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"Mr. Bridgerton, you are burning up! ...This is hardly a bruise. ...Why did you not say anything?!"
"It's you," he slurred. Eyes fever-bright but suddenly open. "You- your scent."
She froze, fingers curling around the white muslin bandage.
"My lady," he whispered again, looking at her with those eyes. A deep, playful blue now veined red with exhaustion and pain. "My lady..."
The frantic pulse of her heart threatened to deafen her.
He knew. Somehow, he knew.
"Please..." he rasped, struggling to rise. Skin almost painfully bright in the moonlight. Highlighting the humid gleam of his throat as it worked around the words. "Stay. ...Stay with me."
She swallowed so hard it hurt. Fighting every inch that shouted for her to go to him. Feeling the heathen need - the Omega need - to sooth and comfort. To crawl into the curl of him. To root out his taste. To trace the sharp of his teeth with her tongue. To dig her face so deeply into his chest that their scents would merge and any chance of them parting ways without being bonded would be impossible.
There was no law - in King or Country - that could force them apart once bonded.
That much she knew for certain.
And yet, they would certainly try.
Wars had been started for less.
But more than that, more than him, it was herself she would have to answer too. And she'd promised herself, etched it into the soot-streaked stones of her father's hearth, that she wouldn't let history repeat itself.
Her mouth opened, dry and tart with the salt of a summer rain.
"I cannot," she whispered, stricken. Ruining whatever good intentions she had when she allowed his hand to find hers. Seizing her gently, but with no quarter to escape. "I cannot."
The rumble that came up from his chest was pure Alpha. Stripped of the constraints society demanded and deeply instinctual. It should have frightened her. But it didn't. Instead, it made the skin on the back of her neck shiver with pleasure.
"You are mine," he whispered, eyes finding hers in the half-dark. Focusing on her even as his chest worked like a bellows. Fighting the fever that threatened to drag him back to unconsciousness. "I have been looking for you... and here you are."
Only Mr. Bridgerton could make a statement sound so much like a question. As if even now, when he had her, knew her, he was still unsure of his welcome.
It was quite without her leave that her thumb stroked his hand. He had the softness of a gentleman. But it was the slight roughness between his fingers that gave the truth away. There was some passion, some occupation, that moved him. Once again, he was more than he appeared.
She squeezed her eyes closed.
Why was she only making this harder on herself?
She couldn't.
They couldn't.
"Shhhh," she soothed. Feeling like she was in a dream as her lips brushed across his hand. Breathing it in as his Alpha scent rose thick between them. Desperately trying to ignore the way he was straining for her. Cock thick and damp against the coverlet. The white linen almost translucent as rut and fever clashed like warring stags in his blood.
Because he wasn't wrong.
He was hers.
Benedict Bridgerton was hers.
She'd known the moment she'd kissed him.
It had been the last thing she'd intended. The last thing she needed or even wanted. But it was the truth. And it was the most beautiful, horrible thing she had ever experienced.
"Sophie..." he rasped, pulling her closer. Saying her name like it was a benediction. A blessing. "I- please..."
She raised her head, already seeing the exhaustion starting to creep in as she teetered awkwardly against the edge of the bed. Unable to remove her hand from his, but unwilling to settle on the mattress beside him. Knowing if she did, she would never get up again.
"Stay?"
She opened her mouth, ready to be honest before something dark and sweetly complicated suffocated it. He wouldn't remember come morning. She would bathe. Use the lotions and oils that lined the cupboards of the guest rooms to mask her scent. And she would look at herself in the mirror and practice until polite apathy was all but second nature.
She would do that for him, but also for herself.
Because the best he could offer her, even as his Omega, was as a mistress. A reality that would tear him up from the inside until he would go the way of her late father. Dead before he was five and forty from the stress and grief of society refusing to let him keep his Omega at his side.
And that life? One of subjugation and lies, was a fate she would not repeat. Not even for him. For her Alpha.
"Alright," she whispered finally, wondering if this would be the lie that would damn her. Voice cracking as every part of her - woman and Omega - faced the reality that the most sacred moment of their lives would end this way. "I will stay."
Unfinished.
Like the echo of a happy ending from another life.
The tears stung as they hit the bedclothes.
Other than that, her grief didn't make a sound.
She'd had practice, after all.
His exhale was a visceral thing. Heavy and relieved as his head settled back into the pillows. Watching her as his eyes fluttered closed, as if at loath to let her go, even for a moment.
She waited until his breathing evened before she untangled their fingers and set his hand gently on his chest. Lingering for a moment before retreating to the chair at his bedside.
She would stay a little while.
Only a little while.