Chapter Text
1811
“And what do you intend to study, Mr. Bridgerton?”
“I haven’t yet decided. The classics, possibly, or history,” Colin answered for probably the fiftieth time that afternoon, impressively keeping his smile congenial and his manner flawlessly polite even as the dowdy vicar pursed his beige lips in grim judgement of the eighteen year old’s noncommittal ambitions.
“And will you join the navy, afterwards? Or perhaps a commission with the military?”
“I daren’t break my dear Mama’s heart by enlisting,” Colin replied. “Besides, I’m certain Lord Wellington would wish more competent, worldly men than myself to vie for a post as one of his officers.”
“Well then, have you considered the clergy?”
Colin had not and wished very much to tell the vicar that it would be a cold day in hell before he took up the cloth. Instead, he took a long, luxurious gulp of his champagne, hoping the fizzy alcohol would dull his senses enough that the man’s monotonous conversation wouldn’t feel like being chained in purgatory. He managed to catch Anthony’s eye across the lawn and silently begged for rescue, but his traitorous big brother merely sent him a smug smirk before turning away to resume conversation with Great-Aunt Ruth. Colin would remember the betrayal and had every intention of exacting a devastating revenge on the pall mall pitch.
Only half-listening as the vicar continued to exalt the virtues of a career in the church in colourless agony, Colin’s green eyes desperately scanned the milling guests for salvation, but he couldn’t spot any of his other siblings amongst the crowd and he lamented his poor luck at being abandoned with the world’s most lackluster company, and at his own celebration no less!
The garden party was truly the sweetest gesture his mother had done for him, but then again, she was so very proud of his admission to Oxford even as she grieved his leaving for university in a month’s time. For the party, she’d applied her astounding talent for event planning and had not only managed to host a truly splendid gathering (even somehow managing to secure sunshine after a fortnight of summer drizzles), but she’d also successfully surprised her third-born son, having secretly brought together friends, family, and acquaintances to the ancient Bridgerton homestead in Kent. The intimate two hundred guests had greeted him with thundering applause when he’d been led from the library to the back garden by his youngest brother and sister. Gregory and Hyacinth had been absolute devils, of course, insisting he be blindfolded only to then guide him into one wall after another until somehow navigating him outdoors and being kind enough not to allow him to trip down the terrace steps before Daphne removed the cravat from his eyes to reveal the fête.
A crescent of Aubrey Hall’s lush viridian grounds had been dressed in tents of buttery yellow, blue bunting strung taut between each one to create a wide perimeter that ensconced two dozen tables lined with satin cloths overflowing with dessert platters of all of Colin’s favourite sweets. The chairs were cushioned with tasselled pink pillows, most on which perched a pretty prim miss, their coifs perfectly presentable and gowns in fashionable pastel hues as they chatted and tittered and fanned their flushed bosoms.
It didn’t escape Colin’s notice that the fanning would quicken whenever he or one of his older brothers would pass by, and he’d been rather pleasantly distracted by the rising swells of Danielle Smythe-Smith’s blushing breasts each time she’d inhaled deeply to blow a note (or rather, a noise) out of her flute when he’d been suddenly accosted by every gentleman at the party and interrogated about his university plans. The discussion had been civil, the advice varying, and the questions rather pointed, making the young man’s throat feel frequently dry as he’d tried to appease each inquiry. For over an hour he’d remained caught in conversation until all that was left of the surrounding masculine throng was the vicar from Ashford and it seemed Colin was doomed to remain at the man’s side for all eternity with not even a crumb of cake as a reprieve from his torment.
“Colin!”
The smile that brightened Colin’s face was instant, for he’d know that particular feminine trill anywhere. Without excusing himself from the vicar, Colin turned and looked down, pleased as punch to find the familiar face of a dear friend.
“Miss Featherington,” he greeted, offering a simple nod which the young woman complimented with a wobbly curtsey. “How good to see you.”
