She Saved Him
Staring up at Gideon, Beatrice felt triumphant.
For all of three seconds. Perhaps four.
Then something dark struck the ground between them.
Blood.
Her gaze snapped upward.
Gideon had one hand clamped over his upper arm, just above the elbow. Against the black of his evening coat, the wound might have gone unnoticed.
Except blood seeped steadily between his fingers.
Her stomach dropped.
“You’re hurt!”
“Just a scratch,” Gideon said.
Just a scratch?
Beatrice felt a sudden, alarming desire to break Hatherleigh’s arm outright.
She tightened her grip and pulled his wrist a little higher, although not high enough to cause damage. Not permanent damage, anyway. Hatherleigh made a strangled sound against the paving stones.
She leaned forward. “You shot him,” she ground out between clenched teeth.
“I was aiming to kill him,” Hatherleigh wheezed.
Beatrice wrenched his arm higher still.
“Beatrice,” Gideon said.
There was something in his voice that stilled her. She would have expected him to scold her, to suggest caution, or possibly even to be angry with her for employing such violent measures.
But no. He was looking at her with pride.
Pride, and affection, and something so warm it made her chest feel strangely unsteady.
Oh.
She liked that look.
Rather a lot.
Gideon crouched down beside her. And keeping one hand on his wound, he lifted the other toward her face. Hesitated. Then pushed the silver fox mask up to reveal her eyes.
His fingers brushed her temple.
For one impossible moment, Beatrice thought he might kiss her.
Which was absurd, because she was presently kneeling upon a would-be murderer.
Still.
Who was she to complain if he did?
“I would deal with our old friend Lord Hatherleigh,” Gideon said, his voice low, “but it seems you have him well enough in hand.”
Her mouth twitched despite everything.
But before she could answer, footsteps sounded from the path right before two large, masked figures appeared at the edge of the folly.
Beatrice tensed.
“What the devil? Hawk? Was that a gunshot?”
The taller of the two removed his dark mask, revealing Lord Longstaffe’s grim, military calm. Beside him, the other man shoved his mask up as well. The Earl of Blackwell’s expression sharpened as his gaze moved from Gideon’s bleeding arm to Hatherleigh pinned beneath Beatrice’s knee.
“Well,” he said. “We appear to have missed all the fun.”
“It seems Groby doesn’t appreciate my looking into his affairs,” Gideon said. “Sent Hatherleigh as his messenger. But luckily, Lady Beatrice disarmed him.”
Blackwell’s brows lifted.
Longstaffe looked at Beatrice. “Well done, my lady.”
Hatherleigh attempted to shift beneath her.
Beatrice pulled his arm another inch higher.
He stopped shifting.
Longstaffe stepped forward. “What would you have us do with your prisoner, Lady Beatrice?”
Her prisoner… For one rather ruthless moment, Beatrice seriously considered asking them to attach a stone to his person and throw him into the nearest river.
But her hands were beginning to ache. And as much as she’d like to take revenge on this one man for all the pain she’d suffered… somehow, she knew it wasn’t the answer.
“Take him to the nearest magistrate,” she said. “Seeing as he attempted to murder a member of the aristocracy, I believe a noose might be in his future.” If justice was served. Something she’d have to put her trust in.
Blackwell nodded. “Generous of you.”
Longstaffe bent and took Hatherleigh by the collar while Blackwell secured the man’s other arm. Beatrice scrambled off him, smoothing her skirts with as much dignity as one could manage after wrestling a masked villain to the ground.
Then she remembered.
“My bodkin.”
All three men paused.
Beatrice moved around Hatherleigh and found it at once, lodged in the side of his grotesque boar mask, perilously close to one painted eye.
A flash of memory struck her—the terror of stepping onto the path and seeing a pistol pointed at Gideon. Hatherleigh’s finger tightening. Gideon moving forward instead of away. The awful certainty that she would not reach him in time.
It hadn’t been a conscious decision, really. Only muscle memory and instinct. The blade had left her fingers with little more than a whisper of sound, flipping end over end through the air until it met her target, though not exactly where she’d intended.
His own fault, really, for turning his head when she did.
As she tugged the jeweled bodkin free, a strip of leather came with it. Hatherleigh hissed.
“You caught my eye, you wretched harpy!”
There was a bit of blood on the tip. With a grimace, she wiped it off on the leather which she then chucked on the ground.
“You shot Lord Hawkins,” she said. “I’d say you deserve far worse than a scratch.”
Blackwell gave a short laugh.
Longstaffe hauled Hatherleigh upright with very little gentleness. “Come along.”
