Chapter Text
In a just world the light pouring onto her from the fractals of stained glass should set her ablaze. Rather than the powerful scent of cedar it was the smell of smoke that should surround her. The tongue licking into her mouth should be the tongues of fire. Instead of this seemingly unending bliss she should be shrouded and silent.
She would deserve it.
There could be no fate better suited to a woman who had destroyed the life of an innocent and then feasted on the carcass of the very dream that she slaughtered.
This should be her death and yet it felt like the first breath of life.
Kate tightened her arms around Anthony's shoulders and let him pull her in even closer. She sighed at the feeling of his body so firm against hers. At his hands as they roamed further down her back, until they came around her waist. Kate was breathless with the feel of his lips on hers, his tongue plundering her mouth. She shivered with each groan he left in her mouth, with every sigh he drew from her lips.
If she was so wretched then why did this feel holy? She wrenched away from Anthony with a gasp.
Anthony's eyes were wide as he stared at her. His lips were deliciously swollen and his chest heaved with every breath.
I did this to him, she thought with awe. She had taken this carefully buttoned, perfectly polished gentleman and she had wrecked him. Was it everything and everyone that she must destroy?
Even worse than his dishevelment was the look of wonder on his face. This was not hers. She should not be allowed this. It was not for her to make him feel this way. This was meant to be Edwina's. And Kate had taken it before her sister ever got to taste it.
Kate ignored the way his hands grasped for her as she stumbled out of his embrace. She had to ignore it. She had to stay strong.
“This was a mistake.”
“Miss Sharma,” he breathed. “Please don't.”
He sounded so wounded that she stopped in her tracks. Anger warred with the guilt and the pain that swirled within her like a tempest. By what right did he have to look at her with such emotion?
“Don't what?” she spat out. She was angry with him, she realised. This was easier. This was familiar. She could quarrel with him if she could do nothing else.
“Don't leave before we can speak of this.”
“There is nothing to speak of, my lord,” responded Kate.
His face, though already flushed, grew redder with astonishment.
“Nothing? This was nothing to you?”
Tilting her chin upwards she did her best to look down at him. However Kate knew that he was not the source of her fury. No. The anger she felt was not at him, it was at herself. She had ruined everything. Kate took a deep breath. She would not cry in front of him.
“Nothing but our continued disgrace. You were meant to marry my sister today and look at us. This was a terrible thing to do. We're terrible people. We ought to feel ashamed of ourselves.”
She willed him to accept it. To believe it. And thankfully, it seemed like he did. He stared at her and said not a word. Even as it hurt she nodded at him and began to make her way to the same exit her sister had used some odd minutes ago. Her sister. Kate blinked the tears away. She had not meant to betray Edwina and yet here she was—a repentant Gwenhwyfach. Just as deceitful and just as false.
No, it was not with spells and bewitchment that she swayed Anthony Bridgerton away from her gentle, lovely sister but with something much worse: desire.
He was weak as most men were to desires of the flesh and it was clear that she had not done a good enough job of spurning him. She had not hidden her feelings well enough and in failing to do so she allowed her affections to encourage his passions. She did not know if she could ever forgive herself for that. Both for ruining her sister's life and for causing him to dishonour himself time and time again.
Something in her bearing as she strode away must have spurred him because Lord Bridgerton was hot on her heels.
For the second time today he grabbed her wrist, “Wait!”
Kate did not turn around. She could not face him.
“For what? Have we not engaged in enough folly for the day?”
“You cannot expect me to pretend that this didn't happen. To allow you to walk away from me—”
“Allow?” she bristled. “I do not need your allowance for anything, my lord. I act as I see fit.”
“Believe me, I know that!” he spat out.
Anthony tugged at her wrist. She did not move; towards him or away from him, she could not budge. She could hear his huff of frustration. He slid behind her and gently banded his arm around her waist. Kate trembled. Curse him for making her so weak. Pressing his nose to her neck, Anthony inhaled.
“Do you know how heavenly you smell? It consumes my every waking thought. It permeates even my dreams.” He took such a deep sniff at the nape of her neck that she could not help but whimper. “The scent of you. That maddening, intoxicating scent. Lilies. Do you bathe in them? Is that it? I have to know.”
