Chapter Text

Prologue

“You are taking the other position?”

 “If it is offered to me, yes.” Sophie looked down. “Tonight would be my last night here. I… I wanted to say goodbye.”

 “But… what about…?”

 “I am not with child.” Benedict’s face darkened. “I never was, apparently. My courses returned last night."

 “I see.” He had straightened up, smoothed his features into an impenetrable mask. But his eyes still glistened. “You still do not have to take a new position, though. I promised I would take care of you.” He chuckled, a small smile teasing at the corners of his mouth. “That remains true whether or not you are with child.”

 “That is kind of you. Most gentlemanly.” Sophie paused. Breaking his heart – and her own – was going to be the hardest thing she ever did “But you do not owe me anything.”

 “But this was never to do with owing you something, Sophie, and you know that. It was about –”

 “Love?” Sophie smirked, her tone incredulous. Benedict nodded helplessly. “I thought it could be enough. I…” She sighed.

 “I wanted it to be enough. But we both know it is not. What is love in the face of generations of established practice? In the face of society, of the strong lines drawn to divide us? I do not wish to fight against all of that any more than you do. I am tired, Benedict.” She stepped towards him, though she could not meet his gaze and instead kept her eyes trained on his necktie. “Your family. I have never seen before such mutual love. I could not live with myself if I tore you away from them.”

 Benedict ducked his head, brow furrowed and nodding spasmodically. He turned away slightly, though Sophie could still see his face crumpling.

 “I could still take care of you.” He finally said, his voice thick with emotion. “I… I could get you an apartment in the city. Or you could stay at Bridgerton House, if that is what you wish.”

 Sophie’s resolve nearly wavered. She had shoved her feelings so far down into her belly, but they were threatening to burst forth now. But she could not waver. Her lie would quickly become apparent and her life – their lives – would never be the same.  

 “The more closely we remain connected, the more tempted we will be.” A truth both of them could rightly acknowledge. “And eventually we will make the same mistake we already made once.”

 “Please do not call what happened between us a mistake. Please.” His face was too close to hers, her nose practically meeting his chin. He wrapped his hands around her waist. She did not even try to pull away. This would be her last chance to be near him, she may as well embrace it – and him. They pressed their foreheads together for a long moment before Sophie pulled away to look at Benedict.

 “I must go,” she whispered into the narrow space between them. And she left Benedict there in the garden, refusing to let herself look back because if she did, she would not be able to leave him again.

 The tears began flowing in earnest as she shut her bedroom door behind her. She slid to the ground, one hand over her mouth to muffle her cries, the other pressed against the small but growing swelling in her abdomen.

“It is just you and I, now.” She whispered.

***

June 1818

Sophie

“Your papers are entirely in order, Miss Baek,” the pinch-nosed secretary – who had introduced himself to Sophie as Mr. Thomas Bright – folded closed the bundle of reference letters and character statements, tying them neatly with string. “And I am pleased to tell you that we can accept the child into this Hospital.”

Sophie’s breath caught in her chest. It was what she wanted – needed – to happen. She could not take the child with her to the Americas; the job would not even exist if she had the child with her. Lady Branksome had only agreed to take her on if she were able to gain admittance for the child into some charitable institution or other before their departure date, and that date was tomorrow. Without a job, Sophie would not be able to care for her child. With her child, Sophie would not be able to obtain employment. There was no winning, only finding a way to cause the least amount of harm to all involved.

That included Benedict. She was certain that if Benedict knew of the child, of their child, he would insist on caring for them both, and she could not ask him to give up his freedom – and his family – for that.

No, this was the best and only option for all involved. The child would be cared for (if not loved and cherished in the way Sophie would have wanted), Sophie would have a good job with a respectable family, and Benedict’s life could continue on unchanged.

“One last question, Miss Baek,” Sophie snapped back to the present, and to the reality that she was mere moments away from never seeing her daughter again. Mr. Bright had opened a thick, leather-bound volume and his pen was poised above the page. “Has the child been given a name?”

Sophie bit her lip. She had not even thought to name her daughter. Choosing a name on her own, without Benedict’s input, felt wrong. Besides, she had naively hoped not to grow attached to the child.  

Needless to say, that had not worked, and her arms ached with the thought that they would soon be empty.

“It is not strictly necessary, of course, so you need not worry if the child is not yet named.”

“Will she keep the name I give her?” Sophie blurted out, surprising herself.

Mr. Bright paused, pressing his thin lips into a rigid line. He used an ink-smudged knuckle to push his wire-rimmed spectacles back up the bridge of his nose.

“Well, no. But the name will go in the records, alongside yours, so if you or a relative wish to reclaim her one day, it can be helpful to have…” He trailed off, his gaze not quite meeting Sophie’s.

“The governors – or sometimes our patrons or matrons, or even the other children on some occasions – select a new name for each child. A fresh start from their difficult beginnings, you know, and they will be baptised under their new name.”

Sophie glanced at the sleeping face of her daughter, barely visible in the tightly-wrapped swaddle. If Sophie had thought she could lessen her sorrow by camouflaging the child in fabric or refusing to give it a name, she was wrong. In the twelve days since her birth, Sophie had memorised its every feature. The small, neat nose, narrow chin, and deep brown eyes that Sophie recognised as her own. Bow-shaped lips, the lower slightly out of proportion to the upper – those were Sophie’s as well. But Benedict was there too in the child’s thick mahogany-coloured curls and short, straight brows. Funnily enough, Sophie saw a bit of Hyacinth Bridgerton in that brow, although she’d never thought that Benedict and Hyacinth particularly resembled each other.

Her finger lightly traced the infant’s nose. Could she take those pieces of features – those little bits of each of her and Benedict puzzled together onto a new canvas – and create a picture of her daughter in ten, twenty, thirty years? Or would she run head on into her adult daughter and not recognise her?

Sophie shook her head. It did not matter. She would be in the Americas, and her child would stay in London. Their paths would never cross again. So to give her a name that she would never use or perhaps even know, to connect her to a past that would mean nothing to her, seemed wholly unnecessary. And yet, Sophie could not help but leave a piece of herself and Benedict with her daughter. Even if it was with her for only a fleeting moment.

“Her name is Violet. Violet Sophia Baek.”