Chapter Text
“Colin, is this truly necessary?”
His mother's voice is strained, a plea hiding beneath the lines that frame the pinched smile between her cheeks.
“Where do you even intend to go?” She tilts her head forward ever so slightly. “Anthony and Kate are nearly back from their extended honeymoon. It may be best to wait for their return before setting off on another tour.”
His hands pause midway from stuffing his linen shirts haphazardly into his portmanteau. It is very late into the evening. Only he and his mother remain awake after his futile attempt at the Queen's ball. His only mistake had been to bare his laments to the cherry brandy at Mondrich’s right after. Now, he can feel his bravado slipping from his fingertips like soft amber curls, rose pink lips, and light azure eyes turning with their owner’s heels as she leaves him stranded in an open sea of dispersing dancers.
He swallows the lump in his throat. “I fear, mother, that any second longer in this ridiculous farce of a season, I might actually go mad.”
He hears his mother sigh, the floorboards creaking as she steps closer to him. He barely manages to keep himself from flinching when she places a tender hand on his arm.
“It is the liquor speaking, dear. Your sense is being clouded. You have had too much.”
“Too much?” He is unsure why these two words suddenly irk him. “ Too much ?”
He fails to notice his mother withdrawing her hand from his arm.
“I simply meant that you are not yourself at the moment, Colin. It is unlike you to leave for who knows where without informing us.”
He rolls his eyes, a sneer playing on his lips against his better judgment. “I beg to differ. If Lady Whistledown had left us to it, you would have had three married children instead of two. You should like that, would you not?”
His mother takes a step back and scoffs.
“To this day, I am thankful that Whistledown has kept you from being made a complete fool. Our family was handed that opportunity to save face on a silver platter. Yet, it would seem even this form of charity remains completely lost on you.”
He pinches the bridge of his nose, sucking his teeth. “Mother, I did not mean—”
“Then what did you mean, Colin Bridgerton? Tell me. What has unsettled you so much that you would follow the whims of a drunken stupor instead of what you know to be true deep inside your heart?”
He stops and stares at his mother. Her words inform him full well that she has now realized the truth.
Or maybe she has always known. She did tell him about the possibility of her receiving a proposal after all. Had his mother not mentioned anything, he would surely have been caught unawares by it. Possibly reading about the whole ordeal on Whistledown, if irony were to drive its point home.
Although, that version of events might have been better for him in the long run. It would certainly have spared him the humiliation of knowing that nothing he could have done would have ever been able to change her mind.
That the way she dropped his hands to fall into the arms of another is the result of his own inaction and foolishness.
That the realization that he cared enough about her to actually love her came a little too late.
Now she is gone.
And only he is to blame.
The breath he had been holding in his chest gives way, forcing him to sit on the edge of his bed. He runs his right hand through his hair, his mother watching him as she waits patiently for him to finally be honest with himself.
So, he lets go.
“But it is my heart that is precisely the problem, mother.”
A singular tear drops to the floor. Followed by another. And another. And another.
“It hurts. And I do not know how to make it stop.”
Desperate sobs and muffled cries fill the dead of the night in a stately home in Grosvenor Square.
“Please. Tell me how to make it stop.”
A mother holds her son.
“Please…”
And the son holds on dearly to his broken heart.
&&&
Eloise finds the rattling of the carriage distracting enough to ignore the anxious fluttering inside her stomach but also irritating enough to wish that they would arrive at their destination already. The Debling estate is on the southern end of Mayfair, almost directly opposite of Grosvenor Square where they live. Although the carriage ride itself is relatively short, it is not helping that her sole companion on this carriage ride is currently shaking his left leg in agitation, contributing to the already rickety nature of the journey ahead of them.
Colin's mind is obviously elsewhere. The biscuits Cook had packed for them long gone even before their carriage was able to turn the corner at the end of their street. Her brother has since resorted to looking out of the carriage window, his gaze focused on the streets of London but not seeking anything in particular. His fingers fiddle with the edge of his sleeves while his brows scrunch together ever so slightly just above the bridge of his nose. Eloise could just about feel the air around her brother hum in subdued agitation akin to the feeling of an oncoming storm. Any other time, Eloise might have already reproached Colin for acting as a heedless carriage mate. But she allows him this. She does have a heart at the end of the day and she is his younger sister. Never mind her own nerves at play.
Eloise swallows a sigh, tearing her gaze away from Colin to settle on top of the rows of roofs they have passed along the street. Overhead, bright sunlight peeks through soft cotton-like clouds as if to say ‘Today is a most pleasant day.’ Eloise almost sighs again. Nothing feels pleasant about what they are about to do—what they are doing. In truth, she still cannot quite fathom what maddened them to make this decision. Three years is a long time to stop talking to someone. It is also an equally long time to suddenly want to start talking to that someone again. Would the person they are about to call on be even willing to see them? Were they truly even willing to see her, their spur-of-the-moment decision notwithstanding?
