The following morning Kate and Anthony stood in the front yard saying their goodbyes to every guest, who was now leaving after the weekend. Anthony was holding little Lavender in his arms, giving her parents a chance to finish their breakfast in peace.
"Look, look what I taught her, darling...!" Anthony smiled happily at Kate after one more carriage had rolled away. "Who is grandfather's favourite?" He grinned at Lavender, who turned her tiny forefinger towards herself. "Yes, Lavender is!" Anthony laughed delightedly.
"Oh dear..." Kate laughed, too. Anthony was adorably smitten by his granddaughter and somehow he also seemed more at peace now, when there was a young child in the house again. This was a role he knew well and loved, instead of the more demanding task of having adult unmarried children at home. Kate could only hope that he would not flare up again next year when it was Lily's turn to enter society, but at least she would be the last one of their own offspring.
"So, here she is, little Miss Lavender Bridgerton... Finally we get to meet her, since the young couple has not been to London at all." Lady Cressida Berbrooke – née Cowper – smiled her usual mean smile while approaching Kate and Anthony. "She looks so big and strong to be only fourteen months old!" She pointed out with an evil grin. "Our darling Gina is so much more... Delicate." She finished with an adoring look towards her own grandchild in Geoffrey's arms a bit further away in the yard, where he stood talking to Cornelia and her father, Lord Nigel Berbrooke.
"Yes, well... Lavvie has always been very fond of food. I have to remind my son and daughter-in-law not to give her too much of it." Anthony replied quite venomously, pressing the child tighter against himself.
"It was good of you to come, Lady Berbrooke. We hope to see you here next year too." Kate chimed in with her phoniest possible smile. "I understood that Geoffrey is staying, though?"
"Yes, I believe it was something about a house for your second son. Cornelia and Gina will come with us to the Berbrooke estate. It is quite a long journey, but..." Cressida kept on prattling. Thank heavens it is a long journey, Anthony thought to himself. It was bad enough that Colin had married the Featheringtons into the family. Geoffrey usually spent so much time at Aubrey Hall in the summers that he was almost family too – and now he had gone and got married with a bloody Berbrooke. "We will take it slow." She finished confidently.
"Safe travels." Kate smiled, this time maybe in a little bit less fake way.
"Bye bye, Gina, papa will see you again after just a week..." Geoffrey hummed to his daughter and planted a soft kiss on her fluffy blonde hair, holding her tightly in his arms, inhaling her scent deep into his lungs and trying to make it last for the upcoming days without her. His love for Cornelia might have been nothing but an act, but his love for his daughter was true, strong and deep. Despite of having known he was not into women, Geoffrey had always known that he wanted to have children. Now that he did, he cared for Gina fiercely and being separated from her, even just for a week, made his entire body ache, not just his heart.
"Alright, we have to go now." Cornelia declared a bit coldly and took the baby from Geoffrey.
"Take good care of her..." Geoffrey muttered and gave Gina's head one more kiss.
"I always do." Cornelia replied bluntly and seemed to be waiting to get a kiss as well, but Geoffrey had spotted Miles walking down the stairs from the house and entering the yard, so he simply gave his wife a quick kiss on the hand, instead of anywhere on her face.
"Goodbye, then." He tried to put on a smile as Cornelia glared at him somewhat offendedly and climbed into the carriage with Lord and Lady Berbrooke. Meanwhile, Kate and Anthony were saying goodbye to Siena and Genevieve. Lavender had been put down on the ground, but she did not walk around curiously and in a slightly wobbly manner like she usually did, instead she was clinging to Anthony's leg and wanted to come up in his arms again.
"Go and say 'bye bye' to grandmother Siena, Lavender..." Anthony grinned and lifted the child up.
"No, no. Don't give her to me, she doesn't like me. And stop calling me grandmother...!" Siena complained, but took Lavender into her arms nevertheless when Anthony was pushing their mutual granddaughter towards her. Lavender immediately started whimpering and reached her arms towards Anthony while making a demanding "a-a-a" noise.
"Did you hear that, she was trying to say Anthony...?!" He gasped and took the girl back from Siena. "Were you trying to say grandfather's name, Lavender?" He asked her, proudly.
