Lady Bridget's Diary (19 page)

“Do you mean to say you would not have come home?” James said, sounding bewildered and possibly heartbroken.

“The possibility crossed my mind,” she admitted. “But I won't be leaving you anytime soon. I shall plague the lot of you for years to come.”

Then she turned to look out the window.

So Darcy had gone to rescue her sister. He had done a great service to her family to bring her home safely and not breathed a word of her disappearance. And he hadn't mentioned it. If he were really the man she thought him, he would not have tried to salvage Amelia's reputation; he would have left her to the consequences of her actions.

“It sounds like he is quite the hero,” the duchess remarked.

He had saved
her
sister for no reason other than they had asked for his assistance. He kissed her like he was a drowning man and she was air. And he liked her, just the way she was. In fact, he loved her.

If he was not the man she thought, then perhaps she was not the woman she believed herself to be. She had clung to her own stubborn view of him, warped by her insecurities. She had not tried to understand him, but dismissed him as another judgmental English lord and simply rejected him out of her wounded pride. Bridget choked on a sob. She had been such a fool.

Chapter 21

The dinner party was horrible, save for the part where Darcy nearly ravished me in the butler's pantry. After he declared that he likes me just the way I am. What does this mean? WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?

Lady Bridget's Diary

T
he revelations about Darcy continued the next morning, making it impossible for Bridget to ignore how very wrong she'd been about him. She'd been alone in the drawing room, writing in her diary, when Pendleton interrupted.

“You have a caller, Lady Bridget.”

“Who is it?”

Darcy? Her heart leapt at the possibility. Or did it lurch? She was expecting to see him this morning. After what had happened last night . . . there were things to be said. Questions to be asked. Honor demanded it. But so did love.

Love?

“Mr. Rupert Wright.”

“Please show him in.”

The butler returned with her guest a moment later, and then stepped away, leaving the door to the drawing room ajar.

“Rupert! It's so good to see you. It has been so long.”

It had been a fortnight, in fact.

She crossed the room and clasped his hands. It was so good to see her friend. But it was also . . . strange. She and Rupert shared something and yet she had indulged in all sorts of liberties with his brother, just last night. And in a butler's pantry, no less.

“It has indeed. I have been traveling. With Darcy.”

“Oh.” She faltered at the mention of his name. “Yes, I saw that he is back in town. I saw him at dinner last night.”

I felt him at dinner last night.

“Well, that explains his dark mood,” Rupert said.

Oh God, what does that mean
? She wanted to grab Rupert by the lapels and demand he tell her everything about Darcy's dark mood, and how dark was it, and did he happen to say anything about her? But then again, perhaps it was all nothing. Darcy was always dark and brooding.

“I'm sure I don't know what you mean,” she said, joking. But Rupert didn't catch her meaning.

“I know you don't,” he said, utterly serious. She suddenly became aware of the beat of her heart and the temperature in the room. She had never seen Rupert serious. “And that is why I'm here. There are some truths you must be made aware of, Bridget.”

“I'll just sit down then,” she said in a small voice, and sat on the settee.

Rupert paced.

“For the past few months, I have been blackmailed.”

She gasped dramatically because the news shocked her and the situation seemed to call for it. Rupert continued to pace back and forth, taking long strides across the carpet.

“Someone possessed knowledge about me that would have ruined me,” Rupert said. She immediately thought of murders or robberies or other heinous crimes. But she could not picture Rupert engaged in such nefarious activities. It was . . . Rupert. “I would have had to leave the country. Indefinitely. I would have had to leave behind my friends, my beloved brother, my life here.”

“Is this what you needed the money for? I thought it was for gaming debts.”

“Yes.”

“But Darcy wouldn't give it to you.”

“Oh, he did. For most of the year, he gave me the funds I required, no questions asked.” Oh. Bridget clasped a handful of fabric from her skirts, needing to hold on to something. She had wrongly accused him of refusing to help his own brother, saying it was the worst thing she could imagine. She felt, in that moment, quite awful. “I had to let him believe that it was for gaming debts. But eventually, he cut me off and I cannot blame him. He wanted me to be responsible for my own actions. But once he learned the truth, he did the Darcy thing.”

“What is the Darcy thing?” Bridget asked, a hitch in her voice. She suspected she knew.

