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Once, when she was a girl, she’d grasped a loose thread from the edge of her ribbon, thin and gossamer. She’d wound it about her finger, not unlike she did to her own corkscrew curls nearest to her face, and watched as the ends frayed. It traveled up, higher, higher, until she found she’d nearly unwound it. Oh, mama had more than words about it, of how she’d ruined such a pretty piece of fabric, rendered it from smooth line to a tangle: destroyed it.
Looking at Colin now, she couldn’t help the feeling that she was doing the same, though the impact of such would be far worse than a few strings left in her hold. Her stomach roiled, acid biting back in her throat.
“Please say- something. Anything?” she asked, and Colin’s jaw twitched, followed by an almost imperceptible shake of his head, his eyes wincing at the corners.
“What is there to say?” he finally croaked out, his voice hoarse. She cringed, chewing at her lip. All those ‘lessons’ he’d given her, how to look up from beneath her lashes and smile just so, the kind of comments most gentlemen responded positively to, the demurely flirtatious batting of her eyes and how to arch her back just so as to highlight her bust- it meant nothing here with him. They were acts of masquerade, falseness, acts she put on to attract men she found she didn’t even enjoy the company of.
The more he’d helped her with her marriage prospects, the more she realized she didn’t want it, the more she understood that it was always him and it would always be him. The anger she’d held on to at the end of the season had ebbed and diminished until there was nothing but guilt, remaining.
Colin had more than made up for his comment. He’d been open, he’d been honest, he’d been vulnerable. She’d seen his eyes alight before her.
He had never looked so blankly at her, before.
“You can-” she swallowed, fiddling with her fingers and then taking a breath and standing up straight. “You can say whatever it is you would like.”
“I thank you for your gracious permission,” he replied, and there was no teasing lilt, this time.
“Colin-”
He shook his head and looked away, and it made a spark twinge in her stomach. She’d allowed him to explain himself! Now, he stood before her as though she did not deserve the same? The voice within her, that told her that she’d only allowed him to do so after she’d ignored him for weeks at the start of the season, that told her that he continued trying for her attention, to make amends, was squashed. No, it did not matter. Her brows met.
“So you have nothing to say to me?” she asked, the sharp edge of it was lost on neither of them, and something in his gaze flared.
“What I have to say,” he began, almost through his teeth, “should best be withheld.”
“I- Colin-” she groaned. “I know it was not news you had expected to hear from me, however-”
“Expected?” he cut in, leaning away from her. She jolted, realizing how suddenly different he looked just from his mannerisms. “No, I suppose I did not expect to find that the person I confided my grief and struggles to has been lying to me for years.”
She licked her lips, nearly flinching at his tone. “I have not been lying to you.”
“No? Perhaps we have opposing definitions of such.”
“You are clearly angry with me!” she finally said, unable to stand the chill between them. He was giving her absolutely nothing, his face a mask of near-politeness that was so uncanny on him that it left a spoiled taste in her mouth. “You can tell me if you are.”
The silence between them at that was shiveringly long, how he looked at her but looked through her, now, how his blue eyes had navied from their typical sapphire. They were the darkest, stormiest waters. Once, he'd admitted to her that her initial coolness at him made her own eyes glacial, how he’d seen them so much like the waters of Crete, endlessly blue and warm, and how much it jolted him to find frost, instead.
He did not know that she’d seen his as the same, unyieldingly tender, the softest waves- seafoam and salt and sunshine. Penelope had always loved his eyes, how bright they’d be when he looked at her, how she always felt he saw the best in her, even when she refused to open up.
There was no warmth, here, any longer.
“Angry?” he asked.
“Yes! You are very surely frustrated at me and. . .and I understand that it is a. . .rather large confession, but. . .” she rambled off at the end, unsure even what to say. Yet, the more she looked at him, the more she realized that he was not angry at all. Eloise had been, the fury in her face had lit her as though she were a filled matchbox ignited. No, this was. . .it was something else.
“. . .you truly do not know me at all, do you?” he finally asked, and it was as though she’d been pushed into a cooled bath by her mother once more, the youngest in the household and with not nearly enough money for fresh water for each of them, she was more than accustomed to shuddering in the basin as she scrubbed herself quickly. Her skin goosefleshed at the memory.
“No,” she immediately refuted, something bubbling inside her. “No, of course I know you. I- Colin, of course I do!”
“Do you?” he questioned, his face still closed off, but the emotion finally entered his voice, his perfect mask of gentlemanly politeness wearing. “Yes, I suppose you do, after all those letters.” He chuckled but it was humorless. “I imagine I’ll see them printed in your article in due time.”
Had he struck her, it would hurt less. She gasped. “I would never! You- that was sent in. . .in confidence.”
