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Chapter Text

The night it happens, Kate is sparkling in a delicately-embroidered purple gown that he remembers vividly – as long as he lives, in fact – because he loves her most of all in purple and because it reminds him of his baby sister’s namesake. She wears the colour often but this gown, he decides, is the finest one of all. It embodies her spirit: a bold, jewel tone that stands above the pale sameness of every other dress in the room. 

The magnificent purple gown is debuting in honour of a ball. It is their ball, technically speaking. It had been Lady Violet’s idea, presented with no discernible reasoning at a moment when Anthony had been feeling much too blissful to quibble. It is strange, or perhaps not so strange after all, the way, suddenly, with Kate on his arm, these occasions feel so much more bearable – enjoyable, even. There are mindless polite conversations that must be endured, feet to be stepped on (typically his), overbearing mothers coming out of the walls and tedious traditions to be followed, but there is, in the face of all that, the prospect of waltzing with his wife like they are the only ones in the room. He finds that prospect appealing enough.

He relishes the opportunity to show her off, to flaunt his happiness in the faces of all who had once believed it to be impossible. Perhaps that is at the heart of Violet’s reasoning, too. 

“Viscountess,” he says when he sees Kate coming down the staircase towards him, the word carried on an exhale and laced with something more, a carnal meaning imprinted on it from all the times he has said it with his cock buried inside her. “You look… beautiful, Kate.”

“As do you,” she replies, offhand and casual in a way Anthony had not managed as her hands reach out to fix the cravat he has purposely left askew.

Whispering gently while she is leaning into him for her task, his playful words are for her ears only: “I was really going for handsome, or debonair.” It is said with a smile, the self-satisfied one he likes to goad her with.

She raises her eyebrows only briefly before schooling her expression. “As was I, so we shall both have to content ourselves with only ‘beautiful’ for tonight, my lord,” Kate teases back, looking him straight in the eye to do so. Their stares meet in challenge, their noses almost touching. They allow the static charge between them a long moment to ignite, sparking a pleasant, electric feeling that may or may not drive Anthony out of his mind one of these days. 

“I might like to spend the evening thinking of a few more superlatives for you, dear wife,” he utters eventually, the words barely enunciated as he breathes them against her lips, her smile teasing against his skin.  “Perhaps you might, in time, consider some for me in return.”

“Maddening, smug, incorrigible, conceited–”

“Kate,” he chides, grinning brightly, almost to himself, the kind of smile he had once saved for when she was not looking. Now it is a taunting, splendid thing, another tool in his arsenal.

She closes her eyes, her only defence, and replies, a little breathlessly, “Are you never satisfied?”

A ragged, low voice escapes him: “I trust, my love, that you will know when I am satisfied.” 

“We must go,” she insists faintly, shaking her head a few too many times while still leaning in to him.

“We must go,” he echoes in a stronger voice. It is precisely this moment – as has become routine on evenings such as this one – that the notion of a ball, public as it is, suddenly seems completely intolerable. It is that terrible, painful moment when he must leave the house instead of carrying his wife up to their bedchamber and stripping her of this magnificent gown he so adores. 

“Anthony.” He never knew – before Kate, before this – that his own name could sound so much like a prayer. 

“Do you think anyone would notice our absence?”

“I think half the ton would notice our absence,” she replies with a wry laugh, steadying herself with her hands on his shoulders. “Not least your mother, on whose good side I would keenly like to remain.”

“Shame, for I suddenly find I have so many better ideas for the evening’s activities.”

Anthony kisses her like it is a half-finished sentence. The feeling leaves him hanging in suspense, longing to know the end of it. It is, he is quite certain, the beginning of what comes later, a seed in the ground left to shoot up and sprout in its own time. 

“Anthony,” she breathes into his mouth, a plea, a whimper, a cry for mercy. “We” – she kisses him again, quick and playful as she recovers herself – “truly” – and another chaste peck – “must” – and another – “go.” 

“You are right, my love,” he accepts, drawing his head back and running his hands down the line of her body as if smoothing out the creases of her gown. There is no use of his action; she, despite his careless efforts, looks perfectly composed, as ever. It is Anthony who requires a little straightening, Kate’s hands fussing in his hair where she had only seconds before been raking her hands through it. 

“There,” she declares, when she is quite done fixing his appearance. “You are perfectly beautiful once more.” 

He grins and rolls his eyes and it is as if, for a moment, the whole routine might start all over again. But he takes her gloved hand in his rather decisively and leads her away. 

After that, they are on their best behaviour. 

Anthony even manages to keep his hands to himself during their carriage ride from his private residence to Bridgerton House. Quite a feat. 

Upon arrival, they begin to circle the room dutifully. They say all the right things to all the right people. They dance a slow waltz together with such practised ease and sincere enjoyment that it must surely provide the perfect advertisement for the institution of marriage. They even manage to separate themselves awhile, at Violet’s behest, to rally the young men and women of the marriage mart respectively. The whole exercise feels as ridiculous as ever, but Anthony finds it not half as exhausting now that he is exempt. 

It is as he is listening to Lord Grainger drone on about some steam-powered invention he insists will change the world that Anthony notices his middle brother taking the hand of the newly out Miss Isabella Darlington. It is impossible, too, not to catch the way Penelope Featherington deflates from the spot she seems to have reserved at the edge of the dancefloor. He cannot help but think it a lonely place for a girl such as her, a little too exposed in her solitude. From there, she can surely hear every awful rumour, every cruel slight. 

Anthony decides he is in too good a mood to witness any such sting. He will remedy it himself.

Rather impulsively, he strides across the ballroom, holds a hand out to Penelope Featherington and asks, “Miss Penelope, may I have this dance?” 

For a moment, however brief, she appears so shocked he thinks she might refuse him. Her face turns a particularly bold shade of pink as she eventually nods, obediently taking his hand.

Sensing that there are no intelligible words forthcoming from the stupefied young lady, as he leads her out onto the floor, he casually explains, “You see, my mother insists that her guests have a pleasant evening. I have been told to see to it that they do, and I noticed you here, looking rather glum, Miss Penelope.” 

“Uhh…” She looks at him nervously, a panic in her eyes that has Anthony worried he has made a mistake, made things worse somehow. “Apologies, my lord, I did not mean to–” 

“Hush,” he gently cuts her off, “I am not chastising you.” As the music begins, they bow and curtsey respectively, in time with the other couples surrounding them. They then press their hands together in the space between them, taking a turn together in time with the melody. “I only wanted to see to it that you did not miss the opportunity to dance this evening,” Anthony continues. “I fear the bachelors in the room are somewhat lacking in initiative.”

Penelope gives a shy laugh, not meeting his eyes as she admits, “I think the problem may simply be that they find me somewhat lacking in general, my lord.” 

“A flaw of theirs, Miss Penelope. Not yours.” He makes sure to look her in the eye as he speaks, making the most of a brief pause in the natural movement of the dance. She looks heartened by his words, a fragile smile spreading across her lips that fades as the motion of Colin’s dancing with Isabella catches her eye. After a turn away, sneaking a glance at Kate who is curiously watching on, Anthony comes back to meet Penelope’s raised hand and confides under his breath, “I often find jealousy can be a useful tool for making a person realise the truth of their own heart.”

Penelope comes out of a spin looking puzzled. “My lord?”

“In my experience, a sibling, perhaps,” he jokes – an attempt to be charming. “Though, I admit your options are lacking. I am already taken, Benedict is more enamoured with his oils than he will ever be with a woman and Gregory a little young.”

“Oh, no, I–that is not–that is to say–”

When she meets Anthony’s gaze, she stops. Her denial is no use, she seems to realise. 

“You need not worry.” She gives a sad little shrug that nearly breaks his thawed heart. “I am quite resigned to a life of spinsterhood, my lord.” 

“In which case, I worry that my brother is quite condemned to the life of a simpleton,” he whispers in reply only once they are dancing far, far from Colin and Isabella. 

Penelope seems touched that he would say it quite so. 

“He is a fool, miss. He may not always be a fool.”

“He is destined to marry a diamond, Lord Anthony.”

“Miss Penelope, you do yourself a disservice. You are perfectly sparkling.”

She seems to sigh to herself, as if wholly resigned to an alternative reality. When they come back together, the song winding towards its conclusion, she reasons aloud, “Were that to be true, he might have realised it in these many years we have known each other.” 

The final strings of the dance play out as they bow and curtsey to one another once more, with Anthony sharing one last piece of advice: “Bridgerton men are foolish creatures, sent to this earth in order to vex young ladies.” When Penelope looks up at him, he notices the tears shining in her eyes. His voice is stronger, fiercer as he adds: “But we learn. In time, we learn. Do not lose hope.”

“Thank you, my lord,” she manages before quickly shrinking back to her spot.

With their dance done, Anthony prompts Mr. Dorset to add his name to Penelope’s otherwise empty dance card. He watches as she lights up then sends a grateful glance in his direction. He is still smiling to himself for his good deed when Kate catches his eye again; she is mid-conversation with Eloise and Benedict, but notices, still, this final little moment between her husband and Penelope Featherington. 

“Brother, it is rather lovely to see you looking so content,” Daphne says, sneaking up behind Anthony as he sees Kate begin a turn on the dancefloor with Benedict, the two of them stepping in for a friendly quadrille after Eloise leaves them to debrief with Penelope. Kate sends him a nervous glance across the ballroom, but once the music starts, her attention is lost to attempting to recall the sequence of steps exactly as she has learned them. He finds the serious look that permeates her expression most endearing, and his fondness does not go unnoticed as his sister observes, “I do not think I have seen your smile slip for a single moment all evening, in fact.”

“Spying on me, Daphne?”

“Only out of concern, dear brother,” Daphne offers a wry half-smile, unable to deny her earnest surveillance. “I see there is nothing to be concerned about. You are… well, glowing, dare I say it.”

Anthony cannot help the rosy pink blush that warms his cheeks, even as he breathes out a dismissive puff of air and twists the crane of his neck away from her. “I am not glowing,” he argues, ever the petulant brother. 

“You are lit up as bright as Queen Charlotte’s prettiest chandelier,” Daphne teases, wearing a smile that is positively giddy as she gently elbows him in the ribs. It prompts him to overreact, flinching away far more than the gesture requires. As he straightens up again, attempting to recover his gentlemanly posture, pulling on the hem of his waistcoat, she adds, “It is exactly how a man deeply in love with his wife ought to look, I rather think.” 

“I suppose you are quite pleased with yourself.”

“I am happy for you, Anthony. Need I say it quite so plainly?”

He turns towards her at that, allowing himself to indulge the smile he cannot seem to suppress and sharing it with Daphne as she beams up at him in return. It is the smugness of two people completely at ease with their circumstances, two souls with absolutely nothing at all to complain about. They are both quite as they should be and Anthony discovers, exactly in this moment, that this club they find themselves in is rather exclusive. It offers the freedom to be quite unabashed and open in one’s own joy, for, around most acquaintances, the joy must be at least partially concealed out of politeness. Around the unhappy and unwedded members of the ton, the married Bridgertons’ unwavering contentment could only stoke resentment.

“I am happy for us both, Daph. You, the elegant duchess. Me–”

“The smitten husband?” she finishes for him.

Even as he goes to answer, that grin ever-present, he cannot help a sly glance in Kate’s direction. He catches her eye once more, her response a smile to mirror his own. The distraction prompts a misstep; Anthony sees the way she blinks in embarrassment. After a pause too long, he replies to Daphne with his eyes still devotedly fixed on Kate, watching as she vacillates between enjoyment and self-consciousness with each step, “I was going to say faithful husband, but I suppose, yes, perhaps…”

“The viscountess is exactly the woman you deserve,” Daphne tells him, the words narrating the scene as his focus remains on the opposite side of the room. He understands from them that Daphne’s implication is a kindness to him as much as it is a compliment to the lady. “It feels–in so many ways–it feels… like you have come back to us. I wanted to tell you that.”

“Daphne?” he looks at her, stricken, the air taken out of his lungs.

Her eyes are shining, the bright lights of the ballroom catching on the tears brimming in them. “It is just–when we lost Papa, it also felt, I suppose, a little like we lost some pieces of you, too: the carefree boy who would laugh and dance and play until Mama had to drag you away to get the rest of us to sleep.” She offers a different kind of smile, this one delicate and bittersweet, pinching a little tight at the corners as if nailed on to conceal every other emotion she is feeling. “I missed you is all, dear brother. I missed seeing you happy. I had forgotten how lovely it is to watch you so at ease.”

His throat is so tight, he can barely breathe, let alone speak.

There is relief in knowing he has returned to them. There is also guilt at having been gone so long, lost in the dark fog of grief and responsibility and anger. He had felt so angry all that time, all of it so unfair.

Anthony swallows around a great fist of pain lodged in his throat. He nods, because it is all he can manage, and then reaches for his sister’s hand. He squeezes it tight, the way he had done once when they played hide and seek with Edmund as children. He had found a closet at Aubrey Hall for them to hide in, but Daphne had been so afraid of the dark. He could hear her panicked breathing, he could see – even in the dark– the way her eyes were blown wide in terror, he could feel the way she pulled on his shirt. So, feeling the weight of his brotherly responsibilities even in the midst of a silly childhood game, he had taken her hand and squeezed every ounce of reassurance into it that he could summon. 

“I will not let it happen again,” he vows, speaking with the same solemnity as he had to Kate on his wedding day.

Her voice wavering, Daphne waits for the quiet that follows the final notes of the music to say, “I only hope to see you so deliriously happy for many, many years to come.” 

Choked with emotion, Anthony only nods. He tries to swallow around the feeling. He tries to clear his throat. It is unshakeable, even when Kate joins them and Daphne attempts to offer some levity, telling her sister-in-law, “I was just teasing my dear brother about how smitten he looks tonight.”

“I might just get some air,” Anthony decides abruptly, before turning on his heels, speeding off before the crinkle above Kate’s nose can deepen in her confusion. He heads not towards the terrace but the staircase, taking the steps two at a time to reach–

“Anthony!” Hyacinth gasps, leaping up from her concealed spot behind a floral arrangement hanging on the bannister. “I was only–”

“Do not worry, sweet sister, you need not hide from me.”

Hyacinth lets out a sigh of relief as he sinks down beside her, the tails of his jacket flipped up to trail behind him. 

“I needed a break from the party,” he confesses, his arm wrapping around her shoulder to put her at ease. Or perhaps simply to put himself at ease. There is relief in her limited perspective, the fact that for Hyacinth there is no before and after Edmund, only a melancholy always. Besides which,  she has always been protected from Anthony’s dark moods. He has always been able to find, in her, a sweet distraction from all else that so troubles him. She is the darling girl his father had left behind, the one Anthony used to smuggle cake for during parties, who seemed to know just how to find his soft centre.

His youngest sister brightens in his company, asking keenly, “Will you tell me about it, brother? Do the ladies all look beautiful in their gowns?”

“Very beautiful, though none look as beautiful as you will one day. I am certain.”

She blushes dutifully at that. “Not even Kate?”

“Ah. Kate is my exception,” he declares with a proud smile, “but you will have to forgive me that, for I have vowed as much in a chapel in front of lots of very important people. Marriage, you see, binds me to always view my wife as the most beautiful woman in any room, though I will confess I felt much the same way even before I made my vows.”

Hyacinth is not one bit offended. A true romantic, she seems only happier at his words. “Oh, I do wish I had seen her gown. Colin promised he would give me a good account of the evening but he never pays attention to the gowns, so I usually have to conjure them in my imagination.”

“Colin is no poet. You might have better luck with Benedict,” he advises.

“Or you, perhaps, since you have surely spent the most time gazing upon it,” she points out, leaning into his side as if to coax it out of him. “Please, brother. I just want to picture it perfectly – as if I had seen it for myself.”

She waits patiently, silent in anticipation, as he considers what to tell her. A sideways glance at his youngest sister only further reveals her devotion to the subject, eyes big and wide and impossible to deny. So, he simply thinks of Kate, as she had appeared at the top of the staircase earlier that evening, the way it had stopped his heart momentarily to see her and think that there might ever have been a chance of them living separate lives. “Purple. She is wearing purple, like the flowers you were named for” – Hyacinth sits up a little straighter at that – “with floral beading working up from the hem like vines.”

“Oh, purple,” she gushes. “That truly is her colour, is it not?”

Anthony only smiles his agreement, continuing: “Her gloves are a shade lighter than the dress, a perfect smooth silk, like the ones I gave to you last Christmas.”

She listens as if hypnotised. It reminds him of nights spent in her nursery, stories of fairies and princes and magic spells spilling out of him, even after the books ran out of pages. He would muster his own tales for her until she was finally asleep. Often it would take so long, he would wonder if her midnight birth had made her a nocturnal child. 

“What about her hair, brother?”

He pretends to think about it, makes a performance of mustering the memory. The truth is it remains vivid in his thoughts, the latest portrait in his mind’s own gallery of Kate today and yesterday and ad infinitum. “Her hair. Her hair is arranged in a bun, two tendrils spiralling at the front, with Great Aunt Bessie’s tiara sparkling on her head.”

“Like a princess,” Hyacinth fills in for him as his attention shifts to Kate ascending the stairs to meet them. Like a princess.  

“I never knew you paid quite so much attention,” Kate interrupts, her seeking gaze fixed on Anthony and Anthony alone. It is a heated gaze; it would burn anyone else. They are simply acclimated to the temperature.

He stares back at her, his guard entirely down – surrendered. “To you? Always.” 

