Bridgerton Collection Volume 1 (Bridgertons)

by Julia Quinn

  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.”

  Eventually he managed to scoot himself under the table so that he was sitting beside her on the floor, with his arm around her trembling shoulders. She seemed to relax slightly at his touch, which left him with the oddest feeling—almost a sense of pride that he had been the one to be able to help her. That, and a bone-deep feeling of relief, because it was killing him to see her in such torment.

  He whispered soothing words in her ear and softly caressed her shoulder, trying to comfort her with his mere presence. And slowly—very, slowly; he had no idea how many minutes he sat under that table with her—he could feel her muscles begin to unwind. Her skin lost that awful clammy feeling, and her breathing, while still rushed, no longer sounded quite so panicked.

  Finally, when he felt she might be ready, he touched two fingers to the underside of her chin, using the softest pressure imaginable to lift her face so that he could see her eyes. “Look at me, Kate,” he whispered, his voice gentle but suffused with authority. “If you just look at me, you will know that you are safe.”

  The tiny muscles around her eyes quivered for a good fifteen seconds before her lids finally fluttered. She was trying to open her eyes, but they were resisting. Anthony had little experience with this sort of terror, but it seemed to make sense to him that her eyes just wouldn’t want to open, that they simply wouldn’t want to see whatever it was that so frightened her.

  After several more seconds of fluttering, she finally managed to open her eyes all the way and met his gaze.

  Anthony felt as if he’d been punched in the gut.

  If eyes were truly the windows to the soul, something had shattered within Kate Sheffield that night. She looked haunted, hunted, and utterly lost and bewildered.

  “I don’t remember,” she whispered, her voice barely audible.

  He took her hand, which he’d never relinquished his hold on, and brought it to his lips again. He pressed a gentle, almost paternal kiss on her palm. “You don’t remember what?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know.”

  “Do you remember coming to the library?”

  She nodded.

  “Do you remember the storm?”

  She closed her eyes for a moment, as if the act of keeping them open had required more energy than she possessed. “It’s still storming.”

  Anthony nodded. That was true. The rain was still beating against the windows with just as much ferocity as before, but it had been several minutes since the last bout of thunder and lightning.

  She looked at him with desperate eyes. “I can’t . . . I don’t . . .”

  Anthony squeezed her hand. “You don’t have to say anything.”

  He felt her body shudder and relax, then heard her whisper, “Thank you.”

  “Do you want me to talk to you?” he asked.

  She shut her eyes—not as tightly as bef
ore—and nodded.

  He smiled, even though he knew she could not see it. But maybe she could sense it. Maybe she’d be able to hear his smile in his voice. “Let’s see,” he mused, “what can I tell you about?”

  “Tell me about the house,” she whispered.

  “This house?” he asked in surprise.

  She nodded.

  “Very well,” he replied, feeling rather absurdly pleased that she was interested in the one pile of stone and mortar that meant so much to him. “I grew up here, you know.”

  “Your mother told me.”

  Anthony felt a spark of something warm and powerful in his chest as she spoke. He’d told her she didn’t have to say anything, and she’d been quite obviously thankful for that, but now she was actually taking part in the conversation. Surely that had to mean she was beginning to feel better. If she’d open her eyes—if they weren’t sitting under a table—it might seem almost normal.

  And it was stunning how much he wanted to be the one to make her feel better.

  “Shall I tell you about the time my brother drowned my sister’s favorite doll?” he asked.

  She shook her head, then flinched when the wind picked up, causing the rain to beat against the windows with new ferocity. But she steeled her chin and said, “Tell me something about you.”

  “All right,” Anthony said slowly, trying to ignore the vague, uncomfortable feeling that spread in his chest. It was so much easier to tell a tale of his many siblings than to talk about himself.

  “Tell me about your father.”

  He froze. “My father?”

  She smiled, but he was too shocked by her request to notice. “You must have had one,” she said.

  Anthony’s throat began to feel very tight. He didn’t often talk about his father, not even with his family. He’d told himself that it was because it was so much water under the bridge; Edmund had been dead for over ten years. But the truth was that some things simply hurt too much.

  And there were some wounds that didn’t heal, not even in ten years.

  “He—he was a great man,” he said softly. “A great father. I loved him very much.”

  Kate turned to look at him, the first time she’d met his gaze since he’d lifted her chin with his fingers many minutes earlier. “Your mother speaks of him with great affection. That was why I asked.”

  “We all loved him,” he said simply, turning his head and staring out across the room. His eyes focused on the leg of a chair, but he didn’t really see it. He didn’t see anything but the memories in his mind. “He was the finest father a boy could ever want.”

  “When did he die?”

  “Eleven years ago. In the summer. When I was eighteen. Right before I left for Oxford.”

  “That’s a difficult time for a man to lose his father,” she murmured.

  He turned sharply to look at her. “Any time is a difficult time for a man to lose his father.”

  “Of course,” she quickly agreed, “but some times are worse than others, I think. And surely it must be different for boys and girls. My father passed on five years ago, and I miss him terribly, but I don’t think it’s the same.”

  He didn’t have to voice his question. It was there in his eyes.

  “My father was wonderful,” Kate explained, her eyes warming as she reminisced. “Kind and gentle, but stern when he needed to be. But a boy’s father—well, he has to teach his son how to be a man. And to lose a father at eighteen, when you’re just learning what all that means . . .” She let out a long exhale. “It’s probably presumptuous for me even to discuss it, as I’m not a man and therefore couldn’t possibly put myself in your shoes, but I think . . .” She paused, pursing her lips as she considered her words. “Well, I just think it would be very difficult.”

