It's In His Kiss

Chapter 3

Three days later, and our hero learns that one can never really escape one’s past.

“There is a woman to see you, sir.”

Gareth looked up from his desk, a huge mahogany behemoth that took up nearly half of his small study. “A woman, you say?”

His new valet nodded. “She said she is your brother’s wife.”

“Caroline?” Gareth’s attention snapped into sharp focus. “Show her in. Immediately.”

He rose to his feet, awaiting her arrival in his study. He hadn’t seen Caroline in months, only once since George’s funeral, truth be told. And Lord knew that hadn’t been a joyful affair. Gareth had spent the entire time avoiding his father, which had added stress on top of his already crushing grief.

Lord St. Clair had ordered George to cease all brotherly relations with Gareth, but George had never cut him off. In all else, George had obeyed his father, but never that. And Gareth had loved him all the more for it. The baron hadn’t wanted Gareth to attend the ceremony, but when Gareth had pushed his way into the church, even he hadn’t been willing to make a scene and have him evicted.

“Gareth?”

He turned away from the window, unaware that he’d even been looking out. “Caroline,” he said warmly, crossing the room to greet his sister-in-law. “How have you been?”

She gave a helpless little shrug. Hers had been a love match, and Gareth had never seen anything quite as devastating as Caroline’s eyes at her husband’s funeral.

“I know,” Gareth said quietly. He missed George, too. They had been an unlikely pair-George, sober and serious, and Gareth, who had always run wild. But they had been friends as well as brothers, and Gareth liked to think that they had complemented each other. Lately Gareth had been thinking that he ought to try to lead a somewhat tamer life, and he had been looking to his brother’s memory to guide his actions.

“I was going through his things,” Caroline said. “I found something. I believe that it is yours.”

Gareth watched curiously as she reached into her satchel and pulled out a small book. “I don’t recognize it,” he said.

“No,” Caroline replied, handing it to him. “You wouldn’t. It belonged to your father’s mother.”

Your father’s mother. Gareth couldn’t quite prevent his grimace. Caroline did not know that Gareth was not truly a St. Clair. Gareth had never been certain if George had known the truth, either. If he had, he’d never said anything.

The book was small, bound with brown leather. There was a little strap that reached from back to front, where it could be fastened with a button. Gareth carefully undid it and turned the book open, taking extra care with the aged paper. “It’s a diary,” he said with surprise. And then he had to smile. It was written in Italian. “What does it say?”

“I don’t know,” Caroline said. “I didn’t even know it existed until I found it in George’s desk earlier this week. He never mentioned it.”

Gareth looked down at the diary, at the elegant handwriting forming words he could not understand. His father’s mother had been the daughter of a noble Italian house. It had always amused Gareth that his father was half-Italian; the baron was so insufferably proud of his St. Clair ancestry and liked to boast that they had been in England since the Norman Invasion. In fact, Gareth couldn’t recall him ever making mention of his Italian roots.

“There was a note from George,” Caroline said, “instructing me to give this to you.”

Gareth glanced back down at the book, his heart heavy. Just one more indication that George had never known that they were not full brothers. Gareth bore no blood relationship to Isabella Marinzoli St. Clair, and he had no real right to her diary.

“You shall have to find someone to translate it,” Caroline said with a small, wistful smile. “I’m curious as to what it says. George always spoke so warmly of your grandmother.”

Gareth nodded. He remembered her fondly as well, though they hadn’t spent very much time together. Lord St. Clair hadn’t gotten on very well with his mother, so Isabella did not visit very often. But she had always doted upon her due ragazzi, as she liked to call her two grandsons, and Gareth recalled feeling quite crushed when, at the age of seven, he’d heard that she had died. If affection was anywhere near as important as blood, then he supposed the diary would find a better home in his hands than anyone else’s.

“I’ll see what I can do,” Gareth said. “It can’t be that difficult to find someone who can translate from the Italian.”

“I wouldn’t trust it to just anyone,” Caroline said. “It is your grandmother’s diary, after all. Her personal thoughts.”

Gareth nodded. Caroline was right. He owed it to Isabella to find someone discreet to translate her memoirs. And he knew exactly where to start in his search.

“I’ll take this to Grandmother Danbury,” Gareth suddenly said, allowing his hand to bob up and down with the diary, almost as if he was testing its weight. “She’ll know what to do.”

And she would, he thought. Grandmother Danbury liked to say that she knew everything, and the annoying truth was, she was most often right.

“Do let me know what you find out,” Caroline said, as she headed for the door.

“Of course,” he murmured, even though she was already gone. He looked down at the book. 10 Settembre, 1793…

Gareth shook his head and smiled. It figured his one bequest from the St. Clair family coffers would be a diary he couldn’t even read.

Ah, irony.

Meanwhile, in a drawing room not so very far away…

“Enh?” Lady Danbury screeched. “You’re not speaking loudly enough!”

Hyacinth allowed the book from which she was reading to fall closed, with just her index finger stuck inside to mark her place. Lady Danbury liked to feign deafness when it suited her, and it seemed to suit her every time Hyacinth got to the racy parts of the lurid novels that the countess enjoyed so well.

“I said,” Hyacinth said, leveling her gaze onto Lady Danbury’s face, “that our dear heroine was breathing hard, no, let me check, she was breathy and short of breath.” She looked up. “Breathy and short of breath?”

“Pfft,” Lady Danbury said, waving her hand dismissively.

Hyacinth glanced at the cover of the book. “I wonder if English is the author’s first language?”

“Keep reading,” Lady D ordered.

“Very well, let me see, Miss Bumblehead ran like the wind as she saw Lord Savagewood coming toward her.”

Lady Danbury narrowed her eyes. “Her name isn’t Bumblehead.”

“It ought to be,” Hyacinth muttered.

“Well, that’s true,” Lady D agreed, “but we didn’t write the story, did we?”

Hyacinth cleared her throat and once again found her place in the text. “He was coming closer,” she read, “and Miss Bumbleshoot-”

“Hyacinth!”

“Butterworth,” Hyacinth grumbled. “Whatever her name is, she ran for the cliffs. End of chapter.”

“The cliffs? Still? Wasn’t she running at the end of the last chapter?”

“Perhaps it’s a long way.”

Lady Danbury narrowed her eyes. “I don’t believe you.”

Hyacinth shrugged. “It is certainly true that I would lie to you to get out of reading the next few paragraphs of Priscilla Butterworth’s remarkably perilous life, but as it happens, I’m telling the truth.” When Lady D didn’t say anything, Hyacinth held out the book, and asked, “Would you like to check for yourself?”

“No, no,” Lady Danbury said, with a great show of acceptance. “I believe you, if only because I have no choice.”

Hyacinth gave her a pointed look. “Are you blind now, as well as deaf?”

“No.” Lady D sighed, letting one hand flutter until it rested palm out on her forehead. “Just practicing my high drama.”

Hyacinth laughed out loud.

“I do not jest,” Lady Danbury said, her voice returning to its usual sharp tenor. “And I am thinking of making a change in life. I could do a better job on the stage than most of those fools who call themselves actresses.”

“Sadly,” Hyacinth said, “there doesn’t seem to be much demand for aging countess roles.”

“If anyone else said that to me,” Lady D said, thumping her cane against the floor even though she was seated in a perfectly good chair, “I’d take it as an insult.”

“But not from me?” Hyacinth queried, trying to sound disappointed.

Lady Danbury chuckled. “Do you know why I like you so well, Hyacinth Bridgerton?”

Hyacinth leaned forward. “I’m all agog.”

Lady D’s face spread into a creased smile. “Because you, dear girl, are exactly like me.”

“Do you know, Lady Danbury,” Hyacinth said, “if you said that to anyone else, she’d probably take it as an insult.”

Lady D’s thin body quivered with mirth. “But not you?”

Hyacinth shook her head. “Not me.”

“Good.” Lady Danbury gave her an uncharacteristically grandmotherly smile, then glanced up at the clock on the mantel. “We’ve time for another chapter, I think.”

“We agreed, one chapter each Tuesday,” Hyacinth said, mostly just to be vexing.

Lady D’s mouth settled into a grumpy line. “Very well, then,” she said, eyeing Hyacinth in a sly manner, “we’ll talk about something else.”

Oh, dear.

“Tell me, Hyacinth,” Lady Danbury said, leaning forward, “how are your prospects these days?”

“You sound like my mother,” Hyacinth said sweetly.

