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In the numerous meals they’d had together, she hadn’t witnessed even an inkling of this.
So odd.
She lifted her fork, pointing at the mound of food still on his plate. “You’re eating at a human pace instead of a rabid dog pace.”
Setting down his glass of port, he looked at her, coughing on a slight choke of the wine. “I what?”
She swirled her fork in a circle still pointing at his plate. “You’re not done with your entire meal by the time I take three bites. That is always as I’ve seen you eat. I look down at my own plate, and by the time I look up all your food is gone.” She shrugged. “It is just that I have never seen food on your plate for more than a minute.”
Rune looked to his food, then stiffly picked up his glass and took another sip of wine. “My apologies. Have I been making you nervous while dining?”
“No. It is just odd. Most men lounge about their food, filling their bellies slowly.”
His shoulders lifted. “It’s from my youth, from the years at sea. Eat quickly or someone is liable to steal your food.”
“Your childhood?”
He took another sip of port and nodded, his voice stiff. “I was twice orphaned a half a world away. What little food I found had to be eaten quickly. The son of an English scholar alone in Belize was not looked upon kindly.”
“Twice orphaned?” Her hand holding her fork sank onto the table. “You were in the Yucatán when your father was killed? I had assumed it was here in England if he was killed by a peer. What about your mother?”
“My mother died in Belize Town when my father was away on an expedition. That was the first orphaning. After she died, two months passed and my father didn’t return, so I was tossed out of the rooms my father had let. There was no one for me.”
“You were evicted out of your home?”
“That the landlady fed me for as long as she did was generous—she had five mouths to feed herself. She had to take the next paying tenant rather than let a child live there for free.” He said the words nonchalantly, no bitterness at being removed from his home.
“But how could that have happened, you being left all alone?”
Rune took a bite of food, chewing it slowly. Whether he was buying time or proving how slow and delicately he could eat, she wasn’t sure.
He swallowed. “The possibility of it hadn’t occurred to either of my parents. Before that, we were always together. My father was a scholar, but even more so, an antiquarian. He travelled extensively for the expeditions he led, but we were always at his side—Greece to Egypt to Mayan ruins. He taught me everything that I would ever need to know about leading expeditions in those years.”
Her eyes lit up. “That life sounds like a grand adventure for a child.”
The smallest smile came to his lips. “It was—some of the things I saw. Rhinoceroses and giraffes and lions. Mayan temples. Egyptian pyramids. Lands where the trees and plants are so lush they suffocate everything about them, yet animals live within—they find a way—birds and monkeys.”
“Have you ever had a chance to follow in your father’s footsteps?”
“Lead expeditions?”
“Yes.”
He nodded. “It’s in my bones, the adventure of it, so yes, I have. A few expeditions that were of interest during the years—mostly in the Yucatán. I’ve been able to come and go from theFirefoxas it suits me.”
“Did you find what you were looking for on the expeditions?”
“Yes and no.” His smile dissolved as quickly as it had appeared. “But yes, my childhood was a life of wonder until my mother died. The only time we separated as a family was that last time in Belize Town when my mother wasn’t feeling well—it was just some aches, she said. So we stayed behind when my father went on to his expedition into the jungle searching for Mayan ruins. She died a week after he left.”
“How old were you?”
“Ten.”
Her chest tightened. “Ten and alone half a world away?”
He shrugged. “It was what it was. I survived.”
“And your father never came back for you?”
