Chapter 9 #2
"I have no idea what you mean." She reached for her wine, grateful for something to hold. "I was merely offering a culinary observation."
"Of course."
He did not press. He offered no comfort or sympathy, remaining beside her, solid and present, his shoulder close enough to hers that she could feel its warmth through the silk of her sleeve.
When the meat course arrived, Alice consumed it without tasting, her responses to conversation growing shorter, her wit retreating behind walls she thought she had torn down.
She laughed where laughter was expected and made the appropriate noises of appreciation and agreement, but something essential had retreated, slipping away to a place where the matrons' words could not reach her.
Or so she told herself.
Samuel observed her, his gaze a palpable touch, noting the careful way she set down her glass, the flush creeping to her cheeks, the brittle quality of her smile.
He said nothing. He offered nothing. Yet his attention remained unwavering, and beneath her hurt, Alice felt something stir that might have been gratitude.
The dinner stretched before her, interminable, and she counted the remaining courses with the desperation of a prisoner counting days.
The matrons had returned to their whispers; another course, another victim, the endless cycle of judgment that defined their entertainment.
Alice heard her name surface again, followed by laughter that signaled her failings were being noted for future reference.
She focused on the arrangement of vegetables on her plate, willing herself not to react, not to give them the satisfaction of knowing their words had struck home.
Beside her, Samuel had gone very still.
She sensed the change in him before she saw it. A gathering tension, like the moment before a storm breaks. His fingers stilled, and his jaw set. When she glanced at his face, his grey eyes were fixed on the whispering matrons with an intensity that made her breath catch.
"Lord Crewe," she said quietly, reaching for a lightness she did not feel. "The vegetables are really quite—"
He leaned forward.
"Perhaps the problem," he said, cutting through the dinner chatter, "is that too few men are brave enough."
The table fell silent.
Alice watched the scene unfold as if from a distance, the pause in movement, forks arrested mid-air, heads turning one by one toward the source of this statement.
Conversations died mid-sentence. Wine glasses hovered halfway to lips.
The footmen froze, uncertain whether this moment required intervention.
Every eye in the room fixed upon Samuel Baldwin, Viscount Crewe, who sat with his spine rigid, his expression suggesting he had not uttered anything remarkable.
Alice stared at him.
She could not help it; she could not summon the composure to look away, could not arrange her features into her usual mask.
Her lips parted slightly; warmth flooded her cheeks; her heart hammered against her ribs.
He had defended her. Publicly, deliberately, with words designed to cut as sharply as any blade.
The matrons had gone crimson. The woman who had called Alice a lost cause seemed to shrink into her chair, her fan raised as if it could shield her. Her companion had developed a sudden fascination with the ceiling, studying its plasterwork with an intensity it had never before warranted.
At the head of the table, Crispin's eyebrow rose, suggesting genuine surprise, a rare achievement, given his talent for anticipating entertainment. His gaze flicked from Samuel to Alice and back again, his expression shifting from surprise to speculation to delight.
Clara, seated beside her husband, raised her napkin to her lips in a gesture that might have been dabbing at an errant crumb but likely concealed a smile. Her eyes met Alice's across the table, bright with a meaning Alice could not quite grasp.
Samuel seemed surprised by his own declaration. Alice noticed a brief flicker of uncertainty in his composure before his expression returned to its usual rigidity. He reached for his wine glass and took a deliberate sip, as if commenting on the weather.
"The lamb," he said, "is excellent. My compliments to the Oakford kitchens."
The dinner resumed.
But everything had changed. Alice felt it in the altered quality of the glances directed her way—less pitying now, more curious, laced with reassessment.
She sensed it in the whispers that spread from the matrons' end of the table, not gossip about her failures but speculation about what Viscount Crewe's statement might mean.
She felt it in the way Samuel sat beside her, eating his lamb with mechanical precision, his warmth radiating between them.
He had defended her. Before the assembled company, before the matrons who cared about reputation, before everyone who would carry this story back to London's drawing rooms. He had aligned himself with her.
The remaining courses passed in a blur of sensation and suppressed emotion.
Alice engaged in conversation as needed, but her attention remained fixed on the man beside her, trying to understand what had shifted.
Every brush of his shoulder against hers felt significant.
Each sidelong glance he directed her way seemed to carry questions neither of them was prepared to voice.
When the ladies finally rose to withdraw, Alice felt something loosen in her chest, relief perhaps, or the release of long-held tension.
She moved with the other women toward the drawing room, but her mind lingered at the dinner table, replaying Samuel's words, his tone, and the precise way he had countered the matrons' cruelty.
Some men are simply not brave enough.
She waited.
The gentlemen joined them after what felt like an eternity of port and politics.
Alice positioned herself near a window, watching the candlelight dance across the glass and observing the reflections of guests moving through the drawing room.
She saw Samuel enter, speak briefly with Crispin, and then his gaze swept the room until it found her.
She slipped away before he could approach.
The corridor stretched before her in shades of shadow and amber, the wall sconces burning low, the sounds of the drawing room fading behind her.
Her footsteps were muffled by the carpet; her heartbeat thundered in her ears.
She did not know where she was going, only that she needed air, space, a moment to collect herself after Samuel's defense.
Alice inhaled a steading breath and gathered her skirts. She had to get out of here. Had to calm the storm brewing within her.