One Taste of Scandal (6 page)

“Aw, thank you, miss,” Eddy said, grabbing a tossed coin out of the air and throwing a newspaper to the passerby. “You’re a dear girl and no mistake.”

“Can I send over a special treat from the bakery? A cake, or something she particularly enjoys? Even soup—we have a daily selection.”

“You’re too kind,” she demurred. “Both of you.”

He knew she was thinking of the cost. “As a friend of the family, it would be my pleasure.”

“It is funny, I did so love seeing those pictures of fancy cakes outside the tearoom,” she said, with a hint of wistfulness in her voice. “But I don’t think she could manage more than a clear soup, and we can easily provide that.”

“Perhaps she would enjoy looking at a cake? I could have Betsy make up something pretty, and then the rest of the family could eat it.”

“Oh.” A faint wash of color came over her cheeks. “That sounds very nice. For the children.”

“Would you like to see how cakes are made?” He made a split-second decision. “You know, we really could use another set of hands in the cake decorating department, and I couldn’t help noticing what a talented artist you were when I visited your home.”

“Are you offering me employment?” She looked shocked, but intrigued.

He glanced at her skirt again. She was his friend’s little sister. If she was interested, yes, he would offer her a position. “I suppose I am. Very privately, of course. And no more hours than you can manage.”

She surprised them both with her answer. “I would love to decorate cakes. Yes, I would like it very much.”

“Could you, then?” At least she could eat at the bakery and fill out her curves.

“Would I be paid?” she asked boldly.

“Very well,” he assured her. “Cake decorating is a serious business.”

She nodded. “Then I can hire a neighbor to come in a few hours a day. She and my sister-in-law are very good friends.”

“Excellent. When can you start?”

She smiled, exposing those dimples that had haunted him these past few weeks. “In a week?”

“Done!”

“Good luck to you both, miss!” Eddy crowed. “You will need it.”

T
he next Monday, Magdalene arrived at Redcake’s promptly at eight in the morning. The air around the tea shop and emporium already smelled delicious, of bread and pies and pastry, ready to be sampled.

Despite the sumptuous scents wafting by her nose, the iron gate in front of the shop was locked tight. She rattled the bars hopefully. Perhaps she should have been given the key? She glanced around her, looking for a familiar cakie uniform or a face she recognized, but all she saw were hawkers and carters and men in somber suits.

Then, in a flash, it made sense to her. For the first time in her life, she was meant to go in by the servants’ entrance. She put her gloved palm to her forehead. How foolish of her not to realize it. This was employment, not a pastime. She had accepted that her brother George was displeased, but had claimed this position was a lark more than something that might deepen his coffers. But no one outside her family would see it that way.

Now, drat it, she was late. She wandered around the gate, but there was no egress. The placard indicated the bakery didn’t open for another hour.

“They aren’t open yet,” said a friendly red-coated postman, walking by with his bag.

“Do you know where the employee entrance is?” she asked. “I’m supposed to start work today.”

“It’s in the alley, miss,” he said, glancing over her attire curiously.

She looked down at her cheerful summer frock. Or at least it had been cheerful five years ago when it had been new. And made for her sister-in-law. “I don’t have a uniform, yet.”

He shook his head. “Never known them to be so disorganized. You go around back, find the loading dock. Just go up to the corner and turn. You’ll find it.”

“Thank you,” she said gravely, knowing her cheeks were flushed with embarrassment.

Five minutes later, she trotted down the alleyway. A loading dock was in sight. Hopefully she wouldn’t be too late. Men bustled around her, pushing carts and leading horses pulling wagons. She stepped to the side to clear the path, then tripped on a fragment of a wooden crate.

“Miss Cross?” A buxom young woman in a cakie’s uniform dashed out the side door by the loading dock and ran toward her.

“Yes?”

“I’m Betsy Popham, and you’re late!”

“I am so very sorry. I went to the front.” She tried to smile. “I didn’t realize the employee entrance was in the back.”

“Oh?” Betsy Popham tucked her lower lip between her pearly front teeth.

“Not the best impression, I admit. I will not make the same mistake again.”

Betsy sniffed. “You had best not. We’ve a busy day ahead of us. I’ve been behind ever since Alys, I mean her ladyship, left us. Thank heavens it isn’t high season for weddings.”

“When is that?”

“October to December, then April to June. We have a month to get your training managed, then it’s off to the races!”

Fifteen minutes later, Magdalene possessed her own uniform.

“We wear them just in case we need to help in the tearoom or bakery,” Betsy said. “Or if we take a special cake into the bakery when our customers are picking up rather than taking a delivery.”

