Archive of Our Own

--

They’re always so little when they first arrive.

It’s the same every September. They hop down from their carriages, all wide eyes and awkward, pointy elbows and freshly starched collars that are a little too big for them, and it always seems impossible that in a few short months they’ll be going home for Christmas with their trouser legs flapping halfway up their shins.

But that’s the thing about boys — they grow like weeds. Slow and then fast. And try as she might to avoid it, every single year one or two of them manage to put down roots in her heart. That’s it then. It doesn’t matter what they grow up to be — good men or bad, kind-hearted or cruel, soldiers, gentlemen, pious clergy, rakish wastrels — there’s no cutting them out. They’re still just boys.

That’s all the tall, handsome viscount standing beside her in the September sunshine is — just a boy. One of the good ones. Fourteen years old, with skinned knees and a sprained wrist, clutching a battered cricket trophy and saying it was worth it. She wonders, somewhat fancifully, if he still has it somewhere.

The silly thought makes her smile, though he doesn’t see it. His eyes are fixed on his own boy, watching on with quiet pride as the lad politely greets his House Master, his spine straight, his gaze direct but not rude. He’s only a scrap of a thing, barely coming up to the older man’s navel, the height difference forcing him to crane his neck right back so he can make eye contact.

“Poor little mite,” Margaret murmurs, shaking her head with a soft laugh. “He’ll get a crick in his neck trying to look the Master in the eye like that.” She slides her gaze back to the man standing beside her, six foot tall and strong. It feels like only yesterday that he could tug on her apron strings himself. “I think he’s even smaller than you were when you first arrived, my lord.”

Edmund Bridgerton hums a quiet laugh, the sound not so very different from the boyish laughter she used to know rather well. “Whatever you do, do not let him hear you say that. It’s rather a touchy subject at the moment.”

“Oh?”

“His little brother is two years younger and nearly a whole head taller.”

“Ah, he’ll shoot up soon enough,” she says, waving her hand. “They grow up so fast at this age. He’ll be a man before you know it.”

“Oh, Christ, don’t...” He passes a hand over his mouth, muffling a groan. “I have been on the verge of weeping all day as it is.”

Margaret smiles again at that, though he doesn’t see this one either. He only has eyes for his boy.

Yes, she thinks, studying him while he’s not looking. One of the good ones.

“I suppose it would not be the first time I have seen tears before bedtime on the first day...” she says, earning another chuckle of his familiar laughter, the years sliding away under the sound.

“I expect it is usually one of the children, though?”

Now it’s her turn to laugh. “Aye, that is true, my lord.”

“I shall endeavour to rein in my despair until the carriage ride home, I promise.”

“There’s a good lad.”

He beams down at her, his face crinkling into dozens of well-worn laugh lines. Too many to count. “You never change, Mrs Jenkins.”

“Too old to change.”

“Don’t say that.” He jerks his thumb towards his son. “So far I have two more where he came from. I shall be relying on you to see them all through school in one piece.”

“Heaven help me.”

“Just be glad it’s only the boys. We’ve three girls so far too.”

“Dear me, you have been busy.”

“Don’t make me blush, Mrs J.”

She hums a laugh at his awkwardness. “What are their names, your children?”

“Anthony, Benedict, Colin, Daphne, Eloise, and Francesca.” He grins at the look on her face. “I know…”

“Well if nothing else, at least I know we successfully taught you the alphabet.”

“Precisely. Oh — Anthony!” Seeing that his son has been released from the conversation with his teacher, he waves him over. “Come and meet Mrs Jenkins, son.”

The lad does as he’s told, not looking a bit embarrassed to have been summoned by his father yelling for him across the courtyard. He doesn’t even seem to mind when his father’s hands land on his shoulders, steering him to stand right in front of him. She waits for him to squirm away, but he never does.

“Anthony, this is Mrs Margaret Jenkins,” Lord Bridgerton explains. “She’ll be your House Mistress.”

The boy inclines his head at her, smiling politely. There are little slivers of his father all over his face — something familiar in his smile, in the edge of his jaw and the slight point of his chin — but there’s something new there too, some things that are all his own. Big soulful brown eyes. Ears that stick out a little more than they should.

“Pleased to make your acquaintance, madam,” he says. “Anthony Bridgerton, at your service.” He hesitates then, a wash of colour sweeping over his cheeks. “But you already know my name.”

“I do,” she says, charmed by the combination of his courtly manners and his childish voice, hovering right on the edge of breaking. “But a gentleman will always make a proper introduction, nonetheless.”

“Yes, Mrs Jenkins.”

Lord Bridgerton gives his son’s bony little shoulders a squeeze, a silent well done for his good manners. The motion seems to squeeze something in her heart too.

“Now, you listen to me, Anthony,” the viscount says sternly, the instruction rather unnecessary given the way the boy seems to hang off every word. “Some people may think the Headmaster runs this place, or the House Masters, but anyone with an ounce of common sense knows that Mrs Jenkins is really the one in charge. Understand?”

Anthony tips his head right back, peering at his father upside down. “Really?”

“Really,” Margaret answers for the viscount, putting on her sternest face as Anthony’s head whips back to look at her. She folds her arms and tries not to smile. “Now then, what am I in for with you, Master Anthony? Are you going to be as much trouble as your father was?”

His little mouth drops open in delight. “My father was trouble?”

“Sometimes,” she says, giving up on fighting her smile. “But what of you, lad?”

“Sometimes…” His eyes crinkle as he beams up at her. “So am I.”

He has the faintest hint of lines on his face in all the same places as his father’s.

And just like that, he has her too.

Deep, deep roots.

--

The front door is four, maybe five paces away.

It may as well be a hundred miles.

“Please, my boy,” Henry tries again, awkwardly shifting his medical bag from one hand to the other. “Please stand aside.”

“No.” His would-be gaoler folds his arms, his chin jutting out defiantly. There’s a tiny sliver of a scar there, the remnants of a deep cut that Henry tended to himself three winters ago. The boy cried that day too, he remembers.

“Master Bridgerton,” he says quietly, “Benedict. Please. I am sorry, truly I am, but—”

“Then why are you leaving?” The furious set of the boy’s jaw releases into a small, barely perceptible wobble.

“Because I must. Because there is nothing more I can do here.”

“Nothing more?! You have not done anything! No-one has—”

“What’s going on here?”

Henry looks in the direction of the voice, finding Anthony Bridgerton coming down the stairs, frowning at the odd scene in front of him. Like his brother he’s still dressed for riding, and for a long moment the ghost of their ordinary afternoon seems to linger in the hall, as real as the muddy boot prints tracked haphazardly up the stairs.

He turns to look at Henry, confusion pulling a deep furrow into his brows. “Doctor?”

No doubt he’s wondering why Henry hasn’t yet done the one simple thing he asked of him back in that dreadful, quiet bedroom. Leave me the hell alone.

“Forgive me, my lord…”

He knows it was the wrong thing to say before the words have even left his lips. Benedict Bridgerton flinches at the sound of his father’s title, his tear stained face contorting into an ugly, furious look of betrayal. The newest Lord Bridgerton, however, simply sways a little on the spot, like a boxer who has taken so many blows he can’t feel a damned thing.

“I—” Henry gestures uselessly at the blocked door. “I was—”

“Leaving! He was leaving, Anthony!”

“I know.” The young viscount’s voice is quiet, every syllable weighted with exhaustion. “I told him to go.”

“You— what?! No! No, he — he cannot go! He has to stay — Anthony, he has to explain.”

“There is no explaining it, Brother.”

“But there has to be!” Benedict’s shrill voice reaches all the way to the rafters. “He — He should speak to Eloise again. She must have gotten some detail wrong, been mistaken—”

“No.” For a moment, Anthony Bridgerton sounds every bit as commanding as a man thirty years into his title, not three hours. “Absolutely not.”

“Fine!” Benedict throws up his hands, abandoning his position guarding the door. “Then I’ll talk to her myself.”

Emotion bursts to life on the viscount’s ashen face. “No.” His fear is a flame, stark and bright and dangerous as he moves to block his brother’s path. “Benedict, I forbid you to—”

“You forbid me?!” Benedict shoves uselessly at his brother, trying to find a way past. “Fucking hell, Anthony, Father isn’t even cold yet and you’re—”

“Don’t—” The viscount's voice breaks. “Don’t do that. Do not make this—” He grapples with his brother, not fighting back, just absorbing his blows. “For Christ’s sake, Benedict! I have only just managed to get Eloise to stop screaming. I just … I cannot have you upsetting her again. I cannot have it. Can you not see that?”

“But—”

“Benedict. Please.”

Something about that word and all it’s broken, jagged edges seems to cut right through the boy’s anger. He stops struggling, his hands gripping fistfuls of his brother’s shirt as he sags against him, his head dropping to rest against his chest.

“We never should have gone for that ride, Anthony. We should have been—”

“I know.” Bridgerton seizes his brother’s shoulders, gripping hard. “I know.”

For a long moment they simply cling to each other, breathing hard. Then, like puppets with their strings cut, they drop down in a heap to sit on the bottom stair, a tangle of muddy legs and clasped, desperate hands.

“Anthony … what are we going to do?”

Quietly, Henry backs away towards the door.

--

Aubrey Hall must be beautiful in the daylight.

The thought keeps flitting across her mind, flickering like the light from her candle as she runs back and forth from the birthing room to the kitchens, fetching water and linens, and strong, heavily spiked tea. The other midwives have seen the sunrise here before. They talked about it earlier — seven brand new dawns for seven brand new babes, all of them born in the twilight.

They’ve stopped telling the stories now.

“Please—”

“Sir, I cannot—” She tries not to stop, really she does. “I must make haste back to—”

The unfamiliar man in the hallway actually seizes hold of her arm, stopping her in her tracks. Her momentum keeps her going forward, making her jolt and then drop back, the motion upsetting her candle and dropping a spot of hot wax onto her hand.

“Ouch!”

“Forgive me, I did not—”

“Get off me.”

He does as he’s told, dropping her arm as though he is the one who was burned.

“What are you doing lurking down here?”

“I had to. No-one will tell me anything upstairs.”

She studies his haggard face in the light of her candle as the wax slowly dries on the back of her hand. Up close, it’s clear that he’s not much more than a boy.

“Please, I—” He drags a hand through his hair. “Please tell me what is going on.”

Her irritation softens into concern. “Who are you, sweetling?”

“Anthony.” He gives himself a little shake, his eyes screwing shut. “That is, Viscount Bridgerton.”

“Christ!” She staggers back, suddenly very aware of her stained apron, the hours of sweat on her brow. The blood she hopes she washed from her hands before she left his mother’s room. “Begging your pardon, m’lord, I did not—”

“Forget it.” He waves it away, just like that. His title. His birthright. “Please just tell me something. All I’ve heard for hours are screams. Is my m-mother all right? And the baby?”