"If that poor child's first word will be as difficult as 'Anthony', she must be some sort of genius..." Kate laughed. "Besides, she is already calling Galileo the dog 'Ga', too."
"Perhaps she was just trying to say 'ahem, take me away from this woman'?" Miles pointed out while joining the group, next to his parents. Siena shot a venomous glare at him.
"Ah, Miles... You are just in time to say goodbye and apologise for your previous behaviour to Lady Fife and Madame Delacroix." Anthony pointed out quite sharply to his son.
"Pardon me, ladies. I was terribly tired from my travels." Miles said with a smile that was as feigned as the one his mother had given Lady Berbrooke earlier.
"It's alright, Mr Bridgerton, I believe that both Siena and I have heard worse. Oh, Lavender! You're so awfully cute in your little pink dress, next time I will bring you an even prettier one and also those apple cookies that you like..." Genevieve smirked at Lavender and tickled her nose, making the girl flash a mostly toothless smile at her.
"Were you not French at some point?" Miles wondered, looking confused.
"Oui, bien sûr." Genevieve winked her eye at him before hugging Kate and Anthony goodbye.
"The entire world has gone bonkers..." Miles sighed to Geoffrey, who had sauntered up to his side after the Berbrooke carriage had rolled away far into the distance with his daughter.
"How so?" Geoffrey enquired, while Miles glowered in a noticeably unapproving way at Lady Siena Fife hugging both his father and mother tightly.
"Nevermind. Shall we?" He replied and tilted his head towards the back of the house. During breakfast, they had agreed upon going to have a look at the foundations that had already been laid for Miles' house when he was about to marry Emily. But, after the engagement had fallen apart, the work on their mutual future home had ended too. Geoffrey nodded and followed Miles around the corner of the great hall to the gardens on the backside of it.
"Hey! We are just about to start a game of pall-mall, are you two joining?" Eddie hooted at them and waved the black mallet in the air. By the looks of it, Oliver Crane and his twin sister Amanda were joining too, as well as Amelia of course. Anthony's siblings were taking turns on which one of them was staying for a while at Aubrey Hall after the ball with their families, this time it was Eloise.
"No thanks, I would rather keep my limbs intact...!" Geoffrey smirked.
"We have to go and look at the foundations of my house." Miles filled in.
"We can do it later. Please, go ahead and play, if you want..." Geoffrey said politely with a faint smile.
"No, we will do it now, before lunch." Miles huffed determinedly while both Eddie, Amelia, Oliver and Amanda gawked at him curiously with their chosen mallets in hand.
"What the hell, is Miles Bridgerton refusing a game of pall-mall? I thought I would never live to see this day!" Oliver exclaimed with a teasing grin. Miles just cast him a sour look and continued to march towards the stables with Geoffrey following right after him.
"Really, Miles, if you want to play there is –" He tried again.
"No." Miles said sharply. "I would rather do this." He added more softly.
"Alright..." Geoffrey blurted out a bit surprisedly and they continued their walk in silence.
"Here it is." Miles finally declared when they were by the stables, looking at a quite large flat field of gravel. "This is as far as they got a couple of years ago, so... Not that far."
"Why did you not ask me to design your house in the first place?" Geoffrey wondered, realising it only now.
"Well, you were busy with courting Amelia..." Miles muttered, seeming somewhat ashamed.
"Indeed... Let's look at it, then." Geoffrey stated in a slightly awkward way and began to walk across the field with long steps, measuring the size of a house that would fit there. Miles crossed his arms over his chest and studied Geoffrey's every move, silently like a statue.
"How does it seem?" He asked, when Geoffrey had at last walked around the entire area.
"Like you can get a really nice house down here." Geoffrey smiled, contemplating. "What about a garden? It would be lovely if it faced those vast western grain fields over there, in the sunset it –"
"I do not need a garden." Miles interrupted with a grunt. "I do not have anyone who would want to tend to some silly roses."
"Well, not yet." Geoffrey pointed out. "I will still leave some room for it, as I am sure your wife would appreciate it. Then, the entrance would face the stables..." He pondered further.
