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Polin Week 2021
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Published:
2021-07-13
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1,384
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1/1
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Summary:

Penelope slips away for a minute during the Vauxhall celebration to catch her breath--

Notes:

Just a quick drabble for Polin week - much love to all Polin stans! Your ship is beautiful and thank you for letting me sail her for a minute or two.

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Work Text:

She walked as fast as her feet could carry her, as fast as her voluminous skirts would allow, as fast as she was able through the milling hordes of the Vauxhall event to somewhere quiet, anywhere quiet, anywhere alone. Or as alone as a debutante was allowed to be without incurring scandal. 

She giggled - what a column that would make. 

The Youngest Miss Featherington was caught out all alone near the Dark Walk at the Vauxhall Celebration, nary a Gentleman in sight. One can only wonder at the unfortunate girls’ intentions, it is quite the misfortune to be caught in an impropriety, it is a tantalizing mystery to have oneself almost caught in such a way. Could a suitor have fled at the last moment into the bushes? Or perhaps, into the Dark Walk itself? What delicious misfortune ( that’s your second ‘misfortune’, Penelope, watch yourself) did she miraculously avoid?

Perhaps she could follow this innuendo with some wholesale pack of lies:

Mr. Colin Bridgerton was seen dancing with the unfortunate young lady during the reel. The young man appeared quite besotted- (no.)

The young lady was even seen dancing with Mr. Colin Bridgerton, only one of this season’s most eligible bachelors, and this author is left to wonder whether love might be blooming in Grosvenor Square this spring?- (absolutely not.)

If their dance was anything to go by, perhaps a search of the Dark Walk might have revealed Mr. Colin Bridgerton in hiding, hoping their indiscretions might go unnoticed by the ton- (God, that’s enough, Penelope, you pathetic wretch.)

The noise of the party faded as she found herself coming to rest around the side of the main building, out of sight from most of the assembled ton, but not completely hidden, as she swept her hair about her neck and pressed back into the limestone wall, the stone cooling her flushed and overheated skin.

She wished there was such a soothing balm for her flushed and overheated imagination, but the cooler temperature of the stones did nothing for the way her heart raced, for the way her pulse seemed to explode out of her with every heartbeat, for the way her mind could not stop sliding around like it had been knocked loose, for the way her legs felt weak, like she was a filly taking her very first knobbly steps-

This feeling - as if everything inside of her was suddenly out, as if her body no longer cared to obey, so much so she had to concentrate to put one foot in front of the other, as if the entire world suddenly tasted better-

So this,

this,

THIS.

This is what the poets meant. This is why poetry exists.

Every couplet now made puzzle-perfect sense: the press of his hand in hers like an iron brand, the feel of him gripping her waist as she turned in the reel, the stars of laughter in his eyes as they stomped in perfect synchronization on the count, the blinding flash of his teeth when he grinned down at her, the broad, soapy solidness of him, and oh dear God, the way he smelled -

-linens and lemons and the sharp, snapping smokiness of firelight-

Her first dance. 

Her first dance was with Colin Bridgerton. 

An absurd delight filled her, tingling from her toes to the very top of her head, and Penelope marveled in gleeful astonishment at how much a person could simply feel as her thoughts tumbled over each other in blind exuberance like puppies rolling down a hill -

no matter what the future held for her-

no matter the miseries she might encounter-

no matter how much the rest of her life seemed most days to be an aching, endless version of a waking death-

the moment Colin Bridgerton took her hand and whirled about with her on the dance floor would always be hers -

for one brief, flickering second, instead of standing on the outskirts as an invisible spectator, she got to be part of the world in all of its intoxicating entirety-

this is what girls like Daphne must feel like all the time, as if champagne were an actual emotion-

this is what it meant to be alive, and her dance with Colin Bridgerton was proof that she had lived-

this is what perfect actually means.

Dearest reader, it has often been said that when love speaks, the voice of all the gods makes heaven drowsy with the harmony, and while she hath read and researched and prepared, the investigation of the moment does not prepare one for the limitless, godly truth of it: this author can finally report with a zealous, delirious abandon that Shakespeare was right. 

The hum of Vauxhall rose in volume in her ears; she could not stay here forever - pressed against the side of the building, pressed against her memory of the way dancing with him had irrevocably altered her heart, pressed against his hands as momentum and a happiness Penelope had never known carried them through the reel and everything became a blur except the way he grinned at her. 

She had to get back to the party.

She had to get back to reality. 

He did not see her in that way, she was not blind. She was a fool, and a besotted one, but she had eyes - Colin was a Bridgerton: he was handsome and gentlemanly and romantic and rich and there was not a lady here who wasn’t interested in his suit. Colin danced with wealthy, beautiful debutantes like Cressida Cowper. Colin was courting Marina. Colin flirted with everyone. Colin had choices and options and he was not interested in her.

It was pity, it must have been. The rational part of her mind screamed at her that it was only because Cressida had been so deliberately cruel, so very dismissive, that he had taken her hand and led her away to the best few minutes of her life, minutes that she would take out and gaze at in wonder and delight for the rest of her life, minutes that meant more to her than anything, but that he would not remember at all.

How could a dance mean everything to one person and less than nothing to the other?

Her footsteps carried her through the throng absentmindedly - here were her sisters, waiting to be asked to dance, all appealing eyes and coy shoulders, there was her father, as always blissfully unaware of anything troubling, and over there Lord Bridgerton, knocking back a drink in one full swallow, and Penelope averted her eyes with a blush as that was far more male neck than she was used to seeing-

The Viscount Bridgerton was spotted at the Vauxhall celebration in a scandalous open collar - one wonders where (and with whom) he might have lost his cravat? (Leave him alone, Penelope, Lord Bridgerton has always been kind to you and it looks like he’s had quite the worst  day of his life.)

Lady Whistledown’s next column continued taking shape as she wandered, scratches of whispered conversations falling about her like raindrops - gossip, innuendo, rumors - and she collected them all silently while she slipped in and out of the way Colin had rescued her from humiliation at the hands of Cressida Cowper, the way he had held her, the way his blue eyes sparkled in the glowing light reflecting from the lamps nearby, the way he had smiled at her - like she was the only one in the world, like she was the only person he had ever met.

Her heart slid over his smile as he led her to the floor in the same way she would run her hands longingly over a blue fabric at the modiste, a color she knew would suit her and a color she knew her mother would never let her wear - in a way the poets might call a caress.

Blue fabric, like Colin, was something she would never have, and she must learn to stop wanting it.

She would have him as a friend, and that would have to be enough. To hope for more was cruel, and the world was already cruel enough.

She never wanted to dance with him again.

She wanted to dance with him every day for the rest of her life.

Notes:

Thank you for reading! Happy Polin Week!