“Stop! Stop!”

Sophie shrieked with laughter as she ran down the stone steps that led to the garden behind Bridgerton House. After three children and seven years of marriage, Benedict could still make her smile, still make her laugh…and he still chased her around the house any chance he could get.

“Where are the children?” she gasped, once he’d caught her at the base of the steps.

“Francesca is watching them.”

“And your mother?”

He grinned. “I daresay Francesca is watching her, too.”

“Anyone could stumble upon us out here,” she said, looking this way and that.

His smile turned wicked. “Maybe,” he said, catching hold of her green-velvet skirt and reeling her in, “we should adjourn to the private terrace.”

The words were oh-so-familiar, and it was only a second before she was transported back nine years to the masquerade ball. “The private terrace, you say?” she asked, amusement dancing in her eyes. “And how, pray tell, would you know of a private terrace?”

His lips brushed against hers. “I have my ways,” he murmured.

“And I,” she returned, smiling slyly, “have my secrets.”

He drew back. “Oh? And will you share?”

“We five,” she said with a nod, “are about to be six.”

He looked at her face, then looked at her belly. “Are you sure?”

“As sure as I was last time.”

He took her hand and raised it to lips. “This one will be a girl.”

“That’s what you said last time.”

“I know, but—”

“And the time before.”

“All the more reason for the odds to favor me this time.”

She shook her head. “I’m glad you’re not a gambler.”

He smiled at that. “Let’s not tell anyone yet.”

“I think a few people already suspect,” Sophie admitted.

“I want to see how long it takes that Whistledown woman to figure it out,” Benedict said.

“Are you serious?”

“The blasted woman knew about Charles, and she knew about Alexander, and she knew about William.”

Sophie smiled as she let him pull her into the shadows. “Do you realize that I have been mentioned in Whistledown two hundred and thirty-two times?”

That stopped him cold. “You’ve been counting?”

“Two hundred and thirty-three if you include the time after the masquerade.”

“I can’t believe you’ve been counting.”

She gave him a nonchalant shrug. “It’s exciting to be mentioned.”

Benedict thought it was a bloody nuisance to be mentioned, but he wasn’t about to spoil her delight, so instead he just said, “At least she always writes nice things about you. If she didn’t, I might have to hunt her down and run her out of the country.”

Sophie couldn’t help but smile. “Oh, please. I hardly think you could discover her identity when no one else in the ton has managed it.”

He raised one arrogant brow. “That doesn’t sound like wifely devotion and confidence to me.”

She pretended to examine her glove. “You needn’t expend the energy. She’s obviously very good at what she does.”

“Well, she won’t know about Violet,” Benedict vowed. “At least not until it’s obvious to the world.”

“Violet?” Sophie asked softly.

“It’s time my mother had a grandchild named after her, don’t you think?”

Sophie leaned against him, letting her cheek rest against the crisp linen of his shirt. “I think Violet is a lovely name,” she murmured, nestling deeper into the shelter of his arms. “I just hope it’s a girl. Because if it’s a boy, he’s never going to forgive us…”

Later that night, in a town house in the very best part of London, a woman picked up her quill and wrote:

Lady Whistledown’s Society Papers!!!3 May 1824!!!Ah, Gentle Reader, This Author has learned that the Bridgerton grandchildren will soon number eleven…

But when she tried to write more, all she could do was close her eyes and sigh. She’d been doing this for so very long now. Could it have possibly been eleven years already?

Maybe it was time to move on. She was tired of writing about everyone else. It was time to live her own life.

And so Lady Whistledown set down her quill and walked to her window, pushing aside her sage green curtains and looking out into the inky night.

“Time for something new,” she whispered. “Time to finally be me.”