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Much lauded catch of the season though Lord Anthony Bridgerton might be, as of late, he had not been acting the part.
Refusing all invitations, seen not at all at his club, entertaining none of his former paramours, Anthony had not even been in company with his family these past six weeks. His mother was left to the task of shepherding an increasingly unenthusiastic Eloise from ball to dinner party to musicale and back home again. To say nothing of fending off increasingly invasive queries as to her eldest son’s whereabouts.
There were, after all, only so many ways to politely deflect from said son’s continued abandonment of his social obligations.
Though Lady Whistledown had been uncharacteristically coy about Lord Bridgerton’s apparent withdrawal from society—he had hardly been seen in his mother’s drawing room let alone among the throng filling London’s grandest ballrooms—the rest of the Ton had taken notice nonetheless.
Even when he hadn’t been quite intent upon securing a bride, Lord Bridgerton had been a fixture at all manner of society parties. For him to disappear so thoroughly could only mean one thing.
He must have been truly in love. Only heartbreak—it was said by anyone with even a passing interest in the matter, which made for a good three-quarters of London's high society—could have prompted the viscount’s uncharacteristic seclusion.
It was no wonder, really. For who wouldn’t be heartbroken to be thrown over by the Diamond of the season?
The truth of the matter was less and rather more complicated.
Had Anthony been disappointed when Miss Edwina had confessed, halfway through the house party at Aubrey Hall, that her heart had been captured by another? Certainly. She was a young lady of both excellent character and discernment and would have made an exemplary viscountess. Yet by design, it was only his pride, and not his own heart, that had been wounded.
Nonetheless, Anthony was content—though not truly happy; that felt a step too far—to let any and all believe this version of events.
It was far simpler than the truth.
Rake or not, Anthony’s honor refused to admit that while he had been wooing one sister, the greater part of his intrigue lay with the other. While Miss Edwina was without flaw, kind and intelligent and lovely, and he should have rejoiced to have found her, it was Kate who snared his attention. Prickly and combative and far too beautiful for anyone’s good, least of all Anthony’s. She had planted herself in his path, keeper of her sister, and Anthony had never been good at disdaining such a direct challenge. Particularly when extended by such an entrancing adversary.
That she’d gone on to so soundly trounce him, victoriously securing a match for her sister just as impressive as a viscount, simply could not be borne.
Thus: let the Ton believe that his discontent stemmed from thwarted love rather than thwarted rivalry.
The more society repeated the lie, the less Anthony had to examine his own. For if he did examine his reluctance to rejoin the fray and seek out a suitable viscountess, he was quite likely to discover that his displeasure did not lie in his defeat at the hands of Kate Sharma.
What did it matter that he now had no opportunity to return the favor? Anthony was a viscount; he had far more important matters to attend to than his final, losing record in the Bridgerton-Sharma War. A war, it had to be said, with only two adversarial parties, the rest of their families lacking the requisite animosity to participate.
In fact, his mother and brothers and sisters were downright cordial whenever they encountered Miss Edwina, now Lady Lockhart, about town.
Anthony had only met the lady once, little more than six weeks ago. He could own that his behavior upon the unexpected reunion and since was no doubt the root of many of the rumors regarding his lovelorn state, but he had suffered quite the shock that day.
The shock came not, as was conjectured, upon seeing the woman he had intended to make his viscountess on the arm of her new husband.
The sight of Lord and Lady Lockhart approaching on the Hyde Park path he and his family were strolling along had sparked no emotion within Anthony's breast other than congratulatory warmth. It took hardly one glance to see how pleased both husband and wife were in their new station. Which meant all the rest of Anthony’s glances could be spent searching up the path for the bold colors and smug smile of the remaining Miss Sharma, undoubtedly quite prepared to gloat over her victory.
He was not to find them.
It was Eloise, bless her, who asked after Lady Lockhart’s elder sister once the initial proprieties had been undertaken, though Anthony attended the response most diligently.
Nonetheless, it took a moment for the answer to register.
“How thoughtful of you to ask,” Lady Lockhart had enthused. Her bright smile fell, though her husband’s hand covering hers allowed a slight rebound in its brilliance. Soldiering on, she said, “Kate should reach Bombay any day now. I quite nearly begged her to stay, but she would hear no argument. When she has fixed on a course of action, my sister is not to be swayed. She set sail before Lord Lockhart and I had even left on our honeymoon!”
Even now, all this time after, Anthony was not sure how he had taken his leave of the party. The deeply ingrained rules of etiquette must have carried him through, or else his mother surely would have registered her disappointment in his behavior. As it was, Lady Bridgerton had been nothing but sympathetic with her son in the scant few times he had seen her since.
Distantly, he could recall making his way back to his lodgings, as wretched as he’d felt on the grounds of Aubrey Hall, watching in horror as a bee sunk its stinger into Kate’s delicate flesh.
She was as beyond his reach as she would have been had that sting truly felled her.
Whether it was fear or fury that drove Anthony straight to his desk, he could hardly say. All he knew was that if he could not speak with Kate, could not watch her expressive face contort and change with each outrageous taunt he made, then he must resort to the second-best thing. Which emotion had won out when he set a clean sheet of paper on the blotter and took up his pen was even more of a mystery.
Still, he had little memory of what, exactly, he had written in that fugue. His thoughts on the matter even now were hopelessly disordered. What half-mad jumble of feeling and accusation—implied declarations or more?—had he committed to paper, signed his name to, and sent off before regaining his senses?
Since, Anthony had done his best to remain in full control of his faculties. He had plenty to occupy himself, between the demands of the viscountcy and his various investments and the antics of his family. If that meant he neglected his social obligations, it was a sacrifice Anthony was willing to make. The balls and fêtes of the Season held little appeal to him now that he knew the evening would provide only insipid chatter and rote pleasantries, no opportunity to trade barbs with a wit to match his own. There was nothing on offer that could surprise him, keep him on his toes, both of which suddenly ranked higher than his self-professed desire to find a wife. There were only so many remarks about the mildness of the weather and the excellence of the wine that Anthony could tolerate. He simply hadn't enough energy to muster the enthusiasm for it.
(Of all his family, only Daphne showed much promise as a sparring partner. Perhaps the title of Duchess before her name had elevated not only her rank but her willingness to give Anthony the occasional verbal lashing. But she spent so much time at Clyvedon and, when she was in town, was so enamored of her husband and son and exasperated with Anthony that she rarely indulged him.)
And so, Anthony remained cloistered at home.
He had never been more attentive to his business, whatever the current stack of correspondence he was attending to might imply. The stack was hardly his fault, after all. The estate agent always sent his reports to Bridgerton House, no matter how many times Anthony provided the address of his lodgings.
