“Excellent work,” he said, “and if I haven’t said so, thank you.”
Hyacinth almost stumbled, so unexpected was his compliment. “You’re welcome,” she replied, once she’d gotten over her initial surprise. “I’m happy to do it. To be honest, I don’t know what I will do with myself when this is all over. The diary is truly a lovely distraction.”
“What is it you need to be distracted from?” he asked.
Hyacinth thought about that for a moment. “I don’t know,” she finally said. She looked up at him, feeling her brows come together as her eyes found his. “Isn’t that sad?”
He shook his head, and this time when he smiled, it wasn’t condescending, and it wasn’t even dry. It was just a smile. “I suspect it’s rather normal,” he said.
But she wasn’t so convinced. Until the excitement over the diary and the search for the jewels had entered her life, she hadn’t noticed how very much her days had been pressed into a mold. The same things, the same people, the same food, the same sights.
She hadn’t even realized how desperately she wanted a change.
Maybe that was another curse to lay at the feet of Isabella Marinzoli St. Clair. Maybe she hadn’t even wanted a change before she’d begun translating the diary. Maybe she hadn’t known to want one.
But now…After this…
She had a feeling that nothing would ever be the same.
“When shall we return to Clair House?” she asked, eager to change the subject.
He sighed. Or maybe it was a groan. “I don’t suppose you’d take it well if I said I was going alone.”
“Very badly,” she confirmed.
“I suspected as much.” He gave her a sideways glance. “Is everyone in your family as obstinate as you?”
“No,” she said quite freely, “although they do come close. My sister Eloise, especially. You haven’t met her. And Gregory.” She rolled her eyes. “He’s a beast.”
“Why do I suspect that whatever he’s done to you, you’ve returned in kind, and then in tenfold?”
She cocked her head to the side, trying to look terribly dry and sophisticated. “Are you saying you don’t believe I can turn the other cheek?”
“Not for a second.”
“Very well, it’s true,” she said with a shrug. She wasn’t going to be able to car
ry on that ruse for very long, anyway. “I can’t sit still in a sermon, either.”
He grinned. “Neither can I.”
“Liar,” she accused. “You don’t even try. I have it on the best authority that you never go to church.”
“The best authorities are watching out for me?” He smiled faintly. “How reassuring.”
“Your grandmother.”
“Ah,” he said. “That explains it. Would you believe that my soul is already well past redemption?”
“Absolutely,” she said, “but that’s no reason to make the rest of us suffer.”
He looked at her with a wicked glint in his eye. “Is it that deep a torture to be at church without my calming presence?”
“You know what I meant,” she said. “It’s not fair that I should have to attend when you do not.”
“Since when are we such a pair that it’s tit for tat for us?” he queried.
That stopped her short. Verbally, at least.