Bridgerton [x Reader]

☞Introduce Me

A/N: Highlighted text is my prompt!

The passing of minutes grew stronger the longer you stood in your place. Deep among the outskirts of the mass of the ton were you, hanging to a mother's arm, rethinking every choice you had made during your lifetime.

Words flew into one ear and came out the other, and more than ever you found yourself not up to date with a simple conversation. The whispers were muted, laced with gossip, and yet they did nothing to draw your attention toward them.

Your older sister was the loudest of the whisperers. She had long given hope of remarrying, and instead embraced the life of a Dowager Countess. Her hobby was therefore: gossip. And rightly so. She took it on with full force of her being.

"See sister," Rosemary suddenly spoke into your ear, her breath fanning your cheek enough to bring you out of your thoughts. "Lord Stringfellow if quite the catch. Or so I have heard."

"Stringfellow?" You repeated, "He sounds quite unpropitious, don't you agree?"

"Perhaps," the widow drew solemnly, suddenly deep in thought. "Perhaps you're right sister."

You almost exhaled in relief.

Her voice was once again drowned by the crowd, and you looked around the grand ballroom, your eyes dropping from the array of candles to the chalked floor. The full moon was high in the air, and invitees seemed to be arriving every new minute.

A sudden wave of murmuring ladies, whispering the last name Bridgerton had spiked your interest. You turned to your sister, squashed between your mother and her, attempting to look over her shoulder.

"Y/N!" She hissed, quietly yet firmly. Her glittering eyes scanned the crowd, as if she feared people had seen the way you stood on your toes, craning your neck and exposing more than advised.

"I—" You tried to say something, yet the only thing your voice had produced was a high-pitched squeal.

He's here!

"Lord Bridgerton is here!"

The narrowing of her brows eased, and a new sense of sereness seemed to wash over her. She threw one look toward his way and became the only woman not interested in marrying him. "Mama."

"Yes, dear?"

You looked between the two women; one a widowed Countess, just over the spinster age of 25, and the other one a graying baroness who fought the grays of her hair the same way her eldest son was fighting war.

"I believe," Rose commenced, "we ought to introduce our Y/N to the Viscount."

If roses could speak, they would sound like your sister. She demanded elegance, screamed power and spoke opulence. She was her title through and through.

And your mother melted at her words.

The woman nodded eagerly, and you felt sweat form in your hair. Your neck was flushed no doubt and your décolleté was now more visible than ever.

You should probably calm your breathing.

"Viscount Bridgerton?" Your mother retold what she had heard with hearts in her eyes. She looked you over once, noticing (with glee) how your gown was a perfect match in color to the rake's .

"Is there any other?" Rosemary asked. "But mother, they have yet to be introduced..."

Your sister's words died when a familiar pair of molten brown eyes caught your own. Her talks of how your mother was not to, under any circumstance, allowed to prevent his wish to introduce himself quickly evaporated. You could feel the hairs on the back of your neck rise. The air changed, grew heavier and warm. Heart racing, you thought he was walking toward you.