skills from making others happy — and he wasn't in the grave yet, so maybe there was still time for him to share his secrets. Not that winning The Grand Baking Extravaganza would encourage him to do it, I imagined.

"Need a hand?" Nathan, who had appeared unnoticed, seized the other end of a table that Kitty, with a grunt, had begun moving aside.

"I've got it," said Kitty, who was grasping both corners. Her stubborn tone was back, even though its conviction was lacking a little.

"Which way?" said Nathan. "Towards the windows, right?" He lifted one end and carried it as Kitty and I carried the other.

"Thank you," I said. "And to what do we owe the honor of your visit? I thought you'd avoid us a little after the dragon mishap." Nathan actually blushed for a moment, then recovered himself.

"Nothing," he said, as he helped shove the table into place. "I'm just here to check in with the production crew before they get started today. They promised some commercial footage would be ready for the tourism board to review. If people don't see proof that Cornwall is the latest home of the Baking Extravaganza, then we can't sell fans on visiting here, right?"

Kitty and I exchanged glances. "What's the production crew doing today?" I asked.

"You didn't hear yet? They summoned all the contestants to be here in two hours. The crew will be here any minute." He checked his watch. "Something about whenever there's an extra day between the second and third challenges, there's always a pop quiz bake, or something."

I knew it. "Any idea what they have in store?" I asked.

He grinned. "It wouldn't be a surprise then, would it?" he said. "Speaking of surprises, do you know anything about the Minack Theatre?"

"Of course," I said. "Anybody's who's lived in Cornwall for more than a few weeks knows about the amphitheatre on the sea."

The Minack Theatre possessed a view breathtaking enough to rival my beloved view which gave Cliffs House its name, as impossible as this confession seems. I had been there once before with Matt, and had been dazzled by the soft horizon at nightfall, and the ancient grandeur its modern stonework conveyed. It created a harmony between history and nature that seemed alive during that concert, with me and Matt under the stars and facing the sea, with imaginations capable of transforming those stones into a castle's ruins, or a second Stonehenge.

"Well, my next paying gig — pardon the distinction — is some tourism promotion work for one of their upcoming events. Anyway, they gave me a couple of tickets to something they're having tomorrow night, and I thought maybe I'd let you have them, if you and your husband are interested."

"We'd love them," I said. "But I really can't. I'm still helping fill Dinah's shoes around here until the end of the week. Besides, you should go. It's worth seeing, trust me."

"It's not that I'm not a theatre lover," he said. "It's just that I thought maybe somebody else would enjoy it more than a guy sitting alone on some stone bleachers." He looked at Kitty. "Unless maybe ... you'd like to see the show?"

Two spots of pink had invaded Kitty's cheeks during this conversation — a quick flash of color I'd seen appear more than once whenever people talked about theatre and performance art.

"If you're not busy, then think about it. I could pick you up tomorrow afternoon," he said. "I've got a little meeting with the manager, then it's basically showtime. Very good seats, I've been told."

"I've got things covered here," I supplied. Which wasn't even remotely true, of course — but that was beside the point.

A long pause of debate lapsed. "I guess," said Kitty, at its end. "I've never been there, so seeing it might be worth the ride."

"Great," said Nathan. "I'll see you then. I'll text you about the when and where."

I was careful not to say anything as Kitty and I went back to moving tables. Somehow, I had a feeling this would be the wrong moment to make any sort of remark about this decision. And something in Kitty's face and body language made me fairly certain she was doing her best to be totally indifferent about having said 'yes,' even though she would never admit it.

Then again, I was pretty sure Nathan's nonchalance about her accepting the ticket was fake, too. But who was I to make that claim? If I were, then I would have known that the doors to the dining room were about to open and admit twelve very nervous contestants.

"Most of you are quite aware of the nature of our surprise events." Harriet Hardy was the sole judge present for the introductory part of this challenge, as was customary for the surprise bake. "You will open the envelopes in front of you, and will have one hour to complete a recipe — from memory — which fits the requirement inside."

Twelve white envelopes had been laid on each of the tables. Inside would be a card printed with a single phrase — but with a difficult surprise twist. Not just 'Victoria sponge,' but 'Victoria and Albert sponge,' for instance; or 'crown and cake.' It was up to the contestants to make something of it, with the blindly-chosen ingredients they had brought to the challenge.

The cameras were rolling, so I couldn't get close enough to see what the card inside said. Instead, I saw a flurry of cards dropped on the counter as bakers dove for their baskets of supplies.

Bowls beneath mixing beaters, clouds of flour, cartons of eggs. I saw Dinah rummaging through her basket, the color draining from her face as she paused. I felt my blood chill a little at the possible reasons for this.

The challenge was a soufflé. Not just any soufflé, but a fruit-themed one. The card simply read 'pink fruit' for its description of the dish. Bakers made a mad dash to cobble creations out of extracts instead of fresh fruit, or make sauces with dried fruits and food dye. Some of the creations which emerged from the ovens looked more like bulbous, hideous science experiments than dishes fit for human consumption.

This is why the 'pop quiz' bake, as Nathan called it, is a dreaded Baking Extravaganza event.

First up was Emily's. It was studded with tiny little flecks of dried fruit, and had a strawberry sauce to spoon over its top, which Pierre and Harriet both claimed didn't taste too artificial.

Second, the boy whose frogs and pirate gingerbread ship had been noteworthy for different reasons. His was a perfectly puffed soufflé dyed a very pale shade of pink — with a 'surprise' citrus flavor that pleased the judges.

Next, Dinah's.

Even before Harriet's fork sank into its top, I could see something had gone wrong. The top was dipped below the rim of the soufflé dish. The whole dessert seemed to list to one side, and was far too pale for one of Dinah's usual soufflés. Even the clear red-pink syrup served beside it wouldn't fix that.

"It has fallen," said Pierre, with a tsk of sympathy.

"I think it's never risen," said Harriet, suspiciously. "I think it's missing an ingredient or two. Look at that pale texture," she said, splitting it open further. "And the sauce is the only shade of pink and the only fruit flavor we're getting with this one."

"Yes, but the card simply says 'fruit and pink.' It does not say how much. And the edge, look at the edge — it has risen a little, no? It has sunken. That is the mark of an improper oven temperature."

"Surely you don't think there's a proper rising agent in this? And that sauce —"

"Ah, but it is that overripe fruit taste that you English cooks love, is it not?"

Dinah came in ninth place. The only soufflés which fared worse were the neon pink one, the explosive one that was oozing from its baking dish, and the undercooked one that was practically soup inside. Poor Leeman Lawson came in eighth, while the magic of Jenny Bryce's new whisk finally paid off with a first place finish.

 

***

 

After the surprise challenge, Dinah barricaded herself in her cottage for the rest of the day. She didn't answer the door, and didn't answer her mobile when any of us called to make sure she wasn't giving up. Dinah couldn't and wouldn't, we knew ... but what we didn't know was how she was planning to face the final challenge.

"Made a proper mess of it, I did," she muttered, as she had packed up her remaining ingredients. "There were too few eggs. Harriet Hardy wasn't wrong about that — and I'd nothing of fruit in my basket except a bottle of cherry extract and a bit of cordial, wouldn't you know? I couldn't have done much worse if I had brought a poke with a pig's head in it."

"Don't be so hard on yourself," I soothed. "You've been in the top five before, and you can do it again. Besides, at least Pierre thought your flavors were nice."

"Like scrambled eggs with jam, I'll wager," said Dinah. She had scraped the soufflé into the garbage with considerable vigor. "I'll not have any of that again. What a mess, what an utter disaster."

No reassuring words would end her self-scolding. And now even Geoff and Gemma hadn't a clue what Dinah was doing to win back her old confidence.

"I'm not coming out again until I know I can make myself proud in the final," she had told them. "That's all I can do. And I'm going to work as hard as is necessary to do it." And with that, she had ended contact with the outside world for the time being.

I sought out Gemma for further updates, but she was busy helping clean the breakfast parlor. There was nobody in the kitchen except for Pierre Dupine, who was in the midst of making bread.

Various mixing bowls were on the table, along with a canister of flour, a bottle of oil, and a cutting board sprinkled with fresh herbs. The French chef's sleeves were rolled above his elbows, his arms and hands coated in flour as he kneaded a large wad of dough on the table's surface. There was even flour flecked here and there in the weathered ridges of his face.

"Sorry," I said. "I didn't realize someone was using the kitchen." I turned to go, but I heard him speak.

"Stay, stay," he said. "It is fine. It is bread, not a private affair." He smiled. "I bake when I wish to clear my head — and my palate — between judging. Come, do whatever you wished. It will not be an intrusion."

"I was going to make a cup of tea," I said. "Want one?"

His smile changed subtly — one of humor, I thought, from the spark in his eyes. "You English and your tea," he said. "I have had to learn to acquire a taste for having it served at many unusual times of day."

"I'm not English," I reminded him.

"Ah, but you are," he said. "In the heart." He tapped one flour-stained finger against his chest, but his eye was on my ring finger. "Or am I wrong about your mariage?"

I blushed. "You're correct," I said. "I'm married to the estate's former gardener, actually." I turned the heat on beneath the kettle, and took two everyday teacups from the nearby shelf.

"Love...patriotism...food. They all have the same root. But which is stronger?" he asked. "Some would say love. It can make a person leave the other two behind. You live in England, no? You drink tea instead of your beloved coffee, and give up your doughnuts for biscuits."

