He drummed his fingers on the table.
Her vision was beginning to adjust to the lack of light in the room and she could see the lines that weathered his face. His eyes were wrinkled by the suggestion of constant smiles. She could see he had raised one steel-grey eyebrow, as though encouraging her to continue. She wanted to believe he was grudgingly impressed with her abilities but the lighting in the dining area was too dim for her to read much from the shadows that cloaked his face.
‘Well done,’ he said drily. ‘You can taste flavours.’
‘But that’s the problem,’ she insisted. She quashed the urge to let him hear the impatience in her tone. ‘I can’t name all of them. There’s one remaining flavour that I haven’t yet been able to identify. That’s why I’m still sitting here. I need to know the identity of that missing ingredient.’
His smile glinted brilliant white in the shadows. The darkness made it impossible for her to see if there was any kindness in his eyes. The expression made her think of a shark on the scent of blood.
‘When I delivered my seminar at your school –’
‘University,’ she corrected.
He waved a hand as though the distinction was unimportant. Continuing without pause he asked, ‘Can you remember what I spoke about?’
She didn’t have to hesitate. The lesson he had imparted on that day had been one that matched her own beliefs about the ideals of cuisine. Goosebumps bristled at the nape of her neck as she remembered William Hart delivering his message to her and a lecture theatre of two hundred students. ‘I remember it vividly. You told us to respect the flavours.’ Her voice lowered to a reverential whisper as she repeated the words. ‘You said that a chef needs to be conversant with flavours. As conversant with flavours as a concert pianist is conversant with classical music. As conversant with flavours as a writer is conversant with works of great literature. You said that it’s the duty of every great chef to respect and understand every flavour in the kitchen. Respect the flavours.’
‘It sounds sexier when you say it,’ he admitted. ‘But, despite the respect you clearly have for flavours, you still don’t recognise that added flavour in my citrus and blueberry muffin?’
She started to shake her head and then stopped. It wasn’t that she didn’t recognise the flavour. She did know it – or something similar. Her chest began to swell as she realised why she had associated emotions such as excitement and happiness with the flavour.
Her heartbeat quickened.
Her smile grew broader.
It was a Christmas flavour.
‘It’s a type of cinnamon, isn’t it?’
He laughed. ‘Is it chuff? It’s not just a type of cinnamon. It’s the type of cinnamon. It’s Sri Lankan cinnamon.’
Her brow creased as she tried to recall all that she had learnt about cinnamon and apply that knowledge to her memory of the flavour in the citrus and blueberry muffins. ‘From the cinnamomum tree,’ Trudy remembered. ‘It’s not one of the more common variants of cinnamon like the Indonesian or Vietnamese.’
She watched his silhouette nod approval. ‘You do know your stuff.’
Hearing those words from the lips of William Hart, growled in his impenetrable northern voice, was almost more impressive an accolade than the honours degree that she had received earlier in the day. She knew, when she finally retired to bed this evening in the house she shared with Charlotte and Donny, Hart’s sincere praise would be at the forefront of her thoughts as she drifted to sleep.
Trudy stroked her tongue along her teeth. Now that she knew the identity of the flavour she felt as though she would be able to recreate the muffins in her own kitchen. It took an effort of self-restraint not to leap from her seat to hurry home to start baking. Of course, she reminded herself, she wouldn’t be able to make a start until the morning, after a trip to the local market where she could maybe track down a specialist spice supplier who might stock Sri Lankan cinnamon, but …
‘Thank you,’ she said earnestly. ‘Thank you so much for sharing that with me. I don’t think you know how much it meant to me.’
His silhouette shrugged. ‘I can see we share a passion. I enjoy sharing things with people who share my passions. I assume, since you’ve hung around here this long, you have time to let me show you my kitchen?’
It was only when the lights came back on that Trudy remembered William Hart was attractive. Disturbingly attractive. Admittedly, he was old enough to be her father. Taking into account the lined face and steel-grey hair she figured he was in his late forties or early fifties. But his age seemed immaterial.
He was hot.
There was a timeless quality to William Hart that she had noticed when he delivered the seminar at her university. His diamond-blue eyes shone with bright enthusiasm. His smile, set in a square and manly jaw, glinted with a boyish promise of inappropriate mischief. At the university she had thought he was physically imposing but, at the time, she had ascribed that to the fact he was standing on a podium, wearing a generously-cut suit beneath a double-breasted tweed overcoat. Now she could see his substantial presence came, not from his clothes, but from his broad and manly chest and his considerable height. From what she could glimpse beneath his white shirt and dark sports jacket, there didn’t appear to be any excess fat on his lean frame.
Her heartbeat had been slowing back to its normal rhythm.
The realisation that she was alone in Boui-Boui with the desirable William Hart sent it racing again. Muscles deep in her loins began to tingle with wanton and unbidden anticipation. She desperately willed herself to stop brooding on his handsomeness. He was likely married or in a relationship and she told herself it should be obvious that a man of his years would have no interest in her.
‘This way,’ he said, extending a hand.
She allowed him to hold her fingers, thrilling to his touch and hoping he couldn’t see that she was mesmerised at being in the presence of a respected idol. When he led her towards the kitchen she felt self-conscious about every step and how he might interpret her movements.
If she walked too close to him would he think she was needy or infatuated by his celebrity? If she stayed too far away would he think she had no interest in him? Or that she didn’t know who he was? Would it be less complicated, she wondered, to simply embrace him and devour him with kisses so he could see that she worshipped him?
That final idea made her smile.
It also made the muscles in her loins clench a little more hungrily.
He pushed through a door marked IN and held it open for her as fluorescent lights splashed their illumination across a bright and shiny kitchen. The room was a gleaming array of stainless steel work surfaces and sleek, polished tiles. The glossy lustre of the starship cleanliness juxtaposed harshly against the rustic exterior of Boui-Boui’s dining room with its gingham tablecloths and country house décor.
It was like stepping between worlds.
Trudy couldn’t stop herself from grinning as Hart led her by the hand through the first of the aisles past cooling hotplates and quietly ticking ovens. The walls of each station were decorated with magnetic strips where dangerously sharp kitchen blades hung and glinted beneath the fluorescents. The handles were colour-coded in bright reds, yellows, blues, greens, blacks and whites. She saw food hygiene posters on the walls above wash stations, explaining that red blades and boards were intended for raw meat, yellows were solely for cooked meats, and all the other