Chapter Thirteen
Tha?s had as much desire to learn how to bake as she did to fall down a flight of stairs. Never let it be said she did not work hard for her money.
She followed Eden into the kitchen, where he was pulling down two aprons from hooks on the wall.
“Put this on,” he said, handing one to her.
“My gown can’t get dirtier than it already is,” she said.
“I’d beg to differ.”
He wrapped his own apron around his waist. It was yellow with a ruffle at the bottom, clearly designed for a woman.
“Well, don’t you look pretty as a peach,” she said.
He drily flounced up the skirt of the apron. “Thank you.”
“What are we making?”
“We don’t have many ingredients, so it’ll have to be something simple. I think we can cobble together a honey sponge. And they’re easy to make.”
“Lord knows I’m easy.”
He ignored her quip and went about lighting the fire beneath the cast-iron bake-oven. “This will heat while we prepare the batter,” he said. “Next, I like to collect my ingredients and set them out neatly.”
“I didn’t expect you’d want to make a mess,” she said.
“A certain amount of mess is inevitable, I’m afraid.”
“In baking as in frigging.”
He shook his head. “I knew you were going to make that joke.”
“Well, then you know more about sex than you own up to.”
He gave her a wry smile. “She says, before she sees him attempting it.”
She liked how quick he was in returning her humor, even when it was dirty. It would serve him well in flirting with the ladies, could he ever bring himself to try.
He took a canister off the shelf and set it on the long wooden table in the middle of the kitchen. “Flour,” he said.
“I suspected we’d need the stuff.”
“Very keen of you.”
“I’m not a total dullard.”
“We’ll also need a block of butter, a cup or two of honey, and ten eggs.”
“Ten eggs?”
He nodded. “The lightness of the eggs helps to raise the sponge and make it fluffy. But it takes a bit of work. You’ll see.”
He took a rectangular pan off a shelf and handed it to her. “Coat this in butter so it doesn’t stick.”
“How?” she asked.
“With a clean rag.”
He handed her a towel out of a drawer and passed her a plate with a large slab of butter. “Wipe the butter on the cloth, then smear it on the baking dish.”
It seemed wrong to dip a clean cloth into butter, but she liked doing perverse things. “Like this?” she asked, scooping off a mound.
“Yes. Now rub it onto the dish in a circular motion.”
She smeared a thick line onto the copper and reached for the butter to add another dollop.
“Not yet,” Eden said. “First smooth that out. You only need a thin coating to keep the cake from sticking.”
He watched her carefully spread the butter over every bit of the pan. “Well done,” he said.
“A child could do that.”
“Baking isn’t difficult. It just requires patience.”
“You know what else isn’t difficult?”
“Too obvious,” he said. “Your humor could be sharper.”
“Yet there’s a smile on your face.”
He shook his head. “Now, time to measure out the flour.”
He gave her a copper scoop to use to dig out a heap of it. It was the white, powdery kind that she knew was more expensive than the coarse brown stuff used for bread.
“Why white?”
“Because cake has a delicate crumb.”
“How much should I put in the bowl?”
“Three scoops,” he said.
“How do you know?”
“I’ve been making this cake since I was a child. There’s a ratio of the flour to the butter, eggs, and honey. I’ll show you.”
He taught her how to sift the flour to add air to it, to cut the butter into a separate bowl, then to stir it with a wooden spoon until her arm ached so badly she refused to do it anymore. “Your turn,” she said. “My wrist is dead. And I need that wrist for pleasuring your—”
“Use your left hand to give the right one a rest,” he said. “Unfortunately, baking takes a great deal of effort. You’ll have to build stamina.”
Before she could make the obvious joke, he said, “Yes, yes, so will I, in bed. I know. Luckily I have a vigorous constitution. Keep stirring.”
She liked him like this. Relaxed enough to joke—and about sex, at that. She should make him bake every hour of the day. Perhaps then she might eventually get the breeches off him.
Once the butter was fluffed to the ludicrous creaminess that he demanded, he had her measure out honey from a glass jar and mix it in. Thankfully, it combined into the butter without too much effort, as her arm was throbbing, and he was ignoring her complaints.
“Finally, Satan’s work is done,” she said, pushing the bowl aside.
He gave her a sympathetic look. “I regret to inform you that his work is only beginning. You have yet to whip the eggs.”
“I only whip bottoms, and only for men who like that sort of thing.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, and I cannot say I wish to. Now, watch closely, as this step requires a bit of skill. We’re going to crack the eggs into two bowls, to separate the whites from the yolks.”
“Impossible,” she said, meaning it. “I don’t do witchcraft. Don’t want the demons after me.”
“It’s easy, with a bit of practice. Watch me.”
He carefully lifted a big brown egg out of the basket of them on the counter and cracked it against the edge of a bowl. He put his hand directly below the egg and let the clear part drip through his fingers, leaving the bright orange yolk gingerly cupped in the palm of his hand.
“See?” he said as he slid the yolk into the other bowl.
Oh, see she did. And she didn’t like the looks of it one bit.
“Disgusting,” she said. “I shan’t be touching slime.”
“You eat this slime for breakfast every morning, and with an appetite, at that.”
“It’s cooked in the morning, and I don’t have to touch it. And it’s rude to comment on a lady’s appetite.”
“Rude to call an innocent egg disgusting. But very well. I’ll show you again, and then you can try yourself.”
The idea of it made her want to gag.
He repeated the process, and she continued to be revolted by it.
“I don’t want to do that.”
“Try it once,” he coaxed. “And if you don’t like it, I won’t make you do it again.”
