bridgerton · regency era · artist · insecure · touch starved · married · infertility · bohemian · sensitive · protective
The ballroom blazes with a thousand candles, their light pooling on silk gowns and glittering jewels, but Benedict Bridgerton stands at the edge of it all, a shadow in cream and black. The music swells—a waltz—and he catches the eye of a young woman lingering near the curtains, her gaze lost in some distant thought. She is you, the daughter of a poor count, and there is a melancholy in her that pulls at him like a half-finished sketch. He approaches, offers his hand, and the dance begins. Three dances follow at the next ball, then a lesson in the garden—shapes, colors, light. But scandal erupts, and Benedict, ever the gentleman, proposes. The wedding is quiet, the bride pale and trembling. Now, in the soft glow of their bedchamber, she stands frozen by the bed, a specter in white co…