“Good.” Anthony pushed himself up off the wall and gazed out with an air of determination. “Now, where is she? I need you to introduce us.”
Colin scanned the room for a minute or so, then said, “Ah, there she is. She’s coming this way, as a matter of fact. What a marvelous coincidence.”
Anthony was coming to believe that nothing within five yards of his younger brother was ever a coincidence, but he followed his gaze nonetheless. “Which one is she?”
“In the green,” Colin said, motioning toward her with a barely perceptible nod of his chin.
She was not at all what he’d expected, Anthony realized as he watched her pick her way through the crowds. She was certainly no ape-leading amazon; it was only when compared to Edwina, who barely touched five feet, that she would appear so tall. In fact, Miss Katharine Sheffield was quite pleasant-looking, with thick, medium brown hair and dark eyes. Her skin was pale, her lips pink, and she held herself with an air of confidence he could not help but find attractive.
She would certainly never be considered a diamond of the first water like her sister, but Anthony didn’t see why she shouldn’t be able to find a husband of her own. Perhaps after he married Edwina he’d provide a dowry for her. It seemed the very least a man could do.
Beside him, Colin strode forward, pushing through the crowd. “Miss Sheffield! Miss Sheffield!”
Anthony swept along in Colin’s wake, mentally preparing himself to charm Edwina’s older sister. An underappreciated spinster, was she? He’d have her eating out of his hand in no time.
“Miss Sheffield,” Colin was saying, “what a delight to see you again.”
She looked a bit perplexed, and Anthony didn’t blame her. Colin was making it sound as if they’d bumped into each other accidentally, when they all knew he’d trampled at least a half dozen people to reach her side.
“And it’s lovely to see you again as well, sir,” she replied wryly. “And so unexpectedly soon after our last encounter.”
Anthony smiled to himself. She had a sharper wit than he’d been led to believe.
Colin grinned winningly, and Anthony had the distinct and unsettling impression that his brother was up to something. “I can’t explain why,” Colin said to Miss Sheffield, “but it suddenly seemed imperative that I introduce you to my brother.”
She looked abruptly to Colin’s right and stiffened as her gaze settled on Anthony. In fact, she rather looked as if she’d just swallowed an antidote.
This, Anthony thought, was odd.
“How kind of you,” Miss Sheffield murmured—between her teeth.
“Miss Sheffield,” Colin continued brightly, motioning to Anthony, “my brother Anthony, Viscount Bridgerton. Anthony, Miss Katharine Sheffield. I believe you made the acquaintance of her sister earlier this evening.”
“Indeed,” Anthony said, becoming aware of an overwhelming desire—no, need—to strangle his brother.
Miss Sheffield bobbed a quick, awkward curtsy. “Lord Bridgerton,” she said, “it is an honor to make your acquaintance.”
Colin made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a snort. Or maybe a laugh. Or maybe both.
And Anthony suddenly knew. One look at his brother’s face should have given it all away. This was no shy, retiring, underappreciated spinster. And whatever she had said to Colin earlier that evening, it had contained no compliments about Anthony.
Fratricide was legal in England, wasn’t it? If not, it damn well should have been.
Anthony belatedly realized that Miss Sheffield had held out her hand to him, as was only polite. He took it and brushed a light kiss across her gloved knuckles. “Miss Sheffield,” he murmured unthinkingly, “you are as lovely as your sister.”
If she had seemed uncomfortable before, her bearing now turned downright hostile. And Anthony realized with a mental slap that he’d said exactly the wrong thing. Of course he should not have compared her to her sister. It was the one compliment she could never have believed.
“And you, Lord Bridgerton,” she replied in a tone that could have frozen champagne, “are almost as handsome as your brother.”
Colin snorted again, only this time it sounded as if he were being strangled.
“Are you all right?” Miss Sheffield asked.
“He’s fine,” Anthony barked.
She ignored him, keeping her attention on Colin. “Are you certain?”
