Hope for the Hopeless

Decisions

Lady Sophia Gunningworth knew a lot of things...

She was fluent in Latin, French and Italian. She had the voice of an angel and her arithmetic skills put her older brother to shame.

Charles George Gunningworth was Sophie's older brother, he was 6 years older than she was and was Viscount Fastow, heir to the Penwood Earldom... he had followed their father's footsteps and gone to Oxford with his best friends Simon Basset and Anthony Bridgerton where he had studied history and maths. It was during a visit at home that Sophie had discovered his maths work and corrected it all which made their father chuckle.

She knew she was loved and her father and brother would walk to the ends of the earth for her and they were fiercely protective of her and it was why she'd been spared a London season...

Sophie had been the long awaited second child of Richard and Esme Gunningworth, after they had eloped just weeks after Richard's father had passed away, causing a great scandal, seen as he was loosely promised to one Araminta Winchelsea at the time...

Esme had lost three babies between Charlie and Sophie and they had almost lost hope by the time Esme fell pregnant once more...
It had been the easiest of pregnancies... there was a light at the end of the tunnel or so Richard had hoped...

Until Sophie had come into the world, within 2 hours of Sophie's birth, Esme had bled out. No matter what the doctors did, Esme was unable to be saved... so Sophie had never known her mother...

There was a lot of talk about Richard remarrying but he refused. Esme had been his heart, his soulmate, the person he was meant to spend the rest of his life with... he had an heir... he didn't want or need a spare...

So whilst Sophie had never known her mother, she knew about her mother. Her father and brother told her stories... Her father told her the story of how he'd met her mother and how they'd fallen in love and how despite his father promising him to another woman, he was determined he would have no woman but Esme...

It was that kind of love story and love that she wanted.

It was what she was determined she would have and from the age of 12 she'd thought she'd known who the man she'd spend the rest of her life with would be.

The Gunningworth's had been friends with the Bridgerton's long before Anthony and Charlie had become friends.

Edmund and Richard had been childhood friends so once Richard was out of mourning, he'd travelled there. Violet and Edmund had been made Sophie's godparents as they had been for Charlie, and as he and Esme had been made for Anthony and Benedict.

At 6 years old, Anthony and Charlie had no real interest in wanting to be around a small child but Benedict at 4 years old was interested and spent a lot of time with Sophie, he would try and read to her, he'd talk to her, about what she had no idea but it was what her father had always told her.

As she'd grown up, Benedict was always the person she spent time with when they went to Aubrey Hall.

Sophie knew of the Bridgerton's love story as well, about Violet and Edmund and she adored the entire Bridgerton family so when Edmund Bridgerton had died when she was just 12 years old, she had done everything she could to try and comfort her friends.

Benedict was 16 years old and was already growing into a man but he always spared time to write to Sophie, even when he'd been away to Eton he'd written to her, he'd sent her some of the work that they'd done in class because she'd complained loudly that she'd not been allowed to go to go school.

At 12 years old she was dwarfed by him but she'd been the only person that had seen Benedict cry and it was from that moment she'd been sure that they would have a great love story to rival their parents...

And as time went on, Violet and Richard had expected it as well.

Violet never remarried like Richard, Edmund had been her sun and moon and the air she breathed and she never wanted to sully his memory, she had no desire to move on.

The two families still remained close and by the time Sophie turned 18, when she would traditionally have made her debut in London Society they had hoped that Benedict would offer for Sophie...

But her 18th birthday came and went, and Benedict had not made an offer. they talked all the time, he wrote to her while he was at Cambridge, he'd send her his poetry and she'd write back, each letter making her fall more and more in love with him...

But as her 19th and 20th birthday came and went, and Benedict had still not made an offer, Sophie's heart started to break.

Charlie had told her not to lose hope but as she was getting closer to one and twenty, she knew she was going to be considered on the shelf soon...

She might not have made a London Debut but she'd heard enough about London from Daphne, from Anthony and Charlie to know that if she didn't make her entrance into society soon she'd be forever deemed a spinster...

She wanted to get married, she wanted to have a family of her own...

She had wanted Benedict but now she knew that was hopeless... pointless to wait and wonder now. She had to act...

So it was all her resolve, that over Michaelmas, after she'd met Anthony's new wife Kate... that she asked to see her godmother and her father together.

Her father had been suggesting it since Daphne had married Charlie and Anthony's friend Simon Basset and she'd been reluctant... she'd been hoping that with time... perhaps Benedict would change his mind...

But after she'd heard about his Royal Academy antics and she'd overheard about Tessa and when she heard him talking to Charlie, who was trying to find out his intentions towards his sister, and him saying "i might go to France... I might go to Italy... I don't think marriage and what Ant and Daph had are in the cards for me..."

She knew it was time. She had to let go...

She might not marry for love, but she needed to marry... she'd find a nice man... someone who would treat her right... she knew friends who had good husbands, they didn't love them but they were good husbands...

That was her aim now...

"Papa... Aunt Violet...I want to go to London next Season and make my bow..."

Richard and Violet had been waiting for this, Violet had known she'd been waiting for her son to get his head out of the clouds and ask her, as had she, but she knew it was going to take something drastic to kick her son into action and she knew this would happen.

"Ohhhh that is wonderful news dear!" Violet replied beaming "I will happily be your sponsor and present you to the Queen, you will be the diamond I am sure of it!" she exclaimed and that was her plan.

Her sons were nothing but predictable, and as if by magic Benedict appeared with a glass of wine in each of his hands, one for him and one for Sophie "who will be the diamond?" he asked with a frown

"Sophie dear! She's coming to London to be presented to the Queen! She will easily be the diamond... I am sure of it" Violet said.

"I thought you didn't want to have a season..." he said to Sophie

"I didn't but I am nearly one and twenty... I wish to marry... so a season I must have..." She said turning and walking away from him, refusing the glass of wine as she headed over to speak to Kate.

"What have I done..." he said looking confused to his mother and Godfather

"Nothing... absolutely nothing" Violet said with a sigh, taking the wine from her son and drinking it.

It was the truth. He had done nothing... and nothing was the reason Sophie was now giving him the cold shoulder for the first time in her life.

But she knew... it was the right thing to do.