Chapter Text
„Ugh, that’s brilliant, utterly brilliant!,“ moaned Colin Bridgerton. Right as he was guiding a piece of cake into his mouth, he saw letters appearing on his arm – his soulmate mark. He didn’t quite know what annoyed him more, that it disturbed him while eating or who it was. As it stood, this had to be the least ideal possible outcome, especially for one of his family that is almost neighbors with the Featheringtons. Like his parents were known for having named him and his siblings in alphabetical order, the Baron and his wife had had the most unpractical idea that all of their daughters’ names should begin with a P. But how was he supposed to know with that which P. Featherington was his?
He didn’t even like most of them, except Pen of course, but she doesn’t count. She can’t be his soulmate when she is already his friend, almost a fifth sister rather. She laughed with him, she listened to him, she looked out for him. He cherished their friendship too much that he would ever want to trade that for a relationship as he was sure there couldn’t be both together. No, he has known and seen Penelope already good enough while believing that meeting your soulmate would mean love at first sight. His brothers had shown him so, and yet it was typical for a Bridgerton man to find himself in a complete mess.
Anthony’s soulmate mark had shown a K. Sharma, an Indian surname, which he thought meant that she would be a continent away and never to be found in England where he had to take care of an estate, a family and a title – until their mother remembered there once was a Lady M. Sharma in the English ton and had, as she only admitted much later, wrote to the Lady to bring her back. After his first meeting with one of her daughters Anthony was confident she would be chosen as the Diamond (she already was his Diamond, he said), which didn’t happen. But at least he was lucky he couldn’t confuse the chosen Edwina for his K.
Benedict had immediately fallen in love when he saw his future wife but missed asking for her name before she disappeared for almost forever. And yet he said he just knew she had to be his S. Beckett, and she was. Only that her appearance at a ball was a disguise and in the end he found her as a working maid, so that all the years inbetween searching among the ton had been wasted.
Colin of course knew exactly where he had to search: five minutes away from his home, that is if he walks slowly. Harder would be to find out if it’s Prudence or Philippa. He knew them of course, superficially only and saw them always only peripherally while speaking with Penelope. Now, he supposed, he had to actually look at them and look closely. Up to now for him they had been only Pen’s elder sister One and Pen’s elder sister Two and the only way to remember which is which he knew was that, when they gave a musical concert, one tortured the pianoforte and one tortured with her voice.