Chapter Text
Nonononononono, oh no, big mistake, dumb-dumb Penelope!
There was cold like a museum, and then there was cold like a tomb that was pretending you could live there. The beds were just fancy tombstones, and if you spent the night there you would definitely die of fright. Historical heritage used to mean boring plaques saying which famous person slept there once, and she wanted to go back to being unmoved by a thousand filmy windows just sitting empty for ghost faces to look out with eternal wrath. Give her a soulless beige condo, because this was umpteenth rooms of bad vibes. And no, she did not need to enter the house to know that. It gave a pretty honest first impression.
Her first thought was a simple ‘no,’ followed by a lot of high-pitched and desperate excuses that she had to feed a dog she didn’t have and maybe her spleen needed oxygen so she should go to a doctor. Maybe her mother was calling her home, or she was actually a figment of Eloise’s imagination to listen to her theory about the status quo being a consistent failure throughout history - all of history.
Penelope Featherington stepped out of the minivan with a sigh, her head down to avoid the horror in front of her. She didn’t know if being there was worth it. She was glad to be included, and happy she had people who would think to invite her, but she was not eager for this experience. The Bridgertons were a warm, happy family, but their ancestral home was a nightmare.
She was flunking a math class, and her transcript needed to get her into the writing program she had applied for. It was too late to take the math tutoring and hope to get a miraculous high grade. She needed extra credit from somewhere, and this week in a haunted house gave a full course credit. She wasn’t sure if ghosts existed, so it felt like she could set up cameras and motion detectors and log some overnight monitoring. It would show up as Supplementary Fringe Science 101, which had sounded easy when she was in a bland college hallway.
Now she was exposed to the sharp and dark house in front of her. The picture did not do it the injustice it was due. It was horrible. It looked like it smelled old, and there were gargoyles. Penelope knew architects would likely be in awe and want to draw it like a French girl, but she wanted to draw a bath at home and erase it from her memory.
“There it is, the family pile of bricks. The pride of the estate, complete with ivy older than all of us combined,” Colin Bridgerton said easily. “Man, this place is expensive. I hope everyone brought sweaters. I know it’s April, but inside it’s always winter.”
She shivered and he smiled at her. “Don’t worry, Pen, Eloise packed a bag for you. She said I have to look after you since she’s not around to do it. She’s so angry at her lungs not letting her get one step closer to early graduation. I think she’s contemplating switching back to medical school so she can cure asthma just to spite hers. She even wanted you to cancel, but I’m glad you’re here.”
She looked at him when he spoke to her, because she had manners even when she was trying to time travel back to her miserable overestimation of her own bravery.
“You don’t have to look after me,” she said quickly. She might not be there to look after. She was thinking about calling for a taxi and paying a lot of money to escape. She didn’t even really want her luggage, let alone the promised snacks and presents Eloise had offered to console her once it was clear her upper respiratory infection would not allow her to be in a crusty old manor house for a week.
Colin frowned. “Are you carsick? El told me you should have a window seat. I thought you were asleep most of the drive,” he said anxiously. “There’s a can of ginger ale in the cupholder. That’s for you.”
Oh, god, she wasn’t just going to be a baby about every dark room, but a baby about food, drink, blankets and spiders. He was probably sworn to return her to Eloise - who had claimed her as a platonic life partner for the past dozen years - in pristine condition with eight hours of sleep and an ice cream cone. He had been the driver of one van, and she had to ride with him because he promised to drive carefully. He might follow her to her room and offer to play lady’s maid. Sometimes she was too lazy to braid or wrap her hair overnight, but Colin was hardly her solution for that. It wasn’t like she could take him to bed with her once they were back at college.
She blushed like the apple in an ABC book, and waved indistinctly toward his chest. “No, that’s okay, you don’t have to do that. Eloise asks too much from you, and I’m fine.”
“You look pale, and you’re swaying a bit, Pen,” Colin said. “Hey, I’d do it even if my life didn’t depend upon getting you back to my sister looking like you just got home from the spa where it’s your birthday every day. Do you want to sit back in the van for a few minutes? I have crackers, too.”
People were looking at them, and he was leaning in close, like he might be inclined to give her a cuddle. And she would like a cuddle, but it was different from her best friend’s brother. He was equally kind and caring with everyone, and she was not eager to mistake his interest for something more than his sweet nature.
“I do not want to eat crackers! I need a moment, please.” Her internal panic made her shrill, and he moved back a few steps.
“Okay, I’m sorry. How about I get the house open and people can get inside? I’m sure there’s somebody who needs a bathroom by now,” Colin said, his voice calm and still too nice.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“No, I’m sorry. I’m holding you up and you’re not well,” he said. “Just let me get the key. It’s the giant ironwork one.”
He held it up, and even the key looked too scary for her. And Penelope was just realizing she was counting wrong. It was seven days in the house, but eight nights, with departure in the morning of the eighth day. It was still late afternoon with some washed-out sunlight and things were too spooky for her outside the house. She was going to need someone to look after her, and Colin wasn’t going to hold her bad mood against her. But it wasn’t nice to hold a grudge for her own crush. She couldn’t blame him for being a good person.
“I’m really okay,” she said. “I will not text Eloise that you have failed me utterly.”
He grinned, but he was not so open now. “Ah, she will say I still have time to do so, but I will struggle forth. It’s part of my contract.”
Colin raised his voice. Their group was all students, though some of the students were graduate level and relatively grown up compared to the undergrads. Penelope knew more than a few of them. She walked closer to the house, because even if she was planning on ghosting - wordplay for courage - her paranormal research project, she would need to pee before the long drive back to London. She tried to distance herself from Colin, but he stopped when she did, putting her next to them like they were a couple letting guests into their home.
Absurd, she told herself, and unappealing. If Colin bought her a house, she didn’t want to be afraid of it. And he wouldn’t, because why would he?!
“Hi, and welcome to Bridgerton Estate. So I’m Colin Bridgerton, but it’s my brother who has the title of Viscount. Which is largely ceremonial at this point, so let’s not speak too delicately about him. He’s a boring old lawyer. We inherited properties and turned most of them into normal housing, but of course this is in the middle of nowhere and old. We made some attempts to visit during summers, but it’s a cold place to live year round. So we’re going to be aware of that, and if you end up in a bedroom that’s too cold you need to let me know. There are tonnes of bedrooms. There are also housekeeping staff but they are not live-in.”
He handed her the keys, putting his whole hand over hers. “Do you want to get started on the locks, Pen? The outside one is heavy, so let me get the door open for you, okay? The inside door is just a normal one to install the PIN lock. It’s the same as the summer house.”
