Breakable Heaven 02

II.

Anthony & Bella (June to July 1814)

Anthony realized when he was dining with Miss Edwina Sharma, this season’s Diamond, that she was entirely not worth it.  Yes, she was accomplished.  She spoke several languages.  She read.  She played the pianoforte and the sitar.  She was beautiful.  She was well spoken.  She was graceful.  He could have a conversation with her even if she did not ride horses.  However, when he was dining at Aubrey Hall with the Sharmas as his family’s guests, Anthony realized that Miss Edwina was not worth the trouble of her elder sister, Miss Kate Sharma.

Miss Kate was troublesome.  She was opinionated.  She was loud.  She was brash.—and she hated Anthony.  No one got to Miss Edwina except through her elder sister and Anthony was tired of trying.  He was never going to receive the elder Miss Sharma’s permission.  He was tired of trying.  When she was stung by a bee in the garden, he remembered being both fearful of her life and glad that she would finally be out of the way.  The only solution was to get rid of her entirely by removing both of the Sharma sisters from their sphere of influence in his life.

This was not defeat.  This was a tactical retreat.  Anthony had merely realized that the contentment of having Miss Edwina as his wife was outweighed by the difficulty of having Miss Kate Sharma as his goodsister.  He could not abide the woman.

When he stood up to give the toast, Anthony knew that everyone was expecting him to propose to Miss Edwina—and if the Sharmas expected him to make a public declaration, then they did not know him.—Instead, he gave some pleasant platitudes before retaking his seat.

His sister Eloise was looking at him quite pointedly. 

After he had thought he had locked himself into his study, Eloise naturally used magic to unlock the door.

“What spell was that?” Anthony asked distractedly as he poured her a glass of wine.

“Alohamora,” Eloise informed him.  “We learn it our first year at Hogwarts.”

Yes, Hogwarts.  The Bridgertons were a pureblood family until Edmund, the eighth Viscount Bridgerton and their father, had married the beautiful Miss Violet Ledger, a pureblood Squib.  All of their children were magical—except for the eldest, Anthony, who was also a Squib, making the title potentially Muggle.  Anthony did not begrudge his younger brothers and sisters their magic.  He certainly did not begrudge Daphne her enchantment at the wandpoint of Bellatrix Lestrange.  The Bridgertons were always a loving family and he was never made to feel inferior.  He also bred Abraxans.

He turned and handed Eloise her wine.  “You are wondering why I did not propose?”

“In a word, Brother,” she agreed as she took the wine glass, “‘yes’,”

“Miss Kate Sharma.”

Eloise’s eyebrows rose.  “I thought you enjoyed being matched against her at pall mall.”

“She is a worthy adversary,” Anthony agreed.  “However, I realized I did not want the responsibility of having her as my sister.  Her mother has no home.  She cannot be Lady Danbury’s guest forever.  Miss Edwina has told me that Kate Sharma has no intention of marrying—so naturally she would come here.”

Taking a sip of her wine, Anthony watched as the obvious conclusion reached Eloise.

“Ah,” she murmured.  “The Statute of Secrecy.”

Miss Edwina, as his wife, could be informed about magic as he was a Squib.  Lady Mary and Miss Kate as her mother and sister, however, could not. 

“She is also most vexing,” Anthony told her, leaning up against the sideboard.  “She never listens!”  He slammed his hand down in his annoyance.

Eloise regarded him.  “I never listen, Brother.”

Anthony looked up at her and smiled.  “You are most charming, Sister.”  He stood and came over to hug her.  They stood for a long moment.  “I invited the Earl Black,” he told her carefully. 

Eloise stiffened.  “Why would you do that?” Eloise asked, stepping away from him and setting down her wine glass.

He rolled his eyes.  “I know you like him.”

“I do not like Potter,” she disagreed.

“He is all you speak about—”

Her eyes flashed a sharp blue.  “He is not—”

“He is so—” Anthony argued.

She deflated and sat down in one of the chairs.  “He will want to dance with me.”

Anthony laughed, taking the chair opposite her.  “Is that the problem?  Lord Black wishing to dance with you?”

“It is quite the problem.”  She smiled at him impishly.

“Men like to dance with the women they are thinking of marrying,” Anthony informed her.  “It is a way to be alone with the lady while still being chaperoned in a crowded room. It is a way of touching each other’s hands.—”

“And you are willing to give up touching Miss Edwina’s hands because you will not send Miss Kate Sharma back to India?”

“Miss Edwina is not worth the trouble of the elder Miss Sharma.  No, there will be someone who is eminently more suitable, Sister.  I just need to find her.”  He ran his hand over his smooth chin.  “You are fortunate in that you have found Lord Black.”

“I found Potter at Hogwarts,” she refuted.

“I remember when he took notice of you,” Anthony reminisced.  “Did it start your fifth year or was that when he made his intentions known?”

Eloise was now looking down at her gloves which she had pulled off.  “He was two years ahead of me.  I remember when he went to the Yule Ball.”  When Anthony made to question her, she made a motion with her hand that she would explain later.  “He went with Pavati Patil.  I remember waiting in the Common Room as a little second year and watching all the upper years come down in their robes.”  Her blue eyes shone in the memory.  “He wore green, like his eyes.”

Anthony smiled softly at her.  “That is when you noticed him.  When did he notice you?”

“Oh,” she murmured, coming to herself.  “My fifth year, his seventh year.  He had been linked with Ginny Weasley, but then he asked me to Hogsmeade.  You remember.”

“But you refused,” Anthony remembered.

“I refused,” Eloise agreed, shaking her head.  “I thought he wanted me to be Daphne… or it was perhaps a prank?”

“Lord Black is not pranking you now,” Anthony astutely pointed out.  “He is quite plainly chasing you.”

Eloise reached out her hand for him and he took it.  “I do not wish to leave you behind.”

“You could never leave me behind,” Anthony promised her.  “You are my sister.”

“But Daphne—”

“—is in an enchanted sleep,” Anthony argued.  “That is no one’s fault.  She could sleep for a hundred years before awakening.”

“We might all still be alive,” Eloise murmured, “though we will all be old and our grandchildren will be at Hogwarts.”

“And she could still be as young and beautiful as she is this very day.”

“I wonder if any wizard will be able to break the enchantment.”  She bit her lip.

Anthony squeezed her hand.  “None of that.  We have a ball tomorrow and Mama will wish to see you dance with Lord Black.”  He stood and Eloise rose to her feet a moment later.  He leaned forward and kissed her brow.  “The future is yours, little witch,” he murmured.  “You merely have to go and take it.”

She nodded and then smiled at him before leaving his study. 

