“At least last year I got to sit in the back,” Hyacinth said.

“Yes, you did,” Penelope replied, turning on her with suspicious eyes. “How did you manage that? Felicity, Eloise, and I were all up front.”

Hyacinth shrugged. “A well-timed visit to the ladies’ retiring room. In fact-”

“Don’t you dare try that tonight,” Penelope warned. “If you leave me up here by myself…”

“Don’t worry,” Hyacinth said with a sigh. “I am here for the duration. But,” she added, pointing her finger in what her mother would surely have termed a most unlady-like manner, “I want my devotion to you to be duly noted.”

“Why is it,” Penelope asked, “that I am left with the feeling that you are keeping score of something, and when I least expect it, you will jump out in front of me, demanding a favor?”

Hyacinth looked at her and blinked. “Why would I need to jump?”

“Ah, look,” Penelope said, after staring at her sister-inlaw as if she were a lunatic, “here comes Lady Danbury.”

“Mrs. Bridgerton,” Lady Danbury said, or rather barked. “Miss Bridgerton.”

“Good evening, Lady Danbury,” Penelope said to the elderly countess. “We saved you a seat right in front.”

Lady D narrowed her eyes and poked Penelope lightly in the ankle with her cane. “Always thinking of others, aren’t you?”

“Of course,” Penelope demurred. “I wouldn’t dream of-”

“Ha,” Lady Danbury said.

It was, Hyacinth reflected, the countess’s favorite syllable. That and hmmmph.

“Move over, Hyacinth,” Lady D ordered. “I’ll sit between you.”

Hyacinth obediently moved one chair to the left. “We were just pondering our reasons for attending,” she said as Lady Danbury settled into her seat. “I for one have come up blank.”

“I can’t speak for you,” Lady D said to Hyacinth, “but she”-at this she jerked her head toward Penelope-“is here for the same reason I am.”

“For the music?” Hyacinth queried, perhaps a little too politely.

Lady Danbury turned back to Hyacinth, her face creasing into what might have been a smile. “I’ve always liked you, Hyacinth Bridgerton.”

“I’ve always liked you, too,” Hyacinth replied.

“I expect it is because you come and read to me from time to time,” Lady Danbury said.

“Every week,” Hyacinth reminded her.

“Time to time, every week…pfft.” Lady Danbury’s hand cut a dismissive wave through the air. “It’s all the same if you’re not making it a daily endeavor.”

Hyacinth judged it best not to speak. Lady D would surely find some way to twist her words into a promise to visit every afternoon.

“And I might add,” Lady D said with a sniff, “that you were most unkind last week, leaving off with poor Priscilla hanging from a cliff.”

“What are you reading?” Penelope asked.

“Miss Butterworth and the Mad Baron,” Hyacinth replied. “And she wasn’t hanging. Yet.”

“Did you read ahead?” Lady D demanded.

“No,” Hyacinth said with a roll of her eyes. “But it’s not difficult to forecast. Miss Butterworth has already hung from a building and a tree.”

“And she’s still living?” Penelope asked.

“I said hung, not hanged,” Hyacinth muttered. “More’s the pity.”

“Regardless,” Lady Danbury cut in, “it was most unkind of you to leave me hanging.”

“It’s where the author ended the chapter,” Hyacinth said unrepentantly, “and besides, isn’t patience a virtue?”

“Absolutely not,” Lady Danbury said emphatically, “and if you think so, you’re less of a woman than I thought.”

No one understood why Hyacinth visited Lady Danbury every Tuesday and read to her, but she enjoyed her afternoons with the countess. Lady Danbury was crotchety and honest to a fault, and Hyacinth adored her.

“The two of you together are a menace,” Penelope remarked.

“My aim in life,” Lady Danbury announced, “is to be a menace to as great a number of people as possible, so I shall take that as the highest of compliments, Mrs. Bridgerton.”

“Why is it,” Penelope wondered, “that you only call me Mrs. Bridgerton when you are opining in a grand fashion?”

“Sounds better that way,” Lady D said, punctuating her remark with a loud thump of her cane.

Hyacinth grinned. When she was old, she wanted to be exactly like Lady Danbury. Truth be told, she liked the elderly countess better than most of the people she knew her own age. After three seasons on the marriage mart, Hyacinth was growing just a little bit weary of the same people day after day. What had once been exhilarating-the balls, the parties, the suitors-well, it was still enjoyable-that much she had to concede. Hyacinth certainly wasn’t one of those girls who complained about all of the wealth and privilege she was forced to endure.

