Cinn suddenly found a fresh wave of appeal for his soup.
“What do you think, Cinn?” Julien asked, in a pleasant tone, as if they were debating tomorrow’s weather.
Cinn chewed on his bread. Swallowed. “I couldn’t possibly comment.”
Once this dinner was over, he was going to murder Julien. Murder him, then slip into the shadowrealm and murder him all over again.
“Père, what did Béatrice think about the Arcane Purifier movement? Do you know?”
Eyes closed, Cinn murmured a silent prayer to any deity that might be listening.
Carrie’s musical lilt filled Lucien’s silence. “I hardly think our guest is interested in this topic of conversation.”
But Julien wasn’t letting it go. Shoulders drawn back, he seemed oddly tense, his unwavering gaze directed straight at his father. “Did she ever say anything on the matter to you?”
With a clatter, Lucien dropped his cutlery onto the table.“Assez. Tu sais que Béatrice partageait mon point de vue sur ce sujet. Tout comme toi, je l’espère. Maintenant Julien, si tu pouvais arrêter d’embarrasser ta famille, je t’en serais gré.”
Red splotches of colour dotted Julien’s cheeks. His grip on his cutlery turned his hand white. A shred of sympathy shot through Cinn—just the teeniest fraction.
“En parlant de ta très chère fille, pourquoi cela te déplaît-il autant de me voir enquêter sur sa mort?”Julien replied.
He couldn’t understand a word of it, but what he did know was that this was all too much. Far too much.
“Excuse me for a moment.” Abruptly, Cinn stood, and before anyone enquired if he needed directions to the nearest bathroom, he dashed off towards the kitchen.
He found Marie instructing two assistants, elbow deep in potatoes. Her eyes widened as he approached.
Before he could be ordered out, he said, “Pleaselet me do something for you. Just for five minutes. I’m a trained chef. Well, semi-trained chef.”
Likely at the desperation in his eyes, she nodded towards a pile of leafy asparagus. “Wash and trim those. If you don’t fuck that up, you can blanch them for me.” She studied him, eyes roaming up and down. “What’s asemi-trained chefdoing dining with the Montaignes this evening, anyway? You don’t look like their normal victims.”
“I was coerced into this horrific event by their son, purely for his entertainment, it seems.”
She laughed, a genuine hearty laugh that was music to his ears.
For a moment, he focused only on the noises of their combined efforts in the kitchen and pretended he was back at Rosewood Parlour with Sarah whispering gossip in his ear when she was supposed to be washing dishes, and Benny barking orders. Any second now, the head chef would shout out one of his stupid rhyming commands.Less chatter, more batter! Less stressing, more dressing! Less clutter, more butter!
“Not bad.” Marie admired his line of uniform asparagus. “If I ever crack under the pressure of working for my exasperating employers, you can have my job.”
A shadow at the doorway told him his time was up. Cinn washed his hands before pushing past Julien, deliberately not looking at him. He’d deal with him later. He just had to make it through three more courses.
When he returned to his seat, Lucien inquired, “Is everything alright?” His tone didn’t invite any deviation from ‘yes’.
As Julien slid back in next to him, Cinn nodded. “Marie just wanted some extra help in the kitchen, that was all.” They’d know it was an excuse, of course, but couldn’t challenge it. “And I’m training to be a chef.”Not exactly true, not anymore.“Imean, I was. In London.”
Carrie’s face brightened with delight. At least the woman was good at feigning interest. “Oh, how… lovely!”
“Yes. It was.” Cinn aggressively dunked his baguette slice in the now-cold soup, imagining he was punching Julien’s face.
“Cinn is giving Darcy a run for her money with his cookie making skills.”
“I’m just messing around in her kitchen. I’m not really a baker.”
Neither Carrie nor Lucien seemed equipped to continue a conversation about cookies, so a tense silence fell between the four of them.
Then he felt it.
The lightest brush against his ankle.
