Jim was a real man, a type that she had never previously met: strong, determined, in control. As he went through each step, he taught her how to smell, to taste, to feel the subtleties of texture and viscosity. She watched with adoration as he molded, severed, and separated the fish, as he poured, dabbed, and spread the duxelles, as he closed his eyes when drawing in a deep breath to savor the warm fragrances, as if an almighty presence had lifted him to a higher domain.

    Brushing away her memories, Zelda got back to her contest starter. Taking the parcel of fish, she gently unwrapped the thin, translucent scrod fillets and, careful to not break the taut flesh, she slid her knife into it, deftly cutting out the circles.

Jim Denton had seduced her that night. She liked to think of it as a seduction, although if she were honest, she had coaxed him, dared him. Every night following, he would steal into her bed, the moonlight searing into the small, dusty space to the tune of their gasps, their mouths licking, tasting, relishing each other as if starved of a crucial life ingredient.

She had never known what it was to be loved. Her desperate childhood had made her cold and callous. But as Jim’s eyes tore into her soul, she felt her heart come alive. It was as if he could see straight into her, to the real, hurt, and lonely woman inside. It was a feeling she could never have imagined—and now one she could never forget.

She heated the milk in a small pan to poach the little piles of scrod disks.

But Jim kept meandering back into her mind, and before a minute had past, she was back in Chelsea. It hadn’t been long after the Coquilles St. Jacques evening that they’d escaped from the Chelsea hotel in the middle of the night. It was three in the morning, and she was almost asleep, warm and naked beside him in her bedroom in the attic, when she sensed him pulling away from her, the warmth of him replaced with a stiff cold air.

“Where are you going?” she whispered.

But there was a roughness in his movements as he pulled on his trousers.

“I have to go,” he said in a harsh whisper. “Go back to sleep.”

    She sat up, alarmed, jerking his arm back. “Why?” Then the panic always at the back of her mind. “Are you leaving me?”

“No, no. There was trouble today. I didn’t want to tell you. But I have to get out.”

That made her jolt up, standing beside him. She twisted his face toward hers, ignoring the chill on her naked body. “What trouble? Why didn’t you tell me? I thought we had no secrets from each other.”

He turned away from her, his chest and shoulders almost incandescent in the moonlight. “You thought wrong.”

She pulled him to her naked body. “You can’t leave me! What did you do that was so bad?”

He shrugged, a cocked smirk lifting one side of his mouth. “They say I stole some silver.”

She understood him sufficiently to know that this was probably true. “Were you going to run away without me?”

He let out a gentle laugh at her na?vety. “You’re too good for me, Zelda.” He leaned down and kissed her softly—oh so softly—and she melted into him like butter in the heat of the fire.

“No, no!” she gasped, pushing him away, furiously putting on her own clothes. “I’m coming with you.”

“You can’t. I’ll have to go underground for a while—”

“You don’t understand, do you?” she said, almost shouting at him. “I have to.”

Together they let themselves out the back door, and they were free. For a few weeks they lived in sheds, or they broke into houses and hotels, picking pockets, running and laughing. Their lives consisted of dodging and diving, fleeing and hiding, making love under the stars.

Jim bribed his way into the position of head chef in a fancy London restaurant, Le Mirage, and Zelda got a job at the Dartington Hotel, making a mockery of the restaurant’s top chefs by inventing her own superior recipes and working her way up. She took a small flat off Holloway Road, and night after night, they had escaped back to her flat, desperate to devour and be devoured. Only, as time went on, he’d turn up later, and then sometimes not at all. Gradually his possessions were being removed. Was he slowly leaving her?

    After precisely four minutes, she carefully lifted out the scrod circles. They didn’t hold their shape well, but on the whole, it was as good as it could be.

Next, she had to prepare the sauce. The rationing and scarcities had brought on a flurry of mock recipes. “Mock cream” was anything from meat fat blended with sugar to a type of cold roux sauce that sounded absolutely revolting. It was nothing like cream.

