The Duke and I

  “He’s new,” Mary said assessingly.

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

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

  And he was young. And handsome.

  But mostly because she was bored. Mary had been asked to dance by her third cousin, and so Violet had been left alone in her wallflower’s chair, with nothing to do besides count the number of canapés the new gentleman had eaten.

  Where was her mother? Surely it was time to leave. The air was thick, and she was hot, and it didn’t look as if she was going to gain a third dance, and—

  “Hullo!” came a voice. “I know you.”

  Violet blinked, looking up. It was him! The ravenously hungry, twelve-canapé-eating gentleman.

  She had no idea who he was.

  “You’re Miss Violet Ledger,” he said.

  Miss Ledger, actually, since she had no older sister, but she didn’t correct him. His use of her full name seemed to indicate that he had known her for some time, or perhaps had known her quite a long time ago.

  “I’m sorry,” she murmured, because she’d never been good at faking an acquaintance, “I . . .”

  “Edmund Bridgerton,” he said with an easy grin. “I met you years ago. I was visiting George Millerton.” He glanced around the room. “I say, have you seen him? He’s supposed to be here.”

  “Er, yes,” Violet replied, somewhat taken aback by Mr. Bridgerton’s gregarious amiability. People in London weren’t generally so friendly. Not that she minded friendly. It was just that she’d grown rather un-used to it.

  “We were supposed to meet,” Mr. Bridgerton said absently, still looking this way and that.

  Violet cleared her throat. “He’s here. I danced with him earlier.”

  Mr. Bridgerton considered this for a moment, then plopped down in the chair next to her. “I don’t think I’ve seen you since I was ten.”

  Violet was still trying to recollect.

  He grinned at her sideways. “I got you with my flour bomb.”

  She gasped. “That was you?”

  He grinned again. “Now you remember.”

  “I’d forgotten your name,” she said.

  “I’m crushed.”

  Violet twisted in her seat, smiling despite herself. “I was so angry . . .”

  He started to laugh. “You should have seen your face.”

  “I couldn’t see anything. I had flour in my eyes.”

  “I was surprised you never exacted revenge.”

  “I tried,” she assured him. “My father caught me.”

  He nodded, as if he had some experience with this particular brand of frustration. “I hope it was something magnificent.”

  “I believe it involved pie.”

  He nodded approvingly.

  “It would have been brilliant,” she told him.

  He quirked a brow. “Strawberry?”

  “Blackberry,” she said, her voice diabolical with only the memory of it.

  “Even better.” He sat back, making himself comfortable. There was something so loose and limber about him, as if he fit smoothly into any situation. His posture was as correct as any gentleman’s, and yet . . .

  He was different.

  Violet wasn’t sure how to describe it, but there was something about him that put her at ease. He made her feel happy. Free.

  Because he was. It took only a minute at his side to realize that he was the most happy and free person she would ever meet.

  “Did you ever find the opportunity to put your weapon to use?” he asked.

  She looked at him quizzically.

  “The pie,” he reminded her.

  “Oh. No. My father would have had my head. And besides that, there was no one to attack.”

  “Surely you could have found a reason to go after Georgie,” Mr. Bridgerton said.

  “I don’t attack without provocation,” Violet said with what she hoped was a teasingly arch smile, “and Georgie Millerton never floured me.”

  “A fair-minded lady,” Mr. Bridgerton said. “The very best kind.”

  Violet felt her cheeks turn ridiculously warm. Thank heavens the sun had nearly gone down and there wasn’t much light coming through the windows. With just the flickering candles to light the room, he might not realize just how pink her face had gone.

  “No brother or sister to earn your ire?” Mr. Bridgerton asked. “It does seem a shame to let a perfectly good pie go to waste.”

  “If I recall correctly,” Violet replied, “it didn’t go to waste. Everyone had some for pudding that night except me. And anyway, I don’t have any brothers or sisters.”

  “Really?” His brow furrowed. “Strange that I don’t remember that about you.”

  “Do you remember much?” she asked dubiously. “Because I . . .”

  “Don’t?” he finished for her. He chuckled. “Don’t worry. I take no insult. I never forget a face. It’s a gift and a curse.”

  Violet thought of all the times—right now included—that she’d not known the name of the person in front of her. “How could such a thing be a curse?”

  He leaned toward her with a flirtatious tilt of his head. “One gets one’s heart broken, you know, when the pretty ladies don’t remember one’s name.”

  “Oh!” She felt her face flush. “I’m so sorry, but you must realize, it was so long ago, and—”

  “Stop,” he said, laughing. “I jest.”

  “Oh, of course.” She ground her teeth together. Of course he was teasing. How could she have been such a dolt as to not realize it. Although . . .

  Had he just called her pretty?

  “You were saying you have no siblings,” he said, expertly returning the conversation to its previous spot. And for the first time, she felt as if she held his full attention. He didn’t have one eye on the crowd, idly scanning for George Millerton. He was looking at her, right into her eyes, and it was terrifyingly spectacular.