She knew that code because she had spent a few nights at just about every Bridgerton residence. She had even had a sleepover at Anthony and Kate’s townhouse once, because they were available to supervise when everyone else had plans. Colin talked like his brother was a tyrant, but he really wasn’t. He felt a strong need to control the big picture of the family, but he wanted the children in particular to be happy and light-hearted. He just took college very seriously and did not understand Colin’s ambitions did not benefit from pressure.
“Anthony is nice,” she whispered, walking behind his back to open the ugly wooden door that probably had reverent history in it. William the Conqueror once knocked to ask for a half-dozen eggs, or Anne Boleyn had been spotted trying the knob ten days past her execution.
“Anthony is a brute, but he should be nice to you,” Colin said in a normal voice, then went up in volume. “There is plumbing and electricity. Things are old-fashioned, but 1980s old-fashioned. There’s a landline. The walls make mobile service pretty bad. There are some places you can always get a signal. The roof is off limits. There’s a door to go up but we don’t, and no one checks on it for safety. It’s padlocked. Please do not mess with it! It was the only thing my mean brother told me to mention. The roof is locked because it will remain so forever. That’s not for ghostly reasons, by the way. It needs some work; we’re finding contractors who are licensed for venerable old beasts like this.”
Penelope hesitated to touch the door, but she could feel people looking at her take forever. So she put the key in and ignored the draft. It was an old house. Colin said it was going to be cold. She had a lot of sweaters and Eloise’s supplies probably had more. She turned the key and felt it give when the latch opened. It rattled a little in true haunted house tune.
“First door is unlocked,” she called.
“Yeah, and let me get that. So the door swings out, and it’s heavy. While we’re here, we’re going to leave it tied back. There are other exits, of course, but this one is old and the lock can be stubborn,” he said.
He made it look easy to get the big, bolted handle of the door, but even Colin needed two hands. He dragged it open and against the brick wall, where there was a leather tie waiting. She saw him wrap it four times around the handle and then four more on the hook bolted into the wall. Penelope wouldn’t have been able to do that without a lot of huffing and sweating.
“This door is big enough to hurt someone. It will move again when we’re leaving. If you see it unsecured, please say something and do not try to fix it yourself,” Colin said. “The inner door is normal, and there’s a four digit code I’m going to text to everyone now. That way you’ll have my number, too.”
He was typing on his phone, and everyone looked at their screens. “You’ll get reception outside the house, I think. Inside there are a few places that seem reliable. I’ll point them out on the map. You might have to use the whiteboards we have on the bedroom doors and a few places around to let someone know you’re looking for them. And the house phone works if anyone needs to make an urgent call.”
She punched in the code and he nodded, smiling at her memory. There were five codes for Bridgerton houses, and she knew four of them. There was a specific code just for Benedict’s place since someone had barged in on a very private moment he was having with more than one person. The damaged sibling had not been named, but it was now a rule that one called ahead to see Ben.
“I don’t have the text yet,” Cressida Cowper said, her voice as irritating and irritated as ever. She was beautiful on the outside, but she was never in any good mood. She wasn’t suffering except she was never having fun.
She also liked commenting on Penelope’s body, which was not okay. Pen tried to tune out her presence. It was part of the reason why El was so upset not to be there. Pen did not argue with her, but her friend would.
“Yeah, I haven’t sent it yet. I’m putting the home phone number in there, too, and I had to look it up,” Colin said.
“But Penelope knows it.”
She nearly groaned. Cressida liked to make anything she did in the same room as Colin sound like she was humping his leg against his will, even if it was him hugging Penelope while she was surprised to see him. The drama was unwelcome, and people did not need to have gossip to go along with their jump scares.
“Yeah, she knows it, and she knows the code for other houses,” he said curtly. “We’re trying to get her to marry in, but my brother, Greg, is having trouble convincing her to leave the single life.”
It was a joke. Gregory Bridgerton was too young for her, and at the time of his proposal he had been eight. Their six year age difference might not matter when they were both legal, but her mother wasn’t happy with her daughters marrying at twenty-four, let alone fourteen.
“My feminist author mother isn’t a big fan of child marriage,” she said. “And I might not want my marriage to look like I’m babysitting.”
“We’ll make you a Bridgerton some other way. I wonder if Anthony can knight you,” Colin said, smiling at her warmly. He lowered his phone and notifications chimed through the group. “Are you going inside?”
Penelope stood back from the door and shook her head. “No, it’s your house. I’m sure the honour is yours.”
And she was not going first into the mess of psychic static, even if she didn’t have any reason to believe she was especially aware of ghouls or anything else beyond the grave. She just had a really creepy tingle down her back the second she knew she was visible from the house.
“I can carry you over the threshold,” he said, putting a hand on her back. Colin turned the doorknob and let it swing in. He gave her a nudge, and she stepped inside.
“Don’t make jokes,” Penelope whispered. “We’re here looking for ghosts.”
He took her hand and led her in, the rest of the group following slowly, as if they might need privacy. She didn’t know why he was being so touchy. It was awkward. She had met a few of the other participants, and exchanged a few polite texts with Alfred Debling, who was studying for a Masters in Biology. He was going to save endangered species, and wanted to go for a PhD after. Every credit he took added up to a little more time saved on the way to his big plans.
The foyer was large, rising two stories high to show off the big windows with coloured squares on the edges. It made a rainbow rectangle on the stone floor. Colin jiggled her hand and brought her into the space far enough they were clear of the door. He pulled her to stand until everyone filed in, like they were innkeepers greeting guests.
“It’s honestly not that scary or weird in here,” Colin said. “The basement is a basement, the attic is an attic, but otherwise it’s just old. The bedrooms have been updated. There are modern bathrooms, but it’s dorm style with the bathroom at the end of the hall. The walls just don’t allow for plumbing to be added very easily, so everyone has to share, but there are lots of them. Kind of like Aubrey Hall, Pen.”
He rotated his wrist to move her arm, and she pulled away. “Eloise told me there were multiple deaths here in the last hundred years,” she grumbled, mostly at Colin.
Alfred was looking at them, and he looked a little wounded. They weren’t going out or anything, but he had asked her if she was single. Penelope was always single. Her dating life was pretty limited. Her mother made half her income doing speaking tours to divorced women. The Featherington name frightened the average man looking to date without feeling pressured to propose. One of her mother’s major points was that a man looking to be exclusive would want to marry, not move in.
He leaned in and murmured, “That was during the war when it was used as a hospital.”
Penelope ducked her head and pouted. “So they were traumatized from war before they died horribly in your family’s haunted house? Gross.”
“I’ve lived here for weeks at a time, and I didn’t see anything. I don’t want to judge anyone who’s here with a strong belief in the afterlife, but I think it’s just old and chilly,” Colin said. “How about we all take a few minutes to settle in? I’ll get everyone to the main hall where I think the housekeeper is meeting us there with tea. It’s the easiest place to figure out how to get around the house.”
