Bond Street
“Why didn’t you say Longstaffe attempted to court her? Between him and Grimm, I can hardly count the knives in my back,” Dash complained.
The duke lay draped along the sofa in Gideon’s study, one arm flung over his eyes, a glass of brandy dangling loosely from his fingers. Apparently, in his courtship of Mrs. Bloomington, he had progressed from action to a state of waiting.
Gideon merely shook his head and took another measured sip of tea.
“You may consider your back unpierced,” he said. “She refused them both.”
Dash made a sound that might have been a laugh.
Or a groan.
Gideon ought to have found that amusing.
Instead, his thoughts went back to the previous day.
To Beatrice in his study.
Sitting so near that her knee had brushed his. Close enough that he had needed only to reach out if inclined to draw her into his arms.
Of course, he had not.
Which had required more discipline than any gentleman ought to need while discussing ladies’ lessons in self-defense.
But it had not been so simple as desire.
That was the trouble.
Yesterday, in his drawing room, he had watched Beatrice explain her plan with more than just practical conviction. Lessons. Prevention. Women protecting women. The failures of those who were meant to protect women.
And listening, he’d realized that this was not theory to her.
She knew.
Somehow, Beatrice knew what it was to be unsafe.
He had seen it when he asked why. The pause. The shuttering of her expression. Not so much in what she’d said, but in what she’d not said.
Gideon’s fingers tightened around his cup.
If he was right, Beatrice had been hurt. Not simply offended. Not merely disappointed by society. Hurt.
Perhaps he did not know the manner of it.
But he knew that for five years, she had stayed away from London. She had stayed away until Lady Hannah’s predicament stirred something in her. Until she found a way to take her pain and make it useful.
Gideon should have felt only the need to protect her.
He did feel that. But threaded through it was something far more troubling.
Admiration.
Fierce enough that he did not quite know what to do with it.
He exhaled slowly into his cup.
No.
Whatever had happened to Beatrice—whatever she had not quite told him—meant he had no business indulging those thoughts.
Gideon reached again for his tea.
He would do precisely as he had been asked. See to her safety. Ensure propriety. That was the end of it.
He set his cup aside and leaned forward.
“You’ve been mooning for hours,” Gideon finally said. “A man can only drink so much tea in solidarity, Dash. Go home.”
* * *
It is a truth rarely acknowledged that once a man determines to behave sensibly, the universe takes it as a challenge.
And so, the very next morning, as Gideon stepped out of his preferred tea shop on Bond Street, his resolution was tested.
Shop windows gleamed. Ladies drifted past beneath bright parasols, their companions trailing half a step behind. Gentlemen loitered outside the tailors, flicking canes and pretending not to admire themselves in the glass.
Ordinary morning bustle.
And then, through a gap between two curricles rattling past, he saw her.
Beatrice.
She strolled along the pavement in one of her lavender gowns, clutching her reticule in front of her. Instead of a bonnet, she wore a jaunty little hat, angled just so over her dark hair.
It was not bright or embellished, but there was something almost defiant in it.
His breath caught before he could stop it.
Damnation.
He did not want her. Not like this.
Not when she was Dash’s sister. Not when she carried secrets she couldn’t speak aloud.
His honor demanded he keep his hands, his thoughts, and every unruly impulse properly leashed.
And yet, there she was.
Meandering along Bond Street. Alone.
She glanced toward a shop window, and the movement caught the morning light along her cheek, the curve of her mouth, the small, determined notch in her chin.
His control, so carefully assembled only yesterday… It shifted. The warning movements of a few loose pebbles before an entire wall of rock sheared off into the sea.
Then a gentleman passing too closely forced her to alter her path.
That broke the spell.
Gideon crossed the street in long strides, reaching her in seconds.
“Bea—My lady.”
She turned, brows lifting.
Then she smiled. Not a pleasant and proper smile, but one that made the damn sun shine even brighter.
“My dear Lord Hawkins.” There was a teasing glint in her eyes.
For half a second, Gideon forgot the lecture forming in his head. But then his gaze moved past her shoulder, taking in the crowd.
“No Miss Montague with you today?” he asked, knowing better than to ask about her brother escorting her anywhere this Season.
“Not today, I’m afraid,” she said, though she didn’t appear bothered by this at all. “Lark does have her own duties to attend to on occasion.”
He inclined his head in acknowledgment. “Then we appear to suffer from the same deficiency.” He offered his arm. “Fortunately, the solution is obvious. You shall keep me respectable, and I shall return the favor.”
