'What the—?' He gestured towards the double row of cake tins, lined up ready for the oven.
'What on earth are these?'
'Rich Dundee calces,' she said tightly.
'I can see that. But twelve?' He looked at her in mild astonishment. 'Is it the church Christmas bazaar, or something?'
'No, that was last month. I made some for that.'
'So?'
'Well,' she said reluctantly, 'actually, cakes are my business.'
From a box at the back of the unit she took a sticky gold label, silently handed it to him, and he read out, "Petronella's Cakes."
When he glanced up at her enquiringly she said, 'That's right. I don't really like my full name—'
'But you should do. It's a lovely, old-fashioned Cornish one. Petronella,' he repeated, infusing a sensuousness into his voice that unnerved her even more. 'This is great—tell me about it.'
Was he mocking her? From beneath her lashes she sneaked him a suspicious glance, but his face was perfectly serious.
She shrugged. 'There really isn't much to tell.'
'Of course there is. How did you get started, for instance?'
'I left school at seventeen—Mum couldn't keep me any longer, you see and I went to work at a bakery, the old-fashioned sort, where I got very interested in cake-making. I suppose I inherited that from Gran.'
'Yes, of course.' He smiled reminiscently. 'Those Irish whiskey cakes of hers—'
'That's right. I still make them—using her recipe, of course.'
'You know, I always liked your gran,' he remarked suddenly.
'And she always had a soft spot for you. I remember she used to say . . .'
'Yes?' he prompted as she broke off.
'She used to say,' Petra went on, cursing her runaway tongue, 'that your eyelashes were too long for your own good.'
'Good grief.' He gave a shout of laughter, then pulled a rather wry face 'Maybe she was right at that. What do you think, Petra?'
But she had had time to pull herself up now. 'I don't think anything, Jared.'
Her voice had a hollow ring, though. Those thick black lashes, sweep
ing his high cheekbones, framing those strange, changeable eyes . . . She tore her own gaze away.
'Anyway, I was telling you—that's if you really want to know?' She glanced up questioningly, and he nodded. 'They sent me on day-release to college once a week. But they were taken over by one of the big multiples, so I moved to another bakery, and then, two years ago, I decided I didn't want to spend half my time making pasties and pork pies.' She gave him a faint, almost apologetic smile. 'I just wanted to make beautiful cakes for people to enjoy.'
'And do they?'
'They seem to. I tested the water first—an ad in the local free paper for b i r t h d a y cakes, and I got twenty orders within a week.' She laughed ruefully. That was quite a baptism of fire fifteen children's cakes, all different, four for adults, including one shaped like a football, in green and white, for a Plymouth Argyle fanatic, and a golden-wedding cake, iced in pale yellow with dozens of tiny crystallised violets all over it.' She shook her head at the memory. 'Those violets—
I sat up all one night making them until I was squiffy-eyed.'
'She smiled at him again, but he frowned. 'Couldn't you have bought them, for heaven's sake?'
'Yes, of course. But they'd almost certainly have had artificial preservatives, and I won't have them in my cakes.'