Archive of Our Own

Prologue: 1805

…….

Anthony is still at Oxford when he is persuaded not to marry Kate Sharma.

It’s Simon who helps him see sense - Simon Basset, the future Duke of Hastings, and Anthony’s closest friend. He’s a careful and mathematical sort, and Anthony has never known him to be incorrect about anything in all his life.

“Hastings - I’ve a most particular favour to ask of you.”

“Ask what you will.”

“Will you stand up with me on my wedding day?”

Simon looks very shocked indeed, at that. “Your wedding day? You are speaking in hypotheticals, are you not? You’re asking if I might stand up with you when you marry several years from now?”

Anthony grins a cautious grin. “Not at all. I’m asking if you might stand up with me soon, for Miss Sharma and I are to marry - and within the year, I hope. I mean to ask her the question on Thursday when we all meet to dine.”

Simon is shaking his head, now - and shaking it very hard indeed. “No, Bridgerton - no. You can’t possibly be serious. You mean to propose marriage to her this week? You think to marry her within the year?”

“As I said.”

“But you’ve known her such a little time. You were first introduced at my godmother’s summer house party, and you’ve shared - what? - two short family visits and a handful of family suppers besides. You’re scarcely acquainted.”

“We’re acquainted perfectly well enough to have fallen in love.” Anthony protests, thinks of morning rides and secret smiles and everything in between. “Besides - it’s not a matter of how long we have been acquainted. It’s more a matter of the depth of our acquaintance. We have so very much in common that we have warmed to one another swiftly.”

“You’ve had your head turned, you mean.” Simon argues. “Please, Bridgerton - have a little sense. You’re twenty years of age. She is not even out yet - not formally. You’ve only met her through your connection with me and Lady Danbury. It’s altogether too soon to even consider proposing marriage to her. You’re being too hasty.”

“You think I am?” Anthony asks, the first doubts perhaps beginning to stir.

“I know you are. Why - only three months ago, you insisted that you would never marry for love. You were set against it on account of your father’s death and your mother’s grief. You cannot truly expect me to believe that you now love Miss Sharma so deeply as to lose sight of that.”

“Hrm.” Anthony manages, strangled by his own fast-dawning horror.

“Besides - you are still grieving. You’ve not been right in your mood or your manners since your father died. You must see sense, Bridgerton - it’s simply not the proper time for you to marry. She’s the first young lady outside the family you’ve ever been well-acquainted with, and you’ve had your head turned so swiftly - but I fear it’s only passion or infatuation. You’re not acting at all like yourself.”

“Be that as it may, I can’t walk away now. My honour is engaged.” He protests.

“What - there is some chance that she is with child?”

“Not that.” Anthony protests, offended at the mere thought of it. “I am always the gentleman. But… she is expecting my proposal. We - we have spoken of love.”

“She’ll understand.” Simon argues. “She’s a young lady of considerable sense. Tell her it’s too soon, and you’re still grieving and trying to raise your siblings and complete your studies. Why - you might even tell her that you hope she’ll still be unattached some three or four years from now, if it comforts you.”

“I might.” Anthony echoes.

He knows he won’t, though.

He knows Kate’s not like that. He knows he is not like that. He knows they’re both of them stubborn, hot-headed, passionate sorts. She’ll never be content with him walking away just a while, with him asking her to wait around like some patient martyr for him to grow into adulthood proper.

He swallows hard, wonders what to do about it. He trusts Simon like no one else on this earth. Simon has been his rock since his father died, has been the only constant while his mother was floundering and his family depended upon him.

Simon makes sense, too. His arguments do make sense.

And yet Anthony can all but smell Kate’s scent lingering on his skin, today. He has spent as much time in her company as possible since the day they were introduced. She might as well be part of his own soul, he thinks, by this stage.

He did kiss her, yesterday. He kissed her, and she kissed him, and he told her that he loved her, and she said it too. They spoke of love and he promised to fetch his mother’s ring and settle things later in the week.

He doesn’t know what to do.

No - he does. He hates it, to be sure. Every fibre of his being revolts against it.

And yet Simon has it right. Anthony is still grieving, is desperately scrabbling to raise his family and complete his studies. That’s why it was so easy to fall for Kate, perhaps - because she offered an escape from his responsibilities.

Well - no longer. Simon has reminded him where his priorities lie. He can’t be running off to marry at twenty when he has his duties to attend to.

He swallows hard, gathers the words to make it real.

“I can’t marry her. I can’t possibly marry her. It is a most unsuitable moment for me to even consider taking a wife.” He admits, one stiff sentence after another.

His chest hurts. His eyes are burning. Worst of all, he feels sick to his stomach, as if his soul might be crawling up his throat.

He can’t marry Kate Sharma.

He can’t marry her.

In fact - he can’t see how he ever dreamed that he could.

…….

Nine years later

…….

Anthony tries not to seethe with envy, while he visits with his sister, friend and nephew.

It’s a struggle, he finds. Daphne is exultant. Simon is more peaceful than Anthony has ever known him. Augie is a little bundle of joy, all baby gurgles and flailing limbs.

Augie is also half Daphne, half Simon. That’s the difficult part. That’s the part which gets Anthony deep in his gut, every single time. His sister and his closest friend have the joy of a child which is one-half a copy of each of them. Whenever mother or father looks at the baby, they see their own features blended with the features of the love of their life.

That’s the part Anthony can’t stomach, to be clear. He has been quite set against marrying for love, ever since his father died. He has been more determined of it than ever, since Simon reminded him not to pursue a hasty engagement to Miss Sharma. And so it is that, for a decade or more, he has been quite content with his resolution not to seek romantic love, not to envy those who have found it.

But now he’s watching his oldest friend and closest sister discover the joy of a loving family, of a child who is the best of them both, and it’s driving him to distraction.

It’s worst of all because Simon is Simon, he finds. Simon was always even more averse to marriage than Anthony himself. He’s the one who talked Anthony out of that hasty engagement, all those years ago. So now that he has fallen in love, Anthony can’t help but feel that he has lost an ally.

Simon has fallen, and anyone might fall next.

Anthony sighs, tears his longing eyes away from the sight of the happy little family. They’re especially sickening, this morning. The three of them are all curled up on a window-bay sofa in the drawing room at Clyvedon, murmuring quietly together.

Anthony is sitting on the far side of the room, pretending to read a newspaper, and wishing he had any other company at all in the house.

A prolonged visit to Clyvedon seemed a good idea, when Simon suggested it. Why - these three are more or less Anthony’s favourite people in the world. But somehow, all the same, he’s sick to his core of the sight of them.

He clears his throat, bows to the inevitable at last.

“I think perhaps it is time I returned to Aubrey Hall.” He declares, in what he hopes is a light and familial sort of tone.

It lands like a boxer’s punch, full on an amateur’s nose.

“Surely not now?” Daphne asks, audibly horrified. “You don’t mean today? It’s far too late in the day to set out.”

“You don’t mean this week? We were to take that long ride when the weather improves.” Simon recalls.

“All the same, I beg you will excuse me. I shall leave at first light, I think.”

“Whatever is the matter, brother?”

“What’s got your breeches in a twist, Bridgerton? That is what she means to ask.”

“Nothing is wrong.” Anthony lies baldly. “It’s only that I have realised I have matters to attend to at home before we move to town for the season next fortnight. I shall need some time to put my affairs in order. For I have decided that it’s past time I took a wife and had a family of my own. These few weeks staying with you have been enough to make up my mind - I must do my part and look to the next generation too. This season I shall find a wife.”

“In that case, brother, I must congratulate you. I feared you would never marry.” Daphne tells him. “I am relieved to hear that you’ve seen sense. I do hope you will find that the young ladies in town are to your liking.”

“I don’t suppose it will matter what they’re like. I certainly don’t intend to marry for love as you two have done. I only want a comfortable enough marriage to a lady of good family.”

“You’re not serious, Anthony - you are setting out deliberately to marry but not for love?”

“As I said. I mean to choose a wife with my head and not my heart.”

“Good luck with that, Bridgerton.” Simon says, dry. “In my experience, love has a way of surprising a person.”

“I shan’t be taken by surprise. I know what I am about - I shall shop the marriage market sensibly and before long we will have a cousin for Augie in the nursery, god willing.”

“It sounds so… detached when you say it like that, brother.” 

“Yes.” Anthony agrees. That is the point, is it not?

A gentleman cannot be hurt, if he remains detached. He can’t be touched by loss as his mother was, can’t break his own heart for the sake of his duty to his family, as he did when he walked away from Kate. Truly - a detached life is the safest life of all.

He will like to have a child, though. To have a child of his own would be something, at least - even though he knows he can never have a child which is half him, half the love of his life. That part is simply not possible, since he walked away from Kate. She won’t be the mother of his son and heir, and that’s simply how it is.

He swallows hard, wills the tightness in his chest to loosen. It’s funny how he always gets a bit uncomfortable whenever he thinks of her, even after all these years.

He’s just wondering whether he might excuse himself when Simon speaks up.

“Lady Danbury has summoned us for the season, too. We meant to say no, on account of having this little one in the nursery, but - what do you say, Daphne? If you brother is to go courting, should we answer the call?”

“Do you even need to ask?” Daphne counters, brows raised.

“Why would Lady Danbury summon you?” Anthony asks, confused. “Does she not understand that you are newly married and with a young child?”

“Yes - but it’s a matter of some import. She’s to sponsor Miss Edwina Sharma this season, and she is hoping that our presence will lend strength to her prospects, I believe.” Simon reasons.

“I believe we could move the nursery up to town well enough if it’s a matter of helping Anthony with his marriage prospects.” Daphne decides.

“I knew you’d say that.” Simon concludes, all calm and comfortable, pressing lightly at his wife’s arm.

Anthony swallows hard, looks away out the window behind them.

And then -

“Miss Edwina Sharma?” He echoes, just to be sure.

“Mmm - younger sister of that Miss Sharma we knew in our Oxford days. They’ve nigh-on a decade between them.” Simon explains. “Do you remember the younger at all?”

“Can’t say I do. She’d have been still a child when we knew Miss Sharma.” Anthony says, manages not to choke on her name.

“Quite a young one, at that.” Simon agrees.

Silence falls. Anthony keeps his eyes on that window, tries not to notice the sunlight catching the happy look in his sister’s eyes as she gazes down at her young son - the son who is her husband’s son, too.

Anthony swallows again, and it doesn’t help.

He bows to the inevitable. “Are we expecting all the Sharma family in town for the season?”

“I don’t think we have an answer to that, as yet. Miss Edwina and her mother will stay with Lady Danbury, but Miss Sharma hasn’t confirmed her plans - that’s what Lady Danbury told me. There’s the matter of her work as a governess and the difficulty of getting away for a season whilst retaining her post.”

“Oh - she’s still a governess?” Anthony asks, carefully light.

“Still with the same family, I believe - the Smythe-Smiths.”

He doesn’t reply to that. He doesn’t see what he could say without sounding like a man who cares too much.

“Perhaps you’ll see her in town this season.” Simon suggests, now.

“I’m sure I won’t.” Anthony counters.

“Perhaps you’ll -”

“It does not signify.” Anthony interrupts him, firm. “Why - the whereabouts of Miss Sharma can be of no interest to me. It does not signify. I mean to go to town for the season, choose a sensible bride, and do my duty by my family.”

“Brother, you cannot mean -”

“It does not signify.”

He storms out of the room at last.

…….

He thinks she’s not there, at first.

For the first two or three days of the season, he thinks Kate isn’t in town at all.

He hasn’t seen her out riding, although she used to ride every morning. He hasn’t heard Simon mention her at all, although he is Lady Danbury’s godson, and therefore spends a good deal of time with Miss Edwina and her mother.

