Chapter Text
They were at odds, and that was all that mattered.
Penelope Featherington had spent her summer quite certain of the fact that she would no longer care if Colin Bridgerton even set foot upon English soil again. Which was why it was so damned rattling that she couldn’t keep her eyes from him, even in the crowd of the ballroom.
It had taken her months, months. Lord knows she’d never taken herself to be anything close to prideful, but the sting of truth in Colin’s laughter had been undeniable. While she had known in her heart he could never want her, to hear it had been another matter entirely.
Words upon words had poured out, none of which she had ever dared publish. It had felt too raw, too real. Whenever she had read her drafts back she could see nothing but the pain in her pen, the gaping open truth that was already known to half the ton.
Penelope Featherington loved Colin Bridgerton…. And he did not love her back.
So she kept Colin’s secret, even where he had not seen fit to. Lord knows the Bridgerton’s had suffered enough that season beneath her quill, and it seemed only fitting that Colin would receive her boon. Forever protected by the ache in her soul.
That is not to say that the summer had been an easy one. She had ached. Oh, how she ached.
After several listless days, her mother had even seen fit to call for a doctor.
“It is most unlike you,” Portia Featherington had said, “to be so quiet and drawn.”
Penelope had not known what to say to that, and so she had said nothing.
Time had, in its usual indifferent way, helped. Wounded though she may well have been, Penelope had told herself time and again that Colin’s denial of any affection was, after all, for the best. When one gazed into eyes such as his it was far too easy to dream, to imagine that one might become better, whole, under the affection of his gaze.
It would not be, Colin would continue his travels until such a time as a true beauty caught both his eye and his affections, and Penelope would remain as she was. Plump, overlooked, and unloved.
She had told herself that Lady Danbury’s ball would be a new start. Her mother, still worrying over her ‘quietness’, although Penelope could not recall a time Portia had ever paid her conversation much cause, had allowed her to pick her own fabrics. She had chosen a rich, deep emerald velvet, which right up until the point she stepped foot into the ballroom, Penelope had fancied suited her quite well.
In the right light, she had told herself as the maid had swept her hair up into some half Grecian style that made her look half wild, in the right light you could look almost pretty.
But then she had taken all of three steps into the ballroom and locked eyes with Colin Bridgerton. It had all unravelled.
He did not want her, he would never want her. The truth was made no less painful by the fact that it was the truth, for if he did not want her then it would not matter if a thousand men agreed that green did suit her well. Her heart was Colin’s, even if he didn’t want it.
Penelope had allowed herself all of a moment's weakness, her heart fluttering in her throat as she had taken in the deep golden hue of his skin and the wild untamed mess of his black hair. Even from this distance, Penelope could see the Dowager Lady Bridgerton fussing around him, the part of her brain that belonged solely to Whistledown already cataloguing what had to be the tail end of a fraught conversation.
The haphazard knot of his cravat, the grin that was caught between sheepishness and cheek. Penelope would have wagered her fortune that Colin had barely set foot in Number 5 before hurtling straight back out for the first ball of the season.
Perhaps he intends to wed this season, she mused to herself as she snagged a lemonade off a passing tray. It was easier to pretend that it was only Whistledown that cared where Colin may set his cap, but Penelope couldn’t shake the sensation that wherever he moved in the room she knew exactly where he might be.
The sensation only grew worse. She’d watched with a careful indifference as Eloise had danced an altogether too lively jig with some po-faced suitor before spinning herself off into the crowd to be lost for good. As Eloise had tripped her last steps over onto the darkened terrace Colin had been giving a tight smile to Cressida.
He doesn’t care for you, Penelope had told herself, her back pressed tight against the wall. You cannot care if he gives gentle smiles to pretty girls because he does not think of you that way.
“Are you mad?”
She could still hear the shock in his voice, as clear as day.
“I would never dream of courting Penelope Featherington, not in your wildest fantasies.”
Wild fantasies. That was all they had ever been. It was only after she had heard those words that Penelope realised just how much she had taken refuge in them.
“Pen. Pen.”
So clear was his voice in her mind that it took Penelope a moment to realise that she had lost track of him. Colin was somehow next to her, a gloved hand resting gently on her elbow as he smiled down at her.
