She was a blur of sapphire silk, a billowing mass of free falling fabric vanishing down the winding corridor, as though her body was clothed in the very abyss of the deep night sky. For her flowing hem trailed across the wooden steps, emboldened blue a striking contrast to the deep oak that held the since deserted seats, twirling behind each passing beam as she moved through the shadows that engulfed the abandoned boxing arena.

Her airy footsteps, despite the delicate heel that pattered against the slightly dampened floorboards, made not a single sound. Only when her weight pressed upon a loose board, creaking with the whispers of it's age down in it's very foundation, could Anthony Bridgerton hear her presence. For in the shadows of the night that fell over London, consuming the arena once bustling with energetic spectators and desperate gambling gentleman, she was merely a sweep of sharp blue and a heady breath of jasmine.

In a place where sweat tainted the very atmosphere inhaled in deep breaths, where blood coated the floor of the ring as men fought with their bare and brutal fists, with many in the crowds placing heartless bets on the very injuries and fates of those participating, she stood out as though she was a diamond found within the deepest cavity of a coal mine. For although she claimed no other wandering eyes than his own, her radiance was enough to distract Anthony from the fight of his close acquaintance Will Mondrich, his attention stolen the moment she took her seat in the row across the room from his own.

Her tightly coiled coiffure kept her dense curls from cascading down her shoulders, allowing the sight of a single gold pendant dangling from her neck, sprawled across her collarbone that was accentuated by the deep curve of her gown's neckline, to glint in the low light that illuminated the arena. The sun that had begun to set over the horizon, beamed through the tall windows, bathing the wooden interior in an orange glow that engulfed the room in a familiar warmth. A single ray fell across her shoulders, making the silk shimmer as though the smallest set of elegant crystals were sewn into the very fabric of her dress. Her eyes glistened with her own light, watching the match intensely, as her lips twitched upwards every so often with a smile that touched upon her sight.

Anthony had caught her eye during the match, a slight glimpse of the piercing orbs that roused his dreams, but she'd torn her gaze from his as though his scrutiny burned the flesh it fell upon. Nearly wincing at the mere contact of their eye sight, a reaction he'd never once witnessed from her before.

For he'd seen her in every form, his fingertips having caressed every inch of her, he'd rather kissed every inch of her for that matter and yet, it was there as she sat completely clothed and in the surrounding company of others, that she recoiled away as though she was bare and vulnerable beneath the touch of his scrutiny. Reacting to his presence as though they hadn't shared more nights together than Anthony could count on his own two hands, as though their nights had not been full of wanton kisses and breathless but sated bliss. She regarded him as if she didn't know him in the slightest sense of the word, a mere stranger who just so happened to seek her out when the spectators dispersed after the fight.

For Anthony followed her, tracking her down after managing to part from his brothers' sides, catching glimpses of her swirling sapphire frock maneuvering with swift grace through the dense crowds and down the winding corridors. For she stood out amongst the bounty of pastel hues and rather ostentatious jewelry, a slender sight of purity in a sea of boisterous patterns and frocks. It was only now, as night had completely consumed the Earth around them and the arena had emptied to where only two souls remained within it's confines, that Anthony caught up with her.

He called out her name, over and over again, hoping it was enough for her head to whirl towards the echo or for her footsteps to simply slow to a halt, but she continued forwards as though Anthony was not chasing after her in the midst of her shadow. The weight of his leather bound boots falling in heavy conviction down upon the last step of the short staircase, as he watched her full frame inch closer to the backdoor exit.

In a far stride, jolting forward as his feet left the staircase and cut forward a few feet in a single bound, Anthony cut the space down until barely a breath lingered between their stances, as his right hand darted forward. His fingers curling around the nimble shape of her wrist, tightening his grasp against her staggeringly warm flesh, in a strength loose enough that not a single bruise would paint her flesh black or blue, but firm enough that she could no longer ignore his presence.

