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 awhat?”
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 thebeau 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.”
