The Other Miss Bridgerton
“Yes.”
“The first time you’ve been tied up?”
He hesitated.
She gasped. “Captain Ja— ”
“In this manner,” he said quickly. And with great volume and emphasis, as if he needed to cut off her query about as much as he needed, for example, air.
Her eyes narrowed. “What does that mean?”
“Don’t ask that question.”
It was possibly the first time she had seen him truly blush, which should have been enough to make her want to force him to answer. But given the circumstances, she decided to let it pass. For the most part.
She gave him a shrewd look. “Can I ask you that question later?”
“Please don’t.”
“Are you sure?”
There was a noise people sometimes made—it was halfway between a laugh and a cry but it just ended up sounding like irony.
Andrew made that noise, right before saying, “Not even a little bit.”
Poppy took a step back. It seemed wise. After a few moments of wary silence, she asked, “What do we do tonight?”
He looked almost relieved she asked, even if his tone was blunt. “I’m going to inspect the room more carefully now that my hands are untied, but I don’t anticipate finding a means to escape.”
“So we just wait?”
He gave a grim nod. “I counted at least six men downstairs, plus two across the hall. I don’t like doing nothing, but I’m even less fond of suicide.”
That sound he had made earlier—the one with the laughing and the crying and the horrible irony . . .
She made it too.
Chapter 20
Several hours later—after Andrew and Poppy had eaten the bread and cheese the kidnappers had tossed at them, after a comprehensive inspection of the room yielded absolutely nothing, after a long stretch of silence eased them into a tacit truce—Andrew sat down. He put his back to the wall, stretched his legs out long in front of him, and sighed.
“You don’t want the chair?” Poppy asked. She was on the bed. She’d opened her mouth to protest when he had told her to take it a few minutes earlier, but he’d held up his hand and given her such a stare of Do not argue that she did not say a word.
He shook his head. “Somehow it looks less comfortable than this.”
She looked at the chair, then back at him. “I can see that.”
He smiled wryly.
“The bed isn’t— Well, it’s not uncomfortable, but it’s not, well, an excellent bed.”
At this, he actually laughed. “You’re a terrible liar.”
“It’s not a lie, exactly. It’s all in how you phrase it.”
He snorted. “Said every politician in London.”
This made her smile, which brought him such an absurd amount of joy that he could only ascribe it to the fact that making someone smile under such circumstances could be treated as nothing short of a triumph.
“Here,” she said, grabbing her pillow, “you should have it.”
He did not try to catch it; there was something much more pleasing about letting it sail through the air and clip him on the shoulder. “Just like old times,” he murmured.
“How I wish.”
He looked up at her. She was sitting cross-legged, her knees bumping out the sides of her blue skirt until the frock formed something of a triangle. He tried to remember the last time he’d sat in such a position. He didn’t think he’d ever seen her do it either.
It made perfect sense. No one sat that way in public. It was for home. For unguarded moments.
“I’m sorry,” he said. The words came slowly, not because he was reluctant to say them, but rather because he felt them more keenly than he expected. “For being so short of temper earlier.”
She went still, her lips parting as she absorbed the sudden change of topic. “It’s all right,” she said.
“It’s not.”
“It is . This is . . .” She looked up toward the ceiling, shaking her head. She looked like she couldn’t quite believe her predicament. “Anyone would be short of temper. It’s probably a small miracle I haven’t strangled you .”
He smiled. “It’s not easy, you know, to strangle a man.”
Her head fell to her chest as she laughed. When she looked up she said, “I’ve learned that recently.”
“Really. Where would a gently bred woman such as yourself learn such a thing?”
“Well.” She leaned forward, elbows on knees, chin in her hands. “I’ve fallen in with a band of pirates.”
His gasp was worthy of the stage. “Never say it.”
She responded in kind, with wide eyes, breathless drama, and a hand to her heart. “I think I might be ruined.”
And because something inside him felt like it was falling back into place, he gave her a crooked smile and said, “Not yet.”
A week earlier such a quip would have offended her sensibilities, but this time she didn’t even try to pretend. She just rolled her eyes and shook her head and said, “It’s a pity I don’t have another pillow to throw at you.”
“Indeed.” He made a show of glancing at the floor around him. “I would be living in luxury.”
“Did you ever have pillow fights with your siblings?”
He’d been adjusting the pillow she’d thrown at him behind his back, but at this, he paused. “You have to ask?”
She giggled. “I know. Stupid question.”
“Did you?” he asked.
“Oh, of course.”
He looked at her.
“What?” she asked.
“I was waiting for you to tell me that you always won.”
“To my desperate shame, that would be a falsehood.”
“Do my ears deceive me? Was there a contest in the Bridgerton household that Poppy Bridgerton did not win?”
“Poppy Louise Bridgerton,” she said officiously. “If you’re going to scold, you should do it correctly.”
“My apologies. Poppy Louise . But tell me, who emerged victorious?”
“My two older brothers, of course. Mostly Richard. Roger said I wasn’t worth the effort.”
“Too easy for him to beat you?”
“He was a full head taller,” she protested. “It could never have been a fair fight.”
“Good of him to bow out, then.”
She pressed her lips together peevishly. “He was hardly so gallant. He said he had more interesting ways to torture me.”
“Oh yes.” Andrew grinned. “He was the one who taught you a new language, didn’t he?
“A new language, indeed. You’d better watch out or I’ll farfar you.”
He snorted right into a laugh. “I wish I’d known your brother. I would have worshipped at his feet.”
“I wish that too,” she said with a sad smile, and he knew that what she really meant was that she wished Roger were still alive, still able to make new friends and, yes, devise new ways to torture his little sister.
“How did he die?” he asked. She’d never told him that, and until now it felt too intrusive to ask.
“Infection.” She said it so plainly, as if everything tragic had long since been wrung out of the word and the only thing left was resignation.
“I’m sorry.” He’d seen more than one man succumb to infection. It always seemed to start so simply. A scrape, a wound . . . his brother knew a man who’d worn an ill-fitting pair of boots and then died of a purulent blister.
“He was bitten by a dog,” Poppy said. “It wasn’t even a very bad bite. I mean, I’ve been bitten by a dog before, haven’t you?”
He nodded, even though he hadn’t.
“It didn’t heal properly. It looked like it was going to. It was completely fine for a few days, maybe just a little red. Swollen. And then . . .” She swallowed and looked to the side.
“You don’t have to finish,” he said softly.
But she wanted to. He could see it in her face.
“He had a fever,” she continued. “It came on overnight. He went to bed, and he seemed fine. I was the one who brought him a mug of hot cider, so I know.”