Always comes out as little more than a ghost of a word, so painfully true that it dare not find any real voice. It requires no volume, only the dark look in his eyes: wild devotion he can conceal no longer. 

There is a moment – a millisecond before interruption – when he can see the effect it has on Kate, her breath catching, her warm brown eyes widening just a flash.

“Kate!” Hyacinth jumps up, cutting clean through the moment, a look of utter delight on her face as she gets to see the mysterious purple gown for herself. She looks Kate up and down as if assessing the accuracy of Anthony’s description. Whatever her conclusions, she does not appear disappointed. 

It takes Kate a moment too long to remember to smile at the child, as if stuck on a prickly branch, pulled back to a spot she had only meant to glide on past. Hyacinth remains oblivious, of course, and soon Kate recovers herself with a warm smile for her littlest sister-in-law. 

“I had hoped to see you before the evening’s end but do not let Lady Violet know I snuck up here,” she whispers to Hyacinth conspiratorially, moving to settle beside her husband on the top step, her dress bunching inelegantly around her. Anthony is quick to take her gloved hand, kissing the back of it even as he scoffs a laugh when she adds, “I am still trying to keep on my mother-in-law’s good side.”

“Mama adores you, Kate!” Hyacinth exclaims, retaking her seat beside the two of them. “And she never catches me hiding away here, I promise.”

Anthony gives Kate a pointed look to communicate that Violet is quite aware, though forgiving, despite Hyacinth’s understanding of the situation. 

“If that is so, why not a dance?” Kate suggests, and Anthony feels the jab of her elbow in his side. “I think there is soon to be another waltz and I am quite tired myself. I had hoped you might take my place.”

“Oh, shall we? Shall we dance, brother? I would so love to practise my steps.”

“It would be my honour.” He holds a hand out to his sister before they take a few steps back to claim what little dance space there is at the top of the staircase, hidden in a shadowy corner of the landing. When they hear the music start, the sound echoing through the house, they take their places just as Anthony and Kate had done only a few hours earlier. He helps Hyacinth find her dance hold, adapting it to allow for the height difference, and soon they are moving about the floor like they are at the very centre of the ballroom.

Kate proves an encouraging audience, beaming at the two of them, nodding whenever Hyacinth looks to her for validation. When Anthony catches her eye in the midst of his dance steps, the look they share is rathermore loaded. He can see the tiredness sinking in and, if he is not mistaken, a faint touch of longing about her that he has never noticed before, not since he was its subject. 

When the band finishes playing, Hyacinth squeezes him around his middle before shifting onto her tiptoes to kiss his cheek. She does not even fall into a sulk when he gently tells her, “Time for bed now, sister. It is getting late and the governess will wake you early in the morning.” She only nods obediently and skips off in the direction of her bedchamber. 

“You have made her evening,” Anthony tells Kate once they are alone again, with Kate rising to her feet to match his height.

She takes in a deep breath, then exhales slowly, her hands guiding up his arms to lock around his neck. “And you have made mine.”

“I did nothing out of the ordinary,” he points out, buoyed by the sentiment nonetheless.

“Perhaps not,” she concedes, her head tilting to one side as if to appraise him from a different angle. “Perhaps that is the point. You were your usual maddening self.”

“Now, hold on a moment, my love–” he starts, pulling her flush against him, a hand smoothing down the small of her back, lingering just shy of the curve of her bottom.

“You saved poor Penelope Featherington and your sister from another danceless evening. You did everything your mother asked of you without complaint. You remembered every detail of my dress, for goodness’ sake. All while looking” – she pauses, he grins – “as you do.”

“Handsome?” 

“Perhaps.”

He leans a little closer, cheek to cheek as he whispers: “You can say it, Kate.” 

She shakes her head, pulling her face away so that his lips cannot reach hers. “I had truly rather not.”

His steady hand guides up her back, drawing her closer again. Their eyes are locked on one another, a silent conversation playing out – I will kiss you. You will not. Fine, I will not. You will. I will. You will. – that ends exactly as he had known it would. Their mouths crash together in a messy, hungry kiss that has her silk-clad hands clawing through his hair as his own go to war with the layers of fabric caught between them. 

Not here, not here, he is forced to remind himself. 

They catch their breaths, clinging to one another by the arm just to stay upright. With air comes stillness. As quickly as the fire had sparked, waves of calm douse the flame. 

Anthony reaches his hand to delicately cradle her cheek as her forehead rests against his temple. There is the distant sound of music and voices and footsteps against the stone floor, but it is white noise. It feels as if they are caught in a dream, everything else foggy and far away. 

The only sound in focus is that of ragged breaths escaping between them. 

Anthony finds it a perfect moment to admit, “Kate, I remembered the dress because–because you are… unforgettable.” 

What he does not say is that he remembers every last detail because he is so terrified of losing her and forgetting. Not forgetting her entirely, but the small details of her that complete the picture: the way she looks when she wakes up in the morning, the way she grinds her teeth when she is nervous, the way she holds the Mallet of Death with both hands above her head when she is winning Pall Mall. There were so many things, after his father died, that he just could not remember. He will not allow himself to lose her. Every piece is perfectly memorised and archived, his morbid brain a museum of her.

Of course, all this, she cannot know. 

She must only know she is unforgettable. He must simply pray that the word is never tested.

There is a tear in her eye when she looks up, after kissing the palm of his hand where it rests against her face. “You will take me home, my love, and take off this dress so that soon neither one of us will remember I was ever wearing it.” 

“Always giving me orders.”

Kate just about kills him on the spot when she flippantly replies, “We can take turns.”

It is almost a relief when she leads him away by the hand. He may not have been able to resist simply taking her there, at the top of the stairs, besmirching their family’s good name and abandoning all decorum. 

Thankfully, he makes it to the carriage. 

He makes it to the steps of their private residence. 

He even makes it to the door of their private bedchamber, despite the near intervention of Kate’s lady’s maid, who – to her credit – seems to anticipate a hasty dismissal. 

“I will take care of the lady this evening, Martha.” 

“Very well, sir,” the maid says with a curtsey and a knowing look in her eye. He stopped caring what the servants knew long ago; to feign indifference to his wife would be a performance worthy of the stage. Meekly, Martha adds, “I only wished to see to the lady’s tiara. Mrs. Brown asked me to make sure it was restored to its box before the end of the evening.”

“The tiara?” Anthony looks to Kate, his eye catching on the glinting diamonds of the piece. 

“The tiara!” When Kate says it, she speaks full of understanding, lifting it from her head and handing it to the maid obediently. 

Once the young lady has left them alone and they enter their bedchamber, Kate is quick to remove her gloves as Anthony gripes, “Mrs. Brown forgets her place. You have given her no reason not to trust you.” 

Kate looks up at him suddenly, a strange look on her face. 

“Kate?”

“I do not think it is me she is worried about,” she blurts out. 

Anthony considers what Kate is saying, the realisation dawning perhaps a little later than it should. “Me? Mrs. Brown does not trust me? As if I would ever damage a family heirloom.”

“You have been known to get carried away, my love.”

Affronted by his wife’s casual air, Anthony points out: “How would Mrs. Brown know that?” 

“Anthony,” she starts, trying not to laugh, “who do you think does the stitching when you tear my hem with your impatience? I do not think you should take offence. She does not mean ill. She only wishes to protect such items that cannot be sewn anew.” 

He pretends to give a scowl but she sees through it. As he takes a step closer, she teases, “My lord, I do hope you will take great care with every garment tonight. Martha helped me dress so diligently. I wonder whether you can show the same deftness of touch.”

“You should not tease me so,” he practically growls, pulling her to him so abruptly that it earns a giggle of surprise. In the heat of it, the purple silk gloves fall to the floor, forgotten. 

“It is not teasing, my love, when I mean every word.” Kate drags the words out and lets her breath tingle over his skin, the two of them close enough to kiss but letting only their noses brush, delicate strands of hair tickling against Anthony’s cheek. 

“You are a torment.”

“Is that the word you have spent all evening thinking of for me?” she asks with a smirk, one eyebrow quirked up and yes, Anthony thinks again, it is torment. It is even more so when she leans closer, the soft swell of her breasts pressed to his chest, and softly – barely more than a breath – whispers, “Would you like to hear mine?”

“Tell me,” he says, but barely, the restraint of not simply throwing her onto the bed and tearing the dress from her near-consuming him. 

“Charming,” is all she gives him, sliding his jacket from his shoulders in one smooth motion. “My charming husband.” 

“And you” – he bends forward to breathe the words against the column of her neck, pressing a gentle kiss to the spot just beneath her ear – “are the prettiest viscountess I have yet seen.” 

“Pretty?” She glowers at him, just as he had anticipated, stopping his hands as he moves to unfasten the gown. 

Anthony plays the fool. “What?”

“I would rather be called plain than pretty, so dreary a word as it is! You do not deserve my gown for that. No, Anthony,” she shakes her head quite determinedly, “pick another.” 

He steadily moves around her frame to find the back of her dress in anticipation of his second try. This time, he knows better than to toy with her and prolong his own agony. Instead, he leans into the base of her neck, where the line of her dark hair stops in a cluster of loose, curling wisps, breathing in that particularly intoxicating scent of lilies and letting it fill his senses, and utters, “Heavenly.”

This time, she does not stop his hands. She only stands there as he carefully undoes the fastening of the dress, her body pliant as he takes his time, peppering the curve of her neck with kisses so gentle he notices her shoulders twitch in anticipation. He is slow, too, in allowing the dress to fall into a heap on the floor. The moment it does, Kate spins to him impatiently, her enthusiasm drawing out a smile even as Anthony battles to keep his own urges in check. His hands are aching to touch her with the kind of abandon that has filled their nights since the day they made their promises to each other. 

Mercifully, Kate is quick to take her turn. “Dashing, impossible man,” she offers, the words merely a password to what she truly wants. She unbuttons his waistcoat before pushing it off his shoulders with less care this time. It is as if, for a moment, she forgets the rules of their game. When he slips out of reach to kneel at her feet, she almost looks disappointed at the momentary distance it leaves between them. 

His hand lifting her foot onto his knee, he kisses his stockinged leg once, gently, before looking up at her. Only one word comes to mind as he takes her in from this new vantage point, watching the anticipation in her eyes and the way she bites her lip: “Radiant.” 

Anthony slides his spread hand slowly up her leg, smoothing over the cotton of her stocking before finding its hook beneath the skirt of her petticoat. He indulges the stirring, warm touch of her bare skin, drawing the stocking down as the fabric gathers against his palm, fingertips curled around its edge. He keeps his eyes on her every second, watching the way she succumbs to his teasing, her knees buckling ever so slightly, her eyes closing in surrender. He manages to keep his grin in check until the moment she reaches her hands up to fumble in her hair, suddenly desperate to remove the carefully-set pins, freeing her long, dark waves so that they hang loosely around her shoulders.  

“You need not look quite so pleased with yourself,” she tells him when she opens her eyes, instantly meeting his gaze. It proves to be one in an exceptionally long series of moments when the surge of love he experiences feels rather like what he imagines being hit by lightning might be like. 

“On the contrary, to look any less pleased at my circumstances would, I think, be considered ungrateful.” He wonders, vaguely, if she knows that she wears the same smirk to match. 

There it is, Anthony thinks, as she shakes her head. 

She is unable to shake off the visible pleasure written in her expression.

Undeterred, Kate whispers, “Smooth,” to earn the undoing of his cravat (in a manner that perfectly exemplifies the meaning of the word). She bends over him to claim it, the action very deliberately providing a most seductive view of her breasts. His silk tie comes apart in her hands effortlessly, a little too quick for his liking, but Kate takes care to slide it slowly around his neck before it falls to the floor. 

“Exquisite,” allows the removal of Kate’s second stocking, drawn away with agonising care when all Anthony wants is to rip every scrap of fabric from her body. This one is slower than the first, if it is possible. 

Anthony leans into her, her fingers stroking roughly through his hair as he buries his face in her skirts. He could lift them. He could pull them over his head and take her on his knees. The instinct strikes him, not for the first time, but it is her voice – begging, “Please, Anthony” – that draws him back, stumbling, to his feet. 

At the very moment he meets her height once more, Kate holds his face in front of her and kisses him square on the mouth. It is as if she is finally done dancing around the idea. When she draws back, she offers a sweet smile and then her fingers begin to work the buttons of his shirt. He lets her undo each one without intervention, feeling the cool press of her hands sliding flatly over his chest when it falls open. “You,” she breathes, touching him still, like she cannot quite believe she is allowed to, “are a gentleman.” Her fingertips brush so gently over the muscles of his chest, down to his stomach, a reverence to the way she looks at him that forces Anthony to find a little patience – just for her. 

His shirt is still loose around his shoulders as he whispers, “You… are breathtaking,” in her hair for the removal of her petticoat, their mutual impatience creeping in. 

He watches her bite down on a grin, teeth digging into the soft skin of her lips, as her fingers tease their way down to the fastening of his trousers. He knows, before she says it, what will come next. She speaks it quietest of all when she concedes, at last: “Handsome.”

It is mere seconds before his trousers are abandoned beside the heap of skirts that spills across the floor. 

His reply, too, is that same word returned to her. It wins him her short stay, the devilish corset not daring to stay a moment too long as he flings it about the room with not a care for where it lands. 

She slides a hand inside his drawers, wrapping herself around him as she exhales: “Husband.” 

He grants himself a moment of indulgence, his eyes closing to the feeling of her squeezing him. “Wife,” he draws out, rasping, surging forward to pull her in to him, letting them both stumble towards the bed, but spinning her before they get there so that her back is turned to him. He drags her chemise over her head then wraps an arm around her bare form, feeling her wet, slick heat envelop his fingers as her own hand reaches for him once more. 

Kate lets out a sharp gasp of pleasure as his fingers tease at her sensitive nub. She sinks back against him, pushing away his drawers as the angle grows a little more awkward for her. 

They make it the rest of the way to the bed, coming apart when they reach it just to catch their breaths. 

She is soon laid out in front of him like his wildest dream come true. She is the meaning of every superlative he can remember and so many more he cannot yet imagine. She is spectacular. 

He kisses his way down her body, taking the same care Kate had when removing his shirt. He pays attention to every inch of her. He leaves marks of affection on her neck, breathes a teasing sigh across her décolletage, suckles her breasts as she arches for his attention. He lets his teeth tease roughly at her nipples before kissing along the reddened lines that mark out where her short stay had been digging into her skin. Lower still, he presses sweet, delicate kisses over the flat of her stomach and licks a perfect circle around her belly button. He can feel every bit of her need: her legs squeezing around him, the sting of his thick hair pushed out of place by her urging hands, her moans escalating with glorious promise.

“Kate,” he groans roughly, the word pressed against her skin. It is a cry for permission, beneath everything else that it is.

“Yes,” she gives him in return, the word dragging longer than it ever has before. 

Her legs widen to make room for him as he shifts lower, the back of her knee settling over his shoulder as he positions himself on one elbow, hand at her hip. His other hand reaches up to spread flat over her, pressing her down against the mattress as she arches under his touch. She covers his fingers with her own before dragging his hand to her breast, showing him exactly what she needs with his compliant, semi-distracted touch caught in between. He obliges her, squeezing and kneading at her urging, until the strength of her grasp fades and he is leading once more. 

One last glance up at her, spurred on by the dark look in her eyes, Anthony kisses at the apex of her legs, his nose lightly brushing against the inside of her thigh. “Anthony,” she moans for him, and his face sinks lower. His mouth finds her wet, wetter than she had been for his fingers. His tongue guides her open, lapping at her folds. When she shifts for him, opening herself up entirely, he licks – slow and deep at first, until it is not enough. He can feel her fingers clawing at great clumps of his hair as his pace grows frantic and breathless, the heady ache of it adding to his own escalating desire. 

His mouth moves to her clit and he continues working her up with his fingers, feeling her growing urgent beneath him as his own impulses intensify, his cock hard as stone and throbbing for her.

“Need you,” she whimpers, and it is a welcome relief to hear it. “Anthony.”

He is quick to oblige, hastily moving himself up the bed until he is positioned at her entrance and meeting her heated gaze as she nods feverishly. 

He surrenders himself, letting out a long moan as he sinks himself to the hilt. 

“I love you,” she gasps. 

“I love you,” Anthony says in return, with the same fervour as the first time he had dared speak it aloud. He had thought it impossible that he could feel so complete, so euphoric. He kisses her lazily, the two of them sharing one breath as he continues to rock against her, Kate’s fingernails digging into the soft skin of his bottom.

When their eyes meet again, their bodies fused, it feels all too much. It is a sensory overload. It is an overwhelming excess of love. It feels like a miracle, just miraculous enough to beget another. 

Later, as Anthony falls soundly asleep with his limbs entangled with Kate’s, he sinks into his dreams while oblivious to the one that has already been sparked to life. He had learned that one night had the power to change everything from the way his heart had been so entirely lost to anyone else after seeing Kate the night of the conservatory ball. 

He would soon learn that same lesson all over again.

Chapter Text

There is a tree Kate loves to sit by in the park. It is an old oak with twisting branches that hang like a perfect umbrella over the ornate wooden bench Anthony thinks of as hers. It is precisely where he finds her one early morning after waking up alone, her absence having stirred him even before the sun had broken through the curtains. After a dreary few days away on business, having seen Kate so little, waking up in an empty bed had been the very last thing he desired; it had been mere seconds of consciousness before he leapt up from the bedsheet and assembled himself to go looking for her.  

