It's In His Kiss

“After we see if you behave yourself.”

Hyacinth laughed. “You married into the family. You have to love me. It’s a contractual obligation.”

“Funny how I don’t recall that in the wedding vows.”

“Funny,” Hyacinth returned, “I remember it perfectly.”

Penelope looked at her and laughed. “I don’t know how you do it, Hyacinth,” she said, “but exasperating as you are, you somehow always manage to be charming.”

“It’s my greatest gift,” Hyacinth said demurely.

“Well, you do receive extra points for coming with me tonight,” Penelope said, patting her on the hand.

“Of course,” Hyacinth replied. “For all my insufferable ways, I am in truth the soul of kindness and amiability.” And she’d have to be, she thought, as she watched the scene unfolding on the small, makeshift stage. Another year, another Smythe-Smith musicale. Another opportunity to learn just how many ways one could ruin a perfectly good piece of music. Every year Hyacinth swore she wouldn’t attend, then every year she somehow found herself at the event, smiling encouragingly at the four girls on the stage.

“At least last year I got to sit in the back,” Hyacinth said.

“Yes, you did,” Penelope replied, turning on her with suspicious eyes. “How did you manage that? Felicity, Eloise, and I were all up front.”

Hyacinth shrugged. “A well-timed visit to the ladies’ retiring room. In fact-”

“Don’t you dare try that tonight,” Penelope warned. “If you leave me up here by myself…”

“Don’t worry,” Hyacinth said with a sigh. “I am here for the duration. But,” she added, pointing her finger in what her mother would surely have termed a most unlady-like manner, “I want my devotion to you to be duly noted.”

“Why is it,” Penelope asked, “that I am left with the feeling that you are keeping score of something, and when I least expect it, you will jump out in front of me, demanding a favor?”

Hyacinth looked at her and blinked. “Why would I need to jump?”

“Ah, look,” Penelope said, after staring at her sister-inlaw as if she were a lunatic, “here comes Lady Danbury.”

“Mrs. Bridgerton,” Lady Danbury said, or rather barked. “Miss Bridgerton.”

“Good evening, Lady Danbury,” Penelope said to the elderly countess. “We saved you a seat right in front.”

Lady D narrowed her eyes and poked Penelope lightly in the ankle with her cane. “Always thinking of others, aren’t you?”

“Of course,” Penelope demurred. “I wouldn’t dream of-”

“Ha,” Lady Danbury said.

It was, Hyacinth reflected, the countess’s favorite syllable. That and hmmmph.

“Move over, Hyacinth,” Lady D ordered. “I’ll sit between you.”

Hyacinth obediently moved one chair to the left. “We were just pondering our reasons for attending,” she said as Lady Danbury settled into her seat. “I for one have come up blank.”

“I can’t speak for you,” Lady D said to Hyacinth, “but she”-at this she jerked her head toward Penelope-“is here for the same reason I am.”

“For the music?” Hyacinth queried, perhaps a little too politely.

Lady Danbury turned back to Hyacinth, her face creasing into what might have been a smile. “I’ve always liked you, Hyacinth Bridgerton.”

“I’ve always liked you, too,” Hyacinth replied.

“I expect it is because you come and read to me from time to time,” Lady Danbury said.

“Every week,” Hyacinth reminded her.

“Time to time, every week…pfft.” Lady Danbury’s hand cut a dismissive wave through the air. “It’s all the same if you’re not making it a daily endeavor.”

Hyacinth judged it best not to speak. Lady D would surely find some way to twist her words into a promise to visit every afternoon.

“And I might add,” Lady D said with a sniff, “that you were most unkind last week, leaving off with poor Priscilla hanging from a cliff.”

“What are you reading?” Penelope asked.

“Miss Butterworth and the Mad Baron,” Hyacinth replied. “And she wasn’t hanging. Yet.”

“Did you read ahead?” Lady D demanded.

“No,” Hyacinth said with a roll of her eyes. “But it’s not difficult to forecast. Miss Butterworth has already hung from a building and a tree.”

“And she’s still living?” Penelope asked.

“I said hung, not hanged,” Hyacinth muttered. “More’s the pity.”

“Regardless,” Lady Danbury cut in, “it was most unkind of you to leave me hanging.”

“It’s where the author ended the chapter,” Hyacinth said unrepentantly, “and besides, isn’t patience a virtue?”

“Absolutely not,” Lady Danbury said emphatically, “and if you think so, you’re less of a woman than I thought.”

No one understood why Hyacinth visited Lady Danbury every Tuesday and read to her, but she enjoyed her afternoons with the countess. Lady Danbury was crotchety and honest to a fault, and Hyacinth adored her.

“The two of you together are a menace,” Penelope remarked.

“My aim in life,” Lady Danbury announced, “is to be a menace to as great a number of people as possible, so I shall take that as the highest of compliments, Mrs. Bridgerton.”

“Why is it,” Penelope wondered, “that you only call me Mrs. Bridgerton when you are opining in a grand fashion?”

“Sounds better that way,” Lady D said, punctuating her remark with a loud thump of her cane.

Hyacinth grinned. When she was old, she wanted to be exactly like Lady Danbury. Truth be told, she liked the elderly countess better than most of the people she knew her own age. After three seasons on the marriage mart, Hyacinth was growing just a little bit weary of the same people day after day. What had once been exhilarating-the balls, the parties, the suitors-well, it was still enjoyable-that much she had to concede. Hyacinth certainly wasn’t one of those girls who complained about all of the wealth and privilege she was forced to endure.

But it wasn’t the same. She no longer held her breath each time she entered a ballroom. And a dance was now simply a dance, no longer the magical swirl of movement it had been in years gone past.

The excitement, she realized, was gone.

Unfortunately, every time she mentioned this to her mother, the reply was simply to find herself a husband. That, Violet Bridgerton took great pains to point out, would change everything.

Indeed.

Hyacinth’s mother had long since given up any pretense of subtlety when it came to the unmarried state of her fourth and final daughter. It had, Hyacinth thought grimly, turned into a personal crusade.

Forget Joan of Arc. Her mother was Violet of Mayfair, and neither plague nor pestilence nor perfidious paramour would stop her in her quest to see all eight of her children happily married. There were only two remaining, Gregory and Hyacinth, but Gregory was still just twenty-four, which was (rather unfairly, in Hyacinth’s opinion) considered a perfectly acceptable age for a gentleman to remain a bachelor.

But Hyacinth at twenty-two? The only thing staving off her mother’s complete collapse was the fact that her elder sister Eloise had waited until the grand old age of twenty-eight before finally becoming a bride. By comparison, Hyacinth was practically in leading strings.

No one could say that Hyacinth was hopelessly on the shelf, but even she had to admit that she was edging toward that position. She had received a few proposals since her debut three years earlier, but not as many as one would think, given her looks-not the prettiest girl in town but certainly better than at least half-and her fortune- again, not the largest dowry on the market, but certainly enough to make a fortune hunter look twice.

And her connections were, of course, nothing short of impeccable. Her brother was, as their father had been before him, the Viscount Bridgerton, and while theirs might not have been the loftiest title in the land, the family