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Colin drummed his fingers on the crumb-filled countertop, his heated glare directed toward the living room. “They’re dirty liars, all of them.”
“What do you expect?” Penelope flipped the bread over in the pan, butter popping and sizzling. “They are Bridgertons after all.”
Glancing over her shoulder, she spied their four little heads, a mixture of copper and chestnut, poking out over the back of the sofa. Their relative silence and studious focus on the TV would’ve normally been taken with the utmost suspicion, but given that they were already standing trial for a truly baffling crime, such suspicions mattered very little.
Colin sighed in the deeply exhausted way only a parent of four children could. “Yes, but they’re also our children.” He turned to lean against the island. “I thought you were responsible for bringing some sense to the gene pool?”
Penelope shrugged. “Forgive me for simply giving them the ability to cover their tracks and a greater proficiency for sunburns.”
“As long as you can forgive yourself.”
She smacked him in the arm with the end of the spatula. His mumbled “ow” went ignored as she slid the finished grilled cheese onto a plate and held it under his nose.
“Does this help?”
“Immensely,” he said, pressing a kiss to her forehead.
As she joined him at the island with her mug of tea, Penelope glanced into the living room. It wasn’t the first time they’d had an incident like this, but it was the first time they had absolutely no idea who was responsible for the crime in question.
“Is the sandwich working?” she asked. She needed him sharp, and he always seemed to do his best thinking while actively snacking.
“It’s working in that it's lowering my blood pressure.” Colin tore absently at the bread. “But I’m still just as lost as I was a half hour ago.”
“Should we start from the beginning then?”
___
Earlier that day
“Alright.” Colin roared into the living room, switching the TV off and smacking the remote down on the coffee table. “Which one of you flushed a hot dog down the toilet?”
He was met with wide eyes, brimming with confusion and unease. Historically, Colin had retained the role of good cop in their household, but this incident had pushed him over the edge.
Penelope strolled into the room, drying her hands with a dish towel. “What’s going on?”
He jabbed an accusatory finger toward the children huddled on the couch.“One of these little—someone in this room has thrown a hot dog into the toilet.”
“A hot dog?”
“A hot dog. A hot dog that has clogged the toilet and flooded the downstairs bathroom.” Penelope shot him a panicked look, and his voice softened. “The overflow is controlled for now, but we could be looking at some serious plumbing issues given the age of this house.” Turning back to the kids, his stern tone returned. “And your mother and I will most certainly not be cleaning up this mess. So, who wants to confess?”
Sidelong glances passed between the children, carrying secret messages neither he nor Penelope could decipher. None of them moved to speak.
“That’s how it’s going to be then?” Hands on hips, Colin stood there for a moment, waiting for fear to erode whatever camaraderie they had all found and push the guilty party forward. Nothing. “Fine, to your rooms then.”
When none of them rose from their seats, Penelope stepped forward, using the voice meant to petrify her offspring. “Now.”
They scattered like ants as they ran upstairs.
___
“I think it’s George.”
Penelope choked on her tea. “George?” She wiped her chin as Colin gave a curt nod. “All those interrogations and that's who you’ve landed on?”
“George, did you put the hot dog into the toilet?”
“No, I would never do that.”
“Sweetie,” Penelope said, squatting down to meet her son’s eyes. “We’re not mad—” She threw a glare in Colin’s direction at his derisive snort. “We just want to know. Did you do it? It’s okay if you did.”
“No! I don’t even like hot dogs! They’re gross and I don’t even like smelling them! I don’t even wanna touch one,” he reasoned, pulling a face that was an astoundingly realistic imitation of barfing.
Colin blinked a few times, looking at her like she’d gone mad. “Pen, he lies.”
“They all do that.”
“Yes, but he lies about everything. Even things that don’t matter!”
Last week, George had forgotten his new teacher’s name. Rather than admit this, he’d made up an elaborate tale about how the woman had gotten a new name since they met her at the beginning of the school year and they were the wrong ones, actually. He’d even gone so far as to forge a note from said teacher corroborating his story, as if a 6-year-old’s misspelled scrawl could be mistaken for anything else.
