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Long before Colin had realized he was doing it, he would sweep his eyes across the perimeter of the dance floor, letting his gaze meet all four corners until he knew exactly what corner comfort was in. He sought his friend out before he knew he was doing so; made the rounds long before he realized he was hunting for a flash of yellow and a twinkle of red pressed flat against a wall.
He’s smart enough to know when he’s been a fool, and in this circumstance, he most certainly has been. Because of course he had been seeking Penelope. Of course, the whole time, he had been sure to know where she was, what she was doing, who she was with. There was security in her always remaining the same, always being there for him when he wanted a break from the hawkish mamas and formidable Lady Danbury. At these parties, dancing with Penelope has always been solace, even before he was in love with her.
Now that they’re engaged, he doesn’t expect it to be much different. He’s three strides ahead of the rest of his family, trying to pretend that he doesn’t hear Benedict snickering to Kate behind him, most certainly sharing a joke at his expense. It’s no matter. Penelope is somewhere in this ballroom and he hasn’t seen her all day. He has things to get to.
“Colin, would you like—?” Daphne begins, but he doesn’t even pretend to listen to his sister as his eyes finally snag on Penelope. She’s standing on her own as usual, tucked away in the corner of the ballroom where she thinks nobody will notice her.
Colin notices. He notices right away, and he has for a long time.
Setting his mouth into a determined line, he practically bounces over to her, eager to be reunited after a day of wedding preparations and a particularly lengthy conversation with Anthony about funds. With his height, he is taller than many in the crowd, and as a result Penelope notices him quickly. What follows is the dance that has become incredibly familiar to him in the week since their engagement, but no less endearing.
First, she sees him. Then she rearranges her expression into a neutral shift, as if trying to pretend it doesn’t matter. And finally, she remembers that it can matter, that she is allowed to openly want him, because he openly wants her too. She always sways forward on her toes just a bit, like she’s so light that she is about to take flight, and every time she does it, it makes him adore her just a little bit more.
“Assuming the position,” Colin announces, mimicking Penelope’s posture exactly– he clasps his hands behind his back, presses his shoulders against the wall next to her, and looks down at her, feeling his cheekiness make its way all the way up to his grin.
Penelope looks up at him with amusement on her face, momentarily forgetting to modestly look down at her feet like women have been taught to do.
Good. He wouldn’t have her that way anyway.
“Oh, are you planning on joining me back here at every ball from now on?”
“Where you go, I go,” he says simply, watching as delight fills her expression. It’s too easy to please her, Colin thinks. He’ll have to make her so happy that the little things don’t have such a large impact anymore. He’ll have to make it so that pleasure becomes old-hat for her and then he’ll work even harder to procure it for her even when she thinks she is immune to it.
“People will wonder why my shadow detaches when it’s time for me to go home.”
“One day it’ll even follow you there,” he says, pressing his luck as he grins down at her. “Or, more likely, it’ll beg you to follow it there because it can’t stand one more moment in good society, being taunted by you in that dress.”
She looks down at herself, looking over the cerulean silk that lines her body. Every time Colin flirts with her, she seems even more entertained by the entire thing. It makes it all the more charming to catch her off guard.
“It sounds like we’re going to be a very unsociable pair indeed,” Penelope notes, casting her eyes sideways towards him. “I can’t imagine how we’re going to occupy our time.”
It’s her turn to take him by surprise, and he greets her words with a guffaw that echoes across the ballroom. Colin doesn’t bother to hide his grin; after all, they’re allowed to stand here talking to each other and there’s nobody who can accuse them of being improper when he’s already offered for her. Rude, most certainly, but not improper, and that’s what matters. When everyone turns to stare at them because he has laughed loud enough for it to echo, all Colin has to do is turn his satisfied eyes to them and mark his territory with his gaze. He is hers to make laugh, and she is his. As thousands of them have paired off before, this is how it is going to be from now on. Penelope Featherington and Colin Bridgerton are officially off the marriage mart.
He’s content with the opportunity to stake his claim, but Penelope doesn’t seem to take the same amusement in everyone staring at them. She tilts back further against the wall, shoulders caving in a little as she lowers her face to the floor for the first time since Colin came over to her. He observes her body wilt and wants nothing more than to bring her back again, so he does what he thinks she must want– changes the subject.
“Would you like to dance, Miss Penelope Featherington?”
He sticks out a hand to her, patiently holding it for her to take, and watches as Penelope reaches towards him. Then she hesitates, moving her arms back to her side and looking up at him nervously.
“Actually, I’m feeling a little lightheaded,” she says, scraping her teeth over her bottom lip. “I– well, would you mind if we didn’t dance tonight?”
