benedict bridgerton has been looking for a new muse, where better to look than the delicate fingers of the new harpist who he keeps seeing around town?
if he is apollo, then maybe this time he will catch this falling icarus
| benedict bridgerton x...
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BARROW Hill Place has not changed in the three years in which Cornelius has been gone.
This beautiful, towering townhouse offers him salvation on a golden platter. He can feel the rhythmic thumping in his chest, the sounds from inside drowning out the rush of blood in his ears. All he has to do is walk up the short stone path, knock, and be allowed back into the life he left behind. His hand shakes on the iron-wrought gate.
He stares at the rose bush at the bottom of the three steps that will lead him back to his old life. This rose bush has been here longer than he has. His family is old. One of the oldest in the ton, and yet, he was the one to scald their reputation entirely. He has been sick into this rose bush more times than he can count.
The brown brick has been cleaned recently, shining brighter than their neighbours. The Pennicuicks on one side and the Marwoods on the other. The season has started so they are back in town. The sons used to always stay in town, way back when, to make it easier to drink, and play cards, and experiment in all the ways they could dirty the other's mattress. It is easier to have mistresses when your mother is not breathing down your neck trying to marry you off. It is easier to have the Howe son over to kiss the delicate skin above your pubic line when your father is not drinking brandy on the floor below.
Cornelius' hand is still shaking as he raises it to use the knocker. Shined recently so that the gilded metal glints in the dying sunlight. His fingers wrap around it. His entire body is shaking. The last time he saw his family, his mother was screaming at him as she pushed him out this exact door. His mouth was flooded with iron from his father's fist. He spat it out into the rose bush and took off down the lane.
He never turned back.
He knocks.
The letter arrived yesterday. Two days after the Bridgertons' wedding celebrations. Lavinia had collected the mail from the doorstop that day and stared down at the flowery handwriting of his mother, trying to get a sense of how important this letter was. She had thrown it in his lap at breakfast and they had all watched, eyes narrowed, as his shaking hands had torn it open. Frederick joked about him having another lover, but was quickly shushed by Romil's elbow twisting into his ribs.
His breath had caught in his throat as his mother's invitation to dinner stared up at him.
He had been sick three times since. Every time he thought about facing his father, his stomach would twist and whatever was floating there would be violently forced back up without warning. He almost knocked over Ellen in his last attempt to be sick in a respectable place. That was thirty minutes ago.
