Lucas passed his hat and gloves to the footman when he entered Bridgerton House. He was late, having dug through William's closet to find another evening coat after the last one was destroyed during his previous encounter with Edwina.

He enlisted Simmons to alter the jacket to fit properly. He discovered that Simmons was once William's valet prior to being promoted to the head butler of Greymoor House after William's passing. Simmons looked at the jacket with a critical eye and told Lucas he would have it refitted in a thrice, but the suit was woefully out of style.

Lucas made a mental note to visit a tailor as soon as possible.

He followed another footman to the dining room and stood for a moment at the threshold as his name was announced. The dining room was pleasantly appointed with tasteful landscape paintings hanging on the walls against a blue and silver wallpaper. Instead of a chandelier hanging high above the diners, several candelabras were set on the table illuminating the room in a soft glow. The setting was intimate and he felt instantly out of place as if an intruder on a cozy familial scene.

Lord Bridgerton rose from the end of the table to greet him.

"Lord Greymoor. We did not think you would make it." Lord Bridgerton reached out and shook his hand before turning to his wife.

Lucas faced the lady dressed in a dark blue evening gown. "Lady Bridgerton," he replied with a bow. "I apologize for my tardiness."

"We are only glad you are able to join us." She led him to a seat to her right. If he remembered correctly from previous dinner parties, the seat was meant for the highest ranking member in the ton . A quick glance at the table earlier indicated that he was not the highest ranked member present.

Lucas was about to raise the issue, but Lady Bridgerton cut him off. "We don't stick too close to tradition for family dinners."

He raised an eyebrow in question.

"And, friends."

"You consider me one of the latter?"

"Of course, you saved my life."

Lucas cleared his throat uncomfortably. “You give me too much credit. It was your own will to live that saved you.”

Lucas took the empty seat next to Lady Bridgerton and was flooded with painful memories of the numerous dinner parties his father entertained when he still lived. Lucas did not excel with the inconsequential chatter that the ton steeped in. He wasn't charming like Stephen. It was the one area where Lucas could never defeat his brother. Stephen's smile lit up a room and within minutes he had his audience eating out of his palm.

Their father always said that if Stephen either had Lucas's brain or Lucas had Stephen's charm, then he would have had the perfect son. Individually, they were failures in their father's eyes.

So, Lucas did what he commonly did in situations in which he did not care for–he assessed the room.

The dining table was filled with ladies and gentlemen, many of whom he recognized without a proper introduction. There was a set of men and women that looked so similar that they could easily be identified as siblings–the Bridgertons. It wasn't even a guess. Most of them shared the same auburn hair and light skin, though the gentlemen were slightly darker from spending time in the sun.

The only sister with lighter hair, though the same shaped face as her siblings, sat next to a tall, darkly handsome man dressed to the height of fashion–meaning, without a care of what others thought. His cravat was deliberately loose and the top of his shirt unbuttoned. To his left sat Lady Danbury and Lucas deduced that he must be her former ward–the Duke of Hastings. They had met once at Danbury House as children, though Lucas doubted the duke remembered the moment.

From what he recalled, the duke had difficulty speaking as a child. A stutter that frustrated the boy nearly to tears when they played in the nursery while Lucas's parents visited downstairs. Stephen was particularly relentless in his teasing. His cruelty knew no bounds even then.

Lucas scanned the rest of the room quickly. He recognized Benedict Bridgerton from the other night when he interrupted the impassioned kiss between him and Edwina. Lucas would have recognized him even before then as they were the same year at Cambridge, though their paths rarely crossed at university.

There were a few other ladies present that he did not recognize–a set of sisters with bright red hair.

He was surprised to see Dorset present, though he remembered that Dorset once mentioned he attended Oxford with Lord Bridgerton.

Lucas suspected that Dorset was invited at Edwina's request. It seemed that she already made plans to approach Dorset to teach her if she failed with Lucas. Despite himself, Lucas admired her stubbornness. She knew what she wanted and was willing to reach out and take it.

It irked him still that Edwina wanted Dorset.

Of course, her machinations were all for naught as Lucas decided he would teach her himself. In this, Dorset could go to hell for all he cared.

Lucas's eyes finally landed on Edwina, who he had been careful to ignore until this moment. He was almost afraid of how he would react. He hadn't seen her since the night of Lady Danbury's ball, his last memory of her face turned up to him, her eyes heavy-lidded with desire, and her lips bruised from his kisses. He felt his body hardening at the thought.

