Lady Bridget's Diary(84)

“I thought this was decided ages ago,” Fox asked, yawning. “Have you still not popped the question? Gad, Darcy, what are you waiting for?”

“She proposed to him. In a manner of speaking,” Rupert said.

“When is the wedding?” Jones asked.

“That’s the thing. He would rather there wasn’t a wedding,” Rupert explained uneasily.

Fox turned and leveled a stare at Darcy. “Are you saying that you’ve strung along my sister for years and now you aren’t going to marry her?”

“Yes. Precisely that.”

Fox stood, drawing himself up to his full height of well over six feet. Darcy sighed and stood as well, not at all eager for what was about to happen but knowing it was inevitable and his duty as a gentleman to take it.

Fox promptly punched him in the face. Darcy stumbled back, clutching the side of his face where he’d been hit. Fox shook out his hand.

“I deserve that,” Darcy muttered. “But bloody hell, you can throw a punch.”

“Apologies mate, but I had to do that. Family honor, etc., etc. I could use a drink while you tell me what she has done now.”

“She is blackmailing Darcy,” Rupert said.

“God she’s devious,” Fox said, grinning. “Got all the brains in our family.”

No one contradicted this.

“Well, there goes my plan to enlist your help,” Darcy said dryly.

“Could you explain the problem? I’m confused,” Fox said.

“Francesca is threatening to expose information that would ruin Amelia, myself, and Bridget unless he marries her,” Rupert explained. “But he no longer wishes to marry her, as he discovered that he does in fact possess a heart and it yearns for Bridget.”

Darcy rolled his eyes at such a treacly way of phrasing it.

“That’s quite the dilemma.”

“Thank you, Fox, for bringing that to my attention.”

“We can do something. We can fix this,” Jones said. “After all, it is not every day that Darcy admits to feelings, especially of the romantic variety. Rupert, was there concrete information about you? Whatever it is about you?”

“It was just rumors,” Rupert said dismissively. “There isn’t really any proof. Not anymore. Thanks to Darcy.”

“Well if there is no proof, then I would think that between the lot of us, we’d be able to dismiss any rumors. Should they surface,” Jones said.

“What kind of rumors?” Fox asked.

“Nothing,” Darcy and Rupert said at the same time.

“I will only say this,” Rupert continued. “Lady Francesca would damage her own reputation should she speak of it.”

“Now I’m intrigued,” Jones said. And Fox said, “I as well.”

“You shall have to live with your curiosity,” Rupert said. “Besides, we have more important matters to attend to at the moment. Such as my dear brother’s future happiness.”

“Right,” Jones said. “I may have been out of society for some time, but won’t Lady Amelia and Lady Bridget’s reputations be protected if they are wed?”

“Yes.”

“I should think the solution is damn obvious,” Jones said. “We marry them.”

“Clever . . .” Fox mused.

“It seems too easy,” Darcy said.

“Have you proposed and been accepted?” Jones asked, with a lift of his brow and a distinct rise in his voice. “Have you tried to convince one of those women to pledge her troth to you?”

Darcy sipped his drink and winced. Or winced and sipped his drink. He wasn’t sure what burned more—­the whiskey or the memory of Bridget’s ­rejection. While he thought that her feelings might have changed, he had no proof. And he knew that she would want to protect her sister and Rupert above all else.

He knew what he had to do.

There are no words to describe the utter despair I feel in my present state.

Lady Bridget’s Diary

Bridget set down her pen. She closed her diary. Her cursed, wretched diary that had ruined everything for everyone. She had half a mind to throw it across the room. Or burn it.

But there was no point now. Lady Francesca had so much devastating information—­and was the sort of mean-­spirited person who would deliberately use such information or share it with the biggest gossip of London. Bridget wouldn’t be at all surprised to read about it in The London Weekly tomorrow morning.

Or to have it all flung in her face at the ball tonight.

There was only one thing to do. Bridget threw herself on her bed, and stared up at the canopy. She closed her eyes. She could not go out tonight.

She could not go out ever again. She would have to return to America, in disgrace. Just when she had found a reason to stay.