Hargrave sniffed.“Opinions require logic.And logic?—”
“Is not exclusive to men,” Bea cut in.
More murmurs.Winston stiffened.Bea’s mother went pale.
Hargrave sputtered, “Lady Beatrix, you mistake my meaning.”
“No,” Bea said simply.“I believe I’ve understood it perfectly.”
Her father snapped, sharp as the crack of a whip, “Beatrix.That is enough.”
The table fell silent.
Bea lifted her chin, but Nicholas saw past the fire to the flicker beneath it.The tiny wound inflicted when a parent scolds an adult as if she were a child.The sting she tried to hide.The same sting Nicholas knew all too well.
Winston turned toward Hargrave.“You must excuse her, my lord.She has been indulged far too long in?—”
“She does not need excusing.”Nicholas heard his own voice before he consciously decided to speak.
Every head swiveled toward him—even Bea’s.
Winston looked thunderstruck.“Vanover?”
Nicholas set down his wine with deliberate calm.“Lady Beatrix understood Lord Hargrave perfectly.She merely chose to disagree.She is entirely capable of forming her own opinions without any man’s permission.”
A stunned silence reverberated down the length of the table.
Hargrave gaped.
Winston’s face deepened to a violent shade of plum.
But Bea… Bea looked at Nicholas as though he had just done something impossible.Something she hadn’t dared to hope for.Something that reached inside her and lit the dark corners.
And Nicholas felt it, felt her attention strike him like a bolt.
For years, he had practiced diplomacy with these men, listening, nodding, placating, pretending neutrality so he could persuade them later.He’d thought it strategy—patience, positioning, playing the long game.
But sitting beside Bea, watching her sit in a room full of men who wanted her silent, he suddenly saw it for what it was…what it always had been.Indecision.
He had been patient when he should have been principled.
And now—because of her, because of her courage, because her refusal to shrink was the most extraordinary thing he’d ever witnessed—he realized hedidstand for something.
He stood for her.
And God help him…he was falling for her.
Deeply.Irretrievably.Probably stupidly.Given that she still wouldn’t even admit they were courting.
Winston tried again, sounding strangled.“This is hardly?—”
Nicholas cut in smoothly, eyes never leaving Bea.“Her place,” he said gently, “is wherever she chooses it to be.”
Gasps traveled the table.
Bea’s lips parted.The faintest flush painted her throat.
And Nicholas knew—without question—that he would face down an entire party of Tories, an entire Parliament, an entire country, if necessary, if it meant defending her again.
