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It all started when Milo and Rhiannon announced that they were engaged.
Well, they didn't exactly announce it, it was more that Anne Davies caught sight of the ring on Rhiannon's finger and shrieked so loudly that she knocked the last brioche off the top shelf.
Eggs jumped about a foot in the air, the bag of flour he was carrying into the kitchen slipping out of his grasp and landing squarely on his foot. He yelped and started hopping around - or rather, he would have hopped around had his foot not been pinned beneath the bag of flour. As it was, he ended up falling flat on his face.
Eggs blew out a breath that sent his hair ruffling upwards. Motherfucker.
"Oooooh my good heavens, is it true? Is it true?" she squealed, snatching Rhiannon's hand to examine the ring.
Rhiannon tried to smile gamely, although Eggs would've bet that her ears were still ringing. "Yes, Milo popped the question last night over dinner," she said, looking back at Milo.
"Yes, it was quite a production," Milo said, grinning as he came out from behind the counter to join her.
Eggs picked himself and dusted himself off, watching as the other customers gathered around to congratulate the happy couple. So Milo and Rhiannon were getting married, he thought. Well, that was - that was fantastic, wasn't it? He ought to be going over there and congratulating both of them himself, he ought to -
"So when's the wedding? Have you discussed a date?" Anne said, finally looking up from the ring.
"We were thinking the third week of June," Milo replied, his arm around Rhiannon's shoulders. "Neither of us want a long engagement, and three months should be plenty of time of time to plan a wedding, shouldn't it?"
Anne gasped. "Three months! Milo Shakespeare, there is no way on God's green earth that Rhiannon will be able to have the wedding she deserves in three months, you - "
"Actually, I was thinking about inviting one of my friends who used to work as a caterer to come and help me, if she's free," Rhiannon replied. "She's between jobs right now, if she's got the time then she'll take care of everything."
"Did you tell me about this friend?" Milo said, eyebrows raised.
Rhiannon shook her head. "No, her name's Kate Ashton, I've known her since we were in nursery school," she said. "She's amazing, she cooks, she bakes, she arranges flowers - she knows all about wedding planning, she'll be fantastic. But you need to get back to work, this wedding won't pay for itself," she said, tweaking Milo's nose.
Eggs watched as Milo dropped a quick kiss on Rhiannon's upturned mouth and then returned behind the counter.
"So - so you're getting married," Eggs stammered. "Congratulations."
"Thanks," Milo said, smiling. "Bit nervous about proposing, but I suppose it turned out all right, dinnit?"
"If you were nervous, you could've asked me to - to be your wingman or something," Eggs blurted out, then immediately felt like an idiot for doing so.
"Ah, well," Milo brought a hand up to rub the back of his neck. "Didn't want to say anything, really, in case she said no," he said, then frowned. "Eggs, are you all right? Your lip is bleeding - did you fall or something?"
"Oh, yeah," Eggs said, touching his lip. "Tripped."
"Go get that cleaned up, can't have you bleeding all over the bread," Milo said, prodding him into the kitchen.
The rest of the day went by without any more big surprises, although it felt like all of Gwynfyd came by to congratulate Milo and Rhiannon on their engagement. By the time it came to close up shop, Eggs felt like his legs had turned into overcooked noodles.
"Eggs, I can close up," Milo said after the second time Eggs almost dropped a pan he was cleaning. "Go home, you look knackered."
"But I - " Eggs couldn't finish for yawning, then wilted when Milo raised an eyebrow.
Eggs was more than halfway home when he realized that he'd forgotten his jacket at the bakery; he always took it off before he started washing up, except now that meant that he had no phone and more importantly, no keys. Groaning, he turned around and went back.
Milo hadn't quite gotten around to locking up yet, so Eggs slipped in the front door without any trouble. The door to the bedroom was open a sliver, and he could hear Rhiannon giggling - bleargh, he had to get out of here before they started anything funny, sitting unconscious while they'd gotten busy in the kitchen had definitely been more than enough for him. Except he couldn't help but overhear their conversation even as he went and retrieved his coat, their voices low but clear across the darkened shop.
"Do you really think that your friend Kate will do it?" Milo asked.
"Yeah, I think she will," Rhiannon replied. "She got laid off a few weeks ago, so she's at loose ends, and she's always talking about how she misses the countryside and wishes she could get away, she'll love Gwynfyd. And she'll do a fantastic job with our wedding, I know she will - she's a regular domestic goddess, she is. I hope I don't damage your manly ego too much, but she's a much better baker than you - Gwynfyd will love her as much as she'll love it."
