Page 123 of A Duchess for his Family

“I know what the rule was.”

The words were scarcely audible beneath the music. Benedict’s hand tightened around hers. Sophia looked at him.

“What I do not know,” she said, “is whether I can bear it.”

Everything inside him stopped. The ballroom seemed suddenly distant. Music, laughter, candlelight, all of it withdrew until there was only Sophia standing before him with that terrible quiet honesty in her eyes.

Benedict forgot the next step. Actually forgot it.

Sophia corrected automatically, shifting with him before anyone could notice.

Once, he had taught her to command a ballroom. Now she rescued him from one.

“Sophia…”

She looked away.

“I thought I could.”

The music carried them apart. Benedict had one entire turn in which to breathe. It did not help. When she returned, her expression had composed itself again.

“I thought it would be simple,” she continued. “We would care for the girls. We would be friends, perhaps. We would make a home together.”

Benedict could scarcely speak. “That is what we are doing.”

Sophia gave him a sad little smile. “No. It was.”

The words cut deeper than anger would have done. He wanted to deny it. He wanted to tell her nothing between them had been false, that every laugh mattered, every conversation mattered, the garden mattered, the kiss mattered… especially the kiss.

He wanted to tell her that he had spent several nights remembering the shape of her mouth with an intensity that made sleep nearly impossible. He wanted to confess that distance had not weakened anything. It had made her absence louder.

Instead, he heard himself say, “Perhaps we allowed the arrangement to become unclear.”

Sophia flinched. Benedict saw it anyway. He saw everything she tried not to show him. His own words made him feel ill. He wanted to reach for her, but they were already touching. That was the cruelty of dancing. His hand held hers while every instinct demanded something less formal, something honest.

The figure turned them. Sophia’s other hand rested briefly against his shoulder. Benedict felt the contact through layers of coat and linen as though her palm touched bare skin. His hand loosened around hers.

Then, hope disappeared. He nearly broke then. He nearly stopped the dance entirely. He nearly took her hand and walked her out of the ballroom and told her the truth somewhere no one could hear it, that he was afraid, that he wanted her, and that those two things had become indistinguishable.

Instead, he remembered graves. He remembered what love had cost him before.

The music approached its end. Sophia lowered her eyes.

“I understand.”

Benedict knew she did not. Or perhaps she understood too well.

“Sophia.”

She lifted her face and smiled, beautifully and perfectly.

“For the girls,” she said.

The final notes sounded. Applause rose around them. Benedict bowed. Sophia curtsied. When she placed her hand upon his arm and allowed him to escort her from the floor, the room saw precisely what it expected to see: the Duke and Duchess of Rivermere, elegant, devoted and entirely content.

Benedict walked beside his wife while something inside him ached with every step. He told himself again that this was for the best.

For Sophia. For the girls. For all of them.