Lady Gwendoline suddenly looked a little nervous. “It’s a secret recipe of mine.”

    Ambrose gave a little cough. “But you’ll need to share it with us. That’s the nature of the contest, of The Kitchen Front broadcast.”

“Well, I don’t have the recipe with me right now,” she snapped uncomfortably.

“You should be able to tell me the ingredients, though, if not the precise amounts.” Ambrose’s eyes pierced hers.

Suddenly fraught, Lady Gwendoline’s eyes began shifting fast around the audience. Was she looking for someone?

And had that someone helped her?

Zelda followed Lady Gwendoline’s gaze into the crowded rows. She didn’t know who she was looking for…

That’s when she saw him. Sneaking in late and sitting at the back, smug and rakish as ever.

Of all the people in all the world.

Jim Denton.

Her head swam momentarily. There he was, as real as ever, only looking impeccably tidy and respectable in a sharp suit instead of his kitchen apron. The mere sight of him made her feel longings she’d forgotten, the way they’d ripped off each other’s clothes, the softness of his supple skin under her lips, the firmness of those shoulders, the way he’d gazed into her soul…

She shook her head to bring herself back to earth.

What is he doing here?

Had he seen her photograph in the newspapers? Had he realized his mistake and come to claim her?

But then her heart plunged as she watched his eyes meet Lady Gwendoline’s.

“Money,” Zelda said under her breath. Of course, that was the only thing that was truly important to Jim.

Lady Gwendoline must have been paying him to help her cook—and probably more, if she knew Jim. And now she seemed to be beseeching him to somehow impart the ingredients of his stock.

But he only shrugged an apology, the glimmer of amusement on his face.

“W-well,” Lady Gwendoline dithered. “The usual ones, plus some yeast extract and a little malt vinegar. Salt and pepper,” she added pathetically.

    “Ah,” Ambrose muttered, his eyes flashing to the audience, taking stock of the situation. A man who had dined in as many London establishments as Ambrose would have recognized Denton’s face as the target of her stare and put two and two together.

With a stiff smile, he put his plate hurriedly back on the table to move on. “Thank you for your explanation,” he said adroitly, stepping forward to the final contestant, Zelda.

Suddenly, Jim’s eyes shifted from Lady Gwendoline straight to Zelda’s, his smile transforming into surprise as he realized who she was, what she was doing there.

But then she watched his face creasing into confusion as his eyes looked her up and down. The surprise in it had gone, replaced by a question. Was it the floral dress: a style she would never wear? Or was it the vague shadow of the bump lurking beneath?

“Now, who do we have next? Ah, Miss Zelda Dupont.” Ambrose was in front of her, but Zelda’s attention was gripped by Jim Denton. She needed to focus. After all, it wasn’t for her that he was there—he was being paid by her competitor. She needed to pull herself together.

Winning the contest and getting the job as presenter was everything.

Nagging at the back of her mind, however, was a deeper, more worrisome problem. What would he say about the baby? Would he ever want to see her again, or on the contrary, would he demand to have some say in the child’s life? More crucially, would he spread the news around her London circles?

If the BBC finds out, I’ll be out of the contest.

How she wished he wasn’t there.

“Miss Dupont?” Ambrose’s voice shook her back to the contest.

“Oh, mine is a cold-pressed pie with hot-water pastry,” she said without her usual aplomb, lifting the silver dome quickly to reveal the golden, flaky crust glowing with perfection beneath the stage lights.

    As she cut a hefty slice, the smell of pork and cold meats blended with herbs spread through the hall. Beside the pie, she dished some pickled beetroot salad.

Ambrose eyed the pie hungrily. “What’s it made with?”

“Spam and local wood pigeon,” she said simply. Her mind was frenzied, her hands shaking, her voice small. Quite unlike her usual confident self, she suddenly felt vulnerable.

A great murmur spread across the hall. Cameras clicked and people stood up to see. Although not new as such, Spam was still a curiosity.

