Stepping Up
Across town, later that same evening, Gideon sat in one of the quieter rooms at White’s, cradling a cup of hot tea, doing his best to compartmentalize what he’d learned earlier.
Across from him, Blackwell lounged with one ankle crossed over his knee, looking deceptively idle. Longstaffe stood near the hearth, arms folded.
Neither of them had asked why Gideon needed to know who had hosted masquerade balls five years earlier, or why he required the names of every gentleman who had attended them.
Nor had they asked about the injuries to his face.
They noticed, of course.
Blackwell’s gaze had flicked once to the cut near Gideon’s jaw, then to the shadow darkening beneath his eye. Longstaffe had looked longer, flattened his mouth and then thrown back a swallow of his whisky.
But neither man said a word.
Gideon had seen the questions plainly enough. He simply did not answer them.
Insofar as it was possible, he would protect Beatrice’s privacy. Her fear. Her confession. The wild, terrible moments in that darkened passage beneath the theater.
No one need know.
Only that morning, Beatrice had come to him with those sleepless blue eyes and restless thoughts. And what had he done?
He’d invited her inside, and gone on to break every rule he’d ever set for himself. And somehow… he suffered zero regret for having broken them.
Not as he ought.
He could still see her in his drawing room. Her hands gripping his shoulders. The stunned, almost disbelieving look that crossed her face when pleasure took her…
Gideon, God help him, had been glad to be used that way.
The thought should have sat badly with him. It didn’t.
And then later, in the passages beneath the theater, he had learned something about Beatrice Beckman that made everything else seem almost simple.
He had learned of the nightmare she carried. What she had endured.
The truth beneath her crusade.
Even now, Gideon burned inside at the thought of it.
Someone had taken from her what no man had any right to take. Had left fear under her skin. Had made weapons and fighting feel safer than trust.
And yet, for all that, Beatrice trusted him.
That morning, with her wanting. That evening, with her fear.
And that… that changed everything.
For nearly half the Season now, Gideon had considered protecting Beatrice to be something of a duty. As a friend to Dash, but also in a more general sense.
And he’d protected her, but he’d done so… passively.
No longer.
He would keep her safe. More than safe.
Gideon set his cup on the table and that small sound returned him fully to the room.
Blackwell and Longstaffe both looked at him.
“I am looking for a particular guest. A man,” Gideon said at last.
Blackwell’s gaze sharpened. “Go on.”
“He attended a masquerade five years ago. I need the guest lists from every event of that kind held during the Season. Private balls, subscription assemblies, routs—anything where masks were worn and names were recorded.”
Longstaffe leaned back slightly. “You must have more.”
Gideon’s hand remained on the arm of his chair.
“He wore the mask of a wolf.”
Blackwell tutted, shaking his head. “You’ll have to give us more than that.”
“Grey velvet. Black glass covering the eyes. There might be a particular scent about him,” Gideon said. The detail might be reaching, but he would not discount the memory. “A cologne. Cloves and orange peel. Strong. As though it meant to hide something fouler beneath it.”
Longstaffe gave him a look. “Hell, Hawk. That describes half the men in London. Particularly the older ones.”
“He was not old.”
Blackwell’s gaze narrowed. “A young man, then. Or young enough. Attended a masquerade five years ago in a wolf mask and favored an aggressive scent.”
Put like that, it sounded incredibly weak.
Longstaffe pushed away from the mantel. “Do you know anything else about him?”
Gideon’s jaw tightened.
He would have liked more. Height. Voice. Accent. Hell, anything. But he didn’t have it. And pressing Beatrice on that memory again was not an option. Not yet. Perhaps never.
“That’s all I have at present.”
Blackwell stared at Gideon and then narrowed his eyes. “And yet you want every guest list from every masquerade that Season.”
“Yes.”
“For a man in a wolf mask who smelled of cloves and oranges.”
“Yes.”
A pause.
Blackwell did not ask why. Not in words.
Gideon met his stare and gave him nothing.
At last, Blackwell leaned back. “Then we narrow it. Guest lists first. Men of the right age, known to have worn the mask of a wolf. Men who wore too much scent. Men whose reputations might just make the detail worth pursuing.”
Longstaffe’s mouth flattened. “Very well, then.”
Blackwell was silent for a moment, plainly weighing the near impossibility of the request.
Then his attention moved, deliberate and exact, to the other matter.
“Have you made any progress in your investigation?”
Gideon looked at him.
“Groby,” Blackwell said. “You watched him for the better part of a week. What did you learn?”
“That he spends money like a man who is expecting to come into a great deal more of it,” Gideon said. “Gaming rooms. Taverns. Tailors. Jewelers. Always spending. Often losing. Never especially troubled by it.”
