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Benedict burst like a hurricane out the front doors of Bridgerton House into the chilly night air. He hoped Sophie was wrapped up warmly. His mind was still reeling from his earlier revelation.
The necklace – the sketches – the other silver glove held tightly in his fist.
Sophie Baek and the Lady in Silver were one and the same.
He felt like a blind fool for not seeing it. Perhaps he had seen it and was too lost in the fantasy not to recognise the signs. Signs his heart and soul had been screaming at him to take notice at. How he had felt when he had held her hand in his helping her onto his phaeton. How her eyes had lit up when she saw him after he’d fought off Lord Cavender and his ungentlemanly gentleman friends (she had recognised him). How she held her hands behind her back when she walked in the gardens of My Cottage. The feel of her lips on his. Her telling him to focus on the lips when speaking French.
Focus on the lips…
Had he only focused on her lips – the one feature he truly remembered from their brief encounter – he would not have needed her necklace to finally piece it all together.
If he had only chased after her immediately at midnight at the end of the masquerade ball, he would not have lost her.
Not this time!
Benedict staggered to a halt outside the gates, looking left and right up the street. ‘Sophie?’ he called.
A deserted street to his left, and to his right a prison carriage trundling away, transporting a lone female occupant –
‘Benedict!’
His heart stopped, fear and rage stirring up inside him when he saw the pale, beautiful face through the iron bars who had called out his name.
‘Sophie!’ Benedict shouted, so loudly he awoke half the street. ‘Sophie!’
He raced after the carriage, his coat tails flapping like banners behind him, his determined face fixated, running like the devil was chasing him – or more precisely, running after the devils trying to take his angel from him. He would follow them to hell if he had to. Sophie watched in shock and awe as Benedict Bridgerton pursued them without horse or carriage to aid him. Her Prince Charming coming to her rescue without even questioning whether or not she deserved her present predicament. Blind to the few startled members of the ton still out for the evening, who paused pace to watch the inexplicable sight.
He truly loved her.
Candle lights rekindled behind twitching curtains in Benedict’s wake as he tore up Grosvenor Square, his boots pounding on the cobbles, getting closer and closer until –
Sophie cried out in alarm as Benedict took a running jump and landed on the back of the carriage, clinging to the bars to remain on, flushed countenance so close to hers she could feel his laboured breath fanning her face.
‘Oi!’ called the driver, craning round to see the madman impeding his duty. ‘What the bleedin' 'ell d’you think you’re doin’?!’
‘Sophie –’ panted Benedict, his eyes wide, one hand reaching through the bars to touch her cheek.
‘Benedict,’ said Sophie, her hand gripping his clenched around the bar and glove as he fought to stay upright, her free hand cupping his cheek in turn. ‘This is all a big mistake –’
‘Of course it is –’
‘I should never have left. I’m so sorry –’
‘I will get you out of there, Sophie. I promise you. I will see you released –’
But he got no further as the driver turned so sharply that Benedict lost his balance and his grip, the momentum sending him careering off. An airborne Benedict and an imprisoned Sophie clung desperately to the silver glove. But such silky material and Benedict’s sweat slick hand, the glove slipped through his fingers, and he landed hard in the road, rolling away like one of his dropped sketching pencils.
‘Benedict!’ Sophie cried. ‘Sir, stop! Please, he’s hurt!’ she implored the driver, who paid neither her nor Mr Bridgerton any heed.
Grunting in pain, feeling like all the breath had been knocked out of him, blinking blood out of his eye, Benedict raised his dazed head, his temporarily impaired vision watching two Sophie’s disappear into the night, clutching the silver glove.
‘Sophie…’ he whispered weakly.
Fate was cruel.
‘Oh my – Benedict!’ Violet had arrived, having heard from the servants that Sophie had left and that her son had gone after her. ‘What happened?’
‘They took her,’ said Benedict, clinging to his mother to steady himself as she helped him to stand.
‘To the prison?’ said Violet bewildered by this turn of events. ‘Whatever for? For what crimes?’
‘I do not know. But I know Sophie did not do it. We have to get there before she’s executed. Or sent to the Americas after all.’
‘Or imprisoned.’
Neither of those fates were an option.
‘I will not lose her! Not now that I have found her – again!’
