Dash was off tending his beloved’s blasted garden. Or his broken heart. Or whatever particular piece of romantic ruin had claimed him this evening.
Meanwhile, his sister seemed to be moving from ballroom to terrace and back with suspicious efficiency, emerging with pale young ladies who looked as though they would rather be anywhere else.
Beatrice must have felt him watching, because the next moment, she looked over.
Their gazes met.
Familiar, yes. Gideon had known those storm-blue eyes since she was a girl with scraped knees and arrows in her hand.
But this was not that.
Her eyes widened first, recognition flashing through them. Then they narrowed, just enough to tell him she had read the reprimand in his stare and resented it on principle.
Gideon lifted one brow.
Beatrice’s chin rose.
Ah. Yes.
Half-mourning or not, Beatrice Beckman had not come here merely to test the boundaries of propriety.
She was up to something she oughtn’t be.
And damned if she did not look magnificent doing it.
The thought struck him with such force that Gideon went still.
Beatrice looked away first—not in surrender, but with the cool dismissal of a lady who had no intention of being managed from across a ballroom.
Only after Lady Barrington had gathered both young women safely into her little party did Gideon allow himself to exhale.
THE CARD ROOM
Both girls were in safe hands.
For now.
Until the next time. Which, for Beatrice at least, a next time was almost a certainty.
Gideon would be having a word with Dash, and perhaps with Blackwell as well.
With pleasant resolution in mind, Gideon cut toward a side corridor, narrowly evading two matchmaking mothers lying in wait. When he reached the entrance to the smoke-filled male retreat, Gideon paused, taking in the scene with a practiced eye.
Cards slapped against baize. Coins clinked. A gentleman in the corner laughed as he gathered the winnings in front of him.
Spirits flowed more freely perhaps than their hostess for the evening might have wished.
“Hawkins,” Ashebourne Covington, the Earl of Grimstead, called from the nearest table, not bothering to look up from his cards. “Here to lose money, or merely judge the rest of us for doing it?”
“If I meant to lose money,” Gideon said, “I would find a worthier cause than you.”
Gideon stepped further into the room. It was occupied mostly by gentlemen, though there were a few gambling dowagers. He ignored the subtle shift of attention that followed him.
Grimstead—Grimm—grinned. “Ah. A woman, perhaps?”
“God forbid.”
A ripple of amusement passed around the table.
