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Early July 1827
From the top of the stairs, Archie had the sense, as he often did in this house, of the world happening slightly removed from himself—events conducted like a play to which he had been handed a ticket and told to clap at the right times. The clamor from below rolled up the stairwell, the pings and peals of children’s voices, the jostle of feet on polished wood, and the predictable, continuous swirl of adults moving to intercept disaster. He paused on the landing, half-shrouded by the thick swag of a red brocade curtain and listened. For the first time in his life, he felt exactly ten years old, as if the number itself had settled onto his shoulders with a specific, almost self-important weight.
His birthday.
His birthday.
The phrase jogged through his mind as his mother’s voice, somewhere below, chided a footman for not placing the punch bowl far enough from the edge of the table, and a pack of boys chased themselves in frantic, gleeful loops from the smoking room to the ballroom and back again. Archie’s mother had spent the better part of the morning ordering the household about until the house felt twice as full as it looked, or thrice, and while Archie hadn’t ever loved a crowd, he had learned to accept them, as he accepted everything else in their family, the loudness, the brightness, the shining spectacles of affection that his father and mother curated around their children’s lives.
On this afternoon, the air itself seemed to vibrate; the drawing rooms and corridors were packed with relatives, neighbors, and a stray handful of children from the town who had, in some mysterious and haphazard way, found themselves recipients of an invitation to the Bridgerton’s country estate. Among them were his cousins, the Dankworth, who always arrived in a flock, spreading out in a wide and noisy tide, and the Sheffields, who, even in childhood, managed an uncanny impression of gravitas. There was even a solitary Smythe-Smith cousin lurking by a window, eyeing the cake with the bright, predatory look of a child who had already mapped out a path to at least three helpings.
Archie watched all of this from his perch at the top of the stairs, waiting, as he did for most things, for the feeling that he was needed, or at least required. A moment later, his younger brother Jamie’s head appeared at the banister, wild curls frizzing upward as if he had recently been struck by lightning.
“Mother says you have to come down now,” Jamie announced, clearly relishing the opportunity to pass on a command. “She says if you aren’t present at your own birthday, she’ll—” He paused, trying to remember. “She’ll have the cake without you.”
Archie considered the threat and found it empty. His mother would sooner cancel the day itself. Still, he nodded solemnly, and Jamie, satisfied, bounded off again, nearly knocking over a vase as he tore down the corridor.
He descended the stairs with the regal slowness of someone twice his age, pausing at the final step to assess the chaos. Children darted between clusters of adults (all of whom seemed to be engaged in increasingly theatrical conversations), a game of Blind Man’s Bluff had broken out in the corner by the marble busts, and the birthday cake, a mountainous thing smothered in sugar and candied violets, had been positioned at the precise center of the long table in the parlor, the focal point of the whole day’s enterprise.
His mother swept over to him, hair pinned in a way that suggested she’d attempted to look artful, not frantic.
“Darling!” she exclaimed, planting a kiss just above his eyebrow. “You’re late! And your father is about to make a speech. Is your jacket on straight?” She tugged at his cuffs and brushed a stray thread from his lapel, then spun him to face the assembled guests.
“Stand up straight, Archibald,” she whispered, “you are the eldest son and today is your day.”
He did his best. The guests quieted as his father strode into the parlor. Anthony Bridgerton, Viscount of… whatever he was Viscount of this week, Archie could never remember all the titles, was resplendent in a velvet waistcoat the color of midnight, the family signet winking from his heavy hand. Anthony had a presence that seemed either to crowd the room or empty it of all air, depending on his mood.
“Friends, family, and small but remarkably loud children,” his father intoned, and the crowd gave a polite laugh. “You have gathered today to celebrate the first decade of young Archibald’s life. Many of you have known him since he was a cherub-faced terror in short trousers. Some of you”—here he fixed a mock-severe gaze on a trio of Mondriches— “have been his partners in certain unsanctioned adventures, which I trust will not be repeated this afternoon.”
Polite laughter again, and Archie found himself smiling despite the way his cheeks burned. The attention, though embarrassing, was not unwelcome. He saw his mother watching him with pride—at least, he supposed it was pride, though her eyes shimmered with the kind of happiness that always seemed a little too big for her face.
Anthony continued: “Penelope and I are most pleased to host you all. There will be games on the lawn, and a cake of truly indecent proportions. If your children can manage not to upend a single piece of furniture, I will personally see to the distribution of party favors at the end of the afternoon.”
