by Joyce Cato
Jenny could well imagine that the majority of their visitors would be heading straight there once the dinner was over in order to top up.
She smiled and nodded as several people greeted her and then checked her watch. Dinner started at seven, and she wanted to be here to see it begin. She was anxious to pick up comments on the starter.
‘Hello, don’t recognize you, do I? You must be college, right? Or are you a new member?’
Jenny turned to find a tall, skinny young man with sandy hair and attractive large hazel eyes looking at her.
He thrust out a large, competent-looking freckled hand. ‘Ian Glendower. I’m trying to specialize in marine and freshwater presentation.’ He grinned widely. ‘In other words, if you catch a monster pike this big’ – he spread his arms wide – ‘and for once, it wasn’t the one that got away, and you want it stuffed and mounted complete with an antique or bespoke glass case, I’m your man.’
Jenny grinned. ‘I don’t fish myself, but if you’ve got a card, I’ll recommend you to anyone I come across with a spare carp going handy.’
Ian grinned and reached into his inside jacket pocket and produced a business card. ‘Deal. And I’m not proud. It could be a minnow if that’s all they can manage to hook. Times are hard for all of us these days. A pal of mine has recently taken to stuffing grey squirrels for a sad eccentric in Harrogate. He hunts the local parks for their corpses, apparently.’
Jenny shook her head sorrowfully. ‘The bankers have a lot to apologize for,’ she agreed solemnly. ‘And yes, by the way, I’m college. I’m the cook, so please, if you have any comments on the food, direct them straight to me.’
‘Right you are. Hello, gorgeous!’ Jenny, correctly surmising that the sudden appellation wasn’t directed at her, turned and saw a young girl standing behind her. A few inches shorter than herself, she had long, lush, brown hair and big bright-blue eyes. The eyes were definitely dazzlers, Jenny thought, and at the moment their lashes were batting at Ian.
‘There you are. I thought I’d lost you,’ the girl said, and glanced at Jenny with a swiftly assessing look. Since the newcomer was herself wearing a designer pants suit in a very becoming shade of copper, Jimmy Choo shoes and jewellery not to be sniffed at, Jenny quickly realized that the young girl was pricing her clothes, rather than checking out any serious competition for her man.
Jenny, in contrast, was wearing her second best, but strictly for work-use long black skirt, a faux-silk blouse in mint green, and a matching mint green, black and white short jacket. And all strictly Marks & Sparks.
Thus, was clearly not worth unsheathing her claws for.
‘This is Pippa Foxton, my fiancée,’ Ian Glendower introduced them.
‘Not until we get a ring,’ Pippa said, sharp and fast. It must have been her habitual come-back, because Ian grinned good-naturedly and took a sip from his glass of wine.
‘Don’t worry, I’m saving all my dosh for a sparkler the size of the Hope diamond. Well, the top left-hand corner of it, anyway,’ he promised her rashly.
‘Huh! Does the Hope diamond have a top left-hand corner?’ Pippa shot back, and reaching out, snitched her beloved’s strictly one free glass of wine and half-emptied it in a single, impressive swallow.
‘Here, get your own,’ Ian growled, with an even wider grin, but made no effort to retrieve his glass. Since Jenny suspected it was probably just cheap plonk anyway, she didn’t really blame him.
‘I’m not sure I qualify for a glass. Not being a—’ Pippa leaned forward to whisper loud enough for anyone within earshot to still hear her— ‘proper member.’
Ian shook his head and rolled his eyes, but Jenny noticed that he still looked around quickly nevertheless. Seeing Jenny’s curiously raised eyebrow, he shrugged. ‘I sort of smuggled Pippa in under false pretences,’ he admitted.
‘She’s not a taxidermist then?’ Jenny asked, making sure her own voice didn’t carry beyond her immediate circle.
‘No way!’ Pippa snorted. ‘I’m a baker.’
Jenny, who had decided she probably didn’t much like Pippa Foxton, found herself instantly questioning her judgement. ‘A baker? Really? What, patisserie, bread?’
‘Both. Traditional or new school, we do it all at Elite.’
‘Elite?’ Jenny asked. ‘I don’t think I know it.’
