Wedding Matilda (Redcakes Book 6) (2 page)

Just ahead of her was the famous Redcake’s display window, always full of an assortment of tasty goods. She squared her shoulders and stepped toward it, feeling like a soldier under review, and felt a pang of regret when she discovered not a single factory product in the display. Also, the Easter decorations had gone, a sign of a well-managed shop. Nonetheless, the window displayed all the beauty of spring, with fresh flowers tucked around plates of queen cakes decorated with pastel sugars. Towers of tea tins had labels that matched the sugar colors. Handmade cake squares wore sugared violets on top and looked very similar to her bonnet, which had a spray of the flowers around the flat brim.

All in all, the window was attired far more colorfully than she. When meeting with men, she attempted to appear as businesslike as possible, in a gray coat and skirt more suitable for a walking tour than a visit to the fashionable streets of London. A small moonstone pin was her only decoration besides her bonnet. Once, she had been the Redcake family’s fashion plate, wearing gowns from Paris. Now, she assumed a very different appearance.

Oddly enough, the restraint and formality of her tailored suit complemented her in a way gowns did not. Her carrot-colored hair worked very well with a narrow palate of colors. Even the violet-trimmed bonnet was too much, in truth, a hint of leftover vanity.

She opened the front door of the shop, ready to be firm with Lord Judah, a relation by marriage due to her sister’s wedlock with the Marquess of Hatbrook. In business, it did not pay to be too ingratiating, too friendly, too feminine. While she could not replace her father, or even imitate her brother, Sir Gawain, she could forge her own competent identity, and hide the youth of her twenty-four-year-old self in severe tailoring and hairstyle.

It worked, sometimes.

She ignored the bustling tearoom to the left, the glass cases of the bakery to the right. Her destination was directly ahead of her under a canopy of healthy ferns: the door that led to the back rooms of the enterprise. The industry contained within the building would surprise the ladies who drank tea in front of the large window in the tearoom, showing themselves as attractively as any tea cake in the display window.

Her heels clicked on the polished wood floor as she approached the door and rapped smartly. A moment later, it was opened by a beautiful woman wearing a coat over her simple black uniform.

“Miss Redcake!” she exclaimed. “You look so much like your father. I’ve never met you, but I’m Irene, the cake decorator.”

“I thought Betsy Popham was the Fancy’s manager.” Matilda’s sister, Alys, had founded the cake decoration department before her marriage. The male bakers in the next room had nicknamed her rooms “the Fancy.”

“She is, but I do most of the decorating.”

Betsy and her father had come down from Bristol with the Redcakes when Matilda’s father, Sir Bartley, had opened his London flagship, some six years before. He’d intended to establish the family and marry off his daughters. Alys had married well, and Rose was engaged. Matilda’s life had taken a very different direction, thanks to her former suitor, Theodore Bliven.

“I see,” Matilda said.

Irene smiled, an expression that made her face even lovelier. “I love the creative work. It is so exciting that you are in charge of the factories. A woman at the helm, just like in my little department!”

Matilda nodded and smiled, though she had not obtained her position by ability, rather by default, thanks to her brother’s refusal to continue to run his father’s businesses when his own was so prosperous. “If I can think of any good advice I will be happy to share.”

“Thank you so very much. What may I do for you today?”

“I have an appointment with Lord Judah.”

Irene frowned. “He is in Edinburgh with his family.”

Matilda closed her eyes for a moment. “Mr. Hales telephoned my secretary with this date and time.”

“I’m so sorry. Perhaps you should speak to him? I do not think the trip was planned.”

Irene smiled vaguely and gestured her into the back rooms. Immediately, the genteel atmosphere of the front rooms vanished. The warm wood floor met sparkling white tile. No greenery hung from baskets and pipes were exposed. They walked past racks of products, ready for restocking the bakery. On the other side were storage rooms full of utensils and crockery. Eventually, they wound their way to the back of the building, and Irene pointed to the steps leading up multiple stories to the manager’s chambers.

