Chapter Text
In the decades they had known one another, Kate found that the one thing her husband had never accused her of was subtlety. Contrariness, certainly; complexity, undoubtedly; but subtlety? Not once, even in their infamous spell of entirely misunderstanding one another’s thoughts and feelings to the absolute extreme, had Anthony’s explanation for this come down to any sort of demure, thought-out masking of her emotions on her part.
“You are about as subtle as making head-first impact with a stone wall,” he had once told her when challenged on it in a random, gentle conversation a few months into their wedded bliss.
They had been treated to a rare, quiet afternoon entirely alone with Bridgerton House suspiciously empty except for the two of them, and for whatever reason they had both wordlessly taken the opportunity to simply sit together in the drawing room. He had been reading his newspaper, sat at one end of the chaise and talking to her from behind his reading material, clearly anticipating the necessity of a shield; Kate had her stockinged feet resting in his lap as she reclined along the length of it, a sketch on her own lap as they saw through the late afternoon just in the others’ company.
Kate had never felt so utterly married as she had in that moment, relaxing on a chaise with her husband in their drawing room in a way they two only knew how - bickering.
“That is a brave thing to say to me so boldly,” Kate had remarked, and pressed her heel firmly down to her target in his lap in the effort of making a point. And, because she never knew how to leave well alone, she had added, “With yourself in such a precarious position.”
She had anticipated his shifting under her legs, positioning himself away from the threat she was posing with her carefully placed foot and what could have become a swift jab, but what she had not been quite ready for was the amusement in his voice as he replied.
“Ah yes,” he had said, and she knew his lips were quirking up into that infuriating, delicious smirk, even as it was hidden behind his paper. “There is that subtlety - in spades, as usual.”
Kate, recognising a point well made, had harrumphed and retreated.
“It is the finest way to be, I should think,” she had sighed in an affected manner a few moments later, sinking back into the cushions and stretching out her legs all the way down to her toes. “As then only a special class of simpletons are capable of misunderstanding me.”
With a flick of his wrist, Anthony’s dark eyes had appeared over the top of his folded newspaper; beyond, where she still could not see but only feel, Kate’s foot had begun to languorously stroke his thigh.
It was then, when only a heady twenty seconds later Anthony’s long fingers had begun to trace up the inside of her leg, that Kate had rather had to concede Anthony may have been exactly right: subtle, she was not.
It was so, that when a few months into carrying their first child and Anthony happened upon her staring longingly out of the windows of Aubrey Hall, Kate found that she did not have to explain herself at all.
“I can take you on a walk?”
It was sweet of him to offer so, she reminded herself. He surely must have been as bored as her of taking the same trusted routes at her side over the past few weeks. Long enough to be diverting, and yet short enough that she was not so far from the house if she became fatigued as she was prone to without much sleep.
“I have been on walks,” she insisted, but immediately wrinkled her nose at her own tone. It was all too whiny and self-pitying to feel like she sounded like herself. She pulled an apologetic face and hoped he understood. “I like walks,” she told him, softer.
Anthony nodded just as gently. “I know.”
“But I can only go so far,” she finished and pursed her lips. With another look to the window she got to the truth of it - one that Anthony no doubt already had anticipated. “Your mother will not see me on a horse whilst with child,” she sighed.
“She has said something?” Anthony surmised.
“No,” Kate shook her head. “Not really, and not today. I just do not think she understands why I would still want to - why prioritising is not enough of a - “
She stopped herself, knowing she was being unfair again. Her and Lady Violet were different women, that much was plain; the Dowager Viscountess had never valued her relationships with animals in the same way her husband had, and could not know Kate’s desperate need to be around them. Newton was a comfort, to be sure - the cats just the same - but how could she ever explain the desire to canter with reins in her hands and the brisk country air at her cheeks, with the magnificent, clever beast breathing with her, to one who had never experienced the same joy? To try and make her understand the lack of it, when she had been struggling so?
And her godmother and mother-in-law would never have accused her of selfishness - would never have even insinuated it - but the fact that Kate felt it, remained true all the same.
“I agree with her,” Kate admitted, which she wished made it all feel a bit better. “I do. I want to be careful. I just - “ Kate shook her head, and tried to sound practical and not as wistful as she felt. “I am growing a little weary of it.”
Of simply wanting and feeling like she had to explain.
“I know.”
He said it again, so simply and kindly that Kate already felt better for saying it and having it heard. Anthony bore much from her, especially in those past few months, and when she took his hand and pressed a thankful kiss to his knuckles, she hoped as he understood her frustration, he could also understand her love for him.
From the way he curled over to kiss her forehead in return, she rather supposed he did.
