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Colin Bridgerton has lost his wife.
Well. Not so much lost her as he has misplaced her. He is certain it is a temporary affliction— after all, if he remains still enough in a crowded room, his senses tend to hone in upon her eventually. She is still Penelope, after all. Still his best friend even in the most crowded of rooms. Still very much herself, even after the changes to their lives. Still and always his wife.
But in this particular room, she has vanished into the swarm. Ironically, Colin supposes that this must be exactly what she wants. Not for him to be incapable of finding her, but for nobody to be able to locate Penelope Bridgerton.
Not only is tonight her first large society event post confinement, it is also her first event after revealing herself as Whistledown to the ton. He cannot imagine it is a particularly settled feeling, to know how many people in this room do not wish for her presence. But his wife is nothing if not cunning, and she had decided that the best way to solve the problem would be to disguise herself.
She is beautiful with blonde hair. He likes how it emphasizes her pale skin, how her eyes seem even bluer beneath the color. More significantly, he likes how her nerves had lessened when she saw herself in the wig and the mask, how she had grabbed onto his fingers to squeeze and to inform him that it was alright.
"I do not believe anyone can see me beneath all this," she had said, giving his fingers one last pulse before reaching up to adjust her hat.
"I can," he argued, and he knew from her smile that he was being stubborn, but Colin didn't care. He had been unmoored at the idea of not seeing her— of ever again being foolish enough to not see his wife for everything she could be.
"Well, that I know," Penelope teased, rising from her seat and onto her toes, beckoning for a kiss. "I do not believe I could hide from you even with my full face covered. A demi mask has no chance of tricking my husband."
And now, here he is, proving her wrong.
It is not the mask. When Penelope teases him for this later, Colin is going to make it very clear that it is no fault of the mask. It is the bloody wig she had put on in an effort to properly disguise herself from the ton. He has spent his entire adult life seeking out red hair, and now he keeps forgetting to look for blonde. It has always been red, the red haired girl across the street, the one he had fallen in love with so devotedly that it still feels like they exist in their own world every time they speak. The woman he loves has red hair, and how is he supposed to locate a very short, very tiny blonde in a room full of people? Especially one who does not wish to be found. She is impossible to locate.
Which is how he has found himself in this situation. Two drinks in hand, worry pressed into his frown lines, standing in the middle of the ballroom hunting down his wife.
"El," calls Colin, taking his sister by the elbow as she attempts to pass him for the drink table. "Have you seen Penelope?"
Eloise rolls her eyes, shoving a petit four into her mouth.
"What do you mean have I seen Penelope? Of course I have seen Penelope," she says through a mouthful of cake. "She's right over—" Eloise motions with her hand, then turns to follow the length of her fingers with her gaze, only to realize that Penelope is no longer in the spot she had just indicated. "Well blast."
"I have been searching for what must be ten minutes now."
"It's the wig," Eloise says, sounding just as irked as he does. "I do not know how anybody is supposed to locate her in that wig."
"The hat is rather big, but she keeps removing it so that she can blend into the walls," adds Colin grumpily.
"Perhaps you are not very good at searching," Eloise suggests, pinching Colin's shirtsleeve between her fingers and pulling him across the ballroom to a more sparsely populated area. "You must be able to see all the corners. That is usually where she is."
Colin knows that very well, but he suspects it is good to occasionally allow her the belief that she is able to teach him a thing or two about his wife. He nods in agreement and remains patiently at her side as they continue their search.
For her part, Eloise is much less willing to wait.
"I think she is a lost cause," she announces after only a few moments. "Next time you marry, endeavor to choose a wife who is tall enough to be seen in a crowd."
Colin laughs softly into his drink.
"I think I will be doing it just the one time," he says decisively. "But perhaps you could attempt the same the next time you search for a dear friend?"
"Ha," says Eloise, though she does not sound amused at all. "And… and if I do not wish for a new dearest friend?"
He turns to look at her for the first time in several moments. Her eyes are still darting across the room, almost nervous as they seek out Penelope.
"Then I sincerely hope you know that you do not have to have one." His voice is earnest and true, soft in an attempt to make her believe him. "Eloise. Penelope would be bereft without you."
She wrinkles her nose.
"She would not be. She has you."
"I am no substitute for Eloise Bridgerton."
"No." She exhales lengthily. "In fact I believe you are better."
"What could possibly make you say that?"
