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“Hear, hear!” Lord Milton nodded.

“They are the sort of men who are willing to die for king and country,” Sophie said. Every eye in the room fell on her. She took a sip of tea.

“That remains to be no excuse for theft,” Lady Alder said.

Sophie shifted in her seat—not from embarrassment, but like a cat preparing to pounce. “Did the Star report on the fact they’ve a great many men injured there? Including a child. A boy of ten and two, who did not serve long enough to ever hope his pensions would see him into his own home, much less support a family.”

The room had been hushed before, but its stillness took on an aching quality. Mama’s knuckles tapped the side of Sophie’s leg in a thready warning. She continued anyway. “All I mean to say is those men likely had no desire to cheat anyone, but only hoped to reach an income sufficient—”

“Miss St. Quinton,” Miss Penney said, interrupting her with a giggle. “I do believe you missed your calling. Perhaps Oxford is looking to hire ladies to teach their lectures?”

The mocking laughter proved contagious. It skipped around the room with startling swiftness, managing to simultaneously lighten the tension, and rob Sophie’s speech of all its merit. She gripped her teacup and saucer tightly enough to question the porcelain’s strength.

A tall figure rose on the opposite side of the room; she noticed him in her periphery. “If you all will forgive my manners, I believe I’ll step out for some air.”

The devil had an intriguing voice, deep and suave. Sophie would credit him that—and that only. She hadn’t a clue what else Miss Penney might see in him—

Lord Hansbury stood before her, offering his arm. “Miss St. Quinton, would you care to join me?”

She stiffened. Mama’s knuckles were pressing against her thigh again, this time in a shoving motion. Miss Penney’s flush deepened and spread down her throat. And Sophie only had one wish just now: escape this horrid company by any means possible.

She accepted Lord Hansbury’s hand. “Certainly, my lord.”

The brightness of the Miltons’ garden took Sophie by surprise. She detached herself from Lord Hansbury’s arm the second they exited the house, and planted her hands on the thin portico railing. It was a small space, but shaded. And she wasn’t about to go anywhere farther with him. Here, they were three steps from the door, a footman lingering on the opposite side of the glass.

“You’re not trying very hard, are you?”

It might have been amusement in his voice. He didn’t descend the steps, but he didn’t approach her, either. Sophie sensed his presence to her left.

“To please you?” she asked. “No, I don’t suppose I am.”

Vitriol and want had finally freed her tongue. It didn’t seem to matter so much what she said, out here away from the others. She studied a flourish of tulips in the narrow garden below. Blooms of red and white swayed in the breeze, and the sun bared down on the arm of a wrought-iron bench. It was truly spring now. It would be summer, soon. Her parents’ expectations would grow, while distance did the same between her and Rafe, and the men at the Deptford Dockyard progressed through Iphigenia’s repairs. She needed a plan.

“I wasn’t referring to myself.” The satin baritone was accompanied by a stench.

A thin haze of smoke curled under Sophie’s nose, like freshly dug earth and burnt honey. She turned her head enough to see Lord Hansbury had begun smoking a dratted cheroot, unaware—or unconcerned—that she was standing downwind of him.

“I meant in the general sense,” he said. “You’ve a room full of would-be husbands in there, but rather than act a lady, you took the opportunity to gripe over the likes of some curst hospital.”

Rebuttals sprang forth in her mind: You’d better not consider yourself anything but my would-be nemesis, and Even a moment’s discussion on the subject of that hospital was worth what it cost me, but she bit her tongue. Literally, clamping down on it until the pain was a distraction.

“I’m not shaming you,” he said. “Just taking your measure. You’re one of those peculiar females who’d prefer rampaging about to settling down with a husband and organizing tea parties for the rest of your days.” He said the words with disgust, and another puff of smoke blew her way. “I’d prefer brandy, myself.”

Sophie fought the urge to cough, holding her breath instead. “Because you’re a drunk?”

“Because,” he said sternly, “I’m a man, thank you.”

He was fortunate the scoff remained in her throat, but she had now taken his measure, too: vain, pompous, dissolute, self-important.

“I’ve a sister of your type. Enough thoughts for ten scholarly men and at least half of them always come out.” He huffed. “She’s an utter devil, though.”

“You have opinions abound, Lord Hansbury.” Sophie squinted at the green, green grass and the too-blue sky. Was it as fine, where Rafe was at this moment?

“Indulge my curiosity.” His golden, lean figure appeared at her side. He tapped his cheroot on the railing, sprinkling ash, and craned his head over his shoulder. “Is your lack of effort perhaps … intentional? Your concerns for the poor folk of Greenwich could just as well be a ruse. I’ve seen it before, you know. Attempts to make oneself unattractive, usually because one’s affections have already been claimed.”

Sophie’s palms smarted from the pinch of metal railing. She loosened her fingers and glared at him. “I’m afraid I must insult your ego, sir. I have not made an effort to be agreeable to you, because I do not care if you think well of me or not. It’s quite simpler than the tale you’re spinning.”

His mouth stretched into a smile. She saw his face fully for the first time, now that he was leaning his forearms on the railing, diminishing himself to average height. His hair was burnished gold, tussled in the fashion of Beau Brummel’s ilk, but his features were exceptionally strong, too overtly masculine to classify him as a proper dandy. Deep-set eyes mocked her. “You might’ve retained a bit of mystery for me if you hadn’t got your hackles up. Now I see I was right. Who’s the fellow?”