When she was gone, Anthony took out his mother’s engagement ring and looked at it for several long moments.  He had imagined giving this ring to Miss Edwina Sharma, but now he saw how unsuited it would be to her finger.  No, there was someone else out there.  She would not be the Diamond, it was true, but that did not make her any less worthy of being the next Viscountess Bridgerton.

He could very well find her at the Bridgerton Ball… but he did not.

Anthony knew he caused distress when he did not ask Miss Edwina to dance, but she was not without partners.  He did not dance at all.  He spent most of his night regarding other young ladies and keeping an eye on Eloise, who did take to the dancefloor with Lord Black, although it was only the once.

The Sharmas and the rest of the guests departed, and then, too, did the Bridgertons depart for London.

His first morning back, Anthony rode his Abraxan (under a handy glamour, courtesy of Benedict) to Hyde Park, distinctly taking a route that he knew Miss Kate Sharma was unlikely to ride.  He watched the sun rise over the trees and then dismounted his Pegasus, tied him to a tree, and took out a meal of an apple and cheese. 

The sound of branches breaking and a small exclamation of breath alerted him to the fact that he was not alone.  Anthony looked up and he saw a young woman tripping over her hem and catching herself on the trunk of the tree, dangerously close to his Abraxan.

Immediately standing, he came up to the young woman and steadied her.  “Are you quite well?” he asked.

“Oh, yes,” she agreed, picking herself up and standing tall.  “I’m merely clumsy.”  The young woman looked into his eyes and his breath caught.

Whoever she was, she had the most beautiful brown eyes he had ever beheld.  They were quite startling in their color.  There was nothing in nature to which he could compare them.

“Allow me to assist you,” he breathed out, offering her his hand.  “Is your maid with you?”

She laughed at that.  “I escaped her,” she confessed, “and my companion.  I thought I’d come see the sunrise.”  Looking over her shoulder, her eyes flashed away from him toward the sun.  “It is beautiful, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” he agreed as she turned back to him.  Anthony looked back into her eyes and away from the sun.  “Quite beautiful.”

Her skin, so pale, blushed down her cheeks into her neck and beyond her blusher.  Anthony was uncertain he had ever seen anyone so enchanting. 

“Forgive me,” he murmured, his eyes never leaving hers, “for not introducing myself.  I am Lord Bridgerton.”

She looked up, clearly surprised, and then nodded.  “Bella,” she told him.

“Are you hungry, Miss Bella?” he inquired as he held her steady against the tree.  “I have apples and cheese and warm beer.”  He looked at her hopefully. 

Bella looked around him toward his picnic in curiosity.  Turning back to him, she admitted, “An apple might be nice.”

Anthony led her the short distance to the picnic and helped her sit before producing an apple for her.  Bella rolled it between her gloved hands and then took a healthy bite of it.  Anthony watched her in amazement, before eating a bite of cheese.  Bella was dressed in a white muslin and pink pelisse, her hair pinned elegantly atop her head. 

“Are you in town for the season, Miss Bella?” he asked her after several long minutes of silence.

She shook her head.  “No,” she said, after swallowing.  “My guardian’s sister is here in London for the Masters—and wherever she goes, I go.”

“You do not have the benefit of the Masters?” he asked her carefully.

“Oh, I sketch,” she admitted carefully.  “Not well.”  She looked out back toward the city.  “We have also been learning how to dance.”

Anthony nodded.  “My sister Eloise still has a dancing master although she is ‘out.’  She still needs to master the intricacies of certain dances.”

“They are complicated,” Miss Bella agreed, her thoughts clearly turning inward.  “It would be so much easier if you just danced together without switching partners.”  Her large brown eyes looked at him.

He laughed.  “It would not look like any dance that I know.”

“Not here, perhaps,” Miss Bella argued.  “But elsewhere—” she sighed and took another bite of her apple.

Anthony regarded her and found the slope of her pale neck quite entrancing.  This young woman had no airs or graces despite being of superior birth and rank.  She appeared entirely innocent—as if the world had yet to touch her—and yet her eyes were so deep with a knowledge that she seemed older than the world itself. 

“When do you and your guardian’s sister enter society?” Anthony asked carefully.

Her head whipped around and she looked at him.  “I—I don’t know.  No one’s said.”

That was unhelpful.  The young woman seemed about Eloise’s age, but that meant she could be as young as seventeen or as old as twenty.  However, if she were twenty years of age, she would surely be out in society.  If she were seventeen, then it would only be another year. 

Her mesmerizing eyes lit on him as she took a final bite of her apple.  She ate with small bites and yet with such gusto, it was almost surprising in a young woman. 

Miss Bella was everything Anthony thought he would never be attracted to.

She was not graceful.  She did not appear to be accomplished.  Her only accomplishment appeared to be drawing, and she professed to not do it well.  She shirked propriety by coming to Hyde Park before sunrise without a chaperone.

—And yet the turn of her face was smooth, and Anthony wanted nothing more than to take off his gloves and run the back of his fingers against her pale cheek.  There were freckles against her nose and he desired to taste them upon her skin to see if she used lemon water to bleach them away.  He wondered at this dancing she mentioned.  What was it like?  How could one dance without changing partners?

Anthony must have been staring a great deal because Miss Bella cleared her throat. 

“I must be going.”  Her voice was soft and almost a question, and he quickly passed her the warm beer. 

“May I escort you?”

“That will not be necessary,” she demurred, for the first time sounding like a young lady of distinction.  Her speech before had been patterned slightly differently than Anthony was used to hearing it.  Still, Miss Bella took a small sip of warm beer before stopping up the bottle and handing it back.  She quickly picked up her gloves to put them back on and Anthony stood to help her stand. 

“Will you come tomorrow?” he asked, trying not to sound overeager.

She turned to look at him in confusion.  “Do you like English sunrises, Lord Bridgerton?”

“I find I favor them now,” he answered truthfully, her small hand still in his.

Blushing at the compliment, Miss Bella merely nodded before she walked in the direction of fashionable London, leaving Anthony with the remains of their picnic.

The rest of the day was ledgers, accounts, and the intricate workings of his two sisters’ romantic pursuits.  Daphne had been in an enchanted sleep since her eighteenth birthday.  A witch, named Bellatrix Lestrange, had asked her mirror, “Who is the fairest of them all?” and the ridiculous piece of glass had one day answered “Miss Daphne Bridgerton.”  Madam Lestrange, in a fury, had cursed Daphne into a one hundred year’s sleep, only to be broken by true love’s touch.  That meant that wizards throughout Europe applied to Anthony for permission to try for Daphne for the fame of breaking the curse.  Anthony usually left the usual decision up to his mother—what did Anthony know of true love?—but it had been well over a year and still Daphne was not cured.

