Chapter Text
Penelope did not know how to feel.
That, she thought, was perhaps the most absurd part of it all.
She ought to have been happy.
No.
Not happy.
Happy was too small a word for what had happened in the carriage, for the breathless madness of Colin Bridgerton looking at her as if she were not a mistake, not a wallflower, not a girl who had spent half her life tucked behind curtains and potted palms.
He had asked her to marry him.
Colin had asked her to marry him.
And she had said yes.
Her hands still trembled faintly in her lap as she sat beside him in the Featherington drawing room, the room suddenly feeling too bright and too small and too full of everything that had happened there. Her mother’s voice still seemed to echo off the walls, sharp with disbelief, carrying all the little cuts Penelope had grown so used to that she had almost stopped flinching.
Almost.
Colin had not stopped flinching.
He sat beside her now, his jaw set, his eyes still fixed somewhere near the door through which Portia Featherington had vanished after giving her reluctant, bewildered blessing.
For several moments, he said nothing.
Penelope glanced at him from the corner of her eye.
Colin Bridgerton, who had charmed half of Mayfair with a smile and a joke, looked as if he had been struck.
“You live with that every day?” he asked quietly.
Penelope swallowed.
It should not have hurt. It was not as if he had said something cruel. Quite the opposite, in fact. There was a softness in his voice that made the ache worse.
“She is my mother,” Penelope said, because it was the only answer she had ever had. “It is all I have known.”
Colin turned to look at her properly.
“All you have known,” he repeated, and something in his face tightened. “Pen, she did not even notice you were standing beside me. I came in with you. I held your arm. I asked for your hand, and somehow she still thought—”
He stopped.
Penelope looked down at her fingers.
“That you wanted Prudence,” she finished for him.
Colin exhaled sharply.
“I have never once given Prudence the impression that I wished to marry her.”
“No,” Penelope said, with a sad little smile. “But you must understand, Colin. In this house, it is simply easier for them to believe that anyone would be chosen before me.”
His expression shifted.
Not pity.
Penelope would have hated pity.
This was worse, somehow. Deeper. Angrier.
“Do not say that.”
She gave a small shrug. “It is only the truth.”
“No,” Colin said firmly. “It is not.”
Penelope looked at him then, and for one dizzying moment, the room seemed to vanish around them. There was only Colin, sitting too close to her, his eyes full of an earnestness she had always dreamed of and never trusted enough to expect.
“You are not just Penelope,” he said.
The words struck her with such force that breathing became difficult.
She had spent years telling herself that being just Penelope was enough.
Just Penelope, the third Featherington daughter.
Just Penelope, the girl no gentleman saw.
Just Penelope, who sat with Eloise Bridgerton and laughed in corners while the rest of the world danced.
Just Penelope, who wrote words sharp enough to cut through the hypocrisy of the ton because no one ever thought to look at her twice.
She blinked quickly.
“That just is not true,” she whispered.
Colin frowned. “What is not?”
“That I am not just anything.” Her voice wavered, and she hated it. “To them, I am. To everyone. To my mother. To my sisters. To the ton. They have always looked through me, Colin. Even when they are looking directly at me.”
“Then they are fools.”
Penelope let out a breath that was almost a laugh, except there was no humour in it.
“They read my words,” she said softly. “They chase after them. They whisper them over breakfast and tremble over what might be printed next. For years, I have been perhaps the most sought-after woman in London, and yet no one knows it's me. To them, I am still only a wallflower.”
Colin’s gaze sharpened.
“No one knows?”
Penelope’s stomach dipped.
The air changed.
She knew, before he spoke again, what he had heard in her words.
“No one,” Colin said slowly, “except me?”
Penelope turned her face away.
“And Eloise.”
For a moment, there was only silence.
Then Colin said, very quietly, “Eloise knows?”
Penelope shut her eyes.
There it was.
The thing she had been waiting for, dreading, since he had followed her that night and discovered the truth. Somehow, Colin's knowing had been terrifying. Somehow, Colin's acceptance of it had been even more terrifying. But speaking Eloise’s name aloud felt like touching a bruise that had never begun to heal.
“That is why we are not speaking,” she whispered.
Colin did not answer at once.
She wished he would. She wished he would say something foolishly comforting. Something simple. Something that would let her pretend that she had not lost the person who had once known her better than anyone.
But Colin Bridgerton, for once, did not rush to fill the silence.
When he did speak, his voice was careful.
“I am sure Eloise would be proud of you.”
Penelope opened her eyes.
The laugh that escaped her was small and broken.
“Well,” she said, “she was not.”
Colin looked at her.
Penelope could feel his attention on her face, and it was almost unbearable. She had spent years longing for him to look at her, truly look at her, but now that he did, she did not know how to survive it.
“So that is why you have not been speaking,” he said.
“Yes.”
“You never told me.”
“You never asked.”
The words slipped out before she could stop them.
Colin stilled.
Penelope immediately regretted them.
