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Chapter 1
Colin suddenly realises he hasn’t seen Penelope in months. Without his travels there is no need to write to her, and he never invited her to their country estate because 1) he never had to, 2) it would be highly improper.
Despite a long list of places he still wishes to see, the draw was home, this off-season. With the Bridgerton brood growing bigger all the time, he wants to stay here and revel in it. But one day he realises something is missing.
“Why has Miss Featherington not visited us?” He enquires to the Drawing Room one day.
Eloise’s head whips around quickly, looking for their mother or the chattier maid.
“Miss Featherington and I have had a falling out.” Eloise answers in a clipped tone, indicating there will be no further discussion into the matter.
“What did you do?” Anthony asks.
“Nothing! Why would you - she’s - she’s…” Eloise protested loudly, almost drowning out Benedict’s snort.
“How could you possibly be angry with Miss Featherington, I’ve never met a more kind-hearted person - outside of Daphne.” Benedict says.
“You haven’t really met her.” Is all Eloise will offer.
Colin is confused. Both by this turn of events and also this sudden overwhelming need to be in Penelope’s company. He has no idea how he could go from completely overlooking her existence for several months to being abruptly consumed with missing her presence.
He thinks back to the last time he saw her. He stole her away; he unmasked her cousin. He danced with her, he told her she was special.
And then he walked away from her and hadn’t thought of her since.
He doesn’t remember what he said about her afterwards. Words she’ll never forget.
—
Penelope has grown stronger.
Penelope has worked on improving herself in a society where she can no longer rely on the shield the Bridgerton family provided her. She dedicates the off-season to herself. She maintains her weight. She likes it. She knows society doesn’t, but she’s different and she finds freedom and pride in that. But she starts choosing her own dresses, trying different things with her hair. She reads more, practises music more, starts picking up house skills from the staff, learns how to carry herself with confidence, practices witty small talk in the mirror. This season she’s not just writing Lady Whistledown, she’s living Lady Whistledown.
When a letter arrives for her on Bridgerton stationery she hopes it is from her dear friend Eloise. Losing her hurts more than losing Colin. Because you can’t lose something you never had.
When she opens the letter and sees Colin’s handwriting letter her heart leaps then plummets. Angry at herself for the sudden thrill she felt at his attention, she is proud when she casts his words directly into the fire, unread.
—
Colin can’t understand why there is no reply to his letter. There is ALWAYS a reply to his letter. Even when travelling by camel through a far-off desert, Penelope’s words can find him.
Eloise refuses to budge and none of his other siblings know anything. He nearly asks his mother to invite her to the estate, but he realises he is too scared of Eloise to do that.
—
It is a week later, and Colin still has no idea how Penelope fares. He spies Eloise reading alone in the garden below and runs out of the house.
“Eloise, I demand to know what occurred between you and Miss Featherington!”
“Colin, I’m not telling you!”
“If you don’t, I will tell mother about - “
“She’s Lady Whistledown!” Eloise whisper shouts.
Colin is silent for a few moments while the thought processes.
“She’s Lady Whistledown?” He asks, to ensure he heard correctly.
“Yes!” Eloise confirms whilst looking around the garden to ensure no one else is in earshot.
“How marvellous!” Colin exclaims, with a proud grin spreading over his face.
“Brother are you quite well?! The things she has written about our family, about me! About YOU.”
“Was any of it untrue, El? It might have been unfair, but was it a lie?”
“She nearly ruined you after she published about Marina’s condition!”
“Penelope tried to warn me first. She did. And I was too stupid to listen to her. She was prepared to bring ruin to her own family to save me. She saved me, El.”
Eloise thinks for a beat before bursting into tears. Colin panics and whips his head around searching for Benedict or a sister.
“She saved me, too. I didn’t want to see it because of my pride, but what she wrote about me, she really was trying to help me. Oh Colin, I’ve really messed this up!”
Chapter 2
Another letter arrives on Bridgerton stationery.
Penelope casts that one onto the fire too, without taking the time to recognise the handwriting of her best friend, Eloise.
