Episode 20
“What’s wrong, My Lady?”
The chef named Jean is a meticulous one, but now he doesn’t seem like it.
He wiped the sweat off his face with his big hand and looked at me to see what to do next.
“Nothing. Did you make these plans, Jean?”
“Every week, I make a plan for a week’s worth of meals and have Dr. Raymond look it over.”
“There’s not a lot of meat. The dishes are mostly thin soups and veggies.”
Is this more of a meal plan for a diet than a meal plan for a patient?
Just looking at it made me hungry, so I held my stomach in.
“The duke is weak and has bad digestive organs, so I try to make meals that are easy for him to digest.”
“Hmm.”
I took another look at the meal plan.
No matter what, this was too much.
“Is something… wrong?”
He seemed to tighten up again when he saw how serious I was.
“Weak digestive… organs.”
I moved the hand that was on my chin to tap my cheek.
“Ouch.”
I suddenly remembered that my hand hurt, which I had completely forgotten.
‘He must be quite strong.’
I thought about how I had briefly touched his body in the gazebo.
Even though he was a bit skinny, his body was strong and strong.
He might be able to eat more if he didn’t have that strange illness.
No, maybe he doesn’t even feel his own hunger well.
When people eat, they feel a lot of happiness. Amoide is already in a bad mood.
“Jean.”
“Please speak.”
“Meat is an important thing to eat.”
“…Yes?”
“It means that there aren’t enough meats in the plan. Noblewomen eat more than this even when they are getting ready for their debutante balls.”
At the debutante ball, where young women show up for the first time in high society, they eat horrible food to make their body in clothes look better.
I thought about the short time I worked as a maid for a wealthy noble family.
Young women getting ready for the debutante ball could barely survive on a small amount of food. Some of them were so hungry that they were almost going to pass out.
But this is what a man should eat.
“Well, you must have been very hungry when you were getting ready for the debutante ball.”
“Me? No.”
I answered by mistake and then gave an awkward smile.
“It’s hard for me to gain weight because of how my body is built.”
“Ah.”
Jean showed that he understood by nodding.
“I can’t believe you don’t put on weight very easily.”
I’ve been hungry because I didn’t have enough to eat, but I don’t remember going without food on purpose.
I’ve learned from my past that the best thing you can do for yourself is to fast on purpose. It’s such a luxury.
“Shouldn’t he eat a little more since he has a big body? Once upon a time, my husband knew how to use a sword. He was the youngest person in the Empire to lead a knight division.”
I showed how to move a sword through the air by swinging it. Jean’s eyes followed where I moved my hand.
“Yes, you’re right, but…”
He took a breath, then he stopped talking.
“Imagine, Jean, if someone told you that this is what you had to eat.”
At 18, he beat out many other people to become a knight leader, but now his body was so weak that it could fall apart at any time.
Even his food isn’t good enough, which is a shame. “This is too harsh of a punishment for someone who was already weak.”
I looked at my hand all of a sudden.
“Can you get strong just by eating these kinds of meals?”
It was very strange.
“That’s… “
Jean’s eyebrows moved like the legs of a worm.
“That would hurt a lot, wouldn’t it?”
Jean gave a serious nod when I asked him a question.
“He might also lose his strength.”
I suddenly spoke in a low whisper.
“Oh, I see. Strength.”
Jean nodded excitedly, as if he had just realized something.
“In the end, a man needs to be strong.”
He lifted his arm to show how his muscles twitched.
“During the day and at night.”
“Yes, Jean, you do understand.”
I smiled warmly.
“There are a lot of meals you can eat with finely chopped meat if the thought of eating meat right away seems too much. Jean is the best cook, so I think it wouldn’t be too hard for him to make them.”
“Of course.”
He stuck out his chest and smiled proudly.
“So please, do me a favor. Add at least one dish to the current meal plan that he likes, that he can eat well, and that will give him more energy.”
“I will try, Madam.”
I smiled and nodded in agreement. At that time, I saw that Jean had put the knife he had been holding in one corner.
“Jean, where do you get the things you use to make your food?”
“We only get fresh meat, veggies, eggs, and milk from the nearby farm for the Duke’s family. After all, we need fresh eggs and milk that was just made.”
