It's In His Kiss

Chapter 8

The next morning. Our heroine is sitting on her bed, perched against her pillows. The Italian diary is at her side, but she has not picked it up.

She has relived the kiss in her mind approximately forty-two times.

In fact, she is reliving it right now:

Hyacinth would have liked to think that she would be the sort of woman who could kiss with aplomb, then carry on for the rest of the evening as if nothing had happened. She’d have liked to think when the time came to treat a gentleman with well-deserved disdain, that butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, her eyes would be perfect chips of ice, and she would manage a cut direct with style and flair.

And in her imagination, she did all of that and more.

Reality, however, had not been so sweet.

Because when Gareth had said her name and tried to tug her back to him for another kiss, the only thing she could think to do was run.

Which was not, she had assured herself, for what had to be the forty-third time since his lips had touched hers, in keeping with her character.

It couldn’t be. She couldn’t let it be. She was Hyacinth Bridgerton.

Hyacinth.

Bridgerton.

Surely that had to mean something. One kiss could not turn her into a senseless ninny.

And besides, it wasn’t the kiss. The kiss hadn’t bothered her. The kiss had, in fact, been rather nice. And, to be honest, long overdue.

One would think, in her world, among her society, that she would have taken pride in her untouched, never-been-kissed status. After all, the mere hint of impropriety was enough to ruin a woman’s reputation.

But one did not reach the age of two-and-twenty, or one’s fourth London season, without feeling the littlest bit rejected that no one had thus far attempted a kiss.

And no one had. Hyacinth wasn’t asking to be ravished, for heaven’s sake, but no one had even leaned in, or dropped a heavy gaze to her lips, as if he was thinking about it.

Not until last night. Not until Gareth St. Clair.

Her first instinct had been to jump with surprise. For all Gareth’s rakish ways, he hadn’t shown any interest in extending his reputation as a rogue in her direction. The man had an opera singer tucked away in Bloomsbury, after all. What on earth would he need with her?

But then…

Well, good heavens, she still didn’t know how it had all come about. One moment she was asking him if he was unwell-he’d looked very odd, after all, and it was obvious he’d had some sort of altercation with his father, despite her efforts to separate the two-and then the next he was staring at her with an intensity that had made her shiver. He’d looked possessed, consumed.

He’d looked as if he wanted to consume her.

And yet Hyacinth couldn’t shake the feeling that he hadn’t really meant to kiss her. That maybe any woman happening across him in the hall would have done just as well.

Especially after he’d laughingly told her that she needed improvement.

She didn’t think he had meant to be cruel, but still, his words had stung.

“Kiss me back,” she said to herself, her voice a whiny mimic of his. “Kiss me back.”

She flopped back against her pillows. “I did.” Good heavens, what did it say about her if a man couldn’t even tell when she was trying to kiss him back?

And even if she hadn’t been doing such a good job of it-and Hyacinth wasn’t quite ready to admit to that-it seemed the sort of thing that ought to come naturally, and certainly the sort of thing that ought to have come naturally to her. Well, still, what on earth was she expected to do? Wield her tongue like a sword? She’d put her hands on his shoulders. She hadn’t struggled in his arms. What else was she supposed to have done to indicate that she was enjoying herself?

It seemed a wretchedly unfair conundrum to her. Men wanted their women chaste and untouched, then they mocked them for their lack of experience.

It was just…it was just…

Hyacinth chewed on her lip, horrified by how close to tears she was.

It was just that she’d thought her first kiss would be magical. And she’d thought that the gentleman in question would emerge from the encounter if not impressed then at least a little bit pleased by her performance.

But Gareth St. Clair had been his usual mocking self, and Hyacinth hated that she’d allowed him to make her feel small.

“It’s just a kiss,” she whispered, her words floating through the empty room. “Just a kiss. It doesn’t mean a thing.”

But she knew, even as she tried so hard to lie to herself about it, that it had been more than a kiss.

Much, much more.

At least that was how it had been for her. She closed her eyes in agony. Dear God, while she’d been lying on her bed thinking and thinking, then rethinking and thinking again, he was probably sleeping like a baby. The man had kissed-

Well, she didn’t care to speculate on how many women he had kissed, but it certainly had to have been enough to make her seem the greenest girl in London.

How was she going to face him? And she was going to have to face him. She was translating his grandmother’s diary, for heaven’s sake. If she tried to avoid him, it would seem so obvious.