I had lifted down a tin I had kept hidden behind a box of rice, one which held several cherry pistachio snaps that Dinah had frozen after a ladies' luncheon. "I do miss doughnuts," I admitted. "And I miss America. But I love Matt...and I think we'll always find a way to compromise, and share each others' worlds." As we talked, I posed the biscuits neatly on the plate, the way Gemma did at tea.

"As for myself," said Pierre, who twisted his dough into a beautifully complex shape with one hand, "I think about love when I cook. But I think there are passions stronger than love. And when there are — there is no easy compromise, perhaps. Then what does one do?"

"I don't know," I said. "I guess I've never thought about it." I placed the plate on the table. "Have you?"

I remembered that neither of the Baking Extravaganza's judges was married. It was surprising, given that they were both talented, famous, and fairly attractive — a baker as handsome as Pierre, up to his elbows in delicious, aromatic dough, would surely have caused more than one female French chef to swoon.

"Often," he answered. "Bread makes me very philosophical, you would say. One could solve the world's problems, perhaps, if all its leaders would only bake bread." The spark in his eye became a twinkle with these words. In one quick motion, he popped the beautiful globe of dough in his hands into a bowl. Carefully, he covered the top with a little cling film, then with a cotton cloth.

"As my mother did, long ago," he said. "Only without the plastique underneath."

I poured the kettle into the waiting teapot, then poured a cup of tea and handed it to him. "You must really love cooking," I said. "So do you love judging other people's dishes, too? Especially English ones?"

He laughed. "I must do something to get out of my restaurant now and then," he said. "An old friend asked me if I would do this. I obliged. It is a good adventure. And even when the food is not the same ... the passion is. You understand?"

"I think so," I said. I took a biscuit from the plate, then nudged it closer to Pierre. I dunked my own in my teacup before taking a bite. Pierre reached for one and snapped a piece out of it. He inspected it between his fingers, his expression the same serious one from the television program, before he took a bite.

I waited a long time as he tasted it. At last, Pierre spoke.

"Rich...delicate...and not too sweet," he said. "This baker should be proud of their biscuit. Its simplicity is deceptive. I would give it a place in a patisserie showcase."

"Would you?" I said. "Would you say its baker is ... let's say ... worthy of top marks in The Grand Baking Extravaganza?"

"Worthy of winning, you ask?" The knowing twinkle in Pierre's eyes grew brighter. "I would agree that it is so."

"Have another, then." I took a sip of my tea.

Matt was in the newly-planted herb garden, trimming the bug-damaged stems and leaves when I found him. His figure was outlined in the fierce light before sunset, with the coastal wind ruffling his dark hair as he lifted his gaze and smiled at my approach. Studying his features, the ruddy, swarthy touch of the sun, I imagined that Pierre Dupine's face was similar to what Matt's would be in twenty years, with creases along his brow and a touch of white in his dark hair ... but I stopped myself before this fantasy had Matt and I as pensioners kneading bread together in a tiny French village boulangerie.

"Are you only just now finished?" he asked, pocketing his plant shears. "I thought they cleared away the dining room crowd long ago."

"I was doing some covert research," I said, nestling against him as I laid my head on his shoulder.

"Then shall we be homeward bound?" he said. "We could try out a new dish, a bit of a challenge for your budding skills. Pierre Dupine has a recipe for two-bird roast, which I found online this morning. There's a quail and a chicken in our fridge ... and a bit of liver paste that would mould nicely with some veg for the innermost stuffing."

Eerie coincidence? I found myself giggling at the thought. "No, thanks," I said. "It's too soon after the treacle pudding incident. I think I'd like to postpone my cooking resolution temporarily in favor of scrambled eggs."

"Then let us go toast some bread instead." His arm wrapped itself around my shoulders as we took the long way to the manor's driveway by way of the cliffs path.

I wondered if Matt would bake a loaf of bread tonight if I asked him. Just curious.

 

***

 

Dinah's campaign of silence continued along with her effort to restore her confidence in her talents. From outside her cottage, the three of us — Geoff, Gemma, and me — stood beneath Geoff's umbrella on a drizzly morning and watched Dinah through her kitchen's window glass.

She took no notice of us as she thumbed through various notebooks and recipe cards, pounding something with a pestle, tasting it with a shake of her head, then turning to slice something paper-thin at her cutting board, tossing it into a little pot on the stove.

"It's like a chemist's shop in there," said Gemma, as Dinah scrutinized her latest ingredient's portion, leveling off the top of the spoon with a surgeon's precision.

"It puts me more in mind of alchemy," said Geoff. "The olden days of skills part wizardry, part science," he added, in response to Gemma's confused expression.

"That could be the very definition of the culinary arts themselves, couldn't it?" I said, with a smile for this joke. "It takes a little of both magic and science to make a perfect dish."

"You mean like Harry Potter or something," said Gemma.

There was something about Dinah's intense concentration that put me in mind of the Sorcerer's Apprentice, I had to admit. She was furiously grinding some spice into a red powder in one of the many bowls crowded haphazardly between the table's contents, dipping in a quick finger to taste the quality before scribbling a note on a sheet of paper.

When she raised her head, we waved, quickly. Disappointingly, she didn't see us, already turning rapidly to whatever was bubbling on the stove.

In the pocket of my rain coat, my mobile rang. I pulled it out, and saw Lady Amanda's number onscreen. "Hello?" I said.

"Julianne, where are you?" she said.

"I'm just running a quick errand," I said, trying to think of a reasonable story that didn't involve three desperate friends standing outside another's house.

"Hurry back, please. She's taking over the kitchen ... dinner plans ... not a clue where ..."

"Lady Amanda? You're breaking up," I said. I checked the mobile's signal, seeing the cursed symbol for weak coverage. "What did you say?"

"...she wants everyone there tonight, too." This was the last intelligible line from Lady Amanda before we were disconnected.

"I have to go," I said to Gemma and Geoff. "I think there's a crisis in the manor's kitchen." I had given Kitty most of the day off to ensure that she wouldn't find an excuse to miss seeing the performance at the Minack, so there was no one at the manor right now to help.

"I'll drive you there," said Geoff. "Let's be off, shall we?" Beneath the umbrella's shelter we three moved reluctantly down the walking path from Dinah's house to his car.

The kitchen wasn't in chaos, but it was definitely abuzz with activity when Gemma and I entered. Total strangers in restaurant smocks were unpacking boxes of groceries, pots and pans, and crates of wine on Dinah's scrubbed work table and the various counters. In the midst of this stood the ever-sophisticated Harriet Hardy in a dark designer dress and un-sensible patent leather heels by Valentino, directing her staff where to go.

"Hi," I said. "Is all this for the show?" There couldn't be another 'pop quiz' for the bakers, right? They were all in the midst of practicing for the final challenge — and besides, I didn't recognize any of these people as members of The Grand Baking Extravaganza's production crew.

Harriet turned away from one of her assistants, to whom she had been speaking in French until now. "Of course not," she said. "This is the staff from my restaurant, Ms. Rose. As per my tradition, we are cooking dinner for the contestants, our hosts, and their friends. No, Rupert — put the chard by the sink, if you please."

So that's what Lady Amanda must have meant by 'she wants everyone there.' "Is there anything I can do?" I asked. "I can cook. Sort of." This last part I felt obliged to add, even though Dinah considered me a decent hand in the kitchen.

"I see," said Harriet Hardy. "It would be lovely to have additional help, if you have time." She snapped her fingers, and an assistant rushed up with an apron. "There is a great deal to be done, and there is no one assigned to the chopping station as of yet."

Assigned? "Sure," I said. "Wherever you need me —" But the assistant had already laid out chopping boards and knives, and what looked like a boatload of vegetables. I saw Gemma donning an apron as well, giving me a look somewhere between excitement and bewilderment for all this.

Harriet Hardy herself never donned an apron or a smock, yet managed never to splash anything onto her silk dress as she patrolled the kitchen, inspecting the prep for every dish, and tasting everything in each pot with the same skeptical expression she wore when tasting contestant's bakes. In between, she consulted some very yellowed recipe cards and a threadbare French cookbook that I realized must be from her personal recipe collection.

Two soups, three vegetable dishes, two meat dishes with sauce, and a dessert served with custard. Sounds pretty simple, doesn't it? So why did it feel like we were cooking for an army as we scrubbed, peeled, chopped, and boiled everything from carrots and onions to spinach and chard? No sooner did I finish with a vegetable, then one of Harriet's assistants whisked it away to one of the many pots boiling or simmering on Dinah's stove, where Harriet stalked ceaselessly, checking the temperature and consistency of every dish in between whisking and stirring her own ingredients.

"Two pinches," said Harriet, to the assistant who held a bowl of spices the chef had grated herself, a small mountain of nutmeg as she whisked a pot of cream.

"Two? Doesn't this recipe usually call for one?" he said.

"Two," she repeated, in a crisp tone that suggested that Harriet's staff would find it easier not to argue her, and probably seldom did. He obeyed this time, then went to fetch another ingredient, during which time, Harriet reached for the dish and added a third pinch to her sauce before tasting it. A satisfied expression appeared on her face, and she gave the whisk a firm tap against the pan's side.

The open recipe book was turned to a Provencal gratin dish involving green leafy vegetables and a sauce of some kind. I saw several notes had been made in pencil to the side of the recipe. As quickly as my eye landed on the page, Harriet closed the book's covers — but not before I saw the last page held its author's picture, a very familiar weathered profile beneath a mane of dark hair.

I caught the chef's eye, and saw an unusual twinkle in it. But Harriet said nothing, merely lifting my board of newly-chopped onions and scraping them into the dish of prepared greens with one deft stroke, as her assistant began pouring the sauce over them and added fresh-grated Parmesan.

