Ross Poldark was dashing, darkly handsome, lithe, decisive and shrewd. Demelza hadn't fallen in love with him for any of that, not for the glimpse of his sleek body bare before he dove into the sea, not for the way he walked through the streets as if he were Adam mapping Eden. It wasn't that he tried to seduce her with his caressing voice and all the lovely words he knew to say, a fine gentleman with book-learning and poems by heart much prettier than any folk song. Her reason twasn't a fine lady's- it was simply his unthinking, unqualified generosity when he'd found her scraping the sides of her bowl in the kitchen for the last little savory bite of the stew and had said,
"There's more in the pot, Demelza."
She'd ducked her head, ashamed to be caught out so by the master, then shook her head shyly though all she wanted was another portion, the taste of it still in her mouth.
"You're to eat until you've had enough," he'd said firmly. He didn't need to insist, his word was law at Nampara, at least to her if not to wily Prudie and Jud, that lazy sot.
"But I've had my share," she'd said. It was ingrained in her that she should take only what she couldn't do without, whether it was the smallest piece of roasted turnip or Garrick, her bedraggled defender against iniquity and the crawling cold of a Cornish night.
"If you're still hungry, which you clearly are, you haven't. Your share is what is needed, not just what will keep you drawing breath. I'll have no one starve at Nampara, unless it's myself. You made a fine dinner, Demelza, and I'm more than satisfied…except that you are not. Now will you fill your bowl yourself, or must the master serve the maid?"
He'd started towards her, his hand outstretched as if he would take the bowl from her and so she stood hastily, ladled some of the stew in her bowl before he could and went to sit down again but he interrupted her,
"That's enough? It's not very much. I know the look of the long hunger, Demelza, you've nothing to be shamed over," he'd said, looking at her closely. She wished she was different, in some ineffable way she'd never be able to identify, the woman he thought he was talking to instead of just herself, poor, plain Demelza Carne. She'd grown still as he regarded her, wondering what his dark eyes saw, jumped when he dumped another full ladle of the stew in the bowl, till it nearly slopped over the sides, a waste she couldn't have borne.
"Finish that and the heel of the loaf. I mean to be more fair than the Good Book, 'For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath.' Then off to bed with you—give Garrick a bone if he'll not choke on it," he'd added with a look that was not a smile, not the grin she'd seen him cast about, as if it were worthless and not the sunshine on the sea itself, but something appraising and thoughtful and the strangest, unexpected kindliness she'd ever known. She'd fallen in love with him then, even if she hardly knew it, hardly knew the name for the feeling that stirred her and settled her; she'd fallen in love with Ross's generous heart that wouldn't see her go hungry, wouldn't allow it though he was the first to care since she'd screamed herself hoarse at her birth. She'd never tell him though, he wouldn't understand and it would be worse if he did.