Her. Bridget Cavendish, the girl who fell.
This paragon of virtue and English gentlemanliness had desired her. Even though she wasn’t sure whether a marchioness or a viscountess would go in to dinner first, and she didn’t know all the steps to the quadrille, and she had to look up the proper form of address for an earl when writing a letter. Not that she wrote letters to earls. But that was beside the point.
For one shimmering, sparkling, raining moment, Darcy desired her.
And yet she was in love with his brother. Why, just three pages earlier in her diary, she had written:
Mrs. Rupert Wright
Mrs. Rupert Wright
Mrs. Rupert Wright
Mrs. Rupert Wright
But she had not heard from Rupert—or Darcy, for that matter, since yesterday. Amelia refused to say whom she had spent the day with, so Bridget couldn’t help but wonder if her sister had been with the man Bridget was in love with.
Or loved?
Verb tenses. Not trifling things. So very significant.
She wondered what Darcy thought of the events of yesterday. Or rather, the kiss. Their kiss. Who cared in the slightest what he thought of anything other than their devastatingly romantic kiss? She knew, deep in her bones, that a man like Darcy did not kiss a woman like her lightly.
Was he horrified by his sudden lack of self-restraint?
Did he care for her, or had she just vexed him into kissing her?
Was the kiss a momentary lapse of good judgment?
Did he regret behaving like a dashing rogue and kissing her until her knees were weak?
Did he think less of her because she did not refuse him?
And now she might have ruined everything because she was quite certain that a True Lady would not allow liberties with a gentleman to whom she was not wed or betrothed, and they ought not act so wantonly in public. Or at all.
And then there was the matter of her feelings. Complicated, utterly uncertain, completely confused feelings.
Bridget flipped through the previous pages of her diary, words jumping out at her: “crashing bore,” “he’s the worst,” “Rupert makes my pulse quicken,” “dreadful, dull, Darcy.” And then in more recent pages, with the ink still fresh: “HE KISSED ME.”
A kiss complicated everything. She no longer knew how to think of Darcy or Rupert in her head . . . or in her heart, to be honest.
And she would have to live with all these questions and confusion because she couldn’t possibly call on him herself, and who knew when he might deign to call upon her?
The butler Pendleton opened the door. “Lord Darcy is here. Are you at home?”
Of course he would have such perfect timing.
The five ladies glanced around the drawing room—which was strewn with Miss Green’s embroidery things, a thick stack of newssheets, and some pillows on the floor. Claire was slouching in the chair. Amelia was lounging—languishing—on the settee with her ankles exposed. Bridget’s hair was a mess, having hastily been pinned up, but then again it always was. A tea tray was on the table, but one that had been devastated by five parched and famished ladies.
They all glanced at one another, panic wild in their eyes.
“We shall need a moment, Pendleton,” the duchess said, utterly poised in spite of the mess. “Send a maid for this tray and please bring round a fresh one.”
The embroidery was shoved in a basket, which was shoved behind a turquoise upholstered chair. Amelia sat up like a lady with a stack of books on her head, Claire put her things away and Bridget shoved her diary under a seat cushion.
Then she pinched her cheeks.
“They’re already pink, Bridget,” Claire said with a smirk.
“Is it because of Loooord Darcy?” Amelia asked, drawing out the oooo’s just to vex her.
“Do shut up, Amelia.”
“Language, Lady Bridget,” the duchess admonished.
Bridget heaved a sigh, the long-suffering sigh of the sibling who got caught even though the other provoked it.
Then all the ladies stood and turned their attention to the door.
And there he was.
Loooord Darcy.
Tall, proud, perfect. He paused in the doorway. Was that a flash of panic in his eyes when faced with the prospect of three unruly sisters, the fearsome duchess, and her faithful companion? Five women, five sets of eyes all on him. Waiting. Expecting.
Bridget suddenly found it difficult to breathe. Their parting had been formal and inconclusive and surrounded by people, so there hadn’t been any secret message exchanged via whispered words or pleading gazes and the like. He was as inscrutable as ever and gave her no clue as to his innermost thoughts and feelings.
They all sat down. Darcy, of course, took a seat on the chair with Bridget’s diary tucked under the cushion, which caused Amelia to giggle, Bridget to kick her in the ankle, and the duchess to glare at them both.