Penelope tore off a corner of Colin’s sandwich. She had found the whole ordeal adorable, just a silly thing children do at that age. Now she worried if it was a sign they should’ve taken more seriously.
“I know,” she admitted softly. “But I still don’t think my sweet boy could have done this.”
Colin pulled his plate out of her reach as she went for another bite, forcing her to meet his eyes. “Love, I think your judgment is clouded here. We both know it is impossible for you to be objective when it comes to him.”
While Penelope would never put any of her children before the rest, she could admit that the softest of her soft spots were for George. Perhaps it was because there had been so many difficulties in those early years—the taxing birth, her periods of postpartum depression, his delayed speech development—that the bright spots were so much sunnier in her memory.
During one of those gloomier periods, when Penelope had been struggling with how her body had changed, he’d beckoned her over to where he was drawing at the kitchen table.
“I draw Mummy!” Her heart had sunk at her own hesitation. He’d just started putting proper sentences together; she should’ve been thrilled to hear such a thing. But she’d feared the wild proportions typical of children’s artwork would pull her back to a dark place.
Thankfully, he hadn’t picked up on any of her misgivings, proudly holding up his paper with orange and blue scribbles.
“Mummy pretty,” he’d said brightly. The tears came fast and hot as she’d wrapped up her youngest in a tight hug.
Colin looked at her tenderly across the island as she relived the memory. He may have had a point when it came to her judgment of George, but she wouldn't allow his own bias to go unacknowledged.
Porcelain scraped across the marble counter as she pulled the plate back toward her. “Are you forgetting a detail about that day, husband? Perhaps one that may cloud your judgment?” she retorted, shoving another bite into her mouth.
“Am I interrupting?”
Penelope wiped away her stray tears as George held up his drawing for Colin to see. “I draw Mummy!”
Colin let out a low whistle as Penelope walked over to the fridge. “Well, would you look at that! You’ve certainly captured Mummy’s everlasting beauty in this, Georgie," he said, throwing a wink in her direction as he handed the drawing back.
“Shoot,” she called from behind the refrigerator door. “Do you know where my leftover pasta from last night is? I could have sworn I put it on the top shelf.”
George cut in casually without looking up from his paper, “Daddy ate.”
Colin’s mouth hung open indignantly. “All that proves is that he’s not only a liar, but a tattler as well.”
Penelope rolled her eyes, but struggled to come up with a defense for this solid point. “He’s…he’s the youngest!”
“And the youngest is always a menace, Pen,” he said around the food in his mouth.
“I’m the youngest.”
“Exactly,” he mumbled through his bite, eyebrows thrown high on his head.
“You are aware I know where you sleep at night, right?” When Colin gave her the panicked expression she was looking for, she sipped her tea and considered their other suspects. “Jane was never a menace when she held the youngest child title.”
“That’s because Jane is kind and would never dream of doing something that would get her into serious trouble.” He paused mid-bite. “Well…aside from that one time.”
The two of them had an unspoken agreement to never bring up the Super Glue Fiasco. It was easier to believe that it had been a fluke, a momentary lapse into evil rather than an indicator that they should probably be sleeping with one eye open around their daughter.
“Barring…you know,” Penelope said with a wave of her hand. “Do we have any other reason to suspect her in this case?”
Snot mixed with tears on the back of the small girl’s hands as she wiped at her face, prattling on about her innocence. “—and I finished all my hot dogs, you saw! And, and I don’t like using that bathroom because it has a weird smell and, and—” She choked on another sob. “And I always get blamed for everything all the time but I didn’t do anything!”
They both craned their necks toward the living room where Jane was tucked into the corner of the sofa, her little body still trembling as she clung to an overstuffed throw pillow. Eyes meeting again, they both shook their heads.
“That brings us to Aggie or Tom, then.” Sensing Colin’s retort, she quickly added, “We are tabling George for now, as I think the culprit likely lies between these two.”
Colin sighed. “Fine. If we’re looking at those two only, I think it’s Aggie.”
“Really?” Penelope said, taking his empty plate and her mug to the sink. “She made some pretty compelling arguments.”