For as Anthony's breath blew from his lips in a harsh exhale, catching hold of it after his rushed steps and composing his thoughts in the seconds that followed, he watched as her head twirled around and her eyes locked right with his. Not even bothering to look down at his fingers that coiled around her wrist, her eyes instead darting straight to the source. For even as she had successfully tuned out the call of her name, that had fallen in sharp and rather distressed breaths from his lips, she knew who held her wrist in that moment, who stopped her dead in her tracks.

Anthony felt like the breath he fought to catch, suddenly slipped from his lungs, as if it were sand trickling through his fingertips. For even as he hovered above her delicate frame, engulfing her in the density of his overwhelming shadow, she peered up at him through the thin sprawl of her lashes as if it were him who shrunk beneath the weight of her stare. The eyes once gentle and soft, glittering with a light that was infectious in the low burning candlelit hours spent in her company only the night before, was now ablaze. An anger brewing in the depth of her irises, one that Anthony had never before seen from the tender sight of her light hued orbs, and it was as though a match was stricken across her gaze and flames erupted in the core of her eyes.

"What is it that you require from me My Lord?" Her tone was as dangerous as the look in her eyes, for the surprising weight of her scrutiny was enough to burn his flesh, but the dethatched voice in which she spoke softly to him in that moment, felt like needles pricking through the scalding heat. For she regarded him now as though he was the very last person on Earth that she would ever want to be in the company of, her lips forming his title rather than his name that she whispered in the most sacred moments of the night, and Anthony couldn't help but feel his heart falter in overwhelming bemusement from her abrupt shift in her regard for him. "Or if this is all, might I leave?"

Even as her eyes stared straight into his bewildered stare, refusing to back down as if she held every ounce of power in that very moment, Anthony could see beyond the flame consuming her irises, that it nearly pained her to do so. As though the mere sight of his face, the touch of his fingertips grazing across her flesh, made her want to shrink into the shadows with an all-consuming sense of displeasure. Mustering all of the strength within herself to stand there before him, resisting the urge to fight against his strong hold and remain captured by his presence.

"I feel as though I've offended you." Anthony confessed in a breath of pure perplexity, his brows furrowing as he watched the fire in her sight blaze, as she continued to stare at the Viscount holding her frozen in place. The ivory cravat tied securely at the very base of this throat, tucked into the white collar of his waistcoat, felt as though it tightened around his neck. Squeezing against the flesh just below his bobbing adam's apple, toying with his ability to breathe the air that already felt scarce from the expansion of his lungs, and it took everything to keep his hand from reaching up and tugging viciously at the vexing fabric.

His words, spoken in a breath of innocuous wonder, appeared as an accelerant to the flames that flickered across her heavy gaze, for they burned brighter as a sharp breath shot from her parted lips. An exhale trickling through the softly turned edges, certainly not a laugh of amusement but rather the loss of a breath out of pure disbelief at his innocent observation. For her brows, that delicate shaped her brow bone in thin sweeps of a deep hue, furrowed and her head shook emphatically before endeavoring to respond.

"Offended?" It sounded as though the very word left her tongue burning with a nauseating taste, for she cast the word from her lips in a single sharp exhale, as though she could never rid the sensation from her mouth fast enough. "If that is the only word you see fit for the way I feel, so be it."

Anthony's hand had since released it's careful hold of her delicate wrist, his arm now hanging limp as though it hadn't a simple purpose at his side, as his fingertips brushed against the soft velvet of his rich indigo tailcoat. His fingers feeling unnervingly cold and vacant, as they had since relinquished the source of insurmountable heat, while her own hand appeared to burn with the memory of his touch.

For Anthony's eyes washed over the sight of her cradling her right hand to her chest, pressing the edge of her flesh against the accentuating curvature of her silken blue neckline, making the pendant dangling from her neck sway as her knuckles bumped across the dainty gold chain. The fingers of her left hand curled around her right wrist, pressing her own fingertips down upon the flesh that appeared branded by his own prints, as though she might be able to soothe the burn that flared beneath the memory of his grasp.