“Pen, it has been too long. Did you receive my letters? It is the problem of travelling I suppose, one never knows if you’ve simply miss timed the whole endeavour or if you’re simply unloved.”
His words are spoken with a smile, the teasing sort of jest that he has become accustomed to. She can see it written in his eyes that he has missed her, ‘his Pen’, the girl who he barely sees as such, the one who reads his letters and responds breathlessly to wonders that she might never see.
He is so assured of her love and yet he cares not for it.
There is something about being lost in the depth of the green in his eyes. It makes her forget herself. They could have gazed at each other for hours or seconds. All she knows is that it has been an uncomfortably long time since she has spoken.
“It is not like my Penelope to be quiet,” she can hear her mother stage whisper to the doctor outside her room.
Colin’s hand still rested upon her elbow and Penelope knew that she must say something.
‘You broke my heart…’
‘I thought you cared for me, even if it was only as a friend…’
‘I miss you…’
None of them fit. It seems she is fit to burst, full of words that may never be uttered in a crowded ballroom. Penelope wonders what Whistledown might say on her behalf…
She isn't certain, only that it would not be kind.
Still, she reasons. If this is drawn out further then it may need commenting upon, ‘Dear Reader, one Colin Bridgerton and our favourite citrus abomination seemed quite content to gaze upon one another in a manner that seemed more fitting to the ornamental fish found in the ponds of Regent;s Park.’
She opens her mouth, and, because the world is cruel, they speak at the same time.
“Are you free for the next dance?”
“I am feeling unwell, I was just about to take some air.”
She can’t help but watch as his face goes from genial to concerned. The very posture of his being changes, the hand on her elbow now joined by the other as he seeks to support her. “Pen,” he said, a softness in his voice, “out here, we shall find you a bench to sit on.”
She lets him lead her out of a side door.
It is a mistake.
Penelope had watched Eloise slip out onto the main balcony, where couples would mingle and take in the sights of the midnight garden below.
In his haste to see her well, Colin had taken her out of a side door, one that led to little more than a courtyard before trailing off into something close to a woodland.
“There is a bench, just over there,” Colin said, his eyesight clearly better than her own, “do you think you can manage or should I…”
Penelope let him lead her to the bench, because she was weak, because she was greedy, and because, though the cruel truth of his words still rang in her heart, she missed him.
Colin sat her down, fussing about her as he did so. “Are you well? Shall I fetch you a lemonade or…” he seemed to stop to take stock of the darkness around them, “perhaps not,” he added.
It was so Colin. Penelope knew simply by the set of his brow that he would not leave her here alone lest some scandal befall her, and yet he could not see that even in sitting alone with her in the dark he was flirting with a scandal of his own.
It is because he does not see you that way, the voice of Whistledown whispered in her ear, you are not a woman to him, you are ‘just Pen’.
“Pen?” Colin said, his hand brushing against her forehead as if he were checking for a fever. “Shall I…”
“I am fine, Colin,” she snapped, and there was something in her tone that pulled him up short.
“Pen?”
She suddenly couldn’t stand the way he said her name. How was it she could be ‘Pen’ and the scornful ‘Penelope Featherington, not in your wildest fantasies.’
“You should return to the ballroom,” Penelope said, her voice hollow as she struggled to keep the rising tears from stealing her voice. “Before you are missed.”
“But I return without you, then I shall miss you,” Colin said, his voice full of the mirth and humour that just made her heart ache for him all the more.
She squeezed her eyes shut. He was not hers. He did not want her. He saw her as little more than a friend. As Eloise’s friend. He probably hadn’t even had time to learn of their disagreement. Penelope couldn’t help but wonder if once he did that this might well be their last conversation, here on this dark bench with his hand still steady on her elbow.
She could feel the squeeze on her arm, gentle, worried. The sort of touch that could lead a foolish girl to almost believe he cared.
“Pen?”
“Colin,” she hated how his name sounded in her mouth, the barely concealed longing. Did he know? Had he always known? “Please,” she said, her voice cracking as her throat closed, “I need but a… a moment to…”
“Penelope what is wrong? Penelope.” His touch was so gentle, his hand guiding her so she was facing him, her eyes cast downwards in the hopes that the night might help her hide her tears. She knew she had been betrayed when Colin’s hand swept across her cheek.
