Sophie didn’t see Benedict for a full fortnight. She didn’t know whether to be pleased, surprised, or disappointed. She didn’t know whether she was pleased, surprised, or disappointed.

She didn’t know anything these days. Half the time she felt like she didn’t even know herself.

She was certain that she had made the right decision in yet again refusing Benedict’s offer. She knew it in her head, and even though she ached for the man she loved, she knew it in her heart. She had suffered too much pain from her bastardy ever to risk imposing the same on a child, especially one of her own.

No, that was not true. She had risked it once. And she couldn’t quite make herself regret it. The memory was too precious. But that didn’t mean she should do it again.

But if she was so certain that she’d done the right thing, why did it hurt so much? It was as if her heart were perpetually breaking. Every day, it tore some more, and every day, Sophie told herself that it could not get worse, that surely her heart was finished breaking, that it was finally well and fully broken, and yet every night she cried herself to sleep, aching for Benedict.

And every day she felt even worse.

Her tension was intensified by the fact that she was terrified to step outside the house. Posy would surely be looking for her, and Sophie thought it best if Posy didn’t find her.

Not that she thought Posy was likely to reveal her presence here in London to Araminta; Sophie knew Posy well enough to trust that Posy would never deliberately break a promise. And Posy’s nod when Sophie had been frantically shaking her head could definitely be considered a promise.

But as true of heart as Posy was when it came to keeping promises, the same could not, unfortunately, be said of her lips. And Sophie could easily imagine a scenario—many scenarios as a matter of fact—in which Posy would accidentally blurt out that she’d seen Sophie. Which meant that Sophie’s one big advantage was that Posy didn’t know where Sophie was staying. For all she knew, Sophie had just been out for a stroll. Or maybe Sophie had come to spy on Araminta.

In all truth, that seemed an awful lot more plausible than the truth, which was that Sophie just happened to have been blackmailed into taking a job as a lady’s maid just down the street.

And so, Sophie’s emotions kept darting back and forth from melancholy to nervous, brokenhearted to downright fearful.

She’d managed to keep most of this to herself, but she knew she had grown distracted and quiet, and she also knew that Lady Bridgerton and her daughters had noticed it. They looked at her with concerned expressions, spoke with an extra gentleness. And they kept wondering why she did not come to tea.

“Sophie! There you are!”

Sophie had been hurrying to her room, where a small pile of mending awaited, but Lady Bridgerton had caught her in the hall.

She stopped and tried to manage a smile of greeting as she bobbed a curtsy. “Good afternoon, Lady Bridgerton.”

“Good afternoon, Sophie. I have been looking all over for you.”

Sophie stared at her blankly. She seemed to do a lot of that lately. It was difficult to focus on anything. “You have?” she asked.

“Yes. I was wondering why you haven’t been to tea all week. You know that you are always invited when we are taking it informally.”

Sophie felt her cheeks grow warm. She’d been avoiding tea because it was just so hard to be in the same room with all those Bridgertons at once and not to think of Benedict. They all looked so alike, and whenever they were together they were such a family.

It forced Sophie to remember everything that she didn’t have, reminded her of what she’d never have: a family of her own.

Someone to love. Someone who’d love her. All within the bounds of respectability and marriage.

She supposed there were women who could throw over respectability for passion and love. A very large part of her wished she were one of those women. But she was not. Love could not conquer all. At least not for her.

“I’ve been very busy,” she finally said to Lady Bridgerton.

Lady Bridgerton just smiled at her—a small, vaguely inquisitive smile, imposing a silence that forced Sophie to say more.

“With the mending,” she added.

“How terrible for you. I wasn’t aware that we’d poked holes in quite so many stockings.”

