Page 32 of Chef’s Kiss (A Knights Through Time #20)
The royal taster—a nervous-looking man whose job Rachel definitely did not envy—began his careful examination of each dish.
His face was professionally neutral as he sampled the herb-crusted venison, the delicate sauce that had taken hours to perfect, and the sweet comfits that gleamed like edible jewels.
But she noticed the way his eyebrows rose slightly at the first taste of her herb innovation, the small nod of approval as the flavors registered.
Rachel held her breath as he completed his examination, waiting for any sign of distress or suspicion. But he simply nodded and stepped back, apparently finding nothing amiss with their creation.
“Look,” Tristan breathed, his voice tight with something that might have been wonder or terror. “They serve our creation to the king himself.”
King Edward lifted a portion of the herb-crusted venison to his lips, and her heart stopped beating entirely as she watched him chew thoughtfully.
His expression remained neutral—the practiced mask of a monarch who’d learned never to reveal his true opinions in public—but she thought she caught a flicker of surprise in his dark eyes.
A small smile played at the corners of his mouth as he swallowed, and he immediately gestured for more. The servant attending him hurried to comply, and within moments, the dish was being distributed to the other nobles at the high table.
Queen Elizabeth accepted a delicate portion, her serene expression unchanged as she tasted the innovation. But Rachel caught the slight widening of her eyes, the almost imperceptible nod of approval that spoke volumes about royal favor.
Lady Jacquetta took a larger serving, her sharp eyes never leaving Rachel’s face as she lifted the food to her mouth. When she tasted it, her expression didn’t change—but something shifted in her gaze, a recognition that went beyond simple appreciation for culinary skill.
“We did it,” Rachel whispered, hardly daring to believe it.
The dishes were being distributed throughout the hall, conversations resuming as nobles sampled their work.
The sounds of appreciation began to filter through the formal atmosphere—murmurs of surprise and delight as the unexpected herb garnishes transformed familiar flavors into something magical.
“They love it,” she continued, watching faces light up with pleasure as they tasted the crispy sage, the bright parsley, the aromatic rosemary. “Look at their faces—they’re actually enjoying?—"
The scream cut through the revelry like a blade through silk.
A young lord at one of the lower tables—Sir Edmund de Clare, Rachel thought she heard someone call him—suddenly clutched his throat, his face contorting with agony. His wine cup clattered to the floor as he collapsed sideways, his body convulsing in ways that spoke of poison and imminent death.
The metallic scent of vomit mixed with expensive perfumes as his stomach rejected the food violently, bile splattering across silk doublets and velvet gowns. His eyes rolled back in his head, showing nothing but white, while foam flecked with blood bubbled from his lips.
Then another scream. And another.
Within moments, half a dozen nobles at the lower tables were writhing in their chairs, their bodies rejecting the feast with violent spasms that spoke of deadly toxicity.
Lady Margaret de Vere, who’d been laughing at some courtly jest just moments before, suddenly doubled over and vomited blood onto her plate.
Sir Richard de Beaumont fell backward from his bench, his limbs twitching uncontrollably as whatever poison coursed through his system, attacking his nervous system.
But not everyone. Not the royal table, where King Edward had risen to his feet with thunderous fury, Queen Elizabeth had gone pale as winter frost while pressing protective hands to her pregnant belly, and Lady Jacquetta was staring at the chaos with the cold calculation of someone rapidly reassessing the political landscape.
The hall erupted into pandemonium as servants rushed forward, ladies shrieked and fled, and the metallic stench of sickness mingled with the rich aromas of food that had somehow become deadly.
The very air seemed to vibrate with terror and confusion as nobles who’d been enjoying a royal feast moments before found themselves witnessing mass poisoning.
“Poison!” someone shouted over the screams. “The food is poisoned!”
The blood drained from her face as she watched the scene unfold with the slow-motion horror of a nightmare coming to life. This wasn’t possible. They’d been so careful, had prepared everything themselves, had watched the tasting...
“The herbs,” Tristan said, his voice gone flat and terrible. “Saints preserve us, it was the herbs.”