Eloise does not know what to expect. She does not even think she is in any position to expect. The past three years have proved to be the most cunning and unpredictable of the one's she's lived. All her life, Eloise had been walking on one road with all of the people she held dear. Until a certain day, one by one, every single person had decided that they wanted to take separate paths, venturing into unknown trails that beckon about a life that is decidedly theirs and doing so without ever turning back.
Three of her siblings are blissfully married, with two of them, Anthony and Daphne, steadily cultivating their ever-growing broods. Her two youngest siblings can barely be considered young anymore, Gregory away at Eton while Hyacinth torments her governess in Bath. Her only friend, Cressida Cowper, sends her letters from the country where she lives resignedly with her elderly husband, her words bearing a bitter hopefulness that his age should lead to a short marriage.
Benedict speaks of a mystery lady that has smitten him to his core, his once carefree meandering gradually steadying into a resolute purpose to find and marry “the one”. Her mother, the dowager viscountess, receives almost daily calls from Lord Anderson, Lady Danbury’s brother. Her mother insists they have merely struck a close friendship. But Eloise has not seen her mother's eyes shine so brightly since the day her father died, which makes it all the more apparent to Eloise that she was the only one that had stayed unrelenting in the path she always knew and, as such, was ultimately left behind.
It’s all a bit sad really. Pathetic, even. But truly, Eloise could not blame anyone else for this. She was of the opinion that she, out of all the people she knew, was the most capable of dreaming beyond the life that has been set out for her. She dreamed of learning, getting into university, and showing all the men that what they can do, women can do better. She dreamed that women will be capable of conjecturing prudent philosophies and proposing profound theorems. She dreamed that women will be considered master artists, virtuosos, humanists, scholars, and connoisseurs in their own right, and need not the approval of any man to prove that they are worthy of their standing in society. That women, by themselves, are enough. That she, by herself, is enough.
But dreams are guileful in that they tend to stay as they are. One is bound to wake up sooner or later. And then one finds that nothing has changed if one only thinks about it. Nothing will change unless one does too. Eloise is not quite fond of change. It frightens her, petrifies her entire being. Suffocating the life out of her as it drops dead in a sea of flowers, her mother howling in the distance, her eldest brother sobbing on his knees, and her older sister covering her eyes and ears hoping for the best that she never remembers. But she does. She remembers everything as if it were yesterday. She can never forget. Change is powerful enough to take a father away. Why should she cavort with its enchanting ways when it has done nothing but bring her pain, loss, and a sense of emptiness?
Eloise blinks back the tears beginning to pool in her eyes. She finally allows herself the sigh she has been keeping back . She thinks back to reading the Whistledown issue, her heart sinking at the final sentence in the entry of Lord Debling’s passing.
Penelope has a son.
He is so very young. Younger than Eloise had been, that is certain. He has never known his father. He will never know his father. Eloise finds a semblance of comfort in that, tragic though it may be. But she also remembers her mother when her father passed. Penenlope is strong, Eloise acknowledges. But she has also noticed that Penelope has always had to be. She only worries that this time—well. She can only know by asking her, three years of no communication be damned.
Their carriage slows down at a fenced estate, hawthorn trees standing on either side of the arched iron gate and lining the path to the detached villa further in the private grounds. Eloise sits straighter in here seat, her eyes naturally meeting Colin’s who was adjusting his waistcoat. A quiet inspiriting is shared between the two of them as their carriage idly makes its way through the tree-lined path. Eloise turns to the window, her nose scrunching a little at the sickeningly pungent scent coming from the hawthorn flowers blooming on the trees. Still, the clusters of white petals exude a strange yet darling charm as if the trees were covered in snow in the middle of summer.
“I heard they have a small lake on the property.”
Colin raises a brow at her. “Do they?”
Eloise nods, “It sounds fitting, especially with all these trees. Picturesque, even.”
“I see…” Colin nods slowly back at her. He pauses briefly before stating, “I am not Benedict, you know.”
“I know.”
“He might find that observation a lot more useful than I do. Inspiring, even.”
“He might.”
“Alright…?”
“Alright.”
Colin furrows his forehead at her, not privy to the nerves that suddenly leapt to her throat. Their carriage comes to a full stop in front of a grand villa, its grey stone, statuesque facade softened by the variety of greenery and foliage climbing along its walls. The Deblings must have a fondness for horticulture for never in her life has Eloise seen a house resemble a botanical garden more than this one. But that is neither here nor there. Eloise knows she is stalling. Looking at her brother, his mouth slightly agape as his eyes contemplate the residence in front of him, she knows he is stalling too. It turns out delaying the inevitable runs in the family.
Turning away from the window, Eloise takes a moment to steady her breathing. ‘It’s Penelope,’ she thinks to herself. ‘It is just Penelope.’
A bright flash of yellow and orange briefly appears in her mind’s eye, a small outstretched hand reaching for hers from a memory so long ago. The words uttered by the two children are now only a muffled echo but they sincerely wrap Eloise in a bittersweet pang of longing. More resolute in her cause than ever, she turns to Colin.
“Shall we, brother?”
Colin turns back to her, searches her face, before nodding.
“Yes. Let us go.”