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As soon as David looks at the card, Lee knows this is going to be a good one. David’s eyebrows only do that particular horrified-but-trying-not-to-show-it dance under extreme duress.
“I once wrote a love letter in Latin.”
“True,” Lee says, immediately, as the crowd breaks down into giggles. “Definitely true.”
David looks mildly appalled. Or constipated. Lee can’t quite tell.
Lee grins at him, then settles in to question, aka torture, him. “Why did you write this letter in Latin? Was the person from Italy?”
“No, Lee,” David says, in a rather pinched tone. “As even you must know, people from Italy speak Italian. If I’d been dating someone from Italy, I would have used Italian.”
“So why’d you use Latin then?” Lee asks.
David hesitates. “It…seemed like a good idea at the time.”
Next to Lee, Susan smirks. “I’m tryin’ to imagine you needin’ to use Latin to impress someone. I thought you just had to open your mouth.”
“Well, thank you for considering me impressive,” David says, in that slightly offended manner that always seems to get laughs.
“Was your lady friend impressed?” Matt asks.
David raises his eyebrows again, and Lee settles back in his chair with metaphorical popcorn. “My lady friend? I’m sorry, just what century are we in? Yes, I and my lady friend took high tea at the Palace today, and then we called our coachman and were driven sedately home, where I went on my knees and clasped her to my bosom and poured out my deepest feelings in my best public school Latin? The marriage is in three weeks, and you are all invited.”
The crowd takes a moment to settle down. Lee seizes the opportunity to smile slowly and widely across the gap at David. The more he can unnerve him, the better.
“I have to say,” Freema says, patting David on the arm, “that I’d like a Latin love letter much more than the Klingon one I got once. The guy was so geeky and pleased with himself that I didn’t have the heart to tell him that all the warriors and blood stuff was kind of disturbing.”
“I’ll keep Klingon in mind for next time,” David says, somewhat stifled.
Rob turns to their table. “Okay, Lee’s team, what are you going to say?”
“I think it’s true,” Matt says.
Susan shakes her head. “Nah, it sounds too much like him.”
“So Matt thinks it’s true, and Susan thinks it’s too true,” Rob says. “Lee?”
Lee looks over at David, who’s doing his best poker face. He’s definitely going to hear from David later on about the subject of just what is and what is not appropriate information to reveal to panel show researchers. At length.
And yes, he knows that David will say it wasn’t a love letter, it was just an ordinary everyday letter poking fun at Lee’s inability to speak proper English, let alone Latin, and taking revenge for what even Lee has to admit was a rather excessive amount of teasing the night before on the subject of poshness.
Lee still has the letter, though, and he knows better.
David can be tricky, but if you know how to read him properly, the clues are all there.
“We’re going to say it’s true,” Lee says, and grins.
For a moment, David’s answering grin is soft and sheepish, and then the camera swings to him and he slips immediately into his ‘uptight and embarrassed’ persona, playing up to it with ease.
“You’re saying it’s true?” Rob asks. “Okay. David, is it true, or is it a lie?”
“It is in fact,” David says, and pushes his button, “true.”