Anthony signed the response containing his directions for mitigating the flooding in the home farm’s lower pasture with an irritated scrawl and threw down his quill. He slumped in his chair and rubbed his aching eyes. It could, he supposed, be worse. He had only neglected this letter for a few days, in which time the over seer would surely have already put the common sense solutions into effect. Still, here was yet another reason to check in on Bridgerton House and its resident Bridgertons more often. It would do, as his mother had hinted in her semi-regular notes, to remind his brothers and sisters of his visage lest they forget it altogether. While he was at it, he could collect his misdirected post.
Wearily, he opened his eyes, though it was almost as if he hadn’t. His study had grown quite dark since he had last taken note of his surroundings. Retrieving the candle his valet must have left lit near the door allowed Anthony to shake loose some of the stiffness in his limbs, though returning straight away to his desk to light the lamp would only put it right back. There was only one more letter left, and he would thank himself tomorrow to have not neglected it now.
With its unfamiliar hand, compared to the agent’s tidy penmanship that Anthony had grown up reading, this final missive had been relegated to the bottom of the pile. He scarcely gave it another look as he sliced into the packet and unfolded it, his mind still largely occupied by the flooded field. The home farm’s sheep flock was meant to winter there, and if the grass and clover didn’t grow back in time, he’d need to look into purchasing hay to keep them fed.
All thoughts of sadly damp ewes and lambs fled Anthony’s mind when he finally turned his attention to the page in his hand.
Dear Lord Bridgerton—
He read those first words, and it was as though lightning had struck.
Somehow, without reading one line further, Anthony knew exactly whose hand had put these words to paper.
Kate.
As she had once accused him, though for entirely different reasons, he was overcome. He had not expected her to write. Truly, he had expected to hear nothing of Kate Sharma again. Having successfully orchestrated such an advantageous match for Edwina, with far better than a rakish viscount, Anthony was sure Kate had little but her family to look back upon in regret when she returned to India.
His eyes drifted closed, and Anthony breathed deep. It was surely his imagination, but he could swear he could smell jasmine wafting from the paper, the scent she favored. For a long moment, he sat just so. If his sight remained shuttered, he could almost believe that he was not alone in his rooms as he had been for weeks. Could almost believe the most infuriating, alluring woman he had ever had the fortune of meeting was sitting across from him, lamplight burnishing her in precious, molten gold.
Still less precious than the rare, radiant smile that might grace her lips. The laugh she might give if he gave in and unleashed the current of vitriol pent up in the wake of her flight. How he might silence that laughter with—
Anthony’s eyes opened, and he found himself quite alone.
Fighting back a swelling surge of disappointment, he tore through the letter. Upon first read, however, he hardly comprehended more than the obvious: she had written.
Whatever nonsense he had penned had inspired a response, and so, Anthony could hardly regret the rashness that had driven him to post that first letter, however much a fool it must have made him look in her eyes.
It was almost enough to overpower the polite but distinct distance that colored Kate’s message, which he only grasped upon further readings.
Only almost.
She neatly sidestepped whatever emotionally indiscreet declarations he might have made— likely for the best as Anthony still had little memory of what, exactly, those declarations could have been—and instead informed him plainly that she had landed safely in Bombay and found suitable employment.
I confess, she had gone on to write, crisply enough that Anthony could envision her frown and the precise set of her jaw, I am quite at a loss imagining what could have prompted you to write to me. As a governess, I find it is my duty to remind you that correspondence between an unmarried lady and gentleman is quite improper. Even between intimates, which we most certainly are not.
With half the world between us, and likely to remain so, I can see no cause to maintain the acquaintance.
I do wish you well, my lord. Alongside every happiness.
Regards,
Kathani Sharma
Unconsciously, his fingers traced over the loops and swirls of her name as he reread the rest of the letter several more times, never gleaning much more than her cordial befuddlement and less than subtle demand that he cease communication at once.
Naturally, Anthony could not let that stand. She had already won one battle; she would not take a second. If Miss Sharma was quite convinced that he had no business corresponding with her, then Anthony was just as determined to prove her wrong.
This time in a much clearer state of mind, and with more vigor than he’d exhibited in weeks, Anthony took up his pen once more and put tip to paper.
Dear Miss Sharma —
He did not know what to write next, but he had plenty of ink and stationery, a lamp full of fuel, no pressing business left to attend to, and nowhere he was expected. Anthony could afford to take his time in crafting a response.
In fact, he rather thought that nothing sounded more enjoyable.
Head cocked to better hear her over the clatter of hansoms and hackneys in the street, Anthony listened attentively to the youngest Bridgerton.
As he’d had many an occasion to discover, such an attitude provided an excellent excuse to all but ignore anyone trying to catch his eye. After all, as Hyacinth’s guardian, it was only proper that he exhibit due care and attention to her. Not even the most ambitious young ladies, or their mamas, could fault him for it.
It certainly helped that she was such an engaging child; it was no chore at all to make conversation with his youngest sister. Though "conversation" was perhaps too generous a term. Hyacinth had chattered energetically through the entire stroll from the Serpentine—where they had ostensibly gone to enjoy the sunny summer day but really had ventured forth to give Francesca and her fiancé time to see and be seen—to Grosvenor Square. Even now that they approached the gates of Bridgerton House, she showed no signs of stopping.
“I think it most unfair that Gregory gets to study all the wars and beheadings he likes and I’m stuck with a governess who won’t even let me paint a gladiolus!” At Anthony’s quizzical look, she sighed. “If she brings so much as a sword lily into the schoolroom, she says, it’s only time ‘til I’m asking for the real thing.”
Having witnessed Hyacinth swinging an errant foil with reckless abandon on more than one occasion, sometimes with a living target in her sights, Anthony could only offer, “As though you need the invitation.”
“Exactly!” Hyacinth pouted for a moment, but Anthony watched as the adolescent petulance transformed into something very nearly sly. He suppressed the urge to smile as her gaze turned up to him, too innocent for a girl of her age to be anything but trickery. “Brother, I don’t suppose—”
“That I could speak to Miss Jenkins about diversifying your studies?”
Eyes wide and lips pressed firmly shut, Hyacinth’s head bobbed eagerly.
Anthony hated to disappoint her, but: “Mother has charge of your education, as well you know. She would not welcome my meddling.”
Emulating her namesake, Hyacinth positively wilted.
Something deep within himself must have fundamentally changed because though Anthony had often been faced with his sisters’ and brothers’ disappointments—had been their chief architect at times—finding himself confronted with Hyacinth’s prompted Anthony into action.
