“And you’ve come to me. For that. With flowers.” Her voice is flat. 

"Yes." His voice is flatter.

She scowls at him. “Fine. Impress me with something intelligent, then, since you clearly think me a half-wit.”

She seems to think she's going to frighten him off, but he fought the Black Wyvern of Clensing Downe, he's not afraid of a girl with a sharp tongue. Obviously he doesn't think she's stupid, or why would he be here? Three-quarters of a wit, at least.

Now probably isn't the time to tease her.

"You are very quick to assume men think ill of you, Miss Bridgerton," he observes instead. "In fact, I enjoyed your frankness."

“Am I so wrong? Are you aware that you yourself, Duke Voltur, are currently taking part in an incredibly sexist tradition?”

Her mother interjects sharply with her name, and Eloise settles down, huffing.

She has fight in her.

He glances at Violet and smiles reassuringly. "I am not aware, no. I only learned this tradition existed yesterday, in fact. Perhaps in deference to the Dowager Viscountess we ought to continue this conversation elsewhere? On promenade, perhaps? I am curious to learn more." 

Eloise is staring at him like he’s grown a third head. “Chaperoned, you mean?”

Oh no- the Duke is an extraordinarily tolerant man, it seems, but now she can't offer to chaperone, unless -

"What a kind invitation, Your Grace," she interjects smoothly, "in fact I had intended to walk in the Park with Lady Danbury today - perhaps you would then escort Eloise?"

…

She is not getting a say in this, is she.

Eloise has no idea where to put her parasol. She shifts it from shoulder to shoulder, growing ever frustrated with this great huge stick thing that is supposed to, what, guard her complexion from even the faintest hint of sun?

It is a nice day, she will grant the gods that.

It's far too late for him to look anything but tanned and sun-worn like the low-born oik he is. 

Does he have to be dressed up like this, though? It's the sort of weather for short breeches and bare chests, not silk and black leather. 

"So, Miss Eloise," he says, conscious of her small damp hand fidgeting uncomfortably where she has to take his arm. "What do you mean when you call it... sexist, was it? to call upon you?"

She stares at him for a moment. “The unfairness of a society catered towards men, in which women are little more than breeding chattel. Do you truly not know?”

Her mother can’t hear them from here, no matter how much she strains her ear.

His arm is truly, remarkably… solid. Her fingers search awkwardly for a grip, and settle somewhere on his vast mountain of a bicep. Truly, do women find this attractive?

What, so, she wouldn't have been allowed to call on him if she'd wanted? Strange. Surely not, can't the aristocracy do whatever they like?

"Miss Eloise, until some months ago I was a soldier - I know little more of the habits of the ton than you know of military strategy. Perhaps less."

“You mean things are different for everybody else?” Her voice is suddenly twice as loud. She nearly drops her stupid parasol.

She’s read a few books on military strategy. She prefers the ones on wizardry, really.

He smiles, a bit thinly. "Things certainly are different for the common folk, yes. Perhaps you could describe plainly what it is that is objectionable about women's place in this society?"

Eloise will happily rant for the next five minutes. Voltur gets the sense that she is secretly pleased that she has, for once, a listening audience.

And then, she asks tentatively, “What about your side of the world? As in… the one you came from? You said… you said your brother…”

He listens, half confused, half fascinated. How the other half live, eh? 

"That does sound concerning. I would say, perhaps I could have a word with Her Majesty about resolving the situation - but surely she herself already knows of it, and yet the situation obtains. I wonder what is to be done?"

He scratches his chin. 

"He starved, yes. It's not so common in these days as it has been, perhaps. Only the old and the very young and the sickly tend to perish in the lean times, at least in the town. I suppose you have not known what it is to go hungry."

A word with the Queen?

She shakes her head, her eyes large.

"Well. It will fare better for them," it feels strange on his tongue, to speak of the common folk so, when he was born among them - though the Queen herself said that he was as noble as any other, fons et origo she had said - but he goes on, "now that the wars are done. But no, Miss Eloise, I truly did not know that that was the lot of women of the ton. What do you intend to do to remedy matters?"

She hadn’t thought that far ahead. She hadn’t realised there was anything she could do about it.

“I suppose I have been… trying to make my voice heard.”

His Grace the Duke Voltur has experienced exactly one big complicated wide-reaching problem in his life and that was the civil war, and what he did with that was solve it. And with all due respect to Miss Eloise, this business doesn't sound that difficult. 

"I see. Perhaps I might broaden your reach. To whom have you spoken already? What solution do you have in mind?"

She wracks her brain so that she doesn’t embarrass herself in front of the war hero.

“You– said you could speak to the Queen about this?”

He frowns. "Of course, that is no trouble. What concerns me is that she has done nothing already. Perhaps the problem is more intractable than it appears. Or, knowing Her Majesty, she's probably up to something." He shakes his head. "In any case - what would you have me say?"