Eloise was turning out to be a much easier proposition.  Anthony had been surprised when she had expressed a desire for a Muggle Season before going to work for the Ministry of Magic, but Anthony would never deny her.  Their mother, too, was thrilled.  At the beginning of her season, Anthony had been afeared that she would chase all of her suitors away.  However, she was unable to chase Lord Black away who had come from the wizarding world and was now pursuing her in the Muggle one. 

If Anthony was not much mistaken, he would have his sister married off as Lady Black before the season was finished.  Benedict was only interested in his magical paintings.  Colin was traveling to magical hotspots in Greece, and Francesca was still at Hogwarts.

That night Anthony tossed and turned and he dreamed strangely.  He was at Aubrey Hall in a meadow of paper flowers, made of pinks and blues and purples.  He was standing in the middle of the beautiful flowers but was afraid to take a step forward or backward, in fear of crushing the paper blooms. 

Then, on the far side of the meadow, Miss Edwina appeared.  She was wearing her pink muslin, but she was not looking at him. 

“Come, Bon,” Miss Kate said, as she came up to her sister and took her arm.  “We do not need Lord Bridgerton.” 

Miss Edwina looked up to her sister and nodded and the two sisters walked around the paper flowers until Miss Edwina paused, crouched down, picked one, and then they both walked away in the direction of the small town.

Still, Anthony was trapped in the paper flowers. 

There was a rustling behind him, and he screwed his head around to see that Miss Bella was walking toward him through the paper blossoms.  The pink and the blue and the purple were folding themselves away from her so that her feet would not crush them, and her skirts whispered against the paper as she approached him. “I read about her in Lady Whistledown,” Miss Bella murmured, as she came up to Anthony and took his arm.  “Were you very much in love with her?”  Her large brown eyes looked at him, but he found in the magic of the place he could not answer.  Her lips parted, but she did not speak again, instead kneeling down and picking a pink paper bloom from where her skirt touched the flowers.  She stood up and handed it to him.

Anthony woke up before the crust of dawn with a pink rosebud on his bedside table.  He saw it lying there and was afraid to touch it in case it was magical.  Still, he reached for it and allowed his fingers to hover above the bloom, wondering how the blossom had escaped his dreams.

That very morning, Anthony brought more than bread and cheese.  Anthony secured a picnic basket of freshly baked breads, grapes, and marzipan, which he hoped would catch Miss Bella’s favor. 

He rode out on to Hyde Park well before sunrise and tied up his Abraxan to the same tree he had met Miss Bella under the day before.  As the sky was just beginning to turn a dark blue, he could make out the form of Miss Kate Sharma racing through the trees recklessly on the top of her stolen horse, and he hoped she did not fall on her many jumps.

Then, just as the sky was turning pink, he saw the form of a young woman in a bonnet coming forward from the West, and he stood to welcome her.  “Miss Bella,” he greeted, taking her gloved hand and kissing it.  “I am so glad that you could make it.”

“I did say I would come,” she noted, as if she considered her word binding.

“Indeed,” he agreed, motioning to the blanket he had laid out and the small feast he had procured. 

Miss Bella studied a marzipan for several long moments before asking, “What is this?”

“Almond paste,” he told her.  “It is a candy.”

“For breakfast?” she wondered aloud.

“Try it,” he urged before passing her the bottle of champagne he had brought along.  She took a small bite of it and her beautiful eyes widened before she ate the rest of the candy in one bite.  Chewing it a little indelicately, she then swallowed and took a sip of champagne directly from the bottle.  “You spoil me, Lord Bridgerton.”

“No more than you deserve,” he argued back, remembering the dream he had the night before.

She looked at him with those lovely eyes of hers, but she said nothing.

“Would you draw me?” he asked after they sat eating for several long minutes.

“I—” she began, before taking a sip of champagne and swallowing.  “I’ve never tried to draw a person before.”

“Are you still drawing fruit arrangements?” he teased.

She looked at him suspiciously.

“My brother Benedict is an artist,” he explained.  “He once berated me for eating an orange in his still life.”

She glanced down at a marzipan that was on his plate and admitted, “I would yell at you, Lord Bridgerton, if you stole an orange from my still life.”  She looked up impishly and smiled.  “Then I’d make you fetch me another orange.”

“Which I would gladly do,” he promised her, the light of the new day shining light blue around them.  It cast a halo about her bonnet.  Anthony smiled at her.  “You have not been subjected to the pianoforte?”

“No,” she told him, looking away.  “My guardian’s sister plays it all day long.  They do not need me to provide such entertainment.”

“Hmm,” he murmured, looking at her.  “If she were here, I would ask her to play a quadrille so you could show me this odd form of dancing you described.  I have tried to imagine it, Miss Bella, but it is quite beyond my frame of reference.”

She, however, turned to him.  “Why do boys like to dance?”

The question startled Anthony.

“I don’t find it fun,” Miss Bella elaborated.

“But you are a young lady—”

“But I am not a clone of other young ladies,” Miss Bella disagreed with him.  “I am not like your sisters or my guardian’s sister, or all the other sisters in London.  I do not care to dance.”  The final pronouncement sounded heavy on her tongue, as if she were quoting a book and the words were not, in fact, hers.

“No,” he agreed carefully.  “I suppose you are not.”

She nodded and turned back to her plate of marzipan.

“Still,” Anthony pressed, “I should like you to show me.”  His blue eyes looked at her imploringly.

Miss Bella regarded him and then looked around the park.  Then, setting down her plate, she pushed herself to her feet.  “Come on,” she said, indicating with her fingers he should follow her.  Her gloves were still lying next to her plate.

She quickly discarded the bonnet, her dark hair pinned on top of her head.

Anthony was quickly on his feet and Bella grabbed his wrist and pulled him to a flat bit of ground.

“I can’t sing,” she told him.   “You’re just going to have to imagine music in your head.”

“That will not be a hardship, Miss Bella,” he promised, noticing she was the perfect height to fit beneath his chin in an intimate embrace.

She pushed him until he was standing directly in front of her and then grasped his arms until she pulled them around her waist.  “Hold me,” she instructed, before she slithered her arms around his neck.  Then, resting her head against his shoulder, she murmured, “It’s one-two.  One-two.  One-two.  Back and forth.”  She stepped with her right foot and when he did not move, she kicked his left foot.  “One-two, back and forth.”  She stepped with her right and he stepped with his left.  She then stepped with her left and he stepped with his right.  Soon they were stepping backward and forward until Miss Bella introduced a bit of a slow spin.  “One-two, one-two,” she murmured, until she stopped murmuring at all.

