Like the rest of the world, I’ve been glued to my couch this past weekend, mainlining season 4 of Bridgerton with a quickness. This season’s leading lady, Sophie Baek (Yerin Ha), is a wonder to behold—just as captivating in her silver mask and sweeping gown as she is in her maid’s uniform. And clearly Benedict agrees.
But Sophie comes with far more baggage than previous Bridgerton heroines. Unlike the debutantes of the ton, she isn’t a lady at all; she’s a maid in the Penwood household. Even Kate Sharma, despite being born out of wedlock, was still Lady Kate and publicly acknowledged by her father and stepmother. Sophie, on the other hand, was merely a ward, one who was banished to the scullery after the lord of the house died, subjected to cruelty by those she once considered family.
And yet…what if there’s more to Sophie’s story than meets the eye? What if Bridgerton season 4 is hiding another secret just beneath the surface? Let me explain.
Who is Sophie Baek in Bridgerton season 4?
Our Lady in Silver, Sophie Baek, is the new romantic lead in Bridgerton season 4—the heroine opposite Benedict Bridgerton in the Netflix hit’s latest chapter.
Played by Yerin Ha, Sophie is a young woman working as a maid whose life changes in an instant after she sneaks into a grand masquerade ball and captures Benedict’s attention. The character is adapted from Julia Quinn’s An Offer From a Gentleman, where she’s known as Sophie Beckett, but her surname was changed to Baek in the show to reflect Ha’s Korean heritage and bring greater authenticity to the role.
Benedict is instantly smitten and spends much of the season searching London for the mysterious woman in the silver mask, unaware that she’s been right under his nose all along—working behind closed doors in the nearby Penwood household, serving Araminta and her two daughters, Rosamund and Posy.
What is a ward?
Sophie was the Lord of Penwood’s ward—a status that’s left many viewers scratching their heads thanks to its very Regency-era implications.
“Sophie is the illegitimate child of Lord Penwood. Her mother was a maid,” Bridgerton star Yerin Ha has explained. By referring to Sophie as his ward, the earl avoided the public scandal of acknowledging her as his daughter while still bringing her into his household and raising her with the privileges befitting her bloodline. It was a careful social workaround: Sophie was cared for, educated, and protected—just never officially claimed.
From flashbacks, it’s clear that Sophie understood the truth. Despite the polite fiction maintained for society, she saw that Lord Penwood was her father.
That doted-upon childhood comes to an abrupt end when Sophie is still young and the earl marries Araminta (Katie Leung), a widow. He hopes she’ll embrace Sophie as part of their blended family, alongside Araminta’s daughters from her first marriage, Posy (Isabella Wei) and Rosamund Li (Michelle Mao). But Araminta immediately senses the truth behind Sophie’s status, and it unsettles her. Fearing what Lord Penwood’s secret could mean for her own daughters’ inheritance and financial security, Araminta’s resentment begins to take root.
Sophie’s True Identity
Sophie is introduced as the Earl of Penwood’s ward, but we’re all very nudge-nudge, wink-wink aware that she’s widely believed to be his illegitimate daughter. Araminta certainly seems to think so, too, as her thinly veiled disdain for Sophie practically screams it.
But what if Sophie isn’t Lord Penwood’s daughter at all?
What if she’s his niece?
The series notes that Lord Penwood had a sister, and as head of the family, her welfare and reputation would have fallen squarely under his responsibility. If that sister had become pregnant out of wedlock, the scandal would have been catastrophic. A disgraced woman and an illegitimate child would threaten the entire family name. In contrast, the story of an earl’s affair with a maid—while still improper—would place the shame largely on the child, not the household. Especially when that child could be discreetly labeled a ward. Gotta love those double standards.
This theory could explain why Lord Penwood never publicly acknowledged Sophie as his daughter, never used the word outright, and yet still raised her with care and privilege. It might also account for the family resemblance—present, but not too obvious. Sophie wouldn’t be his child, but she would still be blood.
Araminta, of course, would remain blind to this possibility. To her, Sophie is simply a perceived threat to her daughters’ futures. But Bridgerton has already deviated from the books (hello, Michael-to-Michaela switch and shuffled season order); who’s to say another major change isn’t on the way?
After all, Bridgerton loves a secret hiding in plain sight.
This article first appeared on Glamour UK.
