He’d ridden in nearly every horse race society had to offer, he’d boxed at Gentleman Jackson’s, and he’d won more card games than he could count. (He’d lost a few, too, but he disregarded those.) He’d spent the decade of his twenties in a mindful pursuit of pleasure, tempered only by his overwhelming sense of responsibility to his family.
Edmund Bridgerton’s death had been both sudden and unexpected; he’d not had a chance to make any final requests of his eldest son before he perished. But if he had, Anthony was certain that he would have asked him to care for his mother and siblings with the same diligence and affection Edmund had displayed.
And so in between Anthony’s rounds of parties and horse races, he’d sent his brothers to Eton and Oxford, gone to a mind-numbing number of piano recitals given by his sisters (no easy feat; three out of four of them were tone deaf), and kept a close and watchful eye on the family finances. With seven brothers and sisters, he saw it as his duty to make sure there was enough money to secure all of their futures.
As he grew closer to thirty, he’d realized that he was spending more and more time tending to his heritage and family and less and less in his old pursuit of decadence and pleasure. And he’d realized that he liked it that way. He still kept a mistress, but never more than one at a time, and he discovered that he no longer felt the need to enter every horse race or stay late at a party just to win that last hand of cards.
His reputation, of course, stayed with him. He didn’t mind that, actually. There were certain benefits to being thought England’s most reprehensible rake. He was nearly universally feared, for example.
That was always a good thing.
But now it was time for marriage. He ought to settle down, have a son. He had a title to pass on, after all. He did feel a rather sharp twinge of regret—and perhaps a touch of guilt as well—over the fact that it was unlikely that he’d live to see his son into adulthood. But what could he do? He was the firstborn Bridgerton of a firstborn Bridgerton of a firstborn Bridgerton eight times over. He had a dynastic responsibility to be fruitful and multiply.
Besides, he took some comfort in knowing that he’d leave three able and caring brothers behind. They’d see to it that his son was brought up with the love and honor that every Bridgerton enjoyed. His sisters would coddle the boy, and his mother might spoil him…
Anthony actually smiled a bit as he thought of his large and often boisterous family. His son would not need a father to be well loved.
And whatever children he sired—well, they probably wouldn’t remember him after he was gone. They’d be young, unformed. It had not escaped Anthony’s notice that of all the Bridgerton children, he, the eldest, was the one most deeply affected by their father’s death.
Anthony downed another sip of his scotch and straightened his shoulders, pushing such unpleasant ruminations from his mind. He needed to focus on the matter at hand, namely, the pursuit of a wife.
Being a discerning and somewhat organized man, he’d made a mental list of requirements for the position. First, she ought to be reasonably attractive. She needn’t be a raving beauty (although that would be nice), but if he was going to have to bed her, he figured a bit of attraction ought to make the job more pleasant.
Second, she couldn’t be stupid. This, Anthony mused, might be the most difficult of his requirements to fill. He was not universally impressed by the mental prowess of London debutantes. The last time he’d made the mistake of engaging a young chit fresh out of the schoolroom in conversation, she’d been unable to discuss anything other than food (she’d had a plate of strawberries in her hand at the time) and the weather (and she hadn’t even gotten that right; when Anthony had asked if she thought the weather was going to turn inclement, she’d replied, “I’m sure I don’t know. I’ve never been to Clement.”)
He might be able to avoid conversation with a wife who was less than brilliant, but he did not want stupid children.
Third—and this was the most important—she couldn’t be anyone with whom he might actually fall in love.
Under no circumstances would this rule be broken.
He wasn’t a complete cynic; he knew that true love existed. Anyone who’d ever been in the same room with his parents knew that true love existed.
But love was a complication he wished to avoid. He had no desire for his life to be visited by that particular miracle.
And since Anthony was used to getting what he wanted, he had no doubt that he would find an attractive, intelligent woman with whom he would never fall in love. And what was the problem with that? Chances were he wouldn’t have found the love of his life even if he had been looking for her. Most men didn’t.
“Good God, Anthony, what has you frowning so? Not that olive. I saw it clearly and it didn’t even touch you.”
Benedict’s voice broke him out of his reverie, and Anthony blinked a few times before answering, “Nothing. Nothing at all.”
He hadn’t, of course, shared his thoughts about his own mortality with anyone else, even his brothers. It was not the sort of thing one wanted to advertise. Hell, if someone had come up to him and said the same thing, he probably would have laughed him right out the door.