Leading her up Bridgerton House’s front steps, he lay a comforting hand on his youngest sister’s hand and bent to murmur in her ear, “But if you were to browse the west-most shelves in the study, I think you would find all the historical bloodshed you could desire.”
At once, Hyacinth lit up, smile abloom. She threw her arms around Anthony’s neck in reckless abandon. “This is why you are my favorite brother!”
Benedict, herding Gregory into the house, scoffed. “You said I was your favorite just last week.”
On her own two feet once more, Hyacinth rolled her eyes. “Yes. Last week.”
“How you wound!” Benedict cried, theatrically clutching at his breast. He slumped against the door, head lolling to the side to address Humboldt, who bore the Bridgertons’ nonsense with his customary composure. “Humboldt, do tell me there is tea about. I believe it shall be my saving grace.”
“It shall be sent up at once,” the butler confirmed. Then, so dry it was difficult to tell if he was being serious, he asked, “Shall I also send for the apothecary, Master Benedict? To attend to such a mortal wound.”
“Good man,” Benedict said, straightening with a delighted grin until a sidelong glance at Hyacinth reminded him to droop. “Only tea shall serve to soothe my wounded pride. Oh, and those little cakes Mrs. Gaines makes, if you would?”
“Very good, sir.”
Hyacinth, utterly unimpressed with Benedict’s theatrics—for she was very grown-up at thirteen and could not have her brothers treating her forever like a little girl to entertain—turned to Anthony.
“Will you be joining us, too?”
Though Hyacinth’s expectant gaze was hard to gainsay, the weight in Anthony’s breast pocket—a greater weight than the mere sheets of paper carried there—won out. He had already spent most of the morning ignoring the anticipation of reading the letter he’d collected on his way to join his family. If he had to wait much longer, who could say what he would do? Like he, and not Hyacinth, was the child with no sense of self-control.
Before Anthony could let her down gently, tell her he had other obligations, he found his decision had been made for him.
“Come in for luncheon, Anthony,” his mother all but ordered from just inside the hall, near enough that he could not possibly pretend not to have heard.
Even if he wished to try his luck, a glance down at Hyacinth to find her impish face already turned up to him, a challenging glint in her eye, would have convinced Anthony otherwise. He would receive no quarter from her.
With a sigh, he allowed his youngest sister to drag him into the house.
His "obligations" would have to wait.
Hyacinth dashed ahead of him, no doubt drawn on by the threat of the picked-over spread that would greet her if she dallied. No matter how generous a table his mother had laid it was no match for the appetites of a growing boy—though only Gregory of the Bridgerton brood could rightfully claim the title.
His mother waited for him at the foot of the stairs and slipped her hand into the crook of his elbow to be escorted up.
Anthony waited for whatever she planned to spring upon him, for there was surely something. It had been some time since she’d last expressed her dissatisfaction in him; she was rather overdue.
Instead, Violet Bridgerton patted her son’s arm, tense beneath her hand.
“Oh, do relax, Anthony,” she implored. “I assure you I can ask you in without ulterior motive.”
“Can you indeed?”
She laughed. “Yes, my dear. I simply wish to see you well fed. I shudder to think what they feed you at your club.”
The rest of the trip to the drawing room, where footmen were laying out the last of the cold luncheon (and Gregory was hovering with a ravenous glint in his eye), was spent informing his mother of the new cook at Mondrich’s. Though the man was French, his cuisine quite made up for such a deficiency.
His mother was skeptical, and Anthony could hardly blame her. He’d felt just the same before trying the food.
Nonetheless, there was nothing like a meal at home. Particularly when that meal was a casual luncheon that could be eaten quickly. So, in spite of the increasing awareness of his breast pocket and its contents, Anthony made a plate and settled in to enjoy it.
As was so often the case when in company with more than one of his family members, the quarter of an hour Anthony intended to stay drew on to a half and a full and soon, he was agreeing to stay for dinner.
With hours at least until Anthony could be assured of privacy, he took a calculated risk.
He withdrew Miss Sharma’s latest letter from his coat.
With most of his family settled into their own occupations—Francesca sighing over some ballad she was practicing in honor of her husband-to-be, Benedict sketching Gregory and Hyacinth, concocting some plot Anthony hoped to be absent from when it was put to action, Eloise reading with her stockinged feet tucked unladylike beside her, and his mother placidly stitching away at Francesca’s trousseau—Anthony supposed himself safe. Beyond his family's interest.
Had he read any other letter, he would have been. He did not, after all, smile to read the estate agent’s reports on Aubrey Hall. Letters from Daphne and Hastings could draw such a reaction, but they rarely inspired such a look of intense concentration. Totting up sums from various bills might earn the expression, but those certainly did not make Anthony laugh.
Only Kate Sharma could induce all three.
Anthony was on his third reading of the letter, chuckling once again at Miss Sharma’s tale of errant pupils—admiration of the girls’ ingenuity very nearly overpowering her exasperation—when he realized it was too quiet. Francesca no longer coaxed trills from the pianoforte. Gregory and Hyacinth’s scheming was silenced. Even Benedict’s charcoal had ceased to rasp across the page.
Lowering the letter, Anthony found himself the center of his family’s attention. Ignoring how disconcerting it felt, he raised a brow. “Yes?”
Eloise turned a page of her book and Francesca bent to peer at her music. Gregory dragged Hyacinth over to the remaining sweets left from luncheon, though her gaze flicked between Anthony and Benedict as she went. Benedict simply raised an eyebrow back, a considering look in his eye.
Only their mother, just as engrossed in her needlework as she had been all afternoon, spoke.
“What do you find so amusing, dearest?”
Anthony cleared his throat. He couldn’t very well read the tale of gently bred adolescent rebellion, complete with daring escapes and disguises and near discoveries as their governess raced through Bombay to regain control of her charges, thwarted more by circumstance than any superiority of evasion in her quarry. If he did, he would no doubt have to explain who, exactly, he knew in Bombay, which would lead to quite the discussion on when, exactly, Anthony had decided it was acceptable to correspond with an unmarried lady. In secret. For years.
It was a discussion he would really rather not have.
So, he lied.
“I’m afraid it’s not fit for mixed company.”
His mother’s lips pursed in displeasure, and her quelling look was out in full force, just in time for Eloise’s book to drop and her mouth to open, some pert retort at the ready. Self-preservation won out, and she retreated into the pages once more. Benedict’s other eyebrow rose to join its counterpart. He, no doubt, would press Anthony for details later, leaving Anthony to make up a suitably salacious story in the meantime.
