#and damn you bridgerton i fell for your trap for a second there.

[tsuncda]

so am i right or am i right in my assertion that bridgerton doesn't actually do character work, it just rebrands it's main characters before their season begins and tries to recontextualize them as poor little meow meows.

[jameslovships]

Maybe for the prompt do smth about how once Anthony gets close to death and how him and Kate react to it. OR I always found it weird how despite Anthony claiming that he’d not be faithful in a loveless marriage Kate doesn’t think about whether he has a mistress or not. Maybe you can do an angsty fanfic where she thinks this and confronts him abt not spending time with her and rather with his (nonexistent) mistress.

hiii, thanks again for sending me the prompt, it’s been ages since i’ve written about Bridgerton but i hope you like it. i did the last one (Kate believing that Anthony has a mistress etc) i do have to say this was quite fun, i do like an angsty Kate, i might edit it later to add more layers of angst but here :)

~ Kate knew not to expect love from a rake like Anthony Bridgerton.

It sounded absurd, almost moronic that Kate had wired her brain not to expect love from her own husband.

A man who had covenanted before God and before witnesses to love her until death did they part.

She had been warned before either of them ventured into the covenant of marriage that love wasn't to be the foundation of their marriage as it pollutes and infects. Anthony was sure that love wasn't a thought or a feeling he wanted to explore with Kate. Anthony neither wasn't a man known for leaving subliminal messages.

He was painfully direct.

A bit too direct for Kate's liking.

He sat at this desk in his study, with his jaw pressed in, sipping a glass of bourbon darkly.

Kate had noticed his distance, how could she not?

It wrecked and rattled her.

She had noticed how hesitant he was to draw out words in a single breath whenever she'd ask about his day. He'd become tight lipped as his dark brown eyes stared back at the empty tumbler glass that was filled with liquor seconds ago. 

He seemed reluctant to pay his wife any mind and often left her in the company of herself to paint.

Kate often wondered whether he had fallen out of love with her.

It is obvious to Kate that she wasn't the type that rakes like Anthony Bridgerton fell in love with. She didn't exude beauty or grace like Edwina, her features were much more hidden.

Yet all she craved, all she yearned for was for a moment with him.

Her husband.

Did he hate her? 

How could one explain such distance, such disdain, such nonchalance for a woman one is covenanted to?

She hated how he avoided her even after an afternoon of being surrounded by male testerone at the club with the latter being the most painful.

He didn't even seem to notice the little things but she noticed everything.

The door creaked open as Kate stepped in, hesitant, "Anthony?"

His gorgeous brandy brown eyes didn't even fling a glance at Kate as he swirled his glass - "Not now, Kate."

Kate hated the silence but his brief but curt glances was worse. It felt like a sharp strangle, ridding her of her ability to breathe. His fingers no longer swam across the dip in her back when she slept, it was obvious that his heart had taken residency in another woman's.

Maybe Siena’s. 

She had noticed unexplained trips to possibly the opera.

Maybe, just maybe, if the circumstances were different, Anthony would have wedded Siena especially when their courtship didn't happen organically. The curious eyes of Mary Sheffield, Lady Bridgeton and Lady Featherington had found them both in a compromising position together. To not marry would have put a visible stain of Kate’s marriage prospects. 

It had to be that, it was a painful reality to Kate that he had found a woman more desirable, more worthy of his love than his own wife.

After all, men are passionate beings.

Kate conjured all of the things she might have done to push him into the arms of a stranger. Maybe he had grown tired of her scent of soap and lillies and craved more sensual scent to devour or the way she wore her hair.

"Then when am I at liberty to speak, my lord?" Kate choked out, trying to paint a subdued face. 

Anthony hissed with the bottom rim of the glass clunking on the desk - "I said I'm busy, Kate"

Kate arched her eyebrow as her tongue held a bit more venom, "Your work affairs can wait, my lord."

Anthony was still barcidading Kate's attempt for a sit down, until, her voice cracked a desperate please. 

"Please, my lord?"

He nodded glumly giving her the aye she needed to proceed. 

"You've been awfully distant, my lord?" Kate began fiddling with her gold wedding band. Anthony's eyes were dark and dipped low, his face expressionless. "As I said, I've been tied up with work affairs - "

Kate butted in, paying no mind to the ethics of call and response, "So that is viable explanation for your distance?" 

Anthony's fingers tapped against the desk, trying to block out. 

He didn't have the courage to tell his wife that he had grown so fond of her, how above all, he thoroughly enjoyed her company. But each time he felt a pull to open up the can of his deepest and darkest secrets, he'd be reminded.

Reminded of the heartbreak that almost tore through his family when his father died at the youthful age of 38 and how his mother, Violet, disappeared into the shell of the person she once was. 

He didn't ever want Kate to experience such a loss and if he had to make attempts to distance himself from her, he would.It was so painstakingly hard when her heart was so inviting. 

Kate stood there abject, almost defeated - "You've found another woman to wed, I presume?"Anthony, for the first time, swung Kate a smirked look which didn't calm her waters but sent her blazing. 

Kate didn’t even wait for Anthony to form a response, she was heading for the hills and would castrate him if she needed to. 

"I mean this with all due respect, my lord" Kate began with her eyes jutted, "I believed you to be nothing but a rake from our first meeting. It is damning that my initial observations have proved to be true. Believe me, it is indeed a shame. You've trapped me into a covenant where you professed that respect was two ways. Have you no regard for me, your wife?" 

Anthony chuckled at an irate Kate who didn't take his upturned smile too kindly.

"I suppose this is all humourous to you my lord?" Kate gnashed, her temper flaring up and up and up. 

Anthony blinked, still smug - "It is rather funny, my dear Kate" 

"Please explain. I'm due a good laugh" Kate bit, clouds of pink filling her cheeks. 

"You burn me, Lady Bridgerton. There cannot be anyone else" 

Anthony stood up, gripping the inside of Kate's forearm and enrapturing her in a deep, sensual kiss.