“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 no
dded 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.”
“I didn’t think so,” she said thoughtfully.
Something about her tone scared him. He didn’t want Hyacinth Bridgerton thinking so hard about him. Because he had the oddest feeling that if she did, she might see right through him.
And he wasn’t sure what she’d find.
“Your grandmother is coming this way,” she said.
“So she is,” he said, glad for the distraction. “Shall we attempt an escape?”
“It’s far too late for that,” Hyacinth said, her lips twisting slightly. “She’s got my mother in tow.”
“Gareth!” came his grandmother’s strident voice.
“Grandmother,” he said, gallantly kissing her hand when she reached his side. “It is always a pleasure to see you.”