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A week passed.
Caspian didn't appear.
Benedict went to the studio every evening, lit the candles, sat by the window, and waited. Sometimes he drew meaningless sketches, abstract patches of light and shadow. More often he simply stared at the street, at the rare passersby, at the lanterns flickering in the fog. He drank wine that grew more bitter with each sip. He leafed through the sketchbook containing Caspian's face, his hands, the curve of his neck, trying to convince himself this wasn't obsession.
"Maybe" had turned out to be worse than "no." A "no" would have been final, like a door slammed in his face. "Maybe" kept him hooked on hope, and that hook dug deeper with each passing day.
On Monday, Benedict sat until three in the morning, straining to hear every sound from the street.
On Tuesday, he left early, unable to bear the silence of the empty studio.
On Wednesday, he got drunk and woke up on the floor with a stiff neck and a pounding headache.
On Thursday, he didn't go at all, telling himself it was over, that enough was enough, that he refused to humiliate himself any longer.
On Friday, he was back at the window, hating himself for his weakness.
By Saturday, Benedict had nearly convinced himself he would never see Caspian again. That he had changed his mind. One evening, one conversation. That was all he'd been granted. A spark that had flared and died, leaving nothing but the smell of smoke.
***
Saturday morning, Violet announced at breakfast that they were going to Bond Street.
"Hyacinth needs new ribbons, Eloise needs gloves, and you, Benedict, could do with leaving the house and remembering what the sun looks like."
"I'm busy," he tried to protest, poking at the eggs he hadn't touched.
"With what? Sitting in your room looking like a man betrayed by all his friends?" Violet raised an eyebrow with that particular maternal expression that brooked no argument. "You're coming. This is not a discussion."
Colin, sitting across from him, shot his brother a sympathetic look but said nothing. He knew arguing with their mother was pointless.
And so Benedict found himself on Bond Street in the middle of a Saturday afternoon, surrounded by crowds of shoppers, the clatter of carriages, and Hyacinth's endless chatter about which shade of pink best suited her new dress.
"Pale pink is too boring," she mused, peering into the window of a fashionable shop, "and Mother won't allow bright pink. Maybe coral? What do you think, Benedict?"
"What?" He blinked, returning to reality. "Yes. Coral. Excellent."
"You're not even listening!"
"I am. Ribbons. Pink. Very important."
Hyacinth huffed and ran off to their mother to complain about her insensitive older brother.
Eloise walked beside Benedict, pointedly ignoring the shop windows. She wore a simple green dress without unnecessary adornments and looked as though the very existence of women's clothing stores physically offended her.
"You look terrible," she observed without preamble.
"Thank you for the compliment."
"I'm serious. Dark circles, stubble. Do you even sleep?"
"I sleep."
"Liar." She squinted, studying him with that intensity that always made Benedict feel like a laboratory specimen. "What's going on? And don't say 'nothing.' I've known you for years."
"Nothing," Benedict said, because sometimes stubbornness was the only defense against younger sisters.
Eloise opened her mouth to argue, but Benedict was no longer listening.
Because he saw him.
Caspian stood by the window of a bookshop across the street. Dark coat, hair combed back, that familiar profile with sharp cheekbones and the slight bump on his nose. He was studying something in the window, head tilted to one side, oblivious to the crowd around him, lost in thought. Sunlight fell on him from the side, outlining his silhouette in gold.
Benedict's heart skipped a beat. Then began racing twice as fast.
"Benedict?" Eloise's voice reached him as if from far away, muffled by the roar of blood in his ears. "Are you listening to me? Benedict!"
"Wait here," he said and stepped into the street without waiting for an answer.
"Benedict!"
He didn't look back. He wove between carriages, nearly getting hit by a coach whose driver cursed after him. Some lady in a bonnet gasped and pressed a hand to her chest. Benedict didn't notice. He saw only one thing: the figure by the window that might vanish at any moment.
He burst onto the pavement on the other side, nearly knocking over an elderly gentleman with a cane.
"Caspian!"
The man turned sharply, and Benedict watched his face change. First surprise, eyebrows shooting up, lips parting. Then something like joy, fleeting as a flash of light. And then fear. Quick, instinctive, like a cornered animal hearing the baying of hounds.
"Mr. Bridgerton." Caspian's voice was strained, tight. He glanced over Benedict's shoulder at the street, the people, the carriages. "What are you doing here?"
"Shopping with the family." Benedict couldn't suppress his smile. Foolish, probably, too eager, too open, but he didn't care. A week of waiting, a week of emptiness, and here he was, alive, real. "I was looking for you. I waited at the studio every evening."
"Keep your voice down." Caspian stepped closer, lowering his voice to barely a whisper. His eyes darted from side to side. "Not here. Someone might hear."