“You as well,” Penelope said, her smile as bright as sunshine and her eyes as blue as the sky above them. They stared at one another for a moment that could have been interpreted as a touch too long for merely friendly appreciation, before Penelope looked to the vicar and stuttered a greeting. “You must forgive my interruption, only I’ve been sent to fetch Colin for his mother,” she informed with a timid tilt of her chin.
“Of course, of course,” the vicar assured, waving the pair off.
“Good afternoon,” Colin bade respectfully before giving Penelope his arm and letting her lead him away. “You are my saviour,” he whispered when they were several paces across the yard.
Penelope giggled at his dramatic compliment.
“What are friends for if not to rescue one another from dreary country vicars? Although, I should hope you appreciate what I’ve done. After all, I am risking eternal damnation for lying to a man of God just for you.”
“Ah, so you are not ferrying me to my mother,” Colin deduced as Penelope steered him towards the orangery.
“No indeed. So you see, my salvation is in your hands.”
“I promise to protect you with the utmost care.”
The pair enjoyed another shared laugh as they entered the spacious hothouse. There were a few dawdling groups in the humid room admiring the lush topiary that the Bridgerton gardeners kept in excellent condition. Without preamble, Penelope directed Colin to an inconspicuous cluster of tall ferns, the pair tucking away in the cozy nook that wasn’t necessarily private, but certainly quiet.
“I didn’t even know you were here,” he exclaimed with a genuine smile.
“We only just arrived,” Penelope replied, nervously pushing a thick rope of crimson curl behind her ear. “One of our horses threw a shoe on the way over and it took such a long time for our driver to fix it. Mama was fit to be tied, convinced we’d miss the party all together and insult your mother. I’m sorry.”
“There is no need to be.”
“But I do wish I could have been here to cheer for you when you made your entrance.”
“All you missed was Gregory and Hyacinth’s attempted murder of me.”
Penelope giggled again, the melodic sound sending a rather chuffed warmth up the back of Colin’s neck. “You cannot be serious. They are practically babies! How can babies kill a man?”
“There was a blindfold involved, Pen. And stairs. And walls. I’ll be surprised if my chest is not black and blue come morning.”
“Oh…yes. Right…um…” Penelope started to fidget then, shifting her balance from one foot to the other and looking rather intently at a nearby trellis of crawling ivy. Colin was about to ask her if she was well when she swallowed a deep breath and returned her attention to him, her expression adorably bashful. “Well, a non-tripping down the back steps is certainly nothing in comparison to my own attempt on your life,” she jested with tremulous confidence.
“I still have the scar to prove it,” he answered back, glad that his friend was no longer moved to fretful tears when reminded of the day they’d met.
Had it really been five years already?
Wasn’t it only a few months ago that he’d been a bold, bratty child of thirteen, full to the brim with pride and invincibility as he’d trotted bareback on his new mare in the lane behind Bridgerton House, calling out teasing japes at his siblings and smugly hoping to be seen as an impressive masculine specimen to the daughters of their new neighbours, the Featheringtons?
It still made Colin laugh at himself when he remembered how, after he’d won the race against Benedict and Daphne, he’d turned his head back to crow an immodest victory declaration when a bonnet suddenly struck him in the face, changing his prideful cheer into a warbling grunt as he’d lost his balance and fell hard in a puddle of his horse’s piss, managing to stink up his trousers, turn his ankle, and cut his brow on a rather sharp pebble. He’d barely had a moment to tear the bonnet from his face before he was set upon by an apologetic Penelope Anne Featherington, the ten year old having thrown herself in the dirt beside him, her blue eyes overflowing with worried tears as she’d apologized over and over for the wind unsettling her loose bonnet which was the cause of Colin’s fall.
If memory served him clearly, she’d used one of her gloves to dab at his injured head, her touch as tender as her words.
Colin remembered he’d reached for the girl’s nonattending hand and had given it a squeeze, assuring her all was well and that he was only sorry to have gotten her cap dirty. Penelope had looked at him as if she’d never received an apology in her life and that had endeared the redhead to Colin instantly. He’d wanted to console her, to tell her a joke and make her laugh, but instead he was quickly surrounded by his siblings and was being hoisted onto Benedict’s back and carried into the house. It wasn’t until he was brought to his mother’s receiving room with a parade of Bridgerton and Featherington children that he even realized he hadn’t let go of Penelope’s hand and that she’d been walking beside him the entire way.