He hasn’t felt the hair stand up on the back of his neck. That’s the main reason he thinks Kate must be absent from town, in all honesty. It’s because he’s convinced he’d have sensed her presence, if she were here.

He doesn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed at her absence. It’s good news, presumably. She and Anthony did not part ways on a cordial note. So she’d be troublesome, if she were here now, to remind him of everything he can never have while he’s trying to find a sensible wife. It’s a fortunate blessing to have the way clear to spend his season how he will, without any difficult reminders of the past.

It’s just as well that she’s not here - and yet, still, he searches Hyde Park for any glimpse of her.

…….

Anthony finds himself beset by debutantes at the opening ball of the season.

That’s his mother’s fault, he decides. He made the mistake of telling her he hoped to find a sensible wife this season, and now she has seen to it that every young lady in the ton is clinging to his coattails - or so it seems. Why - he can scarcely breathe for being interrupted by one or other of them clamouring for a dance or begging him to notice her pretty new fan.

He dances the first set with an inoffensive girl of his mother’s choosing, then the second with some friend of Daphne’s, and then makes his escape onto the terrace at the start of the third.

He strides one length of the terrace, then another. He fills his lungs with great gulping breaths of cold air, feels sense return to him, a little at a time.

He’s just wondering whether he ought to force himself back inside and continue that search for a sensible wife, when he sees Simon strolling out towards him.

“Ah. Bridgerton. I hoped I might find you out here.”

“Is anyone looking for me? My mother or Benedict?” He rushes to ask.

“None of your family is looking for you. Miss Goring, on the other hand, is searching high and low.”

Anthony lets out a nervous chuckle, all whistling and breathy and strange. He barely recognises the sound as one he is capable of producing, frankly.

Simon draws closer, now, and pats him robustly on the shoulder. “Don’t let it trouble you, Bridgerton. She’ll not find you out here. And I daresay it’ll be worth it - all the fuss of the season, all these clamouring debutantes - when you’ve chosen a wife and you can settle down at last.”

“Mmm.” Anthony agrees - or tries to - with a careful hum and a nod of his head.

“Has anyone caught your interest so far?” Simon asks next.

“Not at all. Not in the least.” Anthony tells him, dismissive. “I can’t imagine ever finding any of these chits interesting in the slightest. Half an evening and two sets has been quite long enough to convince me that I must just wait for the Queen to name a diamond, then marry that lady and have done with it.”

“I’d call it a quarter-evening, in fact.” Simon argues mildly. “Truly - you are so disenchanted with the young ladies as that?”

Anthony scoffs. “You were the same, before you met my sister, and you know it.”

“Then perhaps you simply haven’t met the perfect lady yet. Perhaps your ideal match will surprise you for the better, before too long.”

He thinks of Kate and tries not to weep.

So -

“There is no ideal match for me, Hastings, and I beg you will stop labouring the point. I have no intention of seeking any sort of romantic connection with my wife. I shall wait for the diamond of the season to be named, and then I shall get her wed, bed and bred. That will be the end of it.” He declares, once and for all.

Simon only watches through all that laboured speech, his brows raised, his eyes shining in the moonlight.

Then he clears his throat. “As you like, Bridgerton. As you like. Evidently your mind is made up. I shall return to my wife, I think - and I think you had better spend a few minutes taking the air, hmm?”

Anthony nods, turns away, sets to walking out into the garden.

He scarcely even notices his old friend walking away from him - he’s that deep in his thoughts, that unsettled by the evening so far.

He does notice, though, when a familiar figure suddenly steps from behind the nearest shrub and a much-missed voice sets to berating him thoroughly.

“Anthony? That is you, is it not? You are the gentleman I lately heard speaking on the terrace?”

“Kate. That is - Miss Sharma.” He manages, startled.

“Good heavens - it is you, and yet I find I can scarcely believe it. The diamond of the season, hmm? Get her wed, bed and bred?”

“I - I didn’t -” He protests, still spluttering in shock at seeing her here.

“Are you so much changed? Why - I do declare that I would scarcely have recognised you, were you not in conversation with Hastings.”

He swallows hard. That hurts the most of all, he finds. That’s the worst thing she could possibly say to him - to accuse him of being unrecognisable, compared with the man she loved nigh-on a decade ago.

Then she carries on. “Are you like the others now, then? Have you grown up just the same as every other detestable English gentleman, seeing women only as chattels and - and as good as livestock for trading?”

“No. It’s not that. I think no such thing - and you ought not have been eavesdropping.” He gathers his strength to tell her at last. “I will thank you not to interfere with my private business, Miss Sharma.”

“Ah - of course. Your private business.” She echoes, in a tone of sharpest irony. 

“You’ve no right to criticise me for seeking a wife as so many other gentlemen do.”

“Indeed. What would I know of such things, hmm? What would I know of your preference in seeking a wife?”

“Kate.”

“It’s Miss Sharma, to you.” She tells him fiercely. “Why - you said it yourself not two minutes ago. Goodnight, Lord Bridgerton - and best of luck with this fool’s errand of yours. Best of luck seeking some poor wretch of good family to inflict yourself upon.”

“Miss Sharma - I didn’t - that is not what I meant to say. Or - I didn’t mean for you to hear it.”

“Which is it, My Lord? You didn’t mean to say it, or you wish I hadn’t heard it?”

He splutters wordlessly for a moment, stares at her eyes full of fire in the moonlight.

She turns on her heel and leaves him there, still silently staring after her.

…….

The ball doesn’t improve at all from there.

He spends a few more moments outside, trying and failing to remember how to breathe. Then he forces himself back inside, before his mother can grow alarmed at his absence, or before the debutantes actually set out in packs to look for him - but finds that he’s not at all ready to put on gentlemanly manners and be inside, so he offends three young ladies entirely without meaning to.

He scarcely even notices, to be frank. He’s so entirely occupied with remembering that encounter with Kate that he doesn’t spare a thought for the other ladies he offends along the way.

She looked well, he thinks. That is - aside from looking furious at him, she looked well otherwise. Her figure remains much as it ever was. Her eyes are as fierce as ever. She had her hair pinned up tighter and plainer than he recalls, but perhaps that’s simply a consequence of her work as a governess. Her gown was a dark and plain one, too - but the dark burgundy colour still suited her well.

He’s damned. He is utterly and entirely damned.

He’ll never survive a season with her in town too. He’ll never endure this hunt for a wife who is not her. Every single lady in town will come up wanting, when he compares them to Kate Sharma - and Kate Sharma, meanwhile, will stay spitting angry at him forever, he suspects.

He would, in her shoes. He’d be angry for all eternity. Why - he made her promises, then jilted her, then she first saw him in a decade to overhear him speaking lightly of women. It’s no wonder that she’s furious with him, frankly.

He’s furious with himself, too, but there’s nothing to be done. It does not signify.

He must simply press on and try to do his duty.

…….

He doesn’t sleep a great deal that night.

He lies there, and stares at the ceiling, and thinks of everything that has gone awry in his life since the day his father died.

He has reached a resolution, by the morning. He has decided that he must go to Lady Danbury’s townhouse and at least try to clear the air. He can’t expect Kate ever to forgive him nor think kindly of him - not ever, ever again - but he can at least be a gentleman of good principles and offer a thorough apology for the words she overheard last night.

As soon as the hour is respectable, he dresses and sets out across Mayfair.

He arrives at Lady Danbury’s townhouse to the news that Miss Sharma is not there.

“What do you mean - not here?” He asks the footman. “She is out riding, perhaps? Might I sit with the family until she returns?”

“I don’t believe she’s expected.” The footman tells him, mild. “But… I’m sure you will be welcome to sit with the family all the same, My Lord.”

So it is that Anthony finds himself conducted up to the drawing room in a state of moderate discomposure.

His discomposure worsens, when he arrives. He finds Miss Edwina sitting next to her mother, his own sister sitting with Simon, and Lady Danbury looking out over them all with a benevolent, watchful smile.

Now he will have to explain to them all what the devil he’s doing here.

He suffers through the usual round of polite greetings, then tackles the matter at hand as best he can.

“I wondered if I might find Miss Sharma here. I believe I offended her last night, and I mean to clear the air. Given the friendship between our families, I hope that will be acceptable.” He tries.

“I’m sure it will be very acceptable - and yet she’s not here.” Lady Danbury tells him. “She works for the Smythe-Smith family, so you might find her at her duties in their townhouse.”

“She works for them still?” Anthony asks, puzzled. “My apologies - I didn’t mean to trouble you without cause. I only thought that she must be staying here with you, since I saw her in attendance at your ball last night. Is Miss Sharma not spending the season with her sister?”

“She means to see me as often as she can.” Miss Edwina rushes to explain.

“And yet she prefers to stay with the Smythe-Smith household and continue her work.” Lady Mary adds. “Lady Danbury did issue her a most generous invitation to stay all season, but she preferred to keep her post. She will join us for evening events when her work allows.”

“She’ll join us for every ball of the season, if she knows what’s good for her. I am most put out with her for only permitting herself half the fun of the season at most.” Lady Danbury says, all teasing and bright.

Anthony finds himself rather horrified at that.

“She’ll be half-here and half-not, this season?” He tries to clarify. “She will come to some events and not others?”

“As I said.” Lady Danbury agrees, as if he is being dim-witted, here.

Good Lord. How the devil is he to cope with that? How is he to manage, if he never knows from one day to the next whether he will be starved of her presence, or will find her eavesdropping behind a bush?

It’s horrifying, and he simply doesn’t know what he will do about it.

He’s still grappling with his horror when Lady Mary speaks up once more. “Perhaps you remember a little of my Kate’s character, My Lord? Perhaps you recall that she is a stubborn and principled sort? So she is set on doing her duty to her sister and to the Smythe-Smith girls she has grown so attached to, both at once.”

“Indeed.” He manages, faint.

Lady Mary presses on. “I might hope she would take more part in the season, but you know how she is - she eschews courtship and all the events of the marriage market. Once upon a time, I did think she might be willing to marry for the sake of Edwina’s prospects, but it was not to be. Evidently she has decided that she has no taste for English gentlemen.”

“Quite so.”

“I am sorry to hear that you and she exchanged cross words last night. I assure you - there’s no need to think on it a moment longer. She won’t expect an apology in the least. Perhaps you recall what she’s like - you did meet her a few times, a decade or so ago when we first moved here. Perhaps you recall that she’s an argumentative sort and not overly concerned with apologies?”

“I do perhaps recall her character a little from our earlier acquaintance.” He manages.

It’s at that point Simon turns away from the conversation with Daphne to save him. “Here, Bridgerton - will you sit and tell us what you think of this lemonade? Lady Danbury’s cook makes the best lemonade in all the ton, I believe. I know tea is more the thing for a morning call, but I cannot get enough of the Danbury townhouse lemonade.”

It’s exactly the sort of empty conversation Anthony needs, in this moment. He nods, rapidly, and strides across the room to take a seat near his friend.

Then he realises that the only suitable seat is half way between Simon and Miss Edwina. He’s sitting a yard or two away from the younger sister of the only lady he has ever loved - the lady he has made such an awful scene over crossing town to apologise to, this morning.

So -

“Good morning, Miss Edwina. What think you of the lemonade?” He tries.

“I think it is most refreshing.”

“How lovely.”

He seizes the glass Simon puts in his hand and downs it in one desperate gulp.

This is, all things considered, the worst beginning any man ever made to the search for a sensible wife.

…….

It gets worse.

It gets worse, the very next day, when the Queen names Miss Edwina the diamond of the season.