"It smells like a proper Sunday dinner in here," said Gemma, as she laid aside a series of peeled, parboiled onions. "There's enough veg on the stove to feed us all for a week."

"Maybe Harriet meant 'feast' instead of 'dinner'," I suggested, as I watched the female chef began lifting the skin of three plucked chickens away from the meat, a dish of some sort of greens-and-ricotta stuffing at her elbow.

"I can't believe she hasn't splashed that gown even once," said Gemma. Whose apron was like mine — covered in green stains from spinach and leeks after an hour's rinsing and chopping.

Even Lady Amanda found her way downstairs and helped mix the stuffing for the onions as Harriet finished trimming a very large fish with an herb bouquet before popping it in the fridge. By the time the oven was at baking temperature, Lady Amanda made a pot of tea and mixed coffee for everyone present, not that Harriet and her crew availed themselves of a break — apparently, that would be detrimental to the preparation of the delicate onion dish being treated like pages of the Voynich manuscript, which was the last of the dishes being readied for the fridge.

"I smell a proper custard, and baking apples," said Lady Amanda. "It's making little Harold positively ravenous." She took a bite out of a biscuit from my dwindling 'secret stash' of Dinah's, the ones used to impress Pierre.

"Is that the boy's name you've chosen?" I asked.

"I certainly hope so," said Lady Amanda. "On a dreadful note, William wants to name the baby for his great-great-great grandfather Edward if it's a boy. You've seen his portrait in the gallery upstairs, haven't you?"

I recalled a picture of a rather sour-looking gentleman in spectacles who looked as if he'd just consumed a disagreeable dinner — or was wearing too tight a pair of breeches, possibly. "Edward's not a bad name," I said, trying to sound supportive. "Even if its original bearer is a little ... grim."

"Exactly. Imagine naming the baby for such a grumpy old bore," said Lady Amanda. "I can't abide it, frankly. I can't believe he's suggesting it." She took a sip from her teacup, then patted her stomach. "Never fear, little Violet. I shan't let your papa have his way in the end."

"What happened to Harold?" said Gemma, dunking her biscuit in her tea.

"I feel quite sure it's a Violet in there," said Lady Amanda. "Woman's intuition." She glanced at the clock. "Goodness me, we must get a wiggle on if we're dressing for dinner." She untied her apron and tossed it aside. "They'll be putting the chicken on soon."

"Dress?" said Gemma.

"It is a feast worthy of kitchen royalty," Lady Amanda pointed out.

Fortunately, 'dress' meant neither white nor black tie in this case, but more of a continental evening casual. Pierre Dupine was in his usual suit, while Lord William wore something a little more stylish, which I knew he usually reserved for weekends in London. Lady Amanda's flowing blue summer smock hid much of Violet — or Harold — from sight; it was from the same shop where she persuaded me to buy the summer dress I was wearing, a light black dress with sheer sleeves.

Dinner was served in the temporary pavilion built behind the manor for the final event. Tomorrow, it would be filled with cooking stations, but tonight the tables had been put together to form one long banquet, surrounded by rented chairs. The white-clothed surface didn't hold decorative cakes and puddings, but the manor's second-best china.

All of the contestants were there, including Dinah, who seemed perfectly calm despite what we'd seen through the windows earlier. She wore a pink summer lawn dress that seemed light and filmy — it was one of the rare times I saw her out of the kitchen smock and in something posh.

"You look beautiful," I said to her, as soon as I broke from Matt's arm's embrace and the conversation we'd been having with Geoff and Lord William. "How are you feeling?" I thought back to this morning with slight uneasiness.

"I'm perfectly fine," she said — not with a touch of forced bravery, I hoped. "I couldn't miss dining at Harriet Hardy's table due to a little cake, could I? It's a real treat to be asked to dine on something she's cooked, and there's no mistake about it."

"Are you — close to a design?" I asked, half-afraid to know if all those notes and concoctions had come to nothing today. We'd hardly stuck around long enough to see the outcome of all Dinah's labors, not that I wanted to tell her we'd all been standing outside, dying to know, but afraid of disturbing her.

"Oh, let's not talk about it," said Dinah. "Not tonight. You'll see tomorrow morning. I'll be back to my notes as soon as this dinner's concluded." And the look of determination from before was back in place, proving Dinah wasn't satisfied with this day's efforts.

One by one, Harriet and her kitchen staff presented the courses. We ate garlic soup with lightly-toasted croutons, or a creamy broth with pureed broccoli lending it a pale green color, and a salad of simple greens. Then came the fish served with lemon wedges; it was delicious despite the fact it still had eyes and seemed to gaze mournfully at me when the platter was passed my way. And that compliment comes from a woman who does not eat dishes that stare at her, I promise.

"This flounder is delicious," said Matt. "My compliments to the chef and her kitchen."

"Here, here," said Lord William, lifting his glass. "You've outdone yourself, Ms. Hardy. One assumes you must be missing your restaurant very badly to concoct a feast like this in a mere afternoon."

"It was quite simple, I assure you," said Harriet, who was pouring a new bottle of wine for her dinner guests. "When I grow weary of dining from other people's kitchens, I find myself compelled to bring to life a quiet dinner of well-prepared dishes. Perhaps you are right. It is because I miss my quiet bistro — or prefer something more satisfying to the palate than fish and chips or a hotel salad."

"Then you have accomplished it," said Pierre, who raised his glass to her also. "It is not quite true French cooking, but it is very charming." As one of the kitchen staff served him the spinach and parmesan grating, he took a small forkful and tasted it.

"Ah," he said. "Piquant. It is truly savory." He took another bite. "This has the hand of a French cook in its preparations. The nutmeg — it is perfection."

"Is it?" I said.

"Yes. The English cooks — they limit such a spice when they make the sauce, never more than two pinches. It must have at least two to bring out the hidden nature of the sauce, as any French chef knows. Exactement."

"Two pinches. Really," said Harriet, taking a sip from her glass of wine. "I've always found three to be more suitable." I was sure she was hiding a smile behind her glass just after these words.

The stuffed chicken was delicious, and as for the kitchen's baked apples with custard, words failed even Pierre Dupine for the English twist on a Mediterranean favorite. I was almost too full after having sampled so many delicious things, so I discreetly let Matt polish off the last of my baked apple.

We walked home afterwards, leaving the eager contestants to claim the judges' conversation on the eve of the last challenge. I couldn't help but think about Dinah — and probably everybody competing against her — staying up late to try one last icing technique, or experiment with one last flavor.

"Where are your thoughts?" Matt asked. His arm was around my shoulders, steering me along the familiar cliffs path in the moonlight. The lingering smell of summer rain was lost in the sea's breeze, the only evidence being the gleaming droplets the clear sky illuminated on the rose hedges.

"Food," I answered.

"Food? We just ate a six course dinner," he said.

"I didn't finish my baked apple," I reminded him. "Compared to you, I'm practically starving."

"I see," he said, his arms sliding around my waist as he turned to face me in the pathway. "So what can we do to quell those hunger pangs?"

"We'll think of something," I said, playing with a button on his shirt as I lifted my eyes to his own. "I'm sure there's a recipe that can cure it."

"Page sixteen should be the right one," said Matt. "I think there's some cinnamon in this cupboard." Back in our cottage, he opened the cabinet above our fridge, searching behind a tin of tea and a bag of jasmine rice. I tied an apron over my dress, tossing Matt's suit coat onto the sofa in the next room. For good measure, I kicked off my stiletto heels, too.

I ground dried cloves with a mortar and pestle as Matt sifted flour into a bowl. I carefully spooned allspice and ginger from their respective spice jars, and packed brown sugar into a measuring cup.

"I hope this tastes better than construction gingerbread," I said. "I had a bite of some in the competition, and it was a little crunchy for my taste."

"This is softer," said Matt. "A little more like the American 'cookie' than a crisp biscuit. You'll see. It's quite delicious, I promise." He opened a tin of bicarbonate of soda, and pushed the jar of treacle across the table to me, where I was cubing butter.

"Uh-uh," I said. "No way. No more molasses measuring by me. That part is all yours."

"If you want." He kissed the top of my head as he joined me, lifting the measuring cup from beside my bowl. "You pour, I'll watch. That way it's still you who's accomplishing it."

"That's more like it. Thank you."

We mixed, rolled the dough into balls, and chilled it as we hunted for biscuit cutters, and succeeded in coming up only with a bird-shaped one someone had given me as a gift and a scone cutter. Together, we rolled the dough out while it was still somewhat cold and stiff, where Matt's muscles contributed more than my own. It became a smooth, shiny brown disk, with a few grainy bits of clove here and there like bits of black sand — proof my grinding skills needed a little work.

"I should've bought that adorable biscuit cutter I saw in the London shop a few weeks ago," I said. "It was shaped like a tiny little cottage. It made me think of Rosemoor."

"Next time," said Matt. "What were you looking for in a culinary shop, incidentally?"

"A biscuit cutter shaped like a stork with a bundle," I said. "I was going to get a second little gift for Lady Amanda."

"Another one?"

"You know me. I like giving gifts." My cheek brushed against his as we drew the rolling pin towards us in its steady rhythm. "I thought about getting her a baby book instead. Maybe The Mousehole Cat — there were copies of it in a shop window back in December."

"A clever title for its American readers to pronounce," he said. "Not so much for Cornish ones, in some respects, is it?"

"Stop reminding me, okay?" I blushed red for the memory of Matt's teasing, even after all this time. "I know, I was a naive American, an easy target for one of your silly jokes."

