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1824 – Kent
If one assumed that Colin had eaten his fill after a Christmas Eve tea sumptuous enough to tide any normal person over till well past dinner, one would be wrong. Her husband is always hungry.
And so, Colin embarks on a single-minded mission to get Eloise to share the rather large box of candy she pulls out as soon as their tea is cleared away.
He knows better than to try plying Eloise with compliments, as he might have done with his other sisters, mother, or even sisters-in-law. Instead, he – rather winsomely, in Penelope’s entirely biased wifely opinion – reminds Eloise, “Not so long ago, you said that sharing was very improving, sister.”
“As you said of Benedict at the time, I too am as improved as I’m ever going to be,” Eloise retorts, thoroughly unimpressed with this first effort at persuasion.
“But don’t you wish to set a good example for Oliver and Amanda?” Colin persists.
Eloise only scowls at the transparent attempt to use her children against her.
Then Colin tries over-earnest protestations that he only wants some candies for her, his “dear, darling, pregnant wife,” with the sort of melting smile that would soften all but the hardest of hearts.
It seems Eloise is feeling particularly hard-hearted today. “You’d think I’d joined this family yesterday and had not even a passing familiarity with your bottomless appetite, brother,” Eloise scoffs, swatting Colin’s hand away and leaning over him, sat between them, to hold the box directly out to her.
She accepts the offer gratefully, as the candies do look quite tasty, though she has the good grace to shoot her husband a sympathetic look before popping a piece into her mouth.
After a while, Eloise becomes distracted speaking with her own husband, who sits catty corner from her in a large overstuffed armchair.
Phillip looks both as if he would be far more comfortable in the gardens or the greenhouse and as if there were no other place he would rather be than at Eloise’s side, with the twins nearby playing happily and rather raucously with their cousins.
Of course, he has had cause to miss Eloise today, as she and Eloise spent the day taking advantage of the peace and quiet of the library to scribble away at their respective works until just before tea. Meanwhile, the men went shooting, with all but Phillip thrilled not to have to worry that Eloise would thoroughly trounce them.
It is quite sweet, she thinks fondly, feeling very happy for her best –
And that is when Colin scents his opportunity and attempts to filch a few candies.
Eloise instantly responds by slamming the box lid shut on his hand.
“Ow!” Colin yelps (rather unmanfully, Penelope must admit). He sulkily massages his abused fingers, glaring mutinously at an unrepentant Eloise.
From the equally ferocious look on Eloise’s face, it is clear that she only regrets not snapping his sticky fingers clean off.
Brother and sister’s rather murderous stare-off is interrupted only when their younger sister quite suddenly pauses by the pianoforte. A faint smile playing about her lips, Francesca says softly, almost as if surprised by herself, “I should like to play. Will you sing, Colin?”
Colin’s startled look as he watches Francesca seat herself at the bench fades so quickly that she’d have missed it if she blinked. “Of course,” he agrees with a brilliant smile, injured fingers entirely forgotten. “I know just the thing.”
The rest of the family are far more obvious in their surprise, but fortunately Francesca’s observant eyes are trained on Colin as he rises and crosses the room to join her.
To the best of Penelope’s knowledge, Francesca has not performed even among just the family since her first husband’s untimely death. It is her understanding that, while the late Earl of Kilmartin had become infatuated with Francesca at their first meeting, it was upon seeing her at the pianoforte that he fell in love.
So, to say this is something of a shock is an understatement.
In fact, the only person who does not look the least bit surprised is Francesca’s new husband, the current Earl of Kilmartin, who sits down beside Penelope with a smooth smile after she scoots over into the spot Colin just vacated. This particular sofa will be the best vantage point from which to watch and listen.
She settles in and helps herself to a second candy when Eloise generously offers up the box once more, nearly successfully ignoring the voice in the back of her head – the one that sounds rather like her mama – telling her that she doesn’t need it. The fact is that she wants it.
And she is eating for two now, though heaven help her if the baby begins to take too much after its father in the months ahead.
The performance is sure to be a pleasant diversion. As to music, Francesca is the only one of the Bridgerton sisters possessed of true genius and Colin the only one of the brothers with any significant talent.
It’s a very good thing that Colin’s gifts don’t lie in playing an instrument, however, as she’s not sure he’d be able to perform today after the revenge Eloise wreaked upon him just minutes earlier.
After quickly conferring with Colin, Francesca waits until the entire family has been mostly hushed – no easy feat with seventeen adults and thirteen children, including one infant, present – to begin to play.
“Now we are met, let mirth abound –”
She’s not heard Colin perform this particular piece since the final days of her very eventful first season.
“And let the catch and toast go ‘round –”
That day, Colin had his back to the entryway as she was shown into the drawing room at Bridgerton House, eyes on his brothers and sisters, his mother, and the Duke of Hastings as he sang for them – all the family, save Eloise, who had been sitting on the sofa on the other side of the room awaiting her arrival.