“I can see why you might think it was me, but I would never even think about doing such a thing. That toilet is always getting clogged—like during my slumber party last year when Belinda threw up all those Jammie Dodgers. That was so embarrassing.” Agatha paused for dramatic effect. “I would never want anyone else to go through that.” She was calm as she sipped her water, but shaky hands revealed nerves hidden below her placid surface. “And if it was me, you know I wouldn’t be able to hide a secret like that.”
She didn’t do well under pressure from authority figures, always quick to confess and apologize when questioned, even if she was completely innocent. One solid minute of silence and she would shatter like glass—it worked every time. When they employed that tactic this time, she retained her composure, fidgeting with the sleeve of her sweater for just a moment before lacing her fingers together in her lap and sitting still.
“Let’s look at this objectively.” Penelope turned from the sink and began listing out her reasoning on her fingers. “Aggie is the most responsible of the four, the Shameful Silence did nothing, and given how much of a tirade she’s been on about food waste, I doubt she would do that to a perfectly good hot dog.”
“I think we’re discounting how much of an influence she has over the others,” Colin said as he wiped down the counter. “Perhaps she didn’t do it herself, but she could have easily convinced someone else to do her dirty work for her.”
“She is quite skilled at getting her way,” Penelope admitted.
“Exactly! Case in point—can you even remember how she convinced us to let them all finish their movie?” Penelope’s mind went blank. Shit. “That girl is far too clever.”
Agatha had always reminded Penelope so much of her younger self—intelligent and ambitious, often lost in her daydreams, always quick to offer a helping hand. Could she contend with the notion that her eldest had also inherited her less-than-savory manipulative streak?
Penelope chewed on the corner of her lip. “I suppose we can’t completely rule her out.”
“Especially with that thing I overheard when I picked her up from Anthony’s earlier.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “What thing?”
When Colin finished recounting his afternoon, Penelope had to temper her voice. “Aggie was behind the Super Glue Fiasco? How could you forget to tell me that?”
“It’s not like I could say anything in front of them!” Colin said, tilting his head toward the living room.
“And when we were alone?” she asked, brows raised.
“It’s not exactly pillow talk, Pen.”
“Is it really ‘pillow talk’ if we’ve just had a quickie in the linen closet?”
“Do you have a point you’re trying to make here?”
“Between this and the whole hot dog situation, I’m questioning whether our post dinner rendezvous might be worth all the problems they seem to cause.”
Colin stared back at her in horror. “Pen, my love, you are so wrong I can’t even begin to get into all the reasons why.” She rolled her eyes. “It just…slipped my mind!”
“The fact that our greatest family lore is built upon a lie ‘slipped your mind?’”
He threw his hands in the air. “It happens! Through no fault of the aforementioned closet sex.”
“You didn’t think to mention it five minutes ago when we were using it as our prime reason to suspect Jane?”
“Well, let’s not forget the glue was still in Jane’s hand.”
“I’m not the one forgetting things,” Penelope grumbled.
Colin ignored her jab. “I’m just saying, Aggie, probably, most definitely, put it there. And if that’s not the mark of a hot dog flusher, I don’t know what is.”
“So what then, you think she and Jane are both guilty?”
“I’d like to think Jane learned her lesson from the Super Glue Fiasco,” he reasoned. “George, however, is quite impressionable—”
“Oh, enough about George!” Penelope groaned. “You know, it’s very interesting who has been left out of all these conversations.”
They both turned their attention to Thomas, leisurely munching on biscuits, his hearty laughs spraying crumbs into the air.
Colin shook his head. “No.”
“Yes! Colin, I can’t believe you’re not even considering him—he’s the most obvious culprit.” Before Colin could dispute, Penelope laid down the facts. “He’s constantly tormenting Aggie and always seems to charm his way out of facing any consequences for it. Not to mention how sneaky he can be. And let's not forget how he responded to our questioning.”
“Thomas, did you flush the hot dog?”
He focused his attention on the tennis ball he continued to toss in the air. “Nope,” the boy said, popping the ‘p’ with great exaggeration, seeing no need to elaborate further.
