Chapter Three
The problem with salons—aside from the armchairs filled with smug gentlemen whose self-importance seeped into the upholstery—was that they always smelled faintly of pomade and wind-baggery.
Bea’s father’s Thursday night political salon was no exception.Her father collected MPs the way other men collected horses—bred for loyalty, trained for obedience.At least he allowed her to attend.Most debutantes were treated as mindless little violets who would wilt if the slightest bit of political discussion was had in their presence.
Bea had been strategic in her attendance, however.She merely slipped in one evening, years ago, pretending to be more interested in the social aspect than the discussions themselves, and now she was simply a fixture.None of the MPs blinked when they found themselves sitting next to her.Nor did they blink (much) when she inserted her opinion on everything from the Corn Laws to the prisons debate.
Tonight was no exception.Bea perched at the edge of a green-velvet settee and sipped weak tea from a trembling saucer.Across from her, a cluster of powdered, puffed-up gentlemen debated policy as if it were a genteel game of chess—moving pieces, trading victories—never mind that real lives lay in the balance.
She told herself to endure it.To sip her tea.To pretend to be ornamental.To remember that patience was the price of admission in rooms like this.
But her patience, she was discovering, had limits.
“Of course, the reform bill will fail,” declared Lord Hargrave, an arrogant backbencher who always sounded as if his cravat had strangled his brain.“One cannot simply give the vote to every Tom, Dick, and chimney sweep.It’s unseemly.”
Something inside her snapped—clean and final.
Bea set her cup down with a distinct clink.“Unseemly,” she repeated, lifting a brow.“I daresay breathing is unseemly in certain circles, my lord.But the masses persist.”
The surrounding gentlemen fell into stunned silence.
Colonel Smythe choked on his brandy.Lord Peabody coughed into his hand.Lord Hargrave blinked, his mouth puckering like a dried currant.
Bea nearly winced.Oof.Too far.She’d gone too far.
Blast it.
She saw it happen in real time, the shift in Lord Hargrave’s expression from confusion to offense.He opened his mouth, presumably to scold her for speaking like a man, or daring to engage in political discourse without the necessary appendage beneath her clothing, or worse, accusing her of sympathy withthatcartoonist.
Bea braced herself.
And then, like some perfectly tailored conjurer, Nicholas Archer appeared.
“Ah, Lady Beatrix,” he said smoothly, stepping into the circle with a glass of wine in hand.“You must forgive Hargrave.He forgets we’re no longer in the last century.Why, just last week, he tried to hang his coat on the footman at White’s.”
A ripple of laughter broke the tension like a needle slipping cleanly through cloth.
Nicholas turned to Hargrave and lifted his glass in mock apology.“To your credit, the lad was rather stiff.”
The older men chuckled.Hargrave harrumphed but didn’t argue.He reached for his port with the surly air of a man defeated by humor.And of course, all of them adored the heir apparent to the political throne.Archer was everyone’s favorite.He could get away with saying nearly anything.Bea curled her lip.
Archer turned to her then, his expression unreadable.“And to Lady Beatrix,” he said, raising his glass again, “for reminding us that the sharpest wit often belongs to those the law would exclude.A tragedy, that.”
Another round of laughter.Less robust this time.More...considering.
He held her gaze as he drank.
Bea blinked.Once.Slowly.Her skin prickled.He didn’t mean that.Of course he didn’t.He was merely being gallant.Or trying to be at least.
She should have thanked him.It would have been the polite thing to do.The expected thing.But all she could do was narrow her eyes.
Why had he done it?He was mocking her, wasn’t he?He certainly didn’t believe the law shouldn’t exclude women.Her father said as much night and day.And Archer was her father’s toadeater.
But why had Archer defused that particular moment, in that particular way, at that precise instant?
It had been too smooth.Too practiced.
She didn’t trust him.Not even a little.
