The Blackmail Blend

by Livia Day

  Probably for the best. I hadn’t worked out what all of the commands did on my new mobile phone. My other flatmate, Ceege, had loaded up Nancy Sinatra’s ‘These Boots Are Made For Walking’ as my ring tone, but he stopped helping when I told him that Pinterest was better than Tumblr, and no one cares about Livejournal any more.

  Hey, I’ve been waiting for a social media platform that is mostly about cool recipes and vintage clothes, and now they’ve invented it, who needs literally anything else?

  Maybe it was bad to be so dependent on someone else for my technology. On the other hand, Ceege didn’t know how to change the blades on my Wonder Whisk and once actually burned water on the stove, so I still had a few things to feel superior about.

  ‘Weren’t you on a date with my brother?’ Xanthippe called after me as I went into the living room. ‘Still not sleeping over?’

  ‘We’re taking it slow,’ I said, doing my best not to pronounce the word as ‘slooooooow’.

  ‘Not that I want to know the sordid details—’

  ‘There are no sordid details,’ I sighed. More’s the pity.

  ‘But if you need a helpful chat about the birds and the bees, I want you to know that I think of you as a sister already and I can point you to some very informative websites.’

  ‘I will kill you dead if you don’t shut up right now.’

  I looked up the number and called Beatrice Wilde. She was willing to pay twice my usual catering fee for me to open Café La Femme on Sunday, against my usual practice, and that was worth a little after hours annoyance. Added benefit: a distraction from the annoyance that I actually lived with.

  ‘Hello, Beatrice? It’s Tabitha Darling.’

  ‘Oh sweetie, how perfectly adorable of you to call me back.’ Even her voice sounded coiffed and perfumed. I would not, simply would not enquire about the history she shared with Stewart, he of the grunge T-shirts and just-fell-out-of-bed hair.

  Maybe all romance novelists secretly dressed like slobs on their days off. She could be answering the phone in bunny slippers and a One Direction onesie.

  ‘I have a draft of the menu for next Sunday…’ I began, but my client hadn’t left three messages in order to listen to anything I had to say.

  ‘Sweetie, I’m terribly sorry I can’t make our meeting tomorrow, but this bush workshop retreat is just on fire, I can’t tell you how well the work is going, and I can’t possibly slip away, the ducklings need me desperately.’

  Beatrice Wilde was one of the hottest romance writers in Australia, and famously generous with her time when it came to encouraging newbies. She ran rural retreats all over the country, to help the baby students polish their manuscripts.

  I’d done some research before taking on this job, and found nothing but praise for her in the magazines, the writer forums and the book blogs. Her students took working with her as a badge of pride, and all referred to her as Queen Beatie.

  ‘Email me the menu by tomorrow, sweetie,’ she continued. ‘You have my requirements, all my allergens.’

  ‘Yep, got it.’ No strawberries, kiwi fruit or nuts. Which made high tea something of a minefield, but at least I was allowed both dairy and gluten. Making perfect crumbly scones without either of those things is possible, but depressing.

  ‘Vegan and vegetarian options, of course,’ she went on. ‘My ducklings are so sensitive. I also believe one of them is highly allergic to shellfish…’

  There went my potted shrimp.

  ‘…but I adore it, so she’ll have to sit outside. The press will be here, of course, and one of my students will give a speech about me and my new book. They all wanted to, so I’m letting them compete for the privilege. Such fun!’

  Maybe she was truly beloved by her students, but I was starting to get a sense for what Stewart had been on about, too. ‘I’ve ordered the—’

  ‘Now, you have ordered the tea for me? It must be the Queen Beatie Blend from Own Your Leaf in the Blue Mountains. I only drink my own blend, and I insist that my guests do also.’

  I winced a little. ‘I spoke to the tea maker this week and she assured me it will arrive in time…’

  ‘Leaf designer, sweetie, let’s not be coarse.’

  ‘It’s all under control,’ I said firmly. ‘I hope your retreat goes well, Beatrice, and I’ll see you next Sunday.’

  ‘Call me Beatie, sweetie.’

  ‘Everything will be exactly as you ordered it. I promise.’

  I was not in the best mood when I returned to the kitchen.

  ‘Rough job?’ Xanthippe asked, blowing on her nails to dry the new polish on them. On her laptop, women with big hair were screaming at each other about what good friends they were.

