She Saved Him #3
“I wanted to speak with you,” she said. “Before I left London, I mean.” She focused on the wound rather than his face. “I thought about it. Several times. But I did not know what I could possibly say.”
“I know.” His voice was rough.
“Do you?”
“Yes.” He watched her hands. “I was being somewhat bullheaded.”
“Only somewhat?”
“Extraordinarily?”
“Yes,” she agreed.
A faint smile touched his mouth, then faded.
“It was easier before I knew,” he said. “Watching from a distance. Telling myself you knew what you were doing. Telling myself I could step in if matters went sideways.”
His gaze lifted to hers.
“But then you told me you’d been attacked.” Gideon swallowed hard. “That a man had hurt you.”
Beatrice’s hand stilled.
“That changed things,” he said softly. “Not because I thought you weak. Never that. But because suddenly some vague, distant threat became all too real.”
Her chest tightened.
“And I was afraid,” he added. “More afraid than I knew what to do with.”
The admission settled between them.
She looked up. “And now…?”
For a moment, Gideon did not answer.
“I thought if I could find him,” he said at last, “if I could put a name and face to him, and then make him pay, perhaps that would quiet some of it.”
“Your fear?”
His mouth tightened. “That and my… anger.”
Beatrice thought back to how it had felt to have Hatherleigh pinned to the ground, how she had wanted him to hurt in return for the hurt he had caused. If he had instead gotten away… she could see how that anger might linger, spinning helplessly, without direction.
“But you can’t find him. There isn’t enough information…”
“No.” He shook his head once. “A wolf’s mask. A scent. I have chased names in circles and the damn list just keeps growing.” His voice roughened. “So I’ve failed there.”
Something in her softened despite herself.
“At first,” she said carefully, “I wished him dead.”
Gideon went still.
“A thousand times a day, I think.” She opened the salve and dipped her finger into it. “I thought if I could summon his face, if I could make the memory complete, perhaps it would have less power.”
She swallowed.
“But I never could. Not clearly. I remember feelings more than features. The smell of him. My fear. The pain. The shame afterward… stupid. Stupid shame.”
Gideon’s hand flexed against his knee.
Beatrice set the salve aside for a moment and looked at him fully.
“As best as I can, I realized, I need to let it go.”
His expression shifted, stark and pained.
“But can you?” she asked softly.
“Let him go?”
“Let go of so much anger that it happened, let go of fearing it’ll happen again.”
For a heartbeat, Gideon said nothing.
Then he exhaled, long and uneven. “If you can, I sure as hell ought to be able to.”
“I… haven’t quite managed it yet. Not completely,” she admitted.
“No?”
“No.” Her mouth curved faintly, though there was little humor in it. “A little fear, a hint of anger, does not hurt. It reminds one to move. To pay attention. To act when acting is necessary.”
His gaze held hers.
“Yes,” he said quietly. “It does.”
For a long moment, they both sat in silence.
Then Gideon’s eyes dropped to the bloodied cloth in her hand.
“And tonight,” he said, as though only now arriving at the whole truth of it, “you acted.”
Beatrice’s fingers tightened around the linen.
His gaze returned to hers, filled with something deeper than pride. Deeper than astonishment.
“You saved me.”
“Anyone would have done the same.”
“No, Beatrice. Not just anyone would have. But you did. You saved me,” he said again, slower this time.
As though the words had rearranged something inside him.
“You,” he said, his voice rough with wonder. “Saved. Me.”
“You sound surprised.”
“I am surprised.” His brows shot up. “I have known for some time that you are capable of alarming feats. But I had made certain assumptions.”
“Had you?”
“A great many. A few of them… asinine.”
Despite herself, her mouth twitched.
“I assumed that if I kept a tight enough hold on every circumstance, I could prevent harm from finding you.”
“And now?”
“Now I have been shot and rescued by a beautiful woman in a silver fox mask wielding a bodkin.” His expression turned dry. “It has been an enlightening evening.”
