Chapter Text
Kate is born with a single tulip on the inside of her left wrist and a red lily on her right. This in itself is not particularly unusual. After all, all are born with the flower of their soul’s intended on their left wrist on their right, like a seed from which love springs. The rest of their body is their own to harvest, and the day she is born, white lilies bloom on her parents’ skin (right ribs – her father, left scapula – her mother).
The strangeness comes later in her adolescent years when Edwina’s roses have climbed the length of her arm and are encroaching on her left collarbone (clavicle) that she realises that most of her body remains bare – just that single tulip hiding beneath her wrist like a secret.
It had barely crossed her mind in her childhood, and not much either in her adolescence when she had been busy looking after Mary and Edwina when they were all teetering on the precipice of poverty and despair. Weeping willow had crept all over Mary’s arms, and later when Kate had been alone in bed, she’d found a single yew leaf behind her right knee.
She’d put it down initially to a general reluctance for all her flowers to grow – and certainly they’d seemed to of a mind that why should they grow in abundance when a single leaf would do. But as the years stretched on and their money stretched thinner, she’d begun to wonder if perhaps it was a problem with her (perhaps all the love she’d had to give had been used up on Edwina and Mary and her poor dead Papa and Mama – the people she loved never seemed to end up well). When she turned twenty, she’d found a small spray of colchicum on her right hip. My best days are past.
In the days to come, when Edwina had come down the stairs with a veritable garden of spring crocuses on her ankle, Kate had allowed herself to shed some bitter tears over her four solitary blooms before she’d gathered herself and written to Lady Danbury and the Sheffields.
She might be going to die a spinster, but that hadn’t been the fate she’d wanted for Edwina. And if appealing to her sister’s frankly unappealing grandparents was the way to help Edwina find her soulmate, then so be it.
All of this remains now at the forefront of her mind now as she watches her sister wind her way around the floor, skirts fluttering as she dances. Like the other debutantes, her fichu covers any exposed skin on her chest, and her long white gloves cover the skin over her arms so that no flowers are directly visible. Some girls are a little more audacious, tugging their necklines and gloves just low enough so that the impression of a petal peeks forth. Some gloves are so translucent that mutterings can be heard amongst the mamas.
Kate can hardly blame them though – it is hard enough to find a Match without giving them some assistance.
Her gloves though are opaque. Though it is warm in the crowded ballroom, Kate had hesitated to remove her pelisse. She’d taken to covering her arms up with long sleeves and shawls, even in the privacy of her own house, declining any assistance with her baths. There was no need to worry Mary – it was not her fault that she was a garden where no life could grow. Best they focus all their efforts on Edwina – if Kate was a desert, Edwina was an Eden. Where Kate would cover her bare skin up even to her own eyes, barely a day would go by without a new exclamation from Edwina over a blossoming petal or bud.
Kate itches discretely at her left arm now. Ever since her ride in the woods and her altercation with the Viscount Bridgerton, she’d been left with an uncomfortable prickly feeling. Nerves, she had assumed, nerves and annoyance.
It is he who approaches her over her shoulder and the itch on her arm intensifies. “She looks to be having fun.”
“Stay away from her.”
He is so close that she can feel the heat radiating off him. For such a vile person, he smells delicious, all fresh grass and cinnamon spices. She resents that.
“Away from her?”
There is such bewilderment in his voice that she twists to look at him. He is so handsome in the candlelight – objectively so – that her breath catches in her throat before she can think of what to say. “She is not one of your simpering debutantes to be toyed with. She is looking for her Match – unlike you.”
“And what about you, Miss Sharma?” He is almost tender in the way he looks at her, and it makes her harsher.
“That is none of your concern,” she says, and stalks away from him. She needs some air, she thinks, moving towards the terrace.
She breathes in deep relief as the cool air hits her face. Funny, she thinks, for she had not noticed that her heart was pounding so. Moving deeper into the garden, she finds a fountain, statue of Persephone mournfully perched within it. She sits on the edge, trailing her fingers through the cool water, wetting her gloves.
“Why would you think I am pursuing your sister?”
Kate squeezes her eyes shut, taking another deep breath in before whirling to face him, suddenly defensive. “Why would you not? What is wrong with you – she is perfect!”
Viscount Bridgerton’s perfect face is creased with a single line between his brows. “She is clearly looking for her Match and I am not her Match.”
“You have no interest in finding your Match?”
The furrow between his brows deepens. “I have seen too well what the loss of a Match can do to people.”
Kate thinks then of the willow and chrysanthemums creeping across her father’s chest that he’d tried to hide from her, thinks of how Mary never bares her arms even in private anymore, thinks of that single pathetic yew leaf behind her knee. She’d thought them all lucky then – to be able to love that deeply. “I see.”
