Chapter 3 #2
"And unsolicited conclusions," she returned, "are sometimes less about accuracy than about the satisfaction of forming them."
"You are very good at this."
"I beg your pardon?"
"At answering a question with a question. At making a point without appearing to make one." He tilted his head very slightly. "It is quite a particular skill."
Victoria felt warmth move into her face, which she found deeply inconvenient, and kept her expression entirely still. "I was not aware I was being evaluated."
"You are not." He paused. "I am merely observing."
"Then perhaps, Your Grace, you might observe that I have no interest in conversations that exist primarily to satisfy a gentleman's curiosity about how I will respond to provocation."
Something shifted in his expression then — a slight recalibration, as though she had said something that landed closer than he had anticipated. Good, she thought.
"I was not attempting to provoke you."
"You were, a little," she said, and was somewhat gratified to see that he did not immediately deny it. "Good afternoon, Your Grace."
She walked the two doors further along the corridor, found the powder room exactly where he had said it would be, and closed the door behind her.
She stood there for a moment in the quiet and recognized, with a clarity that was entirely unwelcome, that her heart was beating rather faster than was warranted by a conversation that had been, by any objective measure, simply an exchange of pointed remarks with a man she barely knew.
She stayed for a suitable interval, returned to the drawing room, and spoke of nothing in particular for the remainder of the visit.
“Another one?” Victoria asked as she stared at the missive in the butler’s hand.
“It arrived just now, Miss.”
Victoria saw it was the same hand, but this time the signature was not a single initial.
Miss Bennet,
Our exchange this afternoon has confirmed what yesterday's gathering first suggested — that you are considerably more interesting than I initially credited.
You argue with a precision that is rare and, I find, rather difficult to dismiss.
Despite your apparent conviction that marriage is an institution best avoided, I find myself in the unprecedented position of considering whether an acquaintance with you might be worth pursuing with some formality.
I remain, with unexpected interest,
Henry Ravenscroft
Victoria read it once.
Then she sat very still for what was probably a full minute, during which her expression was, she was quite certain, doing a number of things she would have preferred it not to do.
He had signed it. He had signed his full name, which meant he had decided she already knew, or suspected, that he was H, and had concluded that continuing the pretense was less interesting to him than dispensing with it.
And he had written — she read the relevant line again to make sure she had not imagined it — that he was considering pursuing an acquaintance with her with some formality.
Courtship. He was suggesting courtship. After one riding party and one corridor argument, Henry Ravenscroft, Duke of Blackmere, had apparently decided that what the situation called for was a formal courtship of Victoria Bennet, who had made her feelings about formal courtships perfectly clear to everyone in her acquaintance for the better part of six years.
The arrogance of it was, she thought, almost impressive.
She stood up, sat down again, and read the letter a third time, which did not improve her opinion of its contents.
He had not asked. He had not inquired whether she might welcome such a thing, or whether she had any interest in being courted, or whether she had — as she very much had — a long-established and carefully considered position on the subject.
He had simply announced, in the same measured, deliberate way he appeared to do everything, that he found her interesting and had decided to act on it.
As though his deciding were the relevant part.
As though she were simply going to — what? Receive this letter, set it down, and conclude that the Duke of Blackmere had found her worthy of his attention and therefore she ought to be grateful?
She put the letter in her pocket, which was also the wrong place for it, and did not take it out again.
She learned from her mother, at dinner, that they had been invited to the Forsythe ball the following evening, and that the Duke of Blackmere was expected to attend.
Victoria passed the breadbasket to Emily and said nothing about this.
But as she lay in the dark that night with the letter still — she was fully aware — in the pocket of her dress on the chair beside the bed, she made herself one clear, quiet promise.
Tomorrow evening, she would find the Duke of Blackmere in whatever overcrowded, overheated ballroom Lady Forsythe had produced, and she would make several things absolutely clear to him.
Starting with the fact that being found interesting by a duke was not, in her considerable experience of her own opinions, the same thing as being available to be courted by one.