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“I would think a proper gentleman would be asleep by now.”
Anthony jerks upright, banging his head on the underside of his desk. Right as he almost releases a rather empathic fuck, he manages to bite down on his lip. Then, he retreats backwards and spins around, offering his most charming smile. “Father.”
“Anthony,” Edmund says, amused, from the doorway. “Do I want to know what you were doing down there?”
He glances at his lost pen, which somehow rolled at an angle he thinks he might need to move the whole desk to get. “Nothing bad. Do you need anything?”
“I don’t know if I need anything, but I certainly want a moment with my son.” Edmund smiles again—Anthony loves that smile because he knows when he smiles back, they look like mirror images of each other—and closes the door behind him. For the first time, Anthony realizes he keeps one hand tucked behind his back, shielding something from view. “May I sit?”
He nods. Then, Anthony hurries to stand up and brush the rest of his work into a folder to tuck away in his drawers. While his parents would never insist on a bedtime (he turns eighteen tomorrow! he is a proper adult by then!), they prefer him not to be working this late. It sets a “bad precedent” for the other Bridgerton children.
Edmund smiles at the gesture. “You’re too young to be a workaholic, Anthony.”
“I wouldn’t call myself a workaholic.” Anthony spins his desk chair around, sitting on it backwards to face his father. Edmund eases down on the edge of his neatly made bed (and damn, further evidence he had not even attempted to be asleep by now).
Edmund seems to know that, too. He spreads his hand over the comforter with a hum. “Think you can take a break to spend time with me?”
“Of course.” There are very few things Anthony wouldn’t do for his father. His friends seem to know it too. Simon Bassett takes pride in mocking him over his relationship with his father, especially after Anthony called off a party once to help his father with one of the family’s cars. In his defense, he learned more jump-starting his mother’s car than he ever would have learned in the back of a cheerleader’s car.
And they both knew that was where he would have ended up.
“Tomorrow is your eighteenth,” Edmund starts, “and I’m not foolish enough to think you’ll be spending it at home.”
Anthony looks away, trying to hide the embarrassment starting to show on his face. Simon, who turned eighteen two months before Anthony, insisted on organizing a pub crawl. Of course, both of them already knew their favorite spots in town. They spent the better part of their final year at school exploring them, sneaking into places that didn’t card at the door or utilizing the fake IDs that should not have worked.
“Of course, your mother has planned to take you out to lunch, and I’m excited to do that with you as well, but… I thought I wanted a chance to catch you before you turned eighteen.” And at that, Edmund reveals what he kept hidden behind his back: a bottle of champagne and two flutes, all awkwardly balanced in one hand. “I thought I’d start a tradition.”
Anthony hurries to accept the flutes.
Edmund grins. “Humor me and pretend you haven’t had alcohol before. And humor me and don’t bother lying about it now.”
“I have been a very…” Anthony searches for the right word before grinning. “I have been an upstanding citizen and student, Father. I would think you would have more faith in your firstborn.”
“I have nothing but faith in you,” Edmund says, so serious that Anthony has to look away, unsure how to take the compliment.
He’s excited to celebrate his eighteenth birthday. His older friends return with better and better stories, and he’s excited to go around to the clubs without fear of a raid or a particularly intuitive bartender. At the same time, though, it feels like the end of an era. He’s ready to be an adult; he’s ready to face everything adulthood would bring his way. He wants to go to university and get a proper degree, inherit his father’s law firm, and be the best lawyer he could be. He’s ready to fall in love, just like his father did with his mother.
He isn’t ready to leave the Bridgerton house.
For the first time, Anthony wishes he wasn’t the eldest. If he could look towards a sibling, see that they still returned, that they still got to enjoy their parents’ warmth and affection, he would know it would be alright. Right now, it feels like unmastered territory, unseen land. Even his best friend wouldn’t have a better answer. Simon long since wrote off his father, and he never knew his mother.
“Chin up, Anthony,” Edmund says with a soft laugh. “You don’t have to look so afraid. I, for one, am excited to see what the future will bring. I know you will do amazing things. So, in honor of that, let’s toast.”
Anthony still hesitates.
Edmund pops the champagne, and when it spills onto his comforter, he gives such a chagrined expression it coaxes a laugh out of Anthony. “Don’t tell your mother.”
“I think she will find out when she does laundry,” Anthony says, still trying to tamp down his smile.
Edmund points a finger at him. “I guess it’s a good thing you are old enough to do your own laundry. Come here; let me pour your glass.”
Anthony grabs the flutes, and he pushes away the rest of the worrying. Right now, he can enjoy his ‘first’ sip of alcohol with his father.
“Should I tell Mother you’re encouraging underage drinking?” he asks, aiming for an expression that doesn’t give him away.
Edmund laughs as he pours him the champagne. “That can be our secret too. Now, drink up… and happy birthday.”
(Anthony will remember this on his nineteenth birthday, the first of many he will choose not to spend at home, his father still fresh in his grave. He will pull over to the side of the road. He will press his forehead against the steering wheel. He will cry, but nobody will come.)