The children, led by Jamie, cheered at this, and Archie’s mother, blushing, covered her mouth with her hand.
“As for rules,” Anthony continued, “today we have ninepins on the lawn, hoops in the garden, and for the less outdoors-inclined, checkers and cards in the west parlor. You may go anywhere… except, and I cannot stress this enough, the upper floors, which are entirely off-limits to children not accompanied by a chaperone.”
His father’s gaze swept the crowd, pausing on Archie with a hint of a wink. “My son is turning ten, not thirty. Let’s not see any improvised science experiments in the guest rooms, shall we?”
The group dispersed with the energy of released clockwork, children shuffling into their loosely assigned cohorts, adults retreating to the comfort of tea and low-set chairs. Archie’s friends converged on him—Eddie Mondrich, already boasting a grass stain on his knee. Handsome Reggie Sheffield, who insisted on calling everyone “sir,” and two of the Finch twins, who had managed to get into a squabble about whether one could eat three pieces of cake without being sick.
“Come on, Arch!” Eddie shouted, grabbing his arm. “It’s your birthday, you get to choose which game to start with. Ninepins or hoops?”
Archie hesitated, then shrugged. “Let’s do hoops.”
They streamed out onto the lawn, a ragged but merry line. The day was bright for late April, sun glancing off the dew-wet lawn, the air thick with the scent of lilac and something sweet drifting from the kitchen windows. The group set up the hoops, and within moments the competition devolved into a loud, sprawling melee, nobody quite tracking who was winning but everyone certain that their side ought to be.
Archie let himself drift to the edge of the game, content to watch the others and note the way their energy bent the world around them—Eddie running with the reckless grace of someone who’d never broken a bone in his life, the Finch twins bickering even as they tried to beat each other’s scores, Reggie pausing every few moments to straighten his cuffs before resuming the game. It was, in its way, a sort of perfection: the sun, the shouting, the temporary sense of belonging threaded through it all.
From the porch, he could see the grownups had begun to cluster into their natural groupings: his mother with Mrs. Dankworth and Aunt Eloise, talking in the high, arcing sentences that meant they were gossiping; his father at the periphery with a glass of sherry, watching the festivities with an expression that suggested both satisfaction and a certain bemused disbelief. For all his father’s bluster, Archie knew Anthony hated parties even more than he did, but he had never once failed to host one if the family required it.
The cake was brought out with a suitable ceremony, towering over all the children and topped with a spray of candied violets. The candles were set alight, and as the room filled with the chorused sound of “Happy Birthday,” Archie felt the warmth from the flames, the closeness of the faces around him, and, for a fleeting moment, the certainty that he was exactly where he was supposed to be.
He made his wish (he never told anyone what it was, but it was always the same each year, that his family would stay like this, even as he grew older), and blew out the candles in a single, determined breath.
His mother hugged him, and his father ruffled his hair, making a show of wiping pretend tears from his own eyes. The rest of the afternoon passed in a blur of games, laughter, and—inevitably—several minor disasters: a toppled vase, a grass stain on the new tablecloth, Jamie eating so much cake he was briefly convinced he might die.
As the sun dipped behind the trees, Archie smiled and waved as his friend departed for the evening.
Archie’s birthday party had ended with the sort of chaos that always followed a Bridgerton gathering, ribbons on the banister, sugar crusted into the parlor carpet, and a faint but persistent smell of singed paper from the incident with the party poppers and the candelabra.
As the last of their guests melted away into the blue dusk and the nursery staff corralled the smaller children upstairs, Anthony retreated to the sanctum of the master bedchamber with an aching head and the sort of overstuffed fatigue that belonged only to fathers of large families.
He shrugged out of his jacket, the shoulders stiff with cake frosting from Jamie’s sneak attack, and carried it across the room, where Penelope was already propped in bed, a book splayed open across her lap.
Or rather, the book was meant to be open, but her eyelids drooped under the polite assault of exhaustion. The candlelight painted her hair in coppery tints, and the pale sweep of her arm was thrown across the swell of her stomach, which today was especially prominent. She had a way of tucking her ankles under herself that looked both impossibly delicate and deeply comfortable, and Anthony, as always, felt a wave of gratitude—then, almost immediately, a trickle of worry.
He sat down on the edge of the bed, careful not to jostle her. “What do you think?” he asked, unbuttoning his collar with one hand while easing the book from her grasp with the other. “Did we scar him for life, or only for the week?”