—
Colin and Eloise are frazzled and confused. “Why hasn’t she responded to our letters?!” Eloise cries while Colin paces.
“Have you considered why she should?” A softly accented voice asks from the doorway.
Colin and Eloise are stunned to stillness at the question.
Kate continues, “You haven’t always been the best of friends to Miss Featherington. Particularly you, Colin.”
He looks confused.
“Don’t you remember what you said? Everyone heard you. SHE heard you.”
—
Colin feels like he’s been punched in his gut. He can’t believe Kate’s words - his words - as she repeats them back to him.
“I - no. I… did I really?” He asks, already knowing he did.
He was on a high that night. He truly felt as astonishing as Pen had said he was. He was riding a feeling he didn’t understand. He was feeling fiercely protective of Pen. When the other lads took notice of her, made fun of her, he made the decision to dismiss her rather than defend her. He wanted the topic of conversation to move away from her. He wanted the attention to be off her. She existed in his world, not theirs. So he called them mad so they’d move on. It was possibly the worst decision of his life.
And now knowing what had happened with Eloise in the minutes prior, he wants to throw up. He was so sure he was the hero that night. That the Bridgertons were the good guys.
“How will she ever forgive us?” Eloise asks miserably.
—
Flowers.
Lots of them.
So much so that Portia gets wildly suspicious and upset, which just makes things worse for Penelope.
A one-word letter back.
Stop.
Chapter 3
It is finally time to return to London.
Eloise and Colin spill out of their carriages and race directly to the Featherington’s door.
“Miss Featherington has not returned.” Is all the information they receive.
Indeed, it takes three balls before Penelope appears.
Philippa was first to appear, with her husband, seemingly distanced from the Featherington name and scandal.
Prudence appears next, Portia staunchly by her side, desperate to make a match for her.
Penelope appears third. She arrives separately from her mother and sisters and if it wasn’t for her bright red hair she could easily have been mistaken for a stranger. She has updated her style, true, but it is the way she is holding herself. She is fearless. She is strong. She is confident. She won’t be fooled or harmed again. Gone is her meekness and anxious energy. In its place is steely determination.
She is going to win her place in this society by herself. She can’t rely on her own family or the pity of the Bridgertons.
She is going to work harder than ever on Lady Whistledown and keep making her own secret stash of money. She is going to need it.
Lastly, a bonus nice to have but not a must like the first two, she might find a husband.
—
The universe works backwards, throwing a potential suitor into her path first.
Louis is French. It is his first season in London. His father has moved here to work on the railroads. Not digging to lay them but designing routes and infrastructure. It’s a big deal and many of the Ton are circling this new blood like starved vultures.
He finds Penelope by the lemonade. He accidentally spills some on her glove and tells himself off in French. Penelope answers in French, telling him it’s okay and not to worry. Thus begins a night of conversation, flicking between both languages, creating themselves a little bubble others find it hard to penetrate.
—
Not a second of this goes unnoticed by Colin, who has, ironically enough, taken up Pen’s usual position by the wall. Eloise has not escaped the demands of society and has been getting whisked from eligible bachelor to eligible bachelor all night, making it hard for her to find time to make her own approach to Penelope.
Colin has no idea who the dark-haired stranger is who has monopolised Penelope all night, but he knows he doesn’t like him.
He’s shorter than Colin but looks stronger. His hair is longer and his eyes brown. He is French, from what he can gather. Colin never quite got the hang of French so much of his eavesdropping attempts tonight have failed. He wants to storm up to this man and demand a duel. Doesn’t this man realise that Penelope is his?!
His stomach drops to his feet.
Penelope is his.
He wants Penelope to be his.
How long has he felt this way? Has he always felt this way? Was he ever going to realise if Frenchy hadn’t shown up tonight? Is this what he’s been feeling this whole time? Is that what Penelope wanted? To be his?
Chapter 4
Louis and his family, much like Kate, read up on the Ton before arrival, and Penelope is helping him put faces to names.
“And this one, holding the wall up?” He asks subtlety gesturing to Colin.
“That’s the third Bridgerton son. Colin.” She answers, her voice even and uninterested.
