An Offer from a Gentleman with 2nd Epilogue (22 page)

His eyes fell to her midsection. “It may very well be too late for that, Sophie.”

“I know,” she said quietly, “and it's already eating me up inside.”

“Regrets have a way of doing that.”

She looked away. “I don't regret what we did. I wish I could. I know I should. But I can't.”

Benedict just stared at her. He wanted to understand her,
but he just couldn't grasp how she could be so adamant about not wanting to be his mistress and have his children and at the same time
not
regret their lovemaking.

How could she say she loved him? It made the pain that much more intense.

“If we don't have a child,” she said quietly, “then I shall consider myself very lucky. And I won't tempt the fates again.”

“No, you'll merely tempt
me
,” he said, hearing the sneer in his voice and hating it.

She ignored him, drawing the blanket closer around her as she stared sightlessly at a painting on the wall. “I'll have a memory I will forever cherish. And that, I suppose, is why I can't regret what we did.”

“It won't keep you warm at night.”

“No,” she agreed sadly, “but it will keep my dreams full.”

“You're a coward,” he accused. “A coward for not chasing after those dreams.”

She turned around. “No,” she said, her voice remarkably even considering the way he was glaring at her. “What I am is a bastard. And before you say you don't care, let me assure you that I do. And so does everyone else. Not a day has gone by that I am not in some way reminded of the baseness of my birth.”

“Sophie . . .”

“If I have a child,” she said, her voice starting to crack, “do you know how much I would love it? More than life, more than breath, more than anything. How could I hurt my own child the way I've been hurt? How could I subject her to the same kind of pain?”

“Would you reject your child?”

“Of course not!”

“Then she wouldn't feel the same sort of pain,” Benedict said with a shrug. “Because I wouldn't reject her either.”

“You don't understand,” she said, the words ending on a whimper.

He pretended he hadn't heard her. “Am I correct in assuming that
you
were rejected by your parents?”

Her smile was tight and ironic. “Not precisely. Ignored would be a better description.”

“Sophie,” he said, rushing toward her and gathering her in his arms, “you don't have to repeat the mistakes of your parents.”

“I know,” she said sadly, not struggling in his embrace, but not returning it either. “And that's why I cannot be your mistress. I won't relive my mother's life.”

“You wouldn't—”

“They say that a smart person learns from her mistakes,” she interrupted, her voice forcefully ending his protest. “But a truly smart person learns from other people's mistakes.” She pulled away, then turned to face him. “I'd like to think I'm a truly smart person. Please don't take that away from me.”

There was a desperate, almost palpable, pain in her eyes. It hit him in the chest, and he staggered back a step.

“I'd like to get dressed,” she said, turning away. “I think you should leave.”

He stared at her back for several seconds before saying, “I could make you change your mind. I could kiss you, and you would—”

“You wouldn't,” she said, not moving a muscle. “It isn't in you.”

“It
is
.”

“You would kiss me, and then you would hate yourself. And it would only take a second.”

He left without another word, letting the click of the door signal his departure.

Inside the room, Sophie's quivering hands dropped the blanket, and she crumpled onto the sofa, forever staining its delicate fabric with her tears.

Pickings have been slim this past fortnight for marriage-minded misses and their mamas. The crop of bachelors is low to begin with this season, as two of 1816's most eligible, the Duke of Ashbourne and the Earl of Macclesfield, got themselves leg-shackled last year.

To make matters worse, the two unmarried Bridgerton brothers (discounting Gregory, who is only sixteen and hardly in a position to aid any poor, young misses on the marriage mart) have made themselves very scarce. Colin, This Author is told, is out of town, possibly in Wales or Scotland (although no one seems to know why he would go to Wales or Scotland in the middle of the season). Benedict's story is more puzzling. He is apparently in London, but he eschews all polite social gatherings in favor of less genteel milieus.

Although if truth be told, This Author should not give the impression that the aforementioned Mr. Bridgerton has been spending his every waking hour in debauched abandon. If accounts are correct, he has spent most of the past fortnight in his lodgings on Bruton Street.

As there have been no rumors that he is ill, This Author can only assume that he has finally come to the conclusion that the London season is utterly dull and not worth his time.

Smart man, indeed.

L
ADY
W
HISTLEDOWN'S
S
OCIETY
P
APERS
, 9 J
UNE
1817

S
ophie didn't see Benedict for a full fortnight. She didn't know whether to be pleased, surprised, or disappointed. She didn't know whether she
was
pleased, surprised, or disappointed.

She didn't know anything these days. Half the time she felt like she didn't even know herself.

She was certain that she had made the right decision in yet again refusing Benedict's offer. She knew it in her head, and even though she ached for the man she loved, she knew it in her heart. She had suffered too much pain from her bastardy ever to risk imposing the same on a child, especially one of her own.

No, that was not true. She had risked it once. And she couldn't quite make herself regret it. The memory was too precious. But that didn't mean she should do it again.

But if she was so certain that she'd done the right thing, why did it hurt so much? It was as if her heart were perpetually breaking. Every day, it tore some more, and every day, Sophie told herself that it could not get worse, that surely her heart was finished breaking, that it was finally well and fully broken, and yet every night she cried herself to sleep, aching for Benedict.

