by Julia Quinn
He looked down. Her face was flushed, and her breath was rapid. Her eyes were glazed, dazed, clearly rapt with passion.
It fueled his own fire. God, he wanted her so badly his bones ached.
“This might hurt,” he lied. It would hurt. But he was stuck between wanting to give her the truth so that she would be prepared and giving her the softer version so that she would not be nervous.
“I don’t care,” she gasped. “Please. I need you.”
Benedict leaned down for one final, searing kiss as his hips surged forward. He felt her stiffen slightly around him as he broke through her maidenhead, and he bit—he actually bit his hand to keep himself from coming at that very second.
It was like he was a green lad of sixteen, not an experienced man of thirty.
She did this to him. Only her. It was a humbling thought.
Gritting his teeth against his baser urges, Benedict began to move within her, slowly stroking when what he really wanted to do was let go completely.
“Sophie, Sophie,” he grunted, repeating her name, trying to remind himself that this time was about her. He was here to please her needs, not his own.
It would be perfect. It had to be perfect. He needed her to love this. He needed her to love him.
She was quickening beneath him, and every wiggle, every squirm whipped up his own frenzy of desire. He was trying to be extra gentle for her, but she was making it so damn hard to hold back. Her hands were everywhere—on his hips, on his back, squeezing his shoulders.
“Sophie,” he moaned again. He couldn’t hold off much longer. He wasn’t strong enough. He wasn’t noble enough. He wasn’t—
“Ohhhhhhhhhhhh!”
She convulsed beneath him, her body arching off the sofa as she screamed. Her fingers bit into his back, nails raking his skin, but he didn’t care. All he knew was that she’d found her release, and it was good, and for the love of God, he could finally—
“Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!”
He exploded. There was simply no other word for it.
He couldn’t stop moving, couldn’t stop shaking, and then, in an instant, he collapsed, dimly aware that he was probably crushing her, but unable to move a single muscle.
He should say something, tell her something about how wonderful it had been. But his tongue felt thick and his lips felt heavy, and on top of all that, he could barely open his eyes. Pretty words would have to wait. He was only a man, and he had to catch his breath.
“Benedict?” she whispered.
He flopped his hand slightly against her. It was the only thing he could manage to indicate that he’d heard.
“Is it always like this?”
He shook his head, hoping that she’d feel the motion and know what it meant.
She sighed and seemed to sink deeper into the cushions. “I didn’t think so.”
Benedict kissed the side of her head, which was all that he could reach. No, it wasn’t always like this. He’d dreamed of her so many times, but this . . . This . . .
This was more than dreams.
Sophie wouldn’t have thought it possible, but she must’ve dozed off, even with the thrilling weight of Benedict pressing her down against the sofa, making it slightly difficult to breathe. He must’ve fallen asleep, too, and she woke when he woke, aroused by the sudden rush of cool air when he lifted himself off of her body.
He placed a blanket on top of her before she even had a chance to be embarrassed by her nakedness. She smiled even as she blushed, for there was little that could be done to ease her embarrassment. Not that she regretted her actions. But a woman didn’t lose her virginity on a sofa and not feel a little bit embarrassed. It simply wasn’t possible.
Still, the blanket had been a thoughtful gesture. Not a surprising one, though. Benedict was a thoughtful man.
He obviously didn’t share her modesty, though, because he made no attempt to cover himself as he crossed the room and gathered his carelessly flung garments. Sophie stared shamelessly as he pulled on his breeches. He stood straight and proud, and the smile he gave her when he caught her watching was warm and direct.
God, how she loved this man.
“How do you feel?” he asked.
“Fine,” she answered. “Good.” She smiled shyly. “Splendid.”
He picked up his shirt and stuck one arm into it. “I’ll send someone over to collect your belongings.”
Sophie blinked. “What do you mean?”
“Don’t worry, I’ll make sure he’s discreet. I know it might be embarrassing for you now that you know my family.”
Sophie clutched the blanket to her, wishing that her dress wasn’t out of reach. Because she suddenly felt ashamed. She’d done the one thing she’d always sworn she would never do, and now Benedict assumed she would be his mistress. And why shouldn’t he? It was a fairly natural assumption.
“Please don’t send anyone over,” she said, her voice small.
He glanced at her in surprise. “You’d rather go yourself?”
“I’d rather my things stayed where they were,” she said softly. It was so much easier saying that than telling him directly that she would not become his mistress.
Once, she could forgive. Once, she could even cherish. But a lifetime with a man who was not her husband—that she knew she could not do.
Sophie looked down at her belly, praying that there would be no child to be brought into the world illegitimately.
“What are you telling me?” he said, his eyes intent upon her face.
Damn. He wasn’t going to allow her to take the easy way out. “I’m saying,” she said, gulping against the boulder-sized lump that had suddenly developed in her throat, “that I cannot be your mistress.”