She watched Colin for a long moment, loose and free and caught up in the joy of the performance, making an utterly charming picture and seeming himself again after the near escape from a marriage built on lies. Seeing that, she told herself she’d done the right thing. That she’d done the only thing she could do after exhausting the precious few alternatives available to her, played the last card she had with only hours left to avert disaster.
And then, as if sensing her gaze or perhaps even her thoughts, Colin turned and saw her and he faltered, ever so slightly, voice quieting a little, catching just a moment, until he regained his composure and looked away. Usually, it was she who from a sudden rush of overwhelming affection sometimes could not hold his gaze, who needed to look away from those bright eyes of his to collect herself.
In that catch, she saw that he was not quite the same, that perhaps he never would be.
“And then the catch, and then the catch –”
Had it been the right thing? she wonders again. The answer is always the same: yes, though the way she’d gone about it had not been kind; it was the nastiest thing she’d do in all her years as Whistledown. It weighed on her after, maturing her and tempering everything she subsequently wrote.
And the truth is that she’d also been trying to protect herself. She’d been afraid of what might happen if she went to one of the Bridgertons directly and told them the entire truth, not just the part of the story she’d told Colin in a failed attempt to change his mind without betraying Marina’s secret. She had no assurance that the Bridgertons wouldn’t be angry with her, wouldn’t expose her to her parents and Marina as their source when confronting them with their deception. What would she have done then, with her own family set against her? The only person she could’ve trusted implicitly not to implicate her was Eloise and they’d not been speaking –
But as Whistledown, she was powerful. As Whistledown, she could protect herself when no one else would.
Either way, she would’ve hurt Marina (how painful, still, to think of Marina) by foreclosing the possibility of marriage to Colin. But in doing so as Whistledown, she exposed Marina, her family, and herself to ruin.
All to save Colin.
“And let the catch and toast go ‘round –”
To save him . . . And to save him for herself?
It is not the first time she has asked herself this question and she has never quite answered it to her own satisfaction. She is not sure she ever will.
If it were both, would that make her an awful person?
Now, her husband is looking directly at her, and only her, with the greatest warmth and affection, as he sings and suddenly, once again, she cannot hold his gaze.
“Now we are met, let mirth around –”
Of course, she could never have guessed Colin would be hers, for all that she nearly confessed her love at the end of that first season, would’ve done if the shock of his impending departure hadn’t crushed her courage and her heart.
After all, he was her friend but he was also Colin Bridgerton, the most charming man London’s ever seen, and she was merely Penelope Featherington.
Penelope Featherington, the awkward girl who wore unflattering clothes in terrible colors and barely spoke or danced at parties, whose foolish, weak-willed father gambled away her dowry. Eventually she became a marginally less awkward spinster with discreetly-stashed-away funds who wore better-fitting clothes in more flattering colors, but that hardly made her a worthy match for Colin.
. . . Your love is an unrequited fantasy. Colin sees you as you are . . .
He was not for her. Men like him were not meant for women like her.
But had she ever truly ceased to hope?
. . . And I am certainly not going to marry Penelope Featherington!
Yes. Yes, she had. After all, she had the misfortune of hearing him say he would not marry her with her own ears.
In fact, had she not been such a resounding failure on the marriage mart, had another man – a perfectly kind and acceptable man – proposed to her, she probably would’ve married someone else.
“And let the catch and toast go ‘round –”
Perhaps that awful day and all the hopeless years after – every moment spent trying to accept the fact that, while she’d been born for Colin, he’d been born for someone else; to accept that Marina in her cruelest moment, rather than her kindest, had been right – had been her penance for her past actions. But then –
. . . You were right about Colin. He is a good man with a good heart. You were very good to him. I am certain one day he will see it . . .
Then one day, after so many years’ acquaintance, Colin looked at her and saw something different – something more, everything she was and might yet be, everything they might be together.
“And then the catch, and then the catch, and let the catch and toast go ‘round –”
She sighs just a little, mostly contentedly now, as she returns fully to the present.
But still her mind is restless. She may be Lady Whistledown no longer and she may very much like being Penelope Featherington Bridgerton – wife, editor, soon-to-be-mother, and hopefully novelist – but old habits die hard and her assessing gaze lands on her seatmate.
The look on Michael’s face in this unguarded moment is precisely what she expects would have been on her own had her thoughts not wandered as they watched their spouses’ impromptu performance: complete contentment and more than a little bit of awe. How fortunate am I to have such a wonder for my own, forever.
She knows enough of Michael’s feelings for Francesca to understand that the so-called Merry Rake has been a kindred spirit all along, one who knows the sting and ache of fierce unrequited love as well as she does.
One who knows too the sweetness of having your feelings returned when you were certain they never would be, long after you resigned yourself to that fact. The sweetness of no longer having to hide your heart from your eyes whenever you look upon your beloved, of seeing your love reflected back in theirs.
“– And let the catch, and let the catch, and let the catch and toast go ‘round!”
