On The Way To The Wedding

Gregory watched her hand; he didn’t know why. He just watched it as it moved. She was quite elegant, he realized. It wasn’t noticeable at first, because her looks were so wholesome and traditional. One expected elegance to shimmer like silk, to glow, to transfix. Elegance was an orchid, not a simple daisy.

But when Lady Lucinda moved, she looked different. She seemed to…flow.

She would be a good dancer. He was sure of it.

Although he wasn’t quite sure why that mattered.

“I’m sorry,” she said, turning quite suddenly around.

“About Miss Watson?”

“Yes. I did not mean to hurt your feelings.”

“You didn’t,” he said, perhaps a little too sharply.

“Oh.” She blinked, perhaps with surprise. “I’m glad for that. I didn’t mean to.”

She wouldn’t mean to, he realized. She wasn’t the sort.

Her lips parted, but she didn’t speak right away. Her eyes seemed to focus beyond his shoulder, as if she were searching behind him for the correct words. “It was just that…Well, when you said what you said about love,” she began, “it just sounded so familiar. I couldn’t quite fathom it.”

“Nor could I,” he said softly.

She held silent, not quite looking at him. Her lips were pursed-just a touch-and every now and then she would blink. Not a fluttery sort of movement but rather something quite deliberate.

She was thinking, he realized. She was the sort who thought about things, probably to the neverending frustration of anyone charged with the task of guiding her through life.

“What will you do now?” she asked.

“About Miss Watson?”

She nodded.

“What do you suggest I do?”

“I’m not sure,” she said. “I can speak to her on your behalf, if you would like.”

“No.” Something about that seemed far too juvenile. And Gregory was only just now beginning to feel that he was truly a man, well and grown, ready to make his mark.

“You can wait, then,” she said with a tiny shrug. “Or you can proceed and try again to woo her. She won’t have the opportunity to see Mr. Edmonds for at least a month, and I would think…eventually…she would come to see…”

But she didn’t finish. And he wanted to know. “Come to see what?” he pressed.

She looked up, as if pulled from a dream. “Why, that you…that you…just that you are so much better than the rest. I don’t know why she cannot see it. It’s quite obvious to me.”

From anyone else it would have been a strange statement. Overly forward, perhaps. Maybe even a coy hint of availability.

But not from her. She was without artifice, the sort of girl a man could trust. Rather like his sisters, he supposed, with a keen wit and a sharp sense of humor. Lucy Abernathy would never inspire poetry, but she would make a very fine friend.

“It will happen,” she said, her voice soft but certain. “She will realize. You…and Hermione…You will be together. I am sure of it.”

He watched her lips as she spoke. He didn’t know why, but the shape of them was suddenly intriguing…the way they moved, formed their consonants and vowels. They were ordinary lips. Nothing about them had attracted his attention before. But now, in the darkened library, with nothing in the air but the soft whisper of their voices…

He wondered what it would mean to kiss her.

He stepped back, feeling suddenly and overwhelmingly wrong.

“We should return,” he said abruptly.

A flicker of hurt passed over her eyes. Damn. He hadn’t meant to sound like he was so eager to be rid of her. None of this was her fault. He was just tired. And frustrated. And she was there. And the night was dark. And they were alone.

And it hadn’t been desire. It couldn’t be desire. He’d been waiting his entire life to react to a woman the way he had to Hermione Watson. He couldn’t possibly feel desire for another woman after that. Not Lady Lucinda, not anyone.

It was nothing. She was nothing.

No, that was not fair. She was something. Quite a bit, actually. But not for him.

Six

In which Our Hero makes progress.

Dear God, what had she said?

That single thought pounded through Lucy’s mind as she lay in bed that night, too horrified even to toss and turn. She lay on her back, staring at the ceiling, utterly still, utterly mortified.

And the next morning, as she peered in the mirror, sighing at the weary lavender color beneath her eyes, there it was again-

Oh, Mr. Bridgerton, you are so much better than the rest.

And every time she relived it, the voice in her memory grew higher, more simpering, until she turned into one of those awful creatures-the girls who fluttered and swooned every time someone’s older brother came to visit at school.

“Lucy Abernathy,” she muttered under her breath, “you silly cow.”

“Did you say something?” Hermione looked up at her from her position near the bed. Lucy already had her hand on the doorknob, ready to leave for breakfast.

“Just doing sums in my head,” Lucy lied.

Hermione went back to putting on her shoes. “For heaven’s sake, why?” she said, mostly to herself.

Lucy shrugged, even though Hermione was not looking at her. She always said that she was doing sums in her head when Hermione caught her talking to herself. She had no idea why Hermione believed her; Lucy detested sums, almost as much as she hated fractions and tables. But it seemed like the sort of thing she might do, practical as she was, and Hermione had never questioned it.

Every now and then Lucy mumbled a number, just to make it more authentic.

“Are you ready to go down?” Lucy asked, twisting the knob. Not that she was. The last thing she wished was to see, well, anyone. Mr. Bridgerton in particular, of course, but the thought of facing the world at large was just ghastly.

But she was hungry, and she was going to have to show herself eventually, and she didn’t see why her misery ought to wallow on an empty stomach.

As they walked to breakfast, Hermione peered at her curiously. “Are you well, Lucy?” she asked. “You look a little strange.”

Lucy fought the urge to laugh. She was strange. She was an idiot, and probably shouldn’t be let loose in public.

Good God, had she actually told Gregory Bridgerton that he was better than the rest?

She wanted to die. Or at the very least hide under a bed.

But no, she couldn’t even manage to feign illness and have a good lying-in. It hadn’t even occurred to her to try. She was so ridiculously normal and routineish that she was up and ready to depart for breakfast before she’d even managed a single coherent thought.

Aside from the pondering of her apparent madness, of course. That she had no trouble focusing upon.

“Well, you look very fine, anyway,” Hermione said as they reached the top of the staircase. “I do like your