Sarah turned to him, even though she knew she’d never be able to discern his meaning from his expression. He tilted his head to the side, the movement rearranging the shadows on his impassive face.

He was handsome, Sarah realized in a strange burst of awareness. It wasn’t just the color of his eyes. It was the way he looked at a person, unwavering and sometimes unnerving. It lent him an air of intensity that was difficult to ignore. And his mouth—he rarely smiled, or at least he rarely smiled at her, but there was something rather wry about it. She supposed some people might not find that attractive, but she . . .

Did.

Dear Lord, she tried again, forget uncanny. Nothing less than the supernatural would be speedy enough.

“Here we are,” he continued, motioning elegantly with his hand to the rest of the guests, “trapped in a room with, oh, how many others would you say?”

She had no idea where he was going with this, but she hazarded a guess. “Forty?”

“Indeed,” he replied, although she could tell by the quick sweep of his eyes across the room that he disagreed with her estimation. “And their collective presence means that you”—he leaned in, just an inch—“whom we have already established finds me loathsome, are being quite polite.”

“I’m not being polite because there are forty other people in the room,” she said, her brows arching. “I’m being polite because my cousin requested it of me.”

The corner of his mouth moved. It might have been amusement. “Did she realize what a challenge this might pose?”

“She did not,” Sarah said tightly. Honoria knew that Sarah did not care for Lord Hugh’s company, but she did not seem to comprehend the extent of her distaste.

“I must commend you, then,” he said with a wry nod, “for keeping your protestations to yourself.”

Something lovely and familiar clicked back into place, and Sarah finally began to feel more like herself. Her chin rose a very proud half of an inch. “I did not.”

To her great surprise, Lord Hugh made a noise that might have been a smothered laugh. “And she saddled you with me, anyway.”

“She worries that you might not feel welcome here at Fensmore,” Sarah said, in just the sort of tone that said this was not a shared concern.

His brows rose, and again he almost smiled. “And she thinks you are the person to welcome me?”

“I never told her of our previous meeting,” Sarah admitted.

“Ah.” He gave a condescending nod. “It all begins to make sense.”

Sarah clenched her teeth in a largely unsuccessful attempt to keep from snorting. How she hated that tone of voice. That oh-I-see-how-your-pretty-little-female-mind-works tone of voice. Hugh Prentice was hardly the only man in England to employ it, but he seemed to have honed the skill to a razor-fine edge. Sarah could not imagine how anyone tolerated his company for more than a few minutes. Yes, he was rather nice to look at, and yes, he was (she was told) exceptionally intelligent, but by God, the man was like fingernails on slate.