Then, through the ringing in his ears, he saw her.
Beatrice.
Not fleeing.
Flying toward the man who had just shot him.
The sight was so wrong—so wildly, impossibly wrong—that Gideon could only stare as she closed the distance.
Too fast for Hatherleigh to recover.
She caught his pistol arm with both hands, stepped sharply to the outside, and twisted his wrist down and back exactly as Gideon had shown her. Thumb toward the weakness. Elbow locked. Weight turned through the shoulder rather than fighting against strength.
Hatherleigh cried out, and the pistol clattered onto the stone.
Gideon lunged forward, blood hot beneath his sleeve, every instinct roaring at him to get between them.
But Beatrice did not need him between them.
She pivoted behind Hatherleigh, keeping hold of his wrist, and drove her knee hard against the back of his. When his leg buckled, she followed him down, using his own momentum to send him sprawling face-first onto the stone floor of the folly.
Before Gideon could reach them, Beatrice had one knee planted between Hatherleigh’s shoulder blades and his arm wrenched neatly behind his back.
Hatherleigh wheezed into the stones.
Beatrice looked up, breathless, flushed, and…
Utterly magnificent.
Gideon stopped dead.
For one stunned second, all he could do was stare.
“What,” he said, voice rough with pain and disbelief, “did you just do?”
Her mouth curved.
Not sweetly.
Triumphantly.
“You should know,” she said. “You’re the one who taught me.”
SHE SAVED HIM
Staring up at Gideon, Beatrice felt triumphant.
For all of three seconds. Perhaps four.
Then something dark struck the ground between them.
Blood.
Her gaze snapped upward.
Gideon had one hand clamped over his upper arm, just above the elbow. Against the black of his evening coat, the wound might have gone unnoticed.
Except blood seeped steadily between his fingers.
