Lady Sussex sat at the front of the room with the book open in her hands, the afternoon light falling across the pages while the gathered guests followed along in their own copies.
The room had settled into a hush of attention. Chairs no longer shifted. Teacups had been set aside. Even the ladies who a quarter hour before had been whispering over lace gloves and recent invitations now seemed genuinely intent on the reading. The gentlemen, fewer in number, sat with varying degrees of resignation, politeness, and occasional interest. Some followed with care. Others looked as though they were enduring the whole performance chiefly because the company was attractive.
Sophia listened closely.
The choice of book suited the room too well. Pride and Prejudice had a way of reaching into people and forcing them to reveal themselves by what they admired, excused, or condemned. As Lady Sussex read, Sophia felt more than once the strange, unwilling pull of Mr. Darcy's character. He was difficult, proud, composed, and at times infuriating — yet there was something in that reserve and depth that made him more compelling than the men who sought too eagerly to please. On the other hand she could agree with Elizabeth Bennets plight. Sophia to wanted to marry for love, not just for status and riches.
When Lady Sussex finally paused at a particularly consequential point and closed the book gently over one finger, the room stirred as though waking from a shared dream.
"Well," she said, looking over the tops of her spectacles, "now we may do what all civilized people most long to do after reading — disagree."
That won a ripple of laughter.
As conversation began, it quickly split itself along familiar lines.
One lady, fair and recently married, sighed and said, "Love is of course a noble thing, but Mr. Darcy at the beginning is far too proud. A man may be wealthy and still be impossible."
"Indeed," said another. "What use is all his income if one must endure his arrogance every day?"
A gentleman farther down the room answered at once, "A man without pride is a man without backbone. And a man without backbone rarely has the income to be arrogant about."
That earned a few smiles.
Another of the ladies lifted her chin. "Surely there is a difference between pride and self-command."
"Yes," the gentleman replied, "but women often only like the distinction when a man is handsome."
Laughter followed — from some of the men and some of the women too.
Evie, seated across the room now with more courage in her expression than at Lady Henbury's luncheon, said softly, "I do not think women object to pride so much as to being made to suffer it without affection to soften it."
"That is well said," Lady Sussex told her.
A lady to Sophia's left added, "That is exactly the point. A man may have pride, means, position, all of it — but if he has not enough tenderness toward the lady he courts, what good is any of it?"
One of the gentlemen countered, "Tenderness does not feed a family."
"But neither does hauteur," another lady replied.
The room warmed to the subject.
The men, for the most part, defended Mr. Darcy's pride as if they themselves were being accused. The women, though less unified, seemed divided between those who wanted an ideal man to have means, gravity, and feeling in proper balance, and those who would have forgiven Mr. Darcy almost anything if he had simply learned sooner how to speak.
Sophia listened.
And for once, she deliberately held her tongue.
Growing up among brothers had given her the habit of entering discourse quickly, of meeting argument with argument and refusing to leave a point undefended once she had taken hold of it. But today, perhaps because of the title of the book itself, she decided that she would do the opposite.
She would not leap in.
She would not try to conquer.
She would listen.
Perhaps, she thought, that in itself was a way of laying pride aside.
Beside her, Edward Astor noticed.
He had seen enough of Sophia already to know that stillness in her did not mean emptiness. She listened with purpose. The expression on her face was not vague attentiveness but active thought. Her eyes moved slightly when someone said something she found interesting. Once, her brows lifted almost imperceptibly at a particularly foolish remark from a gentleman who spoke as though marriage were chiefly a matter of ledgers and heirs.
Edward let the room continue around them for a few minutes before he leaned in, just enough to speak privately without interrupting the larger discussion.
"And what do you think?"
Sophia started slightly.
He was closer than she had expected.
Too close.
Close enough that she caught the scent of his cologne again, warmer now in the afternoon room, and beneath it the faint trace of cigars. Close enough that when she turned her head their eyes met immediately, and for one suspended second she was far more aware of his presence than of the room at all.
She drew herself subtly away before anyone could have called it retreat.
"My thoughts?" she asked, buying time.
"Yes," he said quietly. "You have been listening very earnestly. That usually means one disagrees with half the room."
Sophia almost smiled, "That depends which half."
"Then choose your side."
She glanced toward Lady Sussex, who was now listening while two ladies argued gently over whether Elizabeth Bennet's wit would be charming in real life or merely exhausting by year three of marriage.
Then she answered, "I think everyone ought to possess a little pride," she said. "And I do not think prejudice is always wrong either."
That pleased him at once. His eyebrows raised as if to ask her to elaborate.
"If someone has presented themselves badly, one cannot be blamed entirely for thinking badly of them. And as for love…" She hesitated, then continued more softly. "Why is it so foolish that a woman should hope to be loved by the man she marries? They must live together. It seems a poor arrangement otherwise."
Edward looked at her for a moment with real interest.
There it is, he thought.
Not merely beauty. Not merely charm. A mind still innocent enough to hope for love and stubborn enough to defend the hope.
Out loud, however, he only said, "I agree."
That startled her.
After the luncheon, she had expected opposition.
Expected to be contradicted, corrected, perhaps half-charmed and half-dismissed in that practiced way of his.
Instead he had answered with calm agreement.
"You do?" she asked before she could stop herself.
"I do," he said. "A household built only on necessity may endure, but one built with some feeling stands a better chance of becoming happy."
Sophia looked at him more directly then.
He seemed entirely sincere.
That was disconcerting.
Edward, seeing her attention hold, took the opportunity at once.
"And if one extends the question," he said, lowering his voice another degree, "what do you suppose is more dangerous in marriage — pride or prejudice?"
The shift caught her off guard.
