A Taste of Passion

His accent trilled softly against her ear like the rasp of a favourite blanket. Maddeningly, she knew his voice was one she had heard before and that she knew well. She racked her brains, desperately trying to think where she had heard it and how she knew this stranger.

‘What do I want?’ Trudy repeated. It was difficult to believe that the full details of her request had not been passed on to the senior kitchen staff. She brushed past that detail refusing to let her ire show. ‘Perhaps you might be able to tell me?’ she began excitedly. ‘Are you the pâtissier?’

Even as she asked the question she knew that wasn’t correct. The waitress had told her that the pâtissier was a woman called Kali.

‘No. I’m not the pâtissier. I’m head chef. This is my restaurant.’

Her mouth worked soundlessly for a moment. Whatever she had hoped to say suddenly seemed unimportant as she realised she was in the presence of a legend. She was briefly thankful for the darkness because it meant she wouldn’t be embarrassed by the fact that she was flustered with this discovery. She was in the presence of her idol.

‘William Hart?’

‘Yes.’

‘The William Hart?’

‘Unless he owes you money, yes.’

Her heart had been racing before. Now it thundered so loud she was sure he would be able to hear it in the darkened silence between them. ‘It’s an honour to meet you, Mr Hart. You came to the university and delivered a seminar. It was most inspirational.’

He grunted as though the matter was of no importance.

‘What do you want?’ In his broad accent the question came out as: Waz tha one? ‘It’s late, I’m jiggered and, whilst I’ve got no problems locking you in here for the night, I’d be better suited if you simply chuffed off back to where you’ve come from. Let those of us who work for a living get some shuteye.’

She tried squinting at him in the darkness. His dialect and unfamiliar word choices made it difficult for her to work out if he was angry or amused or possessed by some other emotion. If there had been better lighting between them she would have been able to read his eyes and establish if he was sincere in his threat to lock her inside the restaurant.

‘I wanted to learn something about the ingredients in your citrus and blueberry muffin.’

There was a moment’s silence. ‘Are you lakin’ with me?’

She shook her head and then realised he wouldn’t be able to see the movement in the darkness. ‘I don’t think I’m laking with you. I’m not fully sure I understand what that means.’

‘Lakin’?’ He sighed. ‘Are you joking? Are you playing with me? Are you having a laugh? Are you messing me about? Did you really spend your entire evening sat at this table because you wanted to know what’s in one of my blueberry muffins?’ He chuckled dourly and added, ‘I’ll tell you now, lass, the answer to that one was buried somewhere in the question.’

Trudy frowned. She could tell he was mocking her and she supposed her unorthodox behaviour did merit some level of derision. Nevertheless, she was determined not to be dismissed as a foolish blonde who hadn’t worked out that a blueberry muffin contained blueberries.

‘I recognise so many flavours in this product,’ she said quickly. ‘I can taste the organic, free range eggs. I can taste hand-milled wheat as well as blueberries and citrus zest.’ A revelation suddenly came to her and she said, ‘I’ve even worked out that those sugars that were initially confusing me are an acacia honey.’

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?’

Chapter 5

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 colours of blades and utensils had their own specific purpose. The faraway chugging and churning sounds of an industrial dishwasher squelched rudely from an adjacent room. The air in the kitchen was stained with the memory of recent cooking and the pungent tang of studiously applied cleaning products.

Trudy tried to suppress her grin as she walked around the kitchen.

Hart nodded towards the glass windows of an office. The glass door was closed and labelled with the words: Head Chef.

‘I work and watch from in there,’ he explained. ‘I can oversee the hotplates and the service windows. I can inspect everything going to front of house from my office and nothing ever leaves these kitchens without my approval.’

She knew her eyes were wide with disbelief. She was being shown around the kitchens of a three star Michelin restaurant. More than that, she was being given a private tour by the celebrated William Hart. And he was hot.

The significance of the moment was almost too much for her thoughts to process.

She was reminded of the thrill she had experienced at Christmas, as a small child, when her parents had first taken her to meet Santa Claus. Then she had been meeting someone whom she revered and respected to such a magnificent degree the man was more than human: he was a legend. She was reminded of all those thoughts and more when she looked at William Hart.

Slyly, she took a glance at him.

Outside the kitchen he had moved with the graceful confidence of a ballet dancer. Inside, he patrolled the room like a panther strutting around its lair. He moved arrogantly, his possessive hold on her fingers tightening. He pointed at various aspects of the room, explaining which chef de parties were responsible for which stations, how many commis each required, and sharing his thoughts on how well each area was working and how it could be made more efficient.

