The Bridgertons Happily Ever After - By Julia Quinn Page 0,82
a few moments, the silence between them as companionable as a sunrise. Violet kept her eyes on the lords and ladies dancing in front of her; somehow she knew that if she dared to turn and look at Mr. Bridgerton, she’d never be able to look away.
The music drew to a close, but when she looked down, her toes were tapping. His, too, and then—
“I say, Miss Ledger, would you like to dance?”
She turned then, and she did look at him. And it was true, she realized; she wasn’t going to be able to look away. Not from his face, and not from the life that stretched in front of her, as perfect and lovely as that blackberry pie from so many years ago.
She took his hand and it felt like a promise. “There is nothing I would rather do.”
Somewhere in Sussex
Six months later
“Where are we going?”
Violet Bridgerton had been Violet Bridgerton for precisely eight hours and thus far she was liking her new surname very much.
“Oh, it’s a surprise,” Edmund said, grinning wolfishly at her from across the carriage.
Well, not exactly from across the carriage. She was practically in his lap.
And . . . now she was in his lap.
“I love you,” he said, laughing over her squeal of surprise.
“Not as much as I love you.”
He gave her his best look of condescension. “You only think you know what you’re talking about.”
She smiled. It was not the first time they had had this conversation.
“Very well,” he allowed. “You may love me more, but I will love you better.” He waited a moment. “Aren’t you going to ask what that means?”
Violet thought of all the ways he had loved her already. They had not preempted their marriage vows, but they had not been precisely chaste.
She decided she had better not ask. “Just tell me where we are going,” she said instead.
He laughed, letting one of his arms steal around her. “On our honeymoon,” he murmured, his words falling warm and delicious over her skin.
“But where?”
“All in good time, my dear Mrs. Bridgerton. All in good time.”
She tried to scoot back over to her own side of the carriage—it was, she reminded herself, the proper thing to do—but he was having none of it, and he clamped down with his arm. “Where do you think you’re going?” he growled.
“That’s just the thing. I don’t know!”
Edmund laughed at that, big and hearty and so perfectly, splendidly warm. He was so happy. He made her happy. Her mother had declared that he was too young, that Violet should look for a more mature gentleman, preferably one who had already come into his title. But from that first shining moment on the dance floor, when her hand met his and she took her first true look into his eyes, Violet could not imagine a life with anyone but Edmund Bridgerton.
He was her other half, the spoon she was made to nestle into. They would be young together, and then they would grow old together. They would hold hands, and move to the country, and make lots and lots of babies.
No lonely households for her children. She wanted a passel of them. A gaggle. She wanted noise and laughter, and everything Edmund made her feel, with fresh air, and strawberry tarts, and—
Well, and the occasional trip to London. She was not so rustic that she did not wish to have her gowns made by Madame Lamontaine. And of course she could not possibly go a full year without a visit to the opera. But other than that—and a party here and there; she did like company—she wanted motherhood.
She craved it.
But she hadn’t realized how desperately she wanted it until she’d met Edmund. It was as if something inside of her had been holding back, not allowing her to wish for babies until she’d found the only man with whom she could imagine making them.
“We’re almost there,” he said, peeking out the window.
“And that would be . . . ?”
The carriage had already slowed; now it ground to a halt, and Edmund looked up with a knowing grin. “Here,” he finished for her.
The door swung open, and he alighted, holding out his hand to help her down. She stepped carefully—the last thing she wanted was to fall facedown in the dirt on her wedding night—then looked up.
“The Hare and Hounds?” she asked blankly.
“The very one,” he said proudly. As if there weren’t a hundred inns spread across England that looked precisely the same.