The Marquess of Cake (7 page)

Lady Hatbrook sniffed and turned away, then stepped back. “Before I go I think I’d better have one of those cakes.”

“Which ones?”

She pointed to the case holding the shilling Christmas cakes.

“Those.”

“Would you like to see how they are decorated?” Alys pointed to a displayed cake on a stand inside the glass case. “They all look like this, then we can personalize them.”

Instead of responding, Lady Hatbrook opened her reticule and pulled out a shilling and dropped it on the counter. “I believe this is the price?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Alys took a box from the rack behind her, opened it to make sure the cake was in perfect condition, then handed it over.

The marchioness sniffed again, took the box and turned smartly, then marched away without another word.

Alys wondered if her ladyship was as addicted to cake as her son was to Scotch trifle. And if so, how did she manage to stay so thin?

She didn’t look healthy. In fact, her skin hung loosely at her neck and her rose gown didn’t appear to fit properly, loose in some places and stretched in others. Perhaps she meant to give the cake to her maid.

The next afternoon, Ralph Popham found Alys piping “Holiday Wishes” on a fancy Christmas cake order.

“Your father sent word that you’re to come up and see him,” he said.

“I have to finish this,” she said, not taking her eyes off the red frosting.

“I’m told Sir Bartley is in quite a mood,” the bakery manager said dourly.

“He is always terribly concerned that we won’t sell out of the shilling cakes each year, but is so jolly at home on Christmas when we do,” Alys confided. “Can you believe it is only two days away?

The season has passed quickly.”

“I don’t know if it is that,” Popham said. “Word came down that he’s in one of those red-faced rages he has.”

“Oh, dear. I hope one of Mr. Hellman’s apprentices didn’t tip over the delivery wagon again.” Alys set down her pastry bag and rubbed at an itchy spot over one eye. “Betsy, can you finish for me, please?”

Betsy Popham closed a box lid over a cake and came over eagerly.

Alys knew she wanted to learn cake decorating so she could leave being a cakie behind.

“It only needs an ‘e’ and an ‘s’ there at the end,” Alys said. “You can see the lettering I did. Just match that and it will be ready to pack up.”

“I’ll be very careful, Miss Redcake,” Betsy promised.

“Good girl,” Popham said. “Now, Alys, you’d better get upstairs.”

“Thank you, Mr. Popham.” Alys removed her apron and unfolded her sleeves, then rebuttoned her cuffs. One thing that had changed over the years was that she had to appear the lady in front of her father, instead of as an employee. He had yelled at her on the factory lines just like any other young person when she’d been a child; there had been no special treatment then. Not for Gawain or Arthur either, but unlike Arthur, she and Gawain had been good at their jobs.

Frosting had been her assignment and no one had ever done the job faster. Her brothers, however, had worked the batter mixing line.

She remembered the bruising on their hands. Arthur had even broken a finger and somehow it had become infected, preventing him from working for a time. At least he’d had a family who wasn’t desperate for the income, unlike so many of their fellow workers. Now her cousin, Lewis, had invented machines to simplify the process, helping to make her father wealthy.

Alys climbed the staircases to the third floor where her father’s offices were. Certificates naming Employees of the Month lined the wood-paneled walls. Redcake’s and her family had come far from those early days, when her father inherited a mill mired in debt.

“Miss Redcake.” Ewan Hales, her father’s secretary, stood. A man of about her age, though rapidly balding, she suspected he had romantic notions about her.

She nodded. “My father wants to see me?”

Ewan stepped out from behind his desk. “Yes, miss.” He opened the heavy, paneled door for her.

“Hello, Father,” she said cheerfully, stepping in. “I haven’t seen you downstairs. Normally you are all fired up during Christmas week!”

Sir Bartley looked up from the papers he was perusing on his large, untidy desk. His hair, so like hers though faded, matched the mess, as if he’d been running his hands through it. The difference was his sack suit was clean. Not a bit of flour nor sheen of butter darkened • the coat or vest. His tie was knotted and tucked perfectly, not askew like usual.

“Sit,” he said.

Alys had a sinking feeling, and wished she could remain standing.

