When it came to social machinations, Violet Bridgerton was every bit as accomplished as she claimed, and indeed, when Gregory arrived at Hastings House the following evening, his sister Daphne, the current Duchess of Hastings, informed him that Lady Lucinda Abernathy would indeed be attending the ball.

He found himself rather unaccountably pleased at the outcome. Lucy had looked so disappointed when she’d told him that she would not be able to go, and really, shouldn’t the girl enjoy one last night of revelry before she married Haselby?

Haselby.

Gregory still couldn’t quite believe it. How could he have not known that she was marrying Haselby? There was nothing he could do to stop it, and really, it wasn’t his place, but dear God, it was Haselby.

Shouldn’t Lucy be told?

Haselby was a perfectly amiable fellow, and, Gregory had to allow, in possession of a more than acceptable wit. He wouldn’t beat her, and he wouldn’t be unkind, but he didn’t…he couldn’t…

He would not be a husband to her.

Just the thought of it left him grim. Lucy wasn’t going to have a regular marriage, because Haselby didn’t like women. Not the way a man was meant to.

Haselby would be kind to her, and he’d probably provide her with an exceedingly generous allowance, which was more than many women had in their marriages, regardless of their husbands’ proclivities.

But it did not seem fair that, of all people, Lucy was destined for such a life. She deserved so much more. A house full of children. And dogs. Perhaps a cat or two. She seemed the sort who’d want a menagerie.

And flowers. In Lucy’s home there would be flowers everywhere, he was certain of it. Pink peonies, yellow roses, and that stalky blue thing she liked so well.

Delphinium. That was it.

He paused. Remembered. Delphinium.

Lucy might claim that her brother was the horticulturalist of the family, but Gregory could not imagine her living in a home without color.

There would be laughter and noise and splendid disarray—despite her attempts to keep every corner of her life neat and tidy. He could see her easily in his mind’s eye, fussing and organizing, trying to keep everyone on a proper schedule.

It almost made him laugh aloud, just to think of it. It wouldn’t matter if there was a fleet of servants dusting and straightening and shining and sweeping. With children nothing was ever quite where one put it.

Lucy was a manager. It was what made her happy, and she ought to have a household to manage.

Children. Lots of them.

Maybe eight.

He glanced around the ballroom, which was slowly beginning to fill. He didn’t see Lucy, and it wasn’t so crowded yet that he might miss her. He did, however, see his mother.

She was heading his way.

“Gregory,” she said, reaching out to him with both hands when she reached him, “you look especially handsome this evening.”

He took her hands and raised them to his lips. “Said with all the honesty and impartiality of a mother,” he murmured.

“Nonsense,” she said with a smile. “It is a fact that all of my children are exceedingly intelligent and good-looking. If it were merely my opinion, don’t you think someone would have corrected me by now?”

“As if any would dare.”

“Well, yes, I suppose,” she replied, maintaining an impressively impassive face. “But I shall be stubborn and insist that the point is moot.”

“As you wish, Mother,” he said with perfect solemnity. “As you wish.”

“Has Lady Lucinda arrived?”

Gregory shook his head. “Not yet.”

“Isn’t it odd that I haven’t met her,” she mused. “One would think, if she has been in town a fortnight already…Ah well, it matters not. I am certain I will find her delightful if you made such an effort to secure her attendance this evening.”

Gregory gave her a look. He knew this tone. It was a perfect blend of nonchalance and utter precision, usually utilized whilst digging for information. His mother was a master at it.

And sure enough, she was discreetly patting her hair and not quite looking at him as she said, “You said you were introduced while you were visiting Anthony, did you not?”

He saw no reason to pretend he did not know what she was about.

“She is engaged to be married, Mother,” he said with great emphasis. And then for good measure he added, “In one week.”

“Yes, yes, I know. To Lord Davenport’s son. It is a longstanding match, I understand.”

Gregory nodded. He couldn’t imagine that his mother knew the truth about Haselby. It was not a well-known fact. There were whispers, of course. There were always whispers. But none would dare repeat them in the presence of ladies.

“I received an invitation to the wedding,” Violet said.

“Did you?”

“It’s to be a very large affair, I understand.”

Gregory clenched his teeth a bit. “She is to be a countess.”

“Yes, I suppose. It’s not the sort of thing one can do up small.”

“No.”

Violet sighed. “I adore weddings.”

“Do you?”

