Chapter Text
“Sophie!”
Sophie freezes. Right now, with a load of damp jeans Araminta insisted she needed to wash this very second since Rosamund needed to be approachable, she wonders if she can pretend she didn’t hear. As she fumbles it toward the dryer—why would anyone make a stacked washer-dryer with the dryer on top?—she reminds herself that everything is okay and she does not need to panic.
Even the most expensive dryer needs to be approached with the gentleness of approaching a horse (Sophie assumes; she never actually approached a horse). Laundry days seem to be infinite, and Araminta tacking chores on never helps.
“Sophie!”
She squints at the settings. Hit the wrong combination, and the dryer will deposit damp denim for everyone to wear. Then again, Sophie has to do her laundry at the laundromat (since Araminta does not want the machine occupied in case a wardrobe emergency happens). Her jeans will be just fine.
Honestly, it might be for the best. Wet jeans might get everyone sick, and Sophie lets a moment of fantasy sweep over her. Araminta and Rosamund will get too sick to go to set, which means Sophie will not have to watch both women condescend to anyone they considered ‘the help,’ never mind the fact everyone has worked hard to work in the movie industry. It might be a unique embarrassment to see Araminta’s sickness bell chiming in the morning, but it could be a better embarrassment.
“Sophie Baek, I swear to God if you are not—”
Sophie hits DRY and lets out a sigh.
Then, she hurries to Rosamund’s bedroom.
“I’m sorry, I was just—”
“I don’t need to hear your excuses,” Rosamund says immediately.
Right, Sophie mouths to herself.
Rosamund sits in front of her vanity, her dark hair sprawled around her shoulders, damp from the shower. A distinct scent of rosewater floats from her, a shampoo Araminta imported when an actor (one who tends to be Leonardo DiCaprio in the stories) complimented the scent in an interview. When she wore it, DiCaprio was apparently so impressed, he doubled back to make sure Rosamund would get another role.
Considering Sophie can count the number of lines Rosamund had in Revolutionary Road on one hand, and she doubts Rosamund had any more in Inception, Sophie would like to stop hearing this story.
“Well?” Rosamund asks.
Sophie blinks.
“Are you going to do my hair?” Rosamund rolls her eyes in the vanity. “I need rollers in for the morning. I have to look approachable.”
Is curly hair more approachable?, Sophie wants to scream.
Instead, she steps toward the vanity and grabs the foam rollers from where they lie. Araminta insists they use the curling iron as little as possible. After all, their hair barely holds a curl after heat, and it will be a surefire way to damage it. Sometimes, Araminta snaps at the hairdressers during shoots about it.
As Sophie grabs the hairbrush, running the tines through Rosamund’s fine hair, she transforms. In a different world, it would be Sophie in front of the vanity, a mother behind her. Sophie never knew her mother—her father never even showed her a photo—so she casts Son Ye-jin in the role. She’d whisper sweet things across Sophie’s hair as she did a thousand strokes on each side.
“I love you,” her false mother loves to say. She repeats it in case Sophie forgot throughout the day. “I wish I could be with you, always.”
“You have to work,” Sophie says in her head. Maybe her mother was an actress. She could imagine Richard Gun, an emerging director, falling in love with one of the leading women in Hollywood. Maybe her spirit caught his attention. She delivered her lines with such intention, such passion; he couldn’t help but fall in love then.
Or maybe she worked behind-the-scenes. Maybe she directs the spotlights toward the real leading ladies, and she does so with a humbleness and a mastery Richard Gun cannot help but notice. He lingers by the lighting rig each day, waiting to see if she will say something, but right before wrap, he decides he cannot live another day without her.
Or maybe she simply works at a coffee shop like Sophie. He usually has an intern get his coffee, but one day, he decides to go himself, and he notices her working behind the bar. Then, he makes elaborate excuses to see her, letting his intern get real experience behind the camera while he flirts with this mystery woman.
No matter what, in her imagination, her false mother radiates with the love of both Richard Gun and Sophie. She has never doubted it for a moment. Love has just been a staple, a north star, a—
“Ouch!” Rosamund squeals. She reaches back and grabs Sophie’s wrist. “What do you think you’re doing? That hurt.”
“I’m sorry,” Sophie says, obediently, letting the fantasies melt away. Her mother could be anyone.
Her father is long dead.
“You’re lucky you work for us,” Rosamund says, crossing her arms over her chest. “Anyone else would fire you for being distracted like that.”
Lucky.
Somehow, Sophie doesn’t reach for that word, usually.
“Do you want me to run lines with you?”