This was certainly the most compromising dance Anthony had ever engaged in.  It was unlike anything he had ever experienced before.  Women and men were permitted to do this?  Hold each other and dance in a circle?  This was unheard of!  If Miss Bella’s guardian came out of a bush, Anthony would be made to marry her, not that he believed he would object. 

When he woke up that morning and saw the rose bud, he knew that Bella must be magic, and he fell even more deeply in love with her than he already was.  It was most peculiar. 

She must be a lady of some worth.—and if she was not, for some reason, he would raise her up.  He wanted Miss Bella, his Bella.  He had never actually wanted anyone to be his before.  He had desired women such as Sienna in the past.  He had thought women would be a good match for him such as Miss Edwina Sharma.  But he wanted Bella to be his wife—and he did not even know her name.  They were strangers to each other passing in the night. 

He would have to rectify this and he would have to rectify this soon.  Nothing else was acceptable.  Perhaps he would follow Miss Bella home one day, or hire someone to follow her back to her guardian’s house.  That was a possibility.  Indeed, surely that was possible.  Wasn’t it?

They continued to dance in each other’s arms until the sun was fully shining and the park was showing signs of having other patrons.  Anthony carefully stepped away and waited for Miss Bella to look up at him.  Her eyes were closed for a long moment and then she blinked up at him with her beautiful, big doe eyes. 

“We shall soon be seen,” he apologized.

“We can’t have that,” Miss Bella agreed, as she slid her hands from his neck.  “What would Lady Whistledown say?”  She gave him a small, self-deprecating smile.

“Tomorrow?” Anthony pressed.

She regarded him for a long moment.  “Won’t you soon be sick of me?”

He carefully reached up and touched her cheek.  “How could I tire of you, Miss Bella?” he asked sincerely.

Nodding, she drew away from him.  She leaned down to steal the last marzipan off of his plate before picking up her bonnet and gloves.  Anthony watched as she moved toward a path that led out of the park.  He then cleaned up the remnants of their picnic before riding home.

He had three more letters from potential suitors to Daphne.

“I rather like this one,” Mama said when he presented them to her.  “Bartemius Crouch, Jr.”

“I do not know the name,” he told her, and indeed Anthony had never paid attention to pureblood society as he never had to know them.  “Remind me.”

Violet Bridgerton, the Dowager Viscountess Bridgerton, took a seat in his study and held up the letter.  “His father is Minister of Magic now that the Dark Lord has been defeated.”

“Ah, yes, the Dark Lord.”  Anthony knew about the Dark Lord.  He had to know as Daphne and Eloise’s guardian when they were at Hogwarts.  Benedict had also fought in the Final Battle at Hogwarts.  Anthony had  also read several books on Voldemort, Harry Potter (now Lord Black), the Prophecy, and the outbreak of war in both the 1780s and the early 1800s.  Bellatrix Lestrange had been a Death Eater that had escaped Azkaban.  The horrible mirror she used had been a Black family artifact that he had petitioned Lord Black—who he now knew was Harry Potter—to destroy given its detrimental effect to the House of Bridgerton.

Lord Black had given it as a gift to Anthony as it proved impossible to destroy, and it was now in the primary Bridgerton vault in Gringotts.

“When is he coming?” Anthony asked his mother.

“He wishes to come this afternoon.”

Anthony sighed.  These wizards always seemed to be in a hurry.  “You will play chaperone?” he checked.  He hated playing chaperone.

“If you wish it,” she agreed.

Anthony held out his hand and accepted the letter.  He skimmed it before taking a piece of parchment and writing out a reply.  It soon went out with his post owl.  Just because he was a Squib did not mean he did not have a post owl.  As Viscount Bridgerton, he had a great deal of business in the wizarding world.

The rest of the day was filled with business and putting in an appearance in the Drawing Room to greet Lord Black, until Crouch Jr. arrived.  The man was tall with sandy hair and the gray eyes of a Black.  He was rather good looking, and Anthony looked at him objectively.  Is this the type of man Daphne would find attractive?

The problem was no one knew.  Daphne had been so young when she was cursed, she did not have time to show a preference.  She would surely favor a pureblood wizard, but beyond that, Anthony did not know.

He shook Crouch’s hand before introducing his mother and allowing the two to go up to Daphne’s room where she was magically sleeping.

Sighing, it was a job done.  He now just had to wait.

Anthony no longer had any expectations.  He had lost all hope of Daphne ever waking, more than two years previously. 

He was at his correspondence, or, more exactly, he was daydreaming about Miss Bella when there was a knock on his door three hours later.

“Come in,” he called, trying to look busy.

His mother poked her head in.  “Daphne still sleeps.”

Something within him dimmed.  It seemed he did have a modicum of hope, which was his fault.  He should have no expectations.  Daphne would sleep for a hundred years and Anthony, as a Squib, would be long dead.  He would never see her waken.

“Thank you, Mama,” he murmured.  He gave her a small smile, which she returned.  She closed the door behind her and Anthony was once again alone.  They would have to petition the Wizengamot again before the next suitor could be received.  He took out a fresh sheet of parchment.

That night he dreamed of Daphne in a casket of glass, sleeping in a field of paper flowers.  The blooms rustled in a light wind and Daphne was much as Anthony remembered her.  Her skin was flushed peach with health, her cheeks were rosy, her figure slim, her hair a dull golden color.  Daphne was dressed in blue, her favorite color. 

Anthony felt drawn to the casket in his dreams, even though he could not bear to see Daphne sleeping when he wakefully walked the halls of Bridgerton House.  In his dream, he stepped carefully through the paper flowers, his boots crushing the blooms of pink and blue and purple, and when he reached the casket, he pressed his hand against the glass, feeling the barrier of years and magic between them.

He did not know how long he stood there.  The wind continued to rustle through the flowers, but then Anthony heard footsteps and he turned to see Miss Bella walking carefully through the paper flowers toward him, dressed in a gown of deep pink and a pelisse of blue.  Her swanlike neck was white in the moonlight, her hair as dark as the night.

The paper rustled against her hem and she came and stood on the other side of the casket, looking down at Daphne.  Her wide brown eyes took in Daphne’s sleeping form and the two stood in silence for several long hours, time meaning nothing in a dream.  The only sound between them was the wind rustling among the flowers of pink and blue and purple. 

“She looks like you,” Miss Bella whispered after what could have been years.

Anthony looked up to see that Miss Bella was still looking at Daphne’s sleeping face.

“She is my sister,” Anthony confirmed.

Miss Bella’s wide brown eyes flicked up to him.  “She looks like she’s living in a fairytale.”

“This dream is a fairytale, is it not?” Anthony asked her.