“Yes.” She sighed again, with even more drama, not that Gregory would have imagined it possible. “It is all so romantic,” she added. “The bride, the groom…”

“Both are considered standard in the ceremony, I understand.”

His mother shot him a peevish look. “How could I have raised a son who is so unromantic?”

Gregory decided there could not possibly be an answer to that.

“Fie on you, then,” Violet said, “I plan to attend. I almost never refuse an invitation to a wedding.”

And then came the voice. “Who is getting married?”

Gregory turned. It was his younger sister, Hyacinth. Dressed in blue and poking her nose into everyone else’s business as usual.

“Lord Haselby and Lady Lucinda Abernathy,” Violet answered.

“Oh yes.” Hyacinth frowned. “I received an invitation. At St. George’s, is it not?”

Violet nodded. “Followed by a reception at Fennsworth House.”

Hyacinth glanced around the room. She did that quite frequently, even when she was not searching for anyone in particular. “Isn’t it odd that I haven’t met her? She is sister to the Earl of Fennsworth, is she not?” She shrugged. “Odd that I have not met him, either.”

“I don’t believe Lady Lucinda is ‘out,’” Gregory said. “Not formally, at least.”

“Then tonight will be her debut,” his mother said. “How exciting for us all.”

Hyacinth turned to her brother with razor-sharp eyes. “And how is it that you are acquainted with Lady Lucinda, Gregory?”

He opened his mouth, but she was already saying, “And do not say that you are not, because Daphne has already told me everything.”

“Then why are you asking?”

Hyacinth scowled. “She did not tell me how you met.”

“You might wish to revisit your understanding of the word everything.” Gregory turned to his mother. “Vocabulary and comprehension were never her strong suits.”

Violet rolled her eyes. “Every day I marvel that the two of you managed to reach adulthood.”

“Afraid we’d kill each other?” Gregory quipped.

“No, that I’d do the job myself.”

“Well,” Hyacinth stated, as if the previous minute of conversation had never taken place, “Daphne said that you were most anxious that Lady Lucinda receive an invitation, and Mother, I understand, even penned a note saying how much she enjoys her company, which as we all know is a bald-faced lie, as none of us has ever met the—”

“Do you ever cease talking?” Gregory interrupted.

“Not for you,” Hyacinth replied. “How do you know her? And more to the point, how well? And why are you so eager to extend an invitation to a woman who will be married in a week?”

And then, amazingly, Hyacinth did stop talking.

“I was wondering that myself,” Violet murmured.

Gregory looked from his sister to his mother and decided he hadn’t meant any of that rot he’d said to Lucy about large families being a comfort. They were a nuisance and an intrusion and a whole host of other things, the words for which he could not quite retrieve at that moment.

Which may have been for the best, as none of them were likely to have been polite.

Nonetheless, he turned to the two women with extreme patience and said, “I was introduced to Lady Lucinda in Kent. At Kate and Anthony’s house party last month. And I asked Daphne to invite her this evening because she is an amiable young lady, and I happened upon her yesterday in the park. Her uncle has denied her a season, and I thought it would be a kind deed to provide her with an opportunity to escape for one evening.”

He lifted his brows, silently daring them to respond.

They did, of course. Not with words—words would never have been as effective as the dubious stares they were hurling in his direction.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” he nearly burst out. “She is engaged. To be married.”

This had little visible effect.

Gregory scowled. “Do I appear to be attempting to put a halt to the nuptials?”

Hyacinth blinked. Several times, the way she always did when she was thinking far too hard about something not her affair. But to his great surprise, she let out a little hmm of acquiescence and said, “I suppose not.” She glanced about the room. “I should like to meet her, though.”

“I’m sure you will,” Gregory replied, and he congratulated himself, as he did at least once a month, on not strangling his sister.

“Kate wrote that she is lovely,” Violet said.

Gregory turned to her with a sinking feeling. “Kate wrote to you?” Good God, what had she revealed? It was bad enough that Anthony knew about the fiasco with Miss Watson—he had figured it out, of course—but if his mother found out, his life would be utter hell.

She would kill him with kindness. He was sure of it.

“Kate writes twice a month,” Violet replied with a delicate, one-shouldered shrug. “She tells me everything.”

“Is Anthony aware?” Gregory muttered.

“I have no idea,” Violet said, giving him a superior look. “It’s really none of his business.”

Good God.

Gregory just managed to not say it aloud.

“I gather,” his mother continued, “that her brother was caught in a compromising position with Lord Watson’s daughter.”

