“May I help you?” she tried again.
He raised his sandy-haired head and shot her his friendly smile. “I would like to try a chocolate. Since I have no idea what I wish to purchase, I will need a sample. What do you suggest?”
That you leave. She desperately wanted to say it out loud.
“I’m very busy,” Beatrice said instead.
He stared at her, then pointedly looked around the otherwise empty shop.
“In the back. I make the treacle toffee,” she mumbled, immediately wishing she hadn’t explained herself to him.
Too late! He grasped onto this fact the way a monkey at the Zoological Gardens grabbed a piece of fruit thrown across the fence.
“You make the toffee? You are a Miss Rare-Foure, as you told the other customers before you drove them off, so your family owns this shop. And yet you make the candy yourself?”
“Candy?” she repeated his unusual use of the word. “I don’t make all of the confectionery, only some.” She would not explain to him the dynamics of her sisters’ contributions. That would only encourage him to stay longer and ask more questions.
“Then I would like to sample some toffee, if you please.”
Grinding her teeth, Beatrice approached the shelf with trays of the buttery, sweet, golden confection. Deciding it best to get it over with, she snatched up one of the sample plates, the size of a saucer and, using the tongs, she placed one piece each of the plain, the chocolate-smothered, and the toffee with almonds upon it, then handed it over the counter to him.
He took it graciously, staring down, then brought the plate to his face and sniffed it.
“Smells heavenly, but then, the entire shop does.”
She grimaced at the inanity of his remark, then crossed her arms across her chest and waited.
He took the piece with nuts first and began to chew.
“Careful,” she said, a little alarmed. “If you have any loose teeth, it’s better to suck on it or let it soften on your tongue first.”
He nodded, too late, with his teeth stuck together.
“Would you have simply chomped down on a boiled sweet?” she asked exasperatedly. “Or would you have sucked it slowly to savor it?”
He shrugged, still working his jaws until he swallowed. “It was delicious, even though nuts are not my favorite.”
Beatrice rolled her eyes. “Then you shouldn’t have eaten it. You could see it had nuts, couldn’t you?”
He nodded again, and she knew she was chastising a customer, but she couldn’t seem to help herself.
“Why don’t you skip the plain one, or slip it in your pocket to eat later” — for all I care — “and try the chocolate-covered one next. Then I’ll fill a bag of whichever one you like. Plain without nuts or covered in chocolate.”
“What if I want both?” he asked, but he did as she suggested and sampled the piece with Amity’s prized chocolate coating it on all sides.
His eyes widened, which was no surprise because everyone knew chocolate was a divine taste. It always outshone her toffee, as far as Beatrice had experienced. She waited what seemed an eternity as the man enjoyed the confection.
“Well?” she prompted at last. “Do you wish to purchase some or not?” Not the dulcet tones Charlotte would have used when trying to make a sale.
“Yes, of course. I’ll take half a pound.”
Nodding, she reached for one of their bleached white bags with Rare Confectionery stamped upon it in sapphire blue ink. Then picking up the tongs again, she went to the tray of chocolate-covered toffee.
“The other one, if you please, ma’am, the plain, no nuts, no chocolate,” he requested, surprising her. It wasn’t that many customers didn’t, in fact, buy tray upon tray of her plain treacle toffee. Yet she’d always assumed they hadn’t really tasted or considered the perfectly delicious combination of toffee and chocolate. In any case, she wasn’t about to ask him if he were sure or to debate the matter.
She guessed at the quantity, placed the bag on the scale, added another piece, then folded the top over to close it. Her mother liked them to tie it with blue satin ribbon, but she didn’t think this particular customer would care. Unless...
“Is this a gift? For a female perhaps?”
He raised an eyebrow at her question, and she could practically read his mind. He was wondering if she were trying to determine his availability. Again, she rolled her eyes. “I shall add a pretty ribbon if so.”
He grinned. “No ribbon needed, ma’am.” She assumed that meant the toffee was for himself. Placing the bag on the counter, she told him the price. He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a collection of coins.
“Gracious!” she exclaimed when she saw what he had. Not only ha'pennies, farthings, and groats, as expected, but a fair number of shillings and crowns, as well — hard to believe — half-sovereigns and sovereigns.
She stared at the coins in the large palm of his hand. The man was decidedly well off.
“Have I got enough?” he asked, sounding innocent of the goodly sum he was carrying.
“Yes, unless you wish to buy everything in the shop and perhaps a few things in the store next door.”
He chuckled. “Is it that much?”
For the first time, she smiled, too. “No, not really, but those are gold sovereigns,” she pointed out.
“Like a dollar, I take it.”
She shrugged. “I am not sure about that. I’ve only just realized you’re an American.”
He seemed to stand a little straighter as he nodded. “I am, indeed. From the state of New York.”
She took a few of the small copper coins, her fingertips grazing his bare palm, and put them in the till, or the cashbox as her mother called it, to pay for the toffee. Next, she pointed her finger at one of the half-sovereigns before looking him in the eye.
“A couple can have a really bang-up meal with liquor and dessert for that one coin.”
“Really?” He looked down at his hand. Picking out one of the gold coins, he placed it in front of her on the counter, precisely as the shop bell tinkled again. “There you go, then. I want you and your beau to have a — what did you call it? — a bang-up meal.”
In the space of a heartbeat, blazing anger roared a trail through Beatrice’s slender body, and she slammed her hand down upon the coin, ready to hurl it at the stranger’s head.
How dare he!
GREER TOOK A STEP BACK as the young woman before him grew red in the face, and he knew he’d made an error. He wasn’t sure whether he’d caused her fury by giving her the gold coin or by presuming she had a gentleman friend, or even by his bold assumption she liked to eat. Who could tell with this crabby miss?
Whatever it was, she was mad as a wet cat, and her hyacinth-blue eyes glittered with flecks of fire — or perhaps that was simply the watery English sunlight bouncing around the white interior of the shop and reflecting in them. Either way, he knew he’d bungled it.
Miss Rare-Foure opened her mouth to give him a good talking to, he was certain of that, but she glanced past him to the new customers who’d entered the candy shop.
Glaring at him, she snatched up the coin. “Your change, sir.” She held it out and quickly let it drop from her fingers. If he hadn’t caught it, it would have rolled onto the polished floor. He did catch it and stuffed it back into his pocket.