13. Lizzy
Lizzy
However much I wanted to keep disliking Darcy, his energy and determination were infectious.
“There are no truffles,” he called from the produce section. “Would morels do?”
“They’re not the same, but I feel like most mushrooms go with chicken.”
“Got them,” he said, holding up a box of morels like a prize. “And what do you know? They actually have heart nuts!” He held up his other hand, triumphantly showing me a bag of brown nuts.
It was the most enthusiastic he’d been about anything this weekend, and his boyish excitement was quite endearing.
I inspected them as he got closer. “Such a cute name for an ordinary-looking nut.”
“There’s a slogan in there somewhere,” he said.
“Or an inspirational quote,” I replied.
“Or a life hack.”
“Or a haiku.”
We were both grinning as we whizzed past the frozen section.
This would be a fun scene for my Peony and Thomas story, though I knew for certain neither of them would do the food shop in the village market.
And then there was the reality of what they would buy in the early 1800s—dead swans, live chickens—assailed by the sight of cheese with live maggots and the smell of boiling sheep’s trotters. Ugh, no.
Darcy was staring at me strangely, unaware of the grotesqueries swirling in my brain. “Anything from here? Oh, look, there’s some pastry.” Darcy reached into the freezer.
“Frozen pastry is going to take way too long to defrost,” I said. Surely he knew that? Maybe in all our high spirits, he’d forgotten?
We wheeled toward the deli fridge and stopped.
“There’s pastry here,” he said, reaching in. “Short pastry.”
“That’s not the same as puff pastry,” I said. “One’s fluffy, one’s heavier.”
Again, how did he not know such a crucial component of his own recipe? I felt an uneasy prickling on the back of my neck.
He shrugged, as if to dismiss that as a detail. “Near as, damn it,” he said and threw it into the cart.
His cavalier confidence, about ingredients anyway, buoyed me to take some risks too.
He peered into the fridge again. “There’s none of that special French blue cheese,” he said.
I shrugged. “I’m sure Stilton would be fine,” I said, reaching in beside him.
Our shoulders brushed, and I went to apologize again.
He turned at the same time with, “Excuse me.”
Our faces almost met, a breath away. His midnight eyes lingered on mine, and his subtle bergamot smell, citrus and musk, filled my head—clean, raw, unsettling.
Oh God, he was…gorgeous. But I didn’t like this guy, right? He’d insulted me in front of everyone last night and belittled my profession this morning.
“Onward,” I said, breaking the stare and gently placing the cheese in the cart my body disturbingly ruffled.
As we wheeled to get the chicken—he insisted we buy boneless—I could see out of the corner of my eye that he kept glancing at me.
The terrible thing was, when he turned to pick out the chicken, I found myself staring at his profile, the strong line of his nose, his full mouth, the bulk of his shoulders.
And then it was back to the grocery shopping. For the next five minutes, we continued on this reckless but decisive back-and-forth.
Back at the inn, we dumped the groceries onto the counter. The kitchen was clear. Presumably, the others had already finished. I glanced around for red. No sign of Harry, one good thing. We only had forty minutes to get our recipe finished, and I didn’t need the extra stress of being filmed.
“You precook the chicken. I’ll prepare the filling,” he said.
“Are you sure? The filling is the trickiest part.”
“No problem. I know what I’m doing.”
I was still not quite convinced, even if he possessed a seemingly unshakable self-assurance.
“It’s your recipe,” I conceded.
It didn’t take me long to rub the different spices, most of which were substitutes, onto the chicken and put it on to broil.
“Why don’t you take the two dogs out for a quick run around outside?” he asked as he chopped the ingredients. “I’ll keep an eye on everything. My bedroom door is unlocked, and Max will be in there.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I have it all under control.”
Did he, though? His chopping was haphazard—elbows out with huge, dramatic hacks that looked like he was going to cut himself at any minute. I itched to put my hand on his and show him how to slice properly. Within seconds, there was mess all over the counter and on the floor.
“If you’re sure, then?” I asked.
He looked up and smiled at me, the corners of his mouth upturned quite…sweetly.
Then he took in the countertop, strewn with a mess of nuts and cheese and pastry and spices. His jaw pulsed with tension.
“Anything else?” he asked in a dismissive tone that signaled, Hurry along, then.
“Do you find people respond to that unfortunate tone of yours?” I asked. “Because I’m certainly not inspired by it.”
I harrumphed and stalked out of the room, annoyed with myself as well. My attraction to him was so frustrating when he continually reminded me he was pomposity incarnate.