"It is only that I know how these things go," says Eloise bitterly. She sets her drink, now empty, on the table. "Do you know what the Queen's man just called her when he was looking for her? The honorable Mrs. Colin Bridgerton. As though her identity was gone. As if who she was before she was your wife suddenly no longer mattered because she is the honorable Mrs. Colin Bridgerton now. And if she is the honorable Mrs. Colin Bridgerton, does that mean Penelope Featherington ceases to exist? Does that mean Penelope Featherington matters less? Does that mean everything she held dear vanishes because my brother chose her? And do you not think it uproariously absurd that women do not get to keep any part of themselves once they are married?"
It disquiets Colin to hear her speak so defeatedly. He is certain that Penelope has worked hard to write Eloise letter after letter while she was in Scotland. He knows that the two had been faithful correspondents throughout Penelope's confinement. Pen had taken to writing letters in bed, propping a book against her stomach so that she could use it as a surface on which to write. In fact, Colin had gotten rather accustomed to falling asleep with Penelope's lamp still burning— one thing he hadn't anticipated about being married to Lady Whistledown is the terrible hours she keeps.
"Eloise," says Colin tentatively. "I believe Penelope has kept every part of herself that you love. Especially the part that loves you too." Eloise's mouth pulls at the corner in distaste. "You know we named our son after you. Do you think we would do so if we both did not love you dearly?"
She grimaces.
"It is not that," she says slowly. "It is… it is that I am afraid I will eventually become a symbol of the girlhood she left behind. Rather than her real friend."
Colin tilts his head to the side, giving Eloise a slightly exasperated smile.
"Eloise," he begins, but she heads him off.
"No, think about it, Colin. Penelope will continue to advance in life. She will have another baby, then another—" (Here he smiles. He likes the image she is painting very much, thus far.) "—until suddenly we have nothing to talk about because Penelope… well. Penelope will be a mama. A wife. The honorable Mrs. Colin Bridgerton. And I will still be… very much myself, Colin. Unmarried. Unchanged. Unwilling to do anything that would allow me to catch up to her because it is my heart's greatest desire to be left behind in this way. And until last season, I thought it was hers too."
Colin's heart sinks lower into his stomach. Normally, when a sibling conveys such urgent anguish to him, it is his job to patch them up. He makes a joke or plays a game, he ascertains the best way to ease their pain and executes with haste. He charms and cajoles and teases and listens until everything feels more manageable, more settled.
But that had been before. Back when he had been more of a passenger to life. Back when he felt his role was to be nobody's problem; when he felt his biggest failure to his family was needing someone's attention because it was his job to offer attention, not the other way around. The Colin of before (the one who did not realize how much being in love could change a man) would never have done anything which would upset Eloise so. Now, not only has he done it, but he will not regret it. He refuses to change it. As a matter of fact, he would do it again.
"I would ask you to remember that we are still rather young," he begins tentatively. "Penelope may be a wife and a mother, but there is plenty of time for every other part of our lives. Tea and books and great big dinner parties, just as you enjoy. The difference now is that Pen and I will be able to host them in our home, which means that we will always leave parsnips off menu whenever you are in attendance. And, of course, if Portia annoys us too greatly, the two of us can merely sneak off to my study for a nice break."
"The difference now is that you are married," says Eloise, though she is clearly moved— Colin suspects she is honored that he had recalled her dislike for parsnips. "Though I suppose I am glad that Penelope is my sister."
"And you are happy that she is happy, are you not?" probes Colin.
"That too," grumbles Eloise.
"That's the spirit," he replies. Then, to make her laugh: "And you are glad that I am your brother too, aren't you?"
"I'm afraid the results of that inquest are inconclusive," says Eloise, as he had expected her to. Colin groans dramatically, clutching his chest and rolling his eyes to make her laugh. As he does, he catches blue eyes peering curiously his way from the corner of the room. Penelope. Back against the wall, hat in hand, blonde wig still very much on her head.
"Well," he says, puffing up, "I suppose I will rise to the occasion and gracefully take the blow."
"And what, exactly, causes you to receive it so magnanimously?"
"Because I just found—" (My wife. Mrs. Bridgerton. The honorable Mrs. Colin Bridgerton) "—Penelope."
Eloise groans.
"How?"
He wants to tell her the truth. She was looking for me. She was watching me. She was seeking me out because that is what the two of us do when we are apart from each other, because that is the kind of love we have. Instead, he tempers his passions and replies, "you forget that I have the advantage of height." He pauses. "And, in fairness, she is wearing an outrageously large hat."
