Page 34 of Chef’s Kiss (A Knights Through Time #20)
She remembered the afternoon he’d shown her his secret spice collection—precious containers hidden away like treasures, each one representing some memory of the man he’d been before disgrace had stripped everything away.
The way his fingers had traced the labels with something approaching reverence, the way he’d trusted her with knowledge that meant everything to him.
“These were gifts from eastern merchants,” he’d said, voice soft with memory. “Proof of successful negotiations, tokens of respect earned through fair dealing. I saved them, thinking... hoping... that someday I might cook again for people who mattered.”
And she’d taken that trust, that fragile hope, and turned it into a weapon that someone else had used to destroy him all over again.
“You’re right,” she said quietly, the admission scraping her throat like broken glass.
“I am chaos. I’m the person who turns every situation into a five-alarm disaster, who opens her mouth and somehow makes everything worse.
I should have stayed in my own time where the worst I could do was write scathing reviews of chain restaurants that deserved it. ”
“At least you admit it,” he said, though something flickered in his expression at her words—surprise, perhaps, that she wasn’t arguing.
They lapsed into charged silence, each nursing their private catastrophes while the storm intensified overhead.
Rachel hugged her knees to her chest, trying to make herself smaller, less conspicuous, less likely to accidentally cause more damage just by existing.
The stone was cold enough to leach warmth through the silk, and she found herself shivering despite the relatively mild summer air.
The cold sank into her bones like the certainty that she’d never belonged here in the first place.
She’d been playing dress-up in someone else’s life, pretending that her twenty-first-century knowledge made her special instead of dangerous.
Pretending that a man like Tristan could ever really see anything worthwhile in a woman whose greatest accomplishment was writing snarky reviews of restaurants that probably deserved better.
Hours passed with painful slowness. The sounds of the palace filtered down to them—distant voices, footsteps on stone, the ordinary business of royal life continuing as if nothing had changed.
As if seven people weren’t fighting for their lives because of herbs she’d insisted on using, innovations she’d pushed despite every warning that she should tread carefully.
The dampness made her joints ache, or maybe that was just the weight of failure settling into her bones. Beside her, Tristan had grown silent, his pacing replaced by a stillness that somehow felt worse than his earlier fury. At least anger was energy. This felt like resignation.
“Are they going to burn me?” she asked finally, the question slipping out before she could stop it. Her voice sounded small and scared, stripped of its usual protective sarcasm.
Tristan’s stillness faltered. “What?”
“Witchcraft. That’s what they’re calling it, isn’t it? Foreign sorcery, unnatural knowledge, whatever other creative accusations they’ve come up with.”
She pressed her forehead against her knees, trying to breathe through the panic that threatened to overwhelm her. “In my time, we know burning people alive was a popular medieval pastime. I’ve just never been the guest of honor at my own barbecue before.”
The silence stretched so long she thought he might not answer. When he finally spoke, his voice had lost some of its sharp edge, replaced by something that sounded almost like... regret?
“The queen intervened,” he said quietly. “Elizabeth has... influence... over such matters. As does her mother, Lady Jacquetta. They will not allow summary execution without proper evidence.”
“That’s reassuring,” she said with brittle humor. “Nothing like a proper investigation before they light the bonfire. Very civilized.”
For a moment, she thought she saw his mouth twitch—not quite a smile, but perhaps the ghost of one. The expression reminded her of evenings in Greystone’s kitchen when her sarcasm had made him laugh despite himself, when they’d found a rhythm that felt as natural as breathing.
Then his jaw tightened again, and whatever softness had flickered across his features disappeared.
“Rachel...” He started to move toward her, then stopped, as if remembering that comforting her would be another mistake in judgment. “I should not have said?—”
“Everything you said was true,” she interrupted, not looking up. “The only difference is that this time, people might actually die because of my particular brand of disaster.”
The admission hung between them like smoke from a funeral pyre. She could hear him breathing, could smell the lingering scents of their ruined feast clinging to his clothes—herbs and wine and expensive spices that now carried the taint of suspicion and death.
