Chapter Text
Colin barely made it back to London for the Social Season. Anthony was looking for a bride this year and Colin wasn’t about to miss the fun of teasing him about it. He had gone straight to Greece after last season, then took a leisurely walk around a plethora of towns and cities from Athens, around Italy and France until he boarded his last ship of the year back to English beaches.
He did in fact bring Gregory a styled wooden sword, and Hyacinth a blue fan with white waves of Venice painted on it. And plenty of other little trinkets for the newly grown family back home. He even forced a great amount of control out of himself to not eat these scrumptious chocolates that he knew Penelope would die for as much as he had.
He had ended up staying at that shop so much he learned that they were infused with things, and the Chocolatier and his daughter/apprentice had him describe each new one for a week as a different sibling.
He couldn’t wait for Pen to agree with him, she was the only one who would be able to look at his family the way he did, without being one described.
She was going to be a riotous delight with her barbs. Especially as she would have Eloise to perk up, his sister would not be able to get away with as much loud mouthed critiquing as she did at home and Pen could finally balance her out. Just the right amount of politely kind against a scathingly accurate whisper.
They’ll laugh and scheme around Anthony’s courting and keep him away from any other debutants that Mother wanted to throw at him.
Eloise wasn’t the oldest like Daphne and Anthony or the youngest like Gregory and Hyacinth, she was just like Colin that way... he wasn’t even the spare like Benedict. They understood each other in a way, Penelope too, those two weren’t apart any longer than it takes to be human.
He was pleasantly surprised when Daphne and Simon were able to come by, with Daphne’s stomach bulging more than his ever could no matter how much he ate, for dinner the same day he arrived home. The letter mailed just shy of his own voyage might have been too soon for Anthony to get word down to their little post pregnancy announcement hide away in Hastings.
He handed out gifts, ate their fill, and laughed at his stories of misdirection and mistranslation. Being home was fine, but Colin couldn’t wait to get back to the world. London felt like a snowglobe he had seen in a french shop, a little world that maintained breakable beauty and only served to be looked at and shook up once and a while, not really the living he wanted.
He stayed the night at Bridgerton House, Anthony and Benedict holding their Bachelor’s houses where Colin had let his lease lapse and getting a healthy bit of teasing for it. He was happy to be under his family's roof again, it helped him feel less like a failure after Marina last spring.
It wasn’t until the youngest children were being wrangled off to bed that Eloise brought up Penelope.
“Please be sure to dance with Pen at the first ball we go to, won’t you? And a few other nice ladies to help her out.”
Colin was a little confused by the last bit tacked on, but the serious furrow in Eloise’s brow made him more nervous than resentful.
“Why other ladies too? I like Pen, I’m her friend too. I dance with her cause she’s fun and not trying to marry me. I can’t say the same about anyone else but you that I dance with.”
“Because her family is hurting? You dunderhead. Pen’s father gambled away everything, and they haven’t been able to contact whatever heir needs to give his stupid permission for them to be in their own home.” Eloise huffed and puffed like a wolf in the stories Hyacinth was getting about now. “They had to stay at a boarding house for months and I think their renting a small place just on the outskirts of the Ton right now. Pen’s stressed, she’s been dealing with the finances since her mother refuses to go to the bank or do anything but spend. She’s sacrificing her credibility for her sisters, and she needs the boost that dancing on the regular with you could bring.”
Colin hadn’t realised how far Lord Featherington had gone, he knew that Pen was smart but she was limited by chaperones and skills that she hadn’t honed. Then again it didn’t seem like her father had any skill for balancing his books properly either. Had she such a bad role model that she was repeating his mistakes?
It’s not like the Bridgertons had a lot of room to house them, or that Lady Featherington would accept such charity. Even with Anthony, Benedict, and Daphne out of the house and maybe Colin soon too, there wasn’t an empty wing to give enough grace, not another room big enough for another Dowager Lady, or their Ladies Maids.
Lord above, Colin was suddenly hit with how expensive everything is for gently bred ladies. How much of nothing could the Featherington’s spend. The weight of his pity dropped into his stomach like a stone filling more of his stomach than he’d ever been able to eat.
“Of course I’ll help. I just came back to tease-sorry help Anthony with finding a wife. But I can help two people find happiness as well as one this year.” He gave a wink, trying to pick up his good cheer again.