Rosamund rolls her eyes again. She makes an art of it. Even at her most annoyed, nobody could mistake her as anything other than beautiful. “If I wanted to run lines, I’d run them with someone talented.”
Never mind that Rosamund often runs lines with Sophie.
Never mind that Rosamund will take Sophie’s interpretations to the auditions.
Never mind all of that.
So, Sophie plasters a smile on her face, and she starts to curl up Rosamund’s hair.
~~~
“I wish we spent more time studying Hangul,” Posy says, not looking away from the rolling landscape.
Sophie flexes her fingers on the steering wheel, drumming them slightly. “You don’t like French?”
“I do, but…” Posy lets out a sigh, her whole body trembling with it. It brings a smile to Sophie’s face, even as she tries to bite it back. Posy has never learned how to contain her emotions, how to simper and dance around the topic like Rosamund and Araminta do. It might paint a target on her back, but how can Sophie begrudge her that?
Sophie nods. She wishes she could reach for her, but Araminta insists that if Sophie drives Posy around, Posy should sit in the backseat.
“You,” Araminta says, “are working. Don’t forget that.”
“Maybe we can split our lesson,” Sophie says at last. “You can practice your Hangul, and then we can practice French.”
Posy brightens at that, her smile so easy on her face. “Could we? I’ve been thinking a lot about what you said, about getting a pen pal. It might be fun to connect to someone who actually speaks Korean! They could tell me about where Dad grew up.”
“I’m not sure if we know where—” The word dad sits sourly on her tongue. She swallows it down, pivoting. “Where Richard grew up. Maybe it would be listed in an interview somewhere.”
There is something so impersonal about that, something she dreads doing every time. She sits at her desk—or, more aptly, at Araminta’s desk—and she types it in her father’s legal name. RICHARD GUN. Usually, before reaching the end, she gets swept up in the compliments of his movies. That is where she can feel the space between them collapsing, those tangible pieces of something he poured his love into. When he died, when Araminta told her about the will, it felt like all his love vanished into the open air.
But the movies… his love still exists there.
His love is becoming alive again, actually.
“There’s a rumor going around,” Sophie says as she maneuvers into a parking spot outside A Gentleman’s Offer. She already texted Alfie to save them a spot, which means he probably threw a dirty rag on a table. Then, once they enter with a bell chiming overhead, he’ll hurry over and wipe it off, securing the best study spot she can think of. At the very least, in all the TV shows she watches, people study at coffee shops.
Sophie’s relationship with school was spottier.
Once upon a time, Sophie thought she’d apply to all the fancy acting conversatories. She’d get in, purely on talent since Baek would give nothing about her father away, and she’d go to frat parties and karaoke bars and have best friends who helped her curl her hair at night. She’d live in New York City, likely, or at least go visit. She’d live out every college movie she had seen and catalogued, marking out the memories she’d want to make.
It all crumbled, though, when Richard died. First came the relentless chores, then the unofficial assistantship to Rosamund, then the realization her father left no money in the will, and the dream curled up in her heart. Later became never, and the hope simply died.
Sophie refuses to let all the joy die, though.
As they enter A Gentleman’s Offer, the bell chimes overhead. Alfie glances up from writing someone’s order on a cup, offering a half-wave and a cock of his head toward the table in front of the biggest windows. They let you feel the warmth through the glass, and Sophie likes to people-watch in between checking over Posy’s works. She wants to see the newest fashions, she wants to imagine what someone might be yelling about on the phone, she wants to coo over the babies and the dogs in strollers.
“What rumor?” Posy asks, throwing her backpack onto a chair. Immediately, it tips over and spills all over the floor. “Shoot.”
“Miss Posy,” Alfie singsongs, stepping around the counter. “Are you already making a mess in my cafe?”
“Is it your cafe now?” Sophie asks innocently.
“Boo you.” He steps on a runaway blue pen.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Posy breathes out, scrambling to pick everything up. She gathers it to her chest, arms trembling.
“You shouldn’t be,” Alfie says. “Sophie here made such a big mess the other day.”
“I did not,” Sophie says through a laugh, but she lets Alfie tell the drawn out story about a customer knocking a drink from her hand as she passed it over. As it splattered across the floor, the man thought the easiest way to help out would be to throw his tote bag on the coffee to soak it up. Suffice to say, it caused more trouble.
“Oh, Sophie, that sounds like a mess,” Posy says, giggling.
“It was,” Sophie says and makes an exaggerated huff. “And Alfie, of course, was no help at all.”
“Not my mess, not my job to clean it up.”