Matilda debated having Mr. Hales summoned to her in a show of her position compared to his. Either way, though, she’d have to walk upstairs in the end. He was a mere secretary, but the truth was he’d been involved in the enterprise back when she was little more than an empty-headed debutante. She should treat him like an asset rather than an irritant, but his attitude had always bothered her. He was obsequious to the men of her family and overly pleasant to the women. Simultaneously, his vanity bothered her. Too aware of his good looks, she’d thought many a time. He kept his hair slicked back with an overabundance of Macassar oil, as if he was afraid of its natural exuberance.

Her pulse jumped traitorously as she wondered what else Mr. Ewan Hales felt the need to keep under lock and key. Although, four years ago, she’d have been happy to have a dose of his self-control, given the mistakes she had made. He’d done better keeping himself in check. It saved a person from serious consequences.

Irene smiled at her uncertainly. “Would you like me to summon Mr. Hales?”

“No, I’ll just go up and see what he has to say about Lord Judah’s schedule. I did come all the way from Bristol for this meeting.”

“I’m terribly sorry, Miss Redcake. I hope Mr. Hales can assist you.”

Matilda nodded as she reviewed the details of Lord Judah’s letter to her, complaining about the cakes the factories under her control were supplying. He hadn’t bothered including details or a sample, so he had the upper hand. Sometimes he still thought like a military man, only sharing the most minimal details, as if everything was a security matter.

As far as she knew, no espionage had entered the world of London cake shops, so they were both safe from spies. She went up the three flights of stairs, glancing at the framed, hand-tinted photographs of cakes with envy. No need for anything this decorative at the factories.

At the top of the building she reached the manager’s aerie. The secretarial area was as full of ledgers and paper as the accounting office on the floor below. She knew Mr. Hales was the spider at the center of a web of information about Redcake’s.

The man himself had his back to her, one finger on a row of figures in an open ledger and the other on a typewriter key. She had no idea how to operate such a machine, but it did make reports easier to read, so she had insisted that her own secretary, her cousin Greggory Redcake, learn to operate one.

“Mr. Hales?” she inquired.

The finger went up in the air in a request for silence. Her eyebrows lifted. When had the man become so imperious? He probably thought she was a cakie, the Redcake’s name for waitresses. Still, she’d have expected him to be more charming. Her sister Alys said he was notorious for relationships among Redcake’s female employees, having worked his way through accounting, the Fancy, and the bakery staff.

His finger moved down the row of neatly printed numbers in the ledger. The keys clicked a few times. A pause. He turned a page in the ledger and repeated the sequence.

“Mr. Hales,” she tried again.

His fingers stopped moving, pinched around the page he was turning. His back stiffened as he slowly resumed his page turn. His other hand left the keys and he swiveled his chair around.

“Yes?”

He remained cold. No little bow, no small obsequious smile, as she had seen from him in the past. His hair had been mussed, she now realized.

Didn’t he recognize her? “I’m Matilda Redcake.”

Her announcement brought no change in his demeanor. “I know who you are, Miss Redcake.”

Taken aback, she cleared her throat delicately. “I had a meeting with Lord Judah. About the factory cakes?”

His eyes narrowed. “The first delivery of the Easter shipment, to be specific.”

“Very well. Lord Judah was not specific in his letter.”

“I regret that he went to Scotland somewhat unexpectedly.”

“No one canceled his appointment with me.”

He nodded gravely. “I do apologize. Holidays are hectic here.”

“I came all the way from Bristol, Mr. Hales. Surely it is your duty to manage Lord Judah’s schedule.”

His head tilted as he considered her. “He has a girl in during the mornings to handle certain details while I work on reports. While I am aware of his schedule, she handles the mundane tasks.”

“I am not a mundane task; I am the manager of the factories.” She wanted to stamp her foot, but her professionalism prevented her from doing so. Why was he affecting her emotions? He was merely a rude employee. She would tell her sister that her employee had behaved badly.

“Yes.” He drawled the word.

“My understanding is that you are in line to manage the new Redcake’s shop when it opens in Kensington. I hope you realize, Mr. Hales, that you will have to work closely with me in your capacity as manager there. That is, if the family decides to keep you on after today’s rude display.”

“Rude display? I have been nothing of the kind, Miss Redcake.” His gaze perused her from her hat to her shoes.

She noticed her bonnet’s decoration matched the cluster of small flowers tucked into his lapel. If they were on the street together, people would think they were a courting couple. The thought froze her, for he wasn’t even being polite, much less flirtatious.