He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t a little disappointed that they aren’t going to dance at their first ball as an engaged couple, but it matters more that Penelope is comfortable. Besides, there will be a few more. Colin nods graciously, smoothly lowering his hand so that he can subtly cup her elbow.
“That’s fine,” he says, bending down and lowering his voice in her ear, “but next time, you’ll have to allow me to show you off.”
Something quiet flickers through her eyes, something that Colin cannot quite read yet. He wants her to be as excited as he is, but maybe she’s nervous. After all, marriage is a big change, even if one does live in a household as despicable as Portia Featherington’s. Perhaps she’s simply starting to realize that everything is about to shift.
For the better, he wants to tell her. He wants to tell her to never be nervous around him because he will do everything he can to show her that she is the one who moores him. She is home, even though they have never shared one.
But the next song begins and his words get lost when Penelope slips her glove off and places it in his hand, looking at him like she hopes it will be enough for him, just for now, and so he nods and leans back against the wall and makes himself comfortable for a long night there with her.
“You really don’t have to stay here,” she says again, but Colin shakes his head in disagreement.
“Absurd,” he teases, but it’s resolute. He means his next words with all that he is. “My place is with you.”
When Penelope walks into the ballroom, Colin already has a lemonade ready for her. He marches towards the entryway with purpose, his mother trailing behind him, most likely ready to scold him for bolting through the crowd and not greeting their friends and neighbors.
“Get in my carriage, we’re eloping,” Colin announces, loudly enough for his mother to hear him.
“Colin Bridgerton, you are not!” says his mama, right on cue, and Mrs. Featherington gives him a suitably nasty look to accompany her fury.
“And what’s brought on this latest bout of wanderlust?” asks Penelope, accepting the lemonade that he thrusts proudly towards her.
“Fittings,” complains Colin as though this is the end of the world. “I have several suits that would suffice and somehow my mother has decided that I’ve magically outgrown them all.”
“Your wedding suit is important!” his mother says. “It must be perfect. And besides, Penelope is being fitted for her trousseau as well and I haven’t heard a peep of complaint out of her.”
At the word ‘trousseau,’ Colin gives himself a moment to picture Penelope in a gauzy white nightdress. Trousseaus are the good part. The rest of it, Colin could do without.
“Well, that’s because Penelope is better than I am,” Colin says, causing Penelope to choke a laugh into her lemonade and Violet to exchange an exasperated glance with Lady Featherington. “In fact, I insist you buy her more things. Make sure Madame Delacroix doesn’t have time to make a single other article of clothing until the wedding.”
“Including someone’s new wedding suit?” hums Penelope knowingly.
“I am nearly certain you would still agree to marry me if I showed up to the church in a suit I already have.”
“I daresay you’ve made a safe bet there,” she admits. “Though I might be a little jealous that you’re wearing something you’ve danced with someone else in. Best to burn all your clothes and start fresh.”
“Penelope,” hisses Portia, then flashes Colin a wide smile. “She doesn’t mean to be impertinent, Mr. Bridgerton.”
Penelope takes a long sip of her lemonade, a mischievous glint in her eye. He delights in seeing her this way in front of their mamas. If this is a hint at the confidence marriage is going to give her, he’s in grave danger of falling even more deeply in love with his wife. It feels as though some of the thoughts that Penelope has chosen to keep in are now spilling out with the confidence that comes with his affection for her. Colin could not be more thrilled.
“I certainly hope she does,” he says, offering Penelope his arm. “Shall we?”
She looks at him with a gleam in her eye and follows him deeper into the ballroom. Colin takes the lemonade he had brought her and places it on a tray, getting ready to pull her out into the crowd. They’re midway to the dance floor when she seems to snap out of her reverie and pull back, eagerly clutching onto his arm.
“Colin, I have so much to tell you. Perhaps we should retire somewhere we can chat?”
He looks across the floor where couples are taking their positions, the dance about to begin.
“Could it wait until we’ve danced at least one?”
She’s already tugging him in the opposite direction, trying to do it subtly enough that the group around the dance floor won’t give them odd looks.
“What on earth could have happened that is so urgent?” he asks, amused by her antics. He expects her to lead them to the back of the ballroom, but instead finds himself being maneuvered past the throngs of partygoers and onto the terrace, where a small group of lanterns have been set aglow. There are several people milling about, all of whom Penelope bypasses so that they can slip directly into the gardens.
It’s something they never would’ve been able to do before becoming engaged, but engaged couples are allowed certain exceptions, a fact which Colin decides they have not been taking enough advantage of when Penelope pulls him onto a garden bench.
“It was awfully crowded in there,” she says, as though this explains her strange behavior. “I simply… wished to be alone with you. Without everyone else looking at us.”
