Read Online One Taste of Scandal by Heather Hiestand - Free Book Online Page B

you!”
    He burst out laughing and gave her a bow. “Ti Hi Tiddelly Hi!”
    “Off with you and your dance hall rubbish!”
    He pretended to doff his hat, then made a comical face when he found the flour in his hair and rubbed it off, creating a little whirly fog in the air. Then, he capered off.
    “Thinks he’s a comedian, he does,” Betsy said.
    “Did you hurt your head?” she asked, anxious.
    “No, I’m made of sturdier stuff than that.”
    “Is he a beau of yours?”
    Betsy sniffed. “He’d like to be, that one, but I like a man with more businesslike prospects.”
    “I have the butter cut.”
    She glanced into the bowl. “You don’t have to do it that fine next time. Now bring the bowl over and hold it under the beaters.” After she showed Magdalene the correct placement, she pulled the lever up to “mix.”
    The engine sounds grew louder, but to Magdalene’s amazement, the egg beaters began to churn in the bowl. She struggled to hold the bowl in place as the beaters churned. Betsy watched intently and used the wooden spoon to scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed. When she was satisfied, she reached for their egg and cracked it in one-handed. Slowly, she added in the rest of the ingredients while Magdalene held on to the bowl.
    “I’m going to turn it off now. Take the bowl back to the Fancy while I get the rum.”
    “What about the beaters?”
    A middle-aged man stepped forward. He had an odd cast to his face, as if his features moved more slowly than most people’s.
    “This is Benny. He’ll take care of tidying. That is his job. Right, Benny?”
    The man smiled, revealing a mouth full of broken teeth.
    “This is Magdalene. She’s new here.”
    The man made a garbled noise.
    Magdalene smiled at him. “Thank you, Benny. I’ll go back to our room now.”
    Betsy glanced at the bowl. “The mixing went well enough. When you get back, pull three times the measure of the spice mix and we’ll start again.”
    She nodded and slowly stepped through the maze of corridors until she found the Fancy. The tray went on one of their wooden tables. She measured out the spice mix and put it on a new tray, then looked around while she waited for Betsy to appear.
    In an alcove she discovered they had their own gas oven. A pocket door currently in the wall would close the alcove off. She expected that was to keep the heat away from the area where they iced the cakes.
    When she opened cupboards, she found an amazing assortment of decorative supplies as well as the products they needed for icing. Soon this would become as familiar as the kitchen in George’s home, but at this moment the materials intimidated her. She wondered if Captain Shield would make an appearance. After all, he had hired her.
    Betsy came in with a half-filled bottle of rum and measured some into the prepared batter. “I’ll finish up here. You practice getting out ingredients and mixing them. One step at a time, I think. And I need this batter in the oven. Irene came down to get something from her coat and said a lot of orders are coming in.”
    “When I triple everything, do I mix it all in one bowl?”
    “Yes. That’s the maximum you want to do at once. Here is my key. We’ll have one made for you.” Betsy took the correct key off her ring and handed it to her.
    Magdalene thanked her and threaded her way back to the ingredients, holding her tray. She wondered how long it would take to build up her muscles. Somehow she had only thought of the artistic aspect of this job, yet that hadn’t even been discussed. At least the money would pay for Nancy’s beloved Mrs. Gortimer to visit every day. She hated to admit to the pleasure of being away from the sickroom.
    In the ingredients room she gathered everything she needed, pounds of raw stuff that was hard to manage. No one saw when she had to put her tray on the floor to lock the door, but she nearly lost everything when Tom barreled by, and whistled almost directly into her