“He looks like he just got hit in the face with a fish.” Louis comments.
“I think he did.” Penelope answers. “I read a little about hubris over the winter. I think he lived it.”
“Miss Featherington, you have such a way with words.” Louis compliments her. She responds in French, deliberately showing off.
They dance two dances. They can both tell they’d like to dance more, but they both know the rules.
In between the dances and conversations (as Louis does what society dictates and lets his mother parade him around the room, asking other young ladies to dance), Penelope accepts a dance request from Benedict. Dear Benedict has nothing to insult her, he is a good man. She smiles and laughs when Anthony says he wishes he could write his name on her dance card again this season, but his wife is keeping him too busy. She exchanges kind greetings with the Dowager Viscountess Bridgerton. “Call me Violet!”, she insists.
She sees Eloise and Colin staring at her all night. She doesn’t let them put her off. She doesn’t perform for them. She just treats them like they are anyone else in the room. The time she spends with Louis is for her. If they approach her, she will be polite, but she is no longer vying for their attention, for their scraps. For their validation. No. She is enough on her own. She has learned to survive without them. She sees Louis across the room, dancing with another debutant, and they share a smile.
As soon as the current dance ends, Louis is back by her side. “These English ladies, so bony!” He complains. “French women have shape! Colour! Personalities!”
Penelope laughs a sweet laugh and tells him off in jest. “Now now.”
Louis spies his mother across the room and tells Penelope to wait where she is, he wants to make a formal introduction between the two.
As soon as he steps away, she feels a presence almost immediately to her right. She knows without looking and without him saying anything that it’s Colin.
She waits. She doesn’t turn.
After a few too many beats of silence she hears. “Pe- Miss Featherington. If there is room on your dance card, I would very much like to share this next dance with you.”
She knows it’s impolite to refuse and refusing gives him power she no longer wishes him to have. So she accepts. “Of course, Mr Bridgerton.” She answers, finally turning to look at him.
When their eyes connect, she stays in control. What’s more interesting is she notices that he doesn’t. He lets out an almost imperceptible gasp, his eyes widen. She doesn’t know what it means but she’s stopped looking for meaning here. This is just like any other ball. Where Colin Bridgerton asks her to dance because he is nice guy and that’s what nice guys do. Dance with the wallflower.
He silently leads her to the floor, and they silently partake in the carefully practiced steps. She doesn’t attempt to fill the silence. “Pen. Miss Featherington.” He finally utters, halfway through the dance. “I am so sorry. For all of it. For everything. For what I said. For what I didn’t do. For being an awful friend. For not seeing what -.”
“It’s fine.” She cuts him off.
“Wait, I -.” He starts.
“I accept your apology, Mr Bridgerton. It’s fine.” Penelope notices the song is drawing to a close, so she steps back, curtsies, and adds “I wish you and your family well.”
Colin is left alone on the dance floor.
He looks back to her, again talking with ease and joy to Frenchy.
He thinks about how she barely looked at him during their dance.
He remembers the one-word letter he received. “Stop.”
His vision starts to blur as his carefully built world begins to fall in on him.
He runs out to the garden.
Penelope is so deep in conversation she doesn’t notice. This is the first ball she’s been to where she wasn’t acutely aware of Colin’s location the whole time.
What’s better is she doesn’t even realise this fact.
—
Louis’ mother has finally appeared next to him, as opposed to flagging him down from across the ballroom which she’d been doing earlier in the evening.
“Mother!” He exclaims in French. “May I present to you Miss Penelope Featherington, by far the best thing England has to offer.”
Penelope blushes and curtsies, saying what a pleasure it is to meet her in French.
Louis’ mother lights up at this and soon a rapid-fire conversation in French is underway.
Chapter 5
The next week is filled with flowers, calls, and promenades.
Louis and Penelope, quietly on a first name basis, become the best of friends. It is like they have known each other their whole lives. Like what she had with the Bridgertons, once.
Louis is not their replacement; she is not using him to fill a void or to cause a distraction. She truly thinks he was sent from heaven for her.
