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Her craving for attention was shrunken from famine, and becoming suddenly fascinating was a strange result of trying to fit in. She aspired to be just another lady of the ton, neither a joke nor a jewel. The goal had been a good but modest match that made her agreeably invisible.
Penelope had no idea a faint was so difficult. The actual fall was nerve wracking, and then waiting for a reaction was worse. Colin sounded very upset, and he had been poking at her for a long time. Then she had to stay still as other people picked her up and carried her around.
She didn’t remember being small enough to be carried everywhere. Certainly by the time she was a small girl she had gone from a perambulator to being expected to walk. Being carried was not a natural feeling, and she did not feel the way babies looked as they were carried.
Her panic from the proposal was too much. Pen had always thought the word discombobulated was overstated, but she had been discombobulated. She was wobbling with the swing of the blanket and could not wake up right away. She had tried to time her revival so that her swoon was long enough she would have to go home, but not so long a doctor would diagnose her with a horrible condition.
If Colin was moved by the plight of a pregnant unwed woman, he would take up a sword to marry her in her final months of tortured sickness. He was very bent to be the stoic lone hero, but he would compromise his vision of bravery if a lady was in distress. Pen did not want to be his prized and forever mourned invalid first wife, who he had married to give her a portion of happiness. Not to mention the furor of her living instead of politely dying so he could have a real marriage. It was nice he cared, but caring did not have the spice of her feelings in return.
Lying on the floor with people talking softly about her was horrible. Colin and Anthony were kind, but she felt ungainly. Then she was folded up into a blanket and the maids kept dabbing her with damp handkerchiefs. There was nothing curative or pleasant about wet fabric. She had lost track of time because everything was irritating. She wasn’t sure if her wiggling and face rubbing had been convincing. She only knew it had moved her hand away from Colin holding it with too much pressure.
“Oh, how strange,” she moaned breathlessly. Her hair was a horror, and Colin did not want to give up her hand. “Perhaps I might try sitting up?”
Her friend actually moved to pick her up again, and she nearly kicked one of the maids upon flopping away and getting to her knees. Penelope let the maids help her into a chair, where she was immediately wrapped with a blanket over her knees. To the hearty Bridgerton men she probably seemed like a grandmother on a good day, and her faintness made her a living bisque doll.
Once she was given a tipple of restoring wine, and petted to distraction by Colin throwing his jacket around her shoulders, Pen argued her need to leave. She knew the general noise and robust cooperation of a house full of Bridgertons. She did not want to linger and become a family project.
“I am good as new,” she said, sending a mad smile at Lord Bridgerton.
He nodded. “Yes, and we are glad of it. But do not be hasty, please. You should rest until the doctor agrees.”
There was a flourish of giving her privacy and the attendance of two maids to chaperone. The doctor was marched in and given a bleak retelling of her trouble. Colin made it sound as if he’d ordered her coffin. Anthony gave her the credit for not being so brittle she would die before 20. The doctor hated both versions of the story, and barely spoke to her. He had the habitual scowl of a man who diagnosed the worst in everyone, even when they were perfectly well.
“Miss Featherington, you are very pale,” Dr. Crowder. “Do you take mercury for that?”
She blinked. “No, but my mother’s family is originally Irish.”
He sniffed, and she wondered if he would consider her red hair a symptom. She didn’t want to admit to fainting falsely, but she would claim leeches gave her a rash if he decided to bleed her. Most likely he would pander to the manly concern, bill extravagantly for help that had been provided mostly by the housemaids, and then pronounce some deprivation so crushing only her joy to live died.
“You might benefit from sea bathing,” he said. “And do you eat meat?”
His tone made it hard to tell if she should or shouldn’t be eating meat. “Yes, but not overly.”
The doctor nodded. “Very well.” Then he let himself out to discuss her with the men of another family, and Penelope rolled her eyes. The world was not made for women with brains, and her timely swoon was costly to her pride.
There was a prolonged knock on the door, in case she had suddenly decided to strip naked and dance around, then Anthony, Colin and Dr. Crowder were all frowning at her.
“If you’re able, we can walk you home, Miss Penelope,” Lord Bridgerton told her. “I will even promise that Colin is not permitted to stay and bother you, so you may relax.”