“Really?” Hyacinth had been perusing the crowd, but she swung back for that.

Violet nodded thoughtfully. “I had wondered why that wedding was so rushed.”

“Well, that’s why,” Gregory said, a little bit like a grunt.

“Hmmmm.” This, from Hyacinth.

It was the sort of sound one never wished to hear from Hyacinth.

Violet turned to her daughter and said, “It was quite the to-do.”

“Actually,” Gregory said, growing more irritated by the second, “it was all handled discreetly.”

“There are always whispers,” Hyacinth said.

“Don’t you add to them,” Violet warned her.

“I won’t say a word,” Hyacinth promised, waving her hand as if she had never spoken out of turn in her life.

Gregory let out a snort. “Oh, please.”

“I won’t,” she protested. “I am superb with a secret as long as I know it is a secret.”

“Ah, so what you mean, then, is that you possess no sense of discretion?”

Hyacinth narrowed her eyes.

Gregory lifted his brows.

“How old are you?” Violet interjected. “Goodness, the two of you haven’t changed a bit since you were in leading strings. I half expect you to start pulling each other’s hair right on the spot.”

Gregory clamped his jaw into a line and stared resolutely ahead. There was nothing quite like a rebuke from one’s mother to make one feel three feet tall.

“Oh, don’t be a stuff, Mother,” Hyacinth said, taking the scolding with a smile. “He knows I only tease him so because I love him best.” She smiled up at him, sunny and warm.

Gregory sighed, because it was true, and because he felt the same way, and because it was, nonetheless, exhausting to be her brother. But the two of them were quite a bit younger than the rest of their siblings, and as a result, had always been a bit of a pair.

“He returns the sentiment, by the way,” Hyacinth said to Violet, “but as a man, he would never say as much.”

Violet nodded. “It’s true.”

Hyacinth turned to Gregory. “And just to be perfectly clear, I never pulled your hair.”

Surely his signal to leave. Or lose his sanity. Really, it was up to him.

“Hyacinth,” Gregory said, “I adore you. You know it. Mother, I adore you as well. And now I am leaving.”

“Wait!” Violet called out.

He turned around. He should have known it wouldn’t be that easy.

“Would you be my escort?”

“To what?”

“Why, to the wedding, of course.”

Gad, what was that awful taste in his mouth? “Whose wedding? Lady Lucinda’s?”

His mother gazed at him with the most innocent blue eyes. “I shouldn’t like to go alone.”

He jerked his head in his sister’s direction. “Take Hyacinth.”

“She’ll wish to go with Gareth,” Violet replied.

Gareth St. Clair was Hyacinth’s husband of nearly four years. Gregory liked him immensely, and the two had developed a rather fine friendship, which was how he knew that Gareth would rather peel his eyelids back (and leave them that way for an indefinite amount of time) than sit through a long, drawn-out, all-day society affair.

Whereas Hyacinth was, as she did not mind putting it, always interested in gossip, which meant that she surely would not wish to miss such an important wedding. Someone would drink too much, and someone else would dance too close, and Hyacinth would hate to be the last to hear of it.

“Gregory?” his mother prompted.

“I’m not going.”

“But—”

“I wasn’t invited.”

“Surely an oversight. One that will be corrected, I am certain, after your efforts this evening.”

“Mother, as much as I would like to wish Lady Lucinda well, I have no desire to attend her or anyone’s wedding. They are such sentimental affairs.”

Silence.

Never a good sign.

He looked at Hyacinth. She was regarding him with large owlish eyes. “You like weddings,” she said.

He grunted. It seemed the best response.

“You do,” she said. “At my wedding, you—”

“Hyacinth, you are my sister. It is different.”

“Yes, but you also attended Felicity Albansdale’s wedding, and I distinctly recall—”

Gregory turned his back on her before she could recount his merriness. “Mother,” he said, “thank you for the invitation, but I do not wish to attend Lady Lucinda’s wedding.”

Violet opened her mouth as if to ask a question, but then she closed it. “Very well,” she said.

Gregory was instantly suspicious. It was not like his mother to capitulate so quickly. Further prying into her motives, however, would eliminate any chance of a quick escape.

It was an easy decision.

“I bid you both adieu,” he said.

“Where you going?” Hyacinth demanded. “And why are you speaking French?”

He turned to his mother. “She is all yours.”

“Yes,” Violet sighed. “I know.”

