Free One Taste of Scandal by Heather Hiestand Page A

so much batter?”
    “I thought I would help by doing double,” she said, holding back a fresh wave of tears with great difficulty. “But I broke the machine. I saw fire! Oh, they are so angry.”
    Betsy’s eyes rounded. “You can’t overtax the mixers. They are fragile beasts. When we are working in volume we use multiple machines. But, fire?”
    “I panicked when it started acting funny. So I turned the lever from ‘mix’ to ‘off.’ ”
    “Not ‘warm’ first? You have to take it down by degrees.”
    She sniffed again. “I didn’t know, I’m sorry. I suppose I’ll be sacked now.”
    Betsy patted her on the shoulder. “You were just trying to help. But you’re like a baby. You don’t know anything about how to do things around here, so don’t assume.”
    She wiped her eyes and nodded. From now on she would follow instructions. Betsy sighed and measured rum into the bowls. For the rest of the morning, she showed Magdalene how to sand trays and lay down paper, then put cake rings on the paper and ladle in the batter. She learned how to operate the gas oven.
    At one, Betsy sent her home, saying the cakes needed to cool before she could learn to decorate them. “Since no one has come to sack you, be here at eight—the back entrance, mind.”
    “I will not make the same mistake twice,” Magdalene promised. She took off her apron and tied it around her dress, too tired to even consider taking off the cakie uniform. She wouldn’t dare ask Betsy to help her change.
    Slowly, she hobbled her way up the stairs to the employee door, hoping she wouldn’t see Captain Shield in her bedraggled state. Her wish was granted and she made her slow way home through a light September drizzle, feeling both exalted and shamed by her first day as a working woman.
     
    Judah heard laughter as he entered Redcake’s basement late the next morning. Female laughter at that, not at all what he would expect in the male-dominated bakery. He had come to hand Lewis Noble his shillings, feeling honor-bound to provide immediate payment in the hopes of keeping relations cordial with the inventor. Apparently, making Noble happy wasn’t a matter of prompt payment though; a pretty girl would do just as well.
    The back of one of the mixers hung open, but Noble’s wrench was slack in his hand as he chatted to a slim blonde in a cakie uniform.
    “No, I haven’t seen the paper this morning, but I can’t believe His Royal Highness would do that,” she said.
    “This country can do better than its degraded nobility,” Lewis said.
    Odd talk for a flirtation. No wonder Alys had rejected him in favor of Hatbrook.
    “There are many wonderful people with titles,” said the cakie. “Why, this bakery is owned by one of them.”
    “My point exactly. Alys is only an aristocrat by marriage.”
    “I have numerous title-holders in my family tree,” she said. “They aren’t all bad people by any means.”
    “Miss Cross!” Judah interjected, startled as he realized who the blonde was. “Is this how you learn to decorate cakes?”
    She turned in a flash, her cheeks reddening as she lost her flirtatious smile. And here he’d thought she found him of interest, but he and Lewis Noble were so different as to be separate species entirely.
    “I broke the machine, Captain Shield. Betsy said I should learn from Mr. Noble what I did wrong.”
    Judah frowned. “What were you doing with a mixer?”
    “Making a cake.” She tucked her hands into her dress as if delighted to find pockets.
    He supposed the kind of clothes she was used to wouldn’t have pockets. She had a style of her own, not fashionable precisely, almost American, even, in the calico prints he’d seen her wear. “Err, making a cake? I hired you for your artistic talents.”
    “I believe Betsy thinks me hired as her assistant for all aspects of the Fancy.”
    “How do you feel about that?”
    She smiled wanly. “I set the mixer on fire yesterday.”
    “Yet you are still