"Why not? Someone made up all the other words."
"That's what Thomas said about rules," Marianne noted.
"Smart boy. Gets it from his mother."
"His mother thinks parsnips are a fruit," Mr. Ironwell said.
"They're sweet!" Mrs. Ironwell defended.
"So is some medicine, but we don't put it in fruit salad."
"That's because it's poisonous in big amounts, Harold."
"So are some fruit if you eat the seeds."
"What fruit?"
"Apples. Apple seeds contain something poisonous."
"In tiny amounts," Alaric felt compelled to point out. "You'd need to eat about two hundred apple seeds to get a fatal dose."
Everyone stared at him.
"Why do you know that?" Marianne asked.
"General education."
"That's very specific for general education."
"I had a very thorough education."
"In poisoning?"
"In chemistry. Poisoning was merely a subset."
"That's reassuring," Marianne said dryly. "The duke's steward knows exactly how many apple seeds it takes to kill someone."
"Only approximately. It would depend on body weight and individual sensitivity."
"Oh well, that's much better."
The conversation devolved into a heated debate about which common foods were secretly poisonous, with Mr. Ironwell insisting that tomatoes were "suspicious" and Mrs. Martin claiming she'd once been "nearly killed" by an underdone potato.
"You can't be nearly killed by a potato," her husband protested.
"I was violently ill!"
"That's not the same as nearly killed."
"It felt like death."
"You said the same thing about your cousin's wedding."
"That also felt like death. Have you met my cousin?"
Throughout dinner, Alaric found himself increasingly aware of Marianne beside him—the way she laughed at the ridiculous arguments, how she absently tucked her hair behind her earwhen thinking, the small gestures she made while talking. It was deeply unsettling. He was the Duke of Wexmere. He did not notice provincial widows' hair-tucking habits.
"You're staring," Marianne said quietly, not looking at him.