And the last thing she wanted to do was allow him to see how upset he had made her. There were quite a few things in life a woman needed a great deal more than pride, but Hyacinth figured that as long as dignity was still an option, she might as well hang on to it.

And in the meantime…

She picked up his grandmother’s diary. She hadn’t done any work on it for a full day. She was only twenty-two pages in; there were at least a hundred more to go.

She looked down at the book, lying unopened on her lap. She supposed she could send it back. In fact, she probably should send it back. It would serve him right to be forced to find another translator after his behavior the night before.

But she was enjoying the diary. Life didn’t toss very many challenges in the direction of well-bred young ladies. Frankly, it would be nice to be able to say she had translated an entire book from the Italian. And it would probably be nice to actually do it, too.

Hyacinth fingered the small bookmark she’d used to hold her place and opened the book. Isabella had just arrived in England in the middle of the season, and after a mere week in the country, her new husband had dragged her off to London, where she was expected-without the benefit of fluent English-to socialize and entertain as befitted her station.

To make matters worse, Lord St. Clair’s mother was in residence at Clair House and was clearly unhappy about having to give up her position as lady of the house.

Hyacinth frowned as she read on, stopping every now and then to look up an unfamiliar word. The dowager baroness was interfering with the servants, countermanding Isabella’s orders and making it uncomfortable for those who accepted the new baroness as the woman in charge.

It certainly didn’t make marriage look terribly appealing. Hyacinth made a mental note to try to marry a man without a mother.

“Chin up, Isabella,” she muttered, wincing as she read about the latest altercation-something about an addition of mussels to the menu, despite the fact that shellfish made Isabella develop hives.

“You need to make it clear who’s in charge,” Hyacinth said to the book. “You-”

She frowned, looking down at the latest entry. This didn’t make sense. Why was Isabella talking about her bambino?

Hyacinth read the words three times before thinking to glance back up at the date at top. 24 Ottobre, 1766.

1766? Wait a minute…

She flipped back one page.

1764 .

Isabella had skipped two years. Why would she do that?

Hyacinth looked quickly through the next twenty or so pages. 1766…1769…1769…1770…1774…

“You’re not a very dedicated diarist,” Hyacinth murmured. No wonder Isabella had managed to fit decades into one slim volume; she frequently went years between entries.

Hyacinth turned back to the passage about the bambino, continuing her laborious translation. Isabella was back in London, this time without her husband, which didn’t seem to bother her one bit. And she seemed to have gained a bit of self-confidence, although that might have been merely the result of the death of the dowager, which Hyacinth surmised had happened a year earlier.

I found the perfect spot, Hyacinth translated, jotting the words down on paper. He will never… She frowned. She didn’t know the rest of the sentence, so she put some dashes down on her paper to indicate an untranslated phrase and moved on. He does not think I am intelligent enough, she read. And so he won’t suspect…

“Oh, my goodness,” Hyacinth said, sitting up straight. She flipped the page of the diary, reading it as quickly as she could, her attempts at a written translation all but forgotten.

“Isabella,” she said with admiration. “You sly fox.”

An hour or so later, an instant before Gareth knocks on Hyacinth’s door.

Gareth sucked in a deep breath, summoning the courage to wrap his fingers around the heavy brass knocker that sat on the front door of Number Five, Bruton Street, the elegant little house Hyacinth’s mother had purchased after her eldest son had married and taken over Bridgerton House.

Then he tried not to feel completely disgusted with himself for feeling he needed the courage in the first place. And it wasn’t really courage he needed. For God’s sake, he wasn’t afraid. It was…well, no, it wasn’t quite dread. It was-

He groaned. In every life, there were moments a person would do just about anything to put off. And if it meant he was less of a man because he really didn’t feel like dealing with Hyacinth Bridgerton…well, he was perfectly willing to call himself a juvenile fool.

Frankly, he didn’t know anyone who’d want to deal with Hyacinth Bridgerton at a moment like this.

He rolled his eyes, thoroughly impatient with himself. This shouldn’t be difficult. He shouldn’t feel strained. Hell, it wasn’t as if he had never kissed a female before and had to face her the next day.

Except…

Except he’d never kissed a female like Hyacinth, one who A) hadn’t been kissed before and B) had every reason to expect that a kiss might mean something more.

Not to mention C) was Hyacinth.

Because one really couldn’t discount the magnitude of that. If there was one thing he had learned in this past week, it was that Hyacinth was quite unlike any other woman he’d ever known.