She understands then, what that careless swipe of his hand meant. He is not a viscount tonight. He’s naught but a son, frightened that by daybreak he won’t even be that. Orphan is such a cruel word.

“Please, madam.” He seizes her again, just her hand this time, his grip much more careful than a moment ago, but no less tight. “Please.”

Her heart lurches in her chest. “I am not sure I should…”

“Just say it — just tell me.” His eyes are on fire in the flickering candlelight, wild and desperate, and so, so young. “Are we going to lose her too?”

“The baby is in the wrong position,” she blurts, before she can think better of her honesty. Lord, but she never could say no to a babe. Even a grown one.

“What does that mean for—”

“Nothing good,” she says bluntly. Pretty lies won’t do the lad any good tonight. There’s nothing pretty about the business going on upstairs.

“Christ.”

“But,” she adds carefully, “it does not always mean the worst either.”

“All right.” He lets her go, stepping back to pace the width of the little corridor. Back and forth. Back and forth. “All right. Thank you for telling me.”

“I must—”

“Wait!” A boy’s voice slips from the man’s lips. Lost, like the lad she found wandering the county fair all by himself last week. She found that boy’s father in the end, but there’ll be no doing that for this one. “There must be something I can do? Please. Anything.”

She turns back, watching the shadows play across the gaunt lines of his face. He needs a good meal. Sleep. A hand to hold. He needs a lot of things that he won’t get tonight.

“Is there a chapel here? An altar, or such-like?”

His face drains of what little colour it has. “Yes.”

“Then you can light a candle, m’lord. That’s what you can do. You can light a candle and you can pray.”

In the morning, on her weary walk home, she wanders into the village church and does the very same thing. For him. For the little girl she left in his arms, wailing her strong little lungs out. And for their mother, tired and sore and sad, but smiling as she watched her eldest baby meet her last.

Aubrey Hall really is beautiful in the daylight.

--

This is all highly irregular.

George tries very, very hard not to say so.

But then the baby starts to cry.

And really.

“This is all highly irregular, my lord.”

“Oh, do calm down,” Viscount Bridgerton snaps, but quietly. Oh, not for George’s sake. The arrogant little upstart obviously doesn’t care a jot for his nerves. His whisper is a kindness to the tiny baby currently swaddled in his arms, no-one else. He bobs around the room with her like a doting fool, a near constant blur of motion, until the baby’s cries slide into whimpers and then, blissful, perfect silence.

George hovers near the door. “I ought to come back another—”

“There is no other time.”

“Surely we could at least retire to your office.”

“I do not have an office.”

“You know what I mean, my lord,” George bites out, his temper fraying. “Your father’s office.”

“No.” It’s the closest the young viscount has come to raising his voice. “We need to do this now. And we need to do it here.”

“We are in a nursery!”

“I am aware of our location, you—” Bridgerton bites off his insult, glancing warily down at the baby in his arms.

She whimpers but doesn’t wake.

“Highly irregular,” George mutters again, mopping his sweating brow. “Highly, highly—”

“Mr Lund.” It appears to be taking the boy an inordinate amount of restraint to keep his temper in check. George knows the feeling. “I appreciate this is not how you are used to doing things—”

“Not at all, my lord! In fact—”

“However,” Bridgerton goes on, somehow managing to speak over him without ever raising his voice, “this is how we are going to have to do things. I am going to Oxford in eight days. I have six other siblings down the corridor, a mother who is not yet able to leave her bed, and a baby sister who will not stop crying unless I am walking around this exact room in this exact pattern. I do not have another minute to spare. I need you to explain the issues with the death duties to me, right here, right now, or I will find someone else who can.”

“But….”

“Fine. Someone else it is.”

“Pardon me?”

The blasted man almost smiles. “You’re relieved, Mr Lund. I thank you for your kind service to this family, please send on your final bill and—”

“But — but, you cannot — My lord, please be reasonable! I have been your father’s solicitor for seven years—”

“And he disliked you for every last one of them. I believe I finally see why.”

“He—”

“Get out, Lund. And keep your voice down, you are upsetting my sister.”

George stares at the viscount’s furious face, finding a wild, unchecked defiance glittering in his dark eyes, like he can’t quite believe what he’s just done — but he liked it.

“You do not know what you are doing,” George mutters, gathering up the papers from where the idiot boy had spread them over a damn changing table. “You have no idea. You shall run this family into the ground.”

The insult lands. He can tell. A vicious thrill whips through him as he catches sight of the flinch that shivers a path across Bridgerton’s shoulders, lifting them right up to his ears.

“Perhaps I will.” The new viscount’s voice is tired. But his eyes are violent. George takes a step back. “But at least you may comfort yourself with the knowledge that you will not be required to pick up the pieces when I do. Now…” He flicks a single finger towards the door. “Get out.”

As George reaches the end of the corridor, he hears the baby start to wail.

--

If it wasn’t for the ears, she would hardly recognise him.

It’s an odd thing to dwell on, perhaps, but it’s the very first thing that comes to mind when Margaret sees Anthony Bridgerton — no, Viscount Bridgerton — climb slowly down from his carriage into the September drizzle.

It feels like only yesterday that she watched him hop up into that same carriage, a tall, cheerful graduate with the whole wide world at his feet. Today, he’s a stranger. Dark, heavy coat. Dark, tired eyes.

But she’d know those ears anywhere.

The slight imperfection softens the forbidding lines of his face, and softens her heart with it.

“Lord Bridgerton,” she says quietly, going right to his side. “I am so glad to see you. I — I was not sure if you would come or—”

“Somebody had to,” he says, his mouth set in a grim line as he waves his hand at the open door of his carriage, summoning someone hidden inside. “Colin, come out now, please.”

A small dark-haired boy hops down, his eyes as wide as saucers as he takes in the imposing school building up ahead. Those big eyes drop right to the gravel as Margaret greets him, his foot drawing little circles in the stones as he politely replies, introducing himself to the ground.

His brother clears his throat. “Eyes up, please, Brother.”

It seems to take him an age to comply. Finally, he lifts his head and Margaret finds herself staring into a pair of bright green, frightened eyes. Her heart gives a little warning thump, but it’s already too late. The boy has snuck right in there, finding a place alongside his brothers.

“Goodness me, he’s the very image of you and Benedict,” she tells Anthony, shaking her head softly. “Apart from the eyes.”

“He’s more trouble than both of us combined, I’m afraid.”

The lad smiles at that.

So he can smile. That’s good. Last year it seemed as though Benedict had forgotten how.

She peers into their carriage, looking for him. “Where’s Benedict got to?”

“He had me drop him off further down the drive,” Anthony answers her. “Apparently it is not the done thing to be brought to school by your big brother when you are seventeen and going into your last year.”

He rolls his eyes in beleaguered amusement and the motion is so familiar, so very teenage-boy, that she feels her face break out into a smile. He is still in there, then — the boy she used to know. Just buried deep. Six feet at least. Like his father.

“You could have dropped me off there too,” Colin puts in quietly.

That little flicker of light goes out of Anthony’s eyes.

“No,” he says firmly, in a voice that suggests this is not the first argument on this topic. “I could not. When Benedict and I joined, Father brought us—”

“All the way to the door,” his brother finishes, his sulky little mouth pulling into a frown. “I know that.” He sucks in a breath then spits his next words out in a rush. “But you are not Father, are you?”

Anthony flinches as though he’s been struck.

His fists clench and for a split second, Margaret thinks he’s going to hit his brother. She doesn’t plan to stop him.

“No.” Slowly, he un-clenches his fist. “No, Brother. I am not.”

He sounds more tired than she’s ever heard him. Even that week when he had six exams in four days and she found him half asleep standing up against the stacks in the library. This is a different kind of tiredness. It’s in his bones.

Looking mutinous and rather guilty, Colin addresses the floor again. “Anthony…”

“Just … go, Brother.”

“But—”

“Please. Go and greet your classmates.”

“Fine.” The lad makes to run off and then suddenly stops dead, turning back in a slow pivot. He hesitates slightly, the toe of his boot making another circle in the gravel. “You won’t … leave yet though, will you? You won’t—”

“No,” Anthony says softly. “Of course not. I won’t go without saying goodbye, Colin.”

“Oh.”

“I would never do that to you.”

Relief flickers in the boy’s face before he blinks it away, his chin jutting out slightly. “I would not mind if you did. I do not need—” He cuts himself off. “I’d be all right.”

Hurt flickers across the bleak mask of Anthony’s face.

But like before, he just absorbs the blow.

“Run along, Brother.” He sighs, the quiet sound almost lost to the drizzling rain. “I’ll be right here.”

“I apologise for that,” he adds softly after a moment, still watching his brother’s retreating back. “He is not always like this. Or at any rate he didn’t used to be. It is—”

“You do not owe me an explanation, my lord.” The sound of his father’s title on her lips seems to bring him into the conversation, as if his ghost just stepped out of the carriage beside them. “I am sure the last year has been a very difficult time for you all.”

A hollow laugh sounds in Anthony’s throat. “That would be something of an understatement.”

The cynicism in his voice doesn’t suit him. It makes her want to take him by the shoulders and shake and shake and shake until some real feelings fall out. But he’s too tall for that now. She can’t reach him anymore.

She opens her mouth to murmur her condolences, the words poised right on the tip of her tongue, but when he turns to look at her she finds a flicker of fear in his tired eyes, the expectation of a blow that cannot be deflected or avoided, one that will sting.

She spares him the pain.

“He’ll be all right,” she says instead, turning to pick out Colin in a crowd of boys playing some sort of rough-housing game in the courtyard, darting in and around the line of carriages.

“I hope so.”

“It was good of you to bring him, my lord. For all he might lash out now, he’ll be glad of it one day. Glad of you.”

For a long time, Anthony doesn’t say anything. Then, very quietly, she hears, “Look after him for me, won’t you? Benedict too.”

Those old roots — the ones that wrapped their way all around her heart when he was thirteen years old, gangly and happy and doting on his father’s every word — come to life, tightening their hold.

“Of course,” she says quietly. “Of course I will.”

He bows his thanks, and she watches him walk away.

It bothers her, later that night and then on and off for years, that she let him go without asking if anyone was looking after him.

--

For the last three full hours of business, not a single customer walks in.

So of course the little bell above the door would ring at precisely six fifty-nine, when Arthur is only sixty precious seconds away from slipping the lock into place and shutting up the Jewellers for another night.

“We’re closing,” he says, not looking up from the somewhat disappointing sales ledger he’s been staring at for the past hour.

