Chapter 11

CHAPTER11

“What did you say?” Rachel was the first to speak at the side of the ballroom as Lord Ramsbury looped Bridget’s arm through his own.

Bridget wasn’t sure what to think or feel. But she had to admit she was intrigued by the idea.

Was it possible that Lord Burnington would take more notice of her if she was courting another man? The idea was mad! Yet, there was another reason she had said yes—a reason she was trying to deny to herself as much as possible.

It is not because I wish to know what it would be like to court Lord Ramsbury. That is not the reason!

“Tell me I misheard them,” Rachel said to Daniel at her side, firmly.

“You did not.”

“Seth.” Jacob stepped forward, shaking Emily, who was desperately trying to hold him back, off his arm. “I need to speak to you. Now.”

“If you intend to chase me from your mother’s ballroom, what purpose would that serve?” Lord Ramsbury asked with a shrug. “Lady Bridget and I have made our decision. A little exercise will not change that.”

“Seth!” Jacob hissed, stepping forward once again so close to Lord Ramsbury, he clearly intended to tower over him. But as they were the same height, the endeavor did not work. “I told you, time and time again, you were not to risk my sister-in-law’s reputation.”

Bridget stared at Jacob in surprise. Why would he have bothered to protect her in such a way? They may have been family, but they were not related by blood. She half wondered if there was an element of guilt involved—guilt that Jacob should have originally married her by arrangement, and then she would have been his to protect.

Thank God that never happened!

“Do not duel him,” Bridget said, trying to keep her voice calm. “My reputation is intact, and we merely wish to court. It is hardly the scandal of the century, is it?”

She glanced at Emily, who was chewing on her lip, clearly trying to keep what she had seen earlier that day a secret.

“You are serious?” Daniel spoke for the first time, not looking at Briget, but at Lord Ramsbury. “You enter into this with complete sincerity?”

Bridget flattened her lips together, hoping her expression gave nothing away.

“Completely,” Lord Ramsbury said in such a convincing way that she looked sharply at him.

Suddenly, she felt how cruel the world could be. She had one man willing to enter into a fake courtship with her, but no man was interested in actually courting her. The dream of marrying for love, of starting a family of her own, seemed far out of reach, indeed.

“This is madness,” Jacob muttered, stepping back. Emily ran a hand over his arm, trying to calm him down.

“Why is it mad? I courted before,” Lord Ramsbury said off-handedly.

Bridget’s lips parted as she stared at him.

Wait… he courted before? Who?

“I need to speak to you in private. Now.” Jacob turned back and grabbed Lord Ramsbury’s other arm. He dragged him away through the busy ballroom, with Daniel at their heels.

Bridget turned to look back at her sisters, noticing how different their expressions were. Rachel was glowering, perhaps in anger, and Emily was simply trying to stay quiet, an unusual thing for her to attempt.

“I hope you know what you are doing, Bridget,” Rachel said, eventually.

Do I? I am not sure I know at all!

Emily picked up two glasses of wine from a nearby tray and passed one to Bridget. “Something tells me you need this right now,” she whispered.

Bridget happily downed the contents of the glass.

* * *

“Explain,” Jacob ordered, pushing Seth out onto the terrace over the garden. “Because the last time we stood here, you assured me you were not interested in Bridget at all.”

“Calm yourself, Jacob.” Daniel followed them outside, closing the glass door behind him. “At least hear him out before you push him off the terrace.”

“I have known him longer than you have,” Jacob said tartly, pointing at Seth. “I know just how many women he has been with over the years.”

“Is it much better than your reputation?” Daniel asked with raised eyebrows.

“You and I talked about that long ago.” Jacob still shifted his weight between his feet, urgently.

“That we did.” Daniel thrust his hands into the pockets of his tailcoat and nodded. “And yet, you married Emily anyway, despite what I thought, and have stayed faithful to her ever since.”

“Despite what you thought!?” Jacob spluttered loudly. “You thought I wouldn’t be faithful?”

Seth smirked. He couldn’t keep back his amusement at the look of outrage on his friend’s face.

“I’ll deal with you in a minute.” Jacob pointed at Seth, who held up his hands innocently.

“Come off it, Jacob.” Daniel rolled his eyes and moved toward a garden chair. He sat down and jerked his head toward the other chair, clearly urging Seth to take it.

