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1. seven
Today is the best day of Kate's life. It's a beautiful day to turn seven, which is nearly two hands worth of fingers, which is nearly as tall as her Appa (though he laughs when Kate tells him that and says she still has some way to go), which is old enough to know things that her parents won't tell her, surely. The sun is so yellow, like the gold bangles that clink together on her Amma's arms that grow thinner, like bones, with each passing day: skin hanging off her like rolled out dough on those paneer curry puffs Kate inhales when Amma says she's too full and leaves them at the side of her bed.
Kate's Appa shakes his head when Kate reaches for them instead, but it's okay because her mother smiles to watch her eat. Her smile is Kate's favourite smile. It stretches, paper thin and tired, from one side of her face to the other, the corners of her eyes crinkling until Kate can no longer see the blacks of her pupils. It almost looks like she's sleeping, which she rarely does, because Kate often hears her coughing at night from the other side of the wall – great, hacking coughs that sound like she's laughing too hard to breathe. Sometimes, in the strange twilight between waking and sleeping, she dreams about pressing her thumbs into the curve of her mother's mouth and tries to make words come out, but without air, she cannot.
The heat of the summer is skimming across her own spindly limbs, a blanket; the insects buzzing a chorus in the safety of the leaves. Her feet hit the ground mercilessly as she races home where she knows her birthday celebrations await. She can imagine it already. There'll be food and presents and her parents, standing at the door to hug her home. She hasn't seen her Amma out of bed in so long, but today, surely, she will. It's the best day. How can she not?
They'll talk and laugh and play games until the sun has gone to bed and Kate should too, but she won't, because she's seven now, and seven is old enough to understand why her Appa sighs so heavily and her Amma's eyes leak water sometimes when she looks at her. It's dusty and itchy in here, Amma says, when Kate touches her cheeks. It doesn't taste like dust though. Dust to dust. Salt to salt. Ashes to ashes.
The moon will hang high, half shrouded in dusk and sadness – like a beacon, like an omen, like a portent – but Kate is seven, not eight so that will mean nothing to her. Instead, she'll fall asleep in its silver light, couched in the security of her parents' love, knowing nothing can hurt her – not the chills that shake her mother's body, not the sobs that wrack her father's, because they happen in the hours that seven year old girls who love their Amma are fast asleep and dreaming of a future that will not come.
But when she reaches her home, the door is shut. There are people wailing in the street. Who are all these people? Kate does not know them. She does not recognise their faces, so scrunched up by sadness. They are made ghoulish by grief. She does not want to touch them, does not want to get their sorrow on her. Does not want to be painted with their misery.
She dodges through the throng, her smallness enabling her to go unnoticed in the crowd. They are all gathering at her door. Why are they gathering at her door? Where are her Appa and Amma? Why are they not here? Why do they not gather her in their arms and reassure her that none of this can touch her, a girl of only seven?
The door slams behind her. She is relieved for it. She does not yet know that it will not keep the sorrow out. That it has already invaded the house, sneaking through the cracks in the windows and rising up from underneath the floorboards. Grief is like that. She will never be free.
"Amma?" she calls out. Her voice is thin and reedy in the silence. "Appa!"
There is no response. Still, it is stifling.
She races through the house. This is a small house. It should not be so difficult to find comfort. (It is. It will be. Kate is only seven.)
Now, with a note of panic that has always been there. "Amma!"
They are where she knew they would be. They are in her mother's room. She stops abruptly at the door. The stench of grief is too strong. It nearly bowls her over. (Kate is only seven.)
The scene is this. Her mother, motionless, in the bed that has become her coffin. Has become her pyre. Her face, mottling in front of her, as if already half faded in a memory. Dust to dust. Salt to salt. Ashes to ashes. Her father, bent and broken. He is a tree, bowed in the face of a storm. He is a man struck by lightning. Lightning only strikes once, they will say, but in his case, this is untrue. Lightning will strikc him again and again. Is this a blessing or a curse? He will not know.
When her Appa turns to face her eventually, as surely he must, Kate will not recognise him. Grief makes strangers of us all. Maybe he will not recognise her either.
She does not know how long she stands there, but it must be a while, because when they finally start to move again, Kate no longer feels seven. Her bones feel too big for her skin. The air is rancid in her chest. And this – this scene – it will stay seared into her memory, long after all tears have dried, long after she has forgotten what it is like to stand here and know, for the first time, what it is like to be helpless.
She will know it again.
They do not celebrate her birthday that year.
She will not celebrate her birthday again for many years.
2. twenty one
By all accounts, twenty one is a big age, but Kate's stopped counting. What is there to celebrate, after all? It's been nearly fourteen years since the last birthday she can recall. That day is cursed for her now. That day is wailing and silence, tumult and pain. But time ticks on, as it always does, regardless of her marking it. She's learned some things she didn't know at seven, not all of them pleasant. She's lost some things too, though she tries not to remember. This one though – this one hurts.
She's gained a stepmother and a half sister. Neither of them are evil, unlike the fairytales her Amma used to read her. It had taken her some time, but she loves them now. Some part of her feels guilty for that, feels guilty on accounts of her own mother. The mothers in stories always seem to die early. Kate's had been no exception.
The fathers are usually beleaguered, useless things. She cannot say the same of hers. Slowly, after her mother's death, he had straightened up again. Put his branches out towards the sun. Spread his roots into the earth. Learned to live again.
If there's one thing Kate has learned in the last fourteen years, it's that wounds can heal.
She misses her Amma still; will miss her always, but the last fourteen years haven't been misery. Kate is not made for misery. Neither is her father.
Neither was her father.
The fathers in stories are usually beleaguered, useless things. Hers was not, but now he is dead. Now he is turning into dust under her feet. Now he is not here to bat away the debtors at the door. To haggle with the stall owners at the market. To keep a roof over their head and food in their bellies. Now he is not here, and now he is dead.
Turning twenty one seems like the least of Kate's worries.
There is only one tolerable avenue available to her, she thinks, as she portions off what remains of her dowry. As she trades the coins that had once assured her future. There is only one avenue, and it lies across the seas.
They must return to England.
Their friends in India are kind, but they are not family. Kate is poor, now, but Kate is proud, still. She will not accept charity. She will not accept this part life for her family. Her father would not, so she can not. Her stepmother and her sister are all she has now.