Out in the open air, it is the beginning of a beautiful sunny day, the brightness of the skies softened by the cool, misty air of early spring. Through the faint, translucent fog that lingers, the flowers around them are blooming in vibrant colours. The only sounds are the gentle trickle of the nearby stream and the merry chirp of the birds in full chorus.

“Kate.” 

She is wearing a distant look when he interrupts her, Newton at her feet quicker to react to his presence than Kate is. The direction of her gaze is not so very far from where he appears and yet she takes no notice until he speaks her name, the word seeming to bring her up from a dream. 

“Will you sit with me awhile?” she asks while the dog scampers to meet him.

Anthony is quick to acquiesce, absently petting Newton as the dog leaps up at him with each new step. He has become used to this, perhaps even growing fond of the creature, not that he would admit it. As he takes a seat beside his wife, Anthony allows the dog to pull himself up onto his lap, Newton’s long, chunky body hanging off the side of the bench even with his front paws resting on Kate. Anthony chooses to ignore the indignity of having to support the dog’s hind to keep him from falling: a well-practised forfeit for having married a devoted dog lover. 

“Are you troubled this morning, my dear?” Anthony asks, studying Kate’s profile while her expression remains hard to read. There is something distant about her now, her eyes still looking off into the middle distance as if seeking the clues to a puzzle.

She turns to look at him, a little like she only just remembered he is there with her, and smiles tightly. “No,” she says, though it is entirely unconvincing. “No, no, I–”

Kate is staring at him strangely now.

All he wants is to edge closer to her and yet there hangs something between them. 

“I have been watching the birds. That one” – she points at a blue-winged beauty perched on a tree branch ahead of them – “has been gathering little pieces to make a nest. I find it rather lovely to observe. Little twigs, leaves.” Her eyes remain fixed on the creature, watching as it demonstrates her point, flying down to forage for more before returning to its makeshift nest. “It is preparing to lay its eggs, to protect them. I suppose it is instinctive, rather than emotional, but I do wonder whether they know the worry.”

“Worry?” Anthony indulges the impulse to lay an arm across the line of the bench behind her, his hand settling around her unusually tense shoulders in an attempt to urge her to relax. 

Kate strokes Newton without looking down as she ponders aloud, “Does every creature on earth feel this same joyous-anxious feeling at the thought of an infant or is it only human, do you think?” 

“Kate?”

When she turns her head to look at him at last, her eyes are filled with tears. 

She only nods once and Anthony feels the ground disappear beneath him. He is suspended in air, floating, searching for the words he cannot speak, his voice stolen away by the shock of it. It should not come as a shock; it had been intended, destined, expected of him. He had known he would sire an heir as long as he had known his own name. 

And yet.

Well. And yet, he finds, there is a stark difference between knowing it must happen someday and the very real notion of a child, made of the two of them, already growing inside her. 

“Kate,” he manages once more, when eventually he does manage. 

The side of her thumb gently sweeps across his cheekbone, taking a tear with it, one he had not known had fallen. There are soon more spilling free as she slides a little closer to him, the tide of them sweeping him up. It would knock him off his feet were he not already sitting down. He struggles, simply, to catch a breath: there is the news, quite breathtaking in itself, and then there is Kate before him, eyes glittering with her own tears, wearing a fragile, beautiful smile – much like the night he had humbled himself before her, standing in the firelight of the Featheringtons’ flower garden.

“You will be, I know in the very depths of my soul, a most excellent father,” she whispers, her forehead meeting his, her words brushing against the skin of his cheek. She sounds so calm when she says it, as if every word is certain and true. 

He finds himself caught in his emotions, brows knitted as he stares, awestruck, at his wife. 

All he can think to say is, “You are quite well?”

“I am, my love,” Kate reassures him, the hand cradling his face offering the only reassurance that truly gets through to him. He is anchored by her touch. “I am. I find myself a little anxious, of course, but my stomach has settled in the fresh air. I admit I did so enjoy our practice, but the thought of a child – our child – has me, well, giddy.” She bursts out with a laugh, a tear escaping at the very corner of her eye, streaking down so swiftly it would be so easy to miss it if it were not for the fact that Anthony devotes all his attention to her. 

“There is to be a baby,” he says with a strained sob of laughter, looking between Kate and the dog as if Newton might offer a reaction. Anthony’s tears renew, falling freely across his cheeks. 

“There is to be a baby,” she echoes, her smile widening, brightening, like the sun rising on that same spring morning. All around them the misty fog has begun to lift, the scene pulled into sharper focus now. “You are happy?”

“Kate,” he says, in a laugh. It is a ridiculous question, not that he would ever dare say as much to her. “Deliriously so.”

“Good.” She sighs as if she has been holding in a long breath. “Edwina insisted you would be but I must confess, left to my own thoughts, I began to fret.”

“There is no need to worry, Kate,” he assures her, leaning his body towards her to give her a teasing nudge.  

She seems, at last, to relax before pressing a sweet kiss to his mouth, her thumb and forefinger propped beneath his chin as if to hold him perfectly still before her. He savours the taste of fresh orange on her lips. 

When Kate pulls back only an inch, she says, smiling, “I suppose that means my face is pleasing to you, sir?” Anthony frowns in confusion but Kate persists, cocking an eyebrow as she leans closer, grazing his lips gently as she speaks. “My wit acceptable?” Their intimacy would perhaps be improper were there anyone else around but Newton. “My manners genteel enough?” The meaning of her pointed words dawns on him, before she adds: “I just wanted to be sure you believe our children will be of good stock.”

At this, he winces in shame. “Do not remind me of my words that evening,” Anthony pleads, his hand nervously scratching at his stubble, wiping the residual wetness on his cheeks away in the motion. The memory haunts him, the reminder that he had once come so close to damning himself to a lifetime of self-imposed heartache and misery. The thought of a life without her becomes only more distressing with each passing day of marital bliss. “I am ashamed of what I said then.” 

The shake of her head soothes him, the way she takes his hand – playing with it in hers – steadies him entirely. “It is quite forgiven, even if not entirely forgotten.”

Anthony sighs. “When you speak of my past behaviour, it is a wonder you ever found any love in your heart for me.” 

“Of that, dear husband, there is an abundance.” 

“That is good, for I shall soon have to share it.” His eyes flash wide as his own words remind him of the topic at hand once more, their news still barely sinking in. She only giggles sweetly, as if grateful for the reminder, and it makes him dizzy to see her so truly happy. It had never occurred to Anthony Bridgerton that someday he might be capable of making a woman feel the joy he can read in Kate’s smile. He would marry out of duty. He would sire an heir. His wife would look well beside him in the portraits they would hang. There had never been room for joy in his imagination before now. It is, it now occurs to him, a rare and lucky thing. 

In the back of his mind, he can still hear a voice reminding him that it is only more to lose. Or more to leave behind. 

“To see you with our child will only make me love you more, if indeed it is possible,” Kate reassures him, twisting in her seat to lay a hand flat over his lapels, so close to his heart: that spot where she had once pressed her palm in the midst of his panic. It draws him back. It settles his mind. “I have watched you with your siblings, the way they adore you. I know that… I know that you have carried the responsibility of their guardianship for all these years.” Looking deep into his eyes, into his soul, she nods and it carries all that is unsaid but understood nonetheless. “I know you will protect and nurture your own children just as you have your brothers and sisters. Most of all, I know you will love them, and that is what a child needs most of all.” 

“There shall be no shortage of love for the child,” Anthony is quick to point out, imagining the unbridled glee of his family members when they hear the news. He chooses not to quibble over the adoration Kate speaks of from his siblings; that he knows better, he chooses not to say. He would rather look to the future in the hope that he may replace his role as resented, overbearing brother with something closer to the doting father he himself had grown up with. 

“Yes, it is most wonderful to be part of a family so big and so generous of heart,” Kate tells him, quite sincerely, daring to press a kiss to his mouth once more, right there in the middle of the public park. 

Anthony whispers against her lips, “I will remind you of that the next time we find ourselves in the middle of the circus.” 

“You may,” she replies easily, “and I assure you I shall feel just the same.”

“Pray, let us tell them today then.” His eyes are full of daring, his smile taunting her as always. It is an impulse he finds impossible to suppress. His serious, brooding side disappears whenever Kate is with him and smiling, and today she is beaming. He doubles down on his suggestion by adding, “Before Daphne returns to the country. I know she will be so keen to share in our joy. No doubt she will have much to say on the matter, the enthusiasm of which may be lost if restricted to only the pages of a letter.” 

Kate pets the dog for something to distract herself as she negotiates, “Perhaps we could share our news with just Daphne and your mother – for now.”

“You will soon learn, my love, that marital confidence aside, to tell one Bridgerton is to tell all.” 

He knows from the warm smile she wears that it is precisely this – their chaos, their unruly mouths, their vitality – that Kate enjoys most about the Bridgerton family. It belongs to her as much as him now, the burden of protectiveness shared equally between them in their married life, only worn in different shades. His protectiveness is heavy with responsibility: he is strong in his words, hot with his head. She, on the other hand, offers a calm word of advice or a touch of gentle steering, so delicate in manner that one may not even notice her input. He has found, in only the few months they have been man and wife, that the balance it affords them is a very great advantage.

That is not to say that Kate is never strong with her words too. She matches his passion to a tee. She only reserves that side of herself for Anthony. To all others, she is the model viscountess. 

“Fine,” Kate decides, evidently coming around to the idea. She straightens up, her confidence blossoming before his eyes. “Let us stop by Bridgerton House on our morning stroll, then.” 

As they rise to walk, he sets Newton on the grass once more, who promptly takes the opportunity to relieve himself. Taking as little notice as he can possibly manage, Anthony holds his arm out for Kate to take before they easily fall into a pleasant stride together. 

Anthony already finds himself daydreaming of what is to come as they wander the path towards his family home. Sneaking a sideways glance at Kate, he declares, “I shall teach the little one to be a champion at Pall Mall, and how to ride, and–”

“Anthony,” she interjects with a scoff as assured as one of his own, “do you not think it would be best for me to handle both? I have never seen you enjoy even one victory on the lawn. As for your horsemanship–”

“Excuse me, I have been playing with quite the handicap.”

“The pink mallet? Oh, you vastly overstate–”

“No!” he cuts her off, indignant. “A most vexing wife who is all too willing to act as saboteur.” His mouth slants to a smile, the one he is quite certain she loves best. 

Kate refuses to indulge him, instead rolling her eyes and focusing once more on the path ahead, even as her hand squeezes the crook of his arm. With an easy shrug, she defends herself to say, simply: “It is within the rules of the game, is it not?”

“Tell me Kate, will you teach the child to abide by your underhand tactics?”

“I will teach them how to win, first and foremost, and,” she walks a little taller, turning towards him to flaunt a smirk, “if that fails, how to beat their father.” 

“I am beginning to think I may be outnumbered from now on.” The thought curls around his heart, squeezing at it. It is enough to make him well up again. It is a feeling that has barely subsided since she shared the news with him. 

“Be quite certain of it, my dear,” Kate replies softly, leaning against him a little more, both hands wrapping tightly, possessively, around his arm as they walk.

Anthony kisses her temple. “What I am most certain of is that any child of ours shall be headstrong and free-spirited and rather unruly from time to time.”

At that very moment, Newton bolts off ahead of them.

“Newton!” they find themselves shouting in chorus across the park, picking up their stride to chase after him. Mercifully, he takes an abrupt interest in an intriguing smell down by the duck pond, allowing Anthony time to close him down.  

*

When Anthony and Kate arrive at Bridgerton House, they find the rest of the family gathered in the drawing room: Eloise slouching on the sofa with her head in a book, Benedict beside her resting his eyes with his head propped back against the frame of it, Daphne and Violet sitting side by side with their embroidery hoops, Francesca practising her pianoforte, Colin half-heartedly teaching Gregory and Hyacinth a card game as they sit beside his armchair. It is much like any other morning, with an empty seat at the table where Anthony had so often liked to read the morning paper, just as his father had done before him.  

There is a tone of surprise as the newlyweds enter, but little fuss. They stand out in the duck-egg blue room, his siblings all wearing soft pastel blue tones and damask fabrics that match the wallpaper, while Anthony and Kate set themselves apart from the rest in dark navy and bright aquamarine respectively. Hyacinth eagerly rushes to greet them and swiftly leads Newton off with her to the garden, showing little interest in the cause of their visit. Otherwise, the greeting is little more than a mumbled welcome, a sarcastic, “Good morning to you too, dear family,” well earned as far as Anthony is concerned. 

“To what do we owe the pleasure, my darling?” Lady Violet says with her usual grace, placing her needlepoint on the side table to grant them her full attention. Francesca does not take the same approach, persisting with her musical efforts as she attempts to master Vivaldi’s Spring, lacking the nuance the piece requires as her mother speaks a little louder to overcome the heavy-handed playing. “We did not know to expect you this morning.”

“An impromptu visit,” Anthony acknowledges, allowing himself to direct a disapproving glare at his younger sister, though she is too fixed on her sheet music to notice. “Is it so surprising that I might like to visit my family?” 

Benedict opens his eyes as if raised from the dead, then looks at Colin with a smirk as they both answer: “Yes.” 

Anthony rolls his eyes as he leads Kate by the hand over to the empty chair. He takes a seat before pulling his wife into his lap, wrapping an arm around her waist as she loops her own around his neck to steady herself. He feels her relax inside his embrace, sinking back against him as he rests his chin on her shoulder. 

“Do you two ever take your hands off each other for a moment?” Eloise remarks. She says it warmly, an air of disinterest to her words as she turns the page of her book. It is uttered no differently than if she were making any other flat statement of observation. In fact, it is clear to Anthony that she does not mind a bit. There is a curious look in her eye when she glances up at them, as if the dynamic between the couple intrigues her. She is fond of Kate, after all. Perhaps, in the eyes of this particular sister, his redemption lies in his choice of wife and the version of him she brings out, his edges softened and his temperament more easily persuaded.

Kate muffles a laugh against the sleeve of his jacket as Anthony replies, “I live to scandalise you, sister.” 

Eloise looks up for a moment to haughtily warn him, “I shall remember that the next time you tell me I am being improper.”

“I do not doubt you will,” Anthony mutters with amusement. 

“Come now, it is a happy occasion,” Kate reminds him, tilting her head in that particular way that might have the power to convince him of anything. She turns to Eloise, too, her eyebrows raised in challenge. A ceasefire of siblings may indeed be her greatest challenge yet.

“A happy occasion?” Daphne interjects, looking between the married couple with the spotlight of interrogation. She speaks as if she has already anticipated their explanation, a knowing quality about the way she says, “Pray, what particular reason might we have to be so happy this morning?” Daphne’s eyes exaggerate her interest, a slight pout at her lips as she looks between them expectantly. 

“Well, I–” Anthony hesitates.

“We wished to share some news while you are visiting,” Kate cuts in, then she gives him a look as if to push their announcement upon him. Behind them, Francesca finally gives up at the piano, much to everyone’s – namely Anthony’s – relief. She moves around the room to join her mother and sister, her curiosity getting the better of her. 

In the space this sudden silence affords him, he declares, “There is to be a new member of the family.” 

“A–?” Violet looks from Anthony to Kate and back, her hands braced on the sofa as if a faint breeze might be enough to knock her down where she sits. 

“Kate is with child, mother,” Anthony clarifies, unable to suppress the broad smile it brings to his face. Kate is looking down at him with such warmth and affection, he feels all that he had felt out there in the park wash over him once more. He kisses her shoulder sweetly. 

Violet’s eyes fill with tears. “Oh, Anthony–” She rises to her feet.

“Oh, it is just the most wonderful news,” Daphne gushes as she stands too, her hand now locked in Violet’s, their expressions perfectly matching. 

“Congratulations brother!” Colin cheers.

“It is utterly splendid!” Violet agrees, letting go of Daphne to rush to the happy couple and convey her joy in an eager kiss to each of their cheeks. He can feel the ripple of Kate’s laughter against him and lets it carry through his own body. 

As soon as his mother moves away, Anthony notices Benedict and Eloise, who have not yet managed to temper their elated expressions into cool indifference. The bright sunlight streaking through the blinds seems to catch a sparkle in his sister’s eye as she takes in a casual sniff. 

“Is that a tear in your eye, dear sister?” Anthony points a finger at Eloise who only scowls in response, refusing to be drawn on the matter. 

He would tease her a little more if not distracted by his mother, now assuredly telling Kate, “If there is anything you need, do not hesitate, my dear. I have been through it all eight times, though long ago now, and I cannot imagine there is anything you could ask that would take me by surprise.”

“I shall cherish every piece of advice you bestow, Lady Violet. Thank you.”

Violet takes Kate’s hand, covering it with her own. “Of course. I know Anthony will dote on you dutifully to help you through these next few months,” his mother continues, glancing at him though he looks away to avoid meeting her eye. “I remember him fussing over me through all my later pregnancies, like Edmund’s sweet little deputy.” 

“Not much different to Anthony now, then,” Benedict wryly comments, earning an amused smile from Kate as Anthony launches the rolled-up newspaper that had been left unread on the table in the direction of his brother’s head. He only just misses his target. “Hey!”

“I do not know if you are aware, Benedict,” Anthony sneers, “but you do not actually need to share every thought that comes into your head with the room.”

“But I have such fun when I do.” He gives an innocent little shrug, designed to provoke his eldest sibling. “Besides which, brother, your devotion to your wife is hardly a secret.”

“I think it very sweet,” Daphne commends him, sparing a warm smile for Kate too. 