“Are you ill?” she asked.

He frowned. “Why do you ask? In fact, none of you Redcakes has ever shown the faintest interest in me before. That must be the first personal remark you have ever directed at me.”

“We think of you as a machine, like that typewriter there, or one of Cousin Lewis’s automatic mixers.” She spoke without thinking but saw from his wince that she’d made a cut.

“Really.” His tone was dry.

Impulse and curiosity won over caution. “Which is odd, because you have such a rakish reputation, and we were all once unattached girls, my sisters and I. But you never showed that side to us.”

His lips tilted. “You were above me.”

She heard the past tense in his sentence and felt it like a wound. True. She was no longer above him, but a
fallen woman
.

“I
cannot account for the tone of this conversation,” Matilda said.

“I must be the one becoming ill.”

“Train fumes will do that to the susceptible,” Ewan said calmly.

“I travel all the time,” she protested.

“Does your son travel with you?”

How kind of him to remind her exactly why she was a fallen woman. Her one sexual experience, with a man she thought would marry her, had resulted in her son Jacob’s birth. Thankfully, she had the sort of family who would train her for a position rather than casting her off, because no one would marry her now. Except the father of her child, who had eventually returned to press his suit, but by then he was ill and unbalanced and she could not see becoming Mrs. Theodore Bliven even to clear her name. No, she’d had too much pride, too much money, and too much education in the ways of the world.

“I am just here for the day, so no. I don’t like to disrupt his routine. He is only two years old.”

“I am glad to hear you are a sensible mother.” He had turned fully now. She saw the fingers of his left hand were stained with ink and about to touch his trousers.

“Don’t do that!” She rushed forward without thinking and took his arm by the wrist. With her free hand she whipped a handkerchief from her coat pocket and wrapped it around his inky fingers.

He stared at her, his eyes widening, but the tilt of his lips had turned into a full grin. “Miss Redcake?”

She looked at his face, then at the wrist she held. Her cheeks warmed. “My goodness, I am so sorry.”

He squinted at her until she released his hand, so he could wipe away the ink as best he could. “Motherly instinct?”

She laced her fingers together behind her back in order to remind herself not to touch him. “I am afraid so. Jacob is fascinated by pens, and we have had some spectacular accidents. Please forgive me.”

He shook his head. “Not at all. It was an endearing impulse.”

His smile entranced her: a little crooked, a lot rakish. She felt like some trembling waitress, hoping to be courted by the great Ewan Hales, rather than his business superior. How charismatic he was when he showed his true self. Neither of them spoke until he gave a little shake of his head.

“I should wash up. Should I return with a cup of tea for you, or something more substantial? I can tell you what I know about the cakes.”

“I haven’t eaten today,” she admitted. Did that explain her reaction to him?

“I’ll have a tray brought up,” he said, rising.

She had never noticed how tall he was. The top of her head only reached his neck. The perfect height difference between a man and a woman. “Should I go into his office?”

“If you like. I find it too warm for the fire today, but I can have it lit.”

“No.” He’d warmed her quite enough.

He gestured with his stained hand. “That ledger there, on the top of my desk? You can look at the reports.”

“Very well.” She forced a smile as she took the ledger and tucked it against her chest.

If he noticed her self-protective gesture, he was too polite to say anything, but she wondered why she felt a sudden need for armor against him. Ewan Hales would never make an inappropriate gesture toward a Redcake.

“Ewan!” A dark-haired Pocket Venus appeared in the doorway, holding an exquisitely decorated miniature wedding cake. “I wanted your opinion on this design for Lord Murchie.”

“Ask Mrs. Short. She knows what our most discerning customers like.” The side of his mouth tilted up as he turned to Matilda. “Mrs. Short is the tearoom manager.”

“Haven’t you developed your own eye? If you are going to manage the new operation . . . ?” Matilda let her question die off as something hot and hungry lit in the Venus’s eye.

“Is it really going to happen?” the young woman demanded. “Oh, I must write Alys.” She thrust the cake at Ewan and trotted off.

Matilda stared at her, bemused. “Good heavens, was that Betsy Popham?”

“Yes, the Fancy manager. Her father manages the bakery.”

