In fact, she is reliving it right now:

Hyacinth would have liked to think that she would be the sort of woman who could kiss with aplomb, then carry on for the rest of the evening as if nothing had happened. She’d have liked to think when the time came to treat a gentleman with well-deserved disdain, that butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, her eyes would be perfect chips of ice, and she would manage a cut direct with style and flair.

And in her imagination, she did all of that and more.

Reality, however, had not been so sweet.

Because when Gareth had said her name and tried to tug her back to him for another kiss, the only thing she could think to do was run.

Which was not, she had assured herself, for what had to be the forty-third time since his lips had touched hers, in keeping with her character.

It couldn’t be. She couldn’t let it be. She was Hyacinth Bridgerton.

Hyacinth.

Bridgerton.

Surely that had to mean something. One kiss could not turn her into a senseless ninny.

And besides, it wasn’t the kiss. The kiss hadn’t bothered her. The kiss had, in fact, been rather nice. And, to be honest, long overdue.

One would think, in her world, among her society, that she would have taken pride in her untouched, never-been-kissed status. After all, the mere hint of impropriety was enough to ruin a woman’s reputation.

But one did not reach the age of two-and-twenty, or one’s fourth London season, without feeling the littlest bit rejected that no one had thus far attempted a kiss.

And no one had. Hyacinth wasn’t asking to be ravished, for heaven’s sake, but no one had even leaned in, or dropped a heavy gaze to her lips, as if he was thinking about it.

Not until last night. Not until Gareth St. Clair.

Her first instinct had been to jump with surprise. For all Gareth’s rakish ways, he hadn’t shown any interest in extending his reputation as a rogue in her direction. The man had an opera singer tucked away in Bloomsbury, after all. What on earth would he need with her?

But then…

Well, good heavens, she still didn’t know how it had all come about. One moment she was asking him if he was unwell-he’d looked very odd, after all, and it was obvious he’d had some sort of altercation with his father, despite her efforts to separate the two-and then the next he was staring at her with an intensity that had made her shiver. He’d looked possessed, consumed.

He’d looked as if he wanted to consume her.

And yet Hyacinth couldn’t shake the feeling that he hadn’t really meant to kiss her. That maybe any woman happening across him in the hall would have done just as well.

Especially after he’d laughingly told her that she needed improvement.

She didn’t think he had meant to be cruel, but still, his words had stung.

“Kiss me back,” she said to herself, her voice a whiny mimic of his. “Kiss me back.”

She flopped back against her pillows. “I did.” Good heavens, what did it say about her if a man couldn’t even tell when she was trying to kiss him back?

And even if she hadn’t been doing such a good job of it-and Hyacinth wasn’t quite ready to admit to that-it seemed the sort of thing that ought to come naturally, and certainly the sort of thing that ought to have come naturally to her. Well, still, what on earth was she expected to do? Wield her tongue like a sword? She’d put her hands on his shoulders. She hadn’t struggled in his arms. What else was she supposed to have done to indicate that she was enjoying herself?

It seemed a wretchedly unfair conundrum to her. Men wanted their women chaste and untouched, then they mocked them for their lack of experience.

It was just…it was just…

Hyacinth chewed on her lip, horrified by how close to tears she was.

It was just that she’d thought her first kiss would be magical. And she’d thought that the gentleman in question would emerge from the encounter if not impressed then at least a little bit pleased by her performance.

But Gareth St. Clair had been his usual mocking self, and Hyacinth hated that she’d allowed him to make her feel small.

“It’s just a kiss,” she whispered, her words floating through the empty room. “Just a kiss. It doesn’t mean a thing.”

But she knew, even as she tried so hard to lie to herself about it, that it had been more than a kiss.

Much, much more.

At least that was how it had been for her. She closed her eyes in agony. Dear God, while she’d been lying on her bed thinking and thinking, then rethinking and thinking again, he was probably sleeping like a baby. The man had kissed-

Well, she didn’t care to speculate on how many women he had kissed, but it certainly had to have been enough to make her seem the greenest girl in London.

