Her face warmed at the fear she tried to hold at bay. Surely Vic wasn’t so prudish, not after all the things they’d done to each other over the last few weeks. She certainly hadn’t held anything back when either of them had been on their knees with each other. Surely, she didn’t think they had invented the position, and while no one wanted those memories sparked around their parents, the awkwardness was something a person should be able to laugh off and move on from.

Wasn’t it? Or did rich people pretend they’d never had sex or an embarrassing job, which ultimately was what they were watching. She hadn’t actually slept with Matt or Mark or whatever his name was. It was a D-list film, not a sex tape. Hadn’t any of these people ever done a college play or worked in a—

She came up short on that question. The answer was no. None of the people in this room had ever done a damn thing that offended their sensibilities. Not to climb a ladder, not to make money, not to get their foot in any doors. They’d all been born with every single door wide open to them. A wave of nausea caused sweat to prick the back of her neck.

“All right,” Vic snapped, grabbing the remote from her mother and turning off the television completely.

The whole room went mercifully dark. Sophia took the opportunity to school her expression into something that wouldn’t show her disappointment. She wouldn’t want any of the others to misinterpret the emotion. She wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of thinking she felt any sort of sadness or shame. On the contrary, the defiant sort of pride stirring inside her now overruled even her anger at the duchess. Sophia had worked, she’d sacrificed, she’d been smart and talented and cunning. She’d earned everything she’d ever had, and no one else in the room could say the same.

She never expected the duchess to respect that about her. She hadn’t even expected her to understand, and if the duke had been the one to pull the plug, she could’ve convinced herself the move was chivalrous at best, or outdated modesty at worst. But Vic . . . she shook her head. Why did it have to be Vic?

Vic snapped on the lights, her eyes blazing hotter than the overhead bulbs, and Sophia couldn’t ignore the pink tint to her cheeks or the seethe in her voice as she wheeled on her mother. “May I please speak with you . . . privately?”

“Privately?” The chill in the duchess’s voice dropped the temperature in the room several degrees. “I thought we were in one of the private areas of my home. Or did you unilaterally change the designations this family has employed for centuries?”