IN SLEEPLESS NIGHTS ❝BENEDICT BRIDGERTON❞

⎯⎯⎯ 𝙥𝙧𝙤𝙡𝙤𝙜𝙪𝙚

Honour was a funny little thing.

Honnêteté, the French called it.

It bound society together by conduct and punished those who strayed out of line with frightening disdain and isolating cages hung by merciless groups of elites.

For a man, honour was as followed: To be brave, to be respected; to be modest and self-effacing; humble yet not overtly generous; aware of ones rank, but not particularly prudent that it came across abhorrent.

For women... well—Cassie thought quite spitefully—honour was carved much differently.

To be an honourable woman was to be virtuous, to excel in one's ability to remain silent and demure, to possess an unwavering loyalty to family and husband, to be innocent, to maintain a pretty little smile that signalled all of the above in one measly facial expression.

She had seen it too many times: women held to impossible standards, their worth measured not by their intellect or capabilities, but by their adherence to a suffocating ideal. One misstep, one rumour, one moment of perceived impropriety, and a woman could find herself cast out, her reputation irreparably tarnished, her future prospects shattered.

Cassie had seen many women fall like great literary heroes.

She'd felt the sting of whispered gossip, witnessed the coldness of ostracisation, heard the frustration of being judged not for ones actions or intentions but for how well they could fit into a mould. One that had been designed to restrict and control.

Worst of all, it was all wrapped in the prettiest white ribbons. 

A hamartia bathed in sunlight. A dagger concealed in the softest of knitted blankets.

Chastity, she emphasised, was the most important honour of them all. 

For a lady to be impure meant she was ineligible for marriage. And in a world where women's lives hung upon strings of the ability to bear children and tend to a family home, to be ineligible for marriage was a death wish. An eternal sentence to a life of workhouses, mistress roles and illegitimacy.

It was something not a single feminine soul would ever wish to be condemned to.

Yes, Cassandra Beverick knew a thing about honour.

When she lost it, she had lost everything. The cradles, the chapels. The altar burst into flames before her eyes, scorching those picket fence dreams into a pile of charcoaled mess.

But it was worth it, Cassie thought wryly.

To be held by him was to be bathed in the heat of a thousand suns. To dance in the rain after a week of dried harvest and cracked soil.

Benedict Bridgerton had changed her life from the moment he stepped into it to the moment he stepped back out.

And it was worth it, Cassie thought again. Oh, it was worth it.

No one ever stepped off the cliff edge without considering where it'd end.

With a smile, she had breathed a sigh of content

as the universe plunged into darkness.

CAST.

aubri ibrag as CASSANDRA "CASSIE" BEVERICK

luke thompson as BENEDICT BRIDGERTON

aiden turner as MICHAEL BEVERICK

josh whitehouse as EOIN WOODS, BARON CROMWELL

aneurin barnard as WILLIAM BEVERICK, MARQUESS OF CARLISLE

sofia wylie as WINONA BRAITHWAITE

kristen forseth as BETHEL "BETTY" HARDING

imogen waterhouse as IONA HARDING

and everyone else as EVERYONE ELSE...
(the original cast of Bridgerton)

DISCLAIMERS.

i do not own Bridgerton. respective plots and characters
are owned by julia quinn and her publishing company.

this is an AU. although it is inspired by the works of
julia quinn, individual changes has been made
in order to ensure its uniqueness as an
individual creative project.

i do, however...
own the characters i have added into the series,
including but not limited to: cassandra beverick
& the beverick family, baron eoin woods, george tuppen,
betty harding, iona harding, winona braithwaite, & the rest
of the ambleside residents

i take plagiarism seriously, pls don't try it.

ty <3