Seth did but immediately regretted it. The dew on the chair was now soaking through his trousers.

“When you married Emily, no one was sure how it would go,” Daniel said calmly. “You have proved yourself a good husband, but for a long time in your rather… untraditional courtship, no one was certain what caliber of a man you were, least of all me.”

“Thanks. So kind of you to say so.” Jacob held his hands out helplessly.

“Exactly.” Daniel leaned forward sharply, toward Seth. “Seth, this is where you tell me what happened when you courted before.”

“I beg your pardon?” Seth wasn’t expecting to answer this question. Of all the questions he had predicted, this was not one of them.

“Look, you know Jacob and I are protective of the whole family. When the Earl of Pratt is so busy with business and unable to watch over his daughters, we are even more so…” Daniel trailed off, leaving something else hanging in the air.

Seth nodded, showing he understood. Daniel felt keenly the manner of responsibility toward them all, as he was married to Rachel, the practical surrogate mother of her sisters.

“Tell me,” Daniel said, his voice soft. “What happened in your previous courtship?”

“This doesn’t help anything,” Jacob called tiredly and sat on the terrace wall.

“It helps,” Daniel insisted firmly, before looking back at Seth again.

“Very well.”

Seth didn’t wish to talk about this. He was doing all of this for Bridget’s benefit, to see her smile and happy with the man she cared so much about, even if that man wasn’t him. Opening his old, bleeding heart to Daniel wasn’t something he had banked on.

“I courted a young lady for six months. We were old childhood friends, and I believed we were going to get married.”

He paused momentarily, noting that Jacob had gone very still on the other side of the terrace. He had been there and seen it all, no doubt remembering the pain Seth had gone through at the time.

“I asked her to marry me.” Seth kept his voice tight. “And she laughed at me.”

“I’m sorry?” Daniel’s eyebrows shot up.

“She laughed.” Seth looked out toward the gardens, not really seeing anything. “She then went on at length about how I was not a man that any woman would consider seriously for marriage. I was the man that ladies looked to for a nice evening. I was not someone with what she called a ‘serious heart.’ When I asked why she agreed to court me in the first place, she made it plain that she did it purely to make another man jealous.”

It was one of the reasons Seth was so confident that his ploy to ensure Lord Burnington would notice Bridget would work. It had worked before, why would it not work again?

“I am sorry, Seth,” Daniel said with a heavy sigh. “That was no kind thing she did.”

“No, it wasn’t,” Seth had to agree. “She is happy, though—the lady in question—and I see no reason to drag up the past any further.”

Daniel nodded as if in agreement.

“So what? You are going to allow this, Daniel?” Jacob asked tartly.

“You speak as if he is not your friend.” Daniel gestured toward Seth.

“Of course, he’s my friend, but we’re talking about Bridget here—”

“A woman who has already been hurt enough in her life, no?” Daniel said as if reading Jacob’s mind. “She was never yours to protect in the first place, Jacob. Do not feel that responsibility now.”

Jacob cursed and turned away. Evidently, that guilt was tearing him to pieces.

“I’m being serious,” Seth affirmed, surprised at the strength in his own voice. “I will not hurt Bridget. I never could. Believe me.”

Both Jacob and Daniel looked at him at that moment, then they nodded in unison.

“I believe you,” Daniel said calmly. “But first, answer this question. Why this week?”

“What?”

“You and Bridget have met so many times before. Why have you decided to court this week?”

“Well, there may have been two people constantly trying to stand between us in the past.” Seth looked between his friends pointedly. “Yet, it’s more to do with the fact that I can’t stay away from her. Doesn’t matter what I try to do, I cannot turn away.”

It is true.

“Very well.” Daniel nodded once more. “Then we shall see what happens between the two of you. Though if you do hurt her, you better run for the hills, Seth. Both Jacob and I will be coming after you.”

“Oh, I know.”

* * *

“Come, My Lady. Let us play cards.”

Lord Burnington offered Bridget his hand. Baffled, she took it and allowed him to lead her across the room. She couldn’t make sense of it. All evening and throughout dinner, the Earl had given her his sole attention. Even when other ladies had tried to capture his attention after dinner, he had flatly refused to leave her side.

Now, they sat down at a card table together in the corner of the room.

