Dash and His Scotch
Gideon lifted the teapot and poured the steaming tea into his cup, adding two lumps of sugar with the tongs.
The afternoon light filtered in through the tall windows of his study, catching on polished wood and orderly shelves—everything precisely as it ought to be.
It was his third cup of the day.
Across from him, the Duke of Dasborough finished off a full tumbler of scotch.
Dash was not himself.
Hadn’t been, really, for the past two years.
And in that time, Gideon had tolerated a great many things. The brooding. The drinking. And more recently, the increasingly unorthodox attempts to court a woman who appeared determined to want nothing whatsoever to do with him.
But even Gideon’s patience had limits.
In addition to the duke’s ongoing romantic catastrophe, there was now another matter requiring his attention.
“Dash.”
His friend lifted his gaze.
“Setting aside your… campaign for Mrs. Bloomington,” Gideon said mildly, “there is something else you ought to be aware of. Concerning your sister.”
Dash frowned faintly. “She seemed perfectly well when I left Beckman House this morning. Practicing her archery, I believe.”
“So you haven’t spoken with her today?”
“It has been a few days, actually.” Dash had the good grace to look slightly abashed. “Why? What has she done? And do not tell me it is nothing. With ma s?ur, it is never nothing.”
Gideon exhaled once. “Ta s?ur is attending balls, as I’m sure you know, but she’s not there for the dancing.”
Dash stilled.
“She watches. She waits. And when she thinks some young lady may be in danger, she intervenes.”
“Danger? What sort of danger? And what do you mean, she intervenes?”
And so, Gideon told him. Of the young girls being lured into dark corners, away from the watchful eyes of the rest of the attendees. And how Lady Beatrice had seemingly taken personal offense to this phenomenon, how she’d decided to disrupt it in whatever ways she deemed necessary.
“Most of the time, she is subtle, providing a harmless interruption at precisely the wrong moment—or the right moment, as it were. Most men likely never realize they have been redirected.”
“And this… tends to work?” Dash asked.
“Most of the time,” Gideon reiterated. Then his jaw tightened. “When it doesn’t, she promotes herself from inconvenience to barricade.”
Dash said nothing.
“She follows. Places herself between a lady and whatever danger she believes exists.” Gideon looked down into his tea.
There was more. The incident with Longstaffe. Precipitated, most likely, by those lessons.
Lessons provided by Gideon himself, damn it.
He ought to tell Dash all of it.
The rearranged ballroom. The mattresses. Beatrice in breeches, although… Hmm, perhaps not.
Certainly not about the thin linen shirt, or the absence of stays.
Good God.
Gideon exhaled slowly into his cup.
He had come here to speak of danger. Of recklessness. Of Dash’s sister placing herself in harm’s way while Dash made a romantic martyr of himself elsewhere.
He had come to tell his friend, in the plainest possible terms, to pull his head out of his… misery, and attend to Beatrice.
To suggest, perhaps, that Dash take it upon himself to continue his sister’s education.
Gideon had considered this to be a noble gesture.
Unfortunately, his memory chose that moment to supply the least noble part of the affair: Beatrice pinned beneath him on a mattress, her breath quick, her body warm, and his own response so immediate and inconvenient that he had nearly disgraced himself in the name of practical instruction.
His jaw tightened.
No.
That had no place here.
But before Gideon could force himself back to the matter of Lady Beatrice’s vigilantism and the less… ignoble aspects of their lessons, Dash set down his glass.
“There is something you should know about Beatrice,” he said. “In confidence.”
Gideon looked up. “Oh?”
“Beatrice made quite the splash when she came out,” Dash said.
“And she delighted in it.” His mouth twitched.
“If there were any redeeming qualities to society, Bea found them. She danced, laughed, made friends all too easily, and never waited for some gentleman to row her across a lake if she could take the oars herself.”
Dash looked into his glass and gave a short huff of laughter.
“Even before that, you remember what she was like. Always underfoot. Demanding to be included in any exploit she got wind of.”
Gideon said nothing. Just nodded.
“She was just as enthusiastic about joining in every ball, every dance.” Dash went on quietly. “For that short time she spent in society, my sister was the life of the party.”
“Where was I during all of this?” Gideon asked. “I’ve no memory of it.”
“It was around five years ago. You were… otherwise occupied,” Dash said gently.
Ah.
Six years ago, Gideon’s father had died and left the estates in chaos. Gideon had had no choice but to spend the months that followed buried in ledgers, untangling debts and mismanagement left behind.
Before that, he had been wandering the continent, behaving as recklessly as an aristocratic heir was expected to do.
Gideon had known Beatrice before, of course.
Summers at Dasborough Park. Muddy boots. Sharp eyes.
Newly arrived with her mother, she’d seemed incredibly French those first few years, until she… had not.
She’d followed Dash and his friends everywhere—across fields, along the beach—keeping just enough distance to pretend she had not followed at all.
They had called her a pest and Beatrice had accepted the title with magnificent disdain.
If caught, she never apologized. She merely looked at them from beneath dark lashes, chin lifted, as if the fault lay with them for noticing.
Gideon could not remember her having friends of her own in those days.
And yet, she’d seemed to prefer it that way.
Which made this version of Beatrice that Dash was describing seem all the more distant. Impossible, almost…
“But then,” Dash said, “the morning after some dreadful masked affair—she announced she was finished with Society.”
Gideon went still.
“What happened?”
Dash winced slightly.
“A broken heart seems the most likely explanation.” He shrugged. “So I let it go. I thought she would eventually recover, as most young ladies do from such disappointments.” He took another drink. “But she… didn’t.”
It must have been serious then, whatever relationship left her so disillusioned with society and romance in general. The thought evoked a sharp, inexplicable irritation. As though the man in question had committed a personal offense to Gideon.
The notion that some witless fool had hurt her—
“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.”