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Benedict was beautiful.
Eloise couldn’t stop the thought from tumbling into her head, even though she knew it was an odd observation to make about her brother. An observation that should be – to her limited knowledge at least – reserved for evenings in the company of eligible bachelors and not a member of one’s family. A different woman would have banished the thought from her mind mere moments after thinking it on the grounds of that perceived oddness alone. But Eloise had always prided herself on the fact that she was honest with herself. Brutally honest, even.
And, mulling it over in her head again, she came to the same conclusion: Benedict was simply that – beautiful. In his current state even more so than usual, with his clothes and hair slightly dishevelled, his sleeves rolled up, the smell and stain of graphite still clinging to his fingers, his eyes reflecting the moonlight in pale blue.
Here, in the Bridgertons’ gardens just around midnight, with a cigarette thoughtfully resting between his fingers, he looked more himself than Eloise had ever witnessed him. She wondered if anyone else ever got to see him like this; if anyone else ever looked behind his perfectly groomed Bridgerton-façade, behind his dazzling smile, and found him. Full of ideas and laughter and passion and just so…free.
And then she remembered with a small sting to her insides that, yes, it must be so. Somebody else must have seen this beauty within him, too, and brought it to the forefront, because Benedict had never quite glowed like he was glowing now. And Eloise knew that this thought shouldn’t fill her with anything close to jealousy.
But, being brutally honest with herself, it did.
Nevertheless, she was happy. Happy for Benedict – how could she not be? He seemed to have found something, someone he truly loved, and that was a path Eloise could not follow him on, because she did not know how. That didn’t mean it wasn’t making her happy, too, to sit next to him and see him brimming with this new aliveness. She gave him another look-over, surveyed the familiar chestnut of his hair, the elegant crook of his fingers around the cigarette, and wondered if she would ever feel this uncaged with a man in her company that wasn’t him.
“I think you did it, you know,” she said, taking the cigarette from Benedict's fingers and putting it to her lips, warm pride in her voice. “You shot at the sky and captured the moon.”
Benedict looked at her as if he were just emerging from deep thought. Maybe he was. Maybe he had been with his lover, in mind if not in person, and that was another thing that bugged Eloise. She knew so little about love. Not just about the emotion of love that still lay unexplored and out of reach for her, but also about the physical side. There had to be a physical side, she knew that much, and it had something to do with the conception of children, though not necessarily with the institution of marriage. But her mother and brothers were ever tight-lipped on the subject, and although Daphne would know and probably even tell her after sufficient needling, she was in Hastings now, far, far away. Penelope was no help, either, clueless as every other girl their age – and Eloise found herself slowly getting angry about it. Why did all unmarried men from a certain age onwards hold the key to this big secret while all unmarried women were being kept deliberately oblivious by their mothers and siblings? It was neither fair nor prudent to keep one half of the populace – the half that tended to bear children nonetheless – in the dark about these matters for so long.
A thought occurred to Eloise, just as Benedict said, with a smile:
“The moon is still up there, as far as I can see.”
Eloise smiled back at him, even though her mind had already taken several leaps since her last statement, and her nonsequitur question was halfway out of her mouth by the time he had finished his sentence, which made for a less-than-eloquent transition.
“Speaking of the moon – what is it exactly that men and women do with each other that produces children?”
Eloise could see on Benedict’s face that she had completely startled him, and immediately decided to use this state of mind to her advantage. She knew that she had one, one chance to make him tell her something, before he’d decide the whole topic too unseemly for her and send her to bed. And she needed to sell it to him like she already knew at least half the truth, so he wouldn’t feel like he was the first to tell her.
Luckily, over the past few months Eloise had come up with a vague theory as to the creation of children, and she hoped that that theory would be solid enough to convince Benedict to tell her about the important parts – even though what she really knew was insufficient at best: In her mind she had thrown together all the things she had heard adults talk about in hushed voices, had gone through all the incidents Lady Whistledown had considered scandalous over the past few weeks, and concocted a chain of observations that still lacked a unifying factor – but might just be enough to convince her brother of the fact that she was a lot more worldly-wise than he thought.
“I mean…it is obvious that it regularly occurs on a wedding night and in a marriage. But it doesn’t necessitate a marriage. Or even love. Just for a man and a woman to be alone together, which would explain the constant need for chaperoning young couples. You men all seem to do it long before your marriages with your mistresses, anyway, but women do not, like it would besmirch us, if we did, for some reason – and don’t you think it is unfair and very disadvantageous to keep something this important secret from us? Wouldn’t it be a lot wiser to simply tell us girls what this is all about, so we’d know why we are being pushed around and told to avoid the company of young men in an unmarried state?”
