Chapter Text
Chapter One: A Most Surprising Morning
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1816
The day after his broken engagement to Marina Thompson, Colin awoke with a throbbing head and heavy heart.
He had spent the previous night drinking with his brother Benedict to try and forget his woes, but he’d still gone to bed with a heart full of regret and tumultuous thoughts.
As he blinked his eyes open, Colin immediately noticed something was off. He frowned as he took in the unfamiliar décor of the walls and the blue and cream colour scheme, unlike the familiar golds and browns of his bedroom. The last time he checked he had fallen to sleep in his room in Bridgerton House, so how’d he get here?
Surely Colin had not been so deep into his cups that he’d managed to get from one place to another and have no recollection of moving by the next morning. Perhaps this was merely a childish prank being played by Benedict, maybe he was simply trying to remove Colin’s thoughts from the events of the previous days.
Scowling, he slipped out of the bed and jolted as he realised that he was entirely naked. Colin had not been in the nude when he’d fallen to sleep, so clearly someone had stolen his clothes as he slept. He was going to kill his brother once he’d found his attire and found out where exactly he was.
To his great dismay, he could not see any sign of his familiar clothing. There were men's clothing folded neatly on a chair, but they were not his own from what he could tell. He hoped Benedict turned up shortly with his things or Colin would have to seek aid from the owner of the property he was currently sequestered in.
The door to the bed chambers opened and Colin quickly grabbed the yellow sheets to cover himself up.
“Colin?!” a familiar voice called out his name, full of confusion. His eyes shot up in shock as he found himself staring at Penelope Featherington who looked so different from how he knew her.
Gone were the yellow dresses and tight curls, replaced by a sage green dress and softer, more romantic curls swept over her shoulder. However, these weren’t the only jarring changes. Her belly was very clearly, visibly swollen from pregnancy and she wore a wedding band on her ring finger.
Forgetting that he was a gentleman in the presence of a genteel woman, Colin could not stop himself from blurting out his next words.
“What in the bloody hell?!”
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1813
Colin groaned as sunlight snuck in through a gap in the curtains, waking him from his peaceful slumber.
He blearily opened his dark blue eyes and realised that he was still fully dressed in his breeches and shirt, though he could have sworn he’d fallen to sleep naked after a night of making love to his glowing, incandescently beautiful wife. Since becoming aware of her pregnancy, he had not been able to get enough of her and he had already been insatiable before that.
He frowned as he slowly began to realise that something was not quite right.
The first thing he realised was that the clothes he was currently wearing didn’t quite fit his body correctly. The next thing that registered was the gold and browns of the décor and that they were strikingly familiar to the ones in his childhood bedroom. And finally, most importantly, his wife was nowhere to be found or heard. Normally if she woke up before he did, she would be heard pottering around in their drawing room outside as she waited for him to rise.
Sitting up, Colin’s eyes widened as he realised that he was in fact in his old bedroom but how he had got there, he had no idea. He had fallen to sleep in his bedroom with his wife the previous night so how had he managed to get here? Trying not to panic, he slipped out of bed and flew out into the hallway where he almost collided with Eloise.
“What the “, Eloise’s angry statement was cut off when her eyes landed on Colin who stared back at her in shock. She was supposed to be in Scotland with Fran, not here at Bridgerton House. And her haircut was all wrong, it was how she’d worn it two years earlier and she was wearing a day dress that she had passed down to one of her lady’s maids ages ago.
“Brother, what happened to you?” a new voice interrupted, and Colin turned to see Anthony gaping at him. He too looked years younger with his old mutton chops and wildly dishevelled hair.
“Me? What happened to the two of you?!”
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1816
“Colin, you look…”, Penelope stared at him, eyes wide.
“What about you? You do not look like yourself”, Colin exclaimed, confusion and a little bit of anxiety shrouding his boyish features.
Penelope had taken one look at him and knew this was not the husband she had gone to bed with.