“My lord,” she whined. “Please.”
“Tell me to stop. Tell me to stop and I will.”
His hand curled around the side of her neck, tilting her head upwards. In this position she could look into his eyes. She found that as she looked into the startling depths of deep brown that she could not look away.
Twisting in his arms until she could face him, Kate cupped his cheeks in her hands. It should be awkward, perhaps, gazing at one another like this. However, Lord Bridgerton appeared as mesmerised as she was.
“Don't stop. I need you to—don't stop.”
That seemed to be all the agreement he needed. His arms tightened around her as he captured her mouth once more. Kate whimpered into the kiss. He was quite gifted in this regard.
Anthony tugged at her skirts until he lifted the hems. Kate did not care. She did not care what he did to her. As they were now she would let him do anything to her. Instead of putting his hands in the place between her legs that throbbed for him, his hand gripped her thigh, lifting it against his hip. She quickly understood what he meant to do as he did the same with her other leg, hoisting her up until her legs were hooked around his waist.
The heaviness of her skirts was cumbersome but Lord Bridgerton managed the feat without either of them tripping or stumbling. He carried her as though the weight of her was nothing at all until they were sat in the front pew.
The same pew upon which her mama sat, smiling as she watched her daughter at the altar about to say her vows.
Kate waited for the shame to come. Anthony's God was not any one of her gods but they were in a church. In a place that was meant to be sacred. In the very place where her sister's wedding was meant to take place. A wedding to the very man Kate now sat atop of. Any decent woman would be horrified by this behaviour.
There was no room for decency when Anthony Bridgerton was staring up at her with a hunger that took her breath away. He would devour her whole if she let him. And she was going to let him.
Shame would come after. She would feel it after. She would make sure of it.
Dipping her head she kissed him gently. For a very brief moment she lingered in the sweetness of it until their hunger became too much and they kissed feverishly until their lips were too swollen to continue.
Even then they could not stop. Soon Anthony's hand eventually began tugging at her décolletage and her half-stays until her breasts were exposed to the air.
Anthony looked as though he were about to weep.
Kate rocked her hips against him, “Anthony.”
“Let me admire you, darling. Please.”
He looked at her for so long that were he anyone else she would have grown uncomfortable. Under his gaze she could not squirm away. He looked at her with a reverence that she craved even though she knew she did not deserve it.
When his mouth found her neck Kate grabbed at his hair. He grunted. His lips trailed lower and lower until caught her breast in his mouth. Kate almost sobbed in relief. The heat of his mouth as he sucked on her nipple sent jolts of pleasure through her body. He fondled her other breast, playing with one nipple as he suckled on the other.
She could feel him beneath her. His teeth grazed her swollen nipple and Kate moaned so loudly that it echoed through the room.
The roughness of his breeches against the delicate silk of her drawers brought forth a delicious friction that Kate could not help but chase. Her hips undulated against the evidence of his ardour, seeking a peak she had only ever reached on her own.
Kate slipped a hand in between her legs, feeling her wetness soaked through the silk. Anthony nudged her hand away before she could do anything. He moved his mouth to her other breast as he pushed his hand under her drawers. He rubbed at her with a gentle vigour and then he did something she had never attempted before.
He slipped one of his fingers inside her.
“Anthony,” she gasped.
It was a strange feeling but she did not question the pleasurable intrusion. Not when he moved within until he could fit another of his fingers inside her. The twinge of pain was nothing to the warmth spreading all over her body. The thickness of his fingers inside her. The way he moved them in and out. It drove her wild.
“You're dripping with it,” Anthony whispered against her breast, awe in his voice. “You must truly want me.”
“I want you,” she repeated and for once she wasn't too embarrassed to admit it. The lack of shame emboldened her and she kept saying it again and again. “I want you. I want you. I want you.”
“You have me,” he said on a rough thrust. Kate keened. “You can have me whenever you want me.”
She spasmed in his arms as a wave of pleasure rushed over her. Anthony rubbed and thrusted all the way through it until she slumped in his arms.
His fingers were still inside her and she clenched around them. She wasn't done with him. After this she might never see him again and she wanted everything from him before they were to be forever parted.
