Work Text:
Crisp air lifted the wisps of curly red hair at Penelope’s temples, tickling her cheeks. Her eyes took in the green landscape, now interwoven with the yellowing foliage that was the harbinger of colder days ahead. The scent of damp leaves would soon be present in every breath, but for now, it was held at bay by the last gasps of summer.
It was a quiet morning, despite the fact that the stately home behind her had continued to take on guests over the past fortnight. Up before nearly all of her extended family, Penelope took advantage of the calm to indulge in a solitary cup of tea, allowing her to mind to go where it would.
Her lips, so often curved upwards in a smile these days, parted to take in a breath and taste the air. There was so little time in her life anymore to enjoy the stillness of the world. Her mind, always moving, always considering, always creating, did also need the peace of a morning like this. The lurking smile did finally claim her mouth, a herald of nothing more specific than the beauty of the world.
A somewhat tentative tread of quiet feet behind her told Penelope that her solitary reverie was coming to an end, but it lightened her heart. She turned her head to confirm her assumption — Eloise had just joined her not so secret hiding place. A fact which broadened Penelope’s smile as she spoke. “El. Good morning.”
“Pen.” Eloise returned her happy countenance with that of her own. “Good morning, friend.”
“Tea?” asked Penelope, hand poised over the empty cup and saucer on the table. Eloise nodded, and watched as Penelope poured the steaming amber liquid into the delicate porcelain which was adorned with the flowers of Aubrey Hall. A splash of cream joined the pool, and Penelope handed up the saucer to her friend, the full cup balanced upon it.
Eloise took the proffered tea and nodded in thanks. The chilly morning made the vapour coming from the tea’s surface thick, its white tendrils meeting the air and curling away into nothingness. “Penelope,” began Eloise, unsure of how to begin expressing what she hoped to convey. “Might I have a word? A private word?”
Penelope’s brows knitted together, but her expression was that of amusement. “Eloise, surely we are already alone? And you may always have a word, many words. You know that.”
Her chestnut hair, so like Colin’s, hid Eloise’s eyes from Penelope, but she immediately saw the solemn expression in them as Eloise raised her head.
“What is it?” Penelope chewed her bottom lip in worry. “Are you well?”
“Yes, yes,” said Eloise, pausing to sip at her tea. “And I suppose that we are indeed alone, but I wish us to remain that way as we talk. Walk with me?” she said, gesturing to the lawn ahead of them.
“Of course.” They both sat their teacups down and linked arms, just as they had done so naturally as young girls. Penelope noted that it still felt natural to do so, but the emotions that the gesture evoked were bittersweet. It had been much too long since they’d been together so.
They walked away from the expansive house, and made their way toward the tree line. “How long do you think we have before Colin comes to find you?” Eloise’s voice was tinged with mirth, but wistful nonetheless.
“Oh, I believe we have about a half hour or so. We grant each other an hour in the morning alone when time allows so that we might do whatever we wish. Write, or contemplate, or take walks with our best friends.” Penelope laughed, and it warmed Eloise’s soul to hear it. “We alternate who goes first, and today it was me.”
“However did you get my brother to agree to two whole hours apart?”
“There is an hour in between, where we are alone together.” Penelope’s head tilted to the side to watch her friend’s face for what she knew was coming. She was not disappointed.
“Eww, all right.” The pair of them stared at each other for a moment before bursting into giggles. It felt wonderful.
“What troubles you?” Penelope prompted when Eloise remained quiet.
“I do. I trouble myself,” began Eloise. “Penelope, I wish to apologise to you. For everything. For our estrangement, for my lack of understanding and gratitude, and most of all, for my cruel words.”
Penelope began shaking her head in disagreement, but Eloise raised a hand to cease her silent response. “No, please. Let me say this to you. It has been a burden on my heart these last several months away. Part of my time has been spent in self reflection, and when I realized how long I have gone without even considering that act…well, I am ashamed.”
Eloise knew that Penelope wanted to respond, but she did as she was asked, and held her tongue. “I do not wish to absolve you of every wrongdoing, because I realize that we both played our parts, and have our own errors to answer for. But I must address mine, and thoroughly. You are my dearest friend, and I cannot let another day pass between us without saying these things aloud to you. No letter would have been sufficient, I think.”