“That’s very ingenious of you to put it into a cold-pressed pie. Spam is likely to become one of the mainstays of the wartime kitchen, with so much coming over from America.” Ambrose cut a piece off and tentatively tried it, his face evidently delighted with the result. “Are those pickled walnuts inside?”

“Yes,” she replied. Automatically, she began to list the ingredients, how she’d selected them and then cooked the pie. “I panfried the sliced Spam for a few minutes to bring out the bacony flavors. It also adds a crispness to the texture that a pie like this needs. Spam can be rather spongy if you’re not careful.”

“Indeed,” Ambrose said, eating more. “And there’s game in it, too?”

But Zelda’s attention was gone. She was watching Jim, as he watched her, replying mechanically. “I added the meat from four roasted wood pigeons. It keeps the inside of the pie firm—I couldn’t use pheasant or grouse as it’s not the gaming season. Wood pigeon is a pest, so the farmer was happy to shoot a few for me.”

She barely even noticed that Ambrose took a second forkful, nodding with satisfaction before replacing the plate and turning to the audience to conclude the round.

“I think we can all agree that tonight has been a resourceful and creative round. Now I will announce the points.”

With bated breath, the audience and contestants awaited his scores. But Zelda’s thoughts were elsewhere.

Regardless of how ardently she wanted to win the contest, all she could think was how this one, stupid, callous man—who hadn’t even cared enough to buy real pearls—had now so much say in her life. And yet, as she let herself steal a glance over to him, their eyes locked, and she felt that giddy tumble, that surge of craving. How long it seemed since she had seen him. How lonely and hard life had become. How she yearned for their connection.

    Ambrose was at the side of the stage ready to announce the scores. “This round’s winner, with nine out of ten points, is the extraordinarily heartwarming rabbit cacciatore from Miss Nell Brown. The flavors blended together extremely well, and all told, it was one of the most remarkable dishes I have ever tasted.”

Nell gave a ridiculous little bob, as if she had been thrust in front of the King George himself, too petrified to even smile. A photographer rose unenthusiastically to take a picture. In her gray maid’s uniform, she hardly looked the image of culinary innovation.

“Second place goes to Miss Zelda Dupont, with eight points for her Spam and game cold-pressed pie. I’ll definitely need this recipe for The Kitchen Front! We’re very much on the lookout for ways to cook with Spam.”

There was a round of applause, and Zelda smiled tepidly. In the audience, she saw Jim smirk.

She couldn’t wait for this wretched event to be over. Was it better to speak to him, try to convince him that everything was fine? Or was it safer to flee, avoid him, give him no further chance to observe? The longer she spent with him, the more he was bound to notice the bump, and the more she was likely to yield to his power.

And yet he gazed at her, as if mesmerized by her presence.

Ambrose went on. “Mrs. Audrey Landon, your mock chicken was simply delicious.” He gazed at her ardently. “You come in just behind with seven marks out of ten.” Audrey looked stoically into nowhere, as if her life were so destroyed that this extra blow barely made any impact.

Meanwhile, Lady Gwendoline was virtually frothing at the mouth for being overlooked thus far.

“Lady Gwendoline, I’m giving you six out of ten,” Ambrose said, glancing pointedly into the audience toward Jim. “Although using whale meat is an inspiring idea, it isn’t quite the thing to get help from elsewhere.”

    Lady Gwendoline huffed, bore impatiently through the photographs, and then strutted off the stage, threading her way toward Jim. He, meanwhile, decided that it was time for him to take a different route to see his former girlfriend on the stage.

Zelda watched in dismay as he approached, then, seizing the moment, she hurried down off the stage and vanished into the crowd. Only, just as she was making good headway for the door, she felt a firm hand around her upper arm and came face-to-face with her former lover.

“What are the chances?” he murmured, that half smile playing around his mouth.

She tried to be calm, normal. “That was precisely what I was thinking,” she uttered dismissively, trying to shrug her arm from his grip as she pressed on toward the door. “But then I realized that you’re being paid to be here, and it all slid into place.” She gave him her usual ironic smile.

“I see you came in second.”

“And I see that you came in last,” was her rejoinder.