“What game shall we play?” Lord Burnington asked, shuffling the cards from a card box.

“Cribbage,” Bridget said.

He nodded and smiled.

Something was wrong. Bridget knew she should have been happy. After all, it seemed as if Lord Ramsbury was right. By announcing a courtship, Lord Burnington was suddenly taking so much more notice of her than before, yet she was out of sorts. Repeatedly, she looked away across the room, trying to see where Lord Ramsbury had gone.

He was sitting on a chair in a corner of the room, talking with Daniel. They must have been jesting, for they laughed together, and Bridget felt a longing to hear the joke.

“It is your turn, My Lady,” Lord Burnington said, calling her attention back to him.

“Oh. Yes.”

She played the game. Try as she might, she fixed her attention on the Earl, but she struggled. She was badly losing the game, for all she could think of was Lord Ramsbury.

“You are distracted this evening, My Lady.” Lord Burnington noted and leaned toward her. “Is it my company? Perhaps I am making you think of other things?”

He is flirting.

It was the first time he had done it with her.

“Perhaps I am a little distracted,” she said, and he smiled at her.

They were sitting so close together that she knew she could reach for his foot with her own beneath the table, to make something more happen, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it.

For some reason, the idea of that intimacy with Lord Burnington felt wrong. She could only imagine doing it with Lord Ramsbury.

“Ah, what do we have here?” As if he had been summoned by her thoughts, Lord Ramsbury appeared behind her, looking over her shoulder at her cards. “You are losing, Bridget.”

He clearly ditched the honorifics in front of Lord Burnington, wishing to remind him they were “courting.”

“Badly, indeed,” Bridget murmured.

“I think I am distracting her,” Lord Burnington was not afraid to brag, smiling broadly.

“I see.” Lord Ramsbury took the other chair at the table. “Then be prepared to lose completely now that I have returned, Bridget,” he said with a smile. “I’ll be sure to distract you further.”

His foot reached for hers under the table, and she almost shivered in delight.

Bridget dealt Lord Ramsbury into the game, and they played just one round between the three of them, yet she looked at Lord Ramsbury so much that, apparently, it irked Lord Burnington.

The Earl threw down his cards at the end of the round, frustrated at having lost. “If you excuse me, I think I have had quite enough of cards for the night.”

He stood and left their table, crossing the room toward the group of ladies that always followed him everywhere.

“Ah, too much?” Lord Ramsbury said to Bridget with a smile. “I thought it was working rather well.”

“It was,” Bridget whispered. “He has talked to me for most of the evening.”

“I have noticed.” He nodded warmly. “Worry not, he’ll be annoyed with me tonight, and so, tomorrow, he will make even more effort to talk to you than before.”

“Perhaps.”

Bridget didn’t have the heart to say that she was not certain it was what she wanted at that moment. She presumed she’d had too much wine during dinner. It was confusing her, making her mind muddled, not to mention that Lord Ramsbury’s presence was toying with her too.

What is it I feel for him? What do I even think of him anymore?

“Is all well?” Lord Ramsbury asked, leaning toward her suddenly.

“I was just wondering…”

Her eyes darted toward him. She couldn’t get out of her mind that book he had picked up in the bookstore, the one on women’s biology. She was curious to learn what he knew, and as he had styled himself as her teacher so much, she couldn’t help wondering what more she could ask of him.

“Yes?”

“That book,” she whispered. “The one in the biology section of the bookstore.”

“Ah.” His smile grew wider. “Intrigued by it?”

“I cannot help longing to know what you learned,” she murmured.

Perhaps the liquor truly was making her bolder than normal.

“I could show you if you like?” he whispered. He collected the cards from her hand, shuffling them together in the center of the table.

“Show me?” she murmured and looked around the busy parlor.

“Not here.” He shook his head. “If you wish to learn something more about seduction, about… pleasure.” The way he said the word had her shivering and leaning toward him. “Meet me in the library in fifteen minutes.”

Lord Ramsbury stood without hesitation and waved goodnight to the others across the room. Bridget sat very still, her hands trailing over the cards in the middle of the table.

He was suggesting they transgress, surely? Would he just tell her things and talk about pleasure, or would he show her?

Bridget watched the clock. After fifteen minutes had passed, she stood from the card table.