The Bridgertons Happily Ever After (28 page)

Violet in Bloom:
A Novella

Surrey, England

1774

“Violet Elizabeth! What on earth do you think you’re doing?”

At the sound of her governess’s outraged voice, Violet Ledger paused, considering her options. There seemed little chance she could plead complete innocence; she had been caught red-handed, after all.

Or rather, purple-handed. She was clutching a breathtakingly aromatic blackberry pie, and the still-warm filling had started to ooze over the lip of the pan.

“Violet . . .” came Miss Fernburst’s stern voice.

She
could
say that she was hungry. Miss Fernburst knew well enough that Violet was mad for sweets. It was not entirely out of the realm of possibility that she might abscond with an entire pie, to be eaten . . .

Where? Violet thought quickly. Where
would
one go with an entire blackberry pie? Not back to her room; she’d never be able to hide the evidence. Miss Fernburst would never believe Violet was dumb enough to do that.

No, if she were stealing a pie in order to eat it, she would take it outside. Which was precisely where she’d been going. Although not exactly to eat a pie.

She might make a truth of this lie yet.

“Would you like some pie, Miss Fernburst?” Violet asked sweetly. She smiled and batted her eyes, well aware that despite her eight and a half years, she didn’t look a day over six. Most of the time she found this vexing—no one liked to be thought a baby, after all. But she was not above using her petite stature to her advantage when the situation warranted.

“I’m having a picnic,” Violet added for clarification.

“With whom?” Miss Fernburst asked suspiciously.

“Oh, my dollies. Mette and Sonia and Francesca and Fiona Marie and . . .” Violet rattled off a whole list of names, making them up as she went along. She did have a rather absurd number of dollies. As the only child in her generation, despite having a raft of aunts and uncles, she was showered with presents on a regular basis. Someone was always coming to visit them in Surrey—the proximity to London was simply too convenient for anyone to resist—and it seemed dollies were the gift
du jour
.

Violet smiled. Miss Fernburst would have been proud of her, thinking in French. It was really too bad there was no way to show it off.

“Miss Violet,” Miss Fernburst said sternly, “you must return that pie to the kitchen at once.”

“All of it?”

“Of course you must return all of it,” Miss Fernburst said in an exasperated voice. “You don’t even have a utensil with which to cut yourself a piece. Or consume it.”

True. But Violet’s ambitions for the pie had not required utensils of any kind. She was already in deep, though, so she dug herself further in by replying, “I couldn’t carry it all. I was planning to go back for a spoon.”

“And leave the pie in the garden for the crows to ravage?”

“Well, I hadn’t really thought of that.”

“Hadn’t really thought of what?” came the deep, booming voice that could only belong to her father. Mr. Ledger walked closer. “Violet, what on earth are you doing in the drawing room with a pie?”

“Precisely what I am presently attempting to ascertain,” Miss Fernburst said stiffly.

“Well . . .” Violet stalled, trying not to glance longingly at the French doors that led to the lawn. She was sunk now. She’d never been able to fib to her father. He saw through everything. She didn’t know how he did it; it must have been something in her eyes.

“She said she was planning a picnic in the garden with her dollies,” Miss Fernburst reported.

“Really.” Not a question, a statement. Her father knew her far too well to make it a question.

Violet nodded. Well, a little nod. Or maybe more of a bob of the chin.

“Because you always feed actual food to your toys,” her father said.

She said nothing.

“Violet,” her father said sternly, “what were you planning to do with that pie?”

“Ehm . . .” Her eyes couldn’t seem to leave a spot on the floor about six feet to her left.

“
Violet?
”

“It was only going to be a small trap,” she mumbled.

“A small what?”

“A trap. For that Bridgerton boy.”

“For—” Her father chuckled. She could tell he hadn’t meant to, and after he covered his mouth with a hand and a cough, his face was once again stern.

“He’s horrid,” she said, before he could scold her.

“Oh, he’s not so bad.”

“He’s dreadful, Father. You know that he is. And he doesn’t even live here in Upper Smedley. He’s only visiting. You’d think he would know how to behave properly—his father is a viscount, but—”

“Violet . . .”

“He is no gentleman,” she sniffed.

“He’s nine.”

