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Penelope Bridgerton loved romances.
She'd loved them since she was little, since before her name even was Bridgerton. She'd loved them when she was sneaking peaks at them in fancy libraries, slipping worn parchment under her arm and scuttling off to some dark, forbidden corner to read. She'd loved them as she'd grown old enough to be allowed to read them, even if her mother did everything she could to discourage her. She loved the way the words leapt from the page, the way they made her chest ache, and her breath tighten, and her whole body tingle.
She loved the way she felt each one of them, the power words had to spread warmth like sunlight through your veins.
But for as long as she had loved romances, Penelope had loved Colin Bridgerton more.
She loved him now, so handsome in his quiet, mature strength, with his tailored coats and dark stubble lining his jaw. She loved him for what a good husband he was, what an incredible father. But she'd loved him when he was a boy too, when his voice was too high, and his temper was too quick to flare, and he could never get his hair to stay quite right. She would always remember him that way.
She loved the way he looked at her with so much adoration, touched her with reverence, talked about her with a fondness reserved only for her—or their children. The children they made together, a physical manifestation of their love.
Mostly, she loved the gentle way he loved her.
Which is why she simply could not understand the words she was reading.
Why this romance confused her in a way a book never had.
Her eyes flitted over the page she had been stuck on.
″He’s not a human being,” she read silently, “and he has no claim on my charity. I gave him my heart, and he took and pinched it to death, and flung it back to me. People feel with their hearts, and since he has destroyed mine, I have not power to feel for him.”
Penelope’s brows knitted into a frown. She almost wanted to flick through the pages again, start from the beginning, to confirm this was the man, the very romantic hero, she was supposed to be rooting for.
Her eyes slid from the page to her husband next to her.
He was slowly waking up, a shock of brown hair shifting against the pillow. Her gaze glanced over his handsome face, at how calm he was in his slumber, his jaw relaxed, his lips parted. Morning sunlight streamed in through the open window, billowing the curtains and filling the room with a freshness. It made him look peaceful, serene.
Warmth spread through Penelope’s chest as one of her hands left the book to travel to his face. She cupped his jaw, her thumb gently swiping over his cheekbone. He was so different to the words she had just read. He was the very definition of human, warm and strong and kind. Far from the novel's description of destruction, he had healed her in ways she never knew she needed healing, protected her heart with his very large own.
His lips twitched and his eyelids fluttered the contact.
He didn’t have to be awake to feel her touch.
His eyes opened as her thumb drifted over his bottom lip.
Their eyes met. The slow, lazy smile he gave her made her chest ache.
“Good morning, my love,” he hummed, leaning up to press his lips to hers. She smiled through it. Every morning began like this, with him kissing her as soon as he opened his eyes, as though it were the next thing he needed to do. As though he needed her kiss before he even needed to breathe.
“Good morning.”
His eyes dropped to the book in her lap.
“What are you reading?” he asked, leaning in to brush his nose against her jaw.
“A most curious book,” Penelope murmured, “a romance.”
He hummed, nuzzling further into her.
“Well that is not curious at all,” she felt the curve of his lips against her neck as he smiled, “a sentimental fool, my wife is.”
She fondly rolled her eyes at the irony of the accusation, uttered by the most romantic man she had ever met.
“But this romance is not like the others,” she whispered, “Colin, they are not like us.”
He kissed her neck once more before he shifted, sitting up against the headboard. She moved on instinct, resuming her normal place, her head against his bare chest. He wrapped an arm around her to keep her close, fingers trailing absentmindedly through her loose curls.
“What do you mean?”
She rolled her bottom lip between her teeth, her fingers running over the raised ink on the page.
“Well, the romances I am used to… the ones I have read and the ones I have watched unfold around me… Daphne and Simon, and Anthony and Kate, and us… I know love to be all encompassing and passionate, but also gentle and kind. The relationship written here is quite the opposite. Colin, I would sooner think they hate each other.”
She feels his chest rumble under her with a chuckle.
“You know I have always adored you,” he murmured, causing her cheeks to warm, “even if I was an idiot for taking so long to see the true nature of just how much. However, with regards to hating each other… I dare say some thought the same at the beginning of Anthony and Daphne’s relationships. Anthony and Daphne themselves, perhaps.”
Penelope shook her head.
“This is different. There is real… contempt here. Your siblings were never cruel the way Heathcliff is.”
“Heathcliff?”
“The romantic hero,” she said and flicked to a particular page, “listen to this. The woman, Cathy, she dies, and Heathcliff says: haunt me then. Be with me always. Take any form—drive me mad! Only do not leave me.”
