by Maya Rodale
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.”
“For my trousseau,” Lady Francesca said, smirking.
Bridget felt a sinking feeling in her stomach. Trousseau meant marriage, which meant someone had proposed or was about to. It had to be Darcy. And if he was marrying Francesca, then he wasn’t marrying Bridget, which meant that she had lost the love of a good man and had no other prospects and would die alone, a spinster, in a cottage by the sea.
“Please do come call again. It is always a pleasure to see you both,” Josephine said, lying through her teeth.
After they left, an influx of new callers, none of whom were Lord Darcy, arrived. And then Bridget endured another hour of company, the tedium and torment eased by an appalling number of biscuits. The duchess even gave up with the chastising looks, as they obviously had no effect. Finally, calling hours came to an end. Darcy hadn’t called. Bridget had ruined everything.
Where the devil is my diary?
Lady Bridget’s innermost
panicked thoughts
Later that evening, while waiting for her sisters to get ready for dinner, Bridget thought she’d take a few moments to write in her diary. But it wasn’t on her bedside table, or anywhere in her room. Sigh. Amelia. Again.
She crossed the hall to her sister’s bedchamber. Amelia was sitting before her vanity table, whilst her maid was trying to tame her curls. It was a losing battle.
“Amelia, what have you done with my diary?”
“Why do you always blame me when you cannot find it?”
“Because you have a habit of picking it up, taking it someplace to read, even though it is private, and leaving it somewhere else.”
“I hardly see how that signifies.”
>
“Are you daft? Amelia, where is my diary?”
“I told you. I don’t know,” Amelia ground out.
“Just tell me where it is and I won’t be mad that you’ve read it,” Bridget promised. It was a lie. She was already furious that her sister took it and read it and lost it.
“Fine, I shall admit to reading it in the past—and being bored to tears by it—but I have not removed it or read it recently.”
“Claire—” Bridget called out to her sister, also getting ready for supper in her room.
“I haven’t seen it either,” she called back.
Bridget burst into James’s study. He and Miss Green jumped apart, which might have raised questions in her mind if she weren’t so focused on finding her diary. Oh God, the things she had written!
About Darcy. About Rupert. About Amelia. About everything.
“My diary,” she gasped.
“A riveting tale of a young woman’s entrance into high society,” James said. “In which two brothers vie for the hand of an exotic American—”
“Does everyone read my bloody diary?” she cried out.
“Honestly, I have not, since I have neither the time nor interest in the inner workings of your mind. Sorry. I guessed that is what you wrote about and apparently I was right.”
“Have you seen it?”
“No,” James said, wincing. “Sorry.”
God, her stomach was beginning to ache now. It seemed well and truly lost. If it fell into the wrong hands . . . She closed her eyes and moaned. She would have to leave England and return to America and spend the rest of her life answering the question, “Why did you give up living with a duke to return to America as a tragic spinster?”
“I’ll help you look for it, Lady Bridget,” Miss Green offered kindly.
“Thank you, Miss Green. I appreciate your assistance as well as your understanding of my great distress.”
“Where did you see it last?”
Bridget took a deep breath and thought back.
“In the drawing room this morning. I was writing in it before calling hours.”
“Then let us begin our search there.”
It was not in the drawing room. It was not on any of the tables. It was not shoved under a chair cushion—and she knew because she flung them all aside, onto the carpet. It was not under the carpet either. Nor was it under the settee. She was in the process of looking there when Josephine’s voice cut in.
“What is the meaning of this?”
Bridget froze on her hands and knees, with her bottom high up in the air. Well, this was an inelegant position to be in. As gracefully as she could, Bridget rose to her feet.
“I have lost my diary. It is a great tragedy and possibly an unprecedented disaster.”
“Is it really?” Josephine raised one brow.
“I have faithfully detailed my time in England, which means that I have written many compromising things about myself and members of this family. I have also written insulting things about at least half of the haute ton.”
Bridget watched the duchess carefully as her expression paled as she thought back over all the things that could possibly be recorded: Amelia’s unchaperoned journey to God only knew where, Bridget’s refusal of two eligible gentlemen.
And those were just the things Josephine knew about, to say nothing of Rupert’s secret or what she’d done with Darcy in the gazebo. And the butler’s pantry. Oh God.
If she held out any hope that she was overreacting or blowing things out of proportion, the duchess’s horrified expression confirmed that yes, this was a disaster of unprecedented proportions. Yes, she should go to her room and pack her bags and prepare a return voyage to America.
But even in this time of utter terror and certain ruination, the duchess was strong, determined, and ready to fight.
“Well then, let us call in the troops,” she declared. Then she dramatically pulled the bell cord once, twice, thrice, and a bevy of housemaids and footmen came running.
All the servants were enlisted in the search efforts for Lady Bridget’s diary. No pillow was unturned, no bookshelf left unexamined. Long after midnight they were forced to face the truth: the diary was gone. Missing. At large. Absent. Unaccounted for. Lost.
