The echo of your footsteps, heels clicking furiously against the elegant flooring of Bridgerton House, thundered within your head like the sound of your racing heartbeat, thumping relentlessly in the base of your ears. Breath by breath, shallow puffs passed through your parted lips as you stepped past the threshold and ventured down the wide corridor. You could feel the air around you pining for the entrance into your screaming lungs. Aching for a deep breath that never seemed to come, never rushing strong currents of fresh air down through the cavity of your chest, until it expanded with the very oxygen your lungs craved. For the air around you was tainted with the chill of the evening and the overwhelming ominous sensation suspended in the atmosphere like a hidden storm cloud. The denseness of the unmistakable void hindering the ability for a deep breath as your clicking heels stormed through the archway, the sight of Anthony Bridgerton's closed study door slowly coming into view.

The light of the hall was low, as night lingered in a deep overcast coat of blackness that consumed the streets below. The shadows of the evening threatening to seep through the linen curtains that shut the outside off from the interior of Bridgerton House, as the moon hid away amongst the thick cloud coverage. The house was quiet, eerily so, even as most of its residences still remained in the clutches of the ball ensuing as though nothing had gone down in its very presence. But for those who had returned, they left the walls once bouncing with the echo of vibrant and vivacious voices suddenly silent. The void overwhelmed the hallways bathed in the nighttime's shadows, but you could nearly feel the silence in your very bones as you approached Anthony's door.

Peering up through the sweep of your anxiously fluttering lashes, you lifted your right hand and let your knuckles, that had since been released of their silken confines, fall against the painted wood in a soft but urgent knock. Drumming them over and over, each knock fueled with more haste, until the door finally creaked open in the slightest crack of the wood. Dropping your gently curled fist from it's placement against the door, you were met with the striking emerald green of Colin Bridgerton's eyes, peering through the crack in the door but seemingly unsurprised by your sudden presence.

"Might I speak to him Colin? Just for a moment, please." Your voice felt undesirably meek in that moment, your words falling in a breathless whisper against the stilled and silent air shared between the two of you. Your fingers had unconsciously found themselves twisting anxiously together in front of your chest, the very edge of your hands brushing against the embroidered muslin fabric, that cascaded down your frame in a softening shade of honey paled yellow. A faint hue, contrasting in comparison to your dear friend Penelope Featherington's bright canary yellow. But a cloak of deep navy blue draped across your shoulders, shrouding your brightened fabrics in a blanket of indigo darkness, as you grabbed it quickly when you had ventured into the night after Anthony's departure.

Colin's eyes studied you for a moment, feeling as though an eon as you waited with bated breath, feeling the thudding of anxiety in the base of your chest, as you willed with your expression for Colin's answer. You watched the classic Bridgerton chestnut brown locks turn and cover the crack in the door as Colin turned his attention back behind him. Glancing at the others left standing in the room, before returning his gaze back to you and opening the door further with a swift pull of his hand. Colin stepped to the side as your heels passed over the threshold, entering Anthony's study that was bathed in a golden orangish hue, and watched as Benedict Bridgerton joined Colin as they slowly dispersed from the room. Leaving you alone, with an anxiously racing heart and nearly breathless set of lungs, before Anthony Bridgerton himself.

You listened to the soft clasp of the door, not being pulled completely closed, but the collide of the door against the frame made it nearly close enough to be considered as such. The room was silent, except for the crackling of a fire burning in the adjacent fireplace, illuminating the room in a warmth that the evening air had lacked most of it's setting hours. The golden hues graced the walls with shadows of the flames that danced and twirled, as though the movements of a waltz in the blistering embers. Painting the floor and the sights of the intimate study in an orangish glow that altered the colors of the paintings lining the walls.

"Is this truly how it will be? What is honestly to take place at dawn?" Your voice felt timid and boisterous all at once, as it punctured the silence that emanated through the air. For your tone felt shaky, the anxiety and bubbling fear that had slowly seeped into the flowing course of your very bloodstream and lurched in thickening lumps in the base of your throat, made your words waver with emotional uncertainty. But the sound of your voice, sudden and entering a dense void, made it feel as though they bounced off of the surrounding walls with a resounding pressure.

Anthony Bridgerton stood behind his desk, hands clutching the very edge of the polished mahogany wood, while his chair lay pushed back a few inches behind the base of his heels. His shoulders slouched forward in pure tension, as you could see the strain in the muscles of his back, tight and incredibly rigid beneath the white fabric of his shirt. His tailcoat long since discarded, as his faintly designed black waistcoat still clothed in contrast with the pale white, but the shirt was now rolled up to the very base of his elbows. Showing off the veins bulging beneath the flesh of his arms and through the tightly clasped grasp of his hands against his desk. His head hung downwards, hovering a soft shadow against papers laid unattended to against the surface of his desk, the mess of his chestnut curls falling against the outline of his forehead, all you could make of his face from his hunched over stance.

