Chapter 164: Love and the Culinary Revolution (8)
Thud.
Serena and the other two ca tumbling out of the office — and the Y&P Trading Company office, as though it had never been noisy at all, settled back into silence.
"Hmm……"
Jurgen looked at the closed door and murmured to himself.
He didn't think of last night as sothing that needed to be kept tightly under wraps. But it wasn't sothing to go around boasting about either, was it?
He had intended to be a bit more natural and unhurried about things……
Sharp as ever, Serena. She seed to have figured it out in an instant.
Well — they had been alone in the office all night, and neither of them had changed their clothes.
Perhaps they had left rather too many clues.
Jurgen turned his gaze and looked at Penelope, sitting on the sofa across from him. Penelope was cradling her teacup in both hands, flushed face tilted downward, as though she had never been anything but composed.
"Haah……"
Penelope let out a deep sigh and murmured.
"We're done for. Of all people, it had to be Serena who noticed……"
She ruffled her own hair and lowered her head even further.
Jurgen rested his chin on his hand and watched her quietly.
It wasn't as though Jurgen had felt nothing for Penelope.
She was a capable partner, a trustworthy colleague, and above all, a comrade-in-arms who had run toward the sa dream.
Soday. In the far distant future, he had vaguely thought this relationship might change.
But he hadn't expected it to be quite this sudden.
'Stay with forever. Look only at .'
A bond is sotis overturned in an instant by a single event.
What he had believed was seeping in slowly — like clothes soaked through by a gentle drizzle — had, by the ti he ca to his senses, already co pouring out like a burst dam.
It had happened far sooner than he had expected, but he had no regrets.
"What does it matter?"
"What does it matter?! Of course it matters enormously!"
Penelope's head snapped up.
"We could never have hidden it indefinitely anyway. Not with Serena involved."
"T-that's true, but……!"
Jurgen settled himself sideways on the armrest of the sofa where Penelope was sitting. Uncomfortably close.
Penelope flinched and tried to lean back, but Jurgen's hand was faster.
"Your hair is a ss."
He reached out naturally and began to smooth Penelope's dishevelled hair.
Penelope's shoulders stiffened. But she didn't pull away from his touch.
"……Don't do that. It's embarrassing."
Penelope muttered, averting her eyes as though sulking. Yet contrary to her words, a tingling current seed to travel from the tips of the strands he was touching.
Was this real? Last night wasn't a dream? She still couldn't quite believe it — it all felt strangely unreal.
She had braced herself and let it all out in a rush, yes. But until just the day before, they hadn't been like this, had they?
"Ugh……"
Penelope was disoriented by the change. Outside of hands brushing lightly while being escorted, the two of them had never touched each other.
"Nothing hurts?"
"N-not particularly……"
And yet here was that very Jurgen, slowly combing through her dishevelled hair with his fingertips. And here she was, accepting it as though it were the most natural thing in the world, and grumbling about it.
It really was strange. Was it normal for a relationship to change this much in a single day?
"I said stop it! It's embarrassing!"
She didn't know. Everything was a first, and it all felt utterly unfamiliar.
"You were the one who started it."
Jurgen said it with an air of mild grievance.
***
Ti passed. The revival of The Golden rmaid was more than successful — the word barely did it justice.
Before the heat of the renewal opening had even died down, The Golden rmaid's reservation calendar was packed to the margins with every manner of Social Circles event in the North.
Beginning with so count or other's seventieth birthday celebration, the North Nortaris Chamber of Comrce year-end banquet, and even the New Year's countdown party hosted by the Nortaris City Mayor.
The North's most distinguished families were lining up one after another to secure a table at The Golden rmaid.
As one might have already learned from the Cola affair — few people pivot faster than figures of the Social Circles. The nobles abandoned their forr dismissal of The Golden rmaid without batting an eye, and reversed their positions entirely.
"My goodness, to think this level of banquet was possible in the North. Countess Blanchard's discernnt really is exceptional."
"Isn't it far superior to the party venues in the capital Albion? This is the true depth of our North."
"I was right to buy the mbership at its lowest point. Do you know what a Golden rmaid mbership goes for now? They say you can na your price."
"Oh, I bought mine long ago. You might say I had foresight."
The result: The Golden rmaid, which had been driven to the brink of bankruptcy, beca the most difficult-to-reserve Social Circles destination in the entire North.
"Now it's my turn."
But drawing a crowd was never where it ended.
When proud and fastidious Northern nobles gathered in one place, what mattered most was exquisite political instinct.
Who to seat at the head table? How far to separate the tables of two feuding families? Whose champagne glass to fill first?
Reading the subtle power dynamics and rivalries of the Social Circles, and orchestrating everything so that not a single discordant note was heard.
And who had accomplished this? None other than Marianne Blanchard.
She swept through the hall without pausing a single mont, welcoming each guest in turn.
"My, Baroness! The colour of your dress complents the mood of the hall so beautifully."
Marianne clasped the Baroness's hand with a look of delighted surprise.
"When I was agonising over the curtain colour, the one thing I kept coming back to was elegance — but now that you've arrived, it feels complete!"
"Oh my? Really? Ohoho! Countess Blanchard really does have an eye for these things!"
