He turned away from the window, unaware that he’d even been looking out. “Caroline,” he said warmly, crossing the room to greet his sister-in-law. “How have you been?”
She gave a helpless little shrug. Hers had been a love match, and Gareth had never seen anything quite as devastating as Caroline’s eyes at her husband’s funeral.
“I know,” Gareth said quietly. He missed George, too. They had been an unlikely pair—George, sober and serious, and Gareth, who had always run wild. But they had been friends as well as brothers, and Gareth liked to think that they had complemented each other. Lately Gareth had been thinking that he ought to try to lead a somewhat tamer life, and he had been looking to his brother’s memory to guide his actions.
“I was going through his things,” Caroline said. “I found something. I believe that it is yours.”
Gareth watched curiously as she reached into her satchel and pulled out a small book. “I don’t recognize it,” he said.
“No,” Caroline replied, handing it to him. “You wouldn’t. It belonged to your father’s mother.”
Your father’s mother. Gareth couldn’t quite prevent his grimace. Caroline did not know that Gareth was not truly a St. Clair. Gareth had never been certain if George had known the truth, either. If he had, he’d never said anything.
The book was small, bound with brown leather. There was a little strap that reached from back to front, where it could be fastened with a button. Gareth carefully undid it and turned the book open, taking extra care with the aged paper. “It’s a diary,” he said with surprise. And then he had to smile. It was written in Italian. “What does it say?”
“I don’t know,” Caroline said. “I didn’t even know it existed until I found it in George’s desk earlier this week. He never mentioned it.”
Gareth looked down at the diary, at the elegant handwriting forming words he could not understand. His father’s mother had been the daughter of a noble Italian house. It had always amused Gareth that his father was half-Italian; the baron was so insufferably proud of his St. Clair ancestry and liked to boast that they had been in England since the Norman Invasion. In fact, Gareth couldn’t recall him ever making mention of his Italian roots.
“There was a note from George,” Caroline said, “instructing me to give this to you.”
Gareth glanced back down at the book, his heart heavy. Just one more indication that George had never known that they were not full brothers. Gareth bore no blood relationship to Isabella Marinzoli St. Clair, and he had no real right to her diary.
“You shall have to find someone to translate it,” Caroline said with a small, wistful smile. “I’m curious as to what it says. George always spoke so warmly of your grandmother.”
Gareth nodded. He remembered her fondly as well, though they hadn’t spent very much time together. Lord St. Clair hadn’t gotten on very well with his mother, so Isabella did not visit very often. But she had always doted upon her due ragazzi, as she liked to call her two grandsons, and Gareth recalled feeling quite crushed when, at the age of seven, he’d heard that she had died. If affection was anywhere near as important as blood, then he supposed the diary would find a better home in his hands than anyone else’s.
“I’ll see what I can do,” Gareth said. “It can’t be that difficult to find someone who can translate from the Italian.”
“I wouldn’t trust it to just anyone,” Caroline said. “It is your grandmother’s diary, after all. Her personal thoughts.”
Gareth nodded. Caroline was right. He owed it to Isabella to find someone discreet to translate her memoirs. And he knew exactly where to start in his search.
“I’ll take this to Grandmother Danbury,” Gareth suddenly said, allowing his hand to bob up and down with the diary, almost as if he was testing its weight. “She’ll know what to do.”
And she would, he thought. Grandmother Danbury liked to say that she knew everything, and the annoying truth was, she was most often right.
“Do let me know what you find out,” Caroline said, as she headed for the door.
“Of course,” he murmured, even though she was already gone. He looked down at the book. 10 Settembre, 1793…
Gareth shook his head and smiled. It figured his one bequest from the St. Clair family coffers would be a diary he couldn’t even read.
Ah, irony.
Meanwhile, in a drawing room not so very far away…
“Enh?” Lady Danbury screeched. “You’re not speaking loudly enough!”
Hyacinth allowed the book from which she was reading to fall closed, with just her index finger stuck inside to mark her place. Lady Danbury liked to feign deafness when it suited her, and it seemed to suit her every time Hyacinth got to the racy parts of the lurid novels that the countess enjoyed so well.
“I said,” Hyacinth said, leveling her gaze onto Lady Danbury’s face, “that our dear heroine was breathing hard, no, let me check, she was breathy and short of breath.” She looked up. “Breathy and short of breath?”
“Pfft,” Lady Danbury said, waving her hand dismissively.
Hyacinth glanced at the cover of the book. “I wonder if English is the author’s first language?”
“Keep reading,” Lady D ordered.
“Very well, let me see, Miss Bumblehead ran like the wind as she saw Lord Savagewood coming toward her.”
Lady Danbury narrowed her eyes. “Her name isn’t Bumblehead.”