Lucy was unsurprised.
“It’s a useful talent,” Hyacinth added, sounding utterly serious. “Here, this way.”
Lucy followed her up a back staircase.
“There are very few excuses available to women who wish to leave a social function,” Hyacinth continued, displaying a remarkable talent for sticking to her chosen topic like glue. “It behooves us to master every weapon in our arsenal.”
Lucy was beginning to believe that she’d led a very sheltered life.
“Ah, here we are.” Hyacinth pushed open a door. She peered in. “He’s not here yet. Good. That gives me time.”
“For what?”
“To mend your dress. I confess I forgot that detail when I formulated my plan. But I know where Daphne keeps needles.”
Lucy watched as Hyacinth strode to a dressing table and opened a drawer.
“Right where I thought they were,” Hyacinth said with a triumphant smile. “I do love it when I am right. It makes life so much more convenient, wouldn’t you agree?”
Lucy nodded, but her mind was on her own question. And then she asked it—“Why are you helping me?”
Hyacinth looked at her as if she were daft. “You can’t go back in with a torn dress. Not after we told everyone we’d gone off to mend it.”
“No, not that.”
“Oh.” Hyacinth held up a needle and regarded it thoughtfully. “This will do. What color thread, do you think?”
“White, and you did not answer my question.”
Hyacinth ripped a piece of thread off a spool and slid it through the eye of the needle. “I like you,” she said. “And I love my brother.”
“You know that I am engaged to be married,” Lucy said quietly.
“I know.” Hyacinth knelt at Lucy’s feet, and with quick, sloppy stitches began to sew.
“In a week. Less than a week.”
“I know. I was invited.”
“Oh.” Lucy supposed she ought to have known that. “Erm, do you plan to attend?”
Hyacinth looked up. “Do you?”
Lucy’s lips parted. Until that moment, the idea of not marrying Haselby was a wispy, far-fetched thing, more of a oh-how-I-wish-I-did-not-have-to-marry-him sort of feeling. But now, with Hyacinth watching her so carefully, it began to feel a bit more firm. Still impossible, of course, or at least…
Well, maybe…
Maybe not quite impossible. Maybe only mostly impossible.
“The papers are signed,” Lucy said.
Hyacinth turned back to her sewing. “Are they?”
“My uncle chose him,” Lucy said, wondering just who she was trying to convince. “It has been arranged for ages.”
“Mmmm.”
Mmmm? What the devil did that mean?