As the days melted into a week, Sophie discovered that working for the Bridgertons could keep a girl very busy indeed. Her job was to be maid to all three unmarried girls, and her days were filled with hairdressing, mending, pressing gowns, polishing shoes…She hadn’t left the house even once—unless one counted time out in the back garden.

But where such a life under Araminta had been dreary and demeaning, the Bridgerton household was filled with laughter and smiles. The girls bickered and teased, but never with the malice Sophie had seen Rosamund show to Posy. And when tea was informal—upstairs, with only Lady Bridgerton and the girls in attendance—Sophie was always invited to partake. She usually brought her basket of mending and darned or sewed buttons while the Bridgertons chattered away, but it was so lovely to be able to sit and sip a fine cup of tea, with fresh milk and warm scones. And after a few days, Sophie even began to feel comfortable enough to occasionally add to the conversation.

It had become Sophie’s favorite time of day.

“Where,” Eloise asked, one afternoon about a week after what Sophie was now referring to as the big kiss, “do you suppose Benedict is?”

“Ow!”

Four Bridgerton faces turned to Sophie. “Are you all right?” Lady Bridgerton asked, her teacup suspended halfway between her saucer and her mouth.

Sophie grimaced. “I pricked my finger.”

Lady Bridgerton’s lips curved into a small, secret smile.

“Mother has told you,” fourteen-year-old Hyacinth said, “at least a thousand times—”

“A thousand times?” Francesca asked with arched brows.

“A hundred times,” Hyacinth amended, shooting an annoyed look at her older sister, “that you do not have to bring your mending to tea.”

Sophie suppressed a smile of her own. “I should feel very lazy if I did not.”

“Well, I’m not going to bring my embroidery,” Hyacinth announced, not that anyone had asked her to.

“Feeling lazy?” Francesca queried.

“Not in the least,” Hyacinth returned.

Francesca turned to Sophie. “You’re making Hyacinth feel lazy.”

“I do not!” Hyacinth protested.

Lady Bridgerton sipped at her tea. “You have been working on the same piece of embroidery for quite some time, Hyacinth. Since February, if my memory serves.”

“Her memory always serves,” Francesca said to Sophie.

Hyacinth glared at Francesca, who smiled into her teacup.

Sophie coughed to cover a smile of her own. Francesca, who at twenty was merely one year younger than Eloise, had a sly, subversive sense of humor. Someday Hyacinth would be her match, but not yet.

“Nobody answered my question,” Eloise announced, letting her teacup clatter into its saucer. “Where is Benedict? I haven’t seen him in an age.”

“It’s been a week,” Lady Bridgerton said.

“Ow!”

“Do you need a thimble?” Hyacinth asked Sophie.

“I’m not usually this clumsy,” Sophie muttered.

Lady Bridgerton lifted her cup to her lips and held it there for what seemed like a rather long time.

Sophie gritted her teeth together and returned to her mending with a vengeance. Much to her surprise, Benedict had not made even the barest of appearances since the big kiss last week. She’d found herself peering out windows, peeking around corners, always expecting to catch a glimpse of him.

And yet he was never there.

Sophie couldn’t decide whether she was crushed or relieved. Or both.

She sighed. Definitely both.

“Did you say something, Sophie?” Eloise asked.

Sophie shook her head and murmured, “No,” refusing to look up from her poor, abused index finger. Grimacing slightly, she pinched her skin, watching blood slowly bead up on her fingertip.

“Where is he?” Eloise persisted.

“Benedict is thirty years of age,” Lady Bridgerton said in a mild voice. “He doesn’t need to inform us of his every activity.”

Eloise snorted loudly. “That’s a fine about-face from last week, Mother.”

“Whatever do you mean?”

“ ‘Where is Benedict?’ ” Eloise mocked, doing a more-than-fair imitation of her mother. “ ‘How dare he go off without a word? It’s as if he’s dropped off the face of the earth.’ ”

“That was different,” Lady Bridgerton said.

“How so?” This, from Francesca, who was wearing her usual sly smile.

“He’d said he was going to that awful Cavender boy’s party, and then never came back, whereas this time…” Lady Bridgerton stopped, pursing her lips. “Why am I explaining myself to you?”

“I can’t imagine,” Sophie murmured.

Eloise, who was sitting closest to Sophie, choked on her tea.

Francesca whacked Eloise on the back as she leaned forward to inquire, “Did you say something, Sophie?”

Sophie shook her head as she stabbed her needle into the dress she was mending, completely missing the hem.

Eloise gave her a dubious sideways glance.