Usually Kate would not be presumptuous enough to ask. Usually she would be sensible enough to never do something this perverse at all. Usually was out the window. She had disappointed her mother, destroyed her sister's life, watched as they turned their backs on her like she'd always feared. They despised her. She had nothing left. Which meant she had nothing left to lose. What was her virtue in the face of that?
“Anthony,” she whispered. “I want more.”
And wasn't that a shameful thing? The way in which she compelled him to dishonour himself. He would resist her if she were any other lady. Kate was sure of it. She had seen how gallantly he behaved with the debutantes he encountered. It was she who was the crack in his veneer of decorum. Or perhaps it was not a veneer. Perhaps it was just her.
There was something disgraceful in that. But she could not care about it now. At the moment she could only relish in the headiness of it. Kate never wished to misuse this power her body had over him. That was another regret she would save for tomorrow. Right now she wanted him too badly to care.
“Kate, are you sure?”
“I need you. Anthony. I need to feel you. I need—”
She didn't even know what she was asking for. Well she knew what she was asking for but she did not know what it felt like. The ways in which it would change her after. What she did know was that he could not stop now. She would die if he stopped. She would die. She said as much and watched the way the blacks of his eyes grew twice its size.
“Fuck!” He pulled her into a rough kiss. He licked into her open mouth as she shuddered around him. “I'm going to take care of you darling. Don't you worry.”
Kate did not doubt that. He must have a world of experience in deflowering virgins. At no point in her wildest imaginings did she ever think this would be bad.
He added another finger inside her before working her up again. Kate gasped at the stretch. It felt almost too much. But he stoked the fire in her. Just as he was beginning to build her pleasure once more he pulled his fingers out of her. As she clenched around nothing she almost cried. She felt so empty without him. Taking a trembling breath Kate tried not to inspect that line of thought. This was just about passion. It had to be.
She fumbled at the buttons of his waistcoat as he worked on the fall of his breeches.
He lifted her off him so that he could peel her pleasure soaked drawers from her body. It should have been awkward the way they divested themselves so hastily of what was necessary but she was so desperate for it that she could not bring herself to care.
Looking between his legs Kate's eyes bulged at the sight of him. She had studied diagrams before, saw illustrations but this was larger and…thicker than anything she'd expected with a lot more veins than any illustration ever displayed. He fisted himself, stroking the length of him idly as he looked at her face.
She bit her lip. And for some reason he squeezed himself at the base with a groan.
Hiking her skirts up high, so high that her stockings and privates were exposed, she climbed him astride. He looked up at her curiously.
“I don't want—I need to—”
In situations where she had no experience, where everything was new and unfamiliar, she preferred to take charge. In truth she had no idea what she was doing. Kate did not know how to explain but it seemed that Anthony did not need her explanations. He simply nodded.
“Very well. Just let me help.”
Widening his thighs he spread her legs wider than she thought possible. He lifted her hips above him before pressing his stiff member against her. Holding on to her waist tightly he allowed her to sink down on him inch by inch.
“At last,” he whispered.
It was an impossible task trying to calm herself as she stretched and made room for him in the very depths of her. For a rather larger part of him than she thought could ever fit inside someone.
Kate gasped at the fullness of it. The sting of it. He was so heavy and thick inside her that she could almost feel him in her throat. She struggled to catch her breath. It wasn't painful in the way she expected, the way she'd been warned by the women she knew, but it was foreign. And she was overcome.
Anthony searched her eyes. “Are you—”
“I'm fine. Just give me a moment. It’s…a lot.”
He grinned, “I know.”
Before she had the chance to shove at him for his arrogance he kissed her gently and rubbed more firmly against her until he was sheathed within her completely, until all she could feel was pleasure.
She tightened around him and it left him groaning. Kate pulled away and looked at him curiously. His jaw seemed almost sewn shut and his eyes pierced into her intensely. With trembling hands she cupped his cheek.
“You liked that.”
“I like you,” he said through clenched teeth. He did not look as though he liked what she was doing. In fact he looked as though he was in pain. He thrusted upwards and she gasped.
“Forgive me.”
