Town In a Lobster Stew Read Online Free PDF

You’re very lovely in the picture.” She paused, her gaze shifting. “And that’s Cornelius Roberts Pruitt.”
    “That’s him. I was just a serving girl and thought I was invisible to him, but he sought me out the same day his affair ended with Daisy Porter-Sykes.” She paused as her gaze drifted out the window to the sun-dappled trees in the front yard. “It wasn’t hard to fall for him. He seemed to understand my . . . innocence, I guess. He was very kind to me—for a short while.”
    She sighed deeply as her gaze shifted back to Candy, who had returned to the sofa. “Our affair was a brief one. It lasted only a few days. He left the Lodge by the end of the week to return to his family, and I was left in tears.”
    Candy was mesmerized as Wilma Mae paused. She wasn’t quite sure what to say. Finally, she asked, “Did you hear from him again?”
    “Oh, no, no.” Wilma Mae fervently shook her head. “He returned to the Lodge the next summer, of course, but he seemed to barely recognize me. Or perhaps he chose to simply ignore me, since he had a new mistress by then. No, it was Mr. Sedley who saved me.”
    “Mr. Sedley? From next door?”
    “Yes, that’s right. . . . Well, he didn’t live next door at the time, of course. He was an assistant cook in the Lodge’s kitchen. After Cornelius left, I was in such a state, I couldn’t bear to look at anyone. I was so humiliated, and mad at myself for being such a foolish girl. So I locked myself in my room and refused to talk to anyone or eat anything. But Mr. Sedley rescued me. He heard I was distraught and brought me a tray with a bowl of lobster stew.”
    Now Candy was beginning to see the connection. “His own recipe?” she guessed.
    “He said he made it just for me. He knew lobster was my favorite. It was such a delicacy at the time.” Wilma Mae pushed her shoulders together in a girlish way. “I must tell you, I’d never had anyone do anything so nice for me before. He sat beside me on my bed, wiped away my tears, and fed me spoonfuls of the lobster stew. It was so romantic. Soon we were both giggling like children. I found out later that he had had his eye on me for a while.”
    “But . . . you said he was a married man.”
    “We couldn’t help it,” Wilma Mae continued, undeterred. “Sometimes nature takes its course. But that was the only afternoon we were . . . romantic.” She straightened her back and fixed Candy with a solemn gaze. “As I said, I don’t want you to think I was a loose woman. I had never done anything like it before—nor since. Cornelius and Mr. Sedley were the only two men I’ve ever been . . . intimate with . . . other than my own Milton, of course. So I broke it off quickly with Mr. Sedley—much to his dismay, I believe. He followed me around the rest of the summer like a lost puppy, but I held him off. That was his last summer at the Lodge. After he left, our lives took us in different directions. But eventually we both wound up here in Cape Willington. And then he entered the Lobster Stew Cook-off.”
    “With the recipe he created for you?” Candy asked.
    “Yes, that’s right. As I said, it makes just a wonderful stew. It’s the secret ingredient that makes it special, you know. For years he wouldn’t tell me what it was, but eventually I found out. When he first entered the cook-off back in the eighties and won with his stew, it created an instant sensation in town. Everyone wanted to make it. Mr. Sedley received a number of offers for the recipe. People wanted to pay him for it. I heard even Mr. Duffy, who ran the Main Street Diner back then, before he turned it over to his nephew, offered three hundred dollars for it. Three hundred dollars! But Mr. Sedley refused all offers. He said he would hold on to it for a while, and he continued to enter the cook-off, winning all those times. But eventually he decided to retire from the competition. A few years later he gave the recipe to me for safekeeping. He said