Letting You In [Bridgerton]

Chapter 3

3

Aubrey Hall

Kate had meant to pay close attention to all of the parson's words, she had, but Anthony, 9th Viscount Bridgerton and a general ass, apparently insisted on vexing her the whole way through the ceremony.

His initial expression when she had come into view, stepping between the two halves of the small wedding party—just the Duke and Duchess of Hastings, Lady Danbury, Lord and Lady Ashbourne, Lady Bridgerton, the rest of the noisy although surprisingly well-behaved-at-the-moment Bridgerton family, Lady Mary Sharma and Miss Edwina Sharma, and the parson's wife—had been quite gratifying. Anthony's mouth had fallen open and his eyes brimmed with emotion. She was sure they were too bright to have been anything but on the verge of tears, just as her own most certainly were, although the procession across the lawn with Lady Mary to give Kate away had passed without any significant missteps.

Soon enough, Kate found herself facing the man who had upended everything she had believed about who she was and who she wanted to be. A man who knew from painful experience how it felt to be thrust into a position as the head of a family when one was still so young a person, still unformed and yet required to navigate the complexities of protecting one's family in a world where the potential for ruin lay around every corner. Certainly, he had wealth to cushion some of the struggles, but the Bridgerton fortune made his family an appealing target as much as the Sharmas' genteel poverty and lack of any male protectors made them a target of a different sort. The constant worries for their families' safety were the same, as were the unrelenting demands to be resourceful and resilient, and the many years of self-sacrifice, of careful planning, of raising younger siblings who looked to them as de facto parents. In Anthony's eyes, Kate saw someone who understood.

"Dearly beloved," the parson began, "we are gathered together here in the sight of God, and in the face of this congregation, to join together this Man and this Woman in holy Matrimony; which is an honourable estate, instituted of God in the time of man's innocency, signifying unto us the mystical union that is betwixt Christ and his Church..."

The shared moment of understanding lasted only until the parson reached "to satisfy men's carnal lusts and appetites", and then Anthony's eyes quite deliberately drifted down to Kate's lips, then lower, and lingered. By the time he had slowly drawn back up to meet her gaze again, she was uncomfortably warm. Of course, aside from his eyes, he hadn't moved a muscle and she strongly suspected no one else—certainly not the parson, who was stood closest to them, but was intoning the words from the Book of Common Prayer at a tortuously sedate pace—had even seen what this maddening man was doing.

Kate widened her eyes in warning.

Anthony's smile turned distinctly predatory.

Kate's nostrils flared, and she wished she were close enough to step on his toes.

He was looking at her lips again, but this time, he let just the tiniest glimpse of his tongue dart out to barely wet his own.

Immediately a wholly different image of him and his tongue, his mouth planted firmly between her thighs and leaving her a wet, writhing mess, flashed into her mind, overlaying itself on the entirely proper scene before her.

She was definitely flushed now. And... suddenly she needed to shift her legs. Her undergarments were pressing uncomfortably against her, but she couldn't exactly adjust them right now. She glared at him. She was going to kill him.

His dark eyes were laughing at her!

She narrowed her gaze, jutting her chin slightly to the side, and Anthony twitched one eyebrow in challenge.