Penelope groaned, a sound that came from somewhere near her toes. She rolled her head to face him, the corners of her mouth lifting into a smile that was warm but undeniably tired.
“I think it went well,” she said, and she meant it. But Anthony had been married long enough to know when the words and the feeling didn’t quite line up.
He watched her for a moment, the way she absently patted her belly in that unconscious, ever-motherly gesture. The baby was due in a matter of weeks—number four (number five, if you counted the one, they had lost, which he had learned, slowly, to do)—and for all that they had been through, he still sometimes felt as uncertain as a newlywed.
“He’s worried about something,” Anthony ventured. “He was on the stairs for ages before he came down.”
Another smile from Penelope, this one edged with amusement and affection. “He’s always worried about something. He’s ten, darling. That’s the age for existential dread.”
He gave a short laugh. “At ten, I was busy trying to convince Colin that rats would eat his toes if he didn’t keep them under the blankets at night.”
“Yes, and look how well-adjusted you all turned out.”
He stretched out his legs, which promptly cramped. “That’s not the point. The point is…” He trailed off, knowing she would wait for him to fumble his way to the real concern. “He barely talked to anyone in the room,” he finished at last, keeping his voice low. “I’m not sure he even likes his own birthday.”
Penelope’s response was immediate, and as usual, corrective, “He talked,” she insisted. “He talked to Eddie, and to his cousins the Finches, and even that new boy, the one who brought the frog. And he talked to Jamie, which is all Jamie ever wants.”
Anthony exhaled. “Penny—”
“Tony—”
They both stopped, then shared an almost-smile. This was the rhythm of their evenings, worry and reassurance, a volley of names and events, always the implicit subtext that nothing in the world was as important as the happiness of their children.
He let the silence stretch for a moment, tracing the line of her wrist with his eyes. “Do you remember when we thought this would all be simple?” he joked, but the edge of anxiety had not quite left his voice.
Penelope fanned her hand. “You never thought it would be simple. You spent six months chasing after your mother, with every question that came into your head before Archie was born. You made me learn the difference between colic and indigestion.”
“I like to be prepared.”
“You like to be in control,” she corrected, her tone not unkind. “But children are not to be controlled. They’re to be… accompanied.”
He grimaced but nodded. If anyone knew how to live alongside the unpredictable, it was Penelope. Her entire girlhood had been an exercise in surviving the ungovernable moods and secrets of her mother, and she had emerged all the stronger for it.
Anthony reached up and brushed a wisp of red hair from her forehead. “You’re tired,” he said, not as an accusation but a fact. “We can talk about this in the morning.”
She shook her head. “You’ll worry all night if we don’t talk about it now.”
He smiled ruefully. “You know me too well.”
She lifted herself higher on the pillow, wincing as the baby jabbed her ribs. “He’s a good boy,” she said, her voice soft but insistent. “He’s careful, which is more than we can say for half our children. He’s observant, which is more than we can say for the other half. He’s a Bridgerton, which means he’ll be fine, and more importantly, he has us.”
Anthony let her words settle over him. He had learned, over the years, to trust Penelope’s instincts in these matters more than his own. If she said Archie would be fine, then perhaps, with time, he would be.
He looked at her, then at the window, where the last streaks of sunset threatened to slide into night. “I just don’t want him to be… lonely,” he said quietly. “He’s got siblings, but he always seems…” He trailed off, unsure of how to finish the thought.
Penelope reached out and took his hand. “He doesn’t have to be the loudest in the room, Tony. Some people—some children—just need to watch the world a little longer before they enter it.”
He squeezed her hand as he sat on the bed next to her. “He’s going to have to enter it eventually,” he grumbled. “This family isn’t exactly built for wallflowers.”
She grinned, a flicker of mischief in her eyes. “Neither was I, and yet here we are.”
He laughed again, and if the sound was a little choked, neither of them commented. He leaned over and kissed her on the temple, then slid beneath the sheets, the ache in his bones giving way to a familiar comfort.
They lay in silence—the kind that came only after years of shared secrets and worries—until Penelope spoke again, this time with a new note of mischief.
“I’m sure Lady Whistledown will have something to say about it,” Anthony mused.
“I’m sure. I will.” Penelope smiled.
