He gave her a brief nod of agreement.
“As I mentioned, he has traveled extensively on the Continent, and he seems to feel that it is written in a Slavic language. After consulting a map, he guessed that it is Slovene.” At his blank stare, she added, “It is what they speak in Slovenia.”
Gareth blinked. “Is there such a country?”
For the first time in the interview, Hyacinth smiled. “There is. I must confess, I was unaware of its existence as well. It’s more of a region, really. To the north and east of Italy.”
“Part of Austria-Hungary, then?”
Hyacinth nodded. “And the Holy Roman Empire before that. Was your grandmother from the north of Italy?”
Gareth suddenly realized that he had no idea. Grandmother Isabella had loved to tell him stories of her childhood in Italy, but they had been tales of food and holidays—the sorts of things a very young boy might find interesting. If she’d mentioned the town of her birth, he had been too young to take note. “I don’t know,” he said, feeling rather foolish—and in truth, somewhat inconsiderate—for his ignorance. “I suppose she must have been. She wasn’t very dark. Her coloring was a bit like mine, actually.”
Hyacinth nodded. “I had wondered about that. Neither you nor your father has much of a Mediterranean look about you.”
Gareth smiled tightly. He could not speak for the baron, but there was a very good reason why he did not look as if he carried any Italian blood.
“Well,” Hyacinth said, looking back down at the sheet of paper she had laid on his desk. “If she was from the northeast, it stands to reason that she might have lived near the Slovene border and thus been familiar with the language. Or at least familiar enough to pen two sentences in it.”
“I can’t imagine that she thought anyone here in England might be able to translate it, though.”
“Exactly,” she said, making an animated motion of agreement. When it became apparent that Gareth had no idea what she was talking about, she continued with, “If you wanted to make a clue particularly difficult, wouldn’t you write it in the most obscure language possible?”
“It’s really a pity I don’t speak Chinese,” he murmured.
She gave him a look—either of impatience or irritation; he wasn’t sure which—then continued with, “I am also convinced that this must be the final clue. Anyone who had got this far would be forced to expend quite a lot of energy, and quite possibly expense as well to obtain a translation. Surely she wouldn’t force someone to go through the trouble twice.”
Gareth looked down at the unfamiliar words, chewing on his lower lip as he pondered this.
“Don’t you agree?” Hyacinth pressed.
He looked up, shrugging. “Well, you would.”
Her mouth fell open. “What do you mean? That’s simply not—” She stopped, reflecting on his words. “Very well, I would. But I think we can both agree that, for better or for worse, I am a bit more diabolical than a typical female. Or male, for that matter,” she muttered.
Gareth smiled wryly, wondering if he ought to be made more nervous by the phrase, “for better or for worse.”
“Do you think your grandmother would be as devious as, er…”—she cleared her throat—“I?” Hyacinth seemed to lose a little steam toward the end of the question, and Gareth suddenly saw in her eyes that she was not as collected as she wished for him to believe.
“I don’t know,” he said quite honestly. “She passed away when I was rather young. My recollections and perceptions are those of a seven-year-old boy.”
“Well,” she said, tapping her fingers against the desk in a revealingly nervous gesture. “We can certainly begin our search for a speaker of Slovene.” She rolled her eyes as she added, somewhat dryly, “There must be one somewhere in London.”
“One would think,” he murmured, mostly just to egg her on. He shouldn’t do it; he should be far wiser by now, but there was something so…entertaining about Hyacinth when she was determined.
And as usual, she did not disappoint. “In the meantime,” she stated, her voice marvelously matter-of-fact, “I believe we should return to Clair House.”
“And search it from top to bottom?” he asked, so politely that it had to be clear that he thought she was mad.
“Of course not,” she said with a scowl.
He almost smiled. That was much more like her.
“But it seems to me,” she added, “that the jewels must be hidden in her bedchamber.”
“And why would you think that?”
“Where else would she put them?”
“Her dressing room,” he suggested, tilting his head to the side, “the drawing room, the attic, the butler’s closet, the guest bedroom, the other guest bedroom—”
“But where,” she cut in, looking rather annoyed with his sarcasm, “would make the most sense? Thus far, she has been keeping everything to the areas of the house least visited by your grandfather. Where better than her bedchamber?”
He eyed her thoughtfully and for long enough to make her blush. Finally, he said, “We know he visited her there at least twice.”
She blinked. “Twice?”
“My father and my father’s younger brother. He died at Trafalgar,” he explained, even though she hadn’t asked.
“Oh.” That seemed to take the winds out of her sails. At least momentarily. “I’m sorry.”
Gareth shrugged. “It was a long time ago, but thank you.”
She nodded slowly, looking as if she wasn’t quite sure what to say now. “Right,” she finally said. “Well.”
“Right,” he echoed.
“Well.”
“Well,” he said softly.
“Oh, hang it all!” she burst out. “I cannot stand this. I am not made to sit idly by and brush things under the rug.”
