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Benedict began to wake from his fever, his body aching and tense, everything hurt and his head throbbed. He could hear bustling near him, he felt the presence of someone, something that caused his entire body to tingle in a way he had only felt once before.
The night of the masquerade. The night he had met her. What was it about the presence of the person near him that he was feeling those tingles. “Mr Bridgerton” he heard whispered into his brain and his brain was transported back 2 years prior.
Though his mystery lady hadn’t said his surname, she had said his first name. Oh how he wanted to hear that, how he wanted to hear his names pass the lips of that woman he craved above all else.
He felt a cold towel on his brow, and his memory jolted to his memories, to his dreams that night. He remembered the barest and lightest of pressure on his lips as he had begged the woman in his dreams to kiss him. A light quiet voice invaded his mind as he twitched and fought not to be brought from his sleep “I love you… I’ve always loved you” the woman in his dreams had whispered back to him but the rest was blurry… but oh how he had wished it would be the truth.
Yet he knows the truth, that visions are seldom all they seem.
Finally the need to wake, the lull of daytime pulled him from his slumber, from his dreams, tearing him from the dreams and his visions of his mystery lady.
But as he opened his eyes and was greeted by the greenest eyes he had ever seen, his heart almost started, it was the weirdest sense of deja vu, over the last two years he had forgotten, hell he couldn’t remember the colour of her eyes the moment she had left his side but here she was, caring for him in a way he would never have expected his heart knew just…
Sophie was his mystery lady.
“It’s you” he whispered his voice hoarse as he stretched a hand out to caress her cheek. “I know you, I walked with you once upon a dream” he said. “It was you, wasn't it Sophie… the lady from the ball” he said.
Sophie stared at him, too afraid to speak, too afraid to breathe as Benedict’s hand trailed across her cheek, caressing it in such a soft manner, it robbed her of sense, it made her heartache.
“I know you, i know I do, the gleam in your eyes is so familiar a gleam” he said as he looked at her, his eyes never wavering from hers. “Please tell me I'm right… Sophie… was it you?” he asked
Sophie felt tears welling in her eyes as she moved away from the bed, moved away from his touch because she couldn’t bear to see the disappointment in his eyes when she told him the truth, when she nodded and shattered his dreams.
She gave a small nod of her head, and a sniff, fighting back the tears that were forming in her eyes. “Yes, that was me,” she said, her voice so small and so quiet. “I’m so sorry” she said, the tone of her voice breaking Benedict’s heart.
He thought she would be more excited to find him, though he was thoroughly confused, Sophie was a housemaid… Not some fancy and great lady of the ton. “What are you sorry for?” he asked, turning, he wanted to get out of the bed but his entire body ached. He coughed and winced.
“Would you care for some water?” she asked, Benedict nodded, he was quite sure he would kill for a cup of tea but he had a feeling that if Sophie left the room to make tea, she would never come back in, or at least not long enough for them to have this conversation.
Sophie poured him the water and handed it to him, his hands shaking badly, from the fever or from the adrenaline running through him he did not know. Sophie had to help him take a drink, she went to walk away from him again but Benedict shot his hand out and grabbed her by the wrist to stop her from moving.
“Sophie… wait… what happened… I know you’re not a ladies maid, or a housemaid… What happened, where did you go?” he said, he had a thousand questions, he had to know, he had to find out what had happened.
“I... “ she stammered her own throat feeling like it was closing “i should never have been at that ball…” she said her eyes looking anywhere then where she should have.
“But you were, you belonged there Sophie, I just knew you did… I knew you seemed familiar last night” Benedict said. “Why did you not tell me last night when I asked if we had met before?”
Sophie let out a small snort “does it matter?”
“Of course it matters. I Looked for you. For 6 bloody months” he said, the slight edge to his voice causing him to cough.
Sophie gave him another drink “thank you”
She nodded, a meek nod of a housemaid, he hated it. “Sophie please… I have to know. I heard what you said last night” he said, hoping that that would stun her into speaking.
Her cheeks turned a beautiful shade of red that caused Benedict’s stomach to flop. “Please Sophie, you would not deprive a dying man of his last request now would you?”
“Please, you’re hardly dying,” she said with a shake of her head.
