Chapter Text
It was a brief walk to the modiste from the Bridgerton house, owing to the fact Mayfair was such a small world. Some people cursed the fact - after all, how could Lady Whistledown have her eyes and ears everywhere if not for the small area she needed to operate in? Others were glad to have everything close by. The baker, the artisanal crafts, the high-quality markets, the grand balls and the many houses, each one more illustrious than the last.
Eloise Bridgerton didn't quite know what to feel these days. She was no longer scared of Lady Whistledown, owing to the fact Penelope and her had come to a sort of mutual understanding, and that the Featherington was busy enjoying her time with her brother Colin, a truly disturbing thought. Eloise knew the parks and alleys, the many side streets and the spots between houses well. When Cressida and her walked, promenaded, went to drink tea, to be seen, Cressida always looking her best and Eloise walking close to her like a wild flower, Eloise knew where to pull Cressida for a quick, stolen kiss, their lips meeting quickly, only the memory of Cressida's lips remaining by evening.
There was a particular spot, not far from a park, cast in shadow, where the entrance to a house was repeated in its back, and where Eloise knew they had at least a minute away from other's eyes.
They had been here just a few days ago, among walls and empty windows.
"I sense I am in danger, Eloise, you have surely brought me here to rob me blind", Cressida said. She walked close to one of the walls, already starting this small play.
"If that is the case, you might make my robbery just a bit easier", Eloise said, holding her hand as if a sabre were resting in it, its edge pulled away from Cressida yet ready to strike. "What things of value do you have on you?"
"I'm afraid my mamá now only lets me wear valuable things to meetings with suitors such as your brother, Benedict", Cressida said. The charade was holding up still, then.
"So are you bereft of any gold or silver, Cressida?", Eloise said. "What a pity, and here I thought I might use my saber to lure it out of you."
"Your saber?"
"Curved beautifully, finest iron, made by very old man with very crafty hands. This old thing."
Cressida smiled. "A curved saber? I have noticed no such object in your possession, usually."
Eloise blushed, laughing. "Cressida, you have a way with words."
"Miss Bridgerton", Cressida answered. "I believe I was being robbed?"
"Anything of value", she said, "before we are discovered."
Cressida leaned against the wall, her hands behind her back. Despite being in the shade, it seemed as if she were glowing, her beige dress blending into the stone of the wall, her eyes radiant.
"My earrings", she said then.
"Remove them at once!", Eloise said, stepping forward.
A red blush formed around Cressida's collar bone.
"Take them", she said. "Yourself. Come."
Eloise almost dropped her imaginary saber. Despite feeling like she was leading most of the time, like she was in some way more experienced, at least with the thought of doing things polite society would shy way from or find appalling, she felt as if thrown into cold water during these moments when the floor slipped and all she could see was Cressida's mouth, her neck, the gentle sway of her hair in a breeze. She wanted her to herself always, even sharing her with Benedict was hard, despite the farce of it. Benedict was courting her so she might stay. But did they have to meet and talk?
Eloise approached Cressida until she was standing just before the blonde, reaching up to her nose with the top of her head. She reached up an arm, moved Cressida's hair to the back just slightly and revealed a light green earring. Her hand came to rest on Cressida's neck, and just as the blonde leaned closer, Eloise stood up just a bit taller and their lips met, parting to allow their tongues to wander, explore. Eloise felt heat rise within her body as she pressed closer to Cressida, her hands on Cressida's arms, Cressida now bringing her own hands around to hug Eloise closer, caressing her back.
A window moved, and they fled. It was this small cove of their stolen kisses that they passed this morning to the modiste, Lady Cowper with them, Colin not far behind.
Stolen kisses. Stolen from whom? From everyone, Eloise thought. They kissed when they had just a second do dive into an alley. When they were alone with someone, like Violet, talking idly about prospects and fashion, when she turned her back. They never kissed at Cressida's house after that initial meeting, that first evening with hearts and bodies exposed, but they kissed before it, when Eloise returned with Cressida from some walk, Benedict or Colin walking closely behind. It was a glory to have them both know, and though Eloise felt nothing but anger at the thought that, without a man's support, she could not even fully move in the day without being harassed or asked why she was alone, having her brothers on her side was a liberty she wished every woman.
Seeing that Cressida was in dire need of a renewal to her wardrobe - for her own mental health, mostly, but also for Eloise, partly - Benedict had let it slide during one of his meetings with Cressida in the Cowper household that he loved the color blue. That a dark blue, instead of Eloise's usual light blues, might suit Cressida very nicely. And that he had seen just such a dress at the modiste.
Cressida entered first, her hair up, but not as up as it had been just weeks prior - Eloise's continued insistence that it looked better down was slowly changing things, albeit Cressida still loved her hairpins, especially the fishy ones. They entered one by one, the wonderfully perfumed smell of the place filling their nostrils.
"One second, s'il-vous-plaît", the modiste said, lifting her arm as she finished writing a cheque.