Benedict had taken one step towards the prison when he stumbled, falling again, his head swimming. He did not care if he had to crawl on his hands and knees all night, he had to get there before the situation was out of their hands.
Violet helped Benedict up again. As she had done in his infancy when he had been learning to walk. ‘Benedict dear, you are injured and are in no fit state to walk anywhere on your own at present.’
‘Do not try to stop me, Mother!’
There came the neighing of horses, the clip clopping of hooves on cobbles and a rattle as the Bridgerton carriage, driven by John, pulled up beside them.
‘What kind of mother do you take me for?’ Violet asked sardonically. ‘I would not give my grandmother’s ring to just anyone, you know. And anyone who can win over Eloise is worth keeping.’
Benedict grinned, a little lopsidedly in his dazed state, and he and Violet climbed into the carriage and ordered John to drive post haste.
They were bringing Sophie home.
*
‘Why do you hate me so much?’ Sophie demanded of her stepmother through the bars of her cell.
Araminta turned cooly around to look at Sophie, raising her eyebrows at the chit of a girl’s presumption. ‘What makes you think a worthless bastard like you is worth enough of my attention to waste hating?’
‘Enough to have you hunting me all over Mayfair. You would not be here if you did not believe I was worth the time and effort to try and send me to prison. So, if this is the last time we are ever going to see each other, I have a right to know what it was I did to provoke such ardour of abhorrence.’
‘Is it not obvious? You were born,’ hissed Araminta. ‘You are nothing but an accident. A mistake. A stain on the good name Penwood. You should not even exist. You wormed your way into my home like a parasite. You stole my husband’s love. You stole Rosamund’s betrothed. You stole our money. Everything and everyone would have been better off if you had died at birth!’
If Araminta thought her words would break Sophie’s heart and spirit in their final moments, she was wrong.
‘My father loved you, Araminta,’ Sophie told her. ‘You took it for granted. And Mr Bridgerton would never have married Rosamund. Not with thirty-six thousand pounds. Not if she were the most beautiful woman in the ton. She would have blended in with the crowd of young ladies pursuing him. You only care about his surname, not the man behind the name. The artist. Flyer of kites. Champion of maids. Loving son and brother. A man who would stand up for what is right. Who would go to the ends of the earth for those he loves. Benedict Bridgerton loves me. He loves me so much he chased down the prison cart to stop me from being taken away. He would have chased me to the docks if you had just let me leave. It may be inconceivable to a heartless woman like you to understand why a gentleman like him could ever look at a lowly illegitimate maid like me. But it has happened. And it is real as I am standing here. He loves me.’
‘Then where is he?’
Sophie remained silent.
Araminta smirked in triumph. ‘Aren’t men fickle? Your dashing hero one moment, and then the next you are back to being the help. Perhaps he has heard the truth. That you are a liar and a thief.’
‘I’m not a thief!’
‘But you lied! The Lady in Silver. You are no enchanting lady. Do you think he will forgive you for making a fool out of him these past months? Pretending to be someone you are not. You are as noble as a potato. Do you think the Bridgertons would be caught dead to be seen entering –’
There was the sound of scuffling, raised angry male voices – ‘Let us pass!’ – the thud of knuckles hitting flesh and bone, with an accompanied clatter of knocked out teeth, a sickening thud, before two people came round the corner. Lady Violet Bridgerton, and ahead of her –
‘Benedict…’ Sophie breathed in relief.
‘Sophie.’ Benedict had a cut to his head and a bruised hand where he had planted a facer to gain entry, but these were of no consequence. He was here. He crossed the distance between them in three strides, not even sparing Araminta a glance, like she was a part of the grimy wall, and enveloped Sophie in his arms.
‘You are here,’ sighed Sophie against his chest.
‘I am here,’ Benedict assured her, kissing her temple. ‘All will be well, my darling Sophie.’
‘Is there a reason why my jailer is unconscious? And why my prison is busier than Oxford Street’ The magistrate had arrived. ‘I have not seen this much nobility in a prison since the Revolution.’
‘Sir!’ said Benedict instantly before Araminta could get a word in. ‘I must ask that your release this woman at once!’
‘Who, sir, are you?’
Benedict squared his shoulders and drew himself up to his full height. ‘Benedict Bridgerton, son to the late Viscount Edmund Bridgerton, and brother to the Viscount Anthony Bridgerton.’
