The Other Miss Bridgerton

She hugged her arms to her body, closing her eyes while she drew a long breath. “He was so hot. It was unnatural. His skin was like paper. And the worst part was, it wasn’t even fast. It took five days. Do you know how long five days can be?”

It was one day less than her time aboard the Infinity . Which suddenly didn’t seem like very much time at all.

“Sometimes he was insensible,” she said, “but sometimes he wasn’t, and he knew—he knew he was going to die.”

“Did he tell you that?”

She shook her head. “He would never. He kept saying, ‘I’ll be fine, Pops. Stop looking so worried.’”

“He called you Pops?” Andrew tried not to smile, but there was something irresistibly charming about it.

“He did. But only sometimes.” She said that in a way that made him think this had not occurred to her before. She cocked her head to the side, her eyes tipping up and to the left as if she might find her memories there. “It was when he was serious, but he was perhaps trying to sound as if he wasn’t.”

She looked over at Andrew, and he was relieved to see that some of the bleakness had left her face. “He was rarely serious,” she said. “Or at least that’s what he wanted people to think. He was very observant, and I think people were less guarded around him because they thought he was a scapegrace.”

“I have some experience with that particular dichotomy,” he said in a dry voice.

“I would imagine you do.”

“What happened next?” he asked.

“He died,” she said with a tiny helpless shrug. “To the very end, he tried to pretend it wasn’t going to happen, but he never could lie about important things.”

Whereas Andrew had only lied about important things. But he was trying so hard not to think about that right then.

Poppy let out a sad little puff of a laugh. “The morning before he passed, he even boasted that he was going to massacre me in the egg roll at the next May fair, but I could see it in his eyes. He knew he would not live.”

“Massacre?” Andrew echoed. He liked this particular choice of words.

She gave a watery smile. “It would never have been enough just to beat me.”

“No, I expect not.”

She nodded slowly. “I knew he was lying. He knew I knew it too. And I wondered . . . Why? Why would he cling to his story when he knew he wasn’t fooling me?”

“Perhaps he thought he was doing you a kindness.”

She shrugged. “Maybe.”

She did not seem to have more to say on the subject, so Andrew went back to fussing with his pillow. It was both flat and lumpy, and it was impossible to get into the right position. He tried mushing it, pushing it, folding it . . . Nothing worked.

“You look very uncomfortable,” Poppy said.

He didn’t bother glancing up from his efforts. “I’m fine.”

“Are you going to lie to me like Roger did?”

That got his attention. “Why would you say such a thing?”

“Just come over and sit on the bed,” she said in an exasperated voice. “It’s not as if either of us will sleep tonight, and if I have to watch another moment of your fidgeting I’m going to go mad.”

“I wasn’t—”

“You were.”

They held each other’s stare for a moment or two, narrow-eyed and quirky-browed.

She won.

“Fine.” He got up. “I’ll sit on the other side.” He moved round to the far side of the bed and sat near the edge. She was right. It wasn’t a particularly excellent bed. Still, it was a far cry better than the floor.

“Do you think it’s strange,” she asked once he was settled, “that we’re having such an ordinary conversation?”

He glanced at her sideways. “Bickering about where to sit?”

“Well, yes, and talking about childhood pranks, and my brother’s passing. I suppose that’s rather sad, but it’s certainly ordinary. It’s not as if we were having great philosophical discussions about the meaning of—”

“Life?” he supplied.

She shrugged.

He turned so that he could see her without twisting his neck. “Do you want to spend the evening having great philosophical discussions?”

“Not really, but don’t you think it seems as if we should? Given our precarious situation?”

He leaned back against the headboard and allowed just enough time to pass to give his next words the air of an announcement. “When I was in school they made us read this book.”

She turned with her whole body, so curious was she at his abrupt change of subject.

“It was awful,” he told her.

“What was it?”

He thought for a moment. “I don’t even remember. That’s how bad it was.”

“Why did they make you read it?”

He shrugged one shoulder. “Someone once said it was important.”

“Who gets to decide such things?” she wondered.

“Which books are important? I have no idea, but in this case, they made a grave mistake. I tell you, every word was torture.”

“So you read it, then? The whole book?”

“I did. I hated every moment of it, but I read the blasted thing because I knew we would be quizzed upon it, and I did not wish to disappoint my father.” He turned and looked at her with a dry expression. “That’s a bloody bad reason to read a book, don’t you think?”

“I suppose.”

“A person should read a book because it speaks to something in his heart.” Andrew said this with a passion that belied the fact that he’d never actually thought about this before. At least not in this way. “Because it fills a thirst for knowledge that is his , not that of some man in a tower two hundred years ago.”

She regarded him for a moment, then said, “Why are we talking about this, exactly?”

“Because we shouldn’t have to talk about whether the universe can fit into a man’s soul if we don’t want to.”

“I do not,” she said with wide eyes. “I truly do not.”

“Good.” He settled back into his position and they sat in silence for a bit. It was all rather peaceful and banal until she said—

“We might die.”

“What?” Everything snapped—his voice, his head as he whipped around to face her. “Don’t talk that way.”

“I’m not saying we will die. But we could. Don’t lie to me and deny it.”

“We’re worth too much,” Andrew told her. “They won’t kill us.”

But did the men realize the prize they’d captured? Thus far, everything pointed to a normal (if there was such a thing) kidnapping. It was not inconceivable the Portuguese gang had seen two obviously well-to-do foreigners and figured that someone would be willing to pay a ransom for them.

But on the other hand, it was possible that someone had uncovered his role in the government. If that was the case, and the men holding them were politically motivated, then Andrew became a different sort of prize.

(And God only knew which politics might motivate them; there were fringe groups the world over who detested the British.)

Captain Andrew James was not entirely unknown in Lisbon. He had met with Robert Walpole—the British envoy—just that morning. He had employed no special subterfuge; he’d long since learned that on his sorts of missions, it was most effective to hide in plain sight. He put on his finer clothes, walked and talked like an aristocrat, and strolled right up to Mr. Walpole’s home.

“They won’t kill us,” he said again. But he wasn’t sure he meant it.

“I don’t know if that’s true,” Poppy said.

Andrew blinked. “What?”

“What you said. About our being too valuable. We’re only valuable if they know we’re valuable.”

“They know I have a ship in the harbor.”

But then again, if they knew he carried secrets for the crown, they might see more value in his elimination than any riches he might bring.