Alys found herself open-mouthed at her sister’s effrontery. Had the five years between them made such different people? Perhaps, but she suspected her work experience had made the larger difference.
That and other things she didn’t care to remember.
“Beauty fades. Just remember love, respect, and companionship are more important than a title.”
“The queen married a prince and he was lovely from all reports,”
Matilda said. “I am sure there are wonderful titled people, and I can fall in love with one of them just as easily as I could fall in love with a baker.”
“The queen married her cousin,” Alys said tartly. “And besides, she could have had anyone. She had the pick of the world’s most eligible men, so why wouldn’t she have found a good one?”
“I want to live in a mansion,” Rose said dreamily. “With all the latest furnishings, and fine paintings and a carriage of my own.”
“We live in a mansion now,” Alys said.
“I don’t care to live in something less now that I know how lovely it is to have a mansion,” Rose said.
“What will the two of you do with yourselves all day once these great marriages have been found for you?”
“Pay calls, throw parties,” Matilda said.
“Babies,” Rose said, “who will have the best of everything.”
Although Alys loved Redcake’s, she felt a pang at the thought of babies. But, she had decided at fifteen that marriage and family were not for her.
“May I introduce my daughters, your lordship,” Alys’s father said, walking over to them with none other than the unfortunately bearded Earl of Lathom.
Alys saw Rose covering her mouth with her hand, clearly hiding a giggle, as her mother curtsied.
She and her sisters followed suit as her father presented them to the Lord Chamberlain. Her brother and cousin bowed.
“My girls will never want for anything,” her father boasted. “Next we need to find them husbands, eh, Lady Redcake?”
He grinned at his wife while the earl nodded stoically.
“I’ve bought an estate down in Sussex. Good place to find a husband who isn’t aware of my elder children’s lack of fine finishing, eh?”
All the heat drained from Alys’s face and she swayed where she stood. Gawain caught her by the shoulder, steadying her, and she forced herself to be strong, because she knew her brother couldn’t hold much of her weight due to his bad leg.
The earl raised a bushy eyebrow.
“Yes, it’s unfortunately true that my eldest children started working in my factory up north at the age of eight. You won’t find that kind of past in the aristocracy, but it made Gawain and Alys strong.
Good sturdy blood, they have, and with Alys’s dowry, we ought to be able to find her someone.”
Alys noticed her father didn’t mention her oldest brother, Arthur, who hadn’t been so sturdy, and had died. She held herself still as the earl blandly named off a couple of widowers with minor titles and large debts. She had learned a lot from reading the assortment of papers customers left behind in the tea shop each day. Matilda and Rose’s eyes grew wide with the notion that they might be fit wives for these titled men, but it just made Alys feel ill. Was she not her father’s able assistant? Did she have no value other than to be a potential wife who would raise her father’s status?
“As long as she finds a good husband, that is what matters,” Redcake said. “Otherwise I’ve failed her.”
Alys opened her mouth to speak, but her mother clamped her hand to Alys’s free arm. “Look, there is Lady, er, Calves-foot. Come Alys, we must thank her for her kindness.”
Gawain released her other arm and Alys allowed herself to be towed away while giving her father the evil eye. It was better to glare than cry. She was a woman of dignity and wouldn’t lower herself so.
“Do not even think to show disrespect for your father in front of
others,” her mother whispered when they had come to a stop out of the eyesight of the earl.
“What about me?” Alys said. “How can Father think he’s failed me unless I marry? I don’t want to marry. I’m happy as I am.”
“A woman’s role is to marry and have children,” her mother said.
“It is too large a sacrifice,” Alys argued. “I don’t wish to give up my position.”
“What position?”
“Mother!” She was outraged. Did her mother think she played at Redcake’s all day? “I’ve worked very hard. Our wedding business would be nothing without me.”
“It is kind of him to humor you,” her mother said with a wave of her hand. “It’s obvious you are overheated. I’ll call someone to bring our carriage so you can leave.”
