The Viscount Who Loved Me (28 page)

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Kate murmured.

The viscountess turned to her with a wistful expression in her blue eyes. “That is very sweet of you. He has been gone for many years, but I do still miss him each and every day.”

Kate felt a lump forming in her throat. She remembered how well Mary and her father had loved each other, and she knew that she was in the presence of another woman who had experienced true love. And suddenly she felt so very sad. Because Mary had lost her husband and the viscountess had lost hers as well, and…

And maybe most of all because she would probably never know the bliss of true love herself.

“But we’re becoming so maudlin,” Lady Bridgerton suddenly said, smiling a little too brightly as she turned back to Mary, “and here I haven’t even met your other daughter.”

“Have you not?” Mary asked, her brow furrowing. “I suppose that must be true. Edwina was not able to attend your musicale.”

“I have, of course, seen you from afar,” Lady Bridgerton said to Edwina, bestowing upon her a dazzling smile.

Mary made the introductions, and Kate could not help but notice the appraising manner in which Lady Bridgerton regarded Edwina. There could be no doubt about it. She’d decided Edwina would make an excellent addition to her family.

After a few more moments of chitchat, Lady Bridgerton offered them tea while their bags were being delivered to their rooms, but they declined, as Mary was tired and wanted to lie down.

“As you wish,” Lady Bridgerton said, signaling to a housemaid. “I shall have Rose show you to your rooms. Dinner is at eight. Is there anything else I may do for you before you retire?”

Mary and Edwina both shook their heads no, and Kate started to follow suit, but at the last minute she blurted out, “Actually, if I might ask you a question.”

Lady Bridgerton smiled warmly. “Of course.”

“I noticed when we arrived that you have extensive flower gardens. Might I explore them?”

“Then you are a gardener as well?” Lady Bridgerton inquired.

“Not a very good one,” Kate admitted, “but I do admire the hand of an expert.”

The viscountess blushed. “I should be honored if you explored the gardens. They are my pride and joy. I don’t have much a hand in them now, but when Edmund was al—” She stopped and cleared her throat. “That is to say, when I spent more time here, I was always up to my elbows in dirt. It used to drive my mother positively mad.”

“And the gardener, too, I imagine,” Kate said.

Lady Bridgerton’s smile erupted into laughter. “Oh, indeed! He was a terrible sort. Always saying that the only thing women knew about flowers was how to accept them as a gift. But he had the greenest thumb you could ever imagine, so I learned to put up with him.”

“And he learned to put up with you?”

Lady Bridgerton smiled wickedly. “No, he never did, actually. But I didn’t let that stop me.”

Kate grinned, instinctively warming to the older woman.

“But don’t let me keep you any longer,” Lady Bridgerton said. “Let Rose take you up and get you settled in. And Miss Sheffield,” she said to Kate, “if you like, I should be happy to give you a tour of the gardens later in the week. I’m afraid I’m too busy greeting guests right now, but I would be delighted to make time for you at a later date.”

“I would like that, thank you,” Kate said, and then she and Mary and Edwina followed the maid up the stairs.

Anthony emerged from his position behind his ever-so-slightly ajar door and strode down the hall toward his mother. “Was that the Sheffields I saw you greeting?” he asked, even though he knew very well it was. But his offices were too far down the hall for him to have heard anything the quartet of women had actually said, so he decided that a brief interrogation was in order.

“Indeed it was,” Violet replied. “Such a lovely family, don’t you think?”

Anthony just grunted.

“I’m so glad I invited them.”

Anthony said nothing, although he considered grunting again.

“They were a last-minute addition to the guest list.”

“I didn’t realize,” he murmured.

Violet nodded. “I had to scrounge up three more gentlemen from the village to even the numbers.”

“So we may expect the vicar at supper this eve?”

“And his brother, who is visiting for a spell, and his son.”

“Isn’t young John only sixteen?”

Violet shrugged. “I was desperate.”

Anthony pondered this. His mother was indeed desperate to have the Sheffields join the house party if it meant inviting a spotty-faced sixteen-year-old to supper. Not that she wouldn’t have invited him for a family meal; when not formally entertaining, the Bridgertons broke with accepted standards and had all the children eat in the dining room, regardless of age. Indeed, the first time Anthony had gone to visit a friend, he’d been shocked that he was expected to take his meals in the nursery.

