Lady Bridget's Diary (Keeping Up with the Cavendishes #1)(42)

“No one saw me,” Amelia said.

“That you know of,” Josephine said, leveling a stare over the pages of The London Weekly.

“And I didn’t do anything scandalous,” Amelia added.

“Were you out of doors without a chaperone?” Josephine asked, blinking frequently, and they all knew where this was leading.

A staring contest and battle of wills ensued between the duchess and Amelia. It was of more interest than Claire’s mathematical paper or the recording of Bridget’s first real kiss.

“Who do you think will blink first?” Bridget whispered.

“I’m betting on Amelia,” Claire whispered back.

“I don’t know. Josephine has spent decades staring people down,” Bridget whispered.

In the end, it was Amelia who broke. She blinked away a tear or two and turned back to staring at the ceiling. A different Amelia had returned last night: one who was more reserved, more poised, more centered. She had cut her hair. There was an air of something wistful about her.

They were all dying to know where she had been—-and with whom, because no one believed that she’d just been on her own—-but not a word crossed her lips.

“Claire, what are you reading that has your cheeks positively pink?” the duchess asked.

“Nothing. Just an article from a mathematical journal.”

“Really?” Bridget peered over her shoulder. “Oh. It really is about mathematics. But you have been reading for quite some time and yet you are only on the second page.”

Bridget eyed her sister. Was she woolgathering? Were her daydreams making her blush?

“It is very challenging material,” Claire replied. The duchess just sighed. It was the weary sigh of a woman who had to find husbands for three unconventional and unpolished girls, one of whom was reading a paper on advanced mathematics. For pleasure. “If you are looking for something more interesting, why don’t you ask Bridget what she is writing about in her diary?”

“Her cheeks are also pink,” Amelia noted. “What did you do yesterday, Bridget?”

“I spent the whole afternoon traipsing around London searching for you.”

“In the company of Lord Darcy,” Claire added, with a smug smile.

“Dreadful Loooord Darcy,” Amelia said.

“You know his reputation. You can imagine how tedious the day was. We went to Hyde Park before being caught in a thunderstorm. Then we returned. Nothing remotely interesting occurred.”

This of course was a hideous lie. The most momentous thing had occurred. Darcy had become . . . human. He had become more than a man with a disapproving stare, hurtful words, or the embodiment of propriety. But really, really—-and this was what was making her cheeks turn pink—-what happened was that she had become aware of him as a man. A tall, dark, and brooding man with pounding heart and a hard chest, who murmured devastating things and kissed her.

Her. Bridget Cavendish, the girl who fell.

This paragon of virtue and English gentlemanliness had desired her. Even though she wasn’t sure whether a marchioness or a viscountess would go in to dinner first, and she didn’t know all the steps to the quadrille, and she had to look up the proper form of address for an earl when writing a letter. Not that she wrote letters to earls. But that was beside the point.

For one shimmering, sparkling, raining moment, Darcy desired her.

And yet she was in love with his brother. Why, just three pages earlier in her diary, she had -written:

Mrs. Rupert Wright

Mrs. Rupert Wright

Mrs. Rupert Wright

Mrs. Rupert Wright

But she had not heard from Rupert—-or Darcy, for that matter, since yesterday. Amelia refused to say whom she had spent the day with, so Bridget couldn’t help but wonder if her sister had been with the man Bridget was in love with.

Or loved?

Verb tenses. Not trifling things. So very significant.

She wondered what Darcy thought of the events of yesterday. Or rather, the kiss. Their kiss. Who cared in the slightest what he thought of anything other than their devastatingly romantic kiss? She knew, deep in her bones, that a man like Darcy did not kiss a woman like her lightly.

Was he horrified by his sudden lack of self--restraint?

Did he care for her, or had she just vexed him into kissing her?

Was the kiss a momentary lapse of good judgment?

Did he regret behaving like a dashing rogue and kissing her until her knees were weak?

Did he think less of her because she did not refuse him?

And now she might have ruined everything because she was quite certain that a True Lady would not allow liberties with a gentleman to whom she was not wed or betrothed, and they ought not act so wantonly in public. Or at all.

And then there was the matter of her feelings. Complicated, utterly uncertain, completely confused feelings.

Bridget flipped through the previous pages of her diary, words jumping out at her: “crashing bore,” “he’s the worst,” “Rupert makes my pulse quicken,” “dreadful, dull, Darcy.” And then in more recent pages, with the ink still fresh: “HE KISSED ME.”

A kiss complicated everything. She no longer knew how to think of Darcy or Rupert in her head . . . or in her heart, to be honest.

And she would have to live with all these questions and confusion because she couldn’t possibly call on him herself, and who knew when he might deign to call upon her?