She could not say when he had removed his gloves, only that his touch had left chaos in its wake.
“I know you have quarrelled with Eloise but I’m sure it is of no matter. She can be most unreasonable at times but she always comes around in the…”
“I love you…”
Penelope stares at Colin, the shock in his face lit only by the distant lights of the ballroom. It takes several moments for her to realise that the voice in the dark had been her. She, Penelope Featherington, had just told Colin Bridgerton that she loved him.
He was staring at her.
She stood, “I have to…”
His hand, still wrapped around her arm, tightened. “What do you mean you…”
Shock. That was the word for it. His eyes were blown wide as he stared at the girl he hadn’t seen in months. His Pen. The one who didn’t count.
“I said I love you.” He had heard her, and something within her forced her to be brave. “I understand this changes our friendship and that distance is necessary until I… recover…”
Colin frowned, “Recover? Pen I…”
“Do not call me that,” she snapped, “it is too familiar and it…” she sucked in a deep breath, “it pains me Colin, to know that you do not mean it in the way that I wish you to. It is neither of out faults,” she added, “I suppose it is why Mamas do not encourage friendships with bachelors. I suppose it is bound to happen.”
“Since when?”
“It does not matter,” she said, standing in her attempt to free her arm, although it did little good as Colin simply followed. “All that matters is that you do not feel the same and I am resigned to…”
“How would you know how I feel?” The quiet shock of Colin’s voice had given way to challenge and with it fed fuel to Penelope’s fire.
“Because I heard it.” She said simply, “Because I was there when you told Lord Fife exactly what you thought of Penelope Featherington.”
Colin visibly paled. “When, I…”
There would be no discussion of her words now. They would not speak of her love for him when he was challenge with the absence that flowed the other way.
Although Penelope rather fancied that she would speak of neither, and so, she took advantage of his guilty shock. It took but a moment to slip her arm from his now slack grip and then she was bolting. Up and away through the tall grass, her skirts all but hitched to her knees. It did not matter that she was running away from the ballroom, she would walk home before she spent another minute with Colin Bridgerton.
It was unfair really, that gentlemen not only had the height but also benefited from the clothing by which to outpace one’s opponents. While Penelope doubted that she might ever dream to outpace Colin on a good day, she did like to think that she’d stand a much better chance in a sturdy pair of breeches.
“Pen. Pen, wait, please.”
She had barely made it three steps into the treeline when his hand caught hers as she was running, her skirts falling around her legs in a tangle. Had it not been for his strength she may have fallen, but Colin held fast, pulling her towards him. Her hands somehow found his lapels, seemingly the only steady thing left in her life. It was unfair that he was the safety that she clung to when he was the one who had sent her into the spin.
“I heard you Colin,” Penelope said, the darkness somehow freeing her of the need to keep the pain and hurt from her voice. “I heard you say that you did not…”
He did not deny it, which was a small mercy. “I didn’t mean it,” Colin said, his voice hoarse. “I swear to you I didn’t. I was drunk and…”
“Do not lie to me,” it did not matter that in her anger her hands dropped his lapels as if burned by them, for Colin had settled his hands upon her waist in the efforts of preventing further escape. “I know the truth when I hear it Colin, at least do me the decency of believing me to have enough wit to know a falsehood when it is spoken.”
“I did not mean it Pen,” Colin said again, “I couldn’t I… I swear.” When she tried to step away he held fast, “it is the way of men. Fife, he meant… when he…”
“He thought you wished to court me.” Penelope said. “I know what I heard.”
Cruel laughter. She expected it from most, but never him. Never Colin.
“He… it does not matter… I…”
“You think that your words do not matter, that my future prospects do not matter?”
“No, Pen.” She could hear the exasperation in his voice. “He was alluding to… other matters.”
She narrows her eyes, his excuse making little sense. “I hardly see how that is possible.”
They were close enough that Penelope could feel the short sharp exhale of Colin brush against her cheeks. He glanced over his shoulder, as if fearing they might be overheard, as if being caught in this position wasn’t already ruin enough.
Even as something close to fury bubbled beneath her skin, she still burned under the weight of his hands that had settled on her waist.
“Well?” she prompted, the words coming out more snappish than she intended, such was the irritation she felt at her bodies own betrayal.