  “My brothers were sixteen, twelve, and two,” Anthony said softly.

  “I would imagine it was difficult for them as well,” she replied, “although your youngest brother probably doesn’t remember him.”

  Anthony shook his head.

  Kate smiled wistfully. “I don’t remember my mother, either. It’s an odd thing.”

  “How old were you when she died?”

  “It was on my third birthday. My father married Mary only a few months later. He didn’t observe the proper mourning period, and it shocked some of the neighbors, but he thought I needed a mother more than he needed to follow etiquette.”

  For the first time, Anthony wondered what would have happened if it had been his mother who had died young, leaving his father with a house full of children, several of them infants and toddlers. Edmund wouldn’t have had an easy time of it. None of them would have.

  Not that it had been easy for Violet. But at least she’d had Anthony, who’d been able to step in and try to act the role of surrogate father to his younger siblings. If Violet had died, the Bridgertons would have been left completely without a maternal figure. After all, Daphne—the eldest of the Bridgerton daughters—had been only ten at Edmund’s death. And Anthony was certain that his father would not have remarried.

  No matter how his father would have wanted a mother for his children, he would not have been able to take another wife.

  “How did your mother die?” Anthony asked, surprised by the depth of his curiosity.

  “Influenza. Or at least that’s what they thought. It could have been any sort of lung fever.” She rested her chin on her hand. “It was very quick, I’m told. My father said I fell ill as well, although mine was a mild case.”

  Anthony thought about the son he hoped to sire, the very reason he had finally decided to marry. “Do you miss a parent you never knew?” he whispered.

  Kate considered his question for some time. His voice had held a hoarse urgency that told her there was something critical about her reply. Why, she couldn’t imagine, but something about her childhood clearly rang a chord within his heart.

  “Yes,” she finally answered, “but not in the way you would think. You can’t really miss her, because you didn’t know her, but there’s still a hole in your life—a big empty spot, and you know who was supposed to fit there, but you can’t remember her, and you don’t know what she was like, and so you don’t know how she would have filled that hole.” Her lips curved into a sad sort of smile. “Does this make any sense?”

  Anthony nodded. “It makes a great deal of sense.”

  “I think losing a parent once you know and love them is harder,” Kate added. “And I know, because I’ve lost both.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said quietly.

  “It’s all right,” she assured him. “That old adage—time heals all wounds—it’s really true.”

  He stared at her intently, and she could tell from his expression that he didn’t agree.

  “It really is more difficult when you’re older. You’re blessed because you had the chance to know them, but the pain of the loss is more intense.”

  “It was as if I’d lost an arm,” Anthony whispered.

  She nodded soberly, somehow knowing that he hadn’t spoken of his sorrow to many people. She licked nervously at her lips, which had gone quite dry. Funny how that happened. All the rain in the world pounding outside, and here she was, parched as a bone.

  “Perhaps it was better for me, then,” Kate said softly, “losing my mother so young. And Mary has been wonderful. She loves me as a daughter. In fact—” She broke off, startled by the sudden wetness in her eyes. When she finally found her voice again, it was an emotional whisper. “In fact, she has never once treated me differently than she has Edwina. I—I don’t think I could have loved my own mother any better.”

  Anthony’s eyes burned into hers. “I’m so glad,” he said, his voice low and intense.

  Kate swallowed. “She’s so funny about it sometimes. She visits my mother’s grave, just to tell her how I’m doing. It’s very sweet, actually. When I was small, I would go with her, to tell my mother how Mary was doing.”

  Anthony smiled. “And was y
our report favorable?”

  “Always.”

  They sat in companionable silence for a moment, both staring at the candle flame, watching the wax drip down the taper to the candlestick. When the fourth drop of wax rolled down the candle, sliding along the column until it hardened in place, Kate turned to Anthony and said, “I’m sure I sound insufferably optimistic, but I think there must be some master plan in life.”

  He turned to her and quirked a brow.

  “Everything really does work out in the end,” she explained. “I lost my mother, but I gained Mary. And a sister I love dearly. And—”

  A flash of lightning lit the room. Kate bit her lip, trying to force slow and even breaths through her nose. The thunder would come, but she’d be ready for it, and—

  The room shook with noise, and she was able to keep her eyes open.

  She let out a long exhale and allowed herself a proud smile. That hadn’t been so difficult. It certainly hadn’t been fun, but it hadn’t been impossible. It might have been Anthony’s comforting presence next to her, or simply that the storm was moving away, but she’d made it through without her heart jumping through her skin.

  “Are you all right?” Anthony asked.

  She looked over at him, and something inside of her melted at the concerned look on his face. Whatever he’d done in the past, however they’d argued and fought, in this moment he truly cared about her.

  “Yes,” she said, hearing surprise in her voice even though she hadn’t intended it. “Yes, I think I am.”

  He gave her hand a squeeze. “How long have you been like this?”

  “Tonight? Or in my life?”

  “Both.”

  “Tonight since the first clap of thunder. I get quite nervous when it begins to rain, but as long as there is no thunder and lightning, I’m all right. It’s not the rain, actually, which upsets me, but just the fear that it might grow into something more.” She swallowed, licking her dry lips before she continued. “To answer your other query, I can’t remember a time I wasn’t terrified by storms. It’s simply a part of me. It’s quite foolish, I know—”