~~~
ii.
“If there is a woman in there,” Anthony warns on the other side of the door, trying to sound stern but knowing his laughter betrays him, “I will not come in.”
“What a man I would be,” Benedict says as he throws open the door, offering the mischievous smile Anthony knows has won him numerous women (and men), “if I had someone in my childhood bedroom. What a surprise.”
“Ah, ah. It was my bedroom first.”
Of course, it hasn’t been Anthony’s bedroom for two years. He decorated it more than his current apartment (only fifteen minutes down the road; Simon asked him to share one with him, but Anthony needed to be able to return home every night), but it still was barer than not. He can still see the markings of where his Billy Joel poster used to be, and the dresser holds dents from where he banged it moving in.
Benedict made this room his own. He propped an easel up in the corner, something Anthony fought with him over until Violet told him she didn’t care, and he hung the best of his sketches up on the wall. Right now, perched on his bedside, is the open sketchbook, revealing a shockingly refined photo of Cinderella.
On another day, Anthony thinks he would make fun of him for that.
Right now, though, he nudges the door closed and reveals the bottle of champagne he bought earlier this evening. “I brought presents.”
“You do know my birthday is tomorrow, right?” Benedict says.
Anthony rolls his eyes. “If I could forget. I think eighteen years ago was my last day of peace before I was forced to have an annoying little brother.”
“Oh, you love me.”
Benedict clearly doesn’t expect a response as he spins around and collapses down on his rumpled bed (Benedict never got in the habit of making his bed), but Anthony surprises him with a, “I do.”
Benedict jerks upright. “What?”
“I love you,” Anthony says levelly. He spins the desk chair around with his free hand and sits down, facing him, “and happy early birthday.”
“I appreciate the sentiment, Ant, but I didn’t know you were someone who got sappy.”
Anthony swallows, deliberating what to say. He thought about it the whole ride over. When his father told him he intended to start a tradition, did he mean just with Anthony? Or did he mean with all eight of his children? If Anthony admits that this was their father’s doing, that this was their father’s idea all along, would it ruin whatever festive mood he tried to create? Or if he said nothing, would it be improper, as if he was taking credit for something Edmund invented all on his own?
He still doesn’t know what to say, so instead, he glances down at the champagne bottle. “Oh, shit, I forgot glasses.”
“The mighty Anthony can swear?” Benedict asks.
Anthony levels him with another stare. “Benedict, I’m studying for law school right now. I’ve earned the right to say fuck.”
“You can say fuck?” Benedict slaps a hand over his mouth, pretending to be aghast. After a moment, he laughs and leans forward. “Anyways, we’re both going to be adults, brother. Let’s drink straight from the bottle.”
“You think adults drink straight from the champagne bottle.”
Benedict shakes his head. Then, he holds up a finger. “But, but, but, I think young adults do, and while I know you’re trying your best to be ancient these days, I think we can have a little fun.”
“This little fun stays between us,” Anthony warns.
Benedict rolls his eyes (and it startles Anthony, just a little, because that is exactly how he does it, and while he knew he was close with his brother and they shared mannerisms, he didn’t expect it to hit him so hard right now). “As if I’m to believe you’re not going to do this with Colin. Which, by the way, I bet Colin has already had champagne.”
Anthony stares. “Colin is five years younger than you.”
“Colin has his ways. Have you ever seen him schmoozing at the Bridgerton family reunions? He’s insufferable.” At that, both of them share secretive smiles. They went to the last extended Bridgerton family reunion, and while Anthony thinks he would rather do anything else next year, Benedict proved to be surprisingly helpful with the babysitting of the youngest in the family. Hyacinth, after all, was only one year old at the time, so Violet remained glued to her side.
(He knows it is unfair, but sometimes, he wishes his mother could recover from her grief a little faster. While it is much, much better than those first few months, the months right after Edmund’s death but before Hyacinth’s birth, he still wants his mother back. He wants someone else to be in charge of this family because right now, he feels like he’s drowning more often than not.
Simon told him he was insane for trying to balance a courseload and ‘being a father to seven little brats,’ but Anthony laughed it off, saying Simon didn’t get it because Simon never had younger siblings.
Anthony thinks he might be going insane. Just last week, Violet’s car wouldn’t start, and Benedict was spending the day at the art museum with friends, so Anthony had to get everyone else to their various dance rehearsals or fencing tournaments or a library hang-out.)
“Hey,” Benedict says. “Where’d you go?”
Anthony blinks, forcing himself back in the moment. He can be exhausted in two days. Right now, it is about his baby brother becoming an adult. “Right here. It’s your birthday; if you want to drink straight from the bottle, let’s drink straight from the bottle.”
“Yes!”
Anthony pops the cork off, and he passes it to Benedict for the first sip, and the next morning, he thinks he hasn’t smiled and laughed so hard for two years.
~~~
iii.
Colin flings open the door before Anthony can even knock, offering him his most charming smile, the smile that has always worked wonders on the extended Bridgerton family. “Anthony! What a surprise! Do I see you have champagne? Oh, I guess you better come in.”