Alys turned, but her mother stopped her with a touch. “Do not move an inch until I return for you, young miss.”
She wanted to scream, but her respect for her mother stilled both her voice and her feet. How humiliating to know how competent one was, yet still be a child to one’s parents. Or at least someone of no more value than Matilda, or heaven forbid, Rose. She had bigger dreams than they did, but her parents couldn’t see that. They only saw failure.
Michael strode through the gates at Redcake’s the next day, intent upon finally procuring a large portion of Scotch trifle. Surely the Palace would have let some slip from its iron grasp, since the queen should have returned to Windsor by now. He hadn’t seen any on the tea tray in the private rooms of the palace the day before. The queen had been kind enough to invite him by note after the investiture. If Scotch trifle was unavailable today, he’d order a bowl to be delivered to Hatbrook House in Belgravia and eat the entire thing himself since his mother didn’t like sweets with liquor in them.
He smiled, remembering when his younger brother, Judah, was a child, he’d suffered from sore throats on a regular basis and he’d been served copious amounts of hot tea laced with whisky, which he’d drink while nibbling on the shortbread their tutor always had, since the under-cook was sweet on him. They’d both developed a taste for alcoholic sweets as a result.
But today, he had more on his mind than just the trifle. He wanted to show a photograph to the staff of Redcake’s and see if they recognized a young man in a group photo of the Second Battalion of the Royal Sussex Regiment. Judah had mailed it to him because he was clearly visible in the front and thought their mother might appreciate the image.
Michael thought he’d seen another of the young men pictured recently, however, and at Redcake’s. The man had a long, hawkish nose that had a distinctive hook at the tip. How many men could sport that same unusual proboscis?
He didn’t see any friends of his this time as he entered the crowded dining room and seated himself at a table. A cakie soon approached and he was thrilled to hear his trifle was available now.
“It’s just come on the special tariff this week, sir, now that it’s close to Christmas.”
“Excellent. And I wonder if you could have a look at this?” He produced the photo from a portfolio case and handed the cakie a magnifying glass. “Do you recognize this young man?”
The young woman frowned. “Are you a constable or some such?”
“Not at all,” he assured her. “This young man at the bottom left is my brother, who is in India. But I believe I’ve seen this other young man at Redcake’s and I wondered if he had any stories to share about the Battalion.”
“Oh.” Still with two furrows between her brows, the cakie took a look through the magnifying glass. She straightened with a jerk. “I’ll see if I can find one of the family, sir.”
“Family?” Michael asked, confused, but the young woman had darted off as speedily as if he’d pinched her bum. She hadn’t even written down his order, and he was unsure if he’d see his trifle anytime soon. He should have come earlier in the day.
After a minute of waiting, the mingled scents of pastry, clotted cream, jam, and tea were driving him mad, so he took up his magnifying glass and perused the p
hotograph. It depicted his brother with nine other Englishmen in uniform. The photograph was similar to a famous photograph of a group of officers who had all died during an attack in Kabul shortly after the photograph was taken, more than half a decade before. His brother was posed in profile at one side, one hand resting on the hilt of his sword. A heroic posture to be sure, but it had caused Michael to have nightmares after the first time he’d seen it, something he blamed on an overrich chocolate cake he’d had after dinner that night.
Judah was twenty-five now and it had been six years since Michael had seen him. He’d gone to Egypt first, then to India. His brother’s frame was spare now, but broad-shouldered and very straight in carriage. He looked like a man to be leaned on, a man to trust, a leader of men. Certainly someone an older brother could be proud of.
The man he was convinced he’d seen recently was also standing in the photograph, on the opposite side behind seated senior officers. He wore a sergeant’s uniform and looked about Judah’s age.
“I was told you needed to see me?”
Michael glanced up to see none other than the owner of Redcake’s himself, Sir Bartley Redcake. Besides a smudge of flour on one sleeve, he was resplendent in clothing as fine as Michael’s own.