And - well - Anthony certainly can’t court the diamond of the season now. He’s not so addled by seeing Kate two nights ago that he has entirely lost his wits. He cannot possibly court the younger sister of the lady he once meant to marry - he knows he can’t.

All the same, several people seem to think that he will. They don't know his history with Kate, of course, but he wishes they wouldn't jump to conclusions - even if he does realise that he himself is to blame for sowing the seeds of those conclusions before he knew better. It's quite the mess, and he dislikes it heartily.

“Will you call on Miss Edwina tomorrow, dearest?” His mother asks him over supper that night.

“I think not. Why do you ask?”

“I simply presumed you might have some interest in her. You spoke of wishing to know who would be crowned the diamond of the season, and she is a close connection of the family, through your friendship with the Duke of Hastings and mine with Lady Danbury. I daresay half the town is expecting you to call.”

“I hope Miss Edwina herself is not expecting me to call.”

“I think you might consider the idea. If you want to make a sensible match, you could do a great deal worse. Why - I suppose I might also observe that a gentleman often falls in love with a close connection of his good friend.”

He gulps, simply shakes his head a moment. His mother doesn’t know, of course. She does not know. She hasn’t a clue that he fell in love, once upon a time, and that he can’t possibly court Kate’s sister now. If there is a God in heaven, Anthony would be damned for all eternity, for a thing like that.

“No - you don’t think it might turn out?" His mother presses. "I think there’s a certain symmetry to the idea, since His Grace married your sister, and Miss Edwina is the closest he has to a sister, in turn.”

“I know what I am about when I say I have no intention of courting Miss Edwina.” He insists, once and for all.

His mother nods, shrugs, lets it go. She says a few soothing, empty words and turns her attention back to her supper.

Anthony sighs in relief.

……..

He goes out to his club that night thinking to escape it all. At White’s he will be some distance removed from his mother and her new habit of asking questions about Miss Edwina.

He finds Lord Cho and Lord Fife there to ask him questions about Miss Edwina, instead.

“What’s all this about you and the Sharma lass, then?” Fife asks, blunt as ever.

“I beg your pardon?” Anthony asks, fretting that they might have heard some rumour of his past with Kate, that she might stand in danger of reputational ruin.

“I heard you liked the look of Miss Edwina. You’re chums with Hastings and he’s all but a brother to her - isn’t that how it goes? Thompson mentioned it at my fencing club, and he had it from - now, I forget - from Randal, I believe?”

“From Jefferson.” Cho corrects him. “Thompson had it from Jefferson - that’s what you told me this afternoon.”

“Jolly good.” Fife concludes, with a nod.

Anthony can only glance between them and wish he’d asked for a larger tumbler of brandy. “Half the town expects me to court Miss Edwina? Even your fencing instructor expects me to court Miss Edwina?”

“As I said.” Fife agrees, nodding harder.

“It’s not such an unexpected development. Why - gentlemen marry their friends’ sisters all the time, or ladies very like.” Cho argues. “Hastings married your sister, and Barnell called on Cordie this morning, and one of these days, Fife here will marry our Connie, and - and then you’ll marry Miss Edwina, too.”

“No I won’t.” Anthony says - and hears Fife say much the same thing at the same time, too.

That doesn’t help his case. It doesn’t help in the slightest. Cho’s argument is perfectly correct, of course - marriages often happen between family friends. Indeed, it does seem likely that all those other folks he just listed will marry as he predicted, and Fife most of all.

The only way Anthony could set him right for certain is to tell him he has the wrong sister, and he most definitely can’t say that.

…….

He does go to Lady Danbury’s townhouse the next morning, but not to pay a courtship call on Miss Edwina.

No - he goes to find Simon and ask him to watch the racing at Ascot with him tomorrow. He thinks Simon more likely to be in Lady Danbury’s drawing room than his own, given the way the season is turning out. He’s the closest thing to a gentleman in the family, and Miss Edwina is likely to be beset by suitors, and Anthony rather expects that Simon will be pressed into playing the part of big brother very often indeed.

Sure enough, he arrives to find Simon present and correct - with Daphne and Augie in attendance, too, for good measure. Anthony even wonders if they have all moved into the household, at this stage.

He fusses over his nephew a little while, and then presses on with the matter at hand.

“I meant to ask, Hastings - will you come to Ascot with me tomorrow? I for one feel sorely in need of a day out to watch sport and place bets and think of little else for a while.”

“There’s a fine idea.” Simon agrees at once. “Tomorrow at Ascot - so be it. We’ll take my carriage and your money clip, hmm?”

Anthony laughs. “You’ll take your own money clip, thank you.”

“But it was your idea, Bridgerton.”

“All the same, you’ll finance your own bets.”

“May I join you?” Daphne interrupts to ask them. “I could enjoy a day out as well.”

Anthony hesitates a moment, wonders what to say. He does love his sister, to be sure - and he does even get along quite well with her, or at least better than he often gets along with Eloise - but he meant this as a lads’ excursion with his good friend, and he doesn’t know how to tell her that. He doesn’t know how to say that he feels sorely in need of easy company and a refreshing distraction.

He hesitates too long, and it gets worse.

“We’ll all join you. A day at the races will suit us all.” Lady Danbury decides. She declares it plainly, rather than asking it as a question.

“You will?” Anthony asks, brows raised.

“Certainly. I like to watch the horses as much as the next scandalous widow does.”

“My Edwina is not as much one for horses and sport as Kate, but I expect you’ll like an excursion well enough?” Lady Mary adds.

“Certainly I shall.” Miss Edwina agrees, in that cheerfully demure way of hers.

Anthony stands there and frowns very hard indeed. He looks around the room, at the several happy faces of the people he likes and cares about who are excited to join him on an excursion.

He supposes it makes him a terrible friend and brother that he resents their company with every fibre of his being.

He wanted to spend a bit of time with only Simon. That was important to him. He wanted a small party of gentleman friends, not half the damn ton.

He didn’t want to add fuel to these rumours about himself and Miss Edwina, either.

It’s Simon who asks the question Anthony didn’t dare to ask himself.

“Will Miss Sharma join us, do you think?”

“I expect not.” Miss Edwina says at once. “She is busy with her work during the daytime.”

“But she does like sport.” Anthony argues, too quickly. “That is - I seem to recall that she does occasionally talk about horse racing or hunting. I think I remember that, although we are not well acquainted.”

“She does like sport, but she’s devoted to her work. I’ll send a note but I expect she’ll say no.” Lady Mary decides, once and for all.

Anthony nods, and wonders whether to feign a headache tomorrow after all.

…….

He doesn’t feign that headache, in the end. He doesn’t pretend to fall ill in order to worm out of the trip he himself suggested.

He goes because he likes horse racing, because he wants to spend some time with Simon, and above all because of that tiny, awful chance that Kate might join them, too.

He knows he’s being a fool. He knows she wouldn’t want to speak to him even if she did join them. But he hasn’t yet had a chance to clear the air after her eavesdropping at the ball, and he might like to be able to show her that he’s still a gentleman, that he’s not the unrecognisable cad she evidently now thinks him - even if her good opinion cannot signify in the slightest.

He oughtn’t care what she thinks of him. It makes no difference. His plan this season is to seek a sensible match, and Kate thinking him irrevocably changed is neither here nor there.

She doesn’t show up, of course. She doesn’t join them at Ascot. She’s busy with her work, presumably. So Anthony spends the whole entire day thinking of how much she’d have liked the sport, if she were here. He thinks endlessly about how much more she’d have enjoyed it than her sister does, for example. He imagines her by his side, whooping and hollering. He thinks of her placing her bet on High Flyer, perhaps, for the big prize of the day. She’d choose the smaller, less-fancied horse just to spite him, since he has chosen Nectar, the favourite. They’d argue good-naturedly about it, and she’d emerge the winner - and he’d be content enough to lose, just for a glimpse of her victorious grin.

Then she’d take his hand, and he’d raise it to his lips for a kiss, and -

And that will never, ever happen. It can't happen at all, because he disappointed her almost a decade ago.

…….

He makes a great many morning calls to Lady Danbury’s townhouse, in the next week or fortnight or so.

He’s not calling on Miss Edwina, to be clear. He is most definitely not calling on her. He scarcely speaks to her at all, if he can help it, since he can never think of what he’d say if he did.

He calls to see Simon and Daphne and Augie, for the most part. He likes to be a devoted brother and uncle, likes to spend plenty of time with his good friend. It’s perhaps an excuse, too. He does perhaps search the room for Kate, while he’s there.

Who does he think he’s fooling? He searches for her endlessly.

He’s always, always thinking of her. He’s constantly looking for a figure he knows he won’t find silhouetted by the window, listening for a step he knows he won’t hear approaching the door.

He’s been searching for her in every doorway for the last nine years, in fact - and yet somehow, this season, he searches more desperately than ever.

He doesn’t know what to do about it. He simply does not know. He fears he’s acting like a man obsessed, always scouring the room for any sign of her, always listening to the conversation for any hint that her family thinks of her at all. He knows he is being a complete and utter fool, since Kate will never again give him the time of day if she can help it - and yet somehow, he’s powerless to stop searching for her all the same.

……..

Daphne mentions it, at one point, precisely eighteen days into this godforsaken season.

“I say, brother - did you know Miss Sharma well, when you were introduced before?”

“Not at all.” He lies, and too quickly. “Why do you ask?”

“It’s only that she dined with us last night and she asked an inordinate number of questions about your character. She thought you greatly changed in your morals and principles since she first knew you - changed for the worse, that is - but I said I didn’t see how she could judge such a thing, since she scarcely knew you then and has only seen you once this season.”

“Miss Sharma is one to be confident of any judgement formed swiftly.” He tries, with a too-careful shrug.

“That’s what I said. I said I would thank her not to judge my brother’s character on such short acquaintance. I am determined to like her, for Edwina’s sake - we are practically family - but I am most put out with her for speaking so cruelly of you.”

“You needn’t trouble yourself about it, sister. She’s simply a hot-headed sort.”

“As you say. You mustn’t give any time to her opinions, Anthony. I have decided that she has an unfortunate tendency to rudeness. I am determined to be civil, but I must speak frankly.”

“Please - don’t rise to it. It does not signify.”

She nods.

Silence falls.

Anthony counts to five. He counts each number with painstaking care, takes a shaky breath on each one.

Then he bows to the inevitable. He has made a habit of that already this season.

“How was she, would you say? Besides finding her a fraction rude - did you find her otherwise well? Is she still close with her sister? Is she in good health? Does she enjoy her work with the Smythe-Smith family?”

“I couldn’t possibly say. I scarcely know her. I suppose… she is still close with Edwina. I do know that much. And her work is evidently important to her.”

He nods.

“We must invite you next time she dines with us. If you’d like to renew the acquaintance and put to bed all this nonsense about your change of character, then I’m sure we could see to it that you’re invited next time she comes to dine.”

“I’m sure that won’t be necessary. We were only slightly acquainted before, and it sounds like she has no wish to further the acquaintance now.”

“As you like.”

It is, all things considered, one of the more excruciating conversations of his life.

…….

By the time he next sees her in the flesh, at a soiree hosted by Lady Danbury almost a month into the season, he has heard more stories about Kate than he can shake a stick at.

They’re all the same, more or less. Her sister is important to her, and her work is too. She insists that she and Anthony don’t get along, that she dislikes his character even though they are scarcely acquainted. Evidently Simon has not told even the family the truth of what happened all those years ago.

Anthony at least knows he is to see her, tonight. He won’t be taken by surprise, won’t risk her eavesdropping on one of his more unfortunate moments of ill humour.

He dresses carefully - that is, he puts a great deal of effort into appearing to have made no effort whatsoever. His coat is dark blue, plain, but perfectly tailored. His waistcoat has none of the foppish embroidery certain other young gentlemen wear.