Her hands moved behind her back and she clutched her fingers together. Now what? Had her sisters complained about her?

Her father stared at her. After a moment of eyes locking, she cleared her throat and sat down in one of the two chairs in front of his desk, grabbing at the armrests with icy fingers.

Her father lifted his hand. She turned, realizing Ewan still stood in the room. Good heavens, had he spoken to her father about marrying her? No. She breathed a sigh of relief as Ewan walked out.

But then, confusion resumed when Ewan returned a moment later, followed by Ralph Popham. If he was joining her, why hadn’t he said so? If this was to be a sales meeting, she wasn’t prepared.

“My accounts?” she said. “Perhaps I should find my journal.”

“That won’t be necessary,” her father said. “Ralph, sit down.”

Mr. Popham’s expression was even more hangdog than usual as he sat next to her. She raised her eyebrows at him, hoping he could communicate to her somehow, but he shook his head slightly and turned away.

She bit her lip and looked at her father.

“You’ve worked at Redcake’s for, what, fourteen years now, Alys?”

“Eighteen,” she said sharply. “I’m twenty-six.”

“Quite right,” her father said. “A long time.”

“Yes, it is my second home.”

“To be sure. But we have a better home now, don’t we, girl? We’ve come a long way up in the world. And now, I have a knighthood to match.”

He spoke as if to himself, more reflective than Alys was used to her father being.

“I’m very proud of you, sir.”

“Thank you, daughter. I need to tell you of my disappointment.”

Alys swallowed. She had done nothing wrong, she was certain of this. “Sir?”

“You are a Miss Redcake. That means something now.”

“Of course it does. I’m very proud to be connected to Redcake’s.”

“Not to Redcake’s,” her father said, steepling his fingers. “To me.”

She’d never seen him make that gesture before. It was as if he changed before her very eyes. “You aren’t proud of me, Father?”

“You do not behave as a young lady should.”

She wondered if this was about Ewan after all. Or, she thought in horror, of Ralph Popham. He was widowed, after all, but she was only eight or nine years older than Betsy.

“I am a hard and efficient worker, sir. I am proud of my accomplishments.”

Her father stood and pounded on the desk with one fist. The reverberation made her chair shake. “They are the wrong accomplishments, miss. Your sisters, they are young ladies. You, on the other hand—”

“What?” she whispered.

“I understand you are promoting yourself and your cakes, among the aristocracy, of all things. Do you never think of your sisters, their prospects?”

“I was trying to grow our business! You know our quiet time is coming, and I did get orders from the Manater wedding. A marchioness, no less, came to make a large order. Mr. Popham was there!”

“Exactly,” her father said.

Ralph sank lower into his chair. Alys fancied he wanted to become invisible.

“I did a good thing,” Alys insisted. “Nothing different than before, except that as Redcake’s becomes more prominent, our opportunities are better. I had to refuse Lord Hatbrook his order just last month, because the queen had ordered all the Scotch trifle we had on hand.”

“A Miss Redcake cannot be having these conversations, my dear.

The daughter of a knight should not be a shopgirl.”

“I’m not a shopgirl. I am responsible for the wedding cakes.”

“Not any longer, my girl. You shall return home at once. Your prospects have changed. Your mother shall decide what to do with you.”

“But I’m grown,” Alys said. “I have my own money. I’m capable.”

“You are my daughter,” he said. “I will not have you displaying yourself as little better than a servant. Your mother is Lady Redcake.

You have a substantial dowry.”

Alys wondered what her young, factory-girl self would have said to that, to hear her father firing her and telling her she had a large pot • of money available to her, when she’d cried herself to sleep for months after her father sent her to work, before she decided she liked it better than going to the village school.

“I’m happy here,” Alys said. “I could get lodgings, leave the household so that Matilda and Rose aren’t affected by me.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” her father snapped. “You no longer have employment. Return home to your mother at once.”

“Would you speak so to Gawain?”

“Gawain will inherit my business one day.”

“But I’m the one who loves it,” Alys said.

Ralph shifted in his seat.

“You don’t understand business. You are a cake decorator,” Sir Bartley said dismissively. “Do not presume you know more than you do.”