The person behind the counter calls for Alfie, and he offers a lazy salute before retreating back to his job.
“With the big nuisance out of the way, maybe we can start work.” Sophie fishes through the papers. She doesn’t think she brought any Hangul-specific worksheet, but she knows she can make something up fairly easily. She knows the language better than Posy, if only because she had seven more years with Richard.
Posy leans across the table, placing her hand over Sophie’s. “Soph, what’s the rumor?”
“What?”
“The rumor you were going to tell me.” She pouts. “You can’t start something like that and never finish!”
Sophie leans closer, lowering her voice. Technically, the news hasn’t been released, and while Sophie has a confirmation, the general public will need to wait for Violet’s party of the season. “They might be renewing Richard’s Violence in Bloom series.”
“What?” Posy shrieks, far too loud.
Every head in the coffeeshop whips around to face them, and Sophie struggles not to flinch at the sudden attention. Every once and a while, she will encounter one of Araminta’s friends, who delight in telling Araminta all of Posy’s social missteps and all of the ways Sophie seems overly familiar.
“Isn’t she just your daughter’s assistant?” Araminta’s friends will drawl, sensing blood in the water.
Araminta will always give Sophie more work after those encounters.
“But… but…” Posy stares at Sophie with wide eyes. She used to make that same expression as a baby, so delighted by everything in the world. Sophie remembers sprawling on her stomach, Posy on a playmat with a carousel above her. Baby Posy would reach out, tiny hands grasping for the circus animals spinning in lazy circles above her. “But that was his dream. Do you know who’s doing it? Oh, will Rosamund be in it?”
“Maybe you could be in it,” Sophie tries.
Posy shakes her head before the sentence is even out. “Who would I play in it? Rosamund is a much better choice. She could be one of those sophisticated spies. She has a good poker face for it. Or maybe she could be the love interest! They’ll have to recast Edmund Bridgerton because… well… but they’ll probably recast everyone, won’t they? Do you think we can get a sneak peek at the script?”
“I’m not sure.” The impossible dream drifts up, only for a second. Would Mrs. Danbury let Sophie see the script? She knows it is already finished, based on the awkward ride back after receiving the offer, but that might be asking too much. After all, Queen Charlotte already told Sophie she doesn’t require her approval. Surely, asking for the script would seem like that.
Posy continues on. “Do you think they’re going to use his notes? We can probably find some of those in his old notebooks! I know we turned over a lot of them to archives, but maybe there are more! Will they ask Mom?”
“I care for the fact your presence might just piss off your stepmother.”
“They probably don’t have to, if they bought the rights,” Sophie says diplomatically.
“I hope they do anyway.” Posy grabs the tablet from across the table, hurrying to type in the name. While the TMZ article gives sparse details, nothing about Queen Charlotte or Mrs. Danbury being executive producer, director, and screenwriter.
Yet, when Posy spins the screen around, Sophie is met with Benedict Bridgerton.
It is a recent photo of him, one she hasn’t seen yet (not that she tracks him in the paper! She just likes to be informed on the updates in Hollywood!). He wears a loose linen shirt, one leg up on a seat while he wraps his arms about it. There is something effortlessly casual about him, like he barely notices the camera. Yet, the smoldering expression rather than a carefree smile leaves it more staged than not. In her memories, when she thinks about the little boy reciting The Lion King, when she thinks about the teenager drunk on a bench, she always thinks about his smile first. He could light up the world with that.
“I bet Benedict will be the brother who steps in,” Posy gushes. “Wouldn’t he just be amazing in the role? Doesn’t it make you happy?”
Happy awe, she thinks.
~~~
“Good?” Sophie asks through a mouthful of pins.
“Honestly, Sophie, it’s like you don’t know how to do anything,” Rosamund snipes.
Sophie fiddles with the dress a little more. Honestly, considering Araminta waited until the last minute to pick up dresses for Daphne Bridgerton’s party (apparently, she wants it to be a masquerade because she always loved Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet, and Sophie couldn’t judge her for that), the dresses fit well enough without Sophie’s maneuverings.
Then again, if things aren’t perfect for Araminta and Rosamund, one of them is bound to throw a tantrum.
Sophie smiles (carefully, because of the pins in her mouth) at her own snideness. If she could say any of this aloud, she might be considered the snarkiest of the Gun family.
“How about now?” she asks.
Rosamund huffs. “I guess it should work. Mama, are you sure this is the right pick? Can’t we send Sophie out to pick something up?”
“No,” Araminta says without looking up from her magazine. Judging by the rate she flips through the pages, she is searching for any mention of their family and disregarding anything else. “They say Anthony Bridgerton has a fondness for history.”