Miss Bella reached out toward the casket and as soon as she touched it, Anthony felt himself fall on the floor of his room, hitting his head.  His eyes flew open and he found himself awake, darkness spilling through the windows.

“Bella,” he whispered, worried for her.  His breath was labored but he forced himself to calm down.  “It is just a dream,” he murmured to himself.  “Just a dream.”

He pushed himself off the floor and pulled himself up onto the bed, only to see it covered in pink, blue, and purple rose petals.

Anthony stared in shock. 

He didn’t sleep in his bed for the rest of the night.

Taking especial care with the picnic basket in the early morning hours, he took his Abraxan back to Hyde Park and made a picnic beneath their tree.  He waited for Miss Bella to appear, his mind drifting to Daphne and the roses, until the young woman arrived.

He stared at her.  She was wearing a dark pink gown and a blue pelisse—just as she had in that early morning’s dream.

Shaking himself from his shock, Anthony stood to greet her and kissed her gloved hand when she reached him.

“Did you bring more marzipan, Lord Bridgerton?” she asked quietly, her big brown eyes looking up at him.

“I would not dare to do otherwise,” he promised her, helping her to sit on the blanket when she almost tripped.  He offered her a plate of marzipan and she took one, immediately biting into it.  Miss Bella certainly had a bit of a sweet tooth, Anthony surmised.

The breakfast was spent catching glances at each other and exchanging pleasantries until Miss Bella asked, quite suddenly, “Is your sister unwell?”

Anthony paused and looked at her directly.  “What is your meaning?”

She blushed, the blush starting in her cheeks and suffusing down her check and down through her neck.  It was absolutely charming.  “I—had a dream,” she began carefully.  Miss Bella was looking down at her hands.  “I dreamt that your sister was sleeping—and she couldn’t wake up.  Is she in a coma?”  Her eyes flitted up, so beautiful and big and brown.  “Or—or was that just my imagination?”

Anthony looked at her carefully.  “The doctors cannot help Daphne,” he told her.  “We do not speak of it.”

She reached out carefully and laid her hand over his.  Anthony remained perfectly still, but when she made to take her hand back, he quickly captured it.  “I did not know you were also dreaming those dreams,” he whispered into the silence of the morning.

“It’s the strangest thing,” she murmured.  “I woke up to roses on my bedside table.”

“Yes,” he agreed, catching her gaze.  “My bed was covered in rose petals.”

She swallowed as she seemed to realize what he was saying.  “But it’s impossible—for it to happen to one of us is impossible enough—but for both—I can’t explain it.”

Anthony could not quite explain it either.  What was the field of paper flowers?  Why did the rose petals and rose blooms appear for each of them?  How were they sharing dreams?

“Do you,” she whispered quietly, her brown eyes staring into his, “do you think we’re soulmates?”

The idea startled him, and he visibly reacted.

Miss Bella immediately tried to withdraw her hand again from his, but Anthony ran his thumb against her knuckles in an attempt to still her.

“I had not thought—” Anthony admitted.  “It is perhaps a thought to consider.”  He took a deep breath and nodded.  “I shall look into it.”

She laughed.  “How can you look into soulmates?” Miss Bella asked.

“I have my ways,” he promised her.  His mind turned to the library at Aubrey Hall.  He could dispatch Benedict there immediately.  Benedict might not want to leave the London Academy of Art, but when Anthony explained the situation, he would surely go.  Benedict was also a Ravenclaw and Head Boy in his time.  “Trust me, Miss Bella.”

“—Bella,” she corrected, blushing.  “If we are to be soulmates, surely I am ‘Bella’.”

“Bella,” he answered, his blue eyes looking into hers and holding her brown gaze.  “My name is Anthony.”

“Anthony,” she repeated.  “How strange—”

“Why?” he questioned, genuinely curious.

“Back home we would say Anthony,” she said, emphasizing the ‘th.’  “Not Antony.”

“Where is home?” he asked her, confused.  Her speech certainly had a separate cadence but not so much that he would say she was other than of the first or perhaps second circles.

Looking stricken, Bella bit her lip and then looked away from him.

Boldly, Anthony reached out with his free hand and took her chin between his fingers and drew her face back toward him.  “It does not matter where your ‘home’ is.  I am just curious at the mispronunciation of a respectable English name.”

Still biting he lip, Bella took a deep breath.  “Washington,” she admitted.

“The capital of the United States of America?” he asked, utterly baffled.  Was this girl truly an American?  How did this account for her clothes being the height of British fashion?  How did this account for her having an English guardian?  It was most peculiar—and bore much thinking about.

“No,” she corrected, glancing to the side and interrupting Anthony’s tumultuous thoughts.  “I’m not from Washington, D.C.  I’m from the other side of the country.  Washington State.”

He blinked.  He knew little of the Americas apart from the original colonies, he did not have to know, but still he asked, “Your ‘home’ is the frontier?”

This seemed to confuse her.  She appeared to think and then she nodded.  “Yes, I’m from the frontier.  I can no longer live there, my parents are gone, and so I am in London with my guardian.”  She bit her lip in such a way that Anthony wanted to reach out with his thumb and pull her lip from her teeth.  “I’ll never go back there again.”

“And there they say Anthony,” he checked, purposefully mispronouncing his name.

She smiled at him quietly.  “If they say it at all.”

This certainly disgruntled Anthony, but he released her chin and tapped her nose in affection, causing her to laugh a little.  His hand still held hers, her gloves tossed to the side so that he could feel skin on skin.  He was certainly compromising her with just the picnics, but touching her like this, so familiarly… but if she was an American?  But, no, she was English now.  Her guardian was English, surely, and she would be English as soon as he married her.

“What happened to your parents?” he asked carefully.

She looked at him, startled, like a doe with her big brown eyes.  At first she did not speak, but then she visibly relaxed as if making a decision.

“Renée, my mom,” she told him, “married.”

“She married?” Anthony checked when she revealed nothing more.

“Yes, to Phil—”  She then waved away any other thought with her free hand.  “I decided to go live with Charlie, my dad, in Washington.  Give her space.  She was so unhappy with me there.”

Anthony was startled.  Both of her parents were alive and yet—divorced?  Divorce was extremely rare in the 1810s and always caused the greatest of scandals.  It was almost completely unheard of.  He was surprised to hear about it in Bella’s family, but he reasoned that the ways of the Americas must be different than the ways of a more civilized England.

“I was with Charlie,” she began to further explain, clearly uneasy, “and there was a storm.  It was one of those great storms out West—”  She seemed lost.  “Everything was lost.  I was entrusted to my guardian.”

“That must have been a horrifying ordeal,” Anthony murmured, catching her dark gaze.  “I cannot imagine a storm that would destroy all life like that.  It is a wonder you are alive.”

