Every question. Every concern. Every brotherly suspicion. He would stand there until Dash exhausted them all, and then he would answer whatever remained.
He was not leaving that study with anything less than his oldest friend’s agreement.
He regretted not speaking with Dash sooner. He regretted the secrecy, the delay, the many ways he had stumbled into this.
But not the rest.
Not… loving Beatrice.
Gideon had always known Beatrice was remarkable.
Even years ago, when she had been Dash’s little sister with too many opinions and eyes that missed nothing, Gideon had known there was something singular about her.
But this spring, everything had changed.
This spring, he had watched her across Mayfair’s ballrooms and seen not a girl from his past, not merely Dash’s sister, but a woman of nerve and heart and impossible courage. A woman so infuriatingly alive, so frustratingly beautiful, that he had begun looking for her in every room before he knew he was doing it.
Perhaps it had begun with that waltz. Her hand in his, the first faint resistance in her step, and then the moment she had decided he was worthy of her trust. Not yielding to his lead so much as choosing to meet it.
He had told himself it was only a dance. Only music. Only the natural consequence of holding a beautiful woman in his arms.
He had been a fool.
Because then had come the lessons.
Beatrice beneath him on the mattress. Beatrice above him, eyes flashing, triumph in her eyes when she managed to throw him.
He hadn’t stood a chance.
Admiration had caught fire. Desire followed like dry kindling, and after that, every sensible instinct that ought to have warned him away only seemed to drive him nearer.
And then, something deeper. More consuming. Completely out of his control.
Love.
For all the mistakes he had made in his life, loving Beatrice was the one thing he had gotten right.
That, he knew he would never regret.
He glanced sideways at her, walking beside him still in her silver gown, though her fox mask was now absent. Determined. Lovely. A little pale, perhaps, as they came to a stop outside of Dash’s study.
But not wavering.
He rapped sharply on the study door.
Once.
Twice.
Gideon caught Beatrice’s eye—steady, bright, impossibly blue.
If anything, Dash owed him a bit of indulgence. Gideon had spent no small amount of time keeping tabs on his affairs in London, dragging him from brothels, and preventing him from drinking himself into an early grave.
Not that they tallied favors. Under normal circumstances.
But if they were, in fact, to tally them, Gideon felt the current ledger might allow him one sister.
It was, admittedly, not an argument he intended to present to Dash.
