by Julia Quinn
“I love a woman who knows when to beg,” he said, redoubling his efforts.
Her head, which had been thrown back, came down so that she could look him in the eye. “You’ll pay for that,” she said.
He quirked a brow. “I will?”
She nodded. “Just not now.”
He laughed softly. “Fair enough.”
He rubbed her gently, using soft friction to bring her to a quivering peak. She was breathing erratically now, her lips parted and her eyes glazed. He loved her face, loved every little curve of it, the way the light hit her cheekbones and the shape of her jaw.
But there was something about it now, when she was lost in her own passion, that took his breath away. She was beautiful—not in a way that would launch a thousand ships, but in a more private fashion.
Her beauty was his and his alone.
And it humbled him.
He leaned down to kiss her, tenderly, with all the love he felt. He wanted to catch her gasp when she climaxed, wanted to feel her breath and her moan with his mouth. His fingers tickled and teased, and she tensed beneath him, her body trapped between his and the wall, grinding against them both.
“Gareth,” she gasped, breaking free of the kiss for just long enough to say his name.
“Soon,” he promised. He smiled. “Maybe now.”
And then, as he captured her for one last kiss, he slid one finger inside of her, even as another continued its caress. He felt her close tight around him, felt her body practically lift off the floor with the force of her passion.
And it was only then that he realized the true measure of his own desire. He was hard and hot and desperate for her, and even so, he’d been so focused on her that he hadn’t noticed.
Until now.
He looked at her. She was limp, breathless, and as near to insensible as he’d ever seen her.
Damn.
That was all right, he told himself unconvincingly. They had their whole lives ahead of them. One encounter with a tub of cold water wasn’t going to kill him.
“Happy?” he murmured, gazing down at her indulgently.
She nodded, but that was all she managed.
He dropped a kiss on her nose, then remembered the papers he’d left on his desk. They weren’t quite complete, but still, it seemed a good time to show them to her.
“I have a present for you,” he said.
Her eyes lit up. “You do?”
He nodded. “Just keep in mind that it’s the thought that counts.”
She smiled, following him to his desk, then taking a seat in the chair in front of it.
Gareth pushed aside some books, then carefully lifted a piece of paper. “It’s not done.”
“I don’t care,” she said softly.
But still, he didn’t show it to her. “I think it’s rather obvious that we are not going to find the jewels,” he said.
“No!” she protested. “We can—”
“Shhh. Let me finish.”
It went against her every last impulse, but she managed to shut her mouth.
“I am not in possession of a great deal of money,” he said.
“That doesn’t matter.”
He smiled wryly. “I’m glad you feel that way, because while we shan’t want for anything, nor will we live like your brothers and sisters.”
“I don’t need all that,” she said quickly. And she didn’t. Or at least she hoped she didn’t. But she knew, down to the tips of her toes, that she didn’t need anything as much as she needed him.
He looked slightly grateful, and also, maybe, just a little bit uncomfortable. “It’ll probably be even worse once I inherit the title,” he added. “I think the baron is trying to fix it so that he can beggar me from beyond the grave.”
“Are you trying to talk me out of marrying you again?”
“Oh, no,” he said. “You’re most definitely stuck with me now. But I did want you to know that if I could, I would give you the world.” He held out the paper. “Starting with this.”
She took the sheet into her hands and looked down. It was a drawing, of her.
Her eyes widened with surprise. “Did you do this?” she asked.
He nodded. “I’m not well trained, but I can—”
“It’s very good,” she said, cutting him off. He would never find his way into history as a famous artist, but the likeness was a good one, and she rather thought he’d captured something in her eyes, something that she’d not seen in any of the portraits of her her family had commissioned.
“I have been thinking about Isabella,” he said, leaning against the edge of his desk. “And I remembered a story she told me when I was young. There was a princess, and an evil prince, and”—he smiled ruefully—“a diamond bracelet.”
Hyacinth had been watching his face, mesmerized by the warmth in his eyes, but at this she looked quickly back down at the drawing. There, on her wrist, was a diamond bracelet.
“I’m sure it’s nothing like what she actually hid,” he said, “but it is how I remember her describing it to me, and it is what I would give to you, if only I could.”
“Gareth, I—” And she felt tears, welling in her eyes, threatening to spill down her cheeks. “It is the most precious gift I have ever received.”
He looked…not like he didn’t believe her, but rather like he wasn’t quite sure that he should. “You don’t have to say—”
“It is,” she insisted, rising to her feet.
He turned and picked another piece of paper up off the desk. “I drew it here as well,” he said, “but larger, so you could see it better.”
She took the second piece of paper into her hands and looked down. He’d drawn just the bracelet, as if suspended in air. “It’s lovely,” she said, touching the image with her fingers.
He gave her a self-deprecating smile. “If it doesn’t exist, it should.”
She nodded, still examining the drawing. The bracelet was lovely, each link shaped almost like a leaf. It was delicate and whimsical, and Hyacinth ached to place it on her wrist.
But she could never treasure it as much as she did these two drawings. Never.
“I—” She looked up, her lips parting with surprise. She almost said, “I love you.”
