Chapter Text
The Featherington den was quiet, except for the gentle ticking of the Grandfather clock and Colin’s footsteps pacing the floor. He anxiously twirled his pocket watch chain around his fingers, walking back and forth, as the housekeeper Varley had gone to announce his visit to Penelope. That was twelve minutes ago.
It had been three days since he had last seen her at the Full Moon Ball. The evening had started out great and ended horribly. He still cannot get the image of a humiliated Penelope running down the steps out of his head. He had run after her, of course, but when he saw Eloise, his anger caused him to stop and have words with his sister after she was the cause of outing his and Penelope’s arrangement. Once he left Eloise to her guilt, he had continued to chase after Pen, but he was too late. As her family carriage dashed by him, Colin caught a glimpse of Pen through the window. He wished he hadn’t seen her because her face was ashen with tears. It caused him such heartache that he drank himself to sleep.
The next morning, that damn Whistledown issue came out which basically confirmed to the Ton of his and Penelope’s arrangement, and was also the cause of Penelope’s further shame and, as society put it, set spinsterhood. After Colin read it, he tore it up and spent the entire day alone in his room. He hadn’t spoken to anyone the entire day. Not a single soul. He could not stop thinking about Pen, and what she must be feeling. In a way, he felt as if he was feeling her emotions. He had not felt so defeated in his entire life. He stood by the window a lot that day, to stare at Featherington house, hoping to see a glimpse of her leaving for a promenade. He just wanted to know she was alright, but he knew her well: she was not going to dare leave the house this fresh in her mortification. She was very much a recluse when she felt stilted.
He knew it was not advisable for him to be calling on her this early on since everything happened. It could cause further gossip. It was more respectful for a gentleman to wait until they could converse in public; however, he was worried. He was not just some random gentleman caller. He was her friend. She needed a friend. He needed her in a way as well.
Colin spun around on his heels when he heard footstep behind him. He watched as Pen’s lady maid Rae stepped into the doorway…alone. He suddenly felt complete disappointment wash over him as he assumed Pen was refusing to see him. He was ready to receive Rae’s message but she said nothing to him as she slightly bent her head and clasped her hands together. She avoided his eyes, a very subtle mischievous look on her face; the same one she always seemed to express whenever he was around Penelope as she chaperoned. He opened his mouth to speak, a little confused, when Penelope walked in not a moment later. Her hair was fully down, her curls loose, and she wore the most-simplest of day dresses. The silk and sheer white and baby blue garment could almost pass as an elegant dressing gown. It surely did not hide some of her more feminine assets. For as solemn as her expression was, she looked…beautiful was the only word that came straight to Colin’s mind.
“Pen,” he breathed.
“Colin,” she addressed, and cast her eyes down at the floor almost in an awkward way.
“I was anxious that you might refuse my visit.”
“I apologize for keeping you waiting. I was not expecting company. I had to become presentable.”
“Of course. I am grateful you accepted my calling on you.”
Colin watched as Penelope looked at Rae over her shoulder. The maid seemed to understand her misses because the maid gave a very slight smile with a nod of the head and stepped right outside the doors as if to keep watch, but give them some form of privacy.
“Um,” he said a bit awkward himself, before he motioned to the couch, “Please.”
Penelope walked over and sat down while Colin pulled one of the chairs over. He was close but not too close.
“I came here to…” he started but Penelope quickly interrupted.
“W-would you like some tea?”
“No, thank you. I…”
“H-how about some biscuits? You do love them.”
Colin furrowed his brow at her hasty behavior. He smiled, “I do, but not at the moment, thank you. May I…”
“How about sausage rolls? Cook just made…”
“I do not want sausage rolls,” Colin now interrupted her with annoyance.
“What would you prefer then?”
“I would prefer to just sit and speak to you for a moment,” he said matter-of-factly.
“Colin…” she said, looking back towards the door as if they were about to be caught together.
“This is not a social call over tea and biscuits, Penelope,” he said lowering his voice, “I need to speak to you.” Penelope looked at him amused, blinking multiple times, before her lips curved into a smile. Colin suddenly became a little self-conscious at the way she was looking at him, “What?”
“You only call me ‘Penelope’ when you are surprised of my presence or are trying to get a point across.”
Colin grabbed the chair underneath him and scooted closer with determination, “Then my trying has gone right over your head. I have been trying to get a point across, but you are not letting me get a word in edgewise. You seem to be more worried with the status of my hunger.”
