On a whim, I followed my nose. I’d declined Evis’s offer of lunch, and now I regretted that. Avalante might be a house of halfdead, but they set a fine table despite their dietary preferences.
I passed up a pair of cafes until the aromas of fresh bread baking and fresh coffee brewing led me to a pair of copper-trimmed oak doors.
Etched in the door glass was FIELDS.
My reflection looked curious. Darla mentioned that Tamar’s family, the Fields, owned a dozen bakeries spread around Rannit.
The door opened. A round, short man old enough to be my father looked at me and smiled.
“We’re not as expensive as you think,” he said. “Did I mention the coffee is free if you try our new cinnamon buns?”
“You did indeed.” I stepped across the man’s threshold. If Hisvin had offered free coffee I might have signed up on the spot. “Angels above.”
I spoke the last in somber tones of reverence, because as Heaven is my witness I have never smelled such delights.
It wasn’t just coffee brewing. There were many coffees brewing, each with its own distinctive aroma, rich and tempting. And that wasn’t merely bread baking—yes, there was bread, but there were also pastries, cakes and pies.
The shop was small. It was done up in cherry and brass, everything clean and polished. There was a bar, and a glass-fronted case, behind which wonders rested.
Behind the bar was a brass machine that radiated heat. Wet sputters issued from it, and steam wafted up.
The small man stuck out his hand. It was covered in flour, but I didn’t care. He had a good handshake.
“Welcome to our newest café,” he said, beaming. “I’m Gordon Fields, proprietor, chef, barista and everything else. Emma. Emma, we have a customer.”
A pair of swinging doors flew open at the other end of the bar and a matronly woman with a spot of flour on her nose came darting out.
“Meet the Missus,” said Mr. Fields. “I hope you’ll forgive our unpreparedness. We decided to open a day early, but it appears the staff showed up at the wrong address, and…”
“The gentleman doesn’t care to hear about our troubles,” said Mrs. Fields. “He wants coffee. And a bun, if I know the look of a man who’s skipped lunch. Is that right, sir?”
I smiled. Maybe it was the way the place smelled. Maybe it was the way the couple didn’t draft me into the Army. But I decided I liked them.
“That’s exactly right, Mrs. Fields,” I said. “In fact, make it two buns.”
I parked my fundament on a leather-covered stool.
The Fields flew into a frenzy of motion. Mugs appeared, were exchanged after a flurry of whispers. Buns were considered, rejected and finally selected.
“Two it is, then. Might I suggest our cheese biscuit, with egg, to make up for your missed lunch? You’ll be wanting something with a bit of meat in it, will you not?”
“Perfect,” I replied.
“And the other—a cinnamon sticky, dribbled with fresh honey? “
“Just what I was thinking.”
Mr. Fields beamed. “Coffee. Now, we have seven varieties, sir. Ipswitch Black, Moorland Dark, Seaforth, Ashburn…”
“Do you have anything that tastes like Army issue?”
“That would be Ipswitch Black, sir.”
“Then give me whatever is the least like that.”
He laughed. “A fellow veteran. Ashburn is what you want, sir. With a dollop of fresh cream and two spoons of sugar.”
“Ashburn it is, then.” I smiled as the Missus heated my buns in a stove, peering in at them through the crack in the door with a fierce eye and a frown, just as Mom had done.
“I did tunnel work.” I said. “You?”
“The Sixth. Infantry.”
I nodded. We let our smiles return. Mine came slower, because it was dawning on me that this jolly little baker and his rose-cheeked bride were the aunt and uncle of the girl I’d come looking for, if not her parents themselves.
“That smells wonderful,” I said while Mr. Fields busied himself with carafe of coffee. “Your family is certainly lucky, to have a gourmet chef in the house.”
The woman smiled. “Angels, sir. I haven’t cooked a meal at home in ages, have I, Gordon?”
“No time for it, love. But we’ve not missed many meals, have we?”
They laughed. A steaming mug of coffee appeared before me.
The steam wafting up was vapor from Heaven itself.
I took it in my hands and brought it to my lips and knew, then and there, I’d be bringing Darla around before the sun set, and many times thereafter.
I realized they were both watching me.
“That, sir, is the best cup of coffee I’ve ever tasted.”
The Fields let out their breath and exchanged a smile.
I gulped coffee. I’d intended to see both sets of parents, but this wasn’t the way I’d intended on doing it. Certainly not before seeing the bride-to-be. And certainly not while enjoying the man’s hospitality.