There had been a very small scar from his fall which had required three stitches. He’d also been ordered to stay off his ankle for a week, which would have felt interminable if not for Penelope’s daily visits to Bridgerton House, first for tea with the family and then to keep Colin company while his siblings were off playing or taking afternoon lessons.
She’d read him Gulliver’s Travels and he’d taught her how to beat Eloise at marbles. She’d played the pianoforte and he’d sung along. They’d practiced card tricks and threw paper balls down from high balconies on unsuspecting Bridgertons, and they’d even napped once or twice under the same blanket. And in that week, Colin Christopher Bridgerton and Penelope Anne Featherington had become the very best of friends.
It was certainly an unconventional beginning to a friendship, but it was theirs.
It was special.
That was all that mattered.
Over the years, the pair had continued to enjoy one another’s company, but never to the extent they had in that first week of friendship. Colin was soon off to Eton and Penelope was equally preoccupied with finishing lessons. During the summers, if Colin wasn’t engaged in sport or discourse with his brothers and Penelope wasn’t being monopolized by Eloise or instructed by her mother, then the two would come together to share jokes, or discuss novels they’d recently read, or simply bask in the other’s comfortable company.
It seemed their little corner of the orangery was proving to be a basking moment. Colin couldn’t begin to suppose what Penelope was thinking as her gaze shifted between himself and the ivy. He was rather enchanted with the fall of Penelope’s curls (and indeed, had been rather enamoured of her titian hair for many years now) and the spattering of summer freckles across her nose.
He could not, sadly, say anything kind about her dress.
While the garment was certainly what was expected of a modest girl (ruched sleeves, a skirt that fell to her ankles, and a neckline that was tied together in a perfectly respectable bow under her chin) the colour was all wrong. Unlike the gentle mauves and rose pinks currently in fashion, Penelope was ensconced in a vivacious tangerine almost as bright as her own red hair. The fabric clashed terribly with her voluminous ringlets and the ruffled collar that ensconced her neck was embroidered with golden butterflies that would have been charming if not for the fact the lace was clearly stretched to the limit. That brought Colin’s attention to the other unfortunate fact of his friend’s attire: the fit.
The dress was, to put it plainly, too small.
Unlike the svelte figures of most of the girls of Colin’s acquaintance, Penelope Featherington had always been soft and curvy. As a child of ten she’d been round and pudgy, a perfectly cuddly companion. As a young woman of fifteen that roundness remained but it had been rather noticeably dispersed. Her hips and rear were very pleasantly full, her arms fleshy but no less feminine, and her chin now held the intriguing arch of burgeoning womanhood.
Then there was her bosom.
Colin wondered how he had never noticed it before. Perhaps it was because Penelope was one of his dearest friends, or perhaps it was because he’d known her for such a long time, or perhaps it was because she was standing before him now with her arms clutched behind her back, making her chest jut out in the too tight dress, the material stretching over her voluptuous bust, the shape of each breast easy for him to discern. They were large enough they surely had to be held in place with stays, and so perky they would no doubt have overflowed the edge of the bodice quite tantalizingly were the butterfly spotted collar not in place.
His throat felt quite dry all of a sudden.
Not to mention his trousers became just a tad more confining.
Of course, his reaction was only natural. He was a healthy male after all, and all the ones of his acquaintance held their preferences when it came to desires of the flesh. Anthony, for example, was drawn to the tempting thickness of a lady’s posterior, and Benedict enjoyed the sinuous grace of a more lithe feminine shape. For his part, Colin had always admired the healthy curve of a buxom bosom.
He was of the opinion that a woman’s many charms were only complimented by the possession of a pair of large, luscious breasts, and while it was a bit perplexing, even unnerving, to realize that his dear Pen had been so generously gifted, Colin’s beliefs remained unchanged.
