Bridgerton Collection, Volume 2 - Julia Quinn Page 0,223

idea how Anthony Bridgerton had managed it, but he’d procured a special license, allowing them to be wed without banns and on a Monday, which, Eloise assured him, was no worse than Tuesday or Wednesday, just that it wasn’t Saturday, as was proper.

Eloise’s entire family, minus her widowed sister in Scotland, who hadn’t had time to make the journey, had trooped out to the country for the wedding. Normally, the ceremony would have taken place in Kent, at the Bridgerton family seat, or at the very least in London, where the family attended church regularly at St. George’s in Hanover Square, but such arrangements were not possible on such a hastened schedule, and this wasn’t an ordinary sort of wedding in any case. Benedict and Sophie had offered their home for the reception, but Eloise had felt that the twins would be more comfortable at Romney Hall, so they’d held the ceremony at the parish church down the lane, followed by a small, intimate reception on the lawn outside Phillip’s greenhouse.

Later in the day, just as the sun was beginning to dip in the sky, Eloise found herself in her new bedchamber with her mother, who was busying herself by pretending to tuck away items in Eloise’s hastily gathered trousseau. It all, of course, had been taken care of by Eloise’s lady’s maid (brought up from London with the family) earlier that morning, but Eloise didn’t comment upon her mother’s idle busy-work. It seemed like Violet Bridgerton simply needed something to do while she talked.

Eloise, of all people, understood that need perfectly.

“I should complain that I’m being denied my proper moment of glory as the mother of the bride,” Violet said to her daughter as she folded her lacy veil and placed it gently on top of a bureau, “but in truth I’m just happy to see you a bride.”

Eloise smiled gently at her mother. “You’d quite despaired of it, hadn’t you?”

“Quite.” But then she cocked her head to the side and added, “Actually, no. I always thought you might surprise us in the end. You frequently do.”

Eloise thought of all those years since her debut, all those rejected marriage proposals. All those weddings they’d attended, with Violet watching another of her friends marrying off another of their daughters to another fabulously eligible gentleman.

Another gentleman, of course, who could now no longer marry Eloise, Lady Bridgerton’s famously on-the-shelf spinster daughter.

“I’m sorry if I’ve disappointed you,” Eloise whispered.

Violet gazed at her with a wise expression. “My children never disappoint me,” she said softly. “They merely . . . astonish me. I believe I like it that way.”

Eloise found herself lurching forward to hug her mother. She felt awkward doing so; she didn’t know why, since hers was a family that had never discouraged such displays of affection in the privacy of their own home. Maybe it was because she was so perilously close to tears; maybe it was because she sensed her mother was the same. But she felt an awkward girl again, all gangly arms and legs and bony elbows and a mouth that always opened when it should be closed.

And she wanted her mother.

“There, there,” Violet said, sounding very much as she had years ago, when fussing over a skinned knee or bruised feelings. “Now,” she said, her face turning pink. “Now, then.”

“Mother?” Eloise murmured. She looked very strange indeed, as if she’d eaten bad fish.

“I dread this,” Violet muttered.

“Mother?” Surely she couldn’t have heard correctly.

Violet took a deep, fortifying breath. “We have to have a little talk.” She leaned back, looked her daughter in the eye, then added, “Do we have to have a little talk?”

Eloise wasn’t certain whether her mother was asking her if she knew of the details of intimacy or if she actually knew them . . . intimately. “Uhhh . . . I haven’t . . . ah . . . If you mean . . . That is to say, I’m still . . .”

“Excellent,” Violet said with a heartfelt sigh. “But do you—that is to say, are you aware . . . ?”

“Yes,” Eloise said quickly, eager to spare both of them undue embarrassment. “I don’t believe I need anything explained.”

“Excellent,” Violet said again, her sigh even more heartfelt. “I must say, I do detest this part of motherhood. I can’t even recall what I said to Daphne, just that I spent the entire time blushing and stammering, and honestly, I have no idea if she left the encounter any better informed