Penelope smiled. He was too posh and didn’t know it about himself. He even meant tea with a real tea set. There was china and a tower of pastries. There were cucumber sandwiches cut tiny, and he could eat a thousand of them. She handed back the keys and he took them gently.
“Maybe the tea will settle your stomach,” Colin said. “Are you any better now that you’re out of the car for a few minutes?”
Alfred moved to stand in front of her, his head also tipped down so now both tall and handsome men were looking at her as if they needed eye contact with her.
“Penelope, are you not feeling well?”
He had driven the other van, and Cressida had made a point of riding with him. Even if Colin had not bundled her into the passenger seat in his van, Pen would not choose to share a ride with her. She had switched to an earlier time slot for one of her required courses because she would rather be short on sleep than be stripped of her self-esteem regularly.
“I’m okay. I get carsick,” she said, looking first at Alfred and then up at Colin. “I’m going to go to the bathroom. Where is it?”
“It’s up the stairs and you can go either left or right. There’s a bath on either side. Everything is set up. Do you want me to walk you there?”
Colin did not need to linger outside while she peed as quietly as she could and Alfred wondered why they went to the bathroom together. Penelope didn’t know if she wanted to date the scientist, but she didn’t want to be presumed a future Mrs. Bridgerton at college and never date anyone.
“That’s okay. I’ll be back.”
Penelope went upstairs bravely, because getting eaten by a ghost was better than the awkwardness of the moment. She sighed as she locked herself in a rather pretty bathroom. It was Victorian style, but not the original fixtures. It was spotless, and she continued to wonder at the difference it made to have a staff. Her mother kept a housekeeper, but no one was domestic. A household of four women with career goals that were supposed to be superior to any romance meant no one thought much about the throw pillows. Matching towel sets were the last thing they spent time on.
She took her time, because the bathroom didn’t feel scary. The white tiles were bright in the sunlight, because the window was on the second floor and the curtain was tied open. Everything was pretty and nonthreatening. There was an armoire with doors on it, but she looked inside and found it had towels and spare toiletries. The shower curtain was clear plastic, probably to make it harder for ghosts to sneak up during showers.
Penelope sighed, and washed her hands. She was looking a little ill, but her rosy cheeks on pale skin would always make her look bad next to tanned people. She blamed red hair, and moved on.
She left the bathroom, with a prickle of residual fear as she turned to go down the stairs. It felt terrible to take the first step, and she pictured disembodied hands veering at her to shove her. But she made it back to the main floor without passing a specter or mysterious pushes to break her neck. It was entirely possible she’d make it home to write that math test she was dreading.
There were bags and crates of gear piled in the foyer. Voices called outside, and she walked out to take her own luggage in. Colin was unpacking one van, with Alfred and a guy named Fife at the other one. Penelope had no idea if Fife was a first or last name or just a nickname related to flutes. If it was a flute nickname, she didn’t want to know. He was the type that would take her stumbling into a dirty commentary on his character to be a compliment.
She went to the back of the van, and Colin grinned. “Oh, good, you’re better!”
She was never sick. She didn’t feel great with her back to the house, but she had managed to use the toilet without a terrifying experience. The week could be a wash for ghosts. Maybe she could get caught up on homework and enjoy some group activities to break up the haunting. Their itinerary included some leisure, and it was set up with some afternoons off, with all of them alternating nights on watch.
“Don’t worry about me,” she told Colin. “Really. I’ll write a couple of texts to let Eloise know you’re an angel, and set them to send throughout the week. Just tell me what unreasonable thing she’s asking you to do and I’ll say you did it really beautifully!”
He shook his head. “Oh, I can’t do that. She’d find out. You two are always talking about me,” he said.
“We are not! We have a lot of things to talk about. Women very often want to talk about anything but men,” Penelope said. “Did you know there are whole communes of just women artists? They did it all without a single man around. And they didn’t sit next to the fire at night and immediately go ‘What do you suppose Roger is up to? Do you think he’s still working at the insurance firm?’ They discussed philosophers and topics that transcended a single human life.”
Colin grabbed a large, hard-sided box, and he grunted. “Ooh, I’m sure that’s true and I’m much in the way, but I am the titular Bridgerton in the works, unless I am dumped like poor Roger,” he said. “You know I want to hang out with you. It’s a rare thing to be able to attempt it without one of my sisters adding herself to the occasion.”
She grabbed a few smaller bags, and walked behind him as he plodded with the heavy box. Colin got just inside the door and put it down, kicking it along the floor.
“Oh, that’s going to scratch.”
“I’ll blame you and they’ll say they can barely see it! Faultless Penelope, what a good idea to put that scratch right there! Just what it needed!”
“Jerk!” She put down the bags more gently, and looked at all the stuff. They were a group of nine for a week, but she had been led to believe the technical equipment was nothing more than video cameras and easy to use spy gear like motion sensors and electronic thermometers. She wasn’t great with machinery, and had a bit of a phobia about connecting wiring after a bad experience with a frayed lamp at home. Plug and play was in her skillset, mostly.
Penelope was shaking off a remembered feeling of burning pins and needles in her arm when she turned to find Alfred coming through the door. He was carrying a box that was big enough for her, and he made a point to walk in slowly, bend properly and lay it out of the way without scuffing the floor.
“I’m glad you’re being careful with your back,” she said inanely.
He smiled like it was an amazing pick-up line. “Thank you. You do not need to carry things. We are down to the very heavy bits, and you were sick driving in.”
He put his hand in his pocket and brought out a can of ginger ale and a package of animal crackers. She took them with another vibrant blush, and was holding them to her heart when Colin walked in with yet another big case of gear.
“Excuse me,” he called, walking between them as Alfred moved back. “Pen, you can go through to the hall and have a seat. We seem to have packed the first aid kit under everything, but I’ll have some anti-nausea meds in a few minutes. I should have put it on the floor in the back seat instead.”
She shook her head. “It’s okay. I don’t feel bad anymore. It’s probably just because I skipped breakfast and then I was running around before we left.”
Colin looked at her critically. “You’re all red again. Did you throw up?”
This was humiliating in a way she could not explain to other people. She had a bad few vacations with a lot of motion sickness, that was eventually figured out to be an inner ear thing. One quick procedure later, and she was no longer the puker of the trip. She was not the best traveler, but she wasn’t the worst. And she really didn’t want to revisit the time she had been sitting between Colin and Eloise and vomited a nearly recognizable hot dog and fries meal straight into her lap in the new Bridgerton car.
So she could explain to Colin that she didn’t want to discuss her history of upchucking in front of her old crush with her new crush, but it wouldn’t make the situation better. She just had to deny, deny, deny.
“No, I’m fine.” Which of course had been said too many times, and now he was sure she was lying.
He looked at her hugging the ginger ale and crackers. “Okay. I’m going to look for the first aid kit because I want it out where we can all see it. Debling, can I get a hand?”