Thinking he was safe once more, he went back to re-reading Kate’s message. It had only been a week since he received her last, but this had been written long before, and in response to what he had sent well before that. It took a bit of effort to recall what some of her responses related to, but such was the nature of their correspondence. Whatever leaps ocean travel had made, particularly with the Egyptian route now open, it still took time to sail from England to India.
Conversations conducted thusly were, by necessity, non-linear.
It dampened Anthony’s enjoyment of them not a whit. Particularly when they involved an ever-rare moment of Miss Sharma’s concession to his experience.
I now find myself quite in sympathy with you, my lord. I was, I think, spoiled in raising such a good-natured creature as my sister. Hearing tales of your own family’s misadventures, I was inclined to think you too hard on them; I assure you, I know better now!
All too delighted at the capitulation, for Miss Sharma was most reluctant to acknowledge Anthony’s superiority in any arena, he was already plotting how best to revel in his victory when he wrote his response. He would have gone right on planning out his reply if it weren’t for the presence hovering over his shoulder.
“It is rude, Hyacinth,” he said, folding up the letter and settling it back in his pocket to keep it safe from prying eyes, “to read another’s correspondence without invitation.”
She hooked her chin over his shoulder, curls tickling his cheek. He gave one a tug, though it failed to dislodge his sister. “I wanted to see what makes something unfit for mixed company,” she explained.
“That rather defeats the purpose of the distinction.”
She sighed, put upon. “Will I ever get to know?”
He hummed, thinking it over. “Once you reach mother’s age.”
Hyacinth very nearly squawked in indignation, but it was Gregory who had the misfortune to laugh, “That will take forever!”
The resulting ado left the room four bodies lighter, Violet ushering her youngest two out to the schoolroom if they insisted on demonstrating such a shocking lack of decorum and Francesca fleeing to her room for some peace.
Even with only Ben and Eloise left, Anthony didn’t dare bring out Kate’s letter once more. Having made such a production of putting it away, to recall it so soon would no doubt raise more questions. Questions neither remaining Bridgerton would have any qualms about voicing then and there.
At loose ends, he drummed his fingers against the table. Loudly enough that Eloise huffed and waspishly demanded, "Must you make such a racket?"
Unusually abashed, Anthony didn't volley back a snide retort to further drive her to distraction. His heart simply was not in the pursuit of plaguing Eloise this afternoon.
Where it was occupied, Anthony certainly could not say.
His mind, however, he could admit was still on Miss Sharma and her letter. If he couldn’t read it again, then he may as well use the time to respond to it.
Removing to the little-used desk in the corner, Anthony found a sheaf of paper, several atrociously trimmed quills, and an inkstand. He had to go hunting for the desk’s pen knife, which had rolled to the very back of a drawer. Soon enough, however, he was ready to begin.
“By all means,” Eloise groused from the far side of the drawing room, though her nose remained planted in her book, “make use of my own personal stationery.”
“How generous,” he returned blandly. Nothing could rile Eloise up like being dismissed. Sure enough, when he glanced at her, she had lowered her book enough to glower at him over the spine. Mouth firm to keep from smiling and giving up the game, Anthony wondered how best to relay this interaction to his correspondent. Miss Sharma always enjoyed tales of Eloise’s efforts to thwart him. Perhaps it would be better to open with something else…
Despite appearances, owing to the gallons of ink and pounds of paper put into the effort, Anthony was now secure enough in his acquaintance with Miss Sharma not to worry about what he wrote to her.
(This was not precisely true. Anthony worried over a thousand details as he penned his missives— which story would please her best, which clever aside would merit a tart rejoinder, what personal divulgence might earn one from her in return. He simply never worried that Kate might have no interest in his tales at all. It had been two years, and still, she wrote to him. Clearly, she welcomed the correspondence, even if it did not bring her the same joy. If Kate Sharma merely thought him an amusing pastime, a whet stone against which she could safely sharpen her wit, Anthony would be glad.)
Nonetheless, he always found himself contemplating the precise ordering of his thoughts before committing them to paper.
Eloise sniffed and didn’t rise to the bait. Visibly disgruntled, she once again subsided behind her book. Benedict seemed just as surprised as Anthony, but there was a thoughtful, calculating look in his brother’s eye that Anthony didn’t like. Naturally, he ignored it. Vague unease could hardly compete with the possibility that his sister was finally learning to control that temper of hers.
Anthony would believe it when he saw it.
And, should he ever witness such a feat, he was already planning how he would weave the tale for Miss Sharma’s entertainment.
Anthony was not in his cups. Whatever Mondrich’s barkeeper might think, he was still perfectly in control of himself.
That the last glass of port had ended up half on the floor spoke more to the rowdiness of the crowd tonight than Anthony’s sobriety, or lack thereof.
The man who’d knocked into his hand should only be glad Anthony hadn’t demanded he pay for a replacement drink. He had hardly even apologized! Now that Anthony thought about it, he had half a mind to go after—
“Whoa, there,” Hastings said, hand clapping down on Anthony’s shoulder and pushing him back into his seat. “Will doesn’t need you starting a brawl this evening.”
Anthony scoffed. “It would not be a brawl. Merely a few words between gentlemen.” He was certainly not inebriated enough to start a barroom brawl over a spilled drink. However unsatisfactorily apologetic the other gentleman was.
Despite his clear skepticism, Hastings did not question his friend’s claim. Instead, he pushed a tankard of ale towards Anthony, who raised a brow.
“Has the crush drunk Mondrich entirely out of his stock?” he asked, eying the drink with his own share of skepticism.
Hastings rolled his eyes. “You are too superior by half. I remember a certain young man at Oxford who would have been grateful for an ale he didn’t buy himself.”
“It has been a long time since either of us were at Oxford.”
“Once an Oxford man, always an Oxford man.”
Anthony could hardly fault Simon’s assertion, so he hefted his tankard, tapped it against his friend’s, and took a long draft. Long enough that nearly half the glass was gone by the time he was done.
“I suppose it was too much to hope you would take the ale itself as a hint to slow down,” Hastings observed. There was only lazy amusement in his countenance, but Anthony could hear the reproach. It sounded far too much like his sister. They were abominable influences on one another.
“Perhaps I don’t want to slow down.” Anthony grinned, more reckless than he’d felt in years. He had put the Rake on the shelf, no longer circulated among the fast set, but tonight, he could feel the fellow stirring, ready to make trouble given half a chance. He had behaved himself for years, ever since his close brush with the matrimonial state, but for what?
“Then you’ll have to find someone else to keep pace with you.” Hastings took a measured sip of his own ale, not an inch of apology in his posture. In fact, he looked rather self-satisfied. “The Duchess informed me before I left that it is my turn to tell Augie and Belinda the same story at least a dozen times this evening.”
