Page 38 of Chef’s Kiss (A Knights Through Time #20)
T ristan had been staring at the parchment for the better part of an hour, Guy’s distinctive flourish blurring before his eyes as exhaustion warred with something that felt suspiciously like hope.
The solar smelled of dying candles and the lingering scent of rain from the storm that had finally passed, leaving behind air that tasted clean and sharp with possibilities.
This is your proof, Rachel’s note said in handwriting that looked odd against the parchment.
This is your proof. I finally saw the pattern—Guy has been skimming the trade routes, stealing far more than anyone realized.
I’m sorry I couldn’t figure it out sooner.
I’m sorry for Westminster, for the poisoning, for the scandal, for every disaster I’ve brought to your door.
You deserve your honor restored. You deserve happiness.
You deserve someone who builds you up instead of tearing everything down. – R
He’d found them waiting on her table—her careful script beside Guy’s damning ledger fragment—as if she’d left behind both an apology and a lifeline before vanishing into the storm.
The words carved pieces from what remained of his composure.
Even now, even after everything that had passed between them, she was trying to save him.
Giving him the evidence that could clear his name whilst taking all the blame upon herself like some sort of martyred saint with a talent for self-destruction.
He’d told her he believed in her innocence, and he did—intellectually.
Rationally, he knew she hadn’t deliberately poisoned those nobles.
But beneath that knowledge lurked something uglier, a doubt that ate at him like acid on metal.
Not doubt about her intentions, but about her nature.
About whether loving her meant signing up for a lifetime of chaos and disaster and explanations he couldn’t give.
About whether he was strong enough to weather the storms that seemed to follow her like trained dogs.
The solar door crashed open with enough force to rattle the windows in their frames, and Hugo filled the doorway like an avalanche of righteous fury barely contained in human form.
His massive frame radiated the kind of barely leashed violence that made hardened warriors reconsider their life choices, and when he spoke, his voice thundered with enough force to wake the dead.
“Right then, you brooding fool,” he bellowed, stalking into the chamber with the focused intensity of someone who’d finally run out of patience. “I’ve had quite enough of watching you wallow in self-pity whilst that poor lass destroys herself with guilt she doesn’t deserve.”
Tristan looked up from the parchment, noting absently that Hugo’s clothes were soaked through and his boots left muddy prints on the stone floor. “Have you been outside? The storm?—”
“Aye, I’ve been outside,” Hugo interrupted with the kind of tone that suggested Tristan’s meteorological concerns could go hang themselves.
“Found our Rachel kneeling in the garden, soaked to the bone and bleeding from her fingers, trying to work some sort of magic with that cursed book of hers. The damned cat dug it up in the garden, and wee Emmot brought it to her.”
The image hit Tristan like a physical blow—Rachel alone in the storm, desperate enough to attempt whatever impossible ritual had brought her here in the first place. The taste of copper flooded his mouth as he realized what that meant.
“She was trying to leave,” he said, the words scraped from his throat like confessions under torture.
“Of course she was trying to leave!” Hugo roared, his voice carrying enough volume to bring down small buildings. “The poor lass thinks she’s poison, thinks she ruins everything she touches, thinks you’re better off without her chaos and complications!”
“Perhaps I am,” Tristan said quietly, though the words tasted like ash on his tongue.
“Mayhap we both are. Look what loving her has cost—my honor, my future, seven nobles dead from a feast I prepared...”
The backhand that caught him across the jaw was swift, precise, and delivered with enough force to snap his head sideways. Stars exploded behind his eyes as he staggered, more from surprise than pain, though Hugo’s massive hand could have felled a destrier.
“You dare,” his closest friend said, his voice gone deadly quiet in a way that was somehow more terrifying than his shouting.
“You dare speak of that brave, brilliant, impossible woman as if she were some curse upon your house instead of the best thing that’s happened to you since your mother died.”
Tristan worked his jaw, tasting blood where his teeth had cut his tongue. “Hugo?—”
“Nay, you’ll listen,” Hugo thundered, pointing a finger the size of a small sword at Tristan’s chest. “I’ve watched you these past days, seen you avoiding her like she carries the plague instead of just the misfortune to care about a man too stubborn to see what’s right in front of his face.”
