We begin another season. I should like great gossip.

The social season might look different.

No, no, no. We must begin the proper way.

Dearest gentle reader.

[laughs]

[Whistledown] For the season's most notorious gentleman, Benedict Bridgerton, he must bow to that most powerful of forces, mothers. 

[Violet] You simply must marry. You have not met the right young lady.

[Benedict] I am charting a more venturesome course.

You are a rake.

[Violet] All the eyes of the ton will be on us. At my masquerade ball. 

[Sophie] Can you imagine how beautiful a ball would be? 

How horrible it is to be on one's feet all night. 

[Sophie] They will attend the ball tonight, and they will not appreciate it. Just once. Just to have that feeling for one glorious night. 

[woman] You could go tonight. 

[Sophie] You will need to find me a good costume.

[Sophie] I would need to be well disguised.

[woman] Just to be out by midnight.

[lively music playing]

[excited chatter] 

[Sophie] I cannot dance. 

[Benedict] A lady who cannot dance?

[romantic string music playing] 

[Sophie] You are quite the teacher. 

[Benedict] You are perhaps the most intriguing person I've ever met.

[bell tolling]

[crowd clamoring]

[Whistledown] Behind the cover of a mask, anything can happen. 

[Benedict] We must find the owner. 

[Violet] You sound as if you have been made a new man. 

What if he is looking for you?

[servant] 

[Sophie] He does not want to find me. He wants to find the lady in the silver gown, and she is not real.

[Sophie] Mr. Bridgerton.

[Benedict] Do we know one another? 

[Whistledown] With a little imagination, the impossible seems possible. 

[Violet] It is all very well to dream, but, Benedict, life is meant to be lived. 

This is your chance.

[romantic music swells] 

Tell him who you are.

[somber string music playing]

[drum sound effect plays]