It's In His Kiss

Chapter 5

The next evening, in the drawing room of the estimable Lady Pleinsworth. For some strange reason, there are twigs attached to the piano. And a small girl has a horn on her head.

“People will think you’re courting me,” Hyacinth said, when Mr. St. Clair walked directly to her side without any pretense of glancing about the room first.

“Nonsense,” he said, sitting down in the empty chair next to her. “Everyone knows I don’t court respectable women, and besides, I should think it would only enhance your reputation.”

“And here I thought modesty an overrated virtue.”

He flashed her a bland smile. “Not that I wish to give you any ammunition, but the sad fact of it is-most men are sheep. Where one goes, the rest will follow. And didn’t you say you wished to be married?”

“Not to someone who follows you as the lead sheep,” she replied.

He grinned at that, a devilish smile that Hyacinth had a feeling he had used to seduce legions of women. Then he looked about, as if intending to engage in something surreptitious, and leaned in.

Hyacinth couldn’t help it. She leaned in, too. “Yes?” she murmured.

“I am about this close to bleating.”

Hyacinth tried to swallow her laugh, which was a mistake, since it came out as an exceedingly inelegant splutter.

“How fortunate that you weren’t drinking a glass of milk,” Gareth said, sitting back in his chair. He was still the picture of perfect composure, drat the man.

Hyacinth tried to glare at him, but she was fairly certain she wasn’t able to wipe the humor out of her eyes.

“It would have come out your nose,” he said with a shrug.

“Hasn’t anyone ever told you that’s not the sort of thing you say to impress a woman?” she asked, once she’d regained her voice.

“I’m not trying to impress you,” he replied, glancing up at the front of the room. “Gads,” he said, blinking in surprise. “What is that?”

Hyacinth followed his gaze. Several of the Pleinsworth progeny, one of whom appeared to be costumed as a shepherdess, were milling about.

“Now that’s an interesting coincidence,” Gareth murmured.

“It might be time to start bleating,” she agreed.

“I thought this was meant to be a poetry recitation.”

Hyacinth grimaced and shook her head. “An unexpected change to the program, I’m afraid.”

“From iambic pentameter to Little Bo Peep?” he asked doubtfully. “It does seem a stretch.”

Hyacinth gave him a rueful look. “I think there will still be iambic pentameter.”

His mouth fell open. “From Peep?”

She nodded, holding up the program that had been resting in her lap. “It’s an original composition,” she said, as if that would explain everything. “By Harriet Pleinsworth. The Shepherdess, the Unicorn, and Henry VIII.”

“All of them? At once?”

“I’m not jesting,” she said, shaking her head.

“Of course not. Even you couldn’t have made this up.”

Hyacinth decided to take that as a compliment.

“Why didn’t I receive one of these?” he asked, taking the program from her.

“I believe it was decided not to hand them out to the gentlemen,” Hyacinth said, glancing about the room. “One has to admire Lady Pleinsworth’s foresight, actually. You’d surely flee if you knew what was in store for you.”

Gareth twisted in his seat. “Have they locked the doors yet?”

“No, but your grandmother has already arrived.”

Hyacinth wasn’t sure, but it sounded very much like he groaned.

“She doesn’t seem to be coming this way,” Hyacinth added, watching as Lady Danbury took a seat on the aisle, several rows back.

“Of course not,” Gareth muttered, and Hyacinth knew he was thinking the same thing she was.

Matchmaker.

Well, it wasn’t as if Lady Danbury had ever been especially subtle about it.

Hyacinth started to turn back to the front, then halted when she caught sight of her mother, for whom she’d been holding an empty seat to her right. Violet pretended (rather badly, in Hyacinth’s opinion) not to see her, and she sat down right next to Lady Danbury.

“Well,” Hyacinth said under her breath. Her mother had never been known for her subtlety, either, but she would have thought that after their conversation the previous afternoon, Violet wouldn’t have been quite so obvious.

A few days to reflect upon it all might have been nice.

As it was, Hyacinth had spent the entire past two days pondering her conversation with her mother. She tried to think about all the people she had met during her years on the Marriage Mart. For the most part, she had had a fine time. She’d said what she wished and made people laugh and had rather enjoyed being admired for her wit.

But there had been a few people with whom she had not felt completely comfortable. Not many, but a few. There had been a gentleman during her first season with whom she’d been positively tongue-tied. He had been intelligent and handsome, and when he’d looked at her, Hyacinth had thought her legs might give out. And then just a year ago her brother Gregory had introduced her to one of his school friends who, Hyacinth had to admit, had been dry and sarcastic and more than her match. She’d told herself she hadn’t liked him, and then she’d told her mother that she thought he seemed the sort to be unkind to animals. But the truth was-

Well, she didn’t know what the truth was. She didn’t know everything, much as she tried to give the impression otherwise.

