“Just keep whisking until the whites and yolks are well combined.”
“Okay.”
While Anje whisked the eggs, Aiden removed the boiling potatoes from the pot and took out a paring knife. He put a piece of butter in the pot to melt.
“What are you making with these eggs?”
“A classic omelet.”
Her face lit up. Omelet was one of her favorite dishes.
TL/N: SAME.
There was no particular reason why she liked omelets. She had simply heard from her maids that omelets were her late mother’s favorite dish, so she thought she should like them too.
<The young lady has a lot in common with the duchess in terms of taste.>
She felt good when someone said that. Maybe she wanted to connect with her mother, whom she had no memory of, in that way.
Lost in thought, she moved her arms vigorously.
“I think it’s done. What do you think?”
“Where… Yeah, that should do it.”
He seasoned the fully beaten eggs with spices and added a few tablespoons of cream.
‘If it were summer, I would have added tomatoes or spinach too.’
Unfortunately, the recipe was limited until the time came to harvest the vegetables.
‘It would be nice if I could build a greenhouse.’
His simple wish was to have a glass greenhouse where he could grow plants without getting sunburned.
He didn’t envy anything about the lives of nobles or royalty, but he did envy the environment where he could grow something all year round.
However, glass, which was difficult to transport, especially in large and thick quantities for a greenhouse, would probably be quite expensive.
That’s why his vegetable garden now had a structure with a glass cover only on top in a small box, where he grew sensitive young plants for a while before transplanting them into the field.
He thought, ‘Let’s be content with the present.’ and strained the finished egg mixture into a strainer. Anje, who had been watching his hands with curiosity, asked.
“Why are you straining it?”
“It makes it smoother this way. I sometimes skip it when I’m lazy.”
When someone other than himself is eating with him, he unknowingly pays more attention to the taste.
He omitted the afterthought and put a thumb-sized piece of butter on the heated frying pan.
Sizzle!
Anje watched him cook the omelet. It was fascinating to watch the substance, which was initially just a yellow liquid, gradually take shape and cook into a crescent shape.
‘Cooking might be a little… fun.’
At first glance, it seemed easy, so she wondered if she could do it herself someday.
Without taking his eyes off the pan where he was making the second omelet, Aiden asked Anje.
“Can you bring me some bacon from the cutting board?”
“Sure.”
The smoked bacon that Aiden had taken out of the basement storage the day before was still cold, but it was okay for cooking.
With the two of them working together, it didn’t take long for the two plates to be filled with food.
Crispy, savory bacon, fluffy mashed butter potatoes, and the main event, the omelet.
A loud rumble came from Anje’s stomach. She quickly wrapped her arms around her stomach and made an excuse.
“I went to bed without dinner last night… and I helped you since early in the morning.”
Fearing that another strange sound might come from her stomach again, she hurriedly picked up her spoon. She also wanted to try the omelet she had ‘helped’ to make as soon as possible.
“Em…!”
Anje almost blurted out an exclamation of admiration with food in her mouth, but belatedly remembering table manners, she chewed her food silently instead of exclaiming.
The hot and fluffy omelet was seasoned with just salt, pepper, and cream, but it was perfectly seasoned. Perhaps it was because of the fresh ingredients, but there was none of the eggy smell that Anje, who was sensitive to such things, often noticed.
She gulped down the food and said with shining eyes.
“It’s delicious. It’s the best omelet I’ve ever had.”
Aiden raised the corners of his mouth slightly and replied as he lowered them.
“Isn’t it more delicious because of the work that went into it?”
“I did work hard. That mean rooster was so scary.”
She said this in a matter-of-fact tone, twirling his fork and spoon.
“I’ll leave the feeding of the chickens to you from now on.”
“Huh?”
“Didn’t you say you wanted to work?”
“Well, that’s true, but…”
“It’s probably more manageable than preparing feed for horses or cows.”
His gaze fell on Anje’s arms. Surely those arms would never be able to carry a pile of hay or a bag of feed.
“What if it attacks me again?”
“You’ll get along with them if you feed them. It’s natural to need an adjustment period at first.”
“……”
The thought of seeing that vicious chicken again made her sullen, but Anje chewed on her bacon and tried to calm down.
“Oh, and I’d also like you to take care of the pigs.”
“Pigs?”
