“Of course not, but I’ve always wanted to taste it, why?”
“Because we both deserve a drink.”
He heard her smother a laugh, then say, “Well, the unicorn was rather sweet.”
He snorted. The unicorn couldn’t have been more than ten years old. Which would have been fine, except that Henry VIII had insisted upon taking an unscripted ride. “I’m surprised they didn’t have to call for a surgeon,” he muttered.
Hyacinth winced. “She did seem to be limping a bit.”
“It was all I could do not to whinny in pain on her behalf. Good God, who-Oh! Lady Pleinsworth,” Gareth said, pasting a smile on his face with what he thought was admirable speed. “How nice to see you.”
“Mr. St. Clair,” Lady Pleinsworth said effusively. “I’m so delighted you could attend.”
“I wouldn’t have missed it.”
“And Miss Bridgerton,” Lady Pleinsworth said, clearly angling for a bit of gossip. “Do I have you to thank for Mr. St. Clair’s appearance?”
“I’m afraid his grandmother is to blame,” Hyacinth replied. “She threatened him with her cane.”
Lady Pleinsworth didn’t seem to know quite how to respond to this, so she turned back to Gareth, clearing her throat a few times before asking, “Have you met my daughters?”
Gareth managed not to grimace. This was exactly why he tried to avoid these things. “Er, no, I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure.”
“The shepherdess,” Lady Pleinsworth said helpfully.
Gareth nodded. “And the unicorn?” he asked with a smile.
“Yes,” Lady Pleinsworth replied, blinking in confusion, and quite possibly distress, “but she’s a bit young.”
“I’m sure Mr. St. Clair would be delighted to meet Harriet,” Hyacinth cut in before turning to Gareth with an explanatory, “The shepherdess.”
“Of course,” he said. “Yes, delighted.”
Hyacinth turned back to Lady Pleinsworth with a smile that was far too innocent. “Mr. St. Clair is an expert on all things ovine.”
“Where is my cane when I need it?” he murmured.
“I beg your pardon?” Lady Pleinsworth said, leaning forward.
“I would be honored to meet your daughter,” he said, since it seemed the only acceptable statement at that point.
“Wonderful!” Lady Pleinsworth exclaimed, clapping her hands together. “I know she will be so excited to meet you.” And then, saying something about needing to see to the rest of her guests, she was off.
“Don’t look so upset,” Hyacinth said, once it was just the two of them again. “You’re quite a catch.”
He looked at her assessingly. “Is one meant to say such things quite so directly?”
She shrugged. “Not to men one is trying to impress.”
“Touché, Miss Bridgerton.”
She sighed happily. “My three favorite words.”
Of that, he had no doubt.
“Tell me, Miss Bridgerton,” he said, “have you begun to read my grandmother’s diary?”
She nodded. “I was surprised you didn’t ask earlier.”
“Distracted by the shepherdess,” he said, “although please don’t say as much to her mother. She’d surely take it the wrong way.”
“Mothers always do,” she agreed, glancing around the room.
“What are you looking for?” he asked.
“Hmmm? Oh, nothing. Just looking.”
“For what?” he persisted.
She turned to him, her eyes wide, unblinking, and startlingly blue. “Nothing in particular. Don’t you like to know everything that is going on?”
“Only as it pertains to me.”
“Really?” She paused. “I like to know everything.”
“So I’m gathering. And speaking of which, what have you learned of the diary?”
“Oh, yes,” she said, brightening before his eyes. It seemed an odd sort of metaphor, but it was true. Hyacinth Bridgerton positively sparkled when she had the opportunity to speak with authority. And the strangest thing was, Gareth thought it rather charming.
“I have only read twelve pages, I’m afraid,” she said. “My mother required my assistance with her correspondence this afternoon, and I did not have the time I would have wished to work on it. I didn’t tell her about it, by the way. I wasn’t sure if it was meant to be a secret.”
Gareth thought of his father, who would probably want the diary, if only because Gareth had it in his possession. “It’s a secret,” he said. “At least until I deem otherwise.”
She nodded. “It’s probably best not to say anything until you know what she wrote.”
“What did you find out?”
“Well…”
He watched her as she grimaced. “What is it?” he asked.
Both corners of her mouth stretched out and down in that expression one gets when one is trying not to deliver bad news. “There’s really no polite way to say it, I’m afraid,” she said.
“There rarely is, when it comes to my family.”
She eyed him curiously, saying, “She didn’t particularly wish to marry your grandfather.”
“Yes, you said as much this afternoon.”
“No, I mean she really didn’t want to marry him.”
“Smart woman,” he muttered. “The men in my family are bullheaded idiots.”
She smiled. Slightly. “Yourself included?”
He should have anticipated that. “You couldn’t resist, could you?” he murmured.
“Could you?”
“I imagine not,” he admitted. “What else did she say?”
“Not a great deal more,” Hyacinth told him. “She was only seventeen at the beginning of the diary. Her parents forced the match, and she wrote three pages about how upset she was.”
“Upset?”
She winced. “Well, a bit more than upset, I must say, but-”
“We’ll leave it at ‘upset.’ ”
“Yes,” she agreed, “that’s best.”
“How did they meet?” he asked. “Did she say?”
Hyacinth shook her head. “No. She seems to have begun the journal after their introduction. Although she did make reference to a party at her uncle’s house, so perhaps that was it.”
Gareth nodded absently. “My grandfather took a grand tour,” he said. “They met and married in Italy, but that’s all I’ve been told.”
“Well, I don’t think he compromised her, if that’s what you wish to know,” Hyacinth said. “I would think she’d mention that in her diary.”
He couldn’t resist a little verbal poke. “Would you?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Would you write about it in your diary if someone compromised you?”
She blushed, which delighted him. “I don’t keep a diary,” she said.
Oh, he was loving this. “But if you did…”
“But I don’t,” she ground out.
“Coward,” he said softly.
“Would you write all of your secrets down in a diary?” she countered.
“Of course not,” he said. “If someone found it, that would hardly be fair to the people I’ve mentioned.”
“People?” she dared.
He flashed her a grin. “Women.”
She blushed again, but it was softer this time, and he rather doubted she even knew she’d done it. It tinged her pink, played with the light sprinkling of freckles across her nose. At this point, most women would have expressed their outrage, or at least pretended to, but not Hyacinth. He watched as her lips pursed slightly-maybe to hide her embarrassed expression, maybe to bite off a retort, he wasn’t sure which.
And he realized that he was enjoying himself. It was hard to believe, since he was standing next to a piano covered with twigs, and he was well aware that he was going to have to spend the rest of the evening avoiding a shepherdess and her ambitious mother, but he was enjoying himself.
“Are you really as bad as they say?” Hyacinth asked.
He started in surprise. He hadn’t expected that. “No,” he admitted, “but don’t tell anyone.”