She was dressed in a soft pink and purple evening gown that reminded him of a sunset on a clear summer day. The candlelight cast a golden glow on her skin, seeming to illuminate her whole being. She was breathtakingly beautiful as usual.

Edwina leaned in close to Lord Lumley, the gentlemen Lucas realized as the one that he stole the waltz from at Lady Danbury's ball. Her hand swatted his arm at something he said. She laughed, the sound like twinkling glass caught Lucas's ear, causing a tremor of yearning to run through his body.

Lumley chuckled, his lips to her ears as he whispered something that caused Edwina to flush and smile back up at him.

She glanced at Lucas and then away back at Lumley, a clear dismissal. Her full attention was on the man sitting next to her. Her arm brushing up against Lumley's in a clear attempt at flirtation. The man was bewitched, as Lucas saw Lumley's eyes drop briefly to Edwina's lips, and back up to her eyes.

A sharp pang of jealousy stabbed at his chest.

What game was she playing? And, more importantly, why did he care?

Lucas drowned the contents of his glass in one swallow. Belatedly, he realized it was wine, which he never drank, or alcohol of any kind. Hard drink loosened old memories.

He waved at the footman to fill his glass again and drained it in another swallow. He needed something stronger–whiskey, brandy, gin, anything.

Dorset looked at him alarmed. "What are you doing?" Dorset muttered under his breath from across the table.

"Enjoying myself."

***

Edwina felt Lucas's presence behind her even before the footman announced his name. A chill ran down her spine, one not of fear but of anticipation. She kept her head down, focused on the soup before her. It wouldn't do to be caught staring. She already felt Kate's and her mother's eyes on her as if waiting for Edwina to react. Both were perceptive women and she knew that Kate sensed that there was something more than just the dance between her and Lucas the other night at Lady Danbury's ball.

Edwina trusted that Benedict did not tell Kate of her interlude in the gardens with Lucas. But, when Kate remembered that Lord Greymoor was the same man that treated Edwina days ago, Kate's sisterly intuition heightened to an alarming degree. It took all of Edwina's cunning to deflect Kate's probing questions about Lucas.

She needed to pretend that Lucas didn't exist. Any preference on her end and Kate will assume that she was interested in Lucas romantically rather than for the knowledge he possessed. Worse, if Kate discovered the true nature of her interest in Lucas, she would put a stop to Edwina's plans entirely.

If Kate found out that she wanted to study medicine, she would be shocked. She always envisioned Edwina as the wife of a wealthy gentleman, nothing more.

Edwina turned her attention onto Lord Lumley, who she knew was still Kate's first choice of husband for her since the beginning of last Season.

After a few minutes, Edwina chanced a glance at Lucas only to find him glaring at her, his eyes dark, and his lips turned down in a frown.

He was dressed in a coat made of black velvet that was several years out of date, but the cut fit better than the jacket he wore the other night at Lady Danbury's conservatory ball. Despite the unfashionable jacket, Lucas was devastatingly handsome. The candlelight accentuated his high cheekbones and gleamed off of his dark hair that he had swept back and tied in a queue at the base of his neck. Edwina's fingers itched to undo it, to run her fingers through the black silkiness of his hair.

A shiver of desire ran through her and she looked away quickly, refocusing her attention on Lord Lumley. He smiled down at her, leaned in close, and whispered in her ear, "You are beautiful when you blush."

Her face burned brighter. His smile brightened. "You are beautiful always–a true diamond."

“You are too kind.”

“Miss Sharma, you must know that I’ve admired you ever since last Season. It pained me greatly when you and Lord Bridgerton announced your engagement. And, I hate to admit it as I would never wish you any ill will, but my heart rejoiced when the wedding did not take place.”

Edwina's heart began to pound in her chest. This was it. The moment she anticipated all Season.

She turned her full attention to Lord Lumley's lips, waiting for the four words that danced at the end of his tongue since last year. She knew he admired her, perhaps even loved her. She knew this moment was inevitable.

In the background, she sensed a quiet come over the table as conversations stopped and attention refocused elsewhere.

Before he could open his mouth, an alarmed gasp filled the room.

***

Footmen brought the next course, a white fish in a lemon sauce, and placed it before Lucas. He determinedly tackled it, ignoring the twinkle of Edwina's laughter coming from the far end of the table. A delectable sound that made his hair stand on end.

