7th Time Loop: The Villainess Enjoys a Carefree Life Married to His Worst Enemy!

Chapter 23: Is there something wrong with his taste buds?

Rishe stood in the small kitchen of the palace, chopping herbs the knights had brought her from their morning patrol of the city's perimeter. She made short work of it, gathering the herbs on the cutting board and scraping them into the pot along with onions and bacon and other delights. She left it to simmer, the aroma filling the kitchen.

It was a small space, only ever used for making breakfast, and therefore completely deserted at night.

"Umm…" Rishe glanced over her shoulder. "Are you sure you don't want to wait back in my chambers?"

Arnold sat on a wooden chair in the corner, leaning against the bare table beside him with his head in his hand as he watched Rishe make the soup. "No, I'm fine here."

"If you say so." This couldn't be exciting, could it? He'd also just sat there watching as she attacked her dyed hair with hot water and a towel.

Maybe he just likes people-watching, Rishe thought as she stirred the soup.

Sensing it was done, she scooped some out into a small dish and tried it.

After a moment of silence, she added salt.

Rishe stirred it again and tasted it. She squeezed her eyes shut, poured in some water, adding pepper once it was boiling. Then some more chopped herbs, just in case, before trying it again. The taste brought her quickly to her senses. She blinked her eyes.

What have I done?!

Regret welled inside her. What a terrible decision, made purely out of exhaustion—inviting the crown prince to a kitchen so late and then making him soup.

"Um, Your Highness?" Rishe passed the bowl of soup from hand to hand. "I'm going to apologize in advance."

"Advance of what? Wandering around the city again in the middle of the night?"

"Well, yes, I'll apologize for that as well. Just…I should have thought this through, so I feel really bad about it, but…" She took a deep breath to ready herself for the admission.

Admitting weakness to a former enemy was difficult, not to mention embarrassing. Indeed, she was only doing it to prevent greater misfortune down the road. She struggled to find the right words.

Finally, she managed to look Arnold in the eye and let out a strangled, "I-I'm bad at cooking!"

"Oh?" A fleeting look passed over his face, one Rishe had never seen before. It was gone too fast for her to divine its meaning. "Is that so?"

"I invited you here out of hunger and exhaustion, and I've made a huge mess of things. I shouldn't have offered. I'm so sorry."

"Well, I admit I was a bit confused," Arnold said. "I don't know any noblewomen who can cook."

"Fair enough…" Rishe trailed off.

In her previous lives, she ate primarily to keep herself alive. She preferred food that tasted good, of course, but she'd take time to sleep over the time spent preparing a good meal. In her last life as a knight, she would at most boil a potato and add some salt. Easy.

From her time as an apothecary, Rishe knew that brewing medicines and cooking weren't that different—you just added the right ingredients in the right quantities, chopping and boiling in a pot rather than a beaker. On the other hand, cooking was intrinsically different—you wanted it to actually taste good, and to do that, you needed to understand how to marry the flavors involved and the methods by which to enhance them.

She wouldn't have cared if she were the only one eating this soup. She had gone this far with making this meal, but she felt too ashamed to feed it to Arnold as well. "It took so long, and now it won't be good."