Days Gone By

First dates

May 1944 - Aubrey Village, Kent.

Benedict felt like he was on cloud nine, his brother was finally able to start taking back control of the Bridgerton estate, lifting a huge weight off his shoulders but even better than that was he had Sophie by his side.

It was the first official date, just the two of them and he'd felt nerves like he'd never felt as he had waited for her in his father's office

Anthony had smirked at him as he was waiting, twiddling with his tie. "Where are you taking her?" he'd teased

"Crabtree's then the Theatre..."

"Good choice. Mrs C will be pleased to see you"

"Thanks, you're not going to loiter here waiting whilst I wait for her are you?" Benedict replied to his brother

"I would but Kate wanted me to try and manage the stairs so we can move back into the main house" Anthony said gesturing to his stick "gotta use this and the bannister to manage on my own and not need her, she promised to wait for me upstairs..."

"I don't want to know," Benedict said, cutting his brother off, shaking his head.

Anthony smirked "you're just jealous"

"Knucklehead" Benedict said, rolling his eyes as his brother walked out of the room.

"I sincerely hope you're not calling me a knucklehead" came Sophie's voice from the door.

"No! No! Lord no. I didn't know you were at the door, Anthony was just here..." Benedict said quickly

"I thought as much, I just saw him whistling to himself as he made his way to the stairs" Sophie explained.

"You look... wow. You look beautiful" he said, standing up and admiring Sophie's skirt and blouse.

"You've seen me wearing these before..." Sophie blushed

"True but I thought you were beautiful then I was just a bit embarrassed to say so..." he grinned at her, offering his arm "shall we?"

Sophie took his arm and let him lead her off towards where his motor car was waiting for them and he helped her in "It appears as though it may rain later, so I thought I'd drive us rather than us walking" he said as he got in.

They had walked into the village a few weeks earlier with Hyacinth and Gregory, it had been a lovely spring day and had been a refreshing walk but this was a date and he wanted to be chivalrous and driving seemed better.

It wasn't a long drive into the village but they chatted on the way there, the conversation flowed and they found it easy to talk to one another.

They pulled up outside of a boutique little restaurant cafe just on the outskirts of town "I never knew this place was here" Sophie said as she looked at the quaint little sign that said Crabtrees.

"If you don't live in the area, you probably would miss it but we know Alice and John Crabtree who own the place... Alice was mine and Anthony's nurse when we were babies, but by the time Daphne came along... we were a bit too much to handle so father helped them set this up... John worked as our cook for a few years, it's been used to help feed people since the war started but Mum spoke to her about us having a meal here just the two of us"

"Oh that was nice of your dad... and the Crabtree's" Sophie said

"Dad was like that. But Mrs C still sees me and Ant as her charges..."

"Probably like I'll see Hyacinth and Greg for the rest of my life..." Sophie said

"Quite possibly but come on, i'm sure I've just seen Mrs C peering out of the window, if we wait much longer she'll be out shouting..." he grinned as he took Sophie's arm in his and made for the door.