Milo laughed. "I suppose that we needn't worry about us redecorating the spare room, then? She'll just move in and take over, no problem."
"Oh, she'll start picking out colors and swatches the moment she gets here, she's a bit obsessive like that," Rhiannon said. "Anyways, if the town kicked up such a fuss about our engagement, how do you think they'll react when we announce the arrival of its newest resident?"
Eggs furrowed his brow. Newest resident? What in the bloody hell was Rhiannon talking about?
"Oh, who even knows," Milo said. "Maybe Anne can destroy whatever hearing you have left, after all of her caterwauling - dear Lord, I can't wait until we can get away and have a bit of privacy, mm?"
"Why, Mr. Shakespeare, are you saying that we don't have enough privacy right now?" Rhiannon laughed, and then there was a series of sounds that let Eggs know that it was absolutely, definitely, 100% time for him to go.
***
Even after a night of sleep, Eggs still couldn't make heads or tails of Milo and Rhiannon's conversation. And so he did what he always did when he was confused; he went to the corner shop to go ask Alys.
Eggs and Alys had been best friends for as long as Eggs could remember, in the way that two kids who were roughly the same age inevitably ended up as best friends if they lived in a village of 500, where half that population was sheep and another quarter was goats. Even though Eggs didn't work at the corner shop anymore now that he split his time between the chip shop and the bakery, he still dropped in whenever he wanted to talk to Alys, since she worked there full-time.
"Hey, if Milo and Rhiannon are talking about a newest addition to Gwynfyd and their friend Kate coming and redecorating their spare room, what does that mean?" Eggs demanded, going up to the counter.
"Well hello Eggs, yes, it's quite nice weather we've been having, I'm very well, thank you," Alys said, not looking up from the tabloid she was reading.
"Never mind the weather, I don't understand why they want to change their spare room at all, or why Kate would be redecorating it," Eggs said impatiently. "And Rhiannon was saying that Kate is a better baker than Milo, and that she'd love it here, and how they can't wait to get away- "
Alys turned the page, popping her gum. "Hm," she said. "Isn't it obvious? I bet this Kate is coming to here to replace Milo as the baker, now that Milo and Rhiannon are getting married; the two of them are probably moving back to a city somewhere, it's not like anybody in their right mind would want to stick around here forever."
"I - what?" Eggs felt like he'd been punched in the stomach. "No, that can't be right, they wouldn't - " go without telling him, except Milo hadn't told him about proposing to Rhiannon, had he?
"Maybe this wedding planning for Rhiannon is some sort of audition, to get everybody in Gwynfyd to start eating what she bakes," Alys continued, speculative. "She'll probably bake their wedding cake, like as not - wouldn't do for the groom to have to bake his own wedding cake."
Eggs clutched at his hair - no, no, but -
"Oh, maybe she'll be able to make a decent pain of chocolat," Alys said, suddenly putting her tabloid down for the first time, her eyes lighting up with enthusiasm. "Instead of those flat pancakey things Milo always comes up with when he tries - "
"Aargh!" Eggs escaped out the door as quickly as he could. Well, maybe this Kate character wouldn't even come to Gwynfyd, he thought hopefully.
***
So of course the next day Rhiannon came by the bakery to say that Kate was free and that she'd be coming next week, and then of course Milo asked Eggs to help him clear out the spare room, and then of course Eggs would be working behind the counter when Rhiannon arrived with Kate.
"And so this is Milo's bakery," Rhiannon said as she pushed open the door. "And this is Eggs, our good friend - he works here five days a week, I don't know what Milo would do without him."
"It's very good to meet you, Eggs," Kate said, smiling as she offered her hand. She was a slim woman of middling height, blonde hair pulled back in pony tail, blue eyes with slight crows feet at the corners. She looked friendly, competent, practical.
Eggs hated her on sight.
"Yeah, nice to meet you too," he said, gritting his teeth.
"This is quite a cozy operation your fiance has going on here," Kate said, looking around. "Very rustic."
Rhiannon laughed. "You don't fool me, Kate - I know you're just itching to take over and change everything to your liking, don't deny it."
Kate dimpled. "I do have a few tricks up my sleeve, I'll just say that." She winked at Eggs. "I'm sure you can help me out with that, can't you?"
Eggs glared.
***
Oh, but she was a sneaky one, she was - for the first couple of weeks, Kate and Rhiannon squirreled up to plan the catering and music and venue and whatever other details had to be planned for a wedding. But Eggs was on to her, trying to lull everybody into a false sense of security.