Lady Bridgerton cleared her throat. “Well, I think—” She stopped, cocking her head to the side. “I say, is that someone in the hall?”

Sophie stifled a groan and looked over toward the doorway, expecting the butler to enter. Wickham always gave her a disapproving frown before imparting whatever news he was carrying. He didn’t approve of the maid taking tea with the ladies of the house, and while he never vocalized his thoughts on the issue in front of the Bridgertons, he rarely took pains to keep his opinions from showing on his face.

But instead of Wickham, Benedict walked through the doorway.

“Benedict!” Eloise called out, rising to her feet. “We were just talking about you.”

He looked at Sophie. “Were you?”

“I wasn’t,” Sophie muttered.

“Did you say something, Sophie?” Hyacinth asked.

“Ow!”

“I’m going to have to take that mending away from you,” Lady Bridgerton said with an amused smile. “You’ll have lost a pint of blood before the day is through.”

Sophie lurched to her feet. “I’ll get a thimble.”

“You don’t have a thimble?” Hyacinth asked. “I would never dream of doing mending without a thimble.”

“Have you ever dreamed of mending?” Francesca smirked.

Hyacinth kicked her, nearly upsetting the tea service in the process.

“Hyacinth!” Lady Bridgerton scolded.

Sophie stared at the door, trying desperately to keep her eyes focused on anything but Benedict. She’d spent all week hoping for a glimpse, but now that he was here, all she wanted was to escape. If she looked at his face, her eyes inevitably strayed to his lips. And if she looked at his lips, her thoughts immediately went to their kiss. And if she thought about the kiss…

“I need that thimble,” she blurted out, jumping to her feet. There were some things one just shouldn’t think about in public.

“So you said,” Benedict murmured, one of his eyebrows quirking up into a perfect—and perfectly arrogant—arch.

“It’s downstairs,” she muttered. “In my room.”

“But your room is upstairs,” Hyacinth said.

Sophie could have killed her. “That’s what I said,” she ground out.

“No,” Hyacinth said in a matter-of-fact tone, “you didn’t.”

“Yes,” Lady Bridgerton said, “she did. I heard her.”

Sophie twisted her head sharply to look at Lady Bridgerton and knew in an instant that the older woman had lied. “I have to get that thimble,” she said, for what seemed like the thirtieth time. She hurried toward the doorway, gulping as she grew close to Benedict.

“Wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself,” he said, stepping aside to allow her through the doorway. But as she brushed past him, he leaned forward, whispering, “Coward.”

Sophie’s cheeks burned, and she was halfway down the stairs before she realized that she’d meant to go back to her room. Dash it all, she didn’t want to march back up the stairs and have to walk past Benedict again. He was probably still standing in the doorway, and his lips would tilt upward as she passed—one of those faintly mocking, faintly seductive smiles that never failed to leave her breathless.

This was a disaster. There was no way she was going to be able to stay here. How could she remain with Lady Bridgerton, when every glimpse of Benedict turned her knees to water? She just wasn’t strong enough. He was going to wear her down, make her forget all of her principles, all of her vows. She was going to have to leave. There was no other option.

And that was really too bad, because she liked working for the Bridgerton sisters. They treated her like a human being, not like some barely paid workhorse. They asked her questions and seemed to care about her answers.

Sophie knew she wasn’t one of them, would never be one of them, but they made it so easy to pretend. And in all truth, all that Sophie had ever really wanted out of life was a family.

With the Bridgertons, she could almost pretend that she had one.

“Lost your way?”

Sophie looked up to see Benedict at the top of the stairs, leaning lazily against the wall. She looked down and realized that she was still standing on the stairs. “I’m going out,” she said.

“To buy a thimble?”

“Yes,” she said defiantly.

“Don’t you need money?”

She could lie, and say that she had money in her pocket, or she could tell the truth, and show herself for the pathetic fool she was. Or she could just run down the stairs and out of the house. It was the cowardly thing to do, but…

“I have to go,” she muttered, and dashed away so quickly that she completely forgot she ought to be using the servants’ entrance. She skidded across the foyer and pushed open the heavy door, stumbling her way down the front steps. When her feet hit the pavement, she turned north, not for any particular reason, just because she had to go somewhere, and then she heard a voice.

An awful, horrible, terrible voice.

Dear God, it was Araminta.

Sophie’s heart stopped, and she quickly pressed herself back against the wall. Araminta was facing the street, and unless she turned around, she’d never notice Sophie.

At least it was easy to remain silent when one couldn’t even breathe.

