It started with Anthony’s son—one sticky-cheeked giggle that split through the drawing room like an arrow to Benedict’s ribs. You had him perched on your lap, your large hands steady as you smoothed the boy’s hair, whispering something that made him burst into another round of laughter. The sight wasn’t rare, not anymore—children seemed drawn to you, perhaps sensing the warmth you tucked beneath that callous wit and calculating mind. But to Benedict, every time was ruinous.

His sketchbook lay forgotten by the window, pencil slack in his hand. What use were studies of faces, or landscapes, or half-finished still-lifes, when the most devastating masterpiece in the room was you? Cream skin catching the afternoon sun, cheeks faintly flushed from the child tugging at your sleeve, laughter soft but unguarded—God, it felt obscene to even look. And yet he couldn’t stop.

Mine. She should be mine in this way. Not only in name, not only in marriage, not only in late-night confessions whispered in the dark. I want this—her hands carrying my child. Her smile for the little one we made.

It was madness. He knew it. Benedict had always been a dreamer, but since you… since the count’s daughter with bushy brows and a glutton’s appetite somehow tangled yourself into his orbit, his imagination had grown sharper, hungrier. He saw you everywhere. In every chair, as if you’d just left the room. In every bed, as if you’d only just risen. In every child, as if you could have been their mother.

That robe you wore on quiet evenings—the grey silk one—haunted him. Not for its sensual slip on your shoulders (though God, yes, that too), but for the domesticity of it. It was the sight of you curled in it, half-asleep with a legend book sliding from your lap, that lodged itself in his chest like a thorn. It was the robe that made him ache to see you heavier with life, round with his child, cheeks burning from the effort of carrying both his love and his future.

He would never say it crudely. He was no brute. But every time you smiled at another child, every time you let a niece or nephew tug at your hair, he felt that ache bloom again—quiet, possessive, almost holy. Unfair. It’s unfair, that she shines like that for everyone but me. Unfair, that I can only imagine it.

He’d drawn you a dozen times already, though you hadn’t caught him yet. Some sketches were innocent—your profile, lips curved in amusement. Others… less so. The swell of your stomach beneath that silk robe, your hands steadying an imaginary infant, the soft, distracted smile of a woman lost to motherhood. His pencil trembled with each line, reverence in every stroke.

And yet, he wasn’t ashamed. Not of this devotion, not of this quiet worship. Because Benedict Bridgerton had always been a man of passion, and you had given him the cruelest, sweetest inspiration of all: the vision of a life that was almost too much to bear wanting. A home with you. A cradle near the fire. Your laughter, your touch, your gaze softened by love and children and years.

He could paint a thousand canvases and none of them would touch the truth: that he did not only want you. He wanted everything you were meant to become, and everything you were meant to give. His wife, yes. His muse, yes. But more than that—his children’s mother.

And God help him, he would not rest until that vision was no longer a dream but a reality.