She didn’t mind Colin’s visits, or his company. He was usually a welcome sight. But she was not sunny and eager Pen anymore. She was icy future Mrs. Penelope So-and-So, and she could not be too forgiving of a young man’s friendship missing by miles. He was too touchy and his voice cooed with her, yet they were not courting and never would be. It invited concerns about reputation.
“Thank you,” she said modestly, and made sure not to meet Colin’s shocked and glowering eye contact. He seemed almost angry that she had recovered, and Pen wondered how grand his funeral ideas had been.
“Should we not err with caution and keep Miss Featherington here for a few hours, Dr. Crowder? It is no trouble, and she will be doted upon,” Colin said meaningfully. He was staring at her, and Pen blushed. If she actually did faint from his intensity, she was going to end up with her own maid at the Bridgertons’ house.
Unmarried young women did not stay overnight without a parent’s permission. They could keep her from leaving, but Mama, Varley and the coachmen would be over to rescue her before dark. Pen contemplated a vacation from reality in a guest room. It sounded nice, but also like Colin would be asleep in a chair outside the door, waiting to spring his misguided romance on her. If he told his mother he was in love, Violet Bridgerton would talk absolutely everyone into believing it. Penelope would come out of the fog of optimism at her own wedding when Colin’s ring snapped into place like a hunting snare.
“The young lady is surely going to have her best comfort in the clasp of her family,” the doctor said. “But if the voyage will be taxing it might be delayed for health’s sake.”
Penelope lived fifty ladylike steps away, and she would allow someone to carry her across the street if it let her escape the situation.
“We will send word to your mother, and she will comprehend entirely. And you must not feel bad for staying! The house has ample rooms for each of us to invite several people for the night. It is only midafternoon. We can spare a bed and a maid to attend you. Perhaps your, ah, clothing is laced too tightly,” Colin said, snapping his mouth shut as he heard his own words.
Anthony gave his brother a dirty look for implying his knowledge of female undergarments and directing it at a specific lady. Everyone knew there were corsets and stays, but no one actually said the words any more than they would admit any lady’s clothing could be removed by someone other than her maid or husband.
Ton debutantes were like dolls. If their evening gowns were removed, people would see a modest day dress they wore like skin. Men might be naked at times, but ladies were only covered in differing layers of ruffled fabric. Certainly they were never scantily dressed in a house where they did not live. It was a minor scandal that an unmarried man would refer to an unrelated woman lying in a bed or undressing even if it actually saved her life.
“Oh, I think Miss Featherington can make it home,” Anthony said firmly. “Perhaps we can all walk with her, as it is only across the street.”
Dr. Crowder, who seemed impatient in general, was testy with them. He might care about the welfare of patients, but he clearly didn’t feel Penelope required care. She had wasted his time, but it felt justifiable to avoid saying the angry things she had thought.
“I’d be so grateful,” Pen said, popping up and aiming her smile at Lord Bridgerton and Dr. Crowder. She felt Colin feeling left out like an icy splinter in her perception, but she did not relent. He was being stupid, and she had to give him a buffer to be less so. Otherwise she was going to have to say rude things that would hurt his feelings.
Part of the unique spoiling of Colin Bridgerton was a deep sensitivity, and a family that tolerated his sore losing moments with tenderness. They loved him too much to tell him his hurt feelings were not more precious than the pain of anyone else. It was very difficult to judge him when he was truly wounded, and hard to bring it up when he was happy. Similarly, he considered himself the runt of the Bridgerton sons, and would be terribly offended not to be thought humble.
“It is quite intemperate outside,” Colin said. “Too much heat and sun can be deadly. English ladies’ wardrobes are quite punishing. The ladies in southern countries dress quite differently.”
She looked at him with disbelief. He could not simply lock her in his family home until she lost her mind along with him. Ladies elsewhere might have different clothing, but she couldn’t strip down to her shift with the warm weather.
“I will borrow a parasol, and I will not be staying outside to play in the garden.”
With the correct plan for moral rectitude mapped out, the excursion to take Penelope home was delayed for the fetching of a large parasol and the doctor going to Lord Bridgerton’s office to write an invoice. Colin hovered with his brooding posture, and Pen sat to save her strength for the journey before her. With God’s grace, she would be home across the street before dinner, and unmolested by the evils of the world.
