Chapter 2 #3
He had spent a decade defending papers in front of Cambridge's most exacting minds and rarely felt this precise combination of affront and, beneath it, something far less comfortable to name, something that had settled low and sudden in his chest the moment she opened her mouth and proved herself right.
"I have not disputed it because it does not merit dispute.
You have restated my own argument back to me as though it were an accusation. "
"I restated it because you did not seem to realize you had made it, and because the version you started with, that women's sensibilities render them unfit for scholarship, is not merely wrong, it is lazy, and I confess I expected better from a man whose paper on the Peloponnesian sources I read with genuine admiration three months ago.
" She tilted her head slightly, and something in her expression sharpened, quick and assessing, the same look he imagined he wore over a difficult text.
"Which makes the sloppiness of tonight's discourse all the more disappointing. "
Tristan made a sound suspiciously like a cough.
"You read my work."
"I read a great deal, Your Grace. It does not follow that I am obligated to agree with all of it, nor that agreeing with some of it excuses the rest." She said it simply, without triumph, which somehow made it worse.
Sebastian had been contradicted before. He had rarely been contradicted by someone who seemed entirely uninterested in whether he minded.
"And what, precisely, is your authority on the matter?"
"The same authority as yours. I have read the sources.
I have studied the languages. I have spent a great many hours doing precisely the disciplined, rigorous work you claim women are constitutionally unsuited to perform, and I have done it without the benefit of a Cambridge fellowship, an allowance, or four friends standing about to nod at my conclusions. "
Behind her, he registered two matrons drawing subtly nearer under the pretense of admiring the flower arrangements, fans lifted just enough to hide their mouths, not nearly enough to hide their interest.
Her chin lifted, just slightly, the only sign that the words cost her something to say. "I would be very interested to hear you argue that my conclusions are less rigorous than yours simply because no institution has yet agreed to examine me on them."
Julian's mouth curved.
"I believe we should let His Grace defend himself."
"I have no need to defend myself."
"Of course not," Tristan said. "You merely appear to be losing an argument before our eyes."
Sebastian ignored him and returned his attention to the woman before him.
"Though I confess," she added, "I am rather more interested in whether you are capable of changing your mind once someone has given you reason to."
Sebastian's mouth curved faintly.
"That depends upon the reason."
"Then perhaps I shall have to give you a better one."
Something warm moved low in his chest.
Tristan glanced between them and took a slow drink, very deliberately saying nothing. Nathaniel did the same. Julian, however, still looked amused.
Sebastian ignored all three.
"I would like your name," Sebastian said, because it was the only sensible question left to ask, and because he found, with some irritation, that he wanted the answer rather more than was reasonable.
She regarded him for a moment.
"I am not certain you have earned it."
His brows lifted.
"Earned it?"
"You have spent the better part of the evening insisting that London society rewards the appearance of intelligence more readily than intelligence itself."
"I believe that to be true."
"And yet you have spent the last quarter hour attempting to decide whether I am worth listening to based entirely upon the fact that I happen to be a woman you have never met."
"I have done no such thing."
"No?"
There was the faintest curve to her mouth.
"Then I am relieved. It would have been rather disappointing."
Sebastian stared at her. She had him. Worse, she knew it.
"I have not decided whether you are worth listening to," he said at last. "I have decided that you are difficult to ignore."
Something flickered in her eyes.
"That is not quite the same thing."
"No."
"And which do you consider preferable?"
His gaze remained on hers.
"I have not yet determined that."
"Then perhaps we should leave you to your research."
She inclined her head as though the matter were settled. Sebastian watched her begin to turn.
"At least tell me your name."
She looked back over her shoulder.
"Why?"
He could have supplied a dozen reasonable answers.
Courtesy. Curiosity.
The simple propriety of knowing the name of a woman with whom he had just spent several minutes in conversation.
None of them seemed entirely honest.
"Because," he said slowly, "I find myself unwilling to let you remain a stranger."
Her expression changed then—only slightly, but enough that he noticed.
"That," she said, "is a considerably better argument than all your previous ones."
And then, before he could decide whether he had won anything at all, with a small, entirely unapologetic incline of her head to all four of them, she turned and walked back into the crowd, leaving Sebastian standing exactly where she had found him, glass in hand, argument in ruins, and a single unwelcome thought taking root somewhere beneath his irritation—a thought he had no intention, tonight or ever, of examining too closely.