“I don’t think anyone saw,” she replied. “Or at the very least, I don’t think anyone heard. And it wasn’t your fault.”
He felt himself smile. Wryly, since that was the only sort he could manage. It was his fault. Maybe his father had provoked him, but it was long past time that Gareth learned to ignore it.
“Will you come in?” Hyacinth asked.
He shook his head. “I’d best not.”
She looked up at him, her eyes uncommonly serious. “I would like you to come in,” she said.
It was a simple statement, so bare and plain that he knew he could not refuse. He gave her a nod, and together they walked up the steps. The rest of the Bridgertons had dispersed, so they entered the now-empty rose-and-cream drawing room. Hyacinth waited near the door until he reached the seating area, and then she shut it. All the way.
Gareth lifted his brows in question. In some circles, a closed door was enough to demand marriage.
“I used to think,” Hyacinth said after a moment, “that the only thing that would have made my life better was a father.”
He said nothing.
“Whenever I was angry with my mother,” she continued, still standing by the door, “or with one of my brothers or sisters, I used to think—If only I had a father. Everything would be perfect, and he would surely take my side.” She looked up, and her lips were curved in an endearingly lopsided smile. “He wouldn’t have done, of course, since I’m sure that most of the time I was in the wrong, but it gave me great comfort to think it.”
Gareth still said nothing. All he could do was stand there and imagine himself a Bridgerton. Picture himself with all those siblings, all that laughter. And he couldn’t respond, because it was too painful to think that she’d had all that and still wanted more.
“I’ve always been jealous of people with fathers,” she said, “but no longer.”
He turned sharply, his eyes snapping to hers. She returned his gaze with equal directness, and he realized he couldn’t look away. Not shouldn’t—couldn’t.
“It’s better to have no father at all than to have one such as yours, Gareth,” she said quietly. “I’m so sorry.”
And that was his undoing. Here was this girl who had everything—at least everything he thought he’d ever wanted—and somehow she still understood.
“I have memories, at least,” she continued, smiling wistfully. “Or at least the memories others have told to me. I know who my father was, and I know he was a good man. He would have loved me if he’d lived. He would have loved me without reservations and without conditions.”
Her lips wobbled into an expression he had never seen on her before. A little bit quirky, an awful lot self-deprecating. It was entirely unlike Hyacinth, and for that reason completely mesmerizing.
“And I know,” she said, letting out a short, staccato breath, the sort one did when one couldn’t quite believe what one was saying, “that it’s often rather hard work to love me.”
And suddenly Gareth realized that some things did come in a flash. And there were some things one simply knew without being able to explain them. Because as he stood there watching her, all he could think was—No.
No.
It would be rather easy to love Hyacinth Bridgerton.
He didn’t know where the thought had come from, or what strange corner of his brain had come to that conclusion, because he was quite certain it would be nearly impossible to live with her, but somehow he knew that it wouldn’t be at all difficult to love her.
“I talk too much,” she said.
He’d been lost in his own thoughts. What was she saying?
“And I’m very opinionated.”
That was true, but what was—
“And I can be an absolute pill when I do not get my way, although I would like to think that most of the time I’m reasonably reasonable…”
Gareth started to laugh. Good God, she was cataloguing all the reasons why she was difficult to love. She was right, of course, about all of them, but none of it seemed to matter. At least not right then.
“What?” she asked suspiciously.
“Be quiet,” he said, crossing the distance between them.
“Why?”
“Just be quiet.”
“But—”
He placed a finger on her lips. “Grant me one favor,” he said softly, “and don’t say a word.”
Amazingly, she complied.
For a moment he did nothing but look at her. It was so rare that she was still, that something on her face wasn’t moving or speaking or expressing an opinion with nothing more than a scrunch of her nose. He just looked at her, memorizing the way her eyebrows arched into delicate wings and her eyes grew wide under the strain of keeping quiet. He savored the hot rush of her breath across his finger, and the funny little sound she made at the back of her throat without realizing it.
And then he couldn’t help it. He kissed her.
He took her face in his hands, and he lowered his mouth to hers. The last time he’d been angry, and he’d seen her as little more than a piece of forbidden fruit, the one girl his father thought he couldn’t have.
But this time he was going to do it right. This would be their first kiss.
And it would be one to remember.
His lips were soft, gentle. He waited for her to sigh, for her body to soften against his. He wouldn’t take until she made it clear she was ready to give.
And then he would offer himself in return.
He brushed his mouth against hers, with just enough friction to feel the texture of her lips, to sense the heat of her body. He tickled her with his tongue, tender and sweet, until her lips parted.