Chapter 5 #3
"It's intuitive!"
"We've established that I lack baking intuition."
"You lack all intuition. How much water did you add?"
"The amount in the jug."
"The entire jug?"
"You didn't specify a partial jug."
Marianne stared at the disaster that had been dough, then at him, then back at the dough. "It's ruined."
"Can't we just... add more flour?"
"That's not how it works."
"Why not?"
"Because baking has rules!"
"You just said it was intuitive!"
"It's intuitive within a framework of rules!"
"That's contradictory."
"That's baking!"
Mrs. Whitby senior was now laughing openly. "Oh, Marianne, he's worse than the time you tried to teach Timothy Henderson."
"Timothy was seven," Marianne protested.
"And Mr. Fletcher has similar skills, apparently."
"I'm still here," Alaric pointed out.
"Yes, destroying my kitchen."
"One batch of dough is hardly destruction."
"Look around, Mr. Fletcher."
He looked. There was flour on surfaces he was certain had been clean when they started. The water incident had created a small flood on the counter. Several utensils had somehow ended up on the floor. And was that butter on the ceiling?
"How did butter get on the ceiling?"
"You tell me. You're the one who flung it there."
"I didn't fling anything."
"Then it achieved altitude independently?"
"Maybe it's ambitious butter."
Marianne pressed her hands to her face, and for a moment he thought she might cry. Then he heard it—muffled laughter.
"Are you laughing at me?"
She dropped her hands, and indeed, she was grinning widely. "I'm laughing at the situation. The Duke of Wexmere's very proper steward, covered in flour, wearing my mother's red apron, having just created what might be the worst pastry attempt in the history of baking."
"It's not that bad."
"Mr. Fletcher, you've created glue. Actual glue. We could probably repair furniture with that."
"Then it's useful."
"Not for pies!"
"We could make... structural pies. For building."
"Building what?"
"Disappointment?"
She laughed again, that bright, clear sound that did dangerous things to his composure. "You're impossible."
"So you've mentioned."
"No, I mean truly, genuinely impossible. How does someone reach your age without knowing basic kitchen skills?"
"By having servants," he said without thinking, then caught himself. "I mean, by focusing on other skills."
"Such as?"
"Estate management. Mathematics. Languages."
"Can you eat languages?"
"Not literally."
"Then they're less useful than baking."
"I could argue that point."
"Please don't. We don't have time for a philosophical debate about the relative merits of Latin versus leavening."
"Leavening would win anyway," Mrs. Whitby senior said. "You can't make bread rise with conjugations."
"You could try," Alaric suggested. "The yeast might respond to properly declined nouns."
"And that," Marianne said, "is the strangest thing anyone has ever said in this kitchen."
"Stranger than the time Mr. Martin insisted his bread was talking to him?"
"That was the brandy talking, not the bread."
"The bread might have been joining the conversation."
"Bread doesn't converse, Mother."
"You don't know that. You don't speak bread."
"Nobody speaks bread!"
"Mr. Fletcher might. He seems to have unusual ideas about baked goods."
"Mr. Fletcher has unusual ideas about everything," Marianne muttered, starting a new batch of dough. "Watch this time. Actually watch, don't just observe."
"There's a difference?"
"Watching implies learning. Observing implies judging."
"I wasn't judging."
"You were definitely judging."
"Maybe a little."
She showed him again, more slowly this time, explaining each step. "The butter needs to stay cold. That's what makes the pastry flaky. When it melts in the oven, it creates layers."
"That actually makes scientific sense."
"I'm so relieved to have your approval."
"You don't need my approval."
"Good, because you're not getting any more of my dough."
"That seems harsh."
"You turned my pastry into adhesive."
"It was an accident."
"It was a catastrophe."
This time, she stood beside him, guiding him verbally rather than physically, which was both better and worse for his concentration. Better because he couldn't feel her warmth, worse because he kept glancing at her and losing track of what his hands were doing.
"Eyes on the dough, Mr. Fletcher."
"My eyes are on the dough."
"Your eyes are on me."
"You're next to the dough. Proximity confusion."
"That's not a real thing."
"It could be."
"It's not."
"You seem very certain about that."
"I'm certain about many things."
"Such as?"
"That you're going to add too much water again if you don't pay attention."
He looked down to find he was indeed about to repeat his earlier mistake. "You're distracting me."
"I'm standing here quietly."
"Quietly is relative."
"I'm not making any noise!"
"Your presence is noisy."