Both men nodded at her like she was the queen and had to give her permission to go. She smiled in puzzlement. They were both being weird with her.
And she was blissfully alone again, for the ghosts to look at her. Penelope looked at the ceiling with the large cavities where bats could live. She resisted the urge to sing a dumb song to hear how it echoed. Eloise had said it was boring, but she didn’t like tradition. Pen found a lot of great stories from the way people lived even a few generations ago. She really liked to discover ordinary places had significance she would never guess.
She went into the hall, walking slowly as she tried to feel out the space. The foyer was too tall for her, but she was dwarfed by most high ceilings. The rooms inside were going to be more on the scale of people, even if they were Bridgerton tall people. Apparently there was a trend toward humans getting taller over time, but she didn’t believe it until she benefited. The hall was a big room, but it had relatively cozy ten foot ceilings. The fireplace was massive and lit. There was a table and chairs set in front of it, like an invitation to fall asleep with a book. She was walking on a thick, expensive rug, and it took her all the way to a long dining table. It was a rich stained wood, and the chairs looked heavy.
Dana Cho was taking a video on her phone of the paintings of long-gone family members. She was an art major and might be there just for the decorative touches in the old house. Cressida was seated, with her phone out and texting. She was a communications major, and would depend on her interactions with clients for her living. Penelope thought she might starve to death or marry and become a stay-at-home dog mom. She couldn’t really wish children for her adult bully.
Colin was getting a credit toward his Masters in Journalism, and he was also looking after the house on behalf of his family. Fife was studying something with the assumed goal of graduating and doing something for a job, but he was pretty clear about being from a wealthy family and coasting on that as long as he could. Ralph Basilio was a pre-law student, and he kept trying to offer her some of his weed. He was nice and all, but she didn’t have time to get high and paranoia in a haunted house would be awful. Not to mention the reaction if Colin caught someone offering her drugs under his roof while he was under an oath to keep her safe. Basilio was digging in his backpack.
Stewart Newcombe was their only actual ghost hunter. He was taking a Bachelor degree in Branching Sciences with a specialty in paranormal phenomena. It meant he wanted to find ghosts but might also have to explain why fog refracted headlights from a highway across a pond like phantom lanterns from drowned sailors. His girlfriend - or at least a girl he took out a few times - was Delores Stowell, and she was studying Chemistry.
Fife was outside, but he had been smoking as he unpacked the van. Penelope hated him, and she knew Colin considered him a friend. She put her carsick snack on the table, and pretended to be noticing the statues. They were a little unnerving, but they reminded her of the Pride and Prejudice movie. They would be harder to look at if they were absolutely lifelike and painted in flesh tones. The plain white marble made them clearly artwork. They were also raised so high they were too tall to be people on the scale they were carved. There was a male bust that had a distinctive resemblance to the Bridgerton strong nose and noble brow. She smiled at it. It was passably Colin but with better hair. His curls did not behave.
Stewart and Delores were walking the edges of the room. He seemed to be taking notes, and she was carrying a little box with lights that changed a bit but was always giving off an annoying hum. Penelope sighed. She wasn’t rooting for this trip to be fruitful. She wanted no ghosts and boring, boring nights. Maybe it would be funny if someone jumped out in a sheet on their last night.
Colin, Alfred and Fife arrived from the front hall, and Colin walked straight through to a door on the opposite wall. He went through and she could hear his voice distantly, as if he was being greeted by a person he had not seen in a long time.
Fife took a seat, and Alfred came over to her. He looked at the soldier she was studying. “The helmet had feathers on the top,” he said. “Do you know why?”
She shook her head. “No, I don’t know if I ever questioned it. It looks impressive, but everyone is tall next to me. In boots and a helmet, you would be very intimidating. Isn’t it a decoration?”
“It is decorative, but also psychological warfare. One is more recognizable, and also more grand overall. It shows a lack of fear. Panache was first used to describe the hair or feathers cresting a helmet. I have always wondered why it is said that a person is fearful like a chicken, because chickens fear nothing. They don’t think nearly enough about anything to anticipate. They are also quite aggressive and do not avoid a fight.”
Penelope smiled. “Is it your assertion that a human is more likely to be chicken than a chicken is?”
Alfred nodded, his arms folding behind his back. “I suppose I am, though you say it more cleverly. When I write, it is for taxonomic journals. The fripperies are not welcome, though adjectives to describe birds are something I have many opportunities to use. But I am a man of science. Any English major could run circles around me in most vocabulary,” he said.
“You do fine when we talk,” she told him.
“That is nice to hear, but I am working hard while we speak,” Alfred said.
Colin cleared his throat and held the door for a middle-aged woman who carried a tea set on a big silver tray. He was carrying a huge wooden tray with platters of food. It looked heavy for both carrying and eating. He was going to need a chiropractor.
“This is Ms. Cora,” he said. “She is the housekeeper here and her husband and son-in-law manage the grounds. Her daughter-in-law is also going to be here to help with Sunday dinner, when we will have an impressive meal together. She has made us some rations to settle us, though we will be doing our own cooking for breakfast and lunch, and reheating meals she will make for dinners.”
Penelope went to the table, and was surprised when Alfred pulled out a chair for her. He sat her and took the next chair. Colin was putting down the tray of sandwiches, and he frowned at her.
“Hello Ms. Cora,” she said. “It is nice to meet you.”
Everyone at the table gave a little mumble of greeting, but Stewart and Delores were still walking around the room. Fife was elbowed to join the group by Colin, and once they were all sitting there was a little span of time while tea was poured.
“It is a fine house, Ms. Cora,” Alfred said. “It must be quite a lot of time to maintain it.”
She smiled coldly. Colin seemed to know her only a little, and she was not warm like the familiar housekeeper at his mother’s house in London. “There are other helpers called in throughout the year. The first and second floors are like any other house. The third floor is sound, but it is not used. The rooms are going to be cold and dusty. We do not run heat on the top floor. You will need to dress for the outdoors when you are up there. The hallway lights are inconsistent. I suggest everyone keep a flashlight and a map with them. It is hard to hear a person shouting. The doors are solid wood and the sound muffles. But there are no ghosts that I have seen.”
“How disappointing for the project,” Colin joked. “It is notable that you do not spend your nights here, which is said to be the best time to be haunted.”
She nodded, giving him a tolerant squint. “If you say so, but I am not an imaginative person. All my work is right in front of me, with no leaps to make. There is a good stock of food, with some things ready to eat. Plenty of it can be made in the oven or stovetop in less than twenty minutes. There are some things that can be microwaved, and I will prepare a fresh casserole or pasta dish that can be heated for an evening meal. My understanding is that you will be setting up devices around the house. I will do my best not to disturb them. I am here from nine am until 4 pm, and I have put my number on the map.”
Stewart gestured to get her attention. “Are there any ghost stories you have been told about the place?”
