“I like your accent,” I say, as I continue gathering my ingredients and materials. I begin sifting flour into a small bowl before reaching for a larger one to measure and pour sugar into.
The girl smiles. “Thank ye, lady—”
“Nope,” I stop her before she finishes. “Call me Azalea.”
“Thank ye, Azalea,” she chimes with a smile. She goes back to cutting up the vegetables laid out in front of her.
“Do you know where the eggs are…” I let my words drift off, hoping she’ll get the cue that I’m asking her to fill in the end of my sentence with her name.
“Valerie, but most people call me Vee.”
“Do you know where the eggs are, Vee?”
She nods happily before turning to a basket sitting on the next counter over, where fresh eggs are stacked inside. Her bright orange curls bob around her as she does so. Her skin is pale like Rhoden’s, but not quite as milky. It has a more rosy hue to it that is complemented by her bright blue eyes and sprinkling of freckles along her nose, cheeks, shoulders, and chest.
“Thank you.”
The rest of the afternoon, I’m happily talking to Vee as she finishes her kitchen prep. She stays for a while longer, as I continue working on my recipe. I still haven’t let my mind focus too much on what I’m doing in fear that it’ll cause me to stop and think instead of continuing to run on this unknown muscle memory I seem to have. It isn’t until Vee leaves, taking her lovely distraction with her, that I realize that I have no recollection of how I know what I’m doing.
I look down at the batter I’ve concocted, somehow knowing exactly what I’m making while simultaneously having no clue where or when I learned how to make it.
“Enjoying yourself?” My head snaps up to find Braxton leaning in the doorway. His shirt is rumpled, and the top two buttons are undone exposing the sliver of his chest, and with it the small tattoo that resides there. A line of numbers that must mean something to him if he decided to have it permanently inked onto his body. I hate how my curiosity is piqued, and I make a mental note to ask him about his tattoos at a later date.
Not wanting him to realize he’s caught me by surprise, I curl my lip and drop my attention back to my work. The coals I started in the kitchen’s stone hearth have been heating up for long enough now that it’s time for me to bake the batter to the butter cake that I’ve made.
“I was,” I say, grabbing one of the pans to pour the cake batter into.
“I wanted to apologize for earlier. I’ve had some important and stressful matters come up, but that doesn’t excuse how I treated you.”
“You don’t regularly treat me with respect, so I’ve become accustomed to it,” I retort without giving him a second glance.
Turning around, I place the pan in the oven before wiping my hands on the apron that Vee gave me once she realized I wasn’t going to stop baking.
“You look very comfortable in here,” he notes, waving his hand around the room.
“Yeah,” I look around the scullery. “I guess I am.” Grabbing a damp rag, I begin to clean the mess I made on the counter. “Though I’m not sure how,” I grumble under my breath.
“What do you mean?”
Only now realizing what I admitted, my eyes round before I lift them to study Braxton’s neutral expression. I clear my throat and drop the wet rag on the counter with a thunk.
“I mean that I don’t remember how I know how to do any of this. It came to me like second-nature, but I don’t have any memories of learning to bake, least of all doing it so often that I was able to craft a cake from scratch with no recipe in hand.” I cross my arms over my chest, feeling the need to close myself off after my honesty. I sit back until I’m able to lean against the counter.
Braxton nods his head in response, twisting his mouth to the side and crossing the threshold into the room.
“I must sound crazy.”
I half-heartedly laugh before dipping my finger into the remnants of the cake batter clinging to the edge of the bowl and plopping it in my mouth. I have to stifle the moan that wants to escape me as the delectable burst of sugar dances across my tastebuds. When I look up, I notice that Braxton is tracking my every movement with rapt intensity, so I decide to play up theaction by slowly licking the sweet creation from my fingertip. I’ve found, like most men, his guard falls the quickest when his desire rises.
“Unfortunately, you’re the most intelligent person I know,” he says, his eyes still locked on my finger.
“You never leave the castle,” I scoff, becoming entranced by the way his eyes flick from my fingertip to my lips.
“I used to,” he muses.
“Why did you stop?”
He steps closer, reaching his hand out. Though my mind tells me to flinch away, my instincts keep me locked in place. His thumb reaches out and brushes at the bit of batter that stuck to the corner of my mouth. He drags his thumb across the residue, collecting it, before bringing that thumb to his own lips and licking it clean.