Only because it was his own niece and nephew in question did Anthony refrain from rolling his eyes. Which only made it all the harder to ignore the twinge of discontent—which was all the name Anthony was willing to give the thing pricking him between the ribs.
“Heaven forbid you naysay the Duchess.”
Hastings laughed. “Even you can hardly fault me for keeping my wife happy.”
“No, I suppose I cannot,” Anthony murmured, trying to shrug off his friend’s barb, not least because it was certainly unintentional. His brother-in-law, unlike most of the rest of his family, didn’t needle Anthony over his continued single state. Of his entire family, Hastings was likely the only one Anthony would consider voluntarily divulging anything of importance to.
They understood one another all too well, though that understanding seemed to slip with every passing year. The more Hastings settled into his title, into his happily married life, into fatherhood, Anthony could see how much more contented he became. Everything he had once sworn to renounce for the pain it would surely bring instead brought him a life full of joy.
Continuing to ignore the ache worming through his chest, Anthony drained his tankard and sat back.
“Would you have thought,” he mused, and perhaps he was a little in his cups or else Anthony would not muse, “when we were at Oxford all those years ago that you would find yourself here?”
Making a point of first taking in their surroundings, amidst a crowd of the better set of gentlemen in one of the most exclusive clubs of London, Hastings raised a brow. “Drinking at my club in the middle of the afternoon? I could only have dreamed.”
Anthony scoffed, not in the mood for levity. “With a real household to return to, a wife and children you adore.”
“Ah.” Hastings was quiet for a moment, gathering his thoughts. Anthony could hardly say what he wanted to hear, what would soothe the buzz of dissatisfaction that had plagued him for days. “No, I would not have dreamed this life of mine. You know, better than any, that I did not seek out my circumstance. But I would sooner forfeit every penny of my fortune than trade what I have created with Daphne for the life I thought I would lead as that headstrong fool at Oxford. She is worth every doubt, every trial, every storm I have weathered along the way.”
Here, Hastings leveled Anthony with a searching look, and Anthony was suddenly quite certain that the five years of silence on the subject his friendship had enjoyed was about to combust.
Thus, Anthony did as any rational man would. He reared back in performative disgust. “Good God, man! That is my sister you speak of! Pray, tell me no more lest I need to call you out on the field of honor. Again.”
It was Simon’s turn to roll his eyes. “If you are inclined to rise before dawn and go wave your pistol about in an empty field, I shall not stop you, Bridgerton. Myself, I am under strict instructions to accept no more challenges to my honor.”
Sharper than he would have been without the bellyful of spirits, Anthony jeered, “Who could have thought to see the Duke of Hastings so hobbled?”
Hastings just smiled, clearly taking none of Anthony's mocking to heart. “Not I,” he agreed. “Certainly not I.”
Disgusted in spite of himself—the facet of Anthony Bridgerton that was an eldest brother before all else could only be glad that Daphne had found such a devoted husband, however little their improbable domestic bliss pleased the rest of him—Anthony was in no mood to implore Hastings to stay when he rose to leave.
Anthony was also, it appeared, in no mood to continue drinking alone. Though he was acquainted with fully half of Mondrich’s patrons that evening, he did not welcome their company either. Thus, not even a quarter of an hour after Hastings had departed, Anthony followed suit.
Evening was only just beginning to roll in from the east, lamplighters only now setting to work. It had rained while he was inside, but the sky was clear now. His gait was not as steady as it could have been, but the cool air helped to clear Anthony’s head. All combined, he chose to walk back to his lodgings rather than shut himself up in a cab.
Unfortunately, with his thoughts rapidly reordering themselves, the quiet evening gave him rather too much time to think.
He’d gone to Mondrich’s, drunk more brandy than he ought, precisely to escape the burden of his thoughts.
Because they only had one subject.
Kate.
Kate and her sense of humor. Kate and her sharp tongue. Kate and the smile he still dreamed of, for all he so rarely saw it. Kate and the letter he still had not responded to.
If he did not write soon, her next would arrive without a reply between. It had happened before, not often, but they were both busy people, and a clandestine—Anthony assumed; she had never mentioned telling anyone of their continued contact and he certainly had not shared his part of it—correspondence could not always take precedence over their other responsibilities. Yet, before, it had always been duty and timing that had kept him from writing; as soon as he had a spare moment, he’d been eager to resume the connection.
Never before had he held himself back from composing a reply.
He had been at a loss for words often enough when writing to Kate, but this was not a problem that plagued him now. No, Anthony knew exactly what he would say should he put pen to paper, and precisely none of it would help to maintain the dear, cherished friendship he and Miss Sharma had cultivated across years and oceans and gallons of ink.
More and more over the past months, so insistent that Anthony could hardly continue disregarding the impression as he had for so long, he suspected that what he most wanted wasn’t to simply maintain the friendship.
His stubborn belief in his purely friendly attentions to Kate Sharma—petty rivalry having long since deepened into genuine congeniality—had hung by mere threads, but it remained intact nonetheless.
Until her most recent letter.
Anthony was not proud to admit it, but he had been utterly blindsided by its contents. He had come to expect tales of her students, the exemplary and the execrable and everything in between, and life in Bombay and the interests she finally had time to pursue. She had confessed to things she said she had never told another soul, shared treasured memories of her father and her youth, complained about daily annoyances, and prodded him into reciprocating. In the five years that they had maintained this back and forth, Kate Sharma had become the person that Anthony knew best in the world, the person he shared the most of himself with in return. She was his dearest friend, and the last time they had set eyes on the other, they had loathed one another.
Thus, to find himself confronted with nearly three pages devoted to another man, a professor with the newly established university who had hired Miss Sharma to help his sister acclimate to India, had not been the pleasant break from business correspondence—the highlight of his week, more like—that Anthony had so eagerly anticipated.
Kate had been measured in her descriptions of the man, betraying no undue interest in this Mr. Hendridge beyond a bit of bemusement when he began to sit in on his sister’s lessons. And polite approval of the man's horsemanship when he accompanied them on a ride. And yet, hardly a paragraph passed without some mention of Mr. Hendridge and his fascinating book recommendations or his astute questions about Bombay’s society and culture.
He didn’t even know the man, and yet Anthony had had quite enough of Mr. Hendridge for one lifetime.
Nonetheless, he knew he could hardly tell Kate that. Knowing her, if he were to express any measure of his disdain, she would only pursue Hendridge’s friendship with even greater determination. Soon, none of her letters would be free of the man, and what had once been idle interest, born of novelty and little else, might bloom into something Anthony had little hope of competing against. Not when Kate and Hendridge could meet and speak and dance and, God forbid, court—
Anthony’s arrival at his lodgings was as good a reason as any to cut off the increasingly dire arc of his thoughts.
