Chapter Text
“Enjoy your freedom while it lasts,” Anthony said, already regretting responding to the call of these men. Their amusement at his predicament only fueled his own irritation at the situation. “You too will soon submit to this ridiculous rigamarole of courtship”—
Beside him, Hastings snorted and took a rather too-deep sip from his glass. Anthony had known the duke long enough to know he was holding back some choice commentary. Anthony narrowed his eyes but continued, venting his frustration from the past fortnight.
—“Squiring every eligible miss around town until you’re barely able to see straight.”
Hastings nodded to someone behind Anthony’s back, but Anthony was addressed before he could turn and greet his friend’s acquaintance himself.
“Is one lady unlike any other?” asked Lord Cho. “Simply pick the least objectionable and get her wed, bed, and bred. Then you can return to more pleasurable pursuits.”
“And more pleasurable partners,” chimed in the rather weedy looking one. Anthony honestly couldn’t remember his name. Finch? Fitchley? Fawcett?
Hastings looked disturbed. Anthony, as the older brother of four sisters, was sure his face showed a similar feeling.
“Well, as a man with a wife of his own, I find this talk rather outside my taste.”
Possibly-Finch looked horrified to be part of a conversation outside the taste of a duke, and he took the glass Hastings thrust his way with a trembling hand.
“Come brother,” Hastings said, already turning to exclude the others from the conversation. “I need to speak with you.”
Anthony let his brother-in-law lead him away from the other men to the opposite side of the veranda. Through the glass and a minute gap in the foliage, he could just make out Daphne holding court among the other young wives.
“Anthony, after the business last season—”
“The business where you seduced my sister and we almost killed each other?” Anthony could not quite help the sharpness of his voice. They had made up, been forced to by Daphne, but it wasn’t something easily forgotten.
“The business where I fell in love with your sister and agreed to a foolhardy duel because I refused to communicate with her. That and…some things that happened after…made me realize I have to be more honest with those I care for. Now, you may not extend that privilege to me anymore—”
Anthony suppressed the guilt that began to churn in his stomach at his own disagreeableness. It was frustration, not at Hastings, but at the utter dearth of prospects inside that made him churlish.
“Hastings—”
“Ah, it doesn’t matter. I still think of you as one of my closest friends, Anthony.” The rare use of his first name did not go unnoticed. Anthony shut his mouth. “So, in the spirit of that realization, I am going to tell you something you may not wish to hear. You are making a mistake.”
“How so?” Anthony asked, trying not to sound facetious.
“You say you want a viscountess before a wife, told Daphne and I that love had no place in your marriage, yet now I’ve heard you’re waiting for this season’s diamond of the first water,” he said the last words sarcastically, despite his own wife once holding the title. “An arbitrary achievement bestowed by the queen who, may I say, I do not believe you would wish to single-handedly pick your wife.”
Anthony was not wedded to the idea of the diamond — not yet — so conceded a nod.
“Furthermore, diamonds are the girls just debuting who have the very best prospects. They know they can hold out for the best and—”
“You don’t think I'm the best? Who else is even looking this season? Not another duke I imagine.”
“I’m saying that you’re letting your competitiveness overtake your logic. The viscountess you say you need will not be found with a diamond.”
“Does last year’s diamond not make a good duchess?”
“Bridgerton, I married Daphne because I love her. I had no need, nor any desire, to continue on the dukedom or its legacy. If Daphne wished for me to abandon Hastings and move to the Americas I would.”
“You? Leave behind the trappings and luxuries of the nobility?”
“I didn’t say I would leave penniless, I do have standards. As does your sister. But I'd have renounced the title if she asked. Something you, Lord Bridgerton, could never do.”
“What debutante would ever wish me to? I’m a viscount, that’s what they want.”
Hastings almost looked sad at his words. Anthony cut him off before his friend could make some commentary about the power of love or self-value or whatever Daphne whispered to him as they cooed over their newborn’s cradle.
“Just make your point.”
“You became a father at nineteen—do not protest, that is what you are to your youngest siblings. I know you felt unprepared. Most of the debutantes are even younger, and as you’ve noticed from their silly conversation topics, even less prepared. You should be looking for a woman. One ready to be a viscountess, and a mother. One not caught in the flurry of her debut and end of her childhood. One with experience, a sense of responsibility—”
“You’d have me shop the shelf rather than the dancefloor? Tell me, do you have someone in mind already? A spinster cousin? Has Lady Danbury tasked you with finding a match for a wallflower she has taken under her wing? How desperate is the girl?”
Hastings rolled his eyes.
“Not desperate, Bridgerton. Pragmatic. And yes, Lady Danbury is sponsoring her this season.”
“Miss Sharma? The very debutante your godmother is determined to make the diamond? Isn’t she just the type you’d have me avoid?”
“Not Miss Edwina Sharma. Miss Sharma, the elder sister. Kate.”
Anthony blinked. Had his mother mentioned an elder sister? She certainly wasn't on Anthony's near-exhausted list of potential brides.
“She is here to see her sister married,” Hastings continued, “with no hopes for her own match. Her only goal is to see her sister well settled before she returns to India.”
Return to India! Anthony could barely stand to think of Colin roaming the Continent without his protection. He could not imagine putting such distance between him and one of his sisters. At least not voluntarily. What exactly was Hastings not telling him?
“She sounds halfway to being one of the matchmaking mamas herself. Shall I expect her to be pushing her sister at me for the rest of the season?”
“No,” the unsaid ‘you fool’ clear in his brother-in-law’s tone, “she cares for Miss Edwina’s happiness more than anything else. Miss Sharma wants her sister to have a love match. Something you will not give. What you can offer her sister are more seasons, more opportunities, and more freedoms. If you marry Miss Sharma that is.”
“A benefit surely, though not the one I’m usually pursued for. What am I gaining from this hypothetical marriage, Hastings?”
“A wife who understands what she is getting herself into.” Hastings waved away his objections. “And one who won’t mind a husband who has disavowed love. Dance with her. Interrogate her as you have all the others. She traveled across the world to get here; you can at least be sure she knows which country Napoleon hails from.”
Hastings clapped him on the back and left. Anthony sighed and finished his drink.
One dance couldn’t hurt.