Fedin was stunned.
In fact, when he first saw the other person’s face, Fedin thought that Fjord was teasing him. Putting the person he was looking for in an empty room in a fancy palace and pretending to be royalty.
It wasn’t as if he hadn’t been bothering him as he prepared for the banquet. Fjord’s kitchen, which he’d ignored for so long, was more bustling than he’d ever imagined, and the pastry department routinely used ingredients he’d never seen.
At the same time, strangely, it took a long time to fix such things because they were not organized and needed a lot of work, as if they were only cooking their own food at home.
He did hear Fjord’s excuse. Even at an imperial banquet, it’s customary not to serve many sweets, and even in the imperial court, there’s only one person who enjoys sweets. Such sloppy excuses continued to play through one ear and spilled through the other.
“Well, Fedin, are you surprised?”
“Oh… No… No…”
‘Person in the royal family…’
Fedin’s mouth was dry and his eyes were bloodshot, and he could barely speak. Her gorgeous dress, made of flowing fabrics, and her soft expression, which had no shade, was like a replica of a plant in a greenhouse.
The things that he had heard about ‘Princess Anastasia’ belatedly crossed his mind. The story that the only daughter of the exiled prince returned to the imperial palace late and began to be favored by the emperor was more stimulating than drugs for the luxury goods moguls.
He had heard at least once that she was as beautiful as a fairy, with pink hair as if she had just picked a spring flower and chartreuse eyes like the buds of early spring. He remembered it now.
Fjord grabbed Fedin by the back of the head and squeezed.
“Your Highness, my nephew is still young and immature, and has been spending his time in the kitchen, so he is not very polite.”
“It’s okay, it’s okay, I’m sure he’s very surprised…”
The girl’s laughing voice gently rang. The pattern of the carpet was dizzying in Fedin’s eyes.
‘What is this? What’s going on?’
Fedin looked up again, unable to stop himself. Fjord tried to shake him off, but he struggled.
“Fedin, you said you wanted to see me, can I hear what’s going on?”
“That’s…”
Fedin had a feeling he knew why Fjord had made this arrangement – perhaps to see him surprised – but he had no idea what to make of it.
“Well, that is…”
His lips dried up. It was possible that Princess Anastasia had secretly visited his shop under a different name; it was possible that it was the princess he had spoken to; it was possible that he would meet her again at the palace.
But it’s unlikely that the princess would have been so accurate about confectionery. She couldn’t know what she hadn’t tasted. So how could the princess, who would have only eaten the sweets of imperial chefs who were less skilled than he was, be so sure?
“I, well, actually, I was looking for Asha Byshovets…”
At this point, Fedin wanted to bang his head on the floor. In retrospect, wasn’t it a pseudonym? Everyone in the capital knows that Princess Anastasia’s nickname is Asha!
‘I didn’t think of it until now because I wasn’t paying attention!’
“Ah, did I say something too harsh back then? I only said it because I hoped it would help, but if it offended you…”
“It’s… it’s not that… since you left such nice words, the store has been undergoing renovations and inspections again… so… you know, making snacks as a hobby… You mentioned that you make sweets as a hobby, so I wanted to ask… I wanted to ask…”
“Ah~!”
The girl smiled innocently and clapped her hands. Fedin thought it sounded like thunder.
“It’s just a hobby I do for myself. I didn’t learn from anyone in particular. Oh, I have a couple books that I refer to. Do you want me to tell you what they were? I think they were called <Small and Cute Baked Goods’ and ‘A Cake Journey of the Capital>.”
The squeak of a pet bird perched on the girl’s shoulder squeaked past her ears. Fedin pursed his lips and squeezed his lungs. A few tears threatened to fall.
“That’s…”
“What?”
“Those are both books I wrote…”
“Oh. Did you, I’m sorry, usually readers only look at the book and not the author’s name, but I remembered the title because I liked the book!”
The girl’s words were muffled by her embarrassment. The princess’s pet bird continued to chirp vigorously.
━━━✦❘༻༺❘✦━━━
“What should I do? Fedin must have been very surprised. I didn’t mean to trick him on purpose, but…”
Fjord waved away Asha’s worried words as she cupped her cheek, his face contorted slightly as he tried to hold back a chuckle. His eyebrows quirked together.