“I did not mean—”
“No,” Colin said softly. “You did.”
She looked at him then, afraid of what she might see. But there was no anger in his expression. Only sorrow. Perhaps guilt. Perhaps the realisation that he had been absent from parts of her life he had never thought to question.
He took her hand.
This time, Penelope let him.
“What happened?” he asked.
She stared at their joined hands.
“I do not know if I can say it kindly.”
“Then do not.”
Penelope’s lips trembled.
“She found out. Not because I told her. She found things. My things. My papers.” The words came slowly, each one heavy. “She was furious. She said I had lied to her. She said I had made a fool of her. She said I had ruined people.”
Colin’s thumb moved gently over her knuckles.
“And what did you say?”
Penelope looked away again.
“I said things too.”
“Pen.”
“I did.” Her voice grew tighter. “I was cruel, too. I was frightened and cornered, and I said things I should not have said. But she looked at me as if I were… as if I were something disgusting. As if every year of friendship meant nothing, the moment she saw the part of me she did not like.”
Colin’s eyes softened.
“She was angry.”
“So was I.”
“That does not mean it cannot be mended.”
Penelope shook her head. “I do not think so.”
“Why?”
“Because she sees me now as everyone else sees me.”
“That is not true.”
“She does.” Penelope swallowed, and the words hurt more than she expected. “She called me an insipid wallflower.”
Colin’s face changed completely.
His hand tightened around hers.
“She what?”
Penelope tried to smile, but it failed.
“It is hardly the first time someone has thought it.”
“It should be the last time anyone says it.”
There was something in his voice then that Penelope had never heard before. Colin could be charming, teasing, and kind. He could be careless too, and thoughtless, and painfully blind when he wished to be.
But this was different.
This was protection.
Not the grand, foolish sort of protection he had once tried to offer Marina. Not the impulsive sort that made him chase carriages and demand answers in dark streets.
This was steady.
This was chosen.
Penelope did not know what to do with it.
“Not everyone sees you that way,” he said.
“No,” she whispered.
His eyes held hers.
“No.”
Something inside her gave way.
She did not cry. She would not cry. Not here, not in the drawing room where she had been dismissed too many times to count. But she leaned into him, just slightly, and Colin brought her hand to his lips as though it were the most natural thing in the world to offer tenderness where there had once been humiliation.
“You must come to Bridgerton House for dinner tonight,” he said after a moment.
Penelope blinked.
“What?”
“I am going to tell my family.”
Her heart lurched.
“Tonight?”
“Yes.”
“Colin—”
“I shall speak with Anthony first, and my mother, of course. But I want you there. I want them all to know.”
Penelope stared at him.
She had imagined being invited to Bridgerton House hundreds of times. She had been invited there, of course, as Eloise’s friend, as a fixture, as someone almost taken for granted. But this was different.
To walk through those doors as Colin’s betrothed.
To stand before Violet Bridgerton and Anthony and Benedict and Kate and the younger children, not as Eloise’s shadow, but as Colin’s future wife.
Her stomach twisted.
“I hope they will be pleased.”
Colin’s smile returned then, small but real.
“Pen, you have been at the top of my mother’s list for as long as I can remember.”
Penelope blinked.
“Your mother had a list?”
“A long list.”
Despite everything, a giggle escaped her.
Colin rolled his eyes with fond exasperation. “An alarmingly long list. She has been quietly arranging the futures of all her children since we were old enough to hold a spoon.”
“And I was at the top?”
“Always.”
Penelope shook her head, unable to quite believe it.
“Your mother is very kind.”
“My mother is very determined,” Colin corrected. “And, annoyingly, she is usually right.”
Penelope smiled then. Truly smiled.
It felt dangerous.
It felt like hope.
Colin stood, still holding her hand until the very last possible moment. Then he bent and kissed her knuckles again, lingering just enough to make her cheeks warm.
“I shall see you for dinner,” he said.
“Dinner,” she repeated, because if she said anything more, her voice might fail her.
Colin’s smile softened.
“My dear Pen.”
And then he was gone.
Penelope sat alone in the Featherington drawing room, her hand still tingling from where his lips had been.
For the first time in a very long time, the silence did not feel quite so lonely.
Colin entered Bridgerton House with the distinct and rather inconvenient sensation that he might be floating.
It was ridiculous.
He was a grown man. A gentleman. A traveller. A third son who had crossed seas, seen cities, drunk questionable wine in places where no one knew his name, and returned with a coat full of dust and stories no one had properly asked to hear.
He ought not to feel as if his feet had lost all contact with the floor simply because Penelope Featherington had agreed to marry him.
And yet.
He stepped into the familiar noise of home and smiled before he could stop himself.
Somewhere toward the back of the house, Hyacinth was protesting loudly that Gregory had taken something of hers. Gregory, just as loudly, was denying it in a tone that confirmed he absolutely had. A footman moved past with a tray. There was the clink of china from the drawing room. His mother’s voice floated through the hall, affectionate and exasperated in equal measure.
