For a moment, Ben felt bad for his snide comment about her family. The way she’d paused for so long indicated that it had hit a little too close to home, and maybe it had been a little unfair of him to bring her family up like that. It wasn’t as though she’d asked them to have him exiled from English society for half a year.

Then she made the remark about his not belonging at this kind of party, and all of his sympathy for her evaporated. The truth was, Ben didn’t belong at this sort of party, and he knew it, but he’d worked hard in his own way to be invited here. Generations ago, the Crouch family had been considered the upper-crust of society, and although they might not have had the money to back that sort of position anymore, Ben still liked to mingle with those that might be considered ‘above him,’ depending on who you talked to. He mingled with those ‘below him,’ too, when he traveled, and he thought jibes about social class were some of the smallest-minded, crassest insults that anyone could pull out.

“Yeah, you’re right,” he said bitterly. “I wouldn’t want to get the hem of your dress dirty. Goodbye, princess.”