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“This,” Xerxes Break was saying when Reim Lunettes entered the kitchen, “should really be the obvious solution! The Rainsworth family is rich enough—there shouldn’t be a need to stock knives, of all things, in the kitchen!”
“Are you insane, Xerxes,” Reim said, though he was sure he already knew the answer to that question: a resounding yes.
Xerxes Break whirled around to face him. “I,” he said, “am perfectly sane. I work for Pandora—”
“That’s honestly more of a testament against your sanity than for it,” Reim said dryly. “What’s this about getting rid of knives in the kitchen ?”
“Lady Sharon wants to learn to cook,” said Xerxes, which was only an explanation in that Reim had seen the Lady Sharon on his way down to the kitchens, with the tiniest of bandages on her finger and an axe to grind against the man who had bodily removed her from the kitchen after she cut her finger learning to chop carrots. “So I’m trying to make the kitchen safe for—”
“Kitchens need knives, Xerxes,” Reim said dryly.
Xerxes rolled his eyes, and Reim took the opportunity to haul him bodily out of the kitchen before he could cause any more problems.
“Lady Sharon is second in line to the Rainsworth Dukedom, Xerx,” Reim reminded him as they headed back upstairs. “She doesn’t need to learn to cook, you know.”
Xerxes grimaced at him. “She wants to,” he told him.
“You don’t need to spoil her rotten, Xerx.”
“I’m not!” Xerxes said immediately. “Lady Shelly would—”
“Lady Shelly thought the whole thing was hilarious,” said Reim. “Lady Sharon’s barely got a scratch—you’re the only one worrying this much.”
Xerxes grumbled something unintelligible, but did not seem to want to continue eradicating all knives from the kitchen—the kitchen, of all things!—and so Reim left him mostly to his own devices, going to attempt to convince Duchess Rainsworth to respond to Duke Barma’s latest love letter.
This was a mistake, as Reim noticed at dinner that night. He had been unsuccessful at getting a response to his master’s letter, which was unfortunate but not surprising, but he saw that when he arrived at the dinner table—because, when there wasn’t some event going on, both Reim and Xerxes dined with the family, due to Reim’s unofficial adoption and whatever the hell it was Xerxes had going on with Lady Shelly—there were forks, and spoons, and absolutely no knives.
Reim and Lady Sharon exchanged a long-suffering glance as Xerxes, clearly under the impression that he’d been successful in this—could you even call it subterfuge? Reim was honestly unsure. Whatever it was, though, it was deeply embarrassing for him.
And also Lady Sharon, Reim realized, when her plate was served and everything on it was already cut up, as though she was a child. Reim couldn’t quite hold back a snicker, at which point both he and Xerxes got smacked with Lady Sharon’s harisen.
“I was laughing at Xerxes, not at you!” Reim protested.
“Hmph,” said Lady Sharon, and then she skewered Xerxes with a cutting glare. “I am perfectly capable,” she said, “of cutting up my own food.”
“I never said you weren’t, the food just came like that.”
Sharon and Xerxes stared at each other for a few moments before her harisen whipped out again and smacked against him.
Reim snickered. Lady Shelly and Duchess Sheryl looked amused, too, which meant that nobody stopped Lady Sharon from immediately picking a violent fight with Xerxes, which ended in him holding her up and away from him as she kicked and hissed like an angry cat, in a decidedly unladylike manner.
“Hm,” said Lady Shelly, in the tone of voice of a Rainsworth woman about to pour gasoline on the world and set it alight, “this is quite adorable. Xerxes, would you like to be Sharon’s valet?”
Xerxes dropped Lady Sharon in shock. “Me?!”
“Yes, you,” she said. “I can’t think of anyone more trustworthy, after all.” Lady Shelly smiled at him. “I can already tell you won’t allow any harm to befall her, after all.”
“Mother! It was just a scratch!” Lady Sharon protested, already pushing herself up off the ground.
“I know,” Lady Shelly told her, “but if Xerxes will even protect you from the dastardly tableware…”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Xerxes said bravely, and got laughed at again, this time by everyone in the room.
“I think it would be fine, I suppose,” said Lady Sharon. “—As long as all the silverware goes back where it’s supposed to be.”
“I didn’t steal the—”
“We all know you’ve ‘confiscated’ the knives, Xerxes,” Duchess Rainsworth said dryly. “You were not subtle at all.”
Xerxes grumbled under his breath—he clearly hated to be seen as caring in any way—before saying, “Fine, I’ll be her valet.”
“Excellent,” Sharon said immediately. “Your first order is to never, ever cut my food up for me again.”
Xerxes grimaced, but acquiesced; Reim held himself back from laughing at him again. Lady Shelly raised one singular eyebrow.
“...I’ll get the silverware,” Xerxes muttered, and turned and left the dining room.