Kate is proud, but Kate swallows her pride. There's more than enough of it to go around anyway – and it's better than going hungry, like they seem to be, frequently, these days. There are few avenues available to an unmarried woman of questionable background, but if there's one thing she knows, it's that they must return to England. Mary was happy here, once, but now that Kate's Appa is dead, she will not be happy here again. Mary was not born to struggle or to strive. Mary does not know how to trade, to haggle in the markets. The heat is too stifling for Mary, the summers too turbulent. She does not know how to respond when people speak to her familiarly on the street. They are very easy with their words, Mary says to Kate, bewildered, when she ventures from her sickbed, her grief-bed. They are very easy with their manners.
Mary does not venture into the streets for some time afterwards. Kate does not know how to fix this. Kate does not know how to tell her that it is that easy familiarity that keeps bread on their table. That while Mary lies with her lamentations, it is their neighbours who bring gifts of flour, spices, fruit that ensures their little fractured family will not starve. Will live to fight another day, as little as any of them wish it.
Stepmothers are evil but Mary is not. Mary is a useless, beleaguered thing. She will not lift a finger to alter their story.
But by this stage, Kate has long lost hope of being the princess in the tower. The ivy is too thick. The thorns too piercing. There is no one coming to save them now.
There are few avenues left for them, but she still has her pen. She writes – letters on letters – to anyone she can think of. Letters to Mary's parents – gone ignored – to friends of her Appas – returned to sender – until her hands are tired and aching. In the dim light of their house, with phantom debtors knocking down their door, eyes weary, she writes. Relinquishes the letters, every day, like homing pigeons, to the ether. Hopes against dwindling hope, that one might find a safe place to roost, somewhere far across the ocean.
She writes until the neighbours' charity has dried up, until the impending threat of reposession is no longer a mere thread, but a looming reality, until that foolish hope she harbours has carved a slowly widening crack in her heart.
The last letter she sends is to a woman she has never heard of in her life. A Lady Bridgerton, whose name rises from a diary entry she finds written in her Amma's hand, like Apollo from the sea.
By this point, Kate's eloquence is well and truly spent.
Please, she only writes, and hopes that it is enough. Please help.
She does not hold much hope, for it turns out that hope is dear and her purse only meagre. But with the last of her coin saved from her dowry, she sends the letter. Abandons her dreams to the wind. Then, she barters her mother's wedding bangles for a handful of flour.
She does not hear back for some time. This is not unexpected. One must always have contingency plans, when one is backed a corner. She has already given consideration to taking a job as a housemaid in a neighbour's house by the time the letter arrives. A governess posting would be better, of course, but who will hire a woman – barely a girl – with no experience and no references?
The letter, when it comes, is postmarked England, and that is how she knows that they are saved.
Tomorrow, Mary will smile to know that they are leaving this country that she neither understands nor loves. Edwina will laugh at the thought of another adventure. Kate has painted a glittering portrait of England, you see. A fairy story. Neither of them will understand how close they have come to ruin.
But Kate cannot forget.
Today, Kate is one and twenty, and she does not know it yet, but this letter she holds contains her salvataion.
Or her damnation.
3. twenty three
It is unseemly for Kate to proceed directly off the ship that has borne them here and into the trappings of marriage. It is unseemly for her to be seen in polite society before she has been trained in their ways. It is unseemly for her to even meet her husband-to-be before she has been presented. All these things would matter to him. Lord Anthony Bridgerton is an exacting man. He has to be, you see, for his father died when he was but a boy of eighteen, leaving him the lone head of a large estate.
Kate privately wonders if they might have some things in common, her and her estranged intended, but she is not to find out for two years hence.
He is busy, she is told, when she wonders when they might meet. She should be busy too – learning the ways of the viscountcy, studying the foibles of the ton. Why set her up for failure? Why seek an introduction when he will undoubtedly find her wanting?
Better to mould herself in the image of an ideal viscountess before they meet. Better to press out her creases, flatten her flaws.
But Kate was not built for misery, and Kate is not made for moulds. Kate wants to feel the sun sing on her skin, wants to feel the rush of water on her feet, dirt between her toes. Kate wants to run until she loses her breath, wants to run until she becomes the wind, wants to run until she no longer touches the ground.
But girls who fly cannot secure the future of their families. Girls who fly forget the weight of gravity pulling them down.
And so Kate lets herself be pressed into stiff, starched collars. Sits, where she wants to stand. Dances when she wants to flee. Sips down the weak English tea that sticks in her throat, lingers on her tongue. Forces her to tongue to be still.
It takes two years before she is pronounced satisfactory. Before they tell her she is enough.
Strange. Kate has never felt less in her life.
This is, of course, not a thing a future viscountess says, or so she has learned, and so Kate smiles instead. "I greatly anticipate meeting the viscount," she says, and feels the gravity of the lie settling over her shoulders and pinning her down.
"He has followed your progress eagerly." Lady Agatha Danbury has been chosen to be her mentor, her guide, but Kate looks on her like a gaoler. She's not, really. She is a friend to Mary, who has improved significantly since her return to England. She's almost a second mother to Edwina, who Kate, in her hollowed-out state, has neglected to nurture. What has she left to teach Edwina, when she is but a shell of old self? When everything she has learned has proved so insufficient in this strange new land?
She curtseys to Lady Danbury, instead of replying, for, in truth, she cannot imagine the viscount showing enthusiasm for anything, much less her. He communicates, she knows, through Lady Danbury – writes stilted letters that are read out over the breakfast table as if for her benefit. He sends gifts – useful things, chiefly. A bolt of fabric that a servant might transform into a dress. Some sheet music she might play at a gathering of peers. Watercolours, once, some ribbon or embroidery thread, on another occasion. But Kate sees these gifts for they are: reminders that she has much to learn. Reminders that she is, once again, wanting.
He does not send a gift for her twenty-third birthday. He cannot, for there is no one alive left to mark it, except for Kate, and Kate does not count. Kate has ceased to count. On the eve of her birthday, which is the eve of her wedding, which is not an event of note, she watches the stars creep across the sky, and wonders if there is some version of her somewhere in the cosmos that never stopped running.
