Alain paused in his preparations. “I think I might have a slightly unusual take on the brief. You see, I didn’t grow up in a big biscuit-eating household, so I’m going for a very simple base but infused with the flavours that remind me of my childhood.”
“And what flavours are those?” asked Marianne Wolvercote. “We already know you’re an excellent baker, so we have high expectations of you.”
“I’m afraid it is more herbs.” Alain gave the camera a winsome look. “But for this challenge in particular the scents really called out to me—my mother loves lavender, the rosemary reminds me of helping her prepare Sunday dinners as a child, and the honey just conjures up an English country summer for me. You know, those long afternoons when you think the school holidays will never end.”
Wilfred Honey was nodding approvingly. “What a lovely story. And I will admit I’m partial to a honey biccy myself.”
“Yes,” added Marianne Wolvercote. “It’s quite a clever interpretation of the brief. Obviously not every challenge we set speaks to everyone in the same way, and it’s important to stay true to your culinary voice. Get this perfect, and we could have something very special.”
Oh fuck. Alain was going to win again, wasn’t he? Maybe he’d been right and Rosaline should have kept more of an eye on the competition. She’d been glad enough to help at the time, and, abstractly, she still thought it was the right thing to do, but what a donkle she was going to feel if she lost Bake Expectations because she’d given the man she was sleeping with unsolicited advice the moment he looked a bit vulnerable.
“Blimey, mate,” said Harry as he sauntered over from his own station. “Smells like a distillery over ’ere.”
“Yeah, I wanted to show the judges something different, so I thought I’d show them some alcohol.”
He peered into the bowl where she was mixing her freshly cooled blackberry jam with a generous splash of unspecified Chambord-analogue. “Tell you what, you are some kind of genius, because I would never of thought of putting booze in a jammy dodger.”
“One of the many things I learned from Lauren is that you can put booze in anything.” Then his words caught up with her and she half blushed, half flinched.
Since her mother, like Aaron Burr’s, was an actual genius, it was a term her family had always been slightly protective of and would certainly never have applied to a baked good. “Thanks,” she added. “I had a good feeling earlier in the week, but you always end up sort of second-guessing yourself, don’t you?”
“All the bloody time.” He shrugged. “Got in a right state during the blind bake yesterday. Felt a proper dick afterwards, but it was like, Do I knead it, do I not knead it, should I put it in for ten minutes, should I put it in for twenty. It was like I couldn’t stop asking myself questions, so I did fuck all ’til the last minute and then served up a bunch of crud. Still. Happens, don’t it?”
Slightly perplexed, her eyes slid to his. His willingness to admit uncertainty never ceased to disarm her. It was so unlike everybody else in her entire life. “Well, a bit. But maybe not quite that much?”
“Guess it’s just how I am then. Always been a bit of a worrier, to be honest.”
As the daughter of two doctors, with about a fifth of a medical degree, Rosaline wasn’t sure if being a bit of a worrier was the whole story. But it wasn’t something you could ask someone in the middle of Bake Expectations.
“Amelie loved her crab, by the way,” she said instead, hoping it would cheer him up. “Although she did take a surprising amount of pleasure in pulling its legs off one at a time.”
He grinned, the slump leaving his shoulders. “That’s kids for you, init. Ashley used to torture her jellybabies. Mum was convinced she was going to grow up to be a serial killer. Turned out all right in the end, though. People usually do.”
“You’ve got the beginning of a really good parenting book there.”
“What? People usually turn out okay?”
“It’s what I need to hear most days.”
“Ah well.” He looked thoughtful and then gave one of those slow, heart-melting smiles that Rosaline firmly told herself she did not look forward to seeing. “Come round my oven and I’ll tell you then.” A beeper went off across the ballroom. “Shit, that’s my cookies about to come out. So they’ll want to film that in case I drop ’em. And I’m probably gonna drop ’em because I don’t want to drop ’em, and then I’ll be that bloke what dropped his cookies and cried.”
Out of nowhere, Rosaline started to giggle.
“Oi, don’t laugh, mate. I’m being all vulnerable here.”
“I’m sorry, dropping your cookies sounds like a euphemism.”
“Oh thanks. So now I’ve got that in my head too.”
She curled her hands lightly over his forearms, paying absolutely no attention to how absurdly sculpted they were. “Listen, you’re going to be fine. What’s in your head is just in your head. And your cookies are going to be fantastic. Now go get them.”
“Thanks, mate.” His eyes were warm and soft as they held hers. “You’re a top bloke . . . bird . . . person.”
And then he ambled back to his workstation, where he successfully retrieved his bake from the oven.
“Are these spare?” Without waiting for a reply, Grace Forsythe plucked one of the freshly made cookies from the tray that Harry had, foolishly, taken his eyes off for ten seconds.
“No, they ain’t. They said do three lots of twelve and that’s me lot of twelve.”
Grace Forsythe pressed a hand to her already be-crumbed lips. “Ooofmugoomf Mmfohsorry.”
“Mate, did you eat my twelfth cookie?”
“Oh my God, I did. And I have to tell you, it was delicious.”
“That’s not helping me. I’m going to go into the judging a man down. It’s gonna wreck my formation and there ain’t nobody on the subs bench.”
“And I feel”—Grace Forsythe struck a tragedian’s pose—“truly terrible. I think I was overwhelmed by your gooey succulence and lost all control of my mouth.”
Harry made a gesture of surrender. “It’s fine. I’m just going to dip my Hobnobs.”
“And I,” announced Grace Forsythe, “shall retreat to a distance at which I can do no further harm.” Something on Josie’s bench caught her eye. “Oh I say, is that a Garibaldi?”
Claudia was up first for judging, with a selection of homemade Oreos—or rather Oreo-like biscuits—in different flavours, served with a glass of milk. The judges thought it was too simple because, well, it was. Anvita and Nora had both done better, Anvita, as usual, being praised for her flavours and Nora’s rationing-era biscuits admired for their theme.
When Rosaline’s turn came up, she found her earlier confidence had evaporated like a splash of water in a stir-fry. She’d been watching the show for a long time and seen far too many people admitting shyly to the camera that they had a good feeling or thought they’d nailed it two seconds before they served up the biggest disaster of the series.