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Since returning from his travels, Colin has found that he is never on time. Somehow, he manages to be early, frequently manages to be late, but is never where he is supposed to be when he is supposed to be there. It’s not like it used to be, when he would find himself swept in the swarm that was his family, trotting wherever his mama told him to go. His mind is constantly occupied, left in a different room of the house, or perhaps in one of the gardens, or maybe even down the way to the Featherington’s.
Admittedly, his mind has been at the Featheringtons quite a lot since he got home. It makes sense, he supposes. He has a job that he is resigned to do.
It’s a dewey, misty morning in the ton, accompanied by a colorless sun that has nothing to recommend it compared to those he saw while he was away. As it hangs limply among the clouds, Colin finds himself wondering if it had always been so pale; what if he had simply spent his life not seeing it for what it was? He knows now, knows more than ever, that he has not seen this ton correctly. Or perhaps he had been content regardless of seeing through the guise of all the opulence and finery.
He isn’t content anymore. The diversions that used to exist are gone now, the repetitive nature of days rolling back and forth in his mind. He is restless in his aimlessness now, instead of buoyed by it. So much so that a risk like this, even a small one such as sneaking out to a dressmaker’s first thing in the morning, gives him a thrill. He straightens his back thinking about it even as he tips his hat low over his features, attempting to obscure them. Due to the early hour, Madame Delacroix’s establishment is closed, but Colin raises a tight fist and knocks on the door soundly, tapping his foot with impatience as he waits for the sound of footsteps.
“You are early,” says Madame Delacroix, sounding displeased.
To compensate, Colin’s response arrives in his most pleasant tone.
“Would you like to leave me out here waiting?”
She widens the door with a pinched expression on her face, looking as though she’d rather do anything but.
“When will you Bridgertons stop showing up at my doorstep at the most inopportune times.”
She peers down the street, making sure they weren’t seen, before hastily locking the door and ushering him away from the main part of the storefront, towards the back of the shop.
“We do have an appointment,” Colin points out. “I would hardly call the amount of money I’m paying you to do this discreetly ‘inopportune.’”
“You must understand that this is most unusual,” Madame Delacroix murmurs, not looking at him as she leads him briskly down the hallway.
“And you must understand that I am doing it for good reasons.”
“So I have been told,” she says under her breath, then stops, glancing back at him. “Penelope speaks highly of you.”
It comes as enough of a surprise for him to make him stumble against the floor of the hallway, breaking his confident stride. The idea that Penelope has been speaking highly of him is news. She’d barely been speaking to him at all when he returned from traveling, and he has only just managed to wiggle his way back into her good graces in an attempt to save their friendship.
And one such way of proving his undying devotion is showing up at this dress shop a little too early. There is something backwards about all the time they have been spending alone together putting their goal at risk, but Colin can’t find it in himself to care.
Well. Not too much.
“My brother speaks highly of you.”
He says it carefully, choosing to remind her of the leverage they have over each other. He certainly would prefer not to use it, but he isn’t above destroying someone else to make sure Penelope isn’t ruined. Benedict’s reputation would recover. Madame Delacroix’s business most certainly would not.
She stops walking. Turns to him slightly, so that he can see the serious expression on half of her face, the other half draped in early morning shadow.
“I think highly of him.”
Good. Done.
They continue on until they reach a small sitting room, in which Penelope is already perched on a couch, a cup of tea in her hands. She puts it down on the table next to her when Colin walks in, standing up to curtsy before seeming to remember that formalities are useless at this point. She straightens up, brushing some of her loose hair out of her face as she does so, searching for something to do with her hands.
“Pen,” says Colin, tipping his hat at her.
“Would you like some tea, Mister Bridgerton?” asks Madam Delacroix, twisting her hands nervously as she stands near the teapot, and when Colin looks over at Penelope, he sees how utterly frozen her back is.
“I think it’s best that we begin,” he says, eyes still on her. “Did you follow all of the instructions in my letter?”
“Yes, Mister Bridgerton.”
“And therefore we can expect to see no yellow or orange?”
He says it to make Penelope laugh, but instead finds her staring at her hands, which are clenched into fists on top of her skirt.
“None for miles,” Madam Delacroix says, softening for the first time since he had arrived. “Please excuse me.”
She sweeps out of the room, leaving the two of them alone with the ticking of the clock hung over the mantle. Colin can only take three of its menacing tick tick ticks before he gives up, moving over to Penelope on the couch she is perched on and sitting next to her. Carefully, he takes her hand in his, brushing his thumb against her fingers to coax her into unballing them from her palm.