Home.
And soon, Penelope would be part of it.
Not visiting. Not slipping in with Eloise and hiding behind tea cups.
Part of it.
His wife.
The thought stole his breath.
“You look happy.”
Colin turned.
Anthony stood in the doorway of his study, one brow lifted, watching him with the unnerving attention of an elder brother who had spent years learning how to detect disaster before anyone else admitted to it.
“I am,” Colin said.
Anthony’s brows rose further.
“That is suspicious.”
“Is it?”
“For you? Recently? Yes.”
Colin glanced past him toward the drawing room. “Do we have biscuits?”
Anthony stared.
“Biscuits?”
“Yes.”
“You enter this house looking as though you have either inherited a kingdom or caused an international incident, and your first question is whether we have biscuits?”
“I am hungry.”
“You are always hungry.”
“That does not answer the question.”
Anthony sighed, though there was warmth beneath it. “The ladies are taking tea. Benedict is in there too, undoubtedly eating more than his share.”
“Of course he is.”
Colin made as if to move past him, then stopped.
Actually, no.
He could not simply stroll into the drawing room and announce it as if he were declaring that he had bought a new waistcoat.
This mattered.
Penelope mattered.
And Anthony, irritating though he could be, was head of the family.
“Before I go in,” Colin said, “may I have a word?”
Anthony’s expression changed at once.
His shoulders straightened. His face became grave. The Viscount appeared so quickly that Colin nearly regretted speaking.
“Please tell me,” Anthony said slowly, “that you have not caused a scandal.”
Colin paused.
There had been the carriage.
The carriage, in which he had kissed Penelope until all sense had left him. The carriage, in which his hands had wandered with a boldness that now made his ears heat. The carriage, in which he had very nearly forgotten every rule of propriety ever drilled into him since childhood.
Anthony did not need to know about the carriage.
“No,” Colin said.
Anthony narrowed his eyes.
“No?”
“No scandal.”
“That pause was not reassuring.”
“I am engaged to be married.”
Anthony froze.
For a second, Colin had the rare pleasure of rendering his eldest brother completely speechless.
Then Anthony blinked.
“I beg your pardon?”
“I am engaged.”
“To be married?”
“That is usually what engaged means, yes.”
Anthony stared at him.
Colin stared back.
Then Anthony exhaled through his nose and pinched the bridge of his nose with two fingers. “I hope this one goes better than the last one.”
Colin’s smile fell.
“Are you truly taking the moral high ground on engagements?”
Anthony’s hand dropped.
Silence settled between them.
It was not a cruel silence. Not exactly. But it carried the ghost of Edwina Sharma standing at an altar, Kate’s face pale with heartbreak, and the entire Bridgerton family pretending not to fracture in public.
Anthony cleared his throat.
“Fair enough.”
Colin nodded.
Another pause.
Then Anthony’s gaze sharpened again.
“Who is she?”
Colin found that he could not answer immediately.
It was strange because he had already said the words to Portia Featherington. He had said them to Penelope. He had said them in his own mind over and over on the short journey home.
Penelope.
Penelope.
Penelope.
But here, in his family home, with Anthony waiting, the name felt enormous.
“Colin,” Anthony said carefully. “Who is the lady?”
Colin sat down without being invited.
Anthony’s concern deepened.
“You have not got some woman of the night with child.”
Colin’s head snapped up.
“No!”
“I had to ask.”
“No, you absolutely did not.”
“You were being mysterious.”
“I was being sincere.”
“That is usually when you are most alarming.”
“For God’s sake, Anthony.”
Anthony’s mouth twitched, but he folded his arms and leaned back against his desk.
“Well?”
Colin looked at the rug beneath his boots, then back at his brother.
“She is my dearest friend.”
Anthony went still.
The change was subtle, but Colin saw it. Anthony knew him too well not to understand before the name had even been spoken.
“You mean…”
“I asked Penelope to marry me,” Colin said. “And she said yes.”
Anthony did not speak.
For one awful second, Colin wondered if he had misjudged him. He wondered if Anthony would think what Portia had thought. That Penelope was somehow unlikely. That she did not fit. That Colin, with his restless heart and foolish history, had chosen wrongly.
Then Anthony smiled.
Not a polite smile.
Not a cautious one.
A true one.
“Well,” Anthony said, straightening. “This is wonderful news.”
Colin released a breath he had not realised he was holding.
“It is?”
“Of course it is.”
Anthony crossed the room and clasped his shoulder.
“Penelope Featherington is a fine choice for a wife,” he said. Then his expression turned pointed. “Especially after the callous way you treated her at the end of last season.”
Colin winced.
There it was.
His family had not let him forget it.
His mother had looked at him with disappointment sharp enough to cut. Benedict had given him a lecture disguised as a joke. Anthony had been grimly furious. Even Hyacinth had declared him an idiot at breakfast, which had been difficult to dispute.
“I know,” Colin said quietly.