"Quite honestly, I don't know exactly what they're working on," Milo said with a bemused expression when Eggs asked, in a completely subtle and not blatant trying-to-scout-out-the-enemy sort of manner. "The only thing they've asked me about at all is what flavor I'd like for the wedding cake."
Eggs almost dropped the tray of croissants he was carrying.
"Wait, but - she's not baking the wedding cake, is she?" he said.
"Who, Kate?" Milo raised his eyebrows. "Yeah, she offered to the day after she arrived - said of course I couldn't bake the cake for my own wedding, it wouldn't be right."
Eggs gulped. It was true, then.
"But we don't need her!" he blurted. "I - I'll bake your wedding cake, there isn't - Kate doesn't have to be involved at all, we all did fine without her before, we'll do fine after she leaves, too."
And now Milo was looking at him with an odd expression. "Eggs, that's a very generous offer, but baking a wedding cake is a lot of work," he said. "I don't want you to feel like you have to take on such a large task, especially when - "
"No!" Eggs shouted. "I'll do it, it'll be the best wedding cake ever, just you wait and see!" He inhaled sharply. "What flavors did you want for it, anyways?" he demanded belligerently.
"Well, Rhiannon and I agreed on chocolate cake, with raspberry filling," Milo said slowly. "But in the meantime, do you think you could let up on those poor croissants?"
Eggs looked down, to find that he was clutching the tray compulsively to his chest, the pastries smushed into oblivion. "Oh."
"It's all right, Eggs, we'll just tell them it's the latest fashion in Paris and they'll never know the difference," Milo said, clapping a hand onto Egg's shoulder.
Eggs heaved a sigh. With that attitude, Kate would be able to take over the bakery with one hand tied behind her back.
"By the way, Rhiannon and I will be away for the next couple of weeks, maybe three," Milo said, helping Eggs rearrange the croissants.
"What?" Eggs squawked. "What for?" She was already engineering a takeover, she'd put her nefarious plan into motion right in front of his nose!
"We need to go to London to file some paperwork with all the right agencies, and there are some loose ends that it would be better if I tied up in person before the wedding," Milo said. "Turning over a new leaf, you know. Don't worry, Kate will be here to run the shop. Rhiannon says that she's an excellent baker, and I know she'll be fine with you to help her," he said, smiling at Eggs.
Eggs opened her mouth, then shut it.
"Yeah," he said darkly. "Yeah, I'll take care of her, all right."
***
The next morning, Eggs went over to the shop to find Kate, Rhiannon, and Milo already in the kitchen, the usual assortment of breads and pastries set cooling on the counter racks.
"Okay, I think I've got it," Kate said, scrawling a note on a pad of paper. "Thanks for taking me through the morning baking, it really helped. And you usually start the morning baking at 5:30, is that right?"
"Yes, and Eggs comes by at seven to help open up - ah, here he is now," Milo said, catching sight of Eggs. "All right, then, I suppose Rhiannon and I had better get going." He picked up his bag and smiled as Rhiannon looped her arm in his. "We'll see you both in a bit!"
Kate turned and smiled at him. "Well, why don't we get started, then?"
Eggs glowered the moment her back was turned.
***
Despite his intention to stop her if it was the last thing he did, for the first couple of days Eggs dithered about what it was he could exactly *do*. Kate was still Rhiannon's friend, after all, which meant that his usual trick of using explosives was out.
But he really did have to do *something*. Kate was every bit as competent and practical as she appeared; she had the bakery humming along without a hitch.
Then the third day, Eggs came into the kitchen at seven to find Kate still measuring out ingredients, even though it was only an hour before opening time.
"Oh, Eggs, there you are," she said, looking up. "Give me a hand, would you?"
Eggs took off his jacket and put on his customary apron. "What are you doing? Are you baking something new?"
Kate nodded, leveling off a measure of flour. "I am," she said. "I decided since I got done with the regular baking a tad early, I'd try baking a batch of my signature Morning Glory Muffins," she said, gesturing at the ingredients laid out in front of her. "But I realized I still have to ice the cupcakes, so would you mind mixing everything together and popping it in the oven? Thanks!" she said, already turning away.
Eggs pulled a face at the ingredients on the counter, then stopped when his eye fell on the can of baking powder next to the flour. Wait, if her signature muffins turned out terrible, maybe it would make everybody think she was a horrible baker, and then they'd all band together and get her to leave town, Eggs thought, brightening.
And so he reached out, opened the can of baking powder, and dumped everything that was left of it into the bowl.
