Anne bustled past the valet even as he was announcing her arrival. She was far beyond fashionably late, and the only reason she’d still come at all was that she’d told her father she would. Her expectations for the company at the earl’s dinner party were low and she had every intention of making a polite exit as soon as the men withdrew to smoke cigars and imbibe brandy.

With a murmured thank you to the serving man who held her chair for her, she gathered what little grace she could in her flustered state to sit with a smile. Her seat was quite good – nearly across from the Earl of Carteret himself. The sandy-haired young man wore the standard outfit that nearly all the gentlemen at the long banquet table were clothed in. Anne had never much liked how most men wore nearly identical and very somber looking frock coats and waistcoats to these affairs, though she suspected the menfolk were removed from having to dither in front of their wardrobe as the lady’s maid attempted to dress them to the nines.

Turning from a pair of obsequious beauties to his left, the earl nodded her a greeting and flashed her a smile. She had to admit he was handsome, and was comfortable enough with herself to recognize a twinge of interest from down below. But the man was a rake of the worst sort, from the rumors she had heard. And unlike many of the other social climbers present – she could not help but notice not a single woman who was not stunningly beautiful aside from a few wives with their husbands – Anne had no interest in trying to reform a man with a reputation for youthful indiscretions. In her sole previous interaction with the man earlier in the season, he had made clear in conversation that he held a very conservative attitude even amongst the nobility for what a woman’s role was to be. The likes of the Earl of Carteret valued “obey” over the “love” and “honor” mentioned in a woman’s wedding vows. In short, he would never do for a husband, even in her current desperate straits.

Returning his nod politely, Anne settled in to meet those seated by her. In a more sophisticated host, placement would have been a mixture of social precedence and conversational skills. But whomever had set the places for the earl had obviously prioritized putting the youngest and prettiest around the host with a few married men scattered to keep it from being too glaring to ignore.

“Good evening, Madam Hatley,” intoned the man to her right, with a glance at her place card to ensure he spoke the correct name and style of address. Already Anne was annoyed. Had she been styled analogous to a son who could inherit in his own right, she would have been Lady Roxborough. But her courtesy title extended only as far as “Madam.” 

Sighing under her breath, Anne pivoted in her seat, smoothing her skirts to return the greetings to the man. He looked old enough to be her grandfather, and alone wore a color that wasn’t black or close enough to it to be called black. His antique suit and pince-nez were a bit jarring until she realized it must be a fashion from his youth. Eyes flicking down to his name on his place card, she amazed to learn that this was none other than Sir Gilbert Tamblyn, a man of some modest renown even now for eking out a desperate victory against Napoleonic forces in a battle whose name was long forgotten by Anne and most people who had only read of the whole terrible wars in books. The man must be more than ninety years old!

“Sir Gilbert, it is a deep honor to meet you. I –“ Her smile faltered as the older man waved a hand and cut her off.

“Don’t bother with all that frippery, Madam. I’ve no intention to spend what years, weeks, days, or hours I have left dancing around formalities. I’m a man who likes things straight and direct.” He gave her a sly smile. “And from what I’ve heard on my other side from yet another useless person,” he gestured to a young woman who was very actively turning away to avoid eye contact, “you feel the same way.”

Anne’s eyebrows rose in surprise. But perhaps she should not have been shocked that other girls were gossiping about her. After all, she was an easy target with her “unwomanly” reputation, but also one with enough standing and wealth attached to her hand in marriage that she was still a rival for most of these women. 

The older man removed his pince-nez to inspect a spot on them. Waving them absentmindedly toward the table beyond him, he soothed, “Oh, don’t worry about what useless people say, Madam. For what it may be worth, were I sixty years younger, I would court you based on solely upon what the gossipmongers spread about you amongst themselves. I can only hope,” he continued firmly, “that you do not judge yourself by what these peacocks say. They are pretty to look at, but as a man who made the mistake thrice of marrying one, “ he leaned in to say, “they are a real pain in the ass!”

Anne fought down a giggle at the old man’s blunt, colorful words. It was something like hearing your grandfather curse. She supposed that was one of the few benefits of reaching such advanced age – you didn’t give a damn whether what you said was polite.

