For ten years, Gareth had kept it inside, allowed it to grow and fill him until sometimes it felt like it was all that he was. Nothing but a secret. Nothing but a lie.
“I need to tell you something,” he said haltingly, and she must have sensed that this was something out of the ordinary, because she went very still.
And Hyacinth was rarely still.
“I-My father…”
It was strange. He’d never thought to say it, had never rehearsed the words. And he didn’t know how to put them together, didn’t know which sentence to choose.
“He’s not my father,” he finally blurted out.
Hyacinth blinked. Twice.
“I don’t know who my real father is.”
Still, she said nothing.
“I expect I never will.”
He watched her face, waited for some sort of reaction. She was expressionless, so completely devoid of movement that she didn’t look like herself. And then, just when he was certain that he’d lost her forever, her mouth came together in a peevish line, and she said:
“Well. That’s a relief, I must say.”
His lips parted. “I beg your pardon.”
“I wasn’t particularly excited about my children carrying Lord St. Clair’s blood.” She shrugged, lifting her brows in a particularly Hyacinthish expression. “I’m happy for them to have his title-it’s a handy thing to possess, after all-but his blood is quite another thing. He’s remarkably bad-tempered, did you know that?”
Gareth nodded, a bubble of giddy emotion rising within him. “I’d noticed,” he heard himself say.
“I suppose we’ll have to keep it a secret,” she said, as if she were speaking of nothing more than the idlest of gossip. “Who else knows?”
He blinked, still a little dazed by her matter-of-fact approach to the problem. “Just the baron and me, as far as I’m aware.”
“And your real father.”
“I hope not,” Gareth said, and he realized that it was the first time he’d actually allowed himself to say the words-even, really, to think them.
“He might not have known,” Hyacinth said quietly, “or he might have thought you were better off with the St. Clairs, as a child of nobility.”
“I know all that,” Gareth said bitterly, “and yet somehow it doesn’t make it feel any better.”
“Your grandmother might know more.”
His eyes flew to her face.
“Isabella,” she clarified. “In her diary.”
“She wasn’t really my grandmother.”
“Did she ever act that way? As if you weren’t hers?”
He shook his head. “No,” he said, losing himself to the memories. “She loved me. I don’t know why, but she did.”
“It might be,” Hyacinth said, her voice catching in the oddest manner, “because you’re slightly lovable.”
His heart leapt. “Then you don’t wish to end the engagement,” he said, somewhat cautiously.
She looked at him with an uncommonly direct gaze. “Do you?”
He shook his head.
“Then why,” she said, her lips forming the barest of smiles, “would you think that I would?”
“Your family might object.”
“Pffft. We’re not so high in the instep as that. My brother’s wife is the illegitimate daughter of the Earl of Penwood and an actress of God knows what provenance, and any one of us would lay down our lives for her.” Her eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “But you are not illegitimate.”
He shook his head. “To my father’s everlasting despair.”
“Well, then,” she said, “I don’t see a problem. My brother and Sophie like to live quietly in the country, in part because of her past, but we shan’t be forced to do the same. Unless of course, you wish to.”
“The baron could raise a huge scandal,” he warned her.
She smiled. “Are you trying to talk me out of marrying you?”
“I just want you to understand-”
“Because I would hope by now you’ve learned that it’s a tiresome endeavor to attempt to talk me out of anything.”
Gareth could only smile at that.
“Your father won’t say a word,” she stated. “What would be the point? You were born in wedlock, so he can’t take away the title, and revealing you as a bastard would only reveal him as a cuckold.” She waved her hand through the air with great authority. “No man wants that.”
His lips curved, and he felt something changing inside of him, as if he were growing lighter, more free. “And you can speak for all men?” he murmured, moving slowly in her direction.
“Would you wish to be known as a cuckold?”
He shook his head. “But I don’t have to worry about that.”
She started to look just a little unnerved-but also excited-as he closed the distance between them. “Not if you keep me happy.”
“Why, Hyacinth Bridgerton, is that a threat?”
Her expression turned coy. “Perhaps.”
He was only a step away now. “I can see that I have my work cut out for me.”
Her chin lifted, and her chest began to rise and fall more rapidly. “I’m not a particularly easy woman.”
He found her hand and lifted her fingers to his mouth. “I do enjoy a challenge.”
“Then it’s a good thing you’re-”
He took one of her fingers and slid it into his mouth, and she gasped.
“-marrying me,” she somehow finished.
He moved to another finger. “Mmm-hmm.”
“I-Ah-I-Ah-”
“You do like to talk,” he said with a chuckle.
“What do you-Oh!-”
He smiled to himself as he moved to the inside of her wrist.
“-mean by that?” But there wasn’t much punch left in her question. She was quite literally melting against the wall, and he felt like king of the world.
“Oh, nothing much,” he murmured, tugging her close so that he could move his lips to the side of her throat. “Just that I’m looking forward to actually marrying you so that you can make as much noise as you’d like.”
He couldn’t see her face-he was much too busy attending to the neckline of her dress, which clearly had to be brought down-but he knew she blushed. He felt the heat beneath her skin.
“Gareth,” she said in feeble protest. “We should stop.”
“You don’t mean that,” he said, sliding his hand under the hem of her skirt once it became clear that the bodice wasn’t going to budge.
“No”-she sighed-“not really.”
He smiled. “Good.”
She let out a moan as his fingers tickled up her leg, and then she must have grasped onto one last shred of sanity, because she said, “But we can’t…oh.”
“No, we can’t,” he agreed. The desk wouldn’t be comfortable, there was no room on the floor, and heaven only knew if Phelps had shut the outer door to his bedroom. He pulled back and gave her a devilish smile. “But we can do other things.”
Her eyes opened wide. “What other things?” she asked, sounding delightfully suspicious.
He wound his fingers in hers and then pulled both her hands over her head. “Do you trust me?”
“No,” she said, “but I don’t care.”
Still holding her hands aloft, he leaned her against the door and came in for a kiss. She tasted like tea, and like…
Her.
He could count the number of times he’d kissed her on one hand, and yet he still knew, still understood, that this was the essence of her. She was unique in his arms, beneath his kiss, and he knew that no one else would ever do again.
He let go of one of her hands, stroking his way softly down the line of her arm to her shoulder…neck…jaw. And then his other hand released her and found its way back to the hem of her dress.
She moaned his name, gasping and panting as his fingers moved up her leg.
“Relax,” he instructed, his lips hot against her ear.
“I can’t.”
“You can.”
“No,” she said, grabbing his face and forcing him to look at her. “I can’t.”
Gareth laughed aloud, enchanted by her bossiness. “Very well,” he said, “don’t relax.” And then, before she had a chance to respond, he slid his finger past the edge of her underthings and touched her.