"As I said, do what you want with it. As long as it has a roof that keeps the rain away, I am satisfied." Miles replied, a bit absentmindedly, again studying Geoffrey from the corner of his eye as he walked back to him. "I guess we could go back to the house now and have your first riding lesson after lunch?" He then suggested with a little smile.
"Sure, I would rather die with a full stomach..." Geoffrey sighed deeply.
"You are not going to die..." Miles laughed. "I will see to it that you are safe."
"Thanks..." Geoffrey smirked as they started walking back towards the hall.
"Geoff..." Miles began warily, after they had walked in silence for a while and reached the tall light stone wall that his mother had once hid behind in shock many years ago, after she had got stung by a bee and ended up dangerously close to the lips of a certain viscount. "Are we just going to pretend that I have not just found out about something that is a huge new part of my dear friend, whom I thought I knew entirely...?"
"Yes...?" Geoffrey almost whispered in a hopeful tone, though he knew Miles would not drop the subject now that his 'dear friend' had nowhere to run, or at least it would be very silly to flee in such a manner.
"Well..." Miles exhaled and halted next to the big old tree his father had once leaned against, equally shocked after that same incident with the vicious bee and the sister of his intended fiancé. "I want you to know that this does not change anything between us. I still care for you deeply and I do not think that you are some disgusting creep, or whatever you are fearing." He said solemnly and tried to look Geoffrey straight in the eyes, but he kept staring at his feet and dared to glance at Miles only for half of a second at the time before looking away again, tucking his hands nervously into his pockets.
"Oh... A-alright... Thank you..." Geoffrey stuttered. "I... I'm glad to hear that..."
"But you do not fancy me, right...?" Miles then asked with an awkward smile.
"Of course not...!" Geoffrey retorted, a bit too quickly. "That is terribly rude to assume, it is not like you fancy every girl you meet, either..." He added, to smooth out his reaction a bit.
"Sorry..." Miles blurted out ashamedly. "But... I am just curious..." He began in an indeed curious tone, while continuing to slowly walk towards the house and Geoffrey followed. "So, you... Do not feel anything when you see a naked woman? Anything at all?"
"Exactly. Or, well... I might feel nervous, of course, but not a single bit aroused." Geoffrey explained. It felt surprisingly good to be talking about these things with someone, even if that someone was the object of his deepest and darkest, most clandestine desires.
"But you have managed to put a child in your wife." Miles pointed out.
"I have a vivid imagination." Geoffrey replied with the slightest of smirks.
"Oh, so you close your eyes and think of Lord Byron?" Miles teased, the corner of his lips twitching.
"Why Lord Byron?" Geoffrey laughed, carefully avoiding actually answering the question.
"Well, was he not a handsome man? Also a famous romantic poet with a suspicious reputation, surely he would be worth pining for." Miles smirked mischievously, before growing more serious again, but the curiosity never left his eyes. "So, um... Have you ever been with –"
"No." Geoffrey immediately snapped and Miles glanced at him a bit surprisedly, almost halting, but Geoffrey moved onwards up the gentle hill and so did Miles.
"Never? Not even kissed another man?" He asked unbelievingly.
"No. It is foolish and dangerous." Geoffrey said sharply, not looking at his friend.
"So you are just going to spend the rest of your life with a woman, who you do not love and do not enjoy sleeping with, never allowing yourself to experience real pleasure or affection?" Miles enquired. "That is awfully sad, Geoff... Sad and wrong, I do not want that for you."
"What would you suggest I should do then...?! There is no other option than hiding this from everyone...!" Geoffrey hissed at him quite angrily, once they reached the gardens where the pall-mall game was still afoot. Not waiting for a reply, he marched into the house and left Miles standing baffled outside, gawking at Geoffrey's back instead of Oliver's last neat winning shot in the game.
***
It was almost time for luncheon when Amelia scurried over to the guest wing and knocked on Geoffrey's door, after having put Lavender on her nap in the nursery.
"Yes?" His voice echoed from inside.
"It's just me, let me in!" Amelia hooted back and soon Geoffrey opened up the door for her.
"Is it lunch already?" He wondered.
"Soon." Amelia said as she entered the room. "How are you feeling?" She enquired, sitting down on his neatly made bed in her dark teal dress. "We haven't had the chance to talk since..."
