She sipped her wine and looked around as if the conversation was over. Vincent almost didn’t prod her to continue, but he found himself wanting to know the answer.
“May I ask, what does your family call you?”
She turned back to him and sighed. “Bri. It is dreadful. Not a name, not a word, merely a sound.”
He nodded, then recalled something. “There is that soft French cheese, Brie de Meaux, made just east of Paris.”
She frowned.Had he insulted her?Where before, even earlier that evening, he hadn’t cared one way or the other, he now had no desire to be insolent, especially not over her name. After all, it was hardly her choice.
“I admit that I don’t know anything about this cheese,” she said, “nor am I sure that sharing a name with the product of a cow really makes it any better. Have you tasted it? Is it good?”
“It’s delicious,” he told her. He’d eaten it in France and when visiting his sister in Belgium. “It is not like cheddar, much softerand creamier, sometimes even sweet. You can get it in London, I assure you. I don’t think the English knew much about it or cared until the famed banquet during the Congress of Vienna.”
Her expression indicated she had no idea of what he spoke.
“Go on,” she said.
“Lord Talleyrand was an excellent diplomat. While everyone was divvying up nations, he thought to calm the temperaments with a cheese contest. Each country at the bargaining table was invited to contribute their native cheese to the banquet. Naturally, Lord Castlereagh chose Stilton to represent the British. And who doesn’t love it with a hunk of fresh bread and some watercress?”
“No one, I would warrant,” Lady Brilliance said.
“However, it was the Brie that was unanimously declared ‘Le Roi des Fromages’.”
“The king of ...?” she queried.
“Cheeses,” he supplied the translation.
“Truly? Or are you teasing me?”
He couldn’t help smiling. “God’s honest truth, my lady. Brie is the king of cheeses, declared so by all the statesmen of Europe and the United Kingdom. Or, in your case, the Queen.”
She shook her head. “Still, would I rather be called a word likepureorrayor named for cheese?”
“Then I shall address you only by the full title of Lady Brilliance.”
She nodded. “You are not insufferable as I believed upon our initial conversation.”
Vincent startled. Everyone thought such things about others, but one rarely heard oneself spoken of in such a manner.
“I hope I amnotinsufferable,” he said.
She smiled again, a dazzling effect, causing her deep blue eyes to sparkle in the dining room’s candlelight.
“Will you take part in the evening’s entertainment?”
She had switched topics so quickly that he almost missed it.
“No, decidedly not.”
“I can hardly credit our hostess has something better forthcoming than your piano playing.”
He doubted there was, but still, he wasn’t going to be paraded out like a monkey on a leash playing cymbals. He did not perform on demand. He did not perform at all!
“Regardless, I amnotpart of the evening’s entertainment.”
“Another evening, perhaps?” she asked. “It would be selfish of you not to share your talent.”
He gaped. “You cannot tell someone they are selfish for not playing the piano.”
