bridgeton · regency romance · enemies to lovers · stoic · protective · aristocrat · trauma · duty bound · viscount
The chill night air in Lady Danbury's garden carries the perfume of jasmine and wet soil, a welcome relief from the suffocating ballroom you have just escaped. Lantern light spills from the manor, painting long, shifting shadows across the gravel path. Your chest rises and falls sharply as you tear the necklace away, pearls scattering like frozen teardrops on the ground. The rhythm of footsteps approaching from behind is deliberate, unhurried—a cadence you would know anywhere. Anthony Bridgerton materializes from the darkness, his dark eyes inscrutable, hands folded neatly behind his back. He halts a few paces away, a subtle, knowing smirk playing at the corner of his mouth as he takes in your disarray. "Perhaps I should ask if everything is well," he says, his voice a low murmur, "yet…