As promised, Colin had not told Penelope about Cressida and Eloise. Penelope, Eloise believed, would be clever enough to understand this herself if her worldview permitted it - if not, then maybe their friendship, regrowing as it was, couldn't take another revelation of a secret. And what could he tell? They are courting, he could not say, for a woman could not court a woman. They are a couple - perhaps, but then what did it mean if they were not married, for they could not marry? All he could say, if he were to attempt it, was that they were kissing in-between seconds, finding that there were more spaces not even air occupied, for they were breathless.
"How long will this charade hold?", Eloise had asked Benedict just a short time ago, and he, the spirit of mischief that he was, had merely answered the only thing there was to say.
"Until it doesn't, Eloise", he'd said. And promised to be there until its end.
Entering the modiste, seeing wedding dresses all over and Madame Delacroix balancing her books, Eloise couldn't help but feel a deep sting. She possessed still that pair of Anthony's old pants, and a dress shirt, and now owned a belt gifted to her by Cressida in addition to an undershirt and a cravat which, presumably, Cressida had stolen from one of the servants. In those clothes, Eloise felt like a master of her own fate. In this place, she was merely a woman in a man's world. Colin rubbed her shoulder.
"Lady Cowper, thank you for bringing me along", he said. "I believe it is my duty to support my brother in finding a perfect match, and I understand his tastes very well."
"Yes, all his tastes in many directions", Eloise whispered. Colin sent her a playful glare.
"Good, Mr. Bridgerton. Because I feel that this suit, however fortuitous it has so far proven, might not be...", Lady Cowper looked around for Lady Whistledown, Penelope still unrevealed, "fully in earnest."
"What an insinuation", Colin said. "Would you like to inform him that you hold such low opinions of his name?"
Eloise liked the new Colin, with less brooding, more hair product, more confidence, and a strong wife at home to beat sense into him when necessary. They really were a match, she thought, one she perhaps shouldn't have opposed so. Colin now knew the value of secrets, understanding that Penelope was Lady Whistledown and how important it was for her. Eloise and Colin had never shared a mutual understanding before, but here it was.
He knew. And she did not worry. A blessing.
"No, no", Lady Cowper said, waving the thought away with her arm as if it were mere incense. "Though do extend my gratitude. We would not have received the funds for today's visits otherwise. And should he be earnest, he better hurry."
Eloise's heart stopped for a second.
"Her prospects are increasing", Lady Cowper said.
Cressida looked at Eloise. Immediately, she started to speak, before a thought was even formulated.
"Yes, that is true, however I still believe I ought to have more meetings with Benedict - our plans on the future appear to be aligning."
"Well", her mother said then, not noticing Eloise growing just a bit more relieved at Cressida's words, "we shall not ignore other suitors, shall we?"
"Bonjour", the modiste announced herself. "How may I 'elp you?"
"This one", Lady Cowper said, nodding towards Cressida. "New dress, dark blue, within a reasonable budget."
"Very well", Delacroix answered. "Dark blue is a wonderful coleur to take into l'automne. Let us, perhaps, choose a base that we can then work with, oui?"
"Oui", Cressida said.
Did she speak French? Could she perhaps speak French very quietly into Eloise's ear at some point? Questions for later.
The modiste took Cressida and Lady Cowper aside into a different room, the one where there were dozens of dresses as bases, and just as many colours, that she would then present to the mirror in the main room, with talks of adjustments, changes, materials. Silk would be too expensive, batiste too light. One should never forget about cotton, as Cressida had explained to Eloise in detail one afternoon when they had kissed on a secret bench in the park, alone except for a squirrel.
"Dastardly squirrel", Eloise had said. "One of Whistledown's many informants, underpaid, undervalued, and not even credited."
"You ought to tell Penelope at some point", Colin said quietly. "If your friendship is to be true."
"Too heavy a secret to bear for you, my brother? Do you feel pulled between loyalties to your sister and wife, tested by fate, thrown between women?"
"Eloise, I'm afraid the journal I brought from Paris has opened too large of a world for you."
The journal. The thought of it - of its many pages filled with women's lusts and longings for each other, that, perhaps, Eloise would add her own to at some point. She didn't know whether to curse or praise Colin for bringing it into her life, and into Cressida's, too. Suddenly, Eloise had stopped being the strange girl who was sad she and Penelope had stopped practicing kissing when they twelve, continuously confused, sad without knowing why. She was now part of a secret society. Very secret. And very good at touching the right places.
"Brother, you can't take it back, and should you be able to, I would wish you not to. Besides, I merely jest. With how much we know about each other's struggles, it is only natural that I seek to cut your more deeply every time. Like this."
She bored a finger into his ribcage. He yowled, quietly.
"Eloise, damn it."
"Come, Brother. I will tell her when I tell her. Is it not my decision?"
"Did you not prod her to reveal herself to me as Lady Whistledown?"
"I did."
"See?"