Finagling things so that he could get the tray of horribly misshapen muffins out onto the racks without Kate seeing took more than a bit of contortion. Eggs liked to think that all his practice at sleight-of-hand when he'd gone through his magician phase a couple of years ago was finally paying off. Or maybe it was more the agility training when he'd been practicing to become a ninja, or -
"And now what new deliciousness has Kate baked up today - oh," Anne Davies' trilling voice came to a sudden halt when she caught sight of the Morning Glory Muffins. The batter had exploded into a foam of brown batter in the oven, overflowing the muffin pan so the top had all baked together in a huge cakey thing, Eggs had had to break all of the muffins apart with his bare hands. Except after he'd put them on the tray, they'd slowly but inexorably collapsed into gritty, sandy, abject failures.
Eggs beamed at her. "They're called Morning Glory Muffins," he informed her. "They're Kate's signature pastry, you ought to try one," he said, plucking one from the tray and offering it to her.
"Er - " Anne accepted it, her nose wrinkled. "Well, if you insist." She took a bite, then her eyes opened wide. "This is actually quite good," she said, chewing thoughtfully. "Crunchy, and Kate, did you put carrot in here?" she called out.
Kate came over, her eyes widening once she caught sight of the muffins. "I - oh dear, Anne, I don't - "
"Kate, these are simply amazing, you must give me the recipe," Anne said, talking around a full mouth.
Kate looked startled for a moment, then grinned suddenly. "Yes, well, it's actually one of the currently fashionable pastries straight out of Paris," she said, steering Anne over to the bread racks, leaving Eggs gaping in their wake. "Now, can I help you with your usual order?"
As soon as Anne had left the shop, Kate came back and burst out laughing at the muffins. "I can't imagine what went wrong, they look like mud lava cakes," she said, picking one up. "Milo told me to use the Paris excuse if anything went wrong, but I didn't think I'd actually have to use it," she said before biting into it.
Eggs fidgeted as she chewed, then swallowed. "Huh, not that bad, really. A bit of a bitter aftertaste there, but - Oh!" she slapped her forehead suddenly. "I must've added too much baking powder! How stupid of me," she said, shaking her head as she swept the rest of the muffins into a paper bag, shaking it to settle the contents. "Well, no matter," she said, smiling at Eggs. "We'll just feed this little experiment to the ducks over at Rhiannon's house when we check in on her patients, won't we?"
Eggs silently fumed. Clearly this was going to take more thinking.
***
The problem, Eggs reflected, was that he'd sabotaged the baking in a way that Kate could immediately see what had gone wrong. She'd thrown out the muffins without a second thought, and really the muffins had made the situation even worse than that; Anne Davies was the most efficient gossip in all of Wales, and so now only a day later all of Gwynfyd thought that Kate Ashton was a wonderful baker.
Although it was immensely clear that Bob Richards had an interest in Kate beyond what types of pastries she could pull out of the oven, if the way he was simpering at her meant anything. Eggs shuddered as he unloaded the fresh batch of loaves onto the shelves. Really, he did still feel bad about almost-sort-of-not-really assassinating the man, but watching him make eyes at Kate was too much to handle - especially since the image of Bob dancing around in leopard-print underwear was still burned into Eggs' brain.
Eggs shook his head ferociously, trying to clear his head. Maybe he should try to figure out some way for Kate to see Bob dancing around in leopard-print underwear too, that ought to be enough to drive her away forever, he thought hopefully.
"I would just love to spend time chatting with you all day," Kate said, in the strained tones of someone saying exactly the opposite of what she meant, "but I - er, actually have some work to do in the kitchen, so - "
The bell over the door rang, and Alun Thomas stepped inside the shop. Oh, this ought to be fun, Eggs thought gleefully.
"Mr. Thomas!" Kate exclaimed, looking up in gratitude at the interruption.
Eggs watched out of the corner of his eye as Alun Thomas looked at Kate, who was futilely trying to tug her hand out of Bob's grasp, and then at Bob, whose scowl was growing ever deeper by the second.
The man might have a disturbing obsession with garden dwarves, but he was no idiot; Eggs could tell the moment the penny dropped.
"Ah, Kate," Alun said, an ingratiating smile on his face. "We haven't really had the chance to talk yet, have we?"
Eggs smirked inwardly as Kate's smile became more and more forced as the two men alternately fawned over her and squabbled at each other.
It wasn't until closing time that Kate and Eggs were finally able to kick the pair of the out; after the first couple hours, even Eggs had started to feel he was going a bit mad.
"Whew, what a day," she said, wiping her forehead. "I'm going to have to think about how to handle them, that was horrible."