“You are not happy to be here,” he deduces, careful not to let his annoyance show on his face. He is doing this for her, after all, and he had written that letter for her, and he had risen far earlier than he usually does for her, all to prove that he is taking their endeavor seriously.
“No,” she agrees, then cringes at the displeased noise in his throat. “Not because of you.”
“Not this time,” Colin says, unable to help himself from teasing her. It seems to bring Penelope back to herself, and she carefully removes her ungloved hand from his, acknowledging that they are not supposed to touch like this, were never supposed to touch like this.
“I am afraid trying on dresses has never been an enjoyable experience for me,” says Penelope, studying the fabric on her skirt. “I find it rather unpleasant to be stuffed into a series of frocks that don’t feel like they belong on my body.”
“You are unhappy because you don’t like your dresses,” he says. “Is that what I’m to understand?”
“No,” Penelope says, sounding frustrated. “They look fine on my sisters, it’s–” He feels it before she says it, so when she cuts herself off, he doesn’t need her to continue. It’s easy to understand when she cannot even look at him. He understands why there had been no excitement when he walked into the room, no joy such as he had come to expect from when Daphne or Francesca or Hyacinth would return from the dressmaker’s with new fashions to show for it.
“The flaw is in the dresses,” Colin says firmly. He hesitates for a moment before reaching for her, tilting her chin towards his face so that she is looking into his eyes. “Not within you.”
Penelope breathes out audibly, looking at him with an expression that devastates him. His family compliments each other nearly as much as they rib each other; had Penelope truly never experienced such kindness before? From the flush that spreads over her cheeks, it seems as if this is the first compliment anyone had ever given her on her appearance.
I would never dream of courting Penelope Featherington.
Not the least… him.
Well chastised by his own words coming back to taunt him, Colin drops his hands from Penelope’s face and clears his throat, nodding at her once before he moves to stand by the fireplace where he might be safe from his poor decision making.
“Here we are,” comes Madame Delacroix’s voice as she rounds the corner into the room, bringing several boxes of dresses with her.
“There were supposed to be one or two,” protests Penelope, standing up in alarm.
“You said you would follow my instruction,” Colin reminds her. “It is up to me how many dresses you are to have and what they are to look like. Do you understand me?”
“And besides,” adds Madame Delacroix, setting the boxes down and removing one of the covers with a flourish. “Now I finally get to dress you how I have always wanted. No input from your meddlesome mama.”
“No, just a meddlesome man,” Penelope says, cutting her eyes towards Colin. He smirks, pushing away from the fireplace so that he can return to the couch where Penelope had been sitting, showing her that her seat is now taken. To emphasize it, he spreads his legs wide and throws his arms across the back of the couch, letting out a contented sigh to emphasize how comfortable he is. Penelope throws him an unamused glare before allowing Madame Delacroix to escort her behind the screen so that Penelope can change into the first dress.
He cannot hear much of what is being said, simply soft whispers between the two women, but he can see the top of Penelope’s bright head looming near the top of the screen. For some reason, he fixes his gaze upon it unrelentingly, staring at the way the red strands move up and down when she speaks or adjusts the dress. He hears Madame Delacroix let out a happy exclamation before she moves out from behind the screen, beckoning for Penelope to follow her.
From the moment she steps out from behind the screen, his heart aches at the sight of her. She has her head lowered to the floor, her lip twisting nervously between her teeth as she steps over to the fitting platform. When she raises herself to it, she does not look in the mirror, instead looking somewhere to the side.
“Do you like it?” Colin asks, testing her.
“Oh yes,” Penelope says brightly. “It suits me very well. Thank you.”
“And what is your favorite part of the dress?”
“I very much like the fabric.”
“And what else?”
“The… the color?”
Madame Delacroix is busy checking the hem of the dress, nodding with satisfaction as she notes that it is the right length. She most certainly does not notice the fact that Penelope has not once seen herself.
“Madame Delacroix,” Colin says, rising from the couch, “would you leave us for a moment?”
She straightens up, shooting a concerned look towards Penelope, who nods in assent while simultaneously bracing herself. Madame Delacroix reluctantly leaves the room, shutting the door with one last glance between the two of them.
“I have not argued about the dress,” Penelope bursts out as soon as the door is closed.
“That is because you have not looked at yourself,” Colin says patiently, rising from his spot on the couch and approaching Penelope. “Why is that?”