But it wasn’t the same. She no longer held her breath each time she entered a ballroom. And a dance was now simply a dance, no longer the magical swirl of movement it had been in years gone past.

The excitement, she realized, was gone.

Unfortunately, every time she mentioned this to her mother, the reply was simply to find herself a husband. That, Violet Bridgerton took great pains to point out, would change everything.

Indeed.

Hyacinth’s mother had long since given up any pretense of subtlety when it came to the unmarried state of her fourth and final daughter. It had, Hyacinth thought grimly, turned into a personal crusade.

Forget Joan of Arc. Her mother was Violet of Mayfair, and neither plague nor pestilence nor perfidious paramour would stop her in her quest to see all eight of her children happily married. There were only two remaining, Gregory and Hyacinth, but Gregory was still just twenty-four, which was (rather unfairly, in Hyacinth’s opinion) considered a perfectly acceptable age for a gentleman to remain a bachelor.

But Hyacinth at twenty-two? The only thing staving off her mother’s complete collapse was the fact that her elder sister Eloise had waited until the grand old age of twenty-eight before finally becoming a bride. By comparison, Hyacinth was practically in leading strings.

No one could say that Hyacinth was hopelessly on the shelf, but even she had to admit that she was edging toward that position. She had received a few proposals since her debut three years earlier, but not as many as one would think, given her looks-not the prettiest girl in town but certainly better than at least half-and her fortune-again, not the largest dowry on the market, but certainly enough to make a fortune hunter look twice.

And her connections were, of course, nothing short of impeccable. Her brother was, as their father had been before him, the Viscount Bridgerton, and while theirs might not have been the loftiest title in the land, the family was immensely popular and influential. And if that weren’t enough, her sister Daphne was the Duchess of Hastings, and her sister Francesca was the Countess of Kilmartin.

If a man wanted to align himself with the most powerful families in Britain, he could do a lot worse than Hyacinth Bridgerton.

But if one took the time to reflect upon the timing of the proposals she had received, which Hyacinth didn’t care to admit that she had, it was starting to look damning indeed.

Three proposals her first season.

Two her second.

One last year.

And none thus far this time around.

It could only be argued that she was growing less popular. Unless, of course, someone was foolish enough actually to make the argument, in which case Hyacinth would have to take the other side, facts and logic notwithstanding.

And she’d probably win the point, too. It was a rare man-or woman-who could outwit, outspeak, or outdebate Hyacinth Bridgerton.

This might, she’d thought in a rare moment of self-reflection, have something to do with why her rate of proposals was declining at such an alarming pace.

No matter, she thought, watching the Smythe-Smith girls mill about on the small dais that had been erected at the front of the room. It wasn’t as if she should have accepted any of her six proposals. Three had been fortune hunters, two had been fools, and one had been quite terminally boring.

Better to remain unmarried than shackle herself to someone who’d bore her to tears. Even her mother, inveterate matchmaker that she was, couldn’t argue that point.

And as for her current proposal-free season-well, if the gentlemen of Britain couldn’t appreciate the inherent value of an intelligent female who knew her own mind, that was their problem, not hers.

Lady Danbury thumped her cane against the floor, narrowly missing Hyacinth’s right foot. “I say,” she said, “have either of you caught sight of my grandson?”

“Which grandson?” Hyacinth asked.

“Which grandson,” Lady D echoed impatiently. “Which grandson? The only one I like, that’s which.”

Hyacinth didn’t even bother to hide her shock. “Mr. St. Clair is coming tonight?”

“I know, I know,” Lady D cackled. “I can hardly believe it myself. I keep waiting for a shaft of heavenly light to burst through the ceiling.”

Penelope’s nose crinkled. “I think that might be blasphemous, but I’m not sure.”

“It’s not,” Hyacinth said, without even looking at her. “And why is he coming?”

Lady Danbury smiled slowly. Like a snake. “Why are you so interested?”

“I’m always interested in gossip,” Hyacinth said quite candidly. “About anyone. You should know that already.”

“Very well,” Lady D said, somewhat grumpily after having been thwarted. “He’s coming because I blackmailed him.”

Hyacinth and Penelope regarded her with identically arched brows.

“Very well,” Lady Danbury conceded, “if not blackmail, then a heavy dose of guilt.”

“Of course,” Penelope murmured, at the exact time Hyacinth said, “That makes much more sense.”