“Dash.”
His friend lifted his gaze.
“Setting aside your… campaign for Mrs. Bloomington,” Gideon said mildly, “there is something else you ought to be aware of. Concerning your sister.”
Dash frowned faintly. “She seemed perfectly well when I left Beckman House this morning. Practicing her archery, I believe.”
“So you haven’t spoken with her today?”
“It has been a few days, actually.” Dash had the good grace to look slightly abashed. “Why? What has she done? And do not tell me it is nothing. With ma sœur, it is never nothing.”
Gideon exhaled once. “Ta sœur is attending balls, as I’m sure you know, but she’s not there for the dancing.”
Dash stilled.
“She watches. She waits. And when she thinks some young lady may be in danger, she intervenes.”
“Danger? What sort of danger? And what do you mean, she intervenes?”
And so, Gideon told him. Of the young girls being lured into dark corners, away from the watchful eyes of the rest of the attendees. And how Lady Beatrice had seemingly taken personal offense to this phenomenon, how she’d decided to disrupt it in whatever ways she deemed necessary.
“Most of the time, she is subtle, providing a harmless interruption at precisely the wrong moment—or the right moment, as it were. Most men likely never realize they have been redirected.”
“And this… tends to work?” Dash asked.
“Most of the time,” Gideon reiterated. Then his jaw tightened. “When it doesn’t, she promotes herself from inconvenience to barricade.”
Dash said nothing.
“She follows. Places herself between a lady and whatever danger she believes exists.” Gideon looked down into his tea.
There was more. The incident with Longstaffe. Precipitated, most likely, by those lessons.
Lessons provided by Gideon himself, damn it.
He ought to tell Dash all of it.
The rearranged ballroom. The mattresses. Beatrice in breeches, although… Hmm, perhaps not.
Certainly not about the thin linen shirt, or the absence of stays.
Good God.
Gideon exhaled slowly into his cup.
He had come here to speak of danger. Of recklessness. Of Dash’s sister placing herself in harm’s way while Dash made a romantic martyr of himself elsewhere.
He had come to tell his friend, in the plainest possible terms, to pull his head out of his… misery, and attend to Beatrice.
To suggest, perhaps, that Dash take it upon himself to continue his sister’s education.
Gideon had considered this to be a noble gesture.
Unfortunately, his memory chose that moment to supply the least noble part of the affair: Beatrice pinned beneath him on a mattress, her breath quick, her body warm, and his own response so immediate and inconvenient that he had nearly disgraced himself in the name of practical instruction.
His jaw tightened.
No.
