“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?”
He cursed under his breath.
“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?”