  ‘The customer is always right,’ I sighed. ‘Even when she’s a right cow. Still, it’s only one day.’

  ‘If you stuff it up, you’ll never have to see her again,’ said Xanthippe, almost looking interested. She paused the show. ‘I’d be willing to come myself if I can serve tea and sabotage.’

  I was about to make myself a cup of my Tabitha tea, but the thought of Queen Beatie and her Leaf Designer made me feel like a diva. I made hot chocolate instead. Damn her, she had spoiled it. ‘No sabotage. But if you’re willing to dress as Mr Darcy, I will pay you time and a half.’

  ‘As a partner in the business, doesn’t that mean I’d be paying myself?’ Xanthippe mused.

  Technically, she’s my business partner. My financial backer gave her a hefty percentage of the café in the hopes that she’d forgive him for crashing her favourite car, and maybe sleep with him again someday. Unfortunately, she’s a disaster in the kitchen AND at the coffee machine.

  Most of her skills involve violence and PR. The only benefit to bringing her on board with the Regency Romance High Tea was that she would seriously rock the Mr Darcy breeches. She’s almost as tall, dark and handsome as her brother and with my two best waitresses refusing to work on their usual day off, I was desperate.

  ‘Can I say bitchy things about Queen Beatie and her Brigade of Bodacious Bodice-ripping Bookworms?’ Xanthippe mused, still negotiating.

  ‘Only in the kitchen where no one can hear you. I know she’s high maintenance, but you seriously can’t say anything against the woman in the presence of her fans and her students. They think she’s the Patron Saint of Romance, and if they hear any lack of respect, they might cut you.’

  ‘Paper cuts.’

  ‘They’re the worst kind! Seriously, everyone adores her.’

  Except Stewart. I was going to have to investigate that. No, no I wasn’t. Because, no more sleuthing, no more mysteries. I had promised myself.

  Cake, not crime solving. Cake almost never gets you killed.

  So I says: ‘My dear if you could give me a cup of tea to clear my muddle of a head I should better understand your affairs.’ And we had the tea and the affairs too…

  "Mrs. Lirriper's Legacy," Household Words, Charles Dickens and others

  It was the night before the Regency high tea. I’d been testing recipes and prepping for hours. My brain was already about to explode in a fireworks display of tiny cakes and paper-thin sandwiches, and then it happened.

  My research unearthed a devastating historical detail that made me want to set fire to my collection of homemade jams and chutneys.

  Bishop was working a night shift (I think he’d switched schedules to make sure I didn’t trick him into Mr Darcying up), Xanthippe was dancing her feet off at a club somewhere. Ceege was at his girlfriend’s place…

  None of them were my first choice to vent at, anyway. There was one person I wanted to bounce my rage and frustration off, and he had a Scottish accent.

  When not writing steamy romance novels, Stewart worked in the office above my café, as a professional blogger. Their remit was to capture the cool, weird and quirky corners of the city of Hobart.

  I’d half hoped that they would blog about my Regency high tea book launch, even if Stewart himself was being an arse about the guest
of honour. But he’d been avoiding the subject all week.

  There was still a light on in the office, and I marched in there with a plate of gourmet nut-free brownie offcuts and a flask of freshly brewed coffee.

  Even when I’m in a snit, I provide snacks.

  ‘You are not going to believe what I found out!’ I announced as I stormed into the little office.

  Most of the desks were empty. Stewart sat at one end, his laptop open and a bendy desk lamp turning that corner of the office into a bright pool of yellow light.

  ‘Tabitha?’ he said, startled out of his thought process by my sudden arrival. ‘I’m working…’ Then he saw my face, and he smirked. The bastard smirked right at me. ‘Figured it out, hae ye?’

  ‘HIGH TEA WAS INVENTED BY THE DUCHESS OF BEDFORD!’ I bellowed at him. There was no one else around to be disturbed by my noise. The flat upstairs used to have a rock band living in it, but they’d disappeared on a quest to make it in L.A.

  Stewart saved his document and looked at me expectantly. His face had that twisted ‘trying not to smile’ expression that I knew far too well. ‘Aye,’ was all he said.

  ‘In 1841!’

