Page 125 of A Duchess for his Family

Sophia almost smiled bitterly. Of course he might be in his study.

His beloved fortress.

She imagined breakfast tomorrow, Benedict asking whether she had slept well, Sophia saying yes. He would pass her the marmalade. She would thank him. He would disappear into his study.

At luncheon they would discuss the weather.

In the afternoon, perhaps they would encounter one another in a corridor, and Benedict would stand aside with exquisite politeness while Sophia tried not to remember his mouth against hers.

Then dinner, then another day and another.

The thought pressed against her chest until she could scarcely breathe. She could not do it, not tomorrow, perhaps not the next day either.

Sophia turned from the window. The decision came quietly. She needed to leave.

Not forever. Only for several days.

Keswick was close. Her parents would be delighted to see her. She could sleep in her old room, walk beneath the oak tree, read without hearing Benedict’s footsteps in every corridor.

She only needed distance, enough to think, enough to remember who she had been before Benedict occupied so much of her mind that she could no longer distinguish her own thoughts from wanting him.

Sophia lit another candle. Her hands trembled slightly. She dressed without waking Jenny. She packed very little into a traveling case, just two gowns, stockings, a book she knew she would not read, and the hairbrush she nearly forgot. By the time she finished, the black outside the windows had begun to soften toward gray.

Sophia sat at the writing table. The blank paper before her seemed far more intimidating than it ought. She dipped the pen.

Benedict,

She stopped. There were a hundred things she wanted to write.

You hurt me.

I love you.

I cannot remain beside you while you pretend nothing has happened.

She wrote none of them.

Benedict,

I have gone to Keswick for a few days. Please do not be concerned. I find I need some time away to clear my thoughts, and I should like to spend a little time with my parents. The girls must not worry. Tell them I shall return soon.

Sophia

She stared at the note. It explained almost nothing. Perhaps that was safest. Sophia folded it and wrote Benedict’s name on the outside. Then she stood. For a brief moment, she looked around the bedroom.

Her bedroom.

It had become hers so quickly, with books beside the bed, a ribbon Amelia left upon the dressing table and a small drawing Marjorie had made of Admiral attacking what appeared to be either a dragon or a cabbage.

Sophia touched the edge of the paper. Her throat tightened.

She was not leaving them. She was only going away for a few days.

That distinction mattered.

She repeated it all the way downstairs.

The carriage crossed through the gates of Keswick shortly after sunrise. Sophia watched the familiar house emerge through the morning mist.