Penelope Featherington had an appealing bosom. She was his friend and she had breasts, and his knowing that didn’t change anything between them no matter how much his own body might be of a different opinion as his cock twitched with interest. It would have done that had he noticed any other young woman’s chest, it just so happened he was noticing Pen’s.
She really was growing into a rather attractive young lady.
“Is everything alright?” he asked, wondering at her odd posture.
“Yes!” she squeaked before shuddering with nerves. “I mean…well, that is – um…here!”
And quick as a blink, Penelope darted for the ivy, yanked something out from under the foliage and slapped the object hard into Colin’s stomach, causing him to grunt. It seemed the corner of a book had pinched him hard in the gut, his hands reaching up instinctively to grasp at the tome being none too gently pushed against him.
“Sorry,” Penelope groaned, taking a large step back.
“What’s this then?” he huffed, giving the pretty leather an admiring glance, noting the buttery smoothness of the cover that had been dyed a startling seafoam green, the fine quality of paper as he ran his thumb over the edges of the pages, and the elegant embossing of the letters ‘CCB’ pressed in gold in the very centre of the spine.
“A gift.”
“For me?”
“Well of course for you, you goose! That would be terribly rude of me to hand you a gift meant for someone else.”
And then she giggled again, joyful and kind and possibly one of Colin’s favourite sounds.
“You didn’t have to.”
“I couldn’t help myself. I’m just so terribly pleased for you, Colin! You must be very excited to go off to university.”
He was, but not for the reasons he expected Penelope had.
He was eager to leave home, to explore a place that wasn’t London or Kent, to make new acquaintances and settle into his own burgeoning manhood. Penelope, with her sharp wit and voracious curiosity, no doubt assumed the privilege of attaining higher education to be the utter epitome of thrilling.
Colin had no such feelings.
He was a mediocre student, he had no career ambitions, and he was a third son dependant on his eldest brother and the trust left to him by his late father. If nothing else, what Colin hoped for when he attended Oxford was that he might learn just enough to discern which path he ought to take to uncover his life’s greater purpose and, perhaps, become the independent gentleman he so desperately wished to be.
“I know you’ll be occupied taking lecture notes and revising, but I thought, from time to time, you might like to write down your own thoughts. To keep a record of your adventures at Oxford, or an address book for all the new friends you are sure to make. You can reflect on all the many new wonders you’ll learn or possibly compose poetry –”
“Lord Byron I am not,” Colin interjected.
“Stranger things have come about, I’m sure.”
Now it was Colin who was laughing and Penelope who was filling with a giddy, satisfied warmth as his deep timber echoed against the stone and glass, his champagne perfumed breath ruffling the ferns’ bowing prongs.
“So, it is a journal you’ve gifted me, then.”
“Yes.”
“You know I’ve never kept one before.”
“Oh. No, I didn’t know. Does that mean…is this something silly? Was it…not something you’d wan—oh! Of course it isn’t! What was I thinking?! I’m sorry, Colin. I didn’t mean to offend. This was foolish of me. I can take it back –”
“You most certainly cannot,” Colin objected, holding the book possessively over his head just as Penelope reached to snatch it away. “This is the most excellent gift I’ve ever received and I’ve no intention of relinquishing it. If you want a journal of your own so badly you ought to have purchased one for yourself.”
He waited until her fretful pout transformed into the wry expression of one who knew they were being horribly – if good naturedly – teased.
“I do have one of my own, you know,” she admitted shyly.
“Well then, I’ll know who to turn to should I need any advice on the subject,” Colin commented sincerely, enjoying how Pen blushed and huffed at his praise.
“I should go find Eloise,” she said, moving to step around him, but nearly tripped when Colin blocked her path.
“You are a lovely friend, Pen,” he said, his words gentle and soft, like a secret whispered into your pillow. “Thank you.”
And before he could talk himself out of it or before she could step away, Colin wrapped his arms about Penelope and pulled her tight to his chest, squeezing her so firmly he thought she might be able to feel the strong pounding of his heart.
He could certainly feel that budding bosom he’d finally noticed, the flesh warm and giving as it pressed against his stomach which was rather suddenly overcome with a flutter of butterflies.