“Ride in. Issue orders in that lordly, commanding way of his. Save the day. Take care of everyone, except for himself.”

She turned away, to look out the window into the garden, but saw nothing of the scenery outside. If anything, she saw a scene from days, weeks earlier when she had accused him of being cruel to his own brother.
If that is what you are determined to believe . . .
She had been blind.

She recalled Amelia saying,
You don't know him at all, do you?

So very, very blind.

But then again, he'd never let her see these things.

“But you see, Bridget, I don't think he put a stop to the blackmail because of the money, which matters little as we have plenty of it,” Rupert continued. “I don't even think he did it entirely just for me, even though I know he would lay down his life for me unblinkingly. I think he did it for you.”

“I don't see how this has to do with me.”

“I was going to propose to you,” Rupert said. Her breath caught. “I needed to wed for the sake of my reputation. I care for you greatly. I thought we would get along. But I would never make you happy the way a man ought to make a woman happy.”

“Whatever do you mean?” She had asked James about this and he'd hardly been forthcoming with an answer.

Rupert's cheeks turned red and he looked away.

“I do not have . . . romantic inclinations toward women.”

She knit her brow, confused.

“It is not something to be spoken of,” he said. “And it was the reason for the blackmail.”

And then her heart broke for him as much as for her. While she had written their names over and over in her diary, he was dealing with grave life or death matters. She had been blind to that, too.

Rupert quit his pacing and dropped into the chair opposite her. He leaned forward, gaze locking with hers.

“Can you imagine what torture it would have been for him to be in love with his sister-­in-­law? And to know that I wasn't making you happy? Or how unfortunate for you to be wed to a man who loved you only as a friend?”

She thought to protest that he would have made her happy. But then she thought better of it because if she was understanding him correctly, Rupert would never, say, become overcome with passion for her in a butler's pantry. Or at a gazebo in a rainstorm in the afternoon. He might love her, but only as a friend. Not the wild, tumultuous, confusing, maddening, yet wonderful, falling-­head-­over-­heels kind of love she wanted . . . the kind of love she might possibly feel for Darcy.

“I care for you deeply,” Rupert continued. “Which is why I am telling you this. And why I will not propose to you, or any woman. You deserve real love and true happiness. And so does my brother.”

“This is . . . unexpected.”

That was the understatement of the year. She found herself shocked, confused, and terrified of the implications of what he was telling her. She might have been gravely wrong about Darcy. And thus, she might have thrown away her chance at true happiness.

“Our father raised him to think only of his duty to the estate and to the family name. There was no Colin, there was just Darcy. If that makes sense.”

He wasn't pushing her away because he was embarrassed by her, but because of his own desire. His offer of marriage was so tortured because he was, in effect, potentially sacrificing his brother to make it. His battle wasn't between lust for her and what everyone in the haute ton thought, it was between everything he'd been raised to believe and to value and his love. For her.

“I see,” she said. Two little words. I. See. But it was everything.

“I think he loves you,” Rupert continued. Then, looking into her eyes, and possibly the depths of her heart, he added, “And I think, Bridget, that you might love him, too.”

I have been wrong about Darcy. Here I thought he was [unladylike word crossed out] but it turns out he is a hero. But what am I to do about it? What can I do about it?

Lady Bridget's Diary

Bridget had half a mind to utterly disregard propriety and dash over to see Darcy and . . . say something. She owed him an apology for misjudging him. She ought to thank him for saving her sister. But then how to explain how her eyes and heart had been opened.
I see.

Should she throw herself at him?

What if she apologized and explained and groveled and kissed him passionately and he turned away, coldly? If he did not forgive her, if his love for her was not strong enough, then she had most certainly, well and truly, ruined her life.

But it was their day to receive callers and Josephine wouldn't hear of Bridget crying off for any reason at all, whatsoever.
Especially
not if said plan involved a lady calling upon a gentleman. It was not done. She would have to wait and see when—­
if?—­
Darcy came to call.

He was the sort of gentleman who would feel compelled to issue a marriage proposal to a woman after nearly ravishing her in a pantry and then being caught doing so. And yet, Pen­dleton did not announce his arrival.

