,wallflower' • BRIDGERTON

chapter 24

"Benedict Bridgerton's Engagement Ring."

[24]

✑

Dear gentle reader,

The frenzy of competition. The thrilling delight of hazarding your all. I am referring not to the lure of London's luxurious gaming halls but to a gamble with far higher stakes.

Matrimony.

For once that particular wager is placed, it cannot easily be undone. A fact which, I am sure, is met with both regret and sheer relief.

✑

I rested comfortably in the steaming bath that smelled like rose petals and lemon and watched through the foggy windows that the ton was indeed busy. Well, given the fact that Anthony was now engaged to Miss Edwina Sharma.

Only god knows how this will turn out.

I breathed in before slowly getting out of the bath and searching for my creme-colored robe, my skin hit the cold air and my wet hands quickly searched for the robe that was draped upon a chair nearby. We had returned to our original estate which I was certainly grateful for because I missed my bed.

I put it on before someone shouted my name, but it seemed to be coming from outside the window. My eyebrows furrowed before I turned to look at it, I walked over to the glass and looked down to see the front of the estate I saw an elegant carriage sitting there with Duchess Agnes standing in front of it with a look of discomfort.

"Come down here, the sun is wretched!" She whined. My eyebrows furrowed as I looked down at her.

✑

Benedict finally arrived on their first day at the academy. An excited grin nestled on his lips as he walked into the room he would be studying in, with a satchel filled with different painting brushes. He soaked in the immediate smell of paint, his smile only widened.

He could see painters all around the room as well as paintings on the wall. He walked over towards an available spot right next to a man with dirty blond hair and a scrawny physique, the man looked right at him.

"You must be one of our new fellows." He said. Benedict took off his jacket before nearly groaning. "Is it really so evident?" He asked, nearly balling up on the inside. The man hummed. "Conserve that youthful vigor." He said as Benedict took a seat next to him which had an empty easel before him.

"Soon you shall be just as jaded as the rest of us." The man beside Benedict said. "After all, one form is much like another, do you not think?" Suddenly Benedict had seen a woman on a platform in the middle of the room disrobe herself, showing her fair colored skin and naked body.

Of course, Benedict stared.

The woman was slim, she had curled brown hair and thin pink lips. She turned her gaze at Benedict who smiled a little, he certainly knew he'd enjoy it here.

✑

Hope and Agnes walked through a park in the middle of town. Miss Buckingham had worn a basic blue dress with diamond jewels, meanwhile, Agnes wore a soft yellow puffed-sleeved dress that had eccentric feathers sewn into the fabric. If she didn't want to be noticed then she surely failed at doing so.