His confusion softens into fondness. She is so small and delicate in the light of the moon, and it makes him want to touch her, to remind her that he cares more than he can say.
“We will have plenty of time to be alone together once we are married,” he tells her. “You’ll grow weary of me, in fact.”
He means for it to be a joke, but the small strain on his voice gives his words up for what they are. He knows how to be charming. He does not know how to be someone’s husband– someone who must sustain another person for a lifetime, keeping them engaged and interested. Colin has found himself feeling like an aside in most of his relationships, and if the result of that is loving someone so much that he is afraid of not being enough for her, he is a very lucky man indeed.
And yet there is vulnerability that accompanies such passion.
“I couldn’t,” Penelope says fervently, clearly noticing that the joke is not entirely meant to make her laugh. She places her hand on his chest, watching him carefully. “I could never grow weary of you, Colin.”
The nervous itch that he has been feeling ebbs away for the time being. A slow smile spreads across his mouth. He hesitates for a short moment before bundling her into his arms, pulling her body tight against his and dipping his head low into her hair.
“You are the best person.” Colin says it with no pretense, no justification or parameters around it. She is simply the best person, and when he’s holding her against him like this, he knows that nobody could ever convince him otherwise. Penelope sighs and burrows closer to him, relaxing her posture so that she slides down his body, her face pressed into his chest.
“Let’s just stay here all night,” she suggests, sounding so content that it makes Colin’s heart ache.
He wants to argue, wants to tell her that they should dance together, that they only get to be engaged once in their life together. But he is struck by the feeling of being the center of someone else’s universe and it ties his tongue, not allowing him to protest. If she wants to stay like this all night, there’s no reason for him to protest.
“Anything you want,” he tells her, drawing circles around the bare skin on her back with two of his fingers.
After all, they can always dance next time.
It’s only the third ball after they’ve gotten engaged and they’ve already eschewed propriety entirely.
Colin is mostly capable of telling himself he’s a good man until his future wife gets involved. He’s spent a lifetime trying to be polite, entertaining his siblings, and generally being an easygoing chap. Certainly, he’d created some drama, but it had never been on purpose, and he really had thought he knew what he was doing.
Now? With her? He has no idea what he’s doing.
His hands are underneath Penelope’s dress, which is bunched up between them and sure to wrinkle. She’s seated on his lap in a large chair in what must be Sir Halliwell’s study, the door locked behind them, the candles all out. Not since they’ve gotten engaged have they had the chance to be like this, and Colin can’t help but think that’s probably a good idea, given rapidly he is losing his head. Penelope has been kissing him for what must be twenty minutes now, learning the shape of his teeth with her tongue, her sweet mouth tugging and sucking at his. And her hands, they continuously roam the front of his shirt, loosening his cravat so that she can touch the bare skin on his neck and feel the goose pebbled flesh there.
Colin’s hands, for their part, have only left her stays to touch her cheek a few times. Other than that, he has found what is certain to be his new favorite spot in the world, and he doesn’t intend on leaving it anytime soon, especially when Penelope trembles on his lap, causing him to grind up and her to grind down and… oh, God, he doesn’t care that they’re in some stranger’s study, he’s going to take her now if she doesn’t quit making those cute little noises in the back of her throat.
“Colin,” she groans, pushing down on him again, and he wants to commend her for being clever and figuring that part out without his help, but her hands are seeking out the spot on his lap that she has never before dared to touch and it’s finally time for him to get some sort of control over the situation.
He’s not even certain how they got here. Penelope had noted Cressida Cowper making a beeline for them, and when Colin had thought she was simply getting them out of Cressida’s path, she had yanked him out of the ballroom and all the way into the study, shutting the door firmly behind the other members of the ton. Her mouth had been on his before he could even question it.
“Pen,” he says, grabbing her hand before it can touch him and bringing it up to his mouth to kiss. “People are going to notice we’re missing.”
She seems unconcerned with that, taking his cravat all the way off now and inspecting the exposed skin on his throat with her fingers. Penelope seems curious about all of it, the adam’s apple, the spot where he was nicked while getting a shave with his brothers that morning, the way she must be able to feel his pulse fluttering beneath his skin. She’s fascinated, his loving, curious girl.
“If we stay in here, they’ll simply think we never arrived.”
He laughs.
“They saw us walk in.”
“They saw you walk in,” Penelope mutters. Colin stops her, raising his gaze from her bosom to her eyes. They’re close enough that he can just make out her expression in the dark of the room.
“What does that mean?”
“Nothing,” she says brightly, and when he looks unconvinced, she adds, “I’m short.”
“I know,” he responds. “It gives me an excellent vantage point, thank you.”
As if there is any doubt of his meaning, he gently cups her breasts over her stays, causing her to smile.