A very somber group of Cavendish siblings gathered in Claire’s bedroom. Amelia lounged at the foot of the bed, Claire and Bridget leaned against the headboard, and James sat in a chair next to the bed. It was a long moment of excruciating, heartbreaking silence before Bridget felt obligated to say something. And not just anything.
“I have ruined us all I am so, so sorry.”
And she was. It had nothing to do with all the embarrassing things she wrote about herself and everything to do with the way she had embarrassed her family. If the contents of her diary were known, it wouldn’t complicate things for just her.
“I’m sure it is not that bad,” Claire said consolingly, resting her hand on Bridget’s.
“It is that bad,” Bridget said glumly. “In fact, it is probably worse than you can even imagine.”
“Bridget is right,” Amelia agreed. “I have read it. She writes about my escapades. And how Darcy compromised her.”
“It was one kiss in a rainstorm,” Bridget retorted. Event though, gah, it was so much more than that.
“One devastatingly romantic kiss so perfect that Amelia will think I’m making it up,” her sister quoted, verbatim.
“Amelia!” Bridget lunged for her annoying, plaguing little sister, and Claire grabbed a handful of her nightgown, restraining her.
“Amelia,” James said in his I-am-the-head-of-this-family voice.
“We’ll be ruined if word of this gets out,” Bridget lamented.
“So we shall be spinsters together,” Amelia replied with a shrug. “We can get a cottage by the sea and a dozen cats and eat cake for breakfast. Besides, Claire and James won’t tell anyone. They’re family, Bridget. And if everyone is going to find out, they deserve to hear it from us.”
Bridget banged her head against the headboard. Thud. Thud. Thud. It was really the only thing to do in a crisis like this.
“I think what our dear sister means to say is that if we know what we’re dealing with, then we can figure out how to help,” James said. And she felt terrible because this wasn’t his fault, but he would do whatever it took to fix it. “And it sounds like we are dealing with two scandalous Cavendish sisters.”
“Which shall reflect on us, James,” Claire said softly, with a pointed look at her brother.
“I know.” His mouth settled into a grim line. He was thinking about something . . . or someone. Even if James and Claire weren’t mentioned explicitly, the scandal would still complicate their lives.
Worst of all, the family did not have the clout to weather this sort of scandal. Someone like, say, Darcy, with his unblemished reputation and the respect of his peers, could possibly withstand it. But the upstart, outsider family who had forged very few connections with the ton were not in the best position to emerge unscathed.
“I’m so sorry,” Bridget said for the thousandth time.
“We know you are. And it was your private diary, that you didn’t expect anyone other than Amelia to read,” Claire said. “And it’s not as if you were careless and left it somewhere public. It was stolen right out of our home.”
That was the other thing. It was very likely stolen. During calling hours. Bridget kept quiet about her suspicions of who had taken it.
“You mentioned Darcy was, er, implicated?” James asked, glancing at her.
“Yes,” she muttered. He was, along with his brother.
“So he stands to have his own reasons to find the diary and ensure its contents are kept confidential,” James said, and Bridget did not like where this was going but she was in no position to protes
t. “Do you think he might help?”
She thought of what she had written about him. No. But then she thought about what she’d written about Rupert. “Yes,” she said. “He would probably help.”
It would not be because of her. He might have loved her once, but certainly not anymore, and absolutely not after this. She hadn’t just lost her diary, she had lost the love of a good man and her hope for future happiness.
It is after midnight. The house has been searched. My diary has not been found. I do believe this is the correct time to panic.
Lady Bridget’s innermost thoughts
It was nearly midnight and the hour for making social calls and marriage proposals had long since passed when Rupert strolled into the library. Darcy was at his desk, a mountain of account books that required his attention today and correspondence that demanded responses immediately spread out before him. He hadn’t even begun to review the documents that would be discussed in Parliament on the morrow.
Just focus. But the truth was, he could not. And he didn’t need to. Accounts, correspondence, and Parliament could wait. What could not wait: the marriage proposal he was honor bound to issue Lady Bridget.
After the last one, he was in no hurry to repeat the experience.
And as for what came after, he imagined the worst. He would love her in his own restrained way. She would make herself miserable trying to conform to what she thought a countess ought to be.
It would be a disaster. He did not rush headlong into disaster. Not twice, anyway.
Rupert, being unfamiliar with crushing amounts of responsibility and work and a determination to avoid thinking about a woman, poured two brandies and set one down on Darcy’s desk.
“What do you think is going on at Durham House?” Rupert asked.
“I’m sure I do not know,” Darcy said, not even looking up from his work.
“I walked past and saw that the whole house is lit up. Upstairs. Downstairs. I can see people rushing about all over the place.”
Rupert seemed concerned, but Darcy wouldn’t allow himself that feeling. For all he knew, it was a bizarre American practice to light every candle and have an entire household rush about at a late hour. Perhaps it was one of their holidays.