The Marquess of Cake (2 page)

Michael leapt up, his thigh slamming the edge of his table as he caught her by the apron, then found purchase for his hands around her hips. The tin tray clattered to the floor as he pulled her curvy hips flush against his legs. Her body pressed against him. He scented that delectable perfume of hers.
Eau de Redcake’s
.

The ladies at the table shrieked and another employee ran toward them, a cloth in her hand. Michael glanced down and saw the cakie’s large, brown eyes staring into his, confusion evident.

He blinked at the girl. “How beautiful you look today.” He peered at the black embroidery on her apron. “Alys.”

Her entire body vibrated. She stepped away from him almost before his lower body reacted to the sensuous press of her substantial bosom against his chest. Her cheeks were scarlet, which made the freckles high on her cheekbones stand out adorably. Given a choice between a display of cake and her, he might just stare at this girl.

The other cakie exclaimed and helped Alys gather up the ruined food, broken cup, and saucer before running for a mop and bucket.

The gesticulating woman at the next table rose, muttering about the falling standards of the tea shop. The other tossed bills on the table and departed with a last frank stare in Michael’s direction.

He sat abruptly as the injured muscle of his thigh contracted, reminding him he had slammed his leg against the table during his rescue.

Theo guffawed. “You do have a way with women.”

He stared at the departing gossips. “How rude, when they caused the accident.”

“Your mother would have reacted the same way and you know it.”

“It’s so depressing to realize she’s not the only horror in the world.”

“It’s no problem, sir,” the cakie with the mop said, looking up.

“We’ll get you another plate immediately.”

Alys rushed away. In less than two minutes she had returned with fresh dishes.

“I do apologize for my clumsiness, your lordship. Of course, there will be no charge.” Mouth pursed, color high, she had a damp stain down one arm.

“Quite all right. Not your fault.” Even underneath her starched white apron, he could see her bosom was as magnificent as it had felt against him for that tantalizingly brief moment.

“I should have been more careful.”

“Not at all. Please do give me the bill. I won’t hear of it being otherwise.” He rather liked this Alys and didn’t want the bill to come out of her salary.

She blinked and shook her head. “I’ll see about that.”

She rushed away, leaving Michael quite bemused by her pride.

“It was about time Mother hired us a dressmaker,” Rose Redcake opined loudly from her pose in front of a floor-length mirror as Alys dashed into the shared dressing room.

Their other sister, Matilda, nodded from her perch on a rich, red velvet sofa.

Rose continued, twisting her thick locks into a knot at the top of her head. “Father must allow us to dress for our new position in society.”

Their father had been spending a great deal of money lately, and not just on their mother. He had bought this Georgian house on St.

James’s Square just two years ago from an earl. Last week, he’d purchased a country estate in Sussex, a parcel of property the Duke of Devonshire had been discarding. Alys found this purchase worrisome. She couldn’t understand why her father would buy a home so far away from his industrial base in Bristol, the mills and baking factories that had made him wealthy. The Tea Shop and Emporium she adored was merely the diamond in his crown.

“The shops are lovely here,” Matilda argued. “I’ve found the most beautiful dresses at Liberty and Co.”

“Ready-made,” Rose sniffed. “Machine lace.”

“Eighteen and already a snob,” Alys sighed, dropping onto a padded ottoman next to her youngest sister.

“Please change out of that uniform before you leave Redcake’s,”

Rose said. “You look like a maid.”

Alys looked down at her sensible dress with affection. One of the best perks of holding a position was wearing comfortable clothing much of the time. “At least I don’t have to lace my corset so tightly that I risk swooning, unlike some young ladies I know.”

“One must suffer for fashion,” Rose wheezed.

The discussion was cut short by their mother’s entrance, along with a short, stout dressmaker and her two frightened-looking assistants.

“The girls need reception gowns for an affair at Buckingham Palace.” Ellen Redcake floated her left hand next to her cheek, as graceful as any dancer.

“Sensible,” Alys said. “Something we can wear again, in our regular lives.”

“Silk,” Matilda insisted.

“Fit for the Palace.” Rose made a grand gesture with her pinky pointed.

“Everyone at this investiture is on the rise,” their mother said.

