Francesca decided just then that not all of Hyacinth’s statements required a rejoinder. In fact, few of them did.
“Oh, Francesca!” came Violet’s voice, thankfully interrupting the conversation. “There you are.”
Francesca looked up to see her mother entering the breakfast room, but before she could say a word, Hyacinth piped up with, “Francesca was just about to kill me.”
“Excellent timing on my part, then,” Violet said, taking her seat. She turned to Francesca. “Are you planning to go over to Kilmartin House this morning?”
Francesca nodded. “I live there.”
“I think she lives here,” Hyacinth said, adding a liberal dose of sugar to her tea.
Violet ignored her. “I believe I will accompany you.”
Francesca nearly dropped her fork. “Why?”
“I should like to see Michael,” Violet said with a delicate shrug. “Hyacinth, will you please pass me the muffins?”
“I’m not sure what his plans are today,” Francesca said quickly. Michael had had an attack the night before—his fourth malarial fever, to be precise, and they were hoping it would be the last of the cycle. But even though he would be much recovered by now, he would still most likely look dreadful. His skin—thank God—wasn’t jaundiced, which Michael had told her was often a sign that the sickness was progressing to its fatal stage, but he still had that awful sickly air to him, and Francesca knew that if her mother caught one glimpse of him she would be horrified. And furious.
Violet Bridgerton did not like to be kept in the dark. Especially when it pertained to a matter about which one could use the term “life and death” without being accused of hyperbole.
“If he’s not available I will simply turn around and go home,” Violet said. “Jam please, Hyacinth.”
“I’ll come, too,” Hyacinth said.
Oh, God. Francesca’s knife skittered right across her muffin. She was going to have to drug her sister. It was the only solution.
“You don’t mind if I come along, too, do you?” Hyacinth asked Violet.
“Didn’t you have plans with Eloise?” Francesca said quickly.
Hyacinth stopped, thought, blinked a few times. “I don’t think so.”
“Shopping? At the milliner?”
Hyacinth took another moment to run through her memory. “No, in fact I’m quite certain I don’t. I just purchased a new bonnet last week. Lovely one, actually. Green, with the most cunning ecru trim.” She glanced down at her toast, regarded it for a moment, then reached for the marmalade. “I’m weary of shopping,” she added.
“No woman is ever weary of shopping,” Francesca said, a touch desperately.
“This woman is. Besides, the earl—” Hyacinth cut herself off, turning to her mother. “May I call him Michael?”
“You’ll have to ask him,” Violet replied, taking a bite of eggs.
Hyacinth turned back to Francesca. “He’s been back in London an entire week, and I haven’t even seen him. My friends have been asking me about him, and I don’t have anything to say.”
“It’s not polite to gossip, Hyacinth,” Violet said.
“It isn’t gossip,” Hyacinth retorted. “It’s the honest dissemination of information.”
Francesca actually felt her chin drop. “Mother,” she said, shaking her head, “you really should have stopped at seven.”
“Children, you mean?” Violet asked, sipping at her tea. “Sometimes I do wonder.”
“Mother!” Hyacinth exclaimed.
Violet just smiled at her. “Salt?”
“It took her eight tries to get it right,” Hyacinth announced, thrusting the salt cellar at her mother with a decided lack of grace.
“And does that mean that you, too, hope to have eight children?” Violet inquired sweetly.
“God no,” Hyacinth said. With great feeling. And neither she nor Francesca could quite resist a chuckle after that.
“It’s not polite to blaspheme, Hyacinth,” Violet said, in much the same tone she’d used to tell her not to gossip.
“Why don’t we stop by shortly after noon?” Violet asked Francesca, once the moment of levity had petered out.
Francesca glanced up at the clock. That would give her barely an hour to make Michael presentable. And her mother had said we. As in more than one person. As in she was actually going to bring Hyacinth, who had the capacity to turn any awkward situation into a living nightmare.
“I’ll go now,” Francesca blurted out, standing up quickly. “To see if he’s available.”
To her surprise, her mother stood also. “I will walk you to the door,” Violet said. Firmly.
“Er, you will?”
“Yes.”
Hyacinth started to rise.
“Alone,” Violet said, without even giving Hyacinth a glance.
Hyacinth sat back down. Even she was wise enough not to argue when her mother was combining her serene smile with a steely tone.
Francesca allowed her mother to precede her out of the room, and they walked in silence until they reached the front hall, where she waited for a footman to retrieve her coat.
“Is there something you wish to tell me?” Violet asked.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“I think you do.”
“I assure you,” Francesca said, giving her mother her most innocent look, “I don’t.”
“You have been spending a great deal of time at Kilmartin House,” Violet said.
“I live there,” Francesca pointed out, for what felt like the hundredth time.
“Not right now you don’t, and I worry that people will talk.”
“No one has said a word about it,” Francesca returned. “I haven’t seen a thing in the gossip columns, and if people were talking about it, I’m sure that one of us would have heard by now.”
“Just because people are keeping quiet today doesn’t mean they will do so tomorrow,” Violet said.
Francesca let out an irritated exhale. “It’s not as if I’m a never-married virgin.”
“Francesca!”
Francesca crossed her arms. “I’m sorry to speak so frankly, Mother, but it is true.”
The footman arrived just then with Francesca’s coat and informed her that the carriage would be in front momentarily. Violet waited until he stepped outside to await its arrival, then turned to Francesca and asked, “What, precisely, is your relationship to the earl?”
Francesca gasped. “Mother!”
“It is not a silly question,” Violet said.
“It is the silliest—no, quite the stupidest—question I have ever heard. Michael is my cousin!”
“He was your husband’s cousin,” Violet corrected.
“And he was my cousin as well,” Francesca said sharply. “And my friend. Good heavens, of all people…I can’t even imagine…Michael!”
But the truth was, she could imagine. Michael’s illness had kept it all at bay; she’d been so busy caring for him and keeping him well that she’d managed to avoid thinking about that jolting moment in the park, when she’d looked at him and something had sparked to life within her.