His finger lifted a lock of my hair and gently tucked it in place behind my ear again. "I enjoyed teasing you then," he said. "But not because I wanted to mock you. I wanted your attention and had no other way to get it that didn't seem so terribly ... polite. Too formal. You'd relegate me to the status of friend and fellow employee far too quickly like that."

"Maybe," I said. "I don't think you realize how hard it was for me not to notice you back then."

I glanced into his eyes, which was both easy and challenging with us in our cheek-to-cheek position. I wondered if he really had no idea how much power a look from his eyes had over me — then and now.

"Then feel free to tell me all about it," he said, softly, a wicked gleam in his eye.

"And forget about our biscuits?" I said. "Not on your life." I smudged a little sticky bit of ginger dough across Matt's cheek, hearing him laugh in protest.

The biscuits were crisp around the edges, but softer in the middle once they cooled from baking. We snapped a beveled-edged circle in half and each tasted it. "Mmm," I said. "Perfect. It tastes like my mom's gingerbread cookies at home."

"It reminds me a little of some from my own childhood," said Matt. "I think Michelle would like this recipe. Not that you need to impress her, Julianne. I hope you realize that."

"I know," I said. I brushed some crumbs from my apron. "But I want her to feel at home when she's here with us. And I want to feel more at home as part of your family, and not as much like an outsider."

"You're not." He leaned forward and kissed my cheek. "This was what we wanted. A collision of cultures, a relationship between two very different people whose pasts will become one future. You needn't think I expect you to change, because it's simply not true."

"It's not about changing," I said. "It's not about forgetting what I've known, but about embracing something new. It's important to me to find my own place in this life we're sharing. I'm just looking for a new way to be part of your traditions."

"And maybe we'll be making new ones," suggested Matt. "Ones that include your recipes, your favorite things, too."

"New traditions. That sounds nice," I said. "Like the beginning of something meant to last for a lifetime. Maybe even pass down to someone else." I lifted my eyes to Matt's with these words. "You know. Someday."

"Save The Mousehole Cat for when that day comes," he answered, softly. "It's a bit of our own story."

Our cups of tea were empty, so we toasted to this with two bird biscuits instead. A little crazy, but not more so than two people baking biscuits in the wee small hours while talking about building a lifetime of possibilities together.

"Speaking of the future, did you hear the latest dilemma over Lady Amanda's baby names?" I asked.

 

***

 

I let Kitty have the day off today. I was afraid if I didn't, she might bury herself in the planning process for an upcoming event, and avoid going out this evening. She's still pretending she doesn't care about going, but she can't fool me. I saw the look on her face when Nathan mentioned having an extra ticket.

I just wish I knew whether that look was for the theatre or for him. Call me crazy ... well, call me curious instead. I think the only cure for it will be to busy myself in studying recipes for Scottish shortbread, because I've DEFINITELY decided against building a gingerbread house this Christmas. And as for Christmas cake — well, I'm afraid I'll dream tonight that Dinah's topples over right in front of Harriet and Pierre. How's that for dreadful psychic premonitions? — Julianne

 

 

 

***

 

Kitty:

 

I hadn't wanted to take a day's holiday, but Julianne all but forced me to do it. She hid most of our work in one of the locked filing cupboards, and I knew that she'd see the marks if I picked it open, so I left it shut up. She's a bit mental sometimes, I've decided; but there was nothing for me to do except tidy up our office and sneak home around three o' clock.

Nathan's text mentioned half past as the hour for us meeting to drive to Porthcurno, so he hadn't been making a joke about arriving early. Funny that I'd never been to that theatre, really. I had lived in Land's End, which was only a short bus ride to Minack's place on the map. But I'd had other drama on my mind in those days than seeing plays in my free hours.

As usual, the telly was blasting some program at full volume when I let myself inside the house by way of the kitchen. I slipped past the doorway, spotting Mum busy clipping something from a magazine as an advertisement on Channel 4 boasted about some brand of pasties.

I kicked off my shoes and tossed my jacket onto the sewing table. Opening the closet, I unzipped the garment bag I kept near the back. In it, a 'posh frock' that I had bought once, and never had a notion of wearing. A bright pink pattern of silk with splashes of wine-colored flowers on it, like a watercolor someone had spilled water over to blur the picture. Quite snug in its curves, with a wide neckline and sleeves that dropped almost off the shoulders. There was a flimsy scarf to match it.

I took a deep breath. My last chance to turn back was here. Reaching over, I pulled the dress from the closet and began squeezing myself into it. I put my hair up quickly and pinned it, then dug through a little box on the table, where I kept an old pair of fake diamond earrings that had been Mum's ages ago.

I slipped on my shoes again and grabbed my pocketbook. Time to creep away before Mum knew I was home. I made it halfway to the door before she popped out of the front room and ran straight into me.

"Katherine, for land's sake!" she said, clamping one hand over her chest. "You scared me witless, creeping about like that — what are you doing?"

"I'm just leaving —"

" — and what on earth are you wearing?" She took note of my appearance with a look of dismay.

"It's a dress, Mum," I answered sarcastically. "I thought that much would be fairly obvious."

"Where did you get it?" she asked. "And whatever possessed you? It makes you look a bit tarty, love. Go pop into your room and change straightaway. What if Nigel saw you wearing that?"

"I don't have time, Mum, I've got to go," I said, impatiently. "Nigel's not even here, besides."

"Where are you off to in such a rush?" she asked, sounding suspicious. "I don't like secrets, Katherine. If you know what's good for you, you'll keep away from that crowd in Truro —"

The sound of a loud snicker from the kitchen interrupted our conversation. "Well, well, isn't that a bit of a show?" said a third voice. "Is that a posh frock or your mum's old curtains done up, KitKat?" My cousin Saul had come in through the second door, unannounced, as usual. "Makes you look like that painted doll you had as a kid, the one Teddy and I buried in the garden."

"You're a right comedian, that's what you are." I rolled my eyes and pushed past him to the door.

"Don't be peeved, I'm only having a bit of fun," he said. "Come back, Kitty. I need a favor — just a few quid —"

"I don't have any," I said.

"You can't ride your motorbike in that getup," Mum argued. "Kitty, come back here!"

"I'm riding with a friend," I said. "Tatty-bye."

At the end of the lane, a decent piece from home, I waited for Nathan to meet me — there was no possibility I would let him collect me from Mum's house. I saw the little car whose lock I picked slowing down as its driver spotted me.

Nathan emerged from the driver seat when it stopped, and the look on his face made me blush despite my best try. "Hi," he managed, after a moment. "I .. um ... wasn't sure I had the right place ..."

"Sorry I'm late." I opened the passenger door and climbed inside. "Thanks for the ride."

"No problem." He'd recovered himself, at any rate. "Is this your house?" he asked, glancing at the nearest cottage — one a bit better off than Mum's, with the garden properly tended in front.

"No," I said. "Let's go." I motioned for him to go on — there was a distinct chance that Saul might be by at any second and see us. I didn't want questions about who the 'posh boy' was who gave me a lift.

"Right." He shifted into gear and began driving again. He glanced over at me. "That's ... quite a dress," he said. "It's pretty, I mean. You look nice." The skin of his face had turned a bit pink. I could see it from his profile, even. "Not that you don't usually look nice. This is just different for you."

"Not exactly my usual style, I know. Try not to laugh, all right?" I said, wryly. "Let's not make a fuss about it." I felt self-conscious as I adjusted the skirt a bit. Sitting down, it was even more snug against my knees.

"I'll try not to," Nathan said. "Promise." He was still kidding, but in a nice way. Nicer than when we were building the biscuit knights, even. I felt a bit less weird about it when he sneaked glances a couple more times — I didn't think it was because the dress looked a mess, although this made me feel weird in a different way.

"What play is it?" I asked. "The show we're seeing."

"The Tempest," he said. "Are you a Shakespeare fan, by chance?"

"Only seen it once. When I was at school," I said. It had only been a drama club play of sorts, and I hadn't been a student of good standing who was allowed to participate. That wasn't a tale I wanted to share here and now, however.

It wasn't the most uncomfortable car trip I've ever been part of. It was a bit quiet at the start, but it gradually became less so, when we had both grown tired of silence. It was safe enough to talk about the baking contest, and the summer diary of Cliffs House's events. And it was a stroke of fortune that Nathan had never driven these roads before, and needed my knowledge of the roads from Land's End and Penzance to find his way there.

Minack Theatre was nothing more than a postcard in the Land's End shop where I worked, a pile of stone above the sea, one that looked a bit like some old Greek ruins. But Julianne would say that everything changes when you see it in person, and it was the same for me when I took the stone steps that wound down to the amphitheatre's seats.

I'd never had a funny moment where I felt breathless, but I did for just a second, looking at the blue water flecked with white foam, like a big piece of silk rippling over a tabletop the size of the world. There were little strips of green between all the stone levels of the theatre, and sprays of something blooming with little pink flowers cropped up along the path below, leading to the stage and background of false ruins.

"Are you okay?" said Nathan. He looked a little bit concerned that I was so motionless all of a sudden on the topmost step.

"Me? I'm fine," I said. I followed him down, where the people he was supposed to meet were waiting in the front row. He started to put his hand on my arm when I caught up with him, but hesitated at the last second. I managed not to break into a little smile, imagining he'd make some remark about my 'bite' being worse than my bark, probably. But the theatre had taken the mood for joking out of Nathan, too, maybe.

"The theatre of the gods," he said, softly. We were at the bottom now, looking up at the rows of seats carved from stone, which looked fitting enough for Greek gods to occupy.

