“But aren’t we supposed to share a bedroom, now that we’re married?”

“Of course not,” he jeered. “That’s for poor people who don’t have enough bedrooms or servants. We, darling, live in luxury.”

Luxury. Her bedroom, like her reception room, was decorated in ivory, a room designed for a lady. It overlooked the back of the house, the fountain in the center of the rose garden, the valley and wood beyond.

She had everything she could ever have wanted. At the shake of a little silver bell, a servant would appear. If they were not able to help, then Sir Strickland’s team of business assistants, a stream of frosty, suited men, could step in. They let her know what duties she had to perform for the week. Otherwise, her life was her own.

    As he constantly reminded her, he was busy with business and, since the war began, his role in the Ministry of Agriculture. He was often in London, where he would stay at his gentlemen’s club. At first, she had found it lonely without him, but now it was easier when he wasn’t there.

Loneliness was less antagonistic, less hurtful.

Lady Gwendoline didn’t want to think about it, so she briskly perched on the stool before her dressing table and tidied her hair. The new chef was coming for a meeting at eleven that morning. She had to be ready, on her very best form.

Some might consider it cheating, bringing in an outside professional. Yet there was nothing in the rules stipulating that help could not be sought—not that any rules had been properly published.

“Surely,” she mused, “it’s only natural that a busy woman like me should seek assistance.”

Which was why, when he was late, she glanced impatiently at the carriage clock in her private reception room, pacing in front of the great terrace windows. One of the doors was open, the white curtain billowing out in the breeze, and she suddenly felt a strange yearning to run home to the raw nature of her childhood home, chasing through the wood with Audrey, leaping from stone to stone across the trickling stream, not caring if she got wet.

The sound of the butler’s soft knock came from the door, and as he showed in the new chef, she took an intake of breath.

Before her was the most handsome man she had ever seen.

He was tall with dark blond hair and a smiling, manly face as smooth and broad as a Hollywood actor’s. His face was clean-shaven, slightly olive in complexion, giving him a health and vitality that only served to improve his look of physical—and sexual—mastery. As he walked, he exuded an animal elegance. She found her eyes flickering between his magnificent form and his dark eyes, asking herself, And this god of a man can cook, too?

“Lady Strickland? Chef James, at your service.” He took her hand, a relaxed half smile on his mouth. He knew he was good-looking—there was no doubt about that!

    “Oh, call me Lady Gwendoline.” She couldn’t help batting her eyelids. Something about him made her feel coquettish.

“What a delightful place you have. How do you keep everything up?”

The butler rolled his eyes and backed out of the room, hesitating before closing it completely as if unsure if it were wise to leave this man alone with the master’s wife.

“I explained on the telephone how the contest works, so let’s get down to business,” she said, offering him a chair at her table. It was already prepared with notebooks, pens, a small pile of recipe books, and her demonstration recipes. “We need to decide what we’re cooking and work out where to get the ingredients.”

“I quite agree,” he pronounced, and took a seat beside her.

Together they dove quickly into the recipe books. He spoke lengthily and eloquently about various suggestions, his French accent flawless and his manner amiable, and if she wasn’t mistaken, subtly flirtatious.

“I can see that you’ll want the very best, won’t you, Lady Gwendoline?” He smiled, his eyes lingering on her eyes, her lips.

Lady Gwendoline had never felt anything akin to romantic love, regarding the state in others as a kind of insanity. In particular, Audrey’s inexplicable passion for the impoverished Matthew had always felt to Gwendoline like a lot of put-on theatrics meant to butter up a man into proposing. Her own selection of Sir Strickland as her best possible marital partner had been based on reason and calculation, not some kind of irrational romantic ideal.

Yet now, as she regarded this charming, handsome chef, she felt blood race around her body, producing tiny electrical currents that made little tingling sensations. His words drifted in and out as she watched his large, manicured hands, his languorous dark eyes, his soft lips. An urge grew within her, expanding quickly into a painful longing.

“I think what you need for this next round is a dish that defines you as an haute cuisine chef. It needs to be delicate, cooked to perfection, with a sauce of subtle yet balanced flavors, and a range of textures and colors. We have to step away from the food meant for the masses, the food you create for the Ministry of Food. It has to be a high-class restaurant style, only with wartime ingredients.” He smiled that delectable half smile.

    Does he know the effect he’s having on me?

“I agree.” She half smiled back, hoping to provide a similar allure. She was older than he was—thirty-eight to his thirty-three or thirty-four—but she knew she was a striking woman, regardless of her long face. Her skin had fared well for her age, and with her fine figure and tailored clothes, she presented the picture of elegance.

“But what meat or fish should we base the dish upon?” He began thumbing through recipe leaflets. “It’s so hard to get good meat these days, especially if we have to stick to rations.”

“We’ll be penalized if we don’t,” Lady Gwendoline said.

His eyes suddenly glowed with enthusiasm. “Will we get bonus points for using ingredients that the Ministry of Food is promoting? We could do something with salt cod. There’s plenty of that coming over from Iceland, although Ambrose might be fed up with it by now.” He grinned with a new idea. “What about whale meat?”

Lady Gwendoline grimaced with disgust. “Everyone loathes whale meat. The smell is supposed to be enough to put anyone off. Surely it’s last-resort food.”

“And that’s precisely why we’ll use it. It’s incredibly nourishing, and the government is pushing it. Ambrose Hart is always talking about whale meat on The Kitchen Front. Have you ever tasted it?”

“No,” she said pointedly.

“It’s meaty, not unlike beef.”

She scrunched her nose up. “But more fishy?”

“Whales are mammals, and the meat is, well, probably more like horse or deer than fish. The closest animal would be, say, a hippopotamus.” He let out a short laugh, and she joined in.

“And you can really mask the taste?”

“We’ll make a dish that everyone adores.”

    “But how will we make it palatable?”

He lay his hand, soft and manicured, over her own slim one, his eyes glinting into hers. “I will come up with something delectable. You have to trust me.”

In any other situation, with any other man—including her husband—Lady Gwendoline would have snatched her hand away.

But as it nestled, warm and safe under the handsome chef’s dexterous hand, she silently prayed that he would keep it there for as long as manners allowed. After a few moments, she raised her eyes to meet his, holding them there. And in that moment, she felt as if he were her lifesaver, their eye contact the rope she needed to safety.

Perhaps this was what she had been waiting for all these years, what she needed. Perhaps Providence had sent Chef James Denton to rescue her from the abyss.

Perhaps this would change everything.

Nell

After luncheon was served at Fenley Hall, Nell grabbed her hat, coat, and gas mask box and made for the village bus stop on the green. She only had a few hours to spare before starting dinner.

But she had to see her.

Middleton Hospital was situated in a large Victorian building on the outskirts of the town. A young woman at the desk told Nell where to find Mrs. Quince, and she soon found herself tiptoeing down a long ward. Every bed held a woman—sometimes too bandaged to tell—with various limbs and arms in plaster. The smell of burned hair and flesh lingered.

“They’re from the Baedeker raids in Canterbury,” the nurse said. “They were overrun, so they had to send out the wounded to other county hospitals.”

The raids were named after the German tourist guide from which the Nazis gruesomely picked their targets, historic cities with cultural treasures. Nell had heard that Canterbury had suffered horrific bombings, but she hadn’t been prepared for the dreadful aftermath.