What was she doing here? Penwood House was at least eight blocks away, closer to—

Then Sophie remembered. She’d read it in Whistledown last year, one of the few copies she’d been able to get her hands on while she was working for the Cavenders. The new Earl of Penwood had finally decided to take up residence in London. Araminta, Rosamund, and Posy had been forced to find new accommodations.

Next door to the Bridgertons? Sophie couldn’t have imagined a worse nightmare if she tried.

“Where is that insufferable girl?” she heard Araminta said.

Sophie immediately felt sorry for the girl in question. As Araminta’s former “insufferable girl,” she knew that the position came with few benefits.

“Posy!” Araminta yelled, then marched into a waiting carriage.

Sophie chewed on her lip, her heart sinking. In that moment, she knew exactly what must have happened when she left. Araminta would have hired a new maid, and she was probably just beastly to the poor girl, but she wouldn’t have been able to degrade and demean her in quite the same fashion she’d done with Sophie. You had to know a person, really hate them, to be so cruel. Any old servant wouldn’t do.

And since Araminta had to put someone down—she didn’t know how to feel good about herself without making someone else feel bad—she’d obviously chosen Posy as her whipping boy—or girl, as the case might be.

Posy came dashing out the door, her face pinched and drawn. She looked unhappy, and perhaps a bit heavier than she had been two years earlier. Araminta wouldn’t like that, Sophie thought glumly. She’d never been able to accept that Posy wasn’t petite and blond and beautiful like Rosamund and herself. If Sophie had been Araminta’s nemesis, then Posy had always been her disappointment.

Sophie watched as Posy stopped at the top of the steps, then reached down to fiddle with the laces of her short boots. Rosamund poked her head out of the carriage, yelling, “Posy!” in what Sophie thought was a rather unattractively shrill voice.

Sophie ducked back, turning her head away. She was right in Rosamund’s line of sight.

“I’m coming!” Posy called out.

“Hurry up!” Rosamund snapped.

Posy finished tying her laces, then hurried forward, but her foot slipped on the final step, and a moment later she was sprawled on the pavement. Sophie lurched forward, instinctively moving to help Posy, but she jammed herself back against the wall. Posy was unhurt, and there was nothing in life Sophie wanted less than for Araminta to know that she was in London, practically right next door.

Posy picked herself off the pavement, stopping to stretch her neck, first to the right, then to the left, then…

Then she saw her. Sophie was sure of it. Posy’s eyes widened, and her mouth fell open slightly. Then her lips came together, pursed to make the “S” to begin “Sophie?”

Sophie shook her head frantically.

“Posy!” came Araminta’s irate cry.

Sophie shook her head again, her eyes begging, pleading with Posy not to give her away.

“I’m coming, Mother!” Posy called. She gave Sophie a single short nod, then climbed up into the carriage, which thankfully rolled off in the opposite direction.

Sophie sagged against the building. She didn’t move for a full minute.

And then she didn’t move for another five.

Benedict didn’t mean to take anything away from his mother and sisters, but once Sophie ran out of the upstairs sitting room, he lost his interest in tea and scones.

“I was just wondering where you’d been,” Eloise was saying.

“Hmmm?” He craned his head slightly to the right, wondering how much of the streetscape he could see through the window from this angle.

“I said,” Eloise practically hollered, “I was just wondering—”

“Eloise, lower your voice,” Lady Bridgerton interjected.

“But he’s not listening.”

“If he’s not listening,” Lady Bridgerton said, “then shouting isn’t going to get his attention.”

“Throwing a scone might work,” Hyacinth suggested.

“Hyacinth, don’t you da—”

But Hyacinth had already lobbed the scone. Benedict ducked out of the way, barely a second before it would have bounced off the side of his head. He looked first to the wall, which now bore a slight smudge where the scone had hit, then to the floor, where it had landed, remarkably in one piece.

“I believe that is my cue to leave,” he said smoothly, shooting a cheeky smile at his youngest sister. Her airborne scone had given him just the excuse he needed to duck out of the room and see if he couldn’t trail Sophie to wherever it was she thought she was going.

“But you just got here,” his mother pointed out.

Benedict immediately regarded her with suspicion. Unlike her usual moans of “But you just got here,” she didn’t sound the least bit upset at his leaving.

Which meant she was up to something.

“I could stay,” he said, just to test her.

“Oh, no,” she said, lifting her teacup to her lips even though he was fairly certain it was empty. “Don’t let us keep you if you’re busy.”

Benedict fought to school his features into an impassive expression, or at least to hide his shock. The last time he’d informed his mother that he was “busy,” she’d answered with, “Too busy for your mother?”

