She straightened her shoulders and accepted her chair assignment with the stoic grace of a French noble heading to the gallows.
Soren took it upon himself to pull out her chair.
“Please, allow me,” he said.
She hesitated as if debating taking the chair or bolting for the door. The dowager and other ladies were already seated. The gentlemen now waited upon Cassandra. Even the servants, queued up in the doorway with trays of soup dishes in their hands, waited for her.
“Thank you,” she murmured, and sat with the weight of an anvil. As a matter of form, he tried to give the chair a little push toward the table. It didn’t budge. She must have had her heels dug in. She was doing it on purpose, another silent message that she was not pleased he was one of her dinner companions, as if her iciness hadn’t been enough.
Of course, once her bum hit the seat, the gentlemen at the table were free to take theirs and—finally!—all eyes were off the spectacle Cass was making of herself.
And of Soren, since he was the gallant performing a servant’s job.
Why the devil had he thought to do a bit more than he should? She was making her feelings toward him very obvious.
Several raised their eyebrows at him and more than one smirked in a knowing way. Yes, all the world knew he was making a play for the Holwell Heiress. And her rudeness was ensuring they knew he did it because he didn’t have any other choice. Damn it all.
Servants rushed forward with the soup course. Footmen began filling wineglasses. Good, because he needed a drink.
The eating started. He sampled his soup. “Ah, this is very superb, is it not?” He spoke to those around him in general.
Sitting on Cass’s other side, Lord Rawlins nodded. “Camberly always sets a good table.” Across from Cass, the almost deaf Lord Crossley nodded as if he agreed. Soren doubted he’d heard a word.
“I think it needs salt,” the widowed Marchioness of Haddingdon pronounced. She was seated to Soren’s right. She had been quite the thing in her day. She still dressed the part in bold colors, a purple turban with jewels and two huge plumes, each the size of a full-grown ostrich. Her bodice was cut so shamelessly low her aged, ample bosoms threatened to spill over. “I need salt,” she repeated, speaking to the air.
A footman stepped forward, picked up the salt dish that was right in front of her, and sprinkled her soup with a silver spoon. She peered down to see what he was doing, leaving Soren to change his opinion from thinking her too haughty to salt her own food, to suspecting she probably possessed a very strong pair of spectacles vanity prevented her from wearing.
“Is it better, my lady?” the footman asked.
She tasted the soup with a smack of her lips. “Yes, that is fine. Much better.” The footman stepped back.
“And what do you think, Miss Holwell?” Soren asked, keeping his tone formal and polite. “Is the soup to your liking?”
She wanted to ignore him. For the briefest moment, resentment flashed in her expressive eyes. She looked away. “It is good.”
Well, at least she’d acknowledged him.
But then her nose wrinkled. She took a sniff. “Do I smell camphor?” She looked at Soren’s jacket, her brows puzzled together.
Lady Melrose, a birdlike woman who was the dowager’s sister and seated across from Soren, tested the air. “I don’t smell anything.”
“I don’t, either,” Lady Haddingdon agreed before taking another slurp of her soup.
But Soren could smell it.
When he’d first purchased the jacket, it had reeked of camphor, a popular agent against moths. He’d given it a good airing out and had already worn it to several balls and dinner parties without complaint, and yet he’d always been aware of the slightly medicinal odor. Especially the day after an event. Camphor had come to symbolize his bloody empty pockets.
Then again, that Cass had noticed might be a sign she paid more attention to him than he thought?
Perhaps Camberly and the dowager’s plan did have some merit.
The hard-of-hearing Lord Crossley said to the people on either side of him, “What? What are they saying?” No one answered him.
With a last quizzical glance, Miss Holwell turned her attention to her meal.
Lady Melrose spoke up. “I understand you are recently returned from the war in America, Lord Dewsberry. What do you make of all that is going on there?”
“Here now, were you in the military?” Lord Rawlins asked. He had been surreptitiously ogling Cass’s admirable breasts in such a way that Soren had been tempted to thump him on the head.