Michael stood. “I’m Hatbrook,” he said, and offered his hand.
“Yes, your lordship. I believe I saw you at the investiture yesterday.”
“Yes, my man of business received a knighthood.”
“Ah, yes, Smythe, I believe?”
“Quite. But I haven’t come about him. I hoped to discover the identity of this sergeant in India. You see, the photograph includes my brother, who is in the Black Mountain region now, but I could have sworn I saw this distinctive young gentleman right here at Redcake’s recently.”
Sir Bartley Redcake took the magnifying glass Michael offered and bent over the photograph. His hand moved slowly from the top down, covering the bleak and stony ridges of the Hazara country backdrop, then to the faces of the men.
He tapped the face Michael knew. “My son, your lordship. He was injured in a brawl with those blasted Pathans very late last year.
Lost his eye and damaged his hip, so he’s been discharged.”
“I say, how dreadful,” Michael said. “I did wonder. This photograph must be older than I had been led to believe.”
“You can ask my son, of course, but it was likely taken as soon as they arrived in the village where they are headquartered.”
“I would like to speak to him. Curious, you know, to understand what my brother’s life is like there. If he seems happy enough in the army. I could just afford to bring him home now, if he wishes, to live the life of a gentleman. Wasn’t true when he went in. Finances in disarray.”
“My father spent time in debtor’s prison,” Sir Bartley said. “I know all about repairing family fortunes.”
“I wonder if Judah would like to come home, but it’s so difficult to say from letters, and one never knows who might be reading them as they pass through.”
He nodded. “I expect Gawain can help you. He’s apprenticing to be a bookkeeper in our offices upstairs. Would you like to speak to him now?”
“If it is no trouble. Or I could make arrangements.”
“Not at all.”
Michael was gratified to see a dish of trifle coming his way, though it was delivered by none other than the pretty carrot-haired cakie who had failed him in the trifle matter a few weeks before. As she set down the tray, her arm brushed his, setting off a reaction thankfully hidden under the table, as he smelled her delectable perfume.
“Oh it’s you again, your lordship,” she said pertly.
Sir Bartley’s bushy, orange-gray eyebrows shot up in outrage.
“Alys.”
“Quite acceptable,” Michael said, not wanting to get the girl in trouble. “We have a history. My friend, Theo Bliven, gave her a very hard time when we were here last.” He wouldn’t mention how sensual her curves had felt against his body, when he’d held her, though he could hardly forget. He’d dreamt about that moment.
“Ah, Mr. Bliven,” Sir Bartley said with a smile. “He is a jocular young fellow. I know his father. We’re in the same club.”
“We were schoolmates,” Michael said. “I’m glad to see Buckingham Palace has not stolen all the trifle again.”
Sir Bartley smiled graciously. “We are thrilled to be under Her Majesty’s warrant, of course, but I do apologize that her needs superseded your own.”
“Quite all right,” Michael assured him. He caught the cakie rolling her eyes as she turned away. What a personality that one had.
“Could I have a pot of tea, Alys?”
Sir Bartley retired with a promise to deliver his son as soon as possible.
Michael’s thoughts had been on family and they drifted to his impossible mother while he waited. She was lucky to have been born into a good family and with the beauty to marry well. With her personality, she would never have been able to hold a position. She could never bend and always had to slip her point of view in somehow, and it frequently had a bite to it. He could well imagine her rolling her eyes like Alys had, but she’d also have made some cutting remark that devalued the queen’s fondness for Redcake’s pastry.
As always, when faced with thoughts of family, he said a little prayer for Judah’s continued well-being. Since Michael had Judah as his heir, he hadn’t had to rush into marriage to provide one. Anyone his mother brought to his attention had been utterly unsuitable, the most unattractive, bluestocking type of female. His ideal was a girl with limited imagination, the kind of horselike, country sort so opposite to his mother that she wouldn’t even comprehend the older woman’s barbs. He’d never met a girl like that and had no idea how to find her, but he wouldn’t marry until he did.
