The Viscount Who Loved Me (5 page)

Penelope waved away her offer. “That’s very kind of you, but I’m resigned to my fate. At least it’s better than last year.”

Kate raised a brow.

“Oh, that’s right. You weren’t out last year.” Penelope winced. “I weighed nearly two stone more than I do now.”

“Two stone?” Kate echoed. She couldn’t believe it.

Penelope nodded and made a face. “Baby fat. I begged Mama not to force me to come out until I turned eighteen, but she thought a head start might be good for me.”

Kate only had to take one look at Penelope’s face to know that it hadn’t been good for her. She felt a certain kinship with this girl, even though Penelope was nearly three years younger. Both of them knew the singular feeling of not being the most popular girl in the room, knew the exact expression you put on your face when you weren’t asked to dance but you wanted to look as if you didn’t care.

“I say,” Penelope said, “why don’t the two of us go down to supper together? It seems your family and mine are both delayed.”

Kate wasn’t in much of a rush to reach the drawing room and the inevitable company of Lord Bridgerton, but waiting for Mary and Edwina would delay the torture by only a few minutes, so she decided she might as well head down with Penelope.

They both poked their heads into their respective
mother’s room, informed them of the change in plans, and linked arms, heading down the hall.

When they reached the drawing room, much of the company was already in attendance, milling about and chatting as they waited for the rest of the guests to come down. Kate, who had never attended a country house party before, noted with surprise that nearly everyone seemed more relaxed and a bit more animated than they did in London. It must be the fresh air, she thought with a smile. Or perhaps distance relaxed the strict rules of the capital. Whatever the case, she decided she preferred this atmosphere to that of a London dinner party.

She could see Lord Bridgerton across the room. Or rather she supposed she could sense him. As soon as she spotted him standing over by the fireplace, she’d kept her gaze scrupulously averted.

But she could feel him nonetheless. She knew she had to be crazy, but she’d swear she knew when he tilted his head, and heard him when he spoke and when he laughed.

And she definitely knew when his eyes were on her back. Her neck felt as if it were about to go up in flames.

“I didn’t realize Lady Bridgerton had invited so many people,” Penelope said.

Careful to keep her eyes away from the fireplace, Kate did a sweep of the room to see who was there.

“Oh, no,” Penelope half whispered, half moaned. “Cressida Cowper is here.”

Kate discreetly followed Penelope’s gaze. If Edwina had any competition for the role of 1814’s reigning beauty, it was Cressida Cowper. Tall, slender, with honey-blond hair and sparkling green eyes, Cressida was almost never without a small bevy of admirers. But where Edwina was kind and generous, Cressida was, in Kate’s estimation, a self-centered, ill-mannered witch who took her joy in the torment of others.

“She hates me,” Penelope whispered.

“She hates everyone,” Kate replied.

“No, she
really
hates me.”

“Whyever?” Kate turned to her friend with curious eyes. “What could you possibly have done to her?”

“I bumped into her last year and caused her to spill punch all over herself
and
the Duke of Ashbourne.”

“That’s all?”

Penelope rolled her eyes. “It was enough for Cressida. She’s convinced he would have proposed if she hadn’t appeared clumsy.”

Kate let out a snort that didn’t even pretend to be ladylike. “Ashbourne isn’t about to get hitched anytime soon. Everyone knows that. He’s nearly as bad a rake as Bridgerton.”

“Who is most probably going to get married this year,” Penelope reminded her. “If the gossips are correct.”

“Bah,” Kate scoffed. “Lady Whistledown herself wrote that she doesn’t think he’ll marry this year.”

“That was
weeks
ago,” Penelope replied with a dismissive wave of her hand. “Lady Whistledown changes her mind all the time. Besides, it’s obvious to everyone that the viscount is courting your sister.”

Kate bit her tongue before she muttered, “Don’t remind me.”

But her wince of pain was drowned out by Penelope’s hoarse whisper of, “Oh,
no
. She’s coming this way.”

Kate gave her arm a reassuring squeeze. “Don’t worry about her. She’s no better than you.”

Penelope shot her a sarcastic look. “I
know
that. But that doesn’t make her any less unpleasant. And she always goes out of her way to make sure that I
have
to deal with her.”

