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That afternoon, Benedict Bridgerton discovered two truths in quick succession: that the household accounts were endless, and that no amount of tea could make them less tedious.
Anthony had lied when he said managing the finances was generally a straightforward task, and he would pay for his crimes when he returned from India. This Benedict vowed to himself.
Somewhere between the fertilizer expenses and the cost of firewood, his attention had begun to wander. Again. He told himself this was not unusual. Anyone would lose focus faced with such merciless columns of numbers. The human mind, after all, was created to appreciate art and poetry and music, not endure ledgers indefinitely. This, he decided wryly, was a scientific fact.
After one last, resentful glance at the accounts, Benedict closed the book and stretched until his back gave a satisfying crack. Convinced he had earned a break for some refreshments, he wandered downstairs, where he assumed his family would be gathered, debating something of great importance or absolute nonsense. Often both.
After a swift greeting to his mother and two sisters, he helped himself to a cup of tea—no sugar, a splash of milk—and was just deciding between a scone and biscuit when he noticed what they were saying.
“…she insisted she was quite well,” Eloise was saying, in the tone of someone cataloguing a very specific sort of stubbornness. “But she nearly dropped the tray, and when I touched her hand it was positively feverish.”
The scone slipped from his finger and rolled across the carpet.
“Brother, are you well?” Hyacinth called to him. “Do not say you are ill too?”
Benedict shook his head, grabbing another scone before taking his seat on the sofa next to their mother.
“Perfectly well,” he said in a breezy tone. “Who are you speaking of?”
“Sophie has been taken ill, dearest,” Violet supplied, confirming his suspicion.
“Ah,” he replied, ever a man of eloquence.
“She let me wear mismatched stockings,” Hyacinth was saying once Benedict managed to focus on his surroundings again. “That’s how I knew something was wrong, Sophie never overlooks… well, anything.”
Violet reached out and smoothed Hyacinth’s hair. “I am sure she will soon be back to making sure you are dressed properly.”
“Yes,” Eloise added briskly. “Mrs. Wilson has given her laudanum, and Mother has already delivered a lecture on the importance of rest. Crisis averted.”
Benedict hummed, as though in agreement. Then, a beat too late, “How ill?”
Three pairs of eyes looked at him. Eloise arched her brow.
“Fever,” Violet said gently. “Chills. Fatigue. Enough that she could scarcely remain standing, which is why she has been ordered to bed.”
“And she has been given leave?” Benedict inquired, keeping his voice as level as he could. “A few days, at least?”
“Why,” started Eloise, “are you conducting an inquiry?”
Benedict lifted one shoulder.
“You are not usually interested in household matters,” Eloise continued, leaning back in her seat.
“Idle curiosity,” he replied lightly. “Can I not simply make conversation?”
His sister’s eyes narrowed. “You usually make conversation about art or yourself.”
“I am expanding my repertoire,” Benedict said. “You should be proud.”
His sisters scoffed and remarked something about his habits, but he heard none of it. There was an odd ringing in his ears, and he felt rather warm under his collar. Benedict tugged at it, then he adjusted his cuff, then his sleeve. Then found he had nothing left to adjust.
An image of Sophie pale and unsteady had arisen unbidden in his mind. He had seen her just the day before, steady as ever, her eyes bright, posture immaculate. The idea of her ill, confined to bed, felt wrong in a way he could not quite articulate.
“Has Sophie been given a few days off?” he asked again, realizing no one had answered the first time.
Violet peered at him for a second longer than was necessary before nodding. “Of course. We are not monsters, Benedict. Miss Baek will have all the time she needs to recover from her illness.”
“Of course,” he murmured, taking another sip of his tea. He managed an agreeable nod at whatever it was Hyacinth just said, and then promptly lost track of the conversation.
Benedict's thoughts returned to My Cottage. Of the hours he and Sophie had spent together whilst he’d been injured. If he were back there, he might’ve knocked on Sophie’s door and asked after her himself. Seen to it that she was resting, that she wasn’t burning up. Perhaps he’d have sat by her side and read to her as she had done for him. They had been separated only by thin walls and narrow corridors then, not by servants’ staircases and unspoken rules; not by the grand architecture of a house designed to keep people in their proper places.