With that, he nods at his little sister and takes off across the room in pursuit of his wife. She straightens up when she sees him approaching, her little body stretching higher as if already anticipating that he is about to kiss her. Colin wonders if he is becoming predictable, then promptly decides that he does not care. Upon reaching her side, he kisses her immediately.
"I found you," he says, very pleased with himself.
"Was there any question?" she inquires, taking the lemonade from his hand. "Thank you."
"You're welcome," he says, and tucks himself into her side so that he can lower his head to murmur in her ear. "I was just having a chat with Eloise."
"I saw that," says Penelope. "It seemed rather serious. I did not want to interrupt."
"Apparently she is struggling with our marriage more than I realized."
Penelope appears exasperatedly amused.
"I think that is because it is my job to notice what Eloise is irate about."
"Ah, so you were shielding me?"
"Perhaps a little bit," admits Penelope. "But mostly… well, I do not think our marriage is truly what she is upset about. I suspect very much that she is using it as a focal point for her emotions, when in fact she is terrified of something else entirely."
He turns all the way towards her, curiosity seeping through him as he looks down.
"And what might that be?"
"Becoming…" Penelope searches for the right word. "Insignificant. To the people she loves. That is what I think it is."
Colin cannot help but laugh in surprise.
"But she could never be insignificant to us, she is our sister, and we—"
"You will all choose your people eventually," Penelope reminds him. "And Eloise believes she will not. She has Benedict who also does not wish to marry, but she is already well on her way to losing Hyacinth, and I don't suppose Gregory is too far behind if he takes after you as much as I believe him to."
"We will discuss that later," Colin says with mock-seriousness. Penelope takes his hand so that she can idly fidget with his ring like she sometimes does when she is thinking particularly hard.
"The point is, Eloise has just returned from Scotland, where she was aghast to find that every corridor isn't teeming with people to chat with for the first time in her life. You're all so accustomed to growing up in your mama's house with so much… so much love and conversation and brightness. I suppose Eloise is beginning to imagine a future in which everyone has gone off with their choices and she has chosen not to make one at all. I'm afraid she finds the idea of it rather lonely."
His chest aches at the idea. Eloise, not realizing how lonely life can be until life forces such loneliness upon her. Eloise facing a life at home with two brothers, both of whom will eventually obtain bachelor's lodgings, and one sister who is eager to be put on the marriage mart so that she too can fall in love, just as her siblings before her did.
"It does make sense," admits Colin. "I can't imagine Eloise relishing the idea of being trapped at home with only our mother for company."
"Nor did I," Penelope reminds him. "Well, my mother, not yours. But in principal I believe it is nearly the same."
"Well." He stills her hand where it fiddles with his ring, offering her fingers a brief kiss. "To that end, I can firmly state my belief that I always would have found my way to you eventually. Just as I did this evening."
"I knew you lost me!" Penelope crows triumphantly. "It's an excellent disguise, is it not?"
"It is," acquiesces Colin. "Half the people at this party have asked me where my wife is."
"And even you could not answer," she says with satisfaction. "I have become entirely invisible again, I think."
"Oh really?" Colin says, amused. "Then why is half the ballroom sneaking glances at you right now?"
Penelope blinks, looking around the room as though she is seeing their observers for the first time.
"Damn," she mutters under her breath, then looks up at him reproachfully. "I was doing quite well until a very tall pirate began lurking at my side."
"'Lurking'?" echoes Colin. "But when we promenade you refer to it as 'providing you shade.'"
"I cannot freckle in a ballroom."
"I wish you could," he declares, and leans down to place his lips on her nose, upon the freckles that smatter across it. A nearby party-goer titters in surprise. Colin smirks with satisfaction—he does so love to shock a debutante or a judgemental mama. He turns around to offer a charming smile in the direction of their offended audience member, then turns back to Penelope to find her looking at him thoughtfully.
"What is it?"
"I think, in order for me to do my job, you may have to stop playing protector for a bit." He opens his mouth to argue. Penelope raises her eyebrows to stop him. "Colin. No one noticed me here until you showed up. The Queen expects things of me."
He pouts further.
"But do you not think—"
"Colin," says Penelope, stopping him again. "I adore you for arguing with me. But you are negating the entire purpose of the blonde wig."
When she puts it that way, it's difficult to argue.