He nudges her forward slightly before stepping up into the platform with her, looking at the two of them in the mirror together. Penelope is still looking away despite being caught out.
“I already know what I am going to see.”
“You do not.”
“Oh, but I do,” she replies sharply.
He is so much taller than her. Somehow, he has never reveled in it before. It sets his instincts ablaze, making him want to protect her, to shield her. In some ways, the power of it makes him want to bend her over his knee until she obeys him.
“Penelope,” says Colin firmly, surprised even at his own tone. “Look at yourself.”
She moves slowly, turning her stubborn chin towards her visage. Colin thinks he can find a tremble in her body and places his hands on her waist to let her know that he is there, that he is not going anywhere. While he does not understand what is going on in her brain at the moment, he does understand shame. And shame is something that he can feel emanating off of her, for reasons he suspects he cannot begin to fathom.
When Penelope’s gaze finally lands upon herself, there is not an instant change. There is no beam of relief sashaying across her features. Instead, she blinks at herself nervously, eyes stroking the expense of her frame. He watches her gaze moves across the smooth exposed expanse of skin beneath her neck to the curve of her breasts to the sleeves that flutter around her arms. If anything has ever looked as perfect with her skin as a midnight blue dress with gold trimmings, Colin cannot think of what it could be. He is captivated by how delicate and pale she looks, the way her breasts rise above the square line of fabric; how bits of skin peer through the ringlets of hair that dance across her arms.
“Your body,” says Colin bending down, voice quiet, just for her, “is a marvel. A spectacle in all the best ways.”
“I do not think–” she begins, but he moves some of her hair away from her neckline so that her decolletage is entirely exposed to him, and her words die out.
“You do not see yourself how a man would,” explains Colin. “And I think perhaps you must, in order to feel the confidence in your appearance that you deserve to feel. It will make your efforts easier if you understand what entices us about you.”
“Fine, then,” says Penelope, sounding breathless, “what about women entices you?”
“I did not say women.” He frowns at her in the mirror, irked at how stubborn she is being. “I said you.”
“Me,” repeats Penelope, voice flat. Usually, her voice is high pitched and loud around him, seeking him out, making sure she is heard. Now it is restrained and low, so much more the reality of her than the cheerful affect she puts on in public. It reminds him of witty comments at the side of ballrooms and sly smiles during dances.
“You have smooth skin,” he says. “And those freckles… they make us wonder where else you may have freckles; how smooth you may be in places we cannot see. Utilize that. It’s a tool.”
“My freckles are a tool?”
“Most assuredly,” he says, smiling down at her. “Alongside your wide, innocent eyes. You are so much more than that impression of them, I know. But if you look up at a man with any sort of innocence and trust, there will be all sorts of things we will want to teach you.”
“Things that cannot be taught in a ballroom, I presume?”
He watches as she shifts in front of him, her backside rubbing teasingly against him for just a moment. She does not know what she is doing. Colin nods at her, not trusting himself to speak when he notices that her breasts are moving more rapidly, like her breathing has escalated. Once he sees it, he cannot bring himself to look away.
“Your breasts are perfect,” Colin continues, sliding his hands up from where they had been resting on her hips. His index fingers brush against the bottoms of her breasts, where the waistline presses against the soft curve of her stomach. “The way they spill over the top of your dress, the way they move when you are overexerted from dancing with me. It is… it is difficult to look away from them. They are enchanting.”
Penelope’s expression is inscrutable. Colin finds himself beginning to feel that he may have overestimated his own ability to be a good teacher. His mouth is dry, his stomach tight as he imagines himself at the side of the ballroom watching her dance with prospective suitors who will have the same angle Colin has now. Peering down at her, able to see even lower than her neckline if they are as tall as he is. They will be able to see what he can– that place where her cleavage vanishes beneath her dress and comes together over her skin. He imagines it is warm there and wonders what it would be like to pull her breasts from each other and press a long, open-mouthed kiss against her sternum.
He moves his hands away from her breasts, slipping them down the silky fabric of her dress until he’s about to gather her hand in his. He had held it just a few minutes ago, but it is more charged now. He looks at her tiny fingers and wonders how he never could have noticed them before.
“You also have small, dainty hands, which makes us feel strong. It allows us to feel in control, even though you are the one who has all the control.”
“How is it that I have all the control?” asks Penelope. “I am not the one who gets to decide whether I marry or not. I cannot come and go as I please. I cannot live my life freely. Is it not your lot who has all the control?”
