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Please do not make me love you more, I do not think I can bear it.
The words came back to him, uninvited, like the faintest whisper in a room long since emptied of sound.
The truth was, it had never been him. It had always been her, even in the moments when he had thought he had been the one leading them. He had believed, for so long, that he had been the one making decisions, the one in charge. But now, in the stark silence of her absence, he understood. It had been her all along, the way she had made him so completely dependent on her without even realising it.
It had been Kate who had coiled herself around his mind—long before he let himself admit it. Had made him feel something deeper than he had ever known—a need, a craving for her that had taken root in his chest and refused to let go.
Every touch, every smile, every laugh—it had been a tether, pulling him closer to her, until he could no longer remember what it had been like to exist without her in his life.
And now—now he couldn’t breathe without her.
She had made him worship the ground she had walked on. And it hadn’t been her fault, not really. It had been the way she had been, the way she had been everything he had needed without asking for anything in return. She had never demanded more than he could give, but he had wanted to give her everything he had and more. As if laying the world on her feet was the key to a happiness he hadn’t realised he sought.
Her presence had still lingered. In the air. The weight of it pressing against him in the empty spaces. Always close, always hovering just out of reach.
She used to fill the silence, hadn’t she?
The house had been full of shadows now. He felt it when he had walked through the rooms, the quiet of it, the stillness. He heard the echoes of her laughter in the hallways, the rustle of her skirts in the stairwell. And each time, every single time, the grief seized him anew, sharp as glass, like something he could never quite outrun.
Her voice—there was an edge to it, the kind that could slice through pretense in an instant. She spoke with intention, with the kind of clarity that made people stop and listen. Especially him.
She had a way of saying his name that could mean ten different things. Sometimes it had been a warning. Sometimes a tease. Sometimes a promise. But always—always—it had been unmistakably hers. No one else had ever said “Anthony” like that, like a touch turned into a sound.
He could still hear it now—her voice calling to him in the dark that had both steadied and disarmed him. He could hear the lilt of her breath when she was close, the way she’d let silence stretch before breaking it with one pointed word. He could hear her exhales—low, languid things, pulled from her lips when her fingers curled against his chest, when her mouth brushed against his skin, when she wanted him to know exactly what he was doing to her.
Her eyes. God, her eyes.
They had undone him long before her touch ever had. That fierce, unflinching brown that could burn straight through his excuses, that saw through him. There had been heat in them when she was angry, mischief when she teased, and something far deeper when she was quiet and let herself simply see him. She had looked at him like he was worth knowing, worth the fight, worth the trouble.
She had this way of tilting her head when he spoke nonsense. That questioning lift of her brow. She challenged him constantly—not just in arguments, but in the way she lived, boldly, without apology. That twitch at the corners of her mouth after a particularly biting remark, eyes sparkling with amusement and something affectionate behind the fire.
And God, how she laughed.
He missed her laugh most of all. It was never delicate or polite. It had been unrestrained—rich, unladylike at times, always sincere. She had never laughed to please anyone. Only because she felt it. And when it was directed at him, he had felt like the sun. And he remembered how they would laugh together, in the sanctuary of their bed, before the world outside could catch up to them.
And her body.
It wasn’t just beauty—it was presence. She had owned her body the way she had owned every room—without apology. She moved like she knew exactly what she was doing to him—and she did. The way her hips shifted with grace, the curve of her waist fitting perfectly beneath his palm, the way she pressed against him not by accident, but with certainty, as if claiming space and making sure he knew it.
She’d never been shy. She’d been fearless. She had laughed—laughed—when he fumbled with the fastenings on her dress, as if it were their first time, on their wedding night, one brow raised, amused and already halfway undressed herself. She’d kissed him slow, murmuring against his mouth, “Let me.” And he had. Every time.
Her skin had been warm, impossibly soft, and when she touched him—it wasn’t careful. It was knowing. Unerring. She learned him like a map and then set it on fire.
And the sounds she made—low, open, unfiltered sighs against his lips. They weren’t bashful. They were honest. They were Kate, every breath of her a declaration. He had memorised the way her body would tense, shiver, arch beneath his hands—how she’d tug him closer, fingers curling at the nape of his neck like she couldn’t get enough, like he wasn’t close enough.