"I suppose you're right," he says. "I can pretend I do not know you, like you did at the first ball last season. Turnabout is fair play, after all."
Her mouth twitches with amusement.
"I did not pretend I did not know you. I pretended I did not care about you. There is a world of difference."
"Ah, well. That one, I'm afraid, I cannot bring myself to playact."
Penelope appears to be looming very near laughing at him outright.
"Colin," she says, shaking her head with a disbelieving smile. "You are ridiculous."
He isn't offended. Penelope deserves someone who is a sop for her, and frankly, to pretend otherwise would dishonor the work they had done to get here.
"I will take my leave. But do grant me this one favor— put your hand on the brim of your hat if you need me, so I know to come find you."
Penelope lifts a sly brow. "Rescue me, you mean?"
"It will be rescuing me too," he promises with sincerity. "You know I find these things untenable without you."
"For me too, you know."
Boyish glee rushes through Colin. He can see it reflecting back at him in his wife, gleaming somewhere within her eyes. He will never be immune to her compliments. Not when she sees him more clearly than anyone ever has.
"Enjoy yourself, my Pen," he says. Then he vanishes into the crush of bodies in search of the Mondriches, hoping to say hello before the ballroom gets much more crowded.
It is a dreadfully long evening without Penelope. Colin catches sight of her at the Queen's elbow several times, and can occasionally see the top of her hat between the shoulders of party guests. Other than that, he is forced into amusing himself with conversations with others, a far cry from the quiet, cozy scene which has been his home life of late. At one point he spots Hyacinth lingering by a table, but just as he is about to approach, Eloise chases her out of the ballroom, leaving Colin looking after their retreating forms with amusement. That should be an interesting conversation, though he supposes it's best to leave them to it.
With nothing to do but drift, Colin feels much the way he used to at balls. Before marriage, before Elliot, before the love he had for Penelope consumed him at every one of these events and he wound up loitering at her shoulder even prior to their engagement. He speaks with strange gentlemen who have come into the ton in search of a wife, discusses matters of parliament with some old friends, and converses with several elderly widows, out of whom he manages to coax bawdy, delighted laughs. Though he accidentally falls into conversation with several meddling mamas who are attempting to unmask which Bridgerton brother he is, Colin delights in making mention of his wife. He is consistently amused by the way their features fall, and even hears one mutter "so young! What a waste!" as though he had died rather than simply taken a wife. He walks away from that conversation feeling ineffably invincible.
Still, announcing himself as claimed makes him ponder Eloise's concerns. Colin enjoys mentioning that he has been wedded to someone, that his personhood is tied to another's existence. He wishes for there to be no circumstance in which his name is mentioned without Penelope's. To put it quite simply: he wants to be near her all the time, and if he isn't near her, at least he knows that he is tied to her in every way that matters. Not only is he Colin, he is Penelope's Colin.
And this gives him pause, because such a thing is exactly what Eloise had seemed so taken aback by. This… ownership, this claim. The very thing Colin loves best about marriage (though it is tied with always ending the day with her, and knowing their child, and the scrunched up little face she makes when he is giving her pleasure) may be the thing that Penelope resents most.
When the bells ring and he removes her mask, he finds himself wondering if she would prefer to do it herself. When Penelope excuses herself to say goodbye to the Queen, Colin purposefully holds back, nearly getting bowled over by Benedict in the process as his elder brother rushes across the room. As they traipse across the square back to their home, he thinks about Penelope's name and how grateful he is that she is Penelope Bridgerton even though Elliot is Lord Featherington.
"You have been awfully quiet," Penelope observes as soon as they step over the threshold to their bedroom, standing patiently with her hands in front of her as Colin shuts the door behind them. "Are you talked out from your social calls?"
"I am thinking," says Colin truthfully. "About you, in fact."
"Hmm." She removes her hat, resting it on her dressing table, and steps closer. "Are these thoughts the sort which will require me to remove this costume?"
Colin chuckles. "No," he admits, "although now that you have said it, I'm sure those will appear to me as well."
"Then what?"
Colin takes his time in responding, stepping in front of the mirror to remove his own headpiece, grimacing at the tousled mess of hair he finds beneath. He runs his fingers through it, which only causes his hair to stick up more, something that he would normally be embarrassed by if it weren't for his wife. She is currently sat on their bed, a somewhat dreamy expression on her face as she looks at him.