“Gawain has no more education than me.”

“And no more than me, either. My fortune makes changes now.

No daughters of the Redcake family will ever need to work again!”

he shouted.

“But what if we want to?”

“You only think that because you’ve never known a better option.”

“I’m happy here.”

“Do not behave so unbecomingly,” he said. “Now, go.”

Alys stood, her back very straight. Without looking at Mr.

Popham, she turned and stepped to the closed door. She left the offices without looking at Ewan.

As she reached the outer door, she heard the secretary say, “Goodbye, Miss Redcake.”

With a hot rush of shame, she realized he’d known what her father had planned to do to her. Furious, humiliated, she stalked downstairs to collect her coat, hat, and reticule.

Ten minutes later she stepped out the back door next to the loading dock. She hadn’t said good-bye to anyone. Surely this wasn’t over yet. After Christmas she’d change her father’s mind. He’d see how unhappy she was embroidering with her sisters. He’d miss her sure hand in the cake department.

As she walked down the street toward home, she realized the timing meant she wouldn’t receive her Christmas bonus on Friday along with everyone else.

“Blast him!” she muttered under her breath. She kept her head down in the hope no one heard her unladylike outburst.

The air was thoroughly foul and she nearly wished her father had waited until the end of the day to ruin her life so she could have taken the carriage home with him. Instead, she had to tramp home under the darkening sky. A fleck of snow dampened her nose from time to time as she walked, while the revoltingly fetid, wet pavement wetted her black skirt. At least she’d never have to wear this particular dress again. It was her cakie uniform, worn for those times when she dashed into the front of Redcake’s on some mission.

Blast Lady Hatbrook! This was all her fault! Alys swung her reticule savagely in the air. It slammed back into her side just below where her corset ended along her hip. If only the marchioness hadn’t made such an unpleasant scene, called for her so loudly.

She knew her father had a good head for business. If he’d made mistakes before today she hadn’t known it. But still, didn’t he realize she’d made the firm an excellent profit?

“Blast him,” she said again, catching a hint of surprise on the sooty face of a lamplighter.

By the time she made it home, she too had soot on her face. It seemed the very sky had pressed down upon her, bringing foul odors and making a clear vision of the streets all but impossible.

Pounds opened the door for her. She entered quickly and handed him her coat and hat as soon as she could wrestle the damp garments from her body.

“I’d like a bath, please.”

“I will tell Lucy.” Pounds bowed and left her in the foyer.

Alys stared down at the marble floor for a moment, then glanced up to find herself staring at a white marble statue set into a recess between two fluttering gas lamps. The statue was of a shepherdess.

“I wish my life were as simple as yours.” She saluted the statue like a simpleton and climbed the steps to her dressing room, hoping tears would refrain from dripping down her face until she reached privacy.

Alys couldn’t wear mourning to the musicale the next afternoon, but she certainly felt the loss of her position as keenly as any death.

Rose had told her she looked pale as a phantom and that she should • pinch her cheeks and possibly apply the lightest touch of rouge to her lips.

Alys hadn’t replied to the unladylike suggestion. Her father hadn’t come home for dinner and he’d left for Redcake’s early. She’d have faulted him for avoiding her, but knew how busy the emporium was just before Christmas. Her place was there too!

She wiped snow from her nose in the Lennoxes’ foyer and tried not to stare at Matilda’s enlarged bosom when her sister removed her heavy mantle. Dear God, was this to be her main concern now? Not orders and customers but her silly sister’s clothing mishaps?

When they were all tidied, they followed Lady Redcake through the house to the music room. The large, carpeted space held a low dais for performers. Alys saw a piano and a harp and wondered if the sisters played as badly as they were reputed to sing.

Rose caught Alys’s sleeve. “He’s here!” she whispered.

“Who?”

Rose lifted her chin. “That marquess! Lady Lillian was right, the most handsome men do come here.”

Alys followed the line of her sister’s chin and saw Lord Hatbrook, in profile, deep in conversation with another young man who looked vaguely familiar. Then, the second man’s lips curled at one corner in a mischievous, dimpled grin and she recognized him as the customer who had tormented her the day she’d met Hatbrook.