and a T-shirt, Leah rejoined the party to find the table was busy with conversation and everybody had already heaped their plates. Leah quietly took the only vacant chair.
Which was between Ronan and Curtis. It would have to be.
‘Thanks,’ she murmured, when Ronan passed her a plate and napkin. She poured herself a glass of lemonade. Only Alister seemed to be doing damage to the wine bottle in the centre of the table.
Ronan fell into easy conversation with Alister, and as Curtis, Natasha and Jordan had found common ground in the belief that all software should be free, Leah’s residual bikini embarrassment began to fade.
Curtis, she discovered by listening in, was, incredibly, only thirteen, despite being six feet tall and wearing head-to-toe black Goth gear. Leah wondered at a boy quite that young being allowed piercings in eyebrow, nose and both ears, and his alternative hairstyle dangling perpetually in his eyes. Whenever he was offered anything from the table he replied with an endearing ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, fanks.’ Aside from their height there wasn’t much similarity between father and son: Curtis sandy and hazel, Ronan uncompromisingly dark.
Curtis politely helped Natasha and Jordan clear the first course as Leah brought out dessert. The sight of the steaming pudding with its accompanying chocolate sauce and fresh fruit silenced the gathering momentarily.
Alister passed around clean plates. ‘Leah makes fantastic desserts.’
Ronan turned his dark gaze on her. ‘You’re surely not baking on holiday?’
‘It’s something incredibly easy –’
Michele broke in. ‘Leah only has to look at food and it jumps around and becomes something delicious.’
‘But still.’ Ronan smiled. ‘Surely nobody works on holiday?’
‘You’re painting a house.’ Leah reached for one of the local yellow plums called mirabelles and bit into its sweet juiciness.
Ronan watched her lick juice from her lips. ‘We’re only kind of on holiday. My dad built the house when my mam was still alive and, hilariously, they named it “Chez Shea”. After she died, he and I spent a lot of time here and eventually I inherited it from him. As I’m off work for a few weeks I thought I’d come out and give it some TLC. But anyway, why does food jump around and make itself delicious for you?’
‘I trained as a chef but I work in chocolate products.’ Leah reached for another plum, her hair swinging over one shoulder.
‘She’s a chocolate taster!’ giggled Natasha. ‘It must be the coolest job in the world.’
Curtis’s eyes grew round in astonishment. He stared at Leah. ‘Seriously? You taste chocolate? For a job?’
Leah’s eyes twinkled. ‘Before you apply, there’s more to it than just scoffing chocolate down all day. I source ingredients, come up with new recipes or test other people’s. I’m lucky to possess the correct palate.’
‘So much so that when her last employer discovered she was moving to Chocs-a-million she was instantly put on gardening leave to remove her access to planned products,’ put in Michele, drily. ‘All right for some.’
‘Like teachers don’t get paid for taking the summer off?’ Leah sent her sister a sidelong look.
‘But “desk” isn’t a four-letter word for me as it is for you –’
Jordan interrupted, evidently focused on the important stuff. ‘She can make amazing cakes, Curtis. Talk to her nicely and she might make you something.’
Curtis gazed at Leah hopefully.
‘She’s on holiday,’ Ronan reminded him.
But Leah obviously recognised suffering when she saw it. ‘Maybe if we have a bad-weather day we can have a bit of a bake off. The kitchen in the gîte has a big oven and hob.’
‘Yeah! Bake off!’ gloated Jordan.
‘Bake off, bake off!’ sang Natasha.
Curtis switched his hopeful gaze to Ronan and Ronan softened. ‘Sounds as if you’re in luck.’
‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, fanks!’ breathed Curtis. ‘I like making stuff. ’Specially stuff I can eat.’
‘And we could have a chocolate tasting –’
‘I’ll get the chocolate.’ Jordan raced off towards the gîte, leaving Leah halfway through her sentence.
Ronan felt his mouth stretch in a grin, in no doubt that she’d had no intention of the chocolate tasting taking place on the instant. Catching his eye, she managed to pull her face out of its expression of dismay, giving only a small eye roll before Jordan came loping back to the table, cradling three coloured packs in his hands.
‘I’ll have to move my stash to La Petite Annexe,’ she observed, drily. She set one of the packs aside. ‘This is open and, anyway, we need only two. OK, those who are taking part in the tasting, you need to drink water and eat a little dry bread to cleanse your palate.’ Alister declared himself a spectator, Michele occupied herself with her phone, but Ronan joined Curtis, Jordan, Natasha and Leah in nibbling on crusts of bread while Leah went on. ‘I’d normally taste in quite different surroundings. A product development kitchen’s a cross between a kitchen and a science lab. It’s clean and quiet and free of other tastes and smells. But this is only a demonstration so we’ll pretend we can’t see the remains of lunch or each other.’
She picked up the first large slab, enveloped in a deep brown paper with a dull sheen. Her hands were shapely, the nails short and plain. ‘I’d normally make sure it was room temperature but France in August is hotter than I’d keep my kitchen so this has been in the fridge.’
Ronan found himself unexpectedly engaged. He enjoyed chocolate as much as the next man but his attention was more on the subtle shifts in Leah as her professional persona took over, showing itself in the confidence in her voice and body language. ‘What difference does the temperature make?’ he asked.
‘Partly consistency but mainly that over-cool temperatures hinder my ability to detect flavours.’ She gave him a quick smile. He found himself watching her mouth again. ‘So here’s the speed-dating version of how I’d assess a chocolate that’s new to me, starting with the packaging because quality chocolate usually gets quality wrapping. This looks good to me.’ She slipped a finger under the brown paper and pulled back the foil beneath to expose a dark slab of chocolate divided neatly into rectangles. ‘Of the chocolate itself, I note that the surface is smooth and free from bloom – the whitish marks we sometimes see on cheap products, those that have been around too long or stored badly. The colour’s good. The surface has a sheen which, in dark chocolate like this, lets me see other colours. It’s a sort of brown rainbow visible to the practised eye.’
Ronan inspected the slab. He saw dark brown. No rainbow. Curtis flicked him a what’s she on about? look.
‘The precision in the moulding is another sign of quality. Then I listen.’ She picked up the slab and broke off a rectangle, then broke it again. ‘It should resonate when it snaps. Hear it?’
‘Seriously?’ Curtis demanded. ‘Talking chocolate?’
Leah
