The Viscount Who Loved Me (31 page)

• I went through three outlines for this book before I found a plot and premise that I felt worked. The story required Anthony’s father to have died about ten years before the book began, but in
  The Duke and I
  , which was completely edited (but not yet published), his father had died two years earlier. I had to go back and make all the changes while doing the final proofread of
  Duke
  . I was terrified that I would miss a mention!
  
• Regular readers know that I love to include animals in my books. Newton, the overweight corgi, is modeled after Homer, a very friendly corgi who lives on my street. Corgis, while not an officially recognized breed in Britain until the 1920s, originated in Wales during the Middle Ages. Corgis are also very popular with the royal family. Queen Elizabeth’s dogs are “dorgis,” which are corgi-dachsund mixes.
  
• The Viscount Who Loved Me
  is second in the Bridgerton series. #1 is
  The Duke and I
  , #3 is
  An Offer from a Gentleman
  , #4 is
  Romancing Mr. Bridgerton
  , and #5 is
  To Sir Phillip, With Love
  .
  
• Lady Whistledown, the gossip columnist featured in,
  The Viscount Who Loved Me
  “narrates” her own anthology in
  The Further Observations of Lady Whistledown
  . This book is not, however, a part of the Bridgerton series.
  

Copyright © 2004 by Julia Quinn

“S
he must have a spy in the family,” Anthony said to Kate, shaking his head.

Kate laughed as she brushed her hair, readying herself
for bed. “She didn’t realize that today is your birthday, not yesterday.”

“A trifling matter,” he grumbled. “She must have a spy. There’s no other explanation.”

“She did get everything else right,” Kate couldn’t help noting. “I tell you, I’ve always admired that woman.”

“We weren’t that bad,” Anthony protested.

“We were dreadful.” She set the brush down and walked to his side. “We’re always dreadful. But at least we try.”

Anthony wound his arms around his wife’s waist and settled his chin on the top of her head. There was little that brought him more peace than simply holding her in his arms. He didn’t know how any man survived without a woman to love.

“It’s almost midnight,” Kate murmured. “Your birthday is almost over.”

Anthony nodded. Thirty-nine. He’d never thought he’d see the day.

No, that wasn’t true. Since the moment he’d let Kate into his heart, his fears had been slowly melting away. But still, it was nice to be thirty-nine. Settling. He’d spent a goodly portion of the day in his study, staring up at his father’s portrait. And he’d found himself talking. For hours on end, he’d talked to his father. He told him of his three children, of his siblings’ marriages and their children. He told him of his mother, and how she’d recently taken up painting with oils, and that she was actually quite good. And he told him of Kate, and how she’d freed his soul, and how he loved her so damn much.

It was, Anthony realized, what his father had always wanted for him.

The clock on the mantel began to chime, and neither Anthony nor Kate spoke until the twelfth bell rang.

“That’s it, then,” Kate whispered.

He nodded. “Let’s go to bed.”

She moved away, and he could see that she was smiling. “That’s how you want to celebrate?”

He took her hand and raised it to his lips. “I can think of no better way. Can you?”

Kate shook her head, then giggled as she ran for the bed. “Did you read what else she wrote in her column?”

“That Whistledown woman?”

She nodded.

Anthony planted his hands on either side of his wife and leered down at her. “Was it about us?”

Kate shook her head.

“Then I don’t care.”

“It was about Colin.”

Anthony let out a little sigh. “She does seem to write about Colin a great deal.”

“Maybe she has a
tendre
for him,” Kate suggested.

“Lady Whistledown?” Anthony rolled his eyes. “That old biddy?”

“She might not be old.”

Anthony snorted derisively. “She’s a wrinkled old crone and you know it.”

“I don’t know,” Kate said, scooting out of his grasp and crawling under the covers. “I think she might be young.”

“And
I
think,” Anthony announced, “that I don’t much want to talk about Lady Whistledown just now.”

Kate smiled. “You don’t?”

