Bridgerton Season 4 is currently streaming on Netflix, and tells the adorable but slightly bumpy love story between Benedict Bridgerton and Sophie Baek. This season was indisputably inspired by Cinderella, meaning Sophie’s character grew up as a maid in her stepmother’s house with two stepsisters. And while a lot of time is spent on her father’s lore, you might be wondering about her mom…
Details are scarce, but Sophie tells Benedict that her mother was a maid who fell in love with the Sixth Earl of Penwood, aka Sophie’s dad, Richard Gun. “My mother was a maid, and my father…” she says, before Benedict cuts her off with “was a nobleman…just like me.”
Sophie’s stepmother, Araminta, also gives some insight into Sophie’s past, saying “Richard was a good man but he lived in a dream world. Thrust his biggest mistake on me with no warning and left me to face the consequences of harboring an illegitimate child.”
The Fandom page of Julia Quinn’s book, An Offer for a Gentleman, notes that when Sophie was three, “she was dropped off at her father’s estate in the country by her dying grandmother.” So clearly she lived with her mother’s family for a while before going to her father’s home—at least in the world of the book!
Either way, Sophie’s mom died when she was very young, leaving the Earl of Penwood to raise her as his “ward.”