Lark glanced toward the terrace, where, with a bow, Lord Hawkins steered one of this spring’s debutantes toward her mother.
“No?”
“No.” Beatrice lowered her voice. “The whole point of the Society is that women cannot spend their lives waiting for some gentleman to do all the protecting. Men are not always there. And when they are, they do not always see. Or believe. Or care.”
Lark’s expression changed. “But Lord Hawkins cares. He is present, and he is looking—he and the friends he’s recruited. They all are.”
Beatrice pressed her lips together. “What Lord Hawkins and the others are doing is gallant. I do not deny it. But it does not solve the larger problem. In fact, it might even make it worse in the long run.”
Lark frowned. “How could it possibly?”
“Perhaps the Vigilance Society is unnecessary after all,” Beatrice continued. “Ladies need only keep their eyes lowered, their hands folded, and their wits safely out of the way. Why learn to protect ourselves when we may wait prettily for a gentleman to decide we require saving?”
“Oh, Beatrice,” Lark said. “Circumstances aren’t that dour.”
“You do not find it vexing?”
“Why would I be vexed?” Lark asked carefully. “Lord Hawkins appears to be doing what we wanted done.”
“It isn’t the same.” Beatrice’s voice went quiet.
Lark didn’t say anything for a moment, and when Beatrice looked to see why, she found that her friend looked unusually hesitant. “Bea, I just—You say that, and it might be true, yes. But… “Are you quite certain you aren’t letting your personal feelings color the matter?”
Beatrice paused, feeling rather blindsided. “I beg your pardon.”
“I’m not saying that you would be wrong to be upset. The Vigilance Society, protecting young ladies, all of it was your idea.” Lark winced. “And now you’ve been set to the side.”
And there it was.
Beatrice would like to deny it, but… she could feel the truth in Lark’s words.
When Beatrice had first complained that Gideon was being overbearing, Lark had been sympathetic. But she had also, rather annoyingly, understood him more easily than Beatrice had wished.
Not agreed with him.
That distinction mattered.
Lark fully supported Beatrice’s present stance. She understood why Gideon’s interference felt less like assistance than usurpation.
But Lark also possessed the irritating habit of seeing too many sides of a thing at once.
“Don’t you feel safer?” Lark asked carefully.
Beatrice shook her head. “The safety they provide—Lord Hawkins and his friends —it is only an illusion.” She closed her fan with a snap. “A dangerous one.”
Lark tilted her head. “Because it teaches women to depend upon it.”
“Yes.” Beatrice looked out across the ballroom, at all the silk-clad young ladies laughing beneath candlelight, most of them entirely unaware of how swiftly a charming smile could become a trap. “When we become too comfortable, we lower our guard.”
“Oh, Beatrice…”
“No lady should ever lower her guard.”
Lark did not look at her, but set her gaze in the same direction as Beatrice’s.
“Not even with the right man?”
Beatrice averted her eyes, staring at her gloves instead.