Gareth opened his mouth to speak, not that he had any idea of what to say, but Hyacinth wasn’t done.
“I know I should be quiet, and I know I should leave well enough alone, but I can’t. I just can’t do it.” She looked at him, and she looked like she wanted to grab his shoulders and shake. “Do you understand?”
“Not a word,” he admitted.
“I have to know!” she cried out. “I have to know why you asked me to marry you.”
It was a topic he did not wish to revisit. “I thought you said you didn’t come here to discuss my father.”
“I lied,” she said. “You didn’t really believe me, did you?”
“No,” he realized. “I don’t suppose I did.”
“I just—I can’t—” She wrung her hands together, looking more pained and tortured than he’d ever seen her. A few strands of her hair had come loose from its pinnings, probably the result of her anxious gestures, and her color was high.
But it was her eyes that looked the most changed. There was a desperation there, a strange discomfort that did not belong.
And he realized that that was the thing about Hyacinth, the distinguishing characteristic that set her so apart from the rest of humanity. She was always at ease in her own skin. She knew who she was, and she liked who she was, and he supposed that was a large part of why he so enjoyed her company.
And he realized that she had—and she was—so many things he’d always wanted.
She knew her place in this world. She knew where she belonged.
She knew who she belonged with.
And he wanted the same. He wanted it with an intensity that cut right down to his soul. It was a strange, almost indescribable jealousy, but it was there. And it seared him.
“If you have any feeling for me whatsoever,” she said, “you will understand how bloody difficult this is for me, so for the love of God, Gareth, will you say something?”
“I—” He opened his mouth to speak, but the words seemed to strangle him. Why had he asked her to marry him? There were a hundred reasons, a thousand. He tried to remember just what it was that had pushed the idea into his mind. It had come to him suddenly—he
remembered that. But he didn’t recall exactly why, except that it had seemed the right thing to do.
Not because it was expected, not because it was proper, but just because it was right.
And yes, it was true that it had crossed his mind that it would be the ultimate win in this never-ending game with his father, but that wasn’t why he’d done it.
He’d done it because he’d had to.
Because he couldn’t imagine not doing it.
Because he loved her.
He felt himself slide, and thank God the desk was behind him, or he’d have ended up on the floor.
How on earth had this happened? He was in love with Hyacinth Bridgerton.
Surely someone somewhere was laughing about this.
“I’ll go,” she said, her voice breaking, and it was only when she reached the door that he realized he must have been silent for a full minute.
“No!” he called out, and his voice sounded impossibly hoarse. “Wait!” And then:
“Please.”
She stopped, turned. Shut the door.
And he realized that he had to tell her. Not that he loved her—that he wasn’t quite ready to reveal. But he had to tell her the truth about his birth. He couldn’t trick her into marriage.
“Hyacinth, I—”
The words jammed in his throat. He’d never told anyone. Not even his grandmother. No one knew the truth except for him and the baron.
For ten years, Gareth had kept it inside, allowed it to grow and fill him until sometimes it felt like it was all that he was. Nothing but a secret. Nothing but a lie.
“I need to tell you something,” he said haltingly, and she must have sensed that this was something out of the ordinary, because she went very still.
And Hyacinth was rarely still.
“I—My father…”
It was strange. He’d never thought to say it, had never rehearsed the words. And he didn’t know how to put them together, didn’t know which sentence to choose.
“He’s not my father,” he finally blurted out.
Hyacinth blinked. Twice.
“I don’t know who my real father is.”
Still, she said nothing.
“I expect I never will.”
He watched her face, waited for some sort of reaction. She was expressionless, so completely devoid of movement that she didn’t look like herself. And then, just when he was certain that he’d lost her forever, her mouth came together in a peevish line, and she said:
“Well. That’s a relief, I must say.”
His lips parted. “I beg your pardon.”
“I wasn’t particularly excited about my children carrying Lord St. Clair’s blood.” She shrugged, lifting her brows in a particularly Hyacinthish expression. “I’m happy for them to have his title—it’s a handy thing to possess, after all—but his blood is quite another thing. He’s remarkably bad-tempered, did you know that?”
Gareth nodded, a bubble of giddy emotion rising within him. “I’d noticed,” he heard himself say.
“I suppose we’ll have to keep it a secret,” she said, as if she were speaking of nothing more than the idlest of gossip. “Who else knows?”
He blinked, still a little dazed by her matter-of-fact approach to the problem. “Just the baron and me, as far as I’m aware.”
“And your real father.”
“I hope not,” Gareth said, and he realized that it was the first time he’d actually allowed himself to say the words—even, really, to think them.
“He might not have known,” Hyacinth said quietly, “or he might have thought you were better off with the St. Clairs, as a child of nobility.”
“I know all that,” Gareth said bitterly, “and yet somehow it doesn’t make it feel any better.”
“Your grandmother might know more.”
His eyes flew to her face.
“Isabella,” she clarified. “In her diary.”
“She wasn’t really my grandmother.”