Colin seemed certain the walk would kill her, and she hoped he was not picturing her funeral too yelllow. Mama thought most dark colours were morbid, but surely a funeral could only be better for that muted scheme. He put his coat on and offered his arm, using their slow pace to whisper to her.
“We must speak privately,” he said. “And you must retire from the whirl of the season for at least a week. We will have the doctor tell your mother you must not take any callers or attend balls. Perhaps your cousin Lady Crane could invite you to the country for several weeks. The air is much better there, and the demands of the ton relaxed. You must not read too much, or exert yourself. Summer illnesses are often much worse even if they are rarer.”
He was being very medical and prescriptive before taking a doctorate. Pen wondered if he thought her life was so perilous. Maybe he was also so confused about the direct cause of pregnancy that a proposal was enough to have her carrying his child. She knew it was something to do with cake and companionship, but did not think the unthinkable shame had occurred.
“I will nap in the heat of midday,” she told him. “Like you described to me - a siesta!”
His pleasure that she’d remembered a detail from his letters was brief, as the door to her house was opened quickly. The footman didn’t seem surprised, but Varley muttered to herself and hurried to get Mama.
Penelope let the chivalry wash her away, until she was seated and peppered with questions. Lady Featherington and Lord Bridgerton came to their agreements about their various dependents. The whole thing was extravagant in an unfortunate way and there was little sense to make of it. She had a parade of consoling Bridgertons escort her home, and then the scene with her mother’s speculation. It did not matter if everyone thought her faint was real, but Colin needed to believe it. He thought himself very approachable and would be baffled if she told him she ever feared his reactions.
Pen could understand how he saw them married. They were used to one another, and could skip all the terrifying rituals of courtship that amused the ton. They could be easily settled into reading books next to the fire, and agreeing neither of them liked mutton and would not serve it unless requested by a dear visitor. But being agreeable together was not the same as having any need to be in company. His comfort in her presence told her she did not move him like a lover. She did not want him to realize their inequality too late. Lady Whistledown had not saved him from a bad engagement without hope Colin would marry for enduring love.
Tomorrow or the next day she would find a moment and explain he did not love her. His imagined feelings were so vibrant he believed them, and she could not find fault with his sincerity. It was just that his sincerity was often fooled by his sweet nature boxed in by the confines of behaviour. In his family, kind and lucky as they were, what was correct and what was gentle were the same. It was not so for every family.
She knew her sisters would be wildly jealous to have such a fuss over their comfort, but having Mama and the Bridgertons talk around her was dizzying. Pen did not want to have restrictions on her time. If she was driven out into society to be accomplished, someone had to let her alone to accomplish things. She had to be at balls to see and hear things. She had to run errands to conduct business. Her time was spoken for even without a husband.
Colin was not satisfied with getting her sent to her room like a child. He wanted to visit and make sure her life took longer going back to normal. Pen no longer felt neglected when she went unnoticed, and was not willing to have too many eyes on her.
“I am well, thank you. I will rest, I promise. You have done enough.”
Her tone was too sharp and his too coaxing, and their argument over who should keep the engagement ring made her mortified. Her mother did not see this side of her. Penelope Featherington was a wraith of a daughter, her dissent swallowed and her rebellion funneled in her inkwell. She did not bother to argue much, and not at all with her friends the Bridgertons.
Her escorts left and she dodged her mother’s questions. Pen did not think she was getting away with all of her secrets, but she was satisfied her more mundane ones could be the decoys for her grand venture. Her mother was not stupid, but she presumed what Pen got away with was germane to young ladies.
It would be good sense to hide in her room and uphold the story about fainting, but Pen was getting tired of being sensible. She had finally set her own life into motion, and had reasons to go to balls and promenades. She would have many years of quiet in the family home if she never married. The idea was sickening, but nothing could be solved in the house. She fled with her maid to hide her tasks in idleness.
She was going to improve her day doing things to please herself. She would start at the bookseller’s, then have ice cream with her maid. Finally, she would stop at the modiste and speak with Mme LaCroix. Their professional association had grown into a friendship. Another woman was invaluable when problems came up. Her ways to work around obstacles had to maintain her reputation. It was fortunate that so many people thought she was boring.