Anthony does not enter; he perches right there at the entrance of the bedroom that used to be his, used to be Benedict’s. “Did Benedict tell you?”
“I,” Colin says, reaching forward to grab Anthony’s arm and tug him into the room, “am just unusually perceptive like that. Now, come, come, we don’t want anything to go to waste.”
“It will still be in the bottle after ten minutes. It will not go to waste—”
“Oh, but the mood will go to waste, and we’re both in such merry spirits!” Colin practically slams the door, and if Anthony wants to be subtle with this tradition, he thinks he can feel his dreams withering. Then again, hopefully, the girls have already gone to bed, and Gregory and Hyacinth are still too young to connect the dots.
Before Anthony can even sit down, Colin spins around the desk chair for him, and he trots back to his bed. He plops down, giving a wide, expectant smile.
When Anthony produces the champagne flutes, he does get a reaction out of Colin before Colin manages to conceal it with another easy grin. Anthony arches an eyebrow. “Did you want to drink straight from the bottle?”
“I just did not… expect you to come so prepared,” Colin says, still trying to cover up his disappointment.
Anthony sighs and sets them behind him on the desk. “I want you to know, and you can text Benedict this in the morning, that adults do not drink straight from the bottle, and I will not be allowing Daphne this particular luxury.”
“Because you like me better?”
“Perhaps I should go see if Benedict is still awake. It would make for a more pleasant evening,” Anthony muses. He goes as far as to set the bottle down and dig his cell phone out of his pocket.
Colin groans. “Come on. I know you’re not actually going to get Benedict.”
Anthony starts calling him. He puts it on speaker, and he lets the dial tone fill the room. Colin squirms, but he is determined to win this battle. Anthony tries to suppress his smirk. He can play this game better than Colin, of course. He has seven years on his little brother; he knows all of his secrets.
Including his secret about Penelope Featherington, but tonight will not be an evening of that much truth.
Benedict picks up with a breathy laugh. “Has Colin already driven you mad?”
“Do you have plans tonight? Because I think I might—”
“Might have to tell you to fuck off, okay, goodnight,” Colin hurries to say after snatching the phone. He hangs up while Benedict howls with laughter on the other end. He gives a pout and turns towards Anthony. “I want you to know I’m usually more suave than that. I have a great reputation.”
“You have a reputation for having already indulged,” Anthony corrects.
Colin smiles, still flushed from his rush in stealing the phone. He tosses Anthony’s phone backwards, letting it hit his pillow, and Anthony makes a mental note to grab it before he retreats to the guest bedroom. He’ll have to take calls from the clients in the morning since he will be attending Colin’s birthday lunch, another Bridgerton tradition that involves entirely too much planning and baking.
“Do me a favor and pretend you haven’t?” Anthony asks as he pops the cork out.
“It’s my birthday. I don’t think I need to be giving out favors,” Colin says.
Anthony rolls his eyes. Somehow, he forgot just how aggravating Colin can be in large doses, and he already spent most of today with his brother, listening to his rather ambitious travel plans (since Colin has decided to take a gap year before university, something both Violet and Anthony fought against venomously and caused a three-month rift between Anthony and Colin). “It’s not your birthday yet.”
“Then, of course, I’ll grant you this. Unless you’d rather have another favor? I can only be so generous.”
“And what would the second favor be?”
“I can keep my lips a little tighter than Benedict, and make sure the girls don’t know what awaits them for their eighteenth.” He pauses, and his eyes light up. “Unless this is a tradition we’re excluding the girls from. It can be something just between you, me, and Benedict.”
Anthony snorts at the idea. If Eloise ever figured out they had traditions just the three of them, he would never hear the end of it. “I will do this with the girls too. I’ll admit, I think it will be a little more fun with them.”
“Can you imagine doing it with Gregory?” Colin says instead. “That’s in ten years. You will be ancient by then.”
“You and Benedict have the same flavor of humor,” Anthony tells him.
Colin laughs. “Because we are men of refined taste. It’s a shame this gene passed over you, though.”
“I don’t need to be funny,” Anthony says. “I have clowns for siblings.”
“I’m wounded. Perhaps a good drink will help me steady myself.”
For a moment, Anthony pretends he won’t pass it over. Then, he gives it over to Colin, and Colin takes a big swig. He makes a face as it hits his throat, though, giving himself away, and Anthony laughs.
Colin goes red again, and that is where Anthony can see the family resemblance. If either of them could take their embarrassment better, they wouldn’t have to work so hard to cover it up.
Afterwards, Colin will nudge Anthony, a little dazed from the champagne, a clear sign his reputation might have been undeserved. “Ant, Benedict did tell me.”
“I knew it—”
“He told me because he told me it was his favorite birthday yet, and he wanted to make sure I was excited.”
~~~
iv.
Daphne’s eyes go wide when she realizes Anthony stands in her doorway (or the doorway that used to belong to Anthony, Benedict, and Colin). She clearly rose from bed, her hair rumpled on one side and a sleep mask covering her roots. “Anthony? Is something wrong?”