"Who? Why does it matter?"
"Because..." Caspian fell silent, his jaw clenching so hard the muscles stood out on his cheeks. His gloved hands curled into fists. "I have to go. I shouldn't have... Forgive me."
He turned to leave, and Benedict did something he hadn't thought about. He grabbed his arm.
Caspian froze. His whole body tensed as if struck by lightning.
"Please," Benedict said quietly but firmly. "Don't leave like this. Not again."
"Let go of me." Caspian's voice was hoarse, broken. He didn't pull away, though he could have. He just stood there, frozen, like a man on the edge of an abyss.
"I'll be waiting for you tomorrow evening. At the studio. After ten, like last time." Benedict squeezed his arm a little tighter, feeling warmth even through the fabric of the glove. "Please. Come."
Caspian finally looked at him. In those gray-blue eyes, contradictions warred: desire and fear, hope and despair. Like two currents colliding at a single point.
"Why?" he asked, and his voice cracked in the middle of the word. "Why does this matter so much to you?"
"Because I can't stop thinking about you," Benedict answered honestly. The words came out on their own. "Because with you, I feel alive. Because..." He faltered, not knowing how to finish. Because you haunt my dreams. Because I draw your face over and over. Because a week without you was worse than months of emptiness before we met. "Just come. Please."
The silence stretched. A couple walked past, a lady in a feathered hat, a gentleman with a cane. They cast curious glances at Benedict and Caspian, slowing their pace. Caspian noticed and flinched as if slapped.
He freed his arm gently, almost tenderly, as though afraid of causing pain.
"Tomorrow," he said so quietly that Benedict barely heard. "After ten."
And he was gone. Without looking back. His quick stride carried him into the crowd before Benedict could respond.
Benedict stood on the pavement, watching until the dark silhouette disappeared around the corner. Something hot and desperate beat in his chest.
Tomorrow.
"Who was that?"
Benedict started and turned. Eloise stood two paces away, arms crossed, wearing the expression of someone who had solved half a puzzle and intended to figure out the rest. Her eyes narrowed like a cat spotting a mouse.
"No one," he said too quickly.
"You just ran across the street, risking your life, grabbed 'no one' by the arm, and begged him for something." Eloise raised an eyebrow. "Try again."
"An acquaintance I ran into."
"An acquaintance." She pronounced the word as if it were in a foreign language. "Since when do you have acquaintances I don't know about?"
"Since recently."
"Name?"
"Eloise..."
"Name, Benedict."
He sighed, knowing she wouldn't let it go. Eloise was like a bulldog. Once she sank her teeth in, she wouldn't release until she got what she wanted.
"Caspian. Caspian Blackwood. We met at one of Granville's parties."
"Blackwood?" Eloise frowned, searching her memory for familiar names. "I've never heard of them."
"He's not from society."
"From where, then?"
"From the sort who work for their bread rather than for entertainment." Benedict headed back toward their mother and Hyacinth, hoping Eloise would take the hint and end the interrogation.
She did not.
"You looked like..." She caught up to him, falling into step beside him. Her voice grew quieter, more serious. "Like someone who'd met someone important. Not just an acquaintance."
"Eloise, please."
"I won't tell anyone." Her voice softened, and something like understanding crept into it. "You know that."
Benedict stopped in the middle of the pavement. He looked at his sister, at her sharp, knowing eyes, at the stubborn crease between her brows, at the way she watched him without judgment, only curiosity and care.
"I don't know what this is myself," he admitted at last. The words came hard, like stones stuck in his throat. "But it's... important. You're right."
Eloise nodded. She didn't ask more questions, didn't joke or tease. She simply nodded, and for the first time during their conversation, her face softened.
"Then good luck," she said simply, "whoever he is."
Benedict didn't answer, but gratitude tightened his throat. Sometimes Eloise was unbearable. But sometimes she was the only one who understood without words.
***
Sunday became a torture of waiting.
Benedict had never realized a day could be so long. He smiled at his mother over breakfast, though he couldn't taste the food. He nodded at Daphne as she recounted baby August's latest crawling achievements. He answered something to Colin, who was sharing plans for a new journey. And inside, everything coiled with impatience, like a spring wound to its limit.
The day dragged like molasses. Every hour felt like eternity.
By nine in the evening, Benedict was at the studio. He lit every candle he could find, twelve in all, and the room filled with soft golden light. He stoked the stove, added coal. He laid out the sketchbook on the table, though he knew he wouldn't draw. He opened a bottle of good wine, not the cheap swill he'd been poisoning himself with all week.
And he waited.
Ten o'clock. Silence. Only the crackle of coals in the stove and the distant bark of a dog somewhere on the next street.