Benedict went very still and blinked at her, and for a moment Eloise was fairly sure that he would scold her. But then he started laughing, quiet and low, bowed forward and looked Eloise straight in the eye. A rather pleasant shiver ran down her back when she was hit by the depth of his gaze – it made her feel a little like she had just become part of a conspiracy, and that she found very much to her liking.
“You were always quite observant, Eloise. And still, a few weeks ago, I would have deemed your question firmly beyond the borders of propriety and berated you accordingly. But –“ Eloise realised from the spark in his eyes that his but had something to do with the reason he seemed to have grown so much happier over the past few weeks; and she sent a heartfelt mental thank you to whoever had played the crucial part in making this happen.
“ – but since then I have seen another side of life. I have met people whose hearts and minds are utterly brilliant, yet they care little for the boundaries of society. They do not only dream of knowledge, freedom and beauty – they create it. They changed me, Eloise. They showed me that so many of the things commonly hidden in the shadows, stashed away, only murmured about…there’s nothing shameful about them. And I think they also made me understand you better: If I were in your position, damned to ignorance for the sake of a misplaced sense of propriety, I would be angry, too.”
A wave of excitement spread through Eloise, from her stomach upwards, gripped as she was by the intensity of Benedict’s words. How clear her brother had seen into her soul! How alike they were! Infected with this untameable need for freedom, for knowledge. And, as Eloise realised now, an affinity for overstepping boundaries that ran deeper between them than even their noble blood.
“Oh, Benedict, one day you will have to introduce me to these people, whoever they may be. They’ve made a rather marvellous man out of you. Not that you weren’t before, but…” Her fingers found the palm of his hand, letting go of the long-extinct cigarette between them in favour of tracing the warm lines of his skin. “I feel like you’ve become more yourself in their presence. Free, somehow. Like you weren’t before.”
Benedict smiled at her, an odd smile that sparked something almost painful in Eloise’s stomach, and took her fingers to his mouth to kiss them.
“I would have called you out on the placement of this compliment in our conversation as an attempt to get more out of me than I’m willing to tell, but I can see you’re sincere,” he said, rather softly. “I feel more myself, too, Eloise. As if I’d broken through a wall that was invisible to me before.” He shook his head in that absentminded manner of his, and Eloise was just about to call him out on his getting lost in his thoughts again, because – after all – he had (sort of) promised her the answers to her burning questions; but he came out of it himself, mere moments later, and gave his undivided attention back to Eloise. “What do you wish to know, sister? Tonight I shall be an open book for you.”
“Everything,” Eloise demanded, curiosity and excitement almost rendering her breathless. “Tell me everything you know.”
And so, Benedict leaned forward, until there was nowhere else to look for Eloise but his eyes, and told her everything, starting off with simple biology, anatomy and physiology, and then – prompted by her never-ending questions – foraying into more personal and philosophical matters. Eloise listened closely to every one of his words, finding herself less shocked at his revelations than she’d thought she would be, and a whole lot more delighted instead. The confusing puzzle pieces in her head finally started to assemble into a full picture; and Eloise was, as probably the only unmarried woman in London of her age, allowed to see it in its entirety, gain entry into a whole new world that was normally only spoken about in darkened marital bedrooms, behind the curtains of salons and between the panelled walls of men’s clubs.
What Benedict told her of the relations between men and women, of heat and lust, pleasures and risks, jealousy and love, deeply fascinated Eloise. She could have listened to him go on about it the entire night. She would have, in fact.
But, alas, a yawn pushed its way out of her mouth at some point, unprompted, and Benedict paused to take a look at his pocket watch.
“By God, Eloise, it is half past two! I’m a terrible brother – you ought long to be in bed by now.”
Eloise shook her head. “No, no, I’m wide awake! I haven’t even heard half of it, Benedict! You can’t make me leave like this! I still have so many questions!”
Benedict put a warm, gentle hand on her shoulder in a way that usually would have made her cave. “Eloise. Please. Let us go to bed.”
Eloise regarded him with furrowed brows. “Not unless you promise to answer the rest of my questions tomorrow night.”
“I have already answered far too many of your questions,” he retorted, but Eloise’s glare only deepened.
“You have told me much, Benedict, I agree. So, it’s not like the last few bits will change me for the worse…”
“Then it’s just as well you don’t hear them,” he said, but Eloise could tell he didn’t entirely mean it. And it occurred to her… she looked him over once again, noticed the gleam in his eyes, the closeness of his face, the smile around his lips – and yes, she was sure of it then: He had enjoyed this, being the one who told her all those improper things, who gave her the key to that secret, dangerous world she hadn’t had access to until now, knowing that their mother would have his head, if she ever found out…
Eloise grinned and got up. “Very well. I will go to bed now. But I will be here tomorrow night – and you will be here, too.”