After – he does not touch her, and this is perplexing.
"I require an heir," he had told her, in the sparse moments they'd had together before their marriage. She had known close to nothing about him – not his favourite colour, nor his preferred foods – but this fact, which he tosses carelessly at her feet.
She had opened her mouth then, her instincts to be bold and questioning briefly winning out over the past eighteen months of training to be a perfect viscountess. To fit in. But his expression is fobidding and his eyes have shuttered over, and Kate remembers herself, just in time.
Her mouth snaps shut like a trap, closing in on itself. She feels like a bear, wounded, in unfamiliar woods. She feels –
"I see," she says only. She does not see. She does not think he wants her to see.
"My father passed before my mother could produce the requisite spare." His voice is so very cold a thing. Kate shivers, unseasonably. "I will not have his legacy be lost or redistributed. That alone is my sole reason for taking a wife."
There are many reasons for marriage, or so Kate is told. When they are in the chapel, the priest lists some.
First, he says, it was ordained for the procreation of children. Well that, at least, is no lie. "I require an heir," Lord Bridgerton had told her, and his eyes had remained cold and unimpressed. "I require an heir to carry on my father's legacy."
What he had not said is this. That Kate is unimportant in the grand scheme of things. He had not picked her for her. To Lord Bridgerton, Kate could be anyone else. And god, how Kate wishes she could be anyone else. Anywhere else. Anywhere but standing here in front of an altar she does not believe in, in front of the crowd she does not know, binding her life to this man that she does not love. Her father had found love twice in his marriages. Kate will not even have this once.
He had not said this, but Kate had heard it, loud as screaming, clear as day.
Secondly, the priest continues, a remedy against sin. Kate chances a glance at her husband. His face is rigid, his shoulders stiff. More than likely he has had his fair share of sin. Where women are kept ignorant of carnal desires, men are encouraged to indulge. Kate is not ignorant, but Kate has not been indulgent. His mouth is so tight, this husband of hers. She wonders what he is thinking of. Who he is thinking of. She wonders if there will be a third person, a ghost in their marriage. She does not know what she would do if there were. She is in no position to make demands. And there is a large part of her that wonders if she should even care. She does not know this man. What claim can she have on his heart, his body, his soul?
The priest speaks on, though Kate has lost track of his sermon. Has lost track of everything but her racing thoughts, her mounting panic, and the man that stands, as still as death, beside her. Marriage, the priest says, in dreadful symphony, was ordained for the mutual society, help, and comfort, that one ought to have of the other, both in prosperity and adversity, into which holy estate these two persons present come now to be joined. Therefore if any man can shew any just cause, why they may not lawfully be joined together, let him now speak, or else hereafter for ever hold his peace.
Kate should speak. Kate cannot speak. Kate can only stand and think of that terrible conversation, just her and Lord Bridgerton, in the library with the door ajar for propriety. Just her and Lord Bridgerton and the library with its shelves devoid of books. Just her and Lord Bridgerton and her tongue that no longer seems to work, and her face that seems carved in stone. She was smiling then – she is smiling now – but there is nothing to smile about, just pretty words about mutual society, help, and comfort which she does not expect now or ever – nothing to smile about but the pretty ring around her pretty finger like a pretty noose – nothing to smile about but sometime in the past eighteen months her face has frozen like this, in this expression of placid complacence.
Just her, and Lord Bridgerton, and the rest of their life together then, stretching blank as parchment, cold as ash.
"If I did not require an heir, I would not require a wife," he had continued. "This is why I entrusted the task of finding my wife to my mother. She thinks you will be satisfactory. From what I have heard of you, I am inclined to trust her."
There are many reasons for marriage, Kate thinks, as she stands beside this man she does not know, in this dress that itches. Her arms are bare because she has sold her mother's wedding bangles. Even this small comfort she has relinquished. But that is of no matter. She will not think on that now. She will only think of what does matter. What matters is that Mary and Edwina will be housed in a little cottage on the estate, as was Mary's preference. When Edwina is old enough, she will have every luxury that can be afforded her. She will never know what it is like to be hungry, friendless, or alone. She will never have to make this choice that Kate has had to make. That does not matter. What Kate wants does not matter. All that matters is what Kate can tolerate.
There are many reasons for marriage, and while Kate does not think that being merely satisfactory should be one of them, that does not matter. There are many reasons for marriage, and today, the procreation of children – and perhaps a remedy against sin, his sin – is the one that this man, her husband, chooses. Procreation of children with a merely satisfactory wife who will protect him against the appearance of sin.
There are many reasons for marriage, and today, Kate is twenty-three, and today, all she knows is that she is fortunate to be able to stand here and make this farce of a choice.
Heads or tails, Kathani, she thinks to herself. Make a wish. Close your eyes.
In her head, she flips the coin. The coin is weighted. It falls heavy. Both sides are tails. She cannot know this.
"I will," she says, when asked. She bends but she will not break. "I will."
Tails, she thinks, it is.
4. twenty four
Marriage is not so sorry a state. Kate wouldn't go so far as to say it agrees with her, per se, but her husband is courteous and pleasant to look at. He is not warm – nothing about this country is warm – but he is polite and intermittently thoughtful. Kate is in no position to ask for more. Kate wouldn't know what more to ask for.
They pass the days in relative comfort, two souls running their lives in parallel, never growing closer, never growing apart. Kate meets with the housekeeper each morning, prepares the menus, and attends to any issues raised below stairs. Then, she prepares a basket for an ailing tenant and, in the afternoon, takes the donkey cart out to visit them. The estate is well run, for all her husband's flaws. She is sure he has flaws, even if he does not let her see them. The tenants are happy. The fields are rich with crop.
Sometimes in the distance, she sees a lone figure which must be her husband, but she does not call out, as a real wife might. Instead, she secretes herself in the shadow of the tree, or stays very still next to a fence post, and waits for him to move on. Waits for the danger to pass. She does not know what danger. She does not know when it will pass.
She visits with the neighbours, with Mary and Edwina, with the dowager Lady Bridgerton. All are serene, so Kate tries to be too. Keeps her tone even and her conversation light, which is not so very hard to do. They are happy, so she must be happy, musn't she? They are happy and her marriage is a happy one even if there are not so many words between them. Even if there is minimal affection between them. Or at least it certainly does not feel like being unhappy. Kate supposes it's close enough to the same thing.
