Chapter Text
"Will you please tell me your name?" Benedict Bridgerton whispered quietly, his lips a mere breath away from hers. It made Sophie shiver. This was the third time he pressed her too, and though she had been sidestepping his question quite cleverly if she said so herself, this time...This time, with his eyes burning so earnestly into hers, Sophie decided to give him a version of the truth. Just enough for him to understand why this couldn't be anything more than a mere fantasy.
"I can't," she admitted softly as he brought her closer to him, "I was raised to be the daughter of a nobleman."
That made his lips split into a grin yet again. "Yet you can not dance."
But it just made her dim a little. Suddenly, not knowing how to dance at a ball seemed like an insult, even though she could tell from Mr. Bridgerton's actions and amused tone that he meant it as a nice oddity.
"Because I was his ward," Her father never treated her as such, though. It wasn't until the New Lady Penwood arrived that things slowly started to change. Though it wasn't until death that Sophie was reduced to a maid, "My mother was a maid."
Like her mother.
"His ward..." Now Mr. Bridgerton's smile dimmed as he repeated her words. Even his grip on her waist faltered. Before, he had been pulling her close until there was no distance between them (Despite the fact that it went against propriety). Now, he still didn't let her go, but he took a whisper of a step back. Because everyone in society knew the implications of what a ward meant. An illegitimate child born out of a nobleman and his mistress more often than not.
"That's why I won't tell you my name. Because you can not call on me. Society will not recognize me, and if you tried, you would be laughed out of society as well. Besides that, the lady of my house will not let you."
Bells tolled in the distance, and cheers erupted from the house immediately after. Sophie looked away from the man in front of her to make sense of what was happening. Then she looked back at Benedict Bridgerton. "What does that mean? What is happening?"
"Midnight," Mr. Bridgerton said as if that were explanation enough. Then, as if an afterthought, he added to it. "People are to unmask at midnight."
Meaning Sophie's time as not a maid was up.
"I have to go." She pulled away from him as if she was burned. She turned to run up the steps. Then she stood and turned back to where Benedict Bridgerton still stood. He was staring after her.
She rushed back to him. Then, without thinking, she reached up and met his lips with hers in a kiss. It was a quick kiss. It was over as quickly as she started it. Sophie pulled away, and Mr. Bridgerton looked wonderstruck. She did not have the time to spare. Yet she squeezed his hand.
"Thank you. For making my night of fantasy that much more special to me." She said, before she turned, gripping her skirt as she ran up the steps and through the ballroom. She even collided with Araminta in her haste to get to the spare carriage where Alife would be waiting for her.
(Unaware to her, Benedict Bridgerton watched her disappear from his sight, before he started to race after her. A half-baked plan already forming in his head on how to make this-a courtship, a marriage-work between the two.)