Transmigrated Into The Body Of The Cursed Prince Wife
Chapter 186: The man of her dream

Chapter 186: The man of her dream

They not only used wood to cook, but the arrangements were foreign to her completely. The historical drama she had once starred in wasn’t this far back in time, and the things they used in the kitchen were far more advanced than this as it was set in the 1800s. But then Ave decided not to get discouraged; she liked challenges, and this was going to be a challenge she couldn’t back out of. For one, she had the mother queen and the head chef to impress and that motivated her.

She asked for the ingredients they had bought yesterday, and when everything was brought to her, including the milk, it reminded her of Lucian and how he had promised to get it for her. He had said it was a valuable item that wouldn’t be easily obtained, but it seemed he had gotten it for her somehow because she needed it, and that brought a surge of warmth to her heart. She stared at the milk until Isolde tapped her on the shoulder and jolted her back to reality.

"What are we to do for you in the kitchen?" she asked as she looked around at the set of ingredients on the table, with a grimace, that were spread out for Ave.

"Oh, you are to do a lot," she smirked at the nervous-looking girl. Turning to the rest, who were still standing around, she said, "Everyone will have to work with a partner here, and I will choose who gets to work with whom." She announced to them, and they all stared at her like she didn’t know what she was doing.

Shaking her head, Ave began to set up bowls and trays on the table, which each work partner would use. She placed the needed ingredients for the small tasks she needed them to help her with, and once she was done, she began to pull them to stand in front of their assigned task. However, by the time she was done pairing them together, many of them weren’t happy with the pairing and looked at her in displeasure and disbelief.

"Milady, I do not know anything about cooking or the kitchen. I do not think I am fit for anything here. How about I stand by and watch?" Zane said with a serious voice but with a pleading, desperate look. She had not just given him the task of cutting onions and some other vegetables, but she had paired him with Princess Thalia, the same girl he wanted to stay away from and never have any reason to talk to her. She wasn’t just a liar, but the wicked blood of the Pendragon seemed to be running full force in her veins for what she had done in their last encounter.

She had purposely come to him on the balcony and hugged him so someone would see them. He had received a beating from Prince Lance for it. Though the beating was nothing compared to what he was used to receiving with Lucian from the first prince, he hated her for it. It was a surprise her brother hadn’t come after his head for it. They were all the same, heartless just like their father, who had been the cause of his own family’s death.

"How can you stand by and watch when we will all be working? Tsk, you have promised to help me today, and I need your help working, so please don’t waste our precious time talking. I have until sunset," she said when he looked ready to argue, but he closed his mouth after hearing she had until sunset.

"What am I to do?" he asked as he looked at the vegetables and large onions on the table. He picked up the knife and came to stand beside the princess, who hurriedly moved to the side as if she feared the knife he held in hand. Who wouldn’t move back when he held the kitchen knife like a dagger he was about to use to cut down his enemies instead of the onions?

"Thalia, you can help him peel whatever needs peeling while he cuts them to tiny little pieces," Ave instructed as she came to move Thalia closer to Zane and lowered the knife he held in his grip like he was about to kill. She smiled at them and then moved to get on with making the cheese herself.

Apart from Zane, none of the rest spoke about the one they were paired with. Though Orion would have protested had he not been interested in the timid servant girl, who now stood beside him mixing some things in a bowl while he handed the ingredients needed to her from Ave’s instructions.

"The last time I saw you, I thought you went to steal something. It seemed you didn’t get caught in the act, did you?" Orion said conversationally to Lydia, who looked like she would rather be anywhere than be here with this prince. But she couldn’t say anything about not liking to pair with him. She would have preferred Lord Zane to this one. She knew of the day he spoke of, but she acted like she didn’t and said,

"I don’t know what you are talking about, Your Highness," she muttered meekly. And when he seemed ready to speak again, she told him, "We should concentrate on the task rather than talking, My Lord. We wouldn’t want to be the last to finish."

Orion seemed to agree with her as he looked around and saw the rest working rather than talking. If possible, he would want them to finish first before anyone and show their superiority in whatever Selene was making them do.

While Isolde was paired with Harry, Celeste was standing with Ave, watching how she was making the cheese she’d explained was needed for some of the dishes. She stirred a pot above the burning fire.

"Do you know what you are doing, Selene?" Celeste questioned, fascinated and worried by what she was doing. For one, she was using a valuable ingredient to cook on fire, and Celeste still had her doubt about her knowing what she was doing. What if she wasted the milk?

"Yep, totally. Now hand me that longer spoon," Ave beamed as she instructed Celeste, who did as she was told without another question. She just hoped whatever Selene was doing wouldn’t turn out bad.

By the time Ave set the cheese to cool, at Zane’s table, his eyes were watering so much he could hardly see what he was cutting. He never knew cutting onions could be so challenging, and he blindly cut them while Thalia kept handing him more.