“Very good.” She hoped she wouldn’t have to do that, having promised George no one would learn of Redcake’s. They still attended Society gatherings and at twenty-one, she wasn’t too old to find an acceptable husband.

As she followed Betsy down a flight of steps into their suite of rooms in the basement, she recalled that Nancy, George’s wife, didn’t want her dependent on him, but set up in an establishment of her own. She had insisted Magdalene would have a happier life that way. Thankfully Nancy was too ill to know that George had spent everyone’s capital. Being a maiden aunt did not hold much appeal, but it was still better than marrying someone who spent most nights out with other women, as George had until the money ran out. In her experience, that seemed the way of Society men. Marriages were only for the begetting of heirs, not for love. But she hadn’t found love or marriage, only insulting propositions from men even baser than George.

The cakie uniform was easy to put on, once Betsy helped her with removing her dress, and as she tightened it at the waist using the cord provided, she wondered if any girl with a romantic heart ever won in the marriage mart. Frankly, a girl without a dowry didn’t have much hope at all. A love match might be her only option, unlikely as that seemed.

“So, here I am.”
Come down in the world.

“Yes, you are,” Betsy said with a bright smile. She opened a drawer and pulled out a pin, securing her curly hair. “Starting a new position is a bit frightening, I know, but it is very nice here. You’ll have two uniforms, so you’ll always be able to wash one out at home when it needs doing.”

“I won’t be changing here?”

“If you want to do that, you’ll have to wear a simpler frock. No lady’s maid here.” Betsy smiled brightly again, but Magdalene took the meaning. They were equals at best; she might even be inferior. She had much to become used to in this world.

“I have simpler clothing,” she assured Betsy. “Please be patient with me. I am new to employment.”

“But you’ve baked?”

Magdalene felt her cheek begin to itch, just under her eye, always a sign she was nervous. She clasped her hands together to avoid unladylike scratching. “I’ve become a good plain cook.”

“It’s a good thing we don’t need to do much baking at the moment, mostly decorating. But for now, I will handle the mixing and baking, though I will let you measure the ingredients. We shall mostly focus on decorating.”

“I am looking forward to that.”

Betsy walked over to a sheath of papers in cubbyholes at one end of a long counter. “These are our orders by day. We have room for a month of orders. Then we have a standard production schedule for inventory items.”

“But this department is all specialty items?”

“It is mostly wedding cakes, but we do have a rough idea, from experience, of what we’ll need. The marchioness started making wedding cakes as soon as Redcake’s opened. She taught me over the spring.”

“Now it is my turn.”

“This sheet here with blue ink shows us what to make today for the inventory. Everything with black ink is a specific order, mostly for decorating. I think this morning, we’ll make second best wedding cakes. They don’t soak in brandy so we can’t store them as long.” She showed Magdalene the blue ink sheet.

“Who makes up all the sheets?”

“My father is the bakery manager and he gives them to us. There is an order book upstairs. Sometimes orders come in through other means, but in the end the payment has to be made at the bakery and then the order makes it to us.”

Magdalene stared at the complicated order sheet, her stomach churning. “What should I do first?”

“Let’s assemble what we need on a tray, then we’ll take it to the mixing room. We don’t have one of our own. This room is mostly for decorating.” She took two trays labeled “Fancy” and handed them to Magdalene.

“We do keep our spice mix in here. Ladle a sixth of a cup out of that jar, would you?” She pointed to a large brown glass jar that had a paper “Wedding Cake Two” label glued to it.

Magdalene took a scoop and eyeballed the correct amount. Betsy nodded, then led her out of the room and down a long corridor.

“This is where we store ingredients. Eggs and butter are delivered fresh every day.” She pulled a key from her apron pocket, unlocked the door, and pushed it open.

Inside was a neat variety of casks, racks, bottles, and other containers.

“On your tray, now. One block of butter, and an egg.”

Magdalene complied while Betsy measured out sugar and flour. “Now for the fruit. For this we need currants, golden raisins, lemon and orange peel.”

Magdalene continued to assemble from Betsy’s list.

“Last, we’ll need rum, but that is kept under lock and key for obvious reasons. I’ll get you started, then ask Mr. Melville for the fourth of a cup we need.”

She followed Betsy out of the room, each holding a tray. Betsy deftly relocked the door while balancing. They went down a couple of corridors, then they entered a nightmare.

Or so it seemed. So many men, so much machinery. The noise of gears made a dark musical beat straight from Hell, and steam heated the room to an unpleasant level that made her feel instantly damp.

“Now, you’ve seen hand-cranked egg beaters, correct?” Betsy did not seem perturbed by the cacophony.

“In a store, I think.”