The big man began pacing, his heavy tread making the floorboards creak ominously.
“You think she poisoned those nobles? The lass who frets over burning porridge? Who tastes every dish thrice to ensure ’tis perfect?
Who once spent an entire afternoon apologizing to a chicken for overcooking its egg? ”
Despite himself, Tristan felt his mouth twitch at the memory. Rachel had indeed spent considerable time expressing regret to a bird that was far past caring about culinary slights.
“You know she’s innocent,” Hugo continued relentlessly. “You said as much yourself—the herbs were pure when you prepared them, the poison added after they left your hands. So tell me, you daft fool, what exactly are you punishing her for?”
“For being chaos,” Tristan said, the admission dragged out of him like a splinter from infected flesh. “For bringing disaster wherever she goes. For making me hope that perhaps I could have something beautiful in my life, only to watch it crumble the moment I dared reach for it.”
Hugo stopped pacing to stare at him with an expression of such profound disgust that several saints probably felt personally offended.
“So ’tis not her innocence you doubt—’tis your own worthiness. You think you’re cursed to destroy everything you touch, and you’re punishing her for making you believe otherwise.”
The brutal accuracy of it made Tristan flinch as if he’d been struck again.
“Am I wrong? Look at the evidence. Everything I’ve ever cared for has turned to ash. My mother, dead from fever. My father, disappointed unto his grave. My honor, destroyed by the man I trusted most. And now, Rachel?—”
“Now Rachel what?” Hugo interrupted with dangerous quiet. “Loved you enough to fall through time itself? Fought beside you despite knowing it would mark her as foreign and strange? Gave you the one piece of evidence that could clear your name whilst taking all the blame upon herself?”
He gestured toward the parchment still clutched in Tristan’s hands.
“She solved the mystery you couldn’t solve in six months of brooding.
Found proof of Guy’s treachery whilst you were busy convincing yourself you deserved disgrace.
And instead of celebrating her brilliance, you’re sitting here like some tragic hero from a minstrel’s tale, convinced that loving her is a burden rather than a gift. ”
The words hit like arrows finding their mark, each one more devastating than the last. Tristan looked down at Guy’s damning ledger fragment, at Rachel’s note with its careful script and devastating honesty, and a piece of his heart broke.
“She sees me,” he whispered, the admission barely audible over the sound of rain still pattering against the windows.
“All of me. Knight and cook, proud and broken, everything I am instead of just what I’ve lost. She doesn’t see my disgrace as a stain to be overlooked—she sees it as part of the story that made me who I am. ”
“Aye, you dolt,” Hugo said more gently, settling his bulk into a chair that groaned ominously under his weight.
“She does. And more than that, she accepts it. Glories in it, even. Watches you work spices like other men work steel and looks at you like you’ve just created miracles from common ingredients. ”
Tristan closed his eyes, remembering the way Rachel had looked at him in those stolen moments in the kitchens—not with pity for his fallen state or disappointment in his circumstances, but with genuine admiration for his skills.
As if his passion for cooking made him more interesting rather than less worthy.
“When did I become such a coward?” he asked, the question scraping his throat raw.
“The moment you decided that protecting yourself from pain was more important than fighting for what you wanted,” Hugo replied bluntly. “The moment you chose to see her love as a burden rather than the miracle it is.”
The silence that followed was broken only by the gentle sound of rain and the crackling of dying embers in the solar’s small hearth. Tristan stared at Rachel’s note, at her careful explanations and self-recriminations, and felt shame burn through him like molten metal.
“She thinks she ruins everything,” he said finally.
“Because you let her think it,” Hugo replied without mercy.
“Because instead of showing her how much joy she’s brought to this cursed pile of stones, you’ve spent days avoiding her.
Because you’re so busy protecting your wounded pride that you can’t see how your doubt is destroying the woman who loves you. ”
Tristan’s hands clenched into fists, crumpling the parchment slightly before he forced himself to relax.
“What would you have me do? We’re exiles.