“I like it when you bend over to talk to me,” she murmurs, pressing her forehead against his cheek. “I like it when we’re talking and you miss what I said the first time, so you swoop low and put your ear near my mouth. And when you straighten up again, we always feel a bit closer than we did before. It makes me feel like I matter so much.”
He slides his hands all the way down her back and to her behind, squeezing it to show ownership. Before this season, he never would have thought of Penelope being claimed by anyone. Now that he’s seen how responsive she is to any form of possessiveness from him, the idea of another man feeling possessive over her enrages him.
“Come dance with me,” he whispers in her ear, moving her hair to the side so that he can create a mark on her neck. “In front of everyone.”
“Stay with me,” she responds, tugging on his hair so that he’ll bite her harder. “That’s so good.”
“What else do you like?”
He slowly peels down the front of her dress, causing a moan from Penelope as his mouth finds her nipple. He feels in complete control, but when he looks up at her to see her face, he notes a self-satisfied expression that is far too smug for Colin to believe he’s got the upper hand here.
“I like your eyelashes,” she murmurs. “They clump together two at a time and then there’s gaps in between them because they’re stuck together. They’re so beautiful.”
He switches to her other breast, nose nuzzling a path across her sternum.
“What else, wife?”
“I like—” She trails off, breathless now, and begins rocking herself against him. Colin can’t quite understand how he is ever supposed to spend time doing anything else when he could be doing this. If this is what marriage is going to be, he suspects it will be very pleasant indeed. “Your hands. How sometimes you don’t know what to say because I’ve said something particularly clever and it trips you up. I like… I like the way you have a different smile for me than the one you have for everyone else.”
She grinds down on him particularly hard at that, and Colin gives up on pretending to be good entirely. He places his hands on her sides, warm skin dripping over into his palms like liquid gold, and he helps guide her over him, over and over until she’s got her face burrowed in his neck to muffle her escalating sounds.
He strokes her hair as she comes down in a shiver, clinging to him, clearly not quite certain what had just happened. She knows some things, Colin thinks, but not everything, and he cannot wait to teach her.
Anticipation of their wedding is going to be miserable. He’s going to delight in every moment of it.
“You’re so beautiful,” he says, lifting her head out of his neck so that he can look into her eyes when he says it. “Do you know what that meant?” She shakes her head. “It meant that you trust me.”
Penelope exhales lengthily into the dark room. After the beginning of the season, Colin had thought she may never trust him again with her words or friendship, much less the chance for him to see her like this. The fact that she is able to let go with him is something that he will never take for granted, not ever, because he’d had to earn that back. He’d do it again a million times if it meant ending up with a wife as brilliant and open as she is.
“I do,” she agrees. “I never thought… I never thought I would have a marriage like this one could be. I thought I’d spend my whole life wishing it was you. So yes. Yes, I trust you, Colin. I would trust you again and again and I… I pray that you will always trust me too.”
“I already do.” He means for the promise to be the start and end of the conversation, but she stays quiet in the dark. In the absence of being able to see her, Colin is left wondering exactly what she is thinking. “I wish I could see what you look like right now.”
“I’m certain I’m a mess.”
“That’s just fine, as long as I’m the only one who is allowed to see you in such a way.”
She giggles, and there’s that love for his possessiveness again. Oh, Colin is going to have an excellent time exploiting that. She is never going to feel like she is anything less than his and his alone.
“I’ll be sure to make you messy too,” Penelope says decisively. “That way we can be equally unfit for society.”
“Speaking of society.” Colin sits up in the chair, bringing her body with him as he readjusts himself. “We should get back out there before anyone asks questions when we suddenly reappear halfway through the ball.”
“I believe that ship has sailed.”
“We can’t have been in here for that long!” Colin protests. “Besides, you promised me a dance.”
“There will be other balls.” Her reminder is a gentle scold, sweet and firm simultaneously. Colin can’t help but sigh when she wraps her arms around his neck. He likes Penelope in the dark. She’s able to touch him the way he always wants her to touch him. “I truly can’t be seen like this, Colin. You must understand.”
“Then why did you drag me back here at the beginning of the ball?” he asks, exasperated. There’s a long pause in the darkness, and then Penelope says,
“I couldn’t help it.” The pause is just long enough for him to know she’s not being truthful. Just as he’s about to question her, she shifts rather purposefully over his lap and hums thoughtfully. “Teach me how to prove that you trust me too.”
When she phrases it like that, Colin’s not sure how he could ever deny her.
It takes two more balls for Colin to realize that Penelope is actively attempting to avoid dancing with him. In fact, the last time she had danced with him was prior to their engagement, which is nonsensical to Colin. Why would a newly betrothed woman not want to dance with her fiancé? It’s not as though Penelope is a poor dancer; they have danced dozens of times before and he has always enjoyed himself.