He arrives at the soiree a precise quarter-hour late, to reduce the risk of finding himself alone with an angry Kate Sharma.

It all comes to nothing when she corners him in the card room within seconds of his arrival.

“I should have known you’d be amongst the last to arrive.” She says - and says it in a tone of accusation.

“Good evening to you, too.” He says, pointed.

She ignores him and presses on. “It’s an insult to Lady Danbury - and thus to the Hastings, too. I might have guessed you’d become a man who no longer cares for promptness or friendship.”

He raises his brows at her. “That’s quite the accusation, Miss Sharma. I rather wonder that you leap so far on so little evidence. Meanwhile I find that I must accuse you of simple rudeness - and I have plenty of evidence to prove it.”

She scoffs. “You call this rudeness? You hypocrite. Why - you care nothing for the rules of polite society. You proved that when… you’ve made it clear.” She concludes, as if suddenly realising that she cannot in fact shout at him that he jilted her in the middle of a crowded soiree. She cannot point out that a gentleman never jilts a lady, that an engagement may only be broken in the other direction.

He tries to return fire. “It’s not that I don’t care. Why - I care a great deal for politeness - it’s only that - that -”

“That you care when it suits you, and fling manners aside when they are an inconvenience.” She decides.

He stands there and simply glares at her for a moment.

He gathers himself, at length. He looks around the room, tries to ascertain whether their confrontation has drawn attention. No - the guests are all occupied with their cards. Lady Danbury is occasionally glancing over at them, but that’s the worst of it.

He’s just thinking he ought to excuse himself and flee the scene when Kate speaks once more.

“I hear you have been calling on my sister. I have been hoping for some time to catch you in order to say -”

“Calling on her?” He interrupts her, incredulous. “Whoever told you that? I’m doing no such thing.”

She frowns even harder and presses on. “I have been hoping to catch you to say that you will never marry her. You must understand that the very idea is intolerable.”

“Exactly so.” He agrees, with a firm nod. “I couldn’t possibly court your sister - you’re quite correct. That is precisely why I have not been calling on her.”

“Oh.” 

Silence. A tense, sticky silence.

And then -

“You haven’t?”

“I haven’t.”

“But she’s the diamond of the season, and you planned to court the diamond of the season. Then you’ve been calling at this house almost every day since she was named diamond. Why - my own stepmother told me that you are always here.”

“To see Hastings. To see my sister and nephew. To spend time with old friends and family - but never to court your sister. It’s as you said - the very thought of it is unthinkable.”

“Quite so.”

She falls silent.

She looks utterly taken aback, he thinks, the wind altogether fallen from her sails. 

He takes advantage of her quietness as a chance to simply look at her. It’s the first time in nine years that he has had a moment’s leisure in her company to cast his eyes up and down her figure, to search her face for any expression he might recognise. Her gaze is a little less bright than it was before, he decides, and her mouth a little more firm. 

She’s still a beauty, to be sure. He is still drawn to her too strongly for comfort, frankly. Even when she’s angry and frowning like this, she is at least a lady with light in her eyes. He always liked her fierce manners and the fire she brings to everything she says or does.

She’s still the same woman, albeit a little bruised and worn around the edges - and meanwhile, she refuses to even recognise him.

He swallows hard, tries for a conversation of sense, for a change.

“I am sorry for my thoughtless words on the terrace, but I can assure you, your sister is in no danger whatsoever from me.”

She nods, still silent.

“This is one thing we can agree on. I can never court your sister.”

Another wordless nod.

“Miss Sharma? Good God - say something, please. It’s not like you to be lost for words.”

She scowls at him, hard. “How would you know what I’m like, My Lord? Why - I am nothing to you. You made sure of that.”

She sweeps out of the room without another word. She strides clean out of there, through the door, into the drawing room beyond, presumably.

He stands there and watches her go. 

He supposes he’ll spend the rest of the evening watching the doorways for her, now.

Ah well. At least he has plenty of practice at that.

……..

He’s not courting Miss Edwina - and yet, all the same, when Lady Danbury invites him to a garden party of her suitors the following week, he does go. He attends it even though he’s not at all interested in the diamond of the season, because he likes the idea of spending the afternoon with family and old friends - and because he hopes he might search the doorways for her.

Ah. There will be no doorways, presumably, since a garden party is traditionally held out of doors.

He’ll be able to hope that Kate is eavesdropping from a nearby shrub, at least. He can at least hope for that.

This time, too, he dresses with carefully affected carelessness. He has his man tie and re-tie his cravat four times over before he declares it done.

Then he sets out to Lady Danbury’s townhouse - and then, of course, Kate is not there.

That’s just as well, he decides, or tries to decide. It’s just as well that she’s not here to shout at him or call him unrecognisable. It’s just as well that she can’t eavesdrop on him from behind the nearest hedge.

He spends his time with Simon, to begin with. But then Simon wants to talk about Daphne, about a slight hope that she might already be expecting again. So then Anthony finds that his sister is drawn into the conversation too - and then Miss Edwina with her, since those two have become firm friends, and before he knows it he stands amidst a general conversation between the whole party.

Then it gets worse. Then the young ladies take to climbing the rockery.

It’s all in good fun, of course. They’re just playing around as young people should. Why - Anthony would likely play around a good deal more, if only he worried about his family a little less. So he doesn’t take it amiss, when Daphne begins to suggest that she and Miss Edwina might climb on the rockery and jump from the top.

Daphne jumps into Simon’s arms, when she jumps down. And so she should - those two are husband and wife, more deeply in love than ever.

That’s when Anthony realises the danger.

“Who will catch me?” Miss Edwina asks aloud. “Lord Bridgerton - will you do the honours?”

“I hardly think it’s my place.” He protests mildly.

“Come, now - I’ll not make assumptions if you do. I only need a gentleman to help me down, and His Grace is otherwise occupied.”

“Then I beg you might climb down slowly and carefully, Miss Edwina. I find that I have rather lost my taste for this game.”

“Come, brother - don’t be a spoilsport. Pay him no heed, Edwina. If you jump, he will surely catch you.”

But it’s too late. Anthony has already stepped away. He meant to make a point of taking no part in their game - but now Miss Edwina is jumping, and his arms are not there, and she’s crashing to the ground with a resounding thud.

For a moment, the whole entire party is seized by an horrific stillness.

Then everyone begins to rush everywhere, all at once.

“Her head - did she hit her head?”

“Why the devil did you say that, Daphne? Why urge her on?"

“Edwina - are you well? Can you hear me, Edwina?”

“I’m perfectly well.” The young lady says, now scrambling into a sitting position. “I assure you - there’s no real harm done. I have perhaps twisted my ankle, I fear, but that’s the worst of it.”

“And your head? Did you hit your head?” Simon asks, insistent.

“I don’t believe so.”

“I will go for a physician. I’ll run and fetch one at once.” Another of the party - a Mr Bagwell - declares.

“Thank you, Mr Bagwell. That is good of you. Here - Edwina - let me help you inside.”

Daphne takes charge, then. She helps her friend to stand unsteadily, to begin hobbling up towards the house.

Anthony only stands, shocked, and stares after them.

Indeed, he’s so distracted that Simon takes him quite by surprise with one of those robust pats on the shoulder.

“Here, now, Bridgerton - there’s no real harm done. No need to look so glum about it. The young ladies were only enjoying a bit of fun, and I daresay Miss Edwina will be walking perfectly well again within days.”

“I beg they will have their fun without me in future.” He snaps, still shaken.

“Perhaps you might speak with Daphne when the shock has passed.” Simon offers, mild.

Anthony says nothing. He simply stands there and goes on staring.

Miss Edwina could have been seriously hurt, or worse. That’s what he keeps thinking of. These visits to her home, this intimacy with her family - perhaps even this rumour that he may or may not be calling on her - this all adds fuel to the fire, adds to the likelihood that an accident like this one or worse will occur. Why - young people get up to all sorts of daft games when there is flirtation in the air. He and Kate used to race like the wind when they went out riding together.

Miss Edwina might have cracked her head and died. 

Miss Edwina might think that there is flirtation in the air.

He’s not sure which frightens him more, frankly. He can’t decide which is the more horrifying. She might have jumped because she thought him keen to play her games, and she might have hurt herself very seriously indeed if she had landed more awkwardly than she did.

Either way, Kate would never forgive him.

He clears his throat, scrabbles desperately for some words.

“I beg you will pass on to Miss Sharma my most sincere apologies.”

Simon frowns. “To Miss Edwina, you mean?”

“No - to her sister. When she learns that I was involved in this unfortunate accident she is sure to be furious. So I beg you will tell her, when next you see her, that I am grievously sorry for standing by and allowing such a thing to occur. I - I beg you will tell her that I did nothing to encourage Miss Edwina to jump, but that I do understand I ought to have done more to discourage her, too.”

“Bridgerton -”

“Tell her. Please, Simon - please. I beg you will tell her that I am sorry for my part in it, and that I am certainly not courting her sister.”

“Of course. As you wish.” Simon pats again at his shoulder. “I only - I don’t think it’s necessary, Anthony. I don’t think there’s any need to say all that. Miss Sharma is a reasonable lady. She’ll not hold it against you that her sister had an accident.”

“Hrm.” Anthony manages, tight.

Simon sighs. “How is it, with her? How are the two of you managing with the season and with seeing one another from time to time?”

“It’s awful.” Anthony tells him, plain and simple. 

“I am sorry to hear it.”

“It’s excruciating, every time I see her - and yet I wish I saw her more.”

…….

Miss Edwina’s injury comes to nothing in particular, in the end. She settles in to rest comfortably, and Mr Bagwell is the hero of the hour, and it all passes by with no real damage done.

All the same, Anthony is horrified. He can’t stop thinking on it, all the rest of that day, that night, and into the next.

She might have thought he wanted to catch her. She might have broken her neck.

Still - still, after hours and days lost to thinking - he doesn’t know which is worse.

…….

A minor miracle occurs, three days later, in that he sees Kate our riding in Hyde Park.

It strikes him as an odd coincidence. He does still take a morning ride quite often, although not as consistently as he did during their brief courtship, all those years ago. And yet he’s here several mornings a week, but hasn’t seen her out yet this season - so he thinks it stands to reason that she must not be here very often at all.

He rather wonders that she’s here now, and can’t decide what to make of it.

“How is your sister?” He calls out to her at once, the very moment he hopes she might be within earshot.

“She’s fine. She’s making a good recovery.” She calls back to him, stunningly civil. “But you know that - you were there yesterday and the day before.”

“Indeed.” He concedes, cocking his head. “I suppose I only wanted you to hear me ask after her and know I wish her well - or perhaps I even mean to ask how you are feeling about your sister?”

She sighs. “I am feeling perfectly well about her - no thanks to you or any other gentleman. I take the incident as further proof if any were needed that courtship is always more trouble than it is worth.”

“I’m not courting her.” He argues at once.

She raises her brows. “You were at a garden party of her suitors. She was injured jumping into your arms.”

“Because I refused to catch her, because I am not courting her.”

Her brows climb even higher, now. “You see - more trouble than it is worth.”

“You don’t truly believe that.” He dares to point out. “I know you detest me now but you did enjoy courtship, once upon a time. We - damn it - we were happy once, Kate. You were happy to have me fall in love with you. So don’t you dare sit there and tell me courtship is always more trouble than it is worth.”

“I stand by it - every word. You weren’t worth the heartbreak.” She tells him, her chin tilted high.

“No. I expect I wasn’t.” He admits tiredly.

