“Pose for me,” Benedict had said, with that easy, irresistible grin of his. “It will be fun,” he had said. And now here you are, stretched awkwardly across a chaise lounge in one of the Bridgertons’ more elegant sitting rooms, trying very hard not to feel the pins and needles creeping through your legs while Benedict sits across from you with a sketchbook balanced in one hand and charcoal smudging the side of his fingers.

The afternoon has long since slipped into evening, and the time spent has been far less forgiving to the body than he had promised. Though Benedict seems utterly unconcerned by your discomfort, his attention is fixed instead on the angle of your cheek, the curve of your shoulder, the way the light catches in your expression.

“Would you cease your squirming? My goodness,” he mutters with a low laugh, blue eyes flicking from the page to you and back again as charcoal scratches in swift, assured strokes across the paper. “I am trying to capture you properly.”

He leans back slightly, studying his own work with concentration that belongs only to an artist. You have been the subject of his attention for hours now, with no end in sight. “I promise I am nearly finished,” he says at last, his tone warm, “And worry not, I do pay my models handsomely. I’ll even let you pick the currency.” The smirk that winds onto his lips tells you all you need to know about what sort of currency he’s thinking of.