The Bridgerton's had been your family friends for as long as you could remember. You only lived next door in Number Six Bruton Street, and your back gardens were pretty much attached. You had found a sneaky way through the hedges to see each other late at night.
You started doing this in the middle of the night, sometimes to see Eloise but more often than anything, to see Benedict. You were in love with him, you had already imagined what your life would be like with him and then you would often get sad because his affections did not lie with you.
Benedict never once showed affections towards you. Perhaps it was the gentleman inside of him, not wanting to tarnish a lady's reputation but you never noticed any soft glances or even a hitch to his breath when he saw you. He was unattainable and you knew that.
You crawled through the hole in the hedge to see him sitting there on his favourite swing, smoking a cigarette. He always looked so damn handsome, no matter what he was doing, "Those are bad for your health you know."
He smiled and turned to face you, "And how would you know, Miss Y/L/N?"
"Well – I am only assuming." You shrugged and sat beside him, taking the cigarette from his fingers and putting it between your lips.
Benedict watched you and he could never quite understand your beauty. You were unassuming of everyone's attention around you, something he quite liked. You had a line of suitors but never the right one for you. Benedict only wanted the best for you, even though he secretly hoped you liked him just as he liked you.
"One day your mother is going to see you out here." He took the cigarette from you as he took a drag, letting the smoke fill the air as he let it out.
"Would that be so bad, Mr Bridgerton?" You joked but saw his face change, so you added, "Benedict, we have been meeting like this many years – there is no way that they have not figured it out."
Benedict didn't say anything as he continued to smoke.
"And since when did you care about society's expectations?"
He turned to you, "Since you are involved, Y/N."
"What do you mean?" You laughed slightly.
The air suddenly seemed to change and Benedict's whole demeanour shifted. It wasn't like him to get so serious, but his face had become one you hardly recognised under the moonlight. It wasn't malicious or angry – it was sadness.
"Go home, Y/N." Benedict stubbed out the cigarette and walked towards his back door.
And you were left there with an empty swing next to you, wondering what the hell had happened.
———-
Dearest Gentle Reader,
It has come to This Authors attention that Miss Y/L/N has took a fancy to a rather gracious gentleman. This may come as a shock to you all as many of Miss Y/L/N's suitors have been cast away without a second thought, but I can assure you the main reasons for this is because she is in love.
You as the reader may be wondering if I might unmask the person she is in love with, and do I ever disappoint?
It is none other than, Mr Benedict Bridgerton.
And now This Author wonders just how Mr Bridgerton may react to such news, but I can assure you dear reader, that I am just as in the dark about this one as all of you.
Yours Truly,
Lady Whistledown, Society Papers.
———
You stared at the paper in front you and screamed. Not a real scream, just one in your head. Your life was over completely. You could no longer show your face to the Bridgerton's, let alone Benedict. They would never believe you if you told them that it was fake. Lady Whistledown was always correct.
Rushing upstairs, you knocked on your mother's bedroom door, "Mama, you must send me away now!"
Your mother looked confused to say the least, "What an earth are you talking about, Child?"
You shoved the column into your mother hands, and she read it, her eyes widening and looking extremely uncomfortable, "You are in love with him?"
Great, even your mother believed Whistledown, which meant you could not face anyone of important for a while.
"This is precisely why I need to go away!" You flopped down onto her bed and laid your head in your hands.
"I am not going to send you to the country estate over a column in Lady Whistledown." She scoffed.
"And why the heavens not?" You exclaimed.
"Because she could be lying, Darling."
Growing more irritated by the second, you moved over to the cabinet in her room and snapped, "Well, she isn't, is she? Because I am in love with him and I always have been!"
A few moments of silence passed before you apologised, "Sorry Mama I shouldn't have to spoken to you like that."
Your mother raised from her bedside and walked over to you, giving you a hug. It was what you needed after this had been aired in Whistledown, but you knew for a fact that you had to avoid your neighbours for a while until it all died down.
"It will all make sense one day; I can assure you." Your mother spoke into your hair as she soothed you down.
———-
It had been two weeks since you last ventured outside, and Lady Whistledown had written about you several times in the issues that she published saying such things as:
No one has heard from Miss Y/L/N in over two weeks, This Author can only assume that she has gone in hiding since my publishing.
This Author wants to apologise to Miss Y/L/N, as it seems I have greatly disturbed her. I do hope she is well and that we will see her at Lord and Lady McNeill's ball on Saturday 1st.
Of course, you were to be in attendance to that ball. You were family friends, much like the Bridgerton's. You had no choice but to be there for at least an hour, but you weren't going to dance with anyone, and you were just going to hide out in the garden all night.
That's where you were now, in the gardens of the McNeill estate, with a soft blue dress on and gloves to match. You had a slight glimmer to your skin from the soap you had used, so in the moonlight you shined like a diamond.
The last thing you wanted was to be seen by any of the Bridgerton's and especially Benedict. After the night on the swing set, your mind was racing to why he told you to go home. You pictured Benedict's face in your head and all you could see was that last emotion that flashed across it.
The first time you truly realised your love for him was when he was chasing Eloise around the garden at the age of eighteen. He still had a childlike spirit in him even then and you knew that he would make the perfect husband someday to the right person, and the most brilliant father.
"Lovely evening, is it not?"
You mentally cursed and stood up to greet him, "Mr Bridgerton."
As you took your seat again on the fountain, he sat down next to you, "I thought you loved to dance, why are you not inside?"
You didn't look at him as he spoke, just stared forward, "I find it was rather stuffy in there."
"Strange because I don't think you have been inside at all tonight."
"You must've not seen me," You shrug, "I'll be going back inside now."
Benedict stood up and offered his arm to escort you, but you walked straight by him, "Y/N, wait."
Closing your eyes, you span around on your heels, "Yes, Mr Bridgerton?"
"Call me Benedict, please." He almost pleaded.
"Yes, Benedict?" You repeated, wanting him to get his point across. You did not want to be out here with him and have the conversation you had been dreading for weeks now.
"You have been avoiding me for weeks, and I cannot bare it. I do not care what Lady Whistledown writes." Benedict walks closer to you, if anyone caught you right now, it would scandalous indeed.
"Ben, please, I cannot – I do not want to talk about this." You whisper.
"Y/N, you are my oldest friend, I cannot lose you to some scandal sheet." Benedict whispers back.
You back away from him. It hurt your soul for him to call you his 'oldest friend'. You could not bare to do this anymore, to keep pretending, so you did something you swore you would never do and tell the truth.
"Benedict, I cannot be your oldest friend anymore because well, because Lady Whistledown was correct. I have feelings for you, I have done for many years now and I cannot bare to be near you for the fear of rejection." Small tears start rolling down your face and at seeing this Benedict lays his hands on both sides of it and takes the tears away with this thumb.
"I feel the very same." Benedict's voice is low and earnest.
"What?" You reply, shock filling your face as you sniffle from the tears.
"I couldn't bare to see you courting anyone else, but I did not want you to get caught with me and then be forced into something you did not want." Benedict almost laughs at just how foolish he has been.
"I love you, Ben, I have always loved you."
Benedict looks from left to right, to make sure no one is there and then takes your lips in his. This is something you had been thinking about for years. His perfect plump lips on yours, his tongue making entry to your mouth as a small whimper comes from inside of it. Benedict had to stop there in fear he would take all your innocence in one night.
"You are to be my wife, if you will take me?"
Still flustered from the kiss, "Y-Yes, I would be silly not to."