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The house had settled into that quiet hour between afternoon duties and evening preparations, when the light softened and even the busiest corridors seemed to breathe.
Sophie stood at the long table in the morning room, sorting ribbons by shade for Hyacinth’s endless projects. Pale blue, dove grey, primrose, ivory. Her fingers moved with practiced care, though her attention drifted again and again toward the open doorway.
Footsteps sounded in the hall.
Not hurried. Not uncertain.
She did not look up.
She knew the cadence.
Benedict paused at the threshold.
He had not meant to stop. He had been crossing from the library to the garden, sketchbook in hand, his mind half on light and shadow and the shape of the late winter sky. But there she was, head bent, sunlight resting along the curve of her cheek, her sleeves rolled just enough to reveal the fine line of her wrists.
He stood there longer than was proper.
Sophie felt it before she saw him, the weight of attention, quiet but unmistakable. Her hands stilled over a length of ribbon.
Slowly, carefully, she lifted her gaze.
For a moment neither of them moved.
There was nothing improper in the scene. Nothing that could be remarked upon. A gentleman in a doorway. A housemaid at her work.
And yet the air between them tightened, as though something invisible had been drawn taut.
He inclined his head.
She dropped her eyes at once.
But not before he saw it, that flicker of warmth, quickly hidden. Not before she saw the answering softness in his expression.
He should have walked on. Walked away like she had from his offer… but he couldn’t. Something in his soul stopped him.
Instead, he stepped into the room.
The sound of his boots on the carpet seemed far too loud. Sophie reached for another ribbon, though her fingers had begun to tremble slightly.
He moved to the table opposite her, ostensibly searching for nothing in particular. The distance between them was proper. Respectable.
Too close.
Too far.
The sunlight shifted, catching the dust in the air between them like fine gold.
Sophie gathered the ribbons into a neat stack and turned, meaning to carry them away before the silence grew unbearable.
At the same moment, Benedict reached for a loose length that had slipped toward the edge.
Their hands met.
It was the lightest of touches. Barely more than the brush of skin against skin.
Still, both of them stilled as if struck.
Sophie’s breath caught.
His fingers did not close around hers. He did not hold her.
But he did not move away at once, either.
The ribbon slipped between them, forgotten.
For a heartbeat or two, they simply remained like that, hands touching, eyes lifting at the same moment.
The world outside the room seemed to recede and there was just the two of them in the world. No social restraints, no obligations. Nothing but the two of them.
There was surprise in her gaze. And something softer. Something that looked dangerously like relief.
His expression answered it without words.
Then she drew her hand back.
Quickly. Properly. The ribbon fell to the table between them.
“I beg your pardon, sir,” she murmured, though her voice had gone quiet and unsteady.
He shook his head once, almost imperceptibly.
Neither of them bent to pick up the ribbon.
Instead, Sophie gathered the stack she had meant to carry and turned toward the door that led to the servants’ passage.
She reached it at the same moment Benedict stepped aside to let her pass.
There was enough space.
And yet as she moved by him, the sleeve of her dress brushed his hand.
He did not move.
She slowed, just slightly, before forcing herself onward.
The contact lasted no more than a second.
It burned long after it was gone.
Sophie kept her eyes forward, her spine straight, her steps measured until she had turned the corner and the morning room was out of sight.
Only then did she stop.
Only then did she press the ribbons briefly against her chest, as if steadying something that threatened to come loose.
In the morning room, Benedict remained where he was.
The fallen ribbon lay across the table, pale and narrow and entirely ordinary.
He picked it up slowly.
For a moment he simply stood there, the silk resting across his palm, remembering the warmth of her hand, the way she had looked at him, as if she wanted the very thing she had already decided she could not have. The very thing she walked away from. But he knew there was something behind her quiet rejection of his offer. A secret she wouldn’t tell. Her heart was guarded but it was still his and he knew that his belonged to her.
The Lady in Silver was long forgotten, the only thing he wanted now… was Sophie.
He folded the ribbon once.
Then, after a long hesitation, he slipped it into the pocket of his coat.
When he left the room, he did not look back.
But for the rest of the afternoon, he found himself aware of the lightest brush of fabric against his hand, like he had once done with that silver glove he’d not looked at in weeks and wishing, not for the first time, that he was anyone but a Bridgerton.
All he wanted… was to be with her.