But still, a house party was a house party, and even Violet Bridgerton did not allow children at the table.

“I understand you’ve made the acquaintance of both Sheffield girls,” Violet said.

Anthony nodded.

“I find them both delightful myself,” she continued. “They haven’t much in the way of fortune, but I’ve always maintained that when choosing a spouse, fortune is not as important as character, provided, of course, that one isn’t in desperate straits.”

“Which I,” Anthony drawled, “as I am sure you are about to point out, am not.”

Violet sniffed and shot him a haughty look. “I should not be so quick to mock me, my son. I merely point out the truth. You should be down on your hands and knees thanking your maker every day that you don’t
have
to marry an heiress. Most men don’t have the luxury of free will when it comes to marriage, you know.”

Anthony just smiled. “I should be thanking my maker? Or my mother?”

“You are a beast.”

He clucked her gently under the chin. “A beast you raised.”

“And it wasn’t an easy task,” she muttered. “I can assure you of that.”

He leaned forward and dropped a kiss on her cheek. “Have fun greeting your guests, Mother.”

She scowled at him, but her heart clearly wasn’t in it. “Where are you going?” she asked as he started to move away.

“For a walk.”

“Really?”

He turned around, a bit bewildered over her interest. “Yes, really. Is there a problem with that?”

“Not at all,” she replied. “Just that you haven’t taken a walk—for the simple sake of taking a walk—in ages.”

“I haven’t been in the country in ages,” he commented.

“True,” she conceded. “In that case, you should really head out to the flower gardens. The early species are just beginning to bloom, and it’s simply spectacular. Like nothing you can ever see in London.”

Anthony nodded. “I shall see you for supper.”

Violet beamed and waved him off, watching as he disappeared back into his offices, which wrapped around the corner of Aubrey Hall and had French doors leading out to the side lawn.

Her eldest son’s interest in the Sheffields was most intriguing. Now, if she could only figure out which Sheffield he was interested in….

About a quarter of an hour later, Anthony was out strolling through his mother’s flower gardens, enjoying the contradiction of the warm sun and the cool breeze, when he heard the light sound of a second set of footsteps on a nearby path. This piqued his curiosity. The guests were all settling in their rooms, and it was the gardener’s day off. Frankly, he’d been anticipating solitude.

He turned toward the direction of the footfall, moving silently until he reached the end of his path. He looked to the right, then to the left, and then he saw…

Her
.

Why, he wondered, was he surprised?

Kate Sheffield, dressed in a pale lavender frock, blending in charmingly with the irises and grape hyacinths. She was standing beside a decorative wooden arch, which, later in the year, would be covered with climbing pink and white roses.

He watched her for a moment as she trailed her fingers along some fuzzy plant he could never remember the name of, then bent down to sniff at a Dutch tulip.

“They don’t have a scent,” he called out, slowly making his way toward her.

She straightened immediately, her entire body reacting before she’d turned to see him. He could tell she’d recognized his voice, which left him feeling rather oddly satisfied.

As he approached her side, he motioned to the brilliant red bloom and said, “They’re lovely and somewhat rare in an English garden, but alas, with no perfume.”

She waited longer to reply than he would have expected, then she said, “I’ve never seen a tulip before.”

Something about that made him smile. “Never?”

“Well, not in the ground,” she explained. “Edwina has received many bouquets, and the bulb flowers are quite the rage this time of year. But I’ve never actually seen one growing.”

“They are my mother’s favorite,” Anthony said, reaching down and plucking one. “That and hyacinths, of course.”

She smiled curiously. “Of course?” she echoed.

“My youngest sister is named Hyacinth,” he said, handing her the flower. “Or didn’t you know that?”

She shook her head. “I didn’t.”

“I see,” he murmured. “We are quite famously named in alphabetical order, from Anthony right down to Hyacinth. But then, perhaps I know a great deal more about you than you know of me.”

