He laughed at her reaction to Jane Eyre, enjoying how genuine she was, that she wouldn't pretend to like it just because it was the sort of thing you were meant to like. "If you don't get past the school stuff, it's seriously hard going. I should never encourage skipping a whole section, but..." he gave her a guilty look. "It's funny, really. If I'd been caught reading that at school, I'd have got a smack, and years later, you were getting punished for not reading it. Education is fucking strange," he admitted, with a look of confusion.
"Of course you don't, that's natural. You know that better than most, that every reader is different, that you're coming at it from your own point in history, your background, you experiences. What thrills me might bore you, but isn't that what's so brilliant about it?" he pointed out, ridiculously passionate about every word. "I won't bore you with why I hated it, until you see it for yourself. I wouldn't want to prejudice you against it, I'd rather see what you take from it, from a modern perspective, and a female one," he told her. "I may not exactly have been her target audience, so to speak."
He'd almost forgotten about dinner. He was there for her company, not to eat, that was just a pleasant added extra. He appreciated the effort, it was sweetly domestic of her, a strange feeling of being cared for just by her cooking for him. It wouldn't matter to him what it was, or how it tasted. It was the gesture. He let himself be led through, sitting at the table as indicated.
"You don't think so? I don't know, Knightly, I think you've got some wild stories for me," he teased over the table. "Thank you," he told her sincerely, regarding the dinner. "It looks lovely. I would have come down for- nothing, you know," he added, as if she might think it was only the dinner he was interested in.
"Agnes- oh, God, which one in the book, obviously- Catherine," he told her, speaking of the leading lady in the text. "You think I'm some sort of wine snob?" he teased, as if he'd ever had much of a thought beyond would he could afford. "Sure, red," he requested.