Whatever had moved through him did so all at once. His expression sharpened, ruin giving way to something dangerously like hope.
“She still wears it,” Dash said.
Gideon frowned. “Wears what?”
“The ring.” Dash lurched to his feet and immediately swayed.
Gideon caught up a bowl and thrust it toward him. “Sit down before you disgrace us both.”
Dash ignored him. “He lied.”
“Who lied?”
“Grimm.” Dash wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, suddenly looking much more alive, though he still had the complexion of a freshly warmed corpse. “He must have.”
“Dash—”
But Dash was already moving, or trying to.
And Gideon knew that look. For the first time in days, his friend was listening to something other than despair.
So Gideon let him go.
Long after Dash staggered out in pursuit of whatever hope he had found, Gideon remained in the study.
Damn Dash.
Could he keep her safe without keeping her under his thumb?
Could he stand close enough to help, but not so close that he crowded her?
He did not know.
And that was the hell of it.
For the first time since Beatrice had ordered him out of her brother’s drawing room, Gideon wondered if making this right would not require some grand gesture or clever plan.
It might require the one thing that felt most impossible.
He might have to trust her.
THE NEW DUCHESS
By midsummer, Dasborough Park had become insufferably beautiful.
Roses climbed the old stone walls. Lavender spilled over the paths in fragrant purple drifts. The lawns rolled away in perfect green slopes toward the lake, where the afternoon sun scattered over the water as though the whole world had conspired to glitter.
Beatrice found it all deeply inconsiderate.
A house had no right to look so cheerful when one was attempting to feel nothing in particular.
“Those garlands are for the musicians’ gallery,” she told a footman, gesturing toward the great hall. “Not the supper room. And tell Mrs. Gillings to have one of the maids finish decorating these masks.”
The footman bowed and hurried away.
There.
Useful.
