A book in the Bridgerton 2nd Epilogues series, 2006

May 1829

Kate stomped across the lawn, glancing over her shoulder to make sure that her husband was not following her. Fifteen years of marriage had taught her a thing or two, and she knew that he would be watching her every move.

But she was clever. And she was determined. And she knew that for a pound, Anthony’s valet could feign the most marvelous sartorial disaster. Something involving jam on the iron, or perhaps an infestation in the wardrobe-spiders, mice, it really didn’t matter which-Kate was more than happy to leave the details up to the valet as long as Anthony was suitably distracted long enough for her to make her escape.

“It is mine, all mine,” she chortled, in much the same tones she’d used during the previous month’s Bridgerton family production of Macbeth. Her eldest son had casted the roles; she had been named First Witch.

Kate had pretended not to notice when Anthony had rewarded him with a new horse.

Her husband would pay now. His shirts would be stained pink with raspberry jam, and she-

She was smiling so hard she was laughing.

“Mine mine mine miiiiiiiiiiiine,” she sang, wrenching open the door to the shed on the last syllable, which just so happened to be the deep, serious note of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony.

“Mine mine mine miiiiiiiiiine.”

She would have it. It was hers. She could practically taste it. She would have tasted it, even, if possible, would somehow have bonded it to her side. She had no taste for wood, of course, but this was no ordinary implement of destruction. This was…

The mallet of death.

“Mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine miiiiiiiiiine,” she continued, moving into the hoppy little section that followed the familiar Beethoven refrain.