Eloise and Benedict pull nauseated expressions to each other that Anthony catches in his periphery. He capitalises on the opportunity to return a hereditary scowl in their direction.

“I know he will take exceptional care of the two of us,” Kate says, prompting him to turn to face her once more, the calm even tone of her voice dissolving the sibling silliness. She has her hand rested protectively on her stomach to illustrate the point and a reserved, tight-lipped smile on her face that holds secrets for only the two of them. 

It is at that very moment that Hyacinth interrupts the merriment, bursting into the room in floods of tears. Her hair is out of place, her face a furious red. She barely seems to catch her breath between her hiccuped cries. 

“Whatever is the matter, dearest?” Daphne asks what they are all thinking.

Inexplicably terrified, Hyacinth dares a look in Kate’s direction. They can barely hear her as she starts: “I–I took–”

“Breathe, my dear,” Lady Violet encourages her, rubbing a hand on the child’s back before toying with her hair, lifting loose curls of it from her face where it has stuck to her wet cheeks. 

“Newton–” Hyacinth starts to say.

Kate and Anthony’s eyes meet in alarm. They are both quick to rise from the chair, with Anthony soon crouching down to Hyacinth’s height, his hands on her shoulders as he urges her to continue. “Where is Newton?” he probes as gently as he can. His attempt at softness proves unsuccessful if the cross look Violet sends him is anything to go by. Impatient, he pushes: “Hyacinth?” 

Tucking her face tight to her chest, she explains, “I took him out on the lawn to play fetch.” 

“He cannot fetch,” Anthony mumbles. It is far from the point but he has told the children time and time again. “He gets out of breath trying to carry things in his mouth.”

“We were just playing and then, all of a sudden, he just–”

“Yes?” 

“–bolted!” she finishes, with a fresh round of sobs to cry out. “I do not know where he went, Mama.” She looks up pleadingly at Violet, as if terrified Anthony might send her to the gallows. “He just ran away so fast.” 

The feeling of panic that takes hold of Anthony catches him entirely by surprise. He can barely tolerate the damned creature. He stinks up a room! He gets in the way of nearly every private moment with Kate! He chews Anthony’s trouser leg! He never comes when called for! He is forever panting and drooling in Anthony’s lap! There might never have been a more powerful obstacle to romance. 

Despite it all, however, the awful truth is that the disobedient dog has wormed its way into Anthony’s once-hardened heart. 

When he looks up and sees his own feelings reflected in Kate’s eyes, her lips pressed together as she tries to remain composed, it is impossible not to feel a tremendous protectiveness for the animal. He has the fierce urge to tear the city apart until the dog’s whereabouts are identified.

Anthony turns his focus back to his sister. “Hyacinth,” he says, trying to speak calmly and without a trace of anger, “you are going to show me which direction he went in, all right?” 

The child nods, sniffling as Violet continues protectively stroking her hair. 

Anthony stands tall to enlist his brothers: “Benedict, Colin… ask Miller to ready the horses.” It is stated in such a way that all of them know better than to argue with his instructions. Whatever impulse Benedict has to mock the situation, or the ridiculous corgi at the centre of it, goes wisely ignored. He soon leads Colin out the door, exactly as Anthony has requested. 

“I will search on foot,” Kate insists, anticipating his protest by adding: “Eloise will join me.” Anthony can see she is fending off tears as she tells him, “You cannot expect me to sit idly by while you search.”

They share a long, loaded look – the kind that could make any room feel entirely empty but for them – before he surrenders with a nod. 

Interrupting the moment, Eloise tries for an ill-guided attempt at humorous reassurance: “Come now. His stubby, little legs cannot have taken him far.” 

It is soon a 10-man effort, with Hyacinth and Violet sitting on the front steps of the house hoping the troublesome creature decides to return on his own, Francesca and Gregory wandering the gardens in aimless pursuit, Kate and Eloise following Hyacinth’s last sighting on foot and the eldest three brothers setting out on horseback to scope out the town for anywhere Newton might have gone. Daphne, meanwhile, invokes the assistance of the cook to lay a trail of culinary temptations for the pet in the hopes of enticing him back to the family residence. 

Anthony ends up spending half the day riding around the neighbourhood. He questions every person he encounters to enquire about sightings, searching desperately for any possible witnesses. He follows any small hint of a clue regarding where the animal might have absconded to, most of which prove to be red herrings. He is almost certain the servant boy from the Cowpers’ had simply decided to enjoy a little fun at his expense, sending him halfway to Cheapside. The blasted dog would have had to steal a carriage to make it so far!  

Even as the trail goes cold, Anthony persists in his efforts. 

The thought of heading back to the house without Newton is unbearable to him. He cannot help but picture Kate’s heartbroken face, the cruel image pushing him on even as his horse tires.

The unfortunate truth is that, as much as he is resolutely determined not to disappoint Kate, there is sincere concern gnawing at his own heart. The dog is truly a useless, brainless creature, but there is an endearing nature about him that may, in the right circumstances, invoke a certain attachment. Anthony finds, with hope waning for a safe rescue, the thought of evenings without Newton warming his lap to be a thoroughly distressing prospect. 

It is as Anthony is allowing the fatigued Apollo a moment’s rest and some much needed refreshment that Colin rides out to find him. 

“He is returned, brother,” Colin tells him quickly, with all the theatre of announcing a lost soldier home from war. “Come.” 

In seconds, he has mounted his horse once more and is galloping home.

When Anthony arrives at last, quite out of breath, he finds Kate once again sitting in the drawing room, now with Newton happily ensconced in her lap. She is in the same chair as before, as if warming Anthony’s seat for him. “He has come back all by himself,” she declares, her voice softening as she finishes the sentence petting and cooing over her beloved dog. He can hear the emotion thick in her voice, hours of worry straining her vocal chords even now. “Daphne set a rather inviting trap, did she not, boy?” she says to the animal, bending to press a kiss to Newton’s head between doting strokes.

Anthony finds that he is overwhelmed with relief. The urge to rush over and embrace the two of them takes hold of him but, aware of watching eyes, he manages to refrain, only nodding. He runs his hand through his now sweaty, dishevelled hair. 

“Perhaps he was feeling a little scorned by our news,” Kate says, so affectionately he finds any lingering frustration he feels towards Newton disappears. All is forgiven.

“Perhaps.”

Kate studies him carefully. He can feel her gaze upon him, noting the redness of his cheeks and the heaving of his chest as he fights to catch his breath. “You were not too worried, my love?”

Anthony clears his throat and rolls back his shoulders. “No. No, no.” His eyes scan the room, taking in the collection of faces filled with coy amusement: Benedict and Eloise both pressing their lips together as if to hold in a laugh, Daphne beaming, a glint in his mother’s eye. “You know how I feel about that awful creature.”

“Oh, I am not so sure, Anthony,” Violet comments, a certain mischief about her demeanour. “I dare say you seemed quite overcome with panic.”

“It rather reminded me of Ophelia,” Daphne chimes in. There is a dreamy fondness in her voice that echoes Kate’s tone whenever the subject of Newton arises. 

“Oh, that devilish cat.” Benedict recoils. “Terrible wind.”

Daphne rejects the claim: “Ophelia was a lovely pet!”

“Only to you, sister,” Colin steps in to point out. “I thought she might claw my eyes out in my sleep.”

“I was devastated when she ran away to the Fairchilds’. I do not think I slept a wink all night,” Daphne explains for Kate’s benefit, ignoring the heckles of her brothers, “and then Anthony called me down in the morning to tell me he had found her again.” 

“Traced the smell, did you, brother?” Benedict asks.

Anthony only rolls his eyes in reply, finding the whole discussion rather humiliating. When he glances back at Kate, she has a soft look in her eye – as if she has quite accepted his mother’s deluded notion of his being distressed over the dog. Which he was not. He absolutely was not. It was mere dehydration getting to him, and a very heavy dose of husbandly concern. 

Deciding to ignore the input of his siblings, he turns to his mother and says, “I am simply happy Kate is reunited once more with the dog.”

“You can give him a kiss, Anthony,” Benedict goads him. “Do not hold back on our account.” 

“One day, brother, you may have a wife of your own and perhaps then you will finally understand my position. I might not like the pet,” he asserts rather pompously, though with at least some degree of sneaking self-awareness that his words are a shameless falsehood, “but I know what he means to Kate. I can at least put my own feelings aside for that.”

They all look at him in surprised silence until Benedict cuts in to ask the group, “Does anyone know when my brother became a romantic?”

“Kate, surely you must recall.” Daphne joins in the teasing. “What date was it that you first met?”

“A romantic? Believe me when I tell you, your brother fell in love with me quite by accident and against his will. I suspect it was precisely the same way he fell in love with my dear Newton.” 

Anthony considers being truly exasperated with them all, but then he glances at Kate and she simply looks too happy, sitting there cuddling her treasured pet and laughing with his sister. He feels too happy. There is the adrenaline rush of a safely returned Newton and the heady knowledge of impending fatherhood to contend with. He could not maintain a frown if his life depended on it. 

*

Hours later, once they are happily returned to their private lodgings and tucked up in bed after a much needed evening alone together, Anthony curls up behind Kate to finally put the long, eventful day behind them. They lie parallel, his hand intertwined with hers and resting over her stomach. He can feel her fall asleep in his arms, small puffs of air leaving her lips as she surrenders to the exhaustion of the day, the tension in her body draining away.

Anthony feels himself drifting off with her. 

He is bone-tired. He can feel the flashing ache of his thighs from riding half the day every time he shifts an inch. His shoulders are humming with pain from a day spent rigid with stress. His eyes are determined to stay closed. 

It is only his brain that keeps him alert, whirring with thoughts of their family. His imagination fights with itself, pictures of the two of them playing with their child battling with morbid thoughts of all that could go wrong. He tries and tries to focus on the former, to think of Kate’s smile when she had shared the news, to think of tiny fingers and toes. He tries so hard and yet the memories of his mother shrieking in pain break through; in an instant, he is back there. His mother’s words refuse to leave him. He cannot escape them. You kill the baby, you save the mother. You cut the mother, you save the child. 

When he is startled awake by the howl of the dog, it comes almost as a relief. It is not the first time – nor will it be the last – that the wretched, insufferable thing makes a fuss in the night, but it soon proves to be the most persistent. 

He glances across at his pocket watch where it lays on his bedside table. It is 11 o’clock. 

He glances again, what feels like only seconds later, the dog still crying out from downstairs. It is past midnight. 

When the dog’s distress stirs him once again, he glances across at the pocket watch, barely, not even taking any notice of the time before shifting from the bed. The movement prompts Kate to stir, half asleep as she moans his name, a question. 

“Go back to sleep, my love,” he says, stroking a hand over her back as she moans in vague agreement. Anthony waits, sitting at the edge of the bed, until he feels her sink back into her pillow, her breathing restored to the slow, even pace that could only signify a deep sleep. 

Only then does he venture downstairs to investigate the cause of the dog’s anguish. 

When, eventually, he finds Newton, the dog appears to be tormenting the weary old housekeeper mercilessly. She is pleading for mercy, a candlestick in her hand as she wonders aloud what to do with him. As soon as the dog catches sight of Anthony, he rushes forward with a happy gait to besiege his master with wild, wet licks. He is practically dancing on his hind legs, paws scratching at Anthony’s robe, until he is let down by his own weight and forced to return to all-fours to recover his balance. 

“I have taken him out, my lord,” Mrs. Brown tells him, her tone just as intolerant of the pet as Anthony feels at this very moment. “I do not know what else to do.”

“What is it you want, hmm?” Anthony asks the dog in vain, nodding at his housekeeper to dismiss her, much to her eager relief. Lowering himself in an attempt to reason with the creature, he says, “The lady of the house is trying to sleep, dog.” 

Newton continues licking his hand, taking no notice. 

“Why not settle down here in your bed, yes?” he attempts to reason. “Newton, sit. Sit.” 

On the second try, the command works, but the pet is looking up at him with big eyes, expecting a treat that Anthony does not have to offer. 

“Good boy,” he says, fussing over the animal, playing with his ears the way he knows Kate likes to. “Now, sleep,” he tries, as if it may be possible to execute an entirely new command in the moment. “Time for sleep. It has been a dreadfully long day. You must be tired. You have quite tired me out, boy.”

The stout little dog settles at his feet for a moment, before rolling onto his back to make a command of his own: a tummy rub. Anthony crouches to indulge him, while insisting, “All right, but you must sleep now.” 

At the very moment that Anthony decides enough is enough, the pet begins to whine for more. Anthony holds strong, standing up straight and pointing down at Newton with a direct, determined, “No. Sleep now.” 

He tries to leave the room once he has the dog settled in his bed.

The whimpering grows louder. The whimpering is worse than the howling. It toys with his conscience. It pulls at his heartstrings. Earning a moment of quiet, Anthony returns to the dog only to say, “Come on now. Your mama is trying to sleep and I would very much like to join her.”

He turns away and the dog’s cries begin anew. 

“Newton,” he says in his sternest voice. “Please.”

Newton only lets out a pathetic whine. 

“What is it that you want from me? You have a finer bed than most of the ton, you have walked half the neighbourhood, you have relieved yourself plenty!” Speaking slowly, as if almost every word is its own sentence, Anthony insists: “It is time to sleep.” 

Newton moves to Anthony’s feet again, pawing at the hem of his robe until Anthony gives in and picks the hefty animal up. “This? This is what you wanted? Attention?” He sighs, before sinking down to the floor and settling beside the dog’s bed, his legs out in front of him while the dog makes a cosy home for himself in his lap. “I will stay with you until you fall asleep. But make it quick, boy, I beg.” 

Of course, Anthony falls asleep long before the dog does, the gentle stroking motion he uses to soothe Newton drawing him into a doze. This time it is a peaceful slumber. He is awake and then suddenly he is not. The next thing he knows about it is when he stirs to the sight of Kate standing, arms crossed, looking down at him. She does not appear displeased; he can see amusement tugging at the corner of her mouth, her eyebrow cocked as she watches him blink himself awake.

“Would you care to explain why the master of the house is sleeping on the floor in the dog’s quarters?” she asks. He already knows he will not hear the end of this. She would send a mocking letter to Benedict and Eloise this very moment if it would not be quicker to simply wait until morning. 

“The damned dog would not sleep,” he explains.

“So you came down to… demonstrate the notion?” 

“I came–” He’s quick to defend himself but the words come out a little loud in the heat of his tired frustration. He tries again in an indignant whisper: “I came down so you could get some rest, Kate.” It reminds him, suddenly, that she should be asleep. She is with child. She needs her rest. “Go back to bed. It is late–or early.” He considers that, in truth, he has no idea of the hour. “What time is it precisely?” 

“The latter.” 

“You should be asleep.” 

“And you should be in bed.”

He cannot find it in him to argue with that. She is quite right. The only problem is the snoring devil lying across his lap. “What about him ?” The words are laced with more than a little outright animosity.

“Well,” she says decisively, “he will require some assistance on the stairs.” 

Realising her meaning, he responds with a look of horror. He mouths a desperate, pleading, “No!” but he already knows it is a losing battle. Kate only shrugs, gesturing at the scene as if there is nothing else for it. Perhaps it is the exhaustion setting in but Anthony, too, cannot conceive of an alternative solution.

He picks the dog up, much to a half-awake Newton’s glee, and carries him like a little prince up to their bedchamber. Every step pushes against Anthony’s better judgement, but Kate’s hand rests on his back, guiding him up to their room. He points out, only once they are at the top of the stairs, “It feels rather like we are rewarding bad behaviour.” 

“Do you want to sleep or not?” Kate asks, quite matter-of-factly. 

He chooses not to answer, leading her back to their bed without another word. Kate shows no hesitation in climbing back under the sheets as Anthony settles the big lump of a corgi at the foot of it. The dog crawls feebly towards her side before falling straight back to sleep in perfect contentment, the melody of a wheezy, nasal snore filling the room. 

“I think he wishes to guard you,” Anthony notes, observing the way the dog positions himself. 

Kate’s eyes are closed as she rolls over to face the centre of their bed, meeting him there as he moves to lie down beside her. She opens them only a little, tiredness allowing barely a peek through heavy lids, before pressing a warm, tender kiss to his lips. As he delicately moves a lock of hair from her face, she whispers, “I am getting the distinct impression that he may not be the only one with such an inclination.”

Chapter Text

With time, Anthony gets used to the idea of a child. He grows familiar with the joy and terror that splits him perfectly in two, his emotional tug of war labouring on as the swell of Kate’s stomach protrudes more visibly each passing day. 

There are the nights when he falls asleep soundly beside Kate, dreaming of endless happy days to come. He pictures their child in a thousand incarnations, most often the perfect replica of her with whatever gender and age his dreams choose for him: a boy on a rocking horse, a girl as tall as her mother riding through the forest, a precious baby babbling in his arms. He sinks into the scent of lilies and soap, comforted by Kate’s presence and the warmth of her body lying next to him. He grows used to the gentle snore of the dog that guards the end of their bed. 

As many nights as he falls asleep contentedly, he spends staring up at the elaborately-decorated ceiling, memorising the patterns above to keep his thoughts away from the fears that plague his mind. On those nights, the only sleep that takes him is not worth the torment. His imagination holds more power than he ever knew; however, if it were imagination alone, he might perhaps be able to endure it. It is imagination armed with memory that makes these particular nights so torturous. 

The only comfort he finds is in turning over and looking at his wife, serene as she sleeps, the miraculous swell of her stomach a welcome reminder that all is exactly as it should be. 