If she is acting, then she is doing a good job at it. He thought Colin might let something slip regardless. While most of society seems to think the family splits up with Anthony, Benedict, and Colin on one side and the younger Bridgertons on the other, truly, Colin and Daphne make trouble with each other. They used to pretend to be twins to garner better stories and gossip.
Sometimes, in the early days, Anthony wondered what he did to get so many hellions as siblings. Daphne was sweet and demure on her own, a friend to everyone in the neighborhood, but put her with Colin, and suddenly, the Berbrookes were calling Anthony about hair pulling on the playground.
“May I come in?” Anthony asks instead.
Daphne gives a still-stunned nod. She backs up, allowing Anthony to step into the place he hasn’t called home in eight years. It gives him a moment’s pause. While he saw how she decorated it before (she needed his help moving in, after all), there is something strange about being in this room for the fourth time, a bottle of champagne ready to slosh onto a comforter and whispers about not telling Violet to start.
He closes the door and sets the champagne and the flutes on the desk. The bedframe changes often; Anthony took his childhood bed to his new apartment, and Benedict did the same. The dresser had to change after Benedict stole the last one, and Colin somehow got his new one damaged enough it needed to be replaced.
The desk, somehow, remains standing. Daphne dresses it up differently. She keeps her pens in pretty blue mugs, and a mirror sits on the opposite side of the desk, her jewelry box sitting right in front of it. None of the room’s previous inhabitants needed something like that. It is still his desk, though.
It was still the desk Edmund gave him, so many years ago.
Anthony clears his throat, refusing to get choked up when the occasion calls for celebration and levity instead. “Tomorrow’s your birthday, and I know you will be busy, so I thought I would try to steal a moment of your time before you get swept away.”
What he doesn’t expect is for Daphne to launch herself at him the moment he finishes speaking, wrapping him into a tight hug. “Thank you, Anthony.”
He fumbles, unsure what to say. “For what? The free alcohol?”
She laughs, backing up and swatting at his arm. Her eyes are suspiciously bright, though, and he worries her next answer might bring him to the brink of tears as well. “Are you doing this because of what I told Mother?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says truthfully.
Daphne smiles wider, somehow, and she wipes at her eyes. “That makes it all the better then. I would love to share a glass of champagne with you.”
“Now, I feel as if I should withhold this until I get some form of an answer,” he says, but he spins the desk chair around and sits regardless. As he starts to pop the champagne, he glances back to Daphne and notes how watery her eyes look again, and he sets it back again. “I do feel as if I’m missing something.”
“Did you have nothing else to do tonight?” Daphne asks after a moment.
He laughs. “Are you attempting to tell me something right now?”
He would not be shocked. His mother has tried to coax him into bringing someone home, as if he would even have someone to bring home. It doesn’t help that Benedict has done so. While Anthony would be shocked if he marries Henry, simply because it seems like they might soon be tired of each other’s company, it has given him a bad reputation.
Violet seems to think Anthony spends too much time managing the Bridgerton household and working at the law firm. Part of it stems from his first excuse for not meeting anyone; how would he have time in his already busy schedule? Yet, at the same time, he has no desire to bring anyone home.
He thinks his family is perfect as is.
He waits to see if she will give him another answer; why else would she continue to bring it up? When she doesn’t, he pops the champagne, and when some spills on the carpet, he offers her a smile. “That might be harder to cover up in the morning.”
“Should we…?” She makes a move towards the hallway.
He shakes his head. “The carpet is old anyway.”
She smiles. “Good. I do hate cleaning up that kind of stuff.”
“Do you have a lot of experience?”
She goes a little red, but she shakes her head. “I have been… I’ve been to parties. Not that I would drink at the parties. But I’ve been.”
Part of him wants to laugh at Daphne’s vehement denial. It almost seems assured she drank at the parties now. At the same time, though, he cannot imagine Benedict ever caring for his opinion so much as Daphne does, and that humbles him enough to remain quiet as he passes over the champagne flute.
“Thank God we aren’t drinking straight from the bottle again,” he murmurs under his breath.
She glances at him. “What?”
He waves her off.
When she first sips at it, she splutters, making a face all too similar to Colin’s, and he tries to suppress his laughter. One look at her sheepish expression sets him off, though, and she starts giggling before insisting on filling up his champagne flute for him.
Later, she will tell him she had previously been telling their mother how her friends all had their first drinks with their parents, and while she would have loved to have a sip with Violet, it somehow felt different as Violet did not drink frequently.
Somehow, Anthony came at just the right moment, she will explain, to soothe her fears.
~~~
v.
When he explains to Kate why he’ll be spending the night at the Bridgerton house, she kisses him mid-sentence. He loses his train of thought as he loses himself in her. For a moment, it seems unlikely he would make it to the Bridgerton house, not with her warmth against him, not with her mouth against his, not with the way she always seemed to anticipate which way he would move.
After he manages to catch his breath, he arches an eyebrow at her. “And what was that for?”
