Sophie blanched.

“Are you quite all right?” Lady Bridgerton asked, leaning forward. “You don’t look well.”

“I think something didn’t agree with me,” Sophie hastily lied, clutching her stomach for effect. “Perhaps the milk was off.”

“Oh, dear,” Daphne said with a concerned frown as she looked down at her baby. “I gave some to Caroline.”

“It tasted fine to me,” Hyacinth said.

“It might have been something from this morning,” Sophie said, not wanting Daphne to worry. “But all the same, I think  I had better lie down.” She stood and took a step toward the door. “If that is agreeable to you, Lady Bridgerton.”

“Of course,” she replied. “I hope you feel better soon.”

“I’m sure I will,” Sophie said, quite truthfully. She’d feel better just as soon as she left Penelope Featherington’s line of vision.

“I’ll come get you when my cousins arrive,” Hyacinth called out.

“If you’re feeling better,” Lady Bridgerton added.

Sophie nodded and hurried out of the room, but as she left, she caught sight of Penelope Featherington watching her with a most intent expression, leaving Sophie filled with a horrible sense of dread.

*  *  *

Benedict had been in a bad mood for two weeks. And, he thought as he trudged down the pavement toward his mother’s house, his bad mood was about to get worse. He’d been avoiding coming here because he didn’t want to see Sophie; he  didn’t want to see his mother, who was sure to sense his bad mood and question him about it; he didn’t want to see Eloise,  who was sure to sense his mother’s interest and try to interrogate him; he didn’t want to see—

Hell, he didn’t want to see anyone. And considering the way he’d been snapping off the heads of his servants (verbally, to be sure, although occasionally quite literally in his dreams) the rest of the world would do well if they didn’t care to see him, either.

But, as luck would have it, right as he placed his foot on the first step, he heard someone call out his name, and when he  turned around, both of his adult brothers were walking toward him along the pavement.

Benedict groaned. No one knew him better than Anthony and Colin, and they weren’t likely to let a little thing like a broken heart go unnoticed or unmentioned.

“Haven’t seen you in an age,” Anthony said. “Where have you been?”

“Here and there,” Benedict said evasively. “Mostly at home.” He turned to Colin. “Where have you been?”

“Wales.”

“Wales? Why?”

Colin shrugged. “I felt like it. Never been there before.”

“Most people require a slightly more compelling reason to take off in the middle of the season,” Benedict said.

“Not I.”

Benedict stared at him. Anthony stared at him.

“Oh, very well,” Colin said with a scowl. “I needed to get away. Mother has started in on me with this bloody marriage thing.”

“ ‘Bloody marriage thing’?” Anthony asked with an amused smile. “I assure you, the deflowering of one’s wife is not quite so gory.”

Benedict kept his expression scrupulously impassive. He’d found a small spot of blood on his sofa after he’d made love to Sophie. He’d thrown a pillow over it, hoping that by the time any of the servants noticed, they’d have forgotten that he’d had  a woman over. He liked to think that none of the staff had been listening at doors or gossiping, but Sophie herself had once  told him that servants generally knew everything that went on in a household, and he tended to think that she was right.

But if he had indeed blushed—and his cheeks did feel a touch warm—neither of his brothers saw it, because they didn’t say anything, and if there was anything in life as certain as, say, the sun rising in the east, it was that a Bridgerton never passed  up the opportunity to tease and torment another Bridgerton.

“She’s been talking about Penelope Featherington nonstop,” Colin said with a scowl. “I tell you, I’ve known the girl since we were both in short pants. Er, since I was in short pants, at least. She was in ...” He scowled some more, because both his brothers were laughing at him. “She was in whatever it is that young girls wear.”

“Frocks?” Anthony supplied helpfully.

“Petticoats?” was Benedict’s suggestion.

“The point is,” Colin said forcefully, “that I have known her forever, and I can assure you I am not likely to fall in love with her.”

Anthony turned to Benedict and said, “They’ll be married within a year. Mark my words.”

Colin crossed his arms. “Anthony!”

“Maybe two,” Benedict said. “He’s young yet.”

“Unlike you,” Colin retorted. “Why am I besieged by Mother, I wonder? Good God, you’re thirty-one—”

“Thirty,” Benedict snapped.

“Regardless, one would think you’d be getting the brunt of it.”

Benedict frowned. His mother had been uncharacteristically reserved these past few weeks when it came to her opinions on Benedict and marriage and why the two ought to meet and soon. Of course, Benedict had been avoiding his mother’s house like the plague, but even before that, she’d not mentioned a word.

It was most odd.

“At any rate,” Colin was still grumbling, “I am not going to marry soon, and I am certainly not going to marry Penelope Featherington!”