“Who was it?” Gideon asked.
Dash shook his head. “She insisted it was no one. But then, the following year, she refused London altogether.” He sighed. “Declared herself a spinster.”
Dash met Gideon’s gaze across the room.
“I had hoped, when she chose to return with me this year, that she might finally have set the past aside. That she might allow herself a little enjoyment. Dance. Laugh. S’amuser. Perhaps even be courted.”
He huffed a quiet breath.
“And now you tell me she is what? Keeping watch over half the young ladies in London? Following them onto terraces? Putting herself in danger?”
Gideon said nothing.
Dash looked down into his glass. “She needs protection. She is not like other ladies, you know. Beatrice.”
“I am aware.”
“No.” Dash shook his head. “I mean—she seems so certain of herself. So grown. But there is something terribly naive in her still. She thinks the worst danger is the sort that charges at you from the trees. Since she can bring such a creature down, she believes herself safe everywhere else.”
Gideon’s chest tightened.
“She is clever,” Dash continued. “But she does not understand how men think. A pretty girl with a good dowry, a distracted brother. Voila…” His hand closed around the glass. “That is all it takes for some bastard to compromise an heiress.”
But Dash was wrong about her. Was that not precisely what Beatrice had been trying to say all along?
“I know she needs me,” Dash said quietly. “Dieu m’aide, I know it. Only…” His jaw tightened. “I spent two years putting Ambrosia second. It’s been agony. It’s how I got into this mess in the first place. I cannot—.” He cut himself off with a frustrated grunt, unable to give proper voice to it.
Dash, cornered between love and duty. If he followed duty, he might lose the woman he loved. If he followed love, he left his sister unprotected.
Gideon felt the old instinct rise before he could stop it.
“I’ll see to Beatrice.”
Dash’s gaze lifted.
“I’ll ensure her safety,” Gideon said. “Better than that, I’ll escort her to a few events myself when Lady Barrington is otherwise engaged.”
More proximity.
More temptation.
He would handle it. He wasn’t some beast who couldn’t control himself, and Dash needed him.
Dash stared at him for a moment, then exhaled. “Thank you.”
“You needn’t thank me.”
“Of course I do.” Dash looked at him then, fully. “I know she is no longer a child. I know she would despise me for speaking of her as though she were. But she is my sister. And I will not have her hurt.”
Dash had no idea what he was asking.
But Gideon inclined his head all the same.
“You can trust me.”
A CHANGE IN PLANS
The tea tray was ridiculous.