At any rate, he’d sat at home all morning, waiting for the package that would surely arrive, escorted by a liveried footman, returning his grandmother’s diary. Hyacinth couldn’t possibly wish to translate it now, not after he had insulted her so grievously the night before.

Not, he thought, only a little bit defensively, that he’d meant to insult her. In truth, he hadn’t meant anything one way or another. He certainly hadn’t meant to kiss her. The thought hadn’t even occurred to him, and in fact he rather thought it wouldn’t have occurred to him except that he had been so off-balance, and then she’d somehow been there, right in the hallway, almost as if summoned by magic.

Right after his father had taunted him about her.

What the hell else was he expected to do?

And it hadn’t meant anything. It was enjoyable-certainly more enjoyable than he would have imagined, but it hadn’t meant a thing.

But women tended to view these things badly, and her expression when she broke it off had not been terribly inviting.

If anything, she had looked horrified.

Which had made him feel a fool. He’d never disgusted a woman with his kiss before.

And it had all been magnified later that night, when he’d overheard someone asking her about him, and she had brushed it off with a laugh, saying that she couldn’t possibly have refused to dance with him; she was far too good friends with his grandmother.

Which was true, and he certainly understood that she was attempting to save face, even if she hadn’t known that he could hear, but all the same, it was too close an echo of his father’s words for him not to feel it.

He let out a sigh. There was no putting it off any longer. He lifted his hand, intending to grasp the knocker-

And then quite nearly lost his balance when the door flew open.

“For heaven’s sake,” Hyacinth said, looking at him through impatient eyes, “were you ever going to knock?”

“Were you watching for me?”

“Of course I was. My bedroom is right above. I can see everyone.”

Why, he wondered, did this not surprise him?

“And I did send you a note,” she added. She stood aside, motioning for him to come in. “Recent behavior notwithstanding,” she continued, “you do seem to possess manners enough not to refuse a direct written request from a lady.”

“Er…yes,” he said. It was all he could seem to think of, faced as he was by the whirlwind of energy and activity standing across from him.

Why wasn’t she angry with him? Wasn’t she supposed to be angry?

“We need to talk,” Hyacinth said.

“Of course,” he murmured. “I must apologize-”

“Not about that,” she said dismissively, “although…” She looked up, her expression somewhere between thoughtful and peeved. “You certainly should apologize.”

“Yes, of course, I-”

“But that’s not why I summoned you,” she cut in.

If it had been polite, he would have crossed his arms. “Do you wish for me to apologize or not?”

Hyacinth glanced up and down the hall, placing one finger to her lips with a soft, “Shhh.”

“Have I suddenly been transported into a volume of Miss Butterworth and the Mad Baron?” Gareth wondered aloud.

Hyacinth scowled at him, a look that he was coming to realize was quintessentially her. It was a frown, yes, but with a hint-no, make that three hints-of impatience. It was the look of a woman who had spent her life waiting for people to keep up with her.

“In here,” she said, motioning toward an open doorway.

“As you wish, my lady,” he murmured. Far be it for him to complain about not having to apologize.

He followed her into what turned out to be a drawing room, tastefully decorated in shades of rose and cream. It was very delicate and very feminine, and Gareth half wondered if it had been designed for the sole purpose of making men feel overlarge and ill at ease.

Hyacinth waved him over to a sitting area, so he went, watching her curiously as she carefully maneuvered the door until it was shut most of the way. Gareth eyed the four-inch opening with amusement. Funny how such a small space could mean the difference between propriety and disaster.

“I don’t want to be overheard,” Hyacinth said.

Gareth just lifted his brows in question, waiting for her to seat herself on the sofa. When he was satisfied that she wasn’t going to jump up and check behind the drapes for an eavesdropper, he sat in a Hepplewhite armchair that was catercorner to the sofa.

“I need to tell you about the diary,” she said, her eyes alight with excitement.

He blinked with surprise. “You’re not going to return it, then?”

“Of course not. You don’t think I-” She stopped, and he noticed that her fingers were twisting spirals in the soft green fabric of her skirt. For some reason this pleased him. He was rather relieved that she was not furious with him for kissing her-like any man, he’d go to great lengths to avoid any sort of hysterical feminine scene. But at the same time, he didn’t wish for her to be completely unaffected.

Good God, he was a better kisser than that.

“I should return the diary,” she said, sounding rather like herself again. “Truly, I should force you to find someone else to translate it. You deserve no less.”

“Absolutely,” he demurred.

She gave him a look, saying that she didn’t appreciate such perfunctory agreement. “However,” she said, as only she could say it.