"Have I angered you somehow?" Anthony's tone was cautious, as though his very words spoken in a hushed breath, tiptoed along the current of air that carried them towards her awaiting ear. The amber of his eyes softened, as though the shade itself melted within the swirl of his irises, his brows still narrowed as sincere confusion saturated every ounce of voice. But his blatant oblivion threw coal against the flickering flames, allowing for the sharpness in her tone to grow to new heights as she responded in a curt breath.

"Perhaps," Her eyes narrowed, allowing Anthony a better glimpse into the anger that festered within her breathtaking orbs, enough so that he saw the layer of pain simmering just below the surface of her intense exasperation. "I am a bit too close to you to know, My Lord."

Anthony Bridgerton knew right then, as those very words fell from her parted lips in a nearly venomous breath, what had prompted the sudden and aberrant shift in her demeanor. For the words she chose to fill in the lines of her response, were no coincidence, for only an hour or two prior Anthony had spoken them himself. A staggering sigh exhaled past Anthony's lips, as his head instantly dropped as the clarity into his misstep and the reason behind her anger hit him like a tidal wave.

Anthony's reputation was not a secret, in fact, it was rather a fact known through the streets of London. Anthony Bridgerton was a rake, through and through. He hadn't a hint of shame in the knowledge, in the title or reputation itself however, for he was certainly not one to deny such blatant truth. But even as he was not ashamed of his pursuits, the bachelor lodgings he kept on the other side of town, Anthony strived to keep such a scandal from hitting Lady Whistledown or any listening ears of the ton.

For although he rather enjoyed the lifestyle he lived outside of his responsibilities as Viscount, such rumors or mere scandal of a mistress would certainly bring scrutiny upon not only his own name, but that of his sisters and dear mother. And so, even as words were shared in the confines of a gentlemen's club, when inquires were pondered that afternoon before the boxing expedition, Anthony shot them down. Denying them unequivocally, without a shred of awareness that the very woman he refuted the very existence of, stood lingering on the outskirts absorbing each and every callous word.

"You misunderstand--" Anthony attempted to explain, his boots stepping in a swift bound forward, only for her to inch back on her heels, recoiling away from his hand that began to extend her way.

"I can assure you My Lord," She spoke with a faintly patronizing tone, as her grip against her wrist slacked and began to twist her fingers together. Wringing them in an anxious and absentminded motion against the deep silk clothing her bodice. "that my understanding of the situation is quite clear."

Anthony proceeded another step, a single soft stomp of his boot's sole against the floorboards. Inching forward as slowly as his rather earnest approach would allow for, pleased by the fact that she had yet to shrink away but rather remain planted where she stood. Anthony's head tilted to the side as he regarded her intensely, his entire body leaning forward as though he simply couldn't bare the abrasive space that stood between their bodies. "I was protecting you from a scandal, you must understand that."

She studied the way his brown eyes, that shimmered more melted honey and burning whisky than deep oak, pleaded with her own to take his words for what they were. But what felt like the truth to the Viscount, were words of blatant deception to her, merely the answer he believed would perhaps ease her afflictions and bring him back into her good graces. A sharp exhale flew filtered through her lips, on the tail of a laugh, although this one was drenched to its core with a vacancy and deep chill that pained her own heart.

"I am not one to be taken down by a loose tongue or a bounty of written words in a gossip column. I bear no importance nor esteem by this society, so please do not endeavor to enact the heroic protagonist, My Lord, you were merely protecting yourself."

She had met him as a seamstress one day, when he'd arrived at Madame Delacroix's with his younger sister in hand, graciously offering to take her to the modiste in place of their mother who had come down with a dreadful cold. Winter had melted from the air just as the last of the crystal white snow, a gentle warmth bathing across London in a timid stream of chilled mornings and comfortable afternoons. Birds flocked back as their songs carried with the rising marigold sun and the flora that had gone dormant beneath the captive winter months, returned full bloom as their pastel hues and rich aromas made the streets and ever flowing landscape come to life in a way only the fresh breath of the spring season could endeavor to do.