There is more to them than just friendship. There is an acknowledged attraction. They are very careful to tread carefully and take the opportunity to enjoy each other’s company. Penelope enjoys hearing about Paris and Louis enjoys seeing London through her eyes.
She tells him early of her secret identity. She knows the damage the secret can cause and unlike everyone else his family has not featured in her scandal sheet. He loves his side of her. “You’re so wicked!” He teases. But he also appreciates her entrepreneurial side, particularly as the son of a man who started with nothing and made his own success.
“Penelope.” He quietly murmurs so her mother doesn’t overhear his use of her first name. Everything sounds better in his accent, including her name. “We are basically courting already; can we make it official?”
Penelope is so pleased she makes an undignified squeaking noise which makes Portia look at her with disappointment. That disappointment is short lived.
—
The news gets around before Lady Whistledown can publish it.
“Penelope Featherington snagged the French boy!” The whispers ripple through the park.
The couple confirms the whispers themselves, strolling arm in arm, looking extremely happy, with their mothers chatting a few paces behind.
“Oh, Colin.” Violet says with a tsk.
“Oh, Colin.” Eloise and Benedict echo.
Chapter 6
Louis becomes her partner in crime with Lady Whistledown. He is just as adept at collecting the gossip as he is as stealing away to the printer for her. As a man no one ever asks where he is going or notices him at all.
They make sure to pepper comments about themselves through the pages, like Penelope always has. Working with him is a thrill and Penelope has never felt so liberated. He is the first person in her life to see her. All of her.
Well, not ALL of her. Penelope blushes at the thought. Maybe one day.
But she was never her real self with the Bridgertons, with her family. She was always trying to keep up appearances. Louis keeps her completely comfortable. She honestly doesn’t know what she did to deserve him.
So when he appears at her door with a bright bouquet of flowers which is a stark contrast to his face, her stomach drops.
“We’re leaving.”
—
Penelope is sure the room spins. She sinks to ground. Louis sits next to her. They both sit on the foyer floor silently, tangled in her skirts.
—
Louis’ dad got a better job offer from the Americas. Boston.
“My first thought was to run here. To ask you to marry me. To come with us. Or maybe to run away together, back to France.”
“I did run here.” He continues. “But I can’t ask you to do any of those things. Not yet. I can’t take you away from here, to a strange country.”
“You can. Please do, in fact.”
They are still sitting on the floor of her foyer. She is fiddling with the stem of one of the roses he brought her.
“Penelope. It’s because of how much I like you that I’m not.”
“That’s little consolation.”
“I know.”
They smile sadly at each other and lapse back into silence.
—
Two weeks (and a co-written scathing account of how his family is abandoning London for money) later, Penelope is down at the dock to see him off.
“Please stay in touch.”
“I will.”
And with those words he throws away the rules of London society and pulls her into a hug.
“I’ll never forget you, Miss Featherington.”
“Nor I, you.”
—
The next time Colin and Eloise see Penelope is during a glum promenade. Colin thinks she looks sadder than when Lord Featherington passed away.
Portia definitely looks sadder than when Lord Featherington passed away.
At one point, thankfully whilst she is standing separately to Penelope, Colin overhears her bemoaning to another mother about how that was Penelope’s ONE chance.
Rage courses through his body. Penelope is worth a million chances. And he’s already missed too many of his own.
Chapter 7
The season is almost at a close. Eloise and Penelope have not managed to make up. Penelope has been too busy, too unconcerned, then too devastated. Colin has not danced with Penelope since that ill-fated night she met Frenchy and she stopped turning up for balls after Louis left.
Colin has decided he will never visit France again. Or Belgium. Or anywhere that speaks French. Hearing the language makes him want to be sick.
It takes an intervention from Violet to put these three back in the same room together.
“Penelope, you simply must join us for tea.” Violet says one day, as she crosses paths with the Featheringtons outside the Modiste. “My Colin and Eloise have barely seen you this season and they’re so fond of you.”
Penelope makes a noise to refuse.
“I insist.” Says Violet, in a polite but no-nonsense tone.
—
The next day Penelope visits the house she has not stepped foot in for some time. She stands outside staring at it. A shiver runs through her body, leaving her chilled.