Gareth leaned forward. It seemed expected.

“However,” she said again, “I rather like reading your grandmother’s diary, and I see no reason to deprive myself of an enjoyable challenge simply because you have behaved recklessly.”

Gareth held silent, since his last attempt at agreement had been so ill received. It soon became apparent, however, that this time he was expected to make a comment, so he quickly chimed in with, “Of course not.”

Hyacinth nodded approvingly, then added, “And besides”-and here she leaned forward, her bright blue eyes sparkling with excitement-“it just got interesting.”

Something turned over in Gareth’s stomach. Had Hyacinth discovered the secret of his birth? It hadn’t even occurred to him that Isabella might have known the truth; she’d had very little contact with her son, after all, and rarely visited.

But if she did know, she very well might’ve written it down.

“What do you mean?” he asked carefully.

Hyacinth picked up the diary, which had been sitting on a nearby end table. “Your grandmother,” she said, her entire bearing radiating excitement, “had a secret.” She opened the book-she’d marked a page with an elegant little bookmark-and held it out, pointing with her index finger to a sentence in the middle of the page as she said, “Diamanti. Diamanti.” She looked up, unable to contain an exhilarated grin. “Do you know what that means?”

He shook his head. “I’m afraid not.”

“Diamonds, Gareth. It means diamonds.”

He found himself looking at the page, even though he couldn’t possibly understand the words. “I beg your pardon?”

“Your grandmother had jewels, Gareth. And she never told your grandfather about them.”

His lips parted. “What are you saying?”

“Her grandmother came to visit shortly after your father was born. And she brought with her a set of jewels. Rings, I think. And a bracelet. And Isabella never told anyone.”

“What did she do with them?”

“She hid them.” Hyacinth was practically bouncing off the sofa now. “She hid them in Clair House, right here in London. She wrote that your grandfather didn’t much like London, so there would be less chance he’d discover them here.”

Finally, some of Hyacinth’s enthusiasm began to seep into him. Not much-he wasn’t going to allow himself to get too excited by what was probably going to turn out to be a wild-goose chase. But her fervor was infectious, and before he realized it, he was leaning forward, his heart beginning to beat just a little bit faster. “What are you saying?” he asked.

“I’m saying,” she said, as if she was repeating something she’d uttered five times already, in every possible permutation, “that those jewels are probably still there. Oh!” She stopped short, her eyes meeting his with an almost disconcerting suddenness. “Unless you already know about them. Does your father already have them in his possession?”

“No,” Gareth said thoughtfully. “I don’t think so. At least, not that I’ve ever been told.”

“You see? We can-”

“But I’m rarely told of anything,” he cut in. “My father has never considered me his closest confidant.”

For a moment her eyes took on a sympathetic air, but that was quickly trampled by her almost piratical zeal. “Then they’re still there,” she said excitedly. “Or at least there is a very good chance that they are. We have to go get them.”

“What-We?” Oh, no.

But Hyacinth was too lost in her own excitement to have noticed his emphasis. “Just think, Gareth,” she said, clearly now perfectly comfortable with the use of his given name, “this could be the answer to all of your financial problems.”

He drew back. “What makes you think I have financial problems?”

“Oh, please,” she scoffed. “Everyone knows you have financial problems. Or if you don’t, you will. Your father has run up debts from here to Nottinghamshire and back.” She paused, possibly for air, then said, “Clair Hall is in Nottinghamshire, isn’t it?”

“Yes, of course, but-”

“Right. Well. You’re going to inherit those debts, you know.”

“I’m aware.”

“Then what better way to ensure your solvency than to secure your grandmother’s jewels before Lord St. Clair finds them? Because we both know that he will only sell them and spend the proceeds.”

“You seem to know a great deal about my father,” Gareth said in a quiet voice.

“Nonsense,” she said briskly. “I know nothing about him except that he detests you.”

Gareth cracked a smile, which surprised him. It wasn’t a topic about which he usually possessed a great deal of humor. But then again, no one had ever dared broach it with such frankness before.

“I could not speak on your behalf,” Hyacinth continued with a shrug, “but if I detested someone, you can be sure I would go out of my way to make certain he didn’t get a treasure’s worth of jewels.”

“How positively Christian of you,” Gareth murmured.

She lifted a brow. “I never said I was a model of goodness and light.”

“No,” Gareth said, feeling his lips twitch. “No, you certainly did not.”