“Are you sure?”
“Ye-p.”
“Okay…do you know who did?”
“No clue.”
“Where did he get those biscuits?” Colin muttered.
“Right? And then there’s the most compelling reason.” He turned toward her with a questioning look. “He’s exactly like you, a Bridgerton through and through.”
“You think—” Colin closed his eyes and brought a hand up to his mouth, like he couldn’t fully come to terms with what she’d just said. “You think I would put a perfectly good hot dog down the toilet?”
“One hundred percent.”
“Wow. The betrayal.” He hung his head. “And from my own wife…”
“Come on! This is exactly the type of prank you would pull on one of your brothers.”
“First of all, vengeance had to be served in order to keep their ballooning egos in check. It was a necessary evil, Pen.” That was probably true. “Secondly, Tom knows the limits for such things—destroying a toilet is absolutely outside the bounds of proper prank etiquette.” He raked his hands through his hair. “It’s…it can’t be him, it just can’t.”
Penelope eyed him skeptically. “What makes you so certain?”
Colin looked pained as he revealed the next bit. “I just…I was saving that hot dog.” Penelope leaned across the island to take his hand. “And Tom, out of any of them, knows the importance of a midnight snack.”
When Thomas was younger, Colin used to sneak him downstairs to the kitchen to share a secret biscuit with him after everyone else had gone to bed. He’d told her he considered it their special guy time. With their family expanding and Thomas growing up too fast for either of their liking, there were fewer and fewer opportunities for those moments. It was clear Colin didn’t want that time tarnished by this incident.
“I know he does,” Penelope said, coming around to rub soothing circles over Colin’s back.
Colin slumped his shoulders. “It’s probably him, huh?”
“I think it’s a definite possibility.”
“We’ll never be able to prove it, though.”
Penelope agreed. “What do you propose then?”
Groans and whines came quickly as the two of them blocked the TV, armed with cleaning supplies and a pile of towels.
“One more chance for the guilty party to come forward.” Colin’s gaze flicked between the four children, not a sound coming from any of them.
Penelope held out a bucket with sponges and rubber gloves. “Alright then, looks like you’ll be working as a team.”
With that, each of their children reluctantly rose from the couch and took the supplies offered. Without complaint, they trudged off to the bathroom in a neat line to face their soggy bun-covered, meat-scented foe.
___
Colin lifted the comforter and slid into bed with a long exhale. With the house quiet and still after a tumultuous evening, Penelope too felt like she could finally relax. She closed her eyes, certain the day would quickly catch up with her and take her off to sleep. The day did catch up with her, but it bubbled up from her chest, rumbling in her throat until a laugh burst out of her.
Colin joined in immediately, his own hysterics shaking the bed. It got worse when their eyes met, each of them trying and failing to temper their infectious giggles behind tight hands and fluffy pillows.
“What the fuck,” Colin finally managed, wiping away tears that had formed in the corners.
“A hot dog in the toilet—bun and all!” she snorted, burying her face in her hands. “Who does that?”
“There was a bite taken out of it, Pen!” They descended into giddy laughter again. When they locked themselves down to just a few stray chuckles, Penelope turned onto her side.
“Are we properly fucked on the plumbing, do you think?” she asked.
“No, it should be all right.”
Penelope grinned. “How cute were they in their little wellies, all crammed into that disaster of a bathroom?”
“Oh my god, and George trying to work a mop while he drowned in those rubber gloves?” Colin added brightly. “Priceless.”
“And when Thomas helped roll them up so they wouldn’t hang off him.”
Colin pulled her into his side, planting a kiss on the top of her head. “They’re sweet kids.”
She nodded against his chest. “The best.”
They lay silent for a moment as he twirled her hair around his finger. “Do you think we’ll ever find out which of them did it?” she asked, already knowing the answer.
Colin and his siblings may have been little terrors to one another, but they were also incredibly loyal—it was one of the things Penelope first fell in love with. If their children were anything like the rest of the Bridgertons, they were taking their knowledge to the grave.
His laughter rumbled beneath her cheek as he tugged her in closer. “Not a chance.”