She could not help it; she could not summon the composure to look away, could not arrange her features into her usual mask. Her lips parted slightly; warmth flooded her cheeks; her heart hammered against her ribs. He had defended her. Publicly,deliberately, with words designed to cut as sharply as any blade.
The matrons had gone crimson. The woman who had called Alice a lost cause seemed to shrink into her chair, her fan raised as if it could shield her. Her companion had developed a sudden fascination with the ceiling, studying its plasterwork with an intensity it had never before warranted.
At the head of the table, Crispin's eyebrow rose, suggesting genuine surprise, a rare achievement, given his talent for anticipating entertainment. His gaze flicked from Samuel to Alice and back again, his expression shifting from surprise to speculation to delight.
Clara, seated beside her husband, raised her napkin to her lips in a gesture that might have been dabbing at an errant crumb but likely concealed a smile. Her eyes met Alice's across the table, bright with a meaning Alice could not quite grasp.
Samuel seemed surprised by his own declaration. Alice noticed a brief flicker of uncertainty in his composure before his expression returned to its usual rigidity. He reached for his wine glass and took a deliberate sip, as if commenting on the weather.
"The lamb," he said, "is excellent. My compliments to the Oakford kitchens."
The dinner resumed.
But everything had changed. Alice felt it in the altered quality of the glances directed her way—less pitying now, more curious, laced with reassessment. She sensed it in the whispers that spread from the matrons' end of the table, not gossip about her failures but speculation about what Viscount Crewe's statement might mean. She felt it in the way Samuel sat beside her, eating his lamb with mechanical precision, his warmth radiating between them.
He had defended her. Before the assembled company, before the matrons who cared about reputation, before everyone who would carry this story back to London's drawing rooms. He had aligned himself with her.
The remaining courses passed in a blur of sensation and suppressed emotion. Alice engaged in conversation as needed, but her attention remained fixed on the man beside her, trying to understand what had shifted. Every brush of his shoulder against hers felt significant. Each sidelong glance he directed her way seemed to carry questions neither of them was prepared to voice.
When the ladies finally rose to withdraw, Alice felt something loosen in her chest, relief perhaps, or the release of long-held tension. She moved with the other women toward the drawing room, but her mind lingered at the dinner table, replaying Samuel'swords, his tone, and the precise way he had countered the matrons' cruelty.
Some men are simply not brave enough.
She waited.
The gentlemen joined them after what felt like an eternity of port and politics. Alice positioned herself near a window, watching the candlelight dance across the glass and observing the reflections of guests moving through the drawing room. She saw Samuel enter, speak briefly with Crispin, and then his gaze swept the room until it found her.
She slipped away before he could approach.
The corridor stretched before her in shades of shadow and amber, the wall sconces burning low, the sounds of the drawing room fading behind her. Her footsteps were muffled by the carpet; her heartbeat thundered in her ears. She did not know where she was going, only that she needed air, space, a moment to collect herself after Samuel's defense.
Alice inhaled a steading breath and gathered her skirts. She had to get out of here. Had to calm the storm brewing within her.
CHAPTER 10
Alice's skirts brushed against her ankles as she glided through the corridor, past the astonished footman and murmuring guests who parted before her. She did not run. A lady never ran. Yet her stride carried a force that made running unnecessary, each step a statement of retreat.
The terrace doors opened at her touch, and she stepped into the night air. The rose garden stretched before her in shades of silver and shadow, its blooms transformed by moonlight, their fragrance rising to meet her with an intimacy almost unbearable. She gripped the stone balustrade until the cold bit into her palms, anchoring herself against the trembling that threatened to overtake her composure.
Behind her, the house glowed with candlelight and conversation—warmth and judgment in equalmeasure—carrying its cargo of whispers and assessments, along with the particular cruelty of women who had nothing better to do than catalog the failures of others. Alice breathed in the rose-scented air and willed her heartbeat to slow.
Too wild to wed.
The words circled in her memory, refusing to fade. She had heard worse. Of course she had. In five Seasons, she had heard everything, but something about the evening's whispers had found a gap in her armor she had not known existed. Perhaps it was the setting, this house party where she had allowed herself to lower her guard. Perhaps it was the accumulation of five years’ worth of similar wounds, each one small enough to dismiss but collectively heavy enough to crush.
Or perhaps this was the thought she could not quite bring herself to examine. It was because Samuel had heard them too. He had witnessed her humiliation. He had seen the chink in her armor and decided to defend it.
Her cheeks burned despite the cool air. She pressed her hands harder against the stone, feeling the rough texture scrape against her skin, welcoming the small pain as a distraction from the larger one churning beneath her ribs.
She had not needed defending. That was the cruxof it, the thorn that refused to be extracted. She had spent years learning to defend herself, sharpening her wit into a weapon, wearing her audacity like armor, transforming every criticism into fodder for her own amusement. She had survived five Seasons not by being protected but by being formidable. And in one moment, with one quietly devastating sentence, Samuel Baldwin had stripped that formidability away, leaving her standing bare before the assembled company as a woman who required championing.
The roses dripped with evening dew, their petals heavy in the moonlight. Alice released the balustrade and walked deeper into the garden, seeking distance from the house and everything it contained. The gravel path crunched beneath her slippers, inadequate for wandering, but she had not paused to consider practicality. She had only needed to escape.
She stopped beside a marble bench where climbing roses formed a natural bower. The blooms enveloped her, their fragrance thick enough to taste, evoking memories of another garden, another moment, a hand against her face, breath mingling with hers.
Footsteps crunched on the gravel behind her.
Alice did not turn. She recognized his stride. Measured and deliberate, each step precise, as if heapproached even gardens as a problem to be solved. Her spine straightened as he drew closer, her chin lifting instinctively in defense.
