Anthony & Lucy - Thurs. August, 25, 1814
The next morning Lucy woke when the sun started to peek through the curtains. She blinked sleepily for a moment, and her eyes took in her surroundings, reminding her of everything that had happened last night.
"Good morning." Anthony said, his voice, gravelly from sleep.
"Good morning." Lucy smiled, turning to her side to face him.
"Is it going to be as good of a morning as it was a night?" He grinned, kissing her lightly on the mouth. Lucy couldn't help but smile. She was going to wake up to this man for the rest of her life, and she had never been happier. She didn't think a person could be happier. She had read all about true love, and she knew her parents had loved each other, and she had even accepted that her father loved her step-mother too, but she had never experienced it and she had come to believe that it didn't exist the way it was portrayed in movies and books, but she had been wrong. Her love for Anthony was all that and so much more.
"I'm afraid not." Lucy smiled, kissing him back and then pulling away so that she could speak coherently, something she had trouble doing when Anthony was touching her.
"I think I would like to have...an actual wedding." She said choosing her words carefully.
"As opposed to?" Anthony asked, sitting up slightly.
"Well, I know Daphne's was a rather rushed affair, and I think it would be nice if we could actually plan a wedding that you can invite all of your friends and family to." Anthony nodded thoughtfully for a moment.
"Well, that would mean we cannot be together until the wedding." He reached out and ran a finger down Lucy's bare arm as he said this, making Lucy shiver.
"It would be quite nice though." He admitted, when Lucy said nothing.
"I will have to move to my bachelor lodgings, where I figured we might live the first few months of our marriage anyway for...well you know, privacy." He grinned, eyes moving down to Lucy's chest, that was currently covered with the sheet.
"And it is really an awful long time to wait to lay with you again." Lucy smiled and rolled towards him and kissed him lightly on the lips.
"But we'll have a lifetime to spend exploring each other in bed." Lucy told him coyly. Anthony inhaled her skin deeply and pulled her on top of him.
"Can we not start that lifetime now?" Anthony complained. Lucy shook her head and tried to pull herself from his embrace, which he was not allowing her to do.
"If we find ourselves in too much need before the date, I am sure we can make something happen." Anthony let an odd sound, a mix between an exasperated sigh, and a lustful groan, and rolled Lucy onto her back and kissed her hungrily, skating his hand all over her body, quickly stripping away all of the self-control she had, and then he pulled away.
"Very-well. Let us tell my family straight away then, if we remain in bed any longer I will not be able to keep to this promise." Lucy grinned and nodded, wanting to do that as well. She dressed in her dress from last night and was going to have to scurry back to her own room to re-dress, and then they were going to go down to breakfast together.
"Anthony?" Lucy said, stopping in her bedroom doorway as a thought suddenly occurred to her.
"You can say no if you want to, I will completely understand of course, but I was thinking that maybe..." Lucy trailed off, trying to decide the best way to ask her question.
"What is it?"
"Well.."
"Come on, out with it." He said impatiently, making Lucy smile.
"Ok well...for our ceremony.. I was thinking that maybe we could do it in the chapel. Take it back, make it what your father envisioned instead of a marker of sadness." Anthony remained silent for a minute and Lucy was afraid she had offended him.
"We don't have to of course, it was just an idea."
"I-I love that." He said simply, his eyes almost misting with tears. He couldn't believe how thoughtful she was, no one had ever had his feelings as their number one priority, even his parents as they had seven other children to care for as well. Lucy reached out and stroked his cheek and he closed his hand over hers.
"He would have loved that." Anthony smiled, and kissed her gently. "How did I ever get so lucky?" Lucy shrugged and told him she asked herself the same thing over and over last night. He waited in the hall then while Lucy readied herself for the day, and then he escorted her down to the informal dining room where all of his family had already been congregated, and to their surprise they were joined by Daphne, Simon and their baby girl Amelia.
"Daph, what a surprise!" Anthony said as they stepped into the room.