There was nothing to forgive. It felt…she wanted that feeling again. Holding onto his shoulder with one hand she lifted herself off of him a little before sinking onto him again.
Anthony stared at her wide eyed. He thrusted up into her and Kate whined. They soon found a cautious rhythm with him rising every time she fell. After a particularly rough thrust Kate whimpered.
“Yes! That—like that!”
She rocked down on him and he followed at the pace she set. The drag of him caused her to whine and murmur.
“Jaanu.”
Kate realised, as she found her rhythm, that it was hardly any different than riding a horse. Only far, far more pleasurable. Rising up to her knees she began to ride him as vigorously as she did Mufasa. Anthony met every one of her thrusts and Kate whined in pleasure at the drag of it. This was something different to what she expected. She felt owned. Even worse she felt that she too owned him.
It was temporary; she had to remind herself. Only for this blissful moment would he be hers and she his. And she needed to savour it.
Her legs shook as he carried her to the edge of something.
“I want—I want—”
“Whatever you want, darling. I'll give you whatever you want.”
“Yes! Yes! Please! I need—”
What she needed couldn't be articulated, only felt. Anthony seemed to understand. The pace she set with her hips hurried him along. Faster. Sharper.
She was making such loud, ridiculous sounds that she was surprised no one had walked in the room yet. Not that she could find it within herself to care. She did not care about the noise. This bliss was worth any future humiliation.
“It's so good. You're so good. You're so good to me,” her words slurred.
Anthony growled before capturing her mouth in his. One of his hands kneaded at her breast while he continued bringing her higher with his other hand. The tension built within her Kate shuddered around him at the sudden release of it. Of the overwhelming pleasure that covered her entire body. The discomfort in her knees from the hard bench was easy to ignore in the face of this.
“Fuck!” Anthony hissed. His face was contorted in—not pain, but pleasure. “Kate. It's never been this good before. No one has ever felt this good. No one has ever fit around me like this. You were made for me, darling.”
She tightened around him as he continued to thrust inside her. His groans were getting louder. Kate stuck her thumb inside his mouth and he bit at her thumb as he continued stretching her out.
“I'm going to keep you.” Anthony growled. “You're mine now. Do you want that, darling? You must because I'm not letting you go.”
Kate cried out again. She did not know that this could happen again and not so soon. Her body was once more immersed in pleasure. Except it felt like a continuation from her last release.
The waves crested higher still
and higher
and higher.
Until she was awash with rapture. Until she was mindless with it. Until there wasn't a single thought in her head other than him. Other than the all consuming strength of him beneath her, of the force with which he pistoned in and out of her, of the delicious drag of him as he did so. Everything else had been blotted out. Duty, regret, pain. Her mind was clear of all but Anthony.
And it was his name that she chanted as he followed her over the edge. With a strangled roar he thrust into her once more. This time she could feel a rush of warmth inside her and she knew that he had spilled within her.
And with that she felt…complete.
Anthony persisted in his ministrations with his fingers. Her entire body felt so sensitive. She trembled in his arms. Her thumb was still in his mouth and he suckled on it as she calmed down.
Finally Kate twitched away from him a little as pleasure turned to discomfort and she pulled her finger from between his lips. He reluctantly let it go with a pop! It was then that he finally pulled his hand from under her skirts and Kate could see the mess she made of them. Before she could apologise he put his fingers in his mouth sucking every crevice of his hand as though he were eating one of Gunther's best ices.
Of all things it was that which caused her to blush. She hid her face in his neck, slumping on top of him. She could feel him grin against her hair. She could not help but smile in turn.
She clenched around his member which had softened within her. He winced. Kate kissed his brow in apology and he smiled, chagrined. He lifted her slightly so that he could slip out of her before settling her on top of him once more.
“I believe it is the taste of your quim that is now my testament.”
That sobered her quickly. “And it is that by which you will remember me?”
Kate never tried to imagine what this might look like between him and her sister and she found that she wanted to imagine it even less with whatever debutante he managed to charm down the aisle next. Knowing of his desire to keep love and passion separate from marriage it would not just be his wife who he would pleasure. Perhaps a mistress or two. Even a courtesan.
Would he taste them from his fingers as he did her? Would he relish in it? Would he truly think of her each time or would the memory fade and be replaced by someone new?