"He came back..." Geoffrey muttered and sat down on the bed next to her, leaning his back against the headboard and some extremely fluffy pillows, which the Bridgertons apparently wanted to pamper their most important guests with.
"Precisely. So, have you managed to stick to your plan and keep your feelings for him at bay?" Amelia asked, wrapping her arms around her legs that were now casually folded against her body.
"What do you think?" Geoffrey sighed and Amelia shook her head with a pitiful smile. "Mm, all it took was one long look from him and I was done for, again... I am telling you, those blue-green Bridgerton eyes are definitely more dangerous than those brown ones."
"I have to disagree with that, it is absolutely the brown ones." Amelia smirked. "How has it been between the two of you, then? I noticed that you ditched him in the yard earlier, was he being a douchebag towards you? He has been a total pain in the ass ever since he arrived and... Oh my god, I'm so sorry." Amelia sniggered, when Geoffrey suddenly looked a bit strange while listening to what she was saying. "I did not think about what I was blabbering about, of course you would want him to be a pain in your ass and... Oh dear, now I'm just making it worse by saying it out loud, am I not...?!" She giggled and blushed, but still not as badly as Geoffrey, who snatched up a pillow and buried his reddened face in it with a hopeless growl.
"Yes, yes you are, please stop...!" He pleaded in a muffled voice through the pillow. "He knows..." Geoffrey finally continued, so silently Amelia almost did not hear what he said.
"He knows...? That you're in love with him...?!" She almost shrieked.
"No, oh god no...!" Geoffrey blurted out and lifted his face up from the pillow. "But he knows about my... Deviation. He figured it out somehow and I... I didn't want to lie..."
"Good, it's a good thing he knows, Geoffrey! Apparently he was fine with it?" She asked excitedly.
"He was, actually, but... Then he asked that 'you do not fancy me, right?', so..." Geoffrey sighed deeply, fiddling with the fringes of the pillow on his lap.
"Oh no..." Amelia exhaled. "But, I guess that is maybe a quite natural reaction in the situation he found himself in..." She mused and looked like she was pondering upon something. "Geoff... I know that I have asked this before, but are you one hundred percent sure that there is absolutely no chance at all that he might be interested in you?"
"Did you not hear what he just asked me...?!" Geoffrey snapped at her.
"Yes, yes, but was it like... 'You do not fancy me, right?'" Amelia demonstrated and made a disgusted face to match the tone. "Or 'you do not fancy me, right?'" She repeated, this time with a curious voice and a slight smirk.
"I... I don't know... Perhaps the latter...?" Geoffrey pondered hesitantly.
"Aha!" Amelia rejoiced, waving her forefinger at her friend. "It was the better one, the 'oh, this interesting person might actually be interested in me too' one. And, he has been acting so strange too...! I mean, stranger than usually. What if he realised while he was away that it is you and not Emily he is in love with?" She wondered with a dreamy look, which Geoffrey thought was telling that she had been reading too many romance novels about impossible love stories somehow working out.
"Amelia..." Geoffrey sighed, relinquished. "I have known Miles Bridgerton for pretty much all my life and we have been best friends for many years, so I tell you that there are a million other things that might be bothering him, instead of the fact that he would have miraculously become interested in other men after all these years... The weather might be too hot or the guests might be too annoying or – I don't know – the bloody moon is in the wrong position in the sky, according to him...!"
"Humph..." Amelia muttered with a scowl. "But still, it is a possibility, amongst the million other ones." She smirked, clearly not ready to give up on her hypothesis.
"No, it is not." Geoffrey protested, crossing his arms over his chest with a sour look.
"What's happening now, you're designing a house for him and...?" Amelia pushed on.
"And he is teaching me how to ride a horse." Geoffrey replied a bit nervously, uncrossing his arms.
"Oh, but that's perfect!" Amelia chirped. "You can be like 'oh Miles, I'm so bad at horse riding, I don't know what to do...!'" She continued in a whining high-pitched voice. "And then he will be like 'don't worry Geoff, I will put my hands on your thighs and show you how to sit properly'." She finished in a deep, pretentiously masculine voice, grinning at Geoffrey from the other end of the bed.
