Not when Beatrice stood at his side, her hand tucked through his arm as though she belonged there.
Because she did.
“There is also the matter of Lord Hawkins’ wardrobe and belongings,” Ambrosia continued briskly. “They must be fetched from the inn at once.”
“The inn is perfectly adequate,” Gideon said.
Dash stared at him. “You were staying at an inn?”
“I arrived late.”
“You will not stay at an inn.”
“So I am gathering.”
“One of the south rooms can be made up,” Ambrosia said. “The blue one, I think, ought to be available.”
“And in the meantime,” Dash said, eyeing Gideon’s torn shirt and blood-stained sleeve with faint disapproval, “you will permit Edwards to make you fit for public view.”
Gideon glanced down at himself. “I am not certain your valet will thank you for that.”
“My valet has survived worse.”
“From you, certainly.”
Dash’s mouth twitched.
A quarter of an hour later, Gideon had been transformed from bloodied baron into a respectable guest. The fit of Dash’s coat was not perfect, but it was close enough. His arm ached, his shirt felt strange, and the borrowed cravat had been tied more loosely than he preferred.
Somehow, Beatrice had recovered his mask—that of a bear, fierce-browed and broad-muzzled, with dark fur glued to its edges. She pressed it into his hand when she’d met him on the landing.
He wore it now.
Only because, when she looked at him from behind her fox’s face, there was no fear in her eyes. Only that dancing light, that spark of rebellion, and a softness that made him feel, with absolute certainty, like the man she loved.
By the time they rejoined the festivities, supper had ended and the guests were already returned to the ballroom. The room seemed to glow brighter than before, candles flickering over silk and jewels and painted masks. Laughter hummed beneath the music.
Beyond the French doors, the garden might as well have belonged to another world.
Gideon glanced across the masked faces.
A wolf. A fox. A devil. A harlequin.
Some old instinct tightened in him.
He would keep looking.
Not tonight. Not in a way that would steal this moment from Beatrice or from Dash and Ambrosia. Not in a way that would let the past swallow the future they had only just claimed. But one day, he would find the man who had hurt her.
If she wished it.
If she chose it.
And if she did not?—
Gideon looked down at her.
Then he would learn to live with that too.
