Chapter Text
Penelope winced as her mother held up a garish yellow silk. “What about this one?”
“Must I really wear yellow again, Mamma?” Penelope pleaded. The only appointment Madame Delacroix had been able to spare the Featherington ladies for their outfitting had been unfashionably early on the morning after Penelope had watched the Bridgertons arrival from her window across the square, but Portia had snapped it up. Prudence, as always, had been easy to outfit, but as always, Penelope was proving to be more difficult. Mostly, in Penelope’s opinion, because her mother’s taste and her own could not be further apart.
Portia huffed out a sigh. “Do you want my help in finding you a match this season or not?”
Penelope sighed, dropping her eyes. “Of course Mamma.” Finding a match was her goal, after all, and her mother was the only person she had to guide her in the endeavour. “But perhaps…” she hesitated.
“Perhaps?” Portia asked, arching an eyebrow, and Penelope winced again, knowing her mother’s temper was already thin.
“It’s just – I’ve worn yellow for the past two seasons. Perhaps trying something different might yield different results?” Penelope asked hopefully.
Portia dramatically lifted her hand to her brow as if to nurse a headache. “I doubt it, but very well. Do what you will. There’s no real reason to spend further time on a lost cause, I suppose. I shall focus my attention on your sister this season. At least there we might find some success. Just make sure you have something appropriate. I will have to converse with Madam Delacroix as to how much you may expend.”
Penelope tried to look dutifully chastised, but turned with barely contained excitement to Madam Delacroix, who was also barely suppressing a grin.
“I have just the thing,” the modiste whispered, and ushered Penelope further back into the shop, into one of the side rooms designed for fittings, where, away from her mother’s prying eyes, Penelope seized her friend in an excited hug.
“I never, never thought she would relent!” she sighed ecstatically.
“Ma cherie, I have been waiting for the day to dress you as you should be dressed. If you trust me I will see to all the details!” Genevieve released her from the embrace in order to step back and look her up and down, nodding to herself.
“The best part is,” Penelope said with a giggle, “I can supplement mother’s budget. It isn’t as if you will have any awkward questions about where the money is coming from. So long as we do not overindulge, no one else will be any the wiser, and I will finally have the chance to spend some of my earnings.”
“And you will have more reasons to come here, and I to you, for our drop offs. Here, try this, it is something I confess I had been working on with you in mind. It is only the shape, you see?” Genevieve turned and fetched a garment made out of cheap, rough offcuts. “It is simply a mockup, but once we are certain of the design, we can choose a colour that will suit you and go from there. Here, try it on.”
With alacrity, Penelope changed into the new garment, her eyes growing large when she saw her reflection in the mirror, as Genevieve fussed and tucked, adding pins and taking measurements.
“I didn’t know I could look like this,” she whispered in wonder. Gone was the waistline so high that it cut across her chest; the waist was still fashionably high, but now cut to allow for her more generous bust, cinching underneath at her narrowest point, emphasising her natural shape and curve in the most flattering way. She would never be slim, but for the first time since her presentation, she felt confident in the figure she had.
“And now imagine it in this,” the modiste said, draping a deep green silk over one shoulder.
“It’s perfect,” Penelope breathed, and her friend smiled.
“Well then, we shall see that you are dressed to fit your title, Lady Whistdown.”
From the other room, the bell over the door clanged, and Penelope heard her mother’s voice float back to her: “Ah, Lady Bridgerton, how good it is to see you again!”
“Let me go and greet them, and I shall come back to help you out of this. Do not move, or you will disturb the pins,” Genevieve commanded, and slipped away to greet her customers. Penelope was too enamoured with the new shape to be bored, though she did strain to listen for Eloise’s voice - but Lady Violet and Lady Kate seemed to be doing all the talking, mostly about Francesca. She didn’t know whether to be disappointed or relieved. She had not seen or heard from her friend since their awful argument, and every letter she had sent begging Eloise for a chance to talk, to explain, to make amends had been returned unopened with unflattering promptness.
The last thing she expected, therefore, was for Eloise to seek her out.
“Exactly what do you think you are playing at?”
Penelope turned, stunned to see Eloise materialise before her, staring daggers at her while she was only half dressed. “El?”
Eloise continued to sneer at her from the doorway. “Do you have nothing to say for yourself?”
“I am being fitted at the modiste,” Penelope replied evenly, trying to understand what the other girl was talking about.
“That’s not what I was referring to and you know it,” Eloise snapped back.