But months pass, and still he does not touch her.
Kate is not ignorant, though Kate has not been indulgent, and Kate knows that one cannot beget an heir if one does not lie with one's wife. Therefore, she cannot account for his reticience.
The first night of their marriage, they had spent in a coaching inn, so it was of little surprise when he did not come to her. The second night they had arrived at Aubrey Hall, but perhaps the long days of travel had not agreed with him. Perhaps he was trying to be considerate, to spare her delicate sensibilities. (Kate does not think herself as very delicate, nor having many sensibilities, but he would not know that, would he? He does not know her.) But the third night turns into the fourth, turns into a week, which stretches to months, and still, he does not knock on her door.
This is not so very bad a turn of affairs. There is little, still, that Kate knows about Lord Bridgerton. Little he knows about her. She cannot imagine sharing his bed, nor sharing her body with him. Given he shows no interest in her, it is likely better this way.
Only – she still worries. He wed her for an heir, after all, just as she wed him for financial security. She has not upheld her side of the bargain, though he has more than delivered on his. Surely one cannot set aside a wife for failing to provide an heir. Not when he is equally as culpable. Not when he still shies from her in the corridor.
Or can he? It does not bear thinking. So she does not.
Over the months, she stores her hard-earned facts about him.
It turns out her fears were founded. There is, in fact, a third person in their marriage. But it is not a mistress. No, it is his father. The man looms, ectoplasm thick and solid, like a spectre over the estate. His portrait is everywhere. His trinkets line the mantlepieces, the side tables, as though he might return to them at any moment. As though he has only just stepped out for a walk. As though he might step through the doors from the garden, doff his coat, and wonder aloud, why the current Lord Bridgerton has taken his place at the head of the table. Or at his chair in his study.
And the current Lord Bridgerton feels this too. He does not say as much – he is a man of few words, Kate has learned – but his shoulders round every time he passes under his father's portrait. His spine curls a little, every time his mother comes to call, bringing with her a litany of complaints that he must address. He does not see them as suggestions, Kate realises. He sees them as a list of his faults.
His mother comes to call often. Her lists are long. After her visits, he is quieter, if that is even possible. After her visits, he sits for longer after dinner. His chair nearly swallows him whole. Kate wonders if he wishes it would.
"I think you have done well with the crop rotation," she offers, one evening, when his shoulders threaten to curve into his chest. "The tenants seem pleased, in any case. Mrs Brown remarked upon it to me just this morning."
Lord Bridgerton looks startled. They are not in the habit of speaking over-much, when they are seated together after dinner. This time together is not a conferring of minds. No, it is a charade. An artist's rendering of a marriage. A tableau of connubial felicity.
Recovering his wits, he allows his mouth to twist sardonically. Or at least, that is what Kate assumes he intends. Instead, he looks rather self-deprecating. "My mother did not think so. My father would not have allowed such a thing while he was alive."
Kate crinkles her brow. This does not seem like it should signify. Tactfully, she avoids saying so. "I believe you will see the yields increase from your methods. But do not rely on my words. I am sure you will see for yourself in the spring."
Returning her attention to her book, she receives no reply. But when she looks up, nearly half an hour later, he is still watching her, an assessing look in his eye.
She thinks, later, that he did not look displeased by their brief conversation. Rather, he seemed unpracticed. It must have been lonely, rattling around in this large estate, without any siblings to quarrel with. His mother had removed herself from the house as soon as she could. It was too haunted for her.
Kate wonders if Aubrey Hall is too haunted for Lord Bridgerton also. Or is he, too, a ghost?
She tries a little harder in days to come. If he is not displeased but merely unpracticed, what should fix their stalemate but practice?
Though she is accustomed to waking earlier than him – for he still keeps town hours, though they have been in the country for many months now – she takes herself for walks around the estate in the morning, so she can delay her meal and break her fast with him instead.
He is surprised to see her when she first enters the morning room, petticoats caked in six inches of mud.
"Ah," he says. He is indeed a man of few words, her husband. "I would have waited, but I'd assumed you were already about your day."
Her muscles ache when she stretches her face into an unpracticed smile. "I wished to wait for you."
"Ah." He does not know what to say to that. "Let me make you a plate, then."
She allows it, though he does not know her preferences. Allows it, though she is accustomed to helping herself. It is strange to sit there and be waited on hand and foot. She will not confuse it with care.
But when he places the plate down, Kate cannot help but notice that he has allocated her the choicest bits. The juiciest bits of bacon. The thickest slices of bread, slathered with a generous layer of butter. Two whole brown eggs in dainty cups.
"Are you sending me on a journey?" she teases.
He looks unaccustomed to her laughter. "I beg your pardon."
"It is only that you have given me enough victuals to embark on a journey."
Lord Bridgerton bows his head solemnly. "Your work around the estate has not gone noticed. You should be well-fed for it."
So he has been watching her, after all. Something swells in Kate's chest and refuses to subside.
"My father would not allow his wife to go unfed," he adds. The implication is, of course, that neither would he.
It is only that – she has, hasn't she? She does go hungry, but not for food. For affection. Her stepmother's is an absent kind of love. She knows it exists, but it is so poorly expressed. There is guilt mixed in with it, perhaps – the knowledge, left unsaid, that Mary owes all she has to Kate. That without Kate's efforts, Kate's sacrifice, they would all be starving on the streets – or worse. It is not an easy love. Not like the affection that exists between Mary and Edwina. But envy is not a flattering colour on Kate, so this too, she swallows down.
But Kate is proud. We have already covered this, have we not? She will not plead for what is not freely offered. She will not beg. She is tired of begging.
But that does not mean she cannot try. (That does not mean she cannot pretend.)
She thinks, uncharitably perhaps, that it should not be solely her responsibility to try so hard. But then again – Kate is used to trying. Kate is familiar with lack. Kate is familiar with want. And this man – this privileged, solemn man caged in his ivory tower – what does he know of struggle? How can he know that his life – their life – could be so much improved when the walls he has built to keep himself safe have grown so tall that he can no longer see the horizon?