Her brows lifted. She stared at his arm, then at his face, her expression dancing somewhere between amusement and suspicion. “How very tidy of you.”
“I pride myself on efficiency.”
“Ha! You pride yourself on interfering.”
“Only when interference is warranted.”
“And is it?”
He let his gaze travel once more over the street—not lingering over her, though the effort cost him more than it ought.
Damn it.
He had not crossed the street to be charmed.
Beatrice laughed again, but she did at last place her hand lightly upon his sleeve.
“Oh, Gideon. You know as well as I that I am safer out here than almost anywhere else.”
He exhaled once, controlled.
He had crossed the street because she was alone. Because Dash had entrusted him with more than he ought. Because this woman had a talent for placing herself in the path of danger and then looking surprised when it all went sideways.
But also because seeing her—smiling and entirely too pleased with herself—sent an absurdly pleasant warmth into the hollow place beneath his ribs.
He cleared his throat. “I rather thought you would be at Beckman Hall.”
“Did you?”
“Preparing for this afternoon’s lessons.”
“Oh, but I am preparing. I was considering what sort of… props we might recommend.”
He stilled. “Props.”
“Well, weapons.” She glanced pointedly to the shop behind her.
Gideon’s gaze followed hers, and he finally realized where she was standing. Before the windows of Durs Egg.
In that moment, he would not have been surprised if his eyebrows had vanished into his hairline.
“Not weapons, weapons,” she amended quickly. Then, after the briefest pause— “Although…”
Gideon said nothing. He did not need to.
“Perhaps a small one. A very small one,” she continued, a touch more cautiously now. “A pocket pistol. One of the little ones… easily concealed. A muff pistol, even, might—”
He couldn’t tell if she was serious or not.
She cut herself off. “Or not,” she said. “I was thinking more along the lines of… less formidable instruments. Since training will be limited.”
“Such as?”
“A parasol with a reinforced tip.” And then, more quickly as she warmed to the subject, “Or a hatpin, one of sufficient length to discourage close acquaintance. A bodkin, like mine perhaps—nothing dramatic. Merely… tools. To give the ladies options. Entirely practical, I assure you.”
Gideon regarded her. His friend’s sister stood before a gunsmith calmly debating the merits of concealed weaponry.
“Practical,” he repeated. And then, glancing back toward the shop, “Should I be worried?”
She slid him a coy glance, lashes lowering, then lifting again—and something in the look was… different.
“Worry?” she echoed, her gloved hand drifting to the hollow at her throat. “Never worry about me, my lord.”
It didn’t matter that she was teasing.
Because once again, the decision, the resolve he’d had the night before, the memory of his conversation with Dash—promises, trust, duty—vanished as though they had never existed.
Gideon found himself looking at her. Not as he ought to, but the way he… wanted to. Lingering on the soft bow of her upper lip. All the colors of blue in her gaze as it held his… as though she could read his mind.
A shout cut through the clatter of the street.
“Mind there! Mind!”
A costermonger’s cart lurched along the pavement, one wheel jumping the uneven stones as the man shoved it forward with more haste than care. The crowd scattered in a flurry of skirts, elbows, and startled exclamations.
Gideon’s hand came to Beatrice’s waist, and he instinctively swept her back against the shopfront, turning his body between hers and the jostling cart. His other hand struck the stone beside her shoulder, bracing them both as the cart rattled past with scarcely an inch to spare.
For an instant, everything was noise.
The squeal of the wheel. The vendor’s muttered oath. A dowager’s offended gasp.
Then the cart was gone.
And yet… Gideon’s hand remained at her waist.
He meant to remove it. Truly, he did.
But his fingers had settled there too easily, curved around the narrow dip as though they belonged there.
Her gloved hand had caught his sleeve, her fingers curled tight in the fabric. Her hat tilted back as her face lifted to his.
The noise of Bond Street dulled around them.
“I cannot stop worrying about you,” he murmured, his voice lower now. Rougher. “It’s impossible.”
She blinked, for a moment, stunned. He could practically see her mind turning, registering the hand at her shoulder and the one at her side, still unsure. “Because of Dash?”
As always, she was trying to manage her expectations, put up some sort of wall. He should let her. A better man would have.
“Not because of Dash,” he said quietly. “Don’t you know that?”
She licked her lips.
And that—God help him—was his undoing.
He should have stepped back. Should have released her. Should have remembered all the reasons this particular madness could come to nothing but ruin.