“I love them,” she said instead, but when she looked up at him, she rather fancied that the truth was in her eyes.
I love you.
She smiled and placed her hand over his. She wanted to say it, but she wasn’t quite ready. She didn’t know why, except that maybe she was afraid to say it first. She, who was afraid of almost nothing, could not quite summon the courage to utter three little words.
It was astounding.
Terrifying.
And she decided to change the mood. “I still want to look for the jewels,” she said, clearing her throat until her voice emerged in its customarily efficient manner.
He groaned. “Why won’t you give up?”
“Because I…Well, because I can’t.” She clamped her mouth into a frown. “I certainly don’t want your father to have them now. Oh.” She looked up. “Am I to call him that?”
He shrugged. “I still do. It’s a difficult habit to break.”
She acknowledged this with a nod. “I don’t care if Isabella wasn’t really your grandmother. You deserve the bracelet.”
He gave her an amused smile. “And why is that?”
That stumped her for a moment. “Because you do,” she finally said. “Because someone has to have it, and I don’t want it to be him. Because—” She glanced longingly down at the drawing in her hands. “Because this is gorgeous.”
“Can’t we wait to find our Slovenian translator?”
She shook her head, pointing at the note, still lying on the desk. “What if it’s not in Slovene?”
“I thought you said it was,” he said, clearly exasperated.
“I said my brother thought it was,” she returned. “Do you know how many languages there are in central Europe?”
“I know,” she said. “It’s very frustrating.”
He stared at her in disbelief. “That’s not why I swore.”
“Then why—”
“Because you are going to be the death of me,” he ground out.
Hyacinth smiled, pointing her index finger and pressing it right against his chest. “Now you know why I said my family was mad to get me off their hands.”
“God help me, I do.”
She cocked her head to the side. “Can we go tomorrow?”
“No?”
“The next day?”
“No!”
“Please?” she tried.
He clamped his hands on her shoulders and spun her around until she faced the door. “I’m taking you home,” he announced.
She turned, trying to talk over her shoulder. “Pl—”
“No!”
Hyacinth shuffled along, allowing him to push her toward the door. When she could not put it off any longer, she grasped the doorknob, but before she turned it, she twisted back one last time, opened her mouth, and—
“NO!”
“I didn’t—”
“Very well,” he groaned, practically throwing his arms up in exasperation. “You win.”
“Oh, thank—”
“But you are not coming.”
She froze, her mouth still open and round. “I beg your pardon,” she said.
“I will go,” he said, looking very much as if he’d rather have all of his teeth pulled. “But you will not.”
She stared at him, trying to come up with a way to say, “That’s not fair,” without sounding juvenile. Deciding that was impossible, she set to work attempting to figure out how to ask how she would know he’d actually gone without sounding as if she didn’t trust him.
Botheration, that was a lost cause as well.
So she settled for crossing her arms and skewering him with a glare.
To no effect whatsoever. He just stared down at her and said, “No.”
Hyacinth opened her mouth one last time, then gave up, sighed, and said, “Well, I suppose if I could walk all over you, you wouldn’t be worth marrying.”
He threw back his head and laughed. “You’re going to be a fine wife, Hyacinth Bridgerton,” he said, nudging her out of the room.
“Hmmph.”
He groaned. “Good God, but not if you turn into my grandmother.”
“It is my every aspiration,” she said archly.
“Pity,” he murmured, tugging at her arm so that she came to a halt before they reached his sitting room.
She turned to him, questioning with her eyes.
He curved his lips, all innocence. “Well, I can’t do this to my grandmother.”
“Oh!” she yelped. How had he gotten his hand there?
“Or this.”
“Gareth!”
“Gareth, yes, or Gareth, no?”
She smiled. She couldn’t help it.
“Gareth more.”
Chapter 19
The following Tuesday.
Everything important seems to happen on a Tuesday, doesn’t it?
“Look what I have!”
Hyacinth grinned as she stood in the doorway of Lady Danbury’s drawing room, holding aloft Miss Davenport and the Dark Marquis.
“A new book?” Lady D asked from her position across the room. She was seated in her favorite chair, but from the way she held herself, it might as well have been a throne.
“Not just any book,” Hyacinth said with a sly smile as she held it forth. “Look.”
Lady Danbury took the book in her hands, glanced down, and positively beamed. “We haven’t read this one yet,” she said. She looked back up at Hyacinth. “I hope it’s just as bad as the rest.”
“Oh, come now, Lady Danbury,” Hyacinth said, taking a seat next to her, “you shouldn’t call them bad.”
“I didn’t say they weren’t entertaining,” the countess said, eagerly flipping through the pages. “How many chapters do we have left with dear Miss Butterworth?”
Hyacinth plucked the book in question off a nearby table and opened it to the spot she had marked the previous Tuesday. “Three,” she said, flipping back and forth to check.
“Hmmph. I wonder how many cliffs poor Priscilla can hang from in that time.”
“Two at least, I should think,” Hyacinth murmured. “Provided she isn’t struck with the plague.”
Lady Danbury attempted to peer at the book over her shoulder. “Do you think it possible? A bit of the bubonic would do wonders for the prose.”