  She swallowed, remembering his question about two seconds too late for smooth conversation. “No siblings,” she said, her voice coming out too fast to make up for her delay. “I was a difficult child.”

  His eyes widened, almost thrillingly. “Really?”

  “No, I mean, I was a difficult baby. To be born.” Good heavens, where had her verbal skills gone? “The doctor told my mother not to have more.” She swallowed miserably, determined to find her brain again. “And you?”

  “And me?” he teased.

  “Do you have siblings?”

  “Three. Two sisters and a brother.”

  The thought of three extra people in her often lonely childhood suddenly sounded marvelous. “Are you close?” she asked.

  He thought about that for a moment. “I suppose I am. I’ve never really thought about it. Hugo’s quite my opposite, but I would still consider him my closest friend.”

  “And your sisters? Are they younger or older?”

  “One of each. Billie’s got seven years on me. She’s finally got herself married, so I don’t see much of her, but Georgiana’s just a bit younger. She’s probably your age.”

  “Is she not here in London, then?”

  “She’ll be out next year. My parents claim they’re still recovering from Billie’s debut.”

  Violet felt her eyebrows rise, but she knew she shouldn’t—

  “You can ask,” he told her.

  “What did she do?” she said immediately.

  He leaned in with a conspiratorial gleam. “I never got all the details, but I did hear something about a fire.”

  Violet sucked in her breath—in shock and admiration.

  “And a broken bone,?
?? he added.

  “Oh, the poor thing.”

  “Not her broken bone.”

  Violet smothered a laugh. “Oh no. I shouldn’t—”

  “You can laugh,” he told her.

  She did. It burst out of her, loud and lovely, and when she realized people were staring at her, she didn’t care.

  They sat together for a few moments, the silence between them as companionable as a sunrise. Violet kept her eyes on the lords and ladies dancing in front of her; somehow she knew that if she dared to turn and look at Mr. Bridgerton, she’d never be able to look away.

  The music drew to a close, but when she looked down, her toes were tapping. His, too, and then—

  “I say, Miss Ledger, would you like to dance?”

  She turned then, and she did look at him. And it was true, she realized; she wasn’t going to be able to look away. Not from his face, and not from the life that stretched in front of her, as perfect and lovely as that blackberry pie from so many years ago.

  She took his hand and it felt like a promise. “There is nothing I would rather do.”

  Somewhere in Sussex

  Six months later

  “Where are we going?”

  Violet Bridgerton had been Violet Bridgerton for precisely eight hours and thus far she was liking her new surname very much.

  “Oh, it’s a surprise,” Edmund said, grinning wolfishly at her from across the carriage.

  Well, not exactly from across the carriage. She was practically in his lap.

  And . . . now she was in his lap.

  “I love you,” he said, laughing over her squeal of surprise.

  “Not as much as I love you.”

  He gave her his best look of condescension. “You only think you know what you’re talking about.”

  She smiled. It was not the first time they had had this conversation.

  “Very well,” he allowed. “You may love me more, but I will love you better.” He waited a moment. “Aren’t you going to ask what that means?”

  Violet thought of all the ways he had loved her already. They had not preempted their marriage vows, but they had not been precisely chaste.

  She decided she had better not ask. “Just tell me where we are going,” she said instead.

  He laughed, letting one of his arms steal around her. “On our honeymoon,” he murmured, his words falling warm and delicious over her skin.

  “But where?”

  “All in good time, my dear Mrs. Bridgerton. All in good time.”

  She tried to scoot back over to her own side of the carriage—it was, she reminded herself, the proper thing to do—but he was having none of it, and he clamped down with his arm. “Where do you think you’re going?” he growled.

  “That’s just the thing. I don’t know!”

  Edmund laughed at that, big and hearty and so perfectly, splendidly warm. He was so happy. He made her happy. Her mother had declared that he was too young, that Violet should look for a more mature gentleman, preferably one who had already come into his title. But from that first shining moment on the dance floor, when her hand met his and she took her first true look into his eyes, Violet could not imagine a life with anyone but Edmund Bridgerton.

  He was her other half, the spoon she was made to nestle into. They would be young together, and then they would grow old together. They would hold hands, and move to the country, and make lots and lots of babies.

  No lonely households for her children. She wanted a passel of them. A gaggle. She wanted noise and laughter, and everything Edmund made her feel, with fresh air, and strawberry tarts, and—

  Well, and the occasional trip to London. She was not so rustic that she did not wish to have her gowns made by Madame Lamontaine. And of course she could not possibly go a full year without a visit to the opera. But other than that—and a party here and there; she did like company—she wanted motherhood.

  She craved it.

  But she hadn’t realized how desperately she wanted it until she’d met Edmund. It was as if something inside of her had been holding back, not allowing her to wish for babies until she’d found the only man with whom she could imagine making them.

  “We’re almost there,” he said, peeking out the window.

  “And that would be . . . ?”

  The carriage had already slowed; now it ground to a halt, and Edmund looked up with a knowing grin. “Here,” he finished for her.