She pulls a sudden frown at that. “What the devil is wrong with you, Anthony? Why are you simply agreeing with me? That is not our way. Even when we were on good terms, you would argue with me at every turn.”

“I know. I think… perhaps this is how it is, when we are on poor terms. When we were courting, we argued incessantly - and now I simply haven’t the strength to argue with you every moment, Kate. So - there. There you have it. I am sorry about your sister, and I wish you both well, and I agree unreservedly that I was not worth the heartache.”

He turns and rides away from her, then. He rides away at a slow, shuffling walk, brushing clumsily at his damp eyes.

He’s walked away from her before now and lived to tell the tale, of course. But somehow, practice never makes it any easier.

…….

Lady Danbury invites him to dine on the same night as Kate, the following week, for no apparent reason whatsoever that Anthony can identify.

He does wonder if Simon has something to do with it. He regrets telling his old friend that he wished he saw Kate more, frankly. He should have put a bit more emphasis on the agony, shouldn’t have invited more pain.

She looks beautiful, as it happens. She’s wearing a gown of deep, dark purple. It’s a colour which would look meek and dull on any other lady, the sort of colour a governess to a prominent family might indeed wear. But she makes it the richest colour in the world, somehow, with the brightness of her eyes and the spirit with which she walks.

Anthony feels old and tired and tedious, as he sits across the table from her. He feels like the living embodiment of resignation, perhaps, or a cautionary illustration of disappointed love.

He knows he has only himself to blame. He is the one who called it off. A gentleman ought not jilt a lady, but he did, and now he will have to live with it all his days.

He ended it, and yet he’s pining for her, still - while she looks at him as if he is mud on her riding boot.

…….

The next ball sees the moment he truly realises she no longer needs him. That is the night he comes to understand it, once and for all.

She’s laughing with the Smythe-Smith sisters, when he first finds her, when he first settles in to watch from some few yards away across the ball room. He’s not following her around like a thief in a back alley, to be clear. He’s not watching her in a way which is odd or threatening. He’s only glad to see her, but aware he must keep his distance or risk being burnt.

She looks happy with her charges, he decides. She is evidently a great favourite in the household she has worked in all these years. He knows she’s older than any of the Smythe-Smith young ladies, but the camaraderie between them is such that he could almost believe they see her more as sister or friend than governess. Why - one of them is even adjusting a stray strand of her hair, and they’re each taking it in turns to hold one another’s reticule while they examine their dance cards and so on.

He ought to be glad that she has such good friends, but instead he’s seething with envy.

It grows worse, then. Right before his eyes, the situation deteriorates further. For all at once Mr Dorset is walking towards her, bowing over her hand and pointing to her dance card.

Anthony watches, utterly stunned, as she smiles and nods and allows herself to be led to the floor.

He can’t believe it. He simply can’t. She hasn’t danced at any other ball this season. She’s a governess, for heaven’s sake, not a debutante. She’s not here to dance. She has been quite clear that she thinks courtship and gentlemen are bad news.

So why the devil is she dancing with Mr Dorset?

Anthony can’t stop staring at the two of them, as they dance. He knows he risks drawing attention, but he’s powerless to do anything else.

He never danced with Kate like that. He spent two evenings dancing informally with her in Lady Danbury’s drawing room, once upon a time. But he’s never taken her to the floor in a ballroom, never made a show of his preference for her before a crowd.

He didn’t expect her to dance with Mr Dorset now, since she’s a governess and not looking for a husband. Would she be persuaded to look for a husband, perhaps, if Mr Dorset should happen to ask?

The very moment the set finishes, Anthony strides over there himself. He doesn’t consciously choose to do it - rather, he dashes instinctively to Kate’s side.

He arrives just after Mr Dorset has left, thank heavens. He wouldn’t be answerable for his actions if he found another gentleman still tethered to her arm.

“Lord Bridgerton.” She greets him, in a tone of audible surprise.

“Miss Sharma. Good evening. I wonder - might I have the honour of this dance?”

She stares at him in silence a moment, her eyes wide, her lips slightly parted.

And then -

“I’m afraid I can’t accept your kind invitation.” She says, all careful and tight.

“What do you mean, you can’t accept it?”

“I mean that it is not possible for me to dance with you. My ankle - I have turned my ankle.” She tells him, all in a rush.

It’s a lie - and a blatant one, at that. He never heard such an obvious lie in all his life.

And yet, somehow, she is leaning into his space even as she says it. She is tilting forward, stretching up towards him - as if her soul is dancing with him, still, even though her words refuse him.

He clears his throat. “You truly mean it? You won’t dance with me? I have come here and asked you, as gentlemanly as I can, and that is your answer?”

She shakes her head. “We can’t. You know we can’t. It would be… insupportable.”

“It would be insupportable.” He echoes back to her, quiet.

“Insupportable.”

Silence falls.

He doesn’t leave, though. He goes on standing there, and she goes on leaning in towards him, and he enjoys it far more than he ought.

She still smells the same, he notices. Her eyelashes are much as they ever were, thick and dark, framing that sharp-eyed gaze. She’s still the same height, too, and her neck is just the -

“I’d say yes if I could.” She tells him - the quietest he has ever heard her speak, he thinks. “I am quite put out with you for asking me when you know it would be insupportable.”

“You are always put out with me.” He snaps at her.

“Yes - and you with me.”

He scoffs. “Yes. So put out I would ask you to dance - and make myself a fool by your rejection." He complains, hears the hypocrisy in the complaint as he says it. "Good evening, Miss Sharma. I wish you well with your turned ankle.”

“Lord Bridgerton -”

“What?”

What do you want of me, woman?

“I - nothing. You’re quite right. I wish you a good evening.”

She is the one who walks away, tonight - and her ankle is evidently not troubling her in the slightest.

…….

Anthony spends the following fortnight feeling distinctly glum.

He has lost his taste for marrying sensibly for status, he finds. Something shifted, the night he watched Kate dance with Mr Dorset. That was the night he realised once and for all that he’ll never be able to marry some other lady for the sake of a safe, dutiful marriage.

He knows he’ll never be able to marry Kate, either, so he supposes he’ll remain a bachelor and leave Benedict to inherit. He can’t see what else is to be done.

He sleeps less than ever, that fortnight. He spends his time pacing his bedchamber, or drinking at his club, or reading the estate account books and hoping that they will send him to sleep.

He wonders whether all the rest of his life will be like this.

He feels worse than he did when he first jilted Kate, he finds. He had the fire of conviction on his side, then. He genuinely thought he was doing right. But now he can only see all the ways he has gone wrong, and he doesn’t like it.

She was right to turn him down, when he asked her to dance. He would, too, in her shoes.

He counts his mistakes, sometimes, in the early hours of the morning. He ought to have stood by her, when Simon suggested he had fallen for her too fast. He ought at least to have gone looking for her sooner. In fact - he might have made a promise to marry her as soon as he finished at Oxford. They might have had a long engagement, then been married with four children in the nursery by now. No one could have objected to a long engagement, under the circumstances.

She might have loved him, still, if he had asked her for that.

…….

He is very determinedly drowning his sorrows in his brandy glass when Simon takes him to task.

“Ah - let me guess. Miss Sharma has lately upset you again? She has told you that she still does not recognise you?” Simon asks, claiming the seat opposite him at White’s.

Anthony frowns. “She’s not said anything to me in a week or more.”

“So that is why you are upset? She’s ignoring you? Good God, man - you two do know how to have a tiff.”

“It’s not a tiff. It can only be called a tiff if the two parties are lovers.” Anthony insists, all drunkenly petulant - and then drains his glass.

“Mmm. I find myself rather confused that you two are not, frankly. I never knew two people make such heavy work of falling in love as you two have done this season. I must say - I don’t understand the difficulty in the slightest.”

“Whatever do you mean? Speak sense, man.”

“You’re drunk, Bridgerton. You are drunk - or at least halfway there, yet again - and I am worried for you. What’s more, I cannot understand why you and Miss Sharma have not set a wedding date already.”

Anthony gapes at him. “Are you out of your mind? She detests me. She loathes me. She hasn’t a good word to say about me, and we haven’t had a civil conversation since the day I told her I would not marry her nine years ago.”

“She certainly does not detest you.” Simon argues, mild, infuriatingly calm. “She is often displeased with you - I’ll allow that - but I’m convinced she is nowhere close to detesting you. I think we had better discuss it, Bridgerton. I’ve a mind to try to get you to see sense.”

“What’s that?”

“I don’t see the difficulty. I simply do not understand. I cannot fathom why you have not simply thrown yourself into courting her and declared yourself to her. It’s plain to see that you still harbour some significant affection for her, and she’s evidently not unaffected by you.”

“She isn’t?” Anthony asks, too quickly.

“She does complain about you heartily - in other words, she protests too much, if you take my meaning.”

He scoffs, chokes a little on the noise. “That’s hardly a promising sign.”

“I just don’t understand why -”

“Because she looks straight through me.” Anthony half-cries at him, there in a corner of White’s. “She scorns me at every opportunity. Besides - she has no need of a husband. She has evidently decided that she likes the life of an unmarried lady.”

“Anthony Bridgerton. Why must you persist in this - this delusion? Why are you determined to be so dense? She likes no such thing. It is plain that is is you who put her off marriage.”

“I fail to see how that is a good thing.”

“It means she is affected by you! It means your rejection is still of significance to her. I expect if you threw yourself at her feet tomorrow, she’d like to hear whatever you might say. Why - only last week I heard her say to her sister that ladies love longest when all hope is lost. If you now give her a glimpse of hope after all, I expect she might surprise you for the better.”

“She said that?”

“She said those exact words.”

“Ah.”

Anthony’s still not sure he believes it, he finds. It doesn’t entirely sound true that she might speak with her sister in such terms, that she might call herself and all her sex capable of pining uselessly for a gentleman.

And yet - there’s a sudden flare of hope in his chest which he hasn’t felt in years.

He gathers himself. He tries not to get carried away. He tries to recall how many drinks he has had, too, and whether it’s enough that he ought to worry about walking home.

Then he asks Simon a particular question.

“Why are you trying so hard, Hastings? Why are you so determined to have me to pursue her, now, when it was you who first convinced me to give her up?”

“Because I was wrong.” Simon says, plain and simple.

“I beg your pardon?”

“I was wrong. I was utterly mistaken. That wasn’t shallow passion - I see it now. She’s a perfect match for you, and you simply saw it more swiftly than I did. Every time I so much as hear her speak, lately, I think of how beautifully she would fit together with you. And every time she mentions you, I am more and more furious with myself for driving the two of you apart.”

“I should have ignored you. I should have held to my convictions. If I were a better man -”

“Leave it, Bridgerton. I don’t know any man better. Now stop drinking and get yourself home. Tomorrow you’ve a young lady to woo.”

…….

He doesn’t woo her tomorrow, in the end.

There’s no convenient moment. He doesn’t see her, from one day to the next, since she’s a governess and he’s an eligible bachelor. A braver man might perhaps pay a call on her - might walk into her employers’ home and beg to see her - but he is demonstrably not that man.

He bides his time, instead, for the next few days. He makes his plans, confers a little with his mother and with Simon, even tries to plan a few words.

Then, at last, when he next sees her standing at the edge of a ballroom, he approaches her and tries to open a conversation under the cover of the music.

“Miss Sharma? Might I beg a moment of your time?” He asks her plainly.

She raises her brows. “I can’t imagine what you could possibly have to say to me.”

“There’s no need to take that tone. We were well acquainted once.” He argues hotly.

He hears himself and regrets it, frankly. That’s no way to win her affection, no way to convince her to look kindly on him once again.

Sure enough -

“Were we?” She asks, all sharply ironic. “I must have forgotten.”