Ms. Cora wore her blonde hair in a clip that bobbed around as she shook her head. “Sometimes people will be startled in the dark, because it is hard to hear an approach through solid walls. The Bridgerton children had taken to the garden at night and squalled about pale figures, but none of them was snatched. I suspect someone borrowed one of my good sheets. I will do laundry on alternating days if you put out the bag, and change beds and towels every third day,” she said.
Colin seemed concerned about something, and he prompted the housekeeper. “There is also a basement and an attic. I have never seen them. As children we were told they were locked for our safety,” he said.
She sighed. “Not your safety from the vengeful dead, Mr. Bridgerton. The attic is full of all manner of items stored with little organization. There are windows from long ago with panes that open. And the basement has a great furnace that is old, temperamental and dangerous. You may see the whole house, but those spaces are better seen with Mr. Samuel, my husband. And you know the roof walk is not accessed unless it is being repaired. There are railings from some long-ago renovation,” she said. “It is not trustworthy. The view is much the same as a balcony which will not collapse under your feet.”
Penelope tilted her head and put down her tea. “I feel Ms. Cora can do better to tell us things she has seen or heard that might be mistaken for a ghost,” she said. “Old floorboards and doors will creak. The house is hard to heat, and I think drafts are likely a problem. I have also known chimneys to be a source of the sound of wind that can register like a scream. Boilers will make knocking noises as radiators are heated. Are there other things we might need to consider?”
The housekeeper gave her a look that was so neutral it felt hostile. “An old house has quirks. The hinges of doors are worn down and the latches stick shut or open. The old panes of glass expand and make little noises like tapping. It is all harmless, as long as no one panics and falls down the stairs. It is not a place for running or wandering. There are many valuable art pieces, and they cannot be replaced if they are damaged.”
Colin stood up, and nodded with encouragement. It was looking like they were doomed to have a week of videos of empty hallways and sleepless nights to find nothing. And the credit required 5000 words submitted about the worth of investigating extraordinary things in familiar places. She would find some way to pad it with nonsense about the human condition, but it was going to be rough.
“I am sure we will be respectful of the house,” he said. “I will sleep in the master bedroom, because the fireplace there is special enough we cannot even use it for a fire. Otherwise, there are many areas we can explore for any little things that hint at the unknown. I am sure none of us will be devoured by ghosts. My family has permitted me to be here and bring Pen with me. Between the two of us, one is a good deal of the future potential of my family, and my mother would miss me even after I let a ghost get Penelope.”
He met her eyes and gave her a rueful tilt of his head, as if he expected her agreement.
“Colin! I am not more important than you are to your own family.”
He tapped on the table and pointed at her across the surface. “I would not be very loved if I let a ghost get you. I would be murdered for my involvement by my own sister, and everyone else would delay just long enough she succeeded. And I’d probably find myself haunting Ms. Cora, after all her certainty there are no ghosts about!”
Penelope laughed. “Ah, but is that Eloise murdering you in revenge, or the first step in a ghost rescue mission that allows you to find me? Because I might be worth dying for.”
Colin nodded quickly. “Well worth it.” His hand lifted off the table, and he brushed it across his middle.
“I believe there is a plan for our observations,” Alfred said next to her.
Pen looked at him as he brought out his phone. He started reading from a photo of a notebook page.
“We are going to watch the main hall, the grand ballroom, the library, the attic, the garden folly, the nursery and the dark study. We will form teams of three, which will allow us all to use the buddy system when moving around the house at night, because we will want to keep the lights off when possible. The third person will monitor video from a central location. If each team of three works eight hours, the monitoring is continuous. All of us should be about to have meals, sleep, leisure and personal time. We will have some group events that give some downtime together. Am I the only one who read the email?”
Cressida blinked. “I read it. I did not think I needed to memorize it. I signed up to be part of a team which will have a leader. I will do what I am asked to do,” she said.
“I was promised I would be able to take photos and sketches of the statues and paintings for my thesis,” Dana said. “And I have to leave if that is not happening.”
Stewart stood up, his shoulders bunched. “It’s all the same in the emails. Some of you asked different questions and I gave specific answers. There is a plan, and part of it is knowing we’d get here and need some time to get the gear placed. We will eat, take some time to get bedrooms ready and belongings out of the hall, then we’ll run our cables to power everything. We should be able to have cameras and sensors up by midnight, which is the official start of our monitoring.”
Delores looked up at him. “We still need to pick teams and fill in the schedule,” she told him.
College was meant to relieve her of this horror. Penelope was not good at sports. She was not physically impressive and her cleverness was not matched by her courage. She would not play as hard as she worked. She didn’t like gym class or group projects where one person was sure to be acting dumb to avoid their share of the work. And she didn’t want to be on Colin’s team just because it would have been Eloise, Colin and herself when they were younger. It was not the same as being preferred.
“I think the teams should have at least one person who is strong enough to lift the heavy old doors,” Cressida said slyly. “Perhaps Colin and-”
“Penelope,” he said, walking around to stand behind her chair, as if he was making sure Cressida would have to go through her to put her eyes on him in that grasping way. “You’re right. Pen and I are a good team. And my very life depends on bringing her home safely. Basilio, would you like to join the cleverest team that’s ever formed?”
Fife made a noise of dissent, but did not question. Alfred cleared his throat. “I have been working with Penelope on a project of late, and it would be convenient if we were able to coordinate our time,” he said.
She froze. Colin was expected, and a third person who would not be Cressida if they could talk fast enough to help it. But Alfred was possibly worse, because there was no college project. There was a flirtation that might be going the way of a coffee date off campus. He leaned close like he might want to kiss her cheek, but she always squirmed away. So that was not something to have in front of Colin. They were meant to be seeking undead horrors, not the terrible awkwardness of her ways with men.
Stewart and his girlfriend-turned-assistant did not care. “Colin, Penelope and Alfred will be a group. Delores, and myself will need to be together to keep my data, and we will need a third party. Basilio, let’s bring you in, which leaves Cressida, Fife and Dana as our last trio. Any problems?”
Like with most group projects between anyone over the age of five, there were problems, but no one was willing to argue it. Those who did not get their way were hoping it would not be so bad or someone else would change their mind. Those who had asserted their wishes and been successful - Alfred and Colin - celebrated by touching her. Alfred put his loosely closed hand against her wrist for a few seconds, and Colin gripped her shoulder on the other side. And neither man saw the other touching her, though Cressida saw both actions.
It was a miracle she did not say anything, but her silence was not kindness. She was packing her insults into tiny missiles of compound offense, and would wait until Penelope was less wary. Manners held her back sometimes.
“I think the teams will be fine,” she said, knowing that one person breaking the moment would push others to let them move on.
Colin let her go and moved to sit in the chair next to her, where her ginger ale and animal crackers were still waiting. He turned in the seat and held out a foil packet. “I found the anti-nausea medication, if you still need it.”