She'd known who he was, she'd known of his name, his title, and of his prominent family. But more than what every commoner was bound to know in the basis of London society, she knew of his reputation and had read of his countless conquests in the sharp minded Lady Whistledown and heard the stories from those mischievous enough to spill about him. But she had never known how easy it would be to fall for the Viscount.

Perhaps she should have, with his enticing eyes that burned a low simmering bourbon, sparkling with a golden hue as though the most subtle flakes swirled within the orbs of melting copper. Thick curls of the softest chestnut brown, tumbling across his forehead in a tousled appearance that looked anything but messy. A physique that was just as miraculously handsome clothed in the most exquisitely tailored fabrics, as it was completely bare and hovering above her breathless frame. From the chiseled jaw line accentuated by that of his bushy sideburns, his broad shoulders that held the weight of his family and the burdens of his responsibilities upon their steady tips, the muscles that rippled below the surface of muslin and the faintest hint of tanned flesh. But perhaps what was most drawing about the Viscount, was the very attribute that warranted such a scandalous reputation.

His rakish smolder was enough to make any debutante swoon at the mere glimmer of the sight, a strong gaze that held power and authority in an alluring fashion, one that nearly soothed the burn of such staggering scrutiny in the very same breath. His lips had an uncanny ability to curl upwards in the softest shadow of a smile, a smirk that glinted with mischief in the core of his orbs. Anthony Bridgerton was a temptation, as though God had graced him with his looks but it was the devil himself, who had imparted him with the gift of suave and enigmatic charm. He was a rake, dangerous, beguiling and it only took one swift swoop, for her to fall just as so many other women before her.

It was only as she lay awake that very first night, spent coiled tightly in the secure hold of his strong arms, body sore but soaring with a level of bliss unmatched by any sensation she had ever felt prior, that she realized just how far she'd truly fallen. Their affair, whatever one might identify it as, became a comfort for them both. For it was not love that bonded them, nor a single bout of pure lust but rather, a mutual care, attraction and longing for the other that inevitably kept them tied. Coming back to one another, night after night, week after week, until each other's arms became a serene destination of predictable comfort and warmth. Separated only by the restraints of an unforgiving London society.

She'd spent many nights in his bed, a private bachelor lodging on the other side of town. She spent it covered in his kisses, burned by the heat of his touch, sore by the mere stretch of her smile, but each and every night shared with Anthony Bridgerton, she'd spent content. Even as the voice she'd pushed to the furthest corner of her mind, reminded her that what they had was never to be, not in the end anyway. But it was never more apparent than that very night, when she'd joined her dear friend Alice Mondrich in support of her husband Will, and heard the truth behind Anthony's real needs for her. What he truly thought of her, what he'd managed to conceal from the affection in his eyes while keeping it locked in the core of his chest, all of the time allowing his heart to continue to beat forth in tandem with her own.

"My dear wife informed me, My Lord, how Madame Delacroix's assistant deemed you by name, just the other day when you endeavored into her shop with your sister in hand. Are we to begin to believe there is something there, between you and that seamstress?"

Anthony could have refuted the notion in any fashion he wished. He could have dismissed the rather impudent inquiry all together, but instead, he decided to respond with a light bout of laughter, as though the mere notion itself was a joke.

"It would seem that perhaps I have allowed the help to become a tad too familiar."

Perhaps it should not have wounded her as harshly as it did, for she knew what she was to him, the basis of their hidden relationship and yet, even as he hid her away like his little secret, he hadn't made her feel any less than him until those very words funneled through his lips. And she couldn't help but believe and feel beating violently in the pit of her heart, that they were not merely words of opportunity. But rather, words that resided inside of himself, in the most truthful crevice of his core. Perhaps, that was where the real pain stemmed from, for knowing clear as day now, in what regards Anthony Bridgerton truly saw her when the light of reality was cast upon her.