Someone across the table asked Sir Gilbert a question, and he favored her with a playful wink before turning to give his opinion on some renewed troubles with the Emirate of Afghanistan.

Left with no conversation on her right, Anne paused for a bowl of soup to be placed before her – it looked to be some sort of chilled leek soup to refresh from the waning heat of the day – before turning to her left.

The fellow there was appeared to be only a handful of years older than herself, staring solemnly at his soup as though deep in thought. A strong, clean-shaven jawline was clinched in either concentration or consternation, and his otherwise handsome visage was made less appealing by his somber, antisocial demeanor. Naturally she would have a bore on her left to balance out what promised to be highly entertaining banter on her right.

Anne’s eyebrows rose yet again as she read the name on the man’s place card: Lawrence Strauss, Duke of Amhurst. Why was a duke seated several chairs away from the host? Surely his rank alone would have predicated his being placed closer to the earl, who was quite openly putting a hand on the leg of the young lady seated to either side of him. Whereas Sir Gilbert, though only bearing a knighthood, was a war hero and about on par with Anne in social standing, the duke should have been seated in a place of prominence. It was a puzzle worth unraveling – delicately. Perhaps the man was not as morose as he appeared and merely a bit unhappy with his seating. Maybe there was some fascinating conflict between himself and the earl that had led to the seating arrangement.

Taking a sip of her soup – she’d never really liked leeks, and this was nearly black with too much pepper – Anne affected her best smile. 

“Your Grace, I fear we have not been introduced. I am Lady Roxborough, my father is Viscount Roxborough.” She gave herself the courtesy title she would have had were women able to inherit the title directly. To hell with whomever had made most titles only inheritable by sons or married daughters!

Blinking as if surprised, the handsome man turned piercing gray eyes toward her. He seemed taken aback that anyone had spoken to him. The dinner guests to his left and across the table were all engaged in their own conversations, however, and short of being unbearably rude, there was nothing for him to do but reply to her.

“Ah, it is a pleasure. And you are welcome to call me Lawrence, if you do not feel it to be too familiar. Few enough are interested in speaking with me that we may as well become friends, if only until dessert.” His expression failed to match the friendliness of his words, remaining impassive, as if he were suggesting a way to pass the time in a rather clockwork way. 

Which, in a way he was, Anne realized. To someone not comfortable with social gatherings, this sort of gathering might be something of a prison. Anne was glad that she had inherited her parents’ outgoing nature, typically at ease engaging total strangers in earnest discussion. Too at ease sometimes, according to her father, who was always warning her about voicing her heterodox views so loudly on the role of women in the Empire’s nobility.

“Thank you, Lawrence. You are most welcome to call me Anne, in return,” she offered. “Tell me, Lawrence, why is it you believe no one here wishes to speak with you?” With a rueful smile, the man took a sip of his soup before responding. He didn’t quite make a face, but she suspected he also found the chef’s use of pepper overwhelming. 

“Because I am neither available for the ladies, nor am I full of boisterous political opinions for the men.” He took another taste of the soup, which seemed to confirm his original opinion. He placed his spoon on the soup bowl’s saucer and slid it slightly away from himself. 

“I see,” Anne said. “And which is the lovely Duchess Amhurst?” She peered to his other side, but the seat was occupied by a middle-aged woman who was clearly with her husband on her own left side. Perhaps his wife had not accompanied him.

But the duke shook his head. “I am unmarried. I am simply... not ready for the responsibility of marriage yet.”

That struck Anne as odd. First impression didn’t cast the man as the rakish type, not yet ready to settle down. He seemed as far removed from the Earl of Carteret’s demeanor as possible. Maybe he was sly...? No, that wasn’t a charitable assumption, though Anne herself didn’t see what the fuss was about if a man decided he preferred the company of other men.

Suddenly, an idea came to Anne. If she could find a suitable man who was as... confined by their choices as she was, perhaps they could come to an agreement that would benefit both. But she needed to be sure this man was oriented toward other men. She would have to delicately feel him out.