"Yes, well somebody claimed they did not get to see baby Amelia enough and as she was under the weather last night and we missed the dinner party we thought we would spend the whole day here since Amelia is doing so much better today." Daphne said, looking pointedly at her mother, who didn't even bat an eye.
"Well, this works out nicely for myself as well." He smiled to himself, happy he would only need to make one announcement before he and Lucy went public with their engagement.
"Simon is here as well." Daphne said unnecessarily, putting her hand on her husbands arm. Lucy could feel Anthony tense and she smiled, deciding she was going to have to be cordial to the Duke on Anthony's behalf quite often.
"Lovely to see you both." Lucy said, curtsying to both of them.
"I suppose there is no reason to drag this out, so.." Anthony said looking pointedly at Lucy. Lucy smiled then and took her hand out from Anthony's arm and showed the table the ring that glinted from her fourth finger and said:
"We're getting married!" There was a collective gasp around the room followed by a whole bunch of chatter at once, and Lucy couldn't help it, her face split into a wide smile, and she noticed that Anthony was smiling too.
"Is this real?" Francesca asked, sounding somewhat skeptical.
"It is, we are betrothed!" Anthony said, smiling larger than Lucy had seen him smile before, and her heart flip-flopped at the sight. There was a scrape of chairs against the floor then as everyone rose to give their congratulations.
"Is this to be...a short engagement?" Violet asked tentatively, the real question hanging in the room. The men and Daphne grinned, the girls and young ones looked almost confused by the question.
"No mother, a longer one I should think." Anthony answered while Lucy did her best not to squirm under Mrs. Bridgerton's watchful eye. Lucy knew she couldn't be pregnant so their night last night needn't be considered when planning the wedding. Lucy may have a hard time wrapping her head around these customs, but she had to remind herself it was because they didn't have proper pregnancy preventions in place.
"Really?" She asked, sounding somewhat surprised. Anthony cocked his head looking at his mother.
"Yes, really." He replied, his tone almost challenging. Lucy hooked her hand back in Anthony's arm and squeezed it gently to calm him.
"We talked about it this morning, and I think it would be really lovely if we were able to have a proper wedding with all of your friends and family. I have none to celebrate with, but I am about to become a Bridgerton, so I think it would be nice to start it off with everyone you all love." Lucy said, stepping in to save Mrs. Bridgerton from any harsh words that Anthony may have used in his irritation.
"That sound lovely, especially seeing as our engagement did not leave you with much time to plan Violet." Simon spoke up for the first time, making Daphne flush Scarlett and Anthony's jaw to tense.
"It was still lovely." Violet said smoothly.
"and for the ceremony, I would like to have it here at -" Anthony continued as if his brother in law hadn't spoken.
"Here?" Violet interrupted." I am not quite sure our drawing room is large enough for a proper wedding."
"Not the drawing room. I would like to start things off right and use the chapel. I think it has been a symbol for our loss for too long." Violet's eyes became watery with tears then and she nodded slowly.
"I think that would be so nice." She breathed, looking lovingly at her son.
"Come here." She said taking Lucy's hands into her own.
"I am so happy you and Anthony found your way together -"
"Yeah, about time." Colin interrupted, ignoring his mother's scathing look.
"It is true, you were both so obviously smitten." Hyacinth chipped in, smiling at her Colin's approving wink.
"I was not looking forward to seeing you with another and having to say good-bye. You have become like family to us, and I am ever so pleased that you will officially be a member now." Violet told Lucy, ignoring her children.
"Thank-you so much, I couldn't be happier." Lucy said honestly, surprising her soon to be mother in law by throwing her arms around her in a hug. Hugs went around the room then, everyone congratulating the soon-to-be, newly weds.
"Oh, um. There's one more thing." Lucy said, dabbing her eyes at the tears that had started to well at her new family's well wishes.
"There is?" Anthony asked from Lucy's side.
"Yes." She nodded before turning back to the dining table where everyone had resumed their seats, shifting over to leave two seats beside each other for Anthony and Lucy.
