He did not rescue her from the silence.
For a moment, she looked down at her hands, as though gathering the words from somewhere deep inside herself.
And then?—
“Before Dash brought Lady Hannah home,” she said at last. “I was already acquainted with her companion, Lark Montague. We made our come-outs the same year and have remained friends since.”
Gideon inclined his head. “Just after Waterloo, then?”
“A year later. I did not come out until I was twenty.”
He lifted his brows.
“Yes,” she said, before he could ask. “I realize I was practically a relic.”
“That was not what I meant.”
“No, but it was what you were thinking.”
“I’m sorry I missed it,” he said. His mouth curved faintly. “Dash claims you took society by storm. Before you withdrew from it.”
Beatrice looked down at her hands again. “Dash exaggerates.”
“Perhaps,” Gideon conceded. “But why did you withdraw?”
Her fingers stilled.
Then she gave a small shrug. “One grows tired of the same rooms, the same music, the same faces. The same conversations…”
Gideon simply stared at her.
“London is exhausting,” she added carefully. “So many people persuaded of their own consequence. So many gentlemen who believe consequence grants them certain… liberties.”
She stopped, but then added, “It grows tiresome.”
Gideon watched her smooth one thumb over the back of her glove.
“And that was all?” he asked.
Her gaze lifted to his.
There was more. He’d wager his life on it.
“I didn’t realize you and Miss Montague knew each other back then.” he said. “If she came out, why was she obliged to enter service?”
“Her father passed,” Beatrice said. “And his fortune went elsewhere. But she and I maintained contact. We both had done with society around the same time. After that, we wrote often.”
Had done with society.
An interesting way to put it.
Gideon’s gaze sharpened slightly, but he said nothing.
He had agreed to her request because the idea itself was sound. Women warning women. Ladies taught to notice, to defend themselves if need be.
There was sense in it.
But Beatrice had still not answered the true question.