Instead, as though pulled by gravity itself, he leaned in.
Close enough now to feel the warmth of her breath.
Close enough to see her eyes darken.
“Hawkins, old boy!”
That particular voice cut clean through the moment better than a bucket of ice would have.
Gideon’s hand dropped from the wall, settling instead at the small of Beatrice’s back as he turned. Slowly, reluctantly.
“Groby.” Gideon did not offer his hand.
The man smiled as though they were old friends.
Though they had known each other in their younger years, Groby had been more bully than anything else—a jealous, bitter young man.
By all accounts, he had not improved with age.
If anything, time had sharpened him. He was leaner now. Almost elegantly so, though there was a faint drawn quality about him that fine tailoring could not entirely conceal. His expression was too controlled, his eyes carrying a cold, watchful intelligence that set Gideon instantly on edge.
“It’s been an age,” Groby drawled, rocking back on his heels. “Since you and I watched Dasborough marry my bride, if memory serves.” His smile widened. “I count it now among my narrow escapes.”
Gideon felt Beatrice stiffen beneath his hand.
He did not look at her.
“An interesting recollection,” he said mildly. “I remember it rather more as Lady Hannah’s escape.”
Groby narrowed his eyes, but then shot a glance toward Beatrice. “Surely you mean to introduce me.”
Gideon hadn’t, actually.
But there was no clean way around it now. Not without making his reluctance more interesting than the introduction itself.
“Lady Beatrice Beckman.” Gideon kept his hand on her back. “Mr. Dudley Groby.”
Groby’s gaze lingered on her, and then he tilted his head as though something about her snagged in his mind.
“Lady Beatrice Beckman,” Groby murmured, as though testing the name against some private thought. “Dasborough’s little sister, yes?”
“Yes,” Beatrice said. Her voice was steady.
Enough.
“You have business in London?” Gideon asked. The words might have passed for polite, but his tone did not.
Groby’s mouth pinched, looking too smug for Gideon’s liking.
“Indeed,” he said. “Family matters. I imagine you’ve heard.”
Gideon held his stare. “Rumors travel.”
“That, they do,” Groby practically trilled. “And there may be rather more truth to them than… certain members of society would like.”
“Time will tell,” Gideon said. Then, almost idly, “The law moves slowly in matters of this sort. By the time such claims are settled, the complainants are often in no position to enjoy the judgment.”
Groby’s smile slipped.
But then, once again, Groby’s attention shifted back to Beatrice.
“You must find our politics terribly dull,” he said, looking at her more closely now, with a quiet, searching interest. “You know, I can’t help but wonder… You look so familiar. Have we been introduced before?”
Beatrice shook her head at once.
“No,” she said. “We have not.”
Gideon stepped forward, placing himself more firmly between them.
“As diverting as this reunion has been,” Gideon said mildly, “I am sure you were going… somewhere.”
Groby’s gaze returned to him, and for a moment, neither man moved.
Then, with a faint, dismissive exhale, Groby inclined his head. “As you wish.”
One last look—cold, assessing—flicked between them before Groby turned on his heel, his cane striking a measured rhythm against the pavement as he walked away.
Gideon did not move until he was gone.
“That is the man who was set to marry Lady Hannah, isn’t he?” Beatrice said at last, breaking the silence. “I don’t know why I didn’t expect to ever meet him in London.”
Her gaze remained fixed on the stretch of pavement where Groby had disappeared.
Then her mouth tightened. “Thank God Dash married her instead.” The words came quietly, but with an edge Gideon had not expected. “I would not wish a man like that on my worst enemy.”
Her expression shuttered for the barest instant. Then she drew a breath and looked away.
“Do you think…” she continued, more quietly now. “Do you think there is any merit to his claim? About the Lovington title?”
“There cannot be.” Gideon met her gaze with more confidence than he felt. “Lovington was not the sort to leave loose ends. Whatever else he may have been, he valued his name. His legacy. He would have seen it secured.”
“So the evidence he claims to have…” Beatrice hesitated, then glanced up at him. “It must be false?”
“It must be,” Gideon said.
She exhaled, the tension easing—just a little.
“Good,” she said softly. “Men like that are dangerous enough without having a title behind them.”
A pause.
Then, almost as though she could not help herself— “He unsettles me.”
That was putting it mildly.
Gideon’s jaw tightened.
Without thinking—without asking—he reached for her, his hand settling at her shoulder, drawing her just slightly closer.
“Then you will not be anywhere near him again,” he said, low and certain.