“I know you haven’t. Please, Miss Sharma - I would earnestly speak with you. Hastings thinks that it is I who put you off marriage and that my rejection is still of significance to you.” He tries.

That’s a mistake, too, it turns out. That has her spitting fire worse than ever.

“Does he? Does Hastings think that, hmm? Do the two of you discuss such things? Do you crow about your power behind my back?”

“Miss Sharma -”

“Does that make you proud, Lord Bridgerton? Are you flattered to hear that you must take the credit for my spinsterhood?”

She’s wholeheartedly furious at him, he realises, and he doesn’t blame her.

“This is not how I wanted this conversation to turn out.” He tries next, more desperate still.

She laughs a hollow laugh. “I can’t imagine what that’s like, My Lord. I can’t at all imagine what it’s like to have a conversation go awry. It’s not as if I have ever begun a conversation with a gentleman expecting a marriage proposal and instead been sent packing in - in damn humiliating tears.

“I’m sorry.” He tells her plainly, hears the wobble in his own voice. “I don’t know what you’d have me say. I’m ashamed of it to this day.”

“Ashamed?” She asks, a different sort of sharp, as if suddenly rather more interested in the conversation.

“As I said.” He agrees, tight, level, with a careful nod. “I was weak to let you go. I ought to have had the courage of my convictions and pressed on with a proposal. I have regretted it at length and - and I am ashamed of using you so ill.”

“Hastings has told me several times that it was he who talked you out of it, but I’m convinced he’s only trying to soften my wrath out of friendship.” She says, the tone taking it half way to a question.

“It’s true - he did, but I oughtn’t have listened.”

She’s frowning at him, now. She’s frowning and not spitting fire.

He pushes his luck. “I wanted to speak to you tonight.”

“Yes. So you’ve said.” She agrees.

“I have a particular purpose in mind. I want to invite you for a visit to Aubrey Hall - you, your family, and the Hastings too.”

“To what end? You have decided to take an interest in the diamond of the season after all, and you want my approval for the visit?” She asks in a rush.

He frowns at her. Did she not understand what he lately said about regret and shame?

“I mean it as a compliment to you.” He tells her firmly.

“To me?”

“I mean to invite you personally to visit, and I mean for us to have a chance to get reacquainted, if you’ll allow it. I never did invite you to Aubrey Hall, before - back when - when… you know.”

“You would invite my family to your home on my account?” She asks, eyes wide.

“Yes.”

“Truly? Why? How? I’ve done nothing but lose my temper at you since we were reintroduced.”

That startles a short laugh out of him as he nods at her. “Yes. It’s true, yet all the same… I have looked for you in every doorway of every drawing room this season.”

“You have?”

“I have.” He tells her, meets her eyes as he says it. “I suspect I always will. It is a source of great annoyance to me that you are never in Lady Danbury’s drawing room in a morning. I know you are devoted to your work as well as your family, but it is most inconvenient. I should like to see you a good deal more often than I do. I - I meant just exactly what I said. I am ashamed of what I said and did nine years ago, and I humbly beg you for a chance to be reacquainted properly after all these years.”

She nods.

She’s still frowning, to be sure. She still looks entirely and absolutely unhappy with him.

And yet, all the same - she is nodding.

“In that case… I suppose I’ll come to Aubrey Hall.”

“You will?” He asks, feels his heart leap in his chest.

She nods a bit more, still frowning as hard as ever.

And then -

“I don’t know what to say.” She tells him, hands spread wide. “I didn't expect you to say you were ashamed. I certainly didn’t expect such an invitation - and least of all as a compliment to me. You have taken me entirely by surprise. I shall have to… consider your words, I suppose.”

“Yes. Of course.”

Silence falls.

He doesn’t dislike it, he decides.

Yes, to be sure, it’s not like their old way of bickering and challenging one another all the time. But he likes it a good deal better than the truly angry arguments he has known this season. He likes to think that they are capable of standing quietly, side by side in a ballroom, and grappling with the news that he’d do anything to renew their acquaintance.

Kate does seem a touch less angry with him now, he thinks - or at least, he hopes she does.

He clears his throat. “I hope you will enjoy your visit. I am all eagerness to introduce you to the household and estate. And I hope that perhaps - if I’m very lucky - perhaps you might even enjoy my company.”

“I hope so too.”

Another beat of silence.

And then -

“You’re entirely in earnest? You - you mean it? You truly wish to renew our acquaintance and spend that much more time with me, after I’ve been so angry at you all season?”

“Yes. I still recognise you. You’re still… still Kate.”

She’s nodding harder than she’s frowning, now. “Perhaps I oughtn’t have said what I did at the beginning of the season. Perhaps I shouldn’t have called you unrecognisable.” She allows. “I do still recognise you more often than not. It’s only a nasty shock that sometimes I don’t - a nasty shock which always reminds me of that day I had the nastiest shock of all.”

“I can well understand that, I believe. I’m sorry for it.”

She nods, silent, her frown easing a little further.

“Perhaps I should leave you in peace?” He thinks to ask now. “As you said - you’ll have much to consider.”

“I - no. Please don’t go.” She counters at once. “Please can we just have a little pleasant conversation first, just for a few minutes? Could we spend some time speaking cordially together after all these years? Perhaps we might discuss what we’ll do at Aubrey Hall?”

It’s his turn to nod hard, now. “I’d like that. I have been daydreaming about it ever since I had the idea. I hope we’ll spend a good deal of time pratting about outside together and getting up to all sorts of mischief - lawn games and riding too fast and so on.”

“Yes. I’d like that. And I hope to get to know your family. The Duchess of Hastings is the only one I know well and she dislikes me heartily.”

He laughs. “She doesn’t truly dislike you. It’s a long story, and I expect you can guess the greater half of it. She is offended on my behalf that you’ve been so angry with me this season, since she doesn't know about - about us. I promise you and she will get along once you’re at Aubrey Hall and… once you and I begin to sort ourselves out.”

“I’m coming to Aubrey Hall.” She says now, in a tone of wonder. “You’ve invited me to Aubrey Hall as your particular guest.”

“Trust me - I am certainly more stunned that you simply said yes than you are stunned at my asking the question.” He tells her.

She laughs - a cautious sound, but a laugh all the same. “Perhaps so.”

“Do you still ride often? Will you wish to ride extensively while you’re visiting?” He tries.

“I do, and I will.”

Silence falls again.

He wonders what to do about it. He and Kate were always very talkative together, before. But all the same, awkward silences or not, he is delighted with how this conversation has turned out. He never dared to hope that she would so swiftly decide to accept his invitation and indulge his wish to spend time closely with her once again.

He won’t ask her to dance. He decides that, as the silence lingers. They’re in a ballroom, so it might seem the natural topic to broach during a lull in conversation, but he still hasn’t recovered at all from that failed attempt to dance with her not so long ago.

Perhaps he must simply accept that a bridge cannot be rebuilt in a day.

He clears his throat. “Will you tell me a little more about your riding, or should I leave you alone with your thoughts?” He simply asks her.

“I hardly know. I - I don’t know what to say.”

“No. Me neither.”

Silence falls again.

“Could I stand here a while, at least?” He dares to ask. “I don’t mean to trouble you, and I haven’t anything particular to say, but - Good Lord, Kate - I’ve missed you so much. I know I have no right to say such things. I know I don’t deserve to miss you. But - but if I might just stand next to you and know that you’re here and that you’ll come to Aubrey Hall for a visit before too long…?”

“You may stand there as long as you like. I might like that, too.”

“Thank you.”

“If I think of anything to say, you’ll be the first to know.”

“I look forward to it.”

“I’m sure I’ll have found my tongue by the time I come to Aubrey Hall. I’ll be my usual troublesome self.” She says, the light perhaps just beginning to return to her eyes.

He grins, throws her a fond look - too fond, perhaps, but he’s powerless to look any less fond, on such an auspicious night as this.

“See to it that you do, please. A troublesome Miss Sharma is much my favourite sort.”

She laughs at that - another short, stiff laugh, but again he likes it very well for being a laugh at all.

He might stand here in awkward silence all the rest of the evening, he decides.

He expects it to be his favourite evening in almost a decade.

…….

She still looks stiff and tense as anything when she arrives on the driveway at Aubrey Hall ten days later.

He does his best not to fret about that. Naturally she looks a bit uncomfortable about the whole situation. He jilted her, then suddenly begged her to walk back into his life. It’s obviously an awkward state of affairs.

At least she’s not overly angry with him, as he hands her down from her carriage. She’s not shouting or raving or calling him unrecognisable.

She’s just a little… meek, and it’s not like her.

“Thank you, My Lord.”

“I bid you a warm welcome to Aubrey Hall. I hope you will find your chamber to your liking. I thought perhaps a few moments to settle in, and then a tour of the house?”

“Whatever you think best.”

He hesitates a moment. He stands there, watches her guarded eyes and the tight twist to the corner of her lips.

He had best try for a moment of honesty, he decides.

“You’re perfectly welcome to disagree with me. Indeed - I like it when you disagree with me. I have always thought it a sign of honesty and respect before all else. So - please - you needn’t pack your high spirits and your temper into an overly tight jar just because you are a visitor in my home.”

She nods, quirks a small smile. “Thank you. I’ll bear that in mind.”

He wonders whether she’ll ever love him again.

It seems the natural thing to wonder, in this moment. It’s the question he asks himself as he watches her plainly grapple with the awkwardness and oddness of their situation.

To be sure, she has decided to forgive and indulge him far enough to visit his home as his particular guest. But this afternoon he finds that he suddenly understands all too well the vast distance between that and anything like love. Why - there’s every chance that she’ll never look on him with genuine warmth again. He might spend months watching that guarded look in her eyes and ultimately find that there’s no putting right what he did wrong all those years ago.

He takes an unsteady breath. This is not the time or place for such vast worries as those. This is the time and place to be grateful that she’s here at all - and to try to look at least a little like a man worth loving.

So -

“I am very glad that you’re here. I’ll leave you to rest a little while, if that suits you?”

“Yes. Thank you. I hope you mean to conduct this tour yourself?”

He does break into a smile at that. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

…….

She’s still quiet, as he shows her around the house. She’s still not herself, when they sit side by side at dinner.

But she does tell him plainly that she’s grateful for the invitation, and he knows her well enough to know she’d never say such a thing unless she meant it. She is always honest to a fault.

He goes to bed that night in high spirits, even though he fears Kate might never fall in love with him again. He’s simply so delighted to have her in the halls of his home where he always imagined her that he finds he’s able to keep his mind off worries like that.

She didn’t seem unhappy, he decides, as he lies there and stares at the ceiling. She didn’t call his home a wretched place, didn’t call him a cad and a rake. So he thinks he must call that a fair beginning to this visit and to their getting properly reacquainted.

He dreams of more, to be sure. He lies there and wishes for everything. He thinks of how utterly wonderful it would be if she threw him a heated look over the dinner table, or invited herself along on his morning ride, or reached for his arm on the walk into dinner and clung to it fast.

He dreams of little things like that far more than he dreams of her speaking of love. He wishes for what feels possible, perhaps just a stretch beyond the cordiality and pledges to get reacquainted which they have already managed.

He likes to dream dreams which teeter just on the edge of being realistic.

There’s more to hope for, that way.

…….

He expects more of the same, the next day. He expects that she will stay quieter than he remembers her, that her eyes will stay guarded, her expression a little sad.

He tries his hardest. He offers her first pick of the mallets, for example, when it is decided that the whole party will play at pall mall. She chooses his usual mallet - even chooses it with something resembling her usual decisiveness and vigour - and he makes a great show of being a gentleman and allowing her to use it.

She smiles at him a little for that, and it makes his year.

