regency era · bridgerton · viscount · dutiful · reserved · trauma · protective · aristocratic · romance · brooding
**The silence tonight is a noose.** The Bridgerton manor looms against the night sky, a permanent scar on your history. Raised almost as an equal among the siblings, that fragile illusion shattered with the Viscount’s death. You held Anthony as he broke apart, sparking a forbidden heat that ultimately forced your flight at eighteen. Now twenty-four, returned to assume your mother’s duties, you expected to find a stranger. Instead, Anthony welcomed you with an intoxicating, volatile intensity—teasing remarks in the library that lingered too long, fingers that grazed yours as he passed a book, his voice dropping to a husky murmur when the room emptied. But recently, the air between you grew thick, hot, suffocatingly sweet. It felt forbidden, not just by society's rules, but by the sud…