‘We’ve just started up in Leeds. We’re only a small bakery now, but we’re growing fast. We’re finding a niche market in speciality cakes – you know, divorce cakes with marzipan figurines on top with a woman or a bloke carrying a packed suitcase. Bankruptcy cakes, off-the-wall stuff. Our chief decorator has just got a commission to do a four-foot replica of a space shuttle for a rich kid who wants to be an astronaut when he grows up.’
‘Ah,’ Jenny said.
‘It’s what I’d like to get in to eventually, it’s where the big money is, but at the moment I’m at the bottom of the ladder, baking the basic sponges and all the other run-of-the-mill stuff that we do.’
Her red-painted lips drooped into a pout and she quickly drained the glass.
‘But if anyone asks, she’s thinking of taking up taxidermy and joining the club,’ Ian put in, giving Jenny a quick wink. ‘Especially if Vicki Voight or that old windbag Maurice Raines asks.’
‘Oh, Maurice is all right,’ Pippa said airily. And held up her index finger and crooked it teasingly. ‘I can easily wrap him around this.’
‘Yes, I noticed,’ Ian said flatly. ‘You stay away from him, Pip. I mean it. He’s got a bit of a reputation with women if you know what I mean, and he can be a nasty sod sometimes. Ask anyone. I might be wrong, but I think he and Vicki are having a bit of a spat right now. It’s all heated and furtive whispers, and shooting each other looks that could kill.’
‘Really? What’s it all about?’ Pippa asked avidly.
‘Sorry,’ Ian said, to Jenny this time. ‘Club gossip. Vicki’s our treasurer and social secretary – she set this conference up, in fact. And Maurice is the club chairman. And a total windbag,’ he added, this time to his prospective fiancée. ‘Honestly, Pip, I don’t know how you can bear to listen to him droning on,’ he complained.
‘You’re the one droning on right now,’ Pippa pointed out wryly. ‘Now be a sweetheart and get me some more of this bloody awful wine, will you?’
You’ll be lucky, Hillary thought, guessing that either the bursar or Art McIntyre had drilled the scouts to give out only one glass per member. Presumably they must have a good memory for faces? ‘Well, I need to circulate and see to the tables,’ Jenny said. ‘I’m the cook,’ she added, as Pippa gave her a somewhat startled look.
‘Oh! Sorry, I thought you were a stuffer.’
Jenny blinked, quickly got the reference and smiled. ‘No, I don’t stuff dead things with cotton wool: I stuff live people with good food!’
‘We don’t use cotton wool,’ Ian said, and Pippa made a theatrical grab for Jenny’s arm.
‘Quick, make a dash for it before he starts to tell you all the gory details of what the stuffers do use!’
Ian laughed, Jenny smiled obligingly, disentangled her arm, and left the pair to it.
She supposed they made an attractive enough couple, but something about both of them had rubbed her slightly up the wrong way. Telling herself not to be such a grouch, she checked the centrepieces and couldn’t find any stray fallen petals or out-of-kilter white candles.
Good.
Her eyes did find those of a handsome man of around thirty, however, who was standing just inside the entrance. He was over six feet, with dark hair and chocolate brown eyes and she saw his gaze sweep across hers and start to move on, then widen slightly, and come back for a second look.
It was a circumstance that Jenny was used to. She knew she was a striking presence, being overly curvaceous by modern tastes, and that men found themselves unexpectedly attracted to her. She could, and sometimes did, take advantage of the confusion, if she felt like it.
Idly, she wondered if
the handsome stranger was married or already taken, which would make him a strict no-no. Then her eyes noted the time on the clock, and all speculative thoughts of a predatory kind fled. It was fast approaching seven. She needed to get to the kitchens to see the starter being plated up.
She swept from the room, moving with a fast, lithe grace that left the tall, brown-eyed, brown-haired man watching her slightly slack-jawed.
It was nearly ten before Jenny returned to hall. The first dinner had passed off without any catastrophes, and she arrived back along with the scouts serving the coffee and chocolate mints. Most people, she was pleased to note, were sitting back in their chairs, wearing that replete, satisfied expression that denoted a full and happy tummy.
