He glanced over at Hyacinth to see her reaction to her mother’s words. It hadn’t been a scolding, not exactly, but it was clear that she’d wanted to stop Hyacinth from speaking further.
But if Hyacinth took offense, she wasn’t showing it. She turned her attention to the window and was staring out, her brows pulled slightly together as she blinked.
“Is it warm out of doors?” she asked, turning to her sister. “It looks sunny.”
“It is quite,” Daphne said, sipping her tea. “I walked over from Hastings House.”
“I should love to go for a walk,” Hyacinth announced.
It took Gareth only a second to recognize his cue. “I would be delighted to escort you, Miss Bridgerton.”
“Would you?” Hyacinth said with a dazzling smile.
“I was out this morning,” Lady Bridgerton said. “The crocuses are in bloom in the park. A bit past the Guard House.”
Gareth almost smiled. The Guard House was at the far end of Hyde Park. It would take half the afternoon to get there and back.
He rose to his feet and offered her his arm. “Shall we see the crocuses then?”
“That would be delightful.” Hyacinth stood. “I just need to fetch my maid to accompany us.”
Gregory pushed himself off the windowsill, upon which he’d been leaning. “Perhaps I’ll come along, too,” he said.
Hyacinth threw him a glare.
“Or perhaps I won’t,” he murmured.
“I need you here, in any case,” Lady Bridgerton said.
“Really?” Gregory smiled innocently. “Why?”
“Because I do,” she ground out.
Gareth turned to Gregory. “Your sister will be safe with me,” he said. “I give you my vow.”
“Oh, I have no worries on that score,” Gregory said with a bland smile. “The real question is—will you be safe with her?”
It was a good thing, Gareth later reflected, that Hyacinth had already quit the room to fetch her coat and her maid. She probably would have killed her brother on the spot.
Chapter 11
A quarter of an hour later. Hyacinth is completely unaware that her life is about to change.
“Your maid is discreet?” Gareth asked, just as soon as he and Hyacinth were standing on the pavement outside of Number Five.
“Oh, don’t worry about Frances,” Hyacinth said, adjusting her gloves. “She and I have an understanding.”
He lifted his brows in an expression of lazy humor. “Why do those words, coming from your lips, strike terror in my soul?”
“I’m sure I don’t know,” Hyacinth said blithely, “but I can assure you that she won’t come within twenty feet of us while we’re strolling. We have only to stop and get her a tin of peppermints.”
“Peppermints?”
“She’s easily bribed,” Hyacinth explained, looking back at Frances, who had already assumed the requisite distance to the couple and was now looking quite bored. “All the best maids are.”
“I wouldn’t know,” Gareth murmured.
“That I find difficult to believe,” Hyacinth said. He had probably bribed maids all across London. Hyacinth couldn’t imagine that he could have made it to his age, with his reputation, and not have had an affair with a woman who wanted it kept secret.
He smiled inscrutably. “A gentleman never tells.”
Hyacinth decided not to pursue the topic any further. Not, of course, because she wasn’t curious, but rather because she thought he’d meant what he’d said, and he wasn’t going to spill any secrets, delicious though they might be.
And really, why waste one’s energy if one was going to get nowhere?
“I thought we would never escape,” she said, once they’d reached the end of her street. “I have much to tell you.”
He turned to her with obvious interest. “Were you able to translate the note?”
Hyacinth glanced behind her. She knew she’d said Frances would remain far in back, but it was always good to check, especially as Gregory was no stranger to the concept of bribery, either.
“Yes,” she said, once she was satisfied that they would not be overheard. “Well, most of it, at least. Enough to know that we need to focus our search in the library.”
Gareth chuckled.
“Why is that funny?”
“Isabella was a great deal sharper than she let on. If she’d wanted to pick a room that her husband was not likely to enter, she could not have done better than the library. Except for the bedroom, I suppose, but”—he turned and gazed down at her with an annoyingly paternalistic glance—“that’s not a topic for your ears.”
“Stuffy man,” she muttered.
“Not an accusation that is often flung my way,” he said with a slightly amused smile, “but clearly you bring out the best in me.”
He was so patently sarcastic that Hyacinth could do nothing but scowl.
“The library, you say,” Gareth mused, after taking a moment to enjoy Hyacinth’s distress. “It makes perfect sense. My father’s father was no intellectual.”
“I hope that means he didn’t possess very many books,” Hyacinth said with a frown. “I suspect that she left another clue tucked into one.”
“No such luck,” Gareth said with a grimace. “My grandfather might not have been fond of books, but he did care a great deal about appearances, and no self-respecting baron would have a house without a library, or a library without books.”