Eggs grinned at her, finally feeling that things were looking up. This was fantastic, he didn't have to lift a finger for Kate to be driven absolutely batty, Alun and Bob would take care of everything.
***
Eggs came in the next morning to find Kate whistling while kneading dough, a bowl of what looked like raspberry jam also on the table.
"Er - is that also one of your signature recipes?" Eggs asked.
"Not exactly," Kate replied, rolling the dough out over the table. "Today, we're making jelly donuts," she said. "I'd hoped to make it while Milo was here so I could show him how to make them properly, but today's as good a day as any for a practice run, I think." She gestured at him to come over. "Here, let me show you how to do it, and then I can go and heat the oil for deep-frying."
It wasn't very difficult; Kate had a round metal cutter that punched out neat circles of dough. A dollop of jam on top, then another dough circle on top of that and pinched around the edges to sandwich the filling inside.
"Easy enough, right?" Kate said. "Here, why don't you make the donuts, and I'll go ahead and deep-fry them," she said, moving towards the stove.
Eggs started doing so obediently, eyeing the dough, then the jam filling. Probably the jam would be easier to sabotage, but what was he going to use? Eggs let his eyes wander around the kitchen, and then his gaze fell on the spice rack.
Cayenne pepper.
Perfect.
***
But much to Eggs' dismay, even after the donuts were done frying and finished cooling on the rack, Kate made no move to bring them out into the shop, even stopping Eggs when he tried to.
"No, no, I'm saving those for later - don't worry, I'll tell you when I want them," she said, nudging him back into the kitchen to put them away.
It wasn't until later in the afternoon when Alun and Bob shoved each other through the door that Kate finally turned to Eggs and said, "Could you get the jelly donuts from the kitchen, please?"
Eggs obeyed, and when he returned he found Kate gritting her teeth while the two men picked up right where they'd left off yesterday.
"Ah," she said, picking up one of the donuts after Eggs slid the tray on the counter. "Gentlemen, I'm so glad you stopped by today, because I wanted you to be the first to try these," she said, picking up another donut and giving one each to Bob and Alun. "Do tell me what you think," she said, "But keep in mind that the surest way to a lady's heart is through flattery!"
Glaring at each other, Bob and Alun both took giant bites and started chewing away furiously, and then their expressions … changed.
"Well, it's certainly - um, different," Alun said, gulping with apparent difficulty as his eyes started watering.
"I'm - sure that it's just the latest fashion in Paris, isn't it, my dear," Bob said, trying to smile even as his face slowly turned an interesting shade of violet.
Kate grinned at them, apparently oblivious. "Well, eat up, then," she said cheerfully. "Feel free to eat as many as you like," she said, and with that, Alun and Bob took that as their cue to stuff as many of the donuts in their mouths as possible, glaring at each other all the while.
Eggs winced, looking at the spectacle through his fingers. This was not going to be pretty.
After Alun and Bob had both bolted out the door - they had at least managed to make it out of the shop before regurgitating any of the donuts, although the sounds of them retching had lingered for a while - Eggs wheeled around to look at Kate.
"Wait, did you mean to bake them terrible donuts?" he demanded. Kate winked.
"Absolutely," she said. "Switched out the sugar for salt, added some liquorice extract too. Hopefully that'll keep both of them away for a bit." She whistled as she cleared away the crumbs off the counter.
Eggs ground the palms of his hands into his eyelids; he'd unwittingly played right into her hands. Clearly he was in the presence of a master strategist. This called for heavy duty artillery.
***
Eggs quietly let himself in through the back door of the kitchen, flinching at the door squeaking as it swung shut. The moonlight streaming through the window did mean he could see things a little; Eggs peered cautiously at the shadowy tangle of pipes beneath the sink, then back at the wrench in his hand. It couldn't be that difficult to break things, could it? He broke things all the time without trying, imagine what he could do with a bit of effort.
***
Okay, he might've gone a bit overboard, Eggs admitted to himself as he stood next to Kate, the two of them looking at the ten centimeters of water rippling across the kitchen floor.
"Oh no," Kate said, her hands at her mouth. "Quick, do you know the plumber's number? Could you give him a ring?" she said, wading across the kitchen to the sink.
"Er, right," Eggs said, although his stomach was already sinking - bloody hell, hopefully there wouldn't be any permanent damage. Mr. Dillon Morgan was old, grumpy, and seeing as he was the only plumber in town, everybody knew he didn't give a fig for hurrying to fix anybody's plumbing emergencies come hell or high water. Or rather, come hell and high water.