"Pick one," said Nathan. "I'm just going to talk to them for a little while about some concert stuff." He motioned towards the two men waiting at the stage's edge. "You can come if you want, or just hang out here."

"Which seats are we supposed to be in?"

"Any of them," he said. "Pick one of the good ones, if you want — the ones carved for the gods and not the back benches. Just save one for me." He crossed to the stage, where the two men waiting were now shaking hands with him.

So I picked a place in the second row, and sat watching the sky change to a pinkish shade as the day drew to a close. Some tourists were taking photos of the sea and the stage until it was almost time for the play to begin, when the big lights came on to illuminate the stage as the sun disappeared.

The show was a local theatre company onstage — there wasn't much in the way of props or backdrops, but that was the point of playing the Minack, where the sea and the stone ruins like an old Mediterranean fortress were the real backdrop. At nighttime, the sea was a velvety darkness that washed against the far shore, where a little white light burned across the way.

"I hope you understand Shakespeare better than I do, because I'm totally lost," Nathan whispered to me. Even the cooler temperatures of Cornwall versus the hot summers across the Pond didn't stop him from taking off his suit coat and tucking it over the seat. He didn't move his arm afterwards; I felt it brush against my shoulder as he leaned in to whisper, "Who is the guy on the left supposed to be?"

"Sshh," I said. "You're ruining my concentration." I leaned forward, pretending to be totally engrossed in the play. Not that it wasn't a good local performance — but it was mostly because I didn't want to get quite so close all of a sudden. But he didn't move his arm from the niche between our seats, except to stretch it out along the top. I tried not to roll my eyes as I settled back in my place.

"You're stealing part of my seat," I whispered. "The back bit's mine, too."

"This? This is the neutral zone," he said. "It's outside the seat's technical boundaries." A smile twitched at the corner of his mouth, briefly. "Besides, I'm getting cramped sitting the other way. And aren't you too busy watching the play to notice?"

"Touché," I muttered.

When we rose at the end for the standing ovation, he tucked his suit coat around my shoulders; I felt its silk lining sliding around me before I was aware what he was doing.

"It's a little cool," he said, speaking louder since the audience was cheering.

"Thanks," I said. It was a little too warm for it, really, but I felt suddenly that I didn't want to be rude to him.

He wasn't in a hurry to go after the cast's bows were finished — besides, we were trapped in place until the rest of the audience had filed up the stone steps to the carvings and natural boulders looking down at us from on high. Nathan sat down on the back of the first row's seat, using its 'neutral zone' as a resting spot as we gazed at the now-empty stage and let time pass.

"Won't they kick us out?" I asked. I had seated myself next to him, since we seemed to be waiting for something. "Your friends with the theatre, whoever they are."

"No. They said I could stay as long as I wanted," said Nathan. "So long as we can find our way out of here in the dark." As he spoke, the stage lights disappeared. There was just moonlight, but it was bright enough since the rain clouds weren't hiding it. It made the sea look different, and the chairs of stone and the leaves and flowers in the garden beds above. Like a great big spotlight that made everything seem bright, but not cold.

"So," he said. "Did you like it? This place. Tonight."

"Of course I did," I scoffed. "It was different for me. Sort of like...something magic." Rubbishy words, really. My cheeks turned pink, and I was glad he couldn't see them. "At least a bit like it."

"They said it was beautiful here," he said, resting his hands on either side of the seat's flat back as he gazed at the carved cliff around us. "You know how it is, though. Just words until they become reality."

"Whose words are those? Your mates in Truro?" I asked, teasing him. "Ceffylgwyn's posh set that absconded from the village?"

A sound between a grunt and a groan came from Nathan's throat. "What's with you and them?" he asked. "Would you just tell me what you have against them? Or what they have against you?"

"They didn't tell you to stay away from me, then," I said, airily. "Guess you need better mates."

"Why would they tell me that?" He looked me firmly in the eye at this point. "Come on, Kitty. Tell me the truth."

I let his coat slip from my shoulders, to the back of the seat beside mine. "I was a bit wild in my past," I said. "You must've heard the stories." I didn't stay locked with his gaze for this remark.

"Oh. Those. You mean about you stealing the motorbike," he said. "And spray-painting the primary's walls —"

"That wasn't me," I said, quickly. "Some of the lot I followed about, maybe, but I didn't do those things." I might've stated this with a little more force than necessary, but I was still prickly after all these years whenever my name was connected to village vandalism. Gossip had grouped me in with the louts who had been cruel and destructive just for boredom's sake, which was the worst part of it all.

"I never said you did." Nathan leaned back a little. "I'm not an idiot. I don't believe everything I'm told. Well, the motorbike I believed," he clarified. "Especially after you picked my car lock with all the prowess of Catwoman."

"I'm not proud of it, you know," I answered. "A skill like that."

"Like heck you're not."

I bit my lip to stop the sudden twitch of a smile from becoming real. He was partly right. It was a mixed bag, showing off with something I wished I hadn't learned, with the 'showing off' being the part I liked about it sometimes, wrong as it was.

"So why did you leave the village?" said Nathan. "You think most people run away because they're looking for something bigger, or more exciting. Did you decide excitement wasn't all it was cracked up to be?"

"You've obviously never seen Land's End, or that wouldn't be the thought popping into your head," I said. "That's where I ran off to." I paused, feeling a bit of the sea breeze ruffle my dress scarf and my hair— I could feel the pins holding my style in place were starting to slip. "I guess I wanted to get away after my gran passed. She was the only part of my life back then that held me there."

"What was she like?" he asked.

"Gran was fantastic," I said. "She made flowers look like works of art, like something out of a painting, whenever she put them together. She could bake the best oggies of anyone, even Charlotte Jones — and she made stories out of patchwork." Bits of those quilts in my room made me think of her whenever I laid aside my things at the end of the day. Maybe that's why I was still living there.

"But you came back," said Nathan.

I snorted. "To look after Mum," I said. "But she didn't need me around to fuss at her until she crept off the sofa now and then, or so she said." I studied my fingers with their nails clipped short, as if it was interesting I'd left them unpainted. "She still thinks of me as trouble waiting to happen. And maybe she's right. I picked your lock the other night without a second's thought, didn't I?"

"Maybe she would see it as a good sign," said Nathan. "You're using your powers for good now, and not evil." That made me laugh — me with powers, and not two pins that had once let me crack into any room in the primary school after hours.

Nathan's gaze moved to the water again. "You know, leaving home wasn't easy for me," he said. "I came here in the first place because I thought this was a career opportunity I couldn't pass up, not if I wanted something bigger in the future. But now ..." he hesitated, "...now I'm not sure what I wanted, really. Bigger's not always better. When I quit the tour, I guess I was just trying to find myself outside of ladders and goals."

"You sort of live for your job," I said. "Least that's what everyone says about you."

"Yeah. That's the problem for me." He drew a deep breath. "Maybe I should be a more enthusiastic theatregoer," he said, after a minute or two. "Shakespeare's not exactly my thing, really. But I guess it's yours," he added, looking at me. "Julianne said you liked the theatre. You know, plays, musicals."

"When?" I challenged. "Not when we were in her office, and you offered me the ticket."

Now his face was shaded a little darker in the moonlight. "It was just a random remark," he said, his voice going a bit awkward all of a sudden.

"Yeah. Must've been," I said.

"Anyway, since you liked theatre, I thought you'd like this."

"If people didn't know better, they would say this was a date," I said. "You and me on the town for a night — me in a posh frock like this one."

"They would, wouldn't they?" said Nathan. "I mean, it looks exactly like it. Even the two of us just sitting here, talking."

"Especially that part," I said. "Everyone knows we can't talk to each other." We both laughed. Nathan's grew quiet first.

He cleared his throat. "You know, there's a chance I was working up my courage to ask you somewhere," he said. "And maybe this event sort of presented itself as an opportunity."

"To ask me out."

"Your words, not mine," he said.

"So you were asking me out tonight," I clarified. "That's what this was all about."

"Like I said, Shakespeare's not my thing," he answered. I imagined that his face was probably redder than ever, but he was still looking me in the eye. "So, I confess. I asked you out tonight on a kind of pseudo date."

"Why?" I asked.

"Maybe because I find you sort of ... fascinating."

"Me? Fascinating?" I echoed, raising one eyebrow.

"Don't make me say it again," he answered. His face must be blushing harder by the minute. "It's not exactly the right word, but you know what I mean. I think about you — I mean, I can't stop thinking about you on some level." He sounded helpless. "There's something about you that defies explanation for me. In a good way, not a bad one," he added, quickly.

It suddenly seemed really funny when he said it aloud. As if I hadn't been truly aware of it the whole evening, which was the reason I was wearing this dress that my Mum found so mortifying. I was laughing at him because it was the only thing that would keep me from melting into a puddle of messy confusion over the revelation that someone was actually thinking about me on a semi-constant basis.

"What?" he said, as if he knew what I was thinking about somehow.

"I'm just thinking — you, me. Out on a proper date," I said. "Everybody knows what you think about me. And me with a posh bloke — the kind of toff whose opinion of me I didn't need you to confirm."

"It's not that funny to me," he said, in a sort of amused-but-perplexed voice. "I don't see anything weird about the idea, really."

"I think the rest of your mates would have some serious questions about that," I said. He took my smile for mockery — which was what I wanted him to take it for, as if I couldn't stop teasing him.

"Will you stop using them as an excuse to keep me away?" said Nathan. "What do you think of me? Seriously, not as some British cliché of a white collar businessman, or whatever. Give me a straight answer, Kitty."