Anthony studied him.
“Do you?”
Colin nodded.
“I hurt her.”
“Yes.”
“I was cruel.”
“Yes.”
“I did not know how much I cared for her, and that is not an excuse.”
Anthony’s expression softened a little.
“No,” he said. “It is not. But it is a beginning.”
Colin looked away.
“I intend to spend the rest of my life making sure she never doubts her worth again.”
Anthony was quiet for a moment.
Then he squeezed Colin’s shoulder once before stepping away.
“Good.”
Colin swallowed.
“She is coming for dinner later. If that is acceptable.”
“Acceptable?” Anthony repeated, already moving toward the bell pull. “It is excellent. We shall have champagne. I will tell the cook to prepare something better than whatever was planned.”
“Pen will be embarrassed by too much fuss.”
“Then we shall make exactly enough fuss to embarrass her moderately.”
Colin laughed despite himself.
Anthony grinned.
“And a ring,” he said suddenly. “You will need a ring.”
Colin’s heart thudded.
“Yes.”
Anthony opened a drawer in his desk and withdrew a key.
“Have you thought which one?”
“The emerald one,” Colin said without hesitation.
Anthony paused, then looked at him with something very near tenderness.
“The emerald.”
“It matches her eyes.”
The words came out quietly.
Anthony’s teasing expression faded.
For a moment, he looked not like the Viscount, nor the elder brother who had spent years attempting to herd them all into respectable adulthood, but simply Anthony. A man who had learned, rather painfully, what it meant to love someone fully and almost too late.
“I shall fetch it,” Anthony said.
“Thank you.”
Anthony nodded toward the drawing room.
“Go and tell Mother.”
Colin grimaced.
Anthony smiled wickedly.
“I shall cover my ears.”
“She will not be that loud.”
“She has wanted Penelope in this family since Penelope was a child. She will be unbearable.”
Colin smiled then, helplessly.
“I rather hope so.”
Anthony’s face softened again.
“I am pleased for you, Colin.”
The words landed heavily.
Colin had not known he needed to hear them until he did.
“Thank you.”
Anthony nodded once.
Then, with the key in hand, he turned toward the stairs, leaving Colin to face the most formidable creature in all of England.
His mother was delighted.
“Colin,” Violet Bridgerton said, looking up from her tea as her third-oldest son entered the drawing room. “There you are.”
The drawing room was already comfortably full. Violet sat near the fire, her embroidery abandoned in her lap. Kate was beside her, graceful as ever, watching the room with the alert calm of someone who had married into chaos and learned not only to survive it, but to manage it. Benedict lounged in a chair with a cup in one hand and a biscuit in the other. Hyacinth and Gregory occupied opposite ends of a sofa in a manner that suggested an invisible border had been drawn between them.
Francesca sat quietly near the window, her attention apparently on her tea, though Colin knew perfectly well she missed very little.
And Eloise was there.
Colin’s chest tightened.
She sat stiffly, her book open but unread in her lap, her expression already guarded the moment she saw him.
“Mother,” Colin said, summoning his most charming smile. “You look particularly lovely today.”
Violet narrowed her eyes.
Benedict lowered his biscuit.
Kate’s lips twitched.
“What have you done?” Violet asked.
Colin placed a hand over his heart. “Must affection always be treated with suspicion in this house?”
“Yes,” Benedict said.
“Usually,” Francesca murmured.
Hyacinth leaned forward. “Are you going away again?”
Violet’s face changed at once, worry rising before she could hide it.
Colin regretted the momentary flicker of fear in her eyes. He knew he had put it there over the years with his sudden departures, his letters from abroad, his restlessness dressed up as adventure.
“No,” he said gently. “I am not travelling for a while.”
Hyacinth looked disappointed.
“Not even somewhere with treasures?”
“Perhaps for my honeymoon.”
The room went silent.
Benedict froze with the biscuit halfway to his mouth.
Kate’s brows rose.
Francesca looked up properly.
Violet’s eyes widened.
Eloise choked on her tea.
It was not elegant.
In fact, it was perhaps the least dignified sound Colin had ever heard from his sister, which, considering this was Eloise, was saying something.
“Honeymoon?” Violet repeated.
Colin smiled at her.
Her hand moved to her chest.
“Colin Bridgerton,” she said slowly. “Have you found someone to court?”
Benedict sat up. “Have we missed an entire courtship?”
“I do not think Colin knows how to conduct one properly,” Gregory said.
Hyacinth nodded. “He mostly just eats and leaves the country.”
“Thank you,” Colin said. “How very supportive.”
Violet’s eyes were suddenly bright.
“I have seen you dance with one young lady in particular,” she said carefully.
Colin looked at his mother.
Then he stood.
It seemed right to stand.
The moment felt too important to deliver from a chair, half-hidden behind a tea table.
“I asked Penelope Featherington to marry me,” he said. “And she has done me the honour of accepting my proposal.”
For one heartbeat, no one moved.