“Sophie…” he said.
Sophie let out a sigh, she can’t believe she had been so reckless. “It makes no difference if I was the lady from the ball or not, all that matters is that I am a housemaid… men like you only have a housemaid as a mistress and I am not going to be anyone’s mistress, not yours, not anyones” she said. “I can’t do it!” she added.
Benedict frowned at her “I wasn’t…” he said but his heart gave a treacherous lurch, she was right. The second son of a viscount wasn’t exactly in a position to marry a housemaid, it would cause all kinds of scandal, they would be kicked out of London. Ostracised from everything he had ever known, forced to live away from his family out in the country.
Sophie shook her head “No, maybe not now… but at some point”
“How did you get into the ball… you have some sort of connection to the Penwoods, I know as I went looking for you there” Benedict said.
Sophie flinched, Benedict noticed, he gave her hand a squeeze in an attempt to reassure her.
“Sophie, I just want to understand… I know you felt that connection too. I know you felt that magic, did I come on too strong… tell me…” his voice was so gentle and coaxing despite it’s hoarseness, Sophie was powerless to resist this man. She knew he would challenge her resolve.
“I did… I do feel it but Benedict…” she said, gasping a little as she realised she had called him by his name, not Mr Bridgerton… “the girl you walked with, the girl you danced with… it was a lie… it was false. I am not a lady, I know I don’t sound like a servant but that’s what I have been since the age of 14” she said, her tone so quiet and sad, just admitting this outloud, admitting the truth to herself, to him, was tearing her up inside.
“What were you before that?” he asked
“A bastard” she whispered so very quietly that Benedict barely heard it.
“A what?” he asked curiously, not realising that at that moment it was the exact wrong thing to say.
She wrenched her hand away from his, tugged it and took a step back and started to pace and the flood gates opened…
“The girl... the girl you wanted to meet the parents of doesn’t have parents!” she said getting in her stride, tears burning her green eyes, and the pain in her face made Benedict sit up straight in the bed.
“I don’t have a dog to pet! I don’t have two pennies to my name” she said a choked sob in her throat “you wanted to see where i lived? You would have seen a tiny, even smaller than usual servants room with a lock on the outside… where she used to lock me in!”
“The girl you wanted a future with doesn’t have a future of her own save for cleaning up after other people! I wasn’t brought up for this but the day he died my life changed! He told the world I was his ward, or at least the few people who actually knew of my existence, which I assure you, wasn’t many outside of Penwood Park! It made it easier for her to turn me into her slave!”
A sob broke out as she looked so heart broken, tears pouring down her beautiful face and refusing to look at Benedict’s face. Benedict watched this heartbreaking confession, her out cry, with his own face crumpled in pain, no one deserved this, no one deserved what Sophie had gone through…
“My mother died giving birth to me! She was a maid like me!” Sophie sobbed, she had no idea why she was pouring out her life story to this man, why she felt that he deserved the truth but she loved him, she loved him that night, and she knew she would love him for the rest of her miserable life but maybe if she told him the truth, he would realise that it was naught but a dream. A man like Benedict Bridgerton wasn’t about to marry a bastard, to marry a girl who had spent the last 8 years of her life being a slave and a servant.
“My father didn’t even know I existed til I was dropped at his door by my grandma, at the age of three with nothing but a note in my pocket. She was dying… she knew she couldn’t look after me anymore. He took one look at me and took me in and I was raised by servants. Raised as the ward of an Earl… when everyone knew the truth” Sophie continued as she wrapped her arms around her chest, as if holding herself tightly would stop her from completely falling apart.
Her heart ached for the life she could have had, the life that if her stupid father hadn’t of died, or at waited until after her debut to drop dead… there were so many what if’s that Sophie was dizzy thinking of them.
“He married when I was 11, he decided he needed an heir, a legitimate child! So he married her!” Sophie said with a sob, wiping her cheeks.
“I thought I was getting a family, getting sisters… but my already miserable life just got worse” she sobbed.