"That doesn't even make sense."
"It does in my head."
"Your head seems like a complicated place."
"You have no idea."
This batch of pastry was marginally better; it at least resembled dough rather than glue. Marianne deemed it "acceptable for a first attempt, if we're being very generous with our definitions."
"Now we make the filling," she announced.
"This involves cooking?"
"It involves mixing. Even you can't ruin mixing."
"That sounds like a challenge."
"It's not a challenge. Please don't take it as a challenge."
"Too late."
The mincemeat filling was already prepared—a mixture of dried fruit, spices, suet, and brandy that smelled like Christmas concentrated into a bowl. Marianne showed him how to roll out the pastry, how to cut circles, how to fill and seal the pies.
"You're putting too much filling in."
"You said to fill them."
"Not to capacity! They need room to breathe."
"Pies don't breathe."
"Metaphorically they do."
"You're making things up."
"My kitchen, my rules."
"That's tyranny."
"That's baking."
By the time they'd assembled two dozen pies, half of what was needed, Alaric had flour in his hair, mincemeat under his fingernails, and a new appreciation for the complexity of what had seemed like simple food.
"These look..." Marianne tilted her head, studying their work. "Rustic."
"That's a polite way of saying ugly."
"I was going for diplomatic."
"They're geometrically inconsistent."
"They're individually unique."
"They're disasters."
"They're... well, indeed, they're disasters. But they're edible disasters."
"That's my new life saying. 'Edible disasters.'"
"Could be worse."
"How?"
"You could be an inedible disaster."
"The day is young."
Marianne laughed again, and Alaric realized he'd lost count of how many times he'd made her laugh this morning. It was becoming something of an addiction, the way her whole face lit up, the way her eyes crinkled at the corners.
"You're staring again," she said softly.
"I'm observing your amusement."
"Why?"
"Scientific interest."
"In my amusement?"
"In the correlation between pastry disasters and laughter frequency."
"That's the worst excuse for staring I've ever heard."
"I'm new at making excuses."
"You're new at a lot of things, apparently."
"Such as?"
"Baking, obviously. Also subtlety."
"I'm subtle."
"You were pressed against my window like a child."
"That was reconnaissance."
The bell above the door chimed, and Thomas Ironwell came in, already covered in snow despite the early hour.
"Morning, Mrs. Whitby! Morning, Mr. Fletcher! Is it true you were wrestling in the street?"
"We weren't wrestling," Marianne said firmly.
"Mrs. Morrison says you were."
"Mrs. Morrison has an active imagination."
"She says Mr. Fletcher swept you off your feet."
"Gravity swept me off my feet. Mr. Fletcher was just the landing pad."
"That's less romantic."
"Everything's less romantic than Mrs. Morrison's version."
"She's already planning the wedding."
"Of course she is," Marianne muttered. "Thomas, what are you doing up so early?"
"Came for the committee breakfast pies. Mum says to tell you she needs extra because the land steward is bringing his cousin from Nottingham."
"Tell your mother she's getting whatever I manage to salvage from this morning's disasters."
Thomas looked at the pies cooling on the rack. "What's wrong with them?"
"Mr. Fletcher helped make them."
"Ah." Thomas nodded sagely. "That explains the unique shapes."
"They're abstract," Alaric defended.
"They're certainly something," Thomas agreed. "Can I have one?"
"Take your life in your own hands," Marianne warned.
Thomas grabbed a pie and bit into it. His expression went through several interesting variations before settling on surprise. "It's actually good!"
"Don't sound so shocked," Alaric said.
"But it looks terrible."
"Appearance isn't everything."
"Tell that to the committee. They judge the pie contest on looks too."
"There's a pie contest?" Alaric asked.
"Every Christmas fair," Marianne confirmed. "Very competitive. Last year someone sabotaged Mrs. Ironwell's entry with salt instead of sugar."
"That's dedication."
"That's village politics."
"Same thing, really."
"Spoken like someone who's never experienced real politics."
If only she knew, Alaric thought. He'd sat through enough Parliamentary sessions to know that village pie sabotage was probably more civilized than what happened in the House of Lords.
"I should get these to the inn," Marianne said, beginning to box the acceptable pies. "Before Mrs. Morrison sends a search party."
"I'll help carry them," Alaric offered.
"You've helped enough."
"I could help more."
"My kitchen might not survive."
"Your kitchen is stronger than it looks."
"Unlike your pastry."
"That seems unnecessary."
"But accurate."