“Kate. Penelope,” Cressida trilled, drawing up alongside them, giving her shiny hair an affected shake. “What a surprise to see you here.”

“And why is that?” Kate asked.

Cressida blinked, obviously surprised that Kate had even questioned her pronouncement. “Well,” she said
slowly, “I suppose it is not such a surprise to see
you
here, as your sister is very much in demand, and we all know that you must go where she goes, but Penelope’s presence…” She shrugged daintily. “Well, who am I to judge? Lady Bridgerton is a most kindhearted woman.”

The comment was so rude that Kate could not help but gape. And while she was staring at Cressida, openmouthed with shock, Cressida went in for the kill.

“That’s a lovely gown, Penelope,” she said, her smile so sweet that Kate would swear she could taste sugar in the air. “I do love yellow,” she added, smoothing down the pale yellow fabric of her own gown. “It takes a very special complexion to wear it, don’t you think?”

Kate ground her teeth together. Naturally Cressida looked brilliant in her gown. Cressida would look brilliant in a sackcloth.

Cressida smiled again, this time reminding Kate of a serpent, then turned slightly to motion to someone across the room. “Oh, Grimston, Grimston! Come over here for a moment.”

Kate looked over her shoulder to see Basil Grimston approaching and just barely managed to stifle a groan. Grimston was the perfect male counterpart to Cressida—rude, supercilious, and self-important. Why a lovely lady like Viscountess Bridgerton had invited him, she’d never know. Probably to even up the numbers with so many young ladies invited.

Grimston slithered over and lifted one corner of his mouth in a mockery of a smile. “Your servant,” he said to Cressida after sparing Kate and Penelope a fleeting, disdainful glance.

“Don’t you think dear Penelope looks fetching in that gown?” Cressida said. “Yellow truly must be the color of the season.”

Grimston did a slow, insulting perusal of Penelope, from the top of her head to the tips of her feet and back. He barely moved his head, letting his eyes travel up and
down her frame. Kate fought a spasm of revulsion so strong it nearly brought on a wave of nausea. More than anything, she wanted to throw her arms around Penelope and give the poor girl a hug. But such attention would only single her out further as someone who was weak and easily bullied.

When Grimston was finally done with his rude inspection, he turned to Cressida and shrugged, as if he couldn’t think of anything complimentary to say.

“Don’t you have somewhere else to be?” Kate blurted out.

Cressida looked shocked. “Why, Miss Sheffield, I can hardly countenance your impertinence. Mr. Grimston and I were merely admiring Penelope’s appearance. That shade of yellow does so much for her complexion. And it is so nice to see her looking so well after last year.”

“Indeed,” Grimston drawled, his oily tone making Kate feel positively unclean.

Kate could feel Penelope shaking next to her. She hoped it was with anger, not with pain.

“I can’t imagine what you mean,” Kate said in icy tones.

“Why, surely you know,” Grimston said, his eyes glittering with delight. He leaned forward and then said in a whisper that was louder than his usual voice, loud enough so that a great many people could hear, “She was
fat
.”

Kate opened her mouth to give a scathing retort, but before she could make a sound, Cressida added, “It was such a pity, because there were so many more men in town last year. Of course most of us still never lack for a dance partner, but I do feel for poor Penelope when I see her sitting with the dowagers.”

“The dowagers,” Penelope ground out, “are often the only people in the room with a modicum of intelligence.”

Kate wanted to jump up and cheer.

Cressida made a breathy little “Oh” sound, as if she had
any right to be offended. “Still, one cannot help but…Oh! Lord Bridgerton!”

Kate moved to the side to allow the viscount into their small circle, noticing with disgust that Cressida’s entire demeanor changed. Her eyelids began to flutter and her mouth made a pretty little cupid’s bow.

It was so appalling Kate forgot to be self-conscious around the viscount.

Bridgerton shot Cressida a hard look but did not say anything. Instead, he turned quite deliberately to Kate and Penelope and murmured their names in greeting.

Kate nearly gasped with glee. He’d given Cressida Cowper the cut direct!

“Miss Sheffield,” he said smoothly, “I hope you will excuse us as I escort Miss Featherington in to dinner.”

“But you can’t escort her in!” Cressida blurted out.