She resumed her role just a few months after Miss Cowper's declaration. Being a gossip columnist and observing the Ton seemed to make her more of an outcast than she had anticipated. Within weeks, most of the Ton knew she had assumed the identity of Lady Whistledown. The pamphlets ceased thereafter. Now identified by the Ton for her sycophancy, Miss Cowper found herself shunned by many who had once engaged with her. Nonetheless, some attempted to exploit her position, offering tidbits of information to gain favor with the Ton and even the crown. Miss Cowper's tenure as Lady Whistledown was brief.
The irony, of course, was that even as Lady Whistledown lost her influence, her legend only grew. There were still those—always the boldest, always the most calculating—who courted her favor, offering up delicious morsels of family scandal with a wink and a smile. Some tried to use her as a cudgel against their rivals, feeding her stories that would position them for marriage or money or, in one case, a coveted appointment at the Royal Academy. Others, more subtle, tried to befriend her, to coax out some secret about the real Penelope Bridgerton beneath all that cutting prose. She played along, always careful, always just out of reach. She had learned, finally, how badly people wanted to be seen—and how terrified they were of being truly known.
When the final pamphlet was written, the news delivered, and the ink barely dry, Penelope found herself with an unexpected sense of inertia. She packed away her pens and blotters, locked the drawer with its pile of correspondence, and tried to settle into the quiet rhythm of family life. But it was hard to let go of the habit of observation.
Even with Anthony, even amid their small, chaotic brood, she saw everything, the way the children jostled for their father’s attention, the way Anthony’s jaw tightened when he felt inadequate, the way her own heart quickened at the slightest kindness. There was a story in every moment, but she kept them all to herself now. It seemed, after all this, that she had finally learned discretion.
She wondered if Anthony suspected how much she missed it—the writing, the importance, the danger. He never asked, not directly, but sometimes when they were alone, he would look at her across the table, his gaze full of questions he couldn’t quite voice. She was never sure what he wanted her to say.
“Do you regret it?” he wondered, “Giving up the title?”
Penelope sighed, looking thoughtful.
“No.” she paused. “But I miss it.”
Anthony leaned forward and pressed a kiss against her lips. “I have only wanted the best for you.” He leans back, taking in her face, shifting his body towards her as he lies on the bed.
“Do you think I did the right thing?” she asks with a worried expression on her face.
Anthony reflected on the dinner he’d hosted for the late Queen Charlotte more than eleven years ago. At the time, he hadn’t known the full scope of their scheme—he only grasped it once everything was in motion. They let Cressida Cowper claim the crown, the title, the publicity. Miss Cowper had no idea what awaited her.
Penelope later explained that, although Lady Whistledown was liked by most and merely tolerated by the rest, she was essentially a voyeur—always watching, always observing, poised to catch anyone in indiscretion. That scrutiny might improve behavior, but it did nothing for those forced into the glare of gossip. She had ruined countless political careers before they began and launched others that would never have had a chance. Her society column reshaped the political landscape, with effects that still ripple through government today. By accepting the crown and the title, Cressida Cowper took on both the rewards and the risks.
Many of the political, social, and professional lives she had damaged during her tenure as a gossip columnist would haunt her for the rest of her days, spawning consequences she could never have foreseen. Stepping away was painful but necessary. The backlash would have permanently blackened her name—and possibly sullied her family’s.
The Featheringtons might not have been destitute like many in London, but it wouldn’t have taken much to cast them into poverty. One well-timed scandal or a few lost gambles could have sealed their fate.
Lady Whistledown was meant to mirror the world’s top one percent. Even though England had forfeited some colonies and political ties, it still wielded vast influence over global trade—and thus the outcomes of wars—by approving shipments or delaying them, starving some factions and empowering others.
And men who had long held the power to steer wartime fortunes and shape hundreds of thousands of lives would not brook rebuke from a young, inexperienced, uneducated girl. Her aristocratic rank counted for nothing in their eyes—ceding authority to a woman was unthinkable.
That is why she thought it best to walk away. She could be Lady Bridgeton and Lady Whistledown, but not without putting the lives of her future children at risk.
Miss Cowper had always chafed under her father's iron grip—his control of her dowry, his scrutiny of her suitors, his insistence on propriety above all else. Penelope's scheme granted her a peculiar sort of freedom, severing her from the glittering ballrooms and whispered judgments of the Ton. The queen, impressed by the girl's audacity if nothing else, bestowed upon her the promised reward: enough sovereigns to purchase a modest estate in Derbyshire with climbing roses and leaded windows.
There, far from London's prying eyes, Miss Cowper now presides over her small domain with a handsome footman—promoted to valet, then butler, then something without title altogether—and three "cousins" whose delicate features bear a striking resemblance to her own.
