Lady Hannah.
Beatrice looked down at her hands.
“I was as well,” she admitted. “Surprised.”
That was the truth of it.
When Dash had brought Lady Hannah home to Dasborough Park, Beatrice had expected duty. Awkwardness. Perhaps even resentment, though she would have been ashamed to name it. Lady Hannah had been ill, gentle, and already fading, and the whole house had seemed to dim around her.
But her sister-in-law had been kind.
And lonely. And Beatrice had understood loneliness far better than she wished to.
But she had not come here to speak of Hannah.
She drew in a breath, but before she could speak, Gideon shifted slightly. “I have thought of yesterday more than I ought,” he said.
Beatrice blinked.
“I enjoyed it. The garden party,” he clarified. “The archery. The river. Even the rowing, despite nearly being swept along to the channel.”
“We were not.” She would have gotten them out of that current, with or without his assistance.
“No,” he admitted, though he did so with a lopsided, slightly mischievous smile. “But I enjoyed it, nonetheless.”
Oh.
That… oh.
His gaze dropped briefly to her mouth, then returned to her eyes. “You seemed happy.”
The words were quiet.
“Because I won?” She didn’t know why it came out like a question.
“Perhaps. No matter the reason. I liked seeing you that way.”
For one suspended moment, Beatrice forgot the room, the lessons, the society, the entire reason she had walked halfway across Mayfair.
Gideon’s jaw tightened, and he looked down, rubbing his thumb once along the ink-stained side of his finger.
“I only mean,” he said, with rather less ease. “It… suits you.”
Beatrice’s thoughts scattered like frightened pigeons.
Why had she come here? To stare at Gideon’s shirtsleeves?
No.
His hands?
Absolutely not.
The lessons.
Yes!
The lessons!