There is no need to be worried, he reminds himself again and again. He observes as much. Besides the initial few weeks of fatigue and sickness he had known to expect, Kate is perfectly well. That is all the comfort he needs during the day: her smile, her laugh, her hand slipping its way into his as the other settles proudly over her stomach. While she is awake, he is too enamoured to pay any mind to the darker thoughts simmering in his subconscious. Instead, there is teasing to be done and kisses to be won, and always a game afoot. Daylight, in this way, affords him all the comfort he needs to survive the nights. He is tired from time to time, perhaps, but not so tired he cannot put it down to a headache, a snoring pet, a drink too many. 

It is not until one awful morning that it changes, his nightmares breaking through like sunlight seeping through the curtains. Half the room is cloaked in shadow, half a golden glow.

The only colour Anthony will ever remember from this morning is red. The day is painted deep crimson, the colour of blood staining ivory bedlinen. It sinks into the cotton as irrevocably as it sinks into his mind. 

He does not see it at first. 

At first, there is only Kate. In truth, through Anthony’s lens, there is only ever Kate. 

He stirs to the sight of her sitting upright on the edge of the bed and staring down at the sheet, her eyelashes laden with tears. When his still-waking groan prompts her to look up at him, her gaze holds steady as if she is refusing to blink. A moment longer makes him realise she is afraid to. To blink, he realises quickly as the bloodstain catches his eye and the implications of it begin to dawn, would be to allow the tears to fall. Instead, Kate turns away when she can bear to look at him no longer. 

Anthony quickly shifts to sit himself upright, reaching his hand to her shoulder as he asks, “Are you in any pain?” 

She shakes her head, then bows it, fixing her gaze on her hands where they twist her wedding ring. Her voice faint and hollow, she replies: “None.” 

There is white hot panic inside him. It burns, it scalds, it consumes. In front of him, his wife is utterly still, the air between them thick with melancholy, the kind that sticks in the throat and makes it hard to swallow. He must not give voice to his panic now, he decides. His role is one of husband and protector and – somehow, from some unforeseen well of determined hope inside him – optimist. Instead of panic, he tries for reassurance: “It may not be–” 

Kate cuts him off: “No.” It is said in agreement, at least. Her terse interruption had merely been a tacit request for him not to speak aloud what may or may not be.   

My love, he wishes to say, but it feels far too delicate now. The tender sincerity of it would be too much to bear. “Let us just–”

“I will speak with Mrs. Brown,” she announces, so decided in her tone that he is certain there is no preventing it. 

He fails to make sense of it. “Mrs Brown?”  

“About the sheet.” Kate wipes her face away from his view and sharply sniffs an inhalation, standing upright with an air of determination. It is plainly an excuse to run away from him, perhaps to escape the airless room. 

Talking only to her back as she walks away from him, Anthony calls out to her, “The sheet? It matters not a jot, Kate.” 

She is gone without a word. 

He thinks of running after her and then he thinks better of it, not wishing to overwhelm her in the circumstances. Instead, Anthony gets out of bed, he dresses himself, he paces about the room. 

He finds himself stuck between a rock and a hard place. He does not wish to distress her, to push against a bruise so deep it reaches bone. He is desperately trying not to provoke an argument while neither one of them is in the humour for their usual, familiar back-and-forth. The problem is he married a woman just as stubborn as he is. When she shuts herself off from him, it is a closed door, his pleading eyes merely knocking impotently against hardwood. 

Kate returns moments later, accompanied by the housekeeper. Mrs. Brown walks close to her side, an air of professionalism in her manner that Anthony reads as intuitive understanding. She seems to know better than to indulge any sincere concern, the kind that Kate is desperately running away from; instead, she dutifully insists she has something that will remove the stain and makes no comment regarding the cause of it. 

Tension keeping her posture ramrod straight, Kate manages to maintain her composure throughout the quiet discussion, playing along with the pretence that there is no greater concern than a mark to be sponged clean from the fabric. Anthony can see beyond it, the way her eyes refuse to meet his. In her silences, her eyes always say so much; it is her greatest tell and his greatest counsel. In those eyes lies the truth of every feeling. When she is sad, he can see it there, at the corners of warm brown eyes that captivate and thrill and devastate him in turn. Her power begins in them, the power to determine his every mood in synchronicity with hers. 

As she avoids his gaze, she seems determined to refuse him the insight of a single glance. The resistance alone prompts him to resolutely insist, “I will call for the doctor,” once Mrs. Brown departs the room. He had not wanted to be so decisive on her behalf, to be the one to escalate the matter solely on his own, but her avoidance leads him to think it is the only correct course of action.

Anthony watches her breathe in deeply and slowly. “I am going to see to Newton’s breakfast,” she states, again not allowing any room for debate.

He wants to remind her that the maid can see to the dog. He wants to stop her from running away again. He wants to talk, though it terrifies him to think of putting words to any of it. The mention of the doctor alone had weighed heavy on his tongue.

In the end, Anthony lets her go without protest. 

He cannot argue with her now. It would not help matters. 

Instead, he directs his attention to summoning the doctor, taking the opportunity to do so without having to articulate the request in Kate’s presence. It is best that she does not hear the urgency, the fire, the fear in his voice as he informs the footman of what must be done. Once that particular business is dealt with, he strides off to his private study for a moment alone. If Kate wishes to avoid him, he, in turn, wishes to avoid everyone else. Alone, he can release all the frustration and worry that’s been building since he had first seen those tears stinging at Kate’s eyes.  

Anthony storms into the room without much care for his surroundings. He charges over to his desk before taking an angry swipe at all that covers it, papers scattering about the place, but it feels too futile. He turns around to take a heavy strike at one of the bookshelves, the impact louder and more satisfying and still not enough. The contents of it end up flying across the floor, books abandoned half-open, pages coming loose, spines torn.

It is Newton’s distant bark, all the way across the house, that brings him back to his senses. 

He allows the surge of aggression to pass, panting as he hunches over his desk. He slams his fist down only once, the pain of it enough to give him pause. He closes his eyes, stilling himself. He thinks of that moment in the garden, the bee, and Kate’s hand on his chest, calming him. He squeezes his eyes tighter to reach the memory, to disappear into it and hear her assuring him, I am unharmed, once more. It is breathy and distant but he plays it in his head over and over until his heart rate is returned to something close to normal. 

There, he prays. He prays to a God he does not truly believe in, begging for all to be well again. In truth, Kate simply meeting his eye once more would be a start. 

She successfully avoids him the rest of the morning. Anthony, pacing the halls and climbing the walls, returns time and again to his pocket watch, waiting for Kate to finish busying herself with phantom duties, waiting for the doctor to arrive, waiting for the bloodied sheet to disappear from sight.  

When eventually the physician comes, he is maddeningly vague in his assessment. 

“It is perfectly common, sir,” he tells Anthony directly, as if the two men were conferring about such mundane, unfeeling business as the stock market or the price of gold. “It may be nothing of concern. Time alone will illuminate the situation.” 

Kate, her face etched with sorrow, stares mournfully through the tall windows that face out onto a view of the city: carriages passing by and neighbours walking to and from the nearby park, the lush green of the trees in golden sunlight a stark contrast against the copper and grey of the streets. She is turned away from the men entirely; Anthony can feel the distance between them like a cold draft blowing in, even as he remains distracted by the sobering conversation with Dr. Manville. Newton, settled at her feet, regards the doctor with a low growl, his eyes watching the man as if to put him on edge. 

“No, that is not acceptable,” Anthony argues belligerently, frustrated most especially by the old man’s cool indifference. He spares another glance at Kate and all it does is rile him more, that anyone could witness her so stoic in her maternal concern and be insensitive to it. “You must have some idea of what may be the cause. We cannot just sit by and wait–”

“My lord, you will have to,” the doctor tells him, blinking in surprise, evidently a little affronted by Anthony’s tone. “Your wife reports no pain. The child may be perfectly well. It is most likely, in my experience, but it is impossible to confirm it. I suggest your wife take her rest. I will return in a week or so. Earlier if there should be any further concerns.” 

“Further concerns? Sir, I have concerns enough now,” Anthony spits out at him with a bitter laugh. It is using up every reserve of self-control Anthony has not to shout and scream. “You need not return. I will consult another for I am wasting my time with you.”

As he leads the doctor out without even the most half-hearted of pleasantries, Kate does not react. She only keeps her eyes locked on that grand view of London. 

“All will be well, my love,” Anthony tells her upon his return, his heart breaking at the sight of her back turned to him once again. He longs to offer comfort. He longs to feel useful. He longs, more than anything, to feel as if they are united in their worry rather than torn in two by it.

“You cannot possibly know–”

He cannot. She is right. He does not know anymore than she does. He is the one, after all, whose nights are consumed by the memories of this very thing not being well. He cannot shake off the thought of harm befalling his wife and his child. It is utterly unthinkable that she would feel it too, though. It is unbearable to see her as worried as he is. That is why he says, with all the false conviction he can muster, “I believe . We must believe.”

“Anthony–” She turns to look at him, the tears on her cheeks catching the light. 

He is quick to move in close, his hands gently cradling her face as if she were the world’s most precious jewel. He studies her, wiping away the wetness on her skin, as his gaze rediscovers all that he has spent the morning missing: those warm brown eyes that hold the power to stop his heart from beating, the nuances in the way her eyebrows furrow and rise, the lips he has spent these many months paying particular care to. He finds his strength in her, his words more commanding as he decides, “I will call for another physician. I will not stop until I find one who can give us a better understanding.” 

There is a surprising degree of indifference about Kate as she asks, “You did not trust Dr. Manville?”

He regards her carefully now, tucking a lock of her hair behind her ear just as an excuse to touch her. “I do not trust any doctor who shows so little outward concern towards my wife and my family.”

“I have found that most of them show a pragmatic disregard for the concerns of a lady.”

“He does not belong here, entrusted with matters of such import as this,” Anthony says softly, his eyes never leaving hers. Holding her face before him still, he kisses her temple. “I rather trust Newton’s judgement of the man.” 

Kate nods. “Very well. You are to search for another doctor?” 

“My darling, to find a suitable physician of such competence and compassion as I see fit, I shall send Colin on a thorough search of the globe if necessary. We would, no doubt, be forced to endure no shortage of tedious tales from his travels but it would certainly be a price worth paying.”

Kate allows him a glimpse of her smile and it is enough. For now, it is more than enough. 

“I believe we must take heart in what the doctor said, though, my love. Until we know more, we must acknowledge that he was not outwardly alarmed by a little blood.”

“It was not so much,” she says in her smallest voice, her eyes begging for his agreement.

“No. It was not. It may be nothing of concern, Kate,” he strokes his hand over her head, his thumb sweeping against her forehead while his fingertips weave gently through her hair. “Rest now. We will know more soon.”

 “Anthony.” She steps forward, catching him by surprise. With little warning, she reaches her arms around his waist and leans against him in a hug. Muffled against his chest, he hears, “It will be all right?”

He smooths his hand over her back in a circular soothing motion. “It will. You must rest, Kate.”

“I will catch up on my correspondence,” she decides. It is a perfectly acceptable pastime, not too taxing or laborious. Anthony is content with it. 

“I will walk Newton this afternoon,” he offers, knowing her routine as well as his own.

“He will torment you,” Kate warns, looking down conspiratorially at her closest ally. 

Anthony follows her gaze to the dog lingering loyally at her feet, an irrepressible fondness in his voice as he concedes, “I would expect nothing else. He is your pet, after all.”

“Do not forget we are having dinner with your family this evening,” Kate seems suddenly to remember, drawing her head back so that she can look at him with her eyebrows raised. It is teasing in a way that feels so comfortingly, achingly familiar. She seems to anticipate his groan so he plays it up a little more for the benefit of her amusement. 

“I shall cancel.” Anthony decides it easily; it is nothing to him. While his mother may have a certain curiosity about the abrupt change of plans, it is no great drama to disappoint her. 

“No,” she argues most stubbornly. He already knows she will win. “You must not. Your mother is expecting us.” 

“My mother will quite understand.”

“Your sister is in town,” Kate points out, though Anthony fails to see the significance. Daphne is in town often, to-ing and fro-ing with her own offspring – occasionally the Duke in tow – as if she rather misses the busy, chaotic world of Bridgerton House.  

“Daphne will want to speak of nothing but the child. We cannot go.”

“Why? I am quite all right. There is nothing to do but wait and see, as the doctor said.” He meets the challenge in Kate’s eyes, the resolute set of her mouth: not quite a smile, stopping short of a pout. She holds her head high, straightening her spine to stand apart from him once more. 

He cannot argue with it while also attempting to convince her that all will be well. It is one or the other. She knows it, too. She has played her cards artfully. He cannot win, so he surrenders with a reluctant shrug. She almost appears disappointed when he does, so he adds, “You will regret it when my mother has talked your ear off about the peculiar cravings she experienced over her respective eight pregnancies, or perhaps when my sister has regaled you of every insipid detail regarding Augie’s development.”

“Perhaps,” she allows with a simmer of amusement, “but we have given our word.”

He kisses her cheek as any true, obedient husband must, then whispers earnestly in her ear: “If at any point you wish to leave, you simply have to say the word.” He pulls back to look in her eye, to lock in the promise his words hold. “I mean it, Kate. You do not have to endure a single second more than you would choose to.”

“I will be fine, Anthony,” she assures him in return. A glimmer of her usual spark reappears as she adds: “I will have you to gallantly protect me, after all.” 

*

They keep the intimate details of their situation to themselves. There is no reason to alarm the family before they are certain there is just cause to. No good would come of eight more anxious Bridgertons and there are no natural-born secret keepers among them. Instead, Kate paints on a smile that only Anthony knows to be false. She keeps herself apart from him through the evening, lifts her chin high and acts the model viscountess at dinner as if there is nothing of concern in her head. 

Most of the evening, Kate remains glued to Eloise’s side. She is a reliable friend for such an occasion, the least interested of any of them in the impending arrival. 

Anthony finds it far harder to pretend.

“Something troubling you, brother?” Benedict asks as they take their neighbouring seats around the table, discreetly enough that Anthony understands it to be founded in genuine concern. His reply is only a look that asks more questions than it answers, but Benedict appears to read the solemn expression as a discussion for later. 

At the other end of the table, where Daphne sits directly opposite his wife, he hears his eldest sister ask Kate a series of questions about the pregnancy. “How have you been feeling, Kate? Have you felt the little one kicking yet?” she asks with benevolent curiosity.

Kate shyly shakes her head, relieved when their meal is brought to the table, providing a convenient distraction. “I-I do not know,” Anthony hears her reply. “It is so hard to be sure.”

“I remember those first kicks felt like the strangest flutters, but you grow more certain of them,” Daphne continues with earnest enthusiasm, disappearing into a daydream summoned by the memory. “It is the most surreal feeling, but utterly delightful in its own way. You have so much to look forward to, dear sister.” She covers Kate’s hand on the table with her own, though Kate reacts to the well-intentioned gesture as if burned by it. She manages to recover quickly but Anthony catches the slight flinch.

“I hope so,” Kate replies so quietly, so sadly, it breaks Anthony’s heart.

“It is always hardest to tell with the first pregnancy,” Violet chimes in, matching Daphne’s merry tone. She is sat between them at the end of the table, a warm look as her attention rallies between daughter and daughter-in-law. “Soon, the infant shall be keeping you up all night, wriggling around terribly.” 

“I did not get one good night’s sleep for the last three months!” Daphne comments in a laugh, though Anthony finds he cannot match her humour. He grinds his jaw waiting for his sister to meet his eyes so that he can send a silencing glare in her direction. Instead, she continues on obliviously, only looking at Kate across from her, “You must make the most of these next few weeks for I dare say they are the most pleasant of the whole endeavour.” She turns to Violet. “Would you not say so, Mama?” 

Her mother opens her mouth to answer before Eloise cuts in: “Darling sister, would you mind terribly if we discussed another subject for just a brief moment of respite? Perhaps the weather, or the latest fashions at the Modiste, or – heaven forbid – the most recent scandals from Lady Whistledown’s papers?” Having been slumped with her finger pressed against her forehead throughout the entire baby-centred exchange, she flicks at her fringe as she adjusts herself to sit more respectably. Anthony still notes a slouch in her posture but chooses not to start that argument, not least because he is glad for her insolence on this particular occasion. “The rest of us childless shrews and bachelors are feeling entirely left out.” 

“I am neither!” Hyacinth asserts, her voice sounding helplessly infantile despite her best efforts to sit tall to match the height of the siblings surrounding her. 

“Nor me,” Francesca says, quieter. 

“Not yet,” Eloise murmurs under her breath, earning a below-table kick from Daphne. 

Anthony notices Kate breathe out for perhaps the first time all evening, even allowing herself a faint chuckle. When her eyes meet Eloise’s, Anthony’s sister seems to catch the grateful relief directed at her; her features form a curious expression, her gaze wandering to address Anthony with questioning eyes. Thankfully, much like Benedict, she seems to have the good sense to leave it there and resumes the playful badinage with her sisters quickly. 

“Eloise, someday this information will be of use to you,” Daphne remarks in her haughtiest tone.

“Oh, I dearly hope not, sister,” Eloise teases. “After all, I do so enjoy my sleep. You have quite put me off the notion! Sad as it is, too, for before this evening I was in such an eager rush to find myself an eligible husband and bear perhaps a whole alphabet of children.”