No matter how long he looks, how many times he runs the numbers, they do not add up to anything good. If anything, they add up to him needing to welcome this customer in and trying to make a damned sale before Mr Munroe really does give him the sack, like he’s been threatening to do for weeks. But … it’s six fifty-nine. And his feet ache. And his head is pounding. And Mother said it’d be shepherd’s pie tonight. While they can still afford the lamb.

“If you’d like to come back tomorrow—”

“I absolutely cannot do that.”

Arthur looks up at last, meeting the eyes of a handsome young gentleman around his age. He’s impeccably turned out, his evening jacket alone probably worth more than Arthur’s entire outfit. Every last thing about him screams money. Apart from his eyes, that is, which seem to be saying something a little closer to help.

“If, however, you were to accommodate me now,” the man goes on, cajoling and desperate, “I promise the ensuing sale you make will be more than worth the extra few minutes of work.”

With a flick of his wrist, he slides his card across the counter.

“Please.”

The card stock is very, very thick.

And the name — well, Arthur closes the accounting book with a thud, suddenly not quite so worried about his job.

“How can I help you, Lord Bridgerton?”

The viscount damn near weakens at the knees in relief, stumbling closer to the counter with a grateful smile. “I need something that I can take away tonight. Something for a lady.”

“I see.” It’s not hyperbole. The slight sheen of panic in the man’s eyes is telling the whole sorry tale, more or less. “Forgotten birthday, was it?”

Lord Bridgerton freezes, his eyes flashing, and for one terrifying moment Arthur can actually taste unemployment. It tastes like dry bread and no butter, and absolutely no lamb. Then quite suddenly the viscount starts to laugh.

“It was not quite a birthday,” he says, his voice somehow chilled, not warmed, by his amusement. “But you are correct that I am in need of something to express an apology.”

“I see.” Arthur gestures for him to follow him along the counter, towards the finished pieces that are ready to be sold. “And what sort of apology are we aiming for?”

“Pardon me?”

“Sorry ... I broke that teacup? Sorry ... I stayed out late playing cards? Sorry ...”

“Sorry I missed your opening night performance of The Marriage of Figaro because I was listening to my little sister play the piano.”

“Ah.” Arthur winces. “I see.”

“You say that a lot, you know.” The viscount slips a flask from his pocket, taking a healthy — or rather, dreadfully unhealthy — draw from it. “I see.”

“Well, I have good eyesight.”

The horrific impertinence seems to amuse Lord Bridgerton. Instead of marching from the shop and blacklisting it permanently, he just splutters another of those humourless, quiet laughs, and takes another draw from his flask.

“What did you have in mind, my lord?” Arthur says, mentally running through the pieces that aren’t already reserved. “Any particular colour, for instance?”

“Damned if I know.”

“Well, what does the lady like?”

“Expensive things,” Bridgerton says flatly.

“I—”

“Don’t you dare say ‘I see’ again.”

“I … understand,” Arthur says delicately.

Bridgerton snorts another laugh. “Just find me something, man. Anything.” He flicks a look at his pocket watch, his laughter sliding into a groan. “And be damned quick about it.”

“Yes, my lord.” With a wary glance at the deep furrow in the viscount’s brow, Arthur hurries to collect a few options, laying them carefully across the velvet cushion on the main counter. “Would any of these suffice?”

“Maybe?” The viscount leans in, squinting down at the pieces. “Oh, hell, I don’t know. They all look the same.”

“Oh no, they are quite different. You see, my lord, this one is—”

“Look — just pick one, would you?”

“Me, sir?”

“Is there anybody else here?”

“Well…”

“I haven’t got all night.”

“Er—” Arthur glances down at the various baubles, selecting a pair of earrings at random. “These?”

“Perfect.” He barely even looked.

“Very good, my lord.”

Bridgerton wanders away then, distracted by a display of cuff-links. Arthur watches him out of the corner of his eye as he packages up the ear-bobs, counting how many times the viscount takes a draw from his flask. It seems incredible that he’s still walking in a straight line.

“That’s pretty…” he says suddenly, and Arthur turns around properly, finding him peering at a small, delicate necklace tucked away in a tiny cabinet right at the back of the shop.

Banished, like all of Arthur’s pieces.

“It almost looks like a little—”

“It’s a treble clef,” Arthur says, unable to help himself. He comes over to stand beside him, looking down a little wistfully at the forgotten, dainty little thing. “Or, it is supposed to look like one, at any rate. Subtly, though. See how the gold curls around the pearl, I wanted that to look like—”

“You designed this?”

“Oh — Yes, my lord. Yes, I did.”

“It’s beautiful.”

Arthur catches sight of his cheeks in one of the small mirrors and is appalled to discover he is blushing. Furiously. All because some strange, drunk, admittedly very handsome, aristocrat likes his jewellery. Oh, this is a new low. Even for the least popular jeweller on Bond Street.

Bridgerton leans in closer, peering at the necklace with narrowed eyes. “Not exactly in keeping with the rest of this place though, is it?”

“No,” Arthur says glumly, looking around at the other pieces on display. Bigger. Flashier. Uglier too, though Mr Munroe — and apparently most of Mayfair — vehemently disagrees.

“Put it away for me, would you?”

“Pardon me?”

“The necklace, can you put it aside? I’ll send someone over for it later in the week.”

Arthur wonders if perhaps he’s inhaled some of the fumes from the viscount’s hip flask. He certainly feels very, very wobbly all of a sudden.

“You — you wish to purchase my necklace?”

“I do.” The viscount’s smile is not like his laughter. It’s small. Restrained. But genuine. “My sister will love it.”

“Oh.”

Somehow — for the rest of his life, he will never know how — Arthur manages to complete the transaction without bursting into tears.

“Thank you, my lord,” he says, all but babbling the words as he sends the viscount on his way with the pair of earrings and a promise to return for the one-of-a-kind Arthur Sinclair original that not a single other person has shown any interest in for seven whole months. “Thank you so much.”

“No, thank you.” Bridgerton holds up the small box containing the earrings. “You’ve saved my life with these, believe me.”

“Good luck, my lord,” Arthur says, his buoyant mood making the impertinence seem a good idea. “I am sure that when the lady sees the gift, she shall be left in no doubt of how sorry you are.”

Lord Bridgerton pauses on the threshold. “That’s the thing…” He turns slightly, showing Arthur the slightly sad smile pulling at his lips. “I’m not. Not really.” He shrugs. “My sister really is very good at the piano, you see.”

--

Thomas hears it from Milton.

Who heard it from Annie.

Who heard it from Alec.

Who heard it from Jane.

Who swears on her mother’s life that she heard it straight from the driver of the carriage.

Still, Tom refuses to get carried away. It’s hardly the first time the master has been on the outs with the particular lady in question, after all. One missed party and a bunch of flowers tossed into the gutter doesn’t necessarily mean that they won’t be going at it in the park again by the end of the week.

Except—

They’re not.

Not that week. Not the next.

Tom devotes himself to watching the master closely, his attention discreet as only a servant’s can be, and by the end of the month he is more than halfway to believing that Milton (and by extension Annie and Alec and Jane and the driver of the damn carriage) might actually have been right. There’s something slightly different about the viscount this time around, no sign of the drumming, restless energy that always troubled him at times like this in the past. Instead he’s ... quiet. Pensive. A little sad perhaps, but not sorry.

An opening night comes and goes. Then the whole run. When the curtain comes down on the closing performance, the viscount’s box still sits empty.

And Tom finally lets himself believe it.

He steals three sugar cubes from the kitchen and slips out to break the news to the only other creature on earth that really, truly, understands what this means.

“I think they are done for good this time, Rakehell,” he murmurs, patting the viscount’s faithful horse on his sleek neck. “I really do. And you know what that means, don’t you, boy…”

He holds out a sugar cube in his hand, smiling as the horse accepts it with a grateful snuffle.

“With any luck, neither you nor I will have to look at his bare arse in broad daylight ever again.”

He could swear the horse actually smiles back at him.

--

“You are late.”

To a horologist, there is no greater insult in the world.

“Excuse me?” Edward frowns at the young man loitering on the doorstep of his workshop. “I most certainly am not, sir.”

Ignoring the man’s frustrated groan, he opens the door wider, waving his hand to indicate that the man can come inside.

“I open...” he says, pausing for effect as every single clock in the place begins to chime the hour, “at precisely eight o’clock.”

“Yes, well—” The man cuts himself off, realising that he can’t be heard over the cacophony of bells. He rolls his eyes all the way to the ceiling, folding his arms tightly and waiting with thinly disguised impatience for the chimes to reach eight.

“Point taken,” he snaps over the lingering note of the last bell.

“Now then…” Edward polishes his glasses with a scrap of cloth before settling them on his face. “I presume your inability to keep time is why you are here, sir?”

“Yes.”

Slowly, carefully, the gentleman pulls out a gold pocket watch and lays it down on the work-table. All his urgency seems to drain away as he looks forlornly down at the old, slightly battered thing.

“It’s broken,” he says quietly.

He sounds like that too. Broken.

“May I?” Edward reaches for the watch, wincing at the fogged up glass obscuring most of the face. “Water damage,” he murmurs, already visualising the havoc wreaked on the hidden mechanisms inside.

“I was afraid you would say that.” The man’s voice sounds odd, like something has gotten into his mechanisms too. But unlike his watch, the damage to his insides isn’t slowing him down, it’s speeding him up, making his words fall out in strange, jerky snippets. “Can you repair it?”

“Perhaps,” Edward says, reaching for his tools. “What sort of water damage are we dealing with here, Mr...?”

“Bridgerton. Viscount Bridgerton, actually.”

“You haven’t answered my question,” Edwards says absently, his attention utterly focused on the watch as he begins to prise open the back. “What sort—”

“What do you mean?” Even without looking at him, he can tell that the viscount’s patience is wearing razor thin. “‘What sort—”

“Freshwater?”

“Obviously it was fresh water. I didn’t take it for a bloody dip in the sea.”

“You would not be the first.”

“It was fresh water,” Bridgerton snaps. “River water.” His voice takes on a strange quality, a sort of oddly annoyed embarrassment. “The Serpentine, to be precise.”

“Was it completely submerged?”

“No … no, I don’t think so. Not completely.”

“That’s good.”

“So you can fix it?”

Edward ignores him, concentrating on the stalled inner workings of the watch. Silence descends as he assesses the damage, or the closest to silence there can ever be in this workshop. Edward counts the ticks of his clocks as he concentrates on studying the seized up mechanisms. The viscount waits precisely fifty-nine seconds before he speaks again.

“Please. Please tell me you can fix it.”

Edward straightens up, pulling his attention away from the watch. “I can.”

“Thank God,” Bridgerton murmurs, gripping the workbench like it’s the only thing keeping him upright. “Thank God.”