She considers his mother. How she is warm, on occasion, and so bone-chillingly remote on others. If Aubrey Hall is a mausoleum to Lord Bridgerton's father, then Lady Violet Bridgerton is the tomb that holds his memory alive. The woman lives the weight of the life they might have led, daily. It nearly drowns her. She feels the ghosts of children that could have been in the spaces between her fingers. When she lifts her hands to the sun, the regret lurks, like webbing, there. There is no space to nurture a son. There is only provision. There is only haunting. How like censure that must have felt to a child. How like condemnation, to grow up with none but her and her spectres for company.
It is little wonder then, that Lord Bridgerton has couched himself in thorny vines. Has built a prison of his heart. It would be so easy to do the same. Every day, Kate feels herself growing further and further from the sun. Every day, she is tempted to turn her head towards the ground to start burying herself in the soil.
But she cannot.
She has come all this way, has travelled from such faraway lands, has moulded herself to fit into this life. Surely, she has tried too hard, struggled too long to merely be unhappy. It does not suit her. She will not stand for it.
My father would not, he says often. It becomes a refrain. A hymn. A dirge.
"My father would not drink to excess," he tells her, when she offers him a nightcap, as a good wife might.
"This is not excess," she tells him gaily. She has never met a man less prone to excesses. He watches her with suspicion as she sips from her sherry. It is only after she has drained the liquid that he accepts. Perhaps he'd suspected her of poison. Foolish man. There is only longing in that glass. It is Kate's choice of vice.
"My father would not let his tenants go unattended," he says when she commends him for his quick action when a storm blows the roof off one of the farmers' cottages. She bites her tongue then, but something must pass over her face, for he looks away. He is always looking away, as though afraid of being blinded. Of being burnt.
"My father would not leave my mother," he says when his mother falls ill and he has her removed from the dower house to convalesce at the main estate. They wince in unison. It just that – only, he had. This time Kate is the first to look away.
It is always 'my father this' and 'my father that'. It is on the tip of Kate's tongue that she does not care what his father wants. What she wants to know is what this Lord Bridgerton wants. But it seems that he does not know either. Or that he believes it does not signify.
The last straw comes when he emerges for dinner, having shaved off his whiskers. It is ostensibly because the summer has started to creep in and the humidity lingers around his chin and his ears. It is ostensibly because it is uncomfortable in this heat when he helps the men in their duties, working on the estate. But secretly, Kate likes to think it is because she looked at him, three nights ago and wondered aloud what he would look like without those sideburns. "You could be so handsome," she'd sighed mournfully, and laughed.
It has become a bit of a habit, to tease him. He does not seem to mind. Her laughter has become bolder and bolder. This time, she had thrown her head back, exposing her neck. Her gown is very fine – finer than she'd ever dreamed of wearing. The neckline is bold too. She is a married woman now – in name, at least, if not deed. Deed does not seem to matter, for he does not seem inclined to cast her off. He does not seem to mind her bearing his name, even if he does not seem to wish for her to bear his sons. Occasionally, little curls of his laughter might harmonise with hers. It is a strange sound. He is ill-used to laughing.
This time, though, he does not laugh. When she lowers her head again, he is staring at her, arrested. She grows uneasy under his stare. "I am merely funning you," she says. "You must know you are very handsome. You do not need your wife to tell you that."
He nods, curtly, and retreats back into his correspondence. Kate cannot understand him. She lets the irritation cool on her skin. But for the rest of the night, though, she feels the heat of his gaze on the small of her neck. When she looks up though, he is always staring down at his letters. Yet as the night grows weary, she notices that he has not made any progress in the text.
Now it is Kate's turn to stare. Now Kate cannot take her eyes off him. He looks younger, less encumbered. He stands there bashfully, letting her gawk at him. There is a handsome pink tinge on his cheek which travels down his neck. She is suddenly seized by the desire to undo his cravat, to lay her tongue over his collarbone, to press her fingers into his chest.
"It suits you," she says, instead of doing that.
He looks pleased, but still, he echoes that infernal refrain. "Thank you. If my father were alive, he would not –"
"Well," Kate snaps. The warmth in the pit of her stomach has faded suddenly, leaving her as cold as the grave it seems Anthony would rather lie in. She is suddenly tired to the bone of the untouched dust in this mausoleum of a house. The shadows that hang overhead. The cloud that blocks the sky. It should be her sky. He should be her sky. "Your father is not here, is he. He is not here, but you are. You are alive and he is dead. So live."
She stalks away before he has a chance to recover, before she has a chance to regret.
He finds her, two days later, when she is sitting in the grass, overlooking the lake. She has avoided him like the plague. Has readjusted her meal times so that they will not overlap. Has taken her evening meal in her chambers where he will not follow.
It is a hot day and she has removed her shoes and stockings so that she can dip her feet in the water. The fish had scattered at first, but now they are content to nudge and nibble at her toes. An occasional eel surfaces and sinks again quickly. There might be a turtle in the lake. Flies buzz idly in the distance. If she closes her eyes, she can almost will herself home.
A shadow looms. "You are avoiding me," he says.
Kate does not open her eyes. "You are observant."
"Why?"
Why? It is an excellent question. Their story seems poised on a knife's edge. It feels like their story will twist depending on answer she gives.
Why? It is because she cannot see a future for them. Cannot see a way forward where they are not yanked back into the quicksand of their past. Cannot see past the thick swirling fog of memory that plagues them still.
Why? It is because she does not know him, still. She is his bartered wife – an eye for an eye, a past for a future. This is no fair exchange. This is no gentlemen's wager. She takes a step forward and he two steps back. He is always running, she is always following. She cannot follow any longer. She cannot be the one who always wants. Who always waits.
"I don't know," she says, and it is the most truthful thing she has said to him.
Why is a lie, it turns out. Their story has been woven from the start. And it is just beginning.
"I wish you would call me Anthony," he says wistfully.
"I wish –" she says, and stops. It is too dangerous to wish. She'd almost begun to forget.
Her twenty-fourth birthday comes quickly, just as the first anniversary of their marriage does. Kate feels young and old, at the same time, to consider it. It is a shame, really, that the two dates come so close. Now she has no excuse not to recall her birthday. Now, she cannot let it slip by, like water in her open palm.