Giving him a gracious smile as she took a sip of her wine – gah, it was rancid stuff – Anne probed, “I see. Do you have a fellow bachelor-in-arms here with you tonight?” She affected a casual tone, hoping he wouldn’t catch on until it was established that she was a sympathetic ear. 

Lawrence shook his head again. “Not a bachelor, no, but my childhood friend Charles, Baron Strathe, eldest son of the Earl of Southshire, is here, though he is married.” He gestured to the far end of the table, where a man with a closely trimmed beard that left his upper lip bare was regaling several guests some tale that had the young and old alike roaring with laughter. Two younger girls who looked to be sisters sat to his right, while a couple in their middle years were across from him. It was a pity he was at the end of the table, because he seemed to be great fun from what Anne could see. Neither of the girls were likely to be his wife, so he must have come alone. Yes, he and the duke must be close friends indeed. Anne smelled an opportunity.

Leaning back to allow a servant to remove her untouched soup, Anne decided to plunge ahead. She hated to think of it, but her father likely had only weeks left. It would kill him – well, not kill him – if she was not in a stable situation before he passed.

“Lawrence, I hope this is not too forward, but you have the most marvelous... er... hands,” she put forth lamely. Christ, how did men move in on women so directly? It made her far more nervous than she’d anticipated. Attempting to recover, she tilted her head with a smile as the fish course was laid before each guest.

Giving her a confused look, the somber duke nodded and took the opportunity to focus on the plate before him, effectively cutting off the conversation.

Flustered, Anne took a moment to gather her wits. Did she really want to press this conversation? Glancing at Sir Gilbert, who was busy moving forks and salt cellars around the table to demonstrate some principle of military command, she decided yes. If nothing else, she knew no one in her vicinity of the table, and the dinner was likely to be the standard ten courses. She had little else to do, and an entire evening to explore if her intuition about the man was correct. 

Anne had never been shy about being bold, though the idea that she was about to press the idea of a marriage of convenience with a man who was sly... And that was to say nothing of someone she’d just met. But a disinterested man who was happy to leave her to her own devices might well be the best she could do. Well, sometimes you had to hold your nose and close your eyes.

“And your... eyes, well, I thought I might very well see into your... tortured... soul?” she quipped, trying to pry some manner of reaction from the man at her flank. Her compliments, couched as they were in curiosity, seemed only to further entrench the stoic man in whatever manner of dither had taken him. “If only you could spend the evening at Charles’s side...” she further insinuated in a hushed whisper. Brow lofted, the duke utterly confused the implication.

“Well, he’s... certainly a friend, Charles is, and I do enjoy his company at these sorts of events, I suppose,” he admitted. An equivocating admission perhaps, Anne wagered, and furtively she advanced her line of questioning.

“I sympathize, truly, I do. I had a dear friend, Ulysses, who felt quite the same way of his friend, Anton,” Anne recounted with a slightly facetious melancholy. “I’m bound by tradition and expectation myself, in fact,” she lamented quietly. “Though my chains are... perhaps a tad different than your own.”

“Indeed,” he sighed, full of regret, his watchful eyes passing through the crowd. “If only our world understood the complexities of emotion as well as we feel it in our minds.”

“Yes!” Anne exclaimed, both a statement of agreement and a quiet indulgence in the excitement in discovering a man positioned perfectly to provide her the convenient marriage she needed. He could enjoy his life freely with Charles, and she would live free just as she chose to. “Erm... if only, if only,” she added. “If only...” she gulped, a coy smile spreading on her lips. “If only they understood the bonds that... that you, and Charles share...”

“The...” Lawrence glanced to her with confusion alight in his eyes. “B... onds?”

“Yes! Of course, the...” she stammered. “I understand your pain. If only they knew of the... brotherhood, of the...”

“Miss,” Lawrence spoke suddenly in his deep and alluring baritone. “There’s no need to play nor dance in your words,” he continued.

“I-I’m not... do you truly wish to be so bold as to speak aloud about your love, here?” Anne whispered.

“My l...” realization came at once to the duke, whose stoic and dour manner cracked all at once, like limestone beneath the blow of sharpened chisel and heavy hammer. He laughed, loud enough for the whole table to hear, and Anne’s cheeks burned utterly red. “You think I’m in love with Charles, do you?”