And yet, each time he attempts to lead her onto the floor, Penelope has come up with some type of diversion.
“Your best friend is impossible.”
Eloise looks up from the book she is reading to scrutinize him with one of her more withering scowls.
“Just yesterday you were telling me that she is your wife, not my best friend, and now she’s suddenly mine again when she vexes you?”
If Colin had known there were going to be consequences for his teasing, he certainly would have curtailed the urge to annoy Eloise yesterday. To be fair, she had stolen the last slice of cake.
“Fine, she can be both,” he says, eager to do away with this point of contention. “She’s behaving peculiarly and I cannot make heads or tails of it.”
“Have you considered that you are simply not intelligent enough to understand her?” asks Eloise, biting into a hard biscuit with particular relish.
He glares at her.
“Have you considered being helpful?”
“You two sound like Gregory and Hyacinth over there,” complains Benedict from somewhere behind the canvas he is sketching on. “Will you work it out before we have two sets of monsters on our hands?”
“Fine.” Eloise finally closes her book, straightening up in her chair. “If something feels odd with Penelope, you should ask Penelope about it.”
“I’ve tried!” Colin protests. “She dodges me every time!”
Eloise looks proud. Colin glares again.
“Show her that it’s important enough to you that you’ll keep pressing. She’s a human woman, she won’t be able to put up with you pestering her for too long. Eventually she’ll realize that the sooner she answers, the sooner you’ll go away.”
“I was hoping you already knew the answer,” he admits, lowering his voice. “Could you just tell me what I’m missing?”
“No,” says Eloise flatly, opening her book again to signal that the conversation has reached its end. “I daresay you should know your own wife better than I do.”
“We’re not married yet!”
Eloise issues him one final annoyed expression before settling deeper into her chair and resuming reading.
While the shape that the advice had come in hadn’t necessarily been perfect, the result, Colin reasons, remains the same. Whatever is going on with Penelope, he should actively seek out the answer. He’s certainly not going to happen upon it by remaining stuck in his head.
“Mother, I’m off,” he announces, rising in his chair and leaving his astonished family behind as he exits the drawing room smack in the middle of teatime.
As is to be expected, the Featheringtons are also in the middle of tea when he arrives at their residence. Colin gives a curt nod to Briarly as he is escorted into the sitting room, where Mrs. Featherington immediately surges up in surprise.
“Mr. Bridgerton,” she says, hand smacking dramatically against her chest. “How wonderful it is to see you. Penelope did not tell me you were coming for tea, we would have waited, we would have ordered more food, we—“
“I thought I would surprise her,” fibs Colin. “With wedding planning taking up so much of her time, I’ve hardly had a moment to visit with her.”
Mrs. Featherington clears her throat loudly, gesturing for Penelope to rise from her chair. Pen, who appears slightly awestruck to see him out of the blue despite the fact that she’d had her hand down his trousers only a few nights ago, quickly stands, clearing her throat.
“Mama, might I show Mr. Bridgerton the garden while we wait for more sandwiches?”
She cuts her eyes towards him pointedly and he lurches into the conversation.
“Yes, that would be very pleasant indeed,” says Colin, the picture of politeness. Penelope bites her lip in an effort not to laugh at him.
“Yes, go, go,” says Portia, already reaching for the bell. “I’ll ring for Briarly, you two enjoy.”
Penelope scampers from the room, most likely attempting to leave before her mother can assign them a chaperone, Colin thinks with some amusement. He follows her into the sunlight, offering her his arm as they walk towards the small garden.
“I do believe my mama is still waiting for you to change your mind about me,” comments Penelope wryly. “She’s made several hints about me being more accommodating to your needs.”
Colin laughs out loud at that.
“She’ll be glad to know, then, that you have been more than accommodating.”
Penelope looks pleased.
“I’ll be certain to let her know that you’ve had just enough of me to maintain your interest.”
She looks to the side before pulling Colin between two shrubs and stretching up as high as her toes will take her, reaching out to kiss him. It is absurd how quickly he bends to her, reveling in her closeness, in the way she plays with the hair at the back of his neck almost as soon as he begins to kiss her in earnest.
“I’d be more worried you were going to change your mind about me,” he murmurs against her lips, feeling them stretch out into a smile beneath him. “Your mother has it backwards, Miss Featherington.”
Penelope kisses him again, her mouth still curved up.
“Not that you need one, but is there a particular reason you’ve rescued me from tea with my family today?”
Despite himself, he feels a bit of jealousy at the thought that he is not her family yet. How could those people, who do not love and appreciate her like he does, be her family? The fact that her mother does not know that she is a great deal too good for him is unforgivable, almost as unforgivable as how long it had taken Colin to see it. Now that he knows it, he wants to shake the knowledge into her, so that maybe she will understand the daughter that she is losing.