At luncheon he had spoken well, yes, but had asked almost nothing of her. Here he seemed not merely eager to impress but actually curious.
She gathered herself.
"Prejudice, perhaps," she said after a moment.
"Not pride?"
"Pride may soften if respect is found. But prejudice may make one blind before respect has the chance."
"That is very nearly an argument for Mr. Darcy."
"It is an argument for not deciding too quickly," Sophia replied.
Edward smiled, "You argue elegantly."
She gave him a look at once suspicious and amused, "Do I?"
"You do."
"That sounds as though you mean to flatter me."
"Would you object if I did?"
Sophia, against her better judgment, felt the corner of her mouth move. He said it so smoothly that she should have disliked it.
And yet here, in a room devoted to a book of pride and prejudice, she could not help noticing the irony: she had expected him to be only a practiced man with practiced charm, but in this conversation he was easier than at luncheon, more open, less inclined to overpower and more inclined to ask.
It made her think — reluctantly — that perhaps her first dislike had been too absolute.
How fitting, she thought, to sit beneath this title and feel one's own prejudice slightly undone.
Still, the luncheon had happened.
Still, Aurelius remained a wound to her vanity.
And so, just as she began to soften toward him, the memory returned and corrected her.
He had agreed with Vincent.
He had dressed it better, but he had agreed.
That she had not forgotten.
Before she could decide whether to continue, the larger conversation shifted and drew both of them back into it. A gentleman near the fireplace had begun speaking loudly on whether Mrs. Bennet was ridiculous or practical, and three ladies immediately opposed him. Sophia was pulled briefly into that exchange. Edward, too, answered when spoken to, and the room's attention spread wider again.
The book circle continued agreeably enough after that.
Evie, who remained shy in direct dispute, often smoothed the flow of talk simply by diverting it into safer channels. She drew Vincent — who had also attended — into conversation more than once, and because Vincent was so eager to be agreeable when not cornered by philosophy, this worked beautifully.
But by the end of the afternoon, once books had been closed and tea refreshed and people had begun to rise in little waves to make their farewells, Sophia found that her first impression of Edward had not truly disappeared.
It had only blurred.
He was still, she thought, too sure of himself.
Too smooth.
Too conscious of his own effect.
Too practiced in the placement of praise.
A man to be watched, not trusted.
So when the time came to depart, she decided she would leave him as coolly as possible.
Evie still sat near the far side of the room, now in conversation with Michael Grosvenor of all people, who seemed to have recovered entirely from his fumbling promenade manners and was discussing something with surprising animation. Sophia thought she might cross to say goodbye to Evie properly before going, and perhaps in doing so make it appear that she had quite forgotten to offer the Marquis any final words at all.
It was a small strategy.
But a satisfying one.
She rose from the settee with precisely that intent.
And nearly fell.
Her foot caught on one of the settee's carved legs before she could correct the movement. For one sickening instant all she felt was the lurch forward, the certainty of humiliation, and the horrifying knowledge that if she stumbled, she would do so not only before half the room but before Edward Astor in particular.
Then a hand closed firmly at her waist.
Strong.
Immediate.
Unhesitating.
Another chance, Edward thought, in the same instant he moved.
He had been watching her already, half expecting some retreating little tactic of coolness from her, and so when she misstepped he caught her before anyone else had even realized she was in danger of falling.
Sophia felt herself brought back upright in a swift motion, one of his arms around her waist, her back nearly against his front for the briefest suspended moment.
She flushed at once.
Not dramatically.
But enough that the warmth reached her face and throat.
She looked down instinctively and saw his hand spread firmly against the silk at her waist. She became aware all at once of too many things — the heat of him through layers of clothing, the breadth of his chest near the back of her shoulder, the nearness of his breath by her ear, the scent of him again, warm and masculine and faintly laced with smoke.
And he, for his part, noticed her scent too.
Vanilla mixed with soft floral scent and something reminiscent of apples.
Not heavy, not the overpowering floral perfumes so many ladies chose when they wished to announce themselves. Sophia's was softer. Sweet. It carried with it, he thought, something almost dangerous in its innocence — because innocence paired with elegance had a way of making men imagine they were gentler than they were.
"Miss de Montfort," he said quietly, still holding her steady, "are you all right?"
Sophia gathered herself as quickly as she could.
The correct thing would be to deny anything serious, restore dignity, and move forward as though no compromising awkwardness had occurred.
"I—I must have stood too quickly," she said. "and felt a little faint."
It was a common enough excuse to save face.
Edward knew it for exactly that.
And he also knew at once how to use it.
He turned her just enough to face him fully, his hold easing but not entirely leaving her.
"You do look flushed," he said, voice lowered with practiced concern. "I do not think it wise for you to travel back alone if you are unwell."
Sophia's mind raced, "I am not truly unwell, only—"
"A little faint," he said gently, his face held a mixture of question and amusement.
She almost regretted the excuse.
He continued before she could form another, "My carriage is already here. Allow me to escort you home."
Sophia hesitated.
Every instinct told her to refuse.
But how?
Without a brother present, without Madame Rose beside her in that exact second, and having just declared herself faint, she could hardly reject the assistance of a gentleman offering what any room would deem proper concern.
If she resisted too sharply, it would look stranger than acquiescence.
And it was only twenty minutes.
A carriage ride.
Nothing more.
She could be cool.
She could feign fatigue.
She could say very little at all.
"Thank you, my lord," she said at last, because she could think of nothing safer. "You are very considerate."
Edward smiled slightly, the expression warm enough to pass for kindness and sharp enough beneath it to please himself.
"It is no trouble at all," he said.
And already, as he led her from the room, he was thinking how beautifully coincidence could be made to serve.