French history?, Sophie thinks, snidely, in her head. Again, she could win awards with all of the secret backtalk she does.
Three years older than either Sophie or Rosamund, Anthony Bridgerton wouldn’t be the most unreasonable suitor foisted upon Rosamund. Araminta seems convinced her eldest daughter could settle with anyone and, therefore, should only marry in ways that would be advantageous to the family. Right now, with the buzz cumulating around the Bridgerton family, all eyes turn back to the fact none of the Bridgertons appear to be in relationships.
Well, that’s not true.
Colin Bridgerton has been dating his costar, Marina, from his vampire t-show for some time. Sophie wonders if he’ll just go as a vampire or if Daphne could convince her brothers to put more effort into their appearances. Judging by the way they usually show up at award ceremonies, they don’t care enough otherwise.
Rosamund, on the other hand, hasn’t left her alone all day.
No, everything must be perfect for her Marie Antoinette costume. She wears a poofy dress that will prove impossible to fit through doorways, and she hides her dark hair under a powdered wig. Sure, it might compliment her, but everything compliments Rosamund. It’s one of the most irritating facts of Sophie’s life.
“Well, at least I’ll look better than the Featheringtons,” Rosamund says, smoothing her hands over her skirts.
Sophie grits her teeth, hoping none of her work will be affected.
“I like the Featheringtons,” Posy chirps. “Penelope—”
“Will be your only competition for ugliest costume,” Rosamund snaps.
Posy deflates in her chair.
Sophie tries to catch her eye.
“You’ll be fine, Posy,” Araminta says, still not looking up. “Doesn’t the little Bridgerton like mermaids?”
Sophie hopes one of the Bridgertons will like mermaids.
“Are the ribbons too much?” Posy blurts. “I thought they made it look like I had seaweed in my hair, but maybe—”
“It doesn’t even show up,” drawls Rosamund. “Your hair is too dark.”
Sophie purposefully hadn’t told Posy that part. Sure, if someone looked closely, they might catch the thin green ribbons, but for the most part, it’d be a lot of work for little pay off.
“It doesn’t matter,” Araminta says. “Don’t worry yourself, Rosamund. Tonight will be a great coup for our family if you do exactly what I’ve instructed.”
“What if Anthony Bridgerton doesn’t want to get married?”
“Honestly, Posy!” Rosamund stomps her feet, startling Sophie backwards. “Do you have to ruin everything for me?”
With that, pins still in her skirt, Rosamund stalks out of the room.
Araminta sighs and folds her magazine. “Posy, what have we said about speaking so carelessly?”
“But I—”
But Araminta chases after Rosamund, leaving just Sophie and Posy.
Sophie spits out the pins and straightens. “I think you look lovely, Posy. Besides, I’m sick to death of the historical costumes.”
Araminta decided to go as Elizabeth I, the British monarch. Sophie doesn’t know who else they might encounter, but she assumes there will be at least one Cleopatra and one Queen Victoria. There might even be another Marie Antoinette, but, again, Sophie doubts Anthony’s rumored passion for history extends to the Napoleonic dynasty.
“No, they’re probably right,” Posy says. “It’s a childish costume.”
You’re only sixteen, Sophie wants to scream. You can still be a child! Don’t let them snuff out your joy!
Instead, Sophie shakes her head. “Just think of yourself as Aquamarine.”
“That movie is for kids too,” Posy reminds her.
“Does that make it bad?”
“It’s not as mature as…” Posy flaps her hand in the direction Rosamund went. Again, Sophie wants to shake her. Posy shouldn’t have to try to be her sister, and Araminta shouldn’t encourage it.
But she can’t change that.
So, Sophie stands up and closes the door.
Then, she makes a dramatic show of bowing and holding out her hand. “May I have this dance, Miss Gun?”
“Sophie, what are you doing?”
“I’m not Sophie,” she says before deepening her voice. She stands up straighter, and she moves her arms about to make her brawnier before getting up on her tip-toes. “I’m Anthony Bridgerton, and I’m intrigued by the girl in the mermaid costume.”
“Anthony is too old for me,” Posy says, but her lips are twitching.
Sophie rolls her eyes. “He doesn’t—I don’t want to marry you. I just want to dance with a beautiful girl and make her smile. Is that too much to ask?”
Posy glances toward the door. Then, after a second, she gets back up and offers her hand. Sophie grins and places a kiss on the back of it. She knows it’s too antiquated, but so is a masquerade ball. She might as well go all in.
So, they whirl around to no music, laughing and whispering and giggling.