Benedict eyed her suspiciously. “No veiled threats of telling our mother or Anthony about this talk, if I don’t show up?”
Eloise bowed down until they were on eye level again – and her movements must have been less than coordinated, because she ended up way closer to Benedict’s face than she had intended to; closer than she had ever been. Something seemed to take possession of her, then, something wild and strange and entirely outside of her control, prompted by this sudden closeness. Not even her voice sounded completely like her own, when she said:
“I don’t need to threaten you over this, Benedict. I know you’ll come back. Because you like telling me about all these things, do you not?”
Eloise’s fingers came in contact with Benedict’s cheek for a moment, just a brief, volatile touch, and his eyes widened in his face. There was something dark at their bottom now, something that seemed to reflect whatever was possessing Eloise like a mirror, drawing her further into him, beckoning her to learn all his secrets and bury herself there, until she’d forget how to breathe altogether –
The moment shattered around them when a light went on in one of the upper floors, vaguely illuminating the lawn. Benedict jumped up from his swing as if a hornet had stung him.
“To bed, Eloise. Now.” His voice sounded cracked, used, but its tone was steady, and Eloise, for once in her life, listened and turned, preceding him toward the house in a hurry, her thoughts jumbled, confused and far away.
***
“So, if a man’s peak is indispensable for the creation of children – yet a woman’s peak isn’t…does that not lead to a rather unbalanced dynamic in the marriage bed?” Eloise asked, her head turned up to the sky.
Benedict had of course come back the next night, mildly exasperated by his lack of reluctance to do so, and they had lain down on the summer-warm grass a little further away from the swings and the house, side by side, to watch the stars.
“Unbalanced how?”
“Relations between husband and wife are – as you so eloquently put it – usually more procreational than recreational. They serve a single cause: A wife is supposed to give her husband children. If the previous point stands, her enjoyment in the marriage bed is absolutely secondary, whereas her husband’s enjoyment is essential for the reaching of this goal. And knowing the nature of men, that strikes me as terribly disadvantageous for the pleasure of married women in general.”
She could feel Benedict’s body vibrate with laughter next to her, and – infectious as it was – she joined in.
“You really do not trust us men to do anything properly, do you?”
Eloise’s head turned to the side and she met Benedict’s eyes, sparkling with mirth. “The majority of you – absolutely not,” she said, still grinning. “Though I presume there are exceptions, if your statements about women enjoying themselves in bed are to be trusted.”
“Well, you are not entirely incorrect, I’m afraid,” he finally answered, a small frown forming on his forehead. “There are men, too many of them, who could not care less about the enjoyment of the women they’re with. I, for my part, find such behaviour to be disrespectful and ungentlemanly. And, from a purely selfish perspective, the act itself is always, always much better, if the woman enjoys herself, too.”
Eloise sighed. “I never doubted that you would be one of the exceptions, Benedict. You are my favourite brother after all.”
“I am?”
Benedict smiled at her, something dark in the corners of his eyes, and Eloise swallowed hard. All of a sudden it seemed to her that the air had pulled tighter around them, had become stifling and laden with some unknown energy – not unlike last night, the moment before the lights had gone on in the house. She didn’t quite know what to do with it, only that it had been prompted by what Benedict had said, how he had said it. Because…Heavens, Eloise couldn’t help thinking that Benedict, apart from being the most beautiful man she knew, must be a very good lover. The thought filled her with an unfamiliar heat, and deep inside her she had the sinking feeling that this was all wrong, that this was the last man on earth she was supposed to feel this for, but then-
“Eloise?” Benedict asked, something strange and deep in his voice, and if he hadn’t said anything at that moment, maybe Eloise could have regained some of her composure, could have run inside, banished this night from her thoughts and gone back to her life. But her name from his lips seemed to pull her inexorably in, until she was so close that she could feel his breath on her mouth.
When she kissed him the world tilted.
And Eloise knew, without the shadow of a doubt, that her life as it had been was over.
Kissing Benedict was uncompromising bliss. Even though his body was stunned into motionlessness, his lips still seemed to fit against Eloise’s as if they’d been shaped for one another, moving against them of their own accord, soft but with the promise of strength and demand as the kiss deepened.
Then it was over.
Benedict’s hands were on her shoulders, bringing distance between them, and his eyes were shocked, wide, his breath coming too fast.
“We can’t,” he said. His voice broke on the last syllable and something in the region of Eloise’s diaphragm turned into an ugly knot.
“Why not?” she asked, knowing she sounded like a petulant child, knowing that she was the one who was in the wrong here. And not only in the wrong, but…wrong altogether. Twisted in some terrible way. She tried to convince herself that the kiss had been a spur-of-the-moment thing, a misstep any young lady who loved her brother in a normal fashion might make all the same…but when she looked at Benedict she knew she was lying to herself. Because if he’d let her, oh if he’d only let her, she would kiss him again in an instant.
