“No,” Gareth said again. “It can’t be. I look like you. I—”
For a moment Lord St. Clair remained silent. Then he said, bitterly, “An unhappy coincidence, I assure you.”
“But—”
“I could have turned you out at your birth,” Lord St. Clair cut in, “sent your mother packing, tossed you both into the street. But I did not.” He closed the distance between them and put his face very close to Gareth’s. “You have been acknowledged, and you are legitimate.” And then, in a voice furious and low: “You owe me.”
“No,” Gareth said, his voice finally finding the conviction he was going to need to last him through the rest of his days. “No. I won’t do it.”
“I will cut you off,” the baron warned. “You won’t see another penny from me. You can forget your dreams of Cambridge, your—”
“No,” Gareth said again, and he sounded different. He felt changed. This was the end, he realized. The end of his childhood, the end of his innocence, and the beginning of—
God only knew what it was the beginning of.
“I am through with you,” his father—no, not his father—hissed. “Through.”
“So be it,” Gareth said.
And he walked away.
Chapter 1
Ten years have passed, and we meet our heroine, who, it must be said, has never been known as a shy and retiring flower. The scene is the annual Smythe- Smith musicale, about ten minutes before Mr. Mozart begins to rotate in his grave.
“Why do we do this to ourselves?” Hyacinth Bridgerton wondered aloud.
“Because we are good, kind people,” her sister-in-law replied, sitting in—God help them—a front-row seat.
“One would think,” Hyacinth persisted, regarding the empty chair next to Penelope with the same excitement she might show a sea urchin, “that we would have learned our lesson last year. Or perhaps the year before that. Or maybe even—”
“Hyacinth?” Penelope said.
Hyacinth swung her gaze to Penelope, lifting one brow in question.
“Sit.”
Hyacinth sighed. But she sat.
The Smythe-Smith musicale. Thankfully, it came around just once per year, because Hyacinth was quite certain it would take a full twelve months for her ears to recover.
Hyacinth let out another sigh, this one louder than the last. “I’m not entirely certain that I’m either good or kind.”
“I’m not certain, either,” Penelope said, “but I have decided to have faith in you nevertheless.”
“Rather sporting of you,” Hyacinth said.
“I thought so.”
Hyacinth glanced at her sideways. “Of course you did not have any choice in the matter.”
Penelope turned in her seat, her eyes narrowing. “Meaning?”
“Colin refused to accompany you, didn’t he?” Hyacinth said with a sly look. Colin was Hyacinth’s brother, and he’d married Penelope a year earlier.
Penelope clamped her mouth into a firm line.
“I do love it when I am right,” Hyacinth said triumphantly. “Which is fortunate, since I so often am.”