Page 49 of The Wedding-Crashing Duchess

“The point is that I don’t believe that there are only society’s expectations,” he maintained. “I would be interested in knowing who you would be, if there was no audience to judge you.”

She considered his words for a moment.

“There is always an audience,” Augusta said. “Even when no one is present, one hears the lessons that were repeated throughout childhood, and one knows what would be said if one behaved differently.”

Ronan’s fingers moved over the stem of his glass. “That sounds exhausting. Don’t you think so? Being constantly watched or assessed.”

“It is called propriety, and without it there would only be chaos. It is rather important.”

“You don’t have to tell me what it is called,” he replied. “But surely you can admit to yourself, and me, in the privacy of this conversation that maintaining propriety at all times is rather exhausting.”

Augusta looked at him with growing annoyance. She didn’t understand what the point he was trying to make was. Surely, as a duke, he knew about propriety better than anyone else.

“Propriety prevents people from behaving selfishly whenever the impulse strikes them,” she said. “It creates order, and it allows strangers to understand how they should treat one another without testing every boundary first.”

“Sure, yes. That is the respectable version of it that society tells us,” he said, shrugging his shoulders.

“And you say that there is another version that exists?” she asked, her annoyance turning into some manner of curiosity now.

“Of course there is. We shouldn’t be so naïve as to not see it. Sometimes, under the guise of propriety, people feel as though they are given the license to be cruel,” Ronan replied. Augusta simply stared at him to continue.

“A man may ruin another family while speaking politely, and a woman may humiliate someone with a smile. Meanwhile, everyone praises their manners. I would rather deal with open dislike than spend an evening surrounded by people who conceal contempt beneath compliments.”

She nodded, knowing that he had made his point. But of course, no conversation between them could pass without some form of debate.

“I understand what you mean,” she replied. “But that does not mean all courtesy is false.”

“You’re making sweeping statements on my behalf. I did not say it was,” Ronan replied. “I said that society mistakes performance for character, and propriety is often the costume used for that performance. A man who bows at the correct moment is considered respectable even if he is dishonest, while a woman who laughs too loudly is judged without anyone asking whether she is kind.”

Augusta stared at him, unsettled by how directly his argument struck at rules she had spent her life obeying.

“You cannot dismiss every convention simply because some people misuse it,” she said. “Without standards, people would behave however they pleased, and those with the least consideration for others would cause the greatest harm.”

“Standards should concern conduct that harms others,” Ronan replied, “not whether a woman eats a second cake, whether a man refuses to attend a ball, or whether two people speak without arranging every sentence into something harmless. Society concerns itself most intensely with matters that do not deserve judgement, while ignoring cruelty when it arrives wearing the correct coat.”

“You speak as though manners possess no value at all,” she said.

“They possess value when they arise from consideration,” Ronan said, his voice remaining controlled even as the conviction behind it deepened. “They become tiresome when they exist only to satisfy observers. I thank a servant since he has done something for me, and I speak respectfully to a tenant since his rank does not make him less deserving of respect, yet I will not pretend to enjoy a gathering merely to reassure the hostess, and I will not flatter a man whose company I despise so that society may call me agreeable.”

It was clear to her that this was a view that he had spent considerable thought pondering over. It would be difficult to challenge him any further, but at the same time, she knew that it was something that he was allowed to do. She could never imagine herself holding the same views so openly.

“You have the freedom to be disagreeable,” Augusta replied. “Most people do not.”

“Most people possess more freedom than they use,” he said, shrugging his shoulders.

“That is an arrogant thing to say,” the words slipped out of her mouth before the had the chance to stop them.

For a moment, she wondered if he was going to get angry to her for saying that. After all, it was against that very propriety that she was arguing in favour of to accuse someone of his standing to be arrogant.

But to her surprise, he didn’t seemed bothered by it at all.

“Perhaps,” Ronan said. “Yet I have watched people surrender their judgement to gossip and then complain that society has trapped them, even though society is nothing more than other frightened people repeating the same rules to one another.”

Augusta opened her mouth, then closed it again. For once, no immediate answer presented itself.

She had spent years learning how to enter a room, how to greet a duchess, how long to maintain eye contact, how loudly to laugh, and how carefully to conceal anything too eager or too painful. She had considered those lessons protection, and perhaps they had been, yet Ronan spoke of them as though they were bars around a cage whose door had never truly been locked.

He watched her in silence.