Colin considers this for a moment, intrigued by the idea that she could see it that way. His whole adult life, he had been taught by other men that women held all the power between their thighs. The goal, as a man, was to seek pleasure beneath their dress without having to render a marriage proposal so that one could then move on to the next woman and repeat the process with a different woman. To do so with a woman of gentle breeding only heightened the delight, according to his peers.
It is not a lifestyle that Colin has spent much time pursuing, but he supposes he had not thought about it from any other perspective before.
“You must understand that, to the men in this world, a lady is a prize.”
“I think we’d much rather be a person,” quips Penelope. He raises one eyebrow at her in the mirror. “Fine. Continue.”
“You are power, Pen,” he says seriously. “The shape of you, your intelligence, the fact that you will not freely give what most men want. You can hold any man in the palm of your hands if you show him that he should want you.”
“Not any man.” There is something defeated and dark in her tone. He stares at her in bemusement, not understanding when the shift had taken place. Penelope takes one final look at her form before stepping off of the fitting platform. “You were right, thank you. This dress is beautiful.”
Colin goes over to the boxes of dresses, rifling through them until he finds the one that he had been most eager to see.
“This one,” he says, pulling out a dress with shimmering emerald green fabric and holding it out to her. “Try this one next.”
“I’ll go get Madame Dela–”
“No need,” replies Colin jauntily, gesturing for her to turn around. “May I?”
Penelope obeys without question, allowing him to undo the ties at the back of her dress. When she turns around, the dress looser around her body, her cheeks are bright pink, her eyes determinedly not meeting his as she darts behind the screen again. She may know more than she lets on, but she is still an innocent, something that he finds himself smiling about. For now, she is still his friend. Still his to teach, to protect, to…
He can hear the blue dress pooling to the floor while she pulls the green one over her head. His smile wavers.
“It’s not tied,” Penelope warns before walking out from behind the screen again. Colin gestures for her to come towards him and she does, turning her back so that he can lace her dress. Unable to help himself, he runs a finger down the line of her spine, over her stays and her chemise, before drawing the fastenings into tight knots at her waist and neckline.
“There,” he says, assisting her as she walks up onto the platform again. He follows her magnetically, wanting to see if anything in her expression has changed this time. An uncertain countenance has taken over as she scowls at herself, not seeming to believe that the woman in the mirror is really her.
“This is…”
“Beautiful,” Colin finishes for her. “You are beautiful, Pen.”
At the compliment, his least roundabout one yet, her shoulders freeze and her hands come together at her front, caving her body inward.
“I believe you must use that word too freely.”
He wants to protest, wants to yell, but instead he thinks about her response. Thinks about the fact that there is no joy on her face from being complimented because she simply does not believe it. It is the same as when someone refers to him as ‘accomplished.’ He has not accomplished a damn thing in his life. There is no part of Colin that believes he has earned such a compliment.
“You have not been told that you are beautiful very frequently, have you?”
Penelope turns her back to her reflection so that she is facing him.
“It is not a word that is frequently bestowed upon me in society. Or… anyone elsewhere.”
Oh, he wants to take her in his arms. He wants to hold onto her tight and take her back to Number Five where everyone will ply her with compliment after complement like she has earned just by being herself. He also keenly, eagerly wants to commit some sort of crime against the rest of the Featherington family for seemingly not speaking to her the way they should have. Between yellow dresses and her mama’s sharp tongue, he cannot imagine when she would have had the opportunity to gain the confidence she needed to move away from the wall. No wonder she had reacted so intensely to his words last year.
He had been so accustomed to being the Bridgerton that no one ever took seriously, he had forgotten that there was one person who always did.
“The way you bear it is incredible, Pen. Lesser women would not have your strength of character.” She throws him a doubtful look. Colin wonders if, perhaps, this is the most open he has ever seen her. He wonders if he ever would have seen her like this if he hadn’t hurt her that night. A lifetime without seeing this expression on her face seems incomprehensible. “No, it’s true. They wouldn’t have half your humor or your kindness. You are not bitter.”
She looks away from him at his last word, doubt morphing into a grimace.
“I do not deserve such praise.”
“Well,” Colin says simply. “The praise is mine to bestow, not yours. I think you deserve that praise and that you are too beautiful not to know it. Look again, Penelope. One more time.”