“A compliment of the highest order,” Lady D tossed back. “I like your mother, and I hardly like anyone.”

“I’ll be sure to tell her.”

“Bah. She knows that already, and you’re avoiding the question.”

“My prospects,” Hyacinth replied, “as you so delicately put it, are the same as ever.”

“Such is the problem. You, my dear girl, need a husband.”

“Are you quite certain my mother isn’t hiding behind the curtains, feeding you lines?”

“See?” Lady Danbury said with a wide smile. “I would be good on the stage.”

Hyacinth just stared at her. “You have gone quite mad, did you know that?”

“Bah. I’m merely old enough to get away with speaking my mind. You’ll enjoy it when you’re my age, I promise.”

“I enjoy it now,” Hyacinth said.

“True,” Lady Danbury conceded. “And it’s probably why you’re still unmarried.”

“If there were an intelligent unattached man in London,” Hyacinth said with a beleaguered sigh, “I assure you I would set my cap for him.” She let her head cock to the side with a sarcastic tilt. “Surely you wouldn’t see me married to a fool.”

“Of course not, but-”

“And stop mentioning your grandson as if I weren’t intelligent enough to figure out what you’re up to.”

Lady D gasped in full huff. “I didn’t say a word.”

“You were about to.”

“Well, he’s perfectly nice,” Lady Danbury muttered, not even trying to deny it, “and more than handsome.”

Hyacinth caught her lower lip between her teeth, trying not to remember how very strange she’d felt at the Smythe-Smith musicale with Mr. St. Clair at her side. That was the problem with him, she realized. She didn’t feel like herself when he was near. And it was the most disconcerting thing.

“I see you don’t disagree,” Lady D said.

“About your grandson’s handsome visage? Of course not,” Hyacinth replied, since there was little point in debating it. There were some people for whom good looks were a fact, not an opinion.

“And,” Lady Danbury continued in grand fashion, “I’m happy to say that he inherited his brain from my side of the family, which, I might regretfully add, isn’t the case with all of my progeny.”

Hyacinth glanced up at the ceiling in an attempt to avoid comment. Lady Danbury’s eldest son had famously gotten his head stuck between the bars of the front gate of Windsor Castle.

“Oh, go ahead and say it,” Lady D grumbled. “At least two of my children are half-wits, and heaven knows about their children. I flee in the opposite direction when they come to town.”

“I would never-”

“Well, you were thinking it, and rightly you should. Serves me right for marrying Lord Danbury when I knew he hadn’t two thoughts to bang together in his head. But Gareth is a prize, and you’re a fool if you don’t-”

“Your grandson,” Hyacinth cut in, “isn’t the least bit interested in me or any marriageable female, for that matter.”

“Well, that is a problem,” Lady Danbury agreed, “and for the life of me, I don’t know why the boy shuns your sort.”

“My sort?” Hyacinth echoed.

“Young, female, and someone he would actually have to marry if he dallied with.”

Hyacinth felt her cheeks burn. Normally this would be exactly the sort of conversation she relished-it was far more fun to be improper than otherwise, within reason, of course-but this time it was all she could do to say, “I hardly think you should be discussing such things with me.”

“Bah,” Lady D said, gesturing dismissively with her hand. “Since when have you become so missish?”

Hyacinth opened her mouth, but thankfully, Lady Danbury didn’t seem to desire an answer. “He’s a rogue, it’s true,” the countess sailed on, “but it’s nothing you can’t overcome if you put your mind to it.”

“I’m not going to-”

“Just yank your dress down a little when next you see him,” Lady D cut in, waving her hand impatiently in front of her face. “Men lose all sense at the sight of a healthy bosom. You’ll have him-”

“Lady Danbury!” Hyacinth crossed her arms. She did have her pride, and she wasn’t about to go chasing after a rake who clearly had no interest in marriage. That sort of public humiliation she could do without.

And besides, it would require a great deal of imagination to describe her bosom as healthy. Hyacinth knew she wasn’t built like a boy, thank goodness, but nor did she possess attributes that would cause any man to look twice in the area directly below her neck.

“Oh, very well,” Lady Danbury said, sounding exceedingly grumpy, which, for her, was exceeding indeed. “I won’t say another word.”

“Ever?”

“Until,” Lady D said firmly.

“Until when?” Hyacinth asked suspiciously.