But she had avoided those men. She’d said she didn’t like them, but maybe that wasn’t it. Maybe she just hadn’t liked herself when she was with them.

She looked up. Mr. St. Clair was leaning back in his seat, his face looking a little bit bored, a little bit amused-that sophisticated and urbane sort of expression men across London sought to emulate. Mr. St. Clair, she decided, did it better than most.

“You look rather serious for an evening of bovine pentameter,” he remarked.

Hyacinth looked over at the stage in surprise. “Are we expecting cows as well?”

He handed the small leaflet back to her and sighed. “I’m preparing myself for the worst.”

Hyacinth smiled. He really was funny. And intelligent. And very, very handsome, although that had certainly never been in doubt.

He was, she realized, everything she’d always told herself she was looking for in a husband.

Good God.

“Are you all right?” he asked, sitting up quite suddenly.

“Fine,” she croaked. “Why?”

“You looked…” He cleared his throat. “Well, you looked…ah…I’m sorry. I can’t say it to a woman.”

“Even one you’re not trying to impress?” Hyacinth quipped. But her voice sounded a little bit strained.

He stared at her for a moment, then said, “Very well. You looked rather like you were going to be sick.”

“I’m never sick,” she said, looking resolutely forward. Gareth St. Clair was not everything she’d ever wanted in a husband. He couldn’t be. “And I don’t swoon, either,” she added. “Ever.”

“Now you look angry,” he murmured.

“I’m not,” she said, and she was rather pleased with how positively sunny she sounded.

He had a terrible reputation, she reminded herself. Did she really wish to align herself with a man who’d had relations with so many women? And unlike most unmarried women, Hyacinth actually knew what “relations” entailed. Not firsthand, of course, but she’d managed to wrench the most basic of details from her older married sisters. And while Daphne, Eloise, and Francesca assured her it was all very enjoyable with the right sort of husband, it stood to reason that the right sort of husband was one who remained faithful to one’s wife. Mr. St. Clair, in contrast, had had relations with scores of women.

Surely such behavior couldn’t be healthy.

And even if “scores” was a bit of an exaggeration, and the true number was much more modest, how could she compete? She knew for a fact that his last mistress had been none other than Maria Bartolomeo, the Italian soprano as famed for her beauty as she was for her voice. Not even her own mother could claim that Hyacinth was anywhere near as beautiful as that.

How horrible that must be, to enter into one’s wedding night, knowing that one would suffer by comparison.

“I think it’s beginning.” She heard Mr. St. Clair sigh.

Footmen were crisscrossing the room, snuffing candles to dim the light. Hyacinth turned, catching sight of Mr. St. Clair’s profile. A candelabrum had been left alive over his shoulder, and in the flickering light his hair appeared almost streaked with gold. He was wearing his queue, she thought idly, the only man in the room to do so.

She liked that. She didn’t know why, but she liked it.

“How bad would it be,” she heard him whisper, “if I ran for the door?”

“Right now?” Hyacinth whispered back, trying to ignore the tingling feeling she got when he leaned in close. “Very bad.”

He sat back with a sad sigh, then focused on the stage, giving every appearance of the polite, and only very slightly bored, gentleman.

But it was only one minute later when Hyacinth heard it. Soft, and for her ears only:

“Baaa.

“Baaaaaaaaa.”

Ninety mind-numbing minutes later, and sadly, our hero was right about the cows.

“Do you drink port, Miss Bridgerton?” Gareth asked, keeping his eyes on the stage as he stood and applauded the Pleinsworth children.

“Of course not, but I’ve always wanted to taste it, why?”

“Because we both deserve a drink.”

He heard her smother a laugh, then say, “Well, the unicorn was rather sweet.”

He snorted. The unicorn couldn’t have been more than ten years old. Which would have been fine, except that Henry VIII had insisted upon taking an unscripted ride. “I’m surprised they didn’t have to call for a surgeon,” he muttered.

Hyacinth winced. “She did seem to be limping a bit.”

“It was all I could do not to whinny in pain on her behalf. Good God, who-Oh! Lady Pleinsworth,” Gareth said, pasting a smile on his face with what he thought was admirable speed. “How nice to see you.”

“Mr. St. Clair,” Lady Pleinsworth said effusively. “I’m so delighted you could attend.”

“I wouldn’t have missed it.”

“And Miss Bridgerton,” Lady Pleinsworth said, clearly angling for a bit of gossip. “Do I have you to thank for Mr. St. Clair’s appearance?”