“God bless Judah,” he muttered.
“Excuse me, your lordship?”
Michael looked up to find the photograph come to life.
The young man, whose face was now marred by an eye patch that almost hid a fresh, horizontal scar reaching down to his cheek, nodded at him and set down a tea tray. “I’m Sergeant Gawain Redcake.”
Michael pushed back his chair and shook his hand. “Sergeant Redcake. I had no idea you were who I was seeking.” The cakie must have given him the tray. A pity. He’d have liked to have Alys brush up against him again.
“So Captain Shield is your brother?” The young man sat across from him and poured two cups of steaming black tea.
Michael took the offered cup and added sugar. “Indeed. You must have seen action not too long ago.”
“That part of the Black Mountains is always in great unrest.
Fierce tribes there, want the British out. Small skirmishes there from time to time.” He shrugged. “I had some bad luck there.”
“I see you did. Is bookkeeping to your liking now?”
He raised the eyebrow over his good eye. “I don’t mind the work at all, but I’d rather it was for some other business. Still, when I’ve become competent, I can find other work.”
“Family complicates everything.”
The fervent tone in which he expressed this sentiment brought a smile to the sergeant’s mouth.
“My late father complicated my life greatly,” Michael said.
“As you can see, my father is firmly at the reins.”
“Yes, and I don’t mean to keep you from your work, but tell me, when last you saw my brother, was he well and happy?”
Redcake took a sip of his undoctored black tea. “He is a natural soldier, I believe, and I do not recall him ever being wounded. A crack shot, knows how to use his bayonet to maximum effect, decisive.”
“All good things. Is he in constant danger?”
“As much as any officer. They are not in the same level of risk as a common foot soldier, but any man can fall. I was with supplies, working in the Officer’s Mess, having the background I do, yet I found myself in a battle thanks to a surprise attack. T
here are no guarantees in the army.”
“No, that is clear. Do you think he would want to come home, given a reasonable allowance?”
“I’ve never known him to discuss money, my lord. I couldn’t say.”
“I am sorry for your wounds and I thank you for your time.”
Redcake nodded and took his leave. Michael watched him limp away, wondering if his brother’s fate would be the same. One had to wonder if he’d been safer in Egypt. He resolved to make money as quickly as he knew how, so as to provide added inducement for Judah to return home soon.
Chapter Three
“Make certain all the shilling factory-made cakes are close at hand. With Christmas so near, they are sure to sell,” Alys directed, pointing to a full rack in one of the storage rooms underneath the tea shop.
Ralph Popham, the bakery manager, made a face. “I wish we didn’t have to sell them nasty things.”
“They aren’t so bad. At least they come from a Redcake’s factory.
All the ingredients are wholesome.” Some appalling ingredients from bad milk to laundry dye to fake butter found their way into baked goods, but never at Redcake’s. Customers knew their goods were safe to eat at any price point.
“I’m sure you’re right, Miss Redcake,” Popham sighed and groomed his mustache with his fingers. “Now that’s a lovely bit of work.” He pointed his chin toward a wedding cake on the counter.
The three-tier cake was resplendent. Alys had used her best, most expensive recipe and the results smelled divine, a mix of candied citron and orange peel, raisins and currants, almonds and exotic spices, but best of all, the fresh lemon zest combined with rum and brandy to give it a heady essence.
She’d spent hours on the design, starting with a silver-edged board and topping the design with the aristocratic bride’s choice of a raised gum-paste basket complete with a scrollwork handle. Wildflowers cascaded down the sides of the cake, which she’d worked with scrolls around each tier, and her famous threadwork at the top and bottom of the tiers. The wildly lovely design would be consumed early this afternoon at a post-wedding luncheon, held at the bride’s family home.
The Marquess of Cake Page 3