Grey eyes met blue, and each held understanding. Eloise took a deep breath and went on. “I fear I have never quite been the kind of friend to you that you deserve, Penelope. I love you with all my heart, but I look back on the last eleven years and I see countless times where I failed to listen, failed to see, failed to even try to understand. I have always been so consumed by my own…thoughts and concerns that I did not truly consider anyone else’s. Our lots in life as women; how unfair it all is. How much more we could be, and do, and contribute to the world. I should have stopped my never ending tirade to leave room for you. And I did not.”
“One might say that ego is the shackles of youth,” Penelope said with no heat or accusation.
Eloise snorted. “Did lady Whistledown tell you that?” They laughed together, and Eloise felt some of the tension she’d been holding melt away from her shoulders.
“Something like that,” replied Penelope, then she quietened to leave room for her friend to continue.
“I should also have seen your feelings for Colin. I have looked back at so much of our conversations, our fanciful thoughts, even our childhood games, and it was all there. I know it to be true now, and yet I was thrown completely sideways when the two of you showed up in the drawing room that night. And then last season. It should have been as clear as glass, had I not once again been so preoccupied with my own thoughts. It was as if I saw, yet could not see. I did not know such a thing was possible until now.” Eloise took another fortifying breath and chanced a glance at Penelope. Her friend was absorbing her words, and did not appear poised to interrupt, so she continued.
“How he constantly sought you out, how secretive he would be when I asked what he had been up to, his nervousness when I told him that I had spoken to you about revealing the secret of his aid amongst the marriage mart. And then, when he showed up at a ball he insisted on abstaining from, according to Mama, and interrupted your dance with Lord Debling? My god, but my brother has all the subtlety of a musket ball.” She paused once more to reflect for a moment. She must ensure that she said it all. Everything must be disclosed, or these feelings would continue to plague her heart. And she needed her heart for other, more important things than harbouring regret for hurting her dearest friend.
“It brings me great happiness,” Eloise continued,”to see you both so truly happy. I admit, I feared I would lose you both, and I could not bear that. I could not accept, at first, that all things change, for that is the nature of life. And that in seeing you together, whole and so clearly meant for each other…well it did not mean loss. It just meant something beautiful and different and new had been born in its place. You are my sister, and my heart chose you long ago, even though it took Colin over a decade to make you so in name as well.”
Penelope beamed at her, and pulled her into the warmest and gentlest of embraces. “I love you so much, Eloise. Truly. I know you are not finished with what you need to say, so I will not begin my own response in earnest yet. But just know that I love you, and every word you utter is imprinting itself directly upon my heart.”
The redhead paused to wipe an errant tear from her eye, and the brunette did the same. “And as for Colin, perhaps we can only hold him accountable for not acting sooner when I actually came of age on the marriage mart? It would not have done for him to propose at eleven, after all.”
At this, they both laughed uproariously. It felt so wonderful to be together again like this, and it was a truth held in both of their minds and hearts. The squawk of a few angry birds at their outburst told them that they had finally made their way to the edge of the wood, so Eloise turned them back toward the house, for the half hour of time she’d had with Penelope was sure to be coming to an end shortly.
“Speaking of sisters, I am glad that some sort of understanding has transpired within your family, Pen. It has always pained me so much that you were so trodden upon by them all. Whatever power has been at play, I am grateful for it on your behalf.”
“Love,” was Penelope’s one-word answer.
Eloise nodded. “Seems to be quite a bit of that going around these days. Do you think it’s contagious? Even Benedict seems poised for some great new understanding of the world, or so he calls it.”
They walked in silence for a moment, but Eloise could not hold her tongue for long. “We are quite a family, we Bridgertons, are we not? Full of energy, surely, but we seem to have a penchant for stumbling for far too long before we find our footing. Do you think perhaps that there is only one Bridgerton brain cell amongst us all, and we merely take turns sharing it?”