Then Violet made a sound that was very nearly a sob and very nearly a laugh.
“Oh,” she breathed. “Oh, Colin.”
Benedict was on his feet at once, crossing the room to clap him on the back hard enough to knock him forward nearly.
“About time,” Benedict declared.
Colin rolled his eyes.
“Must everyone say that?”
“Yes,” Benedict said. “Because it is true.”
Kate smiled warmly.
“Congratulations, Colin.”
Francesca’s expression softened. “I think she will make a wonderful Bridgerton.”
“She will,” Violet said, standing now, her eyes shining. “Oh, she will.”
Hyacinth considered this with great seriousness.
“I like Penelope,” she said. “She is clever.”
“Too clever to marry Colin, some might argue,” Benedict added.
Colin pointed at him. “You are not invited to the wedding breakfast.”
“I shall be there early.”
Gregory frowned. “Does this mean Penelope will live here?”
“No,” Hyacinth said, with superiority. “She will live wherever Colin lives.”
“Where does Colin live?”
Everyone paused.
Colin opened his mouth, then closed it.
Benedict laughed.
“That is an excellent question.”
Violet moved toward Colin and took his face in both hands as though he were still a boy coming in from the garden with muddy boots and a guilty conscience.
“My darling,” she said, her voice thick, “I am so happy for you.”
Colin’s throat tightened unexpectedly.
“I hoped you would be.”
“Hoped?” Violet repeated. “Colin, I have adored that girl for years.”
He smiled faintly.
“So I have been told.”
“By whom?”
“Everyone.”
Violet laughed, then kissed his cheek.
Across the room, Eloise had not moved.
She had set her cup down very carefully.
Too carefully.
Colin felt her stare like a blade.
“You cannot,” Eloise said.
The room fell silent again, but this silence was altogether different.
Violet turned sharply.
“Eloise.”
Eloise’s jaw was tight.
“You cannot marry her.”
Something cold moved through Colin.
Benedict’s humour vanished. Kate looked from Eloise to Colin with sudden concern. Francesca lowered her gaze, uncomfortable but attentive. Hyacinth and Gregory, sensing danger, went unusually still.
Violet’s voice became firm.
“Whatever quarrel you and Penelope have had, you will not bring it into this room and use it to spoil your brother’s happiness.”
Eloise’s face flushed.
“You do not understand.”
“Then explain yourself without cruelty,” Violet said.
Eloise looked at Colin.
Colin looked back.
He could see the challenge in her eyes. The anger. The hurt. The righteous certainty that had always been part of Eloise, both her finest quality and her most dangerous one. She believed herself wronged, and perhaps she had been. Colin would not deny that. But there was something else beneath it, too.
Betrayal.
Pride.
Grief.
And something that looked dangerously like spite.
“Congratulations,” Benedict said after a tense moment, stepping deliberately between silence and disaster. “Truly, brother. I am happy for you.”
“Thank you,” Colin said, though his eyes did not leave Eloise.
Francesca rose and came to kiss his cheek.
“She suits us,” she said quietly. “And we can save her from her dreadful sisters.”
“Francesca,” Violet exclaimed automatically.
“What?” Francesca asked, with rare bluntness. “They are dreadful.”
Colin huffed a laugh despite himself.
“They are,” he said. “Can you believe Lady Featherington thought I had come to offer for Prudence?”
Benedict stared.
“Prudence?”
Hyacinth wrinkled her nose.
“Why?”
“A question for the ages,” Colin said.
Violet looked bewildered. “Have you ever so much as danced with Prudence?”
“No.”
“Then why would Portia think—”
“Because I arrived with Penelope on my arm,” Colin said, and the anger returned before he could stop it, “and she did not even acknowledge her. She told Penelope to fetch food. Then she pushed her from the room because she assumed I must want one of her other daughters.”
Violet’s face fell.
Kate’s expression hardened.
“That does not surprise me,” Kate said quietly. “Last season, I noticed how Lady Featherington looked past Penelope whenever she was trying to secure attention for Prudence.”
Colin nodded.
“When I asked for permission to marry Penelope, she looked at me as if I had lost my mind. She asked me if I was certain. As if Penelope were some unwanted burden being taken off her hands.”
Violet’s eyes filled with such fierce tenderness that Colin suddenly understood exactly why Anthony had warned him.
“She will be a Bridgerton soon,” Violet said, her voice trembling with joy and indignation. “And she will never be made to feel unwanted here.”
Eloise stood abruptly.
The movement was small, but it pulled every eye back to her.
“I have a headache,” she said.
“No, you do not,” Colin replied.
Her eyes flashed.
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me.”
Violet looked between them, worry returning. “Colin…”
Colin turned to his mother.
“May Eloise and I have a moment alone?”
“No,” Eloise said immediately.
“Yes,” Colin said.
Benedict looked deeply uncomfortable.
“I am not certain leaving the two of you alone with breakable objects is wise.”
Kate rose smoothly. “Come along, everyone.”
