Page 120 of A Duchess for his Family

Benedict had broken no promise. That was perhaps what hurt most.

Sophia sank slowly into the chair beside the table. She looked at the book lying uselessly before her.

She had spent much of her life believing herself easy to overlook, then Benedict came. Benedict noticed when she disappeared from crowded rooms. He noticed when other people hurt her. He noticed when she was frightened, when she was angry, when she was pretending not to be either.

Little by little, Sophia had allowed herself to believe she was no longer invisible, that she had finally entered a place where someone might look for her when she was absent. And now, for the first time since coming to Rivermere, Benedict seemed to be deliberately teaching himself not to look.

Sophia bowed her head. She could survive being overlooked. She had done it before.

She had simply never known, until Benedict, how much more painful it was to be seen first.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Benedict had never before considered perfection such an unpleasant thing to perform.

To everyone watching, he and Sophia appeared perfectly happy. He knew because three separate people had told him so. Lady Hartwell called them devoted. Lord Bainbridge remarked that marriage seemed to agree with Rivermere. An elderly dowager whose name Benedict had temporarily forgotten looked between them with moist approval and informed Sophia that there was nothing so reassuring as seeing a husband unwilling to leave his wife unattended for more than five minutes.

Sophia smiled. Benedict smiled. The lie became complete.

The ballroom at Ashcombe House glowed with candlelight, crystal, and enough gilding to fund a small war. Music swept beneath the painted ceiling as silk whispered over polished floors and conversation rose and fell around them in elegant waves.

Sophia stood beside him in pale blue. Benedict had noticed the gown the instant she descended the stairs at Rivermere.

He had also made himself say only, “You look very well.”

Very well.

He deserved to be struck.

Sophia had looked at him for half a heartbeat too long before smiling.

“Thank you.”

Now every gentleman in the room appeared capable of seeing what Benedict had deliberately refused to say. She was beautiful. And not because of the silk, though the color made her hazel eyes warmer and softened the brown of her hair where candlelight touched it. It was also not because of the pearls at her throat, but because she was Sophia.

It was because she listened with her whole face when someone spoke, because amusement appeared first in her eyes before reaching her mouth, because she had begun to stand differently since becoming Duchess of Rivermere, not louder or grander, but with some new certainty that made people notice what Benedict had noticed almost from the beginning.

He remained beside her. That was his duty. At least, that was what he told himself.

When they entered, his hand rested at the small of her back. When someone addressed her, Benedict remained near enough to hear. When she crossed toward the refreshment table, he accompanied her. When a gentleman bowed over her hand too long, Benedict experienced several thoughts unworthy of a civilized man and expressed none of them.

From a distance, it probably looked like devotion. Only Sophia knew he had scarcely spoken ten unnecessary words to her all evening. She played her part beautifully. She laughed when expected. She spoke warmly to acquaintances. She touched his sleeve once when Lord Harbury told an intolerably long story, and the gesture appeared so natural that Benedict’s heart turned painfully beneath his ribs.

She did not look wounded. She did not look angry. She looked radiant. And Benedict knew better now than to trust it. Once, he might not have. He had learned Sophia’s quietness too well. She concealed pain by becoming easier for everyone around her. That knowledge made every smile feel like an accusation.

“This is going very well,” Nathaniel murmured beside him.

Benedict did not look away from Sophia. She was speaking with her sister several feet away. Frances said something that made Sophia laugh, though even across the distance Benedict heard the restraint beneath it.

“I do not know what you mean.”

“Of course you do.”

Nathaniel followed his gaze. “To everyone in this room, you look one affectionate glance away from inspiring poetry.”

“That would be unfortunate.”

“Yes. Particularly as you appear miserable.”