And every day she felt even worse.

Her tension was intensified by the fact that she was terrified to step outside the house. Posy would surely be looking for her, and Sophie thought it best if Posy didn't find her.

Not that she thought Posy was likely to reveal her presence here in London to Araminta; Sophie knew Posy well enough to trust that Posy would never deliberately break a promise. And Posy's nod when Sophie had been frantically shaking her head could definitely be considered a promise.

But as true of heart as Posy was when it came to keeping promises, the same could not, unfortunately, be said of her lips. And Sophie could easily imagine a scenario—many scenarios as a matter of fact—in which Posy would accidentally
blurt out that she'd seen Sophie. Which meant that Sophie's one big advantage was that Posy didn't know where Sophie was staying. For all she knew, Sophie had just been out for a stroll. Or maybe Sophie had come to spy on Araminta.

In all truth, that seemed an awful lot more plausible than the truth, which was that Sophie just happened to have been blackmailed into taking a job as a lady's maid just down the street.

And so, Sophie's emotions kept darting back and forth from melancholy to nervous, brokenhearted to downright fearful.

She'd managed to keep most of this to herself, but she knew she had grown distracted and quiet, and she also knew that Lady Bridgerton and her daughters had noticed it. They looked at her with concerned expressions, spoke with an extra gentleness. And they kept wondering why she did not come to tea.

“Sophie! There you are!”

Sophie had been hurrying to her room, where a small pile of mending awaited, but Lady Bridgerton had caught her in the hall.

She stopped and tried to manage a smile of greeting as she bobbed a curtsy. “Good afternoon, Lady Bridgerton.”

“Good afternoon, Sophie. I have been looking all over for you.”

Sophie stared at her blankly. She seemed to do a lot of that lately. It was difficult to focus on anything. “You have?” she asked.

“Yes. I was wondering why you haven't been to tea all week. You know that you are always invited when we are taking it informally.”

Sophie felt her cheeks grow warm. She'd been avoiding tea because it was just so hard to be in the same room with all those Bridgertons at once and not to think of Benedict.
They all looked so alike, and whenever they were together they were such a family.

It forced Sophie to remember everything that she didn't have, reminded her of what she'd never have: a family of her own.

Someone to love. Someone who'd love her. All within the bounds of respectability and marriage.

She supposed there were women who could throw over respectability for passion and love. A very large part of her wished she were one of those women. But she was not. Love could not conquer all. At least not for her.

“I've been very busy,” she finally said to Lady Bridgerton.

Lady Bridgerton just smiled at her—a small, vaguely inquisitive smile, imposing a silence that forced Sophie to say more.

“With the mending,” she added.

“How terrible for you. I wasn't aware that we'd poked holes in quite so many stockings.”

“Oh, you haven't!” Sophie replied, biting her tongue the minute she said it. There went her excuse. “I have some mending of my own,” she improvised, gulping as she realized how bad that sounded. Lady Bridgerton well knew that Sophie had no clothes other than the ones she had given her, which were all, needless to say, in perfect condition. And besides, it was very bad form for Sophie to be doing her own mending during the day, when she was meant to be waiting on the girls. Lady Bridgerton was an understanding employer; she probably wouldn't have minded, but it went against Sophie's own code of ethics. She'd been given a job—a good one, even if it did involve getting her heart broken on a day to day basis—and she took pride in her work.

“I see,” Lady Bridgerton said, that enigmatic smile still in place on her face. “You may, of course, bring your own mending to tea.”

“Oh, but I could not dream of it.”

“But I am telling you that you
can
.”

And Sophie could tell by the tone of her voice that what she was really saying was that she
must
.

“Of course,” Sophie murmured, and followed her into the upstairs sitting room.

The girls were all there, in their usual places, bickering and smiling and tossing jokes (although thankfully no scones.) The eldest Bridgerton daughter, Daphne—now the Duchess of Hastings—was there as well, with her youngest daughter, Caroline, in her arms.

“Sophie!” Hyacinth said with a beam. “I thought you must have been ill.”

“But you just saw me this morning,” Sophie reminded her, “when I dressed your hair.”

“Yes, but you didn't seem quite yourself.”

Sophie had no suitable reply, since she really
hadn't
been quite herself. She couldn't very well contradict the truth. So she just sat in a chair and nodded when Francesca inquired if she wanted some tea.

“Penelope Featherington said she would drop by today,” Eloise said to her mother just as Sophie was taking her first sip. Sophie had never met Penelope, but she was frequently written about in
Whistledown
, and she knew that she and Eloise were fast friends.

“Has anyone noticed that Benedict hasn't visited in some time?” Hyacinth asked.

Sophie jabbed her finger but thankfully managed to keep from yelping with pain.

“He hasn't been by to see Simon and me, either,” Daphne said.

“Well, he told me he would help me with my arithmetic,” Hyacinth grumbled, “and he has most certainly reneged on his word.”