She encounters Kate and Edwina first. She enjoys catching up with them and congratulates Kate on her pregnancy.
Kate and Edwina continue on their way and Penelope is saved from a moment of awkwardness by Benedict who has just arrived home. “Miss Featherington! How marvellous to see you!” He links their arms and guides her up the stairs, chatting happily about the weather as he steers her through the foyer and into the drawing room.
Thankfully nearly the full brood is in attendance and Penelope is able to catch up with the Duchess of Hastings and her little ones. She chats to Hyacinth about the book she is reading and laughs at Gregory’s latest magic trick. She nods along politely and sips her tea while Violet updates her on Francesca.
She is enjoying hearing Benedict talk about his latest piece when she realises the room has thinned out. Benedict realises he has missed his cue and clears his throat.
“Miss Featherington, I am sorry, but I just remembered I am late for an engagement, so I must bid you farewell. It really was very excellent to see you.”
A silence falls over the room as Benedict leaves it. It’s the three of them.
In that moment so much time has passed and so much has happened since that she doesn’t even remember the last time she was alone with Eloise - when she found Eloise ransacking her bed chambers. She knows she’s danced with Colin since the night he called her special then called Fife mad, but it all feels like another lifetime now. She’s changed, she’s grown. She sure they have too.
“How are you both? Colin, you didn’t travel this year? Eloise, how have you fared this season?”
Eloise and Colin visibly deflate, the stress and nervous energy leaving their bodies and leaving the room.
They both start apologising at once, their voices rising and drowning each other out.
Penelope holds up a hand and they stop, shocked into silence at her quiet assertiveness.
“It was a long time ago. We were all at fault. We all made choices. We’ve all learned from our choices. We might never go back to what we were, but that’s okay. It’s better. But we can start again. We can be friendly neighbours.”
Penelope speaks with so much maturity and self-assuredness that Colin can’t quite comprehend this goddess before him. Eloise says nothing, she just flies toward her former best friend and grabs her in a hug. Colin lurches forward to follow before he remembers himself.
Chapter 8
Colin doesn’t try anything this season. He lets it draw to a close. Penelope has no shortage of attention after Louis’ departure. It took the attention of another man to make her noticeable apparently, and Colin is in for the long game, he doesn’t want to get lost in the crowd.
He sets sail for the Faroe Islands the morning after the last ball. He doesn’t even say goodbye.
—
The postman spends nearly as much time at the Featherington’s as he does at his own house. Between letters to and from Louis and from Colin, Penelope has no shortage of reading material. She travels to Aubrey Hall to spend some time with Eloise, too. Their friendship is different now, but that is less about their falling out and more about the fact they are ladies now and the silly troubles of girlhood are behind them.
“How is Colin?” Eloise asks her one day.
“He’s your brother, Eloise.”
“But you’re the only one he writes to. He occasionally writes to mother to assure her he isn’t dead, but that’s about it.” Eloise explains.
Penelope doesn’t know how to respond to that. She doesn’t know how to respond to his letters either, so she doesn’t.
Penelope ignores Eloise’s question and launches into a story about Louis instead.
—
She returns home to a stack of letters. Some of them look vaguely tampered with and her mind flashes back to her mother and Varley’s attempts to trick Miss Thompson into believing her beloved George didn’t love her or acknowledge their child.
She opens them and they seem fine though. She and Louis made up a code for this exact reason and she sees it in his letters. He misses her but he is loving America. He loves working with his father. He has so many interesting tales and she feels so boring in comparison.
Then she reads Colin’s.
His letters are peppered with anecdotes of things he saw which reminded him of her. He talks of the little trinkets he is picking up for her along the way and how he can’t wait to give them to her.
You are with me always. He signs off.
She doesn’t know how to feel about that.
She imagines herself in the Americas with Louis. She imagines their life together. Then she reflects on how hard he is working and how in reality she probably wouldn’t see him too often. He would be working or travelling while she was at home with his mother in a foreign country.
She is glad it’s winter and she can take a break from boys because she is feeling very stressed out by them.