But apparently Dillon didn't have any other emergencies to attend to, because he showed up a half an hour later, although Kate had managed to switch off the main tap. Eggs had just finished mopping up the last of the water when Dillon finally emerged from beneath the sink.
"So did you fix it?" Kate said anxiously.
Dillon grunted. "It'll hold for now, but those are old pipes - ought to've them replaced years ago. Looks like a couple tore clear through, dunno how that happened. Like as not from rust, I suppose. Anyways, you won't be able to use the sink till I can solder a new joint in."
"Well, can you do that tomorrow?" Kate said.
Dillon snorted. "Tomorrow? What, you think I c'n pull pipes out of thin air? That'll be a special order, they don't make parts like that anymore, unless you want to rip out all the piping and put in new." He pulled on his hat and headed out the door. "So long, then. I'll give you a ring when the parts come in."
"Ugh," Kate said, massaging her temples. "I suppose we'd better put a sign up telling everybody that we'll be closed for the next few days."
Except everybody who passed by ended up ignoring the sign and coming in anyways to hear exactly what had happened.
"Oh, rubbish," Ellen Owens said after Kate explained why they had to wait to get the sink fixed. "Dillon has a whole heap of odds and ends he keeps about the place, I'm sure he can find something that'll fit. All you need to do is sweet-talk him into digging around."
Kate raised an eyebrow. "And how would you suggest I do that? Mr. Morgan didn't seem like the kind of person who could be sweet-talked."
And then, incredibly, Ellen blushed. Eggs recoiled instinctively at the image of them as a couple; urgh, the idea of Dillon Morgan in any sort of romantic relationship was almost as bad as Bob in his leopard-print underwear. "Well… since you're a baker, you know," she said slowly, "You might try baking him a batch of Scottish shortbread, he's always gone on and on about how he misses the kind of shortbread he used to eat when he was a child. Says that nothing he's tried today tastes the same, not that, ahem, anybody's tried baking it for him or anything," she says, her cheeks turning pink.
"Shortbread, hm?" Kate blinked, then laughed. "That's brilliant, I have just the thing - the trick to shortbread is using the best butter around, and I've got a few blocks of Kerrygold in the freezer. I wanted to use it to make buttercream frosting for the wedding cake, but this is more important. Eggs, what say we bake up a batch of shortbread this evening, hm?"
"Um," Eggs said, his face scrunched up as he tried to figure a way out of this. "Yeah, okay."
***
"I hope you appreciate this," Eggs said as he threw hunks of frozen butter to the ducks waddling around the border of the pond. The moment Kate had had her back turned, Eggs had gone into the freezer and shoved all the butter under his shirt before sneaking out the door to the nearest pasture. His stomach had gotten awfully cold, and he'd looked like he was pregnant. Very lumpily pregnant.
"Come on, eat it," he demanded. "You lot gobbled up those muffins the other day quick enough, now finish this stuff off." He lobbed another chunk, which happened to bean one of the larger ducks on the head. It flapped up with a squawk, then headed straight for Eggs' head.
***
"Eggs, where did you disappear to? And what happened? You look like you got pecked by an addled eagle!" Kate said when Eggs reappeared at the bakery.
"Nothing," Eggs muttered, shying away when she tried to examine his face closer. Ducks were supposed to be domesticated animals, this was bloody ridiculous. "Nothing, I'm fine, did everybody go away yet?"
"Yes, they did finally seem to get the idea of what a 'Closed' sign meant," Kate said, letting her hands drop. "All right, then, let's get to baking that shortbread," she said, opening the freezer. She frowned, then started rooting around. "I know I put that butter right here," she said.
After clearing out the freezer, then the refrigerator, then the second freezer, then combing through all of the cupboards, Kate finally gave up.
"This is terrible, that butter was really expensive," she said, Eggs shifting from one foot to another. "And now we can't - " she stopped, her expression arrested. "Hold on, how old do you think Dillon Morgan is?" she asked, her voice thoughtful. "Do you know if he lived through the war?"
"Er, yeah," Eggs said, baffled. "He goes on about, sometimes, especially if he's had a pint or two. Think he was only a kid, though."
Kate had moved back to the refrigerator and was already pulling something out from one of the shelves. "I think I know why today's shortbread doesn't taste like what Mr. Morgan remembers," she said, emerging with a yellow lump on the table.
"Margarine," she said, wrinkling her nose. "See, if he grew up during the war, there would've been rationing, hardly anything was made with butter." She started unwrapping the margarine, then sighed, a mournful expression on her face.
"As a baker," Kate said confidingly to Eggs, "This really, really hurts me."