“I wish,” Kate says, “I would have had such a tradition with my father. Now, go. Eloise is probably waiting for you.”
When he pulls into the driveway, though, he catches a shape perched on the door right outside the bedroom window, freezing. He makes sure not to keep his gaze on her as he reaches into the backseat, grabbing out the bottle of champagne. He wonders if he can coax her into the kitchen instead of whatever she is off to do; otherwise, they’ll have to drink from the bottle, and he did like the reprieve from that particular tradition.
After he shuts off and locks his car, he leans against the driver’s door and calls out to the tree. “Are you going somewhere, young lady?”
Eloise’s figure somehow gets more rigid.
Then, she is scrambling down the tree, her words coming almost too fast to decipher. “I’ll have you know that I am an adult now, and I am capable of fending for myself, and the fact I had to sneak out of the house to begin with is a shame considering how old I am, but of course, Mother does not see it that way, Mother insists I must have a curfew of all things, as if any of you suffered curfews when you were—”
“I had a curfew,” Anthony interrupts.
Eloise stops, ruddy-cheeked and breathless. Then, she reaches up, raking a hand through her hair, apparently oblivious to all of the pins she already put into it. “What?”
“I had a curfew,” he repeats, still trying to pass as indifferent.
She shakes her head. “I do not believe that. I have heard many stories about you over the years. In fact, I heard some of them on Sunday when you had Kate over for dinner.”
“I’m sure you heard many stories about me,” Anthony says. Judging by how she is dressed to go out to a club, he imagines she might hear more. If she goes to the one he thinks she might, he knows the bartender quite well. They played billiards together yesterday night, celebrating his win at the law firm.
“Are you denying they’re true?” Eloise demands.
It’s incredible, he thinks, she can make demands when she has been the one caught sneaking out of her bedroom to go who-knows-where without anyone knowing. Or, perhaps, she informed Francesca, and he should question her in the morning. Francesca has always had the best poker face out of everyone in the family, however.
“I’m not denying their validity. I’m saying, I had a curfew. I simply did not respect it.” Upon her bark of surprised laughter, he nods towards the tree. “Eloise, who do you think was the first one to make an escape out there?”
“But Mother always treated you like the prodigal son,” Eloise says.
He smiles. “When I was still young enough to have a curfew, how old were you? Let’s see. When I was eighteen, you would have been six.”
And look at her now. He almost cannot bear the simple math he just did because somehow, in the past twelve years, his sister became an adult. She no longer is a child he struggled to entertain, frantically reading every Dr. Seuss book he got his hands on only to be informed that she could ‘read more advanced books, please and thank you.’ She is a young woman, already committed to studying law and wanting to join the firm, something none of their other siblings ever expressed an interest in.
Of course, his siblings found success in different ways, and if one defined success as happiness and wanting for nothing, which is how he preferred to define it for his siblings, all of them were well off. Benedict sold his paintings at a small shop Anthony helped him buy. Colin became a travel writer and still spent more of his time abroad. Daphne chose to become a speech pathologist, and she brought home stories of every child she adored teaching.
Anthony hadn’t realized how desperately he wanted someone else at the law firm until Eloise declared, rather spectacularly over breakfast, she would be following in their father and Anthony’s footsteps.
“Are you going to keep me here?” Eloise finally asks.
He shakes his head. “Not if you don’t want to be. But, before you go, would you do me the great honor of having a drink?”
“Having a drink,” she repeats. He passes the bag over, and she peeks at the champagne. Then, she arches her eyebrow (in the same Anthony does; he truly thinks Eloise might be the most like him out of all the Bridgerton siblings). “You want to have champagne? With me?”
“It’s become a bit of a tradition,” he says as he guides them both over to the porch. It looks unlikely she will go back into the kitchen, so from the bottle it is. “Since you will be out on your birthday and, evidently, the day before your birthday, I want to make sure to steal a moment with you. As your older brother.”
“It’s amazing Benedict and Colin never expressed an interest in this,” she shoots back.
“What can I say? I’ve always been a better brother than them.”
She snorts as she sits down with him. When he offers the opened bottle to her, she takes a sip, obviously used to the taste, and Anthony presses his lips together to keep from smiling. Unlike Daphne, Eloise will express no shame in having drank before.
Upon feeling his gaze, she passes it over. “Let’s see if you still have it, old man.”
And somehow, the night passes without Eloise leaving, just the two of them passing the champagne back and forth until the early hours of morning, talking about the bright future ahead of her.
~~~
vi.
Francesca answers her door with the proper amount of surprise, but Anthony has practically raised her since she was five years old. He can tell when she fakes it. With a groan, he steps into her room and closes the door. “And who told you about this?”
He had been spoiled, Anthony decides, with both Daphne and Eloise’s surprise. Ever since Colin knew it was coming, he suspected all of his siblings would circulate it. After the last two, maybe he got soft. Maybe Kate let something break; Lord knows how famously Kate and Francesca got along.
“You and Eloise drank on our front porch,” Francesca says with a mischievous glint in her blue eyes, the same kind of mischief he usually expects from Benedict. “Did you truly think you could keep it a secret? I asked her about it the moment she got back instead.”