“Oh, you haven’t!” Sophie replied, biting her tongue the minute she said it. There went her excuse. “I have some mending of my own,” she improvised, gulping as she realized how bad that sounded. Lady Bridgerton well knew that Sophie had no clothes other than the ones she had given her, which were all, needless to say, in perfect condition. And besides, it was very bad form for Sophie to be doing her own mending during the day, when she was meant to be waiting on the girls. Lady Bridgerton was an understanding employer; she probably wouldn’t have minded, but it went against Sophie’s own code of ethics. She’d been given a job—a good one, even if it did involve getting her heart broken on a day to day basis—and she took pride in her work.

“I see,” Lady Bridgerton said, that enigmatic smile still in place on her face. “You may, of course, bring your own mending to tea.”

“Oh, but I could not dream of it.”

“But I am telling you that you can.”

And Sophie could tell by the tone of her voice that what she was really saying was that she must.

“Of course,” Sophie murmured, and followed her into the upstairs sitting room.

The girls were all there, in their usual places, bickering and smiling and tossing jokes (although thankfully no scones.) The eldest Bridgerton daughter, Daphne—now the Duchess of Hastings—was there as well, with her youngest daughter, Caroline, in her arms.

“Sophie!” Hyacinth said with a beam. “I thought you must have been ill.”

“But you just saw me this morning,” Sophie reminded her, “when I dressed your hair.”

“Yes, but you didn’t seem quite yourself.”

Sophie had no suitable reply, since she really hadn’t been quite herself. She couldn’t very well contradict the truth. So she just sat in a chair and nodded when Francesca inquired if she wanted some tea.

“Penelope Featherington said she would drop by today,” Eloise said to her mother just as Sophie was taking her first sip. Sophie had never met Penelope, but she was frequently written about in Whistledown, and she knew that she and Eloise were fast friends.

“Has anyone noticed that Benedict hasn’t visited in some time?” Hyacinth asked.

Sophie jabbed her finger but thankfully managed to keep from yelping with pain.

“He hasn’t been by to see Simon and me, either,” Daphne said.

“Well, he told me he would help me with my arithmetic,” Hyacinth grumbled, “and he has most certainly reneged on his word.”

“I’m sure it has merely slipped his mind,” Lady Bridgerton said diplomatically. “Perhaps if you sent him a note.”

“Or simply banged on his door,” Francesca said, giving her eyes a slight roll. “It’s not as if he lives very far away.”

“I am an unmarried female,” Hyacinth said with a huff. “I cannot visit bachelor lodgings.”

Sophie coughed.

“You’re fourteen,” Francesca said disdainfully.

“Nevertheless!”

“You should ask Simon for help, anyway,” Daphne said. “He’s much better with numbers than Benedict.”

“You know, she’s right,” Hyacinth said, looking at her mother after shooting one last glare at Francesca. “Pity for Benedict. He’s completely without use to me now.”

They all giggled, because they knew she was joking. Except for Sophie, who didn’t think she knew how to giggle anymore.

“But in all seriousness,” Hyacinth continued, “what is he good at? Simon’s better at numbers, and Anthony knows more of history. Colin’s funnier, of course, and—”

“Art,” Sophie interrupted in a sharp voice, a little irritated that Benedict’s own family didn’t see his individuality and strengths.

Hyacinth looked at her in surprise. “I beg your pardon?”

“He’s good at art,” Sophie repeated. “Quite a bit better than any of you, I imagine.”

That got everyone’s attention, because while Sophie had let them see her naturally dry wit, she was generally soft-spoken, and she certainly had never said a sharp word to any of them.

“I didn’t even know he drew,” Daphne said with quiet interest. “Or does he paint?”

Sophie glanced at her. Of the Bridgerton women, she knew Daphne the least, but it would have been impossible to miss the look of sharp intelligence in her eyes. Daphne was curious about her brother’s hidden talent, she wanted to know why she didn’t know about it, and most of all, she wanted to know why Sophie did.

In less than a second Sophie was able to see all of that in the young duchess’s eyes. And in less than a second she decided that she’d made a mistake. If Benedict hadn’t told his family about his art, then it wasn’t her place to do so.