Gone was the easy rhythm they had fallen into at My Cottage. Here, in Mayfair, he could not so much as look at her too long without first assuring they were free of prying ears and eyes.
“You seem unusually preoccupied,” his mother’s voice suddenly infiltrated through the haze of memories bombarding him.
Benedict startled. He cleared his throat. “I beg your pardon?”
“With Sophie,” she clarified, nibbling on a cucumber sandwich.
For half a second, he forgot to breathe. Then he smiled, quick and bright, an expression he’d perfected over years of dodging his mother’s questions.
“I should hope I am allowed a passing concern,” he said lightly. “She did, after all, nurse me through a rather miserable injury.”
Violet simply nodded, blinking at him from across the sofa. The girls were engrossed in a heated discussion about an upcoming ball, but for once their mother was not rushing to quieten them.
“It would be ungracious of me not to wonder after her in return,” Benedict explained, a little uncomfortable under his mother’s watchful gaze. “Particularly when it was my decision to bring her into this household.”
Violet’s face contorted into an expression somewhere between surprise and amusement. “How considerate of you.”
Benedict smiled back.
They both reached for their teacups at the same time.
The clock chimed once. Then again.
He had retired early to his room at Bridgerton House after supper, but he did not undress for bed. Instead, he’d sat at his desk and dawdled the hours away, staring at the clock until well past midnight. The candle burned low beside him, wax pooling thickly at its base, its flame guttering every time he shifted in his chair. When the clock had finally chimed two in the morning, he’d stood.
Foregoing his coat and waistcoat, Benedict pulled on his boots and slipped into the corridor.
Bridgerton House was silent at long last, bedroom doors shut and the hallways devoid of staff. He moved with practiced ease, sidestepping floorboards he knew squeaked. Around the corner, through the door on his right, down the hallway, and up the stairs to the second floor. There, he paused to determine which room might be Sophie’s.
The second floor of Bridgerton House was home to the nursery, Gregory and Hyacinth’s bedrooms, as well as the rooms for the higher servants, like the lady’s maids. If he recalled correctly, the room nearest to the staircase traditionally belonged to his mother’s lady’s maid, Mrs. Wilson. That left two other rooms. The first one he peeked inside happened to be a storeroom of sorts, filled with boxes of old dresses and coats and boots.
Heart thudding, Benedict reached the door at the end of the corridor.
His hand was hovering over the wood before he’d registered what was happening. He hesitated. This was improper. Foolish. Entirely indefensible. And yet–
Benedict knocked once, soft enough that it might have been mistaken for a creak in the house. When there was no answer, he knocked again. Then, holding his breath, he eased the door open.
His breath caught.
Sophie lay atop the bed, blankets drawn up to her waist, dark hair loose against the pillow.
Benedict closed the door behind him.
For a long moment, he simply stood there, back against the door, fists clenched at his sides. All evening, he had told himself he only wished to lay his eyes upon her, to see for himself that she was resting. That this would be enough.
It was not.
He found himself crossing the room and crouching beside the bed. Her breathing was shallow but even, and her cheeks were flushed. She looked smaller somehow, diminished by illness in a way that made his chest ache sharply.
Knowing it was unwise, he couldn’t help but reach out and press the back of his fingers to her temple.
Too warm.
His expression tightened, and he slid his hand down her arm, circling around her wrist until his fingers found her pulse. It beat steadily beneath his touch, strong enough to reassure him, even as her skin burned beneath his own.
“Sophie,” he whispered so softly, he wasn’t sure if he’d even made a sound. She did not stir, and so he merely watched her, illuminated by moonlight and the fire roaring in the hearth. Eventually, a small sound escaped her, somewhere between a sigh and a groan, and her eyes fluttered open.
For a moment, she only stared at him, unfocused. Then–
“Mr. Bridgerton?” she mumbled, her voice hoarse with sleep.
“Benedict,” he corrected her out of habit.
A faint smile curved her lips, tired and slow. “I thought I was dreaming.”
His throat tightened. “I am real,” he whispered.
She hummed, her eyes fixed at a point somewhere near his shoulder.
He did not know what he had expected her to do. Sit up straight, perhaps. Tell him he was foolish and send him away. But she just lay there, uncharacteristically quiet and still.
“Does it hurt much?” he asked.