The timbre of his voice was a constant, reassuring grumble. Some of his word choices, flummox, fettle and faffing, made her wonder if she was listening to a foreign language. But each unusual word only made her curious to learn more about William Hart and everything he had to say.

As he led her deeper into the gleaming depths of the room, then through a separate doorway, he flicked another switch and revealed a further bank of polished counters, sauté burners, fridges and ovens.

‘This is the patisserie. This is where Boui-Boui’s pâtissier works.’

He hadn’t needed to explain that detail. Trudy had figured as much because this was her area of specialist expertise. The pâtissier in a commercial kitchen was usually given a separate room. Fluctuating temperatures in a typical kitchen could prove disastrous to the delicate creations being forged by those who worked with desserts.

If the air was too cold a soufflé could sink.

If the air was too hot a soft sponge could harden. Ice creams, chocolates and all manner of crafted sugar creations depended on a consistency of temperature that wasn’t guaranteed in a busy kitchen working on fish, meats and veg. The environment needed to be fully controlled to ensure the dishes being produced met the consistently high standard demanded by the pâtissier.

The patisserie was joined to Hart’s office. The glass door on this side was closed and also labelled with the words: Head Chef. Looking at the closed door Trudy understood that Hart took his role seriously and kept a judgemental eye over every item being produced in his kitchen.

As Trudy walked around the patisserie she watched Hart take an apron from a hook on the wall. He smiled slyly as he offered it to her. Trudy could see the apron was decorated with the restaurant’s logo: an appliqué of a silver spoon dripping golden liquid to form the words Boui-Boui.

She was momentarily too surprised to know how to respond.

The garment hung between them like an unaccepted challenge.

Surely, William Hart was not genuinely offering her the chance to wear one of his restaurant’s aprons? It was a day when she had graduated, committed herself to a business partnership with her best friends and since discovered a new yet familiar flavour. It was a day when she had talked baking with William Hart and been given the privilege of a private tour around his prestigious kitchens. She could not imagine any experience ever bettering those she had enjoyed so far this day.

A lewd twist of her imagination presented her with one idea that could potentially better the day’s experiences. She blushed and admonished herself for such a lurid train of thought. She didn’t know where the idea had come from but she knew it was extremely inappropriate even if it did hold a delicious, dark appeal.

Seeing her hesitation, Hart took the apron and placed the neckpiece over her head. He was so close she could detect the lemony notes of his cologne. He smelled as delectable and appetising as his own citrus and blueberry muffins. She wondered if he would taste as sweet if she were to draw her tongue against his bare flesh. The idea came from nowhere and her blushes deepened when she realised she was thinking such things.

She turned her back on Hart and allowed him to tie the waistband of the apron. He stood with his head close to her ear and she could hear the slow draw of each breath he took. She held herself motionless for fear that any movement she made might break the magical spell of the moment or reveal the wicked thoughts that were suddenly rushing through her mind and exciting wanton responses through her body.

‘Why do you want me wearing an apron?’

He whispered his reply against the nape of her neck. ‘You want to try making those muffins, don’t you?’

She swallowed.

She drew in her waist, only ever satisfied with aprons when they were cinched uncomfortably tight, and she allowed him to pull the ties and secure them with a bow. His knuckles pressed firmly into the hollow at the small of her back. Trudy knew that the deep intake of breath accentuated the swell of her breasts but she didn’t figure William Hart was likely to complain. The thought that he might be enjoying her company as much as she was enjoying his, that he might be as sexually excited by her nearness as she was by him, ignited a swell of smouldering arousal in the pit of her stomach. When Trudy released her breath it came out as a trembling and expectant sigh.

Her heartbeat was racing.

Her cheeks flushed as though she suspected he had glimpsed the wicked direction of her thoughts. She glanced at him over her shoulder. He was so close he could have been drinking in the scent of her short-cropped hair.

‘Honestly? Mr Hart –’

She paused abruptly, wondering if he was going to say, ‘Call me Bill,’ or, ‘It’s just William to friends.’ He didn’t say either of those things. Instead he considered her expectantly, as though waiting for her to finish her sentiment.

‘– are you really letting me bake a batch of muffins in here?’

He shrugged. ‘Only if you want.’

‘Why would you let me?’

He studied her earnestly. His eyes, in this light they were the steely grey of a polished kitchen counter, glinted with lightly tempered mirth. ‘You spent two hours sitting alone in my restaurant so you could have one question answered about some mysterious ingredient in a chuffing bun. You’ve shown me that you clearly know your flavours. If you were in that seminar I addressed it’s clear that some aspects of your education have been properly addressed.’

She smiled at his obvious conceit. Tilting her head arrogantly she asked, ‘It’s not because you fancied having a young blonde doing your bidding in the kitchen?’

