I swallowed. “What? Why?”
“She’s common,” he informed me and my head jutted back with not-so-mild affront.
“So? So am I.”
“You are not.”
“I so am.”
“Cora, your father is an Earl.”
I was sipping at cider and I choked at this news. I managed not to spew it across the table at him and instead swallow it but my mirth was not spent. Not by a long shot. At the thought of my hippie Dad being royalty in this world, well, I couldn’t help it.
I lost it.
Totally.
I threw my head back, wrapped my arm around my middle and laughed myself silly.
“Cora,” Tor called.
“Hang on,” I choked between giggles, my other fist on the table was banging it repeatedly.
“Cora.”
“Just a minute.”
“Did you not understand me before?”
That sobered me. My mirth died away but my stomach still ached. I held on, chuckling and wiping tears from my eyes, then I looked at him.
The laughter ceased as I caught the look on his face.
He was not pissed, annoyed, irritated or impatient. He was staring at me like he’d never seen me before in his life. He was staring at me like a movie star would stare at his movie co-star when he saw her for the first time and was instantly intrigued by something that would mean he’d soon become lovestruck. But Tor did it better because he was hotter by far than any movie star and he was real and sitting across a table from me.
Holy crap.
“I’ve never seen you laugh,” he told me quietly.
“I do it often,” I replied quietly.
“You should do it more.”
“If you’d quit being a jerk, I would,” I returned.
“That was worth not being a… jerk,” he said the last word cautiously, like he was testing it out.
I liked that so smiled at him.
He smiled back.
My skin tingled all over and I felt my lips part.
God, he was gorgeous.
He lifted his spoonful of stew and asked before putting it in his mouth, “Why were you laughing?”
“My Dad’s an Earl.”