“I thought we finished,” she stammered.
He tilted his head.“You expect all your clients to fall in love at first sight?”
When introduced to Désirée?Why, yes.Gloria did.They had seemed perfect together.
She tried to understand.“You didn’t like Mademoiselle le Duc?”
“She’s sweet and beautiful and charming,” he said.“And not what I’m looking for.”
“You want rude and unkempt and prickly?”Gloria asked doubtfully.“Perhaps you should have mentioned those requirements from the start.”
“Charm and beauty are perfectly acceptable traits,” he assured her.“But when I said willingness to travel, I had something else in mind.”
“The pudding,” Madge whispered.“If we leave it unattended, it’ll…”
Gloria sent her a flat look.Absolutely nothing would happen to the pudding.But Madge knew Gloria hated the idea of leaving it unfinished.
“Come with me,” she said to Mr.Pringle.“You may explain your revised demands as I finish in the kitchen.”
Mr.Pringle placed his hat on the rack and strode forward.
Madge immediately busied herself straightening the cushions on the far side of the parlor.
“You too, Madge,” Gloria said in warning.“Propriety.”
They traipsed into the kitchen as one.
Gloria reached for an apron.It was a strange feeling to have three people in the kitchen again.Familiar and unsettling.
He took in the disarray of ingredients spread over the prepping table.“You’re making a pudding?”
She pointed at the framed directions propped beside the bottle of brandy.“My mother’s family recipe.”
He stepped closer to investigate.
Gloria dumped dried fruits into a large bowl of suet.“What was wrong with Mademoiselle le Duc?”
“Nothing,” he said.“She was as well-traveled as you described.But she has been too long without her homeland.The moment war is over, she wishes to return and never leave.”
“I see,” Gloria said and reached for an egg.“Let me think of someone with more current desire to travel.”
He stepped closer.“I am not certain adventure is my top priority after all.I was thinking… What are you doing with that egg?”
She cracked it against the bowl and dumped the contents inside.“Adding it to the mix.”
“You didn’t measure the fruit.The recipe clearly explains the ratio of egg to dried fruits, and I watched you dump them in willy-nilly.”He pointed across the prepping table.“Have you read the recipe you’re using?”
Gloria grinned and reached for another egg.
Ignoring the recipe was part of the tradition.Each time Father sailed off, they started a pudding with whatever they found in the pantry.
Imagination was more important than memorization, Mother always said.They would place their foreheads together and imagine how happy they would all be when it was time to taste the pudding.No matter how it turned out.
“I’ll fetch another apron,” Madge said, and slipped out of the kitchen.
Gloria doubted Mr.Pringle had that much interest in her family pudding.
“If not a travel partner,” she said as she dumped another egg into the bowl, “what is your new priority?”