Mrs. Fields fussed with the new brass oven and produced a pair of buns—one dripping with melted cheese and showing the edges of fresh-baked ham, one glazed and smelling of sugar.
I dug in. I kept my ears open, in case they mentioned anything about the wedding, but their talk was strictly of ovens and servings and waiters and prices.
The cheese and ham was as good as the coffee. The sticky bun, oh, the sticky bun. It was marvelous, and I knew instantly it was the twin to the bun Darla had brought me a few hours or several days ago, depending on how many of Hisvin’s carriage rides one counted.
“How was it, sir?”
“Best coffee in the Kingdom, Mr. Fields, and that’s not idle praise. Same for the buns, Mrs. Fields. Works of art, both of them.”
They beamed. Mrs. Fields took her husband’s hand and squeezed it.
“First customer is on the house,” said Mr. Fields.
I shook my head. “I’d feel like a thief if I took advantage of your hospitality.”
He started to protest but his wife elbowed him gently in the ribs and laughed. “Take his money, Gordon, we can’t make a living giving lunch away.”
He made a what-can-you-do face and quoted me a price. I counted out the coins, plopped a couple of extra ones down too.
“Now, sir, I was only joking,” said Mrs. Fields. “That’s far too much, even with a tip.”
“I’m hoping that will make what I’m about to say easier to swallow,” I said. They exchanged perplexed glances.
“My name is Markhat. I’m a finder by trade. I had no idea who you were when I walked in here, but if you have a daughter named Tamar I’m in the neighborhood hoping to speak with her.”
They both kept their composures. No reddening of faces, no sputtering. If Mr. Fields hadn’t started twisting his dishrag savagely, neither would have displayed a hint of consternation.
“And why would you be speaking with our Tamar, Mr. Markhat?”
“It’s about her fiancé, Mr. Fields. Carris Lethway. I’m sure you know he’s gone missing.”
“Wherever that scheming little bastard has gone, Mr. Markhat, he hasn’t gone nearly far enough.” Mr. Fields might be a bald, red-faced, round-bellied little baker, but a hint of genuine murder crept into his voice. “He’s broken her heart. Not that I’m surprised. Those Lethways are—”
“Hist!”
The cheerful brass doorbell rang, the door opened and a smiling blonde woman rushed in, her arms laden with bags and parcels and a tiny yapping dog in a knitted basket.
“Mum, Dad, I’m so sorry, but I couldn’t get a cab and then the warehouse was out of the good confectioner’s sugar and Mr. Tibbles got out of his basket and nearly got run over and I gave an ogre some bread,” she said, showing no signs of breathlessness. “And Lars at the second bakery says he needs more split oak tomorrow and then I remembered the turning forks, and I went back to get them but Mum had already left. Who are you? I’m Tamar. This is Mr. Tibbles.”
She thrust various parcels at her parents and let Mr. Tibbles loose on the pristine counter-top and stuck out her hand for me to shake.
She was pretty. Ten years my junior, as tall as my shoulders, with pale yellow hair and soft brown eyes that I’d have described as impish had they not been shadowed with worry. She was dressed in what Darla calls City Smart—slim knee-length brown skirt, narrow black belt tight at the waist, white blouse with pearl buttons set off with a short tan jacket.
See, I do listen when Darla talks.
My smile was suddenly far less difficult to force.
“The gentleman was just leaving, Tamar,” said Mr. Fields. “Get Mr. Tibbles off my counter and help your mother in the back, won’t you?”
“This is Mr. Markhat, dear,” said Mrs. Fields. “He’s come about the wedding.”
Defeated, Mr. Fields scooped Mr. Tibbles up and darted for the back. Tamar grabbed my hand with both of hers and held on as if she were falling down.
“You’re Darla’s Markhat. The finder. Oh, you’re just as dashing as she said, even with crumbs on your chin. Did you have the cinnamon bun, or the cheese? I think we’re putting too much cinnamon in the glaze, but Mum wants more. Darla’s Markhat himself.”
She finally let go of my hand.
“That’s me. Darla’s Markhat, in the flesh.”
She smiled.
“Is Darla here too?”
“No. She’s not. But she asked me to come and see you.” I paused, waiting for the implications of a finder showing up on your doorstep when you’ve just lost a fiancé to surface. In my experience, people want to discuss such things in private, well away from Mum and Dad and even the excitable Mr. Tibbles.
“Is she coming, then?”