“I’m afraid his grandmother is to blame,” Hyacinth replied. “She threatened him with her cane.”

Lady Pleinsworth didn’t seem to know quite how to respond to this, so she turned back to Gareth, clearing her throat a few times before asking, “Have you met my daughters?”

Gareth managed not to grimace. This was exactly why he tried to avoid these things. “Er, no, I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure.”

“The shepherdess,” Lady Pleinsworth said helpfully.

Gareth nodded. “And the unicorn?” he asked with a smile.

“Yes,” Lady Pleinsworth replied, blinking in confusion, and quite possibly distress, “but she’s a bit young.”

“I’m sure Mr. St. Clair would be delighted to meet Harriet,” Hyacinth cut in before turning to Gareth with an explanatory, “The shepherdess.”

“Of course,” he said. “Yes, delighted.”

Hyacinth turned back to Lady Pleinsworth with a smile that was far too innocent. “Mr. St. Clair is an expert on all things ovine.”

“Where is my cane when I need it?” he murmured.

“I beg your pardon?” Lady Pleinsworth said, leaning forward.

“I would be honored to meet your daughter,” he said, since it seemed the only acceptable statement at that point.

“Wonderful!” Lady Pleinsworth exclaimed, clapping her hands together. “I know she will be so excited to meet you.” And then, saying something about needing to see to the rest of her guests, she was off.

“Don’t look so upset,” Hyacinth said, once it was just the two of them again. “You’re quite a catch.”

He looked at her assessingly. “Is one meant to say such things quite so directly?”

She shrugged. “Not to men one is trying to impress.”

“Touché, Miss Bridgerton.”

She sighed happily. “My three favorite words.”

Of that, he had no doubt.

“Tell me, Miss Bridgerton,” he said, “have you begun to read my grandmother’s diary?”

She nodded. “I was surprised you didn’t ask earlier.”

“Distracted by the shepherdess,” he said, “although please don’t say as much to her mother. She’d surely take it the wrong way.”

“Mothers always do,” she agreed, glancing around the room.

“What are you looking for?” he asked.

“Hmmm? Oh, nothing. Just looking.”

“For what?” he persisted.

She turned to him, her eyes wide, unblinking, and startlingly blue. “Nothing in particular. Don’t you like to know everything that is going on?”

“Only as it pertains to me.”

“Really?” She paused. “I like to know everything.”

“So I’m gathering. And speaking of which, what have you learned of the diary?”

“Oh, yes,” she said, brightening before his eyes. It seemed an odd sort of metaphor, but it was true. Hyacinth Bridgerton positively sparkled when she had the opportunity to speak with authority. And the strangest thing was, Gareth thought it rather charming.

“I have only read twelve pages, I’m afraid,” she said. “My mother required my assistance with her correspondence this afternoon, and I did not have the time I would have wished to work on it. I didn’t tell her about it, by the way. I wasn’t sure if it was meant to be a secret.”

Gareth thought of his father, who would probably want the diary, if only because Gareth had it in his possession. “It’s a secret,” he said. “At least until I deem otherwise.”

She nodded. “It’s probably best not to say anything until you know what she wrote.”

“What did you find out?”

“Well…”

He watched her as she grimaced. “What is it?” he asked.

Both corners of her mouth stretched out and down in that expression one gets when one is trying not to deliver bad news. “There’s really no polite way to say it, I’m afraid,” she said.

“There rarely is, when it comes to my family.”

She eyed him curiously, saying, “She didn’t particularly wish to marry your grandfather.”

“Yes, you said as much this afternoon.”

“No, I mean she really didn’t want to marry him.”

“Smart woman,” he muttered. “The men in my family are bullheaded idiots.”

She smiled. Slightly. “Yourself included?”

He should have anticipated that. “You couldn’t resist, could you?” he murmured.

“Could you?”

“I imagine not,” he admitted. “What else did she say?”

“Not a great deal more,” Hyacinth told him. “She was only seventeen at the beginning of the diary. Her parents forced the match, and she wrote three pages about how upset she was.”

“Upset?”

She winced. “Well, a bit more than upset, I must say, but-”

“We’ll leave it at ‘upset.’ ”

“Yes,” she agreed, “that’s best.”

“How did they meet?” he asked. “Did she say?”

Hyacinth shook her head. “No. She seems to have begun the journal after their introduction. Although she did make reference to a party at her uncle’s house, so perhaps that was it.”

Gareth nodded absently. “My grandfather took a grand tour,” he said. “They met and married in Italy, but that’s all I’ve been told.”