It was, as one might imagine, incredibly difficult to maintain a cheerful demeanor after one had quite possibly and very foolishly destroyed one's best chance at a lifetime of happiness, all while being exposed as a judgmental, silly person whose priorities were not in the correct order.

It was the sort of anxiety that could only be soothed by a declaration of love and a promise of forever from Darcy. Who still had not come to visit. He had not even sent a note.

In the meantime: pastries. Bridget helped herself to one and then, ignoring Josephine's raised eyebrow, another.

She no longer cared about trying to emulate Lady Francesca or any woman like her. No matter how many lumps of sugar she refused or biscuits she didn't eat, she would never grow five inches taller and find herself lighter with a willowy figure. It was a hopeless endeavor and she might as well enjoy food and drink and sunshine on her face, freckles be damned.

She was American born and bred, raised by a father who fled the life in the haute ton and married for love. She would never reorganize the priorities she'd been raised with. And if that meant she never quite fit in with all the fancy English people? So be it.

She had her siblings. And, if she hadn't lost it, she had the love of a good man. No longer would she try to be something, or someone, she was not.

“Put your diary away, Bridget,” the duchess said.

“Yes, Your Grace.” She set the blue leather volume on a side table.

They had barely taken their seats when the first callers, who were not Lord Darcy, were announced. The Duchess of Ashbrooke and her friends had called; Claire had become friendly with the Duke of Ashbrooke over some mathematical whatnot that made her head spin. Bridget actually liked the duchess and her friends, particularly Lady Radcliffe. She liked them far more so than their other callers who mostly consisted of fortune-­hunting third sons or marriage-­minded mothers desperate to foist their daughters onto James, who was not interested in the slightest.

Pendleton announced the arrival of more guests, who were not Lord Darcy. Bridget was dismayed to see the calling cards of Lady Wych Cross and Lady Francesca.

“I don't suppose we can tell them we are not at home,” Bridget muttered.

“We are not cowards, Lady Bridget,” Josephine told her.

“So you admit this is a battle.”

“If so, then it is also war. And the outcome of one battle matters little if one ultimately wins the war.”

“Has anyone ever told you that you are unbelievably terrifying?”

“All the time.” She smiled, patting Bridget's hand. “I take it as a compliment.”

She was glad to have the duchess on her side when facing Lady Wych Cross, whom she had probably gravely insulted and irritated terribly at dinner. That was to say nothing of the terror she felt facing Lady Francesca, who had caught her emerging from the butler's pantry with Darcy and who had, surprisingly, not said anything.

But why should she? Then Darcy would have to marry Bridget, and she knew Francesca had been waiting for his proposal for some time now. Her secret was safe, was it not? For some reason, Bridget was far from relieved by the silence.

“Lady Wych Cross, it's excellent to see you,” said the duchess. “And you are looking well, Lady Francesca.”

“As always,” she quipped with a little laugh.

“Modesty is
such
an overrated virtue,” Amelia remarked.

“So is self-­righteousness, my dear,” Lady Wych Cross said. “Anyway, we have come to call and thank you for attending our dinner party the other evening. What stimulating conversation you all provided.”

“Yes, our guests were certainly stimulated,” Lady Francesca said with a pointed look at Bridget.

“Well
someone
must provide the stimulation,” she replied, holding Francesca's gaze.

“What are we talking about?” Claire asked. “I find myself terribly confused.”

“Why, the dinner party, of course,” Lady Francesca said, with a wicked smile. “Unless you were speaking of something else, Lady Bridget?”

“Of course not,” she murmured.

The conversation then turned to focus on the weather, Lady Benton's upcoming ball, the latest opera, and other things Bridget did not pay attention to. Because, Lord above, Lady Francesca had information that could ruin her, especially given that oh-­so-­proper Darcy had not come to propose again after kissing her.

She was now the sort of woman who dallied with lords in butler's pantries and did not receive proposals after. She would be ruined if word got out. Oh bloody hell, Bridget thought. Suddenly her fate and future happiness were held in the hands of a viper like Lady Francesca.

She could hardly expect Darcy to come to her rescue with another proposal. Or could she? The butler interrupted just then to announce more callers who were
not Lord Darcy.

“It was lovely to see you all, but we must be going,” Lady Wych Cross said. “We have an appointment at the modiste.”