She sighs, turning around to gaze upon herself once more. He watches as she draws herself to her full height, her shoulders back, her face analytical. This time, they both stare at her unblinkingly. He steps off of the fitting platform so that she is alone, taking up all the space that she deserves. He is standing beneath her now, and with the brightness that has begun creeping into her eyes and the beauty of her form, she has somehow made him feel small. Small in the right way. Small in the way a woman should make a man feel, Colin thinks.
“Maybe,” Penelope whispers, running her hands down the front of the dress, pressing them against the swell of her breasts and over the easy slope of her stomach. It’s the first time there has been even the tiniest glimmer of hope for her. He considers this a fine victory indeed and decides to give her even more encouragement, just to tip the scales in the right direction.
“You should be married in this color. It suits you well.”
Penelope turns her analytical gaze to him now.
“I should?”
For a moment, the words quiver across his tongue. You should be married to me in this color. He shakes his head, flicking the unwanted words away from himself. All this talk of the marriage mart has confused him, he is sure. Such thoughts have begun cropping up with higher frequency and are becoming more difficult to shake away.
“Whichever husband is lucky enough to have you will enjoy you in this color, I assure you.”
She nods, business-like, and smiles a real smile for the first time since he had arrived.
“You really think this dress could make a man fall in love with me?”
He hesitates. Marina’s face flashes across his mind. The expression Anthony threw him when asking him if getting married was just about getting his wick wet. The sympathy on Benedict’s face when the Lady Whistledown article about her came out; the shame on his mother’s.
“I do not know enough about love to promise that,” he settles on. “I’m afraid I do not truly know what love means, Pen.”
Penelope looks surprised at that, and a little angry.
“So what have we been doing here?”
“We are enticing potential husbands with desire,” Colin informs her. “Desire, I can do. Desire I understand all too well.”
Perhaps he does not know what it is like to desire a woman enough to want to take her as his wife, but he knows what desire is for other things. Desire for sand between his toes, moving closer to the water until it is muddy and sticky. For the last biscuit on the platter, for a moment of silence, for enough stimulation to drown out his mind on its most feverish days. He knows desire.
He has had desire without passion. Passion is what he seeks, and what sometimes he thinks can never belong to him. He feels that it has evaded him all his life.
“And desire comes before love?”
He doesn’t know why the question feels so difficult to him.
“I believe so,” he answers. “I think it must. It’s less… complex, you see.”
“I don’t think love is complicated at all,” muses Penelope. “Society is complicated. Money is complicated. People are complicated. Loving someone, truly loving someone, is not complicated.”
She speaks with a settled authority, like she has made her peace with this. Colin, for his part, cannot fathom making peace with love until he is absolutely, completely, irrevocably certain that it is indelible for both parties. Prior to that, it is too dangerous.
“Yes. Well,” he says, clearing his throat. “I hope you are correct.”
There is a pert knock at the door, and Madame Delacroix reenters, stopping short when she sees that Penelope is wearing a different dress. She recovers quickly, offering them both a quick nod.
“Have you sorted out everything you needed to?” she asks. Her eyes trained solely on Penelope, who nods, looking over at herself in the mirror and letting out a soft smile.
“I believe I have.”
“Excellent,” replies Madame Delacroix. “Mister Bridgerton, I’ll need you to leave the shop soon. I cannot have anyone about town seeing you exit before opening. They would think most improper things about my establishment.”
“Understood.” Colin gives a curt nod to Penelope before looking back over at Madame Delacroix. “We’ll need to take the necklines lower. I believe Miss Featherington would like to ensure that her assets are as great an asset as can be.”
He winks at her before leaving the room. Only a few steps down the hallway, the door bursts open and Penelope rushes out, brandishing his hat.
She presses it into his hands, looking up at him with those sweet, trusting eyes that he has always known. When she speaks, it is gentle.
“I know what love is. And you will know when you find it because you… you are a person who loves deeply. Just because that love may not have been romantic in nature before, does not invalidate its existence. You will be in love when someone becomes home to you without you deciding it. That is what love is for you.”
She nods once at him before turning around and rushing back into the sitting room, closing the door firmly behind her.
Colin stares at the wood there for several moments, uncertain of why he cannot move. Despite the fact that his fingers are clenched around the hat he had forgotten, he very much feels like he has left something else of his in the other room.
Shaking himself out of it, he flips open his pocket watch and nearly groans when he sees the time. His family must have already begun breakfast, and he was supposed to fence with Benedict after eating.
Once again, Colin Bridgerton is late.