Bridgerton gave her an icy stare. “I’m sorry,” he said in a voice that said he was anything but. “Had I included you in the conversation?”

Cressida shrank back, obviously mortified by her outburst. Still, it was beyond irregular for him to escort Penelope. As the man of the house, it was his duty to escort the highest-ranking woman. Kate wasn’t sure who that happened to be this evening, but it certainly wasn’t Penelope, whose father had been a mere mister.

Bridgerton offered Penelope his arm, turning his back on Cressida in the process. “I do hate a bully, don’t you?” he murmured.

Kate clapped her hand over her mouth, but she couldn’t stifle her giggle. Bridgerton offered her a small, secret smile over Penelope’s head, and in that moment Kate had the oddest feeling that she understood this man completely.

But even stranger—suddenly she wasn’t so certain that he was the soulless, reprehensible rake she’d taken such comfort in believing him.

“Did you see that?”

Kate, who, along with the rest of the assembled company, had been staring openmouthed as Bridgerton led Penelope from the room, his head bent to hers as if she were the most fascinating woman ever to walk the earth, turned to see Edwina standing next to her.

“I saw the whole thing,” Kate said in a dazed voice. “I heard the whole thing.”

“What happened?”

“He was…he was…” Kate stumbled over her words, unsure of how to describe what exactly he’d done. And then she said something she’d never thought possible: “He was a hero.”

L
ater that night, after supper was done and the men went off to drink their port before rejoining the ladies with superior expressions on their faces, as if they had just talked about something weightier than which horse was likely to win the Royal Ascot; after the assembled company had played a sometime tedious and sometime hilarious round of charades; after Lady Bridgerton had cleared her throat and discreetly suggested that it might be time to turn in; after the ladies had taken their candles and headed off to bed; after the gentlemen had presumably followed…

Kate couldn’t sleep.

Clearly, it was to be one of those stare-at-the-cracks-in the-ceiling sort of nights. Except that there were no cracks in the ceiling at Aubrey Hall. And the moon wasn’t even out, so there wasn’t any light filtering through the curtains, which meant that even if there were cracks, she wouldn’t be able to see them, and…

Kate groaned as she pushed back her covers and rose to her feet. One of these days she was going to have to learn how to force her brain to stop racing in eight different directions at once. She’d already lain in bed for nearly an hour, staring up into the dark, inky night, shutting her eyes every now and then and trying to will herself to sleep.

It wasn’t working.

She couldn’t stop thinking about the expression on Penelope Featherington’s face when the viscount had swooped in to her rescue. Her own expression, Kate was sure, must have been somewhat similar—a bit stunned, a little delighted, and a lot as if she were about to melt onto the floor at that very minute.

Bridgerton had been
that
magnificent.

Kate had spent the entire day either watching or interacting with the Bridgertons. And one thing had become clear: Everything that had been said about Anthony and his devotion to his family—it was all true.

And while she wasn’t quite ready to relinquish her opinion that he was a rake and a rogue, she was starting to realize that he might be all that and something else as well.

Something good.

Something that, if she were trying to be utterly objective about the matter, which she admitted was difficult to do, really ought not disqualify him as a potential husband for Edwina.

Oh, why why why did he have to go and be
nice
? Why couldn’t he have just stayed the suave but shallow libertine it had been so easy to believe him? Now he was something else altogether, someone she feared she might actually come to care for.

Kate felt her face flush, even in the dark. She had to stop thinking about Anthony Bridgerton. At this rate she wasn’t going to get any sleep for a week.

Maybe if she had something to read. She’d seen a rather
large and extensive library earlier that evening; surely the Bridgertons had some tome in there that would be guaranteed to put her to sleep.

She pulled on her robe and tiptoed to the door, careful not to wake Edwina. Not that that would have been an easy task. Edwina had always slept like the dead. According to Mary, she’d even slept through the night as a baby—from the very first day of her birth.

Kate slid her feet into a pair of slippers, then moved quietly into the hall, careful to look this way and that before shutting the door behind her. This was her first country house visit, but she’d heard a thing or two about these sorts of gatherings, and the last thing she wanted to do was run into someone on his way to a bedroom not his own.

If someone was carrying on with someone not his spouse, Kate decided, she didn’t want to know about it.