Marked traitors with prices on our heads.
Even with this evidence, what hope do we have of clearing our names?
What future can I offer her beyond a life of running and hiding? ”
“I’d have you fight,” Hugo said simply. “I’d have you stop wallowing in what you’ve lost and start working for what you want.
I’d have you prove to that remarkable woman that she’s worth more than your fear, that you’d rather die trying to build something beautiful than live safely with nothing at all. ”
He leaned forward, his scarred face intense with conviction. “You want to clear your name? Then stop hiding and start planning. Use that evidence she handed you, call upon what allies remain, demand justice from those with power to grant it. And more than that?—”
“More than that?” Tristan prompted when Hugo paused.
“Show her she belongs here,” Hugo said fiercely.
“Not as some foreign curiosity to be tolerated, but as the woman who makes Greystone feel like home again. The woman who brings laughter to these halls and magic to your kitchens. The woman who loves you enough to sacrifice her own happiness for yours.”
Tristan looked again at Rachel’s note, at the evidence that could restore his honor, at the proof of treachery that had been staring him in the face for days while he’d been too consumed with self-pity to act on it.
“She deserves better than a disgraced knight with naught to offer but a crumbling castle and empty coffers,” he said, though the words lacked conviction now.
“She deserves a man who fights for her,” Hugo corrected firmly. “A man who sees her worth and refuses to let the world convince him otherwise. A man who would move heaven and earth to prove himself worthy of her love, not because he’s perfect, but because she makes him want to be better.”
Something shifted in Tristan’s chest at those words—a loosening of the chains he’d wrapped around his heart, a stirring of the man he’d been before disgrace had taught him that hoping was dangerous.
“The evidence,” he said slowly, studying Guy’s ledger fragment with new eyes. “These records... They’re not just proof of theft. They’re proof of ongoing operations. Current shipments, recent transactions.”
“Meaning?” Hugo prompted, though his eyes had sharpened with interest.
“Meaning Guy is still actively stealing from the crown,” Tristan said, his mind beginning to work with the focused intensity he’d once brought to military campaigns.
“Still skimming profits, still covering his tracks. Which means there will be more evidence. Fresh evidence. Evidence we might be able to gather if we’re clever about it. ”
He stood abruptly, moving to the window where gray dawn was beginning to creep across the sky. The storm had passed, leaving behind air that smelled clean and full of possibilities.
“I need to send word to Isolde,” he said, his voice carrying a note of decision that had been absent for days. “Her network of informants, her connections at court. If anyone can help us gather more evidence and present it to the right people, ’tis her.”
“And Rachel?” Hugo asked quietly.
Tristan turned from the window, and for the first time since Westminster, Hugo saw something in his friend’s eyes that looked like hope rather than resignation.
“Rachel deserves to know that I’m not just sorry for doubting her—I’m going to prove she was right to believe in me,” he said firmly. “She deserves to see me fight for our future instead of surrendering to our past. She deserves to know that loving her hasn’t cursed me—it’s saved me.”
He moved toward the door with the first purposeful stride Hugo had seen from him in days. “She deserves both my honor restored and my love freely given. And by all the saints, she’s going to have both.”
“Where are you going?” Hugo called after him.
“To begin making amends,” Tristan replied, his voice carrying the kind of determination that had once made him one of the king’s most trusted knights. “To show the woman I love that some things are worth fighting for, even when the odds seem impossible.”
“And if she’s already given up? If the magic worked and she’s gone back to her own time?”
Tristan paused at the door, considering the possibility that had been haunting him since Hugo’s revelation about finding Rachel in the garden. Then he straightened his shoulders with the resolve of someone who’d finally found his purpose again.
“Then I’ll find a way to follow her,” he said simply. “Even if it takes me to the ends of the earth or the far reaches of time itself. I’ve been a fool and a coward, but I’ll not be either any longer.”
With that, he strode from the solar, leaving Hugo to stare after him with a grin that threatened to split his weathered face in half.
“About bloody time,” the big man muttered, then settled back in his chair to begin planning whatever chaos would be necessary to restore his friends’ happiness.