“We would ruin this family. Our family,” Benedict said quietly. His gaze was gentle, clear, completely focused on her – and that was not the kind of rejection Eloise had seen coming. She had expected disgust, shock and anger, followed by a dramatic departure. Not softness.
But here it was, a rejection so full of warmth, so utterly without judgement that Eloise felt almost soothed by it, despite the pain welling up inside her at the thought that she might have ruined everything between them regardless. Benedict was still close to her, his warmth bleeding through her nightdress, and Eloise’s hand came up to rest on his chest, where his waistcoat lay open and the only thing separating his skin from hers was a thin layer of cotton. He shivered beneath her touch.
“You are right,” she said, not looking him in the eye. “I shouldn’t be feeling like this. I don’t know why I’m feeling like this, Benedict.”
“The recent subject of our late-night-talks might have had a hand in it,” he said, apologetically; and that prompted Eloise to finally look at him. It would be so easy to accept this subterfuge Benedict was offering her, to mask her feelings with an excuse, laugh everything off and go back to before. But she didn’t have it in herself.
“Don’t excuse my behaviour, Benedict. The only thing this had to do with our late-night-talks is the fact that you finally gave me the key to express myself. This feeling…” She swallowed, looking away from him again. “This feeling is not new. I just didn’t know what to do with it until now. And I’m sorry, Benedict. I’m so sorry.”
“Eloise,” he said, his hand wrapping around her wrist. “Eloise.”
She lifted her eyes to his face, and his hand was on her cheek, caressing it, his eyes pools of blue and black.
“Stop apologising. I should be the one to beg you for your forgiveness.”
“You didn’t do anything.”
“I did,” he gave back, and his voice was only a whisper.
It occurred to Eloise just at this moment that Benedict had rejected her solely on the grounds of the possible ruin of their family. The reason for his objection had been that – and nothing else.
An exhilarating rush of heat went through her.
“If,” she said, her own voice trembling. “If the consequences weren’t so dire for our brothers and sisters. If we were farmers, lowly born, scattered somewhere in the countryside, not a penny to our names… Would you reject me then?”
Eloise could see something pained and torn in Benedict’s eyes, mixed with a part of the same unruly excitement that must have shown up in hers. He didn’t answer her. He did, however, pull her closer and let his forehead sink to hers. They were breathing the same air again, and Eloise felt dizzy with it. She was grabbing for purchase at Benedict’s shirt, and Benedict’s hand lay at the back of her head, his fingers buried in her hair.
“You are the most beautiful, fascinating woman I will ever know,” he said, quietly, the words like silk against Eloise’s lips. “You burn, Eloise. You fly. You are so alive that sometimes I wonder how your body can hold it all in, how your heart and your mind do not simply burst out of their confines. I love you in so many ways. Some of them conform to the manner in which a brother should love his sister, and some of them are completely in opposition to it, and I am terrified. I have spent sleepless night after sleepless night feeling like I was sullying you through my presence in this house alone, and I finally found a way to bury all of these feelings so deep inside myself that I was sure they would never emerge. But now…” He didn’t speak further. He didn’t need to.
“I kissed you,” Eloise said, surprised that her mouth was still capable of forming words altogether. She felt like she was on fire, her body, her soul, her mind, and at the same time she was completely calm, reduced to the role of a spectator in a play, as if everything she said and did had been long predetermined.
“I kissed you, because you’re the moon and the stars and the sun to me, Benedict. You say that I fly…but it was you who discovered his wings first and showed me how to use them.”
“Eloise,” Benedict whispered against her, and it sounded wounded, like he was losing a fight.
“You say I burn,” she continued, her words pure emotion now, mercilessly ripped from her throat, completely unstoppable. “But it is you who sparked the flame. You say I’m alive-”
Benedict murdered the rest of her sentence between them, covered her mouth with his and kissed her, kissed her with so much passion, so much reverence that Eloise was certain no woman before her had been kissed like this. His body was pressing up against her, all heat and strength and abandon; and Eloise answered, kissed him back like she had been born to do so, like she knew exactly how. Her fingers wandered to his collarbones, found the pulse point between them, tapped out a heartbeat so much like her own, equally strong, equally fast. We’re the same in this, too.
“I love you,” she said, at last, when they had to let go for a moment to breathe. “I want to love you in all the ways that are possible, and it will still not be enough. It will never be enough.”
Benedict’s fingers were carding through her hair, and he seemed lost for words, breathless, shaken and in awe. But then he nodded, slowly.
And the smile on his lips was only for Eloise.