A single lantern lit the hall, giving the dark air a dim, flickering glow. Kate had grabbed a candle on her way out, so she walked over and flipped the lid of the lantern to light her wick. Once the flame was steady, she started toward the stairs, making sure to pause at every corner and check carefully for passersby.

A few minutes later she found herself in the library. It wasn’t large by
ton
standards, but the walls were covered floor to ceiling with bookcases. Kate pushed the door until it was almost closed—if someone was up and about, she didn’t want to alert them to her presence by letting the door click shut—and made her way to the nearest bookcase, peering at the titles.

“Hmmm,” she murmured to herself, pulling out a book and looking at the front cover, “botany.” She did love gardening, but somehow a textbook on the subject didn’t sound terribly exciting. Should she seek out a novel, which would capture her imagination, or should she go for a dry text, which would be more likely to put her to sleep?

Kate replaced the book and moved over to the next bookcase, setting her candle down on a nearby table. It
appeared to be the philosophy section. “Definitely not,” she muttered, sliding her candle along the table as she moved one bookcase to the right. Botany might put her to sleep, but philosophy was likely to leave her in a stupor for days.

She moved the candle a bit to the right, leaning forward to peer at the next set of books, when a bright and completely unexpected flash of lightning lit up the room.

A short, staccato scream burst forth from her lungs, and she jumped backward, bumping her behind against the table.
Not now
, she silently pleaded,
not here
.

But as her mind formed the word, “here,” the entire room exploded with a dull boom of thunder.

And then it was dark again, leaving Kate shaking, her fingers gripping the table so hard that her joints locked. She hated this. Oh, how she hated this. She hated the noise and the streaks of light, and the crackling tension in the air, but most of all she hated what it made her feel.

So terrified that eventually she couldn’t feel anything at all.

It had been this way all her life, or at least as long as she could remember. When she’d been small, her father or Mary had comforted her whenever it had stormed. Kate had many memories of one of them sitting on the edge of her bed, holding her hand and whispering soothing words as thunder and lightning crashed around her. But as she grew older, she managed to convince people that she was over her affliction. Oh, everyone knew that she still hated storms. But she’d managed to keep the extent of her terror to herself.

It seemed the worst sort of weakness—one with no apparent cause, and unfortunately, one with no clear cure.

She didn’t hear any rain against the windows; maybe the storm wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe it had started far away and was moving even farther. Maybe it was—

Another flash illuminated the room, squeezing out a second scream from Kate’s lungs. And this time the thunder
had arrived even closer to the lightning, indicating that the storm was pulling closer.

Kate felt herself sink to the floor.

It was too loud. Too loud, and too bright, and too—

BOOM!

Kate huddled under the table, her legs folded up, her arms about her knees, waiting in terror for the next round.

And then the rain began.

It was a bit past midnight, and all the guests (who were keeping somewhat to country hours) had gone to bed, but Anthony was still in his study, tapping his fingers against the edge of his desk in time with the rain beating against his window. Every now and then a bolt of lightning lit up the room in a flash of brilliance, and each clap of thunder was so loud and unexpected, he jumped in his chair.

God, he loved thunderstorms.

Hard to tell why. Maybe it was just the proof of nature’s power over man. Maybe it was the sheer energy of the light and sound that pounded around him. Whatever the case, it made him feel alive.

He hadn’t been particularly tired when his mother had suggested they all turn in, and so it had seemed silly not to use these few moments of solitude to go over the Aubrey Hall books his steward had left out for him. The Lord knew his mother would have his every minute crammed with activities involving eligible young women on the morrow.

But after an hour or so of painstaking checking, the dry tip of a quill tapping against each number in the ledger as he added and subtracted, multiplied and occasionally divided, his eyelids began to droop.

It had been a long day, he allowed, closing the ledger but leaving a piece of paper sticking out to mark his place. He’d spent much of the morning visiting tenants and inspecting buildings. One family needed a door repaired. Another was having trouble harvesting their crops and
paying their rent, due to the father’s broken leg. Anthony had heard and settled disputes, admired new babies, and even helped to fix a leaky roof. It was all part of being a landowner, and he enjoyed it, but it was tiring.