Everything would be okay. The Featherington girls would get married this season, someone would take care of their mother, or they’d all switch off. Her sisters were a little irritating but Pen was a great girl, even if they aren’t the best matches they would have them. At least they wouldn’t be chased and seduced by fortune hunters. He’d help make their chances a little better where he could and he’d be back on a boat to the continent after Anthony’s wedding.
On the other end of the Ton sat a nice little house where Penelope sat with a glass of wine and new friends.
The boarding house had been too nice, she knew it when her mother’s hands shook as she handed over the jeweled hair pieces that father had gifted her during their courtship. She had gone looking for more writing work, any work she could do covertly enough that she wouldn’t bring her family's reputation to ruin.
And she found them, this amazing group of women. They were giving money to a nun in the alley behind her Whistledown meeting. She thought a couple of them were young men at first, with their trousers and stylish collars seen below coats. She was spotted, smiled at, one waved and she asked them what they were doing.
They had brought her back to the very house they sat in now. The Order of Lilith travelled the world, looted and pillaged the looters and pillagers, they gave back to those who were cheated, they learned, and loved. She had still been red in the face when she went back to the boarding house after seeing a few of these women kiss each other hello, introducing each other as wives and lovers.
When she had told the room of 9 women only a little older than herself what Whistledown was, the laughter was loud enough to raise the dead. The layers of books lining all the walls muffled them but neighbours were used to the house being empty. It was only a weystation for their hauls, the books in languages Penelope didn’t even know existed, medical, historical, philosophical, fiction.
They welcomed her, asked her what she wanted in life. At first she answered, she wanted her sisters married and her mother cared for in the Ton. She learned about how some of these women were hurt, kicked out of their families, how they loved their family but didn’t like them for how they wanted to exert power over lives that were not their own. She loved her family, her mother and sisters, but she didn’t like them. She loved the idea of marriage, family, love, but she didn’t like how it came about in the ton. Maybe that was because people of the ton didn’t like her, but it could be mutual, right?
She wanted love, and children, and adventures to tell her children’s children about when she was too stooped and old to do anything but sew and eat. She was with them from noon til into the dark for a month. It wasn’t much different than the weeks she had spent roaming for solutions while her mother cried in bed and wrote letters to family asking for aid, always receiving nothing in return.
“Join us sister?” Madison had asked her.
“I can’t. I need to get my sisters dowries, get them married, to men that will take care of my mother.” Pen loved them enough to try for another year.
“You don’t have to be on the ship with us to be one of us. The Order of Lilith is vast, much more than just us.”
“What does it mean?”
“You would be our sister by oath, with family to send letters to and send letters, to take care of each other when needed. You learn and share with others, love and care for mother earth and all her children who walk upon her. That is all we are, in our own ways, in groups or on our own.”
Penelope liked that little speech, it sounded like a poem. She would have an audience to write her opinions to no matter what happened to Whistledown.
She took her oath, brought her family to the house that now was hers by Lilith’s right. She showed them the library, cautiously optimistic even if she wasn’t going to tell them everything.
Eleanor had been there, picking up some reading for their next voyage out. She had hugged Pen and her sisters, but almost stabbed her mother when before she could be enveloped she said the books would make good kindling.
“Those barbaric equitability tomes or what filth from the homeless wanting to steal from lords”
The library got locked. Pen was receiving the only key tonight. The last night the ship Siren was remaining in London.
The Branch of the Order of Lilith that welcomed her, accepted her, loved her gathered in the library of their shared house, small and being lived in after quite a while where a maid had just come in once a week to dust. They drank wine, the colour of blood shallowly spilled on pale skin, sang and shared poetry of sisterhood and equality of the sexes, the races, the classes. Pen hurt from smiling more than she had since long before her father died, long before Colin and Marina, long before she walked beside her sisters to curtsy before the Queen.
Whistledown could pay for her sisters dowries without having to pay for housing, and the inheritance from Mama’s Aunt that had started the account would pay for the maids nicely. Pen even learned to cook for herself a little, and she could afford to eat whatever she made without any of her family even knowing.
Things were turning around, and Penelope had the Order to thank, and they always made her thank herself for her strength whenever she expressed it. Her family never thanked her and she almost didn’t care.