“Ten,” she corrected primly. “And it is my opinion that a ten-year-old ought to know how to be a good houseguest.”

“He’s not our houseguest,” her father pointed out. “He’s visiting the Millertons.”

“Be that as it may,” Violet said, thinking that she’d very much like to cross her arms. But she was still holding that accursed pie.

Her father waited for her to finish the thought. She did not.

“Give the pie to Miss Fernburst,” her father ordered.

“Being a good houseguest means that you don’t behave horridly to the neighbors,” Violet protested.

“The pie, Violet.”

She handed it to Miss Fernburst, who, in all truth, didn’t look like she much wanted it. “Shall I take it back to the kitchen?” the governess inquired.

“Please do,” Violet’s father said.

Violet waited until Miss Fernburst had disappeared around the corner, then she looked up at her father with a disgruntled expression. “He put flour in my hair, Father.”

“Flowers?” he echoed. “Don’t young girls like that sort of thing?”

“Flour, Father! Flour! The kind one uses to bake cakes! Miss Fernburst had to wash my hair for twenty minutes just to get it out. And don’t you laugh!”

“I’m not!”

“You are,” she accused. “You want to. I can see it in your face.”

“I’m merely wondering how the young fellow managed it.”

“I don’t know,” Violet ground out. Which was the worst insult of all. He’d managed to cover her with finely ground flour and she still didn’t know how he’d done it. One minute she’d been walking in the garden, and the next she’d tripped and . . .

Poof! Flour everywhere.

“Well,” her father said matter-of-factly, “I believe he’s leaving at the week’s end. So you won’t have to endure his presence for very much longer. If at all,” he added. “We’re not expecting to visit with the Millertons this week, are we?”

“We weren’t expecting to visit with them yesterday,” Violet replied, “and he still managed to flour me.”

“How do you know it was he?”

“Oh, I know,” she said darkly. As she was sputtering and coughing and batting at the flour cloud, she’d heard him cackling in triumph. If she hadn’t had so much flour in her eyes, she probably would have seen him, too, grinning in that awful
boy
way of his.

“He seemed perfectly pleasant when he and Georgie Millerton came for tea on Monday.”

“Not when
you
weren’t in the room.”

“Oh. Well . . .” Her father paused, his lips pursing thoughtfully. “I’m sorry to have to say it, but it’s a lesson in life you’ll learn soon enough. Boys are horrid.”

Violet blinked. “But . . . but . . .”

Mr. Ledger shrugged. “I’m sure your mother will agree.”

“But
you’re
a boy.”

“And I was horrid, I assure you. Ask your mother.”

Violet stared at him in disbelief. It was true that her parents had known each other since they were small children, but she could not believe that her father would ever have behaved badly toward her mother. He was so kind and thoughtful to her now. He was always kissing her hand and smiling at her with his eyes.

“He probably likes you,” Mr. Ledger said. “The Bridgerton boy,” he clarified, as if that were necessary.

Violet let out a horrified gasp. “He does not.”

“Perhaps not,” her father said agreeably. “Perhaps he is simply horrid. But he probably thinks you’re pretty. That’s what boys do when they think a girl is pretty. And you know I think you’re uncommonly pretty.”

“You’re my father,” she said, giving him a bit of a look. Everyone knew that fathers were required to think their daughters were pretty.

“I’ll tell you what,” he said, leaning down and touching her gently on the chin. “If that Bridgerton boy—what did you say his name was, again?”

“Edmund.”

“Edmund, right, of course. If Edmund Bridgerton bothers you again, I shall personally call upon him to defend your honor.”

“A duel?” Violet breathed, every inch of her tingling with horrified delight.

“To the death,” her father confirmed. “Or perhaps just a stern talking-to. I’d really rather not go to the gallows for running through a nine-year-old boy.”

“Ten,” Violet corrected.

“Ten. You do seem to know a lot about young Master Bridgerton.”

Violet opened her mouth to defend herself because, after all, it wasn’t as if she could have avoided knowing a few things about Edmund Bridgerton; she’d been forced to sit in the same drawing room with him for two hours on Monday. But she could tell that her father was teasing her. If she said anything more, he’d never stop.

“May I go back to my room now?” she asked primly.