"It is something Eloise said," Colin says, and she snaps back to attention, blinking like she'd just been caught stealing biscuits off of his plate. "That you may not wish to be constantly referred to as Mrs. Bridgerton. Or Mrs. Colin Bridgerton. Or Penelope Bridgerton. Or—"
Penelope's brow furrows in confusion.
"She does not like that I use our name?" she clarifies.
"No, it is not that." He turns around, hands fidgeting as he considers how to phrase the part of Eloise's words which had been bothering him. "She worried that the parts of you that you loved, that she loved, might cease to exist alongside the name. As if Penelope Bridgerton might cause you to feel as though Penelope Featherington had… vanished. And it had not occurred to me that you may feel this way because it brings me such joy to hear you referred to as… well. As mine."
"Oh, Colin." With a sweet, sympathetic smile on her face, Penelope rises from the bed and walks over to him. She reaches up to place her hand on his cheek, coaxing him down so she can kiss it. "Perhaps there is some circumstance in which I would feel the way Eloise feels about this matter. But I… Colin, I truly cannot believe that I am the one to bear your name. To bear your child. To carry the mantle of being your wife. I am struck dumb by the joy of it each and every time I hear it. I sometimes think I will never tire of hearing it. When I was young, I would practice my signature over and over again for when I became your wife. Mrs. Penelope Bridgerton, or Mrs. Colin Bridgerton, over and over again, until I was better at writing your name than I was at writing mine."
Relief floods through him at her words, sincere and sweet and so bravely honest.
"I wish you had mistakenly signed one of your letters that way," he teases weakly. "It certainly would have sped things along."
"If only I'd known it would be that easy," she responds, and he grins. "Colin. I can't be upset about… about belonging to you. Not when I know how very much you belong to me too. We belong to each other, don't we?"
"Very much," he says sincerely. "And always."
"I know it is different for women and men, that there is so much loss when we marry, that we are technically supposed to feel as though we are going from one prison to another. But I have never felt that way with you since my sisters' ball last season. You could never… it couldn't be like that with us, don't you see? Oh, how do I explain this."
She wiggles her mouth to the side in frustration, a pout starting to form. He wants to kiss it away, but he suspects that her thoughts are too important to distract her from.
"You do not have to explain it," Colin tells her instead.
"No, but I do, because…" she trails off. Then something sparks in her eyes, just as it does when she is writing something she finds particularly apt. Penelope triumphantly looks up at him, certainty settling across her features. "Because you were disgruntled from the very first moment you saw this blonde wig, even though most men in the ton would like to pretend their wives are someone else for the night."
"What?" He barks out a laugh. "I was not disgruntled."
"No, you were," Penelope insists, joy bubbling out of her as she laughs. "You complimented me, and I know you meant it, but I could immediately tell that you did not prefer it. You do not want me to be anyone I am not, Colin. You prefer me as me. You lose me in ballrooms and then you spend your evening trying to find me. You speak kindly to me when I am there, and you speak proudly of me when I am not. You placate my mother and dote on our son and always ensure I have time to write and read and do the things that make me myself. I am not an afterthought to you, or someone to handle on the side. I am not an idea of a person. I am not the mere concept of Mrs. Colin Bridgerton. You treat me as though I am the greatest happiness of your life. And you are the greatest happiness of mine."
He is kissing her in an instant, his mouth moving against hers with the kind of adulation he could only ever feel with his wife. As he kisses her, he tugs the wig off of her head, allowing the final mask of the evening fall to their feet. When he opens his eyes, his little redheaded wife is standing before him, pink and pleased. She beams up at him, candles flickering in her eyes and across her pale skin.
"How about this?" she murmurs, voice getting dangerously low. "I shall allow you to undress me. And then, when I am utterly bare, you may close your eyes and count to ten. We'll see if you can find me then."
"Are you planning on challenging me, Mrs. Bridgerton?"
"I am not, Mr. Bridgerton," she says, then quirks an eyebrow impishly. "Unless you have difficulty finding our bed."
"I'd better get to work, then," says Colin seriously, and faces her towards the mirror so he can begin undoing her stays, having her watch him as he always does when he undresses her. As her gown falls to the floor, he glances at the two of them in the mirror to see Penelope gazing at him with such love that it would be overwhelming if it was not so deeply reciprocated. So Colin kisses her bare shoulder, and nuzzles his nose against it as Penelope brings her hand up to run her fingers through his hair.
And he knows, with the dearest of certainties, that she will always find him too.