“Six-and-twenty Eloises? Perish the thought,” Benedict comments, taking a sizeable sip from the glass of wine in his hand. Anthony allows himself to laugh at the repartee of his siblings, easing into it as Kate meets his gaze across the table as if anticipating his response. He rolls his eyes at the absurdity of his family and she grins in that forgiving way that says, you love them really. She is right, of course, and he finds himself smiling warmly on an evening when smiling had previously seemed far from possible. There is profound comfort and intimacy in these silent conversations of theirs – across tables, across rooms – and this brief, passing moment reminds him of it.

“You wound me, brother,” Eloise replies in an acutely mocking tone she reserves for Benedict above all. “And here I was so ready to pass down your name to my second born.”

He points as if to catch her out: “What if it had been a girl?”

Eloise theatrically pretends to consider it, tapping her chin with her forefinger a moment, before replying, “Perhaps Beatrice, to honour the natural sparring partner of your near-namesake.”

“So you have thought about it, darling!” Violet takes what little comfort she can, though she cannot help but reach for her glass, following Benedict’s lead. 

“No, mother,” Eloise scoffs in irritation, “I am simply quick of mind.” 

“And of temper,” Daphne mutters as an aside, her eyes blowing wide for the amusement of Hyacinth and Gregory. 

The siblings erupt then, a cacophony of laughter and teasing words thrown together like tinder onto a bonfire. Anthony can no longer discern any of the particulars: Eloise in hot disagreement with Benedict and Daphne, Colin’s futile attempts at mediation, Hyacinth and Gregory providing a lively audience, Francesca struggling to get a word in edgeways. He is entirely zoned in on Kate, listening carefully as his mother raises her voice above the racket to say, “Kate, you must excuse my children for they have quite forgotten their manners.” 

At that, Kate truly smiles. Despite the distance and the commotion between them, her eyes find Anthony again as she lets out a deep breath. 

“Not at all, Lady Violet. I find them wonderfully diverting tonight,” she answers, her attention still fixed on her husband. Quieter, she adds, “I believe it is everything a family ought to be.”

“Surely you would wish for a little less of the noise,” Anthony interjects from across the table, everyone else disappearing until it is only the two of them in focus. There is the white noise, the blurry peripheral awareness of the rest of the family, but only Kate is sharp and bright and full-colour.

She grins at his suggestion. “It is lively,” Kate defends them as Gregory swipes a sausage from Colin’s plate and feeds it to a loitering Newton, settled beneath his chair. He looks up at her guiltily when he realises he has been caught in the act but recovers the very moment he notices the impressed smile that Benedict affords him. 

“It is chaotic,” Anthony counters before sending a chastising scowl in the direction of his youngest brother. “They are unruly.”

Kate is shaking her head with a smile even brighter than before when he looks back at her. Upon seeing it, Anthony manages to rediscover his own smile. 

“It is wonderful,” she mouths, and he cannot help but accept it as the truth. They are rowdy and precocious and loud, but so perfectly them. He looks upon the table, at everyone he loves gathered around it and squabbling in their various factions, and he concedes there may be nothing so wonderful in all the world. 

*

Night falls, bringing rain with it. As they step out from the family home after dinner, Anthony does not miss the way Kate looks up to the skies, pinched eyebrows betraying her unease. He insists to the driver that their carriage ride home be taken slow and steady despite the shower. He refuses to let go of her hand for a single step on the slippery cobblestone walk from the post-chaise to their front steps. Kate puts up no argument, gripping his fingers tightly, letting him lead her home.

Once they are safely inside, Martha is quick to help Kate out of her damp clothes. As soon as she is down to her chemise, the maid lets her alone to opt for a nightdress or – as she usually chooses, with Anthony’s more-than-willing assistance – nothing at all. 

For this evening, she chooses her nightgown. 

Anthony watches as she pulls it on then studies the way the fabric falls around her stomach. With one hand holding the bottom of her burgeoning bump and the other flat at the top of it, she looks down at herself. She smooths over it there, examining the swell of it as if looking for any difference compared to the night before. 

It is painful how fragile it all feels, living on the cusp of perfection and tragedy both. 

Kate has carried herself with such strength all evening, shoulders straight and chin high, wearing a smile that could fool anyone but him. It had indeed fooled a whole table of Bridgertons, with the aid of relentless distraction. It is only now, in private, he sees the cracks in the facade deepening. When she looks up, her glistening eyes glance at the windows. The curtains are not yet drawn, hanging limply either side of the glass. 

“It feels like a bad omen,” she murmurs as she watches the patter of raindrops falling against the window panes, the sound like fingernails tapping at a table. The pathetic fallacy of it all feels rather too prophetic; even Anthony would admit it were he not determined to play the role of perennial optimist all of a sudden. It is not his nature nor his inclination even now, but every second Kate looks to be on the brink of tears, he feels the weight of responsibility on his shoulders, the burden of maintaining a positive outlook falling squarely on him. It is like stepping back into old shoes, moulded to fit him but worn and tired, one misstep away from breaking. He thinks of the false smiles he summoned for Gregory and Hyacinth all those years, the strength he found for his mother; this is nothing compared to that, at least. Not yet.

Anthony moves to close the distance between them, standing behind Kate and wrapping her up in his arms until she is tucked tight against him, her head resting against his. “The weather signifies nothing more than weather.”

She hums in vague agreement, as if wishing she believed it more than truly doing so.

“Kate–”

“Anthony,” she chides with such a calm, devastating degree of impatience. His name is not uttered with any anger, any fire; it is only a weary plea. He can feel her fatigue in the way she leans against him now, relying on his strength to hold her up.“I cannot talk tonight. I am too tired to talk tonight.” Whatever lightness had been restored by the company of their family has been lost to the threat of the storm. 

“In the morning, then,” he negotiates.

“In the morning.” Kate turns and kisses him – a light, fleeting peck on the lips – before moving over towards the bed where Newton has already made himself at home. It offers some consolation. 

Anthony moves to pull the curtains across, attempting to close them so that every inch of the window is blocked from view. He knows from experience it will not stop the flashes of lightning from cutting through the room, the light always managing to creep in at the seams. Still, he does what he is able before settling into bed beside Kate without another word. She has already turned onto her side, facing away from him as she naturally does. He can tell she is awake still by the tension radiating from her body, though he opts not to reach out to her, nor to curl himself around her and whisper gentle nothings in her ear as they drift off together. If she could only get to sleep before the storm escalates, it may not be so bad. 

As the house quiets for the night, the tumult of the storm seems to build. Anthony can hear the wind blowing through the city, the distant sound of gates swinging and trees rustling. The chorus of dogs howling outside catches Newton’s attention and he sits up, alert suddenly. Anthony shushes him softly before he even thinks to reply, but the unpredictable corgi seems to know better than to test the master of the house, only looking back at him with uncharacteristic compliance. “Good boy,” Anthony whispers, just before their stare-down is interrupted by a flash of lightning. It is as if a flame has sparked to life in the room, streaking in through every slither of a gap in the curtains. It shocks the room to light for only a moment, but Anthony feels Kate curl in on herself in a snap. 

He quickly sits up, lighting the candle at his bedside to prevent the flashes from cutting through the darkness quite so sharply. It dilutes the contrast, dulling the effect somewhat when the next bolt of lightning strikes.

There is nothing he can do to muffle the clap of thunder that follows, the low boom of it seeming to last all too long. Even after it has passed, the rain builds until it is thrashing against the glass where it had begun as only a tepid patter. Kate has herself coiled so tightly that her knees are as high as her stomach; it is as if she is curled protectively around the swell of it. 

“Kate,” he says, reminding her he is there. 

As Anthony turns onto his side, lowering himself so that he lines up perfectly with her body, Newton shifts to settle on her feet. He plants himself there as if following Anthony’s lead, the two of them cosying around Kate like living shields. Slowly, not wanting to alarm her, Anthony slides his arm around her waist so that they lie as one, the three of them a single silhouette. Kate sinks back against him and gratefully takes his hand, pulling it tight to her chest.

He feels her trembling in his arms, the fear taking hold, its grip tight and unyielding. With each new crash of thunder, her body is shocked with tension; he can feel the way it snaps through her repeatedly, the convulsions violent as her elbow knocks against him and he feels the hard bone of her shoulders flinch against his chin. Where his bare skin touches hers, she is cold but clammy against him. As the storm rages on, her breath grows panicked and laboured. She takes in sharp breaths and then seems to forget to exhale. She holds onto each one in anticipation of the next boom of thunder, the next peel of lightning. 

She cries only then, silent and attempting to hide her face in the pillow. He can feel tears dropping onto his skin, her face wet when he moves a hand to help her wipe her cheeks. 

“My love, you are safe,” he whispers, his voice steady and low. “I swear you are safe.”

She nods. 

“Do not think of the monsoons,” he says, calm as can be. He remembers the nights he would be up with Gregory, a shallow sleeper if ever there was one, and finds that same voice: steady and even, only now all the more impassioned. “Think of the library, that night I found you amid another storm.” He had longed to hold her like this then, propriety be damned. “I will always be with you through the thunder and the darkness. I will always be here, Kate. You are the centre of my world. You are the axis from which it spins.”

His words persuade her to let him in. Kate twists around to face him, resting her head on the pillow in front of his, their noses just millimetres apart. In all her fear, she looks him in the eye. Anthony’s hand seeks hers out again, squeezing it, then dragging it up to his chest to lay her palm over his heart – just as she had done amid his panic, his terror.

He takes in a deep breath slowly, giving a nod to encourage her to mirror him. 

“It is so loud,” she manages to say.

“It will stop soon,” he assures her.

“I am so tired,” she says, quieter. 

“I know.” 

“Anthony, I am so terrified that something is wrong,” Kate confesses, closing her eyes a little longer than a blink, her eyelashes heavy with tears when they open again. He does not speak at first, not wishing to dismiss her worry with meaningless platitudes. 

It is a pause long enough for her to observe, softly, “You are scared too.” Her words are not a question but a realisation he cannot deny. 

Kate studies him carefully and he knows she can see through him. It would be cruel to lie so he only concedes, “It is a scary prospect to love another.” 

He wonders if she understands the extent of his meaning, whether she can read his mind as she looks into his eyes. She knows of his father, but not all of it, not the days and months after, filled with his mother’s pain of every kind. There is so much he wishes to hold back from her, so many memories she does not deserve to share in. It is not her burden to bear, so he only confesses a little of it aloud: “It was not so long ago that I tried very, very hard not to let you into my own heart. You are, it turns out, rather inevitable.” 

She manages to smile through her tears. “I do not like to lose.”

“No.” He cannot help his own grin. “You do not.”

Kate is pensive, and perhaps a little melancholy, as she states: “You did not wish to love me.” There is no argument to be had, for once. She says it like she has already come to a conclusion.

“It was only through fear of losing you,” Anthony is quick to correct her. There is no ill intent to be found in her reflections, nor any feeling more than stone-cold fear. He inches his face just a little closer, his nose brushing hers and her breath tickling his skin. “As it turns out, the matter was quite out of my hands. There is no world in which our two souls could meet where I would not love you with every ounce of my being.” 

 “You do not regret–”

“Not a thing, Kate. How could I ever–” He does not get the chance to finish the thought. He does not get the chance to tell her that any version of his life without her in it would be hollow and worthless. It would be a life without joy, and connection, and endless, glorious vexation. It would be nothing compared to what he has. 

Kate gasps so sharply he does not get to say it. 

Anthony looks at her, the question in his eyes. The gasp is not in time with a thunderclap and the lightning seems to have stopped at last. Its cause remains a mystery, though the ways her eyes are wide and glistening offers hope of something good.

When Kate utters, “The child is moving,” the unsteady words feel so much better than good, the word is an insult to the emotion. “Feel, here,” she says, moving his hand to her stomach, initially laying it over her nightgown before lifting the fabric high enough for him to press his palm skin-to-skin on the curve of her small bump. 

At first, nothing. He cannot feel any movement at all. Still, Anthony takes profound comfort, at least, in the certainty she has of it. She is so sure, he does not need to feel the evidence of it himself; they are one body, one skin, one entity. 

“I know it is the child kicking,” she says again, crying it out so joyously that he cannot help but weep helplessly against her shoulder. “I can feel it.”

“My darling–” 

She moves his hand, settling it in a different spot and holding it there. “You must feel it.” 

Only then, he does. A flutter. It is barely there, a faint ghost of a feeling passing against his palm. If not for her certainty, he might never have noticed it at all. 

“All is well, my love.” 

She shakes her head, disbelieving. “It seems the child enjoys a storm.” 

“Perhaps the child only wishes to offer its mother comfort,” he says. “It is proof, is it not, that you are not alone; you will never be alone in this life. The storm can rage on outside those walls but here, between us, you are safe and protected. You need not worry.”

“I was so scared,” she bursts out with a sob. He knows she does not refer to the storm now. He knows it by the way she cradles her middle. “I was so scared,” she says again, a hysterical kind of laugh escaping her on a wave of relief.

“I know, Kate.” He kisses her cheek, he kisses her hair, he kisses her lips. “I know.” 

“The storm is not half so frightening now.” 

Anthony laughs at the way her whole demeanour changes, her fragility transforming into defiance. All the tension has drained from her. She is smiling an impossible beaming, bright smile when the lightning lights up the room once more.

“I feel as though I might run out to greet the lightning and dance in the rain,” she whispers, ignoring the tears as they drop onto the pillow between them.

Anthony shakes his head only as much as the pillow allows, his instinct to absolutely rule the idea out only marginally outweighed by the acknowledgement that she is not, in fact, serious. “You must rest,” is all he says, choosing not to think about the dreadful cold she would catch if she truly did lose her mind in such a manner. “Rest easy, my love.”

Chapter Text

It is a truth universally acknowledged that Anthony Bridgerton is a man completely and utterly in love with his wife. The viscount is not shy or subtle about it. It is worn with such a degree of pride that he does not care a jot for the meddling interests of the ton, nor the salacious accounts of it reported by Lady Whistledown (though her mentions of them have, of late, been notably generous of spirit). Anthony concerns himself only with making it known to Kate as much and as often as can be allowed for. 

It is expressed in heated looks across rooms.

It is expressed in secret nooks designed for the very purpose of stolen trysts with anyone but one’s own spouse. And yet there he is, time and again, pulling his wife by the hand for a moment alone, away from prying eyes and listening ears.

It is expressed, even, in anger and fear. For Anthony, who has lost so much, love and fear are one. They are feelings bound together as tightly as Anthony and Kate themselves.

It had been the scare the day of the storm that truly undid the small grip Anthony had been managing to hold on this unshakeable worry. It had seized upon his panic, lodging beneath the skin, a splinter that bedded too deep before he could do a thing about it. It has become an irremovable pain, a wound below the surface that grows ever more infected with all the unpleasant memories he had begun with, imbuing every thought with fear and every action with a frantic energy that he can do little to quiet. The countless ways he has found cause for concern would be laughable if perhaps they were not so terrifying. 

During her long, slow walks around the park with Newton, he worries mercilessly. Anthony imagines the dog bolting off, as he is wont to do, and Kate over-exerting herself in hot pursuit of him. He wonders about the heat of the sun or the dark tint of the clouds. He considers, too, that the walk itself may be too much of an exertion even on a mild day, for she is routinely out walking for nigh on two hours, according to his pocket watch. It is too much, too suffocating for Kate, for him to comment aloud. He only lingers by the doorway in anticipation of her return each day or tags along for the outing, far too distracted to continue managing his books and reading his correspondence. With the benefit of his restraint, she seems to interpret his attentions as devotion, kissing him warmly each time she walks in and finds him waiting. He had begun the habit by feigning a coincidence of timing, but it had now been repeated far too many times for that theory to hold much water. She does not seem to mind. 

Kate minds considerably more when he refuses to dance with her. The first time, she waits all night for him to extend the invitation. She does not say a word, only looks across the room with a question in her eyes more times than he can bear. He does not invite her to dance, only suggests quietly in her ear that she take a seat or approaches with a glass of water he has summoned on her behalf. Her disappointment palpable, she offers reluctant acceptance that seems more motivated by a commitment to appropriate manners than true acceptance. 

It is during the third or fourth evening that it occurs that Kate decides to make her feelings known. 

The viscountess outright tells him, “We will dance the allemande tonight, Anthony,” her fierce gaze and cocked eyebrow completing the sentence, or you shall be sleeping alone. 

She cannot conceal her offence when he stubbornly mutters under his breath, “You must not be dancing in your condition,” as if hoping not to be overheard by others. 

“In my condition?” she repeats, her eyes narrowing and back straightening. 

“I do not wish for you to tire yourself, my dear.” He attempts to placate her, his hand moving to her arm in the hope that the touch might connect them in some way.

“I can judge for myself what I am capable of, sir,” she replies, her tone sharp as he has ever heard it. “If you will not allow me a turn about the floor, I will simply ask Benedict to join me.”

Before he can rebuke that notion, Kate has left his company to find his younger brother. Not only does Benedict oblige, the persuasion required is minimal. He merely turns to hear her request, glances across at Anthony to engage his scowl with a smirk, then leads her by the hand so that they are ready for the dance to begin. The way Benedict smiles as he bows, Anthony knows he is being taunted. “Et tu, Brute?” he mumbles under his breath before storming off past his mother, Eloise and Daphne, past the elaborate confectionery table, past whispering acquaintances and curious stares.

Much to his relief, Anthony manages to remedy the situation before they arrive home that evening. He has developed a habit of stowing away little snacks for her in his pockets – pockets she does not have in her gown. It is an old trick that he once used to make himself popular with Hyacinth and Gregory, but on this occasion it wins him favour with Kate during their carriage ride home. 

