Chapter Text
At first, it’s unconscious.
Colin doesn’t even realise he’s doing it.
It’s just a flippant comment here and there, an arched brow and a pointed look whenever Debling approaches her at a ball, a cheap thrill racing up his spine at the flicker of uncertainty that passes through her eyes because of it.
He doesn’t understand this feeling stuck deep in his chest. He doesn’t understand why every time Debling talks to her and a blush blooms in her cheeks, it feels like it hurts to breathe. Why his skin crawls when she talks about him. Why even though his need to travel has been satiated for now, every time she laughs prettily in his presence, he wants to run away.
It’s cruel in a way. How he plants the seed and watches it take root without even knowing why. He knows he shouldn’t be doing it, knows she has spent three painful years on the marriage mart, loitering in the wings, just waiting to be seen. She’s his friend and he should be happy for her that her prayers have been answered.
Perhaps he would have been if he hadn’t kissed her.
He lays awake at night thinking about that. Thinking about that kiss and how nothing has changed and yet everything, everything, is different.
It grieves him as much as it thrills him.
He’s no poet (though he tries), but he thinks that kiss both brought him to life and ruined his life.
If he had just said no, he tells himself. If he hadn’t allowed himself to feel her pain as though it were his own, to throw away his carefully cultivated sense of propriety at just a look and a whisper of his name, Pen would just be his friend and he would be able to breathe.
Deep down, he knows he’s fooling himself.
He knows a spark like this would have always been lit. It had been rumbling under the surface all these years and now it’s a flame he simply can’t smother.
And so the first time she mentions Debling, an air of excitement about her, Colin frowns.
“I am happy for you, Pen,” he lies, the words like ash in his mouth, “only… do be careful. I would hate for you to rush into something with someone who is not suited for you.”
He watches her take the words in. It kills him, how she hangs on to every one. How his opinion matters to her in a way it doesn’t to anyone else.
“Why do you think he is not suited for me?”
He merely hums, not awarding her an answer.
Years later, when his fingers are combing absentmindedly through her hair as they lay tangled in the sheets, he will smile and think himself very obvious indeed.
It’s still not strictly his intention, the second time he tries to sabotage Debling.
They’re standing next to each other, shoulder to shoulder, a careful sip of whiskey for him and lemonade for Debling.
He wants to roll his eyes.
He wonders if the man ever just lets go, just throws caution to the wind and has fun.
He has fun.
With Penelope.
So, when Debling asks him what words he would use to describe her, Colin tells him as much.
He just tells the truth, to hell with consequences.
“She is… as the sun,” he murmurs, a gentle smile tugging at the corner of his lips, “warm and bright. She is larger than life, uncontainable. Penelope will never be happy with a life in the shadows, if you know what I mean.”
She will never be happy with you.
A muscle in Colin’s jaw leaps at the thought, something primal, something possessive flaring to life inside him. He takes a sip of whiskey, grateful for the burn as it scorches its way down his throat. He keeps his eyes straight ahead, focused on the dancing couples in-front of him, but he practically feels Debling bristle.
“Yes, Mr Bridgerton,” his voice is dull—as dull as the rest of him, Colin thinks childishly—and when he speaks again, the implication behind his words is clear, “I believe I know exactly what you mean.”
By the third time, Colin knows what he’s doing.
He’s resigned to it, knows it without a doubt.
He wants—no, needs—Penelope Featherington.
He doesn’t need her like a friend. He needs her like Anthony needs Kate and Daphne needs Simon. He needs her like he needs air to breathe.
But he doesn’t know if she needs him.
Not the way he needs her.
So he decides to test the waters one day, sitting across from her as they share tea and cakes and a comfortable silence that comes from years of knowing someone.
“Pen, do you ever think about it…” he starts in a murmur, unsettled fingers twisting the ring on his other hand, “our kiss?”
Penelope’s eyes fly from her cup of tea to meet his. She looks stunned, shocked, that he would ask. After-all, they haven’t spoken about it for weeks, not since that afternoon under the willow tree.
Colin swallows uncomfortably at her silence and he starts to panic.
Perhaps she has only thought about it once or twice, he thinks, or perhaps she has not thought about it at all, not the way I have. Not every moment I am awake and even the moments I am not. Perhaps—
“Colin,” she whispers and something clenches in his chest.
He loves the way she says his name, all breathy and devoted.
Her eyes flit to her maid on the other side of the room, nervous she might overhear. He’s irritated at himself for not bribing her to leave them alone again. He needs Penelope’s unfiltered, unabashed truth. Now more than ever.
“Yes?” he arches a brow, waiting impatiently.
