𝒕𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒄𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒐𝒖𝒔 ❦ eloise bridgerton

𝐱𝐢 ❦ 𝒕𝒉𝒓𝒐𝒖𝒈𝒉 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒔𝒍𝒆𝒆𝒑𝒍𝒆𝒔𝒔 𝒏𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕

。.✧ ゜ ⋆ . 。・゜⋆。. ✧・

"HAVE YOU EVER BEEN IN LOVE, Eloise?"

A simple question that should garner a simple answer.

And yet, Eloise lay wide awake in her bed, thinking it over and over.

Love was not something she understood very well. It was all around her, as her mama was a great proponent of all of her children having love matches, but it had never touched Eloise yet.

Had it?

The only boy Eloise had ever gotten close to was Theo, but she did not think that was love. Love was supposed to make you do senseless things like fight duels and almost marry the wrong person. Sure, Eloise would sneak into town when she wasn't supposed to partly to see him, but she was also on a more important mission that he could help her with.

And most of all, she could not kiss him. Wasn't true love's kiss the foundation of it all?

Perhaps she felt love differently than her siblings. If only she could ask someone like her to describe love.

Someone like Margot.

She had said that love for her had been like friendship, but with far more affection and longing.

As Eloise tried to understand this, sinking feelings Eloise had been waiting for crept in. She sat up in her bed and took deep breaths.

There was only one place Eloise could go to resolve her thoughts.

✦ 。⋆  ゜・✦ .

"BENEDICT? IS THAT YOU?" Eloise said as she emerged from the darkness and stepped into the light.

Benefit tried to hide the bottle of scotch he was drinking in the grass but nearly fell from the swing in the process. "What?"

If Eloise saw it, she didn't say anything. Instead, she sat on the swing next to her brother.

She gripped the ropes and stared straight ahead. Was it merely the moonlight causing her face to look so pale. "Have you ever been in love?"

"Since when are you so concerned with love?"

"I just meant... well, how do you know if you are in love?" Eloise turned to her brother. "I mean, what even is love anyway?"

"I think this is a conversation best had with your sister," Benedict said. His fingers itched for the smooth glass of the bottle.

"Well, you are here, and you are the one who most understands me," she said.

"I'm not a love expert by any means," Benedict mumbled.

Eloise brushed aside his statement and looked straight ahead at the moonlight. "Margot says love is... looking more closely at your friend. I can't imagine it's that simple," she said.

Silence followed her statement. Benedict swallowed hard as words came to the tip of his tongue. It must've been the liquor still in his throat that coaxed his lips open.

"There is... someone I know... a friend of mine who I study like he is the art he paints," Benedict said. "I watch his fingers grip the brush and I want him to–"

"He? Benedict—"

Benedict turned suddenly to his sister. "Please do not tell mother," he said with a vulnerability that Eloise had not heard from him before. "Or Anthony."

Eloise was not focused on that. "Benedict. You... you have affection for men?"

"Men and women. I look at statues of Venus and David and I cannot help but notice how handsome every curve is. I understand now why ladies are fanning themselves when they look upon our tight shirts and pants."

"I have never felt that," Eloise blurted out.

Benedict looked at her, really looked at her, and then asked the question that Eloise had been avoiding.

"Are you in love with Margot?"

Eloise stiffened and gripped the swing tighter. She had no response to that. It was a gnawing thought in the back of her mind that she pushed away so she wouldn't have to come to terms with the possibility.

"The way you look at her... is the same way I look at Henry," Benedict said in realization.

"I don't know," Eloise said quietly. For once, she could not control the pace of her mind.

"Do your fingers itch to run through her hair?" Benedict asked.

"Sometimes."

"Do you stare at her lips more than you should?"

"Well."

"When she is close to you, do you get goosebumps?"

Eloise inhaled sharply.

"I am no doctor," Benedict said, retrieving the bottle by his feet, "but I diagnose you with a case of love." He relished in the feeling of the bottle against his lips. He had become parched from this conversation, in more ways than one.

Eloise sat in silence looking at her hands folded on her lap. Her heart was beating fast and the night air did little to cool her down.

"So you and this Henry, you're...?" Eloise said. It was all she could get to come out of her mouth in the moment.

"I haven't exactly told him yet."

"Well then, I really shouldn't be taking advice from you."

Benedict sighed. "It is different for you and Margot. She clearly feels the same. And she is your peer."

"It is not that different," Eloise protested. "I will be dragged to balls for eternity until Hyacinth surpasses me. To not get married is a woman's greatest failure."

"Anthony will easily come to terms with your spinsterhood," Benedict countered. "And mother only wants a love match — she would never force you into anything."

"I could say the same for you, brother. You are the second born. What's stopping you?" Eloise asked.

"The world is not kind to people like us, Eloise."

"Well, you and Margot don't seem to mind.  I don't really care about the opinions of anyone else," she said plainly.

Benedict couldn't help but grin. "So we are in agreement. Tomorrow you will tell Margot."

"And you will tell Henry."

Benedict sighed and took a sizable swig of scotch from his bottle. He coughed a bit as the dark liquid struggled to get down his throat.

"How can you stand that stuff? Just the smell gives me a stomachache," Eloise said with her nose scrunched in disgust.

"It is what helps me cope, Eloise. You should try it sometime. It might help you loosen up for once."

Eloise scoffed. "I'm so glad I can count on my big brother to comfort me in times of emotional distress."

Benedict chuckled. "Any time, sister. I am just full of wisdom."

Eloise left Benedict in the dark to nurse himself with the liquor. In spite of his blubbering and snide remarks, talking to him had been cathartic. She had someone like her in her house who could hold her hand as she tiptoed through the minefield of her emotions. Now, she could accept it.

I'm in love with Margot Blackwell.

。.✧ ゜ ⋆ . 。・゜⋆。. ✧・