Quite serious, that voice, even with his smile. All the humor was disappearing from his face, but it wasn't angry or disappointed, the look confronting me. Maybe his earnestness was getting to me, because I felt the color rush to my cheeks again.

I was wishing things were different right now. That somewhere inside, I didn't still feel like I didn't belong in this posh frock, in this moonlit place, and especially not with him. I wished I didn't find myself liking him so much. Because this moment wanted to be the beginning of something as amazing as this place had felt tonight, and that didn't seem possible.

"What do you want me to say?" I was still being coy, but I didn't feel like it. I didn't know what I was feeling anymore.

Nathan leaned towards me. I felt his lips against mine, kissing me; I kissed him back. It was a little one at first, but growing more serious by the second. From pleasant to good, then like waves of hot sparks that make you feel quick and breathless.

At first, I didn't want it to stop, then I knew it had to. It had to stop before it was too late to turn back from something that just couldn't be true.

I put my hand on his chest and gave him a gentle push to end it, drawing away from him. "It's late," I said. "They don't want us hanging about here forever." I slid down from the back of the seat and away from Nathan, because I needed distance — a good bit of it to clear my head, which felt hot and muddled, not that I could tell him so.

"What's the matter?" said Nathan, who hopped up from his seat now. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," I lied. "I just have to go, that's all."

His face fell slightly. "Fine," he said, after a moment. "We'll go home." He slipped on his coat again.

"You needn't drive me," I said. "I'm staying with a mate here. I forgot to tell you before that I'm popping around to their place for tonight. We're meeting up with friends later ... doing some stuff."

"Okay. I'll give you a ride to their place," he said.

"I can walk." I was going up the stairs with these words. "Thanks, anyway." I wasn't riding the miles back to Ceffylgwyn by his side, in darkness and silence after what just happened. Things had all shifted with that kiss. It was us both being crazy in the moonlight, giving in to some silly impulse.

"Kitty, what's the rush?" he said. He sounded exasperated. "At least let me drive you there."

"I'm good. I can take care of myself," I answered.

"Is this because I kissed you?" he said. "Was it that bad?"

"G'night," I said. "I'll see you around." I made it to the top of Minack's stone steps before Nathan even set foot on the first one.

It was a lie. I didn't have a mate in Porthcurno, and my only one left in Land's End didn't answer her mobile when I rang it. Obviously, I couldn't call Mum and explain that I had stranded myself here. So I rang Saul instead.

"H'lo." He sounded grumpy, as you would expect at one in the morning. I'd rung him twice before he even bothered to answer. I pictured him sacked out on the sofa, probably under a pile of old clothes and empty takeaway wrappers.

"It's me — Kitty," I said.

"The waitress at Tilly's A-Go-Go Club, what asked for me number last Saturday?"

"Hilarious." I rolled my eyes. "I need a favor. I need a ride home from Porthcurno."

"Porthcurno? At this time o' night? Are you mental?"

"It's important," I said. "Look, I'll give you twenty quid if you'll just come and fetch me." It was all I had in my handbag when I looked.

"Thirty quid," he grunted. "That's what I owe Louie." Louie was probably a bookie — Saul was always losing his wages over a bet or two gone squiffy with some local shark, especially now that the racetrack at St Austell was open again. "I'll come for thirty and not a pound less."

"Fine," I sighed. I told him where to find me, and then waited. The bench I was sitting on was hard, not more so than the theatre's seat, but it felt like it. I think my brain wasn't doing a decent job of escaping what happened tonight. Trying to transport me back, maybe, as I sat alone. But what good was that, since I obviously wanted to get away from there in the first place?

I put my head in my hands. It throbbed a bit — the funny feeling from kissing him hadn't gone away completely. It made me a bit dizzy; I was shaking a bit, even though I wasn't cold. But something inside me felt frigid and sick ... that was a new feeling, one that had come over me after I made my escape.

You can't regret it, I told myself. What was going to come of it, in the end? When he went back to America, and you drifted to another village? Nothing, that's what. It always comes to nothing.

I spent the night curled up in an out of the way alcove, wrapped up in my dress scarf. Not the roughest night's sleep I've had, but close to it. Two hours after I had called, Saul still hadn't arrived. I rang his mobile again, and it went to his voicemail. Blasted lazybones — he'd probably fallen asleep again after we spoke.

At five in the morning, I heard the sound of a familiar motor in the distance. There was my motorbike speeding towards the village crossing — Saul was riding it, the spare helmet clipped to the back of the bike. He screeched to a stop, then lifted my helmet from his head.

"You look like something the cat dragged to the kitchen door," he said.

"Where's your car?" I said, with dismay. "What's Mum about, letting you take my bike?"

"Dad's borrowed mine. Gone up to Newquay for a bit of business," he said. "Think you can ride in those togs?" Another smirk for my dress. I felt stupid once again for choosing to wear it last night.

"Don't be daft," I answered. I put on the spare helmet, then climbed on the back of the bike. "Just take me to Cliffs House."

"Cliffs House?" he echoed.

"I'll be late for my job if you don't," I said. "It's the final day of the contest. Now let's be going, if you don't mind." I clung on tight as he revved my little engine unnecessarily to take off again, my scarf trailing behind in the breeze as we turned towards the village's road. I buried my face against the back of Saul's jacket, smelling the odor of smoke and stale beer, and tried not to think about Nathan's last words before I left him.

 

***

 

Julianne:

 

The tables were in place, the appliances arranged. From the pavilion's open sides, you could see the restless surface of the sea, the summer fields of Cliffs House, and the back gardens and stately manor itself. All that was missing were the twelve contestants for the final baking challenge.

"I'm nervous," I said to Gemma, as we watched from the windows as the crew set up. 'They'll start arriving any minute now."

"There's two hours until it begins," said Gemma. "Think she's still practicing?"

"By now she must know what she's doing by heart. They all will." I thought of Leeman's carousel gingerbread construct, which had been practiced dozens upon dozens of times even before the contest began — he would have thought of something fantastic after years of decorative baking.

"Jenny Bryce's bloke's been bragging that hers is spectacular," said Gemma. "Says no one who eats it is satisfied with one piece. Been dropping hints about it all over social media."

"We'll see," I said. Personally, I was more worried about Emily's cake, whatever it might be. And what about that serious boy, who had managed to redeem himself after the burned pastry frogs? A come-from-behind move was distinctly possible — and it was distinctly possible that it wouldn't be Dinah's.

I bit my thumbnail distractedly as I watched the two judges stroll towards the pavilion from the garden. I turned and retreated to my office, to avoid any more suspense. Dinah probably wouldn't be arriving for at least another half hour.

Kitty at her desk — dressed in her old clothes, I noticed, a worn pair of denims, and sneakers that had seen better days. This was an unusual rebellion against Cliffs House's posh status. "How was the theatre?" I asked.

"Okay." She was deeply absorbed in double-checking an event's attendance list. I smelled an evasion.

"Just okay?" I said. "That surprises me. The theatre's so beautiful. And I know how you love plays. Was it a poor production?" It was basically Cornwall's version of Shakespeare in the Park, so I couldn't imagine that was true.

Kitty sighed. "I don't know. It just ... was okay. All right?" Her tone was snappish. She stapled together an event scheduled with more force than was necessary.

I saw a spare garment bag crumpled out of sight behind the office's big antique floor globe. A bit of bright pink fabric stuck out at the bottom, where it was partly unzipped. Underneath it, by Kitty's old knapsack she kept lying around here, a pair of sleek little high-heeled shoes.

I sat down at my desk. "Did Nathan like the play?" I asked, quietly.

A few seconds ticked by. Kitty knew that I knew something was wrong, and was evidently trying to figure out how to get off this train of conversation. "I've been thinking about taking up a language," she said, finally. "You know, learn something useful for the job. What do you think about French?"

"Kitty," I began.

"There are loads of books on it. After the baking contest, we'll probably have guests from restaurants in Paris and Marseilles. I thought it might be a proper way to welcome them ..."

"Katherine Alderson." My tone had become very firm. Just then, there was a knock on the frame of my open office door.

"Julianne, the event promoter's here, if you want a word with him," said Gemma. "I think the spectators are starting to arrive, too." Crowds always gathered for the final event of The Grand Baking Extravaganza, local fans and curious visitors alike.

"I'll be right there," I said, gathering up my digital planner. I noticed Kitty's face had washed itself a whiter shade of pale, exposing all her freckles. She rose from her desk and escaped the room as if it were on fire.

I followed. Halfway down the path to the cliffs, I caught up with her. "Tell me the truth, Kitty," I said. "What happened last night?"

"Nothing." She crossed her arms and stared out to sea. A very bad feint of indifference, in my opinion. "We saw a play, that was it. Maybe things got a bit stupid for a moment, but it'll sort itself out. Always does."

"So that's why you're wearing a hoodie to work that looks ready for the dustbin?"

Kitty's expression was blank. "Go on," she said. "I'm fine. You have stuff to do."

"He likes you, doesn't he?" I said.

She didn't answer.

I sighed. "Kitty, if you want to shut people out of your life forever, then fine. Do it. It's your life, and no one can live it for you. But I thought after all that happened, you believed in second chances. And I think — maybe — underneath that prickly surface is someone who desperately doesn't want to be alone."

Kitty's crossed arms seemed less like defiance than protection at this angle; I knew she was listening to me, even if she didn't answer. And I knew that whatever happened last night, she was afraid of it the same way she had been afraid deep down to take a chance on Cliffs House's job at first.