The Pall Mall game had been an enjoyable interlude, but once back at the house, he’d been thrust into the role of host for his mother’s party. Which had been almost as exhausting as the tenant visits. Eloise was barely seventeen and clearly had needed someone to watch over her, that bitchy Cowper girl had been tormenting poor Penelope Featherington, and someone had had to do something about that, and…

And then there was Kate Sheffield.

The bane of his existence.

And the object of his desires.

All at once.

What a muddle. He was supposed to be courting her sister, for God’s sake. Edwina. The belle of the season. Lovely beyond compare. Sweet and generous and even-tempered.

And instead he couldn’t stop thinking about Kate. Kate, who, much as she infuriated him, couldn’t help but command his respect. How could he not admire one who clung so steadfastly to her convictions? And Anthony had to admit that the crux of her convictions—devotion to family—was the one principle he held above all else.

With a yawn, Anthony got up from behind his desk and stretched his arms. It was definitely time for bed. With any luck, he’d fall asleep the moment his head hit the pillow. The last thing he wanted was to find himself staring at the ceiling, thinking of Kate.

And of all the things he wanted to do
to
Kate.

Anthony picked up a candle and headed out into the empty hall. There was something peaceful and intriguing about a quiet house. Even with the rain beating against the walls, he could hear every click of his boots against the floor—heel, toe, heel, toe. And except for when the lightning
streaked through the sky, his candle provided the only illumination in the hall. He rather enjoyed waving the flame this way and that, watching the play of shadows against the walls and furniture. It was a rather odd feeling of control, but—

One of his brows rose up in question. The library door was a few inches ajar, and he could see a pale strip of candlelight shining from within.

He was fairly certain no one else was up. And there certainly wasn’t a sound coming from the library. Someone must have gone in for a book and left a candle burning. Anthony frowned. It was a damned irresponsible thing to do. Fire could devastate a house faster than anything else, even in the middle of a rainstorm, and the library—filled to the brim with books—was the ideal place to spark a flame.

He pushed the door open and entered the room. One entire wall of the library was taken up by tall windows, so the sound of the rain was much louder here than it had been in the hall. A crack of thunder shook the floor, then, practically on top of that, a flash of lightning split the night.

The electricity of the moment made him grin, and he crossed over to where the offending candle had been left burning. He leaned over, blew it out, and then…

He heard something.

It was the sound of breath. Panicked, labored, with the slightest touch of a whimper.

Anthony looked purposefully around the room. “Is someone here?” he called out. But he could see no one.

Then he heard it again. From below.

Holding his own candle steady, he crouched down to peer under the table.

And his breath was sucked right out of his body.

“My God,” he gasped. “Kate.”

She was curled up into a ball, her arms wrapped around her bent legs so tightly it looked as if she were about to
shatter. Her head was bent down, her eye sockets resting on her knees, and her entire body was shaking with fast, intense tremors.

Anthony’s blood ran to ice. He’d never seen someone shake like that.

“Kate?” he said again, setting his candle down on the floor as he moved closer. He couldn’t tell if she could hear him. She seemed to have retreated into herself, desperate to escape something. Was it the storm? She’d said she hated the rain, but this went far deeper. Anthony knew that most people didn’t thrive on electrical storms as he did, but he’d never heard of someone being reduced to this.

She looked as if she’d break into a million brittle pieces if he so much as touched her.

Thunder shook the room, and her body flinched with such torment that Anthony felt it in his gut. “Oh, Kate,” he whispered. It broke his heart to see her thus. With a careful and steady hand, he reached out to her. He still wasn’t sure if she’d even registered his presence; startling her might be like waking a sleepwalker.

Gently he set his hand on her upper arm and gave it the tiniest of squeezes. “I’m here, Kate,” he murmured. “Everything will be all right.”

Lightning tore through the night, flashing the room with a sharp burst of light, and she squeezed herself into an even tighter ball, if that was possible. It occurred to him that she was trying to shield her eyes by keeping her face to her knees.

He moved closer and took one of her hands in his. Her skin was like ice, her fingers stiff from terror. It was difficult to pry her arm from around her legs, but eventually he was able to bring her hand to his mouth, and he pressed his lips against her skin, trying to warm her.

“I’m here, Kate,” he repeated, not really sure what else to say. “I’m here. It will be all right.”