Sweet Honour- Benedict Bridgerton

21. The Burning Home

There wasn't much to do besides sit on the windowsill, watching the birds perch themselves on slim branches and peck on pink cherry blossoms.
Victoria became tiresome with her illness, wanting to explore the woods behind her home once again, to dip her toes into the pond and watch the hares pounce around the bushes. But of course, she sat, looking in her minds eye to the sun settling upon the stream that she so wanted to touch.
Nonetheless, after some more time of looking, a carriage pulled up along the gravel road outside the Bridgerton home. Her head resting on the window pane, she saw Benedict step out of the carriage.
He looked up at her, she looked down. He waved, she smiled.

There it was, oh so suddenly, the illness gone.

She stood up from the windowsill, and hurried from her room and down the staircase to meet him. She could see him, his brown head of hair before she had even reached the foyer, her heart elated like never before.

Insert: I do not know reader, if you know the feeling I am about to describe, and I truly hope you do not know it, because those who do are not fond of it. I suppose I am entering myself here in this moment in order to allow Victoria some dignity for the thing that she is about to do, and perhaps, you will too. Sometimes the feminine emotion can turn rash -possibly explosive- when a heart breaks. It is a lonely thing, like watching a home burn down from a distance- you can see the smoke rising into the sky in the town, but you are too busy enjoying yourself in the forest and too far away to see that your house is the one in ruins, until you walk up to it and touch the black soot. (ends)

Victoria didn't see her, floating around behind him. Victoria wanted to keep her eyes on him and keep her heart as light and free as a feather, but her gaze kept flickering to the young lady. She had dark brown hair half covered by a pale yellow bonnet, she wore a dress of the matching shade and white lace gloves- but she removed those quickly and gave them, along with her parasol, to Eileen. She bore a sickeningly perfect smile, frame, and face. Oh, yes, and Benedict wore his new suit from the tailors as he mentioned in the note that was, for some reason, crumpled up in the palm of her hand, which she quickly placed behind her back.

If there was one thing her mother had been sure to teach her, it was to never be unwelcoming, so she smiled and curtsied to both him and her. It was no consolation, no comfort, to her slowly aching heart, but it was the right thing.

"Victoria," Benedict said, "this is Lady Maude Whitlock, an old friend of mine." he smiled, as though the 'old friend of mine' made it any better. "We met while you were in Cornwall, we schooled together for a time before she moved back to France." Ah, she was the muse. One of the many according to Eloise, Victoria would always be grateful for her tendency to gossip.

"It is a pleasure to meet you." Victoria said as she outstretched her empty hand for Maude to shake, she accepted and let go, then snaked her arm around Benedict's.

"It is lovely, oh what a house!" Maude exclaimed, "Do you live here too?" she dropped her voice to a low whisper, "Or work here?"

"Oh, no. I'm only here on an extended visit to my friends here, I live quite near." She forced a smile, "That reminds me, I must really be going-" At her core, Victoria was a jealous girl. Yes, she always tried to be courteous, hopeful and warm on the outside, but inside her shell, she was a jumble of confused and vain emotion. She was a bonfire - homely and charming at first, but you get too close and your skin bubbles off with the heat.

"But what about... the situation." Benedict interjected, quite obviously referring to the fact that her mothers murderer was wandering around the town, but for some reason she didn't seem to care. If that man was out on a hit again, there was no stopping him, so why should she -and her sisters- hide until they died of mania instead?

"It is no matter, my sisters and I will pack promptly and be gone by tea time."

This avoidance felt better than confrontation, there had been far too much confrontation as of late to stand there and watch another woman cling to the man that she loved. Victoria was critical of her naivete and insecurity, but it was a common thing for "diamonds" then; once you are named the most eligible and admirable lady in the ton, there should be absolutely no competition. She had a weak constitution and the knowledge that she was a wounded animal compared to Maude, a woman who looked into the past and grasped onto old relationships, grasped onto him still. It was true that they both should be exploring every path, and it was absolutely not her place to resent Maude for being everything that she couldn't.

Victoria curtsied again to them both, perhaps her eyes lingered on his for a little too long before walking away, but that was something that only he could notice.

She walked, an inhale with every step, and an exhale with another. Her room - was it even her room in his house? - wasn't far at all, away up the marble stairs again, the cold ground thrumming through her, awakening, opening her shy and tired eyes. She regretted it. She didn't even know the girl. How could she go about making preconceptions about her, her being, soul or mind? Stupidly, she put her relationship with him aside, eyes clouded and disillusioned by jealousy. The image of Maude wrapping her arm in his flashed before her again. A pang in the heart.

She clung to her lilac dress, holding it up so that she wouldn't trip over. The lights on the second floor were turned off, no candle burned inside them. Her feet carried her back to her door, her mind begged her to see reason in the safety of the home, her heart yearned to evade more ache and escape in an instant. One of her hands clung to the door handle and suddenly, the other pulled her into the darkness of the hallway by a mystery clutch on her wrist.

She couldn't see who it was until the figure struck a match and lit a small lamp. Eloise looked back at her.

"Are you an absolute idiot?" Eloise said, quiet and with a judging brow.

"Excuse me?"

"Tell me, clearly, why you are leaving." Eloise asked, and Victoria started to answer. "No, none of that 'but I can't stand to see him with another woman' nonsense. What is your true reason."

Victoria took a deep inhale, trying to make sense of every thought in her mind. She felt as though she owed it to Eloise to tell the truth. "I don't know. I'm jealous? Lonely? Unhappy? I have every single emotion flowing in my veins and I cannot make sense of it. I need time. Alone, I think."

Iris walked out of the room behind them, she looked baffled at the scene. "Pst." Eloise whispered. "You come here, maybe you can strike some sense into your sister, I believe my attempt to be failing."

"Well, what is the matter?" Iris asked.

"Victoria has just met Benedict's old friend, Maude, in the foyer and has decided in an instant that she must leave." Eloise explained.

"That is not the whole situation."

"Then you explain it." Eloise retorted.

"Fine." Again, Victoria took another deep breath. "Maude floated in all stunning and blindingly beautiful, practically clinging onto him, asking if I worked in the house, he downplayed their relationship, and now my head is in a spin."

"You are an idiot. No, do not interrupt me." Iris held her hand up to a desperate Victoria who was now pacing up and down the hallway, in and out of candlelight. "Did he say to you, 'Oh dear Victoria, I hath shunned you for another lady, and you must leave the home and become a beggar for I do not care for you anymore.' Do you truly think that he is the type of man to say that?"

Victoria stopped pacing and pouted slightly. "No," she said, "perhaps Anthony would say that, but not Benedict." Eloise nodded in agreement.

"Okay, now you are seeing reason and not jealousy. Thank the heavens." Iris relaxed her shoulders.

"Victoria, would you at least stay for dinner?"