“They make you polish the silver?”
“Shoes!” she fairly yelled. “I have to polish shoes.”
“Oh.” He leaned back, one shoulder resting against the wall as he crossed his arms. “It sounds dull.”
“It is dull,” she ground out, trying to ignore the tears that suddenly pricked her eyes. She knew her life was dull, but it was painful to hear someone else point it out.
One corner of his mouth lifted into a lazy, seductive smile. “Your life doesn’t have to be dull, you know.”
She tried to step past him. “I prefer it dull.”
He waved his arm grandly to the side, motioning for her to pass. “If that is how you wish it.”
“I do.” But the words didn’t come out nearly as firmly as she’d intended. “I do,” she repeated. Oh, very well, no use lying to herself. She didn’t. Not entirely. But that was the way it had to be.
“Are you trying to convince yourself, or me?” he asked softly.
“I won’t even dignify that with an answer,” she replied. But she didn’t meet his eyes as she said it.
“You’d best get yourself upstairs, then,” he said, raising one brow when she didn’t move. “I’m sure you have a great many shoes to polish.”
Sophie ran up the stairs—the servants’ stairs—and didn’t look back.
* * *
He next found her in the garden—that tiny patch of green she’d so recently (and accurately) mocked as the size of a pound note. The Bridgerton sisters had gone off to visit the Featherington sisters, and Lady Bridgerton was taking a nap. Sophie had all of their gowns pressed and ready for that evening’s social event, hair ribbons were selected and matched to each dress, and enough shoes had been polished to last a week.
With all her work done, Sophie decided to take a short break and read in the garden. Lady Bridgerton had told her that she might borrow freely from her small library of books, so Sophie selected a recently published novel and settled herself into a wrought-iron chair on the small patio. She’d only read a chapter before she heard footsteps approaching from the house. Somehow she managed not to look up until a shadow fell across her. Predictably, it was Benedict.
“Do you live here?” Sophie asked dryly.
“No,” he said, plopping down into the chair next to her, “although my mother is constantly telling me to make myself right at home.”
She could think of no witty rejoinder, so she merely “hmmphed” and stuck her nose back in her book.
He plunked his feet on the small table in front. “And what are we reading today?”
“That question,” she said, snapping the book shut but leaving her finger in to mark her place, “implies that I am actually reading, which I assure you I am unable to do while you are sitting here.”
“My presence is that compelling, eh?”
“It’s that disturbing.”
“Better than dull,” he pointed out.
“I like my life dull.”
“If you like your life dull, then that can only mean that you do not understand the nature of excitement.”
The condescension in his tone was appalling. Sophie gripped her book so hard her knuckles turned white. “I have had enough excitement in my life,” she said through gritted teeth. “I assure you.”
“I would be pleased to participate in this conversation to a greater degree,” he drawled, “except that you have not seen fit to share with me any of the details of your life.”
“It was not an oversight on my part.”
He clucked disapprovingly. “So hostile.”
Her eyes bugged out. “You abducted me—”
“Coerced,” he reminded her.
“Do you want me to hit you?”
“I wouldn’t mind it,” he said mildly. “And besides, now that you’re here, was it really so very terrible that I browbeat you into coming? You like my family, don’t you?”
“Yes, but—”
“And they treat you fairly, right?”
“Yes, but—”
“Then what,” he asked, his tone most supercilious, “is the problem?”
Sophie almost lost her temper. She almost jumped to her feet and grabbed his shoulders and shook and shook and shook, but at the last moment she realized that that was exactly what he wanted her to do. And so instead she merely sniffed and said, “If you cannot recognize the problem, there is no way that I could explain it to you.”
He laughed, damn the man. “My goodness,” he said, “that was an expert sidestep.”
She picked up her book and opened it. “I’m reading.”
‘Trying, at least,” he murmured.
She flipped a page, even though she hadn’t read the last two paragraphs. She was really just trying to make a show of ignoring him, and besides, she could always go back and read them later, after he left.
“Your book is upside down,” he pointed out.
Sophie gasped and looked down. “It is not!”
He smiled slyly. “But you still had to look to be sure, didn’t you?”
She stood up and announced, “I’m going inside.”
He stood immediately. “And leave the splendid spring air?”
“And leave you.” she retorted, even though his gesture of respect was not lost on her. Gentlemen did not ordinarily stand for mere servants.
“Pity,” he murmured. “I was having such fun.”