“What?” Rachel spun to face him, struggling to process what he was saying. “That’s impossible. I used sage, parsley, rosemary, nothing dangerous?—”
“Look at the pattern,” he said, pointing toward the writhing nobles with hands that shook like autumn leaves.
“There weren’t enough of your herbs, so not everyone was served.
Only those who received the dishes with your herb garnish suffered.
The royal table...” His gaze flicked to where King Edward stood unharmed, where Queen Elizabeth pressed a protective hand to her rounded belly, where Lady Jacquetta watched the chaos with eyes like winter storms. “They are unscathed.”
The realization hit her like a physical blow, driving the air from her lungs and leaving her gasping.
“They were targeted.”
Someone had replaced her carefully chosen herbs with something deadly—but only on the dishes meant for certain nobles, as if they’d been specifically targeted. The royal portions had been left untouched, ensuring that the highest-ranking nobles would survive to bear witness to the treachery.
And to point their fingers at the obvious culprits.
“Foxglove,” she breathed, recognizing the symptoms even as her mind recoiled from the implications.
The irregular heartbeat, the vomiting, the neurological symptoms—it was classic digitalis poisoning.
“Someone substituted foxglove for the sage. The leaves look similar enough to fool anyone not expecting... oh God, how much did they use?”
“Enough,” Tristan said grimly, his face carved from stone and bitter understanding.
“Enough to kill, but not so much as to affect those who matter most. Someone who knew exactly which dishes would go where, who could access the herbs after we prepared them, who wanted to ensure the right people lived to see us blamed.”
Through the chaos, she caught sight of Guy de Montague.
He stood near one of the unaffected tables, his handsome face arranged in an expression of shocked horror that would have won awards for its sincerity.
But she saw the satisfaction in his pale eyes, the cold triumph of someone whose carefully laid plans had come to fruition.
He’d done this. Somehow, during those few moments in the kitchen, he’d managed to switch the herbs on specific dishes—just enough to cause a deadly spectacle without endangering the royal family or his own position at court.
“Seize them!” King Edward’s voice thundered across the hall with the authority of someone accustomed to absolute obedience. His face was flushed with rage, his dark eyes blazing with fury as he pointed toward the kitchen entrance. “Seize the traitors who have brought poison to our table!”
Guards moved toward them with the inexorable certainty of doom, their hands on sword hilts as they closed the distance between accusation and arrest. Tristan tensed beside her, his hand dropping instinctively toward his own blade before he caught himself—drawing steel in the royal presence would mean immediate death, regardless of guilt or innocence.
“Your Grace!” Guy’s voice cut through the chaos—smooth, cultured, dripping with false concern as he stepped forward from the crowd of panicking nobles.
His timing was perfect, his delivery flawless, his handsome face arranged in an expression of shocked horror that spoke of either tremendous acting ability or genuine psychopathy.
“Surely this treachery comes as no surprise? Did I not warn you about Tristan de Valois? How his disgrace ran deeper than mere theft? That a man who would steal from his king’s coffers might stoop to any villainy?”
His gaze found Rachel across the hall, and she saw the cold satisfaction in his eyes as he delivered what he clearly intended as a killing blow.
“And now he brings foreign witches to poison your very table! Mark how the strange woman introduced these... innovations... to your feast. What Christian soul decorates food with leaves and calls it advancement? What manner of sorcery guides hands that turn nourishment to poison?”
“Indeed,” came a new voice—cultured, feminine, carrying the kind of authority that made even kings listen. Lady Jacquetta had risen from her seat at the high table, her sharp eyes fixed on Rachel with an intensity that felt like being examined under a magnifying glass.
“What manner of knowledge allows one to transform harmless herbs into instruments of death? Such skill speaks of... unusual... training.”
The word ‘unusual’ carried enough weight to crush a small building, and Rachel felt every gaze in the hall settling on her like a physical force. Foreign witch. Poisoner. Wielder of unnatural knowledge. The words that would see her burned at the stake before the sun set.
But Queen Elizabeth had remained silent throughout the accusations, and when she finally spoke, her voice carried the serene authority of someone who’d survived decades of court intrigue by learning to see beneath surface appearances.