‘And brother to the Duke of Hastings,’ added Violet for the full effect.
‘Mr Bridgerton is a second son,’ dismissed Araminta. ‘The girl is accused of stealing from a countess.’
‘You would besmirch my honour over a pair of shoe clips?’ scoffed Benedict.
‘They must have been tremendously valuable,’ said Violet dryly.
‘And whilst we are throwing around titles, Countess; I have a Duchess and Princess for sisters – wife to Prince Friedrich, the nephew of Queen Charlotte herself, I might add. So, I think you are outranked.’
‘She stole my shoe clips and impersonated nobility!’ said Araminta.
‘Only one of us has committed a crime, Lady Penwood. A far worse crime than the pawning of a pair of shoe clips. And I swear if my fiancée is not released in the next ten seconds, my face will be the last face you will see in this life. Second last if my mother gets in first.’
‘Fiancée?’ whispered Sophie.
Benedict turned to look at her with unfaltering love in his eyes. ‘Yes, um… I came to Bridgerton House to… ask you to marry me.’
‘You cannot marry her!’ snapped Araminta.
‘Oh, I’m sorry? Is there a law that I need a countess’s permission to wed, Mother?’
‘Not that I know of,’ said Violet.
‘She’s a thief!’
‘Is this really over a pair of shoe clips?’ asked the magistrate. This was a trivial as his daughter stealing her sister’s doll. ‘Pay the cost and be done with it.’
‘Certainly. A pair of paste shoe clips is easily covered,’ said Violet.
‘They were diamond clips!’
‘They really weren’t,’ said Sophie.
‘So you admit it! Your witness! She admits she stole them!’
‘I gave them to her, Mama,’ said Posy, emerging solemnly from out of the shadows. ‘The only thief here is you.’
‘Posy,’ said Araminta warningly.
Posy held up a piece of paper. ‘This is the late Lord Penwood’s will. I wondered why, if Sophie’s father left her nothing in his will, why you would keep her on all these years, instead of turning her out of her house. Now I know. And Sophie deserves to know, too.’
‘Posy Li,’ said her mother dangerously. ‘I nearly died bringing you into this world. You ruined my body. Ruined any possibility of conceiving a male heir to Lord Penwood and ensuring our family’s security. One more word out of you, Posy, and you are dead to me. Do you understand?’
Posy didn’t say another word but wordlessly passed the will to the magistrate, who read it critically. If someone was going to be arrested and convicted, he wanted to ensure it was the right one.
‘It would seem that the late Lord Penwood bequeathed Lady Penwood an extra stipend of four thousand pounds to keep Miss Baek on. But nothing about keeping her on as a maid. And he gave all three of his daughter’s equal part dowries. Eighteen thousand pounds apiece for Rosamund and Posy Li, and Sophie Baek. And where is the young lady’s dowry?’
‘That money was supposed to be ours!’
‘But where is it?’
‘Where else?’ said Benedict. ‘Given to her favourite daughter. Thirty-six thousand pounds. What eligible gentleman – or fortune hunter – could resist such a large sum? She could be the ugliest, repulsive woman in Christendom, and they’d be flocking at her door.’
‘How dare you –’ Araminta began at this slight against her beautiful and charming Rosamund.
‘No. How dare you?’ said Violet coldly. ‘This is what is going to happen, Araminta, if you are to stay out of prison: You will drop the charges against Sophie. You will comply with the story that she is a relation of Richard Gun, the sixth Earl of Penwood – more specifically, the daughter of a distant cousin. You will relinquish Sophie’s dowry. You will return her belongings. And seeing as Miss Posy is no longer welcome in your house, you will let her stay at Bridgerton House.’
‘And what do I get out of it?’
‘You will have what you have wanted all season – to be connected to the Bridgertons, in all the ways that matter. And we shall never have to see each other, unless society demands it. Unless you prefer to be scrubbing floors? Sewing? Knitting? Laundry?’
They glared at each other.
The magistrate cleared his throat. ‘Have you reached a verdict of which you are all in agreement?’
Araminta had no choice. She nodded stiffly.
‘I do not have to arrest anyone?’
‘It would seem not,’ said Violet.
‘Good. Then if I can ask you all to leave immediately. We have real criminals to place in here.’
