Rosaline Palmer Takes the Cake (Winner Bakes All #1) - Alexis Hall Page 0,15

“Just some things to remember while we’re filming.” She began to count off on her fingers. “There’ll be cameras around: try to ignore them unless somebody actually asks you a question. If they do ask you a question, try to answer it as if you’re not answering a question. Sometimes we’ll ask you to do something again—you’ll find this annoying, but suck it up, buttercups; that’s television.”

She paused for the smallest of breaths. “And finally, remember that this is a family show so get all the fucks, shits, and bastards out of your system before we turn the cameras on because you will lose me footage, and if there is one thing I fucking shitting bastarding hate it’s when people lose me footage. Fourteen hours seems like a long time but let’s be real, shitbags, this is a dozen people making cakes in a fancy house and ninety-five percent of what happens is boring as arse, so if some complete dog’s scrotum ruins our only good shot of a wobbly pie or a smashed trifle by dropping a fuck on it, I will personally feed their tits and/or bollocks into a Magimix.”

Running her gaze over the line of contestants, she pointedly made eye contact with each one of them to emphasise that she was deadly serious. “That’s all I can think of right now. But let me remind you that my entire pissing job depends on the great British public finding you lot completely adorable, so shy smiles and vapid anecdotes about your families are gold, and for fuck’s sake keep your opinions about God and the Prime Minister to yourselves. Good luck, have fun, and nobody speak to me unless they’re on fire.”

With that, she stalked away, leaving Rosaline slightly uncertain whether she should have been finding her scary or hot. At which point Jennifer’s assistant, the still-anxious Colin Thrimp, took over and they were half coaxed, half bullied into an appropriately telegenic formation before the famous people came in.

The two judges were accompanied by the show’s longtime host, Grace Forsythe, whose job, as far as Rosaline had been able to tell from watching the series, was to bring a mix of old-world erudition and basic smut to the proceedings. She was one of those performers who got away with a lot of shit you wouldn’t normally get away with by dint of being a national treasure—which was to say, she looked like your great-aunt in drag, and she liked to brag about the time she took cocaine in Buckingham Palace.

“Tallyho and pip-pip.” She beamed at the contestants like they were the scholarship class at an exclusive girls’ boarding school. “And welcome one and all to the warm, yeasty embrace of a new series of Bake Expectations. Over the next eight weeks you’ll be competing to dazzle our judges with your culinary skills in pursuit of a—may I say—rather vulgar cash prize of ten thousand pounds. And more importantly, the honour of getting to take home an engraved cake slice that says you won a thing.”

There was definitely a camera pointing in Rosaline’s direction and she hoped she was looking appropriately happy to be there. As opposed to tired, confused, overwhelmed, and wondering if she hadn’t made a mistake with those cornflakes.

“As always,” Grace Forsythe went on, “you’ll be judged by the nation’s grandfather, the edibly talented Wilfred Honey. And by the splendid Marianne Wolvercote, who has conquered the nation with her cake shops.”

“The term is ‘patisseries,’” drawled Marianne Wolvercote. She was the type of woman who could drawl pretty much anything, even words with no long vowels, and whose every gesture looked like it should have been made while clutching a cigarette holder.

“It’s still cake, darling, even if you say it in French.” Having dutifully bantered, Grace Forsythe clapped her hands like a games mistress. “Now our first round, as always, is the blind bake. You’ll be testing your—fuck, sorry, darlings, fucking fucked the fucking line.” There was a moment while everybody reset. “Now our first round, as always, is the blind bake. We’ll be testing your culinary credentials today with a classic delectable that legend has it was first created for Mary, Queen of Scots. But which was actually probably invented by a marmalade company from Dundee.”

Oh, it couldn’t be. There was no way Rosaline was getting that lucky. She looked round for Alain, who, being tall, was sat towards the back, and they shared a moment of hopeful conspiracy.

“That’s right.” Grace Forsythe nodded. “We’ll be asking