There was no reason to feel guilty, but she took it from him with a very soft and slow motion. “Thank you. I promise I am well. I am just very pink today.”
He shook his head. “I am sorry I did not talk to you during the drive to keep you awake. You looked peaceful,” Colin told her.
She had been peaceful, and he had tossed his big sweater over her. The warm fabric was right off his body, and it had the effect of cooking her unconscious while pretending not to sniff his cologne. She didn’t remember most of the drive, but her stomach did not need much time to be unsettled. She was a London girl, and her time in cars was usually measured in minutes. She was better on a train, where the motion did not fluctuate with steering.
The sweater that had been her blanket was back on Colin, hanging open over his t-shirt with a college band tour poster of an overflowing beer. He was looking past her to Alfred, and she turned to look as well.
“You should try to eat something to settle your stomach,” he said. “And sip at the gingerale. I can show you a reflexology point on your wrist that can help, if you give me your hand.”
She could hear Colin shift in the antique chair, because they all gave weird creaks as weight was put on them. Penelope put her hand out and watched as he pushed her sleeve up and pressed lightly on the base of her palm.
“If you have seasick bands, they make a light pressure right in the hollow of the wrist. It’s acupuncture, and it interrupts nausea signals to the brain,” Alfred told her. “You can buy ugly elastic wristbands with plastic beads that do both wrists at once, but massage works, too. I suppose you can fold your arms and touch the opposite wrist but it’s not comfortable.”
Penelope was leaning to Alfred to reach him, and she felt Coin’s unease next to her. She smiled and pulled away. “I’m sure it would work. I rally quickly.”
Alfred nodded. “I have no doubt. You’ll be ready to come with me on my expedition to study penguins. It’s months of sailing. Seasickness is something that can hit anyone on a rough day.”
“Pen is a Lit Major,” Colin said. “And we need to get sorted on what we’re doing for this project. I assume everyone is here for the credit as well as the ghosts.”
His tone wasn’t nice, but it wasn’t harsh. He just didn’t have much interest in the dead ancestors rattling his family’s properties. He was rich enough having a manor house to spare was not strange to him. Colin wasn’t spoiled, but if the house was horribly haunted it was no problem. They already didn’t live there and would just take the staff out except for the basic tasks of keeping the roof on.
On instinct, because she always felt a little responsible for Colin’s mood, Penelope opened the ginger ale and drank some. It was warm, but she smiled up at him as he stood to toss his backpack on the table.
“I know the house fairly well, but I’m not claiming perfect memory. I was also two feet shorter the last time I was here,” he said. “I have maps of the house. If there’s a doorway blocked or locked by a padlock you do not go in. I’m not sure why it was done, but it’s for safety. It’s old, and we don’t live here. Things break and we don’t have a restorer coming through every week. The main floor is okay. The second floor is where we’ll be sleeping. The third floor is not habitable. It is safe to walk up there but has access to areas that are off limits. If you find yourself somewhere cold, dark, cobwebbed and terrifying, just leave and get back down here.”
Colin put down a stack of maps, clearly copies of a blueprint section. He had a huge bag of keychain flashlights, and another bag of spare batteries.
“Can you start testing these, Pen, “ he asked her. “So the roof is sound, the windows aren’t broken, but that doesn’t mean we try our luck. Everyone should be down here doing their shift of work on the project or using the living areas and kitchen. Bathrooms and bedrooms are upstairs, along with a library and some other niche rooms. Don’t lean on windows, and don’t open them more than a few inches. The fireplaces are mostly functional but we’re going to provide electric space heaters for bedrooms. My brother, who owns the place on paper, asks that no one set the place on fire doing in his words ‘idiotic creepycore candlelight house tours.’”
Stewart bristled. “We’re not here for social media. I’m doing my degree on this phenomenon. Everyone signed up to take this seriously. If you’re dead weight I’ll kick you out.”
Cressida looked up at the ceiling. “I don’t think we’ll find anything, but the credit is what I need to qualify for a semester abroad,” she said.
Colin was creating little piles of gear for each of them; a map, a flashlight, a tracking tile with a clip, and a whistle. Pen fought an unscrewable flashlight and laid it aside when she couldn’t get it open. She moved on to the next one and felt Alfred stand up next to her chair.
“Might as well be useful,” he said, and opened the flashlight she hadn’t been able to budge.
“Thanks.”
“Everybody remembers about mobile signals from before? I know you were connected outside, but you might want to look at your bars now. This room is decent, and I have three bars,” Colin said. “Parts of the house will give none. Again, there’s no high ground because we don’t go out on the roof. You can step outside. Do not hang out a window to get service!”
He walked around the table, giving out the gear to each person. Pen picked out a red flashlight and clipped it to her tile and whistle. She looked at the map and despaired at how big the house was. The huge main room they were in was barely a quarter of the length of the building.
“I’ll be telling you about some spots where I can get a good signal. We have some internet connected devices that might need wifi boosters nearby. Phones can go with you, so you should be able to go outside or walk to one of the better spots to make a call. Some of them are private, but others are just an odd spot in a hallway where the bricks must be more worn down.”
Dana turned on her flashlight, and held up the tracking tile and whistle. “Are we also doing overnight security and private investigation?”
Colin sat down again. “We need a way to call out if someone gets lost and the phone is useless. The whistle saves your voice. Noise in here is weird. It’s wood over stone floors. Directions are misleading. If you get stuck you can signal. And the tracker stays on your person. It might not get an incredible signal, but it will be something to try if you can’t whistle,” he said. “What’s the line, Pen? You just put your lips together and blow?”
She blushed and looked away. “But you don’t have to with the whistle,” she told him. “Is it that easy to get lost even with the map?”
He shook his head. “Nah, not really. There are some rooms that are similar. There’s a library which is just books and chairs, but also a study with a desk, and a school room that is little desks and children’s books. So if you are in a room with books on the walls it’s the study or the library. If you’re using your map but not getting where you mean to, maybe you were looking at the wrong room to start.”
He spoke for a few more minutes about the map, and she put a few marks on her map to indicate where mobile signal was better and also where the major stairways were. Penelope wasn’t going to go far from her usual routes to and from her bedroom. She wasn’t interested in seeing something forgotten in time. Violet Bridgerton would never let her house be a wreck, but it wasn’t charming. And it didn’t feel like a house to live in.
“Can we eat and drag our stuff upstairs,” Fife asked. “I promised I’d call my girlfriend when we got here, and I’m starving.”
Stewart stood up, apparently testy at the way no one was as certain that their week would be full of gruesome things to see and record for posterity. “Yeah, that’s fine! Get your belongings to your own room, please. We are trying to leave the public rooms of the house undisturbed by modern things. Bridgerton, I assume you’re not going to bitch at me for having my girlfriend in my room with me?”