Anthony's brow furrowed and his forehead creased with it. Kate smoothed out his brow with her fingertips. It would not be long before this was someone else's duty and selfishly she wanted to bask in it before they could.
“Remember you?”
“When I leave,” Kate said. “In two weeks I will be returning to India as planned.”
“You still mean to leave?” he asked, his words clipped. “Your sister—”
Sister. The word was a blow. Especially when she was deemed to only be half of one. But Kate did not wish to think of Edwina now. Not when she finally became the betrayer her sister accused her of being.
The draught was a bitter one but there it was. Edwina would be glad to be rid of her and her constant interference.
“I have proven enough that I am nothing but a hindrance in her life. A thorn that should have been cut a long time ago. I believe she may well thrive without me.”
Anthony winced so dramatically that it caused Kate to jolt on top of him. Kate blinked. She placed a palm on top of his chest and she could feel the quick patter of his heartbeat.
“If there is a child,” he tried.
“You needn’t worry. There are ways in which I can prevent that from happening, my lord.”
“Ways?” he asked.
Kate was not about to explain to him the different, foul-tasting teas a woman could brew to prevent her belly from swelling. She had learned how to brew such concoctions a long time ago. She never had the need to use it until now.
“Ways,” she responded.
He shook his head. “You cannot just—you cannot leave. You cannot leave me when—” he breathed heavily.
“My lord. My—Anthony. Do not panic. You knew this would soon be coming.”
“That is—you cannot.”
Kate tilted her head as she observed him. He did seem so very distressed. She was uncertain why. She could feel the way his member had softened beneath her. She knew that she did not leave him wanting.
With her hand on his heart she allowed him to breathe in tandem with her until his heart settled. It did not take very long. It wasn't so big a fright as when she was stung by a bee. Perhaps it was only a shock. He could not expect her to stay here any longer.
Bringing her hand to his lips he kissed her palm gently. Kate's breath grew shaky. This was unjust. What more could he want from her than this? How much more of herself could she give without breaking herself in the process? She would. She would give him every broken shard of her if he wanted it but she knew that he didn't want it. Not truly.
“You can't leave,” said Anthony, more calmly now.
“I believe that I can.”
“Kate, I’ve just had you. You must know that you are mine now.”
His eyes were so entreating that she almost believed him. Almost. She curled a palm around the nape of his neck, playing with the hairs on the back of his head.
“I do not belong to anyone, Lord Bridgerton,” she said, sadly. “I have always been my own.”
“And now you are mine,” he insisted in that mulish way of his that she wished she didn't find so charming.
It was almost amusing. She was his in every way that counted. But he would never be hers. And that she could never abide by.
Kate made an attempt to remove herself from his lap but his hands dropped to her waist, holding her in place.
“I know it is improper for me to do it in this way and I will ask you—”
“I do not need you to ask me anything. You are…newly unattached. I am no naive debutante with no knowledge of the world. I took as many liberties with you as you did with me. We have satisfied our intrigue in each other. It is no stain on your honour to take satisfaction in this interlude and let it lie.”
It was a great stain on her honour, Kate did not admit. To betray her sister in this way to no purpose. No purpose but herself. That was the dishonour. The selfishness in taking this piece of him for her own simply because she wanted it. Simply because she wanted him.
Anthony stared at her, stony faced and solemn.
“That was all this was to you, then? Intrigue and desire. All these months of torment and longing can be discarded with a tup in a church.”
Kate winced. For him perhaps. Not for her. But it would not do for him to know that.
“It must!”
“Must it?”
Wriggling in his arms until his grip slackened, Kate jumped from his lap. She stumbled a little but waved him off as he moved to help her. The twinge in her knee was due to the hard bench but the burn in her thighs was no different than it would be after a particularly vigorous ride. Though she supposed what she just did could be described as such. Kate flushed.
Her skirts settled around her in a disarray. His member was still exposed, smaller and softer than before, but Kate could not force herself to look away. She could feel the mixture of his seed and her arousal dripping down her thigh.
They were beyond propriety now.
“What other option is there?” she scoffed and finally removed her eyes from his crotch. He cleared his throat as he tucked himself back in.