Penelope watched Anthony, his expression already softened by the hour, as she pressed his hand to her belly and felt, together, the delicate ripple of the child that grew inside her. The sensation was at first faint—a tremor, as if the baby were a fish darting through shallow water—but as Penelope’s fingers moved, guiding Anthony’s, the flutter grew bolder, a thrum of life that seemed to both startle and delight her. She gasped, laughter spilling out before she could catch it, and when she turned to Anthony, her eyes shone like the embers of a midnight fire.
“Did you feel that?” she whispered, as if afraid the magic might break with too loud a word.
Anthony’s hand lingered, motionless, and then he pressed just a bit more firmly, as if to coax a second kick from their unborn conspirator. He had been through this five times before, but the miracle of it still undid him. Every time, it was a fresh astonishment, the way Penelope’s body changed, the way she radiated strength and fragility in equal measure, the way he was suddenly responsible for something so fragile and vital—something he could neither command nor protect, only love.
He remembered the first time he’d felt it, with their eldest, and the heady mixture of terror and hope that had crashed through him. He remembered the sleepless nights, the way Penelope would roll onto her side and clutch her stomach in the dark, whispering promises to the child as if bargaining with fate itself. He remembered, too, the loss that preceded that birth, and how for months Penelope had tiptoed around her own hopefulness, afraid to name it in case it vanished.
Now, with his hand on her stomach and their growing child thrumming beneath the surface, Anthony wanted to believe it would all be different. He wanted to believe they deserved another miracle, that the universe might allow them this one small, perfect happiness. He looked up at Penelope, her ruddy hair damp around the temples, her cheeks flushed with effort and pride, and he felt a fullness in his chest he could not—would not—name.
She must have read the flicker of fear in his eyes, because she squeezed his fingers between hers, grounding him in a way he’d never quite been able to do for himself.
“He’s a fighter,” she whispered. “Like his father.”
Anthony snorted, a soft huff of disbelief. “Or stubborn, like her mother.”
She arched a brow. “Heaven help us if he’s both.”
“Heaven help the house,” he countered, but the joke lacked bite. The truth was, he did hope for a daughter—one who might inherit the better parts of his parents and fewer of their fears. He already had two sons, an heir and a spare, which was more than he was hoping for. Penelope was hoping for a son. But he knew, too, that hope was a dangerous thing. He wanted to wrap Penelope and this child in something impervious and safe, but he knew the world would not let him.
He felt the baby move again, a sharp nudge this time, and he laughed, a real, unguarded sound that startled even him. “Ambitious, isn’t she?”
Penelope shook her head, the motion at once fond and exasperated. “He’s hungry. So am I.”
Anthony smiled, the crinkles at the corners of his eyes deepening. “Should I fetch something?”
She shook her head again, slower this time. “Just stay.”
The silence that followed was not awkward, but rich—the kind that only came from years of shared nights, of children’s cries in the hallway, of whispered confessions and small forgivenesses. Anthony found himself thinking of all the moments they’d seen together—the triumphs and humiliations, the parties and funerals, the arguments that ended in laughter and the laughter that sometimes ended in tears. He realized, with a start, that there was nothing left to prove. Not to Penelope, not to the children, not even to the ghost of his own demanding father.
He bent close and kissed her temple, letting his lips rest there for a long moment, letting her warmth seep into him.
“Thank you,” he said softly, though he was not certain what he was thanking her for, perhaps for the child. Perhaps for the faith she had in him; perhaps for the years they’d had and the years they might still have, if the world was kind.
Penelope’s eyes fluttered closed, and she curled into him, careful not to break the little cocoon they’d made. The moon was high now, and the golden haze of candlelight cast the room in a kind of gentle unreality, as if the rest of the world had receded until only this moment remained.
Anthony thought, not for the first time, that they could have stayed this way forever.
But Penelope yawned, a wide and unselfconscious thing, and Anthony realized she was drifting. He tucked the covers around her, slid his arm beneath her neck, and allowed himself the luxury of believing that, for tonight at least, all would be well.
He closed his eyes and let the sound of Penelope’s breathing, soft and steady, anchor him to the present.
In the morning, there would be chaos—children thundering up the stairs, servants trading rumors, obligations to the house and to the city that would not be denied. But for now, there was only the quiet, and the promise of new life, and the certainty, at last, that he would not have to face any of it alone.
And perhaps that was enough.