Page 41 of My Big Fat Vampire Wedding
“A method actor,” Victor said.
“Right. That. He once went around telling us that he was a close personal friend of Socrates,” she said, rolling her eyes for emphasis.
“That explains it,” Victor said. Pandora thought sheheard a false note in his voice, but they’d just made their way into the dining room. And, well, there were other, more important problems at hand.
Like the fact that there was an entireroasted pigsitting in the center of the table like decor, an apple in its mouth.
Ravenna was still standing, waiting for them to enter, proud and puffed as a peacock as she waved at thefeast. “We have all of the best here! Suckling pig, swan pie, jellied eel, ox tongue in claret sauce, lamprey in blood sauce, pottage, butter-basted turnips, and honeyed parsnips!”
Pandora’s gaze searched the table for Dante, suddenly understanding the sick, almost green, look he’d given her when speaking of her family cooking.
They’d certainly cooked, all right.
Delicacies, even.
By medieval standards, maybe.
Victor looked a bit grey at the selection.
He leaned in close to Pandora’s ear. “Isn’t it illegal to kill swans?”
“Oh, um, I’m sure it’s just, like, actually chicken,” she said, sure of no such thing. “Stick to the veg and pottage,” she whispered to him before Ravenna rushed forward, breaking them apart to sit them across from each other at the table.
“Reginald, dear, if you could do the honors,” she said, waving toward the pig.
And then her uncle stood and proceeded to draw his sword and attempt to carve with that, knocking over a decanter of wine in the process.
Pandora almost brought up her elbows on the table and held her head in her hands. It was her mother’s intense,perceptive gaze that kept her spine against the chair back and her chin lifted.
The mess was cleaned up and Dante grabbed an actual carving knife from the kitchen and began to carve the meat himself, as everyone else started to add food to their plates.
“You need to eat, dear,” Ravenna chided Pandora, tapping her arm.
Pandora was getting the impression that her great-aunt was fancying herself the family’s expert on humans and human customs. It was both endearing, because Pandora had to appreciate how much she was clearly trying, and hilarious, because Ravenna and Reginald lived in a castle on a coastal cliff overlooking Devon. Where she and her husband rarely, if ever, interacted with humans, preferring to have a revolving door of guests hole up with them in elegance and seclusion.
“Men love a woman who can keep her curves,” she said, giving her shoulders a shimmy, which, in turn, made her bosom dance around jollily – and nearly spill out of the low-cut bodice of her gown.
Victor shared an amused look with Pandora as he passed her some of the turnips.
“You know what this meal reminds me of?” Uncle Reginald asked as he heaped the lamprey in blood sauce onto his plate. Pandora didn’t even know where the plates had come from. “The meals at the palace directly before the Black Death started,” he continued, making Pandora sigh to herself. “Lampreys were abundant then. Though, the blood sauce was a bit richer.”
Victor’s brows pinched at that.
“He’s a big history buff,” Dante, at Victor’s side, said,saving Pandora from trying to rack her brain for another excuse.
“Well, if you like that blood sauce so much more, perhaps I shouldn’t ever make it for you.” Ravenna huffed, flicking her silver curls, offended.
“Everything looks lovely,” Victor told Ravenna, making the woman soften immediately.
“See? This young man knows how to speak to a woman who sweated over a stove for seven hours today.”
Pandora imagined that was true – the sweating aside – because she couldn’t imagine her own mother standing at a stove mixing stew or chopping up lamprey.
“So, Victor,” Lucian spoke, making Pandora tense yet again, worried her father was going to try to say something to scare off her fiancé. “I hear you are a student.” Pandora hoped Victor didn’t pick up on the coolness in her father’s voice at that last word.
“I am, sir,” Victor replied, seemingly glad to have a reason to put his fork down.
Down the table, Pandora’s cousin Jasper was plopping chunks of lamprey back into the serving dish so he could sip the blood right out of his bowl.