“She hated me, Rosamund bullied me… Posy mostly ignored me…” Sophie said, her chest heaving now “but then Sir died… and I was left alone in the world… and my role changed. Lady Penwood didn’t want to take me. She wanted to kick me out but she would have her portion tripled if she cared for me til I was 20… but my position changed. I became a servant, I became this!” she said gesturing “but unpaid. I was a ladies maid, a scullery maid and a housemaid all in one” she said with a sob.
“It was only because of the kindness of Mrs Gibbons and the other servants that I was cared for, it's always been like that. No one has ever loved me! I was just… an inconvenience for everyone, it was what I was told every day, sometimes twice a day for 6 years…” she said, not stopping with the steady stream of tears that fell down her face.
Benedict had to fight the urge to get out of bed, the fact he was completely naked the only reason he hadn’t moved, he watched her, the tears streaking her face, the pain and suffering that this beautiful and kind girl had gone through… and then last night. Dear Lord, no one should go through half of what she has gone through.
“You wanted to know how I ended up at that ball?” She said with a hiccup.
“Mrs Gibbons found my grandmother’s old dress and gloves… she dressed me and sent me. She told me for once in my life I was going to be what I should have always been, the daughter of an earl and be the belle of the ball” she said wistfully “it was the one thing I had alway wanted… to dance with a handsome man and to fall in love… but I knew my place. I knew that’s why I didn’t tell you. Why I kept it a secret, because men like you don’t fall in love with women like me, I was only ever supposed to be a passing fancy… but that night… what the best night of my miserable life! For once in my life I was seen as a beautiful woman, a person, not a housemaid, not an inconvenience… I was just… me” she said her words punctuated with sobs. “When she realised, she threw me out, after she locked me in the closet… and didn’t let me eat. Posy let me out and I ran away” she sniffled.
“I’ve spent the last two years wanting you to find me, wishing it but fearing it… that’s why I didn't tell you yesterday! I am the bastard daughter of an earl, I am a servant, I am nobody! You might have loved me at once, the way you did once upon a dream, but that was all it ever was… all it ever would be! A dream!”
That revelation finally did it. Sophie broke, her legs crumpled from beneath her and clinging to Benedict’s breeches she collapsed to her knees, pulling them to her chest and sobbed. Sobbed harder than she had in her 22 years of life.
She cried for her fate again, for what had been her fate for the last 8 years and what would be her fate for the rest of her life.
She wished that he would love her, the way he did in her dreams, she wanted to walk with him they way she had in her dreams, to be the one to know the gleam in his eyes, eyes that would be so familiar to her that they would always echo and reflect her own but she knew the truth as well that visions are seldom all they seem
Benedict watched her fall to the floor, his heart ached for this girl, he had loved her, no not had… that he still loved her. He had felt that in his heart the moment he had seen her enter the ballroom.
He didn’t want a perfect society woman, he wanted Sophie, he wanted her in all her flawed perfection, he wanted to be the one to love her, to treat her like a human, to love her with ever fibre of his being. He knew it wouldn’t be easy but it had to be worth it.
Sophie didn’t deserve to be second best to anyone, he knew that even if she would agree to go back to London and live with him as his mistress, he would never love or care for another woman the way he would Sophie. Sex had lost it’s appeal after he had met Sophie, it lacked connection and an intimacy he didn’t realise he had been missing.
Anthony had been the one to suggest that Sex was better with the woman you loved and know he had been struck by that lightening bolt, that he had felt that sting of love… his heart belonged to the woman who was breaking like glass in front of him and he knew he had to do something.
Carefully he wrapped the blanket around his waist, she didn’t need to see his manhood right at this moment in time, he climbed out of bed, ensuring the coverlet was secure in and not going to fall he got out of bed and sat on the floor with her, carefully and gingerly putting his arm around her and pulled her close to his chest.
“Sophie…” he said, his voice hoarse as he stroked her hair “I am sorry you had to go through this… but I don’t care about your past…” he said softly “all I care about is your future and that we will figure out… together” he said as he pulled her onto his lap, holding her head against his bare chest, pulling the goose down duvet off the bed and swaddled them both there on his bedroom floor and he held her, he just held her as she cried.
He had no idea what he was going to do, what they were going to do… but there was no way he was going to give up this dream, not when his dream fell asleep in his arms and was so much better than any of the realities he had envisaged in his head before today.