“And if you never met the right person, I would be perfectly happy to see you remain unwed.”
Hyacinth eyed her dubiously.
“Very well,” Violet amended, “not perfectly happy, but you know I would never pressure you to marry someone unsuitable.”
“I know,” Hyacinth said again.
“But darling, you’ll never find anyone if you don’t look.”
“I look!” Hyacinth protested. “I have gone out almost every night this week. I even went to the Smythe-Smith musicale last night. Which,” she said quite pointedly, “I might add you did not attend.”
Violet coughed. “Bit of a cough, I’m afraid.”
Hyacinth said nothing, but no one could have mistaken the look in her eyes.
“I heard you sat next to Gareth St. Clair,” Violet said, after an appropriate silence.
“Do you have spies everywhere?” Hyacinth grumbled.
“Almost,” Violet replied. “It makes life so much easier.”
“For you, perhaps.”
“Did you li
ke him?” Violet persisted.
Like him? It seemed such an odd question. Did she like Gareth St. Clair? Did she like that it always felt as if he was silently laughing at her, even after she’d agreed to translate his grandmother’s diary? Did she like that she could never tell what he was thinking, or that he left her feeling unsettled, and not quite herself?
“Well?” her mother asked.
“Somewhat,” Hyacinth hedged.
Violet didn’t say anything, but her eyes took on a gleam that terrified Hyacinth to her very core.
“Don’t,” Hyacinth warned.
“He would be an excellent match, Hyacinth.”
Hyacinth stared at her mother as if she’d sprouted an extra head. “Have you gone mad? You know his reputation as well as I.”
Violet brushed that aside instantly. “His reputation won’t matter once you’re married.”
“It would if he continued to consort with opera singers and the like.”
“He wouldn’t,” Violet said, waving her hand dismissively.
“How could you possibly know that?”
Violet paused for a moment. “I don’t know,” she said. “I suppose it’s a feeling I have.”
“Mother,” Hyacinth said with a great show of solicitude, “you know I love you dearly—”
“Why is it,” Violet pondered, “that I have come to expect nothing good when I hear a sentence beginning in that manner?”
“But,” Hyacinth cut in, “you must forgive me if I decline to marry someone based upon a feeling you might or might not have.”
Violet sipped her tea with rather impressive nonchalance. “It’s the next best thing to a feeling you might have. And if I may say so myself, my feelings on these things tend to be right on the mark.” At Hyacinth’s dry expression, she added, “I haven’t been wrong yet.”