“Well, Lewis Noble did us better than that. He made us a motorized version. It saves so much time.” She waved at a man with a long apron like they wore and he pointed them to a cabinet. On top of it was a large beater, screwed into some kind of mechanical device.

“It looks dangerous.”

“You can make quite a mess,” Betsy said cheerfully.

Magdalene bit her lip. “How do you use it?”

Betsy set her tray on one of the scrubbed wooden tables nearby, then took a sturdy bowl and knife from a stack inside the mixer cabinet. “Let’s cream the butter and sugar.”

Magdalene poured in her measure of sugar and added the block of butter.

“Cut the butter into chunks. It lessens the risk of disaster.”

While she did that, Betsy pulled a lever on the side of the machine from “off” to “warm.” A motor began to whirr behind the beaters. Then, she opened the cabinet and pulled out a flat wooden spoon.

A man, about her age, with a round, cheerful countenance and flour in his hair walked by, then stopped with a big grin that exposed his buckteeth when he saw Betsy bending into the cabinet. He lifted a finger to his mouth when he saw Magdalene.

She wasn’t sure if she should obey, but Betsy seemed the type to like a bit of fun. While she went back to cutting, the man leaned over the mixer and shouted, “Ti Hi Tiddelly Hi!”

Betsy’s body jerked and she heard the girl’s head hit the top of the cabinet. She came out rubbing it with one hand, and a pair of egg beaters in the other. She brandished them at the man.

“Tom Mumford, you had better not walk down any dark halls when I’m about. I’ll get you!”

He burst out laughing and gave her a bow. “Ti Hi Tiddelly Hi!”

“Off with you and your dance hall rubbish!”

He pretended to doff his hat, then made a comical face when he found the flour in his hair and rubbed it off, creating a little whirly fog in the air. Then, he capered off.

“Thinks he’s a comedian, he does,” Betsy said.

“Did you hurt your head?” she asked, anxious.

“No, I’m made of sturdier stuff than that.”

“Is he a beau of yours?”

Betsy sniffed. “He’d like to be, that one, but I like a man with more businesslike prospects.”

“I have the butter cut.”

She glanced into the bowl. “You don’t have to do it that fine next time. Now bring the bowl over and hold it under the beaters.” After she showed Magdalene the correct placement, she pulled the lever up to “mix.”

The engine sounds grew louder, but to Magdalene’s amazement, the egg beaters began to churn in the bowl. She struggled to hold the bowl in place as the beaters churned. Betsy watched intently and used the wooden spoon to scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed. When she was satisfied, she reached for their egg and cracked it in one-handed. Slowly, she added in the rest of the ingredients while Magdalene held on to the bowl.

“I’m going to turn it off now. Take the bowl back to the Fancy while I get the rum.”

“What about the beaters?”

A middle-aged man stepped forward. He had an odd cast to his face, as if his features moved more slowly than most people’s.

“This is Benny. He’ll take care of tidying. That is his job. Right, Benny?”

The man smiled, revealing a mouth full of broken teeth.

“This is Magdalene. She’s new here.”

The man made a garbled noise.

Magdalene smiled at him. “Thank you, Benny. I’ll go back to our room now.”

Betsy glanced at the bowl. “The mixing went well enough. When you get back, pull three times the measure of the spice mix and we’ll start again.”

She nodded and slowly stepped through the maze of corridors until she found the Fancy. The tray went on one of their wooden tables. She measured out the spice mix and put it on a new tray, then looked around while she waited for Betsy to appear.

In an alcove she discovered they had their own gas oven. A pocket door currently in the wall would close the alcove off. She expected that was to keep the heat away from the area where they iced the cakes.

When she opened cupboards, she found an amazing assortment of decorative supplies as well as the products they needed for icing. Soon this would become as familiar as the kitchen in George’s home, but at this moment the materials intimidated her. She wondered if Captain Shield would make an appearance. After all, he had hired her.

Betsy came in with a half-filled bottle of rum and measured some into the prepared batter. “I’ll finish up here. You practice getting out ingredients and mixing them. One step at a time, I think. And I need this batter in the oven. Irene came down to get something from her coat and said a lot of orders are coming in.”

“When I triple everything, do I mix it all in one bowl?”

“Yes. That’s the maximum you want to do at once. Here is my key. We’ll have one made for you.” Betsy took the correct key off her ring and handed it to her.

Magdalene thanked her and threaded her way back to the ingredients, holding her tray. She wondered how long it would take to build up her muscles. Somehow she had only thought of the artistic aspect of this job, yet that hadn’t even been discussed. At least the money would pay for Nancy’s beloved Mrs. Gortimer to visit every day. She hated to admit to the pleasure of being away from the sickroom.