Chapter Text
If you would ask the people around him how they would describe him with one word, Anthony is sure you would get many different answers. Stubborn, proud, strict, devoted, lonely, absent, rude, rake, conceited and toxic are just some of the words that pop into his head.
It must be noted though, some of these he would never use himself, but he heard them often enough from his beloved family members, most often his mother or Benedict and Daphne. Although, now that he is thinking about it, in recent weeks the person he talked most often with is none other than the “sister”, or should I say the infamous Kate Sharma.
The insults she threw his way at the Conservatory ball were much the same as the ones listed above, but she said them with such hatred while looking at him with nothing but venom and disdain in her gorgeous, gorgeous, brown eyes, that it actually took him close to ten minutes to recover from the sheer shook and return to the ballroom.
To this day he still doesn't know what he was really shocked by. The fact that some woman, who was not even a member of London society had the nerve to say that to him, or the fact that he was genuinely hurt by her words. (Later, he will realize that the latter was the reason, but we will come back to that later on).
Coming back to our starting point, simply put Anthony Bridgerton is not a man you could easily describe, especially with just one word, but one thing that everyone (and by everyone I truly mean everyone from workers at Aubrey Hall to most prestige members of the ton, or even the Queen herself) can agree on is that Anthony Bridgerton is utterly devoted to his family. If anybody had any doubts about it before, his behavior last season certainly proved that.
(Yes, he has made mistakes, some of them could have caused a big scandal, but wouldn’t we all lose ourselves for a moment trying to do the best for the ones we love, while trying to fulfill everybody's wishes? You could say that for a moment, it seemed as though the weight of the world was on his shoulders, and gravity pulled him down, but he picked himself up and continued carrying it like it weighed nothing, so I think he deserves to be forgiven).
So the truth of the matter remains, whatever you may think about this man, one thing no one could ever deny is that he made it his life mission to provide everything this world can offer to his family, from the day he watched his father choke on air after a simple bee sting.
Knowing this, you would wonder how not one member of the Bridgerton clan connected the dots sooner and realized why he was acting the way he was this season. Later, when the dust settled and our story got to its happily ever after, Anthony’s family will come to terms with the fact that deep down they all knew what was troubling their oldest sibling, but they all just chose to ignore it.
If you were to ask them why, they would all give you pretty much the same answer. For the last 12 years, they watched him shoulder all the responsibilities thrown his way, all alone. Being the Viscount, managing the estates, raising both Hyacinth and Gregory (and the rest of them, if they were truly honest) and more.
He never once complained nor did he ask for help, and eventually they just stopped asking him. (After the “incident”, not a day goes by that Violet doesn’t regret it). You can’t help someone if they don’t want to be helped, right?
On the other hand, if you were to ask Anthony how he feels about this, you would get a pretty simple answer. When you see a person drowning you don’t ask them if they need help, you just grab them and pull them out of the water. See, he was drowning too, just not in the literal sense, but nobody ever pulled him out of the water. Nobody that is to say, until she came along.
Kate Sharma entered his life one seemingly normal morning and unknowingly turned his whole world upside down.
Growing up he was surrounded by both love and happiness. And for the first eighteen years of his life he wholeheartedly believed he was gonna wake up one day, meet the love of his life, fall embarrassingly and stupidly in love, just like his father, and spend the rest of his days experiencing the same joy his parents did.
He stopped feeling like this after that god forsaken day at Aubrey Hall. To be quite honest, he still sometimes caught himself dreaming about his wife, and how much easier this new life, he was so forcefully and unexpectedly thrown into, could be if he had someone by his side. Someone who loved him and who he loved in return.
All these dreams quickly disappeared as soon as he remembered the sound of his mother’s sobs and her pleas for father. The day he heard his mother say she would have rather died with her husband, than lived the rest of her life without him, was the day all of his hopes and dreams about true love were burned to ash. From that moment, Anthony Bridgerton started drowning and life only dragged him further and further away from the shore, every day since.
He thought he reached the shore when he met Siena, but that relationship turned out to be just a simple distraction. It did allow him to stop and rest for a little while, but eventually the waves came again, and this time they were bigger than they ever were before.
As it turns out, all those hopes and dreams he thought burned, were still actually there, just buried deep, deep, deep inside of him. For a moment, he thought he could bury them again, but see, that’s the funny thing about dreams, you can never let go of them that easily, no matter how hard you try, and trust him, he tried very, very hard.