Penelope sighed, turned back to the mirror. Eloise at her most stubborn was like talking to a brick wall, and Penelope knew better than to beg. “Eloise, I am no diviner. Until you tell me that of which you speak, I cannot answer you to your satisfaction.”
Eloise finally entered the room, carefully lowering her voice so that they would not be overheard, her voice dripping with venom. “Do you know what that column of yours did to my brother, to my family? They all feel so sorry for poor Penelope. How could Whistledown have written something so cruel about one so undeserving?”
“That wasn’t my intention, I assure you,” Penelope replied evenly. At Eloise’s disbelieving scoff, she turned to fully face her former friend. “It wasn’t. Trust me, I didn’t want to report on it any more than I wanted to be there to hear it. But I wasn’t the only person who witnessed it, and it would have drawn too many questions if Lady Whistledown hadn’t covered it.”
“So you did it to protect yourself.” Eloise sneered.
She had sworn to herself she would tell the full truth. It was the only way to get Eloise to trust her again. “I wrote what I wrote and the way I wrote it to take the brunt of people’s poor opinion. Colin will not suffer for what he said; the ton will laugh with him, not at him. Eloise, Lady Whistledown is all I have left. Mamma thinks a distant cousin left her money in her will, which is all we have to support ourselves this season. It is really Whistledown money. I have my mother and sister to think of, as well as myself now. And both Prudence and I must marry this season, or we may not be able to afford another.”
Eloise looked unmoved. “You need not worry yourself on that score. It looks as though you have already achieved a match.”
“What on earth are you talking about?” Penelope asked, baffled.
Eloise took a step closer, glancing in wariness at the door when a burst of laughter echoed through from the other room. “My idiot brother now thinks the only way to save you from this scandal of his making is to marry you. He is quite determined.”
Penelope blinked. “Wh-what?” she asked faintly.
“He thinks he’s in love with you,” Eloise continued, each word a knife to Penelope’s heart. “I tried to tell him you were not to be trusted, but he will not be dissuaded.”
All the air left her lungs. The room was spinning. Throwing a hand out to the nearest object to steady herself – a table – Penelope forced her legs to carry her two further steps so that she could collapse onto a chair.
Colin – in love with her?
No no no no no no no no.
No.
It could not be.
Not when she had spent so many hours working to rid herself of that childish fantasy.
Not when she finally believed herself to be over him.
Not when she was resolved to marry someone — anyone — else.
Well, not anyone, but…
Eloise continued as if she were blind to Penelope’s distress. “It is not the first time Colin has fancied himself in love with a woman who was not what she seemed.”
Penelope’s head jerked up. It would have been less painful if Eloise had slapped her, and even Eloise seemed to understand she had taken things a step too far, dropping her gaze and turning away.
“...I do not want to see my brother have his heart broken by yet another woman who does not love him,” Eloise finished quietly, the venom leaving, making her sound tired.
Penelope blinked. “Have you truly been so blind?”
Eloise looked at her, puzzled. “What do you mean?”
Penelope didn't know whether to laugh or cry. “Eloise, I have been in love with Colin since the day I met him.”
It was Eloise's turn to blink. “Colin? My brother Colin? Bridgerton?”
Penelope could feel the stain of embarrassment painting her cheeks. “Yes.”
“The same Colin who didn't bathe for a month when he was twelve because he read that the Elizabethans did so, and we were forced to throw him into the lake at Aubrey Hall to save our nostrils? That Colin?”
Penelope couldn’t stop the fond giggle from bubbling out, and on hearing it, Eloise sank down into another nearby chair.
“How did I not see?” Eloise mumbled.
“Perhaps it is hardest to truly see those who we are closest to,” Penelope replied. At Eloise’s reproachful look, she added hastily, “I honestly believed you knew. I wasn’t withholding it on purpose, El, I swear it. I just didn’t want to make an issue of it. After all, he is your brother, and I’m just… me.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Eloise’s head tilted as she asked. Her brother had the same endearing mannerism.
“An insipid wallflower.” Penelope quoted with no malice. It was Eloise’s turn to blush, but Penelope carried on. “Neither you nor he said anything that night that wasn't true. That's why the words hurt me so much. I have always known I would never be enough for one such as he. He is a Bridgerton – he could have the season’s Diamond if he took it in his head to marry. I am simply the plump, shy Featherington hiding in the corner, invisible if not for the monstrous coloured gown, his little sister’s friend. Well, former friend, I suppose,” she added sadly, standing again as she felt the prick of a pin somewhere in the vicinity of her left rib.