“I don’t know,” Lady Danbury replied, in much the same tone.

Which Hyacinth had a feeling meant five minutes hence.

The countess was silent for a moment, but her lips were pursed, signaling that her mind was up to something that was probably devious in the extreme. “Do you know what I think?” she asked.

“Usually,” Hyacinth replied.

Lady D scowled. “You are entirely too mouthy.”

Hyacinth just smiled and ate another biscuit.

“I think,” Lady Danbury said, apparently over her pique, “that we should write a book.”

To Hyacinth’s credit, she didn’t choke on her food. “I beg your pardon?”

“I need a challenge,” Lady D said. “Keeps the mind sharp. And surely we could do better than Miss Butter-worth and the Mealymouthed Baron.”

“Mad Baron,” Hyacinth said automatically.

“Precisely,” Lady D said. “Surely we can do better.”

“I’m sure we could, but it does beg the question-why would we want to?”

“Because we can.”

Hyacinth considered the prospect of a creative liaison with Lady Danbury, of spending hours upon hours-

“No,” she said, quite firmly, “we can’t.”

“Of course we can,” Lady D said, thumping her cane for what was only the second time during the interview-surely a new record of restraint. “I’ll think up the ideas, and you can figure out how to word it all.”

“It doesn’t sound like an equitable division of labor,” Hyacinth remarked.

“And why should it be?”

Hyacinth opened her mouth to reply, then decided there was really no point.

Lady Danbury frowned for a moment, then finally added, “Well, think about my proposal. We’d make an excellent team.”

“I shudder to think,” came a deep voice from the doorway, “what you might be attempting to browbeat poor Miss Bridgerton into now.”

“Gareth!” Lady Danbury said with obvious pleasure. “How nice of you finally to come visit me.”

Hyacinth turned. Gareth St. Clair had just stepped into the room, looking alarmingly handsome in his elegant afternoon clothing. A shaft of sunlight was streaming through the window, landing on his hair like burnished gold.

His presence was most surprising. Hyacinth had been visiting every Tuesday for a year now, and this was only the second time their paths had crossed. She had begun to think he might be purposefully avoiding her.

Which begged the question-why was he here now? Their conversation at the Smythe-Smith musicale was the first they had ever shared that went beyond the most basic of pleasantries, and suddenly he was here in his grandmother’s drawing room, right in the middle of their weekly visit.

“Finally?” Mr. St. Clair echoed with amusement. “Surely you haven’t forgotten my visit last Friday.” He turned to Hyacinth, his face taking on a rather convincing expression of concern. “Do you think she might be beginning to lose her memory, Miss Bridgerton? She is, what can it be now, ninety-”

Lady D’s cane came down squarely on his toes. “Not even close, my dear boy,” she barked, “and if you value your appendages, you shan’t blaspheme in such a manner again.”

“The Gospel according to Agatha Danbury,” Hyacinth murmured.

Mr. St. Clair flashed her a grin, which surprised her, first because she hadn’t thought he would hear her remark, and second because it made him seem so boyish and innocent, when she knew for a fact that he was neither.

Although…

Hyacinth fought the urge to shake her head. There was always an although. Lady D’s “finallys” aside, Gareth St. Clair was a frequent visitor at Danbury House. It made Hyacinth wonder if he was truly the rogue society made him out to be. No true devil would be so devoted to his grandmother. She’d said as much at the Smythe-Smith musicale, but he’d deftly changed the subject.

He was a puzzle. And Hyacinth hated puzzles.

Well, no, in truth she loved them.

Provided, of course, that she solved them.

The puzzle in question ambled across the room, leaning down to drop a kiss on his grandmother’s cheek. Hyacinth found herself staring at the back of his neck, at the rakish queue of hair brushing up against the edge of his bottle green coat.

She knew he hadn’t a great deal of money for tailors and such, and she knew he never asked his grandmother for anything, but lud, that coat fit him to perfection.

“Miss Bridgerton,” he said, settling onto the sofa and allowing one ankle to rest rather lazily on the opposite knee. “It must be Tuesday.”

“It must,” Hyacinth agreed.

“How fares Priscilla Butterworth?”

Hyacinth lifted her brows, surprised that he knew which book they were reading. “She is running for the cliffs,” she replied. “I fear for her safety, if you must know. Or rather, I would,” she added, “if there were not eleven chapters still to be read.”

