Lady Bridget's Diary (Keeping Up with the Cavendishes #1)(22)

He deserved that.

He suspected that there was a good chance she was fighting a grin as she stalked away, and the thought brought the faintest smile to his lips, and a very troubling thought to his brain. Why was he already thinking like he knew her?

“Lady Bridget—-wait. Please.” She stopped and turned around, curiosity getting the better of her, no doubt. “I was rude when we first met. Your unusual behavior caught me off guard.”

“Are you saying this is somehow my fault?”

“Not at all.”

“We do not have a chaperone,” she said in an overdramatic stage whisper. “We should not be speaking.”

She stalked off again.

Oh dear God. He would have to chase her. Through crowds. Crowds full of gossips. He never chased women.

He caught up with her in just a few strides.

“You don’t want to ask for a chaperone,” he said, falling in step beside her. “Because I will have to request it—-it would be too forward for a lady to ask. Then people will talk. They will say that I am interested in you. That we are interested in each other. Then, at every opportunity, we will be thrust together—-all under the watchful eye of the biggest gossips in England. Is that what you wish?”

“Perish the thought.”

“I have no doubt that you wish to be free of me. Which is why I beg you to accept my apology now. And we shall go our separate ways. I am sorry that I was an arse.”

He needed his conscience clear. He needed to make things right before Rupert proposed. The last thing he needed was Lady Bridget glaring at him over Christmas dinner for the next fifty years.

“Very well, I accept. Good day, Dreadful Darcy.”

“What was that?” He caught her wrist.

She looked down at the unexpected sight of his hand clasped around her wrist. He did as well. Then he felt a surge of heat—-embarrassment? desire? confusion?—-and let go.

“Oh, just a little name I have for you in my diary,” she said meekly.

“Your diary. You write about me in your diary.”

This struck terror into his heart. And something else, too, that he couldn’t or wouldn’t identify.

“Indeed,” she said, mustering her courage. “I have an ongoing list of all the dreadful things about you.”

Of course she did. He could see it now: Bridget, bent over her desk at night, writing furiously of her hatred of him. The lone candle would lend a soft glow to her skin, revealing her cheeks red with anger as she detailed her loathing for him. Perhaps her wrapper would fall open, revealing . . .

Bloody hell.

“Such as?” He spoke sharply, more angry with this absurd direction of his thoughts than at her.

“Shouldn’t we be speaking of the weather? Or gossiping about mutual acquaintances?”

“No.”

“It’s very sad that you won’t help your brother.”

“What the devil are you talking about?”

“You wouldn’t help him with his debts.”

“Did he tell you that?”

“Obviously. Who else would I have heard it from?”

So Rupert had confided in her—-to an extent. He wondered if she had given him the funds. It hadn’t escaped his notice that Rupert had been despondent one day and back to his cheerful self the next. He had obviously come up with the money. But how? Darcy began to get an idea.

The answer was staring him in the face. Lady Bridget, to the rescue.

Perhaps things were more serious between her and Rupert than he thought. This was a good thing, was it not? His brother should marry, though Darcy wished he would marry someone a bit more . . . English. Or perhaps a bit less prone to inciting unwanted lustful thoughts in him.

He wondered what else she knew. Darcy had made some inquiries, discreetly of course, and learned that Rupert didn’t have any significant debts, but perhaps they had been paid off quietly. He had no stupid wagers in the betting books at White’s. Whom, then, did he owe the money to? And why?

“Thank you for helping my brother,” he said. “But it is not your place.”

“Someone has to do it, especially if you will not. It’s one thing if you’re so high and mighty as to look down at me for slipping and falling or forgetting the proper way to address a marquis. I can’t fault you for sharing the same stupid, judgmental sentiments as the rest of the ton. But refusing to help your own brother is honestly the worst thing I have ever heard.”

Her eyes flashed accusingly. He found himself unable to breathe.

Apparently Rupert had not told her of all the money Darcy had given him over the years for other debts. Apparently he had not told her of all the punishments Darcy had endured on behalf of his mischievous little brother—-their father would never hurt his heir too badly. But his spare . . . well, he could spare him. And Darcy didn’t mind, not one bit, because in Rupert he had one person who would treat him like a boy, or a man, or a human. Not an heir, or an earl.

He lived to protect his brother, and her accusations that he was failing hit like a fist to his gut. But she didn’t know the half of it and she never would. There was no reason for her to be privy to their private family matters. There was no reason he had to prove himself to her.

“It seems you are determined to think ill of me, and given the facts you have, I cannot blame you for it. I shall now endeavor to stay out of your way.”