“I’m... I, I mean, quite... I had... ahem...” Anne stumbled across her words, trying fruitlessly to regain her composure. “In p... point of fact, I meant—”

“Oh no, m’lady, he’s most certainly not my type, not my type at all,” Lawrence joked merrily. “That beard of his - so out of season,” he said, glancing across the room at his friend. Though her guts burned with embarrassment, that this fellow had taken her implications in so delighted a manner brought a crack of a smile to her face. “And he’s honestly far too portly for my tastes. Don’t you think?”

“I... I think he’s...” Anne giggled.

“And he can be a bore, prattling on about games of politics and money,” Lawrence chided self-deprecatingly. “It’s as if he knows nothing of the finer parts of life. Literature and romance, and affairs of the heart. There is also, of course,” Lawrence stated pointedly, “the fact that he is a man. That does put a damper on our potential relationship, m’lady.”

“I’m sorry,” Anne begged through a laugh. “I didn’t mean to imply—”

“Do you think yourself to first to come to those sorts of conclusions? Why else do you think I’m situated where I am at the table, m’lady?” he spoke glibly, his manner shifting towards the warm at the rather humorous mix up. “The earl is proud to have a man like myself in his company. Keeps the gossip quiet.”

“Oh, I’ve no interest in such things,” she says with a chuckle.

“And so, you came to this conclusion about me all on your own, did you? I suppose perhaps I’m not putting my best foot forward with lovely young ladies then. What a shame,” he imparts with some measure of sarcasm. She smiles.

“I take it you are not yourself a man for the sort of gossip that passes between the ears of the sorts of people who congregate at these kinds of events,” Anne confides, feeling a warmth inside of her at finding something of a kindred spirit. Not heartbroken for lack of a man, but for lack of the social graces that they both had to endure - that she could certainly enjoy a night of conversation with.

“And what gives you that idea? Perhaps I’ve as much an ear for the sort of contrivances nobles whisper of at balls and galas as all those women in dresses, giggling at the advances of a boor like the Earl of Carteret,” the duke retorts facetiously, bringing another warm laugh to Anne’s face, already stained red with the pleasure of his humor. 

“You ought to still your tongue in such pleasant company,” Anne joked. “You may offend these lovely, eligible women. And then, whatsoever would you do?” she chided playfully.

“The thought of losing the attention of women so taken with the earl wounds me deeply, certainly,” he remarked sarcastically. Anne’s grin turned to a coquettish little smirk; she enjoyed this particular noble’s manner, to say nothing of how she had noticed quite early just how handsome she found him - broad and tall, dark and handsome, with hair neatly-cropped and a virile coat of stubble along his face. She swallowed hard as an awkward silence passed; the two admired one another, and Anne could see the intensity of his gray gaze upon her.

“Why, then, did you find your way here in the first place, then? Invites are quite simple to turn down. Had it not been for the urgings of my father, I would have done just that - and given the host’s propensity for the pretty and the pliable,” she said with a contemptible gaze shot towards the women fawning over the earl, “I doubt my absence would have been too dearly missed.”

“Something tells me your manner would not be quite appreciated by the man at the head of the table, from what I know of him,” the duke retorted. “As for the matter of my presence here - social obligation, I suppose. Had I spent yet another evening cooped away in my estate, I would not have met as fine company as yourself - as awkward as our introduction has thus far gone,” he joked. “That, and Charles and his wife are quite set on finding love for me. A pitiable thought, hmm?” he said with a self-deprecating smile.

“And what offends you of my manner, then, hmm?” Anne cut back haughtily, her smirk growing.

“Oh, certainly nothing of your manner offends me, of course. But the host, and most men of his stature, they think quite differently,” the duke lamented. “There is little appreciation for a woman with a mouth for something other than pleasant giggles, and a mind for something aside from planning for children.” He words brought a tingling, curious thump to Anne’s heart. How could she have found herself so fortunate as to sit next to a man with so radical an idea of womanhood? She blushed, now not out of embarrassment, but from something else - something base, something anxious. Something... good.