Lady Bridgerton's nose wrinkled at the sight of the fish and waved it away, thanking the footman, before turning to Lucas.

"Lord Greymoor, Benedict told us that you are a surgeon. Do you intend to keep up the practice now that you inherited the earldom?"

"Yes."

An expectant silence fell and Lucas sighed inwardly. "Yes, I intend to keep my practice in London and my position at the college."

"Our Greymoor here is quite the busy fellow," Dorset added. "He lectures twice a week on human anatomy at the college outside of attending to his own patients."

"What sparked your interest in medicine?" Lady Bridgerton asked as the next course was set on the table. This new dish, roasted lamb with fingerling potatoes, she devoured.

"My mother was often ill when I was younger. The responsibility fell to me to care for her. I developed an interest in medicine mostly out of necessity." Lucas did not go into detail as to why his mother spent most of his childhood bedridden nor the true reason why he felt driven to the ground to help others less fortunate than himself.

"What of your father?"

"He spent most of his time abroad with his ships transporting tea for the East India Shipping Company. When he was home in England, he stayed mostly in London." A respite for Lucas and his mother whenever his father busied himself in London ingratiating himself with the ton . But, whenever he demanded their presence in town or returned to the manor where they lived in the country, a dark shadow fell upon the family.

Before she could ask, Lucas added, "He died of a gunshot wound when I was seventeen. A hunting accident." The lie was easy to tell. He had over decade's worth of practice.

"I am sorry," she said.

He wasn't. The day his father died was the day Lucas felt free for the first time in his life. Until, he realized, that a greater villain waited in the wings ready to fill the malevolent hole his father left behind.

"And your mother?" Lady Bridgerton probed.

"She returned to China after my father passed. She never took to England and looked forward to reuniting with her family. I haven't seen or heard from her since." This was true. She wanted nothing more to do with her sons or anything that reminded her of her late husband. She wanted to be free of them all, so Lucas did his best to accommodate her. He put her on a ship for Hong Kong two days after his father's funeral.

A strained silence fell on the table and it was then that Lucas realized that half the diners were listening attentively to him speak. The red-haired girl looked particularly interested, her blue eyes pinned on his face.

"May I congratulate you," Lucas said, scrambling for a topic to speak on to redirect the attention away from him. He never spoke of his family. They were all dead, or as dead as they can be, and it was best left that way.

Lady Bridgerton looked back at him puzzled.

"On your delicate condition."

If anything, Lady Bridgerton appeared more confused, her brows knitting together. "What do you mean?"

"The impending birth of your first child."

A gasp resounded across the table. A clatter of a fork hitting a plate rang through the air.

"What?" Lord Bridgerton said from across the table, his eyes searching his wife's face. "Kate, is this true?"

Lady Bridgerton's face reddened. "I do not know. I am not sure. I suspect I am, but..." Her head swung towards Lucas. "How can you possibly know? I barely know."

"You are with child. About six weeks into your confinement. Your face is drawn, a side effect of experiencing normal levels of fatigue common in the early stages of pregnancy. Most notably, you turned down the serving of fish, I presume because the smell of it causes your stomach to roil. Heightened senses, particularly with smell, also occur in the early stages. Not to mention the swelling of your breasts-"

Dorset coughed violently into his napkin.

"Then it is true," Lord Bridgerton said, rushing to Lady Bridgerton's side. He drew her up into his arms, his face breaking into a wide smile. Lady Bridgerton laughed as her husband kissed her soundly on the lips. "I am to be a father."

The group broke out into congratulatory applause. The dowager viscountess dabbed away tears from the corner of her eyes.

"That's a neat trick," a young man, one of the other Bridgerton brothers, said to Lucas. "Can you do one better and tell us the babe's sex? Will it be a boy or girl?"

Everyone turned to Lucas.

"Do not be absurd," Lucas said with a smile. He could easily expound on the variability of children born female or male in England in the past two decades and the probability of a male child being born over a female. However, after his disastrous prediction concerning the birth of Constance's daughters, Lucas shied away from declaring anything concrete.

Lucas caught Edwina's eye. It was the same look she gave him when he saw her days ago in her room when she demanded to see his wound. It was cold, assessing, as if she was trying to diagnose a problem she did not know existed. As if he was a puzzle to be solved.

He felt stripped, naked, under her gaze.