It's In His Kiss

“You can move?”

She blinked. “You can’t?”

“If I didn’t have to vacate this bed before morning, I’d be quite content to snore until noon.”

“But the jewels! Our plans!”

He closed his eyes. “We can go tomorrow.”

“No,” she said, batting him on the shoulder with the heel of her hand, “we can’t.”

“Why not?’

“Because I already have plans for tomorrow, and my mother will grow suspicious if I keep pleading headaches. And besides, we planned on this evening.”

He opened one eye. “It’s not as if anyone’s expecting us.”

“Well, I’m going,” she stated, pulling the bedsheet around her body as she climbed from the bed.

Gareth’s brows rose as he pondered his naked form. He looked at Hyacinth with a masculine smile, which spread even farther when she blushed and turned away.

“I…ah…just need to wash myself,” she mumbled, scooting away to her dressing room.

With a great show of reluctance (even though Hyacinth had her back to him) Gareth began to pull on his clothing. He couldn’t believe she would even ponder heading out that evening. Weren’t virgins supposed to be stiff and sore after their first time?

She stuck her head out of the dressing room door. “I purchased better shoes,” she said in a stage whisper, “in case we have to run.”

He shook his head. She was no ordinary virgin.

“Are you certain you wish to do this tonight?” he asked, once she reemerged in her black men’s clothing.

“Absolutely,” she said, pulling her hair into a queue at her neck. She looked up, her eyes shining with excitement. “Don’t you?”

“I’m exhausted.”

“Really?” She looked at him with open curiosity. “I feel quite the opposite. Energized, really.”

“You will be the death of me, you do realize that.”

She grinned. “Better me than someone else.”

He sighed and headed for the window.

“Would you like me to wait for you at the bottom,” she asked politely, “or would you prefer to go down the back stairs with me?”

Gareth paused, one foot on the windowsill. “Ah, the back stairs will be quite acceptable,” he said.

And he followed her out.

Chapter 15

Inside the Clair House library. There is little reason to chronicle the journey across Mayfair, other than to make note of Hyacinth’s wellspring of energy and enthusiasm, and Gareth’s lack thereof.

“Do you see anything?” Hyacinth whispered.

“Only books.”

She gave him a frustrated glare but decided not to chastise him for his lack of enthusiasm. Such an argument would only distract them from the task at hand. “Do you see,” she said, with as much patience as she could muster, “any sections which seem to be composed of scientific titles?” She glanced at the shelf in front of her, which contained three novels, two works of philosophy, a three-volume history of ancient Greece, and The Care and Feeding of Swine. “Or are they in any order at all?” she sighed.

“Somewhat,” came the reply from above. Gareth was standing on a stool, investigating the upper shelves. “Not really.”

Hyacinth twisted her neck, glancing up until she had a fairly good view of the underside of his chin. “What do you see?”

“Quite a bit on the topic of early Britain. But look what I found, tucked away on the end.” He plucked a small book from the shelf and tossed it down.

Hyacinth caught it easily, then turned it in her hands until the title was right side up. “No!” she said.

“Hard to believe, isn’t it?”

She looked back down again. Right there, in gold lettering: Miss Davenport and the Dark Marquis. “I don’t believe it,” she said.

“Perhaps you should take it home to my grandmother. No one will miss it here.”

Hyacinth opened to the title page. “It was written by the same author as Miss Butterworth.”

“It would have to be,” Gareth commented, bending his knees to better inspect the next shelf down.

“We didn’t know about this one,” Hyacinth said. “We’ve read Miss Sainsbury and the Mysterious Colonel, of course.”

“A military tale?”

“Set in Portugal.” Hyacinth resumed her inspection of the shelf in front of her. “It didn’t seem terribly authentic, however. Not, of course, that I’ve ever been to Portugal.”

He nodded, then stepped off his stool and moved it in front of the next set of shelves. Hyacinth watched as he climbed back up and began his work anew, on the highest shelf.

“Remind me,” he said. “What, precisely, are we looking for?”

Hyacinth pulled the oft-folded note from her pocket. “Discorso Intorno alle Cose che stanno in su l’acqua.”

He stared at her for a moment. “Which means…?”

“Discussion of inside things that are in water?” She hadn’t meant to say it as a question.

He looked dubious. “Inside things?”

“That are in water. Or that move,” she added. “O che in quella si muovono. That’s the last part of it.”

“And someone would wish to read that because…?”

“I have no idea,” she said, shaking her head. “You’re the Cantabridgian.”

He cleared his throat. “Yes, well, I wasn’t much for the sciences.”

Hyacinth decided not to comment and turned back to the shelf in front of her, which contained a seven-volume set on the topic of English botany, two works of Shakespeare, and a rather fat book titled, simply, Wildflowers. “I think,” she said, chewing on her lower lip for a moment as she glanced back at several of the shelves she’d already cataloged, “that perhaps these books had been in order at some point. There does seem to be some organization to it. If you look right here”-she motioned to one of the first shelves she’d inspected-“it’s almost completely works of poetry. But then right in the middle one finds something by Plato, and over on the end, An Illustrated History of Denmark.”

“Right,” Gareth said, sounding a bit like he was grimacing. “Right.”

“Right?” she echoed, looking up.

“Right.” Now he sounded embarrassed. “That might have been my fault.”

She blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

“It was one of my less mature moments,” he admitted. “I was angry.”

“You were…angry?”

“I rearranged the shelves.”

“You what?” She’d have liked to yell, and frankly, she was rather proud of herself for not doing so.

He shrugged sheepishly. “It seemed impressively underhanded at the time.”

Hyacinth found herself staring blankly at the shelf in front of her. “Who could have guessed it would come back to haunt you?”

“Who indeed.” He moved to another shelf, tilting his head as he read the titles on the spines. “The worst of it was, it turned out to be a tad too underhanded. Didn’t bother my father one bit.”