Something shifted in the quality of his stillness, as if her words had hit him differently than he’d expected. When he spoke again, his voice was carefully neutral—the tone of someone testing dangerous ground.
“The herbs were pure when we prepared them,” he said finally. “I watched every step. If poison found its way into the dishes, ’twas added after they left our hands.”
She finally looked up, meeting his gaze with eyes that felt swollen from unshed tears and exhaustion. The torchlight cast shadows across his face, making him look like a carved statue—beautiful and remote and utterly untouchable.
“You believe me?”
Something complicated flickered across his features—doubt warring with what might have been hope, anger fighting against something that looked suspiciously like regret.
For a heartbeat, she thought she saw the man who’d taught her to balance spices by scent, who’d watched her practice knife work with patient attention, who’d kissed her in herb gardens like she was something precious.
Then the walls went back up, and his expression became guarded again.
“I believe someone wanted us to fail,” he said carefully. “Whether through your... unusual methods... or simple sabotage matters less than the result.”
It wasn’t exactly vindication, but it wasn’t complete condemnation either. Rachel felt some of the crushing weight lift from her chest, though fear still clawed at her throat like a living thing.
The moment stretched between them, fragile as spun glass. She could see him wrestling with something—an apology, maybe, or an admission that his anger had been misdirected. She found herself holding her breath, hoping against hope that some of the trust they’d built might survive this catastrophe.
Then he turned away, moving back to the far side of their cell, and the moment shattered.
“But it changes naught,” he said, his voice flat again. “Seven people lie poisoned. We are exiled. And I...” He stopped, jaw working as if the words were fighting him. “I have lost everything I thought I had reclaimed.”
The rejection hit her like a physical blow. Not just of her explanation, but of her. Of the possibility that they might find their way back to whatever they’d been building before Guy’s machinations had torn it all apart.
She pulled her knees tighter against her chest and let the cold seep deeper into her bones. Let it numb the parts of her that still hurt from losing something she’d probably never really had in the first place.
By dawn, the storm had passed, leaving behind the kind of gray morning that made everything look like a funeral waiting to happen. When guards arrived—keys jangling like wind chimes made of broken dreams—their news fell like the final nail in a very expensive coffin.
“Her Grace the Queen,” the captain announced with ceremonial precision that couldn’t quite hide his obvious relief at delivering good news instead of execution orders, “in her infinite mercy, has commuted your sentences from immediate death to banishment, provided you depart ere the sun reaches its zenith and never return upon pain of hanging.”
Banishment. The word echoed off damp walls like the death knell of every hope she’d been foolish enough to nurture. Not vindication, not even a proper trial—banishment from the only place in this impossible time where she’d begun to feel like she might actually belong.
“Merciful indeed,” Rachel muttered, though relief flooded through her so intensely it made her knees weak. Not death, then. Not fire or rope or whatever creative endings medieval justice might devise.
The palace courtyard bustled with morning activity as they emerged—blinking in gray daylight that felt harsh after hours of torch-lit stone.
Servants hurried about their duties, nobles prepared for daily intrigue, the ordinary business of royal life continuing as if nothing had changed.
As if seven people weren’t fighting for their lives because of a feast gone catastrophically wrong.
Their horses waited near the gates, saddled with the efficiency of people eager to see unwanted guests depart.
The smell of leather and horse sweat mixed with smoke from breakfast fires, creating an atmosphere that should have been comforting but instead felt like the prelude to a very long journey to nowhere in particular.
Hugo stood beside the animals, his massive frame radiating barely contained fury that made even the warhorses dance nervously.
When he spotted them, relief flickered across his scarred features before being quickly suppressed by something that looked suspiciously like paternal rage directed at the world in general.
“My lord,” he said formally, though his voice carried enough underlying wrath to make nearby courtiers suddenly discover urgent business elsewhere. “All stands ready for departure.”