He slid into place next to her, his fingers settling around the curve of her hip. “I have much better things to do.”

“You do?”

“Much.” His lips found her ear. “Much, much,
much
better.”

And in a small, elegantly furnished chamber, not so very far from Bridgerton House, a woman—no longer in the first blush of youth, but certainly not wrinkled and old—
sat at her desk with a quill and a pot of ink and pulled out a piece of paper.

Stretching her neck from side to side, she set her quill to paper and wrote:

The season has opened for the year of 1814, and there is little reason to hope that we will see any noticeable change from 1813. The ranks of society are once again filled with Ambitious Mamas, whose only aim is to see their Darling Daughters married off to Determined Bachelors. Discussion amongst the Mamas fingers Viscount Bridgerton as this year’s most eligible catch, and indeed, if the poor man’s hair looks ruffled and windblown, it is because he cannot go anywhere without some young miss batting her eyelashes with such vigor and speed as to create a breeze of hurricane force. Perhaps the only young lady not interested in Bridgerton is Miss Katharine Sheffield, and in fact, her demeanor toward the viscount occasionally borders on the hostile.

And that is why, Dear Reader, This Author feels that a match between Bridgerton and Miss Sheffield would be just the thing to enliven an otherwise ordinary season.

L
ADY
W
HISTLEDOWN’S
S
OCIETY
P
APERS
, 13 A
PRIL
1814

For Little Goose Twist,
who kept me company
throughout the writing of this book.
I can’t wait to meet you!

And also for Paul,
even though he is allergic to musicals.

A
nthony Bridgerton had always known he would die young.

Oh, not as a child. Young Anthony had never had cause to ponder his own mortality. His early years had been a young boy’s perfection, right from the very day of his birth.

It was true that Anthony was the heir to an ancient and wealthy viscountcy, but unlike most other aristocratic couples, Lord and Lady Bridgerton were very much in love, and they saw their son’s birth not as the arrival of an heir, but rather that of a child.

And so there were no parties, no fêtes, no celebration other than that of mother and father staring in wonderment at their new son.

The Bridgertons were young parents—Edmund barely twenty and Violet just eighteen—but they were sensible and they were strong, and they loved their son with a fierceness and devotion that was rarely seen in their social circles. Much to her own mother’s horror, Violet insisted upon nursing the boy herself, and Edmund never subscribed to the prevailing attitude that fathers should neither see nor hear their children. He took the infant on long hikes across the fields of Kent, spoke to him of philosophy and poetry before he could possibly understand the words, and told him a bedtime story every night.

Because the viscount and viscountess were so young
and so very much in love, it came as no surprise to anyone when, just two years after Anthony’s birth, he was joined by a younger brother, christened Benedict. Edmund immediately adjusted his daily routine to take two sons on his hikes, and he spent a week holed up in the stables, working with his leatherworker to devise a special pack that would hold Anthony on his back while he held the baby Benedict in his arms.

They walked across fields and streams, and he told them of wondrous things, of perfect flowers and clear blue skies, of knights in shining armor and damsels in distress. Violet used to laugh when they returned all windblown and sun-kissed, and Edmund would say, “See? Here is our damsel in distress. Clearly we must save her.” And Anthony would throw himself into his mother’s arms, giggling as he swore he’d protect her from the fire-breathing dragon they’d seen just
two miles down the road
in the village.

“Two miles down the road in the village?” Violet would breathe, keeping her voice carefully laden with horror.

“Heaven above, what would I do without three strong men to protect me?”

“Benedict’s a baby,” Anthony would reply.

“But he’ll grow up,” she’d always say, tousling his hair, “just as you did. And just as you still will.”

Edmund always treated his children with equal affection and devotion, but late at night, when Anthony cradled the Bridgerton pocket watch to his chest (given to him on his eighth birthday by his father, who had received it on his eighth birthday from
his
father), he liked to think that his relationship with his father was just a little bit special. Not because Edmund loved him best; by that point the Bridgerton siblings numbered four (Colin and Daphne had arrived fairly close together) and Anthony knew very well that all the children were well loved.

