Chapter 7 #2
She looked up from her pastry. “I’m sorry?” Briefly, hysterically, she wondered if he could read her mind.
Obviously not. Because she had liked it much too much.
“The food.” He gestured sharply at her plate. “You have not taken a single bite. You are going to be drunk as a lord if you do not eat.”
“Oh.” She turned over the pastry crust and speared it with her fork. “No, I’m sure it’s delicious.” She made herself take a bite, adding a little appreciative moan for his benefit.
He scowled. “You cannot survive on crumbs.”
She took another forkful of pastry crust. “It’s perfectly fine.”
“If you do not like it, we can order something else.”
“No, it’s—it’s not that.”
Ashford wrapped his fingers around his wineglass. “Let me guess. You do not like it when your foods touch each other. Or, no—you are actually a faerie, and if you eat the food of mortals, you’ll be trapped in this realm forever.”
Despite herself, she laughed. “Good heavens, Ashford, such whimsy. I had not taken you for a romantic.”
“You should call me Christian,” he said, and then he took a very hearty gulp of his wine.
By the time he was done, Matilda had managed to compose her face. “Yes,” she said politely. “I suppose I should.”
He set his glass back down on the table. “Never mind. Tell me what’s wrong with your dinner.”
“I am not a faerie. I—I eat a Pythagorean diet.”
“You eat a what?”
His face was a study in bafflement. Were she to draw him at this moment, his brows pulled together, she would call it, Explain Yourself, You Daft Woman.
“A Pythagorean diet. It means that I do not eat meat.” She gestured at the game pie. “Or things that have touched meat.”
“In God’s name, why?”
Matilda winced. This was why she did not typically discuss her dining habits with others.
“I read a pamphlet,” she said, a little lamely. “By Shelley. He said there are—many health benefits—”
“The poet Shelley?”
“Y-yes.”
“Not, say, a medical doctor?”
She pursed her lips and directed a glare at her pretend husband. “It was very well-researched.”
He picked up his wineglass again and then promptly set it back down. “I don’t believe you.”
“I assure you, he cited numerous sources—”
Christian waved a hand. “Not about that.” He narrowed his eyes at her. “Tell me one.”
She blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
“Tell me one benefit to your health that this pamphlet propounded.”
“Oh.” Blast it, she could not precisely recall. “I believe there was something about, um, the avoidance of mental derangement?”
He snorted. “Seems to have been working well for you then.”
She wondered how much blood would be produced if she stabbed him with her fork. Just a little stab. In his alarmingly muscled thigh, perhaps.
“I don’t believe you maintain what must be an outrageously onerous lifestyle, given the dining habits of the beau monde, out of some faddish notion of health.” His pale eyes ranged up and down her face, as if trying to see inside her mind.
Matilda looked nervously back down at the silver and did not respond.
He sat back in his chair and waved for a serving woman. “Do you eat fish? Not that I suppose we will find a variety of fish on the menu. Perhaps a jellied eel.”
“No fish,” she said. “Nothing, er, that was once alive.”
“Ha,” he said, and he lifted his glass again, this time in a kind of triumphant toast. “I knew it. You are too softhearted. That’s it, isn’t it? I’ve found you out. You can’t stand to eat something that had to be killed for your degustation.”
“No,” she protested.
Although yes, in point of fact. Damn it. Usually when she mentioned Shelley and Pythagoras, people’s eyes went unfocused and they dropped the subject. She should have memorized that bloody pamphlet.
“I know I am right. I saw your face when I first brought up my poor friendless sister. You are an alarmingly soft touch for such a shocking reprobate.” He’d caught the eye of the serving woman now, and she made her way briskly toward them.
“Eggs? Do you eat those? No innocent creature had to die for a boiled egg.”
Matilda was not quite sure what was happening. “I eat eggs.”
“Good.” Then he turned his address to the serving woman. “My wife finds a baked egg more to her taste. Can you bring her one or two?”
The serving woman looked from Christian to Matilda to the sadly congealing piece of game pie. “I think I could find her an egg, sir.”
“And pudding,” Christian went on. “My wife likes dessert. And have you any vegetables? Just plain—no roast or gravy.”
The serving woman blinked. “I might have—a potato?”
Christian frowned. The woman paled, and Matilda felt her mouth twitch. Goodness, she had almost forgotten how terrifying other people seemed to find his glower.
The serving woman gave Matilda a look of desperation. “A lovely baked potato, mum. With some fresh butter, it’ll be quite a treat, I’m certain of it.”
Matilda took pity on her. “Pudding and an egg would be fine, thank you. Perhaps we can save the potato for another day.”
The serving woman shot her a grateful look and fled for the kitchen.
Christian scowled down into his wine. “A Pythagorean diet,” he muttered. “Sheer bloody-mindedness, I call it.”
Matilda did not know quite what to think about what had just occurred. She feared—
Well. She feared she had fallen quite off the precipice and could no longer hope to pretend she did not like him.