Not for the first time, he told himself that if Kate chose to court and eventually marry—never mind his continued bafflement that no one in her acquaintance had fallen over himself to persuade her to it—then he should be pleased for his friend. Just because Anthony had yet to find the woman to induce him into the married state did not mean he could not acknowledge its benefits.
If Kate were happy, Anthony suspected he could endure much.
(That Kate being married would be a trial to endure did not merit any consideration at all. It was true, and so Anthony thought little more on the matter.)
Letting himself into his apartments, already warm and illuminated against the growing dark, Anthony wasted no time in making himself comfortable. He shed his hat and coat and unwound his cravat. He had to collapse into an armchair to wrestle off his boots without the aid of his valet, but perhaps it was good for him to struggle with so concrete a task. Better that than the challenge of wrestling his thoughts into submission.
Even a little inebriated, which Anthony had to own given the slight whirl to the room around him, a pair of boots could only occupy him so long.
Lolling in the armchair, his gaze fell to the neat pile of post left on his desk.
Somehow, familiarity with the rhythm of her dispatches or some sixth sense, Anthony knew that the stack contained a letter from Kate.
Because he could hardly help himself, he rose to fetch it. Standing in his stockinged feet, rumpled in body and mind, he tore the packet open.
Dear Lord Bridgerton—
I may reside half a world away from both yourself and Newmarket, but I would have to live on the moon to ever be persuaded that any horse—even one so pedigreed as your Vesper—could outrun the grandson of Grenadier, particularly on a muddy course.
Anthony could not help but grin as Kate thoroughly dressed him down for his preferences in horseflesh and then proceeded seamlessly into regaling him with every moment of the practice ball she had organized for her students preparing to make their debut, the triumphs and the blunders and the headache she was still nursing as she penned this note.
But what made him smile, giddy as a debutante, was the singular mention of Mr. Hendridge.
Miss Hendridge tells me she eagerly awaits the arrival of her sister-in-law from Sydney, if only because it means her brother will “stop shadowing her every step!” I can only hope her wish is granted with all speed.
There were no words to describe the relief he felt, and he wasted no time in trying to conjure any up. He would never tell Kate, or anyone, of the comfort he had taken from this single line.
Instead, Anthony reached for different words for very different thoughts. Anything and everything that, in the past week, had made him wonder what Kate might say on the matter before any consideration of his own.
He had to make up for lost time.
As was typical of a Wednesday afternoon, there were any number of important matters requiring Lord Bridgerton’s attention. Morning calls were long over—though Anthony had not bothered to make or receive any himself, having so few acquaintances beyond his blood relations he had much interest in visiting even for a quarter of an hour—if the silence from Bridgerton House’s front door was any indication. Neither Daphne and Simon nor Colin and Penelope, and thus no little Bassets and Bridgertons, had put in an appearance, leaving the rest of the house just as quiet.
Anthony was quite free to fix his attention on any one of the many responsibilities and duties that fell to his lot.
From only the nearest stack of papers, there was Eloise’s request for more pin money (which Anthony was sure would be spent on all manner of books) and a plea from Gregory at Oxford for an advance on his allowance (which he was equally sure would not). His mother’s proposed plans for Hyacinth’s come out this year, not quite the treatise that had preceded Eloise’s, but a hefty sheaf nonetheless. A thorough report from Aubrey Hall’s agent and an even more exhaustive account from Simon and Daphne on young Augie’s exploits and Belinda’s best attempts to match them. A worryingly brief note from Benedict, gone to Florence to study the great Italian masterpieces, assuring Anthony of his continued survival and little else. Bills from the modiste and the greengrocer and the milliner and his gentleman’s club and the butcher to go along with one from what seemed like every other business operating within Mayfair.
Yet, of all the affairs in real need of Anthony’s attention, none could hold him. Instead, he slouched, dissatisfied and aggrieved, in the chair that had been his father’s, turned from the desk that had been his, too, and everything that awaited Anthony there. It may as well have not existed.
Though Anthony gazed out the window, to the busy lane beyond, it wasn’t his neighbors or busy workmen or rattling coaches that he saw. His thoughts were quite far away. Though near enough at hand as well.
Near enough to lie within his hand, in fact.
Of all the correspondence in need of his time and care, the only thing that could hold it was a letter he had already read.
(Had read so many times, in fact, he could likely recite it from memory.)
Anthony blinked and looked down at the paper in his hand once more. His eyes traced over the too-familiar words, etched out in decisive, deceptively elegant strokes of ink. Deceptive in that one could hardly suspect such a refined hand of communicating with such barbed wit.
However sharp the words, Anthony could not help but smile upon every one.
For each had been written to him by Kathani Sharma.
Anthony would gladly accept whatever acerbic witticisms and wry observations she deigned to send him, now matter how often he was the target of her skewers, if only she would keep sending them.
Ay , Anthony thought—no less dramatic than his literary forebear— there’s the rub.
It had been months since he’d received a letter from Bombay.
That had not been the case since the earliest days of their correspondence, even when an entire shipment of post had been misdirected in the Mediterranean. Then, it had only been a matter of weeks between one missive and the next.
The only time he had gone longer without hearing from her had been those interminable weeks after she and her sister had left Aubrey Hall that first spring of their acquaintance. It had been a relief as much as it had been a snarl in his plans to secure a new Lady Bridgerton. He had raged at the smug superiority of Miss Sharma, well pleased with her sister’s new beau, even as he had thrilled to know that he would concoct new ways to cross swords with the woman. Once the Ton had moved on to its next scandal, he would be free to tangle with Kate once more.
Now, all these years later, he could own what he had not dared acknowledge then. He would have pursued Kate with all the purpose he had courted Edwina and a lion’s share more passion. Had she remained in the country, Anthony would not have stopped until he had made Kate Sharma his wife.
Would he have been able to accept it, how utterly he had lost his heart to such an impossible creature, if he had not spent the better part of a decade getting to know her word by word, and page by page? How lucky he was that, despite her reservations, she had consented to the connection. More likely, even with oceans and continents standing in her way, Kate Sharma could not curb her tongue. Or her pen, as it were.
Over the weeks and months and years, letters crossed the globe. Each page Anthony read was a balm to the ache that had lodged itself most stubbornly within his ribs when he had discovered Miss Sharma’s departure. Each paragraph he wrote bared more of his heart to the impossible woman.
Like she’d been as little able to help herself as Anthony, every one of his letters had received a reply. From the very first, she had been a faithful correspondent. Their conversations were anything but orderly, overlapping one another and picking up dropped threads of discourse on a whim. Anthony wrote often, sometimes without a message to reply to. Given the consistency and frequency of Kate’s letters, she did the same.