“I must warn you ... it’ll be rather costly, my lord. Perhaps more so than the value of the watch itself.” He waves his hand towards the cabinet containing a display of several newer, more precise pocket watches. “You might prefer to replace it with something more modern.”

“Never,” Bridgerton murmurs, tracing a single fingertip over the exposed mechanisms, careful not to touch. He stares down at the unmoving cogs, his own expression frozen just the same way. “It’s value to me is beyond compare.”

--

Be careful what you wish for.

That’s what his mother always used to say.

Be careful what you wish for. You just might get it.

Atticus Milton has never really subscribed to this particular theory. In his experience, getting precisely what he wants — an extra slice of rhubarb pie, a stolen kiss at the autumn fair, a good job with a good family, and a chance to see London — has never been anything but joyful. Delicious. Perfect.

Until, that is, the waistcoats.

The thing about Lord Bridgerton is that he knows he’s good looking. Not in the obnoxious, dandy-ish sort of way of a lot of the ton. Milton could never be the valet of someone with that sort of vanity. It’s more that Bridgerton knows that he is young and handsome and as such, he doesn’t particularly need to think about what he’s wearing. Everything looks good on him.

He’s not wrong, of course, but sometimes Atticus wishes that he would show just a tiny bit more interest. Express an opinion for once. Spend more than five seconds glancing at the options laid out in his dressing room.

Until, that is, the blasted waistcoats.

“This one. No — no, that one. Unless … No, no, definitely that one.”

“My lord, might I—”

“What?” Lord Bridgerton stops dead in his task of buttoning up his shirt, his hands falling uselessly to his sides. “Do you think they’re both wrong? You do, don’t you? You think they’re both wrong.”

Atticus glances down at the two waistcoats in his hands — the pale gold silk in his left, and the ever so slightly paler gold silk in his right — and tries very, very hard not to sigh out loud.

“What I think, my lord,” he says carefully, “is that they are nearly identical.”

Bridgerton sits down heavily on the windowsill, letting out a helpless, frustrated little laugh. “So ... you are saying I should just pick one and be done with it?”

“I think that would be wise, my lord. Unless you actually want to be late for the ball this evening.”

“Christ, no. She’d never let me hear the end of it.”

“Ah,” Atticus says mildly, the last five minutes suddenly making quite a lot more sense. “And who might she be, my lord?”

He’s read Whistledown’s suggestions, of course, but he can’t help but think that her descriptions of Edwina Sharma don’t quite line up with the various mutterings the viscount has been making lately about a certain lady and her certain bloody stupid useless breed of dog.

“What?” Considering Atticus has seen Lord Bridgerton in every possible stage of undress several hundred times over, he really thought the man was beyond blushing in his presence. Apparently not. “Oh, no-one.”

“Of course.” Atticus shakes the two options under his employer’s nose, drawing his attention back to the matter at hand. “And do we think that ‘no-one’ would like you better in this one or the other?”

“You’re sacked, Milton,” Bridgerton says flatly.

“Please. You’d be lost without me.”

The viscount laughs shortly. “Damn it, I would.” He looks at the waistcoats again, sucking in a breath. “All right, let’s go with … the right. No! Wait—” He groans, tipping his head back to glare up at the ceiling. “The left. Yes. Definitely the left.”

“Very good, my lord.” Atticus allows himself a small, utterly impertinent smile. “Are you sure now?”

“Shut up.” Lord Bridgerton holds out his hand, the effect of his rebuke rather spoiled by the smile pulling at his lips. “Just give me the damn waistcoat.”

Atticus does as he is bid, his smile freezing in place when he realises — oh, damn it to hell and back — they’re not done yet.

“Er — my lord...” he says, studying his half-dressed employer with some trepidation, “I expect I am going to regret this question but … have you given any thought to how you’d like to style your cravat tonight?”

“Oh, fuck me. No.”

In the end, the viscount departs just twenty minutes later than planned.

Atticus thinks that’s fairly impressive, all things considered.

Later that evening, when he’s collecting the viscount’s cravat and waistcoat from where he discarded them, he catches the faintest hint of a new, unfamiliar scent clinging to the fabric. Something feminine. Clean. Slightly floral.

“Well...” He laughs into the quiet of the empty dressing room. “Whoever she is, I do hope she liked the waistcoat.”

--

Viscount Bridgerton returns for his watch one week and one day after he dropped it off.

He is precisely nine minutes behind his time.

If he’d been punctual, he might have missed the young lady altogether.

Time can be funny like that sometimes, conspiring with coincidence to make things happen. To change things. In another life Viscount Bridgerton arrives at one thirty, collects his watch and goes home without ever holding the lady’s hand.

In this one, he arrives at one thirty-nine, flustered and apologetic, and as such he is still standing beside Edward’s work-table when the door chimes a new arrival exactly five minutes later.

Edward looks up from polishing the watchface, meeting the eyes of the nervous young woman just ducking inside the shop, her maid hovering anxiously behind her.

“Good afternoon—”

“You.” Lord Bridgerton’s voice cuts across him, harsh as the crack of a whip. “What are you doing here?” He doesn’t even give the lady a chance to reply, striding over until he’s standing improperly close, his nose mere inches from hers. “How did you know?”

Before Edward can open his mouth to intervene, the lady cuts across him with her own response.

“You told me.” She doesn’t shrink back in the face of the viscount’s fury. If anything, something in her face seems to come alive as she stares back at him. “Remember? Last night, when I scolded you for being late, you said your watch was—”

“But how did you know I’d be here?”

Her bravado slips at that. “I did not know.”

“Then how—”

“I …. I have been to seven other watch-makers so far today.” She addresses the words somewhere slightly south of his chin.

Which is a shame, really, because it means she doesn’t see the look that crosses his face at her words.

“Why?” The viscount breathes out the question in a rough, quiet whisper. “Why would you do that?”

“Because!” She drags her gaze up to meet his, the timbre of her voice dropping as low and ragged as his. “Because this is all my fault. I did this! I ruined—”

“Don’t.” He cuts her apology off, an oddly pained look flickering across his face. “I daresay I deserved the soaking you gave me.”

“But—”

“Do not upset yourself, Miss Sharma.” He shrugs, the motion a little too rehearsed to be convincing. “It’s only a watch.”

“It’s not though, is it?” She steps in closer again, staring at the empty fob-pocket in his waistcoat. “Colin told me, after you left. He told me that it once belonged to—”

Lord Bridgerton holds up his hand with a strangled noise of dissent, a quiet plea for her not to finish the sentence. She obeys the wordless gesture, suddenly flicking a startled look first at Edward and then her maid, as if she’d quite forgotten anyone else was in the room.

“My lord…” She steps a little closer to him, as if trying to shield him from their gaze.

“Colin should not have said anything,” he says quietly, his voice hard. His eyes soft. “It wasn’t his place.”

“I’m glad he did.” Her hand hovers oddly in the space between them, halfway to reaching for him. She snatches it up into a fist instead. “I’m so sorry. Please believe me. I feel awful. I could not sleep last night for thinking of you.”

Bridgerton sucks in a sudden, sharp breath.

“Of what you must think of me now,” she goes on miserably. “I was angry that day in the park, and it made me careless and … and cruel. And I’m so sorry. l shall never forgive myself if…”

As she rambles on with her apology, the strangest thing happens to Lord Bridgerton — it’s as though her distress transfers into to him, her every word slowly turning some cog inside him. Edward has never seen anything quite like it. The viscount is nothing but a stopped clock as he stares at her, and she doesn’t seem to see that she is the key that fits him, that he is winding and winding and winding, until at last she pauses for breath, and he suddenly shoots into motion.

“Don’t.” He seizes both her small, restless hands in one of his, holding tight. “Don’t talk like that, Miss Sharma, please. It’s all right. Everything is all right.”

“It’s not—”

“It’s fixed.” He gropes blindly behind him with his free hand and Edward slips the pocket watch into his grasping fingers. “See? It’s fixed.”

“I…”

“Look.” He tilts the watch this way and that, showing her the crystal clear display. For a long moment, they stare down at the watchface together, it’s quiet ticking lost under the sound of the other clocks in the workshop. “See? It’s nearly ten to two.” He smiles. “Time you stopped apologising.”

The silly joke makes her smile. Or maybe it’s his smile that does it.

“You must let me pay for the repair.”

Bridgerton snorts, dropping her hands. Her smile slips when he lets go.

“I am in earnest, my lord. It is my fault that—”

“There is no scenario in which I allow you to pay my bill, Miss Sharma.”

“But—”

“However…” He suddenly smiles. “I will accept another form of payment.”

“Such as?”

“A dance tonight.”

“A dance?!” Her eyes flash, hurt kindling into anger. “Y-you would use this as an opportunity to get closer to Edwina? I cannot believe you would stoop so—”

“A dance with you.”

The look that crosses her face is more complex than the inside of any watch Edward has ever seen.

“With me?”

“Yes. With you.”

“Why?”

“Why not?”

His casual answer doesn’t seem to satisfy her. She folds her arms, staring at him.

“Fine,” he amends. “Because…” A wash of colour sweeps over his cheeks. “Because you went to seven watchmakers. For me.”

“Oh.” A smile threatens at the corners of her mouth. “Well, it is quite a nice watch.”

“Is that a yes?”

She bites her lip.

“Please?” He’s a stopped clock again, waiting for her to turn the key.

“Oh, very well. If you insist.”

And just like that, he’s ticking away again. His wound-up smile unleashed.

“One dance,” she says warningly, holding up a single finger in his face. “Just one.”

“We’ll see about—”

He cuts himself off with a slightly strangled whimper as she suddenly reaches one hand deep into the fob pocket in his waistcoat, her other hand snatching up the watch from him. He jolts his hips towards her, his smile frozen on his face as he silently watches her take out the fob clip and slowly, carefully re-attach the watch where it belongs.

“There,” she says, slipping the watch back into his pocket and giving it a little pat. “Do not be late tonight.”

Edward counts out fourteen ticks of his clocks before Lord Bridgerton starts breathing again.

--

There isn’t a servant in this house who would dare to make such a racket.

Which can only mean one thing — those heavy footsteps clattering down the servant’s staircase belong to a Bridgerton.

Edith chuckles to herself, reaching for the biscuit jar even before the footsteps reach the threshold of her kitchen. She turns, expecting to find Hyacinth or Gregory in her doorway, all pleading smiles and bright, greedy eyes.

“You’ll ruin your appetite, you — Oh!” She very nearly drops the biscuit jar altogether. “Lord Bridgerton!”

“Hello, Mrs Cook.”

He still smiles faintly when he says it, like he always used to do when he was a boy. It was his favourite joke, from age five to age thirteen — Mrs Cook the cook. She used to threaten him with a clip round the ear for giggling at her. The odd urge to laugh sweeps over her as she realises that she probably couldn’t even reach his ear now. Lord, but that scrawny little lad has gotten bloody tall.