"Shutting people out has a price," I said, softly. "Being complicated and contrary just for habit's sake will only get you hurt. Don't do this to yourself, Kitty. Give yourself a second chance with Nathan."

"What makes you think I want one?" she asked. Her voice stumbled a little bit, even though she tried to sound defiant. She blinked hard, even though the sun wasn't all that bright in the garden.

"Because even though you're wearing those clothes, you are wearing lipstick," I said, close to Kitty's ear. "And I really don't think that's for The Grand Baking Extravaganza's benefit."

I turned and went back up the pathway without Kitty. She needed time to think, I suspected, and I had several things to do, as she pointed out. Especially if I wanted to catch Dinah before her big moment in the baking pavilion.

 

***

 

Dear Diary,

Darn — I did it again, didn't I? Anyway, my premonition came true. Last night, Dinah's cake collapsed into a big, oozy mess, right in front of the two judges. To begin with, it looked like a tower of underdone puddings, which was probably the reason why ... and then I stepped up to the table and poured Matt's toffee and brown sugar syrup all over it, like that would help. Not really sure what that part was about, but there you have it. Now, let's hope it's not a cosmic warning about the future.

— Julianne

 

***

 

Kitty:

 

It wasn't long after Julianne left me, that I heard footsteps on the pathway. A man's — I can tell by the shoes. I don't turn around, because I know it's going to be him.

He hesitates behind me on the pathway, so he's not coming closer. I tuck my hands deeper in my hoodie's pockets. "It's sort of ... awkward ... for me to talk to you," I said.

"I could say the same," he said. A sound that might be a laugh, only bitter. "Call me crazy for trying it again, I guess."

"It's not the same." I turned to look at him, my tone becoming a bit fiercer than I wanted. "You don't understand how hard it is for me. And it's not about what happened last night —"

"What, then?" he asked. He sounded frustrated. "Is it just me? If it's something about me, just say it — get it over with." He braced himself, trying to be brave enough not to duck this blow, or fall back when it came. "We're both grownups. I can take it."

"It's not you," I said. A band tightens in my stomach, and I know it's fear. "I'm that way with everyone. It's not just my past that makes me do it. But I have one that I don't like ... and you've come someplace where no one knows yours."

It was quiet.

"I'm not close to anybody. No one since my gran, anyway. But I told you things I never tell anyone, and I don't know why." Right now, I can't believe I'm saying this to anybody, much less him. "I was never any good at connections with people. No ties, no nothing, not in a long time. There was never anybody who had a hold over me. So ... I'm not sure there can be."

"I don't have to be a stranger, if you don't want me to be," said Nathan. "Unless the other night was just a mistake for you. Unless the looks between us, this ... thing that was happening ... it's just my imagination. To you, anyway." He stressed that last point.

"Don't be daft." I blinked to erase the burning tears under my eyes before I looked at him. I didn't mean to look as long as I did. His expression made me feel funny enough that I was glad I was sitting down on one of the pathway's big cliff boulders. My hands felt weak, even.

He wasn't leaving. "So what does that mean for us?" he said.

 

 

***

 

Julianne:

 

The theme of the final challenge was 'passion.' The bake had to be a cake or a series of mini cakes, either one — but it had to express the concept of romantic desire in some way, shape, or form.

Dinah arrived next to last to the pavilion with her box of supplies, and a single page design sketch rolled up tightly. She greeted us with a smile, which, while tired, was more relaxed than the last one she offered us at Harriet Hardy's dinner.

"I'm proud of myself for making it this far," she said, "and I know I've done my best with what I'm doing today, even if it doesn't come out quite right. I'm only glad I've stayed the course. And the best part's been all of you supporting me — I couldn't have done it without all of you, and I'm ever so grateful."

"Oh, Dinah," said Gemma, giving her a hug. "You'll do wonderful today."

"Chin up," said Geoff. "The day's not over. You've as good a chance of winning as anybody, and better than several of them. Look how close you've come to winning first place in all the previous bakes."

"I know," said Dinah. "But it's best to be prepared, either way it goes. Now, wish me luck, because I'm off for one last time." She gave us all a final glance before she entered the pavilion.

"Fingers crossed," I said, and hoped that the fallen pudding cake was truly a fiction of my imagination last night.

Jenny Bryce was unpacking her mixing bowls, while Leeman was studying a very complicated-looking diagram with patterns attached to it. I saw Emily dusting off a set of deep, nested metal pans that promised to yield a towering cake in the near future. I sucked in my breath, and retreated to the garden momentarily, pretending to be busy inspecting the roses in bloom to hide a little flutter of doubt for Dinah's chances.

At noon, the cameras were ready, and Harriet and Pierre addressed the contestants one last time.

"Today, you will present your final bake — one worth fifty percent of your total points in this contest," said Harriet. "The theme is passion, and the dessert you present to us must reflect that theme in an unmistakable manner."

"We wish to see it — to taste it," said Pierre. "It must convince us that your passion for food, for life, for love, can be expressed physically by your skill. You will have four hours when the bell rings."

"We wish you all the best," said Harriet. And with that, the bell rang for the final challenge.

"I can't watch," said Gemma, from outside the pavilion. "I think I'm going a bit dizzy." Inside, mixers whirred to life as small clouds of flour rose from sacks poured into sifters, and pots clattered into place on the heated eyes of stoves.

"Four hours isn't long," I said, even though right now it felt like it would last forever. In the distance, I could see fans of the program watching hopefully, trying to glimpse the ongoing action. "Let's go have a cup of tea."

We had one in Lady Amanda's office, three of us sitting anxiously and watching the clock. Little Violet — or Harold — was lively today, so Lady Amanda couldn't bring herself to touch the last of Dinah's biscuits, the only thing left in the kitchen that wasn't from a shop tin.

"I should have had William make some shortbread," she said. "He's quite good at that sort of thing. I'm a bundle of nerves these days, between the baby and all this excitement." She pressed a hand to her stomach, where a moment before a tiny foot had made a decided movement beneath her blouse.

"Do you think it's in the oven now, at least?" Gemma propped her chin on her hands and gazed mournfully at a sculpture on Lady Amanda's desk, one that sort of resembled a cupcake at the right angle.

"They'll be halfway through with making decorations by now," I said. The clock's hands were both on the two. "The real test will be assembly, if Dinah's making a layer cake."

In the pavilion, cakes were cooling, while contestants were now whipping up icing and putting the finishing touches on cake toppers and other embellishments. Emily was making bowlfuls of white icing and had already filled two piping bags, Lord William reported to us, while Leeman had cakes of three different colors cooling on his racks.

"And Dinah?" asked Lady Amanda, eagerly.

"She was painting some sort of flower," said Lord William. "That's really all I could see of it, I'm afraid. She's quite near the back."

"And her cakes?" I said.

"Round, I think. I think there was a bit of chocolate involved, but I couldn't be certain. A biscuit, too, if you please, my love." He accepted a cup of tea from Lady Amanda. "I will say that I glimpsed a bit of Jenny Bryce's work ... and it appears to be quite flat."

"Flat?" we echoed. An exchange of glances proved we were all equally puzzled, both by his description and the possibilities it presented.

"On purpose, I presume. Rather unusual choice for a show-stopping presentation."

Jenny's was indeed flat — that is to say, more like loaves than Victoria sponges, although she was deftly cutting them on the diagonal using a large bread knife. I circled as far to Dinah's side as I could without being in danger of the camera's lens, but all I could see was a glimpse of Leeman swirling white frosting streaked with pink over three unusually-shaped sponges layered together. Dinah stepped to one side, holding a tray of something — but my view was blocked by another contestant hastening from the freezer to their work station, carrying some sort of meringue creation made to look like a giant rose.

At four o' clock, the event was over. Each presentation was concealed by a folding white screen made to look like a big present with a bow on top, ready to be pulled away as the contestant revealed his or her creation to the judges. Harriet and Pierre entered the pavilion, each armed with the program's trademark 'tasting fork' to sample the goods.

First up, the meringue rose — pretty impressive at first glance, except for the fact that the meringue's piping didn't look very petal-like up close, and wasn't quite swirly enough to be a flowered hat, either. Next, a 'volcano of love' made from chocolate that pumped a strawberry lava glaze down its sides and into a little chocolate-made paradise — that was the effort of the boy who made the frog pastries and the pirate ship of gingerbread. Pierre and Harriet had a heated debate over whether a volcano merely represented destructive powers or 'flowing passion,' as its creator claimed — Harriet, the detractor, won. Still, it was the more impressive of the two, I felt.

An Eiffel Tower, a cake iced like a valentine card, a couple of wedding cakes, and even miniature cakes that looked like roses and engagement ring boxes followed. And that was before Leeman unveiled his sweetheart cake. Three layers of heart-shaped sponge, each layer a different shade of red or pink, and topped with three sparkly-sugared marzipan roses.

"An excellent sponge," said Harriet. "And the flavor is very satisfactory. Cherry?"

"And vanilla," said Leeman, proudly. Pierre said nothing, his fork flattening a bite of the cake as if testing its spring.

Next up, Jenny's. The cake loaves had been pieced together to form a daisy shape, iced bright pink and decorated with candied cherry bits. It was a 'love cake,' she informed the judges: a special family recipe that was guaranteed addictive. "And it brings everybody love who tastes it, legend says," she claimed.

Already, Harriet didn't look thrilled by the sight of it. "Such a ... uniform pink," she said, at last. "Perhaps it needs just a bit more of something to give it definition. Don't you agree?" She looked at Pierre.