But, unfortunately, it did the trick. One delivery of shortbread later, the pipes in the kitchen were all fixed up as good as new in a mere two days.
***
"I give up," Eggs said, flopping on the floor of the corner shop. There wasn't anybody in the shop, and it wasn't like Alys ever bothered looking at him whenever they talked, so Eggs felt free to be as dramatic as he liked. "Kate's started locking up the cupboards and the refrigerator, and she's gotten super-paranoid about making sure she's got all the right ingredients and everything. She tastes everything before it goes in the oven, there's no way I can sabotage anything now."
Alys turned another page of her copy of The Sun. "Time's up, then," she said. "Aren't Milo and Rhiannon coming back in a few days?"
"Yeah, day after tomorrow," Eggs said, glum. "Can't do anything while they're around, it was bad enough that I almost flooded the kitchen."
"Well, you still have to make their wedding cake, don't you? You can keep busy with - "
Eggs sat bolt upright. "Shit, shit, shit, shit!" he said, scrambling out the door.
***
But even while panicking about baking Milo and Rhiannon's wedding cake, there was still plenty of time for Eggs to stew over Milo and Rhiannon leaving. Even after they came back, they wouldn't say anything about why they'd gone, except the same old excuse of paperwork. But it didn't take three weeks to do paperwork, they'd probably gone flat-hunting and now they had probably had a place all picked out in Chelsea or Camden or some other silly place, Eggs thought morosely.
And so the weeks rolled by, and the next thing he knew it was the day of the wedding, the sky bright and clear. Milo and Rhiannon had decided on having the wedding outdoors, so it was a good thing the weather had decided to cooperate.
The ceremony itself was fine; several of the men had pitched in to clear the pasture where they were holding the ceremony of horse and goat shit, although Anne Davies still managed to step in it on the way to her seat, if her unrelenting shrieks were any indication. Bryn got up to recite some Shakespeare, blathering on about how love wasn't love if it ran off and got itself altered, but he was interrupted by Bran Maddox, who had been a last minute substitution for Angela Yates, who had broken out with chicken pox the night before. Angela Yates was a sweet and placid little girl who could've been counted on to scatter petals quite satisfactorily, but Bran Maddox instead seemed to think that the point of the dismantled flowers he was carrying was to use them to make spitwads. A glob of half-masticated petals hit Bryn right as he reached the climax of his declamation, which caused him to run cursing after the Bran, which left the priest to step forward and say a few words on piety and love.
Well, at least everybody clapped when Milo and Rhiannon kissed.
And then it was time unveil the cake. Eggs wiped his sweaty hands on his dress trousers, then swore silently when he realized what he'd done. Well, no matter; he'd already sweated enough in this suit, anyways. Ferrying all the pieces of the cake up to the reception table and setting it all up had been hard work, he'd been at it for hours before the wedding was scheduled to start.
"Well, Eggs? What've you got to show us?" Milo said jovially, his arm around Rhiannon.
Eggs took a deep breath, then whisked away the cheesecloth that he'd draped over his masterpiece and flipped the switch to turn on the motor.
A marzipan sheep's head began to rotate slowly, like a pinwheel; after a few revolutions, it split into several slices revealing innards smeared with strawberry jam. One of the pieces knocked into a latch, which sprung free a tiny red-headed plastic figurine attached to a wire which swung round clockwise in a semi-circle, which at the end of its journey hit a wooden skewer sticking out from the side of a cake stand bearing a frosted chocolate cake.
The cake stand spun counter clockwise, then the skewer tripped an exquisitely arranged wire so the toaster over popped up two pieces of toast, the lever springing up to trigger the release of a metal bar, which was arranged just so as to now allow the tips of a pair of pink fondant-covered shoes to push their way out of a vanilla buttercream-frosted cake, sprinkled with sparkling green sugar and adorned with icing daisies.
The tip of the right shoe nudged free a hanging mobile, the wire suspending the contraption having been twisted beforehand. Paper figures of Milo and Bjorn with fencing foils extended twirled around each other as the rod spun downwards. Finally, the rod spinning round whipped off the lace handkerchief that Eggs had carefully draped over the paired toy figures of red-headed groom kissing a brunette bride, perched atop the peak of a traditional, off-white three-tiered wedding cake.
His tricks played out, Eggs nervously looked over to gauge Milo and Rhiannon's reaction.
Both of them were gaping like a couple of landed fish.
Eggs gulped, then looked at the rest of the guests.
No, make that a whole school of landed fish.
Except then the silence was broken by a strange sound. Eggs craned his neck to see Kate doubled over with laughter, and then after a moment she fell to the ground, howling even louder than before.