“A wonder,” she murmured, clearly thinking, “yes.”

“My father died when I was eighteen,” Anthony shared, reaching out and touching her dark hair.  “I know your pain.”

She blushed.  “I was seventeen when it happened,” she agreed.  “I still am seventeen.”

“The bereavement is recent, then,” Anthony guessed, taking in her dark pink gown and wondering why she was not in mourning. 

Bella had taken up the champagne and took a quick sip of it one handed, her left hand still claimed by Anthony.  “How did he die—your father?” she inquired.

“There was a bee,” Anthony told her carefully.

Bella’s eyes widened.  “I knew a child when I was seven who died from a bee sting.”

“Indeed?” Anthony asked in open curiosity.  He had never heard of anyone but his father dying from such a reason and he was stunned that it had happened to someone else—even if that someone was a child in America.

“Yes.  We all knew he was allergic,” she stated, “but it happened so fast.  Nothing could be done.”

“No,” Anthony agreed, taking the champagne from her.  “Nothing could be done.”

She looked up at him sadly.  “You were fond of your father.”  It was a statement, more than a question, and Anthony could only nod.

“He was the best of men.”

“I should have liked to have met him, then,” Bella murmured.  “Perhaps, however, he might not have approved of me.”

Anthony scoffed.  He picked up her hand and then circled his linked hand around the front of her until he was holding her close with their linked hands and pulled her until she was resting up against him.  “Of course, Father would have approved of you,” Anthony assured her.  “He would have approved of you for the simple reason that you make me happy.”

“But your mother is alive,” Bella checked.

“Yes, the Dowager Viscountess Bridgerton.”

“And you have a sister—Daphne, who is unwell.”

“And three more sisters besides, and three younger brothers.”

She turned around in his embrace and looked up at him in surprise.  “There are eight of you?”  She breathed out through her nose.  “Good Lord.  If I ever meet all six of them—” six being the number of his siblings who were awake and alive “—surely at least one will disapprove of me.”

Anthony pulled her back against him.  “I need to meet your guardian.  I do not even know your full Christian name.”

She hesitated.  “My guardian is much engaged this past week.”  She did not offer her Christian name.  Was it Arabella?  Isabella?  Claribel?  Anthony had a small list in his office of possibilities.

“Engaged?” Anthony questioned, referring to Bella’s guardian.

Once again, Bella hesitated.  “Something is wrong.  We cannot account for it.  He came down from Derbyshire and he spends all of his days and most of his nights—at business somewhere in London. He comes home only to change and to consult maps.  Georgiana and I cannot account for it.  The servants said he’s been searching the inns in Bloomsbury.  Bloomsbury!”  She turned again toward him, her wide brown eyes confused.  “What’s in Bloomsbury?”

“Nothing good, I should warrant,” he agreed.  He paused, “Then I shall wait until your guardian is in a better frame of mind.—And I shall send my brother Benedict to research dreams and soulmates.”

“To Cambridge or Oxford?” she asked, clearly amused at the idea.

“Both, I’d imagine,” he lied, pulling her closer.

When the sky had finally lightened, Anthony released her from his embrace and watched her leave Hyde Park.  He wondered at her guardian, but he did not know the gentleman and he did not know the facts, only what Bella had observed.

He needed to find Benedict.

Entering the breakfast room, Anthony greeted his family with smiles.  “Benedict!” he called, clapping his next eldest brother on the shoulder.  “I have a task for you.”

“It is seven in the morning,” Benedict complained.

“I have met a young lady—”

“Other than Miss Edwina Sharma?” Benedict asked as he buttered his crumpet.

Anthony noticed that their mother was paying especial attention to them. 

“We walk each other’s dreams,” Anthony murmured as he took the seat next to her brother.  “This is most serious, Brother.”

At this, Benedict sat up.  “Truly?”

“Yes.  A field of paper flowers.  She woke up this morning to roses on her bedside table and I woke up to rose petals on my bed.  And—she knew about Daphne although I am almost positive she is a Muggle.”

Benedict licked his thumb, which had butter on it.

“What are you thinking?”  His blue eyes were wide with curiosity.

“She thinks soulmates.  I would not necessarily disagree with her except—”

“You are a Squib and she is a Muggle,” Benedict put in.  “Was Daphne in your dream?”

“Yes, in a casket of glass.”

“Maybe you are getting drawn into her enchantment,” Benedict mused away before picking up his tea and taking a sip.  “I shall go down to Aubrey Hall immediately after luncheon.”

“Not after breakfast?” Anthony asked, brow furrowed.

“I have to chaperone Eloise and Lord Black.  Mama is chaperoning Daphne and some other wizard this morning—”

“Which wizard?” Anthony asked, looking at his mother.  Louder, he questioned, “Who is coming for our Daphne?”

“Viktor Krum,” she told him over the conversations of the table.  “You agreed last week.”

Oh, yes, Viktor Krum.  Anthony remembered.  He was an international quidditch player and Bulgarian.  Usually, Anthony did not hold with foreign wizards, but he had been an acquaintance of Lord Black’s from the Triwizard Tournament, so Anthony agreed to his fifth petition for an interview with Daphne.

Sometimes he hated all these damned wizards who were so full of themselves they thought they could break a hundred year enchantment.  No one was good enough for any of his sisters.  Lord Black only just passed muster for Eloise.

He hated to think what would happen when Francesca and Hyacinth came of age.

Viktor Krum was not a handsome wizard.  He was rather round shouldered and duck footed, but Lord Black had assured him he was extremely talented on a broom.  Anthony shook the wizard’s hand before indicating his mother.  Pleasantries were exchanged and then the Dowager Viscountess led Krum up to the upper levels of the house.

Anthony went to his study.

Three hours later he heard the doors upstairs open and close.  Not long after his mother came and knocked on his door.  “She still sleeps?” he checked.

“Indeed,” Mama agreed.  There was nothing else to be said.  Another petition would have to be put into the Wizengamut then.

Benedict left directly after luncheon, both Anthony and Eloise seeing him off.

“You do realize, Brother,” Eloise said, “you just sent off my favorite Bridgerton.”

“I am your favorite Bridgerton!” he teased good naturedly.

She grimaced up at him.  “Of course you are.”

“Shall you go see Penelope about your confusing suitor then, Sister?” he asked.

Eloise kicked the grounded.  “I think she is getting tired of hearing about the imperfections of Lord Black.”

“You cannot find a perfection to speak of?” he asked in all seriousness.

Eloise continued to kick the ground and Anthony allowed her to think.  She then finally looked up with her blue eyes, so similar to his, that it was like looking in a mirror.  “I am thinking of asking him to apply for Daphne’s hand.”

