#poor benedict

Benedict Bridgerton had known he was going to ask Sophie Beckett to marry him since their third date. When she’d looked up at him from across his kitchen table and said “If you keep saying things like that you’re going to make me fall in love with you, you know.” with a soft smile on her face, her green eyes sparkling at him in the soft lighting. He’d bought an engagement ring a week later.  The ring had stayed hidden in his sweater drawer, right at the back, hidden in the sleeve of his old Art Attack sweater, for the last 15 months. He’d wanted to do it so many times. 

The question was on the tip of his tongue all the time. Like when she’d moved into his house and smiled at the picture of her on the living room wall, and when she made his favourite lemon meringue pie for him, leaving it sitting on the kitchen bench with a little note next to it Have an Amazing Day Love You- Sophie xx. Or when his name fell from her lips like a whispered prayer and a God, I love you so much as she fell apart around him. But she wasn’t ready, and he respected that. He couldn’t push more than she was willing to give. And then, one day, she’d made a flippant comment “Am I going to have to put up with you photographing our children relentlessly?” and he’d known. 

He’d gone straight to Anthony’s house, bounding through the front door and yelling out “I want to ask Sophie to marry me!” Kate had gasped loudly and pulled him into a tight hug. Anthony had tutted loudly admonishing  “Ben, not now! Our actual baby is sleeping!” though there was a bright smile on his face. 

And so now, here Benedict was, absolutely sweating bullets as he drove towards Kent. Back to where he met Sophie Beckett for the second time, and his life really started. Her ring burning hot against his leg. Sophie hummed next to him. “Ben,” she said shrewdly eyeing him, “Are you going to ask me to marry you this weekend?”