“Penelope, he thought I wished to tup you.” Colin’s correction came out so fast and was followed with such a silence that Penelope couldn’t help but imagine that he was blushing.
“Oh,” she said, “oh.”
The silence drew out between them, and then, “like sheep do?”
“No Penelope…” she could hear the fluster in his voice, “I mean, yes, but not like… It is of no matter, only that there is a difference between how a gentleman asks of courting and then of Lord Fife. “You are a gentlewoman; it is not a topic that one ought to consider in polite company.”
“You seemed to find the idea of tupping me ludicrous, you laughed along with the rest of them, I heard you. Do not try to deny it.” Penelope said, not willing to let Colin simply hide the pain of the last few months in embarrassment. She had, after all, already told him the worst of her secrets, even revealing herself of Whistledown could not match the shame.
‘I love you’
Had she been possessed by the devil himself?
“It is not the idea of… I just…” Penelope could hear the fluster in Colin’s voice, and she could not pretend that she did not take a small vindictive joy in it. “Penelope, I am a gentleman and you are a lady of the ton. It wouldn’t be proper.”
“Proper,” she scoffed, “but you did not scold him on being ‘proper’ you laughed. Like the idea was ludicrous, like it was…”
“Penelope I was drunk.”
She could feel his eyes boring into her but she would not look at him. She had already said too much, she did not want him to bear witness to the self-loathing she felt. How she bitterly wished that she was enough even as she knew she never could be.
They had all laughed at the idea that someone like Penelope Featherington might ever turn the head of someone like him.
“It does not matter.” She cut him off, “it does not matter.” It is as if her bones are suddenly filled with lead, such is the weight of the pain he has caused her. Were it not for the arms that held her steady against him Penelope is sure that she would have fallen, but she doesn’t. Instead, sheltered by the darkness she collapses into the chest of the man who had unknowingly broken her heart.
It is unfair, that despite everything, she can still find comfort in his arms.
As she cries against him his hands are a tangle in her hair, the feel of his lips a brush against her as he whispers into her curls again and again that he is sorry, that he begs her forgiveness, that she has to forgive him.
“It was foolish, I was foolish. I only meant that…”
“It does not matter, Colin,” Penelope said, finding some of her old strength in his arms. She could do this, she had managed before. It is simply your pride, she told herself, ignoring the ache in her heart, “I never expected that you would consider me anything more than I was… than I am.”
“Pen.”
Her heart squeezed tighter still. It hurts, to hear the softness of her name upon his lips.
“I know what I am, Colin. I know what people say.” His arms are tight about her now and she cannot draw herself from him even though the heat and smell of him are stifling. It is too much. Overwhelming. She is too close to him. Penelope is certain that she might very well drown in the very essence of him if she doesn’t beg her leave soon. “Colin, please. All I ask is for time, for space. I know what my lot is to be in life. You were little more than a daydream.” This has to be a dream, the real Penelope would never have dared slip her hand up to caress the cheek of Colin Bridgerton. The real Colin would never have let her. “It was for the best. It will be for the best.” She insists, “I will recover from this silliness and then we shall be friends again.”
She can feel Colin nod against her palm. It breaks her heart just a little more.
Friends. It is more than she could hope and yet the knife is still a cruel twist. One day she will have to watch his children grow, an honorary maiden aunt. A cautionary tale.
“Pen, you have to know I…”
She cut him off, “I have always known I will be a spinster, and I know that because of that I will never know what it is to be loved.” She forced a smile, even though she doubted Colin could see it. “It’s just…” her voice cracked and she fought to force down the sob. “I like to dream sometimes. Tell myself stories.”
“What sort of stories?”
Penelope shook her head, “it doesn’t matter.”
Colin’s hand somehow finds her chin in the darkness, lifting her face to his. In the darkness, his eyes look near black. “It does Penelope, it does. You will find someone, I swear. Someone who thinks the world of you and…”
“I am no Bridgerton. I do not have your options, your choice,” she said, “I have never expected to have what your parents did. What Daphne found with the Duke, or the Viscount… Love matches are rare Colin. I have always known that if I were to marry it would be to secure my future. The only way a woman can.”