"Oh my goodness, that's hysterical, Rhiannon, I can't believe that's your wedding cake," she gasped out.
With that, the entire crowd burst into laughter, collapsing into an absolute uproar.
To his horror, Eggs could start to feel his eyes stinging. Well, if they - if they couldn't appreciate what he'd done, then that was their problem, he said to himself even as he fled the scene.
***
Eggs was so lost in his own misery that he didn't realize he had company until Rhiannon poked him in the shoulder, hard.
"What? Oh," he said, turning away to concentrate on adding to the pile of grass he'd already uprooted. He'd escaped to the next pasture over, hopping the fence and taking refuge beneath an old oak tree. He gulped, refusing to look up. "I'm sorry about your wedding cake, I didn't mean to bollocks everything up," he said, downcast.
"Eggs, what are you talking about? That was an amazing cake, Milo and I are so touched that you would do something like that for us," Rhiannon said.
"Truly incredible stuff, Eggs, seriously," Milo agreed. "It must've taken you a hell of a long time to create all of that. But why are you sitting in the dirt, it'll ruin your trousers."
Eggs shrugged. "Doesn't matter, everything's ruined anyways," he muttered.
Rhiannon's eyebrows went up at that. "Really?" she said, arranging her skirts to join Eggs on the ground, despite Eggs' protests to the contrary. "Now why would you say that?" When Eggs didn't respond, she reached out and forced Eggs to look at her. "Somehow, I have the feeling that there was a reason why you decided to retell the story of how Milo and I met by using wedding cake, and I'd like to know what that reason is."
"It's because I was hoping that if you both remembered how Gwynfyd was where you fell in love, then you'd want to stay here and not go to London," Eggs blurted out, unable to keep silent any longer.
"Wait, you think that Rhiannon and I are planning to move to London?" Milo asked, lowering himself to sit cross-legged. "Why would you think that?"
"Because nobody takes two weeks to file paperwork," Eggs flared. "You must've been flat-hunting, is what I thought, and why else would you send Kate here unless - " he broke off, looking away.
"Unless we meant for her to take over as the town baker, is that it?" Rhiannon finished. She eyed him shrewdly. "Is that why you haven't been very friendly with her? Kate told me that some funny things happened in the bakery while we were away, you didn't have anything to do with that, did you?"
Eggs blushed. "I just - I just thought that if everybody thought Kate wasn't any good as a baker, then she'd go away and you would come back."
"Eggs, if you were so worried about us leaving, why didn't you come and talk to us about it?" Rhiannon said, taking his hand.
"Because - because nobody ever cares what I think," Eggs mumbled.
"Eggs, look at me," Milo says. Eggs lifts his gaze unwillingly to meet Milo's frank look. "The reason why Rhiannon and I went down to London really was to file paperwork, because I had to submit a Deed Poll to get my name legally changed to Shakespeare, and it was faster to do that in person. Registrar thought I was taking the piss out of her, I'll tell you that," he chuckled, "But I also wanted to check in with Leo to make 100 percent sure that nobody from the company would be coming after me or Rhiannon anymore, and to tie up all the loose ends on my past cases."
"And there was one other thing we needed to do in London," Rhiannon said. "I have a friend who works there as an obstetrician, and I wanted to ask her advice on taking care of the newest addition to our family, and to Gwynfyd," she said, placing a hand over her stomach.
Eggs gaped at her, utterly flabbergasted. "That's what you meant by newest addition? You're pregnant?!?"
Rhiannon nodded. "And I asked Kate to come because I knew she was a good baker, but also because I knew she'd be able to help us turn the spare room into a nursery," she said. "I never meant for Kate to stay, and she doesn't intend to."
Eggs slowly shut his mouth, his mind whirling as the pieces slotted into place. "Oh."
"And Eggs, we do care about what you think," Milo added. "In fact, you can help us with a problem right now. If the baby's a girl, we're naming her Elaine after Rhiannon's grandmother, but we haven't decided on a boy's name quite yet. If we wanted to make him miserable forever, we could name him William, of course," Milo said, grinning as Eggs pulled a face and Rhiannon rolled her eyes, "But I was thinking of Hamlet, instead."
Eggs sent him a quizzical look. "Hamlet?"
"Yeah," Milo said. "So that when you come over to babysit and take him out for walks, people can point and say, 'There goes Eggs and Ham - '"
Milo broke off to shield himself with his arms, both Eggs and Rhiannon pelting him with torn grass; the sound of their laughter drifted onwards and upwards on the summer breeze.