“No, no, it’s just that he’s been pampered from a young age and can’t recognize when others are better than him. In his heart, he must look up to the princess.”
Asha glanced at Fjord with a bit of embarrassment and unease in her eyes. Pavel was looking at the ground. His shoulders slumped, and he seemed to be holding back a laugh at the sight of Fedin.
“Pavel, Pavel too, stop it.”
“No, Your Highness. Why are you doing this to me? It reminds me of the day of the Empire Protection Day a few years ago. My heart aches to think of the surprised Patissier Fedin. I’m holding back tears… tears…”
“Oh, my.”
Asha glanced at Pavel and crossed her arms. Fedin, in his daze, took the opportunity to talk to Asha privately about sweets. Asha also nodded willingly because she was thinking of taking advice on her plans to open a snack shop.
“Do you really want anything else?”
“Oh, I do.”
“P, Pavel, hey.”
Fjord turned to Pavel, but Pavel’s face, barely able to contain his laughter, was serious. Pavel half-pushed Fjord away. It was as if he’d been practicing for this moment.
“I want you to give me a cake exemption.”
“A cake waiver?”
While Asha scratched her head at the unheard-of name, Fjord looked at Pavel with a look of realization on his face. Pavel nodded gravely.
“To be precise, I’d like a waiver on making a cake for your big day.”
“My big day?”
“I don’t know when that will be, but…”
“But what if Pavel and Fjord don’t make it?”
“On your big day… We believe it is your right to have a cake made by our most skilled pastry chef. Someone who can make it better than we can.”
Asha tried not to glare at Pavel as he rambled on, but ended up laughing.
“Okay, okay, I’ll give you each a waiver. One for Pavel, one for Fjord. Is this really going to work?”
A wide grin spread across the middle-aged chefs’ faces.
━━━✦❘༻༺❘✦━━━
“You were looking at that again?”
Karnov, who had been visiting Asha for a few days, smiled at the cloth embroidery book Asha was flipping through by the terrace window.
“Karnov, are you here?”
Asha stood up and tried to welcome him, but Karnov pressed her back down.
“But it’s so pretty. The girls made it all night. Mariya is a good embroiderer, isn’t she?”
“You’ve already talked about it five times.”
Even as he said that, Karnov leaned over and looked at the embroidery book. The embroidery book, made of linen fabric from Lyudmila, had been given to Asha for her birthday this year.
Natalya had come up with the idea. She had drawn some of the desserts Asha had made over the years and added descriptions and comments.
But she couldn’t think of a detailed shape for the desserts she’d already eaten, so she asked Mariya for help – they’d met when she published Natalya’s book – and the embroidery book was a collaboration between the three of them.
“The crookedness of the letters is Lady Natalya’s handiwork.”
“Natasha did a great job, though.”
Mariya embroidered the picture of the sweets, and Lyudmila and Natalia worked hard on the small letters.
“But I don’t know what Lady Meura’s birthday present is.”
“What did she give you?”
“It’s strange, because she didn’t give me anything. But she said she did give me a birthday present. Actually, I don’t expect to get anything, considering how much she’s been drawing me, but…”
Asha shook her head, then brushed it off and looked at Karnov with a wry smile.
“More than that, Karnov, is everything all right with your busy schedule? I heard you got another call from the estate.”
At that, Karnov hesitated a little, clenching and unclenching his hands. Asha’s eyes widened and she quickly covered what she saw.
“Why? Is something wrong?”
“It’s not a big deal, but I think I’ll have to stop by Sedvoyer once.”
“What? Why all of a sudden?”
“Remember when I told you that the granary was raided?”
Asha nodded.
“I said I caught the criminal at that time… Well, it wasn’t a man, it was an animal, and we must have caught the wrong one.”
“What? So the granary was robbed again?”
“Something like that…”
“Did anyone come out hurt?”
Karnov shook his head.
“That’s not it, that’s not it.”
“Karnov. I know when you’re lying…”
“…”
“…”
Just then, Phoebe, who had been listening to their conversation from Asha’s shoulder, blinked.
<That’s it.>
“What?”
<Prasti!>
Thank you again for all the updates!