This was certainly not what Anthony was expecting.  Turning more fully toward his sister, he asked, “For heaven’s sake, why?”

“Potter,” she told him, using Lord Black’s family surname, “is the most powerful wizard currently alive in the entire world.  If anyone can wake Daphne up—it will be him.”

“Lord Black loves you.  He has loved you since Hogwarts.”

“I never asked him to love me,” Eloise argued, clearly angry at the situation.

“We cannot always ask whom we shall and shall not love.  If I would have chosen myself, I would have chosen Miss Edwina Sharma, but in the end I did not love her, so I moved on.”  (“Is that what happened?” Eloise murmured to herself, although Anthony chose to ignore her.) “Lord Black has loved you for years.  He has chased you to the Muggle world.  He also does not want some common country miss.  He will gladly let you work for the Ministry of Magic, even though women working in the wizarding world is highly uncommon.”

“You have been speaking to each other,” Eloise surmised.

“Of course, I have been speaking to Lord Black,” Anthony told her.  “I am your eldest brother and your guardian.  He has applied for your hand in marriage.—In fact, he applied for your hand in marriage when you were a fifth year.”

Eloise stared at him and blinked.  “He did not—” she gasped.

“Yes, he did.  It was his seventh year, and he wrote to me asking to take you to Hogsmeade, which was an unspoken precursor to his asking you to marry him once you came of age.”

Eloise was stunned silent.

“I know you turned him down,” Anthony told her, turning to go back inside the house and she followed him, “as was your right.  I remember your letter to Mama on the subject, but that does not change the fact that he has been devoted to you for three years now, Eloise.”

“Then why will he not kiss Daphne?” she asked, “if I ask it of him?”

“It is not a kiss,” Anthony informed her carefully.

She stopped, turning toward him with her dark blue eyes.  “What do you mean it is not a kiss?”

“The enchantment,” he told her carefully, “is not broken with a kiss.  How it is broken is not for young witches to know—”  Anthony reached over to put a hand on her arm, but she brushed it off.

“How is it broken?” she asked, desperate.

Anthony leveled a gaze at her.  “When a man marries a woman—”

“He takes her to wife,” Eloise supplied.

Anthony did not want to have his conversation with his sister.  In fact, he did not have to.  Their mother was required to have it with her just before her own marriage.  “Speak to Mama,” he told her firmly.  “She may or she may not tell you.”

Eloise was obviously aggravated with him, but she was often aggravated at someone.  Anthony did not mind being the object of her aggravation if he did not have to speak with her on the particulars of marriage.

Of course, Anthony dreamt once again of Daphne sleeping in a field of paper flowers, Aubrey Hall in the distance.  She was no longer trapped in the magical glass casket, but was instead dressed in a nightgown.  It was as if she were sleeping naturally in the flowering field.  Anthony sat beside his sister in the dreams and watched her steady breathing, the only sign that she was alive, and hating the mirror for declaring her the fairest of them all.  Daphne could very well be the fairest young lady in all England—but to be punished for it was cruelty itself. 

“She looks like she is sleeping.”

Anthony looked up to see Bella standing in among the paper flowers.  She was in a pale gown of white muslin and a golden pelisse, gloves of blue on her hands. 

“Don’t you think so?”

“Daphne is sleeping,” Anthony agreed, looking up from his sister.  “She just cannot awaken from that sleep.”

“When I last saw her,” Bella admitted, carefully sitting down among the pink and purple paper flowers, and almost tripping on her hem, “I thought of the legend of Sleeping Beauty.  Do you know it?”

He gave her a small smile.  “Of course I know it,” he agreed. 

“She’s even more beautiful than Georgiana,” Bella commented, looking down at Daphne.  “Why do you dream of her?”

Anthony rubbed his brow.  “I could not save her.”

“You can’t save your sister from illness,” Bella argued.  “Sometimes these things just happen.”

Anthony looked at her desperately and wondered what Bella would think if she only knew.  If Anthony had not been a Squib, perhaps he would have been able to protect his family.  Perhaps he could have saved his father from a bee sting, perhaps he could have saved his sister Daphne from an enchantment—instead Anthony was helpless to save his family from the perils life threw at them.

“What is it?” Bella asked, her deep brown eyes looking at him in question.

“I am a failure,” he told her.

“No,” she disagreed, reaching out to him and taking his hand over Daphne’s sleeping form.  “You have not failed.  You certainly haven’t failed me.”

“How do you know that I will not fail you in the future?” Anthony asked her desperately.

“Because I know you—”

And then it was as if he had been slapped. He woke up, sitting up in fear, and looked around him for any sign of Bella or Daphne.  However, Anthony was alone in his room, a single purple blossom on his bedside table. 

He reached out for it carefully and picked it up in his hand, watching as it melted into mist in his fingers in a strange enchantment.

When he arrived with his picnic basket that very morning, it was to find Miss Kate Sharma waiting underneath the tree.  He had sometimes seen her in Hyde Park riding in a reckless manner, but he had thought she had not noticed him.  Miss Kate Sharma was wearing her riding habit of dark blue and her top hat, riding crop in hand, and she looked ethereally beautiful in the morning half-light.

“Should you not be riding, Miss Sharma?”

She gave no indication that she heard him.  “You never gave a reason for why you embarrassed my sister.”

He tied his Abraxan to the usual tree and took the basket from the saddlebags.  “I had no desire to embarrass Miss Edwina.  I apologize if such was the case.”

“Of course it was the case—” Miss Kate Sharma argued.  “You invite our entire family down for a private interlude at Aubrey Hall.  All of the ton expected a proposal by the time of the ball, and then no proposal was forthcoming even by the time we departed!”

Anthony breathed in through his nose, “If Lady Whistledown raised expectations—”

“If you raised expectations, sir,” she argued, tapping his chest with the handle of her riding crop.  “You and you alone raised such expectations.”

“That was not my intention—”

“Then what was your intention?” she interrupted, her black eyes blazing.  “I have a sister who is in tears.”

He paused.  “I am certain Miss Edwina has many suitors.  In fact, I have seen the line that has trailed out of your drawing room myself.”

Miss Kate Sharma clenched her jaw.  “Are you so blind?  She does not want her many suitors, she wants—”

“Lord Bridgerton.”  The sweet voice of Miss Bella cut through the argument.  Both he and Miss Kate Sharma turned to see Bella standing by the tree in her white muslin and gold pelisse, blue gloves on her hands.  Her hair seemed to have been braided from the top of her head and then curled at the base of her skull.  She looked the picture of English respectability despite her lack of bonnet.