How was she going to face him? And she was going to have to face him. She was translating his grandmother’s diary, for heaven’s sake. If she tried to avoid him, it would seem so obvious.

And the last thing she wanted to do was allow him to see how upset he had made her. There were quite a few things in life a woman needed a great deal more than pride, but Hyacinth figured that as long as dignity was still an option, she might as well hang on to it.

And in the meantime…

She picked up his grandmother’s diary. She hadn’t done any work on it for a full day. She was only twenty-two pages in; there were at least a hundred more to go.

She looked down at the book, lying unopened on her lap. She supposed she could send it back. In fact, she probably should send it back. It would serve him right to be forced to find another translator after his behavior the night before.

But she was enjoying the diary. Life didn’t toss very many challenges in the direction of well-bred young ladies. Frankly, it would be nice to be able to say she had translated an entire book from the Italian. And it would probably be nice to actually do it, too.

Hyacinth fingered the small bookmark she’d used to hold her place and opened the book. Isabella had just arrived in England in the middle of the season, and after a mere week in the country, her new husband had dragged her off to London, where she was expected-without the benefit of fluent English-to socialize and entertain as befitted her station.

To make matters worse, Lord St. Clair’s mother was in residence at Clair House and was clearly unhappy about having to give up her position as lady of the house.

Hyacinth frowned as she read on, stopping every now and then to look up an unfamiliar word. The dowager baroness was interfering with the servants, countermanding Isabella’s orders and making it uncomfortable for those who accepted the new baroness as the woman in charge.

It certainly didn’t make marriage look terribly appealing. Hyacinth made a mental note to try to marry a man without a mother.

“Chin up, Isabella,” she muttered, wincing as she read about the latest altercation-something about an addition of mussels to the menu, despite the fact that shellfish made Isabella develop hives.

“You need to make it clear who’s in charge,” Hyacinth said to the book. “You-”

She frowned, looking down at the latest entry. This didn’t make sense. Why was Isabella talking about her bambino?

Hyacinth read the words three times before thinking to glance back up at the date at top. 24 Ottobre, 1766.

1766? Wait a minute…

She flipped back one page.

1764 .

Isabella had skipped two years. Why would she do that?

Hyacinth looked quickly through the next twenty or so pages. 1766…1769…1769…1770…1774…

“You’re not a very dedicated diarist,” Hyacinth murmured. No wonder Isabella had managed to fit decades into one slim volume; she frequently went years between entries.

Hyacinth turned back to the passage about the bambino, continuing her laborious translation. Isabella was back in London, this time without her husband, which didn’t seem to bother her one bit. And she seemed to have gained a bit of self-confidence, although that might have been merely the result of the death of the dowager, which Hyacinth surmised had happened a year earlier.

I found the perfect spot, Hyacinth translated, jotting the words down on paper. He will never… She frowned. She didn’t know the rest of the sentence, so she put some dashes down on her paper to indicate an untranslated phrase and moved on. He does not think I am intelligent enough, she read. And so he won’t suspect…

“Oh, my goodness,” Hyacinth said, sitting up straight. She flipped the page of the diary, reading it as quickly as she could, her attempts at a written translation all but forgotten.

“Isabella,” she said with admiration. “You sly fox.”


An hour or so later, an instant before Gareth knocks on Hyacinth’s door.

Gareth sucked in a deep breath, summoning the courage to wrap his fingers around the heavy brass knocker that sat on the front door of Number Five, Bruton Street, the elegant little house Hyacinth’s mother had purchased after her eldest son had married and taken over Bridgerton House.

Then he tried not to feel completely disgusted with himself for feeling he needed the courage in the first place. And it wasn’t really courage he needed. For God’s sake, he wasn’t afraid. It was…well, no, it wasn’t quite dread. It was-

He groaned. In every life, there were moments a person would do just about anything to put off. And if it meant he was less of a man because he really didn’t feel like dealing with Hyacinth Bridgerton…well, he was perfectly willing to call himself a juvenile fool.

Frankly, he didn’t know anyone who’d want to deal with Hyacinth Bridgerton at a moment like this.