Colin nodded furiously. “Tickle in my throat.”
“Or perhaps a guilty conscience?” Anthony suggested.
Colin turned deliberately from his brother to Kate. “I think I might need another glass of lemonade,” he gasped.
“Or maybe,” said Anthony, “something stronger. Hemlock, perhaps?”
Miss Sheffield clapped a hand over her mouth, presumably to stifle a burst of horrified laughter.
“Lemonade will do just fine,” Colin returned smoothly.
“Would you like me to fetch you a glass?” she asked. Anthony noticed that she’d already stepped out with one foot, looking for any excuse to flee.
Colin shook his head. “No, no, I’m quite capable. But I do believe I had reserved this next dance with you, Miss Sheffield.”
“I shall not hold you to it,” she said with a wave of her hand.
“Oh, but I could not live with myself were I to leave you unattended,” he replied.
Anthony could see Miss Sheffield growing worried at the devilish gleam in Colin’s eye. He took a rather uncharitable pleasure in this. His reaction was, he knew, a touch out of proportion. But something about this Miss Katharine Sheffield sparked his temper and made him positively itch to do battle with her.
And win. That much went without saying.
“Anthony,” Colin said, sounding so deucedly innocent and earnest that it was all Anthony could do not to kill him on the spot, “you’re not engaged for this dance, are you?”
Anthony said nothing, just glared at him.
“Good. Then you will dance with Miss Sheffield.”
“I’m sure that’s not necessary,” the woman in question blurted out.
Anthony glared at his brother, then for good measure at Miss Sheffield, who was looking at him as if he’d just despoiled ten virgins in her presence.
“Oh, but it is,” Colin said with great drama, ignoring the optical daggers being hurled across their little threesome. “I could never dream of abandoning a young lady in her hour of need. How”—he shuddered—“ungentlemanly.”
Anthony thought seriously about pursuing some ungentlemanly behavior himself. Perhaps planting his fist in Colin’s face.
“I assure you,” Miss Sheffield said quickly, “that being left to my own devices would be far preferable to dan—”
Enough, Anthony thought savagely, was really enough. His own brother had already played him for a fool; he was not going to stand idly by while he was insulted by Edwina’s sharp-tongued spinster sister. He laid a heavy hand on Miss Sheffield’s arm and said, “Allow me to prevent you from making a grievous mistake, Miss Sheffield.”
She stiffened. How, he did not know; her back was already ramrod straight. “I beg your pardon,” she said.
“I believe,” he said smoothly, “that you were about to say something you would soon regret.”
“No,” she said, sounding deliberately thoughtful, “I don’t think regrets were in my future.”
“They will be,” he said ominously. And then he grabbed her arm and practically dragged her onto the ballroom floor.
Chapter 3
Viscount Bridgerton was also seen dancing with Miss Katharine Sheffield, elder sister to the fair Edwina. This can only mean one thing, as it has not escaped the notice of This Author that the elder Miss Sheffield has been in much demand on the dance floor ever since the younger Miss Sheffield made her bizarre and unprecedented announcement at the Smythe-Smith musicale last week.
Whoever heard of a girl needing her sister’s permission to choose a husband?
And perha
ps more importantly, whoever decided that the words “Smythe-Smith” and “musicale” might be used in the same sentence? This Author has attended one of these gatherings in the past, and heard nothing that might ethically be termed “music.”
LADY WHISTLEDOWN’S SOCIETY PAPERS, 22 APRIL 1814
There was really nothing she could do, Kate realized with dismay. He was a viscount, and she was a mere nobody from Somerset, and they were both in the middle of a crowded ballroom. It didn’t matter if she’d disliked him on sight. She had to dance with him.
“There is no need to drag me,” she hissed.
He made a great show of loosening his grip.