Hyacinth clapped her hands together, then set them both palms down on her lap. She looked at him expectantly. “Well, then,” she said, once it was apparent that he had no further comment, “when shall we go?”

“Go?” he echoed.

“To look for the diamonds,” she said impatiently. “Haven’t you been listening to anything I’ve said?”

Gareth suddenly had a terrifying vision of what it must be like inside her mind. She was dressed in black, clearly, and-good God-almost certainly in men’s clothing as well. She’d probably insist upon lowering herself out her bedroom window on knotted sheets, too.

“We are not going anywhere,” he said firmly.

“Of course we are,” she said. “You must get those jewels. You can’t let your father have them.”

“I will go.”

“You’re not leaving me behind.” It was a statement, not a question. Not that Gareth would have expected otherwise from her.

“If I attempt to break into Clair House,” Gareth said, “and that is a rather large if, I will have to do so in the dead of night.”

“Well, of course.”

Good God, did the woman never cease talking? He paused, waiting to make sure that she was done. Finally, with a great show of exaggerated patience, he finished with, “I am not dragging you around town at midnight. Forget, for one moment, about the danger, of which I assure you there is plenty. If we were caught, I would be required to marry you, and I can only assume your desire for that outcome evenly matches mine.”

It was an overblown speech, and his tone had been rather pompous and stuffy, but it had the desired effect, forcing her to close her mouth for long enough to sort through the convoluted structure of his sentences.

But then she opened it again, and said, “Well, you won’t have to drag me.”

Gareth thought his head might explode. “Good God, woman, have you been listening to anything I’ve said?”

“Of course I have. I have four older brothers. I can recognize a supercilious, pontificating male when I see one.”

“Oh, for the love of-”

“You, Mr. St. Clair, aren’t thinking clearly.” She leaned forward, lifting one of her brows in an almost disconcertingly confident manner. “You need me.”

“Like I need a festering abscess,” he muttered.

“I am going to pretend I didn’t hear that,” Hyacinth said. Between her teeth. “Because if I did otherwise, I would not be inclined to aid you in your endeavors. And if I did not aid you-”

“Do you have a point?”

She eyed him coolly. “You are not nearly as sensible a person as I thought you.”

“Strangely enough, you are exactly as sensible as I thought you.”

“I will pretend I didn’t hear that as well,” she said, jabbing her index finger in his direction in a most unladylike manner. “You seem to forget that of the two of us, I am the only one who reads Italian. And I don’t see how you are going find the jewels without my aid.”

His lips parted, and when he spoke, it was in a low, almost terrifyingly even voice. “You would withhold the information from me?”

“Of course not,” Hyacinth said, since she couldn’t bring herself to lie to him, even if he did deserve it. “I do have some honor. I was merely trying to explain that you will need me there, in the house. My knowledge of the language isn’t perfect. There are some words that could be open to interpretation, and I might need to see the actual room before I can tell exactly what she was talking about.”

His eyes narrowed.

“It’s the truth, I swear!” She quickly grabbed the book, flipping a page, then another, then going back to the original. “It’s right here, see? Armadio. It could mean cabinet. Or it could mean wardrobe. Or-” She stopped, swallowing. She hated to admit that she wasn’t quite sure what she was talking about, even if that deficiency was the only thing that was going to secure her a place by his side when he went to look for the jewels. “If you must know,” she said, unable to keep her irritation out of her voice, “I’m not precisely certain what it means. Precisely, that is,” she added, because the truth was, she did have a fairly good idea. And it just wasn’t in her character to admit to faults she didn’t have.

Good gracious, she had a difficult enough time with faults she did possess.

“Why don’t you look it up in your Italian dictionary?”

“It’s not listed,” she lied. It wasn’t really such an egregious fib. The dictionary had listed several possible translations, certainly enough for Hyacinth to truthfully claim an imprecise understanding.

She waited for him to speak-probably not as long as she should have done, but it seemed like an eternity. And she just couldn’t keep quiet. “I could, if you wish, write to my former governess and ask for a more exact definition, but she’s not the most reliable of correspondents-”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning I haven’t written to her in three years,” Hyacinth admitted, “although I’m quite certain she would come to my aid now. It’s just that I have no idea how busy she is or when she might find the time to reply-the last I’d heard she’d given birth to twins-”

“Why does this not surprise me?”

“It’s true, and heaven only knows how long it will take her to respond. Twins are an uncommon amount of work, or so I’m told, and…” Her voice lost some of its volume as it became apparent he wasn’t listening to her. She stole a glance at his face and finished, anyway, mostly because she’d already thought of the words, and there wasn’t much point in not saying them. “Well, I don’t think she has the means for a baby nurse,” she said, but her voice had trailed off by the end of it.