‘That might be part of the attraction,’ he allowed. ‘But not for the reasons you’re suggesting. You’re too young and inexperienced for a man with my appetites. Even if you were older, I’m not sure you’d be able to cope with the demands I place on those who do my bidding in the kitchen.’

Her cheeks seared.

She had no idea what he was intimating but the words were an incendiary to the smouldering coals of her arousal. Her need for him had been powerful before. Now it was unquenchable.

Hart did not seem to notice her reaction. ‘Truth is, I want to see what a graduate does in my patisserie. It’d be champion to hear of any improvements you could suggest once you’ve baked in here. And I’d love to sample your interpretation of my muffins.’

Trudy nodded and came to an abrupt decision. She could think about Hart and his desirability later. For now she had a chance to concentrate solely on baking whilst she had the facilities of an immaculate world-class kitchen at her disposal.

Setting the temperature on a small oven, finding a bowl, sieve, blender and a pair of spatulas, she pointed quizzically towards a door marked PANTRY and cocked an eyebrow.

Hart nodded and told her to help herself. In his broad dialect the words came out as: Elp thi sen. Then he disappeared through the doorway of the head chef’s office. When the sounds of light jazz began to dance through the kitchen she realised he’d been picking music for them.

The jazz was cultured and sophisticated and easy on the ear: Ella Fitzgerald singing ‘September Song’. Trudy had not yet worked in a kitchen where the chefs didn’t have music playing softly in the background and she thought the sultry elegance of the jazz worked well for the chic meals that Hart’s kitchen produced.

From inside the chef’s office he called, ‘Would you care for a drink?’

‘Scotch, if you’ve got it.’

He grunted dour amusement. ‘I might be able to locate a bottle of that somewhere in here.’

She was in the pantry, willing herself not to be overwhelmed by the choices available. The air was sweetened with a million mixed fragrances. The shelves were overstocked with brightly coloured packages and clearly labelled packets. Snatching a pair of eggs, a scoop of flour and a couple of other pieces, she tripped back to the kitchen.

Her feet moved instinctively in tempo with the music.

She allowed her hips to shake slightly with the rhythm and lightly rolled her shoulders to match the beat. The rhythm was heady and exciting and Fitzgerald’s voice was always reminiscent of something exotic and sexy.

She came face-to-face with Hart, took the lowball of proffered Scotch from his hand, and twirled in a light dance as she made her way towards the counter where she was working.

Hart grinned.

The wrinkles around his eyes creased heavily making him look both older and more desirable. Trudy shut that thought from her mind, unwilling to let it run its logical course just yet. Later, she told herself, there would be time to reflect on William Hart’s desirability. Now, she had a job to do.

She sniffed tentatively at the neat pale gold that sat at the bottom of the lowball he had given her. The fragrance of quality malt was acerbic and so heady she felt intoxicated from the bouquet. It was what Charlotte called a vampire smell because, she said, whilst it was pleasing at this time of night it only ever smelled of suffering and regret on a morning.

‘It’s a Chivas Regal.’ Hart’s words sounded moist on his lips and she knew he was already savouring his own drink.

‘It smells divine,’ she muttered.

She was trying not to let herself be distracted. After pouring the wet ingredients into the bowl – eggs, honey and creamed butter – she had begun the process of sifting hand-milled flour.

‘Can I do anything to help?’

She was in a Michelin-starred kitchen and William Hart was asking her if he could do anything to help. Trudy wondered if she was dreaming. Even if she was dreaming, at that moment she decided she didn’t want to wake up. She was basking in the thrill of the experience. In future years, when anyone asked her how she celebrated her graduation, she felt sure it would be difficult not to boast about this turn of events.

‘No help needed,’ she told him. ‘I’m golden.’

It was one of the phrases that she and Donny and Charlotte used repeatedly. Charlotte had first introduced it because she was tired of saying she was OK. Donny and Trudy had picked up on it and now the word was a natural choice.

‘Golden,’ Hart laughed. ‘You are, aren’t you?’

She didn’t know what he meant by that so she let the comment go.

‘Whilst you’re working on those muffins, why don’t you tell me about yourself?’ he suggested.

‘What do you want to know?’

‘You could start with your name.’

She introduced herself as Trudy McLaughlin and told him about her lifelong desire to become a chef. She had baked in her late father’s kitchen, learning beneath his professional guidance. Trudy had entered competitions at an early age and won some prestigious local prizes. She explained about her goals and ambitions and told him how much she had enjoyed developing her skills and knowledge on a culinary arts degree. She stopped short of telling him about Sweet Temptation and the idea of building an online culinary empire with Charlotte and Donny for fear of boring him with every aspect of her life and aspirations.