Glancing at Blackwell, she suppressed a grimace. His one eye fixed on her slender waist enhanced by a thick black belt as though marveling at her intentions for the evening.
“I like food,” she said defensively, omitting that she tended to overeat during times of stress or anxiety.
“Everyone likes food. It’s what keeps us alive. But I was expecting a lamb and vegetable stew, like I always have on Mondays.” He stared at the fare as though he didn’t quite know what to do with it.
Farah wrinkled her nose. “I’m certain the lamb stew is very—nutritious,” she conceded diplomatically. “But you must admit the distinction between food that nourishes the body, and food that nourishes the soul.”
“But I have no soul, remember?” He took one glance at her narrowed eyes and the corners of his mouth twitched. In a grand gesture, he stepped around her and pulled out the tall chair at the table’s head. “My lady.”
“Is that not your place?”
“Where I dine at my own table doesn’t mark or eliminate me as master of this castle.” He lifted the linen and swept his gloved hand at the chair. “This place was set for you tonight. I don’t wish to oust you from it.”
Farah had to fight very hard not to be astonished and charmed at the same time. “How very gauche of you,” she said as she took her seat, catching her breath when he draped the linen across her lap.
“Yes, well. I can afford to be.”
The understatement amused her more than she wanted it to.
He took the seat to her left, positioning himself to see both entrances, and arranged a linen across his kilt. Though the table was long enough that the far end all but disappeared into the horizon, Dorian Blackwell made whatever place he occupied the unquestioned head. “Why is the food not on the sideboard with the footman serving you?” he asked, surveying the courses piled in front of them.
“I told them it was ridiculous to stand by and serve a dinner to just one. It’s late, and I’m certain they have better things to do.” She transferred some oysters to her plate.
“They don’t,” he clipped, tossing a disapproving look at the empty door frame toward the kitchens. “It is their first priority to serve and please you.”
“And I told them it pleased me to dine alone.”
“I’m sorry to disappoint,” he said blandly, reaching for the forcemeat pastries and the curry.
Farah regretted her words. She hadn’t meant that she preferred he not be there, only that she didn’t want to be watched by hovering staff whilst dining. Though she might be the daughter of an earl, she certainly hadn’t been raised as such. Her mouth felt too slow to form the correct reparation, so she watched in troubled silence as he served himself generous helpings of both main dishes with crisp movements.
It was often impossible to tell if her words affected him. She’d only glimpsed momentary slips in his façade, and at times such as this, she had only a slight feeling that she’d displeased him because of a chilly shift in the atmosphere. Yet, his features remained smooth and cold as glass, causing her to wonder if she imagined everything and he was truly as heartless as he claimed.
He glanced up at her and caught her staring. His eye a fathomless pool of secrets.
The enormity of what she’d agreed to blindsided her, so she averted her eyes and popped an oyster in her mouth, chewing to release the sweet flavor of the meat. “If I may ask—your eye—does it cause you pain? Is that why you cover it sometimes?”
He paused in cutting his pastry and considered her before answering. “I do not see well out of it in low light, which often gives me headaches. The eye patch prevents them, and also makes it easier for me to read.”
“Of course,” she murmured, lifting another bite to her lips, stilling the impulse to ask how he’d obtained the wound.
His hand paused in the middle of bringing his first bite to his lips. “You still say that,” he breathed, a bit of the chill lifting from the air.
“Pardon?”
He paused. “Dougan told me that was your answer for everything. ‘Of course,’ as though all you learned was as it should be, and so you accepted it.”
“He told you that?” At Dougan’s name, she opted to drink the rest of her wine.
“Yes.”
She wanted to ask what else Dougan had said about her, but didn’t want to seem narcissistic.
Instead she finished her appetizer as Blackwell folded into the pastry, his sinuous jaw transfixing her as he chewed with an onerous pace, as though testing the food.
Farah busied herself by dishing her own curry and bread.
“Obviously, I’ve been underutilizing Walter’s talents,” he finally observed. “I tend to eat for function rather than pleasure. I think you have shown me the error of my ways.”
“I find it hard to believe you do anything that isn’t just as you please,” Farah said around a bite of tender, spiced meat and soft, hearty bread.
His expression relaxed into a resemblance of amusement. “Why is that?”
“You have the reputation of a hedonist.”
“Maybe so, but you have the palate of one.” He indicated the overladen table.
A reluctant smile interrupted her next bite. “Touché.”
Heavens, was she actually enjoying herself? Only yesterday she despised this man. Only hours ago she feared him, their every interaction overwrought with emotion, revelation, confession, and finally submission. It had all left her quite exhausted and, apparently, hungry.