She does the little jump step she swears all period pieces do, and Posy responds with a move that looks like a bird offering its leg.
She spins about with her hands in the air, and Posy does a dosey-do.
She shakes her ass.
Posy cackles.
When they’re both out of breath—from laughing, from dancing, from life—they collapse on the ground with each other, staring up at the ceiling as they pant.
“I wish you could come,” Posy says between breaths. “You’d be a lot more fun than Rosamund.
Keep an eye out, she wants to say. Maybe I will be there.
Instead, Sophie hums and says nothing.
~~~
Sophie bounces her leg in the park, trying to look as nonchalant as possible with her headphones and sunglasses.
4:30.
Araminta took Posy and Rosamund to a dinner beforehand, likely a chance to get the paparazzi to take photos of their lovely gowns. All press is good press, even if half the photos lead to Araminta arguing with journalists about unflattering positions mid-bite. She tries to convince Rosamund and Posy to eat as little as possible at these staged interactions, and Sophie mourns her step-sisters’ health.
4:31.
Sophie was the one who made the reservation, so she knows the three of them must be arriving right now. It’s a fancy restaurant, one that will only hold a table for ten minutes before sacrificing it to someone else. That would also be too humiliating for Araminta to even fathom. They likely showed up even earlier.
4:32.
Since Araminta somehow befriended the neighbors (or, likely, they all formed a mutually-assured destruction pact), Sophie knew she couldn’t be picked up from her room. No, she snuck out the window and scaled down a tree she bribed the gardener to be kind to. She rarely has to use that escape route, but she likes knowing it’s available.
4:33.
Sophie reaches up, holding the necklace from her mother in her hand. It pulses like a heartbeat, like an assurance. If she closes her eyes, she can picture someone mother-shaped kissing her brow, assuring her she looks gorgeous tonight, with or without makeup. She did nothing beforehand, knowing Mrs. Danbury and her staff will handle the rest, but she wouldn’t leave the necklace behind.
4:34.
She wonders if her mother ever went to events like this. She knows Richard went to many. In fact, he had been invited to Edmund and Violet’s wedding, long before they ever had Daphne, long before they had become an iconic family due to just how children they had.
4:35.
Maybe she’ll see Benedict Bridgerton.
4:36.
The Mazda is back.
Sophie is on her face and racing to the backdoors, throwing them open and sliding within.
Mrs. Danbury turns around in the front passenger seat, beaming. “Good to know you’re punctual, Miss Baek. We might just get along.”
~~~
Mrs. Danbury swats at her wrist again, the cool metal of the cane against Sophie’s skin. “Stop trying to look!”
“Can you blame her?” Queen Charlotte drawls. “She knows about your abysmal taste.”
“You have a birdcage on your head,” Mrs. Danbury snaps back.
Sophie thinks she might hear a muffled laugh from Brimsley, but it passes too fast for her to truly know. It might have been just a breath, and as someone who has spent her life disguising her laughs as breaths, she knows it takes a certain kind of magic to pull that off.
“Miss Baek,” Mrs. Danbury says, lowering her voice. “It will be far more astounding if you can resist satisfying your curiosities until after the transformation is complete.”
“Your hands probably shake,” Queen Charlotte observes idly. “You probably will smear her makeup.”
“She will be wearing a mask,” Mrs. Danbury says. “Her eye makeup does not need to be flawless.”
“I hire stylists to make sure my makeup is flawless,” Queen Charlotte says.
When Sophie arrived and stammered through her starstruck introductions once again, she asked who Queen Charlotte chose to dress up as. Queen Charlotte scoffed at her and said a woman as great as her does not require a costume. Mrs. Danbury, on the other hand, proudly announced herself as Zeus.
Brimsley said he’d be waiting in the car.
Queen Charlotte said not if she could help it.
And Sophie knows she shouldn’t get too familiar with the three of them. When the time comes, and Araminta is officially baffled and annoyed by her, Sophie will be discarded. She’s just a pawn in a greater game here.
And yet…
And yet, the bickering reminds her of bickering with Alfie and Edwina. There is a casual friendship wrapping tight around her, the kind that is won after many years of being together. Sophie couldn’t name a single person she could fight with this freely. They’re inviting her into a space she never thought she would be allowed. She’s seeing the humanity of some of the greatest creatives she knows.
Whenever she used to visit her father’s set, free to wander around, free to be anyone she chose, she thought life could be little slices of perfection. Now, as she stands here as Lady Danbury applies makeup to her cheeks and her eyelashes, she thinks she found another one. At the very least, she can memorize this moment and pocket it forever. When Araminta yells, when Rosamund condescends, when Posy cries, she can pull this out and analyze it from all angles, crystallizing its happiness.