She giggled, “But you are always hungry.”
“Not right now.”
She stayed silent but Colin saw a look of realization spread over her face and she seemed to relax her shoulders. She gently smiled again, shaking her head to herself.
“What is it?”
“You know, this is the first time I have smiled since, well, since what happened. And the last time I smiled was with you that evening as well. I just realized that.”
Colin’s face softened, “I am glad. Genuine friends should smile around each other, like a second nature.”
“We do have that, don’t we?”
His lips curved up, “We do. But you should smile even without my presence. You are pretty when you smile.”
Penelope’s face dropped. She looked down at her hands in her lap and swallowed, “Please, do not say that.”
“Say what,” he asked, baffled.
“Never mind. Um,” she cleared her throat and looked back up at him in a way that showed they had business to attend to, “Now, what did you need to speak to me about? And if it is about what happened at the ball, with all due respect, save your breath because I do not wish to discuss it.”
Colin’s mouth opened a bit, in a bit of shock, before he looked back at the doorway. She watched as he gave her a knowing look before he stood up and walked towards the doors. Penelope stood up in almost a state of fear that he was walking out on her, leaving with a word. She was about to call out to him when he stopped just outside the doors and looked as if speaking to Rae. Penelope watched Colin pull something out from his pocket and hand it to Rae before her maid walked out of her eyeline. Colin waited a moment before he walked back inside the den and shut the doors.
“What just happened,” Penelope asked alarmed as he walked back across towards her, leaving them alone.
“I bribed your maid to give us privacy.”
“Again? How much did you give her this time?”
Colin pointed to the couch, urging her, “More than when we conversed in your garden after my return. Sit.”
Pen sat down, quite shakily, “Colin, if my mother sees us in here alone, she—”
“What,” he asked, sitting down in the chair again, “Force us to marry? Not a chance.”
Penelope gasped, “That is…”
Colin quickly escalated that can of worms spiraling through her brain, “That statement has nothing to do with you. Pen, ever since the whole ordeal with Marina, I noticed your mother does not care for me much. To be honest, I do not think she ever really did.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because of all the times we have corresponded with one another in letter, spent time alone, danced…not once has she hinted at there being something more than just friendship between us. Not once has she come over and asked me of my intentions or tried to persuade me to court you. Yet, if you were seen with another man as we have been through the years, even in complete innocence, she would be spreading rumors of your impending marriage around town like wildfire.”
“Your mother knows of our relationship, too, and has not bestowed the same intentions," Pen retorted.
“Because my mother knows not to force anything, especially when she sees how much respect you and I have for one another. She knows what we share is a real connection. The only difference is that my mother loves you so much she would adopt you as her own if she had the chance.” Penelope shyly smiled, swooping some hair behind her ear and he continued, "But your mother probably thinks I am just some third-born son looking for attention.”
“Colin, she does not. And I do not like that you degrade yourself to such, even in jest.”
“Look, Pen,” he said waving the conversation off, “I just wanted to speak to you.” He leaned his elbows on his knees, sitting forward, and sighed heavily, “How are you? And before you answer, do not play the ‘fine’ card with me. It is just us talking, you and me. No one else. So, please, be honest.”
Penelope stared at him, her wall breaking down slowly, as her eyes filled up with tears. Colin reached and placed his hand compassionately over hers. She looked at his strong hand over her delicate, bare one. The first time she felt his hand like that was in the garden, as they made their agreement. It was the first skin-to-skin contact they ever had and she felt a shock from it. It was a static-type of feeling, but so gentle, that one could register it simply as a slight tickle. But, she knew he had felt it as well by the way their eyes joined in that moment.
The second time their bare hands were joined was when she attended to his wound in the Bridgerton study. There was no shock then, but something much more warmer. There was a tingle, a heat spreading in her tummy. It could have been the remnants of what she had read in his journal just prior to his injury, but tending to him like a wife would, as they were inches apart, made her skin feel delightful. She was not sure what he was thinking. She could not read his expression ten. But she could read his expression now. He looked at her with so much care that it pulled on her heartstrings. He looked at her then, held her hand, as if he wanted to comfort her. She needed to be comforted. Penelope squeezed his hand in recognition of his actions, and tried to will her emotions.
