Chapter 10 #3
Kazrian had paused. A long pause, the kind that felt deliberate.
And then he had said, “The first day of the Season. You were wearing a pale blue dress with a cream sash, and you had a sprig of dried lavender tucked behind your ear. Just there.” He reached forward and gently traced his finger over the rounded curve of her ear, sending a shiver dancing across her skin.
“And when my careless older brother wandered in and set his teacup down on your recipe book, you lifted it off and moved the book aside without saying a word, so as not to embarrass him. And then you slipped past Orrit’s worktable and drew something in the flour with your fingertip—quickly, the way we always do when he isn’t looking—and carried on as though nothing had happened.
And when he turned back and saw it, he tried to look stern and failed entirely and dusted it away before anyone else noticed. ”
There had been several moments then in which Lucie and Kazrian had merely looked at one another.
Lucie remembered how the world had gone strangely quiet around them, how the air between them had felt close and charged, and she was almost certain they were leaning toward each other even as she had tried desperately to remind herself of all the reasons she should not let this happen: He is fae.
He is your employer’s grandson. He is a Rowanwood—so far above you that you may as well have come from entirely different worlds.
If anyone discovers this, the scandal will ruin your family!
And then someone else had come looking for Kazrian—he’d been gone from the main room too long by then—and the two of them had scrambled to their feet, and Kazrian had disappeared with an apologetic smile while Lucie thanked the stars for the interruption that had prevented her from making a terrible mistake.
“Lucie?”
Balthazar gave a low hiss. Lucie’s eyes flew open.
“I mean—Miss Fields.” Lucie turned her head and found Kazrian looking at her.
“Thank you for the sample.” He nodded toward the bowl of marzipan that sat between them.
“What you’ve captured there is truly remarkable.
And I apologize again, for startling you so badly.
” His gaze shifted to Balthazar, and he gave the cat a small nod.
“My apologies to you too, Balthazar. I realize it distresses you to see Miss Fields upset. I shall endeavor to be more careful from now on.”
He rose to his feet, then reached back to offer Lucie his hand, but she was already pushing herself up. His hand hung in the air for an awkward moment before he withdrew it and brushed it down the side of his trousers as though that had been his intention all along.
“Well, I—I shall continue. With the ovens. Not beneath them,” he added hastily as Lucie opened her mouth to protest. “The work I have done from underneath has addressed the conflict. I’ve removed the old polishing enchantment entirely and made some adjustments to the magic in the lattice, so there should be no conflict at all now.
What remains is simply a matter of fine-tuning the specific enchantments flowing from the lattice into the ovens themselves, and that can be done from the wall. ”
“Well, that is very good news,” Lucie said, brushing her hands down the front of her apron, then picking up the bowl and the honey light bottle.
Rain tapped gently at the windows as they returned to their respective areas of the kitchen—Kazrian to the wall beside the ovens, Lucie to her worktable and the waiting marzipan.
Balthazar circled the table twice before settling back on his cushion beside the hearth, though his ears remained angled toward the ovens.
Lucie glanced across the kitchen once, caught sight of the ragged hole in the side of Kazrian’s trouser leg, and had to press her lips together very hard. She shook her head and looked down at her worktable where the marzipan lay rolled flat across a fine dusting of confectioner’s sugar.
The earlier memory surfaced in her mind again.
And then you slipped past Orrit’s worktable and drew something in the flour with your fingertip—quickly, the way we always do when he isn’t looking—and carried on as though nothing had happened.
She smiled to herself. She could not remember whether she or Kazrian had started it, only that they had been young enough to find it hilarious, sneaking up to Orrit’s freshly floured worktable to draw faces, stars, wobbly little portraits of the brownie himself, then fleeing to the pantry with their hands over their mouths while his outraged scolding echoed through the kitchen.
In time, they had felt too guilty to keep tormenting him.
They loved his scones, after all. So the drawings had simplified, gradually, into a single small heart—a quiet message of appreciation for his work.
Orrit still pretended to be cross when he found one, but Lucie had caught him smiling on more than one occasion when he thought no one was watching.
Without quite deciding to, she reached out and drew a small heart near the edge of the confectioner’s sugar with her forefinger. Then she picked up the rolling pin and got back to work.