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The air was filled with the joyful chatter of the Ton wandering about, enjoying the festivities of Hawkin’s Balloon Launch. The colors of the surrounding market stalls contrasted with the azure sky above them, making it look like a painting on a canvas.
Colin Bridgerton was standing beside the pretty and fragrant flower arrangement of Ms Plaskitt’s Sweet Treats light pink tent .
Between his fingers, he held a piece of freshly baked pastry.
It was the same sort Penelope Featherington had picked from Ms. Plaskitt’s broad selection earlier, when they pretended to be loitering for sweets, so no one suspected that they were speaking together.
Colin had understood the importance of Penelope’s request and so he had purposefully looked at the sweet treats in the tent feigning interest in acquiring one.
It was not long ago that he had strawberry shortcake for dessert, so he had no appetite for pastry and the like.
But his gaze, whether he wished for it or not, had drifted over to Penelope, time and again.
“Colin, Lord Deblin has taken an interest in me,” Penelope had told him. Colin had gathered as much, witnessing the scene at Stowell House.
That he wasn’t in favor of it, he didn’t dare to say.
Colin did not look at Penelope when she walked over to the table in the middle of the tent.
Instead he positioned himself two steps away from her, pretending to be awfully curious about the decoration of the cake before him.
“Your lessons worked,” Penelope said, her voice brimming with contentment, and this time he couldn’t resist looking at her.
The gentle turquoise of her dress harmonized perfectly with the silver and blue pearls decorating her copper hair, which, by the way, was arranged in the most beautiful fashion this afternoon.
“I was feeling low,” Penelope continued. “In fact, it somehow allowed me to stop caring so much about how I am perceived, and I was simply myself.”
As much as Colin was proud to hear of Penelope’s success on the marriage mart thanks to his guidance, he certainly couldn’t possibly have predicted the turn of events.
Colin posed Penelope a question, one that he had been working up the courage to ask. The answer to it he deemed of much higher significance in the mess of it all.
“Do you feel some attachment to him?”
Colin stood behind her as she continued browsing through the sweet treats. All of a sudden, he felt particularly hot in his coat.
“It is early,” Penelope admitted and Colin thanked the heavens she wasn’t already infatuated with Lord Debling.
“But he does seem to have a strength of character. He is not unpleasant to gaze upon.”
“Hm,” is all Colin could think of saying.
He has not made Lord Debling’s acquaintance, so it was impossible to tell what kind of man he was, and well, he had to agree with Penelope on her remark about his appearance.
What made his stomach turn, however, in that very moment, is the tone of Penelope’s words when she spoke to him about her new suitor.
Colin had forced himself to look away,hoping the negative sentiment didn’t show on his face. In the distance he could see the Hawkins Balloon by the lake and the people lingering around it. He clenched his fingers at his sides now, feeling uneasy.
In the meantime Penelope had decided on a puff pastry with a sugar frosting and reached into her purse for some money.
When Colin had gathered the confidence to look at Penelope again, he was met with the most beautiful sight.
She was licking her fingers, why is she doing that for God’s sake, he wondered as his jaw dropped, then he noticed the sugar on her fingers and on her lips, and it all made sense.
The sugar must’ve gotten on her fingers as she took the pastry from the tray.
Colin wanted to know what the sugary cream tasted like, lick it from her lips, but then Penelope’s tongue glided over her lips to get the rest of it, beating him to it.
Colin stood too close to Penelope, with only inches separating them. It’ll bring unwanted questions upon them if anyone saw, but Colin didn’t care for it.
Penelope had noticed the way he looked at her (and he was staring , was he not?) but she believed it to be for another reason altogether. “Do I have sugar on my face?”
“No,” Colin had said, looking away in an attempt to put his thoughts in order. God, his mouth was awfully dry. He turned to Penelope again, offering her a smile. “You removed it.”
Penelope set off to talk to Lord Debling who was standing by the lake conversing with Cressida Cowper and his sister Eloise.
Colin wished her luck, and even though he didn’t like what for, he wished only the best for her, whatever that meant in the end.
And now he stood there in his brown-blue striped waistcoat, his coat draped over his arm, with the sugar of the pastry softening under the heat of the afternoon sun.
Colin hesitated to try it, unable to discern the reason behind it.
The sugar, shiny and sticky, slowly trickled down his fingers
When he finally licked the sugar from them, the tangy lemon flavor burst on his tongue, he softly moaned at the taste of it, right there and then.
On the grass by the entrance of Ms. Plaskitt’s Sweet Treats tent, with the Ton everywhere around him, but he couldn’t control himself.
He eagerly took a bite of the pastry, though having no desire to eat, and closed his eyes
Colin’s teeth sunk into the layers of flaky, buttery pastry; it was crispy on the outside, soft on the inside, and it melted on his tongue, leaving a sweet lemon flavor behind.
He took another bite, and another, and another.
Only when he put the last one in his mouth, licking the sugar from his fingers, in the way Penelope had, did he understand that it was never the puff pastry with the sugar frosting from Ms. Plaskitt’s Sweet Treats
that he had craved.
*