Gideon swallowed hard.
“If she has not forgiven you by now,” he said quietly, “she may never.”
His friend went very still. But then, with an unusual violence, Dash sliced his hand through the air, knocking Gideon’s touch away.
“I’ve come this far,” Dash said. “She will decide in three days. I will give her that.”
Three days.
Gideon exchanged a glance with Beatrice before he could stop himself.
“Dash,” she whispered.
But Dash only looked between them with cold, wounded pride.
“Until then, both of you. Keep to your own business.”
Neither Beatrice nor Gideon answered. What the devil could either of them say?
Dash turned, shouldered past him, and strode from the room.
For several seconds, Gideon stood frozen. The room felt too quiet in Dash’s absence. Too bright. Too ridiculously ordinary for what had happened on the sofa, and what had just happened after.
He and Dash had argued before. They had even come to blows on a few occasions. But… he couldn’t recall Dash ever speaking to him that way.
Not in anger. Not in grief. Not even in those black months after Harrowgate, when blame had lived among them along with Sebastian’s ghost.
Gideon stared at the empty doorway. His heart cold. Heavy.
“It’s my fault,” he said.
NEED TO KNOW
Behind him, Beatrice shifted. “I could say the same thing, you know.”
Gideon glanced back.
“I told Dash about Lark’s letters. About Lady Hannah. If I had kept silent?—”
“No.” The word came out too sharply. He drew a breath. “No, Beatrice. It is not the same.”
Her brow furrowed.
“You gave Dash the truth. You let him decide what to do with it.” His jaw tightened. “But the choice would not have been necessary in the first place… if not for me.”
He looked toward the empty doorway, seeing beyond it, years and miles away.
“If Sebastian had lived, Beresford would never have considered Groby. Instead, I saw us drunk enough to make fools of ourselves, and Sebastian paid for it with his life.”
Gideon’s mouth twisted. “Back then, I could not have seen where that choice would lead—to Lord Beresford and Groby, to Dash and Lady Hannah and all the rest. But that does not remove my responsibility.”
If Sebastian had lived, Dash would not have been asked to save her from that man.
He would not have left Mrs. Bloomington.
Beatrice was quiet for a moment. “That is a great deal to place upon yourself.”
“It belongs there.”