“The pattern of the poisoning is... curious,” she said, her pale eyes moving thoughtfully between the dying nobles and the unaffected royal table.
“That the royal table should be spared while others suffer. One might wonder if this speaks to supernatural knowledge... or merely careful planning by those who knew which dishes would be served where.”
The implication hung in the air like smoke from a funeral pyre. Rachel caught the slight emphasis on ‘careful planning,’ the way Elizabeth’s gaze flicked meaningfully toward Guy de Montague before returning to her with something that might have been sympathy—or warning.
The queen had seen what Rachel had seen—the impossibility of the poison pattern, the surgical precision with which only certain dishes had been contaminated.
But recognizing the truth and proving it were entirely different matters, especially when the alternative explanation involved witchcraft and treason.
“I didn’t,” Rachel whispered, but her voice was lost in the chaos of nobles fleeing and guards shouting and the terrible sounds of the dying. The words felt inadequate, pathetic in the face of such overwhelming evidence. “I didn’t do this.”
“The herbs were pure when we prepared them,” Tristan said, his voice carrying clearly across the hall despite its deadly quiet. “I watched every step of the preparation. If poison found its way into the dishes, ’twas added after they left our hands.”
Guy’s laugh was sharp as broken glass, cutting through the air with crystalline cruelty. “Of course the traitor knight defends his witch. Birds of a feather, as they say. Both cast out from decent society, both bearing grudges against those who exposed their true natures.”
“Curious,” Lady Jacquetta said again, her gaze never leaving Rachel’s face.
There was something predatory in those calculating eyes, a recognition that went far beyond suspicion into territory that made Rachel’s skin crawl with terror.
“That one so young should possess a knowledge of herbs both beneficial and deadly. Such expertise usually takes years to acquire... unless one has access to... accelerated... learning.”
The way she said ‘accelerated’ made Rachel want to run screaming from the hall. There was knowledge in those eyes, an understanding that cut through centuries and saw straight to the impossible truth of who and what she was.
Time traveler. Witch. Wielder of knowledge that wouldn’t exist for another five hundred years.
Beside her, Tristan had gone rigid as stone, his face carved from winter frost and bitter realization. When he spoke, his voice carried the flat acceptance of someone whose worst fears had just been confirmed.
“I should have known,” he said, so quietly that only she could hear him over the chaos. The words hit her like physical blows, each one driving deeper into her chest until she could barely breathe. “I should have known that I would bring ruin to everything I touched. Even you. Especially you.”
The defeat in his voice was worse than any accusation, more devastating than the royal fury or the threat of execution. This was the sound of a man watching his last hope crumble, realizing that everything he’d dared to believe might be possible was nothing but fantasy and delusion.
“Tristan, no—” she started to say, but the guards were upon them now, rough hands seizing her arms, dragging her away from the man whose dreams she’d helped to destroy.
Leather and steel scraped against her skin as her wrists were bound behind her back with rope that smelled of hemp and desperation.
The taste of terror filled her mouth as she struggled futilely against bonds that had been designed to hold much stronger prisoners than one displaced food critic from Kansas.
The last thing she saw before they hauled her from the hall was his face—empty of hope, stripped of everything she’d thought she’d helped him reclaim.
The man who’d taught her to appreciate medieval poetry, who’d shown her how to prepare herbs the way his grandmother had taught him, who’d made her believe that maybe she could build something instead of just tearing it down.
And beyond him, Lady Jacquetta’s knowing smile, cold as winter and twice as sharp. The expression of someone who’d just added a very dangerous piece to her collection of court secrets.
She’d ruined everything. Just like she always did.
The great doors of Westminster Palace closed behind them with a sound like the end of the world, shutting out the light and the chaos and any hope of redemption. The taste of bile and failure filled her mouth as they dragged her toward whatever medieval justice awaited poisoners and witches.
In the darkness that followed, Rachel finally understood what it meant to lose everything that mattered—and to know that she had no one to blame but herself for being stupid enough to allow the herbs out of her sight for one damn second.