“Did she ever act that way? As if you weren’t hers?”
He shook his head. “No,” he said, losing himself to the memories. “She loved me. I don’t know why, but she did.”
“It might be,” Hyacinth said, her voice catching in the oddest manner, “because you’re slightly lovable.”
His heart leapt. “Then you don’t wish to end the engagement,” he said, somewhat cautiously.
She looked at him with an uncommonly direct gaze. “Do you?”
He shook his head.
“Then why,” she said, her lips forming the barest of smiles, “would you think that I would?”
“Your family might object.”
“Pffft. We’re not so high in the instep as that. My brother’s wife is the illegitimate daughter of the Earl of Penwood and an actress of God knows what provenance, and any one of us would lay down our lives for her.” Her eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “But you are not illegitimate.”
He shook his head. “To my father’s everlasting despair.”
“Well, then,” she said, “I don’t see a problem. My brother and Sophie like to live quietly in the country, in part because of her past, but we shan’t be forced to do the same. Unless of course, you wish to.”
“The baron could raise a huge scandal,” he warned her.
She smiled. “Are you trying to talk me out of marrying you?”
“I just want you to understand—”
“Because I would hope by now you’ve learned that it’s a tiresome endeavor to attempt to talk me out of anything.”
Gareth could only smile at that.
“Your father won’t say a word,” she stated. “What would be the point? You were born in wedlock, so he can’t take away the title, and revealing you as a bastard would only reveal him as a cuckold.” She waved her hand through the air with great authority. “No man wants that.”
His lips curved, and he felt something changing inside of him, as if he were growing lighter, more free. “And you can speak for all men?” he murmured, moving slowly in her direction.
“Would you wish to be known as a cuckold?”
He shook his head. “But I don’t have to worry about that.”
She started to look just a little unnerved—but also excited—as he closed the distance between them. “Not if you keep me happy.”
“Why, Hyacinth Bridgerton, is that a threat?”
Her expression turned coy. “Perhaps.”
He was only a step away now. “I can see that I have my work cut out for me.”
Her chin lifted, and her chest began to rise and fall more rapidly. “I’m not a particularly easy woman.”
He found her hand and lifted her fingers to his mouth. “I do enjoy a challenge.”
“Then it’s a good thing you’re—”
He took one of her fingers and slid it into his mouth, and she gasped.
“—marrying me,” she somehow finished.
He moved to another finger. “Mmm-hmm.”
“I—Ah—I—Ah—”
“You do like to talk,” he said with a chuckle.
“What do you—Oh!—”
He smiled to himself as he moved to the inside of her wrist.
“—mean by that?” But there wasn’t much punch left in her question. She was quite literally melting against the wall, and he felt like king of the world.
“Oh, nothing much,” he murmured, tugging her close so that he could move his lips to the side of her throat. “Just that I’m looking forward to actually marrying you so that you can make as much noise as you’d like.”
He couldn’t see her face—he was much too busy attending to the neckline of her dress, which clearly had to be brought down—but he knew she blushed. He felt the heat beneath her skin.
“Gareth,” she said in feeble protest. “We should stop.”
“You don’t mean that,” he said, sliding his hand under the hem of her skirt once it became clear that the bodice wasn’t going to budge.
“No??
?—she sighed—“not really.”
He smiled. “Good.”
She let out a moan as his fingers tickled up her leg, and then she must have grasped onto one last shred of sanity, because she said, “But we can’t…oh.”
“No, we can’t,” he agreed. The desk wouldn’t be comfortable, there was no room on the floor, and heaven only knew if Phelps had shut the outer door to his bedroom. He pulled back and gave her a devilish smile. “But we can do other things.”
Her eyes opened wide. “What other things?” she asked, sounding delightfully suspicious.
He wound his fingers in hers and then pulled both her hands over her head. “Do you trust me?”
“No,” she said, “but I don’t care.”
Still holding her hands aloft, he leaned her against the door and came in for a kiss. She tasted like tea, and like…
Her.
He could count the number of times he’d kissed her on one hand, and yet he still knew, still understood, that this was the essence of her. She was unique in his arms, beneath his kiss, and he knew that no one else would ever do again.
He let go of one of her hands, stroking his way softly down the line of her arm to her shoulder…neck…jaw. And then his other hand released her and found its way back to the hem of her dress.
She moaned his name, gasping and panting as his fingers moved up her leg.
“Relax,” he instructed, his lips hot against her ear.
“I can’t.”
“You can.”
“No,” she said, grabbing his face and forcing him to look at her. “I can’t.”
Gareth laughed aloud, enchanted by her bossiness. “Very well,” he said, “don’t relax.” And then, before she had a chance to respond, he slid his finger past the edge of her underthings and touched her.
“Oh!”
“No relaxing now,” he said with a chuckle.
“Gareth,” she gasped.
“Oh, Gareth, No Gareth, or More Gareth?” he murmured.
“More,” she moaned. “Please.”