Hyacinth chuckled. “Perhaps that should have been the subtitle. Miss Butterworth and the Mad Baron, or”—she lowered her voice dramatically—“A Bit of the Bubonic.”
“I prefer Pecked to Death by Pigeons myself.”
“Maybe we should write a book,” Hyacinth said with a smile, getting ready to launch into chapter eighteen.
Lady Danbury looked as if she wanted to clap Hyacinth on the head. “That is exactly what I’ve been telling you.”
Hyacinth scrunched her nose as she shook her head. “No,” she said, “it really wouldn’t be much fun past the titles. Do you think anyone would wish to buy a collection of amusing book titles?”
“They would if it had my name on the cover,” Lady D said with great authority. “Speaking of which, how is your translation of my grandson’s other grandmother’s diary coming along?”
Hyacinth’s head bobbed slightly as she tried to follow Lady D’s convoluted sentence structure. “I’m sorry,” she finally said, “how does that have anything to do with people being compelled to purchase a book with your name on the cover?”
Lady Danbury waved her hand forcefully in the air as if Hyacinth’s comment were a physical thing she could push away. “You haven’t told me anything,” she said.
“I’m only a little bit more than halfway through,” Hyacinth admitted. “I remember far less Italian than I had thought, and I am finding it a much more difficult task than I had anticipated.”
Lady D nodded. “She was a lovely woman.”
Hyacinth blinked in surprise. “You knew her? Isabella?”
“Of course I did. Her son married my daughter.”
“Oh. Yes,” Hyacinth murmured. She didn’t know why this hadn’t occurred to her before. And she wondered—Did Lady Danbury know anything about the circumstances of Gareth’s birth? Gareth had said that she did not, or at least that he had never spoken to her about it. But perhaps each was keeping silent on the assumption that the other did not know.
Hyacinth opened her mouth, then closed it sharply. It was not her place to say anything. It was not.
But—
No. She clamped her teeth together, as if that would keep her from blurting anything out. She could not reveal Gareth’s secret. She absolutely, positively could not.
“Did you eat something sour?” Lady D asked, without any delicacy whatsoever. “You look rather ill.”
“I’m perfectly well,” Hyacinth said, pasting a sprightly smile on her face. “I was merely thinking about the diary. I brought it with me, actually. To read in the carriage.” She had been working on the translation tirelessly since learning Gareth’s secret earlier that week. She wasn’t sure if they would ever learn the identity of Gareth’s real father, but Isabella’s diary seemed to be the best possible place to start the search.
“Did you?” Lady Danbury sat back in her chair, closing her eyes. “Read to me from that instead, why don’t you?”
“You don’t understand Italian,” Hyacinth pointed out.
“I know, but it’s a lovely language, so melodious and smooth. And I need to take a nap.”
“Are you certain?” Hyacinth asked, reaching into her small satchel for the diary.
“That I need a nap? Yes, more’s the pity. It started two years ago. Now I can’t exist without one each afternoon.”
“Actually, I was referring to the reading of the diary,�
�� Hyacinth murmured. “If you wish to fall asleep, there are certainly better methods than my reading to you in Italian.”
“Why, Hyacinth,” Lady D said, with a noise that sounded suspiciously like a cackle, “are you offering to sing me lullabies?”
Hyacinth rolled her eyes. “You’re as bad as a child.”
“Whence we came, my dear Miss Bridgerton. Whence we came.”
Hyacinth shook her head and found her spot in the diary. She’d left off in the spring of 1793, four years before Gareth’s birth. According to what she had read in the carriage on the way over, Gareth’s mother was pregnant, with what Hyacinth assumed would be Gareth’s older brother George. She had suffered two miscarriages before that, which had not endeared her to her husband.
What Hyacinth was finding most interesting about the tale was the disappointment Isabella expressed about her son. She loved him, yes, but she regretted the degree to which she had allowed her husband to mold him. As a result, Isabella had written, the son was just like the father. He treated his mother with disdain, and his wife fared no better.
Hyacinth was finding the entire tale to be rather sad. She liked Isabella. There was an intelligence and humor to her writing that shone through, even when Hyacinth was not able to translate every word, and Hyacinth liked to think that if they had been of an age, they would have been friends. It saddened her to realize the degree to which Isabella had been stifled and made unhappy by her husband.
And it reinforced her belief that it really did matter who one married. Not for wealth or status, although Hyacinth was not so idealistic that she would pretend those were completely unimportant.
But one only got one life, and, God willing, one husband. And how nice to actually like the man to whom one pledged one’s troth. Isabella hadn’t been beaten or misused, but she had been ignored, and her thoughts and opinions had gone unheard. Her husband sent her off to some remote country house, and he taught his sons by example. Gareth’s father treated his wife the exact same way. Hyacinth supposed that Gareth’s uncle would have been the same, too, if he had lived long enough to take a wife.
“Are you going to read to me or not?” Lady D asked, somewhat stridently.
Hyacinth looked over at the countess, who had not even bothered to open her eyes for her demand. “Sorry,” she said, using her finger to find where she had left off. “I need just a moment to…ah, here we are.”