“I knew you would understand. You do not, I think, seek to find your Match either.”
She regards her glove. The skin underneath is mostly bare and unmarked, she knows. “No,” she says at last. “I do not.”
He looks relieved, moving closer to sit next to her on the fountain’s edge. “You see. The two of us see eye to eye on this.”
The water is warm to her touch and she splashes him sullenly a little. He scowls at her but it has no bite until he reaches out to stay her hand. Somewhere in the distance, the music swells.
“What you overheard – I do not mean to be callous – or to imply that I only viewed women as chattel. My parents were a Match. And when my father died, it destroyed her. I do not want that for myself or my wife. Love should have no place in my marriage.”
Kate looks down at where their hands are joined. His hand is large around her wrist and his face is so earnest. “I understand,” she says, and forgives his careless words and brash tongue.
He smiles, and it makes her stomach drop uncomfortably. “Friends then? Now that you have ascertained that I am no threat to Miss Edwina.” he says, holding his other hand out for her to shake. She takes it, nodding, but his hand lingers in hers. Trying to break the moment, she pulls free from his grasp and splashes him once more.
“You’ll pay for that,” he threatens, sinking his hand into the fountain and pushing a veritable wave towards her.
They end up having to call for their carriages early in order to hide their bedraggled clothes. Mary will not notice she has left early, she is sure of it, as she sends Lady Danbury’s carriage back to wait for them. Lady Danbury, on the other hand, might, but that is surely of little consequence.
The next morning however, Kate wakes up and her arm is a garden of tulips.
A strangled gasp escapes her lips as she stares at her arms in the mirror. The flowers creep from her wrists up to her shoulders, only just sparing her neck and chest. They are beautiful.
They must be the Viscount’s, she thinks wildly, unless one of Edwina’s insipid suitors has inspired this blossoming. How cruel, to Match her with a man who wanted nothing to do with the very idea of a soulmate. All this time she had thought that it was her bitter withered heart that was suppressing the idea of love, turning her skin into a wasteland, where in fact, it had been him all along.
Suddenly unable to bear the sight of herself, she turns away.
It is for the best, Kate tells herself. There was nothing inherently wrong in what he had said – true, Matches had caused nothing but pain in her family, and really, she had held very little hope prior to today that she would even meet her own Match (or that she even had one to begin with). It is for the best then that she stays away from him. Given they will be unlikely to have another brush in such close contact, she will likely never know if her Match is requited.
Or so she thinks, until she is Lady Danbury’s sitting room, screening Edwina’s suitors and suddenly he is announced.
“Anthony!” Lady Danbury greets, pleased.
“There is a line,” Kate protests, instinctively prickly. “You wil have to wait your turn to see Edwina.” She gestures to where Lord Lumley sits with her sister, nodding his agreement rather smugly.
“Never mind,” Lord Bridgerton says easily. “I am here to see you.”
She looks at him finally and, for one horrible second, freezes. He is clutching a bouquet of tulips – beautiful awful flowers – which he now proffers to her. “I very much enjoyed our conversation at the ball and was hoping you might accompany me to the races this afternoon.”
Kate takes the flowers and buries her face in them. “I –” she begins, not entirely sure how her sentence is going to end.
“Splendid idea,” Lady Danbury interrupts. “I am sure we should all love to go to the races – what say you Lord Lumley?”
Lord Lumley looks up from his careful inspection of Edwina’s pretty mien. “Oh, if Miss Edwina will agree to accompany me, I should think it a splendid idea indeed!”
Kate sees the way a blush spreads across her sister’s pleased face and thinks privately that she would withstand the harshest growth of belladonna to see her sister this happy.
Unfortunate that it turns out that Lord Bridgerton is the harshest growth of belladonna. He jibes and prods and prods at her until she has no choice but to snap back.
“Well, which horse is your pick,” she snips at him. The sun is hot and she is uncomfortably aware of his proximity. Lord Lumley still hasn’t returned with their refreshments – likely expired from thirst himself en route – and oh, if her skin would just stop tingling.
“Nectar. Well-bred, highly trained, and well favoured,” he says with all the smugness a man of his station has to muster. Kate bristles though his choice is innocuous.
“Nectar, really,” she scoffs. “You merely chose the horse that everyone else has chosen.”
“It was a strategic bet!” he protests. She can see that he is growing slightly pink in the cheeks. A faint sheen of sweat is visible on his brow. She resists the inexplicable urge to wipe his brow with her handkerchief. Perhaps he is having as uncomfortable a time as she. “Nectar is a prize steed!”
