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.
“
“Of course we are,” she said. “You must get those jewels. You can’t let your father have them.”
“
“You’re not leaving
“
“Well, of course.”
Good God, did the woman
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
She eyed him coolly. “You are not nearly as sensible a person as I thought you.”
“Strangely enough, you are
“I will pretend I didn’t hear
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
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?
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
She waited for him to speak-probably not as long as she should have done, but it seemed like an eternity. And she
“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
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
“Why not?”
“Because they’re
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
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