Would Gideon decide, now that he knew more, helping meant stopping her?
That possibility was certainly a sour one.
But beneath all of it was the question she had been trying not to touch all day.
What was happening between the two of them?
What was this pull. This ache.
Gideon didn’t give her time to voice a single one of those questions.
Instead, he leaned forward and kissed her. Carefully. Softly.
When he drew back, his voice was low.
“We can talk tomorrow morning. In the park.” His gaze held hers, steady and certain. “Seven o’clock. Serpentine Bridge.”
Beatrice nodded, but still didn’t move.
“But if you wait much longer,” he added, a faint trace of dry humor entering his voice, “Miss Montague is likely to send out the cavalry on your behalf.”
It was a possibility. “Seven,” she said. And then, turning, she gathered her skirts and began to climb, far more quickly than she had descended.
The music grew clearer with every step, the darkness thinning as she neared the corridor above. When she stepped into the theater corridor, it was empty.
But she did not feel the least bit afraid.
Because she knew, with perfect certainty, that Gideon was near.
Watching. Seeing things everyone else seemed to miss.
It allowed her to breathe in a way she could hardly remember, as she slipped quietly back into the theater box.
With a murmured apology to Lark, Beatrice took her seat.
And though the performance concluded to thunderous applause, Beatrice understood no more of it than she had before.
Her thoughts, it seemed, were entirely occupied by the one man in the world who made her feel safe.
And that…was terrifying in an altogether different way.
STEPPING UP
Across town, later that same evening, Gideon sat in one of the quieter rooms at White’s, cradling a cup of hot tea, doing his best to compartmentalize what he’d learned earlier.
Across from him, Blackwell lounged with one ankle crossed over his knee, looking deceptively idle. Longstaffe stood near the hearth, arms folded.
Neither of them had asked why Gideon needed to know who had hosted masquerade balls five years earlier, or why he required the names of every gentleman who had attended them.
Nor had they asked about the injuries to his face.
They noticed, of course.
Blackwell’s gaze had flicked once to the cut near Gideon’s jaw, then to the shadow darkening beneath his eye. Longstaffe had looked longer, flattened his mouth and then thrown back a swallow of his whisky.
But neither man said a word.
Gideon had seen the questions plainly enough. He simply did not answer them.
