"Tea would be... adequate."
Adequate.The word hung in the air like a particularly insulting banner. Even the tea wasn't good enough for the Duke of Montclaire.
A painful silence descended while tea was summoned. Alexander remained standing, apparently too superior to actually sit in their presence. The brothers glowered. Mrs. Coleridge fidgeted. And Miss Coleridge... watched.
She hadn't moved, hadn't spoken, hadn't done anything but observe him with those carefully blank eyes. It was oddly disconcerting. He was used to women who simpered or flirted or at least had the decency to be obviously impressed. This one just... sat there. Like she was waiting for something.
"Perhaps," Mrs. Coleridge ventured when the silence had stretched beyond endurance, "introductions are in order? Your Grace, may I present my daughter, Miss Coleridge?"
Alexander turned toward the corner where she sat, and she rose with a grace that suggested extensive training in the art of being overlooked. Her curtsey was perfect—not too deep, not too shallow, exactly what was required and nothing more.
"Miss Coleridge." He bowed with precise correctness. "A pleasure."
"Your Grace." Her voice was soft, cultured, and completely expressionless. "How kind of you to call."
Their eyes met for a moment, brown to grey, and something passed between them; not attraction, certainly not that, but perhaps a mutual recognition of the absurdity of their situation.
"I trust you're well?" he asked, because something had to be said.
"Perfectly well, thank you. And yourself?"
"Quite well."
"How nice."
"Indeed."
It was possibly the inanest exchange in the history of human discourse, and everyone knew it.
"Perhaps," Charles said with the subtlety of a brick through glass, "His Grace would like to explain why he's here? Though we all know, of course. It is hard to forget that particular clause."
"Charles," Mrs. Coleridge murmured warning him.
"What? We're all thinking it. He's here because he has to be, we're receiving him because we have to, and she..." he gestured toward his sister, "...is sitting there because she has to. It's all very civilized and completely ridiculous."
"Charles!" Robert's voice was quite loud.
"He's not wrong," Alexander said coolly. "This is hardly a conventional courtship."
"Courtship?" Edward laughed unpleasantly. "Is that what we're calling it?"
"What would you prefer? Negotiation? Transaction? Surrender?"
"How about extortion?" Henry suggested pleasantly.
The tea arrived at that moment, which was fortunate as Robert looked ready to make a rather insulting comment.
Mrs. Coleridge poured with hands that only shook slightly, the delicate clink of china providing a peculiarly civilized soundtrack to what was essentially a barely contained war.
"Sugar, Your Grace?"
"No. Thank you."
Of course not. The Duke of Montclaire probably took his tea as black and bitter as his disposition.
Miss Coleridge accepted her cup with steady hands, though Alexander noticed she didn't actually drink from it. She held it like a prop, something to do with her hands while the men circled each other like hostile dogs.
"I suppose," Robert said after everyone had been served and no one was actually drinking, "we should discuss terms."
