"Loving the ye olde kitchen." The strange man stood with one leg crooked, leaning on an elbow against Lizzy's kitchen doorway. A smile blossomed on his face, packed with easy friendliness and dazzlingly white teeth. She'd never seen anything quite like it.

"Are ..." the breath caught in her throat as he looked at her face, his eyes widening slightly, and the smile got even broader. "Are you the new jester?"

He walked towards her, their gazes never parting. "I'd have one of them hats if I was a jester -- yellow and red with dangly bits hanging off of it." His voice was middling deep and confident, its strident tone suggesting he was used to talking. It was the kind of voice, she thought, she'd happily listen to all day.

"If you don't mind my asking, love, where am I?"

Is this a jest? "Shepton Castle, of course. Why would you not know where you are?"

"Massive!" He punched the air and danced on the spot. "It worked. It only bloody worked!"

Lizzy held up her hands. "What would you have of me? I am only the chef. Perhaps you need an audience with the Lord Winsome?"

"Winsome? Nice name." He grinned again and she felt something flutter in her chest. "Look, I get the feeling from the way you talk and your clothes -- they really suit you, by the way -- that the old man was serious when he sold me this time travel app." He held his hands up as though she were a highwayman, pointing her crossbow at him. "Now, I appreciate that probably made no sense to you, but take my word for it -- it's deeply cool. And since I'm here, I may as well lend a hand to the seriously fit lady in front of me."

Something tapped at Lizzy's leg and she looked down to see Raff crouching behind her -- he'd sneaked his way between hiding places to get to her. "His vernacular is quite strange," whispered the boy.

The man chuckled and she looked up to see him right in front of her. He leaned down and ruffled Raff's hair -- just like she often did. "My vernacular ain't gonna make much sense to you for centuries, mate. Not much I can do, though. My name's Darren Denny and I'm a TV chef." He held his hands up again and she decided it was a highly endearing gesture. "We'll get into that later, love." He leaned towards her and plucked the strange green egg from her hands. Their fingers brushed and his skin was as soft as deer down against her callouses. He held the item in front of her face and smiled. "This is a Cacao pod. You can use it to make chocolate, and that," he knocked it against the side of his head and pulled the strangest expression she'd ever seen, "will blow your mind, little lady." He leaned so close their breath mingled. "I'll show you how."

"I am not a lady," she whispered, staring into the blue lakes of his eyes.

"So much the better," he mumbled. "Now, show me the biggest knife in your kitchen."


*****


For the rest of the evening, Darren showed her amazing things. He hacked into the green egg, wrenching it apart with an assured twist. Inside was a web of white pith, much like she'd seen in some fruit, and suspended in it were dark seeds, or beans, as he insisted on calling them. These he spread out before the cauldron stove.

"In an ideal world, we'd leave these to dry in the sun for a few days but I can't stay that long and, if this is anything like the England I know, 'sun for a few days' is a pipe dream."

He gestured at the cauldron. "What's cooking, Granny Weatherwax?"

"Ox head -- apart from the ears and cheeks -- hooves, and the leftover bones."

He grimaced. "Awesome. I'll have to try that next time I'm on Saturday Kitchen."

While the beans dried, he asked her to get a pot of milk ready and set Raff to churning it. He asked for sugar -- whatever that was -- and settled for honey from the larder after an exhaustive discussion.

At one point, he asked if she kept any E43 Stabilising Agent in the kitchen, but his tone -- to which she was rapidly acclimatising -- suggested he wasn't serious.

They spent a long time grinding the dried beans in her pestle and mortar. "If you want to get the flavour out of anything, mash it," he kept saying. "If it's wet afterwards, heat it until the steam slows, and then mash it again." They ground over and over until what was left resembled a near-fluid consistency. He spoke of giant stone rollers that could turn the beans finer than they ever could by hand, but it sounded like witchcraft to Lizzy.

"We need hot water," he announced eventually. "Not from the ox head pot -- that would be minging. Clean water, if possible."

While Raff boiled a pot of freshly drawn well water, the two of them combined their ingredients -- cacao beans ground to a fine dust, thickened hot milk, and a dollop of honey. The result was a rich, exuberantly brown paste that smelled like quiet evenings in front of the fire, snuggled in the gentle embrace of a lover.

"Sorted," said Darren, and she couldn't help smile at his latest strange expression. "Now, you can put this in moulds and leave it somewhere cool to set, or slap some in the bottom of a mug and top it up with boiling water -- lovely jubbly." He set about doing the latter with a ladle of Raff's bubbling water and a tankard she'd provided.

"How do you know all these things?" she whispered, watching his confident movements.

He turned that sun-like grin on her. "I may be a TV chef these days, love, but I held two Michelin stars once. The Roux brothers call me one of their proteges. I was the pride of London's pastry world." He passed her the tankard of steaming liquid. "For the lady."

She giggled as she accepted the drink and hoped she wasn't dreaming. If anything, it tasted even better than it smelled, deep and complex flavours cascading across her tongue and slipping like liquid silk down her throat. Warmth spread a fluffy blanket across her chest and she took a sharp intake of breath. "That's amazing," she said.

"It's not the only thing," he whispered, before pulling a palm-sized, shiny black object from his strange leggings. He tapped at it for a moment before nodding to himself. "I been here a few hours -- better be getting back. It's been fun, Lizzy."

Something cold tugged at her spine. "You are leaving?"

"Yeah." He smiled at her -- carefree, happy, handsome. "But I'll be back again soon if I have any say in the matter. Ciao, Raff!" He waved at the boy and jogged from the room.

Raff ran out after him but turned, baffled, in the doorway. "He's gone, Miss Lizzy."

"Perhaps we dreamt him," she said, looking at the crop of chocolate on her work surface. "If so, let us hope we did not dream the flavour of this beverage."