Quarter past ten. Footsteps outside, but they passed by, fading into the distance.
Half past ten. Benedict began to lose hope. He paced the room like a caged animal. Stopped at the window, peered into the darkness. Returned to the table, sipped his wine.
He won't come. He won't come again. It was foolish to believe, to hope...
And then he heard the knock.
Three raps. Quiet, careful.
Benedict was at the door before he could think. He flung it open, nearly tearing it from its hinges.
Caspian stood on the threshold. The night was cool, but there was already a hint of spring in the air: damp earth, the first green shoots, smoke from dying hearth fires. His cheeks were flushed from the cold, his breath escaping in white clouds. His face wore that same restrained expression as always, but something new flickered in his eyes. Resolve, mixed with unease.
"You came," Benedict breathed.
"I said I would."
"Last time you also said. 'Maybe.'"
"Now I'm saying definitely." Caspian stepped inside, and Benedict closed the door behind him, trying to ignore how his pulse quickened. How his mouth went dry. How everything inside him sang with relief and joy.
Caspian walked to the center of the studio, looking around. His gaze lingered on the canvases against the walls, on the easel, on the table with paints, on the candles scattered throughout the room.
"You lit a lot of candles," he observed.
"I wanted it to be bright," Benedict smiled. "And warm."
"Were you waiting for me?"
"All week."
Caspian turned, and something flickered across his face, brief, almost imperceptible.
"Forgive me for not coming. I..." He paused, searching for words. "I needed to think."
"About what?"
"About whether I should do this. Come here. See you."
"And what did you decide?"
Caspian looked at him directly, openly, without his usual mask of detachment.
"I decided that not coming was even worse."
Warmth spread through Benedict's chest at those simple words.
"Wine?" he offered, nodding toward the bottle. "It's better than last time. I promise."
"Wine would be welcome."
Benedict poured two glasses, controlling every movement so his hands wouldn't betray his nerves. He handed one to Caspian. Their fingers brushed. Caspian's were ice-cold from the night air. Benedict felt that charge again, that strange electricity that arose every time they touched.
Caspian took a sip without breaking eye contact.
"You said you waited every evening."
"Yes."
"Why?"
Benedict set his glass on the table.
"Do you want the honest answer?"
"I prefer honest ones."
"Because without you, the studio felt empty." Benedict ran a hand through his hair, not knowing what to do with his hands. "Because I tried to paint, but everything came out dead. Because the only thing that came out alive was your face. Over and over."
Caspian froze with the glass at his lips.
"You drew me?"
"From memory." Benedict nodded toward the sketchbook on the table. "The sketches from last time... I looked at them every day."
Caspian set down his glass and walked to the table. He picked up the sketchbook, began leafing through it. Benedict watched his face change. Surprise, then something like reverence.
"This... is this me?"
"The way I see you."
"You make me look beautiful."
"I draw what's there."
Caspian shook his head, but the shadow of a smile played at the corners of his lips.
"You're either blind or too kind."
"Neither." Benedict stepped closer, standing beside him. "I'm an artist. I see lines, light, form. And what I see in you... it's worth capturing."
Caspian closed the sketchbook but didn't put it down. He held it like something precious.
"You're a strange man, Benedict Bridgerton."
"Is that bad?"
"No." Caspian finally looked at him, and there was something new in those gray-blue eyes. Warmth. Trust. "It's... unfamiliar. People don't usually look at me like this."
"Like what?"
"Like I matter."
"You do matter."
Silence hung between them. Not heavy, but filled with something unspoken.
"Tell me something," Benedict asked, "about yourself. What you love. What you hate. Anything."
"Why?"
"Because I want to know you. The real you."
Caspian turned away, walked to the window. He stood with his back to the room, gazing at nighttime London, at the rooftops, at the smoke rising from chimneys, at the stars peeking through the clouds.
"I love books," he said at last. "You already know that. I love the smell of old pages. I love it when the writing is so beautiful you want to read it aloud."
"What else?"
"I love rain. When it drums on the roof, and you can sit by the window with a book, and you don't have to go anywhere." A pause. "I love music. I used to play the piano."
"Why did you stop?"
"Because the instrument stayed in the house I left." His voice grew heavier. "And I haven't touched the keys since."
"Do you miss it?"
"Every day." Caspian turned, leaning his back against the windowsill. "My mother taught me to play. When I was little, we played duets. Mozart, mostly. She said music was a way of speaking when words failed."
"She was right."
"She was." A shadow crossed his face. "She died. Long ago. Sometimes I think it's for the best. She never saw what I became."
"What did you become?"
Caspian smiled bitterly.
"A ghost. A man with no name, no home, no future."
