Hyacinth glanced up at the ceiling in an attempt to avoid comment. Lady Danbury’s eldest son had famously gotten his head stuck between the bars of the front gate of Windsor Castle.
“Oh, go ahead and say it,” Lady D grumbled. “At least two of my children are half-wits, and heaven knows about their children. I flee in the opposite direction when they come to town.”
“I would never—”
“Well, you were thinking it, and rightly you should. Serves me right for marrying Lord Danbury when I knew he hadn’t two thoughts to bang together in his head. But Gareth is a prize, and you’re a fool if you don’t—”
“Your grandson,” Hyacinth cut in, “isn’t the least bit interested in me or any marriageable female, for that matter.”
“Well, that is a problem,” Lady Danbury agreed, “and for the life of me, I don’t know why the boy shuns your sort.”
“My sort?” Hyacinth echoed.
“Young, female, and someone he would actually have to marry if he dallied with.”
Hyacinth felt her cheeks burn. Normally this would be exactly the sort of conversation she relished—it was far more fun to be improper than otherwise, within reason, of course—but this time it was all she could do to say, “I hardly think you should be discussing such things with me.”
“Bah,” Lady D said, gesturing dismissively with her hand. “Since when have you become so missish?”
Hyacinth opened her mouth, but thankfully, Lady Danbury didn’t seem to desire an answer. “He’s a rogue, it’s true,” the countess sailed on, “but it’s nothing you can’t overcome if you put your mind to it.”
“I’m not going to—”
“Just yank your dress down a little when next you see him,” Lady D cut in, waving her hand impatiently in front of her face. “Men lose all sense at the sight of a healthy bosom. You’ll have him—”
“Lady Danbury!” Hyacinth crossed her arms. She did have her pride, and she wasn’t about to go chasing after a rake who clearly had no interest in marriage. That sort of public humiliation she could do without.
And besides, it would require a great deal of imagination to describe her bosom as healthy. Hyacinth knew she wasn’t built like a boy, thank goodness, but nor did she possess attributes that would cause any man to look twice in the area directly below her neck.
“Oh, very well,” Lady Danbury said, sounding exceedingly grumpy, which, for her, was exceeding indeed. “I won’t say another word.”
“Ever?”
“Until,” Lady D said firmly.
“Until when?” Hyacinth asked suspiciously.
“I don’t know,” Lady Danbury replied, in much the same tone.
Which Hyacinth had a feeling meant five minutes hence.
The countess was silent for a moment, but her lips were pursed, signaling that her mind was up to something that was probably devious in the extreme. “Do you know what I think?” she asked.
“Usually,” Hyacinth replied.
Lady D scowled. “You are entirely too mouthy.”
Hyacinth just smiled and ate another biscuit.
“I think,” Lady Danbury said, apparently over her pique, “that we should write a book.”
To Hyacinth’s credit, she didn’t choke on her food. “I beg your pardon?”
“I need a challenge,” Lady D said. “Keeps the mind sharp. And surely we could do better than Miss Butter-worth and the Mealymouthed Baron.”
“Mad Baron,” Hyacinth said automatically.
“Precisely,” Lady D said. “Surely we can do better.”
“I’m sure we could, but it does beg the question—why would we want to?”
“Because we can.”
Hyacinth considered the prospect of a creative liaison with Lady Danbury, of spending hours upon hours—
“No,” she said, quite firmly, “we can’t.”
“Of course we can,” Lady D said, thumping her cane for what was only the second time during the interview—surely a new record of restraint. “I’ll think up the ideas, and you can figure out how to word it all.”
“It doesn’t sound like an equitable division of labor,” Hyacinth remarked.
“And why should it be?”
Hyacinth opened her mouth to reply, then decided there was really no point.
Lady Danbury frowned for a moment, then finally added, “Well, think about my proposal. We’d make an excellent team.”
“I shudder to think,” came a deep voice from the doorway, “what you might be attempting to browbeat poor Miss Bridgerton into now.”
“Gareth!” Lady Danbury said with obvious pleasure. “How nice of you finally to come visit me.”
Hyacinth turned. Gareth St. Clair had just stepped into the room, looking alarmingly handsome in his elegant afternoon clothing. A shaft of sunlight was streaming through the window, landing on his hair like burnished gold.
His presence was most surprising. Hyacinth had been visiting every Tuesday for a year now, and this was only the second time their paths had crossed. She had begun to think he might be purposefully avoiding her.
Which begged the question—why was he here now? Their conversation at the Smythe-Smith musicale was the first they had ever shared that went beyond the most basic of pleasantries, and suddenly he was here in his grandmother’s drawing room, right in the middle of their weekly visit.
“Finally?” Mr. St. Clair echoed with amusement. “Surely you haven’t forgotten my visit last Friday.” He turned to Hyacinth, his face taking on a rather convincing expression of concern. “Do you think she might be beginning to lose her memory, Miss Bridgerton? She is, what can it be now, ninety—”