“Who knows who you might meet there?”

“I know what I would like,” Matilda said.

“No pink, Matilda,” their mother said. “It clashes with your hair.”

“But I love pink,” Matilda cried.

“No man will find you attractive in pink. You’re twenty-one now, dear, it’s time to be careful.” She raised a hand. “Alys, twenty-six isn’t too old to wed.”

“I don’t want a husband,” Alys muttered. Her mother could even dangle that handsome marquess from Redcake’s in front of her and she’d still say no.

“All women want husbands. You simply require a very special man.” She tilted her head into a dreamy pose.

Alys focused on the dressmaker, hoping she could be measured first. She had a new idea for a wedding cake decoration she was dying to experiment with before a wedding consultation the next day.

Unfortunately, the dress discussion went on for hours, as Matilda wanted romance, Rose wanted something fit for a duke’s daughter, and Alys wanted something severely tailored.

With their mother’s assistance, they settled on kilted skirts of silk, with velvet bodices and tunics due to the time of year. Matilda found a forest-green silk in the dressmaker’s samples and matched it to a velvet decorated with yellow flowers. Rose, who could wear pink, chose a pink silk skirt and cream velvet. Alys insisted on a delicate gray for both of her fabrics. They also argued over the size of the bustle but their mother agreed with Alys and kept it relatively small.

“You will all be a credit to your father, girls,” their mother said approvingly.

“Perhaps we might order another few dresses?” Rose asked. “I have nothing to wear on calls to new friends, and what if we receive party invitations, Mother?”

“I have work to do,” Alys muttered, and left the room as quickly as she could, impeded by the tightly laced corset her mother had forced her to wear.

Three weeks later, Alys smoothed her dove-gray gown over her hips as she listened to Rose and Matilda argue next to the fire.

Her twin brother, Gawain, recently of Her Majesty’s army, and her inventor cousin, Lewis Noble, paced the drawing room, looking very handsome in their morning coats. Her brother’s limp made a thump, slide, thump noise against the parquet as he stomped around the edge of the rug. They stopped in front of a family portrait painted by their mother. The watercolor depicted smiles all around, quite a contrast to today’s mood.

“Look, Gawain,” Lewis said, pointing to the brass parrot on his shoulder. Dear Lewis, always trying to cheer people. He might never be precisely fashionable, since he cared little for his appearance, but he never had an unkind word to say to anyone. “She talks. Pretty, isn’t she, Alys?”

“Cracker,” said the parrot’s deep, ghostly voice. Its metal wings fluttered, sounding like the tinkling of tiny bells.

Rose laughed, then coughed. The pestilential London fog bothered her lungs fiercely at this time of year, and Alys suspected the greenery decorating the room did her no good either. Their mother had ordered Rose to keep her corset loosened at all times, but Alys knew her sister insisted their maid tighten it whenever she left the house.

“How did you make that silly thing speak?” Matilda asked, drowning out Alys’s, “Very pretty.”

Lewis grinned at her, his teeth shining through his slightly inadequate blond beard. “It’s a secret.”

Ellen Redcake glided into the room in a long, purple-and-green flowing gown more suited to the medieval age than the modern era.

Mrs. Nettleship, her mother’s dressmaker, often designed for the theater and it showed.

“The carriage is waiting, ma’am,” Pounds, the butler, said, entering the room.

“Where is Father?” Alys asked.

“We’ll pick him up at Redcake’s. The weather is simply dreadful.”

Her mother’s hands fluttered. “Why did the queen have to schedule this investiture today?”

“She can’t predict the weather, Mother,” said Gawain.

“You poor dear,” Mother said, rubbing her hand along Gawain’s sleeve. “You must find this so very trying, after India’s warmth.”

“I’m happy to be home.” Gawain glowered at her, despite his words.

A trio of housemaids entered with outer garments for everyone.

An extra carriage had been hired for the occasion and it was agreed Alys and her brother would go to Redcake’s while the others went on ahead.

Would anyone at Redcake’s recognize her in these clothes? She looked like a lady. Would his lordship, the Marquess of Hatbrook, think she was his social equal in clothing like this? She’d found it hard to forget him these past weeks. Had the sensation of his hard chest and strong thighs flush against her body made such a lasting impression? It seemed so. That saucy friend of his no doubt was a gentleman as well, but as lively and naughty as he’d been, she preferred the more austere character and looks of the marquess. Though admittedly, he’d had the hungriest eyes she’d ever seen. She shivered at the thought.