He could still taste her. That sweetness that lived only between her lips. The faintest trace of lilies in her skin, in her hair, always clinging to the air around her, always him breathing her in like it would keep him grounded. Their breaths had mingled, their hearts syncing—until there was nothing but the echo of her, wrapped around every sense.
There had never been fear. Never hesitation. Only that quiet, unshakable knowing—between touches, between breaths—that what they had wasn’t just desire. It was inevitability. It was intimacy sharpened into instinct.
They had learned each other like a dance. And once they started, there had never been a moment he didn’t know her hands. Her mouth. Her body calling his back.
It had always been so easy, so natural.
He wanted it back. He wanted her back.
But she was gone.
He remembered her pulling him close one night, breathless, when his hands trembled as he unlaced her. She’d taken his face in her hands, kissed the corner of his mouth, and whispered, “Slow down, Anthony. We have time.”
She’d said it with that same maddening certainty she always had. The same certainty she’d had when she promised to marry him, to love him, to build a life with him. She’d meant it. And that was what made it so cruel—because she’d believed it. And so had he.
Now, the ache, the longing, was endless. He could still feel the weight of her against him, feel the soft press of her body when he closed his eyes. He could still hear the sound of his name whispered in the dark, the shape of his name on her lips.
But all he had were memories
The Viscount’s chamber had been empty now.
Not just the room—everything about it had felt vacant, hollow. The bed had sat at the center of it all, unmade, untouched. A heavy reminder of what once was. What no longer was.
Anthony couldn’t bring himself to settle there. The room, with its elegance, its familiar comfort, had held too many memories. Too much of her. Too much of them.
Instead, every night, he had found his way down the hall in the dark, towards the nursery.
The cot had been tucked near the window, the walls painted in her favourite lilac. It had been a space that was once filled with hope for a future they would share, but now it had held the weight of his grief. His guilt.
Still, it had been the only room where he could breathe, where the silence had been bearable.
Anthony reached with both hands, careful not to jostle the blankets as he lifted the boy. Neddy stirred faintly, a soft grunt rising from his chest, but he didn’t wake. His little head lolled against Anthony’s collarbone, warm and impossibly small, his breath brushing lightly against his throat.
He looked so much like Kate—it nearly undone him.
The way his brow furrowed in sleep, like even his dreams were stubborn. The curve of his little fingers, curled just so—delicate, but holding on with quiet insistence. The shape of his mouth, soft but certain, like hers when she was about to win an argument and knew it.
There were flashes of her in every inch of him.
How would he do this without her?
How could he teach Neddy to be a man when Anthony himself was still learning how to live in a world without her?
The nursery had now been just another reminder of the words she had left him—“Take care of him.”
She had said it through labored breaths, her hand in his. He had begged her to hold on. She had only looked at him—steady, unafraid—and whispered it again. “Take care of him.” And then she was gone, slipping from his world as quickly as she had transformed it.
And so, there he had been. On the edge of the room, half-dressed in the darkness, keeping vigil over a child that would never know the mother he had lost.
He had swallowed that plea, buried it, pressed it into his chest alongside everything else that had been broken, everything that had slipped away.
The funeral had been a week before. Or had it been two weeks? Time had lost its meaning, slipping by in a haze of grief and numbness.
He hadn’t cried.
He wouldn’t.
There had been no room for it, not then. Not with Neddy in his arms. The tiny, helpless bundle that still smelled faintly of Kate. Of innocence. Of the woman he loved. The woman who had given him this son. The boy who would never know her.
Anthony cradled his son closer to his chest, his hand slipping to Neddy’s back. He had been so small, so fragile, so unaware of the world that had already been so heavy.
He held him close, so close, as if the force of his arms around the boy could somehow shield him from the world. From the truth. From the pain of growing up without Kate.
He hadn’t wanted to let go. Not then. Not ever.
There had been a heaviness in his chest that had become all-consuming. His ribs ached with the pressure of holding on. Still, the feel of Neddy’s tiny body curled against him, the steady rise and fall of his breath, had been the only thing that had felt real anymore.
He hadn’t let anyone else take him in the first few days after he was born. Not during the funeral. Not while he had buried Kate in that grave, that cold, unfeeling grave.
“No one will hurt you,” Anthony whispered, his voice hoarse, barely a breath. His lips had brushed against the crown of Neddy’s head. “No one will ever hurt you.”
It had been a promise.
A promise he had made to Kate.