She worries then that he might find the lie in her voice, that he might somehow glean the knowledge of her hidden funds from the gleam of her eyes alone, but he seems oddly caught up with other matters.
“You speak as if you would accept the first man who asked,” Colin said as if the idea was somehow ridiculous.
She would not argue the point with him, there was little to be gained. Colin had after all been raised watching parents and siblings fall into love matches one by one. For him it probably felt inevitable, he would never know the uncertainty of a crumbling family legacy. “Perhaps I would, it hardly matters. You said it yourself, no one would consider me.”
“They would Pen,” Colin said, his hands flexing on her waist as if he might somehow press his point into her very body. “You’re the funniest, wittiest person I know and…”
“It would be madness to consider me.”
One of his hands leaves her waist to pull at his own hair in frustration, “Pen, I will regret those words until my last breath, I…”
“That you said them or that I heard them?”
“Both… either… Pen, you have to understand that you are important to me, you are. I cannot bear the thought that I have caused you pain. Throughout all of Greece in each and every town I could only think of what stories I wished to tell you and all this time you were suffering under the weight of my thoughtless words.”
She wanted to believe him, wanted to fall into the easy forgiveness and what they had always been. The wall flower and the charmer of the ton.
“Could you even see fit to forgive me? I do not know how I may earn your forgiveness, I know only that I have never needed anything more.” His hand is soft against her cheek, all sense of propriety long since left back with the candlelight of the ballroom. “You are a dear friend Penelope, I cannot believe I have been so foolish as to cause you pain. Just know that there was no truth in my words, one day…”
She knows what he is about to say, how he is about to lie prettily and spin her some tale about some wonderful dashing man who will sweep in and carry her away from this all.
“I know what I am Colin, I know what people think of me. I am resigned to my spinsterhood, it is just…” she can feel the words catch in her throat, but she pushes on, her soul suddenly tired of the weight of her misery. “It is one thing to know your failings, it is another to have someone you considered a friend speak those very same fears. You laughed at them Colin, you laughed at me.”
The tears that fall down her cheeks are soon soaking into the soft velvet of his jacket, Colin’s arms holding her fast as she weeps.
“I’m so sorry,” Colin said, sounding as wretched as she feels. “I know I must make it up to you, but if you cannot forgive me I understand, just know I will never stop trying to make things right.”
“I shouldn’t cry,” Penelope said, softly enough that Colin’s head dips low to catch her words, “please do not think it is only my wounded pride that leaves me so. It is…” she considers for a moment, and then shrugs. She has already bared her soul tonight, what is one more secret. “It is the death of a dream, I suppose. I shall never marry, I shall never have children. Lord, I shall never even know what it is to be kissed.”
Her eyes have adjusted enough to the dark that when she looks up at him she can see the argument written plain across his face. She can only shake her head in response.
“Do not, Colin. I know you think lies would be a kindness here but I know pity when I hear it.” She can’t tear her eyes from his, feeling oddly breathless as the rise and fall of her chest matches the rapid pace of his own. “Is it so terrible, to want to be loved? Just once?”
Colin is looking at her like a man in a dream, the hand that had once cupped her cheek now under her chin as he traced a thumb across the plumpness of her lips.
He says her name, only this time she doesn’t hear it, she feels it. Ghosting across her lips as his head dips lower still.
It is gentle, when his lips finally cross the infinite space to brush against hers, and yet it is still all Penelope can do to keep her feet. The soft, sweet, gentle press of him, steals the very breath from her lungs.
She is kissing Colin Bridgerton.
The shock of the idea has no sooner settled when the kiss deepens. Colin’s hand is once again tangled in her hair as he draws her closer still, his lips moving against hers with a desperate sort of purpose. She can only cling to him, to try and match him kiss for kiss.
If this is to be the only one of her life, Penelope knows she wants to savour it.
When he gives a gentle nip to the soft skin of her lips she cannot help but moan, desire like she has never known before floods her body as she aches for something she knows she does not fully understand. All Penelope knows is that her hands that have grown so much bolder, finding their way beneath his jacket to explore the expanse of his chest, wish that it was bare skin they pressed against, not the layers that separated them.
“Fuck, Pen,” Colin all but moaned into her neck, his breath coming out hot and heavy against her skin. He pressed open-mouthed kisses beneath her ear, dipping lower and lower with each one. She could only moan in response as he worked his way down, ever closer to the neckline of her dress.