“What do you call this?” he asked in a tight voice, waving his arm at her.
“I call it a lapse in judgment,” she said, not meeting his eyes.
“Oh, so I’m a lapse?” he said, his tone unnaturally pleasant. “How nice. I don’t believe I’ve ever been someone’s lapse before.”
“You know that’s not the way I meant it.”
“Do I?” He grabbed one of his boots and perched on the arm of a chair so that he could yank it on. “Frankly, my dear, I have no idea what you mean anymore.”
“I shouldn’t have done this—”
He whipped his head around to face her, his hot, flashing eyes at odds with his bland smile. “Now I’m a shouldn’t? Excellent. Even better than a lapse. Shouldn’t sounds much naughtier, don’t you think? A lapse is merely a mistake.”
“There is no need to be so ugly about this.”
He cocked his head to the side as if he were truly considering her words. “Is that what I’m being? I rather thought I was acting in a most friendly and understanding manner. Look, no yelling, no histrionics . . .”
“I’d prefer yelling and histrionics to this.”
He scooped up her dress and threw it at her, none too gently. “Well, we don’t always get what we prefer, do we, Miss Beckett? I can certainly attest to that.”
She grabbed her dress and stuffed it under the covers with her, hoping that she’d eventually find a way to don it without moving the blanket.
“It’ll be a neat trick if you figure out how to do it,” he said, giving her a condescending glance.
She glared at him. “I’m not asking you to apologize.”
“Well, that’s a relief. I doubt I could find the words.”
“Please don’t be so sarcastic.”
His smile was mocking in the extreme. “You’re hardly in a position to ask me anything.”
“Benedict . . .”
He loomed over her, leering rudely. “Except, of course, to rejoin you, which I’d gladly do.”
She said nothing.
“Do you understand,” he said, his eyes softening slightly, “what it feels like to be pushed away? How many times do you expect you can reject me before I stop trying?”
“It’s not that I want to—”
“Oh, stop with that old excuse. It’s grown tired. If you wanted to be with me, you would be with me. When you say no, it’s because you want to say no.”
“You don’t understand,” she said in a low voice. “You’ve always been in a position where you could do what you wanted. Some of us don’t have that luxury.”
“Silly me. I thought I was offering you that very luxury.”
“The luxury to be your mistress,” she said bitterly.
He crossed his arms, his lips twisting as he said, “You won’t have to do anything you haven’t already done.”
“I got carried away,” Sophie said slowly, trying to ignore his insult. It was no more than she deserved. She had slept with him. Why shouldn’t he think she would be his mistress? “I made a mistake,” she continued. “But that doesn’t mean I should do it again.”
“I can offer you a better life,” he said in a low voice.
She shook her head. “I won’t be your mistress. I won’t be any man’s mistress.”
Benedict’s lips parted with shock as he digested her words. “Sophie,” he said incredulously, “you know I cannot marry you.”
“Of course I know that,” she snapped. “I’m a servant, not an idiot.”
Benedict tried for a moment to put himself in her shoes. He knew she wanted respectability, but she had to know that he could not give it to her. “It would be hard for you as well,” he said softly, “even if I were to marry you. You would not be accepted. The ton can be cruel.”
Sophie let out a loud, hollow laugh. “I know,” she said, her smile utterly humorless. “Believe me, I know.”
“Then why—”
“Grant me a favor,” she interrupted, turning her face so that she was no longer looking at him. “Find someone to marry. Find someone acceptable, who will make you happy. And then leave me alone.”
Her words struck a chord, and Benedict was suddenly reminded of the lady from the masquerade. She had been of his world, his class. She would have been acceptable. And he realized, as he stood there, staring down at Sophie, who was huddled on the sofa, trying not to look at him, that she was the one he’d always pictured in his mind, whenever he thought to the future. Whenever he imagined himself with a wife and children.
He’d spent the last two years with one eye on every door, always waiting for his lady in silver to enter the room. He felt silly sometimes, even stupid, but he’d never been able to erase her from his thoughts.
Or purge the dream—the one in which he pledged his troth to her, and they lived happily ever after.
It was a silly fantasy for a man of his reputation, sickly sweet and sentimental, but he hadn’t been able to help himself. That’s what came from growing up in a large and loving family—one tended to want the same for oneself.
But the woman from the masquerade had become barely more than a mirage. Hell, he didn’t even know her name. And Sophie was here.
He couldn’t marry her, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t be together. It would mean compromise, mostly on her part, he admitted. But they could do it. And they’d certainly be happier than if they remained apart.
“Sophie,” he began, “I know the situation is not ideal—”
“Don’t,” she interrupted, her voice low, barely audible.
“If you’d only listen—”
“Please. Don’t.”