People were beginning to congregate in groups as well, coffee cups now in hand, and she slowly made her way around, shamelessly earwigging for comments about the food. There were plenty of them, and all of them favourable.
Well, apart from one sad individual who clearly didn’t know how Lyonnaise potatoes should be served. It made her shake her head sadly.
All in all, however, Jenny was pleased.
She helped herself to a spare cup of coffee which weren’t rationed apparently, and found herself drawn to a loud, pontificating voice.
The owner was a man in his early fifties, Jenny guessed, with that previously lean and fit physique that was just going slightly to fat. Notwithstanding that, he was still a very handsome figure, with distinguished and lushly thick salt-and-pepper hair and a well-maintained goatee beard that actually suited his somewhat foxy-shaped face. His bright blue eyes were startlingly alert in a lightly bronzed face. Either he’d been abroad recently, Jenny mused, or he was one of those men who hit the tanning salons – or maybe the tanning lotion – regularly.
He had a captive audience comprised mostly of women, she noticed with a somewhat wry smile and, because he was obviously the kind who liked to hear himself talk, she couldn’t help but listen to what he was saying.
‘Of course Hutchings will always be one of the best. Started in 1860, by the great Victorian taxidermist, James Hutchings. His sons James, known as Fred, Walter and even his daughter Poppy followed in their famous papa’s footsteps needless to say. They’re famous for their foxes, of course, but also rare birds, shot in Cardiganshire.’
‘Now I never knew that,’ one brave soul ventured to interrupt the great man in his lecture.
‘Oh yes. Their shop was on Bath Street, and later on Corporation Street.’
‘Is this in York? Or Leeds?’ a petite pretty-but-fading blonde woman, asked, frowning. ‘I don’t recognize the names. Or have they been renamed by now?’
The big man regarded the woman with a mixture of pity, contempt and sexual interest. It immediately set the hackles on Jenny’s own back rising, but the blonde woman merely simpered and preened a bit under his, admittedly dazzling blue gaze.
‘Neither, my dear Marjorie. Hutchings were established in Aberystwyth.’
Most of the group tittered at their compatriot’s lack of knowledge.
She turned a becoming shade of pink, and said off-handedly, ‘Oh. Wales.’
‘Don’t worry, Marjorie,’ her friend, a rotund redhead in an unfortunate spandex top, commiserated with her. ‘Nobody knows more about Hutchings than Maurice here does. He’s related to one of them you see.’
‘As he will keep on saying,’ Jenny heard somewhat mutter under their breath wearily, and turned away with a grin.
‘Only distantly, alas, only distantly,’ Maurice Raines demurred modestly. ‘Of course, the thing that most people find fascinating about the Victorians is their obsession with the macabre, and Hutchings were no different. They were known for their stuffed oddities, such as a calf with two heads.’
Jenny, having heard more than enough, shuddered, and moved on. She finished her rapidly-cooling coffee and put it down at an empty table, and glanced at the plates. It pleased her enormously to see that practically every one of them was cleared. She hated to see food wasted, as a matter of principle. Especially food that she herself had cooked. It always smacked to her as less of evidence of people being on a diet, and more of an unspoken criticism of her culinary skills.
But the goat’s-cheese blueberry and citron cheesecake had obviously been a hit, since very little evidence of it remained.
‘Oh no, he’s not still going on about his famous ancestors, is he?’ she heard a woman drawl to her companion over to her right. Jenny turned, her eyes softening slightly as they spotted the tall handsome man she’d noticed earlier, talking to a well preserved, slightly dumpy woman with a mass of long honey-coloured hair, and carefully made-up greenish hazel eyes.
‘Afraid so,’ the man said. Then, spotting Jenny over his companion’s shoulder, he smiled tentatively.
Jenny, taking up the invitation, moved closer.
‘Hello. How was dinner?’ she asked, getting straight to the point.
The blonde woman started a little, her gaze going up, and up, until it met Jenny’s own, and a brief look of consternation crossed her face. Like a lot of small women, she seemed a little at a loss how to react to someone of Jenny’s stature.
