“Or for my sake, pretend to?”
Hyacinth could not help but smile.
Violet held the cup out, then took it back and added another spoonful of sugar. Hyacinth was the only one in the family who took sugar in her tea, and she’d always liked it extra sweet.
“Thank you,” Hyacinth said, tasting the brew. It wasn’t quite as hot as she preferred, but she drank it anyway.
“Hyacinth,” her mother said, in that tone of voice that always made Hyacinth feel a little guilty, even though she knew better, “you know I only wish to see you happy.”
“I know,” Hyacinth said. That was the problem. Her mother did only wish her to be happy. If Violet had been pushing her toward marriage for social glory or financial gain, it would have been much easier to ignore her. But no, her mother loved her and truly did want her to be happy, not just married, and so Hyacinth tried her best to maintain her good humor through all of her mother’s sighs.
“I would never wish to see you married to someone whose company you did not enjoy,” Violet continued.
“I know.”
“And if you never met the right person, I would be perfectly happy to see you remain unwed.”
Hyacinth eyed her dubiously.
“Very well,” Violet amended, “not perfectly happy, but you know I would never pressure you to marry someone unsuitable.”
“I know,” Hyacinth said again.
“But darling, you’ll never find anyone if you don’t look.”
“I look!” Hyacinth protested. “I have gone out almost every night this week. I even went to the Smythe-Smith musicale. Which,” she said quite pointedly, “I might add you did not attend.”
Violet coughed. “Bit of a cough, I’m afraid.”
Hyacinth said nothing, but no one could have mistaken the look in her eyes.
“I heard you sat next to Gareth St. Clair,” Violet said, after an appropriate silence.
“Do you have spies everywhere?” Hyacinth grumbled.
“Almost,” Violet replied. “It makes life so much easier.”
“For you, perhaps.”
“Did you like him?” Violet persisted.
Like him? It seemed such an odd question. Did she like Gareth St. Clair? Did she like that it always felt as if he was silently laughing at her, even after she’d agreed to translate his grandmother’s diary? Did she like that she could never tell what he was thinking, or that he left her feeling unsettled, and not quite herself?
“Well?” her mother asked.
“Somewhat,” Hyacinth hedged.
Violet didn’t say anything, but her eyes took on a gleam that terrified Hyacinth to her very core.
“Don’t,” Hyacinth warned.
“He would be an excellent match, Hyacinth.”
Hyacinth stared at her mother as if she’d sprouted an extra head. “Have you gone mad? You know his reputation as well as I.”
Violet brushed that aside instantly. “His reputation won’t matter once you’re married.”
“It would if he continued to consort with opera singers and the like.”
“He wouldn’t,” Violet said, waving her hand dismissively.
“How could you possibly know that?”
Violet paused for a moment. “I don’t know,” she said. “I suppose it’s a feeling I have.”
“Mother,” Hyacinth said with a great show of solicitude, “you know I love you dearly—”
“Why is it,” Violet pondered, “that I have come to expect nothing good when I hear a sentence beginning in that manner?”
“But,” Hyacinth cut in, “you must forgive me if I decline to marry someone based upon a feeling you might or might not have.”
Violet sipped her tea with rather impressive nonchalance. “It’s the next best thing to a feeling you might have. And if I may say so myself, my feelings on these things tend to be right on the mark.” At Hyacinth’s dry expression, she added, “I haven’t been wrong yet.”
Well, that was true, Hyacinth had to acknowledge. To herself, of course. If she actually admitted as much out loud, her mother would take that as a carte blanche to pursue Mr. St. Clair until he ran screaming for the trees.
“Mother,” Hyacinth said, pausing for slightly longer than normal to steal a bit of time to organize her thoughts, “I am not going to chase after Mr. St. Clair. He’s not at all the right sort of man for me.”
“I’m not certain you’d know the right sort of man for you if he arrived on our doorstep riding an elephant.”
“I would think the elephant would be a fairly good indication that I ought to look elsewhere.”
“Hyacinth.”
“And besides that,” Hyacinth added, thinking about the way Mr. St. Clair always seemed to look at her in that vaguely condescending manner of his, “I don’t think he likes me very much.”
“Nonsense,” Violet said, with all the outrage of a mother hen. “Everyone likes you.”
Hyacinth thought about that for a moment. “No,” she said, “I don’t think everyone does.”
“Hyacinth, I am your mother, and I know—”
“Mother, you’re the last person anyone would tell if they didn’t like me.”
“Nevertheless—”
“Mother,” Hyacinth cut in, setting her teacup firmly in its saucer, “it is of no concern. I don’t mind that I am not universally adored. If I wanted everyone to like me, I’d have to be kind and charming and bland and boring all the time, and what would be the fun in that?”
“You sound like Lady Danbury,” Violet said.
“I like Lady Danbury.”
“I like her, too, but that doesn’t mean I want her as my daughter.”
“Mother—”
“You won’t set your cap for Mr. St. Clair because he scares you,” Violet said.
Hyacinth actually gasped. “That is not true.”
“Of course it is,” Violet returned, looking vastly pleased with herself. “I don’t know why it hasn’t occurred to me sooner. And he isn’t the only one.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Why have you not married yet?” Violet asked.
Hyacinth blinked at the abruptness of the question. “I beg your pardon.”
“Why have you not married?” Violet repeated. “Do you even want to?”
“Of course I do.” And she did. She wanted it more than she would ever admit, probably more than she’d ever realized until that very moment. She looked at her mother and she saw a matriarch, a woman who loved her family with a fierceness that brought tears to her eyes. And in that moment Hyacinth realized that she wanted to love with that fierceness. She wanted children. She wanted a family.
But that did not mean that she was willing to marry the first man who came along. Hyacinth was nothing if not pragmatic; she’d be happy to marry someone she didn’t love, provided he suited her in almost every other respect. But good heavens, was it so much to ask for a gentleman with some modicum of intelligence?
“Mother,” she said, softening her tone, since she knew that Violet meant well, “I do wish to marry. I swear to you that I do. And clearly I have been looking.”