Work Text:
The truth was, she should have known. She should have known, as he’d said a long time ago, that she couldn’t be any different from all the other ladies. Eventually, she would have to bend. She would have to accept her place in society, because she simply had no other choice. Her options were limited. Either she married and became the property of a husband who would, hopefully, tolerate her. Maybe even love her. Or she became a spinster: lonely, isolated, pushed to the margins of society, punished for not being desired by a man.
There was a third option, a secret one, a dangerous one. One that lived in a print shop and wrote radical texts about the place women held in society. But that option had only ever been a fantasy, a silly game she played when she still believed she was free enough to become whoever she wanted. She had closed that door for good when he leaned in to kiss her and she pulled away. It was alright. That path would have led only to ruin for her family anyway, and she didn’t want to anger them. Especially since she depended on them financially.
She missed her father. She missed him every day, but especially when her mother pushed suitors on her. Her brothers were far too busy with their own wives to care much about her, but if her father were still here, he would have driven away the swarm of fortune hunters who invaded her space the moment she forced herself to smile at them.
Since when did she force herself to smile?
She had never wanted marriage. But she had wanted love. Once. Was it love? She didn’t know.
Benedict had been ready to cut ties with his family entirely for Sophie. She hadn’t been able to do the same for him.
But Benedict was a man, wasn’t he? And he’d planned to make Sophie his mistress and hide her away in a cottage. She didn’t have that option.
Would she have done it, if she could? Hidden him away somewhere and slipped in to join him…
He would never have accepted that. He would have laughed in her face. He would never have been her secret. He would have asked her to marry him.
They couldn’t marry. She didn’t want to marry. And he was still an apprentice. Anthony would have killed him.
They could have eloped.
No.
She didn’t want to elope.
She didn’t want anything, truthfully. She’d wanted to find out who Lady Whistledown was, and she’d wanted to convince her into writing more about women’s rights instead of gossip. Instead, she found out her best (her only) friend had lied to her, and would keep writing gossip instead of defending women from a system that oppressed them. She had… She…
She wanted to fly.
She would have kissed him. She would have kissed him and gone to Gretna Green and they would have lived in Scotland, not staring at sheep, but talking to fellow radicals. They would have fought for workers’ rights and women’s rights, and she would have been happy.
But her family would have been ruined.
Hyacinth had called her selfish, and all she’d wanted to do was tell her how much she’d sacrificed for her family. But what would be the point? They couldn’t know. And even if they did, nothing would change. They wanted her to marry and settle down.
So she would.
She’d been enough of a disappointment to her mother.
She thought maybe, with some luck, she could find someone who made her feel the way he did.
He made her feel important. Heard. Respected. Seen and understood. Valued.
When he touched her, when they were pressed close, she felt tingly and warm.
Or maybe it was better she didn’t meet someone like him. (She didn’t even think it possible.)
After all, it hurt. That whole experience had brought her nothing but pain.
He had been one of the only good things in her life. And he was gone.
She had already stopped talking. Maybe she should stop thinking too.