“He draws,” she finally said, in a voice that she hoped was curt enough to prevent further questions.

It was. No one said a word, although five pairs of eyes remained focused quite intently on her face.

“He sketches,” Sophie muttered.

She looked from face to face. Eloise’s eyes were blinking rapidly. Lady Bridgerton wasn’t blinking at all. “He’s quite good,” Sophie muttered, mentally kicking herself even as she said it. There was something about silence among the Bridgertons that compelled her to fill the void.

Finally, after the longest moment of silence ever to fill the space of a second, Lady Bridgerton cleared her throat and said, “I should like to see one of his sketches.” She dabbed a napkin to her lips even though she hadn’t taken a sip of her tea. “Provided, of course, that he cares to share it with me.”

Sophie stood up. “I think I should go.”

Lady Bridgerton speared her with her eyes. “Please,” she said, in a voice that was velvet over steel, “stay.”

Sophie sat back down.

Eloise jumped to her feet. “I think I hear Penelope.”

“You do not,” Hyacinth said.

“Why would I lie?”

“I certainly don’t know, but—”

The butler appeared in the doorway. “Miss Penelope Featherington,” he intoned.

“See,” Eloise shot at Hyacinth.

“Is this a bad time?” Penelope asked.

“No,” Daphne replied with a small, vaguely amused smile, “just an odd one.”

“Oh. Well, I could come back later, I suppose.”

“Of course not,” Lady Bridgerton said. “Please sit down and have some tea.”

Sophie watched as the young woman took a seat on the sofa next to Francesca. Penelope was no sophisticated beauty, but she was rather fetching in her own, uncomplicated way. Her hair was a brownish red, and her cheeks were lightly dusted with freckles. Her complexion was a touch sallow, although Sophie had a suspicion that that had more to do with her unattractive yellow frock than anything else.

Come to think of it, she rather thought that she’d read something in Lady Whistledown’s column about Penelope’s awful clothes. Pity the poor girl couldn’t talk her mother into letting her wear blue.

But as Sophie surreptitiously studied Penelope, she became aware that Penelope was not-so-surreptitiously studying her.

“Have we met?” Penelope suddenly asked.

Sophie was suddenly gripped by an awful, premonition-like feeling. Or maybe it was déjà vu. “I don’t think so,” she said quickly.

Penelope’s gaze didn’t waver from her face. “Are you certain?”

“I—I don’t see how we could have done.”

Penelope let out a little breath and shook her head, as if clearing cobwebs from her mind. “I’m sure you’re correct. But there is something terribly familiar about you.”

“Sophie is our new lady’s maid,” Hyacinth said, as if that would explain anything. “She usually joins us for tea when we’re only family.”

Sophie watched Penelope as she murmured something in response, and then suddenly it hit her. She had seen Penelope before! It had been at the masquerade, probably no more than ten seconds before she’d met Benedict.

She’d just made her entrance, and the young men who had quickly surrounded her had still been making their way to her side. Penelope had been standing right there, dressed in some rather strange green costume with a funny hat. For some reason she hadn’t been wearing a mask. Sophie had stared at her for a moment, trying to figure out what her costume was meant to be, when a young gentleman had bumped into Penelope, nearly knocking her to the floor.

Sophie had reached out and helped her up, and had just managed to say something like, “There you are,” when several more gentlemen had rushed in, separating the two women.

Then Benedict had arrived, and Sophie had had eyes for no one but him. Penelope—and the abominable way she had been treated by the young gentlemen at the masquerade—had been forgotten until this very moment.

And clearly the event had remained buried at the back of Penelope’s mind as well.

“I’m sure I must be mistaken,” Penelope said as she accepted a cup of tea from Francesca. “It’s not your looks, precisely, but rather the way you hold yourself, if that makes any sense.”