How exciting that such people came to the tea shop now. To think it had started as so small an operation that she’d been the one to suggest many of the menu offerings, including the Scotch trifle her father’s mother used to serve at Christmastime. What happy memories those had been, when their older brother, Arthur, was still alive and learning the mill business, before Gawain had gone into the army, before she’d learned not everyone was kind.

Now Arthur was dead of some horrible wasting disease that had claimed him at twenty years of age, and Gawain had a patch over his ruined eye and a permanent limp. His career had been ended by the injuries, though Father hadn’t been sorry to see his only living son safely back at home again and ready to work at Redcake’s.

She pressed her lips together and tried to return to happier thoughts.

How could she not admire the marquess, with his wavy, brown hair just touched with a hint of the sun, despite the time of year? She thought his eyes must have been a stormy sea blue, though of course it was awfully hard to say since she had tried not to stare.

The carriage entered the alleyway behind Redcake’s, where their

father waited on the loading dock. He worked entirely too hard, but she understood why. She loved Redcake’s as much as he did. The tea shop and emporium part at least. She wasn’t so fond of the factories.

Bartley Redcake nodded to his son and kissed his daughter’s cheek as he entered the carriage, bringing the scent of flour and vanilla with a backdrop of tobacco. He was a hands-on manager still and she didn’t doubt he’d checked a measurement and stirred a pot or two today.

“Are you nervous, Father?” she asked.

“Oh, the queen isn’t so different from you or me,” he said heartily, adjusting his topcoat over his substantial stomach.

The buttons strained and Alys made a mental note to tell her mother so she could alter the garment.

“Still, it’s something, isn’t it? Really something.”

“We’re all so proud of you,” Alys assured him.

Gawain said nothing, just took out a cigar and began the ritual of preparing it.

“I’ll take one of those, son.”

Without a word, Gawain passed him his cigar case.

An hour later, she held hands with Matilda and Rose as they craned their necks for a view of the spectacle. Queen Victoria entered the richly decorated, polychrome ballroom in Buckingham Palace, attended by two Gurkha orderly officers and various support staff.

The queen, a short, elderly woman dressed in black with touches of lace, wore a style of gown in fashion when Alys was a baby. She wore a lace veil to indicate her widowed status and her thick fingers were covered in rings. In one bow to contemporary fashion she wore a velvet band around her neck, black of course, from which dangled a diamond pendant that caught the light.

The dais held five members of the Yeomen of the Guard, dressed in their Tudor finery of red and gold. The room was enormous and Alys could well believe it the largest room in London.

“I like their hats,” Rose giggled, poking at the feathers in her hair.

“Too bad the Yeomen are all such old men.”

“Isn’t that usher adorable?” Matilda said from the other side, lifting her chin toward a young man dressed in black, his curly, blond hair surrounding a face still encased in more baby fat than Alys could find attractive.

“I think that’s the Earl of Lathom with the queen, he is Lord Chamberlain presently,” Mrs. Redcake said, turning from her position just in front of them. “What is he thinking with that beard? So unattractive.”

She stopped speaking when “God Save the Queen” began to play.

Afterward, the earl announced the first recipient and his achievements. Another man bent to whisper in the queen’s ear as an elderly man doddered forward. The queen took a sword from a servant. Alys felt it an incongruous sight to see a large sword in the hand of such a grandmotherly figure.

She watched as an usher helped the man kneel on the investiture stool and receive his accolade from Queen Victoria’s sword.

The elderly man stood as the queen stepped back, seeming taller than before. Alys could have sworn he held his shoulders straighter, and he certainly walked better. As an usher announced his name the elderly man smiled, appearing almost handsome.

“How different the knighting has made him seem,” Matilda whispered in her ear, echoing Alys’s thoughts.

Then, their father’s name was called. Alys scarcely breathed as her father strutted toward the stage. Her mother clasped her hands to her throat as Bartley Redcake knelt and became Sir Bartley Redcake.