Gareth held silent for what seemed an interminably long time before finally saying, “If what you say is correct, and the jewels are still hidden-and that is no certainty, given that she hid them”-his eyes floated briefly up as he did the math-“over sixty years ago, then surely they will remain in place until we can get an accurate translation from your governess.”

“You could wait?” Hyacinth asked, feeling her entire head move forward and down with disbelief. “You could actually wait?”

“Why not?”

“Because they’re there. Because-” She cut herself off, unable to do anything other than stare at him as if he were mad. She knew that people’s minds did not work the same way. And she’d long since learned that hardly anyone’s mind worked the way hers did. But she couldn’t imagine that anyone could wait when faced with this.

Good heavens, if it were up to her, they’d be scaling the wall of Clair House that night.

“Think about this,” Hyacinth said, leaning forward. “If he finds those jewels between now and whenever you find the time to go look for them, you are never going to forgive yourself.”

He said nothing, but she could tell that she’d finally got through to him.

“Not to mention,” she continued, “that I would never forgive you were that to happen.”

She stole a glance at him. He seemed unmoved by that particular argument.

Hyacinth waited quietly while he thought about what to do. The silence was horrible. While she’d been going on about the diary, she’d been able to forget that he’d kissed her, that she’d enjoyed it, and that he apparently hadn’t. She’d thought that their next meeting would be awkward and uncomfortable, but with a goal and a mission, she’d felt restored to her usual self, and even if he didn’t take her along to find the diamonds, she supposed she still owed Isabella thanks for that.

But all the same, she rather thought she’d die if he left her behind. Either that or kill him.

She gripped her hands together, hiding them in the folds of her skirt. It was a nervous gesture, and the mere fact that she was doing it set her even more on edge. She hated that she was nervous, hated that he made her nervous, hated that she had to sit there and not say a word while he pondered her options. But contrary to popular belief, she did occasionally know when to keep her mouth shut, and it was clear that there was nothing more she could say that would sway him one way or the other. Except maybe…

No, even she wasn’t crazy enough to threaten to go by herself.

“What were you going to say?” Gareth asked.

“I beg your pardon?”

He leaned forward, his blue eyes sharp and unwavering. “What were you going to say?”

“What makes you think I was going to say something?”

“I could see it in your face.”

She cocked her head to the side. “You know me that well?”

“Frightening though it may seem, apparently I do.”

She watched as he sat back in his seat. He reminded her of her brothers as he shifted in the too-small chair; they were forever complaining that her mother’s sitting room was decorated for tiny females. But that was where the resemblance ended. None of her brothers had ever possessed the daring to wear his hair back in such a rakish queue, and none of them ever looked at her with that blue-eyed intensity that made her forget her own name.

He seemed to be searching her face for something. Or maybe he was just trying to stare her down, waiting for her to crack under the pressure.

Hyacinth caught her lower lip between her teeth-she wasn’t strong enough to maintain the perfect picture of composure. But she did manage to keep her back straight, and her chin high, and perhaps most importantly, her mouth shut as he pondered his options.

A full minute went by. Very well, it was probably no more than ten seconds, but it felt like a minute. And then finally, because she could stand it no longer, she said (but very softly), “You need me.”

His gaze fell to the carpet for a moment before turning back to her face. “If I take you-”

“Oh, thank you!” she exclaimed, just barely resisting the urge to jump to her feet.

“I said if I take you,” he said, his voice uncommonly stern.

Hyacinth silenced herself immediately, looking at him with an appropriately dutiful expression.

“If I take you,” he repeated, his eyes boring into hers, “I expect you to follow my orders.”

“Of course.”

“We will proceed as I see fit.”

She hesitated.

“Hyacinth.”

“Of course,” she said quickly, since she had a feeling that if she didn’t, he would call it off right then and there. “But if I have a good idea…”

“Hyacinth.”

“As pertains to the fact that I understand Italian and you don’t,” she added quickly.

The look he gave her was as exhausted as it was austere.

“You don’t have to do what I ask,” she finally said, “just listen.”

“Very well,” he said with a sigh. “We will go Monday night.”

Hyacinth’s eyes widened with surprise. After all the fuss he’d made, she hadn’t expected him to elect to go so soon. But she wasn’t about to complain. “Monday night,” she agreed.

She could hardly wait.