Page 20 of When Elizabeth's Cat Chose Darcy
“Very well,” Mrs. Jolliffe said in a tone considerably more deferential. “You’ll be wanting butter, sugar, flour, and eggs. Caraway seeds?”
“And rose water, if you have it. My grandmother’s recipe calls for both.”
Ingredients were produced. Aprons were provided—mine was plain cotton, and Georgiana’s was offered with such reverent hesitation by the kitchen maid that I suspected it had been ironed on the remote possibility that a member of the gentry might one day wander into the kitchen.
Without her lady’s maid, Georgiana tied the strings and produced a bow so thoroughly lopsided that it listed distinctly to the left.
I said nothing. Some achievements deserve their moment.
“First,” I said, measuring flour into a bowl, “we cream the butter and sugar. Work it until it gives up being two separate things and becomes one. The trick is patience.” I demonstrated with the spoon moving in steady circles. “The butter does not respond to politeness. It requires persuasion.”
“That looks simple enough.”
“Then you do it.” I handed her the spoon.
She held the spoon as though it were a parasol—elegantly, at a distance, with her wrist at an angle that suggested generations of deportment training and no practical experience whatsoever.
“You will need to apply force,” I said. “Butter does not respond to politeness.”
“I am not accustomed to applying force to food,” said with that dry Darcy undertone.
“You will learn. The butter does not care about your lineage.”
Her first attempts were too delicate, producing nothing, followed by an overzealous attack that launched clods of buttery sugar onto the counter. Cinnamon appeared from nowhere, eager to polish the counter clean.
“Less enthusiasm,” I said, dropping my errant cat on the floor where she continued to pursue Georgiana’s catapult of butter and sugar. “More rhythm. Think of it as a waltz. The spoon leads.”
“I have had the finest dancing masters in London,” she said, through gritted teeth, “and not one of them prepared me forthis.”
But she adjusted, her wrist finding the motion, and the butter began to yield, and it was time to add the eggs.
Georgiana cracked hers with the tentative horror of someone who had never touched a raw egg and found the experience viscerally distressing. “It is slimy,” she announced, as though this were a personal affront.
“All the best things in life begin unpromising,” I mused. “Eggs. Caterpillars. First impressions.”
She glanced at me with the same dark, assessing eyes like her brother’s when I quipped that he required a thicker coat to attend assemblies.
She also added a splash more rose water than the recipe specified, with the air of a woman making an executive decision and daring anyone to comment.
“That is a reckless amount of rose water—” I started.
“I am never reckless,” she said with the perfect enunciation of her class.
I set out the dough to roll it, but she wanted to try.
“Thinner,” I advised. “The cakes should be delicate, not defensive.”
“Perhaps I prefer defensive cakes,” Georgiana retorted,a hint of playfulness creeping into her voice as she attacked the dough with the rolling pin.
“That would explain a great deal about this household,” I replied drolly.
The twitch at Georgiana’s mouth grew broader. If this kept up, I might achieve an actual smile by Thursday.
Mrs. Jolliffe produced the biscuit cutters, and I was demonstrating their proper use, pressing straight down, no twisting, or the edges go ragged, elucidated in my most snobbish king’s baker great-granddaughter accent and gesturing my moment of theatrical instruction.
I was being insufferable, and I knew it, before a cloud of flour fluffed over my face.
Coughing, I shook it from my lashes and found Georgiana with her hand still extended like a battledore racquet after a particularly aggressive slam.