“You seemed to have no such concerns last you wrote of me,” he threw back, and the bubble burst within her.
“I did it for you!” she said, her voice raised, hands thrown up in her frustration. It was as though speaking to a wall, immobile. “She- she was lying to you, Colin! I had to- to do something. You did not listen to me when I came to you.”
“. . .I did not listen to you? Or I did not give you the answer you wanted?”
She flinched. There was some truth in that, though she did not want to admit it. He was right that he had listened when she told him that Marina loved another, perhaps expecting him to be vindictive, or upset at her. Yet, he showed her who he was, time and time again- that he did not care if she loved another previously, that his heart was incapable of hardening so quickly. Even when she knew she was hurting him with her cold shoulder at the start of the season, (even when she nearly reveled at hurting him), he still came to her, still tried for her, still did the hard work of admitting his faults.
Exposing Marina's pregnancy to the ton and breaking their engagement- it was more than a sore spot inside her: it extended outward, as well, as though her body were a bruised fruit: she wore the guilt for that article each day. But she had done it because she needed him to be safe, needed him to be-
“You did not know all she was hiding from you. I could not- I did it for you,” she maintained. “You deserved more than to marry a woman who was. . .was tricking you.”
Finally, he scoffed. “You did not do it for me, Penelope. You are lying once more.”
Her fury flared and she glared at him. “I am being entirely truthful! I wrote it so you would not throw your future away on a marriage built on a lie!”
“And you had that right?” he asked, finally breaking his composure. “You felt you could publish my personal dealings, my private affairs, so I would not make a decision you did not approve of? You did not do it for me, Penelope, because I would never have wished for you to do so. You did it for an idea of me you fabricated.”
“That’s- no, that’s not it. You would- you- you would have been miserable , Colin, you have to know that!”
“It was my decision!” he finally snapped, and she saw what she did not want to see. No, Colin was not angry.
Colin was hurt. It was as though the air inside of her had all been sucked out, as though the moisture inside her tongue seeped out and slithered down her throat to make her sick.
No, no. No, this she almost could not bear. She had seen Colin angry, she had faced Eloise’s fury, she could cope with anger, but this facet of him- it wounded her merely to be in the presence of it.
“It was my decision and you took it,” he continued, his voice quieting, but his eyes broken wide open, spilling all the fractures she’d left in him when she published it. “And you revealed it to the entire ton. They would all know- You did not entrust me with the truth- You could have spoken to me, Penelope!”
“You did not listen the first time I spoke with you!” she tried to say once more, but it rung hollow, even to her, and she backtracked, her heart beating so hard, it might splinter her sternum. “I- I am sorry that I published that article, I never intended to- to wound you. Please, Colin, you know that!”
“Does Marina know?” he asked, his gaze flaying her bare and raw. Her skin pounded as though the entirety of her was a scraped piece of flesh, red and exposed, bleeding out into the carpet of the same drawing room he’d held her in, smiled at her in, apologized and swore he would make it right by her, even if it took him the rest of his life.
She chewed her lips. “I. . .do not believe so. Eloise does, however.”
His eyes hardened at that. “And that is why she refuses to speak of you.” He laughed without any mirth once more. Penelope suddenly felt salt prick at her lower lashes, blinking it back. The rift between her and Eloise- it was immense and she did not know how to traverse it. For a time, there was fury Penelope held for her best friend, the same she must hold for her. Now, it was but a sad pit inside her chest, deep, endless.
“Yes,” she said, softly. She reached out for a moment, looking for his hand- even in the midst of constant turmoil, she knew with one touch, he could ease her. But he flinched away as though the very brush of her fingertips upon him were fire threatening him to blister and welt. Her lips wobbled and she had to press them together to keep from crying. “Colin, I truly am sorry.”
“What are you sorry for?” he pushed, and she had to pinch the inside of her arm to ground herself, to allow herself this conversation, even as she noted he was farther and farther from her. Even when he was in a different country, he had not felt so distant. His warm regard had iced as though it had never existed- the gentle expression, how his smile would curve just so, how he leaned toward her, his entire body pulled forward, listening to her with everything inside him.
She was losing him. He was slipping between her fingers, and she could not allow it to happen. She refused. They’d come so close in this season, even at the expense of those inconsequential suitors. Was it not just yesterday she was reveling in his attention, in their games of pretend-seduction, all under the guise of attracting another when all she wanted, all she yearned for, was him?
“I am sorry for writing of you. I- I should have told you directly, you are correct. I never intended. . .I did not wish to hurt you. You are-” special to me, everything, my heart, my hopes, please- please? “you have been the kindest person in my life, and I wanted to protect you. Only to protect you. Please tell me you believe me, I cannot bear to know-” she cut herself off with a bite to her lip, realizing he was not softening.