Her father nodded his assent. “But there will be no pie for pudding this evening.”

Violet’s mouth fell open. “But—”

“No arguments, if you please. You were quite prepared to sacrifice the pie this afternoon. It doesn’t seem right that you should have some now that you’ve been thwarted.”

Violet clamped her lips together in a mutinous line. She gave a stiff nod, then marched away toward the stairs. “I hate Edmund Bridgerton,” she muttered.

“What was that?” her father called out.

“I hate Edmund Bridgerton!” she yelled. “And I don’t care who knows it!”

Her father laughed, which only made her more furious.

Boys really were horrid. But especially Edmund Bridgerton.

London

Nine years later

“I tell you, Violet,” Miss Mary Filloby said with unconvincing certitude, “it is a good thing we are not raving beauties. It would make everything so complicated.”

Complicated
how?
Violet wanted to ask. Because from where she was sitting (at the wall, with the wallflowers, watching the girls who
weren’t
wallflowers), ravishing beauty didn’t seem like such a bad thing.

But she didn’t bother to ask. She didn’t need to. Mary would take only one breath before imploring:

“Look at her. Look at her!”

Violet was already looking at her.

“She’s got eight men at her side,” Mary said, her voice an odd combination of awe and disgust.

“I count nine,” Violet murmured.

Mary crossed her arms. “I refuse to include my own brother.”

Together they sighed, all four of their eyes on Lady Begonia Dixon, who, with her rosebud mouth, sky blue eyes, and perfectly sloped shoulders, had enchanted the male half of London society within days of her arrival in town. Her hair was probably glorious, too, Violet thought disgruntledly. Thank heavens for wigs. Truly, they were the great levelers, allowing girls with dishwater blond hair to compete with the ones with the shiny, curly locks of gold.

Not that Violet minded her dishwater blond hair. It was perfectly acceptable. And shiny, even. Just not curly or gold.

“How long have we been sitting here?” Mary wondered aloud.

“Three quarters of an hour,” Violet estimated.

“That long?”

Violet nodded glumly. “I’m afraid so.”

“There aren’t enough men,” Mary said. Her voice had lost its edge, and she sounded somewhat deflated. But it was true. There weren’t enough men. Too many had gone off to fight in the Colonies, and far too many had not come back. Add to that the complication that was Lady Begonia Dixon (nine men lost to the rest of them right there, Violet thought morosely), and the shortage was dire indeed.

“I have danced only once all night,” Mary said. There was a pause, then: “And you?”

“Twice,” Violet admitted. “But once was with your brother.”

“Oh. Well, then that doesn’t count.”

“Yes, it does,” Violet shot back. Thomas Filloby was a gentleman with two legs and all his teeth, and as far as she was concerned, he counted.

“You don’t even
like
my brother.”

There was nothing to say that wasn’t rude or a lie, so Violet just did a funny little motion with her head that could be interpreted either way.

“I wish you had a brother,” Mary said.

“So he could ask you to dance?”

Mary nodded.

“Sorry.” Violet waited a moment, expecting Mary to say, “It’s not your fault,” but Mary’s attention had finally been ripped from Lady Begonia Dixon, and she was presently squinting at someone over by the lemonade table.

“Who’s
that
?” Mary asked.

Violet cocked her head to the side. “The Duke of Ashbourne, I believe.”

“No, not him,” Mary said impatiently. “The one next to him.”

Violet shook her head. “I don’t know.” She couldn’t get a very good look at the gentleman in question, but she was quite sure she didn’t know him. He was tall, although not overly so, and he stood with the athletic grace of a man who was perfectly at ease in his own body. She didn’t need to see his face up close to know that he was handsome. Because even if he wasn’t elegant, even if his face was no Michelangelo’s dream, he would still be handsome.

He was confident, and men with confidence were always handsome.

“He’s new,” Mary said assessingly.

“Give him a few minutes,” Violet said in a dry voice. “He’ll find Lady Begonia in due course.”

But the gentleman in question didn’t seem to notice Lady Begonia, remarkable as that seemed. He loitered by the lemonade table, drinking six cups, then ambled over to the refreshments, where he gobbled down an astonishing amount of food. Violet wasn’t sure why she was following his progress through the room, except that he was new, and she was bored.