Until now.
But why?
Had she realized what Anthony had stopped denying years ago? He never could tell if she realized precisely how devoted to her he had become. He certainly had never articulated his feelings. They had danced once, argued dozens of times—and hundreds more in writing—and lived under the same roof for only a week. Half the world had lain between them for all but a scant few months of their acquaintance. It was madness that he should fancy himself in love with her.
And yet, Anthony knew Kate Sharma. Perhaps better than anyone else. He had eagerly devoured every bit of herself she offered up in ink and paper, prodding and needling and sharing himself in return until he knew her as wholly as he could know another. Until he knew hew better than he knew himself.
More accurately, he knew himself better for knowing her.
He knew he was in love and had been since the very first moment he laid eyes on Kate Sharma. Better, he no longer cared to hide from the knowledge.
He had utterly abandoned any pretense of searching out a new Lady Bridgerton. Even Lady Whistledown despaired of the once rakish viscount of ever pursuing another lover, let alone entering into wedded bliss.
Where Lady Whistledown led, the Ton was sure to follow. If that meant fewer ambitious young ladies set their cap at Lord Bridgerton, Anthony had hardly minded. He was content to witness his younger sisters and brothers, one after another, precede him into the matrimonial state. Perhaps he regretted the worried, rueful looks his mama treated him to more and more as time passed, but not enough to forsake his heart.
She had been right, all those years ago. Proud as he’d been, he couldn’t admit to it, then. But, older and wiser and well acquainted with the ache of a frustrated love, Anthony was man enough to admit it.
He wanted a love that was deep and true. Wanted it so much it terrified him.
He’d had it within his grasp, close enough to taste, and let it slip through his fingers.
If, that was, he could have persuaded Kate to have him, and there was hardly any guarantee of that.
After all, she had cut off their correspondence, abruptly and without any explanation. Perhaps it hadn’t meant to her what it did to him…
Anthony sighed, thumb absently caressing over the curls and flourishes of her final signature.
If that was her choice, there was little he could do to convince her otherwise. Particularly given the past three letters he’d sent had been returned to him, unopened.
Carefully, he folded the note, the creases long since grown thin with handling. He did the same for the rest of her letters, strewn across his desk. Some mad notion had convinced him that they must hold some clue to Kate’s sudden silence. A thorough scouring of the entirety of their correspondence had illuminated little other than Anthony’s bone-deep love for a woman he had not laid eyes on in nearly seven years.
He could not help but catch snatches of her writing as he bundled the pages together.
…not so different from tutoring Edwina, however little Miss Pearson resembles my sister in looks or temperament. (In fact, there is no one else my charge brings to mind more clearly than your own sister, Miss Eloise. I hope she is well.) ...
…may have missed home, I did not miss monsoon season! I find myself thinking of the library at Aubrey Hall. How much quieter the rains seemed there…
…refuse to believe you are being serious, my lord. No, you must be purposefully attempting to vex me, and I shall not indulge you by arguing.
Of course, she had gone on to fill two sheets with her point-by-point refutation of the very contention she’d just refused to entertain.
Smiling, Anthony wound the silken ribbon, a bright and vibrant turquoise, around the stack of post. He had found it in the guest room at Aubrey Hall she and her sister had shared during the Hearts and Flowers house party, though long after Kate had departed the country. He couldn’t recall if she’d ever worn it, but he knew it had been hers.
Aside from her letters, it was all he had of Kate.
Anthony still hadn’t made peace with the fact.
As evidenced, once his desk had been restored to its previous state, by the several pamphlets Anthony had purloined from Colin, each advertising one of the many tours of the East leaving from England. These voyages ventured further afield than most Continental Tours ever dared, to places like Alexandria, Zanzibar, Muscat.
And Bombay.
He could secure a berth and be on his way to her within a week. Soon enough, he could see her, could press for an answer to her sudden withdrawal.
If he were the man he’d been when he’d met Kate, there would be no question. That man had put duty before all else. Under no circumstances could the Viscount Bridgerton swan off to chase after a woman who might want nothing to do with him.
For better or worse, Anthony still was enough of that man that the pamphlets went unused. Unused, but undiscarded, too.
They remained on his desktop, along with every other matter of business he had neglected this afternoon. While Kate’s letters were tucked safely into a drawer, wedged between two old ledgers to ward off his nosier family members, bills and plans and requests lay unattended.
For a long moment, he stared at the stack, physical proof of his responsibilities. He should attend to them.
Anthony simply could not muster the energy.
Fortuitously, his internal struggle was interrupted by a knock at the study’s door.
“My lord,” said Humboldt intoned, “there is a visitor.”
“Then show them to the drawing room,” he said, as though the butler did not know his duties. “I’m sure my mother can attend to them.”
“Your mother has taken Miss Hyacinth to the modiste,” Anthony was told. As he opened his mouth to offer one of the few remaining family members to call Bridgerton House home, Humboldt shook his head. “You are the only resident at home, my lord. Unless,” he said, eying the pile of neglected work on the desk, “you are not at home.”
If that was the only other option, then Anthony would take his chances. He asked for tea to be brought up—at the very least, he could get some sustenance out of this unusual, late in the day visit—and made his way upstairs.
“My apologies for keeping you waiting,” he said as he strolled into the drawing room, the easy pleasantries falling off his lips regardless of who awaited him. He still was not sure who had called, the visitor having drifted to the far end of the room and therefore out of his immediate line of sight. “I’m sure the rest of the family will be sorry to have missed you.”
“That is very kind, my lord, but it is not them I came to see.”
Anthony stopped dead in his tracks.
There, stepping away from the window and turning to him was—
“Kate,” he breathed. Then, at the arch of her fine brow, he cleared his throat and corrected himself. “Miss Sharma. What a—”
“Surprise?” she ventured, the set of her mouth just barely amused.
Perhaps too amused considering Anthony could hear the rush of blood in his ears, a resounding cadence that, at least, proved his heart was still beating.
How could it not when confronted by the sight, all golden warmth in the silvery blue of his mother’s drawing room, that he had been dreaming of for seven years?
“Certainly,” he agreed, faintly. “Won’t you please sit down?”
She hesitated, studying him with an air of consternation, but eventually acquiesced. Smooth and unhurried, she settled herself on one of the settees. Anthony restricted himself to the one opposite. Any closer and he might lose his head.
Still, he couldn’t take his eyes off of her.
The years had been outrageously kind to Kate. She was as beautiful as she’d ever been, with her exacting posture and dark, intelligent eyes. Perhaps a few lines had been etched in her face, at the corners of her mouth and eyes, but Anthony found her as entrancing, as tempting, as ever.