No, Anthony liked to think that his relationship with his father was special simply because he’d known him the longest. After all, no matter how long Benedict had known
their father, Anthony would always have two years on him. And six on Colin. And as for Daphne, well, besides the fact that she was a girl (the horror!), she’d known Father a full eight years less than he had and, he liked to remind himself, always would.

Edmund Bridgerton was, quite simply, the very center of Anthony’s world. He was tall, his shoulders were broad, and he could ride a horse as if he’d been born in the saddle. He always knew the answers to arithmetic questions (even when the tutor didn’t), he saw no reason why his sons should not have a tree house (and then he went and built it himself), and his laugh was the sort that warmed a body from the inside out.

Edmund taught Anthony how to ride. He taught Anthony how to shoot. He taught him to swim. He took him off to Eton himself, rather than sending him in a carriage with servants, as most of Anthony’s future friends arrived, and when he saw Anthony glancing nervously about the school that would become his new home, he had a heart-to-heart talk with his eldest son, assuring him that everything would be all right.

And it was. Anthony knew it would be. His father, after all, never lied.

Anthony loved his mother. Hell, he’d probably bite off his own arm if it meant keeping her safe and well. But growing up, everything he did, every accomplishment, every goal, every single hope and dream—it was all for his father.

And then one day, everything changed. It was funny, he reflected later, how one’s life could alter in an instant, how one minute everything could be a certain way, and the next it’s simply…not.

It happened when Anthony was eighteen, home for the summer and preparing for his first year at Oxford. He was to belong to All Souls College, as his father had before him, and his life was as bright and dazzling as any eighteen-year-old had a right to enjoy. He had discovered
women, and perhaps more splendidly, they had discovered him. His parents were still happily reproducing, having added Eloise, Francesca, and Gregory to the family, and Anthony did his best not to roll his eyes when he passed his mother in the hall—pregnant with her
eighth
child! It was all a bit unseemly, in Anthony’s opinion, having children at their age, but he kept his opinions to himself.

Who was he to doubt Edmund’s wisdom? Maybe he, too, would want more children at the advanced age of thirty-eight.

When Anthony found out, it was late afternoon. He was returning from a long and bruising ride with Benedict and had just pushed through the front door of Aubrey Hall, the ancestral home of the Bridgertons, when he saw his ten-year-old-sister sitting on the floor. Benedict was still in the stables, having lost some silly bet with Anthony, the terms of which required him to rub down both horses.

Anthony stopped short when he saw Daphne. It was odd enough that his sister was sitting in the middle of the floor in the main hall. It was even more odd that she was crying.

Daphne never cried.

“Daff,” he said hesitantly, too young to know what to do with a crying female and wondering if he’d ever learn, “what—”

But before he could finish his question, Daphne lifted her head, and the shattering heartbreak in her large brown eyes cut through him like a knife. He stumbled back a step, knowing something was wrong, terribly wrong.

“He’d dead,” Daphne whispered. “Papa is dead.”

For a moment Anthony was sure he’d misheard. His father couldn’t be dead. Other people died young, like Uncle Hugo, but Uncle Hugo had been small and frail. Well, at least smaller and frailer than Edmund.

“You’re wrong,” he told Daphne. “You must be wrong.”

She shook her head. “Eloise told me. He was…it was…”

Anthony knew he shouldn’t shake his sister while she
sobbed, but he couldn’t help himself. “It was
what,
Daphne?”

“A bee,” she whispered. “He was stung by a bee.”

For a moment Anthony could do nothing but stare at her. Finally, his voice hoarse and barely recognizable, he said, “A man doesn’t die from a bee sting, Daphne.”

She said nothing, just sat there on the floor, her throat working convulsively as she tried to control her tears.