“There is the option of marriage,” said Anthony with all decisiveness of a man who had already made up his mind. Kate barked out a bitter laugh. “I do not jest, my lady. We must marry.”
“We must not.”
“Kate!”
Kate stared at him, bullish and a little irate. She was trying for them to part ways as amicably as they could. There would be so many regrets that she would carry in her heart on her long journey home, and this would be one of them, but she still wanted fond memories of him to warm her until the Hindustani sun settled upon her once more.
“My lord,” she insisted. “I know of the marriage you seek for yourself and I want no part in that miserable affair.”
Blowing air from between his teeth Anthony watched her. This lilac covered dream he had conjured in some forbidden part of his mind. He had to have done so. Anthony could not fathom how a woman so perfect, so perfectly imperfect, so perfectly suited to him could exist except for in a dream.
Anthony had never been a pious man. In fact he was as impious as he was allowed to be. But this could not be natural. She fit in his arms, in his life, snugly around his cock so exactly right that he wondered in his most fanciful moments if God had taken his rib as he slept and formed her for him.
And yet in some nightmarish circumstance rather than Eve she behaved as an overzealous Peter as she denied him again and again and again.
“I do not understand you,” he said. “You will not let me marry you. You will not let me love you. But you will allow me to ruin you?”
“You don't love me, my lord. You cannot.” Kate looked down at her gown, fussing with the hem until it settled around her. He knew for a fact that his spend was dripping down her thighs and yet she appeared as pristine as if he'd never touched her at all. It made his blood boil. He wished to mess her up again so that he was not so easily forgotten by her.
“Indeed, Miss Sharma. Do tell me how I feel. I quite enjoy it when you do so.”
Brushing past his sarcasm, Kate sniffed and looked down at him with a mixture of pity and contempt.
“The way you have conducted yourself this season—that is not love. I swallowed my pride and bore it because I know you were often overcome by whatever conflicted lust I seem to bring forth in you. I knew of your libertine reputation and questionable morals. And I have spurned enough Englishmen in India to know how your kind feel about peregrine novelties such as myself. I tried to ignore it because I knew that this passion would fade in my upcoming absence. That you would find what you need in your intended bride and I would soon become some shameful memory.”
Not for the first time today Anthony felt a shame so deep it felt branded onto his bones.
“That is not true.”
“Which part?”
“Any of it!”
His eyes dropped to her hands. Her fists were clenched as though she were restraining herself. She was wroth with him even as she retained her composure.
“I am sure that is what you have told yourself to make this seem more palatable. But—”
“Enough!” As he expected she bristled at his command. He was fairly certain she wanted to take off her slippers and throw them at him. “I will hear no more of this nonsense.”
“Do not tell me what to do! I will not be ordered around by you, sir!”
Dark brown skin, already flushed from their exertions, somehow grew even bronzer as her chest heaved in defiance. Good. That unsettling performance of dispassion did him no good. Not when he could tell how little she meant it.
“It is your allowance for which I am asking, Miss Sharma. So that I may apologise to you.”
“I never asked for an apology.”
“And yet I am about to give one so I suggest you listen to it.” Her eyes flashed and he hurried on before she could quarrel. “My behaviour towards you this season has been abominable. You are a lady of good standing and I ought never to have preyed upon you the way I did. And for that I can offer you nothing but the sincerest apologies.”
Anthony rose to his feet and tried not to fidget.
As he remembered everything that passed between them his shame grew. Cornering her in dark rooms, looming over her, willing her to step forward and close the distance between them, his artless grasping of her hand whenever the opportunity arose. God be true he just took her virtue in a cathedral. He finished inside her like some green boy who didn't know any better. He had never treated a lady as carelessly as he'd treated her.
“And if I wasn't?” she asked.
Anthony blinked. “What?”
“If I wasn't a lady of good standing. Would that behaviour that you now condemn have then been acceptable?”
Yes! he thought, annoyed. Were she a farmer's daughter, or an actress, a woman of poor reputation he wouldn't feel so tormented by his desire for her or by his treatment of her. By heavens he would have had her a hundred times over by now if that were the case.
