Chapter Text
The sold out Edwina concert in Amsterdam started at 7pm with Eddie taking the stage in front of 71,000 people about an hour and a half later. While the show itself was phenomenal (Edwina was a pint-sized juggernaut of pop-themed prowess.), by 10pm it had become a major entertainment news story across Europe, not because of what was happening on stage, but because of what was happening in front of it.
Photos went viral on social media. They showed the lead singer of the band Aubrey Hall, Anthony Bridgerton, in the front row of the concert. His arms were intimately wound around Aubrey Hall’s frontwoman and super producer, Kathani Sharma (also Edwina’s sister). The two of them were shown dancing, hugging and kissing each other as if no one was watching, while at least a hundred people in their immediate vicinity looked on.
Out of the forty-six photos that made it online, taken from at least eleven unique vantage points, one photo in particular ended up splashed across all the gossip websites. It was the only one with a legitimately clear shot of the couple, taken at a moment when lights from the stage had shone directly into the crowd, bathing Anthony and Kathani fully in a thick, white beam for a fraction of a second — that fraction forever digitally immortalized and replicated tens of thousands of times.
In the photo, Kathani was leaning backwards into Anthony’s shoulder. Their faces melted into each other, while one of Kathani’s hands reached backwards to grasp the back of Anthony’s neck. On that hand was a ring that looked suspiciously as if it had two gemstones and a diamond sitting atop its band, and it was on Kathani’s left hand, on her ring-finger.
A couple of hours passed as, one by one, mainstream media outlets around the world caught onto the online chatter, and the photos went viral a second time the old-school way.
The ring was identified as an engagement ring, which had journalists immediately debating when exactly the duo’s relationship had become more than the deliberately enigmatic, tempestuous, but creatively rich working relationship the world had assumed it to be. Nobody had ever been able to confirm Anthony and Kathani as a couple before this point in time. Though the rumors had swirled for years, the idea that these band mates had secretly been together for any period of time, and that a marriage — or, better still, a wedding — was now imminent, was beyond belief. The sudden realization of everything this meant, of what it revealed about the band’s music, sent shockwaves through the ethereal universe of transmedia celebrity gossip.
It was at that time that the infamous British gossip account @officialwhistledown published an Instagram story with accompanying IG and TikTok posts, captioned, “The Kanthony Relationship Timeline (FULL).” The narrative included details no other outlet had pieced together, such as when the couple had first met, which was half a year before anyone else had speculated, the first time they had traveled together, the alleged date Kathani broke off her relationship with one of Aubrey Hall’s tour medics, and the fact that she and Anthony Bridgerton had separately gone to India at one point, only to meet up secretly at an undisclosed location on the Western coast.
The account had the dates of near break-ups, arguments in Paris, alleged public sex in Paris (which the account itself said it did not believe) and it also had the value and provenance of the ring. Oh, yes, that was what everyone wanted to know about: the antique 5 carat Asscher Cut diamond, from the Bridgerton vault, set between two 200-year old Sri Lankan rubies and two elegant, natural saltwater pearls, on an 18 carat yellow gold band. The pearls were repurposed from the engagement ring Anthony’s father had given to storied music manager-turned label exec Violet Bridgerton (neé Ledger) 37 years prior, and the ring was designed by Anthony and the head jewelers at the House of Royal Asscher diamond company in Amsterdam, valued at £800,000 or about 1 million USD.
All in all, the Whistledown timeline stretched back three and a half years, matter-of-factly citing the dates of at least twenty major milestones in Anthony and Kathani’s relationship. Worldwide, no other gossip site, tabloid, music commentator, culture magazine, or hard news source had this scoop. And so @officialwhistledown won the news day, with its followers trolling other sites in the comments to say, “Credit the original source. Whistledown had it first.”
Two days after the timeline had gone live on Whistledown, garnering 1.3 million likes and hundreds of comments — a comment appeared on the post, written by @anthonybridgerton. It was a parrot emoji. Deliciously cryptic.
The comment whipped the media and the general public into a brand new frenzy. Most pop culture pundits and online followers reached consensus about the connotation: “Parrots simply repeat what they hear.” On some level, that probably had been part of the intended meaning, Anthony thought to himself. The other side of the coin was the colorful feathers on that parrot.
Feathers. Featherington. Ha.
Imbecile.
Nobody would ever make that connection — the verbal riff a too esoteric and dependent on specific knowledge of the person in question; despite her trust fund and her standing invites to all major society and industry events from London to Cannes, Penelope was not globally famous enough and too obscure, even on the British Isles, to be attached to the Page Six-eclipsing theater of her own making, and that’s exactly what had kept her safe all this time.
No. It wasn’t an attempt at exposure; it was a message. He could say her name whenever he wanted, for all the world to see. He hadn’t. But he could. It was time for her to get off his teat, for her own good.
It was Monday morning. Anthony was sitting up in a hotel bed, scrolling the newsfeed on his phone with one hand and caressing his fiancé’s bare stomach with the other. Kate had been wary of his decision to interact with the Whistledown story. Contrary to her currently relaxed demeanor, nakedly draped across him, in their bed, humming, scribbling in her notebook, and warming under his touch, she had bristled slightly when Anthony had squeezed her hand in the car, days earlier, turned his phone to her and flashed the damage.
“Really?” she’d said, with an eye roll. “Baby, you’re just giving her clicks. I’d sooner sue than boost her numbers.” She pursed her lips when she saw exactly what the emoji was, shaking her head fondly at her fiancé’s foolish ways.
“I was a heartbeat away from writing, ‘Piss off, Pen.’”
“I’d rather not have confirmed that we read what she writes at all,” Kate replied. Then, “Come here.” She took his face between her hands and pressed kisses into his dimples fondly, the way she always did when she found him exasperatingly alluring despite being slightly cross with him.
For a day, Kate’s words had given Anthony pause. Then he’d realized he actually had bigger things to worry about and called to have their flights re-chartered to extend their ‘layover’ in Copenhagen by two days. They were in the fair city now.
The plan was to rally the rest of the band, mum, his sisters, the littles, Simon, plus about thirty others, including Kate’s side. They all needed to be flown out, their local transport and accommodations locked. He and Kate had decided to time it so that Eddie could be involved with zero tour interruption, but nobody knew all the particulars except for mum, Mary, Agatha, and Jeremy Deacon Anthony’s godfather and his father’s old bandmate.
Mum and the ladies had arranged for a diversion to be set up in the UK. This would hopefully contain the circus to mainland England and minimize the chance of paparazzi interference with the new destination plan. Jeremy was deliberately blabbing about the fake proceedings in specific back rooms, to ‘sources’ who would ultimately lend credibility to the cover story. Their publicist at the label was exclusively communicating through Jeremy, so her nose was out of their business, and though the guests didn’t know the what or where of it all, they knew the when. In short, things were happening. And they were happening soon.
But, presently, Anthony needed to figure out how to squeeze in a meal. Kate had kept him sequestered the previous sixteen hours, subsisting on nothing but fizzy water, wine, and her body. Ever since he’d proposed, they’d been living on cloud nine, but something about the secret being out had made Kate insatiable. Not that he was complaining; he just needed some sustenance if she expected him to keep up the pace prior to the night before the wedding, when he knew their mums would pry them apart.
Anthony looked down at Kate; she was fully laying on top of him, her back to his chest, so that he’d have no hope of moving unless she allowed him to. She was still in her notebook, but he sensed she was getting distracted. He let his gaze trail over her curves until he felt her arch back into him suggestively. He tossed his phone to the side, and she flipped her notebook shut.