“Pity,” he remarked. “The book would take a far more interesting turn if she was killed off.”

“Have you read it, then?” Hyacinth queried politely.

For a moment it seemed he would do nothing but give her a Surely You Jest look, but he punctuated the expression with, “My grandmother likes to recount the tale when I see her each Wednesday. Which I always do,” he added, sending a heavy-lidded glance in Lady Danbury’s direction. “And most Fridays and Sundays as well.”

“Not last Sunday,” Lady D said.

“I went to church,” he deadpanned.

Hyacinth choked on her biscuit.

He turned to her. “Didn’t you see the lightning strike the steeple?”

She recovered with a sip of tea, then smiled sweetly. “I was listening too devotedly to the sermon.”

“Claptrap last week,” Lady D announced. “I think the priest is getting old.”

Gareth opened his mouth, but before he could say a word, his grandmother’s cane swung around in a remarkably steady horizontal arc. “Don’t,” she warned, “make a comment beginning with the words, ‘Coming from you…’”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” he demurred.

“Of course you would,” she stated. “You wouldn’t be my grandson if you wouldn’t.” She turned to Hyacinth. “Don’t you agree?”

To her credit, Hyacinth folded her hands in her lap and said, “Surely there is no right answer to that question.”

“Smart girl,” Lady D said approvingly.

“I learn from the master.”

Lady Danbury beamed. “Insolence aside,” she continued determinedly, gesturing toward Gareth as if he were some sort of zoological specimen, “he really is an exceptional grandson. Couldn’t have asked for more.”

Gareth watched with amusement as Hyacinth murmured something that was meant to convey her agreement without actually doing so.

“Of course,” Grandmother Danbury added with a dismissive wave of her hand, “he hasn’t much in the way of competition. The rest of them have only three brains to share among them.”

Not the most ringing of endorsements, considering that she had twelve living grandchildren.

“I’ve heard some animals eat their young,” Gareth murmured, to no one in particular.

“This being a Tuesday,” his grandmother said, ignoring his comment completely, “what brings you by?”

Gareth wrapped his fingers around the book in his pocket. He’d been so intrigued by its existence since Caroline had handed it over that he had completely forgotten about his grandmother’s weekly visit with Hyacinth Bridgerton. If he’d been thinking clearly, he would have waited until later in the afternoon, after she had departed.

But now he was here, and he had to give them some reason for his presence. Otherwise-God help him-his grandmother would assume he’d come because of Miss Bridgerton, and it would take months to dissuade her of the notion.

“What is it, boy?” his grandmother asked, in her inimitable way. “Speak up.”

Gareth turned to Hyacinth, slightly pleased when she squirmed a little under his intent stare. “Why do you visit my grandmother?” he asked.

She shrugged. “Because I like her.”

And then she leaned forward and asked, “Why do you visit her?”

“Because she’s my-” He stopped, caught himself. He didn’t visit just because she was his grandmother. Lady Danbury was a number of things to him-trial, termagant, and bane of his existence sprang to mind-but never a duty. “I like her, too,” he said slowly, his eyes never leaving Hyacinth’s.

She didn’t blink. “Good.”

And then they just stared at each other, as if trapped in some sort of bizarre contest.

“Not that I have any complaints with this particular avenue of conversation,” Lady Danbury said loudly, “but what the devil are the two of you talking about?”

Hyacinth sat back and looked at Lady Danbury as if nothing had happened. “I have no idea,” she said blithely, and proceeded to sip at her tea. Setting the cup back in its saucer, she added, “He asked me a question.”

Gareth watched her curiously. His grandmother wasn’t the easiest person to befriend, and if Hyacinth Bridgerton happily sacrificed her Tuesday afternoons to be with her, that was certainly a point in her favor. Not to mention that Lady Danbury hardly liked anyone, and she raved about Miss Bridgerton at every possible opportunity. It was, of course, partly because she was trying to pair the two of them up; his grandmother had never been known for her tact or subtlety.

But still, if Gareth had learned one thing over the years, it was that his grandmother was a shrewd judge of character. And besides, the diary was written in Italian. Even if it did contain some indiscreet secret, Miss Bridgerton would hardly know.

His decision made, he reached into his pocket and pulled out the book.