Chapter Text
It was either the universe’s perverse sense or humor or simply a truly ironic twist of fate that one of the most famous stars on OnlyFans was technically a virgin. Penelope Featherington didn’t start her spicy “accountant” business anticipating that at 22 years old she’d be making five figures a month never even showing her face. But here she was, 4 years into this career, sweating her ass off moving into her new luxury flat with her best friend Eloise. One that Eloise thought Penelope just happened to find an awesome deal on with stupid cheap rent. When, in actuality, Penelope cut a check and bought the place outright.
“I swear to god, if I catch you so much as looking at another bookshop, I will give up my future law career to murder you,” Eloise grunted from behind the 8th box of books she carried through their front door. Eloise Bridgerton had been best friends with Penelope since the first day of Year 1 when Reggie Fife pulled the little strawberry blonde girl’s pigtail and her bright blue eyes grew glassy and wide with tears. Eloise marched right up to him and wailed him in the shin with her shiny patent leather school shoes. You didn’t grow up the 5th kid out of 8 without being fearless and having killer aim.
“Listen, the office has room for a whole new bookcase beyond the ones I had at my mom’s house. What am I gonna fill it with if not for some new babies,” Penelope chuckled at the exasperated way Eloise huffed a breath trying to blow the hair out of her eyes while her hands were occupied.
Eloise left the box in the middle of the floor and flopped down on their overstuffed couch that was surrounded by chaos. A rolled-up carpet, lamps, and more boxes than they could count. The pair of friends had just a few weeks of time to get settled into their new place before Eloise started her first year of law school. “Are you sure you still want to have your desk in your bedroom and not in the office?” Penelope asked.
“You know I can’t concentrate for shit if there’s even a remote possibility I could distract myself chatting with you or exploring your impressive smutty book collection. Plus, how are you supposed to become the modern-day Jane Austen if I’m constantly pestering you?” Penelope gave her best friend the tiniest of side eyes, but let Eloise deflect away from her nerves about law school. The young woman was whip-smart, driven and intense, which Pen knew was a recipe for nothing but success, even if Eloise had her doubts.
And she really was writing her first novel, hoping to find a publisher by the end of the year, even with her wildly successful but secret career. Penelope started her OnlyFans account under the pseudonym Lady Whistledown when she was only 18 and in her first year at university. She was living in a single dorm room and studying creative writing, feeling the pit of loneliness and a touch of homesickness.
Not for the home she grew up in, of course. Not with her mother. But homesick for the feeling of peace and belonging she felt the second she stepped in the door of the Bridgerton’s family home. The way Mrs. Bridgerton, or Mama B, as her kids and eventually Penelope called her, looked at the neighbor girl like she understood her. The way that Anthony and Ben showed her the protective but teasing care of big brothers. How Daphne, who was actually the most popular girl in school, still knew all of the teachers Penelope had and gave her the secret tips for getting on their good sides. The secret stacks of papers Frannie would pass her - her secret poetry she only trusted Penelope to read because she knew she would never make fun. Greg and Hyacinth, the babies of the family just 10 months apart in age, who only ever knew life with their bonus sister who was hands down the best bedtime storyteller. Of course her soul sister Eloise. And Colin. Oh, Colin. The charming boy who she knocked off his bicycle when he was just 9 years old. Her heart skipping a beat fearing that she hurt someone or that she’d be hollered at, but instead met by a boisterous laugh. “I’m really in for it when mom sees that I blew out the knee of my new school pants. Not very well done of me, huh?” And her heart never truly did go back to the same beat pattern ever again.
As she grew from a child to a teenager and young woman, her heart grew with him. Starry-eyed devotion of a little girl who giggled and ran away every time her best friend’s brother came out to play in the backyard when she was there. The preteen who just knew every single love song Taylor Swift ever wrote was actually probably about Colin. The 16 year old who had to jump in the pool and keep her head under the cool water until her lungs demanded that she surface when the 20 year old university boy came home for the summer with a whole new set of muscles. Her face flushed so red when he peeled off his t-shirt by the Bridgerton’s pool, that Eloise scolded her for not putting on her sunscreen. “You know your ghostly ass can’t do anything less than spf 1000, Pen!”
And for his part, if Colin ever suspected the depth of Penelope’s secret devotion to him, he never let on or treated her any differently. He took El and Pen to their first ever party with alcohol when they were 17, much to the slightly terrifying disapproval of Anthony who actually sat them all down and gave them a whole dad speech about alcohol and made them watch a YouTube video about underage drinking. Pen never knew that Anthony also took away Colin’s car for an entire semester as a punishment for that incident. But it was the first time he ever held Penelope’s hand, so they wouldn’t get separated from one another in the densely packed house party.
It was winter break of her first year in university that Colin drew Pen’s name for the Christmas exchange. Every Bridgerton over the age 18 was given one gift randomly assigned Secret Santa style, while the kids still swam in gifts from everyone. Colin came home from Christmas after spending 4 months in Italy, Greece and Crete for the first half of his post-university grad bum year.