Her bottom lip quivered as she spoke in a whisper, “I have been miserable. Having such depressing thoughts, Colin.”
Colin saw the shame in her eyes. She did not have to feel guilty for what she felt. Her feelings were hers alone. He decided to give her his vulnerability as well. “You are not alone in your misery. I have been absolutely pitiful, Pen. I know that you have gotten the brunt of it, but what happened involved me, too. I felt repentant because…because I feel like I have failed you."
"You? How have you failed me, Colin? You were not the one that told the entire Ton of our disposition."
"No, but I did mention it to Eloise," he said guilty, running a frustrated hand over his face and up through his hair, "I did not know she would go ahead and disclose our arrangement."
"How do you know she was the one?"
"Because no one else knew. I told her in the carriage ride to the ball and then at said ball, suddenly everyone is whispering about us. My sister opened her big, fat mouth to Cressida Cowper I presume, and that is how I believe all was done. Eloise has not been speaking to you, but now you have a reason to not speak to her. And believe me, I spoke for both of us after I found out she revealed our situation."
"As much as Eloise is angry with me, I do not think she would do something like that out of malice. If she was the reason behind the reveal, it was done so by accident. That I know for a fact, whether she is my friend or not."
Colin lifted his hung head up to look at her with stunned disapproval, "How can you just sweep what she did under the rug like that?"
"I am not sweeping anything under the rug. I am only stating..."
"It sure sounds like it."
"Well, what do you want me to do, Colin?!" Her raised, angry, frustrated voice bounced off the walls of the parlor. Penelope leaned forward now, like he was, "Huh? I cannot go back in time. I cannot deny your help with finding me a suitor. You cannot stop yourself from telling Eloise our arrangement. Okay? What happened, happened. It is done. I have embarrassed my family and yours and now I have been forever placed on the shelf."
"Penelope, this does not mean you are forever placed on a - "
"YES IT DOES," she cried out.
Colin leaned back in heartbreak and shock by her outburst, but that shock only lasted a second as he knew she needed to get this out.
Penelope cried, letting her tears slide down her cheeks, "I am the laughing stock of the Ton. I may have been successful with conversing with a few gentlemen at the ball, but after this who will want me now, Colin? Who will want -" She did not finish her sentence as she faded out, her face falling into her hands as she cried.
Colin cradled her head in his hands and leaned his chin on top of her crown there, "You are a smart, clever, funny, beautiful woman with an enchanting smile and -"
"Would you STOP saying that," Penelope stated in angry exasperation.
"What," he stated back just as frustrated with her demand whenever he complimented her.
"That I have a pretty smile or that I am a beautiful woman. I know you are being a friend to me when you say it, but it is unsettling right now and only makes me feel worse."
Colin reached into his pocket for his handkerchief and handed it to her but was still unable to understand her, "I am not just giving you compliments to feed your ego, Penelope. I am being honest. Me telling you that you are an attractive girl should not make you feel worse."
"Well, it does, so stop it," she hiccupped and dabbed her tears away.
Colin fell back against the chair and crossed his arms. He watched her with a shameful type of perplexity, "Why do you let other's lies about you affect your own self-worth so much?"
"Oh, I don't know, I guess because of how I was raised since birth. I guess because of what the Ton has been whispering about me behind my back since my coming out year. I guess because I do not look like all the other debutants at the balls who are wanted after. I guess because-"
“—that if Lady Whistledown has said something about you, then it must be true,” he finished, with a sarcastic tone.
Penelope nearly stopped breathing. Her entire demeanor changed at the mention of her pseudonym. "Lady Whistledown, Colin, may have written cunning words, but she has never written a lie. She writes only what she hears, what she observes. She wrote what others are saying about me. I have no ill thoughts about her, even if it has further ruined any chances for my future."
Colin spoke almost disgusted, "She has never written a lie?"
"Correct, at least none that I have seen."
"Oh, really? What she wrote about me..."
"Was not a lie," Penelope stated seriously, staring him dead in the eye. His eyes widened and she continued, challenging him to admit he was not the same when he returned home, "Was it?"
Colin was about to respond when the doors of the den slammed open and Lady Featherington came barging in.
**
Next up: Chapter 2 – Portia announces a surprise that has Colin hastily declaring one of his own, only his is a lie.
If you understood that ‘sausage roll’ reference, *nod, wink & smile* #sausagerollgirl