Beatrice looked at her.
“As strong-minded as you,” Lark amended.
“Mules,” Beatrice said with dignity, “are highly intelligent animals.”
“They are stubborn animals.”
“The two qualities are not mutually exclusive.”
Lark laughed then, quietly enough not to draw attention, but warmly enough to loosen something in Beatrice’s chest.
And for one brief, dangerous moment, Beatrice nearly smiled.
Then, from the corner of her eye, she saw one of Gideon’s soldiers escort yet another young lady away from the terrace doors.
The smile died before it could fully form.
You will cease acting as its protector.
The words thrummed through her again, low and taunting.
And just like that, every softened thing inside her went rigid once more.
And the smile died on her lips.
BESIDE HER
Gideon descended the front steps of his house shortly after luncheon, hat in hand, jaw set, with every intention of behaving like a rational man.
The sun stood high over the square, bright enough to turn the windows of the neighboring houses into sharp panes of glare. A carriage rattled around the corner. Somewhere nearby, a vendor called out his wares. London carried on in its usual, indifferent fashion.
Gideon turned in the direction of Beckman House. He tugged once at the knot of his cravat, then dropped his hand.
The afternoon was not so warm as all that.
To be quite honest, the reaction had very little to do with the weather and everything to do with the conversation awaiting him.
How the devil, Gideon wondered—not for the first time—had the Beckman siblings managed to disturb his life on such a profound level?
Dash had been troubling enough.
Dash with his silences, with his gardening, with his increasing resemblance to a man awaiting execution rather than the decision of a single woman.
But Beatrice?—
God help him.
Beatrice Beckman had become an affliction.
A beautiful, infuriating, sharp-tongued affliction who sent him scowls across crowded ballrooms when any reasonable woman might have offered a look of gratitude, perhaps a hint of affection?—
No. If she had done either of those, she would not have been Beatrice. And Gideon was not fool enough to expect them now.
Particularly when she appeared far more inclined to stab him with her fan.
Which was unfair.
He was advancing her cause, was he not? The ladies were safer. Terraces were watched. Galleries and shadowed corridors no longer offered easy hunting grounds to men who preferred their prey unguarded and alone.