But as your words entered the air, capturing his attention in their abruptly floating presence, you watched as his curled fingers pushed himself into a straightened form as his head lifted slowly. Now standing tall, his chin raising another inch or two before his deep brown eyes landed against your waiting frame, standing a few feet in front of his desk. Feeling the warmth of the flickering flames against your left side, soaking into the fabric of your dress, having slipped the cloak from your shoulders when you stepped further into the room. Draping it over the hook on his nearby coat rack before stepping in front of his desk.

His orbs glistened in the low firelight, as though they were swirled of melted honey and burning whiskey. A dangerous combination that pained you with the burn of his expressions lost in the depth of his gaze, all the while, soothing away the ache with the gentle flow and warmth of his breathtaking irises. Anthony's eyes watched you as the hands of his pocket watch ticked by, replacing the cloak of indigo once wrapped around your shoulders with a new blanket, this one mended with scrutiny and emotions far beyond your reach. Before you saw the deep swallow bobbing his Adam's apple, before his lips parted with a new breath.

"It has to be done."

You'd heard the tone in his voice before, the unswayable certainty that was stronger than any conviction you had ever known. For Anthony Bridgerton was a stubborn man, he was headstrong and it was a rarity to receive an admission of any wrong doing on his part. It was there, in the swell of those five mere words, murmured softly and yet, reverberated straight into your heart with a strength the moment they launched into the atmosphere. But there was something new to the adamant and rather confident tone, there lie an emotion that almost seemed to soften the blow. A rawness to his response, one that spoke of his made up mind yet his clearly conflicting heart.

"Anthony, you haven't a moment to process the accounts that transpired this evening, surely there must be another way."

"If there is another way that you see present, when The Duke refuses to marry my sister, after stripping her of her innocence right where any wandering eyes might have been able to capture, leaving her imperiled in scandal should anyone speak of their transgressions, pray tell me what it is. But I fear you'll find yourself searching for words that simply do not exist, for there is no other way. If he will not marry her, he leaves me no other choice."

Your rapidly beating heart sunk with the words you already knew were coming. But it thudded just the same, nearly sinking into the pit of your stomach and feeling the wind knocked from your chest, as the images began to form in the darkest corners of your mind. Letting your tongue softly run over your bottom lip, wetting the suddenly dry and cracking skin, you pressed them together in a shallow breath. The warmth of the fire engulfed the room, running it's rays of pure heat up and down your left side, and yet, you felt entirely cold beneath your soft fabrics. The nape of your neck, bare to the air around you, as your thick coils remained tightly pulled upwards into a style that was beginning to make your head thunder with it's own fair heartbeat. Your fingers had lifted and resumed their position nearing your chest, as they twisted anxiously within one another over and over again. But it was the piercing burn of fresh tears, pricking like the tip of a needle in the corners of your eyes, that felt the coldest.

"Even when it may end in your blood spilled across that field?" The words felt foreign as they left your lips, as though they simply did not belong. They didn't belong there, balancing on the edge of your tongue and overflowing past the imperceptible tremble of your lips, and they surely didn't belong anywhere in the world. "I know that this is about more than just your sister's honour, with your entire family's reputation left hanging in the balance with The Duke's refusal, but Anthony--"

"But what? What should I do, hm?" Anthony's once furrowed brows arched high against his brow bone, his eyes darkening and widening in exasperation and evident frustration. You knew he was livid, an anger boiling beneath the surface, but he was doing his best to conceal it as he stood in your company. But you'd seen this short and slightly condescending side to him before. It was a downside to a man who wore his emotions so close to his sleeve, for his automatic defense was an anger and intensity that very rarely had the ability of being defused. "What is it that you suggest that I do to remedy this situation? I am handling this as men do, even when Hastings is quite adamantly against acting as such, I am dealing with this as is my responsibility."

Your lashes fluttered furiously, flapping harshly against the flushing hues of your cheekbones, as you blinked away the stinging tears growing in your eyes. Beginning to blur the very edges of your vision, as the light of the fire glinted like a bright reflection against the glazed gloss of your sight, before you blinked the sheen away for the moment being.

"But you seem to disregard entirely, the fair chance that what you seek to rectify, will only result in your own demise." Your voice held all of your wavering emotions, as though it was in the very balance of your words against the tip of your tongue, that your tears threatened to fall. Your heels stepping forward, an inaudible click against the intricate rug softening the blow of your footsteps, nearing the front of Anthony's desk by another inching foot.

"The Duke may not want to marry Daphne, he may have already made peace with the possible fate awaiting him in the morning light, but he will not be the only man on that field staring down the barrel of a gun Anthony!"

His eyes, that had fallen back down towards the sleek surface of his desk, rose as your words hit the air and entered his listening ears. The light of the flickering fire to his right, captured the soft streaks of gold woven within the seams of his deep brown eyes. His hands hung loose at his sides, almost seeming as though he wasn't quite sure what to do with them, when they weren't clutching tightly to an object in frustration. But his stance was still, watching with keen eyes at the faint rise and fall of his chest, that accentuated the concealed yet firmly sculpted build of his muscles just beneath the clothed surface.