Watching how he was tearing up, Thalia, whose eyes weren’t spared as well, volunteered to cut the rest. She took the knife from him even though she didn’t know how to cut the onions and came to stand in front of him while he tried to rub off the onion’s effect from his eyes with his shirt.

However, when he heard the princess, who had taken the knife from him, gasp and flinch back, he opened his eyes and looked down to see she had cut her finger instead of the onions. Her finger was bleeding, and she was smart to move it away from the vegetables they had cut and stood back. He saw her shoulders shaking and didn’t realize she was crying until he heard her silent sobs.

Zane didn’t think before he acted; he pulled her by the hand and made her sit down. "Let me see the cut," he muttered as he took her bleeding finger while he signaled for a maid standing by to go and take over the rest of the cutting because he wasn’t going to do it and neither was the princess, who had injured herself.

He saw how deep the cut was when he cleaned the blood with his handkerchief, and he gritted his teeth. "Couldn’t you have been more careful? Why did you take the knife from me when you don’t know how to use it?" he scolded as he looked up to meet her tear-filled gray eyes with trembling lips.

"You...you were... tearing up, and I thought to take it from you..." She sobbed, using her other hand to wipe her eyes. The rest of the people in the kitchen didn’t even notice that she was crying or that she had cut her finger because they were all now gathering around Ave, who was frying something in the oil and explaining what it was as if they would understand.

Though Zane didn’t like the princess one bit, he couldn’t help the string of guilt tugging at his chest as he looked from her eyes to her bleeding finger. He had handed the knife to her subconsciously when his own eyes were hurting, and now that she had cut herself, he felt responsible to stop the bleeding and make the pain go away.

Leaning down, he cleaned the cut as he blew air from his mouth onto it for her.

Thalia flinched, not from the pain, but from the warmth of his breath that touched her finger and sent her heart drumming against her ribs. When he gently wiped the blood off and carefully blew at it again, her toes involuntarily curled up inside her shoes. As she stared at his bent head in front of her where he was crouching down, she fought the urge to reach out her other hand to stroke his brownish-black hair.

Even in his crouching position, his frame was large enough to block her completely in her sitting position. He had broad shoulders that seemed like they could carry the heaviest weight. She looked down at his long, slender fingers holding hers and the visible veins bulging from his forearms, where he had pulled up his shirtsleeves before they started working. She thought he was everything like the fictional men she read about in books and had secretly dreamed of being loved by. If only he would look at her kindly, rather than with the hatred she always saw in his eyes.

"I am sorry..." she muttered all of a sudden, and his hands paused in their action of wrapping up her injured finger with his handkerchief. He raised his hazel eyes to hers, and Thalia felt the need to add, "About that night. I didn’t mean to get you in—"

She didn’t get to finish her words when he suddenly stood up from his crouching position and let go of her hand. "Don’t take off the handkerchief for now until the bleeding has stopped." Saying this, he walked away from her and approached where the rest were standing with Ave, while Thalia looked down at his handkerchief with teary eyes and a lump rising in her throat.

Hours later, the kitchen was a clutter of chaos by the time Ave was done with everything. It took them hours to get everything prepared, and with the help of the kitchen servants who had stood by in case she needed them, everything was done before sunset. They all stood around the long table in the kitchen to admire their handiwork with fascinated amazement and awestruck expressions.

"Hell be damned, I have never seen anything as good as this before," Orion commented as he watched Ave cream the cupcakes she had managed to create with the limited ingredients and equipment they had here and even made cream for them. Her back was aching, and her body was tired. When she creamed the last cake, she straightened up and exclaimed, "Finally over!"

"Can we have a taste?" Isolde asked as she licked her lips and moved her hand to take one, but Ave gripped her wrist and shook her head, "Not yet. We will all eat, but only after I get each one of the dishes to Queen Lan Hui." She announced, and they all looked at her, questioning why she needed to give the things they had all worked hard on to the mother queen of Chen. Though they wondered, none of them asked the question and nodded in agreement, as they trusted Ave to know what she was doing.

"How do you plan to take all this to her?" Thalia asked with a concerned frown, as she knew that with the jolting carriage ride, most of the things would get ruined before they got to the main palace.

Ave looked thoughtful. She couldn’t even go to the main palace, even if there was a way to take the dishes there—Lucian had warned her not to. Which meant she had to make someone bring the woman here, and who that someone was... her eyes trailed off towards the kitchen window and fell on Aaron, who was dozing off under the oak tree with the head cook sitting at the end of the bench he was on.

Her eyes brightened up with an idea, and she told the rest, "Nobody should touch anything here, I will be right back. Celeste, you’re in charge of everything," she told the princess, who had been the only one to work as much as she had and also looked more mature at this point and wasn’t salivating like the rest, who looked ready to taste any one of the dishes they could get their hands on. Even Zane looked like a man about to dig into the mouth-watering strange but good meals she had made.

Celeste took her assigned position seriously the moment Ave ran out of the kitchen. "Everyone move away from the table before you end up drooling into the food!"

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