In truth, Kate had almost forgotten the entire exchange, and even her initial frustration; child-rearing, as she learned more with every passing day, brought with it new and interesting ways to test her patience, and not being able to race her horse across her favourite fields became a passing concern rather than a pressing issue. And really, it was not so very terrible, when little Gregory would offer to escort her to the Treehouse so she could play with Hyacinth, asking her about the baby the entire way - or when Eloise would sit barefoot with her by the lake, dipping their toes in the water to cool themselves in the summer heat, and would offer terribly funny name suggestions for the baby just to make her smile.
She had almost forgotten it - up until the moment in the very early morning after another night of miserable sleep, that Anthony lay at her side, watching her with careful eyes, and decided to make it all better.
“If we ready ourselves now, my mother will not have to know.”
Kate blinked lethargically across at him. “Hmm?”
“Before the sun rises,” he continued, and pushed himself up onto his elbow as he considered his own words. “If we take two horses slowly on an easy track, we can go out together before the rest of the house awakens. No-one will have to know but the two of us.”
It took her several seconds to understand him, sleepy as she was, but when she did she sat up quickly to meet him.
“You will - “
“ - We will go slowly,” he cut her off before she could get ahead of herself, but she saw the lines of his pink mouth twitching happily. “A trot at most.”
“Yes,” she agreed, breathless and giddy. “Yes!”
He met her with a smile when she surged forward to kiss him. She chased each of the corners of his mouth as she pressed more and more frantic kisses into his face, a hand on either cheek as she held him exactly where she wanted him. The hair growing back at his cheek scratched under her lips, but it made finding the softness of his own lips all the sweeter when she returned to them in earnest. With one, long, happy hum she lingered, and forgot herself enough to begin to lean further into him, licking lightly to beg for matched attentions of his tongue.
“Quickly,” he laughed eventually into her embrace, his hands sliding up her arms to grip at her wrists. “If we do not go now, I might not allow you out of my arms.”
Having spent enough hours now at the mercy of those sinful arms of his, Kate did not doubt her powerlessness in the face of them, and relented.
With as few servants disturbed as possible, Kate found herself going from her bed chambers to standing in the stables in her riding habit with her crop tightly in her hands quicker than she ever thought possible. In her excitement, as the unfortunate early-risen stablehand readied her horse, Kate let a hand fall to her belly.
It still remained somewhat hidden under her coat, but now protruded out enough to be noticeable as she smoothed her hand over it in comforting circles that seemed to come as naturally to her as riding itself.
He will probably like to ride too, she thought to herself suddenly. Made by her and Anthony in love, how could he not? He would be clamouring to be on top of a horse before he could walk. Then when he was old enough, he would join his mother and father on their rides across the land of Aubrey Hall. He might even grin just as Anthony had when he was a boy, laughing over his shoulder with the wind in his hair and looking as if he were flying.
And she might finally know what it truly meant to worry after him, just as her father did her when she took her jumps.
Her stomach fluttered under her hand, and she allowed herself to smile. She would take him on his very first horse ride today.
“Good morning,” she whispered to her mount once he was brought to her, pressing her face into his nose and breathing him in. Both her husband and their staff were far too used to her eccentricities with the animals to look at her like she was too mad for it, but she felt Anthony’s gaze on her back all the same.
“Where shall we go?” she asked him, unable to mask the brightness and wideness of her smile when she spun around to face her husband again; and in that moment she could have sworn she saw her own happiness reflected in the sparkle of Anthony’s dark eyes as he looked upon her.
“I have an idea.” He smiled back as he put on his hat. “Will you follow?”
Though she already knew her answer, Kate never quite knew how to let Anthony not fight for her approval.
“Will it be good enough for the memory to sustain me until after I have birthed this child?”
Anthony huffed a laugh. “Perhaps.” And then he tilted his head to smile at her wickedly under the brim of his hat. “I am sure you will endeavour to let me know in either case.”
“Fervently,” she agreed with a grin. Then, softer, “I will follow.”
It did not take her all too long for her to realise where they were headed - she knew the land as well as she could recall her own house. Just as she could have walked the halls of Sheffield Manor with her eyes firmly shut, so could she navigate the grounds of Aubrey Hall. Every path told a story of a summer, and every turn summoned the memory that could make her smile. A lake to fall into; a tree to climb to save a kitten; a line of stones to jump along without a care in the world.
Still, the ride there was as perfect as she could have imagined; the journey, always, was just as important as the destination. She rocked with the movement of her horse underneath her, her eyes fluttering closed against the pale light of an early morning. Beside her, never too fast or too slow to leave her alone, Anthony did much the same, in a sacred, happy silence.
As they passed her father’s favourite tree, gnarled and tall and wonderful, Anthony wordlessly held out his hand across the space that separated them. Kate took it and did not let go.
