It's In His Kiss

again.

A quick glance up and down the street assured him that no one was coming, and he quickly scaled the wall, his ascent much easier this time, now that he knew exactly where to place his hands and feet. The window was still slightly open, just as he’d left it the last time-not that he’d thought he was going to have to climb in again.

He jammed it up, tumbled through, and landed with a thud on the carpet just as Hyacinth entered through the door.

“You,” he growled, coming to his feet like a cat, “have some explaining to do.”

“Me?” Hyacinth returned. “Me? I hardly think-” Her lips parted as she belatedly assessed the situation. “And get out of my room!”

He quirked a brow. “Shall I take the front stairs?”

“You’ll go back out the window, you miserable cur.”

Gareth realized that he’d never seen Hyacinth angry. Irritated, yes; annoyed, certainly. But this…

This was something else entirely.

“How dare you!” she fumed. “How dare you.” And then, before he could even begin to reply, she stormed to his side and smacked him with the heels of both of her hands. “Get out!” she snarled. “Now!”

“Not until you”-he punctuated this with a pointed finger, right against her breastbone-“promise me that you will never do anything as foolish as what you did tonight.”

“Unh! Unh!” She let out a choking sort of noise, the kind one makes when one cannot manage even a single intelligible syllable. And then finally, after a few more gasps of fury, she said, her voice dangerously low, “You are in no position to demand anything of me.”

“No?” He lifted one of his brows and looked down at her with an arrogant half smile. “As your future husband-”

“Do not even mention that to me right now.”

Gareth felt something squeeze and turn over in his chest. “Do you plan to cry off?”

“No,” she said, looking at him with a furious expression, “but you took care of that this evening, didn’t you? Was that your purpose? To force my hand by rendering me unmarriageable for any other man?”

It had been exactly his purpose, and for that reason Gareth didn’t say anything. Not a word.

“You’ll rue this,” Hyacinth hissed. “You will rue the day. Trust me.”

“Oh, really?”

“As your future wife,” she said, her eyes flashing dangerously, “I can make your life hell on earth.”

Of that, Gareth had no doubt, but he decided to deal with that problem when he came to it. “This is not about what happened between us earlier,” he said, “and it is not about anything you may or may not have heard the baron say. What this is about-”

“Oh, for the love of-” Hyacinth cut herself off in the nick of time. “Who do you think you are?”

He jammed his face next to hers. “The man who is going to marry you. And you, Hyacinth Bridgerton soon-to- be St. Clair, will never ever wander the streets of London without a chaperone, at any time of day.”

For a moment she said nothing, and he almost let himself think that she was touched by his concern for her safety. But then, she just stepped back and said, “It’s a rather convenient time to develop a sense of propriety.”

He resisted the urge to grab her by the shoulders and shake-barely. “Do you have any idea how I felt when I came back around the corner, and you were gone? Did you even stop to think about what might have happened to you before you ran off on your own?”

One of her brows lifted into a perfectly arrogant arch. “Nothing more than what happened to me right here.”

As strikes went, it was perfectly aimed, and Gareth nearly flinched. But he held on to his temper, and his voice was cool as he said, “You don’t mean that. You might think you mean it, but you don’t, and I’ll forgive you for it.”

She stood still, utterly and completely still save for the rise and fall of her chest. Her hands were fists at her sides, and her face was growing redder and redder.

“Don’t you ever,” she finally said, her voice low and clipped and terribly controlled, “speak to me in that tone of voice again. And don’t you ever presume to know my mind.”

“Don’t worry, it’s a claim I’m seldom likely to make.”

Hyacinth swallowed-her only show of nerves before saying, “I want you to leave.”

“Not until I have your promise.”

“I don’t owe you anything, Mr. St. Clair. And you certainly are not in a position to make demands.”

“Your promise,” he repeated.

Hyacinth just stared at him. How dare he come in here and try to make this about her? She was the injured party. He was the one who-He-

Good God, she couldn’t even think in full sentences.

“I want you to leave,” she said again.

His reply came practically on top of her last syllable. “And I want your promise.”

She clamped her mouth shut. It would have been an easy promise to make; she certainly didn’t plan on any more middle-of-the-night jaunts. But a promise would have been akin to an apology, and she would not give him that satisfaction.

Call her foolish, call her juvenile, but she would not do it. Not after what he’d done to her.

“Good God,” he muttered, “you’re stubborn.”

She gave him a sickly smile. “It is going to be a joy to be married to me.”

“Hyacinth,” he said, or rather, half sighed. “In the name of all that is-” He raked his hand through his hair, and he seemed to look all around the room before finally turning back to her. “I understand that you’re angry…”

“Do not speak to me as if I were a child.”

“I wasn’t.”

She looked at him coolly. “You were.”

He gritted his teeth together and continued. “What my father said about Mary Winthrop…”

Her mouth fell open. “Is that what you think this is about?”

He stared at her, blinking twice before saying, “Isn’t it?”

“Of course not,” she sputtered. “Good heavens, do you take me for a fool?”

“I…er…no?”

“I hope I know you well enough to know that you would not offer marriage to two women. At least not purposefully.”

“Right,” he said, looking a little confused. “Then what-”

“Do you know why you asked me to marry you?” she demanded.

“What the devil are you talking about?”

“Do you know?” she repeated. She’d asked him once before, and he had not answered.

“Of course I know. It’s because-” But he cut himself off, and he obviously didn’t know what to say.

She shook her head, blinking back tears. “I don’t want to see you right now.”

“What is wrong with you?”

“There is nothing wrong with me,” she cried out, as loudly as she dared. “I at least know why I accepted your proposal. But you-You have no idea why you rendered it.”

“Then tell me,” he burst out. “Tell me what it is you think is so damned important. You always seem to know what is best for everything and everyone, and now you clearly know everyone’s mind as well. So tell me. Tell me, Hyacinth-”

She flinched from the venom in his voice.

“-tell me.”

She swallowed. She would not back down. She might be shaking, she might be as close to tears as she had ever been in her life, but she would not back down. “You did this,” she said, her voice low, to keep the tremors at bay, “you asked me…because of him.”

He just stared at her, making a please elaborate motion with his head.