She wanted to point out that try it once was the very request he kept denying her, but she was too disgusted by the idea of touching that awful broken egg that she didn’t have it in her.
He wiped his hand on a towel and took her left hand in his. His touch was gentle. “Open your palm,” he said.
He had a nice way of touching her. His grip was firm and knowing, but the pressure of it almost tender. It was like being guided by a lover.
She did what he asked. She was a bit sad when he stopped touching her.
“Now crack the egg against the bowl with a quick wrist, so the shell breaks but doesn’t shatter. And just as fast, hold it over your hand to catch the drips.”
She clenched her teeth and broke open the egg. She didn’t like the crunch it made. She quickly moved it over her left hand and let the innards drip into her palm. Cold liquid like snot oozed onto her hand.
She screamed and flung the egg onto the floor.
Eden stared at her, his mouth open.
“Horrid, vile thing,” she spat out. “I can’t believe you made me touch it.”
He doubled over laughing.
“Don’t laugh. I don’t laugh at you when you shrivel from a kiss, do I?”
“No, you’re very kind,” he said, still laughing. “But then, I don’t throw you on the floor.”
“Maybe you should,” she muttered.
“I think we’ll have to try that again,” he said, bending over to scoop the egg mess into his once-clean cloth.
“I’ll be having nothing to do with it,” she said.
“Very well. I’ll separate the eggs. But you’re not getting out of the rest.”
She folded her arms and glared at him, though she had to admit that his skill with this sick practice was impressive.
When he was done, he had two bowls, one with whites and one with yolks.
“Easy,” he said.
“Smug, you are,” she said. “What’s the point of all this, anyway?”
“We have to beat the whites to fluff them up. It makes the batter nice and light.”
He took a fork, stuck it in the bowl of slime, and began to whip it quickly from his wrist.
Her own wrist still ached from her turn with the butter. “Not on your life,” she muttered.
“I didn’t say this would be easy.”
“You also didn’t say it would break my arm.”
“We’ll take turns. I’ll start.”
He beat the eggs quickly, like it was effortless, until they began to thicken and turn white instead of clear.
“Looks like you’re making seed,” she observed.
“Seeds?”
“Seed. What shoots out of your cock when you—”
He shook his head. “Shame on me for falling into your trap.”
She giggled.
“As your punishment for being crass, you can do the rest,” he said, sliding the bowl of eggs over to her. “The goal is to whip them into stiff peaks.”
“Making things stiff is—”
“Among your chief skills, yes, so you’ve implied. Show me.”
She reached down for his crotch. He caught her hand before she could get a proper feel and put her fingers on the fork. “Whip.”
She grumbled, but she did it. It made her wrist go numb, but she did like watching the slime turn into pretty little hilltops, not that she’d admit it to Eden.
While she worked, he stirred the yolks into a yellow froth, which he mixed into the larger bowl of butter and sugar.
“Am I done?” she asked, showing him her handiwork.
“Yes. Excellent work.”
She smiled, pleased at the compliment. Baking was pure tedium, but she couldn’t remember the last time she spent so much innocent time with a man—at least one who treated her with such kindness and good humor. It almost made her nerves act up. At least there were bawdy jokes to calm her. Nothing soothed the soul like a bawdy joke.
Eden showed her how to mix flour into the wet ingredients, then to carefully fold the egg whites into the batter, being sure not to stir too much and crush the fluff. Not that that would be a problem. She’d happily die having never stirred another thing again.
“I won’t enjoy a cake for the rest of my days, knowing there’s such misery in making it,” she said.
He chuckled. “You’ll be happy when you eat this one. Nothing like enjoying the fruits of your own labor.”
She stuck her finger into the batter and licked a dollop of it. It was tasty. “Mighty good,” she declared.
“I meant once it’s cooked, Tha?s,” he said.
She scooped up another dollop and held her finger to his mouth. “Taste.”
His eyes went wide.
“Come on,” she coaxed. “My hand won’t bite you.”
He tentatively leaned forward and put her finger to his mouth. He closed his eyes as he licked the batter off.
“Delicious,” he said softly.
“Give me another taste,” she said. And before he could react, she leaned up on her toes and kissed him.
She did not waste their time with one of his chaste pecks. She licked his lips, tasting the honey that lingered there, and urged his mouth open with her tongue. He stood rigid, like he’d come in half-frozen from a snowstorm.
But then—miracle of miracles—he kissed her back.
She took his head and pulled him down to get a better hold on him and guided his mouth with her lips. His teeth knocked into hers. Poor man clearly didn’t know what to do, but to his credit, he didn’t pull away, though she could tell it was his instinct.
He was trusting her with his clumsiness.
In a way, she felt honored that he was letting her see him awkward like this.
She felt something she rarely felt with a patron: affection. He was so nice, Lord Eden, and rather handsome, and charming in the bashfulness he’d revealed to her in this house—so unlike the stuffy lord she’d thought he was from knowing him before she came here.
She liked him, and she wanted him to like this. To like her.
Slowly, she could feel him get a sense for kissing. He relaxed a smidge, met her tongue with his ever so shyly.
She lowered her hands to his waist and urged him closer. And lo, but her joy at discovering hardness between his legs. She shifted to accommodate it, rubbing up against him.
Which apparently was more than he could take at this stage of his studies. He jerked away so suddenly he knocked the canister of flour on its side with his elbow. A cloud of flour flew into the air, getting all over both of them.
He looked at her, panting and embarrassed.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
She took his dusty hand and kissed the back of it, leaving the imprint of her lips.
“Don’t be. That’s the most fun I’ve had since you dragged me here.”