“How can I help you, m’lord?” she says, wiping her hands on her apron.

“I was wondering if you might do me a small favour,” he says, his large frame hovering awkwardly in the doorway.

“Well seen’s as I work for you, m’lord, I can’t rightly say no, can I?”

He huffs a laugh, but it doesn’t quite chase the troubled look from his eyes. “I know you must be busy, with so many guests to cater for, but—”

“I’ve always time for the family,” she says, abandoning her teasing tone for something a little more reassuring. He looks like he might need it. “What’s happened? Is something amiss?”

“Not exactly, no.” He pushes off the doorframe, making his way into the room at last. “It’s just that … earlier on, one of our guests was ... well, she was stung by a bee.”

Edith feels herself go suddenly, abruptly cold, right here in the warmest room of the house. “Jesus merciful.”

“It’s all right,” he says hastily. “She’s all right.” And then again, quieter now, almost as if he’s trying to reassure himself, “She’s all right.”

“Thank heaven.”

“But I wondered if there was anything I — we could do for her? Anything at all?” He glances around the kitchen, drumming his hands absently against the large wooden table in the middle of the room. “Perhaps a poultice or such-like? I … I hate to think of her in pain.”

Edith feels her eyebrows fly into her hairline.

“Because she is my guest,” he adds pointedly, scowling at her in the way that always terrifies the newly hired hall boys.

She just smiles back at him, far too curious to be cowed. Besides, it’s rather hard to be frightened of a man when you used to cook the nursery mush he ate before his teeth came in.

“Of course, m’lord. Anything for … one of your guests.” She snaps her fingers to summon the nearest kitchen maid. “Honey,” she orders, pointing to the pantry. “Fetch me a jar at once.”

“Honey?” A flicker of fear shadows across Lord Bridgerton’s eyes. “Is that wise?”

“I couldn’t tell you why, m’lord, but I promise you it works.”

“Thank you, Mrs Cook.” He settles his hip against the table, heedless of the fine dusting of flour transferring to his breeches. “I shall wait here and take it up to her.”

“Ah.” Edith folds her arms, narrowing her eyes. “Pretty girl, is she?”

“Very, but—”

“Unmarried?”

He coughs out a strange laugh. “For now.”

She takes the honey from her kitchen girl, weighing the jar back and forth in her hands. “Well, I am sorry, m’lord, but I do not think your mother would like you visiting an unmarried lady’s bedroom, even in the middle of the afternoon…”

“Right, right, of course.” He gives himself a little shake, almost but not quite hiding the disappointment that flickers in his eyes. “I was not thinking.”

“I’ll have one of the girls take it up to her just as soon as it’s ready, m’lord, don’t you worry.”

“Perhaps you could send up some of that blackberry tart as well? If there is any left. I know she rather liked it at dinner yesterday evening.”

“It was kind of her to say so, m’lord.”

“Oh she didn’t— that is, I just happened to notice that she finished off her mother’s helping as well as her own.” His finger makes an idle circle in the flour on the kitchen table. “That’s all.”

She smothers a smile. Lord, but he is sweeter than all the honey in this jar. And he doesn’t even seem to realise it.

“I am sure we have some left. I’ll be sure to add it to the tray.”

“Thank you. It’s for Miss Sharma. Katharine.” Edith swallows down a squeak of surprise. “I’m afraid I don’t know what room she’s in.”

“The maids will know.”

“Of course.”

She shouldn’t ask. She shouldn’t dare. “Is that … Miss Edwina Sharma’s sister, m’lord?”

Her carefully casual tone does not fool him. “Been reading Whistledown, have we, Mrs Cook?”

“As religiously as my Bible, m’lord.”

“You ought not believe everything she says.”

“Aye, m’lord,” she says, looking at the colour on his cheeks. It’s half a blush, half something else. There’s a war going on inside him, she realises with a jolt. Embarrassment fighting with something else. Something a lot like happiness. “I think I’m starting to see that.”

He doesn’t actually smile. But she sees one all the same, lurking in his eyes.

And later that evening when one of the footmen comes rushing into the kitchen between courses, the light of fresh gossip in his eyes, she already knows what he’s going to say.

“The viscount is getting married.” She says it before he can, chuckling at the way he pulls up short, nearly upsetting the tray in his hands. “To Miss Katharine Sharma.”

“What?! How on earth did you already know?”

She shrugs. “Blackberry tart.”

--

The feeling is not dissimilar to completing a perfect row of stitching only to discover that the first stitch didn’t hold.

Atticus sends the viscount off for the day, neatly and properly attired, and then he turns around ten minutes later to find the blasted man standing in the doorway of his dressing room, his jacket, cravat and waistcoat stripped off.

“I cannot wear these today, Milton,” Lord Bridgerton says brusquely, tossing the offending garments onto a nearby chair.

“My lord?” Atticus hurries over and snatches up the waistcoat, running his fingers over it. “Is there something amiss? Is there a tear or a—”

“No, no, nothing like that.” The viscount waves a hand. “I’ve just seen Lady Bridgerton, that’s all.”

“And did she … did she not like your ensemble, my lord?”

“What? No. Don’t be ridiculous.”

Atticus forebears from mentioning that he is most certainly not the ridiculous one here. “Then…”

“Her day dress is pink.” The viscount scowls in the direction of his discarded blue waistcoat. “We did not match.”

“I see.” Somehow, Atticus manages not to laugh out loud. “And do you … wish to match, my lord?”

“Well,” Lord Bridgerton grumbles, his cheeks as pink as his wife’s day dress must be, “at the very least, I don’t want to clash.”

It’s rather sweet, really.

It is also, objectively, absolutely hilarious.

Atticus excuses himself to find a different waistcoat, and spends three full minutes muffling his laughter into a pile of linens.

--

The afternoon is sunny enough that Tom is almost whistling as he goes about his duties.

Almost.

As it is, he’s not.

And as it is, they don’t hear him approaching.

Oh, he hears them well enough. There’s no mistaking the joyful sound of Lord Bridgerton’s laughter as it booms through the mews, interspersed — as it always is these days — with the quieter, slightly throaty giggles that belong to the viscountess.

Even so, Tom doesn’t sense danger.

Yes, they’re laughing. But they’re always laughing. It really doesn’t signify. And besides, they’re talking as well, the little bursts of their laughter breaking up the usual quick fire back and forth of a conversation that Tom can’t quite hear. It’s all perfectly ordinary. There is absolutely no reason to suspect that anything untoward is—

“Oh, for Christ’s sake.”

He strides into the stable, finding Lord Bridgerton rather enthusiastically pressing his pretty new wife up against one of the sturdy joists that hold up the slanting roof. Her day dress is rucked up to her waist and his breeches are around his ankles. And they’re still talking.

“You’re lying.”

“I am not!”

Tom screws his eyes shut, turning away.

It’s too late, of course.

The image of Lord Bridgerton’s bare backside is branded on the inside of his eyelids. Again. Only this time, it’s infinitely worse. Because this time the image includes the possessive clutch of two slim, dark hands, one on either cheek.

God in heaven, he is never, ever going to be able to hand that woman a cup of tea again.

Thankfully for all concerned, neither Lord nor Lady Bridgerton seem to have heard his approach, or the swiftly stifled curse he let out when he saw them. Tom edges away quietly, looking anywhere but at them. Still, he can’t help but listen.

“You have to be lying.” The viscountess lets out another giggle. Fabric slides. The slip of her skirts perhaps. The tug of a bodice coming undone. “I refuse to believe you really named your horse Rakehell.”

As if in answer, the horse himself gives a little snuffle from his stall.

“See?” Lord Bridgerton laughs. “Don’t you think it suits him?”

“What I think is—” She cuts herself off with a whimper. “Oh!”

“I am going to go out and buy you a mare, Kate. First chance I get.” His voice is rough, and very low. Tom edges a little faster towards the safety of the courtyard. “A crotchety girl that pretends not to like me.”

The slow, wet slide of a kiss drifts across the stable, cut short with another whimper.

“And do you know what I’m going to call her?”

“Don’t you dare.”

“But it has such a nice ring to it…”

“Don’t—”

“Rakehell and Menace. What a pair.”

Their muffled laughter follows Tom all the way outside to the cobbled courtyard of the mews.

Inside, Rakehell lets out a small, plaintive neigh at being left behind to witness what’s about to happen.

“Sorry, boy,” Tom murmurs, though the horse won’t hear him. “Rather you than me.”

He folds his arms, taking up position to guard the door as more laughter drifts out from inside, the sound melting away into the sunny afternoon.

--

“I am getting far too old for this,” Margaret mutters to the crisp, clear blue of the September sky, the sound of her grumbling lost amid the busy hubbub of the school courtyard.

Her hip aches. Her eyeglasses don’t seem quite enough to sharpen her eyesight anymore. But even so, as she watches the servants unloading the various carriages and the new boys running to and fro among them, their feet kicking up stones onto the lawn, she still feels a hint of that old familiar back-to-school excitement coursing through her. She straightens her spine and tells them off, hiding a smile as they howl in disappointment at her instruction to pick out the gravel, piece by piece, and put it back on the drive where it belongs.

Go on then, she thinks, with something like her old energy. Just one more year.

And then she turns and sees the crest on the latest carriage just pulling up outside the school.

“Another one?” she murmurs, shaking her head. “Edmund Bridgerton, you bloody pest.”

Five more years then.

She marches towards the carriage, a slightly nervous sort of anticipation flooding through her as she sees the tall frame of Anthony Bridgerton unfolding himself out of the small door and hopping down onto the drive. The viscount jumps down like a boy but he lands with a man’s weight, kicking up a pile of gravel with the force of his landing and scattering the pieces into the lawn.

She opens her mouth to scold him too.

And then—

“My goodness.”

As he pivots back to the carriage door, craning his neck slightly to look up at someone waiting inside, the force of his smile hits her squarely in the chest. And suddenly it is seventeen Septembers ago, and she is young again. Her failing eyesight doesn’t matter anymore. She sees him perfectly clearly. Just a boy. Big brown eyes. His father’s smile. Laughter lines in all the same places.

“Lord Bridgerton!” she calls out, propriety quite forgotten in her excitement. “Is that really you?”

He turns towards her voice, the sunshine of his answering smile clearing away the clouds of that other September morning, the chilly, dreary one when she saw him last.

“Mrs Jenkins!” He inclines his head, then holds up a hand. “Just one moment, please.”

He looks back at the carriage, chattering quietly to whoever is inside. She can’t quite hear the conversation but it must be a good one because he grins even wider, throwing his head back to laugh up at the clear blue sky, the same one she can’t believe she was complaining up at just a few minutes ago.

