“Dr. Martinez is a professor of literature,” Max said before Dani could answer.

“Ahhhh,” said the duke. It was hard to put her finger on it, because nothing about the words he was saying were inappropriate or rude, but the way he delivered them, in a smug tone and punctuated with long, drawn-out syllables, made it seem as if some private conclusion he’d previously had about her had been ratified.

“She’s a scholar of nineteenth-century American literature,” Max went on, and oh god, he needed to stop. Max, Mr. Emotional Intelligence, the guy who handled her fraught work parties like he had a degree in psychology and cheerfully called her out on her Tindering bullshit, apparently had no sense of how to handle his father. It was almost like he was baiting him.

Oh. That was exactly what he was doing. He’d told her he used to do this, to draw the fire from his brother. And now he was doing it for her.

“How exciting,” said Lavinia of all people, and she genuinely sounded interested. “Do you have any particular specialty?”

“Well,” Dani said carefully, “mostly nineteenth-century literature by women.”

“Oh!” Lavinia exclaimed, with such force that the whispers between the mothers stopped. “Have you read any Edith Wharton?”

“I have.”

“Oh!” Lavinia said again, and in another circumstance, Dani would have laughed at her wide-eyed enthusiasm, which was both delightful and out of sync with the context. “I am studying in the United States at the moment, and last summer I decided to read some American literature. When one is educated in Europe, one’s exposure to American writers tends to be limited to Twain and Hemingway and Hawthorne. Men, all.”

“That can happen,” Dani said sympathetically, not wanting to get into a big conversation while everyone else spectated.

“Well, I read The Age of Innocence, and, oh!” She looked around. “Has anyone else read it?” The assembled aristocrats looked at her blankly. Taking that for a no, she turned back to Dani. “I was devastated. And yet I could not seem to stop, and in short order made my way through the rest of Wharton’s oeuvre.”

Dani smiled. “Wharton will do that to you.”

“Dr. Martinez’s PhD dissertation was on Wharton,” Max said. Dani hadn’t realized he knew that.

Lavinia excitedly transferred her attention to Seb, who was seated next to Dani. “Sebastien, will you trade places with me so I may converse some more with Dr. Martinez when the next course comes?” She turned to Max next to her. “You won’t mind, will you, Max?”

“Not at all,” said Max, though Dani could tell he was as befuddled by Lavinia’s outburst as she was.