"Lady Alice."
His voice carried from some ten feet away, maintaining distance. Maintaining caution. She turned to face him.
Moonlight etched his features more starkly than candlelight had, rendering the severe angles of his face almost sculptural, his grey eyes colorless in the silver light, his expression a familiar mask of controlled concern. He stood at the entrance to her rose bower, uncertain whether he was permitted to enter, hands clasped behind his back, posture rigid.
"Lord Crewe." She emphasized his title. "Have you followed me to ensure my safety? Perhaps you fear I might stumble upon a garden rake and require rescuing from that as well."
Something flickered across his features—hurt perhaps, quickly suppressed. "I wanted to ascertain?—"
"That I had not collapsed into hysterics? How thoughtful." The brittleness in her own voice startled her. "I assure you, my lord, I am perfectly capable of weathering social unpleasantness without supervision.”
"I did not suggest otherwise."
"Did you not?" She stepped toward him, hands clenched into fists at her sides. "Your performance at dinner suggested precisely that.Perhaps the problem is that too few men are brave enough.What was that if not an announcement that poor Lady Alice requires defending from the mean matrons?"
His jaw tightened. "It was the truth."
"It was a spectacle." The word escaped sharper than she intended, edged with the threat of tears. "Every eye in that room turned to me. Every whisper that follows will center not on my qualities but on whether Viscount Crewe's extraordinary defense suggests something more. You have made me interesting, Lord Crewe, and in society, interesting is the most dangerous thing a woman can be."
He stepped closer, closing the distance. "I could not stand by while they?—"
"I needed no champion." Her voice cracked, and she loathed herself for it. "Particularly not one who has spent the better part of a fortnight treating me with disdain. What am I to make of your sudden gallantry? Am I meant to swoon with gratitude? To thank you for noticing that I have feelings that can be hurt?"
"That is not?—"
"Because I have survived worse than those women's whispers, and I have done so alone." Shewas close enough to see the muscle in his jaw twitch, close enough to smell the faint traces of port and something warmer beneath. "I do not require your pity, my lord. I do not require your protection. And I certainly do not need to be the subject of drawing room speculation because you decided to play knight for an evening."
Samuel's composure cracked. She watched as the mask fell away, revealing something raw and honest in his grey eyes. "You think I acted out of pity?"
"What else should I think?"
"Think that I could not bear to hear them speak of you that way. Think that I have spent a fortnight watching you move through rooms like a flame through darkness, and I will not allow their small cruelties to diminish that light."
The words landed between them, heavy and poignant. Alice felt her breath catch, the anger draining away, replaced by something more complicated and dangerous.
"Samuel—"
"You are not a lost cause." His voice had dropped, roughened with emotion he could no longer hide. "You are the furthest thing from a lost cause I have ever encountered, and if defending you makes me a spectacle, then I will be a spectacle gladly."
They stood inches apart now, close enough forher to feel the warmth radiating from him despite the cool night air. Alice's hands unclenched as her heart hammered against her ribs with a force that must be audible.
"You have no right," she whispered. "You have no right to say such things."
"I know." His grey eyes held hers, unwavering. "I know."
The moonlight caught the flush on her cheeks, the rigid set of his shoulders, the tension vibrating between them.
Samuel watched her lips form the accusation, something about self-righteousness, about presumption, words sharp enough to draw blood. He felt his composure begin to fray. She was striking in her fury, her cheeks flushed, her eyes bright with emotion she no longer concealed. Her fists clenched at her sides, and he found himself noting the details with the precision of a man trying to hold onto reason while it slipped through his fingers.
"And you stand there with your principles and your judgments," she said, her voice sharp, "as if you have any right to determine what I need or do notneed. As if your opinions on my character were ever solicited?—"
"Alice."
"Do not." She stepped closer, close enough for him to count the drops of dew in her hair, close enough for her perfume to mingle with the roses. "Do not presume to use my name as if it grants you an intimacy you have not earned."
"What would you have me do?" The words escaped him more roughly than intended, stripped of the careful modulation he had spent years perfecting. "Stand silent while they tear you apart? Pretend I heard nothing, felt nothing, and simply continued eating my fish?"
"Yes." Her chin lifted, defiant. "That is precisely what I would have you do. That is what everyone does. That is what I have learned to expect."