“Only when I move,” she said. Then, after a beat, she added, “And when I don’t.”
He let out a quiet sound that might have been a laugh. He wasn’t sure; he didn’t feel in control of himself anymore.
“You cannot be here,” she said suddenly, more alert now, though the laudanum still dulled the edges of her words. “If someone finds you here—”
“I know,” he said gently but without apology. “I will not stay long.”
She searched his face as though looking to catch him in a lie. Whatever she found there made her shoulders soften instead. She sank back against the pillow, all the fight draining out of her.
“You shouldn’t have come,” she told him, eyes drifting shut again.
“I had to,” he replied, sounding just as tired. He shifted closer, lowering himself to sit beside the bed, close enough now that he could feel the heat of her, could see the fine sheen of fever along her brow. “I heard you were ill,” he went on, “I wanted to see you. To know you were all right.”
Her fingers twitched against the blankets, drifting toward him before she seemed to think better of it. Benedict hesitated only a moment before turning his hand palm-up, his forefinger just barely brushing the back of hers.
Sophie’s fingers curled into his.
For one shameful, fleeting moment, he wished time would stop. That this small, suspended moment could be prolonged forever.
Then he felt sick at the thought. The sight of her so frail and poorly was more unsettling than he had imagined. Sophie looked all wrong curled into the sheet like this, and he wished more than anything to see her back on her feet, moving with those light footsteps and clever words she reserved just for him.
Her breath shuddered, and his attention sharply snapped back to her.
“This is a mistake,” she murmured, though her grip on his hand remained firm.
He did not reply but simply brushed a damp strand back from her forehead. She was clammy to the touch, and even he could tell the fever still had a hold on her.
“Do you need anything?” he asked her, unsure of what might make her feel better. “Water? Or perhaps some warm milk? I could fetch—”
Her head twisted away from him, and for the briefest moment he wondered if the laudanum was pulling her back under. But then, her face crumpled, and he saw a tear slip silently into her hair.
“What’s wrong? Did I say something?”
“Don’t,” she whispered.
The word barely made it past her lips. Her fingers tightened in his: a warning. Or a plea. He could not decide which was worse.
“Don’t be this kind to me,” she said, voice breaking despite her clear effort to keep it steady. “It makes it harder.”
He felt a lump rise in his throat.
“Harder to what?” he pried, leaning in as though he might coax the answer from her if he closed the distance between them.
She shook her head, a small, helpless motion against the pillow. Another tear followed the first, and then another.
“I know what this is meant to be,” she said, her words blurring together, the laudanum tugging her backward even as she fought it. “A kindness. Only that.” Her mouth trembled. “But I am not made of stone, Benedict.”
His name on her lips landed like a blow. So often he had asked her to call him by his given name, but she had never acquiesced. He pressed his lips together, a humorless breath leaving him through his nose. To hear her say it like this, half-dreaming and entirely undone, felt cruel in a way he could not quite name.
With a small whimper, she turned back toward him suddenly, her eyes bright and unfocused all at once, fever and feeling tangled together. Her grip on his hand tightened, anchoring him to the floor beside her bed.
“I think…” she began, then stopped. Swallowed. “I think I care for you more than I ought.”
The words hung between them, fragile as spun glass.
His heart thundered in his ears.
“Sophie,” he breathed, unable to form another coherent thought. All he could manage was her name, those six letters heavy with everything he could not say aloud.
She blinked up at him, confusion flickering across her face now, as if she had startled herself. Her lashes fluttered.
“I shouldn’t have said that,” she slurred, already drifting. “I’m… I’m just tired.”
Then, abruptly, her hand slackened in his, and he knew she was asleep again.
Benedict sat there, hunched over, her warmth still pressed into his palm. He brushed his thumb across her knuckles in a silent apology; in a promise he did not know how to keep.
By the time he rose from the floor, the light beyond the window had thinned the darkness enough to signal the impending dawn. He moved through the house unnoticed, the corridors mercifully empty. His thoughts, however, were not so easily contained. They drifted, once more, back to Wiltshire; to My Cottage and its narrow halls. To days of sunshine and laughter. The borrowed time he had shared with Sophie, and the freedom it had afforded them both.
As he slid into bed, Benedict wished his injury had never healed.