Anthony knew, though, that this was not something he could say to her without receiving a resounding slap to the face. And it would be a slap that he deserved.
“That is not what I said.”
“It is what you meant.”
“And now you are putting words in my mouth.”
“Only the words which you thought but did not speak.”
Shifting a little, Anthony tried not to flinch.
It took everything within him not to throw his hands in the air. She was right, of course. He thought it even while knowing it was an awful thing to think. To believe. But he could not unravel that now. Not when she was starting an argument so that he could not speak what he felt. What he owed her.
“Why can you never just agree?”
“Perhaps you ought to say something agreeable.”
“I love you.” That seemed to take the wind out of her sails. Anthony took a deep breath. He had to say this now for he feared he would not get another chance. “I have loved you from the first—that fateful meeting in the park, and I have loved you every moment since. I will still love you even with oceans separating us. If I have behaved boorishly it is because I am unused to this. I have never loved another. I have never wanted to. I sought a life without love—one of amicable indifference. And had you not galloped into my life when you did, like a breath of fresh air, I might have found it.”
Kate shook her head. “Why are you saying this? What do you hope to achieve?”
“Nothing. I expect nothing from you, Kate. I simply wished for you to know. I have tried to fight the way I feel for you to no avail. As we have seen today it is no use. I cannot fight you. Not when you consume my very being. Today I have ruined your family and my own. On my honour as a gentleman that is what should preoccupy my mind. I should be thinking on how to rectify this for you, how to earn my family's respect once more, how to show my face in society after today's humiliation. And yet all I can think about, all I can even breathe for, is you. I know you do not want this. I know you do not return my feelings. I—”
“Lord Bridgerton,” she whispered. “Stop.”
Anthony felt something heavy drop in the pit of his stomach.
“I do return your feelings. Every word of them. I love you. I love you. I love you too.”
An ugly load lifted from him. He placed his hand on his heart just to make sure it was still beating. That this was real. Taking a step forward Anthony pulled her into his embrace. By some small grace of God she came to him willingly.
“I am sorry that this is our situation.” Kate whispered into his neck. “Perhaps if I were not so stubborn and single-minded or you not cut from the same cloth then—”
“Then what?” Anthony asked, his heart refusing to slow down.
“Then this would not be doomed. Then we would not have to settle for loving each other on separate continents. But it is the only way.”
Anthony shook his head. She could not leave. Not now. He could not bear it.
The scent of lilies wafted from her neck, her hair, her clothes. He was drunk with it. She was mad to think he could give this up. Not when he'd just had a taste of her. Not when he was finally given the chance to bask in the feeling of her warm in his arms. Having her for only a moment just to lose her? It was intolerable.
“What if it were not?”
She pulled away from him slightly and looked into his eyes. The molten pools of honey looking back at him turned his knees into jelly. The things those eyes could ask of him.
“I have long struggled with this. There is no other choice for us. We must away to Scotland.”
Her eyes widened, “My lord!”
“It is the only way. I can't stay away from you. I can't keep fighting this. Can you?”
“I—no. But it does not signify. We must fight it. Our reputations will never recover from this. My sister. Your family. How can we do this to them?”
“How can we do it to ourselves? Let us do something selfish for once. Let us choose ourselves.”
“I—I do not know what to say.”
She swayed into him. Anthony felt emboldened by her reaction. It was heady to know that he affected her as much as she affected him.
This time he kissed her tenderly. The taste of her on his tongue was already so intoxicating. He could no longer fathom living every day of his life without it. It was impossible. Her arms tightened around his neck and Anthony swayed with her as their kiss deepened.
It was Anthony who pulled away first this time.
He cradled her face in the palm of his hand, tracing his fingers on the sharp cut of her jaw.
“If what you truly want is for us to forget that anything ever passed between us then for you I will try. But if what you want from me is a life together? If you feel as I do and want nothing more than to be at my side? Then run away with me. Be my wife.”
Holding his breath as she curled her cheek into his hand to kiss his palm, Anthony waited.
“Do you really want this?” her voice was so soft he barely heard her.
“I want you. I want a life with you that is ours.”
“I need the rest of the day. To get some things in order.” She took a shaky breath before looking up at him. “But yes. I will run away with you.”