CHAPTER 1117: BREAKFAST WITH A MURDERER (PART ONE)

Servants had labored through the night to clean the office that belonged to generations of Lothian lords, preparing it for use by the Heir Apparent as he began to take control of the workings of the march.

In time, Owain was certain to redecorate as countless lords before him had. While most of the grisly trophies would remain, some would be returned to storage, and space would be made for the next Marquis to add his own contributions to the collection, just as Bors had done during his reign.

For now, Owain had only ordered a few changes to be made, things he considered essential to claim this space from his fallen father.

The embroidery chair his mother once occupied had been removed from its place of honor near the imposing oak desk. In its place, Owain ordered a long lounge chair to be installed, along with a shelf that held the tools of a scribe or clerk.

In Owain’s mind, it only made sense to ensure that Jocelynn had ready access to the tools needed to perform calculations and to draw up the details of the plans he would devise from this office. She always had a knack for thinking of the tiny details that were beneath his notice, that nonetheless could become stumbling blocks in his path.

Ashlynn would never have deigned ot do the menial work of writing out his thoughts. She would have been too busy pointing out the ’flaws’ in his thinking or advocating for her own silly ideas to ever help her husband achieve true greatness. But Jocelynn was different, and Owain intended to keep her close in a way that he doubted he’d have been able to with a woman like her ’clever’ older sister.

There had been another change in the office that would help him to keep Jocelynn close. Bors had favored a pair of overstuffed leather chairs before the hearth where he could drink strong wine and drown himself in memories of glories lost along with one of his companions from the War of Inches, or the other lords of the march.

Owain, however, wanted a plush, comfortable sofa large enough for two. Jocelynn’s body enticed and intoxicated him, and the infernal Confessor who acted as her chaperone had demonstrated time and time again that she would interrupt them before he could more than sample the tenderness that lay underneath the satin and brocade of Jocelynn’s dresses.

Now, nothing would delight Owain more than relieving his tensions by ’consoling’ Jocelynn with the sort of tender affection that only a man could give a woman. And yet, Captain Albyn had warned him last night that Jocelynn had suffered inhumane treatment at Percivus’s hands and she was still steeped in grief for the death of her cousin.

Owain was ready to claim victory now that all of the obstacles between him and his prize had been removed, but if he rushed at the end, he would only spoil his dessert before he’d taken the first, sensual taste of Jocelynn’s delights.

But just because he couldn’t enjoy the pleasures of her body, it didn’t mean there weren’t other ways to make the morning memorable. After all, they were both finally free of the shackles that had bound them, and even if that freedom had come with a higher cost than either of them wanted to pay, now that Owain could finally wash away the stain on his life that his marriage to Ashlynn Blackwell had been, everything finally felt right with the world again.

It was cause for at least some celebration.

Since Percivus, the lunatic, had seen fit to execute the Master of Kitchens, Owain sent a servant to ’request’ one of the cooks from the Gilded Horns to oversee the preparation of a sumptuous breakfast that he could share with Jocelynn. The meal he’d received last night from the cook his father replaced Master Baden with suggested that the man was incapable of preparing anything for a person with refined tastes.

It had taken an act of considerable restraint to refrain from bludgeoning the man to half to death with the tough, bland turkey leg he’d been served on a bed of nothing but boiled potatoes whipped with butter and salt. Only the late hour and Owain’s own fatigue from attending to the matters of his father’s death prevented him from disciplining the unqualified cook, but just because he’d let the man off without a beating didn’t mean he would let the man continue to ruin food that was supposed to be fit for a lord’s table.

Thankfully, the most prestigious establishment in Lothian City, long rumored to belong to the elusive ’Black Merchant’ who had provided Owain with the Spider Demon Venom, seemed more than willing to loan him one of their cooks.

Now, half of the imposing desk, carved from one of the demon’s sacred trees, was covered with a feast that would have fed half a dozen men. The cook from the Gilded Horn had outdone himself, perfectly understanding Owain’s request and presenting a meal fit for the table of the next Lothian Marquis.

At the center of the spread sat a magnificent dish of eggs poached in rich cream and wine. Their golden yolks were nestled in a bed of winter greens that had been wilted with butter and fresh grated nutmeg. The eggs were topped with shavings of a hard, aged cheese that was the pride of Iroso barony, and drizzled with a glossy sauce made from egg yolks beaten with butter and the juice of precious citrus fruits that had made the long journey all the way from Keating Duchy.

Surrounding this centerpiece, silver platters gleamed with the bounty of the march’s winter stores. Thick slices of bacon, cut from hogs fattened on acorns and beechnuts, had been cured with salt and smoke until the fat turned translucent and sweet. And, as if the bacon wasn’t enough, another platter held freshly made sausages, plump and juicy, containing dark red flecks of the spiciest peppers that could be cultivated during the warm summers in Aleese Barony.

Another platter held neat rows of small, bite-sized, golden fritters, still warm from the pan. They were stuffed with dried fruits that had been soaked for hours in spiced wine until they swelled fat and sweet.

Thankfully, the cook hadn’t forgotten the palate’s need for sharpness to cut through the richness and decadence of the meal. A salad of bitter winter greens, chicory, endive, and the last of the season’s watercress had been dressed with a sauce of honey, wine vinegar, and crushed mustard seed, producing a flavor that was slightly sweet while still being sharp enough to renew a man’s appetite for the heavier fare.

And everywhere the eye looked, the glint of silver and the gleam of glazed pottery made their own statements as they displayed each dish in the best possible way. This wasn’t merely a meal; it was a statement of power and abundance. It was a demonstration that Owain was a man who could summon such luxury even in the depths of winter when most of the March tightened their belts and made do with storage apples and tough, salt-cured pork.

When the food arrived from the kitchens, Owain had been impressed enough to offer the portly cook a position as the new Master of Kitchens, but the man seemed strangely hesitant about leaving the Gilded Horns, which only reinforced Owain’s belief that the Black Merchant was somehow involved.

But as sour as he might have felt after being rejected by a simple cook, that irritation when the doors of his office opened to reveal the radiant figure of Jocelynn Blackwell....