Chapter Twenty-Six
After dinner, it took Nicholas approximately two minutes before he excused himself from the men drinking port in the dining room to go in search of Bea in the drawing room.
He spotted her immediately.She’d drifted away from her mother and stood near a marble column, pretending to examine a painting.Nicholas approached quietly, his arms folded behind his back.
“Did you intend to start a riot?”she murmured without turning.
“No,” he said softly.“I intended to defend you.”
She turned to face him slowly.
Her eyes—sea-green, bright with unshed emotion—searched his.“Why?”
He could have given a dozen answers.A hundred.Political advantage.Point-scoring.Courtship strategy.
All lies.
So, he gave her the truth.
“Because you were right.”
Her breath hitched.
“And,” he added, voice lowering, “because Hargrave deserved his humiliation.”
A soft, startled laugh escaped her.It was barely more than a breath, but it undid him.
Nicholas stepped fractionally closer and touched her wrist.“You do not need anyone’s permission to think.”
“No,” she whispered, eyes dropping to his mouth before jerking back up, “but no one has ever said so aloud.”
“I am not ‘no one.’”
“I know,” she said.Too soft.
The air changed.
He felt it as surely as he felt the pulse beneath her skin.A pull.A shift.A surrender neither of them had meant to give.
Bea’s lips parted, as if she meant to say something more, something dangerous.
But her mother called from across the room.“Beatrix, dear, Lady Crawford wishes to speak with you.”
Bea blinked hard, as if waking from a spell.“Yes, of course.”She stepped back, the movement too quick, almost flustered.
Nicholas let her go.
Because he had to.Because if he reached for her, even briefly, even innocently, it would only complicate things.
An hour later,when the men rejoined the ladies in the drawing room, Winston wasted no time cornering Nicholas near the mantel.
“That display at dinner was ill-advised,” the duke said.He was not snarling, but he said it with the precise tone of a man accustomed to being obeyed.
Nicholas met his gaze steadily.“With respect, Your Grace, your daughter deserved better than to be dismissed.”
Winston’s expression did not change, but something tightened at the corners of his eyes.“A gentleman may disagree without staging a performance.”
The phrase landed with a familiar chill—his father’s rule dressed up in another man’s mouth: don’t perform, don’t feel, don’t give them you.Nicholas inclined his head, a gesture of courtesy, not concession.“If defending Lady Beatrix appeared theatrical, then I make no apology for the spectacle.”