The most basic of basics. Complinting a guest's dress and lifting her spirits.
"Marquis! Welco, welco!"
"Ahem, it has been a while."
"As it happens, I've been hoping to ask a small favour of you……"
"A favour? Of ? How unusual."
At Marianne's signal, Bernard brought over a wine bottle bearing an impressive label.
"We've recently acquired so of our finest wine…… but I simply cannot feel confident whether it pairs well with the courses. Might I ask for the Marquis's esteed opinion?"
"Ha — esteed opinion indeed, you flatter ."
"Not at all~ I've heard ti and again that the Marquis's wine cellar is the most magnificent in the North."
"Well, that's not a difficult matter. Let have a look."
The Marquis wore a haughty expression — yet the suggestion that his expertise was needed had his pride soaring to the heavens.
The Golden rmaid benefited from selling premium wine. The Marquis gained a chance to display his prestige. A mutual win for both parties.
And that was not all. Marianne swept the hall, clearing landmines one by one.
"Bernard — move Viscountess Montpellier from Table Three to Table Seven."
"Pardon? But that's a reserved seat."
"Lady Liverpool, who is her sworn enemy, is seated at Table Four. If those two catch sight of each other, plates will be flying."
"But…… if we move her so abruptly, won't the Viscountess be displeased……?"
"Tell the Viscountess that the seat with the best lighting in the hall happened to be available and we especially wished to offer it to her. She's been dying to show off those earrings she bought at auction recently."
"……!"
The Social Circles — a tangle of desire, vanity, the urge to show off, and inferiority. As a forr Social Circles celebrity, Marianne understood their psychology better than anyone.
This was the mont when her true worth — previously obscured by the blind imperative of 'we must turn a profit!' — finally ca into its own in earnest.
anwhile.
"Table Five, is the course ready?!"
"Yes, Chef!"
"Mains going out — Braised Ribs, ten! Duck Confit, nine! Bisque Soup goes out right now! A minute late and it's cold!"
Chef Gabriel's shout rang through the kitchen.
If the hall was a graceful Swan Lake, the kitchen was a war zone of frantic paddling beneath the surface.
Chef Gabriel stood at the boundary between kitchen and hall, plating dishes and directing the flow.
"Tables Five, Nine, Fifteen. Mains — Braised Ribs, five; Confit, nine! Bisque goes out while the temperature is perfect!"
Then ca an urgent cry.
"Chef! The Cod Mousse won't hold together!"
"What?"
"The cod has too much moisture in it today — the shape keeps collapsing!"
"Run it through the dehydrator again!"
"There's no ti! It needs to go out right now!"
In Fine Dining, every step must flow like water. But as things stood, they were facing the worst possible outco — a soupy, shapeless Mousse floating on top of the soup.
"Blast. Finish matters more than speed. Hold on — I'll handle it myself."
Just as Chef Gabriel was setting down his tweezers with a frown and moving to step in —
Brigitte, who had been boning a mountain of duck carcasses in the corner, looked up sharply.
"Chef Gabriel — there are leftover Scallop off-cuts in the freezer, yes?"
"Scallops? There are, but——"
"Scallops bind far better than cod! If you blitz the cod flesh with Scallops at a three-to-seven ratio, the flavour holds and the shape sets firm!"
At Brigitte's instant solution, Chef Gabriel made his call without a single mont's hesitation.
"You heard her! Add the Scallops! Blender on maximum!"
"Yes, Chef!"
And indeed, it was exactly as Brigitte had said.
The mont the Scallops were folded in, the cod flesh — which had been slack and loose — absorbed a springy cohesion and was shaped into a perfect oval Quenelle. Chef Gabriel returned to the pass, inspecting the plates as they arrived.
"Mousse shape is good, Bisque concentration is perfect."
One last dab of the cloth to wipe a stray drop of sauce from the rim of the final plate.
"Service!"
Chef Gabriel clapped his hands and passed the plates to the waiters. Beads of sweat dotted his brow — but his eyes were more alive than they had ever been.
***
When all the battles were over and the last plate had been cleared away, Jurgen stood on the second-floor terrace of The Golden rmaid, looking down at the snowy night view of Nortaris.
Cola, CCC, Royal Kitchen — and now The Golden rmaid.
The puzzle of the Culinary Revolution had, at last this evening, been fitted perfectly together.
"Splendid."
Not a single step of the journey had been easy. All the trials that had unfolded in Britannia, a culinary wasteland, in the frozen expanse of the North where nothing existed.
And yet they had co this far.
"Jurgen!"
Then, from the floor below, ca Penelope's voice. She had bundled herself into a thick coat and was waving up at him, breath puffing white in the cold.
"Aren't you coming down? Everyone's heading out for a al together!"
Beside her, Brigitte, Aiden, and Serena were chattering away noisily. Marianne, Chef Gabriel, and Bernard were there too — a little awkward, but with genuine smiles.
Yesterday's rival becoming today's colleague. A competitor becoming a partner. Perhaps that was the true power that Fine Dining possessed.
"I'll be right down!"
Jurgen descended the stairs with a light step. The night was already deep — yet he had the feeling that tonight would stretch longer than most.
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