Her husband is solicitous. Maybe he feels the strangeness of cohabitating. Living in such close quarters, but so far apart in spirit. He presents her with a ring.
"I did not give this to you myself last year," he says, oddly formal. "I wish you would do me the honour of accepting."
It is a beautiful ring – a ruby laid in gold and surrounded by small diamonds. It looks like blood on Kate's finger. It feels like a pact.
"Thank you," she murmurs. "I do. I would."
It is almost on the tip of her tongue. I would marry you again, and again, she wants to say, but she does not know if it is true. But why shouldn't it be? He is kind and he has been trying. He sits with her after dinner and reads aloud from their shared novel – the one that he can have no true interest in. These days, he accompanies her to dinner parties with their neighbours, even if he sits solemn and silent through them all. Just the other day, Mrs Brookes, their closest neighbour, had remarked that she had so very rarely seen the Bridgertons out in society. "You have worked wonders," she had exclaimed.
But Kate is no miracle worker, and though they are almost friends now, she does not know if they will ever be anything more. Mutual help and society, the priest had said. Mutual help and society.
But why should she not marry him again and again? The clothes on her back are fine. Her sister and stepmother are in good health and spirits. She is mistress of a great house. The servants respect her, for all they must know that her husband does not share her bed. And he is not of a mind to shame her, for he is rarely from the house. He is rarely from her side.
It is shameful to admit. It is shameful because after having so little, Kate still wants more.
She gives him a smile, nonetheless, and because she is feeling bold, presses her lips quickly to his cheek. He is of a height with her, so it makes it easy. She does not have to rise onto her toes, does not have to beg him to lower his face to hers. She will not beg.
His cheek is smooth under her lips. He had kept his whiskers clean-shaved, after all. His chest is very firm. Her hand must have fallen to it, unbidden, to stabilise her against him. Her fingers are splayed out. Today, there are no ghosts between them.
Kate feels the way he stills under her touch. He is turned to stone. But he does not draw away, does not push her from him, just receives and receives and receives. And Kate, Kate who has had so little, but now so much, and still wants more. Kate who has been trying so hard and so long. Kate who has lost and lost and lost. Kate gives.
The birds are jeering when she pulls away. His ring, like blood, is still on her finger. In this light, it looks like a promise.
"Thank you," she says, but she is not sure what she is thanking him for.
He does not move, her stone husband, when she leaves him. She licks her lips as she passes through the door. They are salty. Not stone, after all, but salt. Salt and tears and regret.
She cannot stop looking at her hand, adorned as it is What blood magic has brought her here, she cannot help but wonder. Almost all of her family is dead. By what right should she remain?
They are dark thoughts that carry her on her walk that morning, almost as dire as the clouds like loom overhead. This time, the heavens do not open. Today the heavens do not weep.
Her feet trace a path she has not seen before. There must be a trail of breadcrumbs that she is following. There must be a trail of breadcrumbs, because here is the ever present threat of the wolf.
Fittingly, she finds herself at a grave. Trees dripping with flowers frame the headstone. Somewhere in the distance, a brook is babbling. She sinks to her knees before the grave. There will be dirt on her skirts later. Bones to dirt. Dust to dust. Ashes to ashes. It occurs to her then, that she will never see her parents' graves again. It occurs to Kate then, that she might like to cry.
She doesn't. She traces the words etched into the stone. Thinks about the man who is a ghost who lingers here still. Thinks about the man who is her husband who is a ghost to her still.
It has been a year of marriage, but she feels no closer to him. She feels no closer to home.
"What are you doing?"
Her husband has found her. Kate cannot shake the unassailable conviction that he might always do so. Somehow, this thought is not claustrophobic.
"This is a very serene outlook," she says, instead of answering. How pleased she is to have not given in to her instinct to cry. How shameful it would be to have to turn to face Lord Bridgerton with tear tracks on her cheeks. "How beautiful a resting place."
He comes to stand behind her. Kate expects him to stay upright, to continue to loom overhead. She does not expect him to bend. She does not expect him to break.
But instead, he sinks into the soft ground, grass stains and all, until he is level with her. Until they could be anyone: a nondescript couple in the anonymous grass with their ordinary, unremarkable love.
"He was a very good sort of person."
There must be some magic woven in the air because he does not shy away when she responds, "You are a very good sort of person."
There is a dreamy, faraway expression on his face and Kate knows he has travelled to a past where his father is still alive, where he has siblings – multiple perhaps. She knows that place well. She traverses it often.
She wonders if they are still married in his imaginings. She wonders if they are still married in hers.
"I am a poor companion," he says softly. "I am a selfish husband and a cold man. You – you deserve better."
No one has ever told her that in her life. No one has ever told her she deserves more. Kate does not know what to say. So she says the first thing that comes to her head, like she should have, just that morning.
"I do not want better."
She should. She should want better. She should want more. But above all else, she wants this – this fractured, sorry thing between them – to bloom.
Lord Bridgerton smiles, a little pityingly. He does not have to vocalise what he is thinking. He is thinking that she only wants this – him – because she does not know any better. She does not have the words to convince him otherwise. She barely has the words to convince herself otherwise.
He reaches out to trace the dates on his father's headstone. "When is your birthday, Kathani?"
She flinches, but there is no way to avoid a direct question. "It is today," she admits. Her voice is barely above a whisper.
He frowns. "I did not know," he says. Haltingly, like it pains him to admit it. "That it was your birthday."
Kate shrugs. "It is of little import." Truly, it is. She has not marked the day for many years now.
But Anthony covers her hand with hers. They both look, startled at the contact. "No," he says. "It is of great importance."
The next day, when she comes down for breakfast, there are flowers at her plate, and a new horse at the door.
5. twenty five
The year she turns twenty-five is a promising one. They are friends, of a sort, her and her husband. They are friends who look a little too long at each other. Friends who take one step closer and then two away. Their life together is a dance, but Kate is tired to death of always being in motion. Always free-falling. Gravity has weighed too heavy on her shoulders for the past twenty-five years. For once, she would like to be at rest, else in flight. But life does not allow it.
It does make some allowances, however. The horse that Anthony gifted her is swift and an ideal companion for her morning rides. She has not had the luxury of riding for so long – when she first approached Newton, she had been apprehensive.