“I met Ralph Popham once.” Right around the time she’d met Theodore Bliven, in fact. Both of them had been suitors for her sister Alys, who was five years older than Matilda. Now she was Marchioness of Hatbrook and Matilda was the spinster. How she would have laughed four years ago if someone had told her how it would all turn out.

“Yes, he and your father are rather close, I believe.” He glanced down. “I should wash.”

“Shall I take the cake to Mrs. Short?”

“Ah, I suppose so, if you like.”

She smiled. “It will give me a chance to select my lunch.”

“Very well, then. I will meet you here in twenty minutes.” He waved his arm toward the door, indicating she could pass out first.

She did so and walked downstairs. No wonder Alys had been so drawn to working here, despite their father’s displeasure. Never a dull moment. She’d never realized how bored she had been until she started training with her father after Gawain abdicated his role as the chief heir to Redcake’s, which left only her. Rose had been confined to home in Sussex due to her severe asthma. Now, the silly girl was marrying a Liverpool dye manufacturer, which would probably kill her off within a year. Rose was so desperate for a home of her own. Tragic, really. Matilda had a difficult time faking gaiety any time the upcoming nuptials were mentioned.

She found the bakery service area and Mrs. Short, a rotund, sharp-faced woman who was as obsequious to her as Ewan Hales had been in the past. She clucked over the wedding cake sample and declared that Betsy should stick to managing and let Irene do the decorating, then bustled off with the plate outstretched before her like it was some kind of cake-shaped abomination.

Another cakie helped Matilda with a selection of treats to take upstairs with her.

“No cake selections?”

“We are already out of cake because the factory cakes are unsuitable and the downstairs bakery did not make enough today.”

That explained the air of delirium Matilda had sensed. They were disappointing customers, a rare and upsetting occurrence. “What is wrong with the factory cakes?”

“They taste powdery,” the cakie said. “Not up to our usual standards. It’s one thing to sell a shilling cake of that quality, but our tearoom customers expect absolute purity in our ingredients.”

“You mean we’re selling off-quality cakes in the bakery?”

She pursed her lips. “I have no idea, Miss Redcake. I only know about the tearoom.”

Matilda wished Lord Judah hadn’t needed to go to Edinburgh. She supposed Mr. Hales didn’t have the authority to keep the operation in check. She wondered if she did as she chose a bannock, a trio of preserved fruit tarts, and a bowl of raspberry cranachan, beautifully layered with cheese so fresh-looking it might have been made from a cow milked yesterday morning. The tearoom selections continued to show a Scottish influence, but all of those treats, courtesy of the Royal Family’s obsession with Scotland, were made here and had nothing to do with her factory goods from Bristol.

She paired her choices with a pot of single estate Darjeeling, one of her brother’s special finds. Her meal was fit for the aristocrats they often served. Why, the Redcake bakery was so in fashion that noble ladies sometimes picked up their own cake orders these days.

Mr. Hales had returned to his post by the time she reached the top floor, puffing a bit with the effort of taking a tray for two up all those stairs. She’d have thought lifting Jacob would have trained her for the weight, but she couldn’t cuddle the tray against her like she could her child.

Mr. Hales opened the door into the inner sanctum for her, and she set down the tray, somewhat ungracefully, on a table in between three chairs next to the fireplace.

“As you can see, there is an absence of cake,” she announced when she straightened.

“I would imagine so. It has been hard for the bakery downstairs to keep up.”

“A cakie told me the cakes from Bristol have been powdery? I haven’t heard this complaint from our other retail outlets.”

“We only received the first rotten cake last Thursday,” he said, gesturing her to be seated. “We keep a very close eye on any complaint we receive, given the nature of our patrons.”

“The fashionable world is so small that one truly angry customer could damage our reputation irreparably,” she agreed, wincing at his use of the word
rotten
.

“We cannot take that risk. The entire shipment was discarded, and Lord Judah hoped to work with you to fix the problem before the next shipment on Thursday.”

Matilda picked up her glass bowl of the beautiful raspberry cranachan, then took a round spoonful of the creamy oats layered with cheese, cream, and preserved fruit. Her eyes closed involuntarily at the taste of so much rich goodness. Yes, she should have had a bowl of the navy bean soup first, but as usual, she’d wanted to go right to the best part and skip the preliminaries.