‘Dinner was actually surprisingly good,’ the woman said uncertainly. ‘At these conferences, you come to expect fairly standard fare. You know, overcooked chicken and bland veggies. But for once, the hype in the brochures matched up to the reality.’
Jenny grinned. ‘Music to my ears. I cooked it.’ She held out her hand. ‘Jenny Starling, I’m the cook for the summer here at St Bede’s.’
‘Oh! Right. Vicki Voight. I’m the treasurer of our little band of brothers, for my sins.’ She smiled widely, but her eyes, Jenny noticed, looked genuinely strained.
Jenny shook hands. ‘Pleased to meet you.’
‘And this is James Raye.’
Jenny’s hand took his and held it a moment longer. ‘Pleased to meet you,’ she said. And meant it. He wasn’t wearing a wedding ring. Which, of course, didn’t necessarily mean much nowadays, but was at least an auspicious start. As was the unmistakable look of interest in those pansy-brown eyes of his.
‘Likewise. Very much so,’ he said, somewhat clumsily. ‘And the dinner, by the way, was superb. The scallops were a triumph.’
Jenny, who rather liked a bit of tongue-tied shyness in a good-looking man, smiled, her eyes sparkling. ‘Most people scorn flattery. But I’ve nothing against it, personally.’
James Raye laughed. ‘I’ll remember that.’
Jenny felt rather than saw Vicki Voight stir impatiently beside her, and she wondered if they were a couple. If so, she needed to back off.
‘Is your husband here, Mrs Voight?’ she asked pleasantly.
‘Geoff? Good grief, no. He wouldn’t be seen dead at one of our conferences.’
‘Good thing too,’ James said. ‘Or else one of this lot would have him stuffed and mounted before he knew what had hit him.’
Jenny chuckled, whilst Vicki gave him a playful swipe on his arm. ‘Don’t forget, you’re one of this lot too,’ she admonished.
‘Don’t remind me. How exactly did you persuade me to take up this hobby anyway?’ James asked, giving Vicki an arch look.
‘You were bored out of your mind, and at a loss after the divorce. Don’t try and deny it. You jumped at the chance to get out and about and meet new people.’
Jenny’s ears pricked. Recently divorced, hmmm?
‘That might be so, but I’m still not sure it’s for me,’ he said. ‘So far, I haven’t been exactly wowing my fellow taxidermists. My domestic cat was somewhat less than a triumph.’
Jenny blinked. OK. Best not go there.
‘Oh it takes practice. Years of it, if Maurice is to be believed,’ Vicki reassured him. ‘You should have seen my first efforts. But I swear that man thinks that he’s the only one who can stuff a tiger.’
Jenny blinked again.
‘One of the local wild-life parks is expecting one of their oldest tigers to die soon,
and the science department of a university in Cumbria is making noises about buying it and preserving it as a teaching aid for conservation,’ James explained, seeing her expression. ‘If they keep being poached in the wild like they are, a dead stuffed tiger is probably the only one the next generation is ever likely to see,’ he added grimly.
‘James is a bit of an eco-warrior,’ Vicki explained, a shade drily.
Jenny nodded. He probably knew her mother, then. She was probably out somewhere camped in a forest and saving some trees from a bypass. ‘And will Maurice get the commission?’ she asked curiously.
‘Oh, The Greater Ribble has been approached, along with one or two other establishments. But we’re by far the oldest and best society. We have no less than six members who own and run their own companies. We have the reputation, no doubt about it,’ Vicki said confidently. ‘And no, Maurice isn’t the only one capable of getting the commission. There are one or two others. Well, four at least, but Maurice, being Maurice, is sure that he’ll get it.’
Jenny, aware of James’s speculative brown-eyed gaze upon her, was just wondering herself how she was going to gracefully cut herself and the luscious divorced hunk free from Vicki’s orbit, but before she could come up with a strategy, Vicki suddenly came out with a pithy and startling epithet.
‘Speak of the bloody devil,’ she added, and plastered a patently false smile across her face. Jenny turned, not at all surprised now to see Maurice Raines bearing down upon them.
His eyes went straight to Jenny, his bright blue gaze running over her with obvious interest.