He watches the movement of her throat as she swallows, needlessly adjusting her teacup in what must be a nervous gesture.
“Your months away have certainly made you more direct,” a nervous laugh bubbles in her throat, “it is not very proper to talk about such things.”
His brow climbs higher.
“It is not very proper for an unmarried woman to ask a man to kiss her in the first place.”
A blush creeps its way into her cheeks.
“I’m sor—”
“Please don’t.”
Her eyes snap to his again.
There’s a beat of heavy silence before he speaks again, low and pained.
“Please don’t apologise. I—” he swallows, forcing himself to push the words out, to be brave, “I don’t regret it.”
Something flickers through her eyes, something he can’t quite put his finger on.
“I don’t regret it either,” she says eventually, that blush still high on her cheeks, “and to answer your question… yes, I think about it. I think about it all the time.”
He swallows, his throat suddenly very dry.
He wants to ask her what she thinks that means because not knowing is killing him. He wants to ask her if she’s really interested in anyone else, perfumed lords that don’t know her, not the way he does. He wants to ask what exactly she thought about the kiss and if they can do it again.
But before he can gather the courage, to pick up the pieces of his aching heart and give them to her, she’s speaking again.
“I think about how generous you were, how kind to give me that experience. I know it must have been difficult for you… uncomfortable… given not only that you are a gentleman, and it certainly isn’t proper, but that we are friends.”
Friends.
The word feels like a bucket of ice water over his head.
And as far as being a gentleman is concerned, the frankly embarrassing number of mornings he has woken up with sticky sheets and a flush sheen of sweat covering his skin after dreaming of her would speak to the contrary.
There is nothing gentlemanly about what Colin Bridgerton wants to do to Penelope Featherington.
But if she thinks of that kiss as a favour and nothing more… perhaps his feelings are not reciprocated.
And so he clears his throat with an awkward smile, takes a sip of tea, and wishes he’d never asked.
The fourth time, he loses his nerve.
He needs to tell her. He needs to just march up to her, and take her hand, and tell her. Tell her she’s all he thinks about, all he dreams about. That every word she utters, every move she makes, his entire world depends upon.
He is distressingly, confusingly, pathetically gone for her.
If she doesn’t feel the same way, so be it. He’s a big man, he can take it. He can step back and watch her marry Debling and be her friend.
There will never be anyone else for him, so he will live for that friendship.
He really thinks he can.
He knows she didn’t react exactly the way he wanted her to when he asked her about the kiss, but there are other moments when he thinks perhaps she does feel the same way. Moments when he catches her looking at him for a beat too long, all sparkling eyes and pink cheeks. There are comments his family have made, and even random members of the ton, but most of all there’s the undeniability of it.
Of them.
She simply must feel it too.
So the next time he watches her dance with Debling with a tightness in his chest, he does the unthinkable.
He walks right up to them and interrupts.
“May I cut in?”
Her shock is clear. It flits over her face before she can stop it. Around him, he can practically feel eyes on him, hot gazes of surprise, gleeful for what will be a fresh topic of gossip come morning. He can feel Debling’s anger too, rolling over him in indignant waves.
He doesn’t care.
He doesn’t care for propriety, or politeness, or what society says is or isn’t done.
He cares only about her, and his eyes remain fixed.
She stares right back at him, a lovely flare of anger behind her eyes. She lights up with it. She’s as stubborn as he is and she refuses to break, to bend. It’s Debling that eventually has to make the first move, clearing his throat and stepping back with all the dignity he has left.
Colin wastes no time in sliding into his place, taking her hand in his.
“What are you doing?” she hisses, her eyes darting around the room as they begin to move.
I have absolutely no idea, he thinks.
“I needed to speak to you,” he says.
She blinks.
“And it couldn’t have waited?”
“No,” he shakes his head vehemently, “this cannot wait.”
She must sense his urgency, the way his fingers flex anxiously in hers and his jaw sets tight, because her expression flickers before it softens.
“Colin, what is it?”
He swallows, the words dying on his tongue.
He really hasn’t thought this through.
“I…”
Penelope narrows her eyes, that flare of irritation rearing its head again.
“You what?”
“I… I don’t think he’s right for you, Pen.”
“Yes, you keep saying that,” she rolls her eyes, “but since you refuse to elaborate, to explain your reasoning, what exactly am I supposed to do with it?”
He swallows, his throat closing up.
He freezes. His lips part but no sound comes out. He quite literally cannot speak.
Because her hand is warm in his, and her eyes are pinning him in place, and he loves her.
He loves her… and if she doesn’t love him back, he doesn’t think he can handle it after-all.
Around them, the music comes to an end and Penelope steps back. Like two ships