It was then that he realized he had been silent too long. So he said the first thing that came to him.
“I suppose this explains why I have not heard from you in months.”
It wasn’t meant to be an accusation, not when Anthony could only feel relief—if a nearly suffocating joy could be called mere “relief”— at Kate’s presence, but it was clear she heard one.
Her response was stiff, more than a little sharp. “I suppose it does. I saw little point in sending word of my travels when it would be delivered by the very ship that carried me.”
“Then you did not inform your mother and sister, either?” he needled because he couldn’t help himself. It was all too simple to fall back into the easy rhythm of barb for barb.
“I did.” Before Anthony could leap upon the fault in her logic, Kate was barreling on: “They are not in town at the moment. I believe they’ve spent the winter at Lord Lockwood’s estate.”
“That’s in bloody Cumbria!”
She didn’t bat an eye at the colorful language, though the maid bringing in the tea service paused at his outburst. Kate simply beckoned the girl forward and began preparing their cups.
“Yes, I’m told it’s quite far north,” she was saying, though Anthony was largely transfixed in watching her measure out tea and milk and sugar, a lump more than he typically bothered to take. “A single letter could, in fact, reach them before I would.”
“Not with the way you ride.”
There was a flash of mirth in her eyes, though it was quickly tempered by the sip of tea she took. Kate was too refined to grimace, but Anthony didn’t miss the pursing of her lips or the decisive clink as she returned her cup to its saucer.
“Is everything to your liking, Miss Sharma?” he couldn’t help but ask.
She didn’t quite glare, but it was a near thing. Primly, she returned, “I believe you know my feelings on English tea.”
“I believe I do,” Anthony agreed, placid enough to make her eyes narrow, like that would make it easier to see what he was planning next. In truth, he had no plans. Much as he had delighted in foiling Kate at every turn when they had last met, he had no wish to disappoint her now. He was quite content to simply bask in her presence.
Though, of course, he had no intention of telling her that. Not until he knew if she might feel the same. He had found, if not true happiness, then contentment in her friendship. Anthony might long for more, but Kate valued her independence. She might not welcome his attentions, even if she felt the way he sometimes suspected.
“Since I know you did not come here for the finest Earl Grey in London, I find I must ask, Miss Sharma. Why are you here?”
She did not meet his eye, looking down at her gloved hands. “I told you that my charge, Miss Ambrose, is making her debut this season, yes?” He nodded; she’d despaired often over her pupil’s headstrong ways and inability to remember the proper form for a quadrille. “Her parents decided the limited English society of Bombay was inadequate and asked me to accompany her to London and see her into the care of an aunt who would sponsor her debut.”
Anthony nodded along, as though he’d asked to learn what had brought her generally to town and not, specifically, this very drawing room.
He leaned forward, shortening the already scant distance that lay between them, but he didn’t have to ask again.
“We arrived only this afternoon,” she confessed, that low, musical murmur that haunted Anthony’s dreams.
“And you called here first.”
“Where else would I go?” Kate asked, helpless, but only for a moment. Straightening, she drew back, alerting Anthony to the dizzying pull they’d been subjected to. “I have so few acquaintances in London.”
“Should I count myself gratified to number among such rarified company?” he drawled, distinctly displeased with the notion that any other could have claim on Kate’s time and attention.
She lifted her chin, and Anthony would swear he felt his blood begin to sing. He knew that pose. Had seen that defiance in their every interaction and imagined it every time he read a particularly combative rejoinder in her hand.
“No less gratified than I find myself, my lord,” she bit out. “Unless you mean to tell me Whistledown’s—oh, what did she call you? Ah!—‘Capital-R Rake’ only keeps company with one lady now, and that only by post!”
Suddenly, any specter of Anthony’s jealousy dissipated into the early evening air. All because Kate’s had reared its possessive, impossible head. If Kate was vexed by the mere possibility of his split attention, then perhaps he had hope after all.
He grinned (and no small part of him delighted in the scowl she sent back).
“The illustrious gossipmonger hardly concerns herself with my comings and goings these days,” he informed her, setting his saucer back on the tea tray.
Sourly, Kate asked, “Because she’s discovered it’s quite impossible to keep up with so many?”
“The opposite, in fact.”
Anthony stood, and, reflexively, Kate mirrored him. It took only a single stride to draw close enough to take up her hand, to feel the way her indrawn breath shuddered through her body. She stared down at the intertwining of their fingers, and however much Anthony wished she would instead look into his eyes, he could not restrain himself any longer.
“I am of little interest to Whistledown since it has been years since it became clear I had retired from the floor, so to speak.”
He watched a furrow form between her brows and wished he could press his lips against it until it was smooth and unmarred once more. He had to hope an explanation would suffice.
“What interest did I have in pursuing eligible young ladies when one already had my heart?”
Kate went utterly still, only the slightest spasm of her hand in his betraying her.
“If your heart was spoken for, why is there no new Lady Bridgerton?”
“Before I could tell her, the stubborn girl ran off,” he said. “To India.”
Finally, Kate’s eyes met his. They sparkled and shone, all disbelieving hope. Still, she mustered up a bit of ire as she repeated, “Stubborn?”
Anthony laughed and drew her closer. “A more wilful,”—his lips brushed against her cheek—“aggravating,”—her brow—“incredible”—her jaw—”woman has yet to walk this earth, Kathani Sharma.”
He hovered just beyond her lips, perfect and plush. However long he had been waiting for this moment, Anthony was going to revel in the realization that it was finally coming to fruition.
Kate, of course, had other plans.
She surged forward, unoccupied hand curling around the back of his neck to reel him in until her mouth was sealed to his.
Once he was kissing Kate, Anthony couldn’t fathom ever wanting to put this off. She was perfection in his arms, sweet and eager and better than he could have imagined. And in all the time he had spent writing to her, Anthony had certainly imagined it.
Just as he’d imagined asking one monumental question.
“Marry you?” Kate half-gasped, half-laughed. Gasped from the brush of his lips against her throat and laughed from the squeeze he gave her side, nestling her more securely in his lap. “You have not even courted me!”
“I have,” he argued back. “What else do you call seven years of correspondence?”
She smiled, indulgent. “Were you wooing me by post, my lord?”
“With every letter,” he swore. “I’ve loved you from afar, Kate. Now let me do it up close.”
Speechless for once, she could only nod for a few long seconds. Until she recalled how satisfying kissing him had been and stole another. “Yes,” she breathed against his lips. “Yes, I think that sounds like a very good idea.”
For once, Anthony and Kate found themselves in perfect agreement.