If he was a man of poetry, like Benedict, he would compare himself to the famous Icarus. Now, I know you must be wondering how on earth can a man like Anthony Bridgerton ever relate himself to the tragic Greek hero, but bear with him for a minute and let him explain.
Icarus was the son of the master craftsman Daedalus, the architect of the labyrinth of Crete. Icarus and Daedalus were imprisoned in that same labyrinth by King Minos, because he suspected they revealed the labyrinth’s secrets to Theseus, which allowed him to escape from the labyrinth. They escaped using wings Daedalus made from feathers and beeswax. Before Icarus took flight with his wings, his father warned him not to fly neither too low nor too high, lest the sea’s dampness clog his wings or the sun’s head melt them off. Icarus, like every child since the beginning of time, did not listen to his father. Instead he did the very thing he warned him against and reached for the stars. For a moment it seemed as though everything was perfectly alright, but alas, everything good must come to an end eventually. The sun shone too bright, the wax melted off and Icarus fell before he could even properly admire the sun.
Anthony was the firstborn son of a Viscount, nine times over. His prison became the place he called home his whole life and the title that was meant to be his, from the day he was born. He too ignored his father’s words, because he thought he had more than enough time to prepare himself for the weight of responsibilities that came with the title, but life had other plans. The weight came suddenly and he crumbled beneath it. He never truly picked himself off the ground, but he made sure everyone around thought he did.
Sun shone too bright that day as well, but instead of melting the wax of Icarus’s wings, it burned the carefree, young man that was Mr. Anthony Bridgerton to the ground. This may sound a bit too dramatic, especially coming from a man such as him, but it is the truth.
Like the human race measures time before and after the birth of Jesus, he views himself as two different people, the boy he was moments before Edmund decided to pick some flowers (this is a lie, he knows precisely which type of flower his father picked, after all his youngest sister is named after them) for his mother, and the man he pretended (and still pretends) he became after.
For twelve years he successfully fooled everyone around him that he was happy with the life he lived.
For some part that is true. He was almost always happy when he was with his family.
He was happy watching Hyacinth and Gregory grow up, Francesa too, he was happy watching Eloise become a fierce, young woman ready to be launched into society, he was happy watching his oldest sister get married, even if the man she choose was his best friend, but he was happy about it too (the duel was one of the biggest mistakes of his life, and he will forever be grateful that Daphne had enough sense to stop them before they did something they would regret later). He was happy watching Colin go on his trips and explore the world (what he was not happy about was watching his brother propose to Miss Marina, but that is a story we’ll come back to later), he was happy watching Benedict live his life to the fullest, without all the responsibilities that stopped him from doing the same.
What he wasn’t happy with, were all the moments in between. He was not happy trying to live up to the man his father was. He was not happy whenever he was sharply reminded that he is not doing enough, most often by his mother (everytime she was disappointed, she would let him know, and every time a piece of his heart would break). He was not happy every time he left the whorehouse, knowing that whatever respite and relief the sex provided him, it won’t last when the morning comes. When the sun comes, it brings the new day with him and with each new day the waves pull him further away.
The day he met Kate started pretty much the same way. He woke up while it was still dark out, pulled himself away from the woman whose name he honestly could not remember, not that it matters he would never see her again, got dressed, put the money on the bedside table and left the whorehouse.
Morning air helped erase whatever affects his late night activities left on his brain, so by the time he got to the woods his mind was filled with the seemingly never ending list of tasks for this season. The number one thing on that list, of course, was finding a suitable young lady which he could make his Viscountess. What wasn’t on his list though was to see someone else riding at this hour. A woman no less!
Forever the gentleman his father raised him to be, he of course decided to follow her in case she was in danger. Because why else would a young, possibly unmarried lady, be riding a horse astride? He called out for her but either she didn’t hear him or she just pretended she didn’t. He did not know why, but he had a feeling it was the latter.
She continued to ignore him up until she jumped over the fallen tree. He was many things, but a liar he was not, and he can say that jump was marvelous and made his heart beat a bit faster. What stopped his heart were the eyes that met his own when she pulled down her riding cloak. He has seen many, many women in his thirty years of life, but she had to be the most beautiful one.
He thought about following her or leaving her alone, but after the smirk she threw his way it seemed as though the decision was made for him.
“Enjoying your victory lap?”
He was not yet close enough to understand what she said after that, but he is pretty sure it were some words a pretty lady like her shouldn’t be using, no matter the language.