Hyacinth immediately turned on her. “What does that mean?”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Hyacinth, you—”

Gregory took advantage of the moment and slipped away while their attention was fixed on each other.

The party was growing more crowded, and it occurred to him that Lucy might very well have arrived while he was speaking with his mother and sister. If so, she wouldn’t have made it very far into the ballroom, however, and so he began to make his way toward the receiving line. It was a slow process; he had been out of town for over a month, and everyone seemed to have something to say to him, none of it remotely of interest.

“Best of luck with it,” he murmured to Lord Trevelstam, who was trying to interest him in a horse he could not afford. “I am sure you will have no difficulty—”

His voice left him.

He could not speak.

He could not think.

Good God, not again.

“Bridgerton?”

Across the room, just by the door. Three gentlemen, an elderly lady, two matrons, and—

Her.

It was her. And he was being pulled, as sure as if there were a rope between them. He needed to reach her side.

“Bridgerton, is something—”

“I beg your pardon,” Gregory managed to say, brushing past Trevelstam.

It was her. Except…

It was a different her. It wasn’t Hermione Watson. It was—He wasn’t sure who she was; he could see her only from the back. But there it was—that same splendid and terrible feeling. It made him dizzy. It made him ecstatic. His lungs were hollow. He was hollow.

And he wanted her.

It was just as he’d always imagined it—that magical, almost incandescent sense of knowing that his life was complete, that she was the one.

Except that he’d done this before. And Hermione Watson hadn’t been the one.

Dear God, could a man fall insanely, stupidly in love twice?

Hadn’t he just told Lucy to be wary and scared, that if she was ever overcome with such a feeling, she should not trust it?

And yet…

And yet there she was.

And there he was.

And it was happening all over again.

It was just as it had been with Hermione. No, it was worse. His body tingled; he couldn’t keep his toes still in his boots. He wanted to jump out of his skin, rush across the room and…just…just…

Just see her.

He wanted her to turn. He wanted to see her face. He wanted to know who she was.

He wanted to know her.

No.

No, he told himself, trying to force his feet in the other direction. This was madness. He should leave. He should leave right now.

But he couldn’t. Even with every rational corner of his soul screaming at him to turn around and walk away, he was rooted to the spot, waiting for her to turn.

Praying for her to turn.

And then she did.

And she was—

Lucy.

He stumbled as if struck.

Lucy?

No. It couldn’t be possible. He knew Lucy.

She did not do this to him.

He had seen her dozens of times, kissed her even, and never once felt like this, as if the world might swallow him whole if he did not reach her side and take her hand in his.

There had to be an explanation. He had felt this way before. With Hermione.

But this time—it wasn’t quite the same. With Hermione it had been dizzying, new. There had been the thrill of discovery, of conquest. But this was Lucy.

It was Lucy, and—

It all came flooding back. The tilt of her head as she explained why sandwiches ought to be properly sorted. The delightfully peeved look on her face when she had tried to explain to him why he was doing everything wrong in his courtship of Miss Watson.

The way it had felt so right simply to sit on a bench with her in Hyde Park and throw bread at the pigeons.

And the kiss. Dear God, the kiss.

He still dreamed about that kiss.

And he wanted her to dream about it, too.

He took a step. Just one—slightly forward and to the side so that he could better see her profile. It was all so familiar now—the tilt of her head, the way her lips moved when she spoke. How could he not have recognized her instantly, even from the back? The memories had been there, tucked away in the recesses of his mind, but he hadn’t wanted—no he hadn’t allowed himself—to acknowledge his presence.

And then she saw him. Lucy saw him. He saw it first in her eyes, which widened and sparkled, and then in the curve of her lips.

She smiled. For him.

It filled him. To near bursting, it filled him. It was just one smile, but it was all he needed.

He began to walk. He could barely feel his feet, had almost no conscious control over his body. He simply moved, knowing from deep within that he had to reach her.

“Lucy,” he said, once he was next to her, forgetting that they were surrounded by strangers, and worse, friends, and he should not presume to use her given name.

But nothing else felt right on his lips.

“Mr. Bridgerton,” she said, but her eyes said, Gregory.

And he knew.

He loved her.

It was the strangest, most wonderful sensation. It was exhilarating. It was as if the world had suddenly become open to him. Clear. He understood. He understood everything he needed to know, and it was all right there in her eyes.

“Lady Lucinda,” he said, bowing deeply over her hand. “May I have this dance?”