As soon as he reveals two pink macarons, some brioche and a small cluster of grapes, he watches her eyes light up. It is the first time she has looked upon him with anything kinder than a glower in well over an hour, so he feels a burst of sincere relief before she snaps them away and says, “I am reminded, with sudden ferocity, why I love you so dearly.” 

Anthony relaxes against her at last, letting his arm slide behind her along the line of the seat. “I am glad. I was a little afraid I would be sent down to the dog’s quarters this evening.”

Her cheek protruding with the round shape of a macaron, her speech muffled by it, Kate replies, “The dog’s quarters is our bedchamber now, dear.” She finishes the mouthful, giving him a thoughtful glance as she adds, softer, “And I would not wish to leave you all alone. Your snoring rather soothes me to sleep in a funny sort of way.” 

“I do not snore,” Anthony is quick to argue, stubborn as ever. “It is the dog.”

“It is you, my love.” Kate gives him a conciliatory pat on the knee, not bothering to look at him as she concerns herself with the last of the grapes. Her words have an edge of impatience about them as she dryly continues, “I assure you, I can tell the difference between my husband and my pet.”

“If it is true, why has no one told me of my snoring before?”

Kate raises her eyebrows and he can already feel the conversation getting away from him. He knows her well enough to know that this particular kind of charged pause always comes as a precursor to one of Kate’s rhetorical checkmates. They will talk and talk in circles, spinning through their verbal dance, and then the moment will come when he slips, almost imperceptibly. He does not notice himself until he catches that look in her eye and knows she has him, the argument is lost somehow. He does not even know how, his quick mind not catching up to hers until she says, sitting up a little straighter now and turning to face him, “Lord Bridgerton, is it possible that no one who ever slept beside you, before me, ever showed such a lack of deference for your position? I, on the other hand, do not care to shower you with compliments and massage your ego.” 

He had thought only of his brothers, his parents or anyone who might ever have caught him nodding off during one of the ton’s tedious music recitals. It is perhaps natural that Kate’s thoughts might have gone elsewhere. Instead of venturing further down a dangerous path, he chooses a peaceful surrender, rubbing his hand over her back as he concedes, “We are equals.”

“‘Tis true,” Kate lends him a smile at that, letting herself lean into him, “and yet you permit yourself to make decisions on my behalf?”

Despite her softness, he cannot help the emotion that cuts through. He is unable to withhold his intensity: “If anything should happen to you–”

“Hush, Anthony.” She puts a hand against his cheek, her thumb moving in soothing strokes over the bone of it. “Nothing bad ever happened to anyone during the allemande.” 

She kisses him, as if to remind him to soften his serious expression. He considers pointing out the time one misstep at the Cowpers’ late spring ball had led to half the dancers falling like dominos, with more than one young miss leaving with a tear in her dress, but, in the end, he accepts that the unfortunate event is likely to be repeated and keeps quiet. 

“You should stop looking so severe. That frown is so deep I fear it may stick, and I do not wish for you to frighten the child when he or she arrives.”

At the very next ball, he agrees to one dance as a compromise: a blessed waltz. She would only engage in an energetic country dance with Benedict if Anthony did not acquiesce, and the notion is quite unbearable, even if his brother could never be the cause of any serious jealousy. Instead, Anthony permits himself to enjoy the dance and the power it has to make them suddenly the only two people in the room. Since their very first dance together, all those months ago, it has always felt just like this: the two of them in their own private bubble, the crowded floor emptying as all but each other fades into the background. 

When it ends, Kate seems suitably satisfied. She is tired enough, at least, to let him lead her out to the balcony, where there is little to do but sit and gaze upon the moon and the moonlit flower garden. It is a perfectly lovely alternative, he finds, and by the way she curls against his shoulder and looks out at the prettiness before them, he considers she might feel the very same. 

If Kate notices the way he squeezes her hand a little tighter when they descend the stairs, she allows it. If she notices the fierceness of his watchful gaze across crowded ballrooms, she forgives him for it. If she notices the way he checks the sheet every morning, only breathing out once he can see it is clear, she does not comment. 

It only truly gets to be too much the morning he discovers an empty bed and an empty stable.

*

Anthony wakes with a start to the wet drool of Newton’s affection, with no sign of Kate. There is little he enjoys less than waking up alone. Before Newton had earned bedtime privileges and his restless mind had started keeping him up long through the night, just the coolness of the bedsheet was enough to rouse him almost immediately on those rare mornings Kate awoke restless or unsettled enough to leave his side. Now, it seems, it takes a little longer for his unconscious body to recognise the change. Still, when Newton’s licking brings him to and he realises Kate is not there – most odd considering the pet follows her everywhere – he feels a cold, sharp flash of panic. 

Anthony is quick to leap from the bed, clumsily dressing himself well enough for the eyes of the household at least. With Newton trailing him, he strides purposefully through the residence in search of her, ticking off each room with increasing frustration. He checks the sitting room: undisturbed since they had left it the previous night. He glances into the library to find the room as empty and still as he has ever seen it. He wanders into the kitchen only to see Mrs. Brown talking with the cook as she prepares the morning’s food. Newton rushes forward to investigate, claiming his breakfast as the cook places it on the floor for him. “Good morning, my lord,” they both greet Anthony in chorus.

Anthony gives a half-hearted nod to return the sentiment. “Have you seen Mrs. Bridgerton this morning?” he asks, feeling a tinge of embarrassment at both his lack of knowledge regarding Kate’s whereabouts and his plain desperation to find her. 

The pair both shake their heads before Mrs. Brown steps forward to say, “Not today, sir. Should I send Turner out to look for my lady?” 

He considers it for a moment. “No. Not yet. She is probably…” He racks his brain for the end of the sentence, struggling to imagine what Kate might be doing, where she might have gone at this hour. If it were an early morning walk, she would surely have taken the dog. “I will keep searching on my own for now. Thank you, Mrs. Brown.” 

Leaving the dog to inhale his morning meal, Anthony ventures next to the garden. He only stops on the way when he passes the maid in the corridor, asking with unrestrained urgency, “Martha, have you seen the viscountess this morning?” 

“No, sir,” she mumbles rather quietly. “I was just on my way up to see my lady.”

“I am afraid you will be disappointed,” he replies, scratching fiercely at his forehead. Anthony does little to conceal his frustration and worry, his voice shaking just enough to earn a rather startled look of concern from Kate’s loyal maid as he explains, “She is not upstairs. She is, in fact, nowhere to be found.” 

Martha looks away as if she finds his intensity a little frightening. He notices the way she shrinks. She dares a glance at him, then looks away again. It is only after a long silence, and a few more less-than-sly glances, that he realises it is something more. 

“Martha?” he prods. 

For a moment, she chews on her lip. When she looks down at the floor and he follows her gaze, he notices her twisting her hands. “Sir, forgive me…”

“Do you know where Kate is?” He drops the formalities entirely, too impatient to allow for all the syllables his wife’s full name requires. It is the plea of a desperate man, still battling to keep his concern contained. There is no great cause for alarm yet, he reminds himself; however, he can feel the impulse to panic lingering close to the surface. 

“No, no… I–Not for certain,” she rushes, fumbling over each word, to insist. “I only wonder… have you checked the stables?” 

He cannot fathom it. “The stables?”

“Yes, sir,” Martha quietly confirms, as if nervous she may be punished for the suggestion. She does not meet his eyes. If she did, she would only see fear, not anger or chastisement. He is simply scared for what it means. 

The stables. Her horse. Their morning ride. 

Anthony charges off. He does not look back.

What begins as a determined walk soon turns into a laboured run and he is breathless by the time he reaches the stables. He is quick to notice Elaichi is missing: Kate’s beloved horse, dark brown mane with the same natural elegance as her mistress. Anthony’s shoulders hang defeated as he takes in the sight, his breathing gradually slowing its way back to something like normal. 

Kate is out riding, he concludes with resigned certainty that grows ever firmer by the second. It is an unpleasant sinking feeling deep in his gut. 

He kicks the wooden bucket that happens to have the misfortune of being the closest thing within reach. For a while, he paces and paces around, burning holes into the dusty ground as he circles the spot. He contemplates the morning ride they have shared so many times, thinks on the route and which paths she might have chosen to take before daylight breaks. It had been a shared routine for a while, before they had known of the child. There had been no official halting of the practice, only mutual understanding – at least, that is what he had believed. 

Eventually, Anthony decides to ride Apollo out to look for her. It is just as he begins to canter down the path that he catches sight of Kate slowly trotting towards him. He only sees her silhouette at first, back straight, posture as defiant as ever, with that incongruous round swell of a bump at her middle. He cannot see much of her face with her hood up, but she is quite unmistakable. As Kate comes through the shadows of the trees and into the newly-risen sunlight, he catches the preemptive defeat in her eyes when she sees him, the way she seems to steel herself for their inevitable quarrel.

Instantly, with no hesitation, he jumps down from his horse and rushes to where hers comes to a halt. Despite the anger he feels rising in him, Anthony holds his hand out to assist her dismount. It is a reflex, a natural habit he chooses not to fight. Kate accepts it in frosty silence, the air between them cool as Christmas morning. She gives no preemptive glance at him in search of forgiveness, makes no rush to insist it is a rare break from routine; she instead seems to tense, her walls rebuilding brick by brick in the space between them, her hand coming loose from his the very moment she no longer has need of it.  

As soon as she has both feet on the ground once more, Anthony blurts, “Are you quite mad?!” 

Kate chooses not to look at him, stroking the horse with a delicate care that contrasts the rather stern, dismissive tone she directs at her husband as she begins: “Anthony–” 

“You were riding!” 

“Yes.”

“You were riding!” he repeats, louder, feeling his point was not made quite clear enough the first time. 

“Yes.” 

He does not know what to say. He is too enraged to speak. Instead, he might simply explode as he stands there impotently glaring at her back, waiting for her to grant him her full attention. 

“Anthony,” she chides him with none of the softness he has grown used to, “if you have something to say about it, I urge you to speak your mind.” Her tone sharpens further: “As I recall, you have never held back before.” 

“Anything could have happened!” 

Kate turns at last to face him, jabbing a finger in the air. “I am an accomplished rider!” 

“Oh, of course,” he nods repeatedly, the gesture dripping with furious sarcasm. His mind flashes back to the day of her accident, the sight of her lying unconscious on the grass, the fierce red of her blood on his hands. It is impossible to convey to her the pain he feels every time the memory returns to his mind, though in truth it never truly leaves him, only sits in wait, threatening to remind him at any opportune moment – such as this very one. “My apologies. You have never once fallen from your horse and nearly died before my eyes. What was I thinking!” 

Kate startles, if only for a moment, perhaps noticing the tears that sting his eyes. She blinks quickly to recover herself as she challenges him again: “Tell me, dear husband, will you be holding that over my head for the whole of our marriage, or just these first 10 or 15 years?” 

“I am not holding it over you, Kate,” he reasons with her, sounding more petulant than he would wish to. “You are with child!”

“Of that, I am aware, sir.” Her sharpness pierces him. It is reserved for Anthony alone. She holds one steady hand flat against her stomach and the other protectively against her horse, as if he might next take his frustrations out on Elaichi. It only serves to make him feel even more isolated in his position, facing the task of fighting Kate with all her defences up. “If not for the fact that it is impossible for me to ignore the changing proportions of my own body, your constant reminders would surely do the trick.”

“Well, do you not think you ought to act like it?” 

“I was taking my horse for a trot around the gardens, Anthony, not racing at Ascot,” she points out, her tone still cool and rathermore collected than Anthony feels at this moment. Perhaps reading the genuine concern bedded in his anger, she hastens to add, “I am perfectly all right. As is the child.” Kate holds his gaze with a steadiness that overpowers him. It is easy to forget the effect she has. In mere moments, he is disarmed. He finds understanding. Looking into Anthony’s eyes, she gently tells him, “The doctor has assured me that, provided it is nothing rigorous, I am quite safe.”

It leaves him all puffed up without any direction to go in. She is so adept at talking him to a standstill. He only stares back, his mind losing grip of the many counter-arguments he had accumulated in the wait for her return. 

Breaking the silence, Kate adds, “The mare cannot be kept in the stable for months. Not when she is so well used to our morning rides.” 

“Edwina can take her out!”

“Edwina does not like to ride.” 

“Since when?”

“Since we were children. She was always spooked by horses as a girl.” As an aside, Kate adds, “Anthony, you really were a terribly inattentive suitor.”

He suppresses the urge to point out that it had been rather difficult to pay attention to anything but Kate herself at that time, instead snapping, “Yes, we are all very grateful that that ill-fated courtship did not come to fruition, Kate. Though, perhaps if it had, I might not be forced to convince my wife not to ride horses while she is with child!” 

Her mouth drops open in outrage. “Take that back!”

“I will not.”

She steps closer, insistent: “Take it back!” 

“I am merely pointing out–”

“That you would rather have married my sister?” Kate crosses her arms, her glare so sharp it might very well cut him in two. 

“That is most certainly not my meaning, Kate, and you know it!” 

“I know nothing of the sort,” she dismisses him, and Anthony cannot help but throw his arms up in frustration. 

Attempting to articulate the issue at hand a little clearer while moving far, far from the subject of his courtship with Edwina, he says, “Kate, what if someone was to see you out on one of these morning rides?” 

“Ah!” she starts with such exaggerated enthusiasm, Anthony knows he is being mocked. “Then the world shall come crumbling down, my dear.”

“Do be serious.”

“I am cautious not to be seen, as I always was. The only person who has ever recognised me has been Penelope Featherington and I dare say she looked as keen as I to forget the whole encounter, nor would anyone take notice if she did start whispering about me,” Kate reasons, her demeanour softening as she begins to appeal to his good sense in earnest. “The only people out at such a time are going about matters that, for whatever reason, they cannot conduct at a more agreeable hour. No one would say a word.”

The fight going out of him somewhat, Anthony chooses not to argue the point any further. In truth, the gossip of the ton is not his concern. Only Kate is. On that matter, he considers, “You talked to the doctor about this without any mention of the idea to me?” 

“I considered him far better able to offer an objective view,” she explains to him, adopting a far more gentle tone. “I did not need to ask your opinion of the matter to know what it would be, Anthony.”

The furrow of his brow deepens as he protests, “Are we–are we even certain of the doctor’s credentials?”

“You are the one who found the man!” she reminds him, scoffing a laugh. 

“And I can replace him at any time.”

“You shall not!” she tells him, somehow finding a little more height in her posture to intimidate with her message. “He is the only one who speaks to me as if I have thoughts and feelings.”

Anthony finds that despite how frustrated he feels at this moment, he cannot deny her this. He had noticed a marked difference in Kate since he had appointed Dr. Chambers to the care of his wife and child, a modern man with a view to ensuring the mother’s wellbeing as a priority. She trusted the doctor, even if Anthony struggled to trust anyone with such important matters, and thus he could never overrule Kate in such a way. No matter how maddening her decision to ride about town in secret might be. 

For now, he cannot bear to argue with her another second. For a start, it can be doing her no good. It is not the end of it, but she is at least on solid ground for the moment. 

“Fine.” Anthony puffs out a breath before turning back to the house. There is no anger in his words, only tired, miserable resignation as he mumbles, “Do what you wish, Kate. Lord knows you will not listen to me.”

“Anthony!” she calls after him. 

He does not stop for her, though it feels wholly unnatural to push against her magnetic pull. 

Anthony instead storms off in the direction of his private study, his fortress of solitude, passing his eldest sister at the entrance of his home, where she is being greeted by Mrs. Brown. Daphne looks at him quizzically for a moment, quickly reading his dark mood and looking to the housekeeper for explanation. 

There is a misguided degree of wry amusement in her voice as she asks, “Tell me Mrs. Brown, what has my brother so vexed this fine morning?” 

*

It is only minutes later that Anthony hears a knock at the door of his study. In truth, he longs for it to be Kate. He may not be ready to continue their fraught conversation, his thoughts still jumbled with emotion, but there is something fundamentally wrong in him whenever they are in a quarrel. No matter how small, he is not able to think clearly about any matter whenever they find themselves out of alignment. Whether she might be there with a changed mind or not, he misses the sight of her, and the reminder that she is – despite ill-advised horse rides and an excessive commitment to dog walks and dances – perfectly well. 

Instead of Kate, it is the soft voice of his eldest sister that he hears calling to him from the hallway. “Brother,” she says through the hardwood door, seconds before it creaks open without a word of reply from him. 

She finds him sunk deep into his chair, head rocked back against the top of it. There is ink spilled on his desk from where he had knocked it, the papers there askew.

“Anthony, whatever is the matter? You look quite a state.” 

“Leave me, Daph,” he commands her. “It is nothing.”

As if immune to his officiousness, Daphne only moves further into the room as if to take a closer study. “I can see for myself it is far from nothing. I had only meant to drop in with some fresh flowers for my dear sister before I set off on the journey home, but I can see you are not yourself.” She pauses as if he might now choose to explain, before admitting, “Kate would tell me nothing. She insisted, in fact, that all was well between the two of you, but your wife is not a talented liar and I know you far too well. I can see something has happened.”

Anthony closes his eyes and covers them with his forearm. It is a childlike impulse, as if she might simply disappear if he can no longer see her. 

Daphne persists: “Kate is truly your best decision, Anthony, so I will not rest until whatever has you looking so wounded has been resolved.” 

He opens his eyes once more to note the determination in her eyes, just as it shows in her tone. “You are as meddlesome as mother sometimes, Daphne.”

