I glanced down at my hands.

Maybe I didn’t, you know?

I was privileged beyond belief. I was fully aware of that. I didn’t try to hide it. I wasn’t ignorant of that. And I most certainly never ever held myself on a pedestal the way people may have thought I did.

The question was—did Miles fully understand the truly classist nature of British society? Because I would put money on the fact he didn’t, either.

“Perhaps not,” I said after a moment. “But I’m always willing to learn and open myself to the opinions of other people. After all, nobody ever learnt anything by believing they were inherently right.” I paused. “And you’d know that, after the storm.”

He tilted his head in agreement. “You’re correct, of course. I was wrong, and I don’t mind saying so. I should have listened to you.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. But in the interest of our conversation, your hesitance to use the word ‘commoner’ is insulting. You’re right that we don’t live in medieval times, but I’m not ashamed to be a working-class man, Gabriella. I’m proud of what I do. I’m fucking proud of my ancestors and what they did. And you know what? You can hate the word ‘commoner’ all you like because it makes you uncomfortable, but you wouldn’t be in this house with your upper-class, aristocratic title if it weren’t for the commoners.”

I swallowed.

This had escalated very quickly.

“You’re right,” I said quietly. “But without my aristocratic title, you wouldn’t have a job here either.”

Silence held the room for a moment until I finally looked up at Miles.

“Great Britain is rampant with classism, from the top to the bottom,” I told him after a moment while putting my hands on my hips. “From royalty all the way down to abject poverty. It doesn’t make it right. We are all inherently classist, if we’re willing to be honest with ourselves. Being classist isn’t the issue, though. It’s what one chooses to do with that information that makes all the difference, and how we choose to help those in societal classes below ourselves. And you, Mr. Kingsley…” I straightened my back and tilted my head to the side. “If you are uncomfortable with the title I was born into and my family’s position in society, then perhaps you’re working in the wrong place, don’t you think?”

Miles’ jaw clenched, and he held my gaze for a moment that felt as though it lasted forever.

“If you think to tutor me on classism in my own home when you’ve barely said a kind word to me until the weather forced our proximity, I must confess that your desire to educate me is utterly misplaced and completely unnecessary,” I continued, jabbing my finger at him. “Despite your feelings about such things, I am not the kind of person who judges a person on where they’ve come from. If you cared to pay attention instead of judging, you’d know that my mother was what society calls a ‘commoner,’ and I couldn’t be prouder of the woman she was. Nor could I be prouder of the amazing people who were my maternal grandparents and all the family I have from her side.”