“Asked her?”
“What are you implying?”
“I would be shocked if there was not any blackmail involved.” After all, Eloise had clearly been about to sneak out somewhere. While he thinks both Eloise and Francesca might be going to clubs together—something he has tried his hardest to discourage, unashamed of his role as a father figure to them these days—neither of them would ever admit it in fear of punishment from Violet.
She shrugs. “Perhaps. Besides, Anthony, you want me to believe you would leave Edmund behind for me? Without a great cause?”
The words come out before he can think through them. “Francesca, I would be here without a great cause because you are my sister.”
While she manages to keep her poker face on, he can read the surprise in her eyes. She glances away, suddenly fascinated with something out the window. “I didn’t mean it in a mean way, Anthony. I know you still love us, even if you are busy with Edmund.”
“If you are feeling neglected, you can call me. Text me. Any time of the day,” he promises, and he hopes she takes it seriously.
He spends less time at the Bridgerton house than he did in the early days. He owns a house of his own, no longer the shitty apartment with the questionable landlord fifteen minutes away, and just two months ago, Kate and Anthony welcomed their first child, hopefully first of many, into the world.
When Kate told him she wanted to name him Edmund, Anthony had to retreat into the hallway. He was going to call Benedict first, but then, he thought better of it, and he called Francesca, and rather than explain how Kate brought him to tears (something he knew his sister was perceptive enough to figure out), he insisted she tell him about her school day to help settle his nerves.
Francesca gently takes the champagne and flutes out of his hands, something he barely noticed anymore, and takes his hands in hers. “Anthony. I know. I love you too.”
“How did I get such a good sister?” he asks.
She smiles. “It is probably meant to be a balance. After you were stuck with Eloise, Gregory, and Hyacinth, you deserved someone easy.”
“Easy? No.” He laughs as he brushes a kiss against her forehead before retreating back to the desk. “I don’t think either of us needs reminders of what I caught you and John doing in the car.”
Francesca goes red. “We weren’t doing anything.”
“Because I got there in time.”
She reaches back and lobs a pillow at his face. He laughs as he catches it, placing it between him and the hard back of the chair. At some point, he got old enough to notice how uncomfortable this desk chair was, even after he moved it to sit backwards on it. Or, to save his ego, maybe he will marvel at how old the desk chair is instead.
Then, she points at the champagne flutes. “Are you not going to be a gentleman and pour me one?”
“I’m sorry. I will rectify that right away,” he says with a grin. He reaches over to grab the bottle, and Francesca smiles at him, a little too innocent to be believable. “Should I ask you to pretend this will be your first sip of alcohol ever? I’ve asked some of the others when I’ve done it for them.”
“Anthony, we’re much smarter than the others,” she says, winning another laugh out of him. “We can treat as two adults.”
“As two equals—”
“As two adults,” Francesca repeats. When she sees the surprise on his face, she reaches out and plucks the champagne flute out of his hand. “Anthony, we’re equals in a lot of ways, but I don’t need to be a perfect equal with you. My ego is not that fragile.”
“And why don’t you need to be a perfect equal?” he asks. He can sense she wants to surprise him with her next comment, so he makes a point to roll his eyes before sipping on his champagne, allowing her the opportunity to make him choke on it.
And she does. “Because you’ve been a good father to me.”
When he recovers enough to breathe normally, he stares at her. Before he can speak, Francesca continues. “I’m not… the loudest in the family. By far. I think, perhaps, I am the quietest in the family, and that is a hard position to take. I don’t say thank you and I love you often enough, but since you were generous enough to spend your night with me, I can be generous enough with my words. Thank you, Anthony, for everything you’ve done for me over the years. And I love you.”
Anthony wipes at his eyes, hopefully subtle enough she can’t pick up on it. But, of course, this is Francesca, who notices almost everything.
“Cheers,” he says at last, “to the wonderful woman you’re becoming… to the wonderful woman you’ve already become.”
“Cheers,” she says, “because I know I would not be the person I am today without you being here for me.”
~~~
vii.
Gregory is bouncing on the bed.
Anthony pauses in the doorway. “Should I assume you know what’s about to happen?”
Gregory nods, grinning broadly. He darts up, sneaking around Anthony to ram the door shut, before spinning back around and gesturing to him to hurry up. “I’ve been waiting since Colin turned eighteen for you to do this with me!”
“You’ve known since you were eight,” Anthony says, not bothering to hide his disbelief.
Gregory reaches up, ruffling his hair self-consciously. It makes Anthony want to stride across the room and fix it for him, but he resists the urge since Gregory is, after all, meant to be a man now. “Okay, maybe not that long, but we have a group chat without you, and Benedict and Colin told me what I should expect.”
Anthony is not that surprised. Two months ago, in the height of the summer, Eloise decided she wanted to do something fun at the family gathering (not the extended family, and yet, Violet, all eight siblings, four spouses, seven children, Penelope, Edwina, Posy, and Michael made it feel bigger somehow), and she decided to buy additional equipment for pall mall. The amount of alliances made via group chats became insufferable, especially when Anthony preferred to text exactly once a day.