“But you’re not—”
“Stop!” she said, her voice rising perilously in volume. She was holding her shoulders so tightly they were practically at her ears, but Benedict forged on, anyway. He loved her. He needed her. He had to make her see reason. “Sophie, I know you’ll agree if—”
“I won’t have an illegitimate child!” she finally yelled, struggling to keep the blanket around her as she rose to her feet. “I won’t do it! I love you, but not that much. I don’t love anyone that much.”
His eyes fell to her midsection. “It may very well be too late for that, Sophie.”
“I know,” she said quietly, “and it’s already eating me up inside.”
“Regrets have a way of doing that.”
She looked away. “I don’t regret what we did. I wish I could. I know I should. But I can’t.”
Benedict just stared at her. He wanted to understand her, but he just couldn’t grasp how she could be so adamant about not wanting to be his mistress and have his children and at the same time not regret their lovemaking.
How could she say she loved him? It made the pain that much more intense.
“If we don’t have a child,” she said quietly, “then I shall consider myself very lucky. And I won’t tempt the fates again.”
“No, you’ll merely tempt me,” he said, hearing the sneer in his voice and hating it.
She ignored him, drawing the blanket closer around her as she stared sightlessly at a painting on the wall. “I’ll have a memory I will forever cherish. And that, I suppose, is why I can’t regret what we did.”
“It won’t keep you warm at night.”
“No,” she agreed sadly, “but it will keep my dreams full.”
“You’re a coward,” he accused. “A coward for not chasing after those dreams.”
She turned around. “No,” she said, her voice remarkably even considering the way he was glaring at her. “What I am is a bastard. And before you say you don’t care, let me assure you that I do. And so does everyone else. Not a day has gone by that I am not in some way reminded of the baseness of my birth.”
“Sophie . . .”
“If I have a child,” she said, her voice starting to crack, “do you know how much I would love it? More than life, more than breath, more than anything. How could I hurt my own child the way I’ve been hurt? How could I subject her to the same kind of pain?”
“Would you reject your child?”
“Of course not!”
“Then she wouldn’t feel the same sort of pain,” Benedict said with a shrug. “Because I wouldn’t reject her either.”
“You don’t understand,” she said, the words ending on a whimper.
He pretended he hadn’t heard her. “Am I correct in assuming that you were rejected by your parents?”
Her smile was tight and ironic. “Not precisely. Ignored would be a better description.”
“Sophie,” he said, rushing toward her and gathering her in his arms, “you don’t have to repeat the mistakes of your parents.”
“I know,” she said sadly, not struggling in his embrace, but not returning it either. “And that’s why I cannot be your mistress. I won’t relive my mother’s life.”
“You wouldn’t—”
“They say that a smart person learns from her mistakes,” she interrupted, her voice forcefully ending his protest. “But a truly smart person learns from other people’s mistakes.” She pulled away, then turned to face him. “I’d like to think I’m a truly smart person. Please don’t take that away from me.”
There was a desperate, almost palpable, pain in her eyes. It hit him in the chest, and he staggered back a step.
“I’d like to get dressed,” she said, turning away. “I think you should leave.”
He stared at her back for several seconds before saying, “I could make you change your mind. I could kiss you, and you would—”
“You wouldn’t,” she said, not moving a muscle. “It isn’t in you.”
“It is.”
“You would kiss me, and then you would hate yourself. And it would only take a second.”
He left without another word, letting the click of the door signal his departure.
Inside the room, Sophie’s quivering hands dropped the blanket, and she crumpled onto the sofa, forever staining its delicate fabric with her tears.
Chapter 18
Pickings have been slim this past fortnight for marriage-minded misses and their mamas. The crop of bachelors is low to begin with this season, as two of 1816’s most eligible, the Duke of Ashbourne and the Earl of Macclesfield, got themselves leg-shackled last
year.
To make matters worse, the two unmarried Bridgerton brothers (discounting Gregory, who is only sixteen and hardly in a position to aid any poor, young misses on the marriage mart) have made themselves very scarce. Colin, This Author is told, is out of town, possibly in Wales or Scotland (although no one seems to know why he would go to Wales or Scotland in the middle of the season). Benedict’s story is more puzzling. He is apparently in London, but he eschews all polite social gatherings in favor of less genteel milieus.
Although if truth be told, This Author should not give the impression that the aforementioned Mr. Bridgerton has been spending his every waking hour in debauched abandon. If accounts are correct, he has spent most of the past fortnight in his lodgings on Bruton Street.
As there have been no rumors that he is ill, This Author can only assume that he has finally come to the conclusion that the London season is utterly dull and not worth his time.
Smart man, indeed.
LADY WHISTLEDOWN’S SOCIETY PAPERS, 9 JUNE 1817
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.