Chapter 9 #2
"You are welcome." Something in his voice suggested he had felt precisely the same small jolt she had, though neither of them acknowledged it further, both retreating instead into the safety of easy banter, as they always seemed to when the moment threatened to become something neither was prepared to name outright.
"So, how many faults did you find with Dr. Wetherby’s lecture? You looked as though you were preparing to object to every other word."
"Four, as it happens, though I am willing to discuss only three of them in mixed company." His mouth curved, and whatever careful distance either of them had been maintaining eased, by degrees, into something, remarkably natural. It was a comfort Amelia had not found with anyone else all Season.
"Gentlemen." Sebastian found Tristan, Nathaniel, and Julian clustered near the hall's entrance as the crowd began its slow dispersal, and something in him, some impulse he did not trouble to think about too much, made him turn toward Amelia rather than away from her before the introduction could be avoided.
"May I present Miss Amelia Hartwell. Miss Hartwell, my particular friends.
Tristan Cavendish, Duke of Ashcombe. Nathaniel Ashcroft, Duke of Kingsleigh. Julian Hawthorne, Duke of Dunhaven."
"Miss Hartwell." Tristan bowed with his usual easy charm, his smile carrying the easy familiarity of their conversation at the Ashworth ball. "A pleasure to see you again. I confess we have all heard a great deal about you, though I begin to suspect the accounts have rather understated the matter."
"I hope they have understated it favorably, Your Grace, though I have my doubts, given the source."
Tristan laughed outright, delighted. "And here I had thought our last conversation at Ashaven had prepared me for you."
"I find it rarely takes long to determine whether a conversation is worth continuing." Amelia turned her attention to Julian, and something in her expression sharpened with genuine interest.
"Tell me something, Your Grace, is His Grace always this difficult?"
Julian's mouth twitched. "Always."
"Julian."
"Occasionally worse."
Amelia laughed, and Sebastian gave his friend a look of quiet betrayal.
"I had thought you were meant to be my friend."
"I am. Which is precisely why I feel obliged to prepare Miss Hartwell for what she has undertaken."
"I have undertaken nothing."
"No?" Julian looked between them, amusement dancing openly in his eyes. "Then I have clearly misunderstood the frequency with which your paths appear to cross."
Amelia's cheeks warmed, though her smile remained. "We have interests in common."
"Of course."
"And frequent similar circles."
"Naturally."
"And His Grace happens to be a very interesting man."
Sebastian glanced at her.
Julian's eyebrows rose. "Does he?"
"I did not say he was an agreeable man."
Julian and Nathaniel laughed outright.
Sebastian shook his head at his friends. "I am beginning to regret bringing either of you with me."
"You brought yourself," Amelia pointed out.
"An error in judgment."
"One you appear to be repeating."
Julian laughed again, and Sebastian found himself fighting a smile.
"You see?" Amelia said, looking at Julian. "He does this constantly."
"Does what?"
"Acts as though he has been gravely inconvenienced when, in truth, he is enjoying himself."
Julian considered this with exaggerated seriousness. "That is, in fact, one of his most enduring qualities."
Sebastian looked between them. "I have never been so thoroughly discussed while standing in the company of the people doing the discussing."
"Perhaps," Amelia said sweetly, "you should learn to listen more carefully."
"Perhaps," Julian added, "you should learn to keep your opinions to yourself."
Sebastian gave him a flat look. "You have known me since Eton. You know perfectly well that I am incapable of that."
Amelia laughed again, and Sebastian felt something unexpectedly warm settle in his chest at the sound.
He had become accustomed to her challenging him. He had not expected to enjoy making her laugh quite so much.
Nathaniel, who had been watching the exchange with the quiet attention he brought to any conversation he intended to eventually dissect, cleared his throat.
"I confess I am curious, Miss Hartwell, whether your interests extend beyond the classical world.
I have been engaged of late in a dispute regarding the legal standing of a testamentary trust, a matter rather less romantic than Athenian constitutions, but one I suspect you might have an opinion on regardless. "
"I have read a little on the law of trusts, though I confess I know far more about history. What is the difficulty?"
"The trust was left to the eldest surviving heir, but the eldest son died before the testator and left no son of his own.
Only a daughter remains." Nathaniel's tone became more focused, the way it always did when he was testing an argument.
"The question is whether she has any claim at all when the trust says nothing about what happens in such a case. "
"Then I would think the silence matters.
" Amelia glanced at him. "If the trust does not say that a daughter is excluded, why assume that was what the testator’s intention?
Surely the ambiguity ought to be resolved from the language of the trust itself rather than by supplying a restriction he did not expressly make.
Nathaniel's eyebrows rose.
"That is almost exactly the argument I have been making for the last three weeks."
"Then perhaps you have been making it rather more complicated than necessary."
Nathaniel shook his head, though he was smiling now.
Tristan laughed again, louder this time, drawing a glance from a passing cluster of gentlemen still lingering near the hall's entrance.
"I begin to understand, Sebastian, precisely why you have spent so remarkable an amount of time discussing this particular woman while claiming to find her merely tiresome. "
Amelia glanced at Sebastian. "I cannot imagine why."
"I never claimed she was merely tiresome."
"You did, on at least two occasions I can recall directly, and I have no doubt Nathaniel could produce a third if pressed." Tristan's grin was unrepentant, turning back to Amelia with open admiration. "Miss Hartwell, I confess I am rarely impressed by anyone as quickly as you have managed it."
"I shall endeavor not to let the achievement go to my head, Your Grace."
Sebastian said very little through the whole of the exchange, content, for once, simply to watch, finding the watching more satisfying than he had anticipated.
He had brought her into this circle expecting, at best, polite tolerance from men who did not extend their genuine respect easily to anyone.
What he found instead was Julian engaging with real interest rather than his usual detached courtesy, Nathaniel abandoning his careful reserve to argue a point with actual enthusiasm, Tristan laughing the unguarded laugh he rarely produced for anyone outside their intimate group, and Amelia meeting each of them without a trace of the careful deference most young ladies performed in a duke's company, holding her ground as easily here as she had in a ballroom full of strangers.
They like her. The thought settled into him with more weight than he expected., warm and slightly unsteady. He watched the three people whose opinions he trusted most extend to her, unprompted, the same genuine regard he had been fighting—with steadily diminishing success—to deby in himself.