She asked, looking at the wrinkled lines between his eyebrows.
“Why? Don’t you like it?”
“Pigs are dirty.”
“They’re cleaner than you, who’ve been skipping cleaning and laundry for weeks.”
“Let’s stop talking about that.”
She brandished her fork menacingly.
“Anyway, they’re cleaner livestock than you think. They just enjoy mud baths because they get hot easily. They’re not that dirty if you just clean the barn regularly.”
“Really?”
It was the first time she had heard that pigs get hot easily.
“I’ll show you how to feed them after dinner. Then you can come out to the field.”
“The field…”
Anje’s shoulders slumped. She had said she would work, but she didn’t know she would have to work in the fields.
‘Did I say something wrong?’
Couldn’t she have manipulated him in another way? For example, maybe she could have said that she really wanted to buy something that was only sold in town…
‘He’d probably refuse outright.’
In Anje’s imagination, Aiden was already pulling out a rope after firmly telling her no.
One of his eyebrows raised.
“Is there something you’re not happy with?”
“…Won’t my few clothes get dirty if I work in the fields? I’m also worried that my face and hands will get dirty.”
He replied in a tone that suggested he didn’t care much.
“You don’t have to worry about that, since my mother’s apron, work hat, and gloves are all still here.”
Anje was silent for a moment before exclaiming.
“That’s great!”
And she pushed her plate away.
“Do you have any leftover potatoes?”
Normally, she would have stopped eating here to save her waistline, but if she had to move around again, that was a different story.
* * *
Three pigs, their snouts poking out of the trough, squealed happily as Aiden poured in feed and food scraps.
Anje sighed deeply, looking down at the pink heads buried in the feeding trough.
‘I envy them.’
A life of standing still, waiting for food, eating their fill, rolling around in the mud, and napping.
‘Oh, come to think of it, that was my life in the Capital?’
Until then, she never thought she would envy a pig.
‘I want to be one of your kind too.’
Anje asked Aiden, shaking off the creeping melancholy.
“What are their names?”
“Names?”
He wasn’t going to give names to pigs he would catch and eat when the weather got warmer.
He was about to teach her the harsh reality, but then he imagined her face turning pale and changed his mind.
“They don’t have any.”
There was no need to tell her such vivid stories right away, especially to a girl raised in refinement.
“Oh, really?”
Anje looked at the three tails curled up like water dragons. As he said, the pigs were cleaner than she expected.
Their rosy pink skin and their way of approaching her and recognizing her made them seem much more friendly than the chickens from before.
‘Since they’re pink pigs… Maybe I should give them names that start with ‘pi’?’
Piretti? Pino? Pirius? Since there are three, they should be names that pair up well.
Lost in thought, she started to follow Aiden, who had already started walking.
Feeding the animals was not that difficult, but the problem was from now on.
“Hey, I’ve never done farm work before.”
“I know that without you even saying it.”
She had asked him for help when she couldn’t figure out how to put on an apron, so he could easily guess.
“It’s a simple task, so even you should be able to follow along easily.”
“I don’t like the ‘even you’ part, but that’s good.”
Anje straightened the hem of her fluttering apron and retorted sharply.
She didn’t want to ask him for help either, but she couldn’t quite figure out how to put on this work apron that wrapped around her whole body.
‘How am I supposed to know that I need to pin the chest part with a safety pin?’
With her small face peeking out from under the hat and the apron that seemed a bit too big, her already small stature looked even smaller.
“Come this way.”
Aiden led her to the carrot patch where green shoots were already starting to emerge. Then he crouched down and pointed to the sprouts that were poking up.
“These are carrot sprouts.”
“Aha.”
Anje rested her chin on her hands as she crouched down next to him.
“If these sprouts grow well, carrots will grow on the branches.”
“……Really?”
She thought carrots were the roots of plants, so did she get it wrong?
Aiden’s eyebrow twitched.
“Do you believe it?”
“Ugh… you were so serious that I got confused for a moment!”
She grumbled why he was telling a meaningless lie. He nodded to himself.
‘Right.’
Whenever she blinked her eyes and stared at him intently, he felt an urge to tease her for some reason.
Maybe it was his playful side that had been suppressed for a long time coming out because he was finally interacting with someone after so long.
And she was also a very gullible person.
He only just realized, thanks to her, that this part of him still existed.
* * * *
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