Sophie decided that a smooth intervention was necessary and so she pasted on her best conversational smile, and said, “I shall take that as a compliment, since I am sure that the ladies of your acquaintance are gracious and kind indeed.”

The minute she shut her mouth, however, she realized that that had been overkill. Francesca was looking at her as if she’d sprouted horns, and the corners of Lady Bridgerton’s mouth were twitching as she said, “Why, Sophie, I vow that is the longest sentence you have uttered in a fortnight.”

Sophie lifted her teacup to her face and mumbled, “I haven’t been feeling well.”

“Oh!” Hyacinth suddenly blurted out. “I hope you are not feeling too sickly, because I was hoping you could help me this evening.”

“Of course,” Sophie said, eager for an excuse to turn away from Penelope, who was still studying her as if she were a human puzzle. “What is it you need?”

“I have promised to entertain my cousins this eve.”

“Oh, that’s right,” Lady Bridgerton said, setting her saucer down on the table. “I’d nearly forgotten.”

Hyacinth nodded. “Could you help? There are four of them, and I’m sure to be overrun.”

“Of course,” Sophie said. “How old are they?”

Hyacinth shrugged.

“Between the ages of six and ten,” Lady Bridgerton said with a disapproving expression. “You should know that, Hyacinth.” She turned to Sophie and added, “They are the children of my youngest sister.”

Sophie said to Hyacinth, “Fetch me when they arrive. I love children and would be happy to help.”

“Excellent,” Hyacinth said, clasping her hands together. “They are so young and active. They would have worn me out.”

“Hyacinth,” Francesca said, “you’re hardly old and decrepit.”

“When was the last time you spent two hours with four children under the age of ten?”

“Stop,” Sophie said, laughing for the first time in two weeks. “I’ll help. No one will be worn-out. And you should come, too, Francesca. We’ll have a lovely time, I’m sure.”

“Are you—” Penelope started to say something, then cut herself off. “Never mind.”

But when Sophie looked over at her, she was still staring at her face with a most perplexed expression. Penelope opened her mouth, closed it, then opened it again, saying, “I know I know you.”

“I’m sure she’s right,” Eloise said with a jaunty grin. “Penelope never forgets a face.”

Sophie blanched.

“Are you quite all right?” Lady Bridgerton asked, leaning forward. “You don’t look well.”

“I think something didn’t agree with me,” Sophie hastily lied, clutching her stomach for effect. “Perhaps the milk was off.”

“Oh, dear,” Daphne said with a concerned frown as she looked down at her baby. “I gave some to Caroline.”

“It tasted fine to me,” Hyacinth said.

“It might have been something from this morning,” Sophie said, not wanting Daphne to worry. “But all the same, I think I had better lie down.” She stood and took a step toward the door. “If that is agreeable to you, Lady Bridgerton.”

“Of course,” she replied. “I hope you feel better soon.”

“I’m sure I will,” Sophie said, quite truthfully. She’d feel better just as soon as she left Penelope Featherington’s line of vision.

“I’ll come get you when my cousins arrive,” Hyacinth called out.

“If you’re feeling better,” Lady Bridgerton added.

Sophie nodded and hurried out of the room, but as she left, she caught sight of Penelope Featherington watching her with a most intent expression, leaving Sophie filled with a horrible sense of dread.

Benedict had been in a bad mood for two weeks. And, he thought as he trudged down the pavement toward his mother’s house, his bad mood was about to get worse. He’d been avoiding coming here because he didn’t want to see Sophie; he didn’t want to see his mother, who was sure to sense his bad mood and question him about it; he didn’t want to see Eloise, who was sure to sense his mother’s interest and try to interrogate him; he didn’t want to see—

Hell, he didn’t want to see anyone. And considering the way he’d been snapping off the heads of his servants (verbally, to be sure, although occasionally quite literally in his dreams) the rest of the world would do well if they didn’t care to see him, either.

But, as luck would have it, right as he placed his foot on the first step, he heard someone call out his name, and when he turned around, both of his adult brothers were walking toward him along the pavement.