"Eloise, I would like to ask if you would do me the honour of standing up there beside me and being my maid of honour?" Eloise looked uncomfortable for a moment, everyone knew she didn't like to be the centre of attention and she hated almost every type of formal event that there was, but Lucy knew this would mean a lot to Eloise.
"Really? You want me? I am sure Daph or Francesca would look much nicer in any wedding attire you pick."
"Am I just invisible?" Hyacinth asked, pouting.
"You, are an infant." Francesca scoffed.
"I want you all to be involved in some way." Lucy said soothingly.
"But, Eloise, I would like it if you were to be the one who stood beside me." Eloise looked at Lucy hard for a moment and then nodded.
"I would be the one honoured." She said quietly, looking like no one quite understood the significance of this moment, which of course, they didn't, which was made it all the more special.
"Well, this is quite unusual to declare things like this, but I suppose I better make sure my man wants the job too." Anthony smiled, grabbing Lucy's hand and pulling it into his lap.
"Benedict? What do you say?" Anthony said simply. Benedict chuckled and shrugged.
"I suppose I can do the job well enough." The brothers grinned at each other then.
"I am not one to be left out, so Lucy, have you thought of who you might ask to give your hand?" Colin asked, straightening in his chair, making everyone laugh.
"Of course, and I had thought that you might." Lucy said simply, smiling at Colin's beaming smile.
"We picked quite the day for a visit!" Daphne whispered to Simon who had been watching this all unfold quietly.
"Indeed." He replied, with a small smile playing on his lips.
"So, how did this all come to be? We all noticed some stolen glances of course but - " Daphne asked, once the buzz had died down and everyone had gone back to having their breakfast.
"Oh you all did, did you?" Anthony said hotly, eating some fruit more aggressively than was necessary. Lucy smiled and decided it would be better if she started the story.
"Well, you might have all noticed, but we didn't. We both thought we carried a torch for the other, but that it was one sided and it almost didn't happen. I had noticed Anthony being grumpy whenever I danced with anyone but I assumed it was because I was taking too long to choose someone and I really didn't think too much of the options but, I didn't want to continue to be a burden to Anthony or you all, so I was going to head down to the docks and see what I could do for passage home last night."
"I in the mean-time, had decided that I was ready to tell her I was making it difficult for her to find a suitor because I wanted to be the suitor, but I could not find her." Anthony said, participating in the story as Lucy thought he would if she started it.
"I then couldn't bring myself to leave without telling Anthony how I felt, so I found him finally in his study and that was when we both discovered we had feelings for each other and it had almost been our own downfall."
"And who convinced you to finally tell the truth dear brother?" Benedict said with a wink.
"Surely you are not taking credit for that? I believe it was I that put the idea in his head first Benedict." Colin said back.
"You both helped me see sense." Anthony interrupted before they could continue arguing.
"Aww, and then you proposed?" Francesca asked, resting her chin on her hands and looking dreamily at the couple.
"Basically." Anthony smiled, taking away the romance of it all. Collectively all the men nodded and mumbled something along the lines of "Good on ya" or "Grand." and the women, including Lucy, rolled their eyes.
"It was much more romantic than that, Anthony pulled out all of the stops." Lucy assured them.
"He took me to the library, but made me close my eyes so I didn't know where we were going. He had lit a whole bunch of candles and moved the flowers and some of the candles into the middle of the room and then brought me in, eyes still closed, and when I opened them we were surrounded by the flowers and candles and he was on one knee with this beautiful ring in his hands." The Bridgerton women sighed, even Eloise, at the romance of it all, and Anthony's cheeks became flushed with embarrassment.
"Well, I knew the ring was here and so was Lucy for the time being, and I was not going to waste another day." Anthony said bringing Lucy's hand up to his lips and kissing it, looking lovingly at her. It had been a perfect morning for the couple, from waking up in each other's arms and telling Anthony's family, who were all equally excited for them. They didn't know what was still to come on their journey together, but with such a fantastic start, they could hardly wait to find out.
* End of chapter *
Disclaimer: I own none of the above characters, they are all creations of Julia Quinn (With the exception of OC Lucy McCoy)