"Excuse me, but why do I sound like a whiny little girl and Miles like some huge manly brute...?!" Geoffrey laughed offendedly. "And I do not have to act, I am bad at horse riding..."
"Even better, then he will have no chance but to help you. All men love to be of service and gallantly rescue... People in distress." She grinned even more mischievously.
"Well, I am a man too and I have never gallantly rescued any damsels in distress." Geoffrey pointed out, quite dryly. "I seem to always be the one who needs rescuing..."
"Oh, Geoff..." Amelia exhaled with a fond smile and reached out to put her hand on his knee. "We all need a little bit of rescuing sometimes, but that doesn't mean we cannot be the rescuers, too."
"Lady Amelia Bridgerton, you have got a completely deranged perception of the world after you got your own romance novel happy ending..." Geoffrey sighed deeply, but still looked at her with a warm smile. "You and Eddie are the exception, not the rule about how things usually turn out... I would dare to say that out of all the guests here this weekend, only five percent were actual love matches and out of that five percent probably ninety-nine percent were Bridgertons." He added, this time without smiling.
"Well, it's a good thing then that it is a Bridgerton you're after." Amelia smirked, just as the lunch bell chimed downstairs. "Come on, back to the battlefield, soldier!"
"I am not after anyone, I am married...!" Geoffrey tried to protest in a grumbling tone, before he followed Amelia downstairs.
***
The rest of the Bridgertons had already gathered in the dining hall, accompanied by all the Cranes in Eloise's family; Oliver, Amanda, Sir Phillip and their three children. Penelope, the eldest, was sixteen and Frederick, the youngest, was twelve.
"Anthony, would you please put down your newspaper? It is fine if you read it at breakfast, but we are having lunch now." Kate pointed out to her husband while Amelia sat down next to Eddie and Geoffrey in his usual place next to Miles, though this time it felt quite tense.
"I am sorry, I thought we were still waiting for the Cranleighs. They decided to stay a few more days, too." Anthony replied without lifting up his eyes from the paper. "Besides, I did not have time to read the paper in the morning, with all the guests around..." He muttered disapprovingly and Kate could not help but to smirk tiredly to herself, it was so obvious sometimes where Miles got his manners from. Unfortunately, Charlotte had still not wanted to come back to the house with Jack, after what happened at the dinner on Miles' first night home.
"Please, help yourselves to the food already, the Cranleighs will join us when they do." Kate smiled at the rest of the table party, making everyone dig into their lunch.
"Another molly house burned down in London, apparently with people still inside it..." Anthony continued his disapproving muttering while leafing through the papers. Both Amelia and Miles immediately cast a worried glance at Geoffrey, but Amelia quickly looked away when Miles noticed that she was looking at Geoffrey too and gave her a suspicious glare. "I cannot understand why they do not leave those poor people alone, it is not like they are doing any harm to anyone." Anthony declared and sipped on some tea.
"The English have always despised anyone who is somehow different." Kate commented venomously.
"And God forbid if that difference has something to do with the ones you fall in love with or with... Acts of love." Eloise pointed out and made Phillip glance at their young children with an uncomfortable expression, but apparently they did not seem very interested in what their mother was saying.
"For once, I agree with the two of you in that, it is indeed a fault in modern society. The ancient Greeks had nothing against relationships between men, in fact, such relations were almost encouraged. Did they still make you read Plato's Symposium at Oxford?" Anthony wondered, turning towards his eldest son.
"Yes, they did." Eddie replied, before giving – quite patronisingly – a summary of the book to the ones at the table who had probably not read it. "It depicts a friendly contest of speeches given by a group of philosophers and other notable men attending a banquet, such as Socrates, Alcibiades and Aristophanes. The speeches these fellows make are to be given in praise of Eros, the god of love and desire. According to one of these men, Pausanias, there are two kinds of love. A 'base lover' directs his affections towards a young boy or a woman, whereas the 'noble lover' commits into lifelong relationships with other adult men." Eddie spoke as if he was giving a lecture for a class, while Anthony looked at him bursting with pride. "I for one enjoyed Aristophanes' speech the most. He tells a story about how humans were at one time two people conjoined, but this was seen as threatening to the gods, so Zeus cut everyone in half, condemning them to spend the rest of their lives searching for their other half. Love is thus the desire we have to find our other half, in order to feel happy, satisfied and whole when we finally do." He finished with a loving smile towards Amelia and took her hand in his, while she smiled equally endearingly back at him.