  The door swung open, and he alighted, holding out his hand to help her down. She stepped carefully—the last thing she wanted was to fall facedown in the dirt on her wedding night—then looked up.

  “The Hare and Hounds?” she asked blankly.

  “The very one,” he said proudly. As if there weren’t a hundred inns spread across England that looked precisely the same.

  She blinked. Several times. “An inn?”

  “Indeed.” He leaned down to speak conspiratorially in her ear. “I suppose you’re wondering why I’ve chosen such a spot.”

  “Well . . . yes.” Not that there was anything wrong with an inn. It certainly looked well kept from the outside. And if he had brought her here, it must be clean and comfortable.

  “Here’s the rub,” he said, bringing her hand to his lips. “If we go home, I shall have to introduce you to all of the servants. Of course there are only six, but still . . . their feelings will be terribly injured if we do not lavish the appropriate amount of attention on them.”

  “Of course,” Violet said, still a little awed by the fact that she would soon be mistress of her own home. Edmund’s father had given him a snug little manor house but one month earlier. It wasn’t large, but it was theirs.

  “Not to mention,” Edmund added, “that when we don’t come down to breakfast tomorrow, or the next . . .” He paused for a moment, as if pondering something terribly important, before finishing with “or the next . . .”

  “We won’t be coming down to breakfast?”

  He looked her in the eye. “Oh no.”

  Violet blushed. Right down to the tips of her toes.

  “Not for a week, at least.”

  She swallowed, trying to ignore the heady curls of anticipation that were unraveling within her.

  “So you see,” he said with a slow smile, “if we spent a week, or really, perhaps two—”

  “Two weeks?” she squeaked.

  He shrugged endearingly. “It’s possible.”

  “Oh my.”

  “You’d be so terribly embarrassed in front of the servants.”

  “But not you,” she said.

  “It’s not the sort of thing men find embarrassing,” he said modestly.

  “But here at an inn . . .” she said.

  “We can remain in our room all month if we wish, and then never visit again!”

  “A month?” she echoed. At this point she could not be sure if she had blushed or paled.

  “I’ll do it if you will,” he said devilishly.

  “Edmund!”

  “Oh, very well, I suppose there might be a thing or two for which we will have to show our faces before Easter.”

  “Edmund . . .”

  “That’s Mr. Bridgerton to you.”

  “So formal?”

  “Only because it means I get to call you Mrs. Bridgerton.”

  It was remarkable, how he could make her so ridiculously happy with a single sentence.

  “Shall we head inside?” he asked, lifting her hand as a prompt. “Are you hungry?”

  “Er, no,” she said, even though she was, a little.

  “Thank God.”

  “Edmund!” she laughed, because by now he was walking so quickly she had to skip to keep up with him.

  “Your husband,” he said, drawing up short for the express purpose (she was sure) of making her crash into him, “is a very impatient man.”

  “Is that so?” she murmured. She was beginning to feel womanly, powerful.

  He didn’t answer; they’d already reached the innkeeper?
??s desk, and Edmund was confirming the arrangements.

  “Do you mind if I don’t carry you up the stairs?” he asked once he was done. “You’re light as a feather, of course, and I’m manly enough—”

  “Edmund!”

  “It’s just that I’m rather in a rush.”

  And his eyes—oh, his eyes—they were filled with a thousand promises, and she wanted to know every one of them.

  “I am, too,” she said softly, placing her hand in his. “Rather.”

  “Ah, hell,” he said hoarsely, and he scooped her into his arms. “I can’t resist.”

  “The threshold would have been enough,” she said, laughing all the way up the stairs.

  “Not for me.” He kicked open the door to her room, then tossed her onto the bed so that he could shut and lock it behind them.

  He came down atop her, moving with a catlike grace she’d never seen in him before. “I love you,” he said, his lips touching hers as his hands came under her skirt.

  “I love you more,” she gasped, because the things he was doing—they ought to be illegal.

  “But I . . .” he murmured, kissing his way down to her leg and then—good heavens!—back up again. “I shall love you better.”

  Her clothes seemed to fly away, but she felt no modesty. It was astounding, that she could lie beneath this man, that she could watch him watching her, seeing her—all of her—and she felt no shame, no discomfort.

  “Oh God, Violet,” he groaned, positioning himself awkwardly between her legs. “I have to tell you, I don’t have a whole lot of experience with this.”

  “I don’t, either,” she gasped.

  “I’ve never—”

  That got her attention. “You’ve never?”

  He shook his head. “I think I was waiting for you.”

  Her breath caught, and then, with a slow, melting smile, she said, “For someone who’s never, you’re rather good at it.”

  For a moment she thought she saw tears in his eyes, but then, just like that, they were gone, replaced by a wicked, wicked twinkle. “I plan to improve with age,” he told her.

  “As do I,” she returned, just as slyly.

  He laughed, and then she laughed, and they were joined.

  And while it was true that they both did get better with age, that first time, up in the Hare and Hounds’s finest feather bed . . .