Hyacinth looked outraged. “But I want to hear.”
“That is precisely why you are leaving,” Kate said.
Gregory muttered something about always missing the best arguments, but he followed Hyacinth out. Francesca went quietly. Benedict hesitated long enough to give Colin a look that said both "be careful" and "do not be an idiot," which was rich coming from Benedict.
Violet lingered last.
“Colin,” she said softly.
“I know.”
Her gaze moved to Eloise.
“Eloise,” she said, more quietly still, “anger does not give one permission to be unkind.”
Eloise looked away.
Violet sighed and left the room.
The door closed behind her.
For several seconds, neither sibling spoke.
Eloise sat down again, though there was nothing relaxed about it.
She perched on the edge of the sofa like someone prepared to flee or fight. Her hands were clasped tightly in her lap, her knuckles pale. Colin remained standing for a moment, because if he sat too soon, he feared he might soften before he had said what needed to be said.
And he did not intend to soften.
Not yet.
“Why are you and Pen not speaking?” he asked.
Eloise laughed once.
It was sharp and ugly.
“Why do you not ask your future wife?”
“I am asking you.”
“Of course you are,” Eloise snapped. “Because now she has you, too.”
Colin frowned.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means exactly what I said.”
“No,” Colin said. “It means something you are too angry to say plainly.”
Eloise stood again, restless already. “Do not speak to me as if I am a child.”
“Then do not behave like one.”
Her eyes widened.
“How dare you.”
“How dare I?” Colin repeated. “Eloise, I have just announced my engagement to the woman I love, and your first response was to say that I cannot marry her.”
“Because you do not know her!”
“I know her better than you think.”
“No, you do not.” Eloise’s voice shook now, but she pushed on. “You know the version of Penelope who gazes at you as if you hung the moon. You know the sweet little friend who laughs at your jokes and listens to your stories and makes you feel clever. But you do not know what she is.”
Colin’s expression hardened.
“Be very careful.”
Eloise faltered, but only for a moment.
“I found out she is not who I thought she was,” she said bitterly. “And if you knew the truth, you would not be so eager to marry her.”
Colin watched her.
He could have let her say it.
He could have forced the name from her mouth, let the accusation sit between them like a weapon.
Instead, he said, “You mean if I knew she was the funniest, cleverest, most talented writer in London?”
Eloise froze.
The colour drained from her face.
Colin did not look away.
“You know,” she whispered.
“Yes.”
“You know?”
“Yes.”
Eloise stared at him as if he had struck her.
“You know she is Lady Whistledown,” she said, each word trembling with disbelief, “and you still want to marry her?”
“Yes.”
“After what she did?”
Colin’s jaw tightened.
“After everything.”
Eloise shook her head.
“No. No, that is impossible. You cannot know everything.”
“I know enough.”
“Do you?” Her voice rose. “Do you know what she wrote about me? About our family? About you? About Marina?”
At Marina’s name, something flickered through Colin.
Old shame. Old humiliation. Old grief for a foolish version of himself who had been so desperate to be loved that he had mistaken deception for devotion.
“Yes,” he said.
Eloise’s eyes shone with angry triumph, as if she had found the wound at last.
“She humiliated you.”
“She saved me.”
The words landed hard.
Eloise recoiled.
“What?”
“She saved me,” Colin repeated. “From marrying a woman who was carrying another man’s child and had no intention of telling me the truth.”
“That is not the point.”
“It is very much the point.”
“She could have spoken to you.”
“She tried.”
Eloise stopped.
Colin let that silence sit.
“She tried,” he said again, quieter now. “She warned me. More than once. And I did not listen because I was being stubborn and foolish and determined to believe myself the hero in a romance that did not exist.”
Eloise looked away.
“She could have told me.”
“Would you have listened?”
Her head snapped back toward him.
“Of course I would have.”
“Would you?”
“Yes.”
“Eloise.”
The single word was enough.
Her mouth closed.
Colin took a breath, trying to keep his temper from overtaking him.
“You love to speak of truth,” he said. “You chase it. You demand it. You tear into any room, determined to uncover it. But when someone tries to tell you something you do not wish to hear, you do not always listen.”
Eloise’s face tightened.
“That is not fair.”
“Perhaps not. But is it untrue?”
She did not answer.
Colin moved to the mantel and rested one hand against it, needing the steadiness of something solid.
“Penelope tried to speak to Marina too,” he said. “She begged her to stop. She begged her not to trap me in a lie. Marina refused. And worse than that, she was cruel to Penelope in a way I am only now beginning to understand that people have been cruel to her all her life.”
Eloise’s arms folded tightly.
“So that excuses everything?”
“No,” Colin said. “It explains it.”
“That is convenient.”
“It is the truth.”
Eloise laughed again, but this time, there was pain inside it.
“The truth. How wonderful. Lady Whistledown ruins lives, but it is all very noble because she occasionally tells the truth.”
“She has made mistakes,” Colin said. “I am not denying that.”
