Page 39 of Chef’s Kiss (A Knights Through Time #20)

R achel was still shivering when she reached her chambers, skirts sodden, hair plastered to her neck, the storm’s failure clinging to her like mud.

She stripped off her cloak with shaking hands and dropped into the chair by the hearth, staring at the useless cookbook on the table as the fire crackled.

A knock came, firm but hesitant.

“Come in,” she called, her voice flat.

The door creaked open, and there he was—Tristan, broad shoulders soaked from the storm, eyes shadowed with something more dangerous than the storm.

He stepped inside, closed the door, and for once didn’t stand at knightly attention.

He simply looked at her, as if seeing her properly for the first time in days.

Then he went to his knees.

Rachel blinked. “Uh—are you … what is this? A proposal? " Fair warning, I’m a terrible cook when I’m crying, and my mascara game is nonexistent in the fifteenth century.”

He didn’t smile. Not yet. “Rachel,” he said, voice raw, “I’ve been a coward.

I told you I was wrong to trust you, when the truth is that I have never trusted anyone more.

And still I doubted. I pushed you away because I thought loving you would bring ruin—as though ruin hadn’t already claimed me long before you fell into my garden. ”

Her throat tightened. The storm outside had left her hollow, but his words cracked something inside her chest she hadn’t realized was still frozen.

“I meant to protect you,” he went on, gaze desperate.

“But in trying, I’ve done nothing but wound you.

If I must prove my devotion by deed as well as word, then so be it.

I will host a tourney in your honor. I will fight every knight who enters until I stand bloodied but victorious, and lay my triumph at your feet.

I will shout your name until even the king cannot deny your worth. ”

Rachel stared at him, thunderstruck—not by the promise of knights bleeding in her name, but by the fact that this brooding man had actually gone full romance-ballad on her, in a drafty stone chamber, with mud still streaked halfway up her kirtle.

Then she laughed. The sound startled her, bubbling up sharp and warm until she pressed a hand to her mouth.

“Oh, Tristan,” she managed between gasps, “don’t you get it? I don’t want a tourney.” She leaned forward, cupping his jaw with damp fingers. “I don’t want blood and banners and epic poems.”

His brow furrowed, confusion flickering like a boy caught without his sword.

She smiled through the wetness in her eyes at the blurred image of him.

“What I want is spices. New cookware. And…” she let the pause linger, teasing him just enough to see his breath catch, “…you, Mr. Broodypants.”

At that, his mouth finally curved—slow, hesitant, then blossoming into a smile so devastating it nearly undid her.

“Spices, cookware, me,” he repeated, as if testing the shape of the words. “That is all?”

She paused. “And Greystone. I know you have another estate, but I love it here. Though maybe fix the hole in the roof.”

He leaned forward, resting his forehead against hers. For the first time since Westminster, the silence between them wasn’t heavy with doubt. It was full of possibility.

When Hugo burst in a few minutes later—soaked, muttering about saints and fools and who had left mud all over the stairwell—he found them still kneeling together by the fire.

And though he grumbled loudly about the state of the rushes and water all over the rugs, he left with a grin that split his scarred face from ear to ear.

The next morning, Rachel found Tristan in the solar, the ledger fragment spread across the table. He looked up at her entrance, and there was no hesitation in his eyes now.

“We can’t sit idle,” he said. “Guy’s thefts are ongoing. We have proof, but not yet enough to sway the whole court. We’ll need help.”

Rachel joined him, placing her hand over the parchment. “Isolde,” she said. “Wasn’t her husband going away on some trip? She can move quietly, has connections at court, and is terrifying.”

Tristan’s mouth softened. “Aye. If anyone can carry this evidence safely into Westminster, it is she.”

So they sent word, and days later, when Isolde arrived, Rachel pressed the ledger into her hands with a mixture of hope and dread.

“Be careful,” Tristan said gruffly.

Isolde arched a brow, resplendent in crimson. “When am I not?” She tucked the evidence into her satchel with the air of a woman quite used to managing dangerous errands. “Keep the hearth warm, Sir Broodypants. I’ll see to the rest.”

Rachel snorted into her sleeve, hearing her nickname on Isolde’s lips. Tristan’s ears went faintly pink.

And so the waiting began. Two weeks of tense hope, of meals cooked with nervous laughter, of long walks where words weren’t always needed. Two weeks of daring to believe they might have a chance.

Until at last the thunder of hoofbeats shook Greystone’s courtyard once more…

Two weeks after Isolde departed with their precious evidence, the thunder of hoofbeats across Greystone’s courtyard came with the kind of authority that made even the stones sit up straighter.

Rachel looked up from the soup she’d been stirring with more intensity than a broth really deserved.

Cooking had become her meditation lately—chop, stir, taste, repeat.

Something she could control while her insides twisted themselves into knots over whether Isolde’s gamble would save them or leave them dangling from a gallows.

At the head of the approaching cavalcade rode Lady Jacquetta Rivers in cloth-of-gold that caught the morning light like captured fire.

Even her palfrey seemed to prance with more dignity than the average horse.

Behind her came a retinue that screamed serious court business.