He smiled ruefully. “I had no intentions of tucking anyone in,” Colin said evenly. “I will insist everyone be respectful of privacy and personal space. If two consenting adults find they like sharing the room it’s just one less bed to make. And please don’t get up to anything in the shared bathrooms. Sound is dulled, but not silenced. Bathrooms have good acoustics.”
The week was going to be extra scary if she had to fear finding ghosts and fornicating college students. It was bad enough to brave the lesser known parts of the college library and find people humping on the table provided for studying.
“Oh, this is going to be priceless,” Cressida said, her voice grating.
“Are you going to have something to eat, Pen?”
She shook her head and watched Colin try to process the idea of not being hungry. “You go ahead. I’m going to get my stuff into a bedroom. It’s already kind of spooky now. I don’t want to see it for the first time after dark.”
He stood up. “Yeah, let’s do that!”
And even though he probably didn’t mean it to look the same, he took her hand and brought her with him to grab luggage and pick out a bedroom - just like Stewart and Delores. Fife was talking with his hand flying while he spoke to someone who seemed to not have known he was going anywhere outside London. Basilio was trying to enjoy a sandwich, Dana was back to taking pictures of the art, and Alfred was looking at loose ends. She smiled at him over her shoulder.
“We bought a grand piano for upstairs and they had to hoist it on ropes in through a window they took out,” Colin told her. “I think we should have kept the rope and pulley for our bags.”
“Doesn’t that just mean an open window and a rope to get in? Seems like a bad idea for a house where no one lives.”
“Yeah, but it’s spooky. I’ll get suitcases if you can grab the blue and green backpacks that are personalized. And did you have a purse or anything?”
She had a purse inside her own backpack, which was tucked on top of her suitcase. Pen grabbed the first two backpacks and put one on her back. She slipped one strap of the other two over her arms so she could carry them against her chest.
“We have to go up a lot of stairs,” he said.
“Yes, and you have suitcases. I’m fine,” Penelope said. “You don’t need to play concierge. Just let me know where stuff is and I’ll manage.”
He started up the stairs and she followed, trying not to show she was questioning how much stuff she had crammed into her backpack. It was on her back, and she felt it pull her down with every step.
“I wasn’t kidding about my plans. I hang out with you, I do the ghost hunting crap, and I make sure the houseguests have food and shelter.”
“What about your thesis?”
“I’ll have time,” Colin said. “Hey, I need to take that master bedroom to make sure the fireplace is left alone. Apparently we should be keeping it behind a velvet rope or something. I think you should have the next room over. It’s close if you need me, and it’s a spot where the mobile works in the hallway. You’ll have to sit in your doorway, but you can use your computer. I’ll set you up with a comfortable chair out in the hallway. El is not going to accept a lack of answer to her messages.”
Her relationship with his sister was the majority of her time with Bridgertons, but Eloise was not all of her attachment. Penelope sighed. “Yes, I’ll call her. I don’t care which bedroom I have. I would like to know where there is a bathroom so I don’t have to find it in the middle of the night.”
He reached the top of the stairs and looked at her still plodding up. “So you’re good with life-size clown paintings?”
Penelope squinted at him. “Do not make me call El!”
“I’m sorry. I want you to be nearby if you get scared,” Colin told her. “You know I sleep like I’ve been knocked out, but I’m fine with leaving my bedroom door unlocked so you can come yell at me. The bedrooms are pretty nice. They’re old, but they have been repainted to be more normal. It’s not like a castle tower anymore. I’ll even check under your bed.”
She gave him a light shove as she got next to him. “I am not a child.”
“No, you are my friend. If a ghost was under my bed, wouldn’t you save me?”
Penelope shook her head, even though she would stupidly fight ghosts for him. “No. I’ll let you be slobbered by the ghost. You’d be head-to-toe ectoplasm. It would get in your mouth, I bet!”
Colin grimaced. “Heartless! I was going to say you could also use the bathroom through my room so you didn’t have to go down the big hallway at night.”
She didn’t want to creep past his sleeping self on the way to tinkle. Or she did, but she wouldn’t be able to pee knowing that he was right on the other side of the door. And Penelope had worked hard to solve her staring problem. She would look at him, but only when they were talking. It was reasonable the amount of time she met his eyes before she looked at something - anything - else.
Her crush was left behind in high school. College was for discovering new people and passion. And she loved books. Surely she would find a like-minded bookworm to fool around like all her peers? It would take some time and that made it more precious.
“I’m not a chicken, you know,” she said.
“I’m a chicken! Seriously, the room is massive. There’s a sofa. If you get scared you can come in. You don’t have to. I’m not going to leave my room to crawl into your bed,” Colin said firmly. “But I don’t want you to be awake all night and feeling like you can’t find me.”
She was really good at finding Colin. His cologne wafted for her like a nearly visible trail. His body heat was familiar. He could speak rooms away and the rumble of his voice caught in her chest. But he would not crawl into her bed if he was afraid, so she could not do that to him.
“I’ll be -”
“Fine,” he said, sounding exasperated. “You keep saying it. There’s such a thing as just letting me do stuff for you, Pen.”
The stuff she had wanted was not friendly. Penelope smiled. “And there’s such a thing as being a people pleaser. How far is this bedroom we’re hiking to?”
He pointed to the end of the hallway, with a few doors clustered together. “That’s me at the far end. And your rooms should be . . . yeah, here.”
Colin opened a reassuringly normal door and the bedroom was large and fancy but not musty. There was antique furniture.
“Are there steps going up to the mattress?”
He rolled the suitcases in. “Yeah, old beds are dumb. There’s like a cave underneath the frame. It gets vacuumed, so there probably isn’t a skeleton under there. Ms. Cora doesn’t seem the type who would overlook any human remains.”
His joke was not funny, and she lingered near the doorway. “Colin, if you are being reassuring, you are doing it badly,” she grumbled.
She let the three backpacks down, and he tipped his head. “It’s not haunted. If it was, I wouldn't have let you come here. Just old and weird.”
Colin made a show of stomping around to the far side of the bed, going to his knees and disappearing. And he was silent, with no other noise than the flick of the blankets up so he could look under the bed. She waited, rolling her eyes at his melodrama. Then Penelope shifted her feet while he took his time saying anything.
“Colin?”
There was a movement like he was sliding along the floor. She stepped forward. If he was joking again, she was going to kick him.
“It is not funny . . . “
“It’s not. I thought I saw a marble, but it was a knot in the wood,” he said easily. “I do not know why anyone needs a bed so tall. Were not people shorter on average back when malnutrition was a regular occurrence?”
“I don’t know. I just don’t want to follow you under a bed in a haunted house,” Penelope said impatiently.
He looked around. The room was painted white, and the furniture was nothing special. There were no closets, so everyone would have an armoire. She pointed at it.