How gullible does the Ministry of Food think we are?

After some thought, she’d decided on a béchamel sauce, augmented with a little black-market cream, which had completely vanished from the shops since the beginning of the war. The combination would support the scallop rather than crush it. Using the poaching milk, she quickly whisked it up.

After the Dartington Hotel was bombed, she’d first asked and then begged Jim to find a job for her at Le Mirage. By this time, his visits to her flat were rare—he had slid through the cracks in their lives.

Finally, it came to a head. She had to find a reserved job in London quickly, otherwise she would be forced to take conscripted war work. Realizing it was her last chance, she went to the kitchen of Le Mirage to find him. If he still loved her, he would help her.

“There are no positions at Le Mirage at all, darling,” Jim replied a little too easily. “But even if there were, it would put such a strain on what we have between us.”

A pretty sous-chef hovered in the background, eyeing Zelda with a smirk.

“It wouldn’t be forever,” she pleaded. “And I thought you loved cooking with me—I thought you loved me!”

“Well, I do, but you know how tense it can be at work.” He opened his hands apologetically. “I need my own kitchen, by myself.”

She felt the ground beneath her become unsteady. “But the conscription office is trying to get me to move to some dreadful factory in the countryside.”

    He shrugged. “Perhaps it would be better if we spent time apart.”

“You said that you loved me, that we were kindred spirits.”

He laughed pitifully. “Oh, come on, darling. Everyone says that.”

The pretty sous-chef pranced up, whispered something in his ear, to which he chuckled. Then she kissed him on his neck, the stamp of ownership—if, indeed, anyone could own this man.

He glanced at her and then back at Zelda, a gesture that conveyed all that needed to be said.

And as flippantly as that, he brought their relationship to an end.

After a few distraught weeks, it crossed her mind that she might be pregnant, and following a visit to a doctor, she was surprised to find that she was almost four months along. Thus it was that, before she left London for Fenley, she went one final time to Le Mirage to see Jim, to let him know about the coming baby—to beg him to help her stay in London.

But when she arrived, he looked at her quizzically.

“I thought you’d gone.” There was a sternness to his tone.

The kitchen was busy, the sous-chef again eyeing her from the stove.

“There’s something I want to tell you.”

He took her elbow and guided her briskly toward the door. “There’s nothing left to say.”

“But—I think you might want to know.”

He glanced over his shoulder, making sure that they weren’t overheard, and then he came in close to her, a harsh sarcasm in his voice. “When are you going to get the message? You can’t come strolling into my kitchen anymore. I’m getting on with my life, now it’s time for you to be a big girl and get on with your life, too.”

With a pat on the back, he virtually shoved her out the door.

And she was left seething on the pavement. “I’ll show you, Jim Denton. I’ll deal with this problem, then I’ll be back—and a far better chef than you’ll ever be.”

Once she was down in Middleton, the little changes in her body cemented the reality of her pregnancy. It was only now, at five months, with the kicking and thrusting inside her, that she realized the baby was ruthlessly and determinedly thriving. She was going to have to face the music, give birth to it, and then quickly hand it over for adoption so that she could get on with her life.

    “And that’s why I have to win this blasted contest,” she muttered through gritted teeth, frantically whisking.

She dipped the back of a teaspoon into the sauce. It coated the spoon in velvety smoothness.

Then, she tried a little.

“Delectable,” she murmured, measuring the balance of textures: soft, subtle, silken.

Now it was time for her special ingredient: a small bottle of vermouth stolen from the Dartington. Adding just a smidgen would complete the flavor, mark her dish as a winner once and for all.

Next, she had to assemble her Coquilles St. Jacques.

Gathering a scallop shell that she’d unearthed from her kitchen supplies, she set it on a plate. Into it, she spooned some of the duxelles, then topped it with a few layers of scrod. Over that, she poured the glistening white sauce, then she sprinkled finely grated cheese mixed with breadcrumbs, watching as it delicately browned in the oven, the smell of toasting cheese filling the room.