Kate’s eyes widened in surprise at his enigmatic statement, but all she said was, “That may very well be true.”

Anthony quirked a brow. “I’m shocked, Miss Sheffield. I had donned all my armor and was expecting you to return with, ‘I know quite enough.’ ”

Kate tried not to make a face at his imitation of her voice. But her expression was wry in the extreme as she said, “I promised Mary I would be on my best behavior.”

Anthony let out a loud hoot of laughter.

“Strangely enough,” Kate muttered, “Edwina had a similar reaction.”

He leaned one hand against the arch, carefully avoiding the thorns on the climbing rose vine. “I find myself insanely curious as to what constitutes good behavior.”

She shrugged and fiddled with the tulip in her hand. “I expect I shall figure that out as I go along.”

“But you’re not supposed to argue with your host, correct?”

Kate shot him an arch look. “There was some debate
over whether or not you qualify as our host, my lord. After all, the invitation was issued by your mother.”

“True,” he acceded, “but I do own the house.”

“Yes,” she muttered, “Mary said as much.”

He grinned. “This is killing you, isn’t it?”

“Being nice to you?”

He nodded.

“It’s not the easiest thing I’ve ever done.”

His expression changed slightly, as if he might be done teasing her. As if he might have something entirely different on his mind. “But it’s not the hardest thing, either, now, is it?” he murmured.

“I don’t like you, my lord,” she blurted out.

“No,” he said with an amused smile. “I didn’t think you did.”

Kate started to feel very strange, much like she had in his study, right before he’d kissed her. Her throat suddenly felt a bit tight, and her palms grew very warm. And her insides—well, there was really nothing to describe the tense, prickly feeling that tightened through her abdomen. Instinctively, and perhaps out of self-preservation, she took a step back.

He looked amused, as if he knew exactly what she was thinking.

She fiddled with the flower some more, then blurted out, “You shouldn’t have picked this.”

“You should have a tulip,” he said matter-of-factly. “It isn’t right that Edwina receives all the flowers.”

Kate’s stomach, already tense and prickly, did a little flip. “Nonetheless,” she managed to say, “your gardener will surely not appreciate the mutilation of his work.”

He smiled devilishly. “He’ll blame one of my younger siblings.”

She couldn’t help but smile. “I
should
think less of you for such a ploy,” she said.

“But you don’t?”

She shook her head. “But then again, it’s not as if my opinion of you could sink very much lower.”

“Ouch.” He shook a finger at her. “I thought you were supposed to be on your best behavior.”

Kate looked around. “It doesn’t count if there is no one nearby to hear me, right?”

“
I
can hear you.”

“
You
certainly don’t count.”

His head dipped a little closer in her direction. “I should think I was the
only
one who did.”

Kate said nothing, not wanting even to meet his eyes. Whenever she allowed herself one glimpse into those velvety depths, her stomach started flipping anew.

“Miss Sheffield?” he murmured.

She looked up. Big mistake. Her stomach flipped again.

“Why did you seek me out?” she asked.

Anthony pushed off the wooden post and stood straight. “I didn’t, actually. I was just as surprised to see you as you were me.” Although, he thought acerbically, he shouldn’t have been. He should have realized his mother was up to something the moment she actually suggested where he take his walk.

But could she possibly be steering him to the
wrong
Miss Sheffield? Surely she wouldn’t choose Kate over Edwina as a prospective daughter-in-law.

“But now that I have found you,” he said, “I did have something I wanted to say.”

“Something you haven’t already said?” she quipped. “I can’t imagine.”

He ignored her jibe. “I wanted to apologize.”

That got her attention. Her lips parted with shock, and her eyes grew round. “I beg your pardon?” she said. Anthony thought her voice sounded rather like a frog.

“I owe you an apology for my behavior the other night,” he said. “I treated you most rudely.”

“You’re apologizing for the kiss?” she asked, still looking rather dazed.

The kiss? He hadn’t even considered apologizing for the kiss. He’d never apologized for a kiss, never before kissed someone for whom an apology might be necessary. He’d actually been thinking more of the unpleasant things he’d said to her after the kiss. “Er, yes,” he lied, “the kiss. And for what I said, as well.”