“I’m sure it will look beautiful,” Sophie says. “Thank you. Again.”
“If you thank her again, child, I will kick you out.”
“Hush,” Mrs. Danbury says. “Maybe it’s about time someone appreciated me properly.”
“It hardly means anything you are making her beautiful. She is beautiful enough without your ministrations.”
“You’re done, aren’t you?” Brimsley interrupts before it gets too intense.
Mrs. Danbury huffs, but she takes a step back. “You can open your eyes.”
When Sophie does, she gasps.
She is transformed, a Cinderella coming to life before her eyes. Mrs. Danbury put her hair up, extenuating her long neck, with a curled strand falling before her ear, purposeful. Her makeup looks gentle. It does not make her someone new, but it makes her someone a little shinier, a little more ready for the screen. The dress she wears is silver and long, something that would come out of a Regency period piece rather than a dress she anticipated. She runs her hands over it, and she feels like a princess.
Maybe she is a princess.
Sophie reaches up, her hand around her mother’s necklace, and she sends a silent thank you to her mother, to anyone who could have helped her have this moment.
“See?” Mrs. Danbury crows. “She’s about to cry. I did a good job.”
“Please. The bar was low.” Queen Charlotte rises then. “Did you bring the shoes?”
Sophie resists the urge to flinch, but she nods over to the duffle bag she brought with her. While the two women agreed to get the dress and the mask, they asked if Sophie could provide silver shoes. Preferably, according to Queen Charlotte, the ones Araminta bought about a year ago and never wore.
(“Hush, I’m not stalking your step-mother,” Queen Charlotte scoffed when Sophie couldn’t quite control her expression. “I just happened to notice, and I will take no further questions.”)
“Brimsley,” Queen Charlotte commands.
He fishes them out without question, handing over the shoe box.
Queen Charlotte cackles as she lifts them from the box and places them in front of Sophie. “This will be the sweetest revenge. I will know, all night, Araminta’s hated daughter—”
“Charlotte,” Mrs. Danbury warns.
Queen Charlotte presses on, uncaring. “—wears her shoes and dances the night away, all the while Araminta is convinced she is still at home doing whatever housework she deemed ‘important.’”
The housework tonight, actually, was Sophie having to read through and annotate a script for Rosamund. She’ll need to stay up late tonight, but she knows Rosamund sleeps in during the weekends and will give her extra time.
Besides, Sophie doesn’t intend to drink at all tonight, so she won’t have to fight back a hangover. She wants to enjoy every second of the masquerade ball, and she won’t have any of her senses dulled.
“She won’t know I’m there, right?” Sophie asks.
“And if you keep asking that,” Queen Charlotte says, “I will shove you out a window.”
Sophie laughs, softly, but she takes it as confirmation enough.
“One finishing touch,” Mrs. Danbury says.
She passes over a silver mask, lace around its outsides. Sophie takes a second, just admiring it. It weighs almost nothing, but when she settles it on the bridge of her nose, reaching up to tie it tight behind her head, there is a certainty settling throughout her skin. She is doing this. She is going to a ball. She is going to participate in Hollywood the way she always thought she would.
“That wasn’t all she brought,” Brimsley says.
She turns, half-forgetting. “Oh, we don’t have to—”
“And what are these?” Queen Charlotte asks, taking the gloves from Brimsley. She unbuttons them, already knowing what she searches for. Sophie supposes she shouldn’t be shocked. The gloves proved to be an important plot point in the second Violence in Bloom movie, a way to track down a heroine who held the key to taking down a mobster.
Inside the glove, there is a small crest. The Penwood crest, something people haven’t seen in years.
(“It’s a calling card,” Richard Gun once said in an interview, a sly smile on his face. “I sneak this symbol into all my films. I’d like to say it’s in homage to my mother, but it’s my legacy, too. One day, my children will watch everything I’ve directed, seeking it out.”)
If the necklace is her mother’s heartbeat, the gloves are her father’s.
“We have to,” Mrs. Danbury says decisively. “You’re wearing the gloves.”
“Another slight,” Queen Charlotte says.
Sophie accepts them, sliding them on, but she doesn’t think they’re another slight, another piece of revenge leveled at Araminta. No, these will be for her.
When she finishes, Queen Charlotte reaches under her chin, tilting it upwards to study her.
Then, she nods in approval. “You will be the diamond of the night.”
~~~
It is beautiful.