His first urge was to declare, “I’ll stay,” and park himself in a chair, but he had just enough presence of mind to realize that staying to thwart his mother was rather ridiculous when what he really wanted to do was leave. “I’ll go, then,” he said slowly, backing toward the door.

“Go,” she said, shooing him away. “Enjoy yourself.”

Benedict decided to leave the room before she managed to befuddle him any further. He reached down and scooped up the scone, gently tossing it to Hyacinth, who caught it with a grin. He then nodded at his mother and sisters and headed out into the hall, reaching the stairs just as he heard his mother say, “I thought he’d never leave.”

Very odd, indeed.

With long, easy strides, he made his way down the steps and out the front door. He doubted that Sophie would still be near the house, but if she’d gone shopping, there was really only one direction in which she would have headed. He turned right, intending to stroll until he reached the small row of shops, but he’d only gone three steps before he saw Sophie, pressed up against the brick exterior of his mother’s house, looking as if she could barely remember how to breathe.

“Sophie?” Benedict rushed toward her. “What happened? Are you all right?”

She started when she saw him, then nodded.

He didn’t believe her, of course, but there seemed little point in saying so. “You’re shaking,” he said, looking at her hands. “Tell me what happened. Did someone bother you?”

“No,” she said, her voice uncharacteristically quavery. “I just…I, ah…” Her gaze fell on the stairs next to them. “I tripped on my way down the stairs and it scared me.” She smiled weakly. “I’m sure you know what I mean. When you feel as if your insides have flipped upside down.”

Benedict nodded, because of course he knew what she meant. But that didn’t mean that he believed her. “Come with me,” he said.

She looked up, and something in the green depths of her eyes broke his heart. “Where?” she whispered.

“Anywhere but here.”

“I—”

“I live just five houses down,” he said.

“You do?” Her eyes widened, then she murmured, “No one told me.”

“I promise that your virtue will be safe,” he interrupted. And then he added, because he couldn’t quite help himself: “Unless you want it otherwise.”

He had a feeling she would have protested if she weren’t so dazed, but she allowed him to lead her down the street. “We’ll just sit in my front room,” he said, “until you feel better.”

She nodded, and he led her up the steps and into his home, a modest town house just a bit south of his mother’s.

Once they were comfortably ensconced, and Benedict had shut the door so that they wouldn’t be bothered by any of his servants, he turned to her, prepared to say, “Now, why don’t you tell me what really happened,” but at the very last minute something compelled him to hold his tongue. He could ask, but he knew she wouldn’t answer. She’d be put on the defensive, and that wasn’t likely to help his cause any.

So instead, he schooled his face into a neutral mask and asked, “How are you enjoying your work for my family?”

“They are very nice,” she replied.

“Nice?” he echoed, sure that his disbelief showed clearly on his face. “Maddening, perhaps. Maybe even exhausting, but nice?”

“I think they are very nice,” Sophie said firmly.

Benedict started to smile, because he loved his family dearly, and he loved that Sophie was growing to love them, but then he realized that he was cutting off his nose to spite his face, because the more attached Sophie became to his family, the less likely she was to potentially shame herself in their eyes by agreeing to be his mistress.

Damn. He’d made a serious miscalculation last week. But he’d been so focused on getting her to come to London, and a position in his mother’s household had seemed the only way to convince her to do it.

That, combined with a fair bit of coercion.

Damn. Damn. Damn. Why hadn’t he coerced her into something that would segue a little more easily into his arms?

“You should thank your lucky stars that you have them,” Sophie said, her voice more forceful than it had been all afternoon. “I’d give anything for—”

But she didn’t finish her sentence.

“You’d give anything for what?” Benedict asked, surprised by how much he wanted to hear her answer.

She gazed soulfully out the window as she replied, “To have a family like yours.”

“You have no one,” he said, his words a statement, not a question.

“I’ve never had anyone.”

“Not even your—” And then he remembered that she’d slipped and told him that her mother had died at her birth. “Sometimes,” he said, keeping his voice purposefully light and gentle, “it’s not so easy being a Bridgerton.”

Her head slowly turned around. “I can’t imagine anything nicer.”

“There isn’t anything nicer,” he replied, “but that doesn’t mean it’s always easy.”

“What do you mean?”

And Benedict found himself giving voice to feelings he’d never shared with any other living soul, not even—no, especially not his family. “To most of the world,” he said, “I’m merely a Bridgerton. I’m not Benedict or Ben or even a gentleman of means and hopefully a bit of intelligence. I’m merely”—he smiled ruefully—“a Bridgerton. Specifically, Number Two.”

Her lips trembled, then they smiled. “You’re much more than that,” she said.

“I’d like to think so, but most of the world doesn’t see it that way.”