“Using fresh ingredients is the key to good cooking.”
What Jean said made sense to me.
“Sometimes I tell the maids what to buy, but most of the time I go to the market myself. When the maids buy things, they don’t always get to the castle in the best shape.”
“What are your thoughts on fish?”
“Every morning at the port in the city, there is a market. We buy the fish we need for the day, and auctions are held at that time to sell rare fish.
“What if you need some special ingredients sometimes?”
“You’re saying there are special ingredients?”
“How about something that would help someone get their strength back?”
“Ah.”
Jean seemed to know right away what I meant, and her smile told me a lot.
“I know for sure about these things. However…”
Jean’s voice suddenly got softer.
“However?”
Even my voice got quieter.
“Their only problem is that they cost a lot of money.”
“Who am I, Jean?”
I relaxed in my chair and couldn’t help but laugh at how silly everything was.
“You are the Duchess.”
“Please let me know what you need.”
I made a circle with my pointy finger and thumb.
Do I want more money or more influence?
When Jean heard that, her eyes became as bright as stars.
“Using good products is the most important thing for making good meals. Don’t try to cut costs here.”
I smiled at him and moved on.
“If you want more, tell me. You can use whatever ingredient you want.”
I almost laughed at myself when I said that, but it was true.
At least, since I moved into this house, I’ve never had to think about money.
It doesn’t matter that it’s the noble’s money.
No matter what, it’s going to the Duke’s mouth anyway.
“Also, I’ve heard that Jean knows a lot about healthy foods.”
Camilla went out of her way to hire him, even though he was from a faraway country. One reason was that he was a good cook who knew how to make all kinds of healthy food.
“Well, yes, I guess that’s true.”
He was humming and coughing.
Then I found out. Slowly, the corners of his mouth were turning up.
“On my own, I’ve come up with more than 100 ideas. All of these meals are good for you and taste good. I would even say they are my best meals.”
“I’ll be glad to work with you, Jean.”
“I will do my best for you, ma’am.”
Jean’s eyes were burning with determination.
As I looked at him, I gave him a smile.
“I’ll support you.”
I looked over as I clapped my hands and saw a shiny knife right next to me.
“But why did you have that knife in your hands before?”
“Oh, I had to find a criminal.”
“…Criminal?”
When Jean said that, Rona and I both looked at each other.
“The cat stole the fish…”
Just thinking about it made his beard look like it was shaking with anger.
“A cat came here?”
“Yes, as you can see from there,” he replied.
Considering how big the kitchen was, the window Jean was pointing to was very small.
The area around it got brighter when one beam of light went through it.
It looked like rats and cats were the only ones who could go in and out of that window.
Wait… a cat?
As I looked at Jean, I had a sudden idea.
“Jean, is that cat totally black?”
“Yes.”
Jean nodded.
“Big and…”
At first, I thought it had kittens, but after I watched it for a few days, I realized it didn’t.
Also, a stomach full of cats is impossible since its stomach is soft.
Oh, that stomach.
It was the only way to help me, since thinking about my old life hurt so much.
“Yes, it has stolen and eaten so many fish that it is almost too fat to fit through the window. When I first saw it, it was thin.”
It was clear that I played a big part in making it gain weight.
At every meal, I fed it meat, meat, and more meat…
“Why do you ask?”
Jean asked when he saw how quickly my face had changed.
“Jean, didn’t that cat grow up in the mansion where it was born?”
<Meow.>
I could still see the cat’s face rubbing against my palm.
I thought it was a cat that had grown up in the house because of how slowly it walked around the yard.
When I asked Jean a question, he looked at me as if to say, “What kind of nonsense are you talking about?”
“That can’t happen. Since the Duke is sick, we don’t raise animals for their fur.”
“…”
When Jean talked, I had to keep my mouth shut. But inside I was yelling.
“What, it wasn’t?”
“People who have trouble breathing can die if they breathe in cat fur. I know that Dr. Raymond has made it against the law to keep animals with fur in this house.”
Yes, I do remember hearing that there were such rules.
“But Amoide’s sickness has nothing to do with his lungs.”
Does it? Really, it doesn’t? Fear came on me out of nowhere.