“Miss Bella,” he greeted, taking several strides to her and offering his hand to assist her.  There were several roots from the tree that gnarled up toward the surface and Anthony did not want Bella to trip on them, knowing her clumsiness.  He led her toward the horses where he had set down the picnic basket and the blanket for the ground.  Miss Kate Sharma was staring at Bella in shock.  “May I introduce Miss Sharma who has come all the way from India for the London Season?”

His eyes cut back to Miss Bella’s large doe eyes and he saw her regarding Miss Kate Sharma before she executed a perfect curtsey, which surprised him.  “Miss Sharma,” Miss Bella murmured.  “Are you to join our breakfast?”

“No, she is not,” Anthony answered for Miss Kate.  “She is on a morning constitutional.”

Miss Kate Sharma was taking the two of them in, her black eyes darting between them.  “Are you skulking about, Lord Bridgerton?” she asked, after a pause.

Surprisingly, Miss Bella did not react at all.  She was, in fact, the one to answer.  “Not skulking, Miss Sharma. Simply enjoying a London sunrise, as you yourself are doing.”

Miss Kate Sharma glared in Miss Bella’s direction.  Miss Bella turned away from her and looked at Anthony. 

“Want some help?”  Without waiting for an answer, she went to the blanket and quickly laid it out on a flat piece of ground.  Anthony, taking her lead, picked up the basket and set it down on the blanket and opened it, taking out the bottle of champagne and then removed the marzipan and mincemeats. 

Soon their entire picnic was unpacked, and Miss Kate Sharma was just standing there, staring at them.

“Miss Sharma?” Anthony asked her.  “Will not Lady Danbury be missing you?”

Her jaw flexed but she nonetheless went to her horse and unhooked her reins.  Anthony heard her mount the horse and then trot away. He saw Miss Bella’s eyes flick over toward the horses but then return to him.  She took a bite of marzipan and after she had taken a drink of champagne, she asked, “Who was that?”

He opened his mouth, but was uncertain what to say.

“What I mean to say is—is Lady Whistledown to be believed?  Was that Miss Edwina Sharma?”

“That was Miss Kate Sharma,” Anthony told her carefully, “Miss Edwina’s older sister.”

Miss Bella now turned her head to look in the direction Kate Sharma had ridden off in.  “I didn’t know there was a sister.”

“You cannot get to Miss Edwina Sharma without first getting through Miss Kate Sharma,” Anthony told her quite honestly.  “She is the bane of every gentleman’s existence this season.”

Miss Bella carefully chose a mincemeat and nibbled on it delicately.  “Is she the bane of your existence?”

Anthony shook his head.  “Not since before I met you, Bella.  Miss Kate Sharma was simply wondering why I no longer seek her sister’s hand.”

“Hmm,” Miss Bella wondered aloud.  “I suppose you go to dinners and balls.”

“I serve as chaperone for my sister Eloise,” he agreed.

“Eloise,” she mouthed, clearly slotting the name away to be remembered.  “I stay at home and listen to Georgiana play the pianoforte.”

“There are no callers?” Anthony asked.

“No,” she told him, “except the Colonel, I understand, but not since I’ve been in London.  He is Georgiana’s second guardian.  We are quite alone in Hanover Square.”

Anthony turned that over in his head and smiled.  “So you live fashionably in London.”

“Is Hanover Square fashionable?” she asked, her eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

“Highly, Bella.”

“Do you live in Hanover Square?” she teased.

“I live in Grosvenor Square, which is just as fashionable.”

“So if Georgiana and I took our gig to Grosvenor Square, I should see your house,” Miss Bella clarified.

“You should,” he agreed.

She laughed a little at that. 

He smiled at her.

Anthony did in fact ride over to Hanover Square a few days later and take in the houses, knowing that Miss Bella was behind one of the doors.  Of course, he was uncertain as to which, but he hoped she was looking out her window and could see him, or at least her friend, Georgiana, was looking and might mention him.

Edition after edition of Lady Whistledown was published and there was no mention of a gentleman or Lord spending time in Bloomsbury.  Anthony really was quite put out.  Surely Whistledown would like to know?  Surely there was a scandal brewing—not that he wished for Miss Bella to be embroiled in a scandal.

He kept on dreaming of paper flowers and a few times he caught sight through the trees of beautiful young women with honey blonde hair and sky-blue eyes, a tall gentleman with dark curls walking toward them, and he could have sworn he even caught a glimpse of Penelope Fetherington in his dreams—but they were too far away to tell.

They were always through a grove of trees, but still among the paper flowers.

Then, one day, Lady Whistledown printed about him:

“It has come to this author’s attention that the Viscount Bridgerton, after not finding love and a fitting partner in this season’s Diamond, has turned his attention to another young lady.  The lady is not yet out in society so this author has to wonder, what is Lord Bridgerton about? We shall await a development in this story and this author will soon learn the Viscount’s intentions for, after all, this is the season the Viscount announced he intended to find his Viscountess.”

He folded down the paper in anger.

Eloise looked up from the gossip sheet.  “Who is she, Brother?” she asked.

He simply glared at her.

It was then that the note came.  It was on expensive paper sheet and was clearly Muggle.  It seemed that Miss Bella would promenade at two o’clock on Tuesday.

That morning Anthony hurried to Hyde Park with the note and showed it to Miss Bella.  She breathed out of her nose.  “He told me about this,” she confessed, looking over the note.

“He?” Anthony asked.

“My guardian.  I confessed that I had met you—he didn’t ask how—”  She bit her lip in worry.  “He wants to meet you and make sure you’re not using me.”

“Using you?” Anthony asked, uncertain of the expression.

“Making—sport with me?” she asked.  “If you’re serious about me, you’ll be seen with me… is the thought.”  Her big, dark eyes looked up at him hesitantly.  “We can still have our mornings in the park.”

Realizing that Miss Bella thought he was somehow keeping her a secret, he grasped her hands and kissed them.  “I am not ashamed of you,” he promised her.  “Quite the reverse.”

Her doe eyes brightened at his confession.  “Then we shall promenade, as they say.”

“We shall promenade,” he agreed.  Anthony looked into her deep brown eyes, his hands still holding hers, and his gaze flicked down to her dark pink lips.  Her own eyes flicked down to his lips and he took it as positive encouragement.  Leaning forward, he released one of her hands and slipped it around her waist.  “Have you ever been properly kissed, Bella?” he murmured, the sky still a dark blue.

Miss Bella’s gaze flicked back up to his blue eyes and she shrugged.  “Not properly,” she murmured.  “I’ve always wondered what it was like—to be really kissed.”

“Then you need wonder no longer,” Anthony promised before he leaned in and kissed her for the first time.