It’s no matter, because ultimately he is the one that gets to take her away.
“I wanted to ask you about something.” He suddenly feels nervous and decides to rectify it by beginning to walk through the garden again. Penelope bobs next to him, so small and his to protect, and he almost doesn’t want to ask her because he suspects that the answer might hurt them both. “Do you… well, did you notice that we have not danced together since we became engaged?”
He feels, rather than sees, her arm tense against his torso, as if she’s preparing to run from him.
“I had not,” replies Penelope, so clearly lying to him. It cleaves at his chest to be lied to so unflinchingly. If he hadn’t been so attentive to her, he never would have caught it. In the back of his mind, Colin wonders what other truths he may have missed.
“So it is on purpose,” he says, not needing any further proof. “Why? You seemed to enjoy dancing with me before we were engaged.”
“I did!” Penelope assures him, then pauses. “I do. It’s just… circumstances. You know.”
He’s starting to get heated about it.
“No, I do not know. I’m not a poor partner; you’ve enjoyed dancing with me in the past and so have plenty of other women.”
“Indeed they have,” agrees Penelope wryly.
“Is it… because I have danced with other women?” he asks, thinking back to the joke she had made at the ball the other night. It doesn’t make sense, but he can’t make sense of any of her behavior these last weeks.
“No,” she says hurriedly. “No, not at all, Colin, I would never… I could never–”
“So explain it to me,” he says, his voice becoming foreign to his ears as he tries to maintain his patience with her. He prides himself on being even tempered, but her refusal to let him in when he is standing before her, asking her what is wrong, is driving him steadily to anger. He expects more from her after the friendship they have had, their letters and communication, the way they had grown up together and apart. This behavior makes no sense to him.
“It’s humiliating, Colin,” Penelope says, exasperated. Her face is contorted with the same anger he is feeling, which cannot be right because he is the one who is supposed to be angry, not Penelope. “I don’t want to tell you because I’m humiliated, can’t you understand that?”
“What I understand is that there’s something I need to know that you are refusing to tell me. I’m not certain how I am supposed to conduct a marriage under such circumstances,” snaps Colin. Penelope rears back, unsettled by his anger.
“Am I not allowed to have anything to myself?” she asks quietly.
“Not when it impacts me in this way.” Colin feels himself drawing up to his tallest height, making sure he is towering over her. He doesn’t understand where this is coming from, but he does know that it is effective. “Penelope, I am standing in front of you and asking you to tell me. It is no longer yours to keep.”
She stares at the ground, seemingly fighting back tears. When he tilts her chin up so that he can inspect her eyes, all he can see is shame.
Penelope is ashamed. Of not telling him what’s going on? Of the emotions themselves? Of the actions that have lead them into this garden? Colin would ask her, but he suspects that she wouldn’t answer him.
“I think sometimes,” whispers Penelope, “it is easier to love someone else than it is to love yourself.”
“What does that have to do with–?”
“It does because I love you,” she says, louder this time. “But I’m still me. I’m still the girl you had to save from Cressida one hundred times over, the one your mother forced you and your brothers to dance with, the one who is her mother’s least favorite daughter.”
He doesn’t understand it. He doesn’t understand why any of this matters when Penelope is his favorite now. Now that he has chosen her as his wife, she matters more than his family, more than his travels, more than his own insecurities about his life’s purpose. Shouldn’t the same be true of her? Shouldn’t he be her favorite if she is his? And if he is to be her family, her mother and sisters don’t have to mean anything more to her than she wants them to. He will rescue her from it. He will take her away from everything and everyone if she asks him to, and he will do it with joy.
If Penelope is still fixated on all of this while she prepares for their wedding, does that mean he is not enough to quiet the voices in her head? He is not enough to save her? Does she not love him enough to make all of it go away? Does she not love him enough to love herself better, the way she has done for him?
He had thought he would be powerful enough to take away those moments of doubt. Since they have become engaged, there have been moments of her charm, confidence, and wit that have peaked through even in front of people who had never noticed it before. Colin had been certain that she was more herself than ever. He had thought, given how long she had loved him, that she was able to use his love as some sort of strength. But maybe a third son, an aimless wanderer, the empty, charming Bridgerton boy isn’t enough. Maybe she needs someone more.
“I should go,” he says abruptly, standing up. “I should… yes, I should go. Please send my regrets to your mother.”
He bows to her once before turning around and leaving the garden, slamming the gate harder than he intends to on his way out. As much as he wants to turn back to look at her, he cannot bring himself to do so.