Little by little, the morning exceeds his expectations. Kate indulges him in a short conversation about the tactics for the game, then enlists his help in sabotaging Colin. She seems to be getting along better with Daphne, too, as the two of them laugh briefly about some point Anthony has not entirely understood.

Then Simon hits Anthony's ball far out into the woods beyond the lawn, and Daphne hits Kate’s in much the same direction, and a brief moment of indecision follows.

“What happens now?” Kate asks, frowning.

“We either go after our balls or forfeit the game.”

“I can’t possibly forfeit. I have never abandoned a game in my life.” She declares.

“Then we go over there and find them.”

There’s a moment of silence - just one heartbeat spent waiting, perfectly balanced, to see which way the morning will fall.

Then Kate simply starts striding off towards the woods.

“Are you forfeiting, Lord Bridgerton?” She calls over her shoulder at him as she goes.

“Certainly not.” He tells her, and scrabbles to catch up.

She throws him a look for that. It’s a look he can’t entirely read, he finds - but he knows it’s a spirited and argumentative sort of look, rather more like the looks they used to share.

He grins a bit and follows a touch more closely.

“I should have known you wouldn’t be beaten.” He tells her fondly.

“I don’t give up. Not ever.” She reminds him.

He wonders whether that’s true of gentlemen or only lawn games.

He is still gathering his thoughts when she speaks up again. “Must you have such a large lawn, Lord Bridgerton? We’ll be walking half the morning to find these lost balls.”

“Ah. My sincere apologies, Miss Sharma. You’d have the lawn be smaller for your convenience - I quite understand.” He offers, in an ironic sort of tone.

She throws him another of those looks and keeps on walking.

“Might I dare to observe that you appear to be enjoying this game?” He tries carefully.

Her brows shoot up her forehead at that. “Come, now, Anthony - that’s not like you. That must be the most cautious thing I ever heard you say in my life.”

He laughs a little. “You’re quite right. Here - let me try again.” He clears his throat theatrically. “You, Kate Sharma, are having fun - and it suits you.”

“Mmm - I am, rather. I do like a morning of stiff competition. And your sister has stopped looking at me like she’d poison my tea.”

“Ah - so that is why you avoid drinking tea.”

She makes a point of not laughing at that. He watches her mouth work, sees the effort it takes her to keep a straight face while he’s mucking around with such dull jokes.

That’s something, then. That’s a bit of progress.

They arrive at the woods, find their lost pall mall balls swiftly enough. The two of them are conveniently close together in a generous patch of mud, well-hidden from the house by the thickness of the tree cover.

“We’ll never be able to get them from here back in range of the wickets in one stroke. We’ll have a nightmare weaving around the trees.” He notes idly.

“It’s worse than that - we’ll never get them clear of the mud in the first place.” She argues, poking her ball experimentally with her mallet.

“Here - let me try.”

“Ah. Of course. I’m sure you have far greater talents at mud-fishing than I.” She offers, again in that ironic tone.

He grins at her. He’s having rather a pleasant morning, he decides. It’s good to see the old Kate - the Kate he first fell in love with - coming back out to play.

He fails to push his ball clear, too. The mud is dense and sticky, and there’s nothing to be done.

“I’m going in.” He declares, lifts his right foot - and then realises he can’t decide where to place it.

“You’re going in slowly.”

“I’m going in, but in my own time.”

She laughs at that - a proper, full laugh - and then simply strides directly into the middle of the mire.

He gasps. “Kate.”

“What? You were making no progress. Here.” She hits her ball free. “Shall I get yours, too?”

“I can fetch my own pall-mall ball.” He says, in a petulant sort of tone which makes him feel like a child - and which evidently amuses Kate very much indeed.

She hits his ball free and pulls a face at him for good measure.

That’s when she goes to step out of the mud again, and realises she can’t.

“I’m stuck.” She tells him, frowning.

“So you are. I am sorely tempted to leave you there to teach you a lesson about manners.” He teases.

She raises her brows. “You wouldn’t dare. Why - you arranged this entire visit to win my good opinion. You’d not risk angering me now.”

“Is it working?”

“What?”

“Is it working?” He asks, grinning. “Has it turned out, would you say? Am I winning your good opinion? Is your opinion of me improving during every moment you spend stuck in the mud at my ancestral home?”

She scoffs. “You know full well it is working, Anthony. Now help me out of this mess.”

He gives way, at that. He suspects he always will give way, when she offers him a warm word or a bit of encouragement. He’s so weak for her approval that it ought to be embarrassing, frankly.

He wonders whether this is why she hid behind all those sharp words, in the early part of the season. It is awfully frightening to still have a weakness for a person who doesn’t feel the same.

He pushes that thought aside, stretches his hand out towards her. She doesn’t just take his hand, but rather clasps his arm near the elbow, so he wraps his hand around her arm in turn.

Then he decides he had better do the thing properly, and reaches his other hand to her other arm, too.

“On three.” He tells her, now.

“Are you counting down, or counting up? Will you say now?”

“For heaven’s sake, Kate - now.”

He pulls hard. She pulls harder.

He ends up sprawled on top of her in the mud.

He can’t entirely understand how it has happened. He’s a fraction taller than her, and more sturdy in his build. He ought to be stronger. He ought to have pulled her over towards him, if anything. But somehow, she’s lying flat on her back in the mud, and he’s lying sprawled on top of her.

He reaches for a hand, tries instinctively to push himself up and away at the shoulders, and finds that his hand squelches wetly in the mud.

“I - excuse me - I didn’t mean -” He tells her, flustered. He would hate for her to think he engineered this deliberately for a chance to be near to her.

She thinks no such thing, evidently. He infers that when she begins laughing very loudly indeed.

He lasts perhaps a second before he joins in. She’s quite correct - the situation is thoroughly absurd. It’s likely the funniest thing which has happened to him since he broke his own heart and hers nine years ago, he thinks. Why - he has been so careful to avoid making her uncomfortable, if he can, and now they’re all but cuddling in the mud together.

“I see your shoulders are much as they ever were.” She tells him, as her laughter begins to subside. “I have lately had a chance to examine them much more closely than I expected.”

“They’re not the same as they were a decade ago. I’ll have you know I’ve filled out.” He argues cheerfully.

She laughs even harder at that.

“We should get up.” He manages, now.

“You’re the one on top, Anthony. Why - if I didn’t know better, I’d almost think you like to -”

“That’s quite enough of that, thank you.”

He scrambles to his feet. His hands and arms and knees are utterly covered in mud, but all the same he reaches an arm out towards her once more.

She ignores him, simply rolls herself onto her hip, then her front, then stands up carefully.

“Did you get up like that just to cover yourself entirely in mud? You were worried that your front felt left out?” He asks, bemused.

“I decided I didn’t trust your help any more, sir.” She accuses him fondly.

“Perhaps wise.”

“Very wise. Now, come on - we’ve a game to win.”

“Yes. One of us must win. That’s what I have decided.”

"I couldn't agree more."

He grins at her. That’s all the victory he needs today, he decides. He knows that she’s the most competitive person on this earth - or the second most competitive after himself, at any rate - so if she has decided he would be an acceptable winner, then that must mean she’s feeling quite fondly towards him after all. He simply can’t interpret her words any other way.

She looks happy, he thinks. Now, after all that laughter in the mud, she finally looks wholeheartedly happy. She’s smiling, throwing him the occasional warm look. He knows she’s not engaging in any sort of flirtation deliberately - he knows she’s just being Kate Sharma, just enjoy a morning the way she enjoys life best - but all the same, he couldn’t be more pleased with this turn of events.

So -

“Thank you for running this errand in the mud with me.” He tells her, mock-solemn.

“Thank you for introducing me to this wonderful game. I shall expect a rematch tomorrow if this mishap prevents us from challenging for the victory.”

“Certainly - as you wish. I’m all for second chances.”

…….

All is well in his world, more or less, after that.

At dinner that night she calls him an annoyance three times over, and says it in such a fond tone that he can’t help but throw her an unguarded smile. Then, in the drawing room after dinner, Francesca plays the pianoforte while he and Kate discuss what they’d each do differently to win next time they play pall mall.

They confirm once and for all that they will play again tomorrow afternoon, even if no one else in the party is interested in a second match - even if it’s just the two of them hitting balls around the too-large lawn of his ancestral home.

When the time comes to part ways that evening, Anthony finds that he is feeling confident enough to ask her a most particular question.

“Will you ride with me in the morning?” He asks plainly. “I assure you I mean nothing improper by the invitation - we will take a chaperone. It’s only that I would like nothing more than to show you this estate from horseback after all these years.”

“I’d like that. What time? Dawn is early at this time of year.”

“Good Lord - we’re not going out at dawn. No - I’m a gentleman of leisure, and a good deal more civilised than I was at twenty.” He teases at his own expense. “Shall we go out at seven, perhaps?”

“Seven? We might as well go after lunch.” She jokes in turn. “Go on, then - seven.”

“I’ll see you at the stable yard? And I’ll arrange the chaperone.”

“Thank you.”

He smiles a little, nods, goes to bow over her hand and say goodnight.

Then she says something that surprises him.

“On reflection, I begin to think that is just about the only thing which has changed.”

“Hmm?”

“You’re easily recognisable - I ought to have said it sooner. But you’re evidently one for sleeping a whole hour or so later in the morning than you were as a young man.”

He snorts out a laugh. “I’m still young by any sensible definition of the word.”

“Perhaps.”

“Truly - that is what you have decided? I’m not so much changed - only my sleeping habits?”

“Mmm - or something very like that, at least.”

“Thank you.” He tells her, finds himself a little choked by the compliment. He understands that it’s a rather enormous one, even if it’s also unusual.

She shrugs, as if to say that it’s only the truth.

He clears his throat with difficulty, tells her a bit about his feelings in turn. “I cannot help but notice that you are not changed at all.”

She scoffs. “I know you mean to flatter me, My Lord, but it’s not true - not in the slightest. I’m more short-tempered than I used to be. I am more cynical, more inclined to think ill of others, more -”

“You’re still you.” He tells her, firm, and rather too loud for a quiet conversation at the end of the evening.

She actually meets his eye, at that. She meets his gaze head on, gives the slightest, barest nod.

“I’ll see you in the morning.” She says now.

“Yes. I look forward to it.”

“As do I.” She says, and means it.

Huh. Evidently he’s relearning how to read her, a little at a time.

…….

They have a wonderful morning out riding, racing about the place and jumping every interesting fence they find.

They do occasionally say a few words about the estate or the weather or the quality of the horses, but for the most part they spend the time very deliberately on renewing their acquaintance with each other. She wants to know how he feels about being brother to so many siblings, these days, since she recalls it always used to be his greatest pride and his greatest trial, both at once. He wants to hear what she likes about being a governess - and what she doesn’t like about it, too.

And then, as they are ambling back into the stableyard, he gathers his courage for a particular question.

“I hope you are enjoying your visit so far?”

“I am. I’ll enjoy it that much more if you’ll play that ridiculous lawn game with me again this afternoon.” She tells him brightly.

He grins, nods a moment. “And I hope it’s not too quiet for your tastes? I hope you’re not left wishing that we invited more company? My mother was all for throwing a ball in your honour and having half the ton here for a house party with hunting and picnics and so on, but I thought you might prefer to spend a few days quietly getting reacquainted.”

“Thank you - I like it as is.”

“It’s selfish of me to refuse to invite others, perhaps.” He muses. “I didn’t only keep it a small party for your sake. I also wanted to relive my memories of getting acquainted with you quietly at Lady Danbury’s home in the first place. I do like to simply go out riding with you.”

“As do I.” She tells him, and throws him a smile.