As she slips into the crowd, she takes snapshots in her mind. The beautiful lavender blooming outside the Bridgerton house. The marble in the walkway. The portrait of the brothers on the left side of the stairs (Benedict’s face makes her smile beneath the mask, even if she doesn’t meet him tonight, even if he doesn’t remember the secret link between them). The portrait of the sisters on the right side of the stairs (someone has tapped a tiny crown atop the painted Daphne’s head, making sure all guests know that it is her birthday that has gathered them all here). The lush greenery all around them. The floral scent floating through the air. The guests, all clad in their masquerade masks and costumes.
Nobody questions her as she travels through the house to their ballroom (and, yes, of course, the Bridgertons have a ballroom).
Music drifts from the live band, a string quartet playing popular songs. She nears them, dodging between the false trees and the ivy hanging low enough, longing to be touched. Their bows dance across the instruments, and Sophie wishes she spent time learning how to play an instrument. She doesn’t know when she would have learned—neither Richard nor Araminta cared about such things—but it would be a skill to have, just for her.
She watches long enough to decide the cello is the most beautiful instrument, tucked between someone’s legs, kept safe as the deep harmonies ring throughout the air. Then, she starts to weave through the crowd again. There is a room attached she keeps watching couples tuck into, giggling to each other, the secret language of love ringing throughout the air. She wishes she had that. Someone who stared at her like she was their whole world, even if it was only for tonight. Maybe especially if it was only for tonight. Maybe—
Someone collides with her again.
“I’m sorry,” she demurs, stepping aside.
The man—boy?—laughs, though. “You shouldn’t apologize. You should help me hide from my sister.”
“And why should I take your side? Perhaps I’m a spy for your sister’s.” Her tone slips into something more comfortable, and something unfamiliar. Comfortable, because it’s how she chats with the customers at A Gentleman’s Offer, something that can almost be considered friendship. Unfamiliar, because there’s a note of boldness she usually doesn’t have.
The boy laughs again, a bright and cheery sound, so unlike the polite laughter she hears drifting around the party (I heard you just got that new job; have you done something with your hair?; you were robbed at the Academy Awards). “I know all her friends. I would have recognized you.”
“We’re all in disguise tonight.”
In fact, he wears a pirate’s costume, a black bandana that merges into the mask covering the upper-half of his face. His costume is an attempt at roguishness, something similar to Will Turner from Pirates of the Caribbean, but she cannot help but think there is something boyish in his eyes.
His grin only grows wider. “And what is your disguise?”
“I am…” She glances down at herself. “A Lady in Silver.”
“Should I know that one?” he teases.
“If I should know which pirate you are.”
“Surely, you can guess.” He holds his arms wide and gives a little spin. She inspects him as he does so, looking at his chestnut hair and lopsided smile and—
And this is Colin Bridgerton, isn’t it?
She can feel the embarrassment flood her cheeks, and she edges back toward the ballroom. “I’m sorry.”
“That I’m who I am?” he asks. “Were you expecting someone different?”
“No, no, I just thought…” She offers a helpless little shrug. “It isn’t a night for truth. Don’t tell me your name. I won’t tell you mine.”
His eyes light up behind the mask. “You have to know I love a mystery.”
“I’m not one you can solve.” And who is this Sophie? A Sophie bold enough to tease Colin Bridgerton?
“This will kill me now,” he says. “Who invited you? My sister? One of my brothers?”
Queen Charlotte, she could say, and he thinks his jaw would be on the ground. Queen Charlotte already found a makeshift throne in the ballroom, commanding all attention to her even if the Bridgertons host this particular party. When she makes her announcement at midnight—when everyone takes their masks off and she announces the return of Edmund Bridgerton’s beloved movie series—Sophie will have to dash away to avoid being caught.
She has a feeling Araminta will be storming off after the announcement.
“I cannot tell you,” she says, a smile sneaking onto her lips.
“Give me a hint?” he asks.
“Well, I—”
“Colin!” Another voice—familiar, almost—calls. “There you are.”
His eyes go wide, and he mock-whispers. “Save yourself. The Big Bad Wolf is here.”
“I am not the Big Bad Wolf.” Daphne Bridgerton breezes into view. She wears a light green dress that flares out at the hips, giving her the shape of a princess, with darker green vines crawling up her arms and along her hip. On her back, she sports delicate white wings that match with the tiara nestled in her hair and the mask around her eyes.
Sophie offers a smile and a nod. “Happy birthday… Queen Titania?”
Daphne squeals and whacks her brother. “See! I told you people would get it!”
Colin staggers from the blow, pretending it to be lethal. “Do you see what I suffer with her?”