“Check that, too.”
“Okay. So what’s the project with Debling? Biology and Literature doesn’t have a lot of common ground,” he said.
“Alfred writes about his work,” she said. “And serious research requires funding, which needs some papers published for peer review. I met him at a tutoring swap. He helped me with Chemistry.”
Colin opened the armoire and pawed through extra blankets and sheets, giving a doubtful grunt. “Seems unlikely, but it’s good of him to make himself useful. I could help with Chemistry.”
“Didn’t you take Physics?”
“I was good at it in highschool. And you wouldn’t need to swap. I’d just help you.”
Bridgertons helping her was wonderful, but she couldn’t take a Bridgerton with her for the rest of her life. Penelope was really trying to get out into the world more on her own. Eloise had a career planned that would be spectacular, even with her two changes of major from English Literature to Pre-Med to Pre-Law. And Colin had the signs of a guy who would do well by himself and should feel free to do that. He loved to travel during the summer.
“It’s character-building not to run to you or El for everything,” she said kindly.
He shut the armoire and shrugged. “I mean, it drives us nuts to find out you needed something easy and wouldn’t ask, but I get what you’re saying. Independence, because you are fine.”
He picked up a long red strand of her hair, and fluffed it across her snubbed nose.
“I am fine,” Penelope said.
“You are constantly saying. Come see my room!”
He grabbed one of the backpacks and she picked up the other one. “Isn’t this yours?”
Colin had the blue backpack over his shoulder, and she held up the green one. “That’s your care package from Eloise,” he said. “It’s killing her not to be supervising us both. I think she had plans to get merch for the ghost hunting trip. I requested snacks. She said something about bath salts, which I think is literal and not the drug that makes people eat faces.”
He was casual as he showed her into his bedroom, as if they did this all the time. Some of her classmates knew she was Eloise’s friend but not that she also knew Colin. They were almost alarmed for her being away for a week with Colin’s biceps and smile. They asked her to touch his hair, as if she was just going to be alone with him in some kind of intimate situation. It was his house, she was there, but she was not there for him. He wanted course credit and probably would get some brownie points for being the family representative in the house. Pen needed a course credit. She didn’t need any big ideas about Colin Bridgerton’s invitation into his bedroom.
She followed him, just to say she’d seen it once. Her eyes scanned the room, which was more era-appropriate to a few hundred years ago. Everything was in good shape, but it was old. Only the fabrics had to be new.
Penelope turned to the windows to the light of day, and she sighed as it faded while she watched. They were about to get rain, and the clouds were bracketing the sunlight. She looked at the giant bed and deliberately did not think about how many people could fit in it. And she turned to the fireplace and crushed her shoulders up around her neck.
“Why is the fireplace big enough to burn people!?”
“I’m the third son. No one even bothered telling me all the symbolic, reverent nonsense that comes with Bridgerton genetics,” he said. “Probably we just used to roast full pigs in it. Breakfast in bed.”
Penelope shivered. “Yuck.”
She watched him roll his suitcase out of the way, and open the backpack. He didn’t seem concerned that the ceiling was vaulted to leave hidden nooks for giant spiders or bats. The fireplace that looked like a gateway to Hell to her, because it was carved with bodies holding up the mantel, was just more character for the old place.
“This is the room you want me to come to if I’m scared of my normal room,” she asked.
“Well, I’ll be here. And I mean, you could share a room with somebody but I didn’t think - You’re not here with a boyfriend, and I don’t want you to end up with one because you couldn’t sleep alone,” Colin told her. “I’ll make sure there’s a pillow and blanket on the sofa. You don’t even have to wake me up. Door’s open.”
She glanced at the fireplace, but her scary residual feelings were just as bad as gothic fixtures. Penelope made herself smile.
“I’ll be fine in my room,” she said.
He looked defeated, and gave up digging for something in his bag. “I know. Grab a sweater before we go back down. You’ll notice the temperature drop when the sun sets. Can you give me five minutes and I’ll show you the way back to the main hall?”
She went back to own room and told herself she was old enough not to need to check behind the open door. There was no one in the room a minute ago and that was still true. Penelope was not going to be humiliated and fearful the whole week. She would just distract herself with the reading she needed to get done. Books were comforting.
She walked over and climbed up to sit on the bed, finding it comfortable. It was clearly a modern mattress. The draperies were antiquated prints but they were new. Everything was a good dupe of an old style. She pulled her phone out and started texting El to update her. She had two signal bars out of five, but it was only a short text. Her phone could do this for her.
As she was expressing her desire to have Eloise call off her brother’s babysitting, she saw movement near the door. Penelope looked up as it slammed, and a crouched figure spun at her with a jerking crawl on hands and knees. It didn’t have a face.
Her scream burst out of her without thought, and she stood up on the bed. Penelope clutched at the tall bedpost and dropped her phone hard on the floor. She heard it drop with a noise that sounded broken. And she didn’t have a second to consider it, because Colin smashed into her room and sent the door knocking the thing into a sprawl.
“Christ, Bridgerton! I was just having a little fun,” Fife snarled at him
He pulled a dark hood down, and stripped black pantyhose off his face. Colin was frozen, glaring at the man. Penelope picked her way to sit down. She sighed, and the rough edge of it sounded like she might cry.
“Pen? Are you hurt? Come here!”
He left her sitting, but bent down to look at her. Colin’s hands went into the mess of her hair, and she tipped her chin up when her emotions caught up with her.
“Colin,” she whispered, and knew she was definitely crying.
He shifted his shoulders but did not look away from her as he spoke. “Get out, Fife! Now! If I hear you’re in another bedroom without an invitation I’ll call the police and let you explain your ‘fun’!”
Fife stood up, rubbing at his elbow. “Jesus, we’re on a ghost hunt. I wasn’t anywhere near her. I wanted to make her jump. She’s not made of glass. Eventually some guy is going to get her. She’s not your baby sister!”
Colin was about to make a new ghost, so she held on and he twisted in her arms to shout. “Fuck off, Fife!”
She knew he was frightened for her, but Pen couldn’t believe how easily she could feel the thump of his heart pounding under her hands. Fife left them and she sucked in air.
“The ghosts can have him,” she said unhappily.
“Feed him to them myself if I see any,” he said quietly. “So we’re moving all your stuff over to my room. I’ll take the sofa.”
She shook her head. “No, you don’t have to do that.”
It was the only way she’d be sleeping, and if they were in the same room they could lock the door. Their companions weren’t friends as such, and it felt important.
“I threw my phone,” Penelope said. “Do you see it?”
She was released with a final squeeze, and Colin went to the foot of the bed. He picked up her shattered phone. “That’s it. You’re in the room with me. Come on.”
Maybe they did need Eloise there to look after them. It had only been an hour at the house, and Penelope knew the credit wasn’t worth it.