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He stood immediately to assist her. Good heavens, but she actually sounded as if she didn’t wish to leave. Gregory congratulated himself on an extremely productive breakfast.
“I shall find someone to carry it back for you,” he said, signaling to a footman.
“Oh, that would be lovely.” She smiled gratefully at him, and his heart quite literally skipped a beat. He’d thought it merely a figure of speech, but now he knew it was true. Love really could affect one’s internal organs.
“Please do offer Lady Lucinda my well wishes,” he said, watching curiously as Miss Watson heaped five slices of meat on the plate.
“Lucy likes bacon,” she said.
“I see that.”
And then she proceeded to spoon eggs, cod, potatoes, tomatoes, and then on a separate plate muffins and toast.
“Breakfast has always been her favorite meal,” Miss Watson said.
“Mine as well.”
“I shall tell her that.”
“I can’t imagine that she will be interested.”
A maid had entered the room with a tray, and Miss Watson placed the heaping plates upon it. “Oh, she will,” she said breezily. “Lucy is interested in everything. She does sums in her head, even. For entertainment.”
“You’re joking.” Gregory couldn’t imagine a less pleasant way to keep oneself occupied.
She placed her hand on her heart. “I swear it to you. I think she must be trying to improve her mind, because she was never very good at maths.” She walked to the door, then turned to face him. “Breakfast was lovely, Mr. Bridgerton. Thank you for the company and the conversation.”
He inclined his head. “The pleasure was all mine.”
Except that it wasn’t. She had enjoyed their time together, too. He could see it in her smile. And her eyes.
And he felt like a king.
“Did you know that if you die in your dreams, you die in your sleep?”
Lucy didn’t even pause in her cutting of her bacon. “Nonsense,” she said. “Who told you that?”
Hermione perched on the edge of the bed. “Mr. Bridgerton.”
Now that rated above bacon. Lucy looked up immediately. “Then you saw him at breakfast?”
Hermione nodded. “We sat across from each other. He helped me arrange for the tray.”
Lucy regarded her massive breakfast with dismay. Usually she managed to hide her ferocious appetite by dallying at the breakfast table, then getting another serving once the first wave of guests had departed.
Oh well, nothing to do about it. Gregory Bridgerton already thought her a widgeon—he might as well think her a widgeon who would weigh twelve stone by the year’s end.
“He’s rather amusing, actually,” Hermione said, absently twirling her hair.
“I’ve heard he’s quite charming.”
“Mmmm.”
Lucy watched her friend closely. Hermione was gazing out the window, and if she didn’t quite have that ridiculous memorizing-a-love-sonnet look to her, she had at least worked her way up to a couplet or two.
“He is extremely handsome,” Lucy said. There seemed no harm in confessing it. It wasn’t as if she was planning to set her cap for him, and his looks were fine enough that it could be interpreted as a statement of fact rather than opinion.
“Do you think so?” Hermione asked. She turned back to Lucy, her head tilting thoughtfully to the side.
