Which left Rosaline sitting looking up at Alain, still not entirely sure who the arsehole was in this situation. “I promise I didn’t mean to—”

“Let’s leave it there. Have a good evening, Rosaline.”

Honestly, it seemed unlikely she would. “You too.”

Sunday

“FOR THIS WEEK’S baketacular,” Grace Forsythe was saying, “we have a first for Bake Expectations. It’s been the bane of many a baker and the shame of many a chef. It’s something many cooks have cocked-up.” She paused for what would surely be ominous incidental music. “For your final challenge, you’ll be making a self-saucing pudding. It can be sumptuously sticky or silkily smooth, as long as when you slide your spoon inside, it drenches itself in a rich, delicious sauce. And to make it that little bit harder, you have to serve it with a homemade ice-cream. You have four hours from the count of three. Three, darlings.”

Right. Rosaline surveyed her bench of ingredients.

This was what she was here for. Well, not self-saucing puddings specifically. But baking, rather than feeling fretful, guilty, and messed up because she might have upset the man who only called her his girlfriend as part of a pissing contest with another guy.

The problem was, while the arsehole question was still a little bit up in the air, she was drifting ever closer to the conclusion it was her. It was flat-out rude to say you’d come and meet someone, and then . . . not do that. And instead, have a drink with someone else. Of course, if she hadn’t had a drink with Harry, she would still be feeling fretful, guilty, and messed up because she’d upset him on Tuesday. So all she’d really done was put her list of self-recriminations in a slightly different order.

Also, she was increasingly wondering if she hadn’t at least partly been using Harry as an excuse to avoid sex. Which was unfair on Harry and on Alain, and on, well, her. Because it had, in fact, been a crappy week. And she should have been able to say, “Sorry, I’m not up for it tonight,” and she knew Alain wasn’t the kind of guy who’d be pushy. It was just there were few things that made you feel less like a dynamic liberated woman who was in control of her sexuality than not wanting to have sex on one of the rare opportunities you might get to.

Fuck, what was she doing? She made the mistake of looking at the clock. While she’d started making ice-cream in an angsty cooking trance, she could not at all swear she’d done it right. And it didn’t help that a glance around the ballroom confirmed that everyone else, even Alain—who was always incredibly meticulous—was way ahead of her.

Oh God. This was her week. This was the week she fucked everything up, and her ice-cream exploded, and her self-saucing pudding didn’t self-sauce, and then she’d have to stand in front of the camera and say, Yeah, I got distracted because I was sad about a boy. And wasn’t that a great message to send to Amelie: Remember, darling, you can do anything you put your mind to. But if you have a minor disagreement with someone you fancy, it’ll all go out the window.

“So what have you got planned for us this week, Alain?” Marianne Wolvercote asked from the back of the room.

Rosaline, zesting an orange as if her life, or at least her position in a television baking competition, depended on it, did her best to ignore their conversation.

“Well”—Alain sounded charmingly self-deprecating as always—“as you can see, I’ve taken a step back from the herb garden.”

There came the slight clink of Marianne Wolvercote picking up a bottle. “A step back by way of an eighteen-year matured Highland single malt, I see.”

He laughed. “Yes, it would be rather a waste to cook with. But I’m serving a glass of it beside my whisky, caramel, and banana pudding.”

“You know,” said Grace Forsythe, “it’s against the rules to bribe the judges.”

“A drink isn’t a bribe,” drawled out Marianne Wolvercote by way of a reply. “It’s a courtesy.”

Her orange thoroughly zested, Rosaline juiced it along with two of its companions and began dissolving icing sugar into the mixture. She hadn’t exactly patented the idea of exploiting Marianne Wolvercote’s notorious fondness for spirits, but it did sting a bit that he’d nicked the move she’d nicked from at least two competitors in every season.

“What are you doing?” asked Colin Thrimp.

What was she doing? “Panicking. Flailing. Running out of time.”

He beamed. “I love that. Comes across as really normal and relatable. But as if you’re not answering a question.”

“Right now,” she said, too stressed to do anything other than go along with it, “I’m panicking, flailing, and running out of time.”

“Could you tell us why?”

“This ice-cream has taken a bit longer to come together than I thought it would, and I know it takes at least three hours to set. So I might take it out of the freezer and put it in front of the judges and it’ll just”—she spread her hands across the table in a way she hoped resembled melting ice-cream—“blululeuuh.”

Oh God, she was going to be Blululeuuh Girl now. Was that better or worse than Looks Good in a Pinny Girl? And maybe this was her final day on the show. Maybe blululeuuh would be her legacy.

“And the last thing you want,” she heard herself say, “is for your ice-cream to blululeuuh.”

They broke for lunch at a slightly awkward point in the baking process because the puddings had to be served hot and the ice-cream would take a long time to freeze. It was kind of the nightmare scenario—having disasters and being British about it was an integral part of the show, but if your biscuit stack collapsed or a layer of cake fell on the floor, you at least had something to put in front of the judges. With ice-cream, you had ice-cream or you didn’t, and she could all too clearly picture herself standing in front of Marianne Wolvercote and Wilfred Honey, saying, Well, I’ve made you an overcooked pudding served with nothing.

Which mostly killed her desire to sit on the lawn, eating an egg and cress sandwich and trying to make conversation with people who she needed to fail spectacularly if she was going to have any chance of getting through the week.

“It’s all right, mate.” Harry—on his way to grab a sandwich of his own—dropped a hand briefly on her shoulder. “You never know what’s gonna happen with ice-cream. You just have to stick it in the freezer and hope. It’s anyone’s game.”