Done with Society
Gideon waited for her answer with the stillness of a man who had learned better than to press.
Beatrice opened her mouth.
Then stopped.
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.
Why her?
Gideon leaned back a fraction, studying her more closely.
“It was the end of your last Season, then.” Gideon kept his tone even. “That this determination of yours began?”
Beatrice did not meet his eyes.
She shifted, teeth coming down on her bottom lip in that familiar nervous habit. Her hand, which had been resting lightly upon her knee, now clenched into a fist, nails biting into the fabric of her skirt.
Before he could think better of it, Gideon reached out and closed his hand over hers.
She stilled beneath his touch—but did not pull away.
“Yes…” she said at last. “In part. I told you Lark and I wrote to one another often. She told me about Lady Hannah—her charge. How unwell she was. How much she relied upon Lark. More than most ladies would rely upon a companion.”
Her voice remained composed, but by now her fingers had tightened around his.
He was almost certain she did not realize it.
“Lady Hannah was vulnerable,” she said. “And her father… he cared for appearances more than affection. For obedience more than happiness. Her illness displeased him, not because she suffered, but because it… it made her inconvenient.”
Beatrice’s mouth tightened.
“So he avoided her. Left her mostly to herself. Lark said Lady Hannah had grown used to that. Her circumstances were unhappy, but not dire.”
Beatrice shook her head faintly.
“Until he promised her to that man. None of us could make sense of it. Groby had no title, no fortune anyone spoke of, no position that ought to have made such a match advantageous.”
Her voice lowered.
“Lark had crossed paths with him in that last Season in London and would say very little of it, which told me enough. And Lady Hannah, on the few occasions she was made to endure his company, was terrified of him.”
Not uneasy.
Terrified.
“Dudley Groby.” Her lips curled faintly around the name, as though even saying it required effort. “You have heard what people say of him, I’m sure.”
Gideon nodded.
He had.
Unfortunately, Gideon knew Groby all too well. Knew enough of Lady Hannah’s brief betrothal to understand Beatrice’s disgust.
Hell, he had witnessed the wedding that followed, when Dash married Hannah himself.
Not for love. For rescue.
Hannah had once been promised to Sebastian Hartwell, heir to Lovington. But after Harrowgate, with Sebastian gone, Groby—Sebastian’s bastard half-brother—had crept close enough to be dangerous.
“I understood what such a match would mean,” she continued quietly. “For any lady, let alone one as unprotected as Hannah. And when I brought her situation to Dash’s attention, when he was able to step in…”
Her grip tightened again.
Then eased.
“That was when I realized what could be done.”
Gideon stilled. Not, then, when she had withdrawn from society.
“When a woman is in danger,” Beatrice said, “another woman might see it first. Might understand it sooner. Might know how to raise an alarm before matters become irreparable.”
Her gaze dropped to their joined hands.
“After that, I could not help wondering how many other women were waiting for someone to notice.”
Gideon said nothing.
It made perfect sense. All of it.
And yet, he couldn't help but think there was something else. A missing piece.
His thumb moved once over her knuckles before he could stop himself.
“I do not think that is the whole of it.” He spoke softly.
The pulse at her throat flickered. She drew in a breath. Let it out again.
A small lift of one shoulder followed.
“I imagine we all come to understand, eventually,” she said lightly, “that the world is not as kind as we were raised to believe.”
In that moment, something cold settled in Gideon’s chest.
Not directed at her.
At the thought of something darker. At the mere possibility that—
He had not been there. But he knew what men were capable of.
He had heard the remarks made in card rooms after too much brandy. The little laughs over a lady’s innocence. The crude wagers dressed up as sport. The way some gentlemen spoke of women as though a gown, a dowry, a blush, a moment alone, were all invitations waiting to be claimed.
He disliked it.
Of course he did.
Any decent man would.
But disliking a thing was not the same as standing against it.
And they all knew, didn’t they?
Every brother. Every father.
They knew.
Gideon’s mouth hardened.
Beatrice had not invented danger where none existed. She had seen what men like him had been taught to look past.
She was right.
He could not look away now, not from her.
“When would you like these lessons to commence?” he asked.