This was some old ghost of him that had returned to haunt her. But where was her Colin?
Penelope drew breath and forced herself to focus on the facts. The facts were that she had found a younger version of her husband in her bed chamber with her version nowhere to be found. Though it would sound extremely absurd and impossible to anyone else, she could not deny what her eyes were seeing. She was pretty sure she wasn’t going insane. At least she hoped not anyway.
“What is the last thing you remember?”
“I remember going to bed. I had been drinking a fair bit with Benedict, trying to forget the events of the past few days with Marina”, his expression turned dark at the mention of Penelope’s cousin. Her heart lurched at the memory, and she felt almost dizzy at the thought of being stuck with a man who was not the husband who doted on her but was just a boy freshly broken by Marina’s betrayal.
“Alright, so for you it is still 1813”, Penelope breathed and waddled over to the chaste lounge to rest before the dizziness could make her fall. “Whilst the year we are currently in is 1816. You appear to have been swapped out with your older self as I do not see him anywhere and you were in his place”.
“Swapped? 1816! But time travel is impossible, I must have gone mad or been stuck in some bizarre dream”, Colin spluttered, hugging the blanket tighter to his body.
“I agree that this is quite mad”, she laughed humourlessly. “But it is nonetheless real. We may have to do some research and find a way to undo whatever has been done”.
“I must get back, my family- “, Penelope could see that Colin was beginning to panic and quickly interrupted before he could spiral further.
“Your family will still be with you as Colin from my present is very likely in your place right now. I need to get him back as much as you need to return”, she assured him. “I will do everything in my power to see to it that you are sent home, and everything is made right again”.
The younger version of her husband gawked at her incredulously.
“How are you so calm about this?”
“Because one of us needs to be”, she retorted, rubbing her swollen belly absently, trying to keep her real feelings from showing on her face.
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1813
“What do you mean what happened to us?” Eloise shouted incredulously. “Nothing has happened to us; we are as we always were. Meanwhile, you appear to have had a miraculous transformation in the dead of night!”
“Where’s Penelope?” Colin continued, panic beginning to build in his chest. The two of them looked at him even more befuddled. “Where is she?”
“Penelope? My Penelope?” Eloise raised a brow at him.
Colin wanted to argue that she was not Eloise’s Penelope, she was his Pen. “Just tell me where she is!”
“She is at her home across the road where she always is. What has gotten into you, brother?” his sister spluttered, astonished by his behaviour.
“She is with the Featheringtons?” Colin asked. “I must see if she has been afflicted with whatever this may be”, he went to go down the stairs, but Anthony stopped him in his tracks.
“You cannot go over to the Featheringtons, not after your ruinous engagement to that Thompson girl”, Anthony scowled.
Colin scrunched his brows in confusion. “Marina? But we have not been engaged for two years and I am married now. Why should I care about Marina?”
Anthony and Eloise exchanged alarmed looks.
“Brother, your engagement only ended two days ago”.
“What?! That cannot be right”, Colin’s face paled. “That was 1813 and last time I checked it was 1816 and Miss Thompson had become Lady Crane for well over a year by now”.
“You do look too different to be the same brother we saw last evening”, Eloise concluded, her eyes doing another once over. “It is not possible for our Colin to have gained so much muscle and changed his hair so much in a single night”.
“What are you getting at, Eloise?” Anthony eyed her warily.
“Whilst I am aware of the utter madness of what I am about to say…I think perhaps time travel is involved in some way here”.
Colin looked horrified whilst their brother’s mouth dropped open. “That can’t be possible”.
“Perhaps but it surely cannot be any less possible than our brother gaining so much muscle in his sleep when the most strenuous exercise I’ve seen him do is running to the kitchen for the last of cook’s biscuits”.
Colin blinked. He wanted to be offended by that, but she had a point. There was no denying it as his siblings had visibly lost years from their appearances and he had magically woken up in his old bedroom with no clue as to how he got there. Somehow, he had done the impossible and travelled in time.