“Not former,” Eloise corrected quietly. Penelope turned to stare at her, slumped in her seat. It took Eloise a long moment to lift her eyes, and when she did they were still guarded. “I have not forgiven you. I am not ready for things to go back to how they were. I do not know if they can ever go back. However, I came here determined to prevent anything happening between you two for his sake, and now I find myself wanting to argue that you can do better than he. So – perhaps not current friends, but also – not former.”
Swift footsteps could be heard making their way back to the little room.
“Ma cherie, I am so desolated to have left you for so long,” Madam Delacroix cried as she returned. “Come, let me help you out of that now.”
Eloise stood, opening her mouth as if to say more, then shook her head and left the room.
Penelope could not stop the hope from blooming in her chest at her friend’s final words.
Try as she might, Eloise was not the only Bridgerton to consume Penelope’s thoughts over the coming days. The morning of the debutant’s presentation at Court was fast approaching, and Lady Danbury’s ball, held on the evening of the same day, marked the official opening of the season, yet even the beautiful swathes of fabric Genevieve Delacroix kept sending her were not enough to distract her mind from Eloise’s words.
“My idiot brother now thinks the only way to save you from this scandal of his making is to marry you. He is quite determined,” and “He thinks he is in love with you,” and “It is not the first time Colin has fancied himself in love with a woman who was not what she seemed,” all echoed around Penelope’s head, sending her mind and emotions spinning.
It was not at all the outcome she had planned for when publishing his words to Fife on that fateful night. She had simply needed to explain to him why she could no longer be “his Pen,” yet lacked the courage to do so directly, either in letter form or - God help her - to his face. She could not form the words, could not laugh them off in the way they needed to be laughed, could not explain without sounding needy and pathetic, or worse, dissolving into tears and showing him just how deeply his words cut. She had needed him to know, before they met again, exactly why she had never answered his letters.
She had read them, each one. She had tried not to, but the possibility of a word from Eloise or news of their family drove her to break the seal each time, and each time she found herself sinking again into his words. In moments of weakness, she even reached for her quill and began penning a reply, but then “ I would never dream of courting Penelope Featherington ” would waft through her mind like the smell of burnt stew, and her replies were quickly relegated to the fire.
As her plan had unfolded to support her family for the season, she made up her mind that this season would be her last. She simply had to marry, and she simply had to marry someone that wasn’t him. She could be content in an arrangement which held esteem but no love, so long as it did not hold the mutual contempt upon which her parents’ marriage seemed to be built. Any halfway decent match would be an improvement on living under her mother’s roof for the rest of her days. At least she might be mistress of her own household.
She just needed to find a husband who desired a similar arrangement…
…And put Colin Bridgerton out of her mind once and for all.
“He thinks he is in love with you .”
Easier said than done.
To make matters worse, exquisite bouquets arrived for her daily, the choices of flowers selected to convey clear messages: white lilies for apologies, for sincerity and humility; purple hyacinths for deep regrets and the wish to make amends; pink roses for grace and remorse; forget-me-nots requesting forgiveness. Red roses for love, sprays of ivy for fidelity, tulips for passion, primroses for consistency. Each was accompanied by a card written in his hand, and each message signed with the words “Yours always, Colin .”
Frustrating, confusing man!
Of course, the look on her mother’s face every morning when yet another offering arrived from across the square was almost enough to make the whole situation worthwhile, if it were not for the despair that grew with every passing day.
She had noticed, too, that Colin had taken to standing at the gate upon entering or exiting the family home, taking a long moment to look across the square at every opportunity, always searching first for the second window on the upper floor – her bedroom – and then the large window seat of the drawing room facing the square – her favourite reading spot. It irked her that he was so well versed in seeking her out.
But she knew the Bridgerton mind. Colin was a good man, with good intentions, but he didn’t always think through the consequences of his actions once his course had been decided. Luck and no small amount of charm meant that he had never had cause to regret his choices, but Penelope knew that his words to Fife had been the truth, and he was only acting this way now because he was trying to make amends.
Marrying someone as an apology was not an impossible leap in logic for a Bridgerton, especially one who fancied himself now in love.
It was ridiculous for him to think any such thing when there had been no contact between them since that night, save for his unanswered letters. He could not have fallen in love with her while she had been absent from his life; no, it was merely that for the first time in their friendship she had not hastened to him the moment he snapped his fingers, and he was simply throwing the world’s strangest tantrum.
It did not make preparations for the upcoming season any easier.
She must marry, and she must marry someone who wasn’t him.
Now all she had to do was meet an eligible suitor – and convince Colin that this was all folly.