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 1816s most eligible, the Duke ofAshbourne 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.