No longer resisting the burn of the tears building in the corners of your eyes, you let your eyelids close in a soft flutter and you felt as the first trailing tear slipped from the base of your lash line. Opening them, you gazed at Anthony with the returning gloss in your vision, but this time, you didn't blink away the sting.

"What if you are to die out on that field Anthony?" Your voice broke as soon as your words hit the air, as though they simply entered the atmosphere at the wrong angle, crumbling to pieces that fell with a heartbroken breath against the rug beneath your feet. "What of that outcome?"

It felt as though the very notion of the words in which you spoke, strangled you from the inside out. For you felt the unequivocal build of tears in the base of your throat, thickening into a lump that made the shallow breaths you were already inhaling, harder to swallow down. The tears piercing your eyes, burned like leftover embers of the nearby fire, forcing your now saturated lashes no choice but to let them slip slowly down the flushed hue of your cheekbones.

Anthony's eyes that had once darkened with the anger boiling his blood, softened as his sight danced over the glimpse of your newfound tears, glinting like the saddest collection of diamonds in the flickering fire light. Although all of the tension consuming his being in this evening in time, could not simply be erased from his stance, you saw the way his shoulders seemed to slack in the faintest of motions. An exhale escaping past his lips in a gentle breath, as his Adam's apple bobbed with a deep swallow, before his lips parted further with words of his own.

"I will be alright."

The words that Anthony had chosen in perhaps, an attempt to settle your mind or soothe your fears with a sure sounding assurance, did the very opposite. For it felt as though, as his even tone spoke with a soft certainty, that it was the final collision against the dam holding back the extent of your tears. The emotion that had built like the ever growing tick of a clock, finally gave way and you broke down in front of Anthony Bridgerton.

"And what of I?"

Your voice ricocheted off of the dimly shadowed walls, in a suddenly boisterous presence. The shout of your words, attention grabbing and heartbreaking all in the very same shallow spared breath. Your tone ached with the fear that gripped tightly to your anxiously beating heart, the desperation seeping into your words like the fall of your tears against the fabric of your gown. For even as they bounded through the air towards Anthony with a strong conviction, the break in your voice and the painful longing that nearly snapped the very strings of your heart, was unmistakable. For even as your words felt like an all consuming echo, as they radiated off of the walls long after the room fell silent all over again, the depth of your emotion filled voice lingered like smoke in the air.

"You will be taken care of, I've assured of it." Anthony's voice spoke up, breaking the silence that had begun to build like a suffocating void, moments passing after your painful outburst. "You will need not to fret about one days rent to another, you will not go hungry, sustainability in all it's forms, you will be taken care of, I swear it."

Your lips parted as a breath fell through them, an incredulous expression expanding across your tear soaked features as your eyebrows furrowed at his words. Was this simply Anthony Bridgerton being who he was, a man who concealed the depths of his emotions and rather tiptoed around a tearful female when he feared what right words to say? Or were these the words he truly wanted to say? You looked to him in disbelief for a few passing seconds, waiting for any other words he might possibly have to say to fall from his lips, but they never parted and the words you stood yearning for, never came.

"Do you truly believe that that was what I meant? What matters to me in this very moment?" You looked at Anthony with an expression of pure disbelief. With tears rolling down your reddened cheeks, a new sensation of exasperation soaring beneath the angst flooding your veins, as your heels stepped the final few feet towards the front of his desk. The soft yellow fabric of your gown brushing against the darker hue of deep mahogany, but your eyes never once left Anthony's stilled but strong kept gaze.

"I faired well enough in my life before I met you, money and lavish abodes weigh no bearing to me." You expressed to Anthony in a strong tone. But it wasn't a long lasting rush of anger towards his seemingly emotionless words, for as your lips parted with your next set of words, the painful thought teetering in the depths of your nightmares, you heard the tearful crack in your voice as the words spilled out. A breathless break of your heart, echoing around you in the warm air.

"What I simply cannot bare to live without, is you."

It was then, that the tears that had built like a sturdy dam in the base of your throat, decreasing your ability to breathe, finally broke and the sob that had been locked away, was freed. It was suffocating, perhaps even more so than the lump of painful tears once in it's place. The tears flowed from your eyes, slicking the skin of your face until your cheeks glistened in the light of the burning fire, as though you had gotten caught out in a rainstorm. Your lips choked around the sob that fell from them, echoing in a loud cry though the atmosphere around you, as you tried to speak through the flood of your tears.

"If you are to die out on that field Anthony, what will become of me if you are not alongside? What will become of my life, if you are not here to share it?" It felt as though you were drowning in the clutches of your very own emotions. The depth of your fear, the unfathomable thought of a future without Anthony Bridgerton in it, sucked you into a swirling abyss that nearly took you under completely. Feeling the rush of darkening waves, crashing over your head, as you bobbed in the rocky current of your angst filled tears.

"I cast aside all care to the affairs you've laid in order for my well being, in the chance of your demise. What I care most about, is how I could possible live without you here!"