Chapter 9
She doesn’t respond to Louis for a bit. She re-dedicates herself to her own pursuits. She goes without hearing from Colin, and she wonders if he maybe got the point.
Then two letters arrive on the same day.
She reads the one from Louis first.
Penelope, I have to let you go. It is not fair to you to be wasting your attentions on someone who is not coming back for you.
Penelope feels mildly sick but keeps reading.
My mother tells me I am doing you no favours. And I’m so interested in my work here, as much as I truly adore you, I have to focus on that.
I truly wish you all the very best and I will never forget our time in London. If I have a daughter, I will insist she is named Penelope.
Penelope can’t stop crying and drops the letter to the floor without seeing the P.S.
She is already crying when she opens the second letter and soon she doesn’t know what the tears are for, as Eloise’s panicked scrawl is reason enough for new tears.
Colin’s ship has sunk.
Chapter 10
Penelope is estranged from Colin in many ways, but not to the point where she wishes him ill.
She orders a carriage immediately and starts throwing random items in a trunk. She understands the Bridgertons may not desire a guest right now, but she has been told many times that she is family, so she is going.
—
When she arrives, she sees several things.
Violet, silent and ash faced in a chair.
Anthony pacing angrily.
Gregory and Hyacinth crying in a corner.
Eloise flying at her.
Penelope nearly falls to the ground from the force of Eloise’s hug. The flowers Penelope bought for Violet are now smashed over her dress. She doesn’t care.
—
Violet received a letter from someone who was with Colin when the boat sank. They were rescued after some time in the water, but Colin suffered injuries and was recovering in a Danish hospital. Simon and Benedict had gone to take care of things and bring him home. They insisted Anthony stay as Kate was so close to term. Anthony didn’t like being told what to do, but agreed they were correct.
—
It takes a month before Colin is back on English soil.
Penelope wants to be there but realises it is not her place, so she sits at home and awaits an update from Eloise.
She has too much nervous energy, so she starts moving around her bedchamber, fixing it up and moving things around. She finds Louis’ last letter on the floor, where she must have knocked it after reading about Colin’s accident. She realises she didn’t reply and how rude that must have seemed.
She grabs some parchment and a quill and steels herself to re-reads the letter.
P.S. Colin Bridgerton is in love with you.
The quill drops out of her hand and bounces off the desk onto the floor.
She reads that line again.
Was it always there?
Of course it was always there.
How did she not see it before?
She is sitting there slack jawed when she hears a knock on the door.
“Post is here, Miss.”
“Oh! Thank you. Just set it down.” She instructs.
After the door closes, she gets up and retrieves it.
It’s from Eloise. One line.
He wants to see you.
Chapter 11
He looks fine. Older. Somewhat haunted, but fine. He seems to have recovered well, physically.
Some of the darkness lifts from his face when he sees her. She is like the sun. The sun he so desperately clawed towards in the dark, thrashing waters. She is what got him out of those waters. She is the reason he fought. His family flashed before his eyes and as he desperately swum clear of the wreckage, but she was there too. He knew he had to get home to her. He never wanted to leave her again.
The last thought he had as he blacked out after being hit in the head with a piece of driftwood and slipped beneath the waves was that all the little gifts he had collected for her were currently on their way to the ocean floor.
—
The Bridgerton sixth sense to clear a room kicks in as soon Penelope enters the Bridgerton Drawing Room. Penelope and Colin are almost immediately left alone, unchaperoned.
Colin crosses the room as quickly as he can and takes her in his arms. He pulls her deep into a hug. He runs his fingers through her curls. He (subtly) sniffs in her scent. He draws back and stares into her eyes, tracing her jawline with his finger.
It is completely scandalous.
Penelope is shocked and doesn’t know how to feel. She wanted Colin Bridgerton for so long. Then she gave up. She moved on. Now here he is in front of her. But what if this is only because he nearly died? What if after he recovers from his head knock things go back to how they were.
She remembers Louis’ postscript. Colin Bridgerton is in love with you.
“HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT?!” she wants to scream at Louis.
She steps back. Colin steps back too.