Anthony had noticed. "Do you not ride?" he asked. He'd looked so dismayed that Kate had hastened to reassure him.
"No," she assured him. "I am very fond of riding. It is only that I have not had … opportunity … to do so for a very long time." Nor the means, but she does not speak that aloud. They both hear it, nonetheless.
Anthony looked very serious when he takes her hand. He had removed his gloves and the skin-to-skin contact was startling. Kate tried, unsuccessfully, to suppress a shiver.
Perhaps he had felt it too. His eyes were very dark when he said, meaningfully, "It was careless of me to neglect you so. You are my wife. You should be afforded every pleasure and every whim."
She shivers even now, simply thinking of it, and the way he had looked at her. He had helped her onto Newton and led the horse around the pasture until she was comfortable in her seat once more. Then, he had ridden by her side for the remainder of the morning, until Newton's hooves no longer felt like they were touching the ground, until they were running so fast that Kate had near forgot who she was. Who they were. For one startling afternoon, they had been two children, flying across a ridge. They had been childhood sweethearts, fleeing their responsibilities. They had been a husband and a wife, with nothing between them, but dreams.
He had not accompanied her on another ride, again.
Sometimes, she wondered if he was only waiting for her to ask. Certainly, he seemed to linger in the breakfast room, until she returned from her rides, which now occurred daily. There was a certain wistfulness in the way he enquired after her morning. But she did not wish to attribute too much significance to his line of questioning. She did not wish to attribute too much significance to him. She had been so thoroughly disabused of any notion of a happy marriage before.
And yet.
And yet her traitorous heart seemed to cling to hope. It does so even now. She tells the pounding of her heart to still, but it is to no avail. Every look, every touch, is seared into her memory. She feels the brush of his fingers on her skin. She feels the ghost of his breath on her cheek.
What a pity, she thinks, to so yearn for the husband that is so irrevocably lost to her. She does not know how it has happened, only that she was in the middle before she had began. She does not know how it has happened, except thatt it seems beyond her capabilities to stop.
And she must stop. (Do not stop.) She knows she must stop, because her father was not made for misery, and neither is she. She was not made for misery, and this – this half-existence, this half-life, this blasted, godforsaken friendship will not bring her happiness.
(She thinks, secretly, that perhaps he is not happy either.)
All in all, it is a relief when Anthony tells her he is taking her to London for her birthday.
They have not been to town since their marriage. Last winter, Anthony had been occupied with matters of estate and in avoiding her. This Season, he seems to delight in the idea of showing her about town. Showing her off about town.
"We have Almack's vouchers," he announces, almost gleefully, when she expresses the slightest bit of approbation about her welcome. "We are Bridgertons, you and I. What can they do? How can they shun us?"
It is the first time that Kate has felt protected by her family name, assumed as it may be. It is the first time tha she feels protected, rather than the protector. Comforted, rather than comforting.
She rather thinks she likes it.
Anthony has noticed her silence. Concernedly, he says, "Of course, if you would prefer to stay here, we can do so as well. I only thought that you might like the diversion."
She demurs. The diversion is welcome. When she left to her own devices in her bedroom, which feels more and more cavernous day by day, she wonders if London will have enough people to make her forget that despite everything, she still feels the motherless girl of seven, running towards the house of her marriage, only to find that it is devoid of the love she had expected to find.
London is hazy and teeming with people. Rather than being shunned, as Kate had feared, or ignored, as had been the case when she had last lived here, she finds that she is in great demand. Her sitting room is always full. When her knocker is up, the butler presents her with arms full of calling cards. The ladies are intrigued and inclined to approve of her, especially with the Bridgerton and the Danbury name behind her; and the gentlemen are practically falling over themselves in their efforts to seek her approval. To what end, she does not know, and tells Anthony as much, one evening, when they are setting out to a ball.
The night is dark and full of shadows, and so she does not see his brows furrowing at her words. Does not see the jealous glint in his eyes. Does not understand why his voice has lowered and turns husky, turns to a growl, when he answers.
"Do you not know?"
She shakes her head, then recalls that he cannot see her. "I do not. It is strange, but they are all so very gallant, so I cannot fault them."
She turns to him laughing, but he does not join in. Instead, he looks out the window of their carriage, face determinedly away from her. The laughter dies on her lips as he remains silent. It is reminiscent of – before. He has not been like this, through their previous year of marriage, nor this past week in London. He has been always at her side, content to observe. Content to let her shine. She feels like the brightest star in his horizon. She is learning to trust that feeling. She does not entirely know what that means.
When she thinks that he will not speak again, he does. His words are so quiet, they could almost be the breath on her lips. "I do."
She does not know what that means either.
The ball is the shimmering crush that Kate had always dreamt it would be. She'd dreamt so many things. It all feels like a lifetime ago now. Now – well. There is only now.
She feels like a handkerchief, borne on the wind. The faces of the ton slip by like sand, like scenes from a carriage window. They are all smiling. Anthony relinquishes her to her dancing partners when they step into the party. His fingers seem to grip her arm a little tighter before he does; his touch seems to linger. But surely that is her own imagination, for, after all, he still lets her go.
The gentlemen Kate dances with are gallant, handsome, foppish; one after the other. They flirt and preen and are everything charming. She finds that she is charmed. She laughs more than she can remember in one night, or maybe that is the punch. She spins and dances until her feet ache, until she is sure that her shoes must disintegrate beneath her feet, then she does it all again. And all the while, she is cognisant of the prickling on the back of her neck that tells her that her husband has been watching her. That he is watching her still.
For all Kate has been enjoying herself, Anthony has barely moved from the corner he has planted himself in. Certainly he has not deigned to beset himself to the dance floor, though there are plenty of women in want of a partner. Occasionally, a lady, not yet resigned to being a wallflower, will look hopefully towards the young, handsome Lord Bridgerton, and sigh wistfully.
Anthony notices none of it. His entire attention is for his wife. And his wife's attention is not on him.
What he sees is this:
The ruby red of her new silk gown, and the way it moves alluringly at her feet.
The little pearl ear bobs that she wore on their wedding, nearly three years ago now.
His ring, on her finger, as she places her hand in another's.
Her lips. Her laugh. Her skin.