Heralds bearing the king’s banners, clerks with bulging satchels, scribes armed with ink-stained fingers, and enough guards to remind everyone that this wasn’t a friendly visit.

“Saints preserve us,” Marta muttered at the hearth, grinding peppercorns like they were sacred relics. “Her ladyship’s brought half the court with her.”

The smell of perfume and horse sweat seeped through the open shutters. Rachel caught herself wiping damp palms on her apron. “This doesn’t look like a social call.”

“Nay,” Tristan said from the doorway, voice low, his broad shoulders tense. He’d been at the solar window since dawn, watching, waiting and hoping. “This has the look of official business.”

When Lady Jacquetta Rivers finally swept into the hastily arranged great hall, the air shifted.

Even dusty from travel, she radiated authority so sharp it could cut marble.

Her eyes catalogued everything—cracked stones, thin tapestries, the nervous faces of Greystone’s household—with the precision of an appraiser deciding whether to invest or demolish.

“Sir Tristan de Valois,” she declared, her voice crystalline. “By royal commission of His Grace King Edward, I am here to deliver judgment on certain irregularities regarding your case.”

A parchment appeared with seals so thick with wax and ribbon they practically glowed. The hall stilled. Hugo muttered something that sounded suspiciously like a prayer—or a wager.

Jacquetta’s commissioners began laying out shipping manifests, witness statements, merchant records. Rachel’s stomach flipped over when Jacquetta gestured to her.

“Mistress Rachel. Show us what your … unique perspective revealed.”

Her pulse fluttered, but she stepped forward, explaining the discrepancies, the shipments, the skim, the flourish that marked every theft.

Guy de Montague’s personal signature. Gasps rippled through the hall.

Jacquetta dismantled every possible objection with unnerving calm, citing clerks, dockworkers, and merchants who had testified under oath.

Then, with a wicked curve of her lips, she delivered the killing stroke.

“As for Sir Guy,” she said, her voice smooth as silk, “he currently contemplates the view from the Tower’s highest chamber. His Grace has lodged him there until the matter of his treason, theft, and attempted murder is settled. The ravens, I hear, find his company diverting.”

Her breath left her in a rush. Tristan went rigid beside her, then slowly, cautiously, let the words sink in.

“And you, Sir Tristan de Valois,” Jacquetta continued, turning, her tone shifting to something warmer, “by this same commission, the charges against you are dismissed. Your lands, titles, and honor are restored.”

The hall erupted—cheers, sobs, Hugo’s roar of triumph shaking the rafters. Servants cried openly, Marta dropped her spoon, and Rachel clapped a hand over her mouth as relief crashed over her like a wave.

But Jacquetta wasn’t finished. She gestured, and clerks brought forward wooden chests. Gold, jewels—and spices. Real cinnamon bark, saffron bright as fire, peppercorns enough to ransom dukes. Copper pots gleamed, knives shone with lethal precision.

“His Grace,” Jacquetta said with deliberate weight, “wishes not only to restore what was lost but to invest in what he deems promising. He finds your culinary … innovations… worthy of royal attention.”

Hugo bellowed his thanks to the saints. Tristan stood straighter, pride flickering across his face, though his eyes—Rachel noticed—kept finding hers.

When the hall finally began to empty, Jacquetta crooked a finger at Rachel. “Walk with me.”

They moved into the cloister, where shadows pooled between the arches. Jacquetta didn’t waste words. “I hear whispers of a book. A cookbook with… power.”

Rachel’s breath snagged. Of course, Jacquetta knew. Of course, she did.

“Emmot,” Rachel called softly. The boy darted from the shadows, gap-toothed grin subdued for once. “Fetch my book, please.”

He scampered off and returned moments later with the oiled-cloth bundle clutched tight in his hands.

Rachel took the bundle from Emmot, the weight of it familiar, heavy with everything she’d tried and failed to change. Her fingers lingered on the worn leather for a breath longer than necessary. Enough chasing doorways, she thought. Enough hoping for an exit that never opens. My place is here.

“I offer it freely.” A deliberate surrender.

Jacquetta accepted the book, sharp eyes gleaming as though she caught the unsaid truth, anyway. Her smile curved, wicked and knowing.

If you lived in my world, lady, you’d break the internet in a week.

Rachel forced a nervous laugh. “Maybe it really does hold magic. Or maybe…” She shrugged, letting her sarcasm smooth the edge. “…maybe the magic’s just in the recipes.”

“Never underestimate recipes,” Jacquetta replied, tucking the book away with the proprietary air of someone who never misplaced pieces from her chessboard. “The right mixture, the right timing, and nations can be remade.”

Her skirts whispered as she swept away, leaving Rachel lighter, freer—unburdened of the book, of the endless tug between here and home. For the first time, she wasn’t trapped. She was choosing.

When Tristan found her a moment later, the great hall behind them buzzing with restored honor and spices that smelled of promise, his smile was wide and devastating.

Rachel reached for his hand. “So. What do we do now?”

His thumb brushed her knuckles, eyes gleaming. “Anything we wish.”

She grinned, heart full. “Good. Because I’ve got plans. Dessert first. Then you.”

“A bold challenge,” he murmured. “And one I intend to win.”