A small, slim hand reaches out of the carriage and takes hold of Anthony’s, and surprises zips through Margaret as the passenger steps out — not the young boy she was expecting, but a tall, strikingly beautiful woman. She’s a little rumpled from the journey, her travelling cloak creased, some of her dark, curly hair escaping the knot at the back of her neck. Lord Bridgerton looks at her like she’s flawless.

Margaret’s hand flies to her heart as she watches him fuss over the lady, his hand shooting out to her hair to tuck one of the stray strands away behind her ear before she can do it herself.

“You’re cold,” he tells her, his thumb lingering over her cheek.

“No,” she counters, scrunching her nose at him. “I keep telling you, you’re just very warm.”

“I am not.”

“You are too.”

They laugh quietly at each other, lost in their silly little conversation.

A more discreet woman would move away and give them some privacy. But Margaret has never cared much for discretion. She angles her body slightly, pretending not to listen even as she turns her head to hear them better.

“How’s your leg?” the viscount asks next, the question so odd that Margaret abandons all attempts to hide her eavesdropping and turns to look.

There’s nothing obviously wrong with the lady, but her husband — dear God, please let them be married, she’ll never forgive the stupid boy if he brought his mistress to Eton — is looking at her with so much heart-melting concern in his eyes that Margaret isn’t sure how the girl isn’t swooning at his feet.

“Perhaps you ought to sit down—”

“I have been sitting down, my love. For hours now. It’ll do me good to stand and stretch my leg out for a few minutes. That’s what Doctor Harper said I should be doing now that I’m getting back on my feet, remember?”

He grumbles a slightly petulant noise in his throat, the sound shockingly familiar even after all these years. Latin homework used to have the same effect.

“I think maybe you’d better lean on me, at least,” he says, his voice taking on a cajoling quality, one that’s almost as familiar as his grumbling. More dinner, please. One more slice of pie. Go on, please.

“Is that so?” Despite the teasing note of disbelief in her voice, his companion does take his arm. “I think you just want to hold my hand.”

“Well...” He gives her an adoring smile, patting her hand where it rests on his arm. “You’ve got me there.”

“Mrs Jenkins,” he calls out, seeming to remember her at last. He waves her to come closer. “Might I introduce my wife — Lady Katharine Bridgerton. Kate, this is Mrs Jenkins, she was my old House Mistress here.”

“Er — less of the old, thank you very much,” Margaret puts in, turning to smile at the pretty young viscountess, who grins back. “Delighted to meet you, my lady.”

“Likewise, Mrs Jenkins.” She leans in, her dark eyes bright with mischief. “Anyone who scolds my husband so readily is an instant friend of mine.”

“And this,” Anthony goes on, cheerfully ignoring his wife’s teasing as another passenger jumps down out of the carriage, “is yet another of my brothers. But you’ll be delighted to know that he is the last of us.”

He drops his free hand onto his brother’s shoulders, steering him to stand in front of him. “Say hello to Mrs Jenkins, Brother.”

“Pleased to meet you,” the boy says pleasantly, a charming smile lighting up his slightly rounded face. “Gregory Bridgerton, at your service.”

He’s slightly fairer than his brothers but beyond that, he is a lot like Anthony was at thirteen. Same nose. Same eyes. Same obvious devotion to the man bringing him to school. He leans back slightly, peeking up nervously at his brother, relaxing only when he receives a quick nod of approval for his introduction.

And that does it. It’s a wonder her heart has space for any other boys at this rate. It’s half Bridgertons by now.

“Gregory rather insisted that my wife come along with us,” Lord Bridgerton explains, affectionately mussing the lad’s hair. “I hope you do not mind.”

“Not at all,” Margaret says honestly, smiling at the viscountess. “Though I don’t suppose I’ll get much work out of the older lads once they see you, my lady. We don’t see very many fine ladies on campus. Or any, for that matter.”

Lord Bridgerton tuts in disapproval. “You are here, Mrs J.”

Margaret rolls her eyes. “Still a charmer, I see.”

“Appalling, isn’t he?” Lady Bridgerton says fondly, stroking her hand down her husband’s lapel.

“You do not look appalled,” Gregory puts in, looking rather sourly at the cheerful smile on his sister-in-law’s face.

“No, dearest,” she says, humming a little laugh. “I don’t, do I?”

Gregory’s frown turns slightly thoughtful. “Do you think I could be a charmer?”

The viscount splutters a laugh, hiding it quickly in a cough when his wife elbows him sharply in the ribs.

“I daresay you already are,” she tells the lad, smoothing the curls that his brother mussed. “You’ll have your hands full with this one, I’m afraid, Mrs Jenkins.”

“Heaven help me,” Margaret says. She peers down at Gregory, planting her hands on her hips and giving him an assessing stare. “Where do you suppose you rank, then? Compared to your brothers?”

“P-pardon me?”

“How much trouble should I expect, lad?”

“I’d say ... more than Benedict, less than Colin,” the viscount suggests, looking to his wife, who nods. “Much—”

“—less than Colin!” she finishes with him, laughing at their perfectly matched replies. She nudges him with her elbow. “Jinx.”

Margaret looks between the two of them, happiness settling like a warm weight over her chest, lingering like the pleasant burn of a good, strong sherry. Jinx, indeed. Their smiles are a mirror. Joy reflecting joy.

It’s all she ever wanted for the boy.

Well then. Perhaps the tears before bedtime will be hers tonight.

--

Lord and Lady Bridgerton arrive right on schedule, just after luncheon.

As the upstairs staff head out to greet them, Edith abandons her kitchen for the blissful quiet of the empty servant’s hall. She settles herself into a chair, a cup of tea in one hand and a gothic novel in the other, ready to enjoy at least ten minutes of peace.

She gets five.

“Oh, Christ…” She levers herself awkwardly out of the chair as heavy footsteps — heavy Bridgerton footsteps — clatter down the stairs. Snapping her book closed, she turns towards the doorway just in time to bob a curtsey to—

“Lord Bridgerton!”

The viscount is still a little dusty from travelling, his clothes rumpled from the long carriage ride. And he looks … well, rather frantic.

“My apologies for intruding, Mrs Cook,” he says. “I just needed to see if you got the note I sent last week. About the jam.”

“Aye, m’lord, I did.” All five, incredibly detailed pages of it. “And I’ve already made a batch just as you bid — that exact recipe.”

“Oh, thank God.” The man actually whimpers. “She’ll want some right away.”

“You could have sent one of the servants down for it, m’lord,” she tells him as they head down the small corridor towards the kitchen. “It’s not proper for you to—”

“No, this was far too important,” he says, following eagerly at her heels in much the same way that the viscountess’ dog does when there’s kitchen scraps going begging. “Besides, I’m safe down here.”

“Safe, m’lord?”

“From her,” he says darkly, letting out a slightly strangled laugh. “I’ll get no peace until she gets what she wants.”

Edith clucks in sympathy. “It could be worse, m’lord. I’ve heard of some ladies craving all sorts of obscure things when they’re expecting. Spiced plum jam is not so bad.”

“I had to take a jar with us to the theatre last week, Mrs Cook!”

“Oh dear.”

“She said she could wait until we got home but I knew better. And then, in the interval, lo and behold…” He trails off, seeming to realise both the absurdity of the story and the fact that he is recounting it to one of his servants. He coughs. “Suffice to say it has been an interesting few weeks.”

“So it seems.” Smiling, she hands him a jar of the jam. “Now then, what will the viscountess want with it? Some bread, perhaps, or—”

“Knowing my wife...” His smile is daft and fond and really rather lovely. “Just a very big spoon.”

--

Opinion among the servants at Aubrey Hall is ... mixed. To put it mildly.

When Frank asks around, he is confidently informed that Lord Bridgerton is harmless, terrifying, warm, cold, sweet, sour, and whatever he says, really quite attached to the mistress’ dog.

There are, it seems, only four things about the viscount that every servant does agree on:

One: He is head over heels, stupid in love with his wife (and woe betide anyone who is foolish enough to enter any room in this house without knocking).

Two: He is utterly devoted to his family, including his as yet unborn child whom he has taken to talking to through the growing swell of the viscountess’ stomach.

Three: He is a fair and decent employer.

Four: He really doesn’t give a fig about the garden, so Frank will more than likely never have to see the man.

Understandably, when he finds himself summoned to meet the viscount in only his second week of employment as a gardener, Frank is somewhat concerned.

He hurries through the flower gardens, almost falling headfirst into the pansies as he tries to both run and wipe the soil from his knees at the exact same time. He rights himself, snatching his cap from his head just as he skids around the last hedge and comes to a stop right in front of his employer. His rather unhappy-looking employer.

“M’lord?” Frank clears his throat, trying to swallow down his nerves. “You wanted to see me?”

He’s seen Lord Bridgerton once or twice already, but only from a distance. Up close, he is … well, Frank will definitely be having words with Mrs Cook about her description of the man. Harmless is most definitely not the right word to describe the viscount.

“Yes, yes, I did.” Lord Bridgerton frowns at him, which does not help with Frank’s general sense of complete and utter terror. “Forgive me, have we met?”

“No, m’lord, not yet. I’m new here.”

“Oh, thank God. I was pulling a terrible blank on your name.”

“It’s Higgins, m’lord,” Frank says, bowing slightly, “Francis Higgins.” Then for reasons he will never, ever know, he adds, “My friends call me Frank.”

The viscount’s lips twitch slightly. “I think we’ll stick with Higgins, eh?”

Frank squeaks out a strangled noise of agreement. “H-how can I help?”

“Well, Higgins, the thing is …” Lord Bridgerton turns his head this way and that, that furrow in his brow making a reappearance. “I cannot seem to find the tulips.”

“The — er — the tulips, m’lord?”

“I could have sworn they were around here but—”

“I suppose they might have been.”

“What do you mean? Have they been moved?”

“No just that … well, they’ll be out of season now.”

“Out of season?” Bridgerton repeats the words like they’re a foreign language. “What does that mean?”

“Er—” Frank falters, not quite sure what to do with the realisation that he actually knows something that a peer of the realm does not. “Tulips don’t bloom all year round, m’lord.”

“They don’t?”

“No, they only bloom in the spring. They’ll have died back over the last few weeks.”

“Oh.” The viscount sits down rather heavily on the stone edge marking out a flower-bed. “Well … damn.”

“I’m very sorry, m’lord.” Frank twists his cap in his hands, quite certain he’s about to be sacked. Because of nature. “Very sorry indeed.”

Lord Bridgerton lets out a little huff of laughter. “It’s not your fault, man. I just...” He sighs heavily, his large frame folding slightly in on itself. “I just really wanted some tulips for her, that’s all.”