She watched as he closed his eyes and grimaced. When he opened them once more, the emotion in them- her own gut clenched. “Yet you will continue writing Lady Whistledown,” he said, a statement to the core.
She straightened, hesitated. Did not answer him directly. “I have written many things I regret but- many I do not. It is my voice and my legacy.”
The sadness in his expression- oh, it was as though a knife between her ribs, settling so smoothly. When he spoke, his voice was near broken. “An apology without action is a lie,” he told her, repeating his mother’s words that she’d heard secondhand from Eloise after lectures, and then, as though he meant to fully shatter her, “I trusted you.”
“You-” trusted. Trusted. In the past.
No.
No no no.
No. She couldn’t- he couldn’t- she had already lost Eloise, she had already-
“You can- you can still trust me- Colin- you can ,” she urged, but it was as though he did not hear her, as though he were already gone. The tears nearly spilled over. She could not cry, no, not now, not in front of him during this.
She’d never seen him this way before. She’d read his letters, known his pains, his sorrows, his insecurities, yet never had she seen him so upset, so wounded. Once, she believed herself powerless. A man like Colin Bridgerton- she could have no sway over him. Him, one of the most beloved, attractive men in the ton, one of the most highly regarded, wanted, surely his attention on her had been charity, pity. But this response- no, it had never been an act, for him.
He did. He’d trusted her, he’d opened up. He’d been vulnerable, understanding, kind. How many people had been kind to her? How many had confided in her their thoughts and dreams, their wishes and fears? Even before her new dresses and hairstyles, even before his lessons and her newly elevated place in the ton, he had been there for her.
Oh, it was awful, this understanding, this knowledge. As though an act of mercy before the ax struck, he looked at her for a long moment, searching, as though attempting to reconcile what he knew of her with what he was learning.
“Could I go back and unsend those letters, I would,” he said, winding her. Those letters- she held each after he said he’d never court her and she’d sobbed. All those beautiful pieces he’d included of himself inside them, all the fragments of Colin she held so near and dear, it was as though with each admission he’d provided, she could build him in her chest so he was near, still. Beneath her sternum, the pieces of him wrapped about to beat with her heart, cracking it open after she’d overheard him.
“Colin-”
“Mr. Bridgerton,” he corrected.
Oh.
So, that was how he felt when she’d done it. She supposed he had the right, having withstood the brunt of her own pain manifesting in sharp corrections and steely distance as she worked to gather the bits of her he’d left on the floor.
He’d brought her back together himself, made it his mission. He was a good man. She’d done this to a good man. She’d been so upset when he said he wouldn’t court her, had never considered that they were making implications of her honor and that he had defended her. Even after she learned that courting did not mean what she believed it to, he still insisted on making amends. ‘You are correct- I could have ruined your prospects. Please, allow me to atone. I will help you find the perfect husband, I promise.’
Yet here she was, having destroyed his own engagement, unable to offer him the same. Because the truth was that now that she’d had his attention once more, she did not wish to lose it. She could not do for him what he so selflessly did for her: she could not help him win the heart of another. After their lessons began, she did not wish for them to end. And, through it all, as they grew nearer and nearer, she knew she had to confide in him about Lady Whistledown. She knew he deserved to know. She’d been afraid to tell him.
She had been right to worry.
There, before her, she watched him transform from the Colin who made her laugh, the Colin who asked how she was, the Colin who found her in rooms with his expression lit incandescent, to a mere stranger. He straightened before her, coming to his full height as he leaned away even further, as though he could not stand to be any closer, and his polite society expression hazed over the pain he was clearly feeling.
She couldn’t get enough breath in her lungs. He was going. He was gone.
He had every right to be, that was the worst of it, the twist in the side. She had betrayed his trust, she did take his choice away.
She did it for him, but she did it regardless.
Is this how he felt with her when he realized he’d hurt her? It was awful. It felt worse than being hurt, wounding another. Yet, he had still come to her, had endured her fury, had stood witness to her frustration and insisted he would make it right, regardless.
Did he-
Could he possibly-
Was he hers, once, and she did not even know it?
“I wish you only the best, Miss Featherington.”
The name rendered her immobile: last he called her Miss Featherington when they were alone, it was at her insistence. It was proof of their reconciliation that he called her Penelope, even- even Pen, once more. She watched him go, unable to do anything else, her palms tingling, her calves screaming at her to run after him, grasp his hand, tell him she will right this wrong, tell him she will build his trust in her once more, she will, she will.
She could not lose him, not like this, but today? Today was for grief.
Tomorrow?
He fought for her, before. Perhaps it time she do the same.