As much as he wants to stay home and tell his problems to a glass of Anthony’s most expensive scotch, it would raise far more questions than Colin wishes to deal with. He doesn’t have the energy to spin his mood, but he does have the energy to fake a better one. With that in mind, he dresses for the ball, helps Francesca and Eloise into their carriage like a good older brother, and has a lively conversation with Daphne and Kate on their way to the event. By the time they arrive at the venue, Colin feels deeply prepared to fake his way through a lengthy evening.
In many ways, he simply has to regress into the role he has played his entire life. The only person who had ever truly seen through it was Penelope anyway, and he doesn’t know how she’ll receive him tonight.
The evening starts normally enough. As always, Colin’s eyes search the ballroom for the red hair that has come to feel like home. Their eyes meet across the room– she has clearly been looking for him too– and her face does the same dance it has been doing their entire engagement. Passivity to excitement, as per usual, before crumpling back down into regret. He watches her watching him, the way she seems to be cataloging his every move, and cannot bring himself to even begin to wonder what she thinks of him. Her eyes do not waver, but her face remains still, offering nothing by way of apology nor recrimination.
“A drink, dear brother?” suggests Benedict, clasping his shoulder kindly, and Colin nods before accepting the glass of champagne off of a tray. He doesn’t feel like dancing, and he certainly isn’t in the mood to talk, so he meanders over to a wall on the opposite side of the ballroom and wills himself to vanish into the sidelines.
This will be fine, Colin thinks. He can stay here all night and no one will notice him. It’s not as though he’s on the marriage mart anymore– meddling mamas will have their hands full with bachelors that are actually eligible, not ones that are pressed against a wall, longing for their fiancée.
The evening passes pleasantly enough considering his black mood, and Colin realizes that he is watching these proceedings in a way he has not done before. His family is busy, there is no one seeking him out for conversation, and he has no partner with whom he can reliably spend all his time. Usually, when he has spent balls with Penelope at the side of the room, they spend the whole evening exchanging barbs and clever comments. He had thought, all this time, that he was seeing things from her perspective. He realizes now that he had not been.
It’s new, standing on the side of the room and noticing things that have simply never existed to him before. Though he has never felt particularly fond of this part of society, there is something isolating about watching it rather than participating in it. He watches as people laugh raucously and feels perpetually left out of the joke. He watches couples dance and wonders when he might have the opportunity to do the same with the person he loves. And, most importantly, he can hear everything.
“Penelope Featherington’s all alone,” comments one young lady to another, as though this is an insult in and of itself.
“Maybe Mr. Bridgerton finally reclaimed his senses,” giggles the other.
“I’ve certainly been waiting for the moment he did,” says a third young lady, joining them. “My mama says that their betrothal is the biggest waste since Mary Sheffield ran off with the Sharma fellow.”
“My mama says that he must have been trapped somehow. She thinks Lady Featherington must have set something up so that dreadful Penelope ended up with a Bridgerton.”
If Colin had thought he did not know his anger before, he had been mistaken. An even more foreign, stronger rage fills him as he stands there listening to them talk. His blood feels colder than it had before, and as he straightens up to correct them, to stop them, to tell them that they’re wrong, he has to remind himself that they are young, foolish women who don’t understand what they’re saying.
And yet, isn’t this exactly what he had done to Penelope when he had told Fife that he would never dream of courting her? He had not thought she would be able to hear, had not known that he was hurting her, but she did, and he did, and now he knows that it had not just been that one slight. It is a lifetime of moments such as this one, with people laughing at her yellow dresses, people taking advantage of the fact that she did not behave the way everyone else did. The things he had grown to love about her the most were all things that people in society would use against her.
He hasn’t seen it since they became engaged, perhaps since he is always around her, providing her with some sort of protection. Their engagement has clearly made her an even bigger target, especially in his absence. As he watches, people come up to her with small comments that dim the light in her eyes. She holds her chin high and keeps a quiet smile on her face, but even from across the ballroom, he can tell what they’re saying to her. When he is around, Cressida Cowper and her friends would never come up to Penelope and mock her the way they used to, but now they titter together just in front of her, exactly where she should be able to hear them. They exchange knowing glances before one of them launches into what he assumes to be a particularly harsh joke about her, judging from the raucous laughter that follows.
It occurs to Colin that he will never understand the unkindness that has been levied at Penelope. He has his own burdens to bear, God knows he does, but this particular one is not one he can relate to. Any of the shame and embarrassment that Lady Whistledown brought upon him and his family is nothing in comparison to a lifetime of repeated humiliation hidden beneath fake smiles and backhanded compliments. With every ball– no, with the beginning strains of every piece of music that Penelope was not invited to dance to– she must have felt the weight of exclusion becoming tattooed deeper into her skin.
