“I was not. And what has that got to do with anything?”
“You were. To the exclusion of all else.” Gideon kept his gaze fixed on the river path ahead.
She huffed softly. “It was Italian. Point de Venise, I believe. I was merely admiring it.”
“Of course.”
She glanced at him. “I was.”
“You were also tapping the stem of your glass,” he added. “You used to do the same thing at your mother’s assemblies. When you wished to be elsewhere.”
Beatrice stilled.
She looked down at her hand.
Did she do that? She was not tapping it now.
And that he should notice something so… small, so particular to her, seemed unlikely.
Gideon had always been at Dash’s side—thoroughly occupied with whatever mischief the two of them had devised between them. And she had been—what? A nuisance for sure. A younger sister to be endured.
And yet?—
Gideon’s mouth curved faintly.
“When Colonel Fairleigh asked about your technique,” he added, “you began chewing on your bottom lip. I thought it best we make our excuses before you drew blood.”
She winced. “I can only hope I did not make too great a spectacle of myself.”
Gideon glanced sideways at her.
“That is not what I meant, Beatrice. I simply know you.”
Her cheeks warmed.
Beatrice hid behind another sip of champagne, then cast about for something—anything—safer to say.
“I was feeling rather disappointed,” she said. “Right before you arrived at Beckman House.”
Gideon glanced at her.
“Why?”
“I had been expecting guests. My friend, Lark and her charge and Lady Barrington.” She gave a small, self-conscious shrug, and then forced a smile. “But no one came.”
It was not the sort of thing she would typically confess to anyone. The failure of the afternoon’s tea—small though the gathering had been intended to be—was… embarrassing.
Gideon didn’t laugh.
They continued along the path beneath the willows and, thinking again of Lark’s note and all its implications, Beatrice winced slightly.
“They chose to visit Lady Calliope instead,” she explained. “Who has apparently regaled half of Mayfair with my… miscalculation last night. I imagine I’m about to become a laughingstock.”
This was not her true concern really, but it felt somehow like a safer worry to disclose. She’d never been overly invested in her reputation.
For example, Beatrice knew she ought not have returned to society so soon after Lady Hannah’s death. She knew it. She simply had not cared overmuch. Furthermore, she’d known Hannah would have cheered her on.
And so she’d come because the ton’s opinion had always been easy enough to dismiss. Strangers might whisper, count the days, purse their lips over black gloves and grey gowns. Let them.
