A Discovery of Witches(61)

“The coffin story! You don’t sleep much, but when you do, you sleep like the dead.”

He grinned. “You’re getting the hang of this, I see.”

Matthew’s plate was empty of everything except for the beets, and mine was empty except for the venison. I cleared away the second course and invited him to pour more wine.

The main dish was the only part of the meal that required heat, and not much of it. I had already made a bizarre biscuitlike thing from ground chestnuts. All that was left for me to do was sear some rabbit. The list of ingredients included rosemary, garlic, and celery. I decided to forgo the garlic. With his sense of smell, garlic must overpower everything else—there was the nugget of truth in that vampire legend. The celery was also ruled out. Vampires categorically did not like vegetables. Spices didn’t seem to pose a problem, so I kept the rosemary and ground some pepper over the rabbit while it seared in the pan.

Leaving Matthew’s rabbit a little underdone, I cooked mine a bit more than was required, in the hope that it would get the taste of raw venison out of my mouth. After assembling everything in an artistic pile, I delivered it to the table. “This is cooked, I’m afraid—but barely.”

“You don’t think this is a test of some sort, do you?” Matthew’s face creased into a frown.

“No, no,” I said hurriedly. “But I’m not used to entertaining vampires.”

“I’m relieved to hear it,” he murmured. He gave the rabbit a sniff. “It smells delicious.” While he was bent over his plate, the heat from the rabbit amplified his distinctive scent of cinnamon and clove. Matthew forked up a bit of the chestnut biscuit. As it traveled to his mouth, his eyes widened. “Chestnuts?”

“Nothing but chestnuts, olive oil, and a bit of baking powder.”

“And salt. And water, rosemary, and pepper,” he commented calmly, taking another bite of the biscuit.

“Given your dietary restrictions, it’s a good thing you can figure out exactly what you’re putting in your mouth,” I grumbled jokingly.

With most of the meal behind us, I began to relax. We chatted about Oxford while I cleared the plates and brought cheese, berries, and roasted chestnuts to the table.

“Help yourself,” I said, putting an empty plate in front of him. Matthew savored the aroma of the tiny strawberries and sighed happily as he picked up a chestnut.

“These really are better warm,” he observed. He cracked the hard nut easily in his fingers and popped the meat out of the shell. The nutcracker hanging off the edge of the bowl was clearly optional equipment with a vampire at the table.

“What do I smell like?” I asked, toying with the stem of my wineglass.

For a few moments, it seemed as though he wasn’t going to answer. The silence stretched thin before he turned wistful eyes on me. His lids fell, and he inhaled deeply.

“You smell of willow sap. And chamomile that’s been crushed underfoot.” He sniffed again and smiled a small, sad smile. “There’s honeysuckle and fallen oak leaves, too,” he said softly, breathing out, “along with witch hazel blooming and the first narcissus of spring. And ancient things—horehound, frankincense, lady’s mantle. Scents I thought I’d forgotten.”

His eyes opened slowly, and I looked into their gray depths, afraid to breathe and break the spell his words had cast.

“What about me?” he asked, his eyes holding on to mine.

“Cinnamon.” My voice was hesitant. “And cloves. Sometimes I think you smell of carnations—not the kind in the florist shops but the old-fashioned ones that grow in English cottage gardens.”

“Clove pinks,” Matthew said, his eyes crinkling at the corners in amusement. “Not bad for a witch.”

I reached for a chestnut. Cupping the nut in my palms, I rolled it from one hand to the other, the warmth traveling up my suddenly chilly arms.

Matthew sat back in his chair again, surveying my face with little flicks of his eyes. “How did you decide what to serve for dinner tonight?” He gestured at the berries and nuts that were left from the meal.

“Well, it wasn’t magic. The zoology department helped a lot,” I explained.

He looked startled, then roared with laughter. “You asked the zoology department what to make me for dinner?”

“Not exactly,” I said defensively. “There were raw-food recipes on the Net, but I got stuck after I bought the meat. They told me what gray wolves ate.”

Matthew shook his head, but he was still smiling, and my irritation dissolved. “Thank you,” he said simply. “It’s been a very long time since someone made me a meal.”

“You’re welcome. The wine was the worst part.”

Matthew’s eyes brightened. “Speaking of wine,” he said, standing up and folding his napkin, “I brought us something to have after dinner.”

He asked me to fetch two fresh glasses from the kitchen. An old, slightly lopsided bottle was sitting on the table when I returned. It had a faded cream label with simple lettering and a coronet. Matthew was working the corkscrew carefully into a cork that was crumbly and black with age.

His nostrils flared when he pulled it free, his face taking on the look of a cat in secure possession of a delectable canary. The wine that came out of the bottle was syrupy, its golden color glinting in the light of the candles.