Longstaffe’s mouth flattened. “So he is confident.”
“Very.”
Blackwell studied him. “Anything else?”
Gideon thought of the letter he’d opened after Beatrice left.
It had been from Daniels, who’d traced two of Groby’s associates to Kingston upon Thames. Two witnesses claimed Groby had been with them on the week before. But that was impossible.
Because Groby had been in London.
It had to have been a mistake.
“Nothing else,” Gideon said, dismissing it.
A mistake was the only sensible explanation.
Longstaffe stirred and crossed to the sideboard. He refilled his glass, then turned back looking more troubled than thirsty.
“There is one more thing,” he said. “Concerning Lady Beatrice and her society.”
Gideon’s attention sharpened. “What?”
“They meant to keep it secret,” Longstaffe said. “But I’m afraid it is not as secret as they believe.”
Gideon had considered that risk. A servant might overhear. One of the ladies might speak too freely. Still, he had decided a handful of women trained together was safer than leaving Beatrice alone in it.
“I suppose it was inevitable.”
“Inevitable,” Longstaffe said. “But concerning.”
He looked down into his glass but his expression sent a sharper unease through Gideon.
“Tell me.”
“Hobbes heard a delivery lad speaking with the cook.” Longstaffe’s mouth tightened. “A handful of gentlemen have been discussing ‘interfering women’.”
Hobbes had served Longstaffe as his batman through the war and as his valet ever since. He was not a man who mistook idle gossip for useful information, nor one who repeated it lightly.
“How so?” Blackwell asked.
“Ladies conspiring against men. Meddling in matters beyond them.” Longstaffe looked into his glass. “The Vigilance Society was named.”
“Names?” Gideon said.
“Hobbes didn’t catch any. Only fragments.” Longstaffe took a slow drink. “But one called it an abomination. Another said one of the ladies ought to be taught a lesson.”
Blackwell went still. “Lady Beatrice.”
“Probably.”
Gideon set his cup down before he broke it. “What kind of lesson?”
Longstaffe shook his head. “That, Hobbes did not hear.”
Blackwell leaned back, his gaze hard. “We’ll have to assume the threat is real until proven otherwise.”
“It is talk,” Longstaffe said. “For now.”
“Talk is where men rehearse their intentions,” Gideon said.
Neither man contradicted him.
Why the devil hadn’t Gideon predicted this obvious consequence?
Had he been so intent on watching Beatrice—admiring her nerve, arguing with her, wanting her, inserting himself into the sharp, glittering orbit of her life—that he had failed to see the danger gathering around her?
God help him.
He had thought himself vigilant.
Even now, he had been so focused on the danger behind her—the bastard from five years ago—that he’d failed to properly account for the danger that was here and now.
Longstaffe’s gaze did not waver. “Dasborough needs to know.”
“He knows enough,” Gideon said.
Both men looked at him.
“He knows about her activities at the balls. Not the society, though.” Gideon’s jaw tightened. “Nor that a few disgruntled men have begun talking.”
“And he should,” Longstaffe said.
Perhaps.
But matters concerning Beatrice had become… complicated. Dash was already half undone over Miss Bloomington, and Gideon had promised Beatrice he’d not hand anything over that her brother couldn’t handle.
Not yet.
Once Dash had settled his matters of the heart, perhaps the old order of things could be restored.
For now—
“Until Dasborough has settled his affairs.” Gideon reached for his cup. “He is too unpredictable to be useful. No insult intended. Merely fact.”
Blackwell gave a faint huff. “I agree, he isn’t thinking clearly right now.”
“Precisely.” Gideon’s gaze moved between them. “And for now, Lady Beatrice and her society need protection, not spectacle. She can never to be alone at an event. Not obviously guarded. But never alone.”
“The other ladies as well,” Longstaffe said.
“Yes, but we all know Lady Beatrice is the target,” Gideon said.
“Yes.” Longstaffe sighed.
Blackwell nodded.
“This is going to require subtlety.” Longstaffe had, apparently, come to know Beatrice rather well that Season. “Keeping her safe while she insists on putting herself in danger.”
There it was. The greatest difficulty.
It was Blackwell who suggested the best course of action.
“For the next week, any event Lady Beatrice attends, we attend. No terrace unguarded. No dark corridor ignored. No gentleman with a grievance allowed near her without one of us close enough to intervene.”
Longstaffe’s mouth curved without humor. “So we are to play sentry.”
“We are to make certain every man in London understands that Lady Beatrice Beckman is not alone.” It was about damn time.
Longstaffe studied him for a moment. “And does Lady Beatrice know she is not alone?”
Gideon’s jaw tightened. “She will.”