“Most of the world are fools.”

He laughed at that. There was nothing more fetching than Sophie with a scowl. “You will not find disagreement here,” he said.

But then, just when he thought the conversation was over, she surprised him by saying, “You’re nothing like the rest of your family.”

“How so?” he asked, not quite meeting her gaze. He didn’t want her to see just how important her reply was to him.

“Well, your brother Anthony…” Her face scrunched in thought. “His whole life has been altered by the fact that he’s the eldest. He quite obviously feels a responsibility to your family that you do not.”

“Now wait just one—”

“Don’t interrupt,” she said, placing a calming hand on his chest. “I didn’t say that you didn’t love your family, or that you wouldn’t give your life for any one of them. But it’s different with your brother. He feels responsible, and I truly believe he would consider himself a failure if any of his siblings were unhappy.”

“How many times have you met Anthony?” he muttered.

“Just once.” The corners of her mouth tightened, as if she were suppressing a smile. “But that was all I needed. As for your younger brother, Colin…well, I haven’t met him, but I’ve heard plenty—”

“From whom?”

“Everyone,” she said. “Not to mention that he is forever being mentioned in Whistledown, which I must confess I’ve read for years.”

“Then you knew about me before you met me,” he said.

She nodded. “But I didn’t know you. You’re much more than Lady Whistledown realizes.”

“Tell me,” he said, placing his hand over hers. “What do you see?”

Sophie brought her eyes to his, gazed into those chocolatey depths, and saw something there she’d never dreamed existed. A tiny spark of vulnerability, of need.

He needed to know what she thought of him, that he was important to her. This man, so self-assured and so confident, needed her approval.

Maybe he needed her.

She curled her hand until their palms touched, then used her other index finger to trace circles and swirls on the fine kid of his glove. “You are…” she began, taking her time because she knew that every word weighed heavier in such a powerful moment. “You are not quite the man you present to the rest of the world. You’d like to be thought of as debonair and ironic and full of quick wit, and you are all those things, but underneath, you’re so much more.

“You care,” she said, aware that her voice had grown raspy with emotion. “You care about your family, and you even care about me, although God knows I don’t always deserve it.”

“Always,” he interrupted, raising her hand to his lips and kissing her palm with a fervency that sucked her breath away. “Always.”

“And…and…” It was hard to continue when his eyes were on hers with such single-minded emotion.

“And what?” he whispered.

“Much of who you are comes from your family,” she said, the words tumbling forth in a rush. “That much is true. You can’t grow up with such love and loyalty and not become a better person because of it. But deep within you, in your heart, in your very soul, is the man you were born to be. You, not someone’s son, not someone’s brother. Just you.”

Benedict watched her intently. He opened his mouth to speak, but he discovered that he had no words. There were no words for a moment like this.

“Deep inside,” she murmured, “you’ve the soul of an artist.”

“No,” he said, shaking his head.

“Yes,” she insisted. “I’ve seen your sketches. You’re brilliant. I don’t think I knew how much until I met your family. You captured them all perfectly, from the sly look in Francesca’s smile to the mischief in the very way Hyacinth holds her shoulders.”

“I’ve never shown anyone else my sketches,” he admitted.

Her head snapped up. “You can’t be serious.”

He shook his head. “I haven’t.”

“But they’re brilliant. You’re brilliant. I’m sure your mother would love to see them.”

“I don’t know why,” he said, feeling sheepish, “but I never wanted to share them.”

“You shared them with me,” she said softly.

“Somehow,” he said, touching his fingers to her chin, “it felt right.”

And then his heart skipped a beat, because all of a sudden everything felt right.

He loved her. He didn’t know how it had happened, only that it was true.

It wasn’t just that she was convenient. There had been lots of convenient women. Sophie was different. She made him laugh. She made him want to make her laugh. And when he was with her—Well, when he was with her he wanted her like hell, but during those few moments when his body managed to keep itself in check…

He was content.

It was strange, to find a woman who could make him happy just with her mere presence. He didn’t even have to see her, or hear her voice, or even smell her scent. He just had to know that she was there.

If that wasn’t love, he didn’t know what was.

He stared down at her, trying to prolong the moment, to hold on to these few moments of complete perfection. Something softened in her eyes, and the color seemed to melt right then and there, from a shiny, glowing emerald to a soft and lilting moss. Her lips parted and softened, and he knew that he had to kiss her. Not that he wanted to, that he had to.

He needed her next to him, below him, on top of him.

He needed her in him, around him, a part of him.

He needed her the way he needed air.

And, he thought in that last rational moment before his lips found hers, he needed her right now.