"You have a name."
"Not my real one."
The distance between them shrank slowly, as if Benedict were afraid to cross some invisible boundary where trust or pain began.
"Then tell me your real one."
"Why?"
"Because I want to know who you truly are."
Caspian studied him for a long moment. The room was quiet. Only the crackle of candles and the distant sound of a carriage on the street.
"Maybe," he said finally. "Someday. But not tonight."
"I'll wait."
Something changed in Caspian's face. The tension left his shoulders. He exhaled, and it sounded like surrender.
"You're too patient."
"You're worth waiting for."
"I don't know why you think that."
"Because when I'm with you," Benedict took another step, and now they stood very close, "the world makes sense. For the first time in a long time."
Caspian didn't step back. He didn't look away.
"Benedict..."
"Let me paint you," he said quietly. "Again. Properly. Not sketches. A portrait."
"Why?"
"Because I want to remember. This evening. You. The light on your face."
They stood so close that Benedict could feel the warmth of his breath. Could see every detail: the gray-blue eyes with flecks of a darker shade, the dark lashes, the line of his lips, slightly parted.
"This is madness," Caspian's voice dropped to almost a whisper.
"I know."
"We shouldn't..."
Benedict didn't let him finish. He leaned in and kissed him.
At first it was soft, almost tentative. A question that didn't require an answer. A brush of lips, light as breath. But Caspian responded. His hands rose, clutching Benedict's shirt, pulling him closer, and the kiss deepened, grew more desperate, hungrier.
Benedict tasted wine on his lips, and something salty. Tears? He cupped Caspian's face in his palms, his thumbs wiping the moisture from his cheeks.
They kissed until they ran out of air. When they pulled apart, both were breathing hard.
Caspian pressed his forehead to Benedict's, eyes closed, lashes wet.
"Benedict," he breathed. "We can't..."
"We can."
"If anyone finds out..."
"No one will find out." Benedict kissed him again, briefly, tenderly. "This is ours alone. There's no one here. Just us."
Caspian opened his eyes, and war raged in them. Desire against fear, hope against despair.
"I'm afraid," he confessed. "Afraid of what I feel. Afraid this will destroy us both."
"Then we'll be afraid together."
Caspian laughed quietly, brokenly, but it was a laugh, not tears.
"You're an impossible man."
"So I've been told."
Benedict took his hand, lacing their fingers together.
"Stay. Let me paint you. And then... then we'll figure out what comes next."
Caspian looked at their intertwined hands. Then at Benedict. And nodded.
"One portrait."
"One portrait."
Caspian walked to the chair by the easel and sat. Benedict picked up his palette, his brushes. He set up a fresh canvas.
"Just be yourself," he said quietly. "Don't pose. Don't hide. Just... be."
And he began to paint.
Every brushstroke was a confession. Every line, a touch. He wasn't just painting a face. He was painting the moment between them, fragile and precious. Candlelight on skin. Shadows beneath cheekbones. Eyes gray-blue as the sea before a storm, full of hope and fear at once.
They didn't speak. They didn't need to. The silence was filled with something greater than words.
Time stopped. The candles burned down one by one. Outside the window, the sky shifted from black to deep blue, then gray. Dawn was creeping toward London.
At last, Benedict stepped back from the canvas.
"It's done."
Caspian rose and approached. He stood beside Benedict, looking at the portrait.
On the canvas was a man with gray-blue eyes that held an entire life: pain, hope, fear, tenderness. He was alive. Real. Beautiful. Not with flawless beauty, but the kind that comes from truth.
"Is that me?" Caspian's voice trembled.
"The way I see you."
"No one..." He fell silent, swallowed. "No one has ever seen me like this."
Benedict turned to him, raised a hand, touched his cheek.
"I do."
Caspian kissed him softly, tenderly, nothing like before. This wasn't a kiss of desperation. It was a promise.
Then he pulled away.
"I have to go. Dawn is coming."
"Will you come back?"
Caspian looked at the portrait. Then at Benedict.
"It's complicated," he said, and it sounded like an oath, "but I'll come back..."
He put on his coat, buttoned it. At the door, he stopped and turned.
"Benedict?"
"Yes?"
"Thank you. For seeing me. For not giving up.”
And he walked out into the gray predawn light.
Benedict stood in the open doorway, watching his silhouette dissolve into the morning mist. Then he closed the door and returned to the portrait.
Caspian looked back at him from the canvas. Alive, real, his.
Benedict touched his lips, where the kiss still burned.
He had fallen in love. Hopelessly, desperately, with a man who was afraid of his own shadow and kissed as if it might be the last time.
And it was the most alive he had ever felt.
55Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfPIQeTCVvU
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