Sophie was let out of her cell and Benedict lost the opportunity to embrace her without being separated by bars, because Posy had got there first.
‘Congratulations, Sophie!’ she said, hugging her tight. ‘We are cousins!’
‘No,’ said Sophie happily. ‘We’re sisters.’
She looked round at Araminta Gun, the woman who had made her a servant in her own home, who had tried to take everything away from her. She should hate Araminta as much she hated her. She should want to unleash every repressed resentful feeling she had been bottling up inside of her for so long. She should want her to suffer all manner of terrible things. She should rub her failure in her face; because once she walked out of this prison, she would never see Lady Penwood or her horrible daughter again.
But Sophie knew she could never treat Araminta the way she had treated her. Being the person that she was, and with the happy thought of closing the door to the past and stepping through the door to the future and a new chapter in her life, she inclined her head respectfully to Lady Penwood and said, ‘I forgive you.’
The way Araminta’s eyes bulged, you would have thought Sophie had just given her the finger. ‘I do not ask for forgiveness. I have done nothing that I need to be forgiven for. I have done nothing but try to protect my girls.’
‘No, you misunderstand, Araminta. I am not forgiving you for everything you have done to me, nor will I ever forget it. You are a bitter pill I refuse to swallow. In forgiving you I am merely refusing to let the past dictate the future. I refuse to let it change who I am. I let go of any hold you have over me. That is my final victory: You have failed to break me. I shall never think of you, or your daughter, or those seven years ever again after this moment. Though you, I am sure, will think of me every single day for the rest of your life.’
Acknowledgement of that failure flickered across Araminta Penwood’s face. But that did not mean she was happy about it. ‘Bridgertons. Miss Gunn.’
Araminta left.
Benedict came over to Sophie. ‘I believe this is yours.’ He held up her necklace. ‘The Lady in Silver wore this exact same necklace.’
‘I never meant to deceive you,’ said Sophie at once. ‘I just did not want you to be disappointed that your Lady in Silver was no lady at all but… me.’
‘The last thing I feel knowing it was you is disappointment. I fell in love with you three times. I fell in love with you at the ball because you saw me. I fell in love with you at My Cottage because I saw you. And I love you even more now knowing all of you. The woman of my dreams, better than any fantasy. Because you’re real.’
‘I have a dowry now –’
‘I do not care about the money. All I care about is being allowed to marry the woman I love. If she will have me?’
Benedict did not kneel as was traditional with proposals. If he had, Sophie would have gotten engaged with her head bowed and eyes directed to the floor, the same position she had been her whole life. He offered her up the ring. Neither one of the bending or reaching for the other ever again. They looked directly at each other, as equals.
‘Will you marry me, Sophie?’
Sophie smiled, her happiness spilling out of her. ‘Yes. Yes, I will.’
They kissed. Then Benedict slid the ring onto her finger. It fit like a glove. Posy spontaneously broke into applause, clapping enthusiastically, as though they were actors concluding the final climatic scene at the end of a play.
‘Let us run you a nice, hot bath and get you cleaned up.’
Sophie was grateful beyond words.
‘I shall take you to my Batchelor lodgings –’
‘Benedict Bridgerton –’ began Violet. They may be engaged, but they could not be alone together.
‘To discuss the wedding,’ said Benedict innocently. ‘I was thinking at Our Cottage.’
‘Our Cottage sounds perfect,’ agreed Sophie.
‘Sophie,’ said Violet firmly to her soon-to-be daughter-in-law, ‘be sure you both return to Bridgerton House tonight.’
‘Do not worry, Mother,’ said Benedict, escourting his fiancée out, adding, just before they vanished round the corner, ‘I will have her back by midnight.’
Hidden behind the wall, Sophie and Benedict burst out laughing and ran hand in hand towards their future with Violet calling sternly after them, ‘By seven o’clock!’
‘Very well, Mother!’ called Benedict cheerily, then lowered as he said quietly to Sophie, ‘By eleven it is.’
‘Seven,’ Sophie corrected him, knowing full well he knew his mother’s curfew.
‘Really? I heard eleven. They do sound so similar – an easy mistake to make.’
‘It is still before midnight,’ said Sophie fairly.
‘Perfect.’
Seven o’clock became eleven o’clock, which – having overslept – turned to three o’clock the following morning. But it was worth it.