It's In His Kiss

The next morning. Hyacinth is still in an excellent mood. Unfortunately, her mother commented upon this so many times at breakfast that Hyacinth was finally forced to flee and barricade herself in her bedchamber.

Violet Bridgerton is an exceptionally canny woman, after all, and if anyone is going to guess that Hyacinth is falling in love, it would be her.

Probably before Hyacinth, even.

Hyacinth hummed to herself as she sat at the small desk in her bedchamber, tapping her fingers against the blotter. She had translated and retranslated the note they’d found the night before in the small green office, and she still wasn’t satisfied with her results, but even that could not dampen her spirits.

She’d been a little disappointed, of course, that they had not found the diamonds the night before, but the note in the curio cabinet seemed to indicate that the jewels might still be theirs for the taking. At the very least, no one else had reached any success with the trail of clues Isabella had left behind.

Hyacinth was never happier than when she had a task, a goal, some sort of quest. She loved the challenge of solving a puzzle, analyzing a clue. And Isabella Marinzoli St. Clair had turned what would surely have been a dull and ordinary season into the most exciting spring of Hyacinth’s life.

She looked down at the note, twisting her mouth to the side as she forced her mind back to the task at hand. Her translation was still only about seventy percent complete, in Hyacinth’s optimistic estimation, but she rather thought she’d managed enough of a translation to justify another attempt. The next clue-or the actual diamonds, if they were lucky-was almost certainly in the library.

“In a book, I imagine,” she murmured, gazing sightlessly out the window. She thought of the Bridgerton library, tucked away at her brother’s Grosvenor Square home. The room itself wasn’t terribly large, but the shelves lined the walls from floor to ceiling.

And books filled the shelves. Every last inch of them.

“Maybe the St. Clairs aren’t much for reading,” she said to herself, turning her attention once again to Isabella’s note. Surely there had to be something in the cryptic words to indicate which book she had chosen as her hiding spot. Something scientific, she was fairly sure. Isabella had underlined part of her note, which led Hyacinth to think that perhaps she was referring to a book title, since it didn’t seem to make sense in context that she’d have been underlining for emphasis. And the part she’d underlined had mentioned water and “things that move,” which sounded a bit like physics, not that Hyacinth had ever studied it. But she’d four brothers who had attended university, and she’d overheard enough of their studies to have a vague knowledge of, if not the subject, at least what the subject meant.

Still, she wasn’t nearly as certain as she’d have liked about her translation, or what it meant. Maybe if she went to Gareth with what she’d translated thus far, he could read something into it that she didn’t see. After all, he was more familiar with the house and its contents than she was. He might know of an odd or interesting book, something unique or out of the ordinary.

Gareth.

She smiled to herself, a loopy, silly grin that she would have died before allowing anyone else to see.

Something had happened the night before. Something special.

Something important.

He liked her. He really liked her. They had laughed and chattered the entire way home. And when he had dropped her off at the servants’ entrance to Number Five, he had looked at her in that heavy-lidded, just a little bit intense way of his. He had smiled, too, one corner of his mouth lifting as if he had a secret.

She’d shivered. She’d actually forgotten how to speak. And she’d wondered if he might kiss her again, which of course he hadn’t done, but maybe…

Maybe soon.

She had no doubt that she still drove him a little bit mad. But she seemed to drive everyone a little bit mad, so she decided not to attach too much importance to that.

But he liked her. And he respected her intelligence as well. And if he was occasionally reluctant to demonstrate this as often as she would like…well, she had four brothers. She had long since learned that it took a fully formed miracle to get them to admit that a woman might be smarter than a man about anything other than fabrics, perfumed soaps, and tea.

She turned her head to look at the clock, which sat on the mantel over her small fireplace. It was already past noon. Gareth had promised that he would call on her this afternoon to see how she was faring with the note. That probably didn’t mean before two, but technically it was the afternoon, and-

Her ears perked up. Was that someone at the door? Her room was at the front of the house, so she could generally hear when someone was entering or exiting. Hyacinth got up and went to the window, peeking out from behind the curtains to see if she could see anyone on the front step.

Nothing.

She went to the door and opened it just enough to listen.

Nothing.

She stepped into the hall, her heart pounding with anticipation. Truly, there was no reason to be nervous, but she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Gareth, and the diamonds, and-

“Eh, Hyacinth, what’re you doing?”

She nearly jumped out of her skin.

“Sorry,” said her brother Gregory, not sounding sorry at all. He was standing behind her, or rather he had been, before she’d whirled around in surprise. He looked slightly disheveled, his reddish brown hair windblown and cut just a touch too long.

“Don’t do that,” she said, placing her hand over her heart, as if that might possibly calm it down.

He just crossed his arms and leaned one shoulder against the wall. “It’s what I do best,” he said with a grin.

“Not something I’d brag about,” Hyacinth returned.

He ignored the insult, instead brushing an imaginary piece of lint off the sleeve of his riding coat. “What has you skulking about?”

“I’m not skulking.”

“Of course you are. It’s what you do best.”

She scowled at him, even though she ought to have known better. Gregory was two and a half years her elder, and he lived to vex her. He always had. The two of them were a bit cut off from the rest of the family, in terms of age. Gregory was almost four years younger than Francesca, and a full ten from Colin, the next youngest son. As a result, he and Hyacinth had always been a bit on their own, a bit of a duo.

A bickering, poking, frog-in-the-bed sort of duo, but a duo nonetheless, and even though they had outgrown the worst of their pranks, neither seemed able to resist needling the other.

“I thought I heard someone come in,” Hyacinth said.

He smiled blandly. “It was me.”

“I realize that now.” She placed her hand on the door-knob and pulled. “If you will excuse me.”

“You’re in a snit today.”

“I’m not in a snit.”

“Of course you are. It’s-”

“Not what I do best.” Hyacinth ground out.

He grinned. “You’re definitely in a snit.”

“I’m-” She clamped her teeth together. She was not going to descend to the behavior of a three-year-old. “I am going back into my room now. I have a book to read.”

But before she could make her escape, she heard him say, “I saw you with Gareth St. Clair the other night.”

Hyacinth froze. Surely he couldn’t have known…No one had seen them. She was sure of that.

“At Bridgerton House,” Gregory continued. “Off in the corner of the ballroom.”

Hyacinth let out a long, quiet breath before turning back around.