“She sounds like a wise woman.”
“She was.” His throat worked as he swallowed, and her heart clenched at the grief that flickered across his features. “She died when I was fifteen. A fever that took half the village that winter. But before she... before she left us, she made me promise I would never lose my love for creating beauty, whether with sword or spice.”
“And you’ve spent the last six months breaking that promise.”
He flinched as if she’d struck him. “I have spent the last six months trying to survive.”
“Surviving isn’t living,” she said gently, reaching out to touch his arm. “And your mother didn’t ask you to survive. She asked you to keep creating beauty.”
The silence that followed was broken only by the gentle bubble of the sauce and the distant sound of wind through ancient stones. Tristan stared down at her hand where it rested on his forearm, his jaw working as if he were fighting some internal battle.
“The sauce,” he said finally. “It needs cream.”
“Cream?”
“Sweet cream, to finish it. To bind the flavors and give it richness.” He looked up at her, and she saw something fragile and precious in his eyes—hope, tentative and terrified, but undeniably there. “There’s some in the larder. Fresh from this morning’s milking.”
Rachel felt her lips curve in a smile that seemed to start somewhere deep in her chest. “Then let’s get some cream.”
She watched him move through the kitchen with the fluid grace of someone who belonged there, his hands sure and confident as he retrieved a small crock from the cool larder. This was Tristan in his element, she realized—not the brooding, bitter lord of a crumbling castle, but the passionate cook who understood that food could be transformed into something transcendent.
“Slowly,” he murmured, adding the cream in a thin stream while stirring constantly. “Too quickly, and it will separate. Too slowly, and the sauce will lose its heat.”
“Perfect timing,” Rachel observed, watching the sauce transform before her eyes. The cream swirled through the golden liquid like liquid silk, creating patterns that disappeared and reformed with each motion of his spoon. “How do you know when it’s ready?”
“When it coats the spoon like this.” He lifted the wooden implement, showing her how the sauce clung to its surface. “And when it tastes of everything and nothing—complex enough to hold your interest, but balanced enough that no single flavor dominates.”
He offered her the spoon, and their fingers brushed as she took it from him. The contact sent sparks racing up her arm, but she forced herself to focus on the taste rather than the way his thumb had traced across her knuckles.
The sauce was perfect. Rich without being heavy, bright without being acidic, complex without being confusing. It tasted like comfort and sophistication rolled into one, like the kind of thing that would make food critics weep openly in restaurant dining rooms.
“Tristan,” she breathed, meeting his eyes across the narrow space between them. “This is extraordinary. This is the kind of sauce that changes lives. That makes people remember why they fell in love with food in the first place.”
The naked vulnerability in his expression at her words made something tight and painful unfurl in her chest. This proud, strong man looked at her as if her opinion was the only one that mattered in the world.
“You truly think so?” he asked, and his voice was so soft she almost missed it over the crackling of the dying fire.
“I know so.” She moved closer without conscious thought, drawn by the need to make him understand. “I’ve tasted food prepared by chefs with decades of training, in kitchens that cost more to equip than most people make in a lifetime. This is better than anything I’ve ever encountered.”
“Rachel...”
She could see the moment he realized how close they’d gotten, how the space between them had narrowed to barely more than a breath. His eyes darkened, and she felt the heat radiating from his body, caught the sharp intake of air as he breathed in her scent.
“You should return to your chamber,” he said, but he made no move to step away. If anything, he seemed to lean closer, his free hand coming up as if to touch her face before falling back to his side.
“Should I?” she asked, her voice coming out breathier than she’d intended. The kitchen suddenly felt smaller, more intimate, filled with shadows and firelight and the incredible tension that seemed to crackle between them whenever they stood too close together.
“Aye,” he said, but his voice lacked conviction, and his gaze had dropped to her lips with an intensity that made her pulse quicken. “Before...”
“Before what?”
Instead of answering, he reached out to brush a strand of hair back from her face, his fingers tracing the line of her cheek with devastating gentleness. “Before I forget that I am not the man I once was. Before I forget that I have naught to offer save a crumbling castle and a ruined reputation.”
“What if I don’t care about castles or reputations?”
The words slipped out before she could stop them, honest and raw and completely terrifying. “What if all I care about is this—” she gestured toward the sauce, toward him, toward the magical thing that had happened when he’d shared his gift with her “—this passion, this talent, this incredible ability you have to create beauty from simple ingredients?”
He stared at her for a heartbeat that lasted an eternity, his thumb tracing across her cheekbone with a reverent touch. “Rachel...”