“I'm sure it has merely slipped his mind,” Lady Bridgerton said diplomatically. “Perhaps if you sent him a note.”

“Or simply banged on his door,” Francesca said, giving her eyes a slight roll. “It's not as if he lives very far away.”

“I am an unmarried female,” Hyacinth said with a huff. “I cannot visit bachelor lodgings.”

Sophie coughed.

“You're fourteen,” Francesca said disdainfully.

“Nevertheless!”

“You should ask Simon for help, anyway,” Daphne said. “He's much better with numbers than Benedict.”

“You know, she's right,” Hyacinth said, looking at her mother after shooting one last glare at Francesca. “Pity for Benedict. He's completely without use to me now.”

They all giggled, because they knew she was joking. Except for Sophie, who didn't think she knew how to giggle anymore.

“But in all seriousness,” Hyacinth continued, “what
is
he good at? Simon's better at numbers, and Anthony knows more of history. Colin's funnier, of course, and—”

“Art,” Sophie interrupted in a sharp voice, a little irritated that Benedict's own family didn't see his individuality and strengths.

Hyacinth looked at her in surprise. “I beg your pardon?”

“He's good at art,” Sophie repeated. “Quite a bit better than any of you, I imagine.”

That got everyone's attention, because while Sophie had let them see her naturally dry wit, she was generally soft-spoken, and she certainly had never said a sharp word to any of them.

“I didn't even know he drew,” Daphne said with quiet interest. “Or does he paint?”

Sophie glanced at her. Of the Bridgerton women, she knew Daphne the least, but it would have been impossible to miss the look of sharp intelligence in her eyes. Daphne was curious about her brother's hidden talent, she wanted to know why she didn't know about it, and most of all, she wanted to know why Sophie
did
.

In less than a second Sophie was able to see all of that in the young duchess's eyes. And in less than a second she decided that she'd made a mistake. If Benedict hadn't told his family about his art, then it wasn't her place to do so.

“He draws,” she finally said, in a voice that she hoped was curt enough to prevent further questions.

It was. No one said a word, although five pairs of eyes remained focused quite intently on her face.

“He sketches,” Sophie muttered.

She looked from face to face. Eloise's eyes were blinking rapidly. Lady Bridgerton wasn't blinking at all. “He's quite good,” Sophie muttered, mentally kicking herself even as she said it. There was something about silence among the Bridgertons that compelled her to fill the void.

Finally, after the longest moment of silence ever to fill the space of a second, Lady Bridgerton cleared her throat and said, “I should like to see one of his sketches.” She dabbed a napkin to her lips even though she hadn't taken a sip of her tea. “Provided, of course, that he cares to share it with me.”

Sophie stood up. “I think I should go.”

Lady Bridgerton speared her with her eyes. “Please,” she said, in a voice that was velvet over steel, “stay.”

Sophie sat back down.

Eloise jumped to her feet. “I think I hear Penelope.”

“You do not,” Hyacinth said.

“Why would I lie?”

“I certainly don't know, but—”

The butler appeared in the doorway. “Miss Penelope Featherington,” he intoned.

“See,”
Eloise shot at Hyacinth.

“Is this a bad time?” Penelope asked.

“No,” Daphne replied with a small, vaguely amused smile, “just an odd one.”

“Oh. Well, I could come back later, I suppose.”

“Of course not,” Lady Bridgerton said. “Please sit down and have some tea.”

Sophie watched as the young woman took a seat on the sofa next to Francesca. Penelope was no sophisticated beauty, but she was rather fetching in her own, uncomplicated way. Her hair was a brownish red, and her cheeks were lightly dusted with freckles. Her complexion was a touch sallow, although Sophie had a suspicion that that had more to do with her unattractive yellow frock than anything else.

Come to think of it, she rather thought that she'd read something in Lady Whistledown's column about Penelope's awful clothes. Pity the poor girl couldn't talk her mother into letting her wear blue.

But as Sophie surreptitiously studied Penelope, she became aware that Penelope was not-so-surreptitiously studying her.

“Have we met?” Penelope suddenly asked.

Sophie was suddenly gripped by an awful, premonition-like feeling. Or maybe it was déjà vu. “I don't think so,” she said quickly.

Penelope's gaze didn't waver from her face. “Are you certain?”

“I—I don't see how we could have done.”

Penelope let out a little breath and shook her head, as if clearing cobwebs from her mind. “I'm sure you're correct. But there is something terribly familiar about you.”

“Sophie is our new lady's maid,” Hyacinth said, as if that would explain anything. “She usually joins us for tea when we're only family.”

Sophie watched Penelope as she murmured something in response, and then suddenly it hit her. She
had
seen Penelope before! It had been at the masquerade, probably no more than ten seconds before she'd met Benedict.

She'd just made her entrance, and the young men who had quickly surrounded her had still been making their way to her side. Penelope had been standing right there, dressed in some rather strange green costume with a funny hat. For
some reason she hadn't been wearing a mask. Sophie had stared at her for a moment, trying to figure out what her costume was meant to be, when a young gentleman had bumped into Penelope, nearly knocking her to the floor.