But that was unimportant now.
Now that her senses had returned properly, she could see him.
The scratches along his jaw. The mark already darkening beneath one eye. The careful way he held himself, one shoulder slightly braced, his posture still protective of the place where she had driven her knee with such regrettable accuracy only moments before.
“Gideon, I—” She raised a hand to her mouth.
“It’s nothing.”
“You are… really hurt.”
“I’ve been hurt before.”
“That is not a comfort.”
His mouth softened. “No. I suppose it is not.”
She reached for him, then stopped, uncertain where she might touch without causing more pain. His jaw. His eye. His ribs, perhaps. His?—
She went hotter still.
“But I am the one who hurt you.”
“You came back to yourself,” he said. “That’s all that matters.”
He reached for her hands then, cutting off whatever apology she might have tried to offer next.
“Beatrice.”
Her name, spoken like that, stilled her far more effectively than any argument.
Gideon lifted one hand to her face and, with a touch so gentle it nearly undid her, brushed his thumb along her cheek.
When he drew it back, there was the faintest trace of dampness upon it.
A tear.
She hadn’t even realized?—
“Oh,” she whispered again.
Gideon said nothing of it. He merely reached up and tucked a loosened strand of her hair back into place.
“There,” he said quietly. “We must not give Miss Montague cause for alarm.” A faint hint of amusement touched his tone. “I suspect she manages quite enough of that already.”
“Because of Lady Theodosia?”
“Because she has you for a friend.”
Beatrice rolled her lips together—because she could not argue with that. Even before her return to London, before Lady Hannah’s death, Lark had complained that Beatrice spent too much time alone in the forest.
And she knew she needed to return to Lady Barrington’s box. Before Lark became properly worried.
But she had so many questions for him.
He had said she needn’t bear this alone. But what, precisely, did that mean?
Would he help her? Would he teach her more? Not the polished version he and Lord Longstaffe had taught in her brother’s ballroom, but the sort of defense that might have mattered in a place like this. Or…
