That unsettled Sophia nearly as much as Roxboro’s mood. Did Lord Damon want his nephew stumbling about, mind fogged by spirits all the time?
Laughter came from the other side of the table where Mara satbeside Lord Caster. Lady Rose was on Caster’s other side, while Violet sat directly across from Sophia. In a mild breach of conduct, Roxboro had insisted Sophia take the chair to his right instead of the opposite side of the table.
Every so often, Violet would leave the conversation between Caster and the other two women, so that her shrewd gaze could linger on Sophia. Given the circumstances, it was hard to blame her. Clearly, Violet didn’t believe the tale her cousin and Sophia had been courting in secret, and had questions. But the most interesting thing about Violet, outside of the throaty way she laughed, was the way she kept her distance from Damon Viceroy.
Violet was polite, of course. Courteous. But she did not engage her father in conversation. Nor once after offering a greeting, look in his direction.
She doesn’t like Damon. Something we have in common.
“I regret our first meeting is over aspic and an overly large fruitcake, Your Grace,” Violet said to Sophia. There was no malice in her dark eyes, so like her father’s, though Violet’s were far less calculating.
She didn’t respond immediately, not realizing that Violet was addressingher.
Roxboro kicked her under the table.
“Stop doing that,” Sophia said under her breath, before kicking him back. “I too am chagrined we could not be acquainted earlier.”
Violet watched the exchange between Sophia and Roxboro, lips twisting upward just slightly. “Poor of you, Xander, not to introduce us sooner, given you were…courting.”
“I’m poor at a great many things, Vi.”
“Not everything, Xander.” A fleeting emotion crossed her features. “You do have some talents.”
Roxboro snorted. “Hear, hear.”
Violet took in Sophia for another moment. “Tell me, Your Grace, do you have hobbies?”
Roxboro nudged her thigh. “She’s speaking to you.”
Sophia grabbed her knife. “I’m aware.” She gave him a cutting look before turning to Violet. “I like to read,” she replied to Violet. “A great deal as it happens. I might be something of a bluestocking according to Lady Canterbell. Museums interest me.”
“Do you ride?” Violet’s lips twitched once more.
“Far too bouncy,” Sophia answered without thinking.
“That’s probably for the best,” she glanced at Roxboro once more. “Needlework?”
“No, I’m afraid not. I kept pricking my finger. Blood everywhere. Nor gardening, I’m afraid. I’ve tried with violets, but they often end up dead. I was once advised to start a collection of seaweed by a group of academics I met at the museum.”
“Seaweed?” Violet’s eyes widened. “Really?”
“Apparently it is nearly as popular as the collecting of ferns. The ladies had formed a club to discuss the techniques of collecting seaweed. They found the task to be…stimulating.” Sophia took a sip of her wine. Champagne had been offered, but she’d declined. “But alas, I found seaweed collection to be boring. I’m entirely unexceptional, I fear,” she smiled at Violet.
Sophia could hurl a good insult. Punch decently as Mara could attest. Throw books, hairbrushes, rocks and the occasional slipper with varying degrees of accuracy, but those were all useless skills for a young lady.
“Oh, I disagree, Your Grace.” Violet cast one more look at Roxboro and then returned to the conversation with Lord Caster, who Mara was questioning about the Dunkirk house party.
“You’re a bluestocking. I should have guessed,” Roxboro drawled in that silky, bored tone.
“You might try a book instead of spirits,” Sophia retorted. “They are the rectangle shaped things covered in leather and full of words.”
Violet, across the table, placed a hand over her mouth as if to stiflea laugh.
“God,” Roxboro, her husband—a strange, wildly terrifying thought—rumbled in a low tone. “Youareterrible. With a tendency to fall into melancholy.”
“I will agree to terrible. Nor do I suffer from melancholia. I am merely considering whether I should drown myself in the white wine sauce covering the turbot.” Sophia was suddenly, intimately aware that she would not be leaving with her parents and Mara once the meal was over. The same sensation had struck her earlier, when she and Roxboro arrived, as she looked up at this magnificent house. This was now Sophia’s home. Even now, Ann, her maid, was upstairs unpacking her things.
“I did offer you my flask on the way. You declined.”
