My Wonderful Second Life

Chapter 17- A Lady in the kitchen

After the incident with the book, Jenni returned to normal, however, I never again saw the book or the scribe that caused the incident.

Jenni apparent air of calmness did not convince me to be a constant and truthful thing. Unfortunately, no matter how much I asked, she said nothing about it. Just shoving it with a smile and short sentences.

I didn't understand what was the fuss, to be sincere... yes it is true they wouldn't want Lucreatia to find out because it would open a can of worms. From my understanding, Lucreatia never knew about her mother's family back when she was a child and I was not sure she even remembered what she looked like since the Duke had gotten her when she was just 2 year's old.  But even if I didn't come to live on this body, Lucreatia would have discovered it eventually. She was shy, not dumb.

Even if to shield her from the pain of finding out the real reason for her parent's demise and the duke's affection, again that was bound to be found out. And I was sure she knew it already in part. It was hinted at in the book and, to be honest, not hard to figure out.

Anyway, it doesn't matter since for me these things should be resolved head-on and not hidden, then again that was very much different from Mountnero's way of doing things.

In the end, these stupid secrets prevented me from discussing my plan to suppress my difficulties in alchemy with Jenni. Now I had to rely only on Fanny.

Not sure if she would like it... spoilers she didn't.

"You cannot be serious, my lady." The shock on Fanny's face was translated to her body who stopped working on undressing me for the day.

"It cannot be worst than studying alchemy!" I remarked with an obvious tone.

"At least that was concealed from the public. How is my lady concealing cooking? Using the kitchen is hardly a lady thing to do and I am sure your tutor would be against it!!" She warned, now in front of me in her characteristic stance when talking to me about things she didn't approve of. Arms crossed and eyes enlarged.

"That is why we will do it in my free time and prepare beforehand. Besides I heard that the servants have a kitchen for them, they won't rattle on me." I told her with a smile and linking my arm with hers.

"But they will say it to the duke for sure." With her resistance diminishing, Fanny let out a heavy breath.

"I have a plan for that." I told her with a glowing smile.

And so it was decided. I asked Fanny to prepare the ingredients and make sure everything was ready for when I would have the time to cook. In the end, we choose a small kitchen once used by our staff but now deserted as I knew had been built. It was small, but enough for what was needed.

Fanny led me there when my free afternoon came around, still unsure If it was the correct approach after the incident in my room.

It is the best approach! As I told her every time.

She didn't believe me...

As we arrived I noticed it had been recently cleaned and there were no foul smells or any signs of unused time. Certainly, Fanny's work.

Being a small place there was not much space available for working, yet my recipe didn't need much. The only bad thing was the lack of natural light, as only one small window gave to the outside world. It didn't matter, the recipe was easy enough to be somewhat quick and without the need for too much effort. This time I was going for simplicity. No need to repeat mistakes.

I went to a cupboard made of wood, which had several flasks containing the ingredients I needed. All were very close to the wood oven made of black steel that gave charm to the little room.