She might have laughed if her throat had not felt so tight.
Gideon reached for the cloth, gently took it from her hand, and set it aside on the small table. Then he took both her hands in his.
His palms were warm.
Steady.
“I cannot control everything,” he said. The words seemed to cost him. “As much as I would like to.”
“I know.”
He looked down at her hands enclosed in his.
“I cannot control everything,” he said again. “I cannot command the world into being safe. I cannot keep danger from every garden, ballroom, corridor, or terrace. And I cannot keep hold of you so tightly that nothing ever touches you.”
His thumb brushed once over her knuckles.
“But most of all, I cannot let you out of my life.”
Beatrice stopped breathing.
He looked up then. “So there we are,” he said quietly. “I must learn to think differently, because the woman I love will not tolerate being managed, and I find I am quite unable to live without her.”
Hope rose so swiftly, so foolishly, that Beatrice nearly hated him for it.
The woman I love?
Not protect. Love.
“Marry me, will you, Beatrice?”
Marry him?
The thought was so bright, so terrifying, that she could hardly look at it directly.
Because giving herself to Gideon—truly giving herself, not merely her mouth or her hands or those reckless hidden parts of herself that ached, even now, for the heat of his touch, but…
If he decided, once she was his, that loving her gave him the right to manage her…
She could not survive that.
“I want to,” she said.
His hand tightened slightly around hers.
She lifted her chin, forcing herself to speak plainly. “How can I be certain, Gideon? How can I know you will always allow me to make my own choices? To decide what risks are mine to take?”
His mouth opened—
“No. Do not answer quickly. I know who you are. You are a baron. A gentleman. A man accustomed to command and obedience and every privilege society can heap upon you.” Her voice softened despite herself.
“You will always be a little overbearing,” she added, with a sad attempt at a smile. “I suspect it is sewn into the coats.”
His brow lifted faintly. “The coats?”
“And the cravats. Possibly the boots.”
That almost coaxed a smile from him.
Almost.
But then he sobered.
“I cannot promise never to be afraid for you,” he said.
“I do not ask that.”
“I cannot promise never to want to interfere.”
“I do not ask that, either.”
His thumb brushed over her knuckles. “Then what are you asking?”
Beatrice swallowed.
“For you to trust that I am not helpless.” Her voice nearly failed, but she forced it onward. “For you to stand beside me without deciding my choices for me. For you to remember that if I give you my hand, I do not cease belonging to myself.”
Gideon went very still.
Then, slowly, he lifted her hand and pressed his mouth to her fingers.
“You will never cease belonging to yourself,” he said.
Her heart cracked open a little more.
“You will belong to yourself,” he said. “Always.”
Her throat tightened.
“But your heart…” His thumb moved once over the back of her hand. “Might that belong to me?”
There was no teasing in his eyes now. “As mine belongs to you?”
Oh.
Oh dear.
It was not a demand. It was an… offering. A fair and even trade.
Her hand trembled in his.
“Yes,” she whispered.
Gideon’s expression changed. “Yes?”
“You are already in possession of it.” Had he been holding it all along? Her voice shook, but she did not look away. “I love you, Gideon.”
His mouth parted as he released a slow breath, equal parts relief and joy.
“And yes,” she added, before her courage deserted her entirely. “I will marry you.”
For a moment, he simply stared at her. Then a smile broke across his face—slow, stunned, and so beautiful that it nearly undid her.
“Beatrice,” he said.
Only her name.
He reached up, cradling her cheek in his palm, his thumb brushing the corner of her mouth.
“I love you,” he said.
“I should hope so. You’ve made a very grand speech on the matter.”
His smile deepened. “And still managed to understate it.”
Oh.
That was unfair.
She had no defense against that.
So she did the only sensible thing and kissed him.
Or perhaps he kissed her.
It hardly mattered.