This place.
But the world was still waiting.
It was morning. She was in Gideon’s drawing room. At some point, Beckman House would stir, and someone would notice her absence.
And they would tell Dash.
Who’d demand to know where she’d gone.
Or perhaps he would not.
That thought settled less comfortably than the first.
Dash, who had once noticed everything. Dash, who had of late seemed to drift through his own house like a man who’d misplaced some vital part of himself and lacked the will to search for it.
Beatrice drew her hand back slowly.
“Can I ask you a favor?”
He was prevented from answering, however, by a persistent knocking at the door.
CAN IT WAIT?
Beatrice startled violently and scrambled off Gideon’s lap, fumbling herself back into a proper place on the sofa. In her panic, unfortunately, she barely noticed the way Gideon went still.
“Careful.” His voice was low, rough with the hint of a wince.
Heat rushed to her face as understanding struck.
Before she could apologize—or attempt to soothe him by means she was in no state to consider—Gideon reached for one of the decorative cushions at the end of the sofa and settled it across his lap.
In no hurry, and as though this were a perfectly ordinary solution to a perfectly ordinary problem.
Then his gaze flicked to hers, his expression one of innocence and calm.
As though they had not just committed the sort of folly that could ruin her, and possibly put him on the wrong end of a pistol.
As though he were not, at that very moment, preventing either of those things with nothing but a tasseled velvet cushion.
Beatrice pressed her lips together.
Gideon’s expression remained utterly composed.
And the absurdity of it nearly undid her.
“Enter,” he called.
She should have been horrified. Ashamed. At the very least, dismayed by what had just taken place.
Instead, the sight of Gideon—rumpled, unshaven, and receiving his butler with a strategically placed pillow hiding his… unfortunate state of affairs—sent a bubble of mirth rising in her throat.
She pressed her lips together just as the butler stepped inside carrying a silver tray. HIs expression, Beatrice noticed, was perfectly neutral as would be that of any decent butler.
“A message for you, my lord. The courier insisted it was urgent.”
“My thanks.” Gideon accepted the folded note with one hand.
The butler did not immediately leave.