He wants to sweep her up in his arms and hide her, protect her, but he now knows that he cannot. These are Penelope’s demons to battle. He will help her all he can, but all he can do is… he can…
He can love her. Loudly. Assuredly. Truthfully. He can love her without expecting it to heal things, he can love her without expecting it to be enough. He can bandage her wounds by holding her, by telling her she’s beautiful, and when they begin to bleed again, he can help her replace the tourniquet. He can learn to love her selflessly enough that he will never again take her pain personally. He can keep trying even when she doesn’t expect him to because she is worth that. All of it.
As she always does, Penelope meets his eye the moment he starts moving. She is so aware of him, all the time. It is as if when he moves, an invisible chime goes off in her brain, letting him know to seek him out. Now he seeks her out, his fingertips pulsing in the need to feel her skin, his heart reaching out to find hers.
Other people become a blur to Colin as he strides across the ballroom, barely paying enough mind to those he bumps into to excuse himself. He makes his way across the dance floor in the middle of a song, breaking the strides of a few couples as he barrels straight through them.
“Good evening, Colin,” Cressida says coquettishly. He ignores her entirely, breaking through their group and going to stand before Penelope.
“Pen,” he says, breathless. Her eyes snap nervously to the people around them, who most certainly would have something to say about him calling her a nickname in polite company, but Colin doesn’t care. He would throw propriety out the window if it meant that she would know, in her gut, how much he meant it. How much he means it.
“Hello,” she says, clearly puzzled by his sudden appearance. “Are you–?”
“I love you,” says Colin, cutting her off. “That is the reason that I have been wanting to dance with you so terribly. I apologize if I have not made that clear enough to you before, but it is because I love you. Not because I like dancing, or I feel forced to dance with you, or feel guilted into asking. Not simply because a man should want to dance with his fiancée. But because I want to dance with you. I want every person in every room to see us together and know that we were always supposed to be for each other. I want everyone to know that I get to be in love with you. That I am worthy of being loved by you and that you are loved by me. Because you are, Pen. You are loved by me so, so much. You are so dear to me.”
He had suspected that people were staring at him, but he hadn’t expected the band to have stopped playing. Nearly the entire ballroom has their eyes on him, each person looking more taken aback than the next by his outright display of affection for her. Perhaps the Colin of a year ago would have felt ashamed– after all, he had felt burdened enough by society’s expectations to not even realize that his future wife was standing right in front of him, waiting to be loved by him.
It’s different now. He’s different now. The man he needs to be for Penelope, for himself, is not embarrassed as he walks onto the half-cleared dance floor and holds a hand out to her, waiting expectantly.
“You don’t have to dance with me,” he says, and tries to mean it. “But I truly want you to, Penelope. Please.”
In hindsight, a display so public when Penelope hadn’t danced in weeks may not have been Colin’s wisest plan. He waits, his hand extended, and watches her. He is hopeful and anxious and so in love with her that he doesn’t know how to breathe in the same way as he used to. Penelope’s gaze darts from his eyes to his hand and back again before she inhales lengthily and goes nervously to join him on the dance floor.
He can’t help it. Colin beams down at her when she meets him, her small hand finding his palm, her eyes glassy with unshed tears. He will love her forever for her bravery.
“A song, perhaps!” calls a voice, and then Anthony strolls onto the dance floor next to the two of them, gesturing his hand to Kate, who seems to have appeared out of nowhere. She gives Penelope an encouraging smile, and Anthony offers them both a nod, before looking expectantly back towards the quartet.
When Colin turns to his other side, Benedict has appeared with Eloise in tow, taking their places. Next to them stand Simon and Daphne, patiently waiting for the music to start. There are now seven Bridgertons on the floor– five by blood, two by marriage– and they are all there for Penelope. Because when she becomes his wife, they will become her family too.
Colin has never loved them more.
He moves closer to Penelope as the music begins, losing his rhythm on one of the steps so that he can push a fallen piece of hair out of her face and behind her ear. Penelope shines in exuberance, her face bright the way it should be all the time, and Colin knows that this cannot fix everything, but he also knows that she is having fun. She dances well, fully in it with him and with the rest of his family, showing that same joy she always used to when they would dance together.
Colin can see it for what it was, even then: it had been love. It is love now too, spilling out of her smiles and tucked into the crinkles at the corners of her eyes. Her love tilts his world on its axis until all he can do is dance with her and try to keep up with the way his feelings seem to be evolving every day.
Penelope is right, in many ways. Growing to love her had been long. Continuing to love her is simple. It’s true that it is easier to love her than it is to love himself. Colin can’t change that– can’t change her insecurities any more than he can change his own.
All he knows is that, if he can help it, her dance card will be full for the rest of their lives.