“You’ll not be afforded such an ample head-start this time.”
“Apologies, sir. I didn't mean to cause anyone concern”.
“Does your maid know you are riding astride?”
“I have no maid.”
“Ah, then you are married.” This thought makes his chest feel tight, but he does not know why.
She is a beautiful woman, of course she is gonna have a husband. Her face falls and he feels like an idiot. The sad expression does not belong on her beautiful face and he wants to see her smile again so he does the first thing he can think of.
“Forgive me.” And because he is a gentleman, but a Bridgerton as well he does not leave it at that. “Then you are lost.”
“I am not lost either. I’m on my way back to Mayfair. It is just ahead.”
“Mayfair?” Now he knows why he did not recognize her, she is clearly new to town. “Well then.”
“I appreciate your attention, sir, but I assure you I am perfectly safe. Perhaps we pretend this encounter never took place? You allow me to go my way, and you go yours.”
The thought of never seeing her again makes his chest feel tight again, and he does not know why. So he decides to, once again, try to provoke her. Their banter makes him smile, which is a rare sight these days.
“You worry about being seen.” The thought makes him wonder why? He feels the sudden urge to ask her a million questions. Again, he does not know why he feels that way.
“I worry about meeting strange men at parks at dawn who fail to leave me alone with all of their questions.”
“Your secret is safe. I shall not tell a soul.” He knows he won’t. He feels selfish for the first time in, God knows how long, and decides that she is something magical and he wants to keep her all to himself.
“How grateful I am.” The tone may suggest otherwise, but the small smile she is trying to hide lets him know that she is grateful for his secrecy.
“Losing races to strange women in such parks at dawn. I can only imagine the questions I would be asked.”
He makes her laugh, and the sound, like her, is pure magic. He is utterly powerless to resist the spell she has him under, so he laughs with her. At the moment he feels like he can breathe again. The feeling is completely new to him.
Oh, but he feels so at ease right now. The water is gone, he is back on dry land and he can finally breathe. This makes him smile so wide his cheeks hurt.
“Is that what that was? A race?” She is making fun of him, which is something only his siblings are allowed to do, but he lets her. In the back of his mind the question rises again, why?
“Was it not?”
“Does one not need actual competition for a race?” That was a low blow. Once again, he allows it. He still tries to explain himself, after all he is a man, and we all know how much they value their pride.
“If we had decided on a finish line together, but alas, we made no such agreement. “
“Ahh, I see you are not one for losing.” For this, he has no rebuke. He wants to deny it, but at the last second he decides against it. She could probably tell he was lying after all, so why not tell her the truth?
“In the rare instances it occurs, I’d admit that I have no difficulty admitting I am either lost or wrong. But I’m afraid the same cannot be said for you. “
“I beg your pardon?”
“Mayfair is not right ahead. It’s the other way entirely.”
Just as she is about to reply, some men cross their path and she seems afraid. It makes sense now why that is. It would cause a great scandal if someone were to find her riding all alone in the park.
“Not lost, you said?” She was so unafraid earlier when she jumped over that tree and he thinks she will be as brave now and just ignore those men and continue with their talk or banter, whatever you would like to call it.
He thought wrong. She turns her horse around, and between one breath and the next she is riding away from him. The goodbye she throws his way wipes the smile off his face.
“We have not yet been introduced!” A last attempt to keep the magic around him for a moment longer.
“I am afraid that is not possible. Not when I have a victory lap to enjoy!”
The last thing he hears as she rides further away is the sound of her laughter, and the magic wraps around him again and he smiles.
He watches her as she rides away, and his heart is acting weird again. He ignores it and starts heading back to Bridgerton House. The magic is all gone now, but the memory remains. He puts it in the back of his mind for now and starts thinking about his list again.
The sun is bright but for a change Anthony basks in the sunshine. He feels lighter than he has felt in years and he wants to enjoy it as long as he can.
When he woke up this morning he expected his day would be the same, wake up, get dressed, greet his family, work, work, work, work, work, sleep and repeat.
What he absolutely did not expect though, was to meet the love of his life while riding through the park at dawn. Of course, he did not know it at the time, but it became clear to him pretty soon.
It did take him a while, and he made a fool of himself along the way, but after some time he could not deny it anymore. He loved her. He is just sad that it took him getting shot to actually tell her, but we will get to that later.
For now let's see how they met for the second or first time, depending on how you look at it.