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There was no trace now of the spirited young woman who had once laughed so freely beneath the summer sun. The confidence she had always worn so effortlessly had given way to unbridled desperation, and God, she looked exhausted. The fine lines beneath her eyes were no trick of the afternoon light, nor were the faint shadows that dulled her once radiant complexion. Life had worn her down.

Arthur felt something deep within his chest tighten.

"I..." The words refused to become a sentence.

"Sophia..." Arthur struggled to find anything resembling sense amidst the torrent of thoughts crashing against one another.

"I'm married." The admission escaped him almost apologetically. His eyes drifted away from hers for only a heartbeat, settling upon the polished floor between them as though the grain of the timber might somehow provide the answers he sought.

How cruel fate could be. For eleven years he had carried the ghost of the future they had once imagined together, a future so deeply entwined with his regrets that he could hardly remember where memory ended and imagination began. There had been nights when he had convinced himself that, had she only answered his letters, had she only arrived at Winworth as he had begged her to, everything would have unfolded differently.

Now, standing in the very house he had once pleaded for her to make her home, he realised with painful clarity that the dream had arrived eleven years too late.

"I know," Sophia replied softly, the corners of her mouth lifting into a smile so heartbreakingly fragile that it scarcely deserved the name.

"I heard it was a marriage of convenience." Something inside him recoiled at the description. A marriage of convenience. Had someone told him only three months ago that those words described his union, he would have agreed without hesitation.

Now they felt curiously dishonest.

"Arty..." she whispered, taking one hesitant step towards him. "There has not been a single day in the last eleven years when I haven't thought about you."

He remained motionless.

"You were the only person who ever loved me simply because I was me. The only person who was willing to fight for me, to risk everything for me."

A tear escaped before she could stop it, tracing a slow path down her cheek.

"I couldn't let you throw your whole life away for me. You had a title waiting for you, an estate, responsibilities..." Her lips trembled into the faintest smile.

"You would have done it too. I knew you would." She laughed once, quietly, though there was no humour in it.

"So I made the decision for both of us." Sophia continued, and Arthur closed his eyes briefly.

Every letter. Every unanswered plea. Every lonely year. Had she truly believed she had been protecting him?

"But I need you now. Take me as your mistress." The words were scarcely more than a whisper.

His eyes opened again.

"I know you have obligations now. I know you have a duchess, and I know she was chosen for reasons that had nothing to do with love, but men in your position keep mistresses all the time." She searched his face with an almost desperate hope.

"We owe it to ourselves to know whether we were right all those years ago."

There was now no space between them; she was close enough that he caught the familiar scent of honey lingering on her.

Her voice broke.

“And you can still save me.”

The words found their mark.

Before reason could intervene, she moved with a suddenness he recognised from memory before his mind did.

Sophia threw herself towards him, her arms slipping instinctively around his neck as though eleven years had never existed between them. The unexpected force of it rocked him back a fraction, his hands rising on instinct to steady her as she lifted herself from the floor, legs curling round his sides, her body folding effortlessly against his as it had done countless times when they were younger.

It was all achingly familiar. She cupped his face with both hands, her thumbs brushing his cheeks before she drew him forwards and pressed her lips to his.

As Sophia's fingers threaded instinctively through his hair, every movement echoed an old habit; his body responded before his mind had the opportunity to intervene.