"One does wonder," her companion replied, "whether she is simply too particular or whether the gentlemen have noticed what we have all noticed."
"Which is?"
The pause that followed drew attention. Alice felt her spine stiffen, her fingers tightening around the stem of her wine glass. She should not listen—she knew better—but the words came anyway. But thewords came anyway, slicing through the dinner chatter.
"Lady Alice is quite a lost cause, I'm afraid."
The words struck Alice beneath her ribs, echoing against older wounds, the accumulated cruelty of five Seasons spent being measured and found wanting by women who had never risked anything themselves.
She set down her glass, afraid her hand might tremble. Her smile remained fixed and brittle, a mask she had learned to wear so thoroughly that it had become impossible to remove. But something had shifted in her expression; some light had dimmed, and she knew anyone watching closely would see the change.
"The sole is rather overcooked," she said to no one in particular, her voice bright and empty. "I had expected better from the Oakford kitchens."
Around her, conversation flowed, steady as a stream. The matrons had shifted to dissecting a new target's failures; there was always another woman to critique, an endless supply of those who had not married well enough or quickly enough. Alice prodded at her fish, her thoughts drifting to her mother, who had conformed to society's demands only to vanish into a life that never suited her.
A lost cause. A battle already surrendered.
Beside her, Samuel had gone rigid.
She felt his attention shift, following her gaze toward the whispering matrons. His jaw tightened, a subtle clenching that hinted at anger carefully contained. When she glanced at his face, she found him watching her, an expression that made her chest ache.
He saw. He understood. This man, once her adversary, had learned to read her well enough to glimpse the hurt beneath her fixed smile.
"Lady Alice," he said quietly, his voice stripped of its usual formality. "The fish is perfectly adequate. I suspect the problem lies elsewhere."
"I have no idea what you mean." She reached for her wine, grateful for something to hold. "I was merely offering a culinary observation."
"Of course."
He did not press. He offered no comfort or sympathy, remaining beside her, solid and present, his shoulder close enough to hers that she could feel its warmth through the silk of her sleeve.
When the meat course arrived, Alice consumed it without tasting, her responses to conversation growing shorter, her wit retreating behind walls she thought she had torn down. She laughed where laughter was expected and made the appropriate noises of appreciation and agreement, butsomething essential had retreated, slipping away to a place where the matrons' words could not reach her.
Or so she told herself.
Samuel observed her, his gaze a palpable touch, noting the careful way she set down her glass, the flush creeping to her cheeks, the brittle quality of her smile. He said nothing. He offered nothing. Yet his attention remained unwavering, and beneath her hurt, Alice felt something stir that might have been gratitude.
The dinner stretched before her, interminable, and she counted the remaining courses with the desperation of a prisoner counting days.
The matrons had returned to their whispers; another course, another victim, the endless cycle of judgment that defined their entertainment. Alice heard her name surface again, followed by laughter that signaled her failings were being noted for future reference. She focused on the arrangement of vegetables on her plate, willing herself not to react, not to give them the satisfaction of knowing their words had struck home.
Beside her, Samuel had gone very still.
She sensed the change in him before she saw it. A gathering tension, like the moment before a storm breaks. His fingers stilled, and his jaw set. When she glanced at his face, his grey eyes were fixed on thewhispering matrons with an intensity that made her breath catch.
"Lord Crewe," she said quietly, reaching for a lightness she did not feel. "The vegetables are really quite?—"
He leaned forward.
"Perhaps the problem," he said, cutting through the dinner chatter, "is that too few men are brave enough."
The table fell silent.
Alice watched the scene unfold as if from a distance, the pause in movement, forks arrested mid-air, heads turning one by one toward the source of this statement. Conversations died mid-sentence. Wine glasses hovered halfway to lips. The footmen froze, uncertain whether this moment required intervention.
Every eye in the room fixed upon Samuel Baldwin, Viscount Crewe, who sat with his spine rigid, his expression suggesting he had not uttered anything remarkable.
Alice stared at him.
