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He walked down the main hall of Cavender’s parents’ home. Through the doorway to his left he could see a high-stakes card game in process. One of the players was sweating profusely. “Stupid idiot,” Benedict muttered. The poor bloke was probably just a breath away from losing his ancestral home.
The door to his right was closed, but he could hear the sound of feminine giggling, followed by masculine laughter, followed by some rather unattractive grunting and squealing.
This was madness. He didn’t want to be here. He hated card games where the stakes were higher than the participants could afford, and he’d never had any interest in copulating in such a public manner. He had no idea what had happened to the friend who had brought him here, and he didn’t much like any of the other guests.
“I’m leaving,” he declared, even though there was no one in the hall to hear him. He had a small piece of property not so very far away, just an hour’s ride, really. It wasn’t much more than a cottage, but it was his, and right now it sounded like heaven.
But good manners dictated that he find his host and inform him of his departure, even if Mr. Cavender was so sotted that he wouldn’t remember the conversation the next day.
After about ten minutes of fruitless searching, however, Benedict was beginning to wish that his mother had not been so adamant in her quest to instill good manners in all of her children. It would have been a great deal easier just to leave and be done with it. “Three more minutes,” he grumbled. “If I don’t find the bloody idiot in three more minutes, I’m leaving.”
Just then, a pair of young men stumbled by, tripping over their own feet as they exploded in raucous laughter. Alcoholic fumes filled the air, and Benedict took a discreet step back, lest one of them was suddenly compelled to cast up the contents of his stomach.
Benedict had always been fond of his boots.
“Bridgerton!” one of them called out.
Benedict gave them a curt nod in greeting. They were both about five years younger than he was, and he didn’t know them well.
“Tha’s not a Bridgerton,” the other fellow slurred. “Tha’s a—why, it is a Bridgerton. Got the hair and the nose.” His eyes narrowed. “But which Bridgerton?”
Benedict ignored his question. “Have you seen our host?”
“We have a host?”
“Course we have a host,” the first man replied. “Cavender. Damned fine fellow, you know, t’let us use his house—”
“Hiss parents’ house,” the other one corrected. “Hasn’t inherited yet, poor bloke.”
“Just so! His parents’ house. Still jolly of him.”
“Have either of you seen him?” growled Benedict.
“Just outside,” replied the one who previously hadn’t recalled that they had a host. “In the front.”
“Thank you,” Benedict said shortly, then strode past them to the front door of the house. He’d head down the front steps, pay his respects to Cavender, then make his way to the stables to collect his phaeton. He’d barely even have to break his stride.
It was, thought Sophie Beckett, high time she found a new job.
It had been almost two years since she’d left London, two years since she’d finally stopped being Araminta’s virtual slave,  two years since she’d been completely on her own.
After she’d left Penwood House, she’d pawned Araminta’s shoe clips, but the diamonds Araminta had liked to boast about  had turned out not to be diamonds at all, but rather simple paste, and they hadn’t brought much money. She’d tried to find a  job as a governess, but none of the agencies she’d queried was willing to take her on. She was obviously well educated, but she’d had no references, and besides, most women did not like to hire someone quite so young and pretty.
Sophie had eventually purchased a ticket on a coach to Wiltshire, since that was as far as she could go while still reserving the bulk of her pin money for emergencies. Luckily, she’d found employment quickly, as an upstairs maid for Mr. and Mrs. John Cavender. They were an ordinary sort of couple, expecting good work from their servants but not demanding the impossible. After toiling for Araminta for so many years, Sophie found the Cavenders a positive vacation.
But then their son had returned from his tour of Europe, and everything had changed. Phillip was constantly cornering her in the hall, and when his innuendo and suggestions were rebuffed, he’d grown more aggressive. Sophie had just started to think that maybe she ought to find employment elsewhere when Mr. and Mrs. Cavender had left for a weekto visit Mrs. Cavender’s sister in Brighton, and Phillip had decided to throw a party for two dozen of his closest friends. It had been difficult to avoid Phillip’s advances before, but at least Sophie had felt reasonably protected. Phillip would never dare attack her while his  mother was in residence.
But with Mr. and Mrs. Cavender gone, Phillip seemed to think that he could do and take anything he wanted, and his friends were no better.
Sophie knew she should have left the grounds immediately, but Mrs. Cavender had treated her well, and she didn’t think it was polite to leave without giving two weeks’ notice. After two hours of being chased around the house, however, she decided that good manners were not worth her virtue, and so she’d told the (thankfully sympathetic) housekeeper that she could not stay, packed her meager belongings in one small bag, stolen down the side stairs, and let herself out. It was a two-mile hike into the village, but even in the dead of night, the road to town seemed infinitely safer than remaining at the Cavender home, and besides, she knew of a small inn where she could get a hot meal and a room for a reasonable price.