Penelope laughed again, and made an affectionate hmm sound in her throat, before replying. “I rather think that you are all such a passionate lot that the collective force of it all at once simply overshadows all else, from time to time.”
“You are too kind, Pen. And I am sorry. For all I’ve mentioned so far, and most of all for this. It was just abject cruelty for me to suggest that Colin did not or could not love you. Even my hurt at discovering you were Whistledown without you telling me…that does not account for my suggestion that you are not worthy of love. His or anyone else’s. Yes, he needed to know, and I know you agreed that night when he brought you home, but I had suffered no wound great enough to warrant my behaviour towards you. I would walk through fire for you if I thought it would make amends for that blight.”
The dam of tears that Eloise had been quelling during this whole conversation finally rended, and she sobbed aloud, halting them both where they stood. “Please forgive me, Pen.”
“Hush now, shhh, shhh,” Penelope said as she encircled Eloise in her arms. Tears sprang from her own eyes as she rubbed Eloise’s back. “I want to thank you, El, but I first must say assuredly that you are forgiven, so that you might hear and believe me. We are both at fault, each for our own sins, and neither of us was armed with the knowledge or experience of how to navigate through such a series of events. How is anyone meant to bear the weight of such emotion and revelation without stumbling beneath it”
They stayed locked in each other’s embrace until their breathing settled. Penelope pulled back from Eloise, but held her hands firmly as she spoke. “For my part, I am profoundly sorry for keeping such a secret from you. For not having the courage to tell you about Whistledown, about Marina, about how to solve your own situation with the Queen. We should have puzzled that out together, but I decided for you with haste borne of nothing more than my own hubris. I am also sorry for making you harbour my secret for so long. You held your tongue to protect me, despite your rightful anger, through so much ridicule and even the accusations of your own family.”
Eloise clutched back at Penelope’s hands, hoping to convey all that she felt with the intensity of her grip. She glanced over Penelope’s shoulder, then, to see Colin standing near their abandoned teacups. He was drinking tea of his own, and she wondered how long he’d been standing there watching them.
“All is forgiven, truly.”
Penelope nodded and wiped the remnants of a tear from Eloise’s face. She leaned in and kissed her friend’s cheek and embraced her once more.
Eloise nodded toward the house, and Colin. “It seems that your husband is eager to begin his hour with you.” Penelope looked back over her shoulder, and Eloise watched as the husband and wife shared a smile that squeezed her heart with warmth. “I suppose I shall let you go to him, but I swear I will never forgive you if you describe even one moment of what you get up to once you walk away from me. Not to mention the fact that it would put me off food for a week.”
Penelope laughed in earnest and walked the two of them back to where Colin stood waiting.
“Good morning, Eloise,” said Colin, a grin curving up the right side of his mouth, and letting her know that he’d kept himself out of their conversation to give them space.
“Brother,” she said, tugging his arm just enough so that she could plant a kiss on his cheek. He quirked an eyebrow at her, but said nothing.
“I suppose this is the least I could do after years of keeping the two of you apart,” she said, placing Penelope’s hand in Colin’s and backing away. “I might have been too blind to see what was going on, but I know an exit when I see one.” Eloise winked and stepped through the open doorway and into the shadows of the house.
“Is everything well between you,” Colin asked, though his expression told Penelope that he appeared to already know the answer.
“Yes,” she responded. “Yes, it finally is.”
He beamed down at her and kissed her lips gently at first, then deepened their kiss as her hands found their way into his hair. “What does she think we are about to do?” he asked against her mouth.
Penelope pulled away from him and bit her lip, unable to suppress the giggle making its way up from within her as she gave her reply. “I told her we are going to visit a farm.”
Colin stared at her wide eyed for a moment before throwing his head back and laughing aloud, tugging her forward into the house and their awaiting bedchamber. “Come, let us go, then,” he said with a smug grin. “Though why we both got dressed just to then get undressed is beyond me.”
“But you so like the undressing part,” she said as they reached the door of their sanctum. She waggled her eyebrows at him playfully before walking beneath his outstretched arm and into the now open doorway.
Colin licked his lips and smirked as he stepped into the bedchamber, and pulled the door closed behind him. “That I do, wife. That I do.”