But no one else could understand the depth of the bond he’d felt with his father. And no one could possibly understand the way Anthony felt it in his bones, how he simply knew that he could not live longer than his father had done. Edmund had been everything to him. He’d always aspired to be as great a man as his father, knowing that that was unlikely, yet trying all the same. To actually achieve more than Edmund had—in any way—that was nothing short of impossible.
Anthony’s father was, quite simply, the greatest man he’d ever known, possibly the greatest man who’d ever lived. To think that he might be more than that seemed conceited in the extreme.
Something had happened to him the night his father had died, when he’d remained in his parents’ bedroom with the body, just sitting there for hours, watching his father and trying desperately to remember every moment they’d shared. It would be so easy to forget the little things—how Edmund would squeeze Anthony’s upper arm when he needed encouragement. Or how he could recite from memory Balthazar’s entire “Sigh No More” song from Much Ado About Nothing, not because he thought it particularly meaningful but just because he liked it.
And when Anthony finally emerged from the room, the first streaks of dawn pinking the sky, he somehow knew that his days were numbered, and numbered in the same way Edmund’s had been.
“Spit it out,” Benedict said, breaking into his thoughts once again. “I won’t offer you a penny for your thoughts, since I know they can’t possibly be worth that much, but what are you thinking about?”
Anthony suddenly sat up straighter, determined to force his attention back to the matter at hand. After all, he had a bride to choose, and that was surely serious business. “Who is considered the diamond of this season?” he asked.
His brothers paused for a moment to think on this, and then Colin said, “Edwina Sheffield. Surely you’ve seen her. Rather petite, with blond hair and blue eyes. You can usually spot her by the sheeplike crowd of lovesick suitors following her about.”
Anthony ignored his brother’s attempts at sarcastic humor. “Has she a brain?”
Colin blinked, as if the question of a woman with a brain were one that had never occurred to him. “Yes, I rather think she does. I once heard her discussing mythology with Middlethorpe, and it sounded as if she had the right of it.”
“Good,” Anthony said, letting his glass of scotch hit the table with a thunk. “Then I’ll marry her.”
Chapter 2
At the Hartside ball Wednesday night, Viscount Bridgerton was seen dancing with more than one eligible young lady. This behavior can only be termed “startling” as Bridgerton normally avoids proper young
misses with a perseverance that would be impressive were it not so utterly frustrating to all marriage-minded Mamas.
Can it be that the viscount read This Author’s most recent column and, in that perverse manner all males of the species seem to endorse, decided to prove This Author wrong?
It may seem that This Author is ascribing to herself far more importance than She actually wields, but men have certainly made decisions based on far, far less.
LADY WHISTLEDOWN’S SOCIETY PAPERS, 22 APRIL 1814
By eleven o’clock that evening, all of Kate’s fears had been realized.
Anthony Bridgerton had asked Edwina to dance.
Even worse, Edwina had accepted.
Even worse, Mary was gazing at the couple as if she’d like to reserve a church that minute.
“Will you stop that?” Kate hissed, poking her stepmother in the ribs.
“Stop what?”
“Looking at them like that!”
Mary blinked. “Like what?”
“Like you’re planning the wedding breakfast.”
“Oh.” Mary’s cheeks turned pink. A guilty sort of pink.
“Mary!”
“Well, I might have been,” Mary admitted. “And what’s wrong with that, I might ask? He’d be a superb catch for Edwina.”
“Were you listening this afternoon in the drawing room? It’s bad enough that Edwina has any number of rakes and rogues sniffing about her. You cannot imagine the amount of time it has taken me to sort the good suitors from the bad. But Bridgerton!” Kate shuddered. “He’s quite possibly the worst rake in all London. You cannot want her to marry a man like him.”
“Don’t you presume to tell me what I can and cannot do, Katharine Grace Sheffield,” Mary said sharply, stiffening her spine until she’d straightened to her full height—which was still a full head shorter than Kate. “I am still your mother. Well, your stepmother. And that counts for something.”
Kate immediately felt like a worm. Mary was all she’d ever known as a mother, and she’d never, not even once, made Kate feel any less her daughter than Edwina was. She’d tucked Kate into bed at night, told her stories, kissed her, hugged her, helped her through the awkward years between childhood and adulthood. The only thing she had not done was ask Kate to call her “Mother.”