“Thank you,” Daphne says, ignoring her brother.
“Did you plan the decorations?” Then, as it dawns on her, Sophie cocks her head. “Is it A Midsummer Night’s Dream?”
“It is! I tried to convince this one to be Bottom, but—”
“But I wouldn’t let her make an ass out of me,” Colin says, clearly pleased with his own joke.
“My other brothers—the ones I love more,” and she says it with such ease, and while Colin pretends to be offended, Sophie can tell he isn’t, that they both know this has to be one of the greatest jokes, for their love is so solid, “they’re dressed as Lysander and Demetrius. Of course, I said it didn’t count because they’re just in basic black-and-white, but—”
“But not everyone has the endless energy of youth,” Colin says.
“That’s actually why I came to find you. What happened to you wrangling Eloise back to bed? And—” Daphne flushes suddenly. “Oh, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t start in front of you. I don’t think I caught your name?”
“Good luck finding out,” Colin says. “She is a woman of mystery tonight.”
Where Colin seemed eager to find out her secrets, Daphne claps. “And that’s perfect. I told everyone that it’s the spirit of the night—we don’t have to know who anyone is! It’s a chance to feel…”
“Liberated?” Sophie offers, thinking of Mrs. Danbury and Queen Charlotte.
“Exactly,” Daphne says.
“And why do you need to feel liberated?” Colin says. There is a joke in his tone, but Sophie can hear the concern underlying it, and if she can hear it, Daphne certainly does.
Daphne’s gaze goes harder. “Anyway, I’ll have to steal my brother away to track down a child. He promised he’d help out.”
Colin studies her but relents. “Don’t leave. She’s going to eat me.”
“He’s an idiot.”
“My, what big teeth you have.”
“I don’t mind,” Sophie says, her gaze bouncing between them. What a world it would have been, if she interacted with Rosamund and Posy like the Bridgertons did each other. She’s seen the articles breaking down their interactions; she has watched their interactions on the red carpet. The siblings seem to belong to each other in a way Sophie isn’t sure she has ever belonged to anyone.
She leaves the Bridgertons to their bickering, entering the ballroom once more. She drifts on the outskirts until she finds a nook, nestled with ivy, and she just takes in the beauty of the room once more.
Above them, a grand chandelier glitters. It must be up year-round, not just for special occasions, and she cannot imagine living under such a display of beauty. To do your homework, to chat with your siblings, to simply look up and see your own eyes refracted back at you with the mirrors. What versions would you see of yourself? Sophie, right now, wonders what versions of her the mirrored chandelier catches. The princess? The Lady in Silver? The aspiring actress?
The chandelier doesn’t go with the rest of the theming, not bedazzled with fake flora (or fake fauna, for now she can see many more animal-themed masks), but she chooses to think the Bridgertons knew it was far too beautiful to do anything with. Rather than lightbulbs, someone went and lit each candle upon its frame.
“Excuse me.”
Sophie tears her gaze away. Beside her, a man around her age stands in a stag mask, its antlers stretching toward the sky. “Hello.”
“Hello,” the man says, smiling. “I don’t think I’ve seen you at one of these parties before.”
“Maybe it’s my first,” she says.
“A Bridgerton party for your first?” He lets out a low whistle. “It’s all downhill from here.”
That could be true. Sophie hears some of the stories from Rosamund, and she hears even more when she trails behind Rosamund on set. The other hair stylists, the makeup artists, and gaffers will whisper about who said what and who went where. She knows a Cowper party will end in dread (their daughter, Cressida, turned eighteen a year before Daphne Bridgerton and proved to be a holy menace), a Featherington party will be terribly boring (and end with stories about rampant gambling), and a Mrs. Danbury party will have everyone on their best behavior until the afterparty.
“Will you dance with me?” he asks.
Her eyes widen. She darts her gaze and sure enough, people have started slow-dancing in the middle of the ballroom, the chandelier making rainbows overhead. When she glances back, the man still waits, expectant.
She opens her mouth.
“I’m sorry, Napier, but she actually promised to dance with me.”
She knows that voice.
The stag—Napier, she supposes—looks defeated, but he nods. “‘Course she did.”
“It was nice to meet you,” she offers to soften the blow, but he’s already retreating.
She turns then, and she watches time unfold in front of her. She is on a movie set. She is downtown. She is at home, watching the newest movies. She is right here, surely in the middle of a dream.
“It’s rare to see someone beaming with joy at one of these things,” Benedict Bridgerton says. “It’s selfish, but I wanted to be the first one to share it.”