When she opened her eyes, she found Mr. Hales regarding her closely, the faintest hint of a smile hovering at the edges of his mouth. His lips were red, and his smile telegraphed itself at the corners even when his lips didn’t move. Altogether he had the most attractive mouth she’d ever seen on a man, and now that his hair appeared more in its natural state for the first time, she could see how utterly appealing, how utterly heartbreaking he would be to a susceptible woman.

The problem was, she could be that kind of susceptible woman. Thank heavens he was only a secretary. At least for now. When he became manager of Redcake’s Kensington, he would not be so far below her. But he would not live any closer to Bristol. All for the best, she told herself hastily. A man who dangled after waitresses was not for Miss Matilda Redcake, even the fallen Miss Matilda Redcake.

“Whatever went wrong with the cakes started with last week’s production then,” she said, ignoring the tingles that had started in her body when she had perused his mouth.

“Definitely. No problems before that.”

“Can you explain the powdery reference?”

“Bad flour,” said Mr. Hales succinctly, choosing a preserved pear tart and biting down.

Large white teeth, and utterly rude. He had not even asked permission to dine. Ate her food as if he were her equal. “What is wrong with you today, Mr. Hales?” she said without thinking.

Juice from the tart stained his lower lip as he lifted his head. His eyebrows rose as he chewed, then set the rest of the tart down on a napkin he had pulled from somewhere. “You weren’t going to eat all of this yourself?”

“I’m not in the habit of serving secretaries,” she snapped.

One side of his mouth tilted up. “And yet you brought a large pot of tea and two cups.”

She glanced down at the tray and remembered he was correct. “I suppose I did expect you would drink.”

“But not that you would pour?”

Resigned, she set her bowl back on the tray, expecting it to still be half full, but she had scraped it quite clean already. “Sugar or cream, Mr. Hales?”

He ran his free hand through his hair, tousling it further. “I am amused by how much more formal you are than the rest of your family. Of course, I do not know Miss Rose, but I know Lady Hatbrook and Sir Gawain quite well.”

“Our educations were entirely different. Rose and I went to finishing school. Alys and Gawain were working in the factory by the age of nine, as was our late brother Arthur.”

“So you younger girls were raised to be ladies and the others weren’t?”

“Exactly.”

He squinted, as if considering a major decision. “I will take cream.”

She poured a generous dollop into a cup, noting how fresh it was, then poured the tea. “I find the first flush of Darjeeling doesn’t need anything to improve it.” She handed him the cup, then took her own dark brew.

“I did not know that was what you had chosen. You are, of course, correct.”

“Have you become a connoisseur, working here?” she asked.

“I’d like to think so, despite my lack of finishing,” he said, that hint of a smile on his lips.

“I suppose you are allowed to sample whatever you like?”

“Lord Judah and I often lunch together,” he said. “I make the selections. And Sir Gawain gives us samples of every new tea he brings in from India. I probably know his product line better than ours.”

“Will you stock the tearoom in Kensington with the same selections, or do you have your own ideas?”

His brow furrowed suddenly, a quite fierce expression overtaking his face. Matilda was taken aback. Had she said something wrong? Her understanding was that the position was his when the new tearoom and emporium opened in late summer.

“I think we should discuss the cakes,” he said after a moment.

“Very well,” she replied, wondering how she had overstepped her bounds with him. It wasn’t as if she was at risk of losing her position over a few spoiled cakes, irritating though it was. “Tell me what is wrong so I can fix it.”

He stood and went back to the outer office, then returned with two of the white and gold Redcake’s cake boxes, utensils, and plates. She put her bakery tray on the floor so he could set down his cargo.

“One of these cakes has been cut into; the other has not, but they are both from last week’s shipment.” He opened the first box, showing three-fourths of a cake.

She wiped her fingers on her napkin as he sliced a piece from the cake and handed it to her on a plate. “Smells fine.”

“I’ve never thought cake could be smelled over frosting.”

She put her finger to it, rubbed the cake. “Seems a bit crumbly, but then, it’s been open to the air for a while.”

He nodded. “Taste it.”

Somewhat reluctant after just having eaten, she took a sip of tea to clear her palate of tart and took a small bite of cake, avoiding the frosting. She frowned. “Unusual.”