The Vampire & Her Witch Chapter 2005: A Knight Who Cooks (Part Two)

Though she wasn’t aware of it, a soft smile had formed on Jocelynn’s lips as she watched Sir Ollie work. She barely even noticed the twinge of pain from her split lip as she watched the handsome, flame-haired knight fussing over the eggs, herbs, cheese, and butter in the iron pot.

As strange as it felt to be relaxing in her big sister’s nightdress and a borrowed robe while watching a man she hadn’t known for more than a month cooking her breakfast, there was also something soothing about it, and she felt the tension melting from her body as she slowly grew accustomed to his presence.

Instead of hanging the pot back over the fire, Ollie set it down at the edge of the hearth and raked a bed of glowing coals around its base. Then he set the lid in place and shoveled more coals on top of the lid with the iron scoop. Sparks flew as he worked and a few landed on the back of his hand, but he brushed them aside with a casual flick like he was shooing a fly away.

"Fire beneath and fire above," Ollie said, sitting back on his heels with a satisfied nod. "Otherwise the bottom burns before the top sets. Now we leave it alone and let the coals do the work," he said as he turned the sausages and stirred the mushrooms before moving on to the bread.

Four quick strokes of the knife took the crust off the loaf in long, dark strips. A dozen more turned what was left into slices so even they could have passed as roof tiles. Ollie laid them into the smaller pan in a sizzling pool of butter, and the smell of toasting bread joined the sausages, mushrooms and herbs until Jocelynn’s stomach gave a loud, embarrassing growl.

Ollie pretended not to hear it, though the corner of his mouth twitched before he busied himself with his next task.

While the bread toasted, he scooped butter into a bowl, drizzled in honey from the crock, and whipped the two together with his whisk until the mixture turned pale and fluffy. Then he emptied the little cloth pouch onto the board.

"You aren’t going to serve those whole?" Jocelynn asked. She’d thought that Ollie had heard the stories about her picnics with Ashlynn and chose the dried fruit and nuts to be something to nibble on while the rest of their breakfast cooked, but clearly she’d been mistaken.

"Watch," Ollie said as he selected a broader, flatter knife from his roll and went to work.

The cranberries and walnuts went under the knife together in a pile. Ollie chopped them coarsely, then swept them back into a pile, and chopped again. Then he turned the blade flat and pressed down hard with the heel of his hand, smearing the pile across the board, before gathering it up and doing it again. Three times. Four. By the time he stopped, the walnuts and cranberries had become a thick, glistening paste, flecked with deep red.

"Walnuts give up their oil if you press them hard enough," he said, glancing up at her with a proud grin. "It holds the whole thing together."

"But what is it?" Jocelynn asked.

"You’ll see," Ollie said mysteriously as he returned to the hearth, carefully taking the lid off the pot to inspect the golden, fluffy contents within. "It’s time to eat."

Ollie set the lid aside on the hearthstones, and a cloud of fragrant steam rolled up out of the pot. Underneath it, the eggs had risen high and golden, puffed up above the rim of the pot with a top that had browned in delicate, uneven patches where the heat of the coals had kissed it.

He fetched two plates from the cupboard and set them side by side at the edge of the table. Then he slid his long knife around the inside of the pot in a single smooth circle, loosening the edges from the iron, and cut the eggs into wedges as neatly as slicing a cake. The first wedge came out whole on the flat of his spatula, steaming, revealing sides that were marbled with flecks of green herbs.

The sausages followed, glistening and dark, with skins that were blistered and taut. Ollie laid two on each plate, side by side, and spooned the mushrooms over and around them before he moved on to the toast.

He lifted each slice from the pan while it still hissed, laid it on the board, and spread the honey-butter over it in a single long stroke of his knife. It began to melt the moment it touched the hot bread, pooling in the small hollows and sinking into the crumb. Over that went a thin, even layer of the walnut and cranberry paste, pressed flat to the very edges. A last stroke of the knife cut each slice corner to corner into two neat triangles, which he leaned against the eggs so they wouldn’t go soggy on the plate.

Finally, he poured cider from the stoppered jug into two cups, then set one plate and one cup in front of Jocelynn with something that was almost a bow.

"Breakfast, my lady," Ollie said with a wide grin that faded away the moment he got a closer look at her face.

"I’m so sorry," Ollie said, reaching out with one hand that stopped just short of Jocelynn’s face. She flinched back, more in surprise than anything else, and Ollie’s brows furrowed in concern. "Here, let me take care of you," he said as a faint, jade-green glow surrounded his hand.

Jocelynn froze, going perfectly still while Ollie reached out again. She couldn’t see his hand; it was too close to her face, but she felt the warmth flowing from it even though he didn’t touch her. Then, two heartbeats later, the slight stinging pain from her split lip melted away like butter melting into warm bread, and the tenderness of her cheek faded away half a heartbeat later.

"I should have done that first thing," Ollie apologized. "I was..."

"You’d just got up," Jocelynn said with a soft smile on her bow-shaped lips as she reached out to hold the hand that had just healed her with both of her hands. "And you wanted to make me breakfast."

"Thank you, Sir Ollie," she said, gazing at him with shining eyes. "For all of it. Now, please, fetch your plate and sit with me," she said, gesturing to the other armchair. "I can’t wait to taste what you’ve made..."