Colin hummed, his fingers still stroking absently through her hair. She felt him dip down to place a soft kiss on her head.
“It’s not as good as my speeches, I will grant you that…”
She laughed, rolling her eyes, but that wasn’t what she meant.
“Colin, my greatest fear in life is losing you,” she murmured, a sharp pain shooting through her at the very thought of it, “but should the unthinkable happen, the last thing I would want is for you not to find peace. Yes, the selfish thing would be to want you with me, but I do not love you selfishly. I love you in a way that means I only ever want you to be happy… in this life and beyond.”
He was silent for a moment, the words no doubt moving him.
“Pen…” he whispered. One of his hands snaked its way around her to cup her cheek, turning her face to the side so he could capture her lips in a deep kiss.
She sighed into it, luxuriating in it for a moment, in him.
“And this...” she broke from his mouth and flicked to another page, “Cathy laments that her love for another suitor is like foliage in the woods, whereas her love for Heathcliff is like eternal rocks, a source of little visible delight. How is it love if it is not a delight? If it is painful? If it only brings you torture?”
Colin hummed, pulling her tighter to his body. And then he shifted, gently urging her onto her back and covering her with his body. She cradled him between her thighs, her nightshift riding up. His lips found hers again and desire coiled tight in her stomach almost immediately. She supposed on that feeling, her and Cathy could agree.
“It depends what sort of torture we are talking about,” he husked into her neck, beginning to lay open mouthed kisses along her skin, pausing to suck a bloom into the hollow of her throat, “you torture me, Penelope.”
She froze, her heart dropping.
His lips curved into a smirk against her skin.
“You misunderstand,” he whispered, so deep it was almost a purr, “not in an unpleasant way. Perhaps not in the way your Heathcliff tortures his Cathy. You torture me with every kiss, with every time you slip into our bed naked and all I can think about is touching you. You torture me with your scent, and your voice, and with every move you make. That is what happens when you want someone so much, it makes you ache.”
Her breath hitched as she felt him stir between her legs. Heat bloomed in the place it always wanted him so desperately.
“Even after all these years,” he began, kissing his way across her jaw, “you still torture me in the sweetest way.”
“Colin…”
“Love is a curious thing, Pen,” he continued, one of his hands drifting down to her thigh in order to hitch it over his hip, “it looks different to each of us. What we share is unlike what anyone else shares. There is no point trying to compare it to a story or to anyone else. We are… us… and they are… them.”
Penelope sighed, assured by his words, letting the book fall to the sheets beside them.
He must have noticed because his eyes found the page it had fallen open on.
“But now with this I can agree,” he whispered and read, “whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.”
She smiled, cupping his face in her hands.
“Yes, I suppose that is rather accurate,” she admitted and as she stared at him, she felt so much emotion, she thought she might burst with it, “I love you, Colin.”
“As I love you.”
He closed the gap between them and kissed her.
Her hips rolled and arched into him, the kiss deepening immediately. She opened her mouth for his tongue and tasted his desperation, his want for her. Desire began to flood her body, her legs trembling, her breath quickening as his hands began to push her shift up her thighs. But before he could reach his desired destination, the bedroom door slammed open.
“Mama! Papa!”
Agatha’s voice pierced the air, followed by a very flustered maid’s apologies.
“I am so sorry!” she rambled, trying to grab the young girl who easily slipped away from her.
Penelope giggled as Colin broke away and buried his face in her shoulder, letting out a groan. He slowly rolled off her and adjusted the sheets, covering them both.
“Mr Bridgerton,” the maid gasped, “Mrs Bridgerton… my deepest apologies—”
“No need for that,” Colin smiled, opening his arms for his daughter as she clambered onto the bed and towards him, “we know better than anyone how fast this little one is. She just wants to say good morning, isn’t that right, darling?”
Agatha gave him a toothy grin.
“Good morning, Papa.”
His smile grew wider as she flew into his lap, flinging her arms around his neck.
Penelope’s chest tightened with love as she looked at them. She dismissed the maid with a smile and a nod, watching as she left and closed the door behind her.
As Agatha chatted away, telling her father all about the dream she’d had last night, Penelope reached for them.
She cupped his face, bringing his attention to her.
“I believe you are right,” she told him.
He smiled and lifted a brow, waiting for her to continue.
“There are many different love stories,” she conceded as he turned his face to lay a kiss on her palm, “but I would choose ours every time.”