Christmas at Thornton Hall. Lynn Hulsman Marie

told there’d be a meal…I’ve popped about 200 of those little bites into my mouth and I’m still ravenous. All the waiters know my name and I believe their managers have given them instructions to stop feeding me. I’m like one of those seals on the flat-screens behind you, barking and clapping for morsels. Nothing bite-sized about a nice big girl like you, though, is there?”

      I raised my hand, thinking of giving him a slap in the face when I realized he wasn’t criticizing me, he was eyeballing me with appreciation. “I love a woman my height,” he said sincerely, though in fact, he was about two inches taller than I was, even in my heels. “I also like a bit of meat on the bones. There’s something cold and hard about these rich, skinny chicks.” He nodded in the direction of a pinched-looking stickbug in a gown that cost more than my car, whom I took to be his ladyfriend. “Like bedding down with a bicycle.”

      Despite myself, I relaxed and took him in. Nice smile, slim, in a well-cut suit with crisp white shirt and no tie, Gucci loafers, hair thinning a bit on top but appropriately cut, very short with perfectly fashionable sideburns, and…his eyes. One was brown and the other was blue. I’d never seen anything like it except once in an Australian herding dog and I couldn’t stop staring.

      He leaned in and whispered, “I’d kill for a massive plate of pasta bolognese, smothered with an unseemly amount of grated Parmesan cheese.” Face to face, he had the nerve to push his knee ever-so-slightly in between my legs. Looking back on it, it wasn’t exactly a promising start if I was looking for a stable, marrying type, since he was there with a date. Maybe it was all the French wine, or possibly the residual humming in my cells left over from the electricity between Jasper Roth and me. Or, maybe a small part of me had wanted a one-night stand with a powerful married man, but this seemed more honorable. None of it mattered. I looked him straight in the eye and said, “You’re in luck. I’m the best chef in London. Your kitchen or mine?”

      ****

      “Still deckin’ the halls,” Barry said to me, coming back through the entrance from the pantry to the kitchen with a fresh armload of branches. I didn’t turn around from my pot. “If you have anything that needs deckin’, let ol’ Barry know.”

      I turned around and started after him with my spoon. He swung through the oak door, quickly. That swinging door played a huge role in my life at The Hall. When it opened, there was a corner of the vast, cherrywood farmhouse kitchen table that those in the adjacent dining room and hallway – namely the family and their guests – would get a glimpse of. Whatever was on the corner of the table would signify what was going on in the kitchen. Therefore we staff “planted” items there as a comfort to our employers, a sign that all was well and under control in the kitchen.