Mrs. Fields sighed.
“It’s all right, dear. He knows. It’s what he does.”
Tamar deflated, just a bit.
“Darla told you?”
“She’s hired me on your behalf,” I spoke as quietly as I could. “That’s why you and I need to talk. Privately.”
Mum squeezed her daughter’s hand and glided away. Tamar didn’t look up at me at once but when she did she was smiling again.
“Carris loves me,” she said. “Whatever else people say, Mr. Markhat, you can believe that. He loves me, and I love him, and we’re going to be married, and there’s nothing anyone anywhere can do to change that. Mr. Tibbles. Come here.”
She spoke the last just loud enough to reach her father in the kitchen. There was a crash of pans, and a skittering of little clawed dog feet, and Mr. Tibbles darted through the swinging doors and leaped into Tamar’s arms.
“Shall we go, Mr. Markhat?”
Mrs. Fields was gone, and I could hear voices, not happy ones, in the kitchen.
I dropped another coin on the counter. It was the least I could do, after spreading such joy.
“Let’s,” I said. “I saw a nice little park with benches not too far off. Does that meet with Mr. Tibbles’s approval?”
The little beast looked up and me and snarled, its beady eyes mad with barely controlled rage.
Tamar laughed and closed the basket. “Don’t mind him, Mr. Markhat. The park will be fine.”
I opened the door to the merry tinkling of the bell and out we went.
Mr. Tibbles peeked out of his basket and growled at me the whole way there.
The park was tiny. It was really just a square patch of grass worn sparse and brown by people’s feet that had refused to stay on the cobblestone sidewalks despite the clearly lettered sign admonishing them to spare the grass. Four freshly painted white wooden benches had been provided, one at each corner of the square. There were so many smokestick butts on the ground Tamar refused to let Mr. Tibbles out of his basket, claiming he ate the wretched things.
This didn’t suit Mr. Tibbles at all, so we conducted our entire conversation over his indignant yips and attempts to escape from his basket.
“So, Darla has hired you to work for me?”
Mr. Tibbles poked his head out. Tamar pushed it back in.
“I’m to find your fiancé, Miss Fields. Working with you seems to be the best way to accomplish that.”
She nodded, still wrestling with her diminutive canine terror. “Well. The first thing you need to know is that my father hates Carris. Why I don’t know. Carris has been nothing but courteous since we met. Mother adores him, of course. Carris, that is, not Father, although she loves him too, naturally.”
I was glad I wasn’t trying to write this down.
“How long have you two been walking out?”
“Two years last Yule.” Mr. Tibbles launched a furious assault on the basket lid, causing Tamar to hold it down tight with both hands. A pair of kids passing by stopped and pointed and laughed. “We met at a bakery, of all places. Not one of ours. Isn’t that odd? It makes Father furious, but sometimes I just need to taste something new. And it’s good for business, otherwise, how would we know what the other bakers were doing? We’d never have known about the apple fritters, for instance, had I not wandered into Gorman’s that day.”
“How indeed? Tell me about Carris. About his family. You say your father doesn’t like him. Well, how do his folks feel about you?”
“I’m not sure they’d know me if I walked into their parlor. Which isn’t to say they have any objections to me, Mr. Markhat. They just never seemed to care much either way what Carris did, or who he planned to marry. Have you met them yet? They’re…haughty. Yes. Haughty. Old money haughty. Carris’s father was a Colonel during the War. They still act as if people ought to be throwing them parades every afternoon just for being who they are. Mr. Tibbles, stop that!”
She gave the basket lid a good thump. To my amazement, the creature within stopped struggling.
I seized the silence and lowered my voice.
“You’re not going to like my next few questions, Miss Fields. But I have to ask them anyway. I hope you understand that.”
“I’m not pregnant. We didn’t fight over money. I haven’t cheated on Carris, and he isn’t cheating on me. The wedding was as much his idea as it was mine. I know my father isn’t thrilled about me marrying Carris, but he’d never hurt a fly. Does that cover most of what have to ask?”
I lifted an eyebrow. Tamar grinned and did the same.
“I’m not as dumb as people think, you know,” she said. “I talk a lot, yes, but that’s because other people talk so little. Carris talks as much as I do, did you know that? Not to everyone, but to me. Getting married at Wherthmore was his idea. ‘We’ll kiss just as the Broken Bell sounds,’ he said. That’s how he proposed. Do you know about the Broken Bell, Mr. Markhat?”