“He’s been stung before,” Anthony added, his voice rising in volume. “I was with him. We were both stung. We came across a nest. I was stung on the shoulder.” Unbidden, his hand rose to touch the spot where he’d been stung so many years before. In a whisper he added, “He on his arm.”

Daphne just stared at him with an eerily blank expression.

“He was fine,” Anthony insisted. He could hear the panic in his voice and knew he was frightening his sister, but he was powerless to control it. “A man can’t die from a bee sting!”

Daphne shook her head, her dark eyes suddenly looking about a hundred years old. “It was a bee,” she said in a hollow voice. “Eloise saw it. One minute he was just standing there, and the next he was…he was…”

Anthony felt something very strange building within him, as if his muscles were about to jump through his skin. “The next he was
what,
Daphne?”

“Gone.” She looked bewildered by the word, as bewildered as he felt.

Anthony left Daphne sitting in the hall and took the stairs three at a time up to his parents’ bedchamber. Surely his father wasn’t dead. A man couldn’t die from a bee sting. It was impossible. Utterly mad. Edmund Bridgerton was young, he was strong. He was tall, his shoulders were broad, his muscles were powerful, and by God, no insignificant honeybee could have felled him.

But when Anthony reached the upstairs hall, he could
tell by the utter and complete silence of the dozen or so hovering servants that the situation was grim.

And their pitying faces…for the rest of his life he’d be haunted by those pitying faces.

He’d thought he’d have to push his way into his parents’ room, but the servants parted as if they were drops in the Red Sea, and when Anthony pushed open the door, he knew.

His mother was sitting on the edge of the bed, not weeping, not even making a sound, just holding his father’s hand as she rocked slowly back and forth.

His father was still. Still as…

Anthony didn’t even want to think the word.

“Mama?” he choked out. He hadn’t called her that for years; she’d been “Mother” since he’d left for Eton.

She turned, slowly, as if hearing his voice through a long, long tunnel.

“What happened?” he whispered.

She shook her head, her eyes hopelessly far away. “I don’t know,” she said. Her lips remained parted by an inch or so, as if she’d meant to say something more but then forgotten to do it.

Anthony took a step forward, his movements awkward and jerky.

“He’s gone,” Violet finally whispered. “He’s gone and I…oh, God, I…” She placed a hand on her belly, full and round with child. “I told him—oh, Anthony, I told him—”

She looked as if she might shatter from the inside out. Anthony choked back the tears that were burning his eyes and stinging his throat and moved to her side. “It’s all right, Mama,” he said.

But he knew it wasn’t all right.

“I told him this had to be our last,” she gasped, sobbing onto his shoulder. “I told him I couldn’t carry another, and we’d have to be careful, and…Oh, God, Anthony, what I’d do to have him here and give him another child. I don’t understand. I just don’t understand….”

Anthony held her while she cried. He said nothing; it seemed useless to try to make any words fit the devastation in his heart.

He didn’t understand, either.

The doctors came later that evening and pronounced themselves baffled. They’d heard of such things before, but never in one so young and strong. He was so vital, so powerful; nobody could have known. It was true that the viscount’s younger brother Hugo had died quite suddenly the year before, but such things did not necessarily run in families, and besides, even though Hugo had died by himself out-of-doors, no one had noticed a bee sting on his skin.

Then again, nobody had looked.

Nobody could have known, the doctors kept saying, over and over until Anthony wanted to strangle them all. Eventually he got them out of the house, and he put his mother to bed. They had to move her into a spare bedroom; she grew agitated at the thought of sleeping in the bed she’d shared for so many years with Edmund. Anthony managed to send his six siblings to bed as well, telling them that they’d all talk in the morning, that everything would be well, and he would take care of them as their father would have wanted.

Then he walked into the room where his father’s body still lay and looked at him. He looked at him and looked at him, staring at him for hours, barely blinking.

And when he left the room, he left with a new vision of his own life, and new knowledge about his own mortality.

Edmund Bridgerton had died at the age of thirty-eight. And Anthony simply couldn’t imagine ever surpassing his father in any way, even in years.