They quickly ceased talking as Cressida and Lady Cowper came back with the modiste. Eloise could not resist.
"This looks wonderful", she said then. "I'm sure it's... I'm sure Benedict will like it."
The dress was everything but form fitting, but the colour itself, a deep dark blue like of a sapphire, was an excellent match for Cressida.
Lady Cowper nodded. "And so... affordable."
"Oui-oui", the modiste said. "I don't even remember why I still 'ave it. Adjustments - fit ze form?"
"Of course", Lady Cowper said. "Let the boys see my dear Cressida's shape. Avert your ears, Mr. Bridgerton."
Colin, apparently Mr. Bridgerton, closed his ears for a moment.
"You have such a nice belly and such a round buttocks, Cressida, it's great to make men go mad. We need to be proper about this, but show something, right?"
"Right, mother", Cressida said, a devilish grin playing on her lips. She was looking at Eloise in the mirror, and Eloise was looking back, hiding her face with a fan. She had seen it, seen it all, touched, kissed, licked most of it.
"Though - the 'air." The modiste shook her head. "Hm-hm. Non, non. It needs colour. Or else it looks too... plain."
"I beg your pardon, that is my hair. She gets it from me."
"So?"
Lady Cowper scowled. "I understand. Can't help being blondes, and the unfortunate reputation."
"May I free my ears?", Colin asked.
The women groaned. "Yes!", they said in unison.
Cressida then turned briefly towards Eloise.
"Eloise, darling, could you get that ribbon from there? We might add it to my hair."
Eloise did not move. What a strange sound, she thought, and how it reverberated within her. It grew between her ears, and send down a small wave of warmth through her breath, spreading around her chest.
"Eloise, darling?", Cressida repeated, her face growing slightly flushed, her lip trembling.
Eloise removed her fan. "Just wanted you to say it again, it has a nice cadence to it, you know."
She was grinning from ear to ear without being able to stop it. The innermost part of her was burning up - this was in the presence of all those others. Surely Cressida had to mean it, right? Sometimes, Eloise could not shake the feeling she had somehow seduced Cressida, turned her away from an easier, lighter path. But calling her darling? It felt as if she were lying on Cressida's lap, her face looking up, and Cressida was running her hands through her hair, gently singing.
Seven letters. Darling. The weight of all those small moments within them.
Colin looked outside, smiling to himself, while Lady Cowper and the modiste were, at most, slightly confused by the different aura around Eloise as she brought the ribbon, another dark blue creation of cotton that nevertheless looked stylish and clean.
"Let me tie it", Cressida's mother said, her arm extended. "I can reach up more easily, and I do this all the time."
Eloise hesitated. She did not want to let go of this ribbon, to give it to Cressida's mother.
"Might it not be prudent for me to do it? Perhaps, when we are together and Cressida encounters a suitor, I can fix the ribbon on her hair if it ever loses its knot."
"No, no", Lady Cowper answered. "I want to first see what its ideal shape might be."
With a coldness in her heart and a pain in her chest, Eloise gave the ribbon to Lady Cowper.
"Eloise", Cressida said then, her voice quiet. "Take my pins out of my hair. Don't lose them."
Lady Cowper stepped aside.
"Let the expert handle this", Eloise said then, trying not to betray a sort of strange happiness - Cressida knew what to do. How did she know? Had she read a book of rules that Eloise did not have access to?
She removed the pins and, after a bit of shaking, Cressida's hair came down. The pins were silver knights with lances, riding on small silver horses. Eloise held on to them.
The hair was tied, the dress fixed to Cressida with needles and pins.
"Bon?", Delacroix asked.
Eloise looked at Cressida's face in the mirror, and while Lady Cowper was looking at the part of the dress closest to Cressida's hips, they shared a secret smile. Eloise's hands closed harder around the pins in her hand, still warm from how close they had been to Cressida's head, her temples, those secret spots Eloise could touch to make the girl hum. Secret, always secret.
"Bon", Eloise said. "It's almost perfect."
"Almost?", Lady Cowper asked. "What's missing, then, in your opinion?"
"I'm just not to Eloise's liking, mama", Cressida said, in jest. "She might want to give me a book to read."
"Books are useless as mere props, as I have often told my brothers", Eloise said. She walked closer to Cressida, until she had found this smallest of moments, a space between spaces. She stood before Cressida, looking deeply into her eyes before trying to look like an old man attempting to identify a piece of wood, or a bird, in a library. Cressida smiled. Eloise moved a single long strand of hair that had come loose behind her ear, feeling the gentle curve of her skin.
"There", she said. "That's better."
As her hand came down, Cressida held it just briefly, there where her hands had already been crossed before her heart.
"Bon", the modiste said, "then let us talk payment, non?"
Cressida turned, and it was only Colin who saw that Eloise did not follow Cressida with her eyes, did not see the Cowper girl join her mother closer to the modiste. Instead, she looked only at the pin in her hand, another thing kept, and silently put it into her purse, a token of another stolen thing.