—
Daphne re-enters the room. She and her mother had had a whispered argument outside about which one of them would return after the pre-agreed minute of unchaperoned time, and after Daphne threatened to no longer bring the grandchildren for a while she had won and entered the room.
She is pleased to see at least 4 feet between her brother and Miss Featherington.
Daphne quietly sits in the corner with a book.
—
Colin points Penelope to a seat and sits a respectful distance away from her.
“Your gifts.” He starts nervously. “I don’t have them.” He finishes apologetically.
“Oh Colin!” Penelope admonishes him, not caring that Daphne is in earshot. “We have YOU! We don’t care about your gifts!”
“Everywhere I went I thought of you.” He says and Penelope feels a bit guilty for being so dismissive.
“I know. Your letters were very beautiful. I’m sorry I didn’t reply.”
“I thought of you when I was going under. I wanted to come back for you.”
“Oh, Colin.” Penelope says, unsure of what to do.
They lapse into silence. Penelope doesn’t know what to ask in case it brings up trauma and he can’t say what he wants to say with his sister in the room.
“How is Louis?” He finally asks.
“He told me he had to let me go.”
Colin’s head snaps up and he winces with pain.
He also said you loved me. She doesn’t add.
—
Colin is frustrated. He lost Penelope before he knew he had her (or had to have her) on that stupid night at the Featherington Ball and he has no idea how to convince her he’s changed. That she’s the one. He wasted so much time and she moved on and now she thinks the hit to the head made him crazy. He has no idea how to make her fall in love with him.
He watches her quietly stir her tea and pretend the whole thing doesn’t feel incredibly awkward. She sighs and puts the spoon down.
“Colin. Mr Bridgerton.” She corrects, sending a side glance to Daphne who is doing a marvellous job at pretending nothing is going on.
“I was so scared when I received the news of your shipwreck. I was so worried I packed my things and came here immediately. It’s been a long wait for you to be home again. I’m so glad to see you doing so well. I am so glad to see you well. I’m very grateful that your family allowed me to be here during that time and again today.
I think I should take my leave now, but I very much look forward to seeing you in London again soon.”
Before he can protest, she is out the door.
Chapter 12
It’s the first ball for season. Colin is waiting for her at the entrance. On her arrival he writes his name against the first and last dance of the evening, wishing he could write his name across the whole thing, or rip it off her wrist entirely.
In between these dances he lets her go. Lets her be free to socialise with whoever she wants. The Louis Effect is still apparent and Penelope’s dance card is near full.
He is happy to see she and Eloise together between dances, just like it used to be. It feels like things are falling back into place.
—
Every ball is the same. He waits for her, claims the first and last dance, but gives her space in between.
One evening he approaches Portia. “Lady Featherington.” He nods and bows. She curtsies in response.
“I would like to court your daughter.”
“You want to court my daughter? … MY daughter?”
“Indeed.”
“…Which one?”
“Penelope. If she will have me, that is.”
“By all means Mr Bridgerton, you have my blessing.”
That night during the final dance he finally asks her.
“Miss Featherington. Would you do me the honour of courting me?”
Penelope stops dead in the middle of the dance, almost causing a pile-up.
This is the moment she’d waited for so long. Now she doesn’t know how she feels about it. She was such a different person to the little girl who fell asleep to fantasies of Colin Bridgerton. She’d since imagined a whole future with someone else.
Still, Colin seems genuine and the Bridgertons already felt like home.
He is looking at her so hopefully, gently guiding her back in the steps she was having trouble remembering right now.
She takes in his face. There is no face she knows better in the world. Even her own mother’s. She runs her eyes over the hair she has so longed to touch, across the chin with a hint of stubble she has so longed to kiss. She looks at his broad chest, the one she dreamed about being held against. Lastly, she stares into the eyes she has been lost in so many times. And this time they seem lost in hers too.
There was no harm in seeing where it went, right?
“Okay.”
—
They are married a year later. Colin would have married her within the month, but Penelope wanted to take her time, and he respected that.
Louis attends the wedding and claps and cheers with glee as they depart the chapel as man and wife. He is accompanied by his wife and their little girl, Penelope.