  ‘The date isnae confirmed…’

  ‘Wikipedia says 1841,’ I snapped.

  ‘Wikipedia is no’ proper research. There’s wiggle room around the dates.’

  ‘Is it wiggly enough to explain how high tea was invented during the reign of Queen Victoria and so there’s NO SUCH THING AS A REGENCY HIGH TEA?’

  He burst out laughing, which made me want to throttle him with his own bendy lamp. ‘Sorry, I—does it really matter?’

  ‘OF COURSE IT MATTERS!’ I howled. ‘No wonder I had so much trouble finding authentic recipes.’

  ‘They did hae tea in Regency times,’ Stewart sputtered. ‘And sometimes cake. And…’ He collapsed into laughter again.

  ‘But not the whole—’ and I was so furious that I actually mimed a three tier cake stand, complete with smoked salmon sandwiches, scones and tiny miniature chocolate mousse trifles.

  Stewart was staring at me in fascination, so I broke off the mime before I got to the devilled eggs. ‘You knew all along. That’s why there weren’t any high tea scenes in your books. But Queen Beatie’s are full of them. You can’t turn around for silver service and five kinds of cake in her books.’

  Stewart shrugged. ‘She gets away wi’ it fer the same reason she gets away wi’ everything. ‘

  I sat in the nearest desk chair with so much force that it made a big ‘whoof’. ‘I wanted it to be perfect.’

  ‘Yer food’s always perfect.’

  ‘But not historically accurate.’ Stewart’s eyes slid back to his laptop screen. I could feel his interest drifting and I wanted to keep hold of it. ‘Why do you hate her?’

  That got his attention. His eyes flicked back to me. ‘I dinnae hate anyone,’ he said calmly. ‘Ye know me, Tabitha. Nothing gets under my skin.’

  Yep, that was Stewart. He was a rock. A girl could kiss him, then go off with someone else, and he wouldn’t even flinch.

  ‘She did, though,’ I said, deliberately poking at whatever the wound was.

  His face closed over. ‘She’s bad news.’

  ‘You didn't say bad news before, you said ‘right cow. That’s not like you.’

  ‘Well,’ he said, glancing at the ceiling and then back at me. ‘I s’pose … maybe there’s one or two things. Under my skin.’

  I stared at him for a moment, not entirely sure we were still talking about Queen Beatie. ‘Tell me what it is with you and her. She’s old enough to be your mother, so I’m really hoping it’s not a torrid affair … hang on, she isn’t actually your mother, is she?’

  Stewart stood up briskly, closing down his laptop and sliding it into the pale grey messenger bag that he carried slung over his shoulder most of the time. He switched the bendy lamp off with a click, so that the office was swamped in darkness except for the fluorescent light from the landing. ‘On tha’ note of insanity, it’s late. And since I’ve lost the writing flow…’

  ‘Sorry.’ I wasn’t.

  ‘…I’ll away tae bed. I recommend ye do the same, Tabitha.’ Stewart leaned in as he passed me, and gave me a peck on the forehead. As friends do. ‘Big day tomorrow.’ He took the flask of coffee off me, proving he wasn’t dead or an alien replica of himself, and made for the door.

  ‘You always tell me everything,’ I groused.

  Stewart paused at the doorway and gave me an odd sort of smile, jingling his keys to hint that I, too, should be leaving his office. ‘Believe me, this hae nothing tae do wi’ high tea.’

  My hour for tea is half-past five, and my buttered toast waits for nobody.

  Wilkie Collins.

  In the café business, authenticity is a luxury you can’t always afford. It’s more about taste and style and—most importantly—the perceptions of the customer.

  So to hell with it, I was selling my fake Regency High Tea concept as hard as I could. So far no one had pointed out the glaring historical error in the concept, and I had taken the Great Wikipedia Revelation to mean I no longer had to feel guilty about my contemporary interpretations of historical recipes.

  The great thing about catering for writers is, as long as there’s caffeine and food, they rarely complain. All of the students who had attended Beatie’s workshop retreat that week were there, gobbling like starved animals, and there were plenty of other local writers making up the numbers. The fans were represented as well—hand-picked fans who were here at Beatie’s invitation to make sure there were enough people in attendance who thought she was wonderful.

