Her stomach dropped.
“You’re hurt!”
“Just a scratch,” Gideon said.
Just a scratch?
Beatrice felt a sudden, alarming desire to break Hatherleigh’s arm outright.
She tightened her grip and pulled his wrist a little higher, although not high enough to cause damage. Not permanent damage, anyway. Hatherleigh made a strangled sound against the paving stones.
She leaned forward. “You shot him,” she ground out between clenched teeth.
“I was aiming to kill him,” Hatherleigh wheezed.
Beatrice wrenched his arm higher still.
“Beatrice,” Gideon said.
There was something in his voice that stilled her. She would have expected him to scold her, to suggest caution, or possibly even to be angry with her for employing such violent measures.
But no. He was looking at her with pride.
Pride, and affection, and something so warm it made her chest feel strangely unsteady.
Oh.
She liked that look.
Rather a lot.
Gideon crouched down beside her. And keeping one hand on his wound, he lifted the other toward her face. Hesitated. Then pushed the silver fox mask up to reveal her eyes.
His fingers brushed her temple.
For one impossible moment, Beatrice thought he might kiss her.
Which was absurd, because she was presently kneeling upon a would-be murderer.
Still.
Who was she to complain if he did?
“I would deal with our old friend Lord Hatherleigh,” Gideon said, his voice low, “but it seems you have him well enough in hand.”
Her mouth twitched despite everything.
But before she could answer, footsteps sounded from the path right before two large, masked figures appeared at the edge of the folly.
Beatrice tensed.
“What the devil? Hawk? Was that a gunshot?”
The taller of the two removed his dark mask, revealing Lord Longstaffe’s grim, military calm. Beside him, the other man shoved his mask up as well. The Earl of Blackwell’s expression sharpened as his gaze moved from Gideon’s bleeding arm to Hatherleigh pinned beneath Beatrice’s knee.
“Well,” he said. “We appear to have missed all the fun.”
“It seems Groby doesn’t appreciate my looking into his affairs,” Gideon said. “Sent Hatherleigh as his messenger. But luckily, Lady Beatrice disarmed him.”