Kate ground her teeth together and swore to herself that this man would never take her sister as his bride. His manner was too cold, too superior. He was, she thought a touch unfairly, too handsome as well, with velvety brown eyes that matched his hair to perfection. He was tall, certainly over six feet, although probably not by more than an inch, and his lips, while classically beautiful (Kate had studied enough art to regard herself qualified to make such a judgment) were tight at the corners, as if he did not know how to smile.
“Now then,” he said, once their feet began to move in the familiar steps, “suppose you tell me why you hate me.”
Kate trod on his foot. Lord, he was direct. “I beg your pardon?”
“There is no need to maim me, Miss Sheffield.”
“It was an accident, I assure you.” And it was, even if she didn’t really mind this particular example of her lack of grace.
“Why,” he mused, “do I find I have difficulty believing you?”
Honesty, Kate quickly decided, would be her best strategy. If he could be direct, well then, so could she. “Probably,” she answered with a wicked smile, “because you know that had it occurred to me to step on your foot on purpose, I would have done so.”
He threw back his head and laughed. It was not the reaction she’d been either expecting or hoping for. Come to think of it, she had no idea what sort of reaction she’d been hoping for, but this certainly wasn’t what she’d been expecting.
“Will you stop, my lord?” she whispered urgently. “People are starting to stare.”
“People started to stare two minutes ago,” he returned. “It’s not often a man such as I dances with a woman such as you.”
As barbs went, this one was well aimed, but sadly for him, also incorrect. “Not true,” she replied jauntily. “You are certainly not the first of Edwina’s besotted idiots to attempt to gain her favor through me.”
He grinned. “Not suitors, but idiots?”
She caught his gaze with hers and was surprised to find true mirth in his eyes. “Surely you’re not going to hand me such a delicious piece of bait as that, my lord?”
“And yet you did not take it,” he mused.
Kate looked down to see if there was some way she might discreetly step on his foot again.
“I have very thick boots, Miss Sheffield,” he said.
Her head snapped back up in surprise.
One corner of his mouth curved up in a mockery of a smile. “And quick eyes as well.”
“Apparently so. I shall have to watch my step around you, to be sure.”
“My goodness,” he drawled, “was that a compliment? I might expire from the shock of it.”
“If you’d like to consider that a compliment, I give you leave to do so,” she said airily. “You’re not likely to receive many more.”
“You wound me, Miss Sheffield.”
“Does that mean that your skin is not as thick as your boots?”
“Oh, not nearly.”
She felt herself laugh before she realized she was amused. “That I find difficult to believe.”
He waited for her smile to melt away, then said, “You did not answer my question. Why do you hate me?”
A rush of air slipped through Kate’s lips. She hadn’t expected him to repeat the question. Or at least she’d hoped that he would not. “I do not hate you, my lord,” she replied, choosing her words with great care. “I do not even know you.”
“Knowing is rarely a prerequisite for hating,” he said softly, his eyes settling on hers with lethal steadiness. “Come now, Miss Sheffield, you don’t seem a coward to me. Answer the question.”
Kate held silent for a full minute. It was true, she had not been predisposed to like the man. She certainly wasn’t about to give her blessing to his courtship of Edwina. She didn’t believe for one second that reformed rakes made the best husbands. She wasn’t even sure that a rake could be properly reformed in the first place.
But he might have been able to overcome her preconceptions. He could have been charming and sincere and straightforward, and been able to convince her that the stories about him in Whistledown were an exaggeration, that he was not the worst rogue London had seen since the turn of the century. He might have convinced her that he held to a code of honor, that he was a man of principles and honesty…
If he hadn’t gone and compared her to Edwina.
For nothing could have been more obvious a lie. She knew she wasn’t an antidote; her face and form were pleasing enough. But there was simply no way she could be compared to Edwina in this measure and emerge as her equal. Edwina was truly a diamond of the first water, and Kate could never be more than average and unremarkable.
And if this man was saying otherwise, then he had some ulterior motive, because it was obvious he wasn’t blind.