What he feels is this:
Longing. Grief. Regret. And fear – oh god, so much fear. His love has always been mired in fear. His mother, deprived too early of her husband and the future she had always thought to have, has always kept him at an arm's length, for fear of losing him. In turn, Lord Anthony Bridgerton had learned nothing else.
Only now –
Only now, he knows what it is to want. And what Anthony wants is this: to be a better man for her. For Kate. To walk out of the shroud of fear and into the sunlight, to see her turn towards him and smile. And if too much to ask, then he would settle for being able to walk up to her now and claim her for a dance. To hold her close and feel her heart beating against his chest. To hold her close and proclaim to the world that she was his. That he was hers.
But he cannot not say that, not here, not now, though the feeling has threatened to burst from him with each day he spends in her presence. It would be unfair to foist these feelings that are surely unreciprocated upon her. To do so would be to ruin the scene of her triumph – she has charmed of all London society as he had surely known she would. Perhaps that had been why he had not taken her to London sooner. Perhaps he had wanted to keep her for himself for a little longer.
But what he truly sees, as he skulks in the shadows, and watches her to the exclusion of all else, is how happy she looks.
So he says nothing.
It is safest that way.
Kate has had a wonderful evening. Her feet ache in that pleasantly tired manner that only comes of enjoying herself too much. Her voice is hoarse with talking, her brow a little damp with exertion. The room is hazy with overcrowding and she waves away her last dance partner smilingly, with excuses of taking the air.
It is not a lie exactly, she thinks, as she heads towards the terrace. There is only the smallest taste of disappointment coating her teeth and the errant thought of her husband. He is never far from her mind, much as she would wish him to be sometimes.
He has not been far from her person either, in the recent months. His presence is a terrible wonderful thing. She revels in his company and despairs of it in equal measure, and is later filled with guilt to be so … ungrateful. Had she not wished for nothing more than a pleasant marriage and a comfortable home? Had her reasons for marrying him not been entirely mercenary, whilst his had been mere convenience?
They are as bad as each other, really. What right has she to pass so close to him in doorways, so that the backs of their hands might touch? What right has he to stare at her so longingly and inhale the scent of her skin when they find themselves in close quarters?
What right have they to seek happiness, when so many of the people in their lives have lost theirs?
As if in answer, Anthony emerges from the shadows. The moonlight illuminates his face and Kate is suddenly struck by how dear he has become to her. It is those late nights, she tells herself, reading in the sitting room after dinner. Mocking sanctimonious sermons and saccharine poetry. It is those early mornings, laughing over the breakfast table. It is the way that he will seek her out in the afternoon, so that she can declare an opinion on some estate matter. It is the way that she longs for him, after midnight, when the door between their rooms remain so firmly closed.
"You look well," is all he says. "Everyone was throughly charmed. Have you enjoyed yourself?"
"Very much so," she replies honestly. "Such gay abandon has been unfamiliar to me for some time now."
There is a strange self-recriminating twist to his mouth, as he smiles. "That is entirely my fault to bear. I have been a neglectful husband."
Kate cannot stop the words that tumble out of her traitorous mouth. 'I would haeve no other."
His brow knits together. "Is that so." He takes one step closer, then another. "For my part, I must confess that asking for your hand was the best decision of my life, though I have given you little reason to feel similarly."
Kate's mouth is dry. There is a lump in her throat that will not allow her to speak. There is a spell on this garden, or some pixie curse that has turned her dreams to reality, fiction to fact. Fear seizes her and sets her palms on fire. If she speaks now, she will shatter this blown glass, toffee-stretching moment. If she speaks, he might take it all back.
But through the night, they can hear a clock striking midnight.
"It is your birthday now," he says mildly. He does not seem to expect a reply to his confession.
She had entirely forgotten. "So it is."
"What would you like for your birthday, Kate? I have never asked you."
No one has, for so long.
Tonight, she is bold, enchanted. The way Anthony is looking at her in the moonlight means that she is effervescent. It plants a seed, which is sprouting roots, leafs, buds. It makes her invincible. Nothing she says tonight can be held against her. Nothing she says can make him turn from her.
"You did not dance with me," she declares.
Anthony looks at her with so much wonder and so much hope that it is almost painful to meet his gaze. "I did not think you would want me to."
"You did not ask."
A beat falls between them, a breath. Somewhere, a leaf falls. A child is born.
"I am asking now."
"Is it not too late?" It does not feel too late. It feels new. It feels like it has just begun.
In the distance, the strains of a last song seep through the cracks in their facade.
It is only because his hand is on her cheek that he must feel her smiling. When did he place his hand there? When had he started caressing her skin? It does not seem to matter, only that he does not stop. "Oh, well then," she says. "I accept."
She offers her arm out to him but he does not take it. Instead, she feels his long fingers caressing the bones of her face, learning her anew. Feels him trace the angle of her jaw, thumb brushing over her lips. Committing her to heart. His heart.
"Why now?" she murmurs. Her mind is waging a furious war with the blood racing in her throat. She has to ask. "You said you wanted an heir, but you never – we never …"
They are so close now. They could be closer. They could be one person. His words might be her words. His hand, her hand.
"To come to you then, as strangers, would have made me a brute," he says, a little brokenly. "To come to you now, as mere friends, would make me a liar."
"Oh." It is the smallest exhale. The last question, to which there is only one answer.
And he gives it. "Kate," he breathes. Her name is a prayer on his lips, a confession. She cannot help but lean into his touch, feeling, as she does so, the strangled joyous gasp that escapes him. "Kate."
A jolt of desire shoots through her. Her skin feels like lightning everywhere he touches her. His knuckle is a firm pressure under her chin. His breath is the softest brush on her cheek. And she – she is not made for misery, but in this moment she is weak. In this moment she may catch on fire. In this moment – at the last moment – Kate turns her face so that her lips meet his.
He stills at her touch. Their lips are still touching, breath upon breath. It is only that they are so close, only because they feel like one person, that Kate dares to speak. "Anthony," she tries. "Anthony, I want …"
He does not make her beg. He does not even let her ask.
He gives and gives and gives until she is no more than a gasping vessel of her pleasure.
"Kate," he says, when he is done. (She'll never be done.) "Kate. Happy birthday."