Something flickered across the Duke's face. It was not quite a smile, but it was closer to one than most men managed with her.
"Then you have more sense than every unmarked head in that ballroom," he said. "A woman who has lived long enough to earn gray hair has generally lived long enough to have something worth saying. I find that considerably more interesting than a debutante's opinion of the weather."
Margaret studied him carefully, waiting for the barb, the polite condescension she had learned to expect from men of his rank. It did not come. He simply looked at her, steady and unhurried, as though she were a puzzle he found genuinely worth the time of solving.
"You are staring at me as though you expect me to vanish, Your Grace," Margaret said.
"I am staring at you because you are the first person at this entire affair who has said something true to me tonight," Sebastian replied. "Everyone else has spent the evening telling me how delighted they are to see me, how well I look, how fortunate the season is to have me in attendance. Not one word of it has been honest. You called a girl half your age a poorly behaved dog—metaphorically. I found that considerably more refreshing."
Margaret let out a short, surprised laugh, and the sound of it startled her nearly as much as it seemed to startle him. She could not remember the last time she had laughed at a ball and meant it.
"I am Lady Margaret Ashworth," she said, extending a hand she did not entirely trust would be taken seriously.
He took it. His grip was warm, firm, entirely without the limp condescension she had come to expect from men greeting a woman they considered past her use.
"Sebastian Cole," he said. "Though I understand you already knew that."
"Everyone knows that, Your Grace. You are the most discussed bachelor in England. I believe there is a standing wager at three separate clubs regarding the year you will finally marry."
"I am aware of the wager," Sebastian said dryly. "I am reliably informed I am currently costing several gentlemen a great deal of money by remaining stubbornly unmarried."