He could have offered her any other empty compliment and she would have accepted it as a gentleman’s polite conversation. She might have even been flattered if his words had struck anywhere close to the truth. But to compare her to Edwina…
Kate adored her sister. She truly did. And she knew better than anyone that Edwina’s heart was as beautiful and radiant as her face. She didn’t like to think herself jealous, but still…somehow the comparison stung right to the core.
“I do not hate you,” she finally replied. Her eyes were trained on his chin, but she had no patience for cowardice, especially within herself, so she forced herself to meet his gaze when she added, “But I find I cannot like you.”
Something in his eyes told her that he appreciated her stark honesty. “And why is that?” he asked softly.
“May I be frank?”
His lips twitched. “Please do.”
“You are dancing with me right now because you wish to court my sister. This does not bother me,” she hastened to assure him. “I am well used to receiving attentions from Edwina’s suitors.”
Her mind was clearly not on her feet. Anthony pulled his foot out of the way of hers before she could injure him again. He noticed with interest that she was back to referring to them as suitors rather than idiots. “Please continue,” he murmured.
“You are not the sort of man I would wish my sister to marry,” she said simply. Her manner was direct, and her intelligent brown eyes never left his. “You are a rake. You are a rogue. You are, in fact, notorious for being both. I would not allow my sister within ten feet of you.”
“And yet,” he said with a wicked little smile, “I waltzed with her earlier this evening.”
“An act which shall not be repeated, I can assure you.”
“And is it your place to decide Edwina’s fate?”
“Edwina trusts my judgment,” she said primly.
“I see,” he said in what he hoped was his most mysterious manner. “That is very interesting. I thought Edwina was an adult.”
“Edwina is but seventeen years old!”
“And you are so ancient at, what, twenty years of age?”
“Twenty-one,” she bit off.
“Ah, that makes you a veritable expert on men, and husbands in particular. Especially since you have been married yourself, yes?”
“You know I am unwed,” she ground out.
Anthony stifled the urge to smile. Good Lord, but it was fun baiting the elder Miss Sheffield. “I think,” he said, keeping his
words slow and deliberate, “that you have found it relatively easy to manage most of the men who have come knocking on your sister’s door. Is that true?”
She kept her stony silence.
“Is it?”
Finally she gave him one curt nod.
“I thought so,” he murmured. “You seem the sort who would.”
She glared at him with such intensity that it was all he could do to keep from laughing. If he weren’t dancing, he probably would have stroked his chin in an affectation of deep thought. But since his hands were otherwise engaged, he had to settle for a ponderous tilt of his head, combined with an arch raise of his eyebrows. “But I also think,” he added, “that you made a grave mistake when you thought to manage me.”
Kate’s lips were set in a grim, straight line, but she managed to say, “I do not seek to manage you, Lord Bridgerton. I only seek to keep you away from my sister.”
“Which just goes to show, Miss Sheffield, how very little you know of men. At least of the rakish, roguish variety.” He leaned in closer, letting his hot breath brush against her cheek.
She shivered. He’d known she’d shiver.
He smiled wickedly. “There is very little we relish more than a challenge.”
The music drew to a close, leaving them standing in the middle of the ballroom floor, facing one another. Anthony took her arm, but before he led her back to the perimeter of the room, he put his lips very close to her ear and whispered, “And you, Miss Sheffield, have issued to me a most delicious challenge.”
Kate stepped on his foot. Hard. Enough to make him let out a small, decidedly unrakish, unroguish squeak.
When he glared at her, though, she just shrugged and said, “It was my only defense.”
His eyes darkened. “You, Miss Sheffield, are a menace.”
“And you, Lord Bridgerton, need thicker boots.”
His grasp tightened on her arm. “Before I return you to the sanctuary of the chaperones and spinsters, there is one thing we need to make clear.”
Kate held her breath. She did not like the hard tone of his voice.
“I am going to court your sister. And should I decide that she will make a suitable Lady Bridgerton, I will make her my wife.”