Madame Delacroix had refused to take up when Penelope had asked, insisting that it was not ‘scandalous’ as Penelope had blushed. She had insisted that if Penelope wished to attract suitors then the green dress with its low neckline was the way to do it.
Penelope couldn’t imagine even Madame Delacroix could have expected it would happen this fast.
“With lips as sweet as yours,” Colin said, his voice a low rumble that seemed to echo through her chest, “you should be kissed every day.”
“And yet,” Penelope said, utterly breathless at the sensation of his lips as they found the swell of one of her breasts, “you leave them unattended.”
“because it pleases me to kiss you elsewhere,” Colin said as she felt a wicked grin spread across his face, “however else am I to know if you taste just as sweet elsewhere.”
“Such as?” Penelope said, knowing even that as she said it she was playing with fire. She was not so naïve to think that they were still in the realms of chaste kisses, this was something more. The urges of her body throwing all caution to the wind.
“Here?” Colin tried, pressing a chaste kiss to the hollow at her throat, “or perhaps here,” he said, the feel of his lips half lost as they all but danced along the edge of her bodice. It was all Penelope could do to not drag his head lower, she could not say why, all she knew what that a fire roared within her and his lips were the only thing that could keep her from losing herself entirely to the flame.
“Colin, please,” she all but begged, even as she knew not for.
A clever, wicked hand reached up to her neckline, the rolling squeeze of his grip left her pressing her thighs together in a futile effort to ease some of the ache. She felt hollow. Like some unfinished sculpture that ached for his touch, for completion.
She could feel the cold night air upon her breast now as Colin bared them to the darkness.
“Beautiful,” he whispered, “You are so beautiful, body and soul.”
In that moment she believed him, she would have believed anything as the chill wind was replaced with the heat and passion of his mouth. In that moment she was his, unable to do anything but languish in the delicious sensations he drew from her.
“The noises you make,” Colin said as he raised his head once more to capture her lips with his own, “are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard.” As his fingers rolled her nipple, drawing another fluttering gasp from her, Colin could not keep the smile from his face, even as he kissed her.
“I cannot believe…”
“Colin!!!”
“Coooolin.”
The voice of Anthony Bridgerton carried throughout the darkness.
“Where is that blasted boy.”
There was a low murmur as another, less irate voice, responded in kind.
When Penelope turned her attentions back to Colin, who still held her with now rigid arms, he was staring down at her with something akin to horror on his face.
“Penelope… Miss Featherington… You must forgive me, I fear I have taken leave of my senses and… I should not have taken such liberties… I…”
He looked to be on the verge of tears.
Penelope squeezed her eyes tight against the pain.
It was true, he had compromised her. But it would not do to be caught, it would not do to force him into a marriage where he could not find love.
“It is fine, Colin.” Penelope said, amazed at the calm she found in her own voice. “Tell them you were simply getting air, once you have gone I shall simply slip out to my carriage and no one will be the wiser. It will be as if it never happened.”
She would remember though, the sweet ache of his lips against hers.
“I won’t leave you here alone in the dark, not after I…”
“It is for the best, Colin.” Penelope insisted, “you said you would do anything to earn my forgiveness? Well, this is what I ask. Go to your brother.”
Colin’s only response was to hold her face in his hands, his chest rising and falling with such vigour that Penelope might have well imagined he’d just run to Marathon and back.
There was a shout, closer this time, this time Penelope could identify the voice as Benedict.
“Colin,” Penelope said, softly as she stepped out of his embrace, trying not to shiver as the cold night rushed in, “go, now, before circumstance makes decisions for the both of us.”
For one mad moment, Penelope thinks that Colin might be about to lean down and capture her lips one last time, so dark is the look in his eyes, but then his lips press together and he gives her a tight nod.
“Forgive me,” he said, his hand coming up to drag through the hair that she now knew to feel like the softest silk. “Forgive me,” and with that, he was lost to the night.
It was a long time until Penelope could do anything but gaze up at the glimpses of starlight between the leaves of the great canopy above.
She had kissed Colin Bridgerton.
A smile, entirely unbidden, crept over her face.
She had kissed Colin Bridgerton.