Ah. Frank suddenly remembers point one on the short list of things everyone agrees on about Lord Bridgerton. He really, really loves his wife.

“When Lady Bridgerton and I were courting,” the viscount goes on, idly toying with a stalk of lavender, “I cut her a flower from this very garden. I cannot pretend I remembered it was a tulip, but—”

“But she did,” Frank finishes for him, before he can stop himself.

Lord Bridgerton doesn’t seem to mind the presumption. “Exactly. Apparently she’s been rather fond of them ever since.” His hand closes into a fist, snapping the lavender in two. “And I did not realise.”

He looks so forlorn that Frank momentarily forgets to be afraid of losing his place.

“Might I ... make a suggestion, m’lord?” he says, rushing out the words before his courage fails him. “The roses are blooming quite beautifully at the moment. You could always cut her one of those.”

“Roses…”

“Are not tulips, no,” he concedes. “But perhaps Lady Bridgerton’s fondness is as much for the gesture as the bloom?”

Lord Bridgerton’s eyes narrow, considering this. He doesn’t say anything for what feels like a very, very long time. By the time he does, Frank’s grip on his cap is so tight he’s surprised it’s still in one piece.

“That’s very astute, Higgins.”

He almost drops his cap altogether. “It is?”

“Yes.” Bridgerton hops up off the wall of the flower-bed, a broad smile softening the stern lines of his face. “For next year, I want you to plant me as many tulips as you can get your hands on. Every type there is. Every colour. But for now ... roses will have to do.”

“Very good, m’lord.” Frank pulls out his pen-knife and offers it to the viscount. “You’ll be needing this then. Cut at a slight angle, if you can.”

Lord Bridgerton accepts it with a curious sort of smile. “Higgins, shouldn’t you be discouraging me from mutilating the flowerbeds?”

Frank just shrugs. “They’re your gardens, m’lord.”

“I suppose that’s true.” The viscount glances around, smiling to himself. “To be honest, I always think of them as hers.”

--

At this point, the clatter of his footsteps down the stairs is no longer a surprise.

“The next batch is almost ready, m’lord,” Edith says, not even turning around this time. “Won’t be—”

“Forget it.”

That gets her attention. Dropping her wooden spoon, she spins away from the stove to find the viscount slamming a half-empty jar down on the kitchen table.

“Apparently we’re off jam now,” he says flatly.

“Oh.” She peers back at the enormous pan on the stove, laughing softly. “Well, at least it keeps, I suppose.”

--

It isn’t until they bloom that Frank realises he might have gone a little overboard. As spring slowly unfolds throughout the garden he resolutely avoids that particular corner, hoping no-one will notice.

Obviously, that doesn’t work.

“Higgins?” Frank freezes in his tracks as he hears the viscountess’ voice drifting over the hedges. It’s coming from over there. Of course it is. “Is that you?”

“Yes, m’lady,” he calls back, wincing into the flowerbed he’s pruning. Please be looking for someone else. Please be looking for someone else. Please—

“Can you come here for a moment?”

Well, I had a good run here.

Like a man condemned, Frank makes his way slowly towards her voice. Towards the … situation. When he rounds the corner into the section of the garden she’s standing in, it seems to have gotten even worse since the last time he looked.

“Higgins…” There’s something really very odd about the viscountess’ voice. “What on earth is going on here?”

Her words are roughly what he expected. Her expression, however, is not.

“I cannot…” She suddenly laughs out loud, spinning around in wonder. “I cannot believe this.”

As she turns, the wide skirts of her day dress brush up against the nearest flowers — tulips, of course. And to her left, tulips. Behind her. In front of her. It’s an endless, colourful, ridiculous field of them.

“Last year, Lord Bridgerton, he — er — he wanted tulips for you, m’lady.” Frank tugs awkwardly on his ear. “Lots of ‘em, he said. As many as I could find.”

“Oh,” she says quietly. Her tears could water the whole garden. “Oh.”

“What’s going on here?”

Frank lets out a slightly startled squeak at the sound of the viscount’s voice. Luckily, Lord Bridgerton doesn’t seem to hear it. Or even see him. His eyes — his whole being really — is, as usual, entirely fixed on his wife.

“Kate?” He strides towards her, all but knocking Frank into the nearest flower-bed on his way. “What is it, love? What’s the matter?”

“You—” She cuts herself off with a whimper. “You.”

With a strangled whimper, she suddenly picks up her skirts and starts barrelling towards her husband, dead-heading a whole row of tulips on her way. The viscount catches her just as she flies into his arms, her arms and legs wrapping tightly around him. His delighted laughter fills the garden, the rich sound cut abruptly short as her lips descend on his.

“I’ll just … be going, then,” Frank mutters quite unnecessarily. He hastily backs away behind a hedge, but not before he sees the couple topple backwards into the flowers.

The generous bonus he receives that month is almost enough to make up for the embarrassment of having to tidy up the suspiciously viscount-shaped dent they flatten into the tulips.

Really, Frank could have happily gone years —whole lifetimes really — without knowing that the viscountess likes it on top.

--

Lord Bridgerton doesn’t remember him.

Why would he? Arthur was just a man in a shop. Not even this same shop. And Lord Bridgerton had been drinking rather a lot on that particular evening. There is absolutely no reason for him to recognise Arthur when they meet again so many years later, across a different counter, on a different day.

Arthur, on the other hand, recognises the viscount immediately. He’s a little older now, the careless air of his youth replaced with an easy, casual sort of confidence that suits him far better than indifference ever did. But beyond that, he is the very same gentleman who walked into the Jeweller’s that night and changed Arthur’s life forever.

At least, Arthur likes to think he did. In his head, it went like this — Miss Bridgerton wore her newest necklace with its pretty little treble clef pendant everywhere, drawing compliments from at least half the ton. More than half. Perhaps even the Queen. And then someone asked who made it. And then someone wanted something similar. And on it went, the invisible dominoes falling one by one until eventually Mr Lamonte, tired of being asked for dainty little pieces he could not provide, offered Arthur a hefty pay rise and a place at his Jeweller’s.

Or perhaps not.

He’ll never really know, of course, but he’s grown rather fond of his version of events over the years. And as a result, there is very little he would not do for the man who made it all possible.

Except, perhaps, this.

“Are you quite sure this is really what you want, my lord?”

Bridgerton rolls his eyes to the ceiling and back. “How many times? Yes! Yes, I am sure.”

“But—”

“What precisely is the problem? I was told you can make custom pieces, Mr Sinclair.”

“I can, my lord. I do.” Arthur glances down at the drawing laid out between them. “However … this necklace … well, the pendant appears to be a hammer.”

“What?” The viscount straightens up, looking mortally offended. “It’s not a hammer, man! It’s a little mallet.”

“I see,” Arthur says, despite the fact that he very much does not see.

“A hammer … honestly,” Lord Bridgerton says, huffing. “What do you take me for?”

“I am not entirely sure how to take any of this, my lord.”

Bridgerton hovers for a moment between fury and amusement, just long enough for Arthur to regret his impertinence. Then he suddenly barks out a laugh, the cheerful sound drawing the eye of most of the other patrons. “Relax, Sinclair. I’ve not lost my senses. I am well aware that this is an unusual request.”

“Highly unusual.”

“My wife,” the viscount says, tapping the counter for emphasis, “is a highly unusual woman. And this is what I want for her. Please.”

Arthur flicks his gaze between the sketch and the man who produced it. The viscount clearly doesn’t have a future as an artist. Or a jewellery designer. But, Arthur reasons, what he does have are very, very deep pockets, and a really rather convincing smile.

“Very well, my lord,” he says. “I’ll take the commission.”

“Brilliant!” Lord Bridgerton leans over his sketch, flattening out the edges. “Now — is this enough to go on?”

“I expect so, my—”

“Because it’s crucial that you get the black stripe around it. Absolutely crucial.”

“I see.” Once again, Arthur does not see. But the viscount seems to be rather enjoying himself now, so it seems a shame to stop him.

“And the chain must be long,” he goes on, pointing vigorously to that part of his drawing. “Long enough that the pendant hangs out of sight. This is a private gift.”

“Probably for the best.”

Bridgerton laughs again, though his amusement quickly fades as something else occurs to him. “Oh, and you mustn’t send it on to Bridgerton House when it’s complete. She’ll find out somehow if you do.” He shudders. “She knows everything.”

“You make Lady Bridgerton sound rather formidable, my lord.”

“You have no idea, Sinclair.” What looked like exasperation in the viscount’s eyes a moment ago suddenly starts to look a little more like lust. “No idea.”

He gives himself a little shake, returning to the task at hand with what looks like some considerable effort.

“I shall need it sending straight to my country seat at Aubrey Hall. With this exact tag attached.”

The viscount slaps a label down on the counter, a short message traced there in a neat, looping hand.

The closest you shall get to it this year.

All my love, always,

A

Arthur looks from the label to the sketch and back again, none the wiser.

“And — now this is the most important thing, Sinclair, it absolutely must be there for the fourth of May.”

“Your wedding anniversary?” Arthur guesses.

“An ... anniversary of sorts,” Bridgerton hedges, a smile tugging at his lips. “Now, do you have any—”

“ABORT!”

Arthur startles at the sudden shout.

“Oh God.” Lord Bridgerton’s face falls. “She’s early.”

“Abort!”

“What the—” Arthur swivels his head towards the doorway of the shop, finding a servant in powder blue livery with his nose damn near pressed against the glass as he looks nervously down the street.

“Abort, my lord. Abort!”

“What on earth is—”

“Abort!”

“Where is she, Thomas?”

“She has already left the milliners, my lord.”

“Christ!”

“She’s heading right this way.”

“You were supposed to be watching for her!”

“She moves too fast!”

“What is—”

“Take them!” Arthur finds the sketch and the label unceremoniously shoved into his hands. “Hide them!”

“What is—”

“Quickly, man! She’s—” The viscount cuts himself off with a decidedly undignified squeak.

The bell jingles.

“Ah.” Lord Bridgerton folds himself into what he clearly thinks is a casual pose, leaning one elbow on the counter. “Hello, wife.”

--

Martin finds the viscount precisely where he left him — sprawled on his belly on the floor of the nursery, carefully rearranging a line of pewter soldiers.

“Do you know…” he says, leaning against the door jamb, “I think the first time we ever met was in this very nursery.”

Lord Bridgerton looks up from his task, the sunshine glinting off the flecks of grey in his dark hair. “I remember.” He levers himself up into a seated position, crossing his legs with the ease of a much younger man. “It was a test of sorts, to be honest. Your predecessor’s delicate sensibilities could not cope with the idea of doing business in front of a sleeping baby.”