“Mistakes?”
“Yes. Mistakes. Serious ones.” He looked at her directly. “But you speak as if she set out to destroy you.”
“She wrote about me.”
“To protect you.”
Eloise’s eyes blazed.
“Do not.”
“The Queen thought you were Lady Whistledown.”
“I know that.”
“Do you? To clarify, I'm not sure you understand what that could have meant. The Queen does not like to be made a fool of, Eloise. She could have ruined you. She could have ruined all of us.”
“And Penelope writing that I had been consorting with radicals did not ruin me?”
“It was damaging,” Colin admitted. “I will not pretend otherwise.”
Eloise looked vindicated.
“But it distracted the Queen,” he continued. “It made Her Majesty believe you were reckless, not dangerous. It made you look foolish rather than powerful.”
Eloise’s expression twisted.
“That is supposed to comfort me?”
“No. It is supposed to make you think.”
“I have thought of nothing else!”
“Have you thought about Penelope?”
That struck.
Eloise went very still.
Colin’s voice lowered.
“Have you thought about what it cost her? To write that? To choose between letting the Queen continue to believe you were Whistledown or damaging you just enough to save you from worse?”
Eloise swallowed.
“She could have told me.”
“Yes,” Colin said. “She could have.”
The admission seemed to surprise her.
He did not intend to pretend Penelope had done everything perfectly. Loving her did not require blindness. If anything, it required the opposite. He had seen her fear. Her brilliance. Her pride. Her shame. The awful loneliness of carrying a secret so large it had become the only room in which she could breathe.
“But perhaps,” he said, “she did not tell you because she did not believe you would hear her.”
“That is not true.”
“Did you hear her when she spoke of wanting a life different from yours?”
Eloise flinched.
Colin took one step closer.
“You always said you and Pen would be spinsters together,” he said. “That you would never marry, never have children, never become like the women you mock in ballrooms. Did you ever ask her if that was what she wanted?”
Eloise opened her mouth.
No answer came.
Colin felt a pang then, because this was his sister. His stubborn, brilliant, impossible sister, who had spent her life pushing against the walls built around women and had somehow failed to notice when she built walls of her own around Penelope.
“Did you ask her,” Colin continued, “if she wanted love? If she wanted a husband? A family? A home where she was cherished?”
Eloise looked away.
“Penelope never said—”
“Did you give her room to say it?”
The question hung between them.
Eloise’s throat worked.
“I was her best friend,” she said, but the anger had cracked, and something younger, more wounded, had slipped through. “She should have told me.”
“I know.”
“She lied to me.”
“I know.”
“She let me make a fool of myself searching for Lady Whistledown when she was standing beside me the whole time.”
“Yes.”
Eloise’s eyes filled, though she blinked the tears away quickly, furious even at them.
“Then why are you defending her?”
“Because I love her.”
Eloise stared at him.
The words seemed to move through the room differently from all the others.
Because I love her.
Colin had not said them to his family yet. He had barely said them to himself in a way that did not frighten him. But there they were, plain and immovable.
“I love her,” he said again, softer. “And because loving her does not mean I believe she has never done wrong. It means I want to understand why. It means I can see the whole of her, not only the pieces that hurt me.”
Eloise sat down slowly.
Colin watched her, then asked the question that had been burning since Penelope’s trembling confession.
“How did you find out?”
Eloise’s fingers twisted in her lap.
“I found her papers.”
“Found?”
Her lips pressed together.
“Or did you go through her room?”
Her eyes flashed again. “And how did you find out?”
“I followed her.”
“Oh, how noble.”
“It was not noble,” Colin said. “It was anger. Suspicion. Fear, perhaps. I saw her leaving in the middle of the night, and I followed her to the printer.”
Eloise stared.
“You followed her into town?”
“Yes.”
“She could have been hurt.”
“I know.”
The memory still made his stomach twist. Penelope is alone in the dark. Penelope with ink on her fingers and fear in her eyes. Penelope was putting herself in danger because that was how far she had been pushed into secrecy.
“I was angry at first,” he admitted. “Furious. That she had lied. That she had risked herself. That she had written about people I love. About me. About you.”
“And then?”
“Then I listened.”
Eloise’s eyes narrowed, but there was less force in them now.
Colin let the words settle before continuing.
“I listened to her. I heard what she had tried to do for me with Marina. I heard why she wrote about you. I heard how lonely she has been. How unseen. How often she has been made to feel small by people who should have loved her better.”
Eloise looked toward the window.
“Did you listen to her?” Colin asked.
Eloise said nothing.
“Did you ask why?”
Still nothing.
“Or did you say the worst thing you could think of because you knew exactly where to strike?”
Her head turned sharply.
“I was angry.”
“Yes.”
“I am angry.”
“I know.”
“She was my best friend.”
“She still might be.”
“No.” Eloise shook her head quickly, almost violently. “No, you do not get to say that. You do not get to sweep it away because you have decided to marry her.”
