the comet
The column arrived with the morning post.
The footman placed it at the centre of the table. Hyacinth reached for it first, as she always did.
She unfolded it. She read the first line. Her eyes went to Benedict.
"Oh," she said, in the tone that meant she had found exactly what she was looking for.
"Don't," Benedict replied, without looking up from his eggs.
"This author," Hyacinth began, with the projected clarity of someone who waited her entire life for this moment, "observed something rather extraordinary at the Hastings ball last evening—"
"Hyacinth."
"—the second Bridgerton son, whose charm has graced four seasons of the ton's finest ballrooms while remaining entirely unattached, crossed the floor of the Hastings ballroom with focused purpose — he had just remembered where he was going."
The table went quiet. Anthony, to Benedict's left, was applying himself to his toast with great concentration. Colin, to his right, had put down his fork. Violet, at the head of the table, was smiling at the middle distance with the composure of a woman who was pleased and intended to remain dignified about it.
"The object of his singular attention," Hyacinth continued, undeterred, "was a Miss Astra Aberforth of Kew — newly arrived in society, in possession of a celestial guidebook she apparently considered essential evening attire, and entirely under the impression that the Hastings ball was a suitable occasion to read it."
"That's accurate," Eloise offered.
"Like a comet," Hyacinth read — "unexpected, brilliant, and apparently impossible to look away from — Miss Aberforth has arrived in London." She glanced up. "This author suspects the season will be considerably more interesting for it."
Silence.
Benedict set down his fork. "It said nothing about me specifically."
"It said you crossed the floor like a man who remembered where he was going," Colin replied. "After four seasons of not knowing."