“His loss.” Martin smiles as he looks around the room, a little more cluttered than it was then, but otherwise the same. “I suppose I should have known we’d end up back here again someday.”

“In my defence, we did spend a good chunk of the intervening years conducting our business in every alehouse in Oxford and London.”

“True enough.” Martin joins him on the floor, knocking over a soldier on his way down. “What precisely is this game?” he asks as he rights the wayward infantryman.

“Oh, it’s far too complicated to explain at this point,” Bridgerton says, correcting the placement of the soldier. “Suffice to say that Miles and I are engaged in a lengthy battle of attrition.”

“And who is winning?”

“Oh, Miles. Every bloody time.”

“You play this often?”

“It’s been several months now. It started as a way to teach him a bit of history, perhaps a bit of strategy but ….” The viscount huffs a vaguely proud, vaguely exasperated sort of laugh. “He keeps finding ways to beat me.” He stares ruefully at the opposing line of soldiers. “He gets that from his mother, you know.”

“His intelligence?”

“Well, yes, that. But I was referring to his diabolical scheming.”

Martin hums a laugh. “Do not let Lady Bridgerton hear you say that.”

“Hear what?”

“Kate!” Bridgerton swivels to the doorway, his face lighting up in a brilliant smile at the sight of his wife. “I was just telling Blake that Miles inherited all your machiavellian tendencies.”

“Oh.” She grins cheekily back at him. “Well in that case, carry on, my love.” With that, she disappears down the corridor with a little wave.

Bridgerton smiles at the now-empty doorway for a long moment, looking more like a lovesick suitor than a husband of over ten years. Martin proceeds as he usually does in such circumstances — he gives the viscount thirty full seconds of sentimentality before pointedly clearing his throat.

“Right, sorry.” Bridgerton shifts his attention to the paper’s in Martin’s hands. “Speaking of diabolical schemers … how did the negotiation go?”

“Quite well I think,” he says, spreading out the papers on the floor between them. “You’ll see I got the additional compensation we discussed, with half coming in advance. Although there was some confusion about what that actually means.”

“Excellent work, Blake. Excellent.” The viscount hops to his feet, taking the final page over to the small desk beside the window and signing his name in the empty space beside the first scrawled, illegible signature. “There. Now that it’s settled, you’d better send her in.”

Martin pulls himself to his feet, wincing as his knees protest. “Miss Bridgerton?” he calls out into the hallway. “You can come in now!”

The doorway to the bedrooms across the hall creaks open just a few inches. A sliver of a face fills the gap — two small, dark eyes peeking out at him, lit up with childish enthusiasm. “Is it done? Did he sign?”

The viscount’s amused voice drifts over Martin’s head. “Why don’t you come and see for yourself?”

The little girl does not need telling twice. She wrenches the door open, displaying far more strength than her tiny frame suggests she should possess, and skips across the small hall, coming to a stop in the doorway of the nursery.

“Did we make a deal, papa?”

Charlotte Bridgerton is her mother in miniature, right down to the way she leans into the room, both hands resting on either side of the door frame, precisely the same way the viscountess did just a few moments ago.

And just like he did for her mother, Lord Bridgerton lights up at the sight of her.

“Signed and sealed, sweetheart.” He smiles, holding up the last page for her to see. “My attendance at one doll’s tea party, for a minimum of one hour, in exchange for twenty kisses. Ten to be delivered in advance.”

“Can I see?” Charlotte hurries into the room, kicking over several of her brother’s soldiers on her way. She eagerly takes the paper from her father’s hand, smiling at the sight of his neat signature next to her scribbles. “When can we have the party?”

“No time like the present!” The girl squeals in delight as her father suddenly picks her up and swoops her around the room in a haphazard circle, his own deep laughter mingling with her childish giggles.

“But first,” he says, dropping down to perch on the desk and settling her onto his knee, “Mr Blake here says you were not sure what ‘in advance’ meant?”

She shakes her head with another giggle, more dark curls falling from her already unruly braid.

“It means before.”

“Before?”

“That’s right — before. So that means that before your tea party I shall be needing ten of my kisses, please.” He taps his cheek. “Pay up, love. A Bridgerton always honours their agreements.”

“Yes, papa.” The little girl leans in, giggling as she peppers her father’s face with kisses, counting them out as she goes. The viscount hums a contented sound in his throat, locking his arms around her back, crushing their little contract between them.

“Ten!” she declares proudly, adding one last kiss to his cheek.

“Ten,” he agrees, smiling at Martin over her head as she ducks her face into his neck. “I’d have done it for one, you know.” He hugs her a little tighter, smoothing a hand over her hair. “I’d have done it for nothing at all.”

“Of course you would.” Martin grins at him, righting the knocked over soldiers on his way to the door. “That’s why you needed me for the negotiations. I always get you a good deal.”

“I don’t suppose you could negotiate a ceasefire for me with Miles?”

“I am good, my lord, but I am not that good. Why don’t you just recruit Lady Bridgerton to help you bring him down?”

“Blake, you’re a genius.”

--

They’re always so little when they first arrive.

Her memory isn’t what it used to be. She forgets sometimes — names, mostly. Faces, never. The years blur. Sometimes she’s not sure who came home from Waterloo and who did not. Sometimes she’s glad she cannot remember it.

But every year as the carriages rumble past the window of her cottage, she remembers how little they are. Her boys.

In her dreams, they stop outside the cottage door and say hello.

In reality, they trundle on by.

Until this year.

When she hears the first knock, she thinks she’s still napping. But her joints never ache like this when she’s dreaming. She cracks one eye open, blinking in the early afternoon sunshine. The knock sounds again.

Wherever her useless maid is hiding, she isn’t getting the door.

“All right, all right,” Margaret grumbles, unfolding herself from the armchair and reaching for her stick. “I’m coming.”

The knock sounds again as she inches along the hall.

She pulls the door open with as much force as she can muster. “Did nobody ever teach you it’s rude to—”

The words die on her tongue.

The man on the threshold shrugs his big shoulders with the careless motion of a boy. “You know me … always was a little impatient.”

“Anthony?” She blinks her filmy eyes. Once. Twice. He’s still there. “Anthony Bridgerton?”

“Hello, Mrs J,” he says softly.

Lord, she never thought she’d see that smile again.

“Oh.” She presses her hand to her trembling lips. His hair is peppered with grey, but she doesn’t see it. He’s thirteen years old. “Hello, boy.”

He smiles at that, ducking his tall frame to peer into the little hallway. “May I come in for a moment? I brought someone to meet you.”

Her old, tired heart beats a little harder. “You…”

His arm disappears out beyond the doorframe and when it reappears, it’s wrapped around the shoulders of a nervous young boy with his mother’s wayward curls and his grandfather’s smile. Oh — and his father’s sweet little sticking out ears.

“This is Edmund. My eldest.”

The boy stretches out his hand, the barest hint of a tremble betraying his nervousness. “Pleased to meet you, madam.”

His father’s hands land on his shoulders, giving them an approving squeeze.

And Margaret’s heart cracks wide open.

“The pleasure is all mine, Master Edmund.” She takes the boy’s outstretched hand, his smooth, unmarked skin like velvet against her own work-hardened palms. “Come on in. I might have some butter biscuits for you.”

“You never used to have biscuits for me,” Anthony grumbles, following her down the small hallway.

She flashes him a look over her shoulder. “I’m retired now, my lord. Perhaps I’m going soft in my old age.”

He laughs, the sound filling the tiny cottage with the sort of warmth she can never get from the little fire in the sitting room, no matter how much she stokes it.

“You were always soft, really. Deep down.”

“Hush. No-one is supposed to know that.”

He has to duck his head under the low door-frame of the parlour to avoid hitting it. For some reason, it makes her laugh. The sound wheezes in her weak chest, but it feels good.

“Take a seat,” she says, more cheerful than she’s felt in weeks. Years. She waves a hand towards the tiny sofa. “I’ll go and ask Madge for some tea.”

“Edmund can do that. You sit down, Mrs Jenkins."

“Good lad.” She turns to Edmund, pointing down the hall. “You be sure to tell Madge who your father is. Make sure she gives you the good biscuits.”

She watches him go, smiling at his back until his little curly head finally disappears out of sight down the hall. When she turns back, she finds his father doing the same thing. His smile is half-pride, half-heartbreak.

“You’ll miss him,” she says, a statement not a question.

He stares at the place where his son was standing. “Like a lost limb.”

“Do you have others still at home?”

“Two. Another boy, Miles, and a girl. Charlotte.”

“Sit down, Edmund," she says, waving a hand at the sofa again. "You’re making the place look untidy.”

“Anthony,” he corrects softly.

“Anthony. Yes.” She shrugs her thin shoulders. “Forgive me. I forget sometimes. Names are the worst. And you do remind me so much of him.”

He folds himself onto the little sofa, which by rights shouldn’t fit his tall frame at all. But he finds a seat somehow. He’s only a boy, after all. In her home, he’s only a boy.

“Benedict has the closest resemblance, actually,” he tells her quietly, an old pain flickering in his eyes.

She frowns at him as she slowly lowers herself into her armchair. “I did not just mean your looks, lad.”

“Oh.” He pulls at a loose thread on one of the cushions, his gaze on his knees. When he eventually lifts his eyes to meet hers, they are overbright and hopeful, and as big and brown and soulful as when he was thirteen years old and in awe of the big tall man standing with his hands on his shoulders, guiding him along the way. “Thank you.”

As she looks at him, she feels the long years blur again.

Suddenly she doesn’t want them to. She doesn’t want to see the boy she knew. She wants to know him now — the big tall man who knocked at her door with his hands on his own son’s shoulders. Greying hair at his temples. A little girl’s hair ribbon poking out of his coat pocket. A loving wife waiting at home.

“Tell me about yourself,” she says. “Tell me about your children. Your wife. Your family.”

He scoffs a laugh. “How long have you got?”

“Tell me,” she insists.

“Well…”

Just like that, the boy disappears.

And the man comes alive.

She lets his deep voice wash over her, the heat of the September sunshine beating down through the window, lulling her into a doze.

Edmund plays the trumpet better than he ever will. Miles reads four books a week and he’s starting to worry that the library at Aubrey Hall isn’t big enough. Charlotte has Kate’s eyes. He can’t deny her anything. He’s gone soft. Kate teases him about it. She teases him about everything, actually. She’s a nightmare. A menace. A miracle. He loves her more than he ever thought possible.

Margaret opens her eyes, studying him in the afternoon sun. “You have a good life.”

He smiles at her blunt, simple assessment. “The best.”

He has more laugh lines than Edmund Bridgerton ever got the chance to earn.

And when his son comes back in, his little arms staggering under the weight of the tea tray, she finds the beginnings of them on his skin too.

Her heart is a garden.

And it blooms.

--