Pierre chipped off one of the candied cherries, a curl of contempt briefly evident in his lower lip at the same time. "What is this, this candied fruit you English prefer?" he said. "This kind is so sticky — it is so heavy. It has the — the texture of a piece of leather, no? The fruitcake of the supermarche is so ... I cannot eat it." His fork clattered against the plate as he dropped it in apparent protest.

"The cake itself is quite nice," said Harriet. "Do taste it, Pierre."

But the same candied cherries were chopped up inside the sponge, and the French chef declined on the grounds of a sensitive palate. Despite all the social media boastings from before, I felt extremely sorry for Jenny at this moment, who looked crestfallen as the two judges argued heatedly about the virtues and drawbacks of candied fruit.

Their argument came to an end when Emily's cake was unveiled. A three-tier wedding cake like the ones before, its surface was smooth, perfect fondant over vanilla cream, a scrollwork of frosting creating a collar-like design around each towering layer. Miniature blood red roses surrounded the topmost edges, while a pair of marzipan turtle doves nuzzled each other at the very top.

Emily sliced the bottom layer. A perfect yellow sponge was inside, with a tiny pink flower-shaped center cut from strawberry cake embedded in it. Harriet proclaimed the sugar work to be the finest she had witnessed in the whole competition. She declared the cake itself 'heavenly' upon tasting it — and even Pierre was charmed by the perfect — and non-burned — second cake embedded in the main sponge.

"An almost perfect creation," he said. "You have my compliments. C'est a cake magnificent."

Dinah was last of all. She didn't look nervous as she unfolded the white screen hiding her final sponge. I crossed my fingers one last time as I teetered nervously on my heels just outside the pavilion, behind the production crew filming the event; I felt Gemma seize hold of my arm, anxiously, as Dinah's creation came into view.

Three layers of sponge iced in ivory white, each tier separated by cake posts almost lost to sight behind blossoms and miniature fruits. Not real ones, but ones crafted from marzipan, fondant, and chocolate, looking so real I almost didn't believe she had made them.

Red and pink roses with chocolate petals, passion fruits with a blush of red on their pale green skins, brilliant hibiscus blossoms in shades of wine and crimson, white chocolate throats and marzipan stamens flecked with velvety, tinted cocoa powder like red pollen. At the very top, a split pomegranate — its rosy flesh and scarlet seeds of chocolate and seedless raspberry jam as artistically deceptive as the rest of the ornaments. It was surrounded by red fairy roses, passion flowers with soft fringe petals made from colored chocolate in dusky red, and a large Stargazer lily fashioned from painted fondant.

"Well," said Harriet, after a moment of gazing silently at the cake. "That's quite impressive." She paced from one view to the next, examining it. "I really don't know where to begin."

"We begin by cutting it," said Pierre. "What is this cake, madame?"

"Chocolate," said Dinah. A slight tremor made her voice sound slightly different, but otherwise she was calm. "It's red velvet cake and devil's food in alternating layers. Spiced with a little cayenne to add some depth to it. The filling between is preserves made from pomegranate and passion fruit."

"Pomegranate and passion fruit both?" he said. "With the red pepper? It is too much." He shook his head.

"I've been very careful," said Dinah, stoutly. "The flavors are balanced, so that the pepper brings a bit of heat and savory to the chocolate, and the fruits bring a bit of sweetness to it."

Inside, the cake dark chocolate layers contrasted with the deep scarlet ones, a smoky shade of red. Harriet's fork pierced it, lifting a bite to her lips. "And the frosting?" she enquired.

"White chocolate. With a bit of spice to temper the sweetness."

Harriet had her first bite. Beside her, with a sigh, Pierre cut away a miniature square with his fork and did the same. My stomach tied itself in knots as I watched. Dinah didn't close her eyes, but I could see her hands clench her apron as she waited.

Pierre was the first to speak. "I was not wrong," he said, at last. "It is too much. But in the way that passion itself — the very heart of it — may burn with too much also." He cut away a second forkful, and I felt the breath of the pavilion's occupants leave their lungs in collective shock. Was Pierre Dupine taking a second mouthful of something?

"It is almost like a perfume made with chocolate," said Harriet. "It is very aromatic. Very rich — but not too sweet. You have managed to balance the elements so that the chocolate's bitterness is rich, and outlasts the sweetness of your fruits."

"A wine of chocolate, perhaps," said Pierre. "It has a bouquet of its own. Congratulations, madame. It is a piece des merveilleuse."

A little cry escaped Dinah's throat. She took a deep, shuddering breath. "Thank you," she said.

Pierre and Harriet exchanged glances. "We must now retire and make our decision," he said. They laid their forks beside the plate of Dinah's cake.

It would be close. Really close. But after those words about the 'chocolate perfume' of Dinah's passion cake, I knew that there were only three possibilities in the judges' minds. When the multi-flavored sponges of Leeman's three hearts valentine cake came in third, there were only two possibilities left — Emily and Dinah.

"In second place, with a total of eighty-eight points ..." said Harriet, "... is Emily Pierce."

Emily looked pleased and disappointed all at once — Dinah looked as if she was about to faint, even before Harriet finished speaking the all-important words.

"And in first place, with ninety-one points, is Dinah Barrington."

 

***

 

"I was never so afraid of anything as I was those words," said Dinah, with her hand pressed against her chest. "Heavens, I thought my heart might leap out of my chest before I heard the final scores read."

"I can't believe you won!" said Gemma, who was squeezing Dinah's other hand in a congratulatory death grip. "I mean, I can — but I can't — you know what I mean!"

"Goodness, you'll turn my finger bones into bits of glass candy if you're not careful," said Dinah, extricating herself from Gemma's unconscious hold. "I'll need that hand come tomorrow, you know." And with that, Dinah was back to her old self.

"A toast," said Pierre, opening a small glass liquor bottle. "It is sherry from Jerez de la Frontera — to celebrate your gain. I have opened a bottle with every winner, so it is a privilege I will share with you and your friends now also." He filled a row of delicate glasses which shared the dining room's table with the contestants' entries, Dinah's triumphant passion cake as its centerpiece.

"No French wine?" said Harriet, accepting her glass, and raising one eyebrow. "I thought you would disdain toasting love and passion with anything so removed from your homeland as a Spanish liquor, Pierre."

"Love makes us all do strange things," he said. "To passion. To amore. And to the many flavors in which it comes."

He clinked his own glass against Harriet's, and they both raised the drink to their lips — in that moment, I witnessed a gleam in their exchanged glances that made me think there was a possibility of something more between them than the program's onscreen rivalry of tastes and nationalities.

Maybe there was something to Jenny Bryce's famous family recipe after all.

"To Dinah," said Geoff, now raising his own glass in a toast. "Who today proved herself what most of us already knew her to be."

"Go on with you now," she answered, with a scoff. "It was a narrow squeak. If Emily Pierce had only added a bit of citrus to her sponge, I'd be a happy second place contestant right now."

"So what comes next?" I asked. "Now that you're the winner of The Grand Baking Extravaganza?" And, for that matter, the substantial prize awarded to each of its victors, something that hadn't occurred to me until now.

Here was Dinah's chance for an old dream — not necessarily that of being Cliffs House's longest-serving chef. I knew that everybody was thinking the same thing, now that the realization sank into us all that Dinah was the winner.

"Well," said Dinah. "I don't know. It's a decent heap of quid, I suppose. Enough to do a great many things." She gazed at her glass of sherry, pretending to study its color. "I did think before about having a little bakery someday...not that I want to be disloyal to Cliffs House. You've been quite splendid to me, really," she said to Lady Amanda and Lord William, who were standing among us.

"And will be whether you go or stay," said Lady Amanda, putting her arm around Dinah's shoulders. "We're simply proud of you. That won't change in the future, whether you're the cook in Cliffs House's kitchen, or a proud businesswoman. Although," she added, "we will miss your marmalade and your saffron biscuits terribly."

"Quite terribly," added Lord William, with a smile. "But we still wouldn't stop you, if you decide you would be happier elsewhere."

"Enough talking about people leaving," said Gemma, looking unhappy. "It's bad enough that Pip's gone without Dinah going, too." She took a sip from her glass. "I wish everything would stay the way it is for a little while."

"Even your being single?" I teased. "No proposal from Andy, or anyone else?"

Gemma looked slightly taken aback, then blushed. "Well, almost everything," she clarified. "A few changes wouldn't do any harm."

"I can't believe we're not allowed to tell anybody what's happened," said Lady Amanda, disappointedly. "I would so love to call my parents — and a few friends — and tell them how delightful this has been. Our lips are sealed for five whole weeks."

"I know," I said. "Isn't it awful?" As soon as Lady Amanda had rejoined Dinah, I knew I would make a discreet move to tell the one person from whom I could never keep secrets....and not the pages of my newly-adopted journal, before you ask. My finger was already itching to press Matt's number on my mobile and tell him the amazing news.

"I believe that a tasting of the cake is in order for the rest of us," said Lord William. "This is a celebration, isn't it?"

"Permit me the honor, if you will," said Pierre, who began cutting the sampled layer of the passion cake into narrow slices. "We must save some for tonight's farewell party, of course — but it will do no harm for Ms. Barrington's friends to share its secret in advance."

As Pierre was speaking, Kitty and Nathan joined the fringes of the celebratory circle, standing apart from each other as the samples of Dinah's cake circulated. A moment later, however, Kitty's fingers stole across to lightly brush against the palm of Nathan's hand. His eyes met hers instantly; in that look they shared was a very different secret from the one behind the desserts being served today.

Unless, of course, love really is the secret ingredient, and not just in the air.

 

Learn more about Book 6 in the series, A Castle in Cornwall, here