The stream, when they reached it, looked just as it did in the treasure trove of her memory, and for that she was infinitely grateful.
“Does this suffice?” Anthony asked, once he had dismounted and tied up their mounts. His hands were up and fit at her waist with practised ease, and Kate allowed herself to be helped down without fuss.
“It does,” she replied, and lingered in his embrace. With a quick spin in his arms, her back was to his chest, and she leaned back into his solid height indulgently. “Perhaps I will find us a toad,” she teased with a rascally tilt back of her head to address him. “I seem to remember they enjoyed this little stream.”
Anthony’s response was quick - his arms around her front and pulling her even closer to him as he all but curled around her.
“I think that perhaps you will not,” he growled into her ear. He nipped at her earlobe. “Menace.”
Kate hummed but did not disagree.
Ultimately, they stayed by the stream longer than they ought to. The sun had risen, and the house had undoubtedly stirred at the signs of the new day breaking out over the horizon, but still Kate and Anthony stayed; it was hard to leave, when the gold-yellow light made such beautiful shapes as it shone through the gaps in the leaves. It was easy to forget the reason they had come here was under the pretence of secrecy, when the trickle of the stream made such gentle, lulling sounds that kept them both still and thoughtful.
They sat together, Anthony with his back to a tree, and Kate between his legs with her back to his chest; their confessions quiet and reverent in the embrace of nature.
“My father once told me this is where he felt most with God,” Kate said into the hush of the morning whilst they laid there in each other’s arms. “Not here but - outside. With trees.”
Anthony considered this for one long moment.
“I think I understand what he meant,” he said, his voice low and vibrating against Kate’s back. “It is where I feel closest to my father.”
“It almost feels like - “ Kate searched for the words. “Like I can breathe in and hear and feel him breathing with me.”
“This is where they lived,” Anthony agreed.
“Live,” Kate corrected. With a quick movement, she took Anthony’s hand from where it had been playing idly with her hair and pulled it around to rest on the swell of her belly. “Live.”
She felt his fingers settle under hers, and something settled in her heart too. In her belly, their baby danced.
“What will you do?” Kate asked him a while later. Anthony made a curious noise behind her. It was sleepy, as if he had nearly drifted off in the peace of their morning by the stream. As Kate continued, she almost felt bad for waking him up, but now she had thought of the question she had to ask:
“If he likes toads, what will you do?”
Anthony’s easy laughter dislodged her a little from his chest, but their hands on her stomach stayed firmly in place. “I will tell him that his mother believes very strongly in the beauty of all God’s creatures, and that you would be delighted to help him find one.”
“I do not like toads either,” Kate laughed with him. “I only ever tolerated them because I knew they bothered you.”
“That is some good wisdom to impart as a first lesson to him,” Anthony replied. “Show your love through torture.”
“That is going to be your first lesson to him?” Kate scoffed, and readjusted herself. Anthony lifted his hand for the moment it took her to move, but was back on her belly once she was comfortable. “I do not know what you are going to be wasting his time with, but I will be busy teaching him Pall Mall.”
“Both worthy labours,” Anthony said diplomatically. And then, after a pause: “I hope you won’t be teaching him how best to steal the Mallet of Death.”
“And give myself another opponent made in my image?” Kate sighed and let her eyes fall closed again. “I hardly think so.”
“Good.”
Anthony, to Kate’s utter joy, sounded relieved.
“It would be terrible planning on my part.”
“Quite.”
“And truthfully, it would take all the fun out of it.”
“Yes. Imagine a scenario in which our child has bested both of us out of the Mallet of Death and we are both miserable and neither of us can gloat?”
“It would really test my sportsmanship, to have to pretend to be proud of him.”
“I am glad we agree.”
Kate could not be sure if only she or both of them dozed, or for how long. Once she had shut her eyes, she had drifted away a little with the comforting rise and fall of Anthony’s breathing under her head; when she opened them again, his hand was moving, stroking her absently as he had taken to doing on an evening, when it was just the two of them alone and wrapped up around one another and content to never let go. All Kate knew was that when her husband offered her a hand up to help her from the ground, ready to face the rest of the world again, she felt more rejuvenated than she had in some weeks.
“I almost forgot for a moment,” she confessed once back atop her horse. “Why we are here.” She grimaced apologetically. “I nearly challenged you to a race back to the house.”
And Kate watched then as she swore she saw all of Anthony’s sanity leave his body at once; his eyes fell closed, and he sighed so deeply he likely had no air left in his lungs, and even biting furiously down on her lip could not hide her smile as she tried not to laugh at him.
“Menace,” was all he said as he pulled at the reins of his horse, pointedly ignoring her poorly disguised amusement. “Menace.”