Her discomfort makes her harsh. “Nectar ran well at Doncaster, but that was a firmer course. The weather was much cooler. Thus his size was an advantage. Today the track is soft, and it is hot, meaning he will struggle to make headway, overheat, and slow down during the final leg, giving High Flyer, a much swifter, lighter, cooler horse, the victory.”
He is looking at her and there is hunger in his gaze. “You think too much on it.” His hand is clenched in its glove.
“And you too little,” she rejoinders, jostling him a little on purpose as the horses line up to start the race. The intake of breath that he makes at their contact is too soft, too delicate for a day such as today to be real.
At the whistle, the horses take off and she leaps to her feet, quite forgetting herself. Lord Bridgerton is right on his feet beside her and the two of them scream and whistle for their chosen horse like they are headed to Bedlam. When High Flyer crosses the finish line first she is nigh breathless in excitement.
Spinning around, she shoots Lord Bridgerton a complacent smile. “I must say, I have never bested a Viscount before.” Opening her mouth to further rub in her victory, she turns to face him fully, but he is looking at her like the sun.
“What is it,” she says, and watches as he slowly returns to himself. She knows he is finally back in his own skin, in his own right mind when he starts to laugh.
“You are the most maddening woman,” he says. “But in this, I will allow that you are correct.”
Kate looks at him then, eyes crinkled in amusement and feels herself relent. What harm can it cause her, this small flirtation that they both know will come to absolutely nothing. As the close of the Season, he will find his bride – not a Match, never a Match – and she will be able to return to India with the satisfaction of having lived and loved a little. There is no risk, she tells herself, no risk to her withered heart.
Yet the flowers continue to bloom. There are sprigs of yellow acacia (secret love) mixed in the small of her back now where the tulips have reached, and the yew leaf behind her knee is all but covered in deep red carnations (alas! for my poor heart). But most troubling is the tiny trail of forget-me-not behind her left ear that she hides with the sweep of her curls.
But Kate ignores them, ignores them all. Instead, she keeps seeing Lord Bridgerton – Anthony. Since their first meeting in the park, they have continued to meet in the early hours of the dawn, all mist and shadow and trailing laughter in the distance. They are about even on their races now. He dances with her twice at every ball – and always the supper set. He promenades with her and Newton – the latter with a great deal more magnanimousness that is entirely appropriate – while she chaperones Edwina and whichever gentleman is escorting her that week. If she didn’t know better, she would say that he is being a most attentive suitor.
She does know better though, so she does not read into the long walks by the lake, trailing after Edwina. Nor does she ascribe significance to the tete-a-tetes they have over tea about his siblings. Hyacinth and Gregory are as dear to him as children, and he loves the older ones deeply, though in a despairing way for he will never be their father. He does not say as much, but it is evident to her in the crinkle of his brow and his curt remarks and tightness in his shoulders as he describes Colin’s adventures and demands for funds and Benedict’s yearning for something more. His frustration is clear when Benedict is offended at his donation to the art school.
She thinks that maybe he is envious of Colin’s freedom and feels Benedict’s yearning too deeply. When he introduces her to his family, she smiles because they are exactly as he has described.
The flowers continue to bloom, but Kate pays them no heed. Anthony is always buoyant when she is near and seems to feel none of the turmoil that she would expect if her flowers were adorning his skin. And Kate herself? Well, she is perfectly content, happy even for the first time in years. She does not have to worry about their meals for the day or if there would be enough to cover their shelter. And the jolt deep in her stomach, and lower, that she feels every time she looks over at Anthony to find that he already watching her across the room, over the dining table, or when she is dancing in his arms is perfectly pleasant if not enjoyable. And if it suffuses her with a warm glow when she carries it with her to bed every night – well, it is harming absolutely no one, is it?
“Anthony is being most attentive,” Lady Danbury says over dinner one afternoon.
“Oh, nothing will come of that,” Kate says dismissively. She ignores the lady’s knowing look.
But despite this, there is a familiar itch at her ankle where she will later find a single rhododendron (danger!).
Perhaps that is what spurs her to skip the next few mornings of rides. When he comes to call, she pleads illness. Sends Edwina to the next two balls alone. Anthony sends flowers – tulips, always tulips – and a card wishing her a swift recovery that she does not acknowledge.
Yet it is no surprise to her that when she finally emerges from the house to promenade with Edwina again, it is not a quarter of an hour on their walk before she feels her skin prickling again with the awareness that he is near. Edwina is laughing gaily to her left – about what, she cannot even remember. She resists the urge to look around.
“Miss Sharma!” Thomas Dorset stands before her. “Perhaps you would be so kind as to accompany me on a turn around the lake?”
Kate hesitates, turns to look at Edwina. As she looks towards her sister, she catches Anthony’s eye, across the park. His face is stormy, gaze intense and focussed on her. Her mouth goes dry. She is suddenly too big for her skin.