He nods, keeps moving, on past the gate.

She’s quieter than he recalls. She’s still quieter, even now - even when she’s chattier with him than she has been all season - and it makes him wonder whether he’s still doing something wrong. It makes him wonder whether he will ever be able to show her kindness enough to outweigh the morning he broke her heart.

He’s just beginning to fret about that when she speaks again.

“Shame about the hunt.” She says simply.

“Hmm?”

“It is a shame that you told your mother we wouldn’t want to hunt.” She clarifies. “I for one always like to hunt - and since you and I are enjoying getting reacquainted and have had a pleasant time riding this morning, I begin to think that we’d have enjoyed hunting together too.”

“I’m sure we could put together a small hunting party.” He rushes to offer. “Just me and my brothers - and just game birds, perhaps?”

“Good heavens, Anthony - you really are keen to win my good opinion.” She says, in an exasperated sort of tone.

“Is it so obvious?”

She laughs a tight little laugh. “Yes - it is obvious, and yet I must say that is for the best. I’d never stand a hope of noticing or understanding if it were less obvious. I hardly know whether I’m coming or going since this season brought you back into my life.”

“You needn’t fret, sweetheart, truly - I’ll not let you down twice.” He tells her at once. “I - I hardly know how to -”

“Please - no.” She interrupts him, firm, her jaw tight and chin lifted high. “Don’t call me that. Not when… when - we are as we are.”

“But perhaps we could -”

“No. Come along - another lap of this home paddock? Another race?” She asks, determinedly bright.

He sits there a moment, atop his horse, and considers the situation.

They have just ridden through the gate. This was to be the end of their ride. But evidently his calling her sweetheart has her wanting to run for the hills and yet spend the rest of the morning with him, both at once. That’s the only way he can understand her sudden enthusiasm for riding a bit longer.

And - well - he is keen to win her good opinion, isn’t he? She just lately noticed that. He has been falling over himself to appeal to her however he can.

So -

“Another lap of this paddock and the meadow beyond? One last race out on that straight which is good for a gallop?” He asks, pointing back the way they just came.

She rides off without a word - without waiting for him in the slightest - and yet with a grin thrown over her shoulder all the while.

…….

He tries not to let that moment get to him.

He tries not to think too hard about her refusing to have him call her his sweetheart.

He tries not to smother her with his attentions, in short. He tries to leave her the time and space to get acquainted with the estate and his family, to reflect on her situation and his renewed devotion.

He tries so damn hard, and he’s not sure it does any good.

He mentions it to Simon, more or less, some week or so into the visit.

“I must thank you for urging me to pursue Miss Sharma again. I’d have buried my head in the sand all season if you hadn’t talked me into setting things straight with her.” He tries.

Simon raises his brows. “I certainly can’t accept your thanks, since I am the person who persuaded you away from her in the first place.”

“It was bound to happen, I think. If not you then… someone. Perhaps I would even have backed away from her on my own. Why - I agreed with you far too easily. I hadn’t the courage of my own convictions. I was too fresh from losing my father and too ready to doubt love. But I know what I am about, now.” He decides, once and for all.

Simon grins at him. “I’m glad to hear it. And she seems inclined to welcome your suit?”

“I’m not entirely sure. She has been so good as to tolerate my company despite all the bad blood between us at the start of this season.” Anthony muses. “She has often chosen a seat next to me this week, or agreed to ride out with me in a morning. She does look at me like she knows me, now - she doesn’t look straight through me any longer.”

“I should rather say that she looks at you like she’s in love with you.” Simon says, somehow mild yet firm, both at once, as is his way.

Anthony half-grimaces at that. “I’m not so sure. I wouldn’t say that - not yet. And… I think perhaps it takes more than love to make a love match after all. Perhaps that is what I realise, now, looking back on the mistakes I made a decade ago.”

“You’re becoming quite the evangelical when it comes to love.”

Anthony laughs. “Something like that, perhaps.” A messy, chuckling sigh. “Good Lord, Hastings - I can’t believe she’s even speaking to me. I can’t believe she’s here at all. It feels far too good to be true. I am such a lucky man.”

Simon laughs very hard indeed, at that. “That’s what love is, Bridgerton. Why - that’s what I think every single morning when I wake and remember that I’m married to Daphne. I can’t believe she’s there, and I recall that I’m the luckiest man on this earth.”

“So you mean to say it is always like that? If - if by some miracle she does consent to marry me, one of these days - then I’ll feel this sense of good luck and joy and something a little like relief, all the rest of my days?”

“That’s precisely it. I tell you - it’s the best feeling on this earth, and I’m still not entirely accustomed to it.”

…….

Anthony is trying to leave Kate her time and space when the thunderstorm hits.

It’s early afternoon. He’s seeing to his accounts, and he last left Kate in the drawing room with the other ladies. They rode together this morning, and they’ll dine together tonight, but he would hate to be troublesome or overbearing when she’s only just becoming accustomed to his presence in her life once more.

That resolution to leave her some time and space lasts just until he hears the first rumble of thunder. Then he decides he simply must go looking for her.

It’s only what a good, caring suitor would do. He knows she hates thunderstorms even more than he does. He thinks perhaps he will suggest that one of his sisters plays calming music on the pianoforte, or else he’ll walk slow lengths of the long gallery with Kate breathing carefully and holding his arm.

He finds her dashing down the hallway as if she was seeking him out, too.

“Kate?” He asks, concerned.

“Anthony, hello. I - I thought you were in the study. I thought I might pop in and suggest - I hardly know - a walk around the corridors, perhaps.” She says, in a state of visible discomposure.

“I thought something similar.”

She nods, silent. He dares to reach out, slowly, thinking to take her hand.

Then a thunderclap sounds and she leaps into his arms.

It’s evidently instinctive, on her part. It’s evidently not something she chooses to do, not a conscious decision. She hasn’t weighed up his disloyalty against his warmth, decided rationally that it’s time to trust him with an embrace.

She’s simply scared of the thunder and desperate for his arms.

That’s his understanding of the situation, at least. So he holds her as tight as he dares, one arm around her waist, his other hand cupping the back of her head, encouraging her to nestle in against his neck.

“There now, sweetheart.” He murmurs to her. “You're safe - safe and well. I’ll be by your side until the storm passes.”

“Thank you.”

Then she seems to shake herself, as she stiffens slightly in his arms.

“I beg your pardon - I ought not -”

“Hush, sweetheart. It’s quite alright.”

She hums - an empty sound which tells him less than nothing.

He tries again. “What can I do for your comfort? Some quiet music? That walk in the halls? Or just - this?” He asks, and presses a little more firmly at her waist.

“There is one thing.”

“Anything - only tell me.”

Another thunderclap sounds, and she snuggles a fraction closer once more.

He squeezes that hand at her waist, tries humming quietly under his breath. He’s worried about her, he decides - worried about how upset she must be to let her walls crumble to dust and throw herself into his arms - and although he knows none of the party or servants would gossip about her reputation, he does think that her embracing him openly in the corridor of his home is an interesting choice to make.

She didn’t choose it, of course. The thunder chose it for her.

“Anything?” She asks now.

“Mmm.”

He always thought her a brave woman, but now she asks him the bravest question he ever heard. 

“Could you fall in love with me again, please?” She asks.

He laughs - a sudden, shocked laugh, a laugh which is a little wild about the edges. “That’s one thing I can’t do for you, sweetheart, since I never stopped loving you in the first place. I’m sorry, but I can’t fall in love with you again now, when I’m entirely convinced I’ve been in love with you all along.”

“You have?”

“Yes.”

She sighs softly, clings to him a fraction closer. “That’s good. I like the sound of that.”

The thunder rumbles again, but she doesn’t stiffen half so much this time. She simply stands there in his arms a moment and breathes.

It’s one of the happier moments of his life, he decides - and certainly the happiest thunderstorm he has ever known.

“So - I must just ask - perhaps this means you’ve decided you’re not averse to my attentions?” He forces himself to check.

“You could put it that way.” She allows. “Or perhaps - if I’m to be truly honest - I’m still very much in love with you, too.”

He sighs in relief, presses his cheek against her hair. “Marry me, Kate? Please, sweetheart? Please will you be my wife at last?” He half-begs her.

“Yes.”

“Thank God. I’m only sorry it took me so long. I shall spend all the rest of my days making good on it - I promise you that. I shall spend the next two decades at least loving you twice as loudly to make up for the decade I missed out.”

They’re laughing together, now. She’s still in his arms, half-squealing with joy, the sound of it drowning out the receding thunder as it moves onwards and away.

“Anthony?”

“Yes, sweetheart?” He asks - and decides that he’s not only imagining the way she holds him tighter when he says it. She definitely does react each and every time he calls her his sweetheart, and he likes it that way.

“Can we take a ride when the weather clears? Could we ride together while you tell me even more about this estate which is to be our home and I - I could simply listen to your voice and see you look at me with those eyes of yours?”

“God, Kate - there’s nothing I’d like more. Will you lean towards me every time I speak? I do like it when you do that.”

“I daresay I’ll do that whether I mean to do it or not.” She tells him, rueful.

“That’s why I like it so much, I believe. I like to see that you draw near instinctively, come what may.”

“Mmm. I think I always will.”

“Good. I’ll hold you to that.” He sighs a happy sigh. “I love you, sweetheart.”

She lets out a shuddering, giggling sigh. “I love you, Anthony.”

They stand together in silence a moment longer. He listens to her breathing, finds that he can hear it perfectly despite the noise of the storm. Is it easier to hear these things when a person is in love?

Perhaps so. He always has been rather alert to Kate Sharma, one way or another.

He clears his throat. “We can’t stand here all day. Someone will remark upon it.”

“What will they do - demand that we marry?”

He laughs, decides that her point is a fair one. He does like a robust argument with his Kate.

He’s set to enjoy a lifetime of them, now - and he can’t imagine a lifetime better spent than that.

…….

He asks Simon a particular question, later that evening, after his ride with his betrothed and after the congratulations and toasts have died down.

When everything is quiet, the two friends simply sit in the study with a brandy to discuss the events of the day and their plans for the months ahead.

“Hastings - I’ve a most particular favour to ask of you.”

“Ask what you will.”

“Will you stand up with me on my wedding day?”

Simon grins a smug grin at that. “Your wedding day? When might that be, then? You’re asking if I might stand up with you when the banns have been read, a few weeks from now?”

“Not at all. I’m asking if you might stand up with me soon, for Miss Sharma and I are to marry within the week - or so I’ve heard. Lady Danbury has seen fit to procure a special licence. She said something about us waiting far too long - and she means for us to tie the knot on Thursday and then dine all together.”

“Someone should tell the Smythe-Smiths. You must be sure to write to the Smythe-Smiths.” Simon points out.

Anthony waves an airy hand. He doesn’t care overly for such details, while he’s fully occupied with being blissfully happy.

Simon presses on. “I’ll stand up with you, to be sure. I’m surprised that you would ask me, under the circumstances, but -”

“Of course I must ask you. One piece of misplaced advice can’t be the end of our friendship. And besides - love must endure a mistake or two. I believe that’s what I have learned above all from Kate’s forgiveness. I have decided the same must go for love between friends, in that regard. Friends must forgive friends when they know they mean well.”

He’s not a man who was inclined to speak of love, until very recently. So he’s not about to embrace Simon in here in the study and tell him out loud in plain words that he loves him to the moon and back, that he thinks of him as part of the family as much as his future wife or siblings or mother.

But Simon understands all the same. He can see that, more or less, in the way his old friend raises his glass in a silent toast to him.

“Here, then - to love and friendship.” Simon offers.

“Love and friendship.”

“And to being married on Thursday - and only a decade too late.”