Benedict groaned. No one knew him better than Anthony and Colin, and they weren’t likely to let a little thing like a broken heart go unnoticed or unmentioned.

“Haven’t seen you in an age,” Anthony said. “Where have you been?”

“Here and there,” Benedict said evasively. “Mostly at home.” He turned to Colin. “Where have you been?”

“Wales.”

“Wales? Why?”

Colin shrugged. “I felt like it. Never been there before.”

“Most people require a slightly more compelling reason to take off in the middle of the season,” Benedict said.

“Not I.”

Benedict stared at him. Anthony stared at him.

“Oh, very well,” Colin said with a scowl. “I needed to get away. Mother has started in on me with this bloody marriage thing.”

“ ‘Bloody marriage thing’?” Anthony asked with an amused smile. “I assure you, the deflowering of one’s wife is not quite so gory.”

Benedict kept his expression scrupulously impassive. He’d found a small spot of blood on his sofa after he’d made love to Sophie. He’d thrown a pillow over it, hoping that by the time any of the servants noticed, they’d have forgotten that he’d had a woman over. He liked to think that none of the staff had been listening at doors or gossiping, but Sophie herself had once told him that servants generally knew everything that went on in a household, and he tended to think that she was right.

But if he had indeed blushed—and his cheeks did feel a touch warm—neither of his brothers saw it, because they didn’t say anything, and if there was anything in life as certain as, say, the sun rising in the east, it was that a Bridgerton never passed up the opportunity to tease and torment another Bridgerton.

“She’s been talking about Penelope Featherington non-stop,” Colin said with a scowl. “I tell you, I’ve known the girl since we were both in short pants. Er, since I was in short pants, at least. She was in…” He scowled some more, because both his brothers were laughing at him. “She was in whatever it is that young girls wear.”

“Frocks?” Anthony supplied helpfully.

“Petticoats?” was Benedict’s suggestion.

“The point is,” Colin said forcefully, “that I have known her forever, and I can assure you I am not likely to fall in love with her.”

Anthony turned to Benedict and said, “They’ll be married within a year. Mark my words.”

Colin crossed his arms. “Anthony!”

“Maybe two,” Benedict said. “He’s young yet.”

“Unlike you,” Colin retorted. “Why am I besieged by Mother, I wonder? Good God, you’re thirty-one—”

“Thirty,” Benedict snapped.

“Regardless, one would think you’d be getting the brunt of it.”

Benedict frowned. His mother had been uncharacteristically reserved these past few weeks when it came to her opinions on Benedict and marriage and why the two ought to meet and soon. Of course, Benedict had been avoiding his mother’s house like the plague, but even before that, she’d not mentioned a word.

It was most odd.

“At any rate,” Colin was still grumbling, “I am not going to marry soon, and I am certainly not going to marry Penelope Featherington!”

“Oh!”

It was a feminine “oh,” and without looking up, Benedict somehow knew that he was about to experience one of life’s most awkward moments. Heart filled with dread, he lifted his head and turned toward the front door. There, framed perfectly in the open doorway, was Penelope Featherington, her lips parted with shock, her eyes filled with heartbreak.

And in that moment, Benedict realized what he’d probably been too stupid (and stupidly male) to notice: Penelope Featherington was in love with his brother.

Colin cleared his throat. “Penelope,” he squeaked, his voice sounding as if he’d regressed ten years and gone straight back to puberty, “uh…good to see you.” He looked to his brothers to leap in and save him, but neither chose to intervene.

Benedict winced. It was one of those moments that simply could not be saved.

“I didn’t know you were there,” Colin said lamely.

“Obviously not,” Penelope said, but her words lacked an edge.

Colin swallowed painfully. “Were you visiting Eloise?”

She nodded. “I was invited.”

“I’m sure you were!” he said quickly. “Of course you were. You’re a great friend of the family.”