  They were all weirdly pretty. Was Queen Beatie really the sort of person who would vet her fans for general attractiveness before allowing them to come to a book event? Oh, wait, answered my own question there.

  Stewart’s beautiful mural, depicting my favourite retro pop culture heroines chatting at modern café tables, had been covered up with massive posters of Beatrice Wilde’s new release, How To Ditch Your Duke. There was a book table in the corner, with a cheerful local representative from the nearest bookshop staffing it.

  I’m not an Empire waistline kind of girl, but I was enjoying the fancy frock I had hired to go with Xanthippe’s Regency Rake breeches (there was no way she was Mr Darcy with that wicked gleam in her eye). Oh and everyone loved the tiny, delectable morsels of food on massive, tiered cake plates I had sourced from my collection of genuinely vintage old ladies. On the surface, the party was a success.

  Shame that the hostess was a monster. With a bright smile painted on her mouth and an effortless flick of her silk scarf, she went from guest to guest, making catty remarks and patronising comments. Several of her students had, at various points during the party, left to have a bit of a cry in the kitchen.

  That she had not been stabbed with a cake fork was entirely due to my discreet removal of said items once Queen Beatie made the first bitchy reference to ‘wannabe writers’ hanging at her hems in the hope of ‘scrabbling a quick buck’ from the industry that apparently worshipped her and her ability to write stories about sexy dukes.

  Never mind the cake forks, how had this woman not been eviscerated on Twitter already? She should have her own hashtag.

  It was nearly time to refresh the display of mint-and-cucumber sandwiches, crumbly scones with blackberry jam, creamy smoked salmon roulades, miniature chocolate éclairs with fragments of salted caramel, sour lemon tartlets and rhubarb-coconut macarons. I was already planning to add more shot glasses of cherry-glazed chocolate mousse to the second wave of high tea tidbits than originally planned—so many of the guests were already suffering from Trauma by Beatie, so extra chocolate was a medicinal necessity.

  I was seconds away from cracking out the Parisian hot chocolate recipe that I usually save for the first day after a break up, and Sophia Loren movies.

  A breath of fresh air. Several breaths. Gulps. I needed some serious inhaling of outside oxygen, and possib
ly an edged weapon.

  I walked briskly through my kitchen, where two of Queen Beattie’s most recent victims (her mousy assistant who had been shouted at for a solid half hour before the guests started arriving, and a forty-something mumsy type) were holding each other and sobbing.

  ‘She’s so MEAN!’

  ‘She was my HERO before this week!’

  ‘Two more days, two more days.’

  I stepped out of the kitchen door to see Stewart at one of the staff break tables I keep in the courtyard. He was deep in conversation with two arrestingly attractive people: a young bloke who looked more like a Regency Rake than Xanthippe did, and a woman with spiky black hair who was similar enough to him that they had to be related.

  The two conferred with Stewart in low, urgent tones, gesturing down at something that I realised after a moment was a digital camera. He dropped it into his jacket pocket before spotting me.

  I raised an eyebrow, letting him know I was curious.

  Stewart winked at me, said something quietly to his friends, and they separated.

  Spiky and the Rake passed me on their way back to the party, giving me the once-over. The Rake proved to be rather less rakish than at first glance, giving me only a cursory inspection, while Spiky ran her eyes up and down my dress as if she wanted to eat it.

  When they were gone, I tapped my foot and waited for an explanation. ‘So you won’t come to my tea party, but you will steal my guests?’

  Stewart came forward, his eyes warm. ‘Tabitha…’

  ‘Let’s not even pretend that you’re going to hold out on me. It will save time if you spill before I have to do something morally objectionable, like withholding your coffee privileges.’

  He sighed, and gave in as he usually did. That was one of the things I liked best about him. ‘Queen Beatie’s a massive fraud.’

  ‘What?’ I blinked at him. ‘She's a bestselling author.’

  ‘Aye, but bein’ a bestselling author in romance is a tough gig these days - yer expected tae put out a lot of titles. There’ve bin rumours fer ages that Queen Beatie steals the work o’ her students tae keep up wi’ the punishing contracts. She pressures the kids intae keepin’ quiet because she’s a fucking force in the industry, and they dinnae want tae be blacklisted by her publishers.’ He looked angrier than I had ever seen him before. ‘Gives us all a bad name, that kind o’ behaviour.’