Chapter 2 #2
It was, he thought, a ridiculous conversation.
Yet there was something comfortable in it, something familiar in the ease with which they fell into the old rhythm they had known since their school days—Tristan provoking, Nathaniel observing, Julian quietly dismantling whatever argument the other three had constructed.
"You are all remarkably confident for men whose reputations precede them into every ballroom in London," Sebastian said.
"Ah."
Tristan lifted his glass.
"Now we arrive at the matter."
Nathaniel glanced toward him.
"What matter?"
"His Grace has discovered morality."
"I have always possessed morality."
"Of course."
"I simply prefer it in other people."
Julian laughed under his breath.
"That is the first honest thing you've said all evening."
Sebastian shook his head.
"You are incorrigible."
"And yet," Tristan said, "women continue to invite us to dance."
"Some women," Nathaniel corrected.
"Enough."
Sebastian glanced toward the ballroom.
"Perhaps because they know precisely what you are."
Tristan grinned.
"And what are we?"
Sebastian considered them.
"Men who have spent enough time charming women to know that most women are considerably more perceptive than men give them credit for."
That silenced them for precisely one second.
Then Nathaniel raised his brows.
"That sounded almost complimentary."
"Do not tell anyone."
Tristan laughed.
"Too late."
Sebastian turned his glass between his fingers.
"Besides, a woman who has spent five minutes in your company knows more about you than you imagine."
"That," said a voice that belonged to none of them, "is a considerably better argument than the one you were making a moment ago."
Sebastian turned.
For the briefest, most inexplicable instant, thought deserted him.
She stood just beyond the edge of their circle, close enough that she had clearly heard every word and near enough that retreat would have required admitting she had been listening at all, which she plainly had no intention of doing.
She was beautiful.
Not merely pretty, nor fashionable in the polished, interchangeable manner the ballroom offered in abundance.
Beautiful.
The realization arrived with an abruptness that was almost irritating.
She wore purple, deep and rich against pale skin, a color most young ladies avoided as too bold for a debut season and which she wore as though the rest of the ballroom's pastels were the ones making the mistake.
Her chestnut hair, dark and glossy in the candlelight, was pinned with a severity that suggested either an excellent lady's maid or a complete disinterest in the elaborate curls favored by every other woman in the room.
There was an uncommon harmony to her features that resisted immediate explanation. Her mouth was generous without excess, her nose delicately straight, her cheekbones lending quiet definition rather than severity. Nothing demanded attention on its own.
Together, however…together they rendered analysis unexpectedly difficult. His gaze reached her eyes.
Hazel.
No.
Not simply hazel.
The color shifted with the light, flecks of amber dissolving into green and back again until he could no longer decide which shade they truly were. Intelligent eyes. Steady ones. Entirely too direct.
They met his own without hesitation.
Without coyness.
Sebastian became aware—several seconds too late—that no one had spoken. His friends were looking at him.
Good God.
He had been staring.
"Forgive me," she said, in a tone that suggested she intended no such thing. "I only wondered whether His Grace noticed he'd done it."
"I beg your pardon," Sebastian said.
"I could not help overhearing. You spent the better part of ten minutes arguing that women lack the natural discipline for rigorous scholarship and then complimented women's perception.
Those two positions cannot both be true, Your Grace.
Either we are perceptive enough to see through a rogue at twenty paces, or we are too governed by our sensibilities to reason properly.
You seem to require whichever suits the joke. "
"Oh, this is excellent," Tristan murmured to Nathaniel, not troubling to lower his voice.
Silence, briefly, from all four of them. Tristan's mouth twitched, dangerously close to a laugh he was visibly fighting to swallow. Nathaniel's grey eyes had sharpened with something that looked remarkably like interest. Julian, damnably, was grinning.
"I noticed," Sebastian said, "that you have been listening to a private conversation."
"A private conversation conducted at a volume audible from the refreshment table is a public conversation that is simply not aware of its circumstances." She did not so much as blink. "Though I notice you have not disputed my point. Only my presence."
Irritating. That was the word, the only word, for the intense heat climbing up the back of his neck.