“Well, I don’t think he compromised her, if that’s what you wish to know,” Hyacinth said. “I would think she’d mention that in her diary.”

He couldn’t resist a little verbal poke. “Would you?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Would you write about it in your diary if someone compromised you?”

She blushed, which delighted him. “I don’t keep a diary,” she said.

Oh, he was loving this. “But if you did…”

“But I don’t,” she ground out.

“Coward,” he said softly.

“Would you write all of your secrets down in a diary?” she countered.

“Of course not,” he said. “If someone found it, that would hardly be fair to the people I’ve mentioned.”

“People?” she dared.

He flashed her a grin. “Women.”

She blushed again, but it was softer this time, and he rather doubted she even knew she’d done it. It tinged her pink, played with the light sprinkling of freckles across her nose. At this point, most women would have expressed their outrage, or at least pretended to, but not Hyacinth. He watched as her lips pursed slightly-maybe to hide her embarrassed expression, maybe to bite off a retort, he wasn’t sure which.

And he realized that he was enjoying himself. It was hard to believe, since he was standing next to a piano covered with twigs, and he was well aware that he was going to have to spend the rest of the evening avoiding a shepherdess and her ambitious mother, but he was enjoying himself.

“Are you really as bad as they say?” Hyacinth asked.

He started in surprise. He hadn’t expected that. “No,” he admitted, “but don’t tell anyone.”

“I didn’t think so,” she said thoughtfully.

Something about her tone scared him. He didn’t want Hyacinth Bridgerton thinking so hard about him. Because he had the oddest feeling that if she did, she might see right through him.

And he wasn’t sure what she’d find.

“Your grandmother is coming this way,” she said.

“So she is,” he said, glad for the distraction. “Shall we attempt an escape?”

“It’s far too late for that,” Hyacinth said, her lips twisting slightly. “She’s got my mother in tow.”

“Gareth!” came his grandmother’s strident voice.

“Grandmother,” he said, gallantly kissing her hand when she reached his side. “It is always a pleasure to see you.”

“Of course it is,” she replied pertly.

Gareth turned to face an older, slightly fairer, version of Hyacinth. “Lady Bridgerton.”

“Mr. St. Clair,” said Lady Bridgerton warmly. “It has been an age.”

“I don’t often attend such recitations,” he said.

“Yes,” Lady Bridgerton said frankly, “your grandmother told me she was forced to twist your arm to attend.”

He turned to his grandmother with raised brows. “You are going to ruin my reputation.”

“You’ve done that all on your own, m’dear boy,” Lady D said.

“I think what he means,” Hyacinth put in, “is that he’s not likely to be thought dashing and dangerous if the world knows how well he dotes upon you.”

A slightly awkward silence fell over the group as Hyacinth realized that they had all understood his remark. Gareth found himself taking pity on her, so he filled the gap by saying, “I do have another engagement this evening, however, so I’m afraid I must take my leave.”

Lady Bridgerton smiled. “We will see you Tuesday evening, however, yes?”

“Tuesday?” he queried, realizing that Lady Bridgerton’s smile was nowhere near as innocent as it looked.

“My son and his wife are hosting a large ball. I’m sure you received an invitation.”

Gareth was sure he had, too, but half the time he tossed them aside without looking at them.

“I promise you,” Lady Bridgerton continued, “there will be no unicorns.”

Trapped. And by a master, too. “In that case,” he said politely, “how could I refuse?”

“Excellent. I’m sure Hyacinth will be delighted to see you.”

“I am quite beside myself with glee,” Hyacinth murmured.

“Hyacinth!” Lady Bridgerton said. She turned to Gareth. “She doesn’t mean that.”

He turned to Hyacinth. “I’m crushed.”

“Because I’m beside myself, or because I’m not?” she queried.

“Whichever you prefer.” Gareth turned to the group at large. “Ladies,” he murmured.

“Don’t forget the shepherdess,” Hyacinth said, her smile sweet and just a little bit wicked. “You did promise her mother.”

Damn. He’d forgotten. He glanced across the room. Little Bo Peep had begun to point her crook in his direction, and Gareth had the unsettling feeling that if he got close enough, she might loop it round and reel him in.

“Aren’t the two of you friends?” he asked Hyacinth.

“Oh, no,” she said. “I hardly know her.”

“Wouldn’t you like to meet her?” he ground out.

She tapped her finger against her jaw. “I…No.” She smiled blandly. “But I will watch you from afar.”

“Traitor,” he murmured, brushing past her on the way to the shepherdess.

And for the rest of the night, he couldn’t quite forget the smell of her perfume.

Or maybe it was the soft sound of her chuckle.

Or maybe it was neither of those things. Maybe it was just her.