Silence. Horrible, awkward silence.

“As if you would come uninvited,” Colin mumbled.

Penelope said nothing. She tried to smile, but she obviously couldn’t quite manage it. Finally, just when Benedict thought she would brush by them all and flee down the street, she looked straight at Colin and said, “I never asked you to marry me.”

Colin’s cheeks turned a deeper red than Benedict would have thought humanly possible. Colin opened his mouth, but no sound came out.

It was the first—and quite possibly would be the only—moment of Benedict’s recollection for which his younger brother was at a complete loss for words.

“And I never—” Penelope added, swallowing convulsively when the words came out a bit tortured and broken. “I never said to anyone that I wanted you to ask me.”

“Penelope,” Colin finally managed, “I’m so sorry.”

“You have nothing to apologize for,” she said.

“No,” Colin insisted, “I do. I hurt your feelings, and—”

“You didn’t know I was there.”

“But nevertheless—”

“You are not going to marry me,” she said hollowly. “There is nothing wrong with that. I am not going to marry your brother Benedict.”

Benedict had been trying not to look, but he snapped to attention at that.

“It doesn’t hurt his feeling when I announce that I am not going to marry him.” She turned to Benedict, her brown eyes focusing on his. “Does it, Mr. Bridgerton?”

“Of course not,” Benedict answered quickly.

“It’s settled, then,” she said tightly. “No feelings were hurt. Now then, if you will excuse me, gentlemen, I should like to go home.”

Benedict, Anthony, and Colin parted as if drops in the Red Sea as she made her way down the steps.

“Don’t you have a maid?” Colin asked.

She shook her head. “I live just around the corner.”

“I know, but—”

“I’ll escort you,” Anthony said smoothly.

“That’s really not necessary, my lord.”

“Humor me,” he said.

She nodded, and the two of them took off down the street.

Benedict and Colin watched their retreating forms in silence for a full thirty seconds before Benedict turned to his brother and said, “That was very well done of you.”

“I didn’t know she was there!”

“Obviously,” Benedict drawled.

“Don’t. I feel terrible enough already.”

“As well you should.”

“Oh, and you have never inadvertently hurt a woman’s feelings before?” Colin’s voice was defensive, just defensive enough so that Benedict knew he felt like an utter heel inside.

Benedict was saved from having to reply by the arrival of his mother, standing at the top of the steps, framed in the doorway much the same way Penelope had been just a few minutes earlier.

“Has your brother arrived yet?” Violet asked.

Benedict jerked his head toward the corner. “He is escorting Miss Featherington home.”

“Oh. Well, that’s very thoughtful of him. I—Where are you going, Colin?”

Colin paused briefly but didn’t even turn his head as he grunted, “I need a drink.”

“It’s a bit early for—” She stopped mid-sentence when Benedict laid his hand on her arm.

“Let him go,” he said.

She opened her mouth as if to protest, then changed her mind and merely nodded. “I’d hoped to gather the family for an announcement,” she said with a sigh, “but I suppose that can wait. In the meantime, why don’t you join me for tea?”

Benedict glanced at the clock in the hall. “Isn’t it a bit late for tea?”

“Skip the tea then,” she said with a shrug. “I was merely looking for an excuse to speak with you.”

Benedict managed a weak smile. He wasn’t in the mood to converse with his mother. To be frank, he wasn’t in the mood to converse with any person, a fact to which anyone with whom he’d recently crossed paths would surely attest.

“It’s nothing serious,” Violet said. “Heavens, you look as if you’re ready to go to the gallows.”

It probably would have been rude to point out that that was exactly how he felt, so instead he just leaned down and kissed her on the cheek.

“Well, that’s a nice surprise,” she said, beaming up at him. “Now come with me,” she added, motioning toward the downstairs sitting room. “I have someone I want to tell you about.”

“Mother!”

“Just hear me out. She’s a lovely girl…”

The gallows indeed.