“I am not sweeping it away.”
“You are taking her side.”
“Yes.”
Eloise stared at him.
Colin did not soften the answer.
“Yes,” he said again. “On this, I am taking her side.”
The hurt on Eloise’s face was immediate.
Colin hated it.
But he would not take the words back.
“You are my sister,” he said. “I love you. I always will. But Penelope is to be my wife. And more than that, she is a woman who has been belittled, dismissed, ignored, mocked, and used as a convenience by almost everyone around her. I will not add to that. I will not stand by while someone else does it either.”
“I did not bully her.”
Colin’s expression sharpened.
“Did you call her an insipid wallflower?”
Eloise’s face went pale.
That was answer enough.
Colin felt anger move through him again, hot and controlled.
“You know what her mother says to her,” he said. “You know how people treat her. You know the cruelties she laughs off because she believes there is no point in expecting better. And you chose to sound like them.”
Eloise looked down.
“I did not mean—”
“Yes, you did.”
Her eyes lifted, wounded.
Colin’s voice softened, but only slightly.
“You meant to hurt her. Perhaps you regret it now. Perhaps you regretted it the moment it left your mouth. But in that moment, you meant it.”
A tear slipped down Eloise’s cheek.
She wiped it away angrily.
“I hate that she did this,” she whispered.
“I know.”
“I hate that she had this whole life and I never saw it.”
Colin studied her.
There it was.
Not all of it. But part.
“Are you angry at her,” he asked quietly, “or are you angry that you did not know?”
Eloise’s lips parted.
“Are you angry because she lied,” Colin continued, “or because she managed to become something extraordinary without needing you to show her how?”
Eloise looked as if he had slapped her.
“That is cruel.”
“Yes,” Colin said. “It is. But is it untrue?”
She turned away from him, shoulders rigid.
Colin’s anger eased into something sadder.
“You speak of women having choices,” he said. “Of women deserving more than marriage markets and embroidery and polite silence. You are right to speak of it. Truly, Eloise, you are. But choice must mean all choices. Not only the ones you approve of.”
Eloise did not move.
“Penelope built something. Alone. With no support, no fortune of her own, no one believing she was capable of anything more than standing in the corner. She made the entire ton listen to her without ever knowing it was her voice commanding the room. Should that not matter to you?”
Eloise closed her eyes.
“You make it sound admirable.”
“It is admirable.”
“She hurt people.”
“So have we all.”
“That is not the same.”
“No,” Colin said. “It is not. Because when we hurt people, we do it under our own names, with our family behind us, and the world already inclined to forgive us.”
Eloise opened her eyes.
Colin let that sit too.
He thought of Penelope’s face in the carriage. The way she had looked when he said she was not just anything. As if kindness were not something she trusted unless it arrived in disguise.
“I am going to dress for dinner,” he said at last.
Eloise did not turn.
“When Penelope arrives tonight, you will be civil.”
Her shoulders tightened.
Colin’s voice became firm.
“I mean it, Eloise. You do not have to forgive her tonight. You do not have to embrace her. You do not have to pretend your hurt has vanished because I wish it were so. But if you speak to her in a cruel or degrading way, sister or not, I will put Penelope first.”
Eloise looked back at him then.
For the first time, she seemed truly to understand that something had changed.
Colin was no longer standing between his sister and her former friend as an observer.
He was standing beside Penelope.
“I love you,” he said. “But you need to think about whether the anger you are holding is protecting you or punishing her.”
Eloise said nothing.
Colin walked to the door, then paused with his hand on the handle.
“And perhaps,” he added quietly, “you need to reconsider what freedom means. It is not hating marriage. It is not dismissing motherhood. It is not deciding that every woman who wants love has somehow failed to be clever. Freedom is letting women want different lives and still respecting them for it.”
Eloise’s face crumpled for half a second.
Only half.
But Colin saw it.
“Penelope has achieved something none of us managed,” he said. “Not Anthony with his title. Not Benedict with his art. Not me with all my travels. She made herself heard in a world determined not to hear her.”
He opened the door.
“Maybe it is not Penelope who needs to change first.”
Then Colin left her there.
Eloise remained alone in the drawing room, the tea gone cold beside her, the book still open to a page she had not read.
Outside the door, the house moved on. Footsteps passed. Someone laughed in the hall. Hyacinth asked a question far too loudly and was hushed by Kate. Life continued in that Bridgerton way, noisy and warm and impossible to stop.
But Eloise sat very still.
Insipid wallflower.
The words came back to her.
Not as she had heard them in her own voice, sharp with rage and betrayal, but as Penelope must have heard them.
As Portia Featherington’s voice.
As Cressida Cowper’s voice.
As the ton’s voice.
As everyone’s voice.
Eloise pressed a hand to her mouth.
She was still angry.
She was furious.
She was hurt in places she had not known could hurt.
But beneath it all, something else stirred. Something small and unwelcome and impossible to silence.
Shame.