She must have a spy in the family," Anthony said to Kate, shaking his head. Kate laughed as she brushed her hair, readying herself for bed. "She didn't realize that today is your birthday, not yesterday."

"A trifling matter," he grumbled. "She must have a spy. There's no other explanation."

"She did get everything else right," Kate couldn't help noting. "I tell you, I've always admired that woman."

"We weren't that bad," Anthony protested.

"We were dreadful." She set the brush down and walked to his side. "We're always dreadful. But at least we try."

Anthony wound his arms around his wife's waist and settled his chin on the top of her head. There was little that brought him more peace than simply holding her in his arms. He didn't know how any man survived without a woman to love.

"It's almost midnight," Kate murmured. "Your birthday is almost over."

Anthony nodded. Thirty-nine. He'd never thought he'd see the day.

No, that wasn't true. Since the moment he'd let Kate into his heart, his fears had been slowly melting away. But still, it was nice to be thirty-nine. Settling. He'd spent a goodly portion of the day in his study, staring up at his father's portrait. And he'd found himself talking. For hours on end, he'd talked to his father. He told him of his three children, of his siblings' marriages and their children. He told him of his mother, and how she'd recently taken up painting with oils, and that she was actually quite good. And he told him of Kate, and how she'd freed his soul, and how he loved her so damn much.

It was, Anthony realized, what his father had always wanted for him.

The clock on the mantel began to chime, and neither Anthony nor Kate spoke until the twelfth bell rang.

"That's it, then," Kate whispered.

He nodded. "Let's go to bed."

She moved away, and he could see that she was smiling. "That's how you want to celebrate?"

He took her hand and raised it to his lips. "I can think of no better way. Can you?"

Kate shook her head, then giggled as she ran for the bed. "Did you read what else she wrote in her column?"

"That Whistledown woman?"

She nodded.

Anthony planted his hands on either side of his wife and leered down at her. "Was it about us?"

Kate shook her head.

"Then I don't care."

"It was about Colin."

Anthony let out a little sigh. "She does seem to write about Colin a great deal."

"Maybe she has a tendre for him," Kate suggested.

"Lady Whistledown?" Anthony rolled his eyes. "That old biddy?"

"She might not be old."

Anthony snorted derisively. "She's a wrinkled old crone and you know it."

"I don't know," Kate said, scooting out of his grasp and crawling under the covers. "I think she might be young."

"And I think," Anthony announced, "that I don't much want to talk about Lady Whistledown just now."

Kate smiled. "You don't?"

He slid into place next to her, his fingers settling around the curve of her hip. "I have much better things to do."

"You do?"

"Much." His lips found her ear. "Much, much, much better."

And in a small, elegantly furnished chamber, not so very far from Bridgerton House, a woman—no longer in the first blush of youth, but certainly not wrinkled and old—sat at her desk with a quill and a pot of ink and pulled out a piece of paper.

Stretching her neck from side to side, she set her quill to paper and wrote: