Then he turned and walked out, his boots striking the floorboards with steady, unyielding precision.
He ought to have felt satisfied.
He had not given in. Had not yielded to the urge to promise her whatever she wished merely to ease the look in her eyes.
At the threshold, a cold dampness broke across the back of his neck.
What the hell had he accomplished?
Beatrice was still angry. More than angry. Hurt. And he had left her there with every reason to think he wanted to govern her life—and no reason to trust that he would keep her secret.
Dash flashed through his mind then. Dash, shut away in his study, drinking himself hollow over a woman he could not stop loving.
Gideon had thought his friend dramatic.
But if this suffocating weight in his chest—this sick certainty that he had just made everything worse—was what love felt like...
Christ.
Perhaps Dash wasn’t mad after all.
HIS FEAR
Beatrice stood motionless until the door closed behind him. When she finally glanced down, she realized her hands were shaking.
Had he really just asked her to marry him?
The words echoed in her mind.
No, he had not asked at all. He had told her… once they married, then he would have every right to be fully involved in her business.
There had been no proposal. Definitely no declaration of undying love and affection.
Not that she expected any of that. Marriage to Gideon Rothmore, in fact, couldn’t have been further from her mind.
She wiped her arm across her eyes and then all but collapsed back onto the loveseat.
Why couldn’t he just understand? Was Gideon really like every other man in London? She hadn’t thought so.
She’d told him all she ever wanted was his support. And that’s exactly what he’d provided for her, initially. He’d been protective, yes, but he’d also treated her like she was smart, capable, and perfectly able to make choices and decisions regarding her own person.
If only she hadn’t panicked under the theater! She’d been perfectly fine for the entire length of the Season up until then, redirecting and confronting pushy gentlemen in the dark corners around ballrooms and other less savory places. Even when she’d gotten in over her head with Hatherleigh, she’d kept her composure.
What had happened with Gideon in that narrow corridor was something Beatrice had not experienced since the first days after the assault.
Something she had believed she had left behind.
And, for the most part, she had.
Unfortunately, her unraveling had been witnessed by the last person she would have chosen to see it. And it had shaken him. More than she had realized at the time.
When he met her in the park the next morning, he had been sweet. Forgiving. He had not looked at her as though she were fragile, or foolish, or somehow less herself for what had happened.
At least, not until after they’d been together in the forest.
Then he had begun issuing orders. As though by surrendering her body, she’d also surrendered her mind!
He would have to be out of his mind to think ordering her about would work. He had known her too long for that.