“I... agree,” she offered meekly, perhaps the first time in her whole life she had felt humbled by someone. “I feel that—”

“Ah! Lawrence, I hadn’t expected you to attend, what with your predilections and such,” came a voice bursting from behind the two of them, interrupting their tender moment. Canting her gaze over her shoulder Anne recognized the host of the party, a woman at either of his flanks, muscling himself freely into the conversation. “It’s always a pleasure. And who is this lovely thing to your side, hmm?” Anne glanced to the duke and immediately noticed his demeanor had shifted; in the presence of their boorish host his will had withered, and whatever moment had been blooming between them faltered. His expression turned lamentably sour.

“Always a pleasure to be invited,” he grudgingly grumbled. “And to see you having such a time, of course, m’lord. The lady is—”

“Anne Hatley,” Anne interrupted, hoping to perhaps push the dolt from the conversation so that she might speak more with the interesting man to her side.

“And have you a title or status to your name?” the duke asked expectantly, conjuring a chorus of giggles from his young, pretty companions.

“I should think my name alone is worth recognition - reasons of which not the least is that you invited me here,” Anne slashed back, undeterred. “Of course, there’s always the recognition that I am a woman - not just of status or symbol or title, but a woman of my own accord.”

“Aha!” the earl erupted in a chuckle. “What a slurry of curious ideas from a woman!” he balked, his cheeks rosy with the stink of the rueful wine the kitchen had been serving. “A wild heart like that’s not likely to find a husband willing to tame it, am I right, Lawrence?” Anne’s eyes fell upon her erstwhile companion, whose own gaze had fallen once again aloof and dour, staring into the bowl of soup in front of him.

“I... suppose so,” he said weakly. Anne’s heart fell, struck; painful, her nerves surging with a struggling anxiety. Had he so quickly dismissed his feelings in the earl’s presence?

“Perhaps you ought to tame her, then, Lawrence,” the earl guffawed, as if he expected such a venture to fail miserably. “Just as you did your sister!”

“Your s... sister?” Anne quaked. Warm manner broken and replaced with a shattered winter, the duke’s wallowing gaze fell once more upon Anne.

“It’s n... nothing, simply a family matter,” he said dismissively.

“Nothing? Come now, Lawrence,” the earl goaded. “You ought to be proud of inheriting over her. At least one woman in your life you’ve taught her proper place to, hmm?”

“Boy, your voice could wake Jesus Christ himself,” came a portentous grumble from Sir Gilbert. “Why don’t you keep your imbecilic ideas on gender to yourself and come and speak with myself and these ladies here,” he implored, giving a quick wink Anne’s way when he noticed her discomfort. The ruby-cheeked host gladly obliged, rambling away from the pair and taking up conversation away from them. Ire building in her chest, Anne looked back to the duke, whose gaze had fallen apologetic.

“You... you inherited, over your sister?” she gulped.

“I... had no interest in title, or in wealth, but—”

“But you inherited over her nonetheless,” Anne added bitterly, seeing the parallels with her own situation. “Your sister had no wish for husband, and instead you simply took the estate from her.”

“That’s not how... it’s not how I wanted it to happen,” Lawrence pleaded.

“But that’s how it happened,” Anne concluded, her heart paining her. “You’re a man - as has been so fruitfully displayed,” she spoke in disdain, “here, and everywhere - you hold the power. Why did you not use it to insist your sister inherit instead of yourself?”

“I had every intention, but the law has different ideas,” Lawrence contested.

“Then why did you not fight to change the law?!” Anne exclaimed.

“It’s what was expected of me, and I had little room to protest on my sister’s behalf,” he said coldly. “I had no intention of... this, being stuck where I am, loveless and forlorn, and—”

“Oh certainly, may you be spared the burden of your family wealth,” Anne uttered, saccharine and sarcastic. “I’m certain it’s unbearable to you.”

“I did not wish to offend, m’lady,” he said. A bustle from the kitchen door announced the arrival of dozens of steaming platters - dinner was soon to be served in full. Anne sighed, crossing her arms stubbornly atop her chest. It seemed no man had a mind for a woman with a heart of her own - not even those who professed to.