She blinks and focuses back on Colin’s beloved face as she joins the rest of the family in their enthusiastic applause, hoping that her answering smile reflects all the love in her heart rather than the meanderings of her mind.
“Oh, get those lovesick looks out of my sight,” Anthony teases in a gruff undertone from behind them. “Newlyweds. Positively revolting.”
When she turns her head to look up at Anthony, she sees Kate roll her eyes at her husband of a decade and elbow him rather hard in the ribs.
Anthony lets out a rather undignified oof. “You, wife, are in possession of exceedingly bony elbows,” he complains.
“Quiet, you.”
“Ordering me about, hmm? Weren’t you the one who promised to obey?”
“Obey?” Kate echoes, as if the question is utterly ludicrous. Of course, if one knows Kate even a little bit, one knows just how ludicrous the idea is. “Me? No, surely not,” she protests, even as Anthony wraps an arm around her waist to pull her closer – and probably to drag her into the nearest corner at the first opportunity. Typical of the pair of them.
“I think it’s sweet,” eight-year-old Caroline, already a romantic, interrupts defiantly.
Yes, there is so much that is sweet about her life with Colin, she reflects silently as she nods and smiles approvingly at her niece.
And then Colin is there behind her, as if she’d summoned him with her thoughts. He leans over to press a kiss to the top of her head before dropping down into the seat Michael has just vacated and pulling her close as the others drift off.
Quick as the brief press of his lips was, she’d swear she felt that slightly crooked smile she adores against her scalp.
“Where’d you go?” he asks gently when they are as alone as they can be in a room full of Bridgertons, dear, dratted, damnably observant man that he is.
Maybe I changed. Maybe I grew up. Yes, he certainly has.
Rather nicely, if truth be told, she thinks affectionately. “When did I go would be the better question,” she replies truthfully.
“When, then?”
“To the last time I heard you sing that.”
“Oh?”
“My first season, after –”
He nods.
“It was a strange time for all of us.”
“Yes,” he says slowly. “It was.”
“I have . . . mixed feelings about it. I think I always will.” She knows he can hear what she isn’t saying, all the things they’ve already said to one another. “But then I came back to the present, to how happy I am now, to how happy you make me.”
“And you me.” His eyes shine with affection as he looks down at her.
And then, realizing that Eloise left her candy box unguarded, Penelope swipes a piece and offers the stolen sweet to Colin, who smiles at her as if she’s a wonder.
He does that quite a lot, actually.
She considers feeding the candy to him herself for half a moment before recalling that they are mere feet away from the entire family. She flushes, embarrassed at her own wantonness.
Colin, predictably, would be delighted if he could read the thoughts behind her sudden blush. Thank goodness he cannot, although she rather thinks he can guess. “I do love you, you know,” he informs her casually once he’s finished off his treat.
She looks up at him from beneath her lashes. “I do, but I’ll never tire of hearing it.”
“I adore you,” he murmurs next, as if in competition with himself to prove his devotion. Then he leans in closer, scandalously close, and murmurs, “Do you know something? Our first night together –”
She flushes even redder at the memory.
“I thought to myself that I needed to be a bit more attentive the next time I went to church, because weren’t you a wonder.”
He told her he loved her that night and it was – still is, no matter how many times he’s said it since – a bright and shining miracle in her heart.
“But it now occurs to me,” he says thoughtfully, hot eyes intent on hers, “that rather than worshipping the benevolent god who chose to bestow you upon me, I simply ought to worship you.”
“Oh?” Speaking of miracles, how is it that she does not burst into flames, right there on the sofa, at that precise moment?
“Yes,” he continues, the whisper turning darker, more delicious, “and I will do it like a proper supplicant.”
She gulps. “And how is that?”
“On my knees.”
Oh my.
“Such a pleasurable way to pay tribute –”
And to receive it. Her mouth goes dry and she finds she cannot take her eyes off his lips as they continue to form the most sinful words.
“Sweeter even,” he adds meaningfully, nodding at the box beside her, “than the finest candy.”
“Surely not,” she protests, feeling rather lightheaded.
“Trust me,” he murmurs with a wicked, wolfish grin. “I’ve tasted you.”
At that, she blurts out, “I’m really very tired!” – ostensibly to Colin, but loud enough for several family members (thankfully not-so-nearby) to hear, too, and fakes a hopefully convincing yawn to accompany her complaint.
“You do need your rest,” says her mother-in-law kindly from across the room. “See to it, dearest,” she adds to Colin.
“Of course,” Colin says obediently, now the very picture of a dutiful son and husband. “A lie-down before dinner will be just the thing, I should think.”
“Yes, I think you need a respite from all this . . . excitement, Penelope. You look rather flushed,” Francesca observes, sounding all sisterly concern. But the sly look in her eyes and the way her lips are pressed together just a bit too hard suggest that she is struggling to stifle a knowing smile. Good heavens.
Colin does not bother to suppress his smirk as he ushers her out of the rose salon with unseemly haste.
Not that Penelope is complaining.
Let mirth abound, indeed.