He did a better job at hiding his amusement than she did. Even she could hear the futility in arguing the distinction once she said it and couldn't help the resigned smirk of someone who had talked themselves into a corner. There would be no beating the charge of hiding now. It was okay if he didn't appreciate the subtle difference... she did.

When he indulged her excuse she was struck with an entirely inappropriate urge to playfully shove his arm.

She didn't have time to figure out where that urge came from or whether she'd done a good job hiding it before the dance card was pulled from her gloved hands. She felt frozen where she stood as his eyes roved over the list. It was such an inconsequential thing yet she felt laid bare by his study of it. Most of the names on it she only knew in passing but she could imagine the sorts of men that would find their way onto the card of a spinster with a bruised reputation. In that moment he was no longer a stranger with a familiar face to banter with but a man who had declined to marry her, reading over a list of men who had yet to do the same. A flush crept up around her neckline.

"At most things." she replied with a measured tone and tucked the card back into the pocket it had come from.

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   Endymion Dempsey