Benedict, Colin, and Gregory made a pact to try and knock Anthony out of the game early. Luckily, Anthony managed to convince Hyacinth to target Gregory specifically, Eloise and Penelope ganged up on Colin, and Benedict was too busy trying to protect Sophie’s ball to play well. Anthony didn’t win —frustratingly, Daphne did, much to her delight and crowing—but his brothers didn’t either.
“Then, I guess we might as well get started—”
“I haven’t drank,” Gregory blurts.
Anthony stops, the cork still not out of the champagne. “What was that?”
“Colin told me to wait when I was younger, and I don’t usually listen to Colin because he’s a bit of an ass,” and usually, Anthony would give an obligatory ‘don’t call your brother an ass,’ but Colin gave away his tradition, so he’s not prone to defend him right now, “but after they told me during pall mall, I was glad I did. I… I’m glad my first drink is going to be with you, though I think you might want to move up this tradition.”
“If Kate had her way, I don’t think Edmund or Miles would ever drink,” Anthony says with a wry smile. He thinks, most of the time, she wants to wrap them up in bubble wrap and refuse to let them leave the house.
Then again, he thinks she wants to do that for him, and he could never allow that.
Then, he pauses. “Unless you’re telling me you want to invite Hyacinth—”
“Gross, never,” Gregory says without skipping a beat. Anthony grins. Their joking animosity never faded, even as they grew up, but he’s glad they grew out of the stage where they would pull pranks on each other. He got caught in the crossfire far too often for it to be comfortable. “I’m saying I wish you would have moved up this tradition for me. It was getting embarrassing with my mates.”
“If they’re pressuring you to drink—”
“They’re not real mates,” Gregory finishes for him with a cheeky smile. “Sometimes, I think you read a single parenting book, and you just recycle quotes from it every chance you can get.”
“Oh, I never read a book.” That one, unfortunately, is a lie. He spent an embarrassing amount of time in the library, reading the parenting books to make sure he didn’t mess up any of his younger siblings, knowing he could never step into his father’s shoes. “Daphne had been going through a Disney Channel phase, though, so I just tried to be like those fathers.”
Gregory nods. “You do seem like a Disney Channel dad.”
“Should I take that as a compliment?”
“You can take it as whatever you want as long as you start pouring that champagne.” He pulls out his phone, though, and Anthony rolls his eyes. He knows Gregory is off to change his name and profile photo in his contacts to something inane and only tangentially related to Disney. He thought he raised Gregory better, but somehow, he still ended up being someone glued to his phone.
When Anthony pops the cork out, though, Gregory brightens visibly, and he sets his phone back down. Then, he is bouncing on the bed again, waiting for the flute to be passed to him.
Right as Anthony is about to pass it over, Gregory holds up a hand. “I have a request.”
“Are we in a schoolroom right now?” Anthony asks, trying to hide from his amusement. “Yes, Mr. Bridgerton?”
“No glasses.”
He groans.
“That’s how you did with Benedict and Colin! I want to be like them!” Gregory insists.
Anthony thinks he might have been able to see this coming. Gregory always wants to be like the three of them despite the age difference. When this tradition first began, with Anthony working late into the night and Edmund entering his room, Gregory had been a single year old. He was the same age Miles is right now.
Again, Anthony thinks he might be overwhelmed by the weight of passing over the champagne. Gregory and Hyacinth were the ones he watched grow up from such a different position than the others. He knew they wouldn’t remember Edmund, and he had to decide whether or not to slide into his father’s shoes, only to come up short.
He would like to think Gregory knows Edmund through Anthony’s stories.
He would like to think Edmund would approve of him repeating this tradition.
He knows Edmund would have remembered the champagne flutes with Benedict; this would not have been a running disappointment for him. But, since it is Anthony, he groans again, but he hands the bottle to Gregory.
He thinks it is worth it to see that smile on Gregory’s face as he takes the first sip and chokes just like Colin, just like Daphne.
~~~
viii.
He cannot believe this will be the last time he does it.
Hyacinth never moved into the same bedroom as the rest of them. By the time she turns eighteen, everyone else has moved out of the house. They have scattered throughout the city, and on worse days, Anthony mourns the loss of the closeness. Now, they have to organize meetings back up; they used to just collect at one spot.
Of course, he should have seen this coming. He was the oldest; of course, he got used to them living at home with Violet. He discussed it, only once, with Violet, but he could not bear the look in her eyes. He wonders what she will do; he wonders if she will sell the house. He could not live in such a vast place alone.
He clears his throat, and he forces himself to knock. He will not ruin this experience for Hyacinth, no matter how much he cannot believe the tradition ends here. When he doesn’t get an answer, he knocks again. And again.
Then, he hears her clear her throat on the other side of the hallway. “We’re not going to do it there.”
