Miles let out a quiet, suffering breath and unfolded his napkin with more force than necessary. “Lady Beatrice,” he said, finally acknowledging her, “your faith in the house’s influence is… admirable.”
“Oh, it is not faith, dear boy. It is experience.”
Jillian angled her body slightly toward him and lowered her voice. “If she assigns meaning to the way you butter your roll, I am going to feign a swoon.”
“That would only encourage her,” Miles replied, keeping his gaze carefully on his plate.
“A sadly astute prediction,” he concurred.
Their soup was served, but neither reached for it. Jillian could feel Miles’s tension radiating across the narrow space between them. It was unusual—almost unsettling—for him toseem so visibly cornered. When she glanced over, she caught him watching Beatrice’s end of the table with the focus of a man anticipating incoming artillery.
Miles leaned toward her slightly. “If you continue glaring at me like that,” he said, the low timbre of his voice threaded with dry annoyance, “everyone will assume we are secretly engaged.”
Jillian’s spoon hovered over her soup. “No one with even passingly functional vision would come to that conclusion,” she whispered back.
“They would if they are determined to do so. And they”—he inclined his head toward the trio of matchmaking aunts—“are very determined.”
Jillian followed his gaze. Agatha and Cecilia were bent together, whispering ferociously behind their fans, while Beatrice kept darting glances toward Jillian and Miles with the air of someone awaiting applause.
“Oh dear,” Jillian murmured as she watched them. “They are plotting something.”
“They are always plotting something,” Miles replied, lifting his spoon only to set it down again with a sigh.
“Something worse than usual, then,” Jillian conceded.
“Agreed.”
Henry, seated several guests down, leaned forward and called lightly, “I see the two of you conversing without visible hostility. Should I alert the newspapers?”
Miles shot him a withering look. Jillian ignored him entirely.
Miles turned back to her. “We must do something.”
“About the aunts?” she asked.
“About the entire situation.”
“That seems rather broad.”
“It is intended to be. This is a volatile situation.”
Jillian bit back a smile. He looked almost pained by the necessity of speaking with her, which naturally made her wish to prolong the conversation.
“What do you propose, Mr. Fairfax?” she asked, her tone just shy of polite mockery.
“I propose,” he said with a measured breath, “that we consider a temporary truce.”
She blinked at him. “A truce?”
“Do not look at me as if I suggested matrimony,” he muttered, straightening the silverware unnecessarily. “It is merely a strategy.”
“A strategy for what?”
He nodded ever so slightly toward the matchmaking aunts again. “For survival.”
Jillian studied him, trying to determine whether he was serious. He looked entirely serious—serious enough that she felt an unexpected flicker of sympathy. Miles Fairfax, the paragon of composure, undone by a handful of overzealous relatives. It was almost endearing, which irritated her beyond measure.
“And what would this truce entail?” she asked cautiously.