Hatherleigh spat something foul beneath his breath, but between the two men, he was dragged from the folly with no ceremony whatsoever.
Then they were gone.
And when Beatrice turned back to Gideon, he was somehow still looking at her as though she was… magnificent.
“Stop that,” she said, though her voice was not as steady as she wished.
One corner of his mouth lifted. “Stop what?”
“Looking so very pleased. You have been shot.”
“Grazed.”
“And then you moved toward him. Before I had him pinned.”
“To keep him from shooting you.”
“Foolish man. I was not the one he was shooting at.”
“No,” Gideon said softly. “But you were there.”
And there it was.
The truth of this man.
Or perhaps, for the first time, Beatrice understood it.
Because there he stood—the same maddening man who had spent the Season inserting himself between danger and everyone else. Between young ladies and dark terraces. Between foolish girls and predatory gentlemen. Between Beatrice and any threat he could see coming.
She had called it overbearing.
And it was.
But when she had stepped onto that path and saw a pistol aimed at Gideon’s chest—
Oh. That kind of fear had been absolute.
Not polite concern. Not feminine alarm. Not even anger.
She’d experienced a savage, unthinking need to stop it. To put herself between him and harm. To throw whatever she held, use whatever she knew, become whatever was required if only he might remain breathing.
Her chest tightened.
So that was what it felt like.
Not merely to want to protect someone but to be unable to bear not protecting them.
The realization shook her almost as much as the sight of Hatherleigh’s pistol had.
Because she understood Gideon now.
Not completely. Not so much that she’d ever surrender to anyone’s keeping.
But enough.
She stepped closer and reached for his injured arm. “Let me see.”
“Beatrice—”
“No.” She lifted her chin. “You’ve had your turn being overbearing. Now, I’ll have mine.”
He huffed a laugh, self-deprecating. “I see. Well. Can’t argue with that, can I?”
“No, you can’t. Not if you know what’s good for you, anyway.
” But a quick glance at his red-soaked sleeve jerked her out of their usual teasing.
“I need to send for a physician,” she said, reaching for his coat.
“I believe Dr. Marlow is in attendance, though with all these dratted masks, it’ll probably take longer to find him than if he had stayed back in London. ”
“It is your brother’s wedding ball,” Gideon said. “Let’s not make a fuss.”
“You have been shot.”
“Grazed.”
Well, Beatrice would see about that for herself. She tugged at his coat.
He hissed, and Beatrice froze immediately.
“Oh.” Her throat tightened at once. “I’m sorry. I—Gideon.” And then, with exasperation and worry, she reminded him, “You have been shot.”
His expression turned from pained to amused, which she supposed was a good thing, all told.
“I noticed.”
“Do not be charming.”
“I am grievously wounded. Any resulting charm is entirely beyond my control.”
She exhaled, blowing some of her hair out of her eyes.
This time, he smiled properly.
With far greater care, Beatrice eased the coat down his arm and away from his shoulder. His sleeve beneath was torn just above the elbow, the fine white linen dark with blood. Her stomach lurched at the sight, but she forced herself to look closely.
It was indeed a graze.
A bloody, ugly graze, but the bullet did not appear to be lodged in his flesh.
Thank God.
“We need to clean this.” She took his uninjured hand. “Come with me.”
“Where?”
“Just come.”
She led him from the folly, around the side of the house, keeping hold of his hand as though she might lend him strength by sheer force of will. Which was absurd, of course. Gideon was walking steadily enough.
Still, she did not let go.
She watched him from the corner of her eye as they moved through the shadows—his color, his breathing, the set of his mouth. Looking for any sign he was hurt worse than he would admit.
“Almost there,” she murmured.
“I am not expiring.”
“I’ll be the judge of that.”
They entered through a side door and slipped up the servants’ stairs, avoiding the main hall and the flow of guests moving toward supper. At the top, Beatrice paused only long enough to be certain no one saw them, then hurried him down the corridor and into her bedchamber.
Gideon stopped just inside the door.
“I shouldn’t be in here, Beatrice.”
“Sit.”
He stared at her. And she knew exactly what he was thinking. About propriety. About Dash.
She pointed to the chair near the washstand. “Sit, my dear Lord Hawkins, or I shall wrestle you into submission. Don’t test me on this.”
After a beat, he sat.
Which was possibly the first sensible thing he’d done today.
Just as Beatrice poured water into the basin with hands that were almost steady, a maid burst into the room. Her eyes widened when she realized it was not unoccupied. They widened even further when she saw Gideon.
She turned a little white when her gaze landed on the blood.
“So sorry, my lady! I didn’t expect—what with the celebration and all.”