"Oh, God..." Miles sighed loudly and rolled his eyes.
"Hush, let them be happy..." Geoffrey hissed at him.
"Excellent synopsis, Eddie!" Anthony praised with a proud smirk. "Aristophanes' speech is my favourite as well, but like Pausanias' speech proves, the Greeks valued homosexual relationships sometimes even higher than the love between a man and a woman."
"Can we please change the subject now...?!" Miles suddenly burst out, when Geoffrey's otherwise pale face was turning into a deep shade of red. "There are children present." He quickly added, after everyone had turned to look at him.
"Yes, thank you, Miles..." Phillip exhaled in agreement, just as Violet and her husband Michael Cranleigh – Duke of Stanton – entered the room, followed by a young woman.
"Oh, good, you have started already." Violet smiled warmly. "Michael got so carried away while talking to the trainers down at your stables that we are terribly late from lunch."
"You should have taken Miles with you! He knows everything about our horses." Kate exclaimed. "Miles, you did not meet Michael's granddaughter, Miss Sarah Cranleigh, last night when your time at the ball... Ended quite abruptly." She continued, looking at her son.
"Oh, yes! Sarah is very interested in horse racing, too!" Violet chirped excitedly and it suddenly became very clear to the entire table why Miss Sarah Cranleigh had been invited to Aubrey Hall. Or, well... It was clear to everyone except Miles himself, who did not look that impressed.
"Hello." He simply blurted out and nodded to the girl, quite nonchalantly.
"Miles, where are your manners?" Anthony snarled at him. Miles took a deep sigh, got up from the table, made an exaggerated bow and even planted a kiss on Sarah's gloved hand.
"What a pleasure to meet you, Miss Cranleigh." He said with a contrived smile.
"Likewise, Mr Bridgerton..." Sarah replied a bit hesitantly, looking quite baffled.
"Are you pleased now, or would you like me to recite some bloody Plato as well? I am afraid I cannot do that, but I can explain the Pythagorean theorem for you, if you want to?" Miles continued, with an equally fake smile directed at his father as he sat back down next to Geoffrey.
"That will not be necessary, thank you." Anthony growled at him, scowling.
"Miles, perhaps you could show some of our finest horses to Sarah after lunch?" Violet suggested in a tone that left no speculation regarding what it was she hoped to acquire. Geoffrey cast a sour glance at Miss Sarah over the table. She was irritatingly beautiful with her slender face, thick dark brown hair and blue eyes, definitely the kind of woman Miles or any man unlike himself could fall for.
"I am afraid I cannot do that, I have promised to give Geoffrey his first riding lesson." Miles grunted and did not even try to sound polite this time.
"Oh, dear..." Kate and Eddie sighed in unison.
"What...?" Geoffrey wondered, his fork halting halfway up to his mouth.
"Well, we of course love our Miles dearly, and... He is without a doubt the best rider in this family, but..." Kate began, very slowly.
"He is the least pedagogical person in the entire world." Eddie filled in. "I mean... Literally the worst possible teacher. He made our cousin Isabella cry and give up riding forever."
"Hey, it was not my fault that she was such a rubbish rider!" Miles retorted.
"She was seven years old at that time...!" Eddie exclaimed hopelessly.
"Perfect..." Geoffrey sighed, deprived of all anticipation.
"I can teach you, if you want." Kate smiled encouragingly at Geoffrey.
"No, I will do it." Miles cut in with a snarl. "In fact, let's go right now, Geoff. I have eaten enough and your stomach should not be too full. Come now, the forest awaits!" He stated hastily and stood up.
"The forest...?" Kate gasped. "Miles, you cannot take him out to the woods if it is his first riding lesson, you have to teach him the basics in the paddock first!" She instructed, striving for patience. "You know... How to stop, turn and walk forward." She continued, when Miles looked utterly confused.
"Bloody hell, this will be a long week..." Miles exhaled, as he left the room with Geoffrey.