Chapter Text
Anthony’s heart was racing, anger spiking with every word from Miss Sharma’s mouth. Anger and something else that he refused acknowledge. Why did every interaction between them result in these arguments?
Then he heard it. The sound that changed his life.
Buzz, buzz, buzz.
“The only feeling you are in fact capable of engendering, my lord, is that of discontent!” Miss Sharma spat.
How did she not hear the bee as it hovered so close to her unprotected skin? “Do not move,” Anthony ordered.
“Do not tell me what to do!” Kate said. How dare he order her about.
“Would you stand still, damn it!” Anthony grabbed Kate’s arm as the bee landed.
Kate paused in her tirade, shocked by his action and his language. Following his gaze, she saw a bee had landed on her dress.
As she went to swat it away, Anthony erupted, “Do not!”
“It is only a bee,” she waved her hand again. “Ow,” Kate hissed in pain, the bee stinging the soft skin of her chest just above the edge of her bodice.
Anthony’s eyes went wide, his breath coming out faster and faster. This was his worst nightmare coming to life again. “Are you hurt?”
“What?” Kate said, confused.
“Can you breathe?” Images of his father’s shocked face, his hands clutching at his throat flashed through his mind.
Kate winced at the pain, brushing off his concern. “It is only a sting, of course.”
“Are you sure?” he said desperately.
“My lord.” Kate could see that he was beside himself, but she had no idea why. Nor any idea what to do.
“No, no, no. Do not…,” Anthony gasped, looking for any sign that she was fading before his very eyes. Don’t leave me, his mind begged. There could not be a world where Kate Sharma was not around to drive him insane.
“My lord,” Kate said insistently.
“Do not….”
The urge to comfort him overwhelmed her, to do anything to relieve the look of panic in his eyes. Kate took his hand, and placed it on her chest, where the sting was. “I am unharmed.” She pressed his bare skin against hers, proving her health. “I am unharmed. It was just a bee,” she whispered. Placing his other hand on his chest and resting hers on it, she slowed her breathing trying to calm him.
Anthony struggled through each breath, trying to focus on the feel of her heartbeat under his palm, the ghost of her breath against his face. He felt drained and wired all at once. Slowly his world narrowed to Kate as he rested his forehead against hers. Anthony exhaled, the haze of panic subsiding.
In the increasing calmness, their gazes locked, neither unable to look away, passion replacing panic. The moment was charged, their breathes intermingled, their noses sliding against each other. Anthony’s eyes flit to her lips, hers following. They were drawn together like magnets, tension turning into desire.
What was this madness? Surely Kate was not contemplating this…this kiss. She hated him, right? And he was pursuing her sister.
Suddenly nearby voices and a horse neighing broke through their fog. The pair sprung apart, horrified with how close they came to kissing. Anthony spun on his heel and ran off in a panic. Kate fled in the other direction, picking up her reticule on the way, then collapsing again the garden wall out of sight.
She leaned there, letting the stones support her as she tried to catch her breath. What just happened? The Viscount had been terrified – she had never seen him like that – frustrated, the consummate suitor, smug, competitive, a wide variety of emotions to be sure, but never terrified. What could have scared him so?
It is none of your business, Kate, she tried to convince herself. But he had almost kissed her and that was her business. If the Viscount wanted to marry her sister, a plan she was still firmly against, he needed to explain himself. She refused to brush this under the rug. A man who would kiss the sister of the woman he was courting – another strike against him.
You would have kissed him back, an internal voice reminded her. It was the voice that always reminded her of her long-discarded dreams from a future of her own. And it was a voice that she always pushed aside in favour of her family’s needs.
It was time to address her sister’s suitor. Kate stalked after him, skirting the stable hands – an audience was not needed. After a few unsuccessful turns, she finally found him braced against a tree, facing away from her.
“Lord Bridgerton.” She watched his back stiffen but other than that he did not acknowledge her presence. “My lord, what just happened?” she demanded.
“Leave it, Miss Sharma,” he ordered, his voice hard.
She refused to be ordered about by him. “No. I demand to know what that was.”
“Leave it!” Anthony shouted, whirling around on her, watching in grim satisfaction as she took a surprised step back. His father’s death was chaotic and frantic, Anthony watching helpless, frozen as the light left his eyes. It had felt like he was underwater.
This felt the same. He couldn’t figure which way was up, just being spun and tossed by the waves, struggling to breathe.
Then there she was, like the sunlight, showing him the way to the surface.
Kate sensed his pain, a kindred pain, and softened, “Anthony, please tell me what is wrong?”
He crumpled at the use of his name, sliding down the tree to the ground. “My father died of a bee sting.”
“I’m so sorry, my lord.” She knelt down beside him, itching to reach out to him.
“To watch a great man be felled by such a small creature, it was humbling.” Anthony scrubbed his hands over his face, trying to remove evidence of his breakdown. “I am sorry I overreacted regarding your sting,” he finally raised his eyes to meet Kate’s and found only compassion.
Unable to resist, she reached forward and squeezed his hand briefly, “Do not apologize for that. I appreciate your worry, but I promise I am fine.”
“I’m glad you are alright,” he whispered.
“I suppose courting my sister would be rather dull without me to challenge you every step of the way,” she teased.
“No,” Anthony shook his head, refusing to let her diminish herself.
Kate gave him a curious look, Edwina would likely already be his fiancé if she were not around.
“While you have made courting Miss Edwina a challenge,” Anthony conceded unable to resist smiling as Kate gave him a smug look at that, “your life matters more to me than just as her sister.”
Kate was struck silent, her lower lip caught between her teeth, frozen in his gaze. No, no, no – he is not for you, Kate. “Thank you, my lord,” she said formally.
“Anthony. We have been through far too much together to return to stifling formalities. Would you not agree, Kate?”
“I suppose, Anthony.” Not for you, Kate, not for you. “I hope you know that this ceasefire will not alter my opinion regarding your courtship of Edwina,” she stood brushing off her dress, then reaching a hand down for him.
Taking it, he allowed her to help him up – the first person he’d allowed to help him in a long time. “I would expect nothing less,” Anthony said, her hand still in his.
He could not marry Miss Edwina anymore as it was, not when Kate consumed all his thoughts. It wouldn’t be fair to any of them. It was time to break with Miss Edwina, thankfully no promises had been made, and find a new prospect.
Perhaps in the meantime, he could pursue a friendship with Kate. If she was not obsessed with keeping her sister from him, he expected that she would be an excellent friend. A fellow eldest sibling who understood the pressures of keeping their family together. Any kind of romantic relationship was out of the question though, it would be too easy to fall in love with Kate Sharma.