His hand fell away from her back as he gestured toward the sofa.
“Sit,” he said. Then added, “Please.”
Beatrice hesitated for just a moment, but then sat.
He remained standing long enough for her to wonder if he meant to pace while he lectured. Instead, he lowered himself beside her and then dragged one hand through his already-disordered hair.
Beatrice turned enough so that she could study him.
This man, this morning. He was not Lord Hawkins as everyone knew him.
His coat was plain and dark, the cut serviceable rather than fine. His cravat was grey and loose, his jaw unshaven, his hair badly in need of a comb. There was a roguishness to him that ought not to have been appealing.
And yet it was.
Which was, frankly, inconvenient.
“You look…” She stopped.
His eyes shifted to hers. “Yes?”
“Different.”
A faint, tired curve touched his mouth. “That is charitable.”
“It was not meant to be.”
“No?”
Then she leaned a little nearer, caught the scent of smoke, sweat, and spilled whisky, and her amusement faded.
How had she not noticed that before?
But of course, she knew precisely how. She had been rather occupied with other matters. Occupied with his mouth, his jaw, the warmth of his skin against her palm.
Which made it all the more unsettling that the scent of disreputable places clinging to his coat did nothing to repel her.
Rather the opposite, really.
“You smell like a… like a brothel,” she said softly. “But you don’t drink spirits.”
The moment the words left her mouth, the other reason a gentleman might smell of such a place flashed into her thoughts.
Oh. Oh! Beatrice went still.
“That’s because I spent half the night in one,” Gideon said.
All the breath left her lungs, and for half a second, something cold unfurled in her, something ugly and entirely unwelcome.
She swallowed hard.
Gideon could go where he pleased. He was a grown man. Definitely not hers.
Even if, for one impossible moment on his stoop, he had felt almost like he might be.
“But not for the obvious reason,” he added.
Her gaze snapped back to his.
