Chapter Text
Penelope sat at her desk, leaned back in her chair and twirling a piece of her coppery hair between her fingers. The house was silent as the rest of the occupants were fast asleep at the hour of 2:00am. A piece of parchment lay on the desk with only the word Dearest written upon it. Penelope had taken down her hair from the last ball of the season she had attended earlier that evening and was in her nightgown and dressing gown. She was attempting to start her latest Whistledown column but found that she couldn’t seem to put her thoughts in order. She was tired of the whispers of disdain about her that the people of the Ton thought she didn’t hear, tired of Cressida and her cronies making sure to strike daggers of insult upon her any chance they got, tired of all of the nonsense that the ways of society dictated. The only bright spot in her life was her friendship with Eloise Bridgerton and the welcoming embrace of the whole Bridgerton family, as well as her writing. Unfortunately Eloise and the rest of the Bridgertons had been missing from the last ball of the season having retired to the country estate of Aubrey Hall early. So she had to try her best to dodge Cressida and stay unnoticed by everyone else. She had long since given up on Colin ever seeing her as more than his sister’s friend. He was in love with traveling the world and probably always would be. She was destined for spinsterhood or the very slight chance of an arranged marriage with a desperate enough man who hopefully would leave her to own devices. The tears of frustration she had shed while pulling off the horrid yellow gown her mother insisted she wear had long since dried on her face. Now she sat moodily trying to conjure up anything that wouldn’t sound pathetic as she was wallowing in her own misery. Her thoughts were whirling when she began to notice the smell of burning. She sat up straight and sniffed into the air. It was getting stronger and she looked to the bottom of her door where she was alarmed to discover had smoke curling through the crack into her room. She bolted to put on her boots and flung her door open only to be met with a large cloud of smoke billowing into her room. She choked slightly as she breathed some of it in and whirled around quickly to grab a handkerchief to put in front of her nose and mouth. Her eyes watered and she could barely make out the hallway but she tried to stay low as she held the cloth in front of her face.
She called out frantically for her family, “Mama! Papa! Prudence! Philippa!” She saw their doors shut through the smoke that was getting thicker by the second. She called their names again desperately, banging on their doors and tried to open the doorknobs only to be met with resistance. Had they locked them? Were they inside sleeping through this or had they already escaped? Her mind raced and her panic grew. Her eyes were burning and it was getting harder to breathe so she quickly made her way to the top of the stairs. An immense heat met her and she crawled down the steps on her hands and knees to keep under the smoke. She could hear the crackling of furniture and tapestries on fire and was horrified to see flames burning steadily and with ferocity up the walls of the first floor. The front door was a wall of flame. Trapped. Then she thought of the back door through the kitchen. She called for her family again as she raced to the back of the house. She burst through the door of the kitchen only to be horrified once again by fire blocking her path. It had burned half of the door away and she could spy freedom through the wall of fire in her way. If she had any hope of escape she was going to have to run through it. With one last frantic look behind her wishing she would see her family coming, Penelope mustered all of her courage and ran through the flames. They licked at her skin and the pain they elicited was pure agony. The left sleeve of her dressing gown caught fire and it rushed up her arm and onto her face. She screamed as she tumbled down the back steps and rushed to the fountain that was in their back garden desperate to stop the burning. Her lungs were burning from the smoke she had inhaled and she heaved sobs of despair as she crawled to the sweet relief of water. Amazingly she had enough strength to dunk the upper half of her body into the shallow water and put out the fire. The pain was unbearable but she knew she had to get away from the house as it was engulfed in flames. She tried to push the pain away to scramble to her feet and begin to run as fast as she possibly could. Everything hurt and yet she pushed on. Tears streamed down her face, her breathing became even more labored the further she got away from home until finally she could feel her body begin to give in to its injuries. She slumped to the ground in front of a row of merchant houses and finally succumbed to the darkness that overtook her as she passed out from the pain.