“I’ll take the yellow,” he murmured, holding her gaze.
“The, ah…what?”
A small smile quirked his lips. “The yellow gown, Miss Somerset. For my sister. I’ll take her to Madame Bell’s shop tomorrow and have it fitted.”
“Oh, y-yes. Of course, the yellow gown.” She handed it to him, then turned and hurried from the closet to hide her flushed cheeks.
He tucked the yellow gown under his arm, then offered her a polite bow, which seemed a bit absurd to Hyacinth, given they’d spent a scandalous twenty minutes alone in her bedchamber.
“I beg your pardon for disturbing you this afternoon, Miss Somerset.”
“Why did you?”
He’d turned to leave, but now he paused, and turned back to her. “Why did I what?”
“Disturb me.” She waved a hand toward the sky blue gown hanging over the dressing-table chair. “Why should you care which gown I give away? Why go to all this bother?”
He looked at her for a long moment, then he put the yellow gown aside on the bed, approached her, and held out his hand.
For reasons Hyacinth couldn’t explain, she took it, and let him lead her to her dressing-table. He took her shoulders in his hands and positioned her in front of the mirror, then moved behind her. The edges of his coat brushed her back and the rasp of his breath stirred the loose tendrils of hair against her neck.
Her gaze met his in the mirror. His eyes had darkened to a deep brown-green, and a hint of softness, rare for him, played about his lips. He took up the blue gown, held it up in front of her, and then leaned down, his lips nearly touching her ear.
“Look.”
Hyacinth shifted her gaze from his face to hers, then back again. “What am I looking at? It’s just me, in a blue gown—a gown much like every other.”
His big fingers touched her jaw, and he held her still with her face centered in the looking glass. “No.Look.”
Hyacinth never lingered over her glass, but now, with his warm, gentle fingers holding her, she met her mirror reflection, and for perhaps the first time in her life, she truly looked.
She looked for so long, and so hard, that after a time her face stopped making sense. Her brow, her eyes, her nose and mouth—they became shapes only, with no meaning attached to them—hers, and not hers at once.
Then he stroked his thumb over her jaw, and gradually the shapes changed, transformed, melted back into the face she’d seen in her glass thousands of times before, and it washerface—her brow, and her eyes, her nose and mouth, but somehow the sum of the parts now seemed to equal a different whole…
“This gown isyours. No one but you should dance in it.” He brushed a stray curl away from her ear, leaned closer, and whispered, “That’s why.”
Then he was gone, and she was holding handfuls of sky-blue silk, staring at herself in the mirror, and wondering if she’d imagined the entire thing.
Chapter Nine
Lady Chase hadn’t yet had her morning chocolate.
The very first lesson Hyacinth and her sisters had learned when they arrived in London was one didn’t annoy Lady Chase when she hadn’t yet had her morning chocolate, because until she had, she could be a bit—
“What does Lord Huntington mean, rousting us out of bed at such an hour? Why, I don’t think I exaggerate, Hyacinth, when I say it’s indecent! I can’t imagine what could be so important we must be dragged from our beds. Indeed, I can’t account for his behavior at all.”
“It might be Iris who sent for us, Grandmother. The servant didn’t say it was Finn.”
“Well, then, I daresay all this fuss is over something to do with Miss Ramsey’s gowns. Oh, I do hope Madame Bell hasn’t gotten into a temper, and sent them back unaltered. I wouldn’t half blame her if she did, after that scoundrel insulted her so infamously. White scraps, indeed!”
Hyacinth doubted this mysterious morning summons had anything to do with Isla’s gowns, unless Iris had worked herself into a sudden, inexplicable panic over them. Unlike Hyacinth, Iris had never been the sort of lady who was prone to fits of anxiety, but her calm demeanor seemed to be giving way to nervous agitation the further she got into her pregnancy.
Poor Iris. She’d been in quite a lather since the Ramseys arrived in London. She was so determined to make society accept them—both for their own sakes, and for Finn’s—she’d exhausted herself with her efforts.
“It’s the gowns. You may count upon that, Hyacinth. Madame Bell’s sent them back. She has an artist’s delicate temperament, you see, and that rogue Ciaran Ramsey has tipped it all askew.”
The worry fluttering like manic butterflies in Hyacinth’s belly began to calm. Perhaps her grandmother was right, and it was just the gowns, after all. Perhaps Isla didn’t care for the yellow gown, or the color didn’t flatter her, and she wished to change it again.