“Yes,” she allows, a hint of a smile on her face. “I shall wear such an accusation with pride.” Softer, and serious again as she notes the darkness of his mood, she says, “Talk to me, brother. Please.” 

“It is between Kate and I.”

“You are not fighting?”

“Are we not always fighting?”

“Not truly. You challenge each other, of course, but I have never seen you like this before.” She seems to reconsider her words: “Well, not since you married her. You look rather like you did when you believed you never could.”

Anthony looks up at Daphne. Yes, he supposes, it rather does feel like that.  

Gently, she tells him, “With the child to prepare for, I hoped you might be happy. Happier than ever.”

“I–I am happy,” he replies, aware of just how hollow the words sound. He remembers how differently he had felt when they had first shared the news with Daphne and the rest of his family, how singular the joy had been. He tries to summon the feeling, finding a stronger voice as he reiterates the sentiment. “I am happy about the child. Truly.” 

Daphne looks at him with a sceptical eye. 

“Did you not worry?” he finds himself asking with an abrupt urgency that takes him by surprise as much as her.

“Worry?”

“After what happened to mother, with Hyacinth, I keep–”

With the sudden shift of a steady river current meeting the crash of a waterfall, there is so much pity in her eyes as she stares back at him now, it takes all his strength not to weep before her. She is gentle – a little too gentle for him to bear it – as she finishes for him, “You are scared something will happen to her.”

“It is not so unlikely.”

“Anthony.”

He covers his face again, wetness sinking into the skin of his palms as he does. 

“It is natural to worry, Anthony,” Daphne delicately assures him, “but do not think that the luck that has befallen us in the past will determine our future.” 

There is a frayed edge to his voice as he replies, “I cannot help but imagine the worst. I cannot sleep.” He has to swallow just to relieve the pain burning in his throat. “All day, I worry.”  

“Anthony.” His name sounds so small and sad on her lips. 

“I am suffocating her. I can feel myself doing it, but I cannot seem to stop. A wife never grew so tired of a husband so fast. I can see her eyes dim at the sight of me.”

“I do not believe that.”

“You do not see it.”

“Shall I tell you what I see instead, brother?” she circles around his desk, perching on the corner of it with her eyebrows raised as if he has delivered her the simplest of challenges. “I see the way she refuses to let a night pass without dancing with you. I see the two of you whispering and laughing together like you are the only ones in the room. I see the way you become even more truly yourselves when you are together.”

“You see what you wish to,” he says, though, in truth, he knows his words to be false.

Daphne is quick to illustrate his error. “She adores you, brother,” she insists, a fragile smile on her face as she holds his gaze as if waiting for him to see the truth of it. “In truth, she–she is everything I hoped for you, Anthony.”

Anthony allows Daphne to witness his every shred of vulnerability for just a moment as he tells her, barely audible, the fullness of his voice eroded to a shaky whisper, “It is… so much to lose, Daph.” 

Daphne’s eyes close, but he can see the tears dampening her lashes even so. “You promised me once – do you remember? – that you would never again darken like you did when we lost Papa. You promised, Anthony,” she reminds him, her voice raised a little now, eyes flashing open to meet his. Her fierce look demands too much of him as she reasons, “Were it a matter of grief, I would quite understand, of course. If anything were to ever happen to Kate or the child, I would understand. It would be… most unbearable.” He flinches. He flinches so violently, he settles his hands against the desk to steady himself. “But you cannot simply doom yourself to worst case scenarios for the next few months. It will not do.” 

“You expect me not to worry?” he spits out.

“I expect you to worry only when you have cause to.” She lays her hand over his balled fist where it now rests on the desk. “Kate is well. She is glowing. There is no reason to be concerned.”

Anthony explodes: “You were not there that night!” 

“No,” she concedes, maintaining dignified composure in the face of his fury. There is understanding in her eyes. She does not need him to explain his meaning. She knows. She is transported back to that awful night alongside him. “I was upstairs singing to the children. I was trying to keep them calm while my heart was breaking too.” There is a raw edge to her voice now. “I may not have been in the room, Anthony, but do not think I was not every bit as aware of what was happening as you – and every bit as helpless!”

“You were not asked to make the choice between mother and child!”

“No,” she concedes, with a sigh, “but I bore my own child knowing the risk of it. The risk that my husband would have to make such a decision. The risk that I might lose my own child. The risk that everything would be all right, and yet still I might find myself unable to bond with my child.”

“And yet you tell me not to worry!”

“Yes!” 

“Why!”

“Because it will not save her, brother!” He watches tears spill free across her cheeks as her eyes go wide, as insistent as her words are. “It will only destroy you, these few months, with worry and pain and grief that you need not feel.”

“I feel it. I feel it always. I feel it unrelentingly.”

Daphne pleads, “Do not let it destroy your happiness, I beg you, brother.” 

“It is in me,” he admits without anger, only quiet sorrow. “It is an unyielding force within me.”

Anthony watches Daphne weep before him, her pain stinging him. She closes the gap between them, places her hands on his shoulders, her eyes seeking, begging, asking, “You must talk to Kate. You have to tell her all you are feeling, and why. It is a wife’s privilege to share in her husband’s troubles and joys alike. Believe me, secrets in a marriage – they are untenable.”

“It is too much for her to bear,” Anthony says, shaking his head, drawing back from her. He rises from his seat, wandering to the closest bookshelf and using the ledge of it to steady himself. “You will leave me.”

“I do not wish to leave you like this.”

“It was not a request, Daphne.”

“You are quite impossible, brother.”

“So I have heard.” 

She approaches to kiss him gently on the cheek despite the hardness of his expression which is now quite fixed in place. “Talk to your wife, Anthony. I know it will do you both good. I hate to see you this way.” Her serious frown softens to reveal the hint of a warm smile as she reassures him, “You can choose to be happy.”

As the door closes behind Daphne, Anthony dearly hopes she is right. 

*

Anthony takes much of the day to be alone. Mercifully, he finds he has a few meetings arranged in town, as well as a social engagement at Will’s gentleman’s club, which at least allows him some respite from family interference and Kate’s discontent. He is in no mood to enjoy himself, of course, but it buys him a little time at least. It seems there is not a soul in the world without the surname Bridgerton who would ever dare openly pry when it comes to Anthony’s dark mood. They simply speak as normal around him, knowing not to question his imposing silence, not even daring to tease the viscount.

It is dinnertime before he finds himself back in the company of his wife, the hours of separation a rare and uneasy experience for Anthony. Ordinarily, they are unapologetically inseparable and it is clear by the meaningful glances between the servants that their hostility has not gone unnoticed. 

Still, he cannot find the first word that might break the silence. Kate, for her part, only speaks to commend the cook on the quality of the vegetables. 

After their uncomfortably quiet meal, he disappears once more to the solace of his private study. There he stays wondering at the benefits of surrendering the argument versus the cost of such a capitulation. He comes to no conclusion, only earns himself a headache, before heading up to bed a little after the hour that his wife typically falls asleep, every bit the coward. 

Anthony is lying wide awake, staring up at the ceiling, when it is Kate who, at last, breaks the deadlock between them. There is a faint frailness in her voice as she cuts into the heavy silence to ask, “You do not sincerely believe I would endanger the child?”

His answer is immediate, the question jolting him from his thoughts: “Of course not. Of course not.”

“Then–”

“Kate,” he stops her. Anthony realises that he must confess at least some of his truth, the trauma he has kept to himself. Daphne’s counsel had been to encourage honesty, and he is fast growing too worried to manage anything else. After a deep breath, he tells her, “I am plagued by thoughts I dearly wish I could conceal from you, but… I fear I cannot. Not without worrying you more.”

“I would not wish you to conceal anything from me.” 

He shakes his head against the pillow, struggling to find his voice. With tears stinging his eyes, he admits, “The fact of the matter is… I am simply terrified. Of losing you.” 

At this, Kate twists around to face him, her hand resting over the growing bump at her middle as she shifts to reposition herself comfortably. It is inelegant, but endearing, and he offers a watery smile to her as she rushes to comfort him. “Anthony, you will never–” 

“My mother nearly died. Giving birth.” It spills out, tears coming with it. He sits upright in an attempt to recover himself, his hands rubbing at his face. Still, he continues, “It was after my father was felled by that cursed bee. I… I did not want to tell you.” He swallows and it throbs in his throat. “In truth, I fear she might have died that day herself, her heart simply too broken to continue beating, were it not for my sweet sister. But we almost lost her anyway. We almost lost them both.”

“Anthony…” she utters, but it is nothing more than a cry of sympathy. It does not lead anywhere. 

“I hoped never to fall in love for this very reason,” he explains, finally. The cap lifted now, his truth spilling out freely and without much restraint left. He feels Kate’s hand move from her own stomach to his back; it moves in slow circles against his skin, the way he often soothes her. “I saw my mother’s pain at losing my father. It nearly destroyed her. I had to watch it.”

Kate brings his head down to rest against hers, holding it there as if determined to fuse them together. “Your mother experienced great trauma, profound loss. It is enough to bring any person to their knees,” she says slowly, as if carrying something precious and fragile on the words. A resolute determination takes hold as she continues, “But, Anthony, that is not us.” Kate draws back far enough so that she can look him squarely in the eyes. “I am quite well, you see. I am quite content. We need not carry the burden of the past, but look to it only as it brings us joy. No one should ever experience what you did that night and I cannot take the pain of those memories away, but I am here.” She kisses him tenderly on the mouth, the contact light as a feather. “I am here. I will remain here.” She holds his gaze fiercely, then nods as if urging him to understand at last. “I will love you.”

By way of an apology, he says, “I do not wish to be an overbearing oaf of a husband.”

Kate only smiles, a twinkle in her eye as the corner of her mouth lifts just slightly. “You are much too handsome to ever be considered an oaf, my love.” Those warm brown eyes scan over his features as if affirming the sentiment. 

Finally, he smiles in earnest. “That is a relief.” 

Kate nods as he relaxes with her. They both sink back against the pillows to lie once more, Kate’s head resting on his chest, the swell of the child pressing against his side. “I can tell, though, that you have not been sleeping.” She says it with too casual an air for it to be genuinely spontaneous. He can tell she has been thinking on it, worrying about it, for some time. 

“I could not–could not stop remembering.” 

Kate reaches up to hold his face in her hands, her finger running along the line of his jaw as if tracing out the shape of him. “I wish I could take those memories from you and replace them with happy ones.”

“Kate,” he says, the word breaking in two as it leaves his lips. “You do that each day. I did not know I could find a way to be happy again, or whole – the way I was when I was a boy. You give that to me each day. You are the air I breathe, the joy of my life.”

“Then you know what I feel when I look at you.” 

“My love?”

She breathes out a long breath and he feels the air of it tickle his chest. He feels the light wetness of her lashes brushing against his skin. “I do understand what it is to watch the love of your parents torn apart. I watched my own fall in love after I lost my mother; I saw what Mary was to my father, and he to her. I saw the way he found joy in her smile and the way she found the strength to sacrifice her whole life to keep him. I saw it from the nervous beginnings to the whispered, wept farewells. I saw Mary after he was gone, the way she shrank a little, her light dimmed by the loss.”

Anthony kisses the top of her head before his hand moves to find hers where it lies protectively at her middle. He squeezes it as she continues, “I knew I could not bear it for myself. I knew my heart was not strong enough to lose my parents, to watch them grieve, and then to lose a love like that of my own.”

He understands, finally, the urge to insist, you will never lose me, the urge to make impossible promises. He understands now, more than ever, that Kate – his beautiful, vexing Kate – is the only person he could ever choose. They were made only for each other. 

“I once believed the same,” he confesses. 

“And yet here we are, somehow. Here you are. You, my love, are, quite simply, the greatest risk I have ever taken.” It is strange – uncanny, really – how closely Kate’s words follow his own patterns of thought, echoing his own sentiments verbatim. “My heart turned out to be stronger than I knew. It was stronger than my mind, in the end. I knew I ought not to love you, but before I even knew it was beginning, I was already in the middle of it. In fact, when we met, it was as if I was meeting someone I already knew. I was , in a sense. You were the love I had been so sure, all my life, I would never allow myself. Once I found I was in the midst of such a feeling, I knew I could not lose you, but still I tried to find a way out. India seemed the obvious answer.”

“I could not bear to let you go.” 

Kate looks up at him again and the meeting of their gaze is heartstopping in a way that has grown familiar. “And I could not bear to go.” She kisses him, and then kisses him again as if once had not been quite enough. Her lips still brushing his, she whispers, “You were the first great leap of my life, this child the second. It was you who made me brave enough to take another.”

“Kate–”

“I have always known that, for all her grief, Mary does not regret loving my father.” 

Anthony thinks of his mother’s words the day Kate had awoken after the accident. He remembers, with absolute clarity, the conviction with which Violet had told him the pain was worth it. Real, true love is worth it. It had convinced him then just as it convinces him now. It had been Violet’s solace, just as Kate seems to identify it as Mary’s. 

“She would not regret Edwina and I for the world,” Kate reminds him. “I know it in my heart as surely as she has said it, many times over.”

We are so alike, he thinks, marvelling at Kate, the miracle that she is. We know the same pain.

“What I mean to say is… I am terrified too. There is enough room for us both to be scared. Let us be scared together.” Where his hand covers hers, she takes hold of it and laces their fingers together. “Hold my hand and jump with me and maybe we shall land on both feet side by side. Together, we will find the strength to face whatever life brings.” 

Anthony leans down to kiss his wife, stroking her hair with his free hand as she settles her head against him once more. “Rest now, my love,” he says, like ghostly words caught on the breath of an exhale. 

She moans in agreement and curls herself against him, shifting about until she is truly comfortable. Only once she is, her leg settling between his like twisted tree branches entwining inextricably, she decides aloud, “I will surrender my early morning rides. You are right.”

He cannot help a little amusement at her choice of words. “My love, I am afraid I misheard you.”

Kate lifts her head only to ensure he feels the sharp end of her gaze. “You ought not to be so smug about it or I will persist just to spite you.”

“All right. I shall only consider myself relieved,” he concedes quickly, not wishing to give her any reason to reconsider. Warmth comes easy now. He feels himself relaxing for the first time in weeks, as if the tightly wound thread restraining him has finally been undone. 

In the dark quiet, her voice sounds so small: “Please know that I would never do a thing to harm the child. Truly.”

“Kate,” he pleads with her. “I know that. I swear it.”

“Elaichi is a steady girl and I was only taking her out for slow trots,” she continues. The mere fact of her trying to explain herself marks a change. “I simply… well, I just–I needed them. They made me feel like myself. The gentle breeze in my hair, the freedom to go wherever I please, that connection that only I have with her.” Kate tucks her chin tight to her chest, her voice meeker now as she admits: “I was not ready to lose any of it. Amid all this change – marrying you, becoming the viscountess, my whole world turning upside down, becoming someone’s mother – I just wanted to hold on to something that made me feel… like I am still the same Kate.”

“You, my love, are an original. You will always be Kate. Utterly singular.” 

“I know,” she mumbles quietly. “I simply liked to remind myself of who that was from time to time. It was an indulgence, perhaps. I would not torment you so by continuing the habit, though it truly was little more than a gentle trot.”

“Thank you, my love,” Anthony says earnestly, not wishing to gloat over a rare victory.

Kate hastens to add, “I am afraid I shall find myself quite bored.”

Anthony leans down to tease in her ear, “Then I will have to do better at keeping you entertained.” 

He feels her laugh gently against him as she looks up, eyes full of curiosity. “What might you have in mind, my lord?” 

Anthony performs the act of having to think about it, though the notion had already crossed his mind: “Perhaps you might teach me Hindustani. For the benefit of the child, you see. I fear the two of you might conspire against me.” He exaggerates his eyes to make the point and Kate dutifully laughs again, a most delightful sound, rolling her eyes even as she agrees.

“I think I can do that. Though I fear you have all the makings of a terribly disruptive pupil.”

“Me? No. I will be most diligent for I would dearly like to impress my teacher.”

“Mmm, we shall see,” she says, unconvinced. 

He thinks a little harder on what else he might consider doing to help entertain his wife. He considers Daphne and all the many modest pastimes she seems to find, then remembers her visit earlier the same day and the bouquet she had brought in hand. Anthony decides then, “I shall bring you so many flowers, it will take you all morning to arrange them precisely, as any viscountess must.”

“Tulips, my love,” she insists.

“Of course.” Anthony feels a flash of warmth in his chest at the memory of hand-delivered tulips still half-wilting in their vase on her windowsill upon his visit days after proposing. She had not wanted to let go and neither had he.

“And once I am quite finished arranging my flowers?” she asks curiously, her bottom lip tucked between her teeth as she awaits his next answer eagerly. 

“Well, chess, my love,” he suggests playfully, free now of the melancholy that had previously permeated his mood. He is positively silly as he tells her, “We shall play endless games of chess. My youngest brother, in fact, would rather delight in helping us practise. And Benedict might like to teach us the art of painting with oils. Hyacinth, for her part, may help organise lots of family picnics to keep her favourite sister-in-law most amused.” 

“I am starting to think you plan to lend me out to half the family.”

“Not at all, Kate.” He sweeps a loose lock of her hair from her face, tucking it behind her ear. “Do not think I wish to be parted from you for a single moment. We shall be kept entertained together.”

Kate grins up at him, such fondness in her expression that he feels a flood of warmth spread its way through him. It is clear she knows exactly the power she holds when she teases, “Is that a promise?”

It is a promise he could keep for the rest of his life.