He took his gift giving very seriously and made Penelope a whole trunk of small gifts from his travels. An antique book of Italian poetry he found in a second hand shop, the faded yellow leather cover reminding him of the yellow ribbons her mother tied in her hair everyday as a kid. A dainty gold necklace with a charm, a gold rendering of The Birth of Venus with a tiny pearl nestled in the shell she stood in. A t-shirt with a depiction of a white marble statue of a woman with a crooked gold crown on her head and the words “Queen Shit” underneath. “Get it, because Greek Penelope was the Queen of Ithaca,” Colin explained, grinning in a way his siblings would have called cheesy and Pen just thought was dazzling. And finally a painted wooden dildo. When she pulled it from the box last, it took her brain a minute to realize what she was holding. Her eyes went wide and she fumbled the object in her hands, almost juggling it before it clattered on the ground, rolling to a stop against Mrs. Bridgerton’s foot. The mom snatched it up off the floor and shoved it behind her back before the little kids looked up from their new toys and asked too many questions. She raised a questioning eyebrow at Colin.
“It’s a traditional souvenir from Crete,” he started to explain, eyes bouncing between his mother and Penelope. “They celebrate a festival for… uh,” his eyes glanced to the kids still distracted by their toys, and mouthed the word ‘dicks.’ Penelope sat stone still, Violet shook her head slightly and Anthony scowled. “C’mon, it’s funny! They’re all over the shops and that one is covered in tiny daisies!”
“Ew, Colin!” Eloise screwed up her face in disgust, her words betraying her recent rewatching of Schitt’s Creek. “Look, you’ve traumatized Pen!”
Penelope’s mind was whirring so fast that no single thought could take hold long enough for her to grasp onto it. Colin. Dildos. His lips forming the word dick in her direction. Colin. Dicks. Colin’s dick. She shook her head as if to clear the thought from her mind, lest her pseudo adoptive family read her face like a scrolling billboard. “I..it’s fine,” she sputtered and choked on her own spit, reduced to a short violent coughing fit, prompting El to pound on her back. A couple deep breaths and a glance at Colin’s stricken face and Penelope finally croaked out. “It’s cool, that’s hilarious. I… I’ll put it up as decoration in my dorm room.” She laughed, sounding fake even to her own ears. She sunk back into the couch and everyone finally moved on to watch Daphne open a baby pink cashmere sweater from Franchesca. Penelope felt like she could finally breathe again until she stole a glance at Colin who was staring at her with an intensity that made her palms instantly sweaty.
Anthony was pacing around his study in the large family home later that evening, Ben lounging on a couch and Colin in the leather club chair. “What were you thinking Colin?!” Anthony all but bellowed. “Penelope is like a baby sister to us! Would you give a.. a.. item like that to Francesca?”
“Oh come on, Pen is an adult now, Frannie’s just 15! Pen gets my humor, she thought it was funny!”
Benedict was swirling his whiskey glass around, creating a tiny cyclone with the ice cubes. Not even looking up he commented, “Notice how all the gifts Colin got Pen were about love or sex?”
Colin sputtered, opening and closing his mouth. Ben went on before Colin’s brain could formulate a response.
“Italian love poems,” he held up one finger.
“I just liked the cover!”
“Venus necklace, the goddess of lust.” A second finger went up.
“Pen loves pearls!”
“Penelope from the Odessey, the paragon of a loyal and loving wife.” Finger three.
“For the love of god, her name is Penelope!”
Ben lifted the fourth and final finger, “And a sex toy.”
“Will you shut up! Penelope Featherington is about as sexual as a Tibetan monk!” Colin yelled so loudly his voice bounced back at him in an echo that hit his eardrums the same moment as the gasp from the doorway.
Penelope was standing in the doorway with her mouth hanging open, mini Santa hat still clipped in her hair. “I think me and my sex life are none of your concern, Colin Bridgerton.” Her voice was icily calm. She nodded to Anthony and Benedict who were staring at the scene in front of them, stock still. “Merry Christmas, gentlemen,” she turned on her heel and walked with purpose and speed to the front door. It took all three brothers at least 10 seconds to breathe again, and Colin jumped from his chair and charged out of the room.
“Pen, wait!” he yelled as she rushed out of the front door, not even bothering with her winter coat. She was already halfway across the street and just steps from her own house by the time he burst through his own home’s front door. What he couldn’t see was the tears that were already wetting her cheeks, stinging in the bitterly cold air. She slammed the door behind her, not even glancing back. Colin scrubbed his face with the palm of his hand, staring at the closed door until the flick of light from the second floor window - her bedroom- broke his trance. He turned back to his house, feeling an unfamiliar ache in his chest. A discomfort that he desperately wanted to escape from.