“She would be delighted!” Edwina crows happily, relinquishing her sister’s arm for her mother’s. The movement recalls her back to herself. Smiling politely, she takes Mr Dorset’s arm as he leads her towards the little boats, charmingly positioned on the lake.
He is unfailingly polite as he helps her into the boat, but the place behind her ear where she has hidden the forget-me-nots continues to prickle as if in warning. She knows that if she looks back at Anthony, he will still be staring.
“It is most refreshing on the water,” she says, falsely cheerful, as they pass half an hour in idle conversation. “These days it is difficult to find even a moment of peace.”
“One of the things I enjoyed most when I visited India. Many think it a bustling, noisy place, but I found the country most tranquil in nature,” Dorset replies.
Kate cannot help but smile at him. “There's a river just outside the home where I grew up. On hot days, I would sneak away to soak my feet. The turtles and I became quite good friends.”
He smiles back, all soft and wistful. “Sounds idyllic.”
“It is,” she says. Across the lake, she can still see Anthony looking in her direction. He is too far away for her to see closely, but she suppresses a shiver nonetheless. She thinks of the little rhododendrons on her ankle. Despite her withdrawing from society over the last few days, the little sprig has continued to grow. “Which is why I'm counting the days until I may return home.”
“Once your sister is married?”
“Yes indeed.”
“You have plans for your arrival?”
“I shall teach. It will be most fulfilling. Enjoying an independent life, running my own household.” Funny how the thought no longer has as much appeal as it once did. She suppresses that too.
“I've long thought to return to India myself since there is much to be learned from their medical practice.” Dorset is looking at her meaningfully. She looks back at him for a long moment. Somehow she knows that the tulips that threaten to overwhelm her body do not grow on his wrist. She thinks he probably knows that too. But they try anyway, and that is why she is particularly gentle when she says, “If your travels do lead you there, then I would be most happy to show you the places I know.”
His smile widens and she knows that he is pleased. Their boat has nearly reached the shore, and he stands up to anchor it to the dock. A shadow falls over her, and she knows it is Anthony before she looks up. He is particularly handsome today, she notes almost dispassionately. His waistcoat is deep navy blue and his dark hair is in turbulent curls, like he has just been running his hand through it. She imagines running her hand through his hair too and a delightful frisson runs through her.
“That knot will never hold,” he says harshly.
“It is perfectly adequate,” Dorset replies.
“Then I must question your nautical skills, Dorset,” Anthony says, staring the other man down. Something passes between the two men before Anthony leans down to fix the knot.
“Allow me,” he says, reaching out his gloved hand to her. She stares at him for a moment. He is so handsome, she thinks again, quickly followed I’m in danger. But he is waiting and there are so many people around, and it is entirely because she does not want to cause a scene that she takes his hand and allows him to help her out of the boat.
He pulls her up and they stand there at the edge of the water, looking at each other for just a moment too long. His hand tightens imperceptibly around hers, and his tongue peeks out to wet his lips. Her eyes are wide, she knows, and there is a yearning deep inside her to close that gap between them or to rip off their gloves so that they are hand to hand, skin to skin. He would make her skin sing, she knows.
It is this thought that fills her with alarm and Kate snatches her hand back. Anthony’s mouth parts in surprise and he takes a hasty step back as well.
Unfortunately it is Newton’s rotund little body that he steps back into, and in the confusion, he trips into Dorset and they both fall into the lake. Kate gasps, running to the water’s edge. But it is not deep and it is only moments before the two men resurface, coughing and spluttering.
“Oh my!” Edwina exclaims. She had not noticed her sister approach. “Are you hurt?”
“Not at all!” Dorset laughs. His hair sticks to his forehead like a dog’s matted fur in the rain. Kate wishes she could love him. “The water is a rather welcoming refreshment, is it not, Bridgerton!”
Anthony makes no reply. His face is dark and dangerous as he rips his coat and cravat off. He has not realised that, underneath, his white shirt is perfectly transparent. He is heaving himself out of the water like Poseidon. The fabric clings to his leanly muscled chest, brush of hair clearly visible – she is certainly not the only one looking. But she is the first to see the thousands of lilies blooming over his arms and chest and back. As he leans over to shake the water from his ears, she sees a flower trailing over his neck. More buds disappear into the waistline of his pants and she is certain that his muscled thighs are covered in the flowers. Her flowers.
She is not the only one watching, but she is the only one to back away as his mother rushes up with a hastily sought linen sheet.
He looks up. Sees her staring, mouth ajar. There is something desperate and hungry in his gaze as he stands there covered yet so exposed. “Kate,” he says, but she runs.