Loving Lord Bridgerton

Chapter Nine

Violet had asked me to join the girls with tea. I like having tea in the family drawing room. It was less about being formal and more about talking. We didn't have to worry about entertaining people, and after spending time with my mother, I was happy to worry less about that. I just wanted to try and find some peace. "I saw your mother was here," Hyacinth slip that into the conversation with no trouble and all my peace vanished just as fast.

"We all saw her mother was here," Eloise pointed out as I reached over to make my cup of tea.

"She's a very...powerful woman," Hyacinth said and I could tell by her tone there was something more to it.

"She's terrifying," Eloise stated.

"I just didn't want to say it," Hyacinth quickly added.

"Girls!" Violet scolded us. "She is not terrifying."

I snorted, "Yes, she is. I've seen wolves pretend to be dead just to hide from her."

Violet looked at me with a glare, "That is not true."

I paused before slightly shrugging my shoulders, "No, it's not, but that doesn't make her any less terrifying."

"She wasn't always like that, you know. I remember when she was full of life and hope and she wasn't afraid of anything. I was rather envy of her for that. I wanted to be just like her."

I felt like we weren't talking about the same person, but I knew that we were..."What happened?" I asked, feeling myself leaning in with interest.

Violet slightly shrugged as she drank her tea, "I don't know. I could tell something was slowly changing her. My guess is that the worries are generational."

I took a drink of my tea, hoping the wideness of my eyes would hid behind the cup. Generational. That is a mean word. If it really happens to every generation then I'm going to be this mean to my daughter. I'm going to be a horrible mother! I didn't want to be a horrible mother! What am I going to do? No, no, no, no, no, no. I need to change. I need to do things that my mother wouldn't do. I need to be willing to do different things. I need to apologize for my mistakes. Oh crap! I know exactly who I need to talk to. And it's going to be easy. Apologizing to Anthony Bridgerton never is.

Later when I was no longer busy and less people are around, I knocked on Anthony's office door, waiting for him say 'come in'. I didn't hear that, but I can tell someone is in this office. I try not to barge into people's offices, but, maybe if I act like I'm not barging in, I won't get yelled at for barging in. It's not like I wouldn't deserve it. I swung open the door, seeing I was right because he was sitting at his desk, "Glad I found you. I don't know why it was hard because you are always in here."

"What do you need, Charlotte?" Anthony asked without looking up from his ledger. I'm not even sure how he knew it was me.

"Alright. Straight to the point. I'm sure you're very busy today," I said but Anthony never looked up at me. "I just want to apologize for yelling at you," I paused for a moment, and he was acting like he didn't hear anything. "Anthony?" He was just working without another word. "Are you listening to me?!"

Anthony sighed, looking up at me, "I thought you were done with me?"

I huffed in frustration, "I am trying to apologize." I stated like that was a way to apologize.

"Don't. I don't need it. You can leave now," Anthony tried to dismiss me. He's never dismissed me. Just when I was about to walk away he looked back up at me, "Just so you know, if I'm so awful, you can always go stay with your mother."

I don't know what bothered me more. The fact that he was telling me to go stay with my mother or that he thinks I think he's awful. "Anthony-"

"I have work to do, Charlotte," He didn't even look back up at me. I took a deep breath in, walking out of his office and shutting the door behind me. I guess I got what I wanted. I wanted him to leave me alone. I wanted to stop being so confused and heart broken, but I didn't think it would be this hard. —No!— This is not happening. Maybe I will stay with my mother. That will show Anthony for ignoring me. I'm supposed to be ignoring him. It's not supposed to go the other way around.