More ideas I'm too sleep deprived to write. This one courtesy of While you were sleeping and Mrs Winterbourne. (Yes I like to watch old movies, suck it gen alpha)
Two women in a boat, one sad shipwreck. Kate Sharma is on her way to England to take up a governess post after living her whole life in India (hoping to find her half sister Edwina, who was taken in by the Sheffields when Mary died). There she meets Benedict and Sophie, two newlyweds sympathetic to her family plight since they eloped behind Benedict's family back because Benedict feared they wouldn't accept him marrying the runaway bastard of an Earl. They just had their honeymoon in India and are traveling to reconcile with Benedict's family.
Sophie and Kate bond over being orphan girls forced to make their own way in the world and in a moment of admiring her wedding ring Sophie lets Kate try it on ( maybe one day you could get married too Kate, just imagine it) just as a terrible storm breaks out in the sea.
The Ship capsizes and the whereabouts of survivors become unknown. Next thing Kate knows she's waking up in a luxurious mansion, surrounded by kind and sympathetic people and a angelic woman who keeps referring to her as ' my new daughter'. Servants keep calling her ' Mrs Bridgerton ' and Kate knows something is wrong, what is this about a Shipwreck? Where is she? What happened to her? And most of all why do people keep staring at Sophie's ring?
Wait... Sophie's RING!!! where is Sophie!!!
Turns out that Kate washed away very close to the coast and the Bridgertons mistaked her for Benedict's new wife, who they had never seen because she was wearing the Bridgerton family ring. Oh what a mess, of course Benedict's pompous Viscount brother is suspicious, anybody would be!! But they're all so kind, and there's a possibility Benedict and Sophie might turn up any day right? Is it wrong for Kate to accept the Bridgerton hospitality until they're found, just while she looks for her long lost sister? Surely Benedict and Sophie can help her clear up the misunderstanding
Meanwhile Anthony is mighty wary of the woman who claims to be Sophie Bridgerton. For one, he knows Benedict, no way his softhearted brother would ever marry such a stubborn harridan, who shoots, rides and challenges his patience like the worst nightmare he's ever had. If anything Benedict's reconciliation letters painted Sophie as a forgiving considerate jewel without an unfriendly bone in her person. Nothing like the iron willed hag he finds himself arguing with anytime they cross paths. She's hiding something and he's going to figure out what. (But she also makes him laugh)
Kate eventually warms up to Anthony, against her better judgement, because he's really not that bad when he's not being overbearing, but the more she gets to know him, the more guilty she feels, she thinks she's falling in love with the pompous idiot but he thinks she's his sister in law, or worse, his WINDOWED sister in law. Please Benedict, wherever you washed up in that shipwreck, get back home with Sophie soon! Else Kate and Anthony are going to end up in a scandal.
An: if anyone wants to write this, feel free 😉