“And what is wrong with your room?” he asks, and he is shocked at how easy the smile comes to him. He leans against the wall and arches an eyebrow at her. “We spent a lot of money making sure it looked exactly how you wanted it to look.”
“It’s a great room because I have great taste,” Hyacinth says with a lazy flick of her waist, a lazy flick he knows she somehow inherited from Kate. She enjoys spending time at their house, just talking. Kate is one of the few Bridgertons who will indulge her more fanciful detective stories, though Kate always knows how to rein it in before someone gets hurt, “but I don’t want to be in there. I’m the youngest. I’m the eighth.”
I know, Anthony thinks.
“So…?” he prompts.
She flings open the door to the nursery, something Violet never had the heart to take down after Gregory and Hyacinth grew too old to have it, something she no longer needed with the flux of people moving out.
He laughs, and he shakes his head. “I’m not drinking with you in the nursery.”
“Why not?” Hyacinth asks with a pout.
He stares at her. “Because you were a child in that room. Don’t you want to go somewhere a little more grown-up, Hy?”
“Nope! I think it’s funny and symbolic, and so, we’re going to drink in there.” She bounds forever, and she grabs his wrist, dragging him that direction. He rolls his eyes, but he lets her tug him along. They both knew he never knew how to say no to Hyacinth.
It is eerie stepping back inside. While it has been well-maintained, some part of him feels as if he has been transported back in time, and if he peeks into the crib, he will see baby Hyacinth, her startling blue eyes staring up at him with a million questions.
Maybe it’s for the best he does it in a new location. He only varied once before with Eloise, and that was because Eloise has always been the one to break rules. With Hyacinth, it feels right because it is not the same spot Edmund tried to establish for them. Edmund never met Hyacinth. The closest he ever got was pressing his ear against Violet’s stomach, listening to the rustling of what would become Hyacinth.
Kate remarked Anthony seemed particularly somber this past week, and he didn’t know how to explain it to her. He is pleased—no, pleased is not a strong enough word; he is proud; he is honored; he is near tears looking at how well Hyacinth grew up—to be celebrating Hyacinth’s birthday. At the same time, it feels like the worst kind of betrayal, to acknowledge they grew older while Edmund did not.
Hyacinth plops down on the alphabet carpet—he loved that as a child; he would hop between the letters, naming his family, Anthony Benedict Colin Daphne Eloise Francesca Gregory Hyacinth and a big leap to Violet— and pats the space next to her. He joins her after a moment, ignoring the ache in his knees, and he opens the champagne for the two of them.
After he pours it into the flute, he hands it over to Hyacinth.
She downs it.
He stares. “I was going to do a toast.”
She stares at him, wide-eyed. “What?”
“You weren’t even going to wait for me to…”
“Nobody told me you did toasts!” Hyacinth blurts out, cheeks going bright red. “I thought it was just about the drinking!”
He rolls his eyes as he pours his own glass. “There was a reason we kept some of it a secret.”
“I hope I didn’t ruin it,” Hyacinth murmurs.
He shakes his head. “This is perfect, Hy. A perfect ending. Cheers to that.”
“Won’t you do it with your sons?” Hyacinth will murmur later, the two of them sprawled out on the carpet, staring up at the glow-in-the-dark stars. Some of them peeled off over the course of time, but the few remaining were placed there by Edmund, and again, Anthony will think he might begin to weep.
He will swallow hard. “It will be different, though.”
“Why?” Hyacinth will turn then, propping herself up on her elbows to see him, and she will look so much like Violet that he will sit up and press his hands into his eyes, trying to keep from crying in front of his youngest sibling.
He will swallow again, trying to find the right words. “I… this was not meant to be my tradition, Hyacinth.”
This is the first time he confessed it.
“What do you mean?” Hyacinth will ask, but she has always been too smart for her own good, and she will gasp, her hand fluttering up to her mouth. “Did Father do this for you the first time?”
She will do the math, and she will find the answer all too fast. Anthony was the only one Edmund saw to eighteen. Even Benedict, who came close, would have been too young to have done this with their father.
And while Hyacinth will not have an answer at the time, she will start making a plan, right then, right there.
~~~
(+1)
“Anthony,” Kate says gently, rapping on the door to his office. “You have a visitor.”
Anthony glances down at his father’s watch, squinting at the time. “Are you sure? It’s rather late.”
“Oh, so you can acknowledge the passing of time,” Kate says. “Remember when you told me you would be finishing work before dinner?”
He winces. Before he can manage some sort of apology, though, she does the lazy flick of her wrist, a dismissal if he has ever seen one, and steps away, allowing the visitor into the office.
He freezes.
Violet smiles at him, a bottle of champagne in her right hand. “I have been told you were allowing underage drinking behind my back for years. I thought it was about time I was allowed into such a tradition.”
Anthony is still just staring, unable to find the words.
“We can drink,” Violet continues as she takes the seat opposite of him, “to the wonderful family we have made.”
Anthony manages a nod. He thinks he might cry, and wouldn’t that be embarrassing? In front of his mother?
“Cheers, Anthony,” Violet says.
And Anthony cries anyway.