While she was talking, movement near the water caught Beatrice’s attention.
A gentleman stood at the far edge of the path, half-turned toward the river. Tall. Lean. Dressed in dark clothes despite the mild morning. His hat brim shadowed his face, and from this distance she could make out little more than the spare line of him and the pale flash of one hand resting atop a walking stick.
A perfectly ordinary gentleman.
And yet the sight of him made the air seem too thin in her lungs.
She looked harder.
Before she could make out his face, he turned and disappeared beneath the trees.
“Bea?” Lark said.
Beatrice blinked.
“I don’t like it,” Lark continued, mistaking her silence for disagreement. “And I cannot imagine Lord Hawkins will keep this from your brother indefinitely. Once His Grace regains his senses, he is likely to insist you go home.”
Right. She should have known that Lark would disapprove, often leaning on the side of caution to balance out some of Beatrice’s more… creative ideas.
But Gideon had promised, had he not? Not in so many words, perhaps, but in the way he had looked at her. In the grim restraint of his voice… You frightened me last night, Beatrice.
He did not mean to expose her.
He meant to prepare her.
And the more she considered it, the more sensible she felt the arrangement was.
She had no intention of being caught unprepared again.
BEATRICE IN BREECHES
Gideon lifted the knocker at Beckman House for the second time that day.
Not to meet with his friend, but to meet with his friend’s sister.
To teach her how to better defend herself.
And as he waited for the door to open, he couldn’t keep his thoughts from returning to the moment he’d seen Miss Whitcombe sprinting along the garden path. Without Beatrice.
To the sight of Hatherleigh’s hand closed around Beatrice’s wrist. Her face, not frightened, not pleading, but bright with furious determination.
Thunderous anger surging through him. Fear, the lightning that followed.
Gideon shifted his feet, glancing over his shoulder.
He had always admired her independence—in theory. A spirited young woman was preferable to a simpering one. It kept a household lively.
But unprepared independence was dangerous.
If his sister Veronica had attempted such a stunt, he would have locked her in her chambers for a fortnight and posted a footman at the door.
Fortunately, Veronica would never have dreamed of placing herself between a predator and his prey armed with nothing but a bodkin and righteous outrage.
Beatrice, however?—
Gideon stopped the thought there.
Because Beatrice was not his sister.