His mind drifted to the funeral again, to the coldness of it, the formality, the endless procession of people who had gathered to pay their respects. Anthony had stood there, as stoic as he could manage, his face a mask, his heart a stone. The last of the Bridgertons gathered in one place, their mourning dressed in black, but nothing—nothing—could touch the devastation inside him.
He hadn’t let anyone see it. Not there. Not in front of the family, the servants, the world. But here, in the nursery, with Neddy cradled in his arms, he hadn’t had to hide.
He inhaled the softness of his son’s hair, of warmth, of life. He hadn’t let go.
Even when Neddy had fallen deeper asleep in his arms, his tiny body going limp, his breath evening out, Anthony hadn’t let go. He remained seated in the chair by the window, his eyes heavy, but he kept his grip steady. He wouldn’t let anyone take him. Not yet. Not ever.
His hand reached out for Neddy’s cheek, hovering just above him.
“I’m here,” Anthony whispered, as if the boy could hear him, as if it would make any difference. “I’m here, Neddy. I will be.”
His voice cracked, a quiet rasp of sound that had betrayed him. He quickly cleared his throat and leaned back in the chair, his gaze never leaving his son’s face.
The house had been too big, too empty. The quiet had been a weight he couldn’t bear. But here, in this nursery, with Neddy in his arms, the silence had been different. It had been softer. More manageable.
He put Neddy back in his cot and leaned back, his head tilting toward the wall, eyes fluttering close, his breath steadying. This had been how he slept now. Not in a bed, not in the quarters where he and Kate had once spent their nights, but in a chair beside his son, because it had been the only way to feel like he wasn’t completely alone.
In the quiet of the nursery, Anthony had remembered that there had still been something worth fighting for. Still something left to love.
And that had been the only thing that had kept him from drowning in the grief.
The world outside had continued. Time had passed. But Anthony had been here, in this nursery, with his son, refusing to let go of the one thing that still felt like life.
The rest of the world could wait. The rest of the world could go on without him. But Neddy? Neddy would not be left alone. Not as long as Anthony still breathed. But it hadn’t been the same. It would never be the same.
And Anthony had known, in that moment, that he would need to learn how to live in a world without her. One day at a time. One breath at a time.
But the grief of unlearning it all, of shedding the skin they had built together, had been something he could never fully escape.
Anthony had spent his entire life learning. How to be a Bridgerton. How to be a Viscount. How to bear the weight of responsibility, of duty, of legacy. He had learned what it meant to be a husband, a partner. He had learned to live in a world where she existed.
And now he had to unlearn it all.
The shape of her had still been in the house, in the spaces between what was and what would never be again. He had caught glimpses of her in the drawing room, a flicker in the corner of his eye—a trick of the light, nothing more. In the nursery, where the scent of lilies and milk had lingered.
He had been a hollowed-out ruin of a man, but he would try, because there had been something he could no longer unlearn: that being a father had not meant simply providing for a child. It had meant being everything. Being present, being steady, being strong enough to carry the weight of loss without breaking.
I will learn, Neddy. I will learn for you.
The promise hadn’t been just for him. It had also been for Kate. It had been for the future. It had been the one thing he had known he must unlearn the most: that he could not do this alone. He could not raise this boy alone.
But, as always, the world had continued. And all Anthony had been able to do was watch his son, steady his breath, and tell himself that someday, somehow, he would learn how to be the father Kate had always believed he could be. Even without her. Even without the love that had once anchored him.
He had learned her touch—the sure grip of her fingers around his wrist, the absent-minded smoothing of his cravat, the way she had laced her hands over his when she had thought he needed steadying. Now he would have to unlearn it, because no hand had closed over his anymore.
He had learned to press his lips to Kate’s temple in passing, a casual, unconscious gesture. Now he would have to unlearn it, reminding himself that there was no temple to press against.
He had learned the cadence of her voice, the way she softened at the end of his name when she had teased him, how it had sharpened when she had been cross. Now he would have to unlearn it, because the house had been too quiet, and he had gone too many hours without hearing her speak.
He had still been learning—how to be a father without her, how to be a man without her, how to wake up in the morning and not reach for her in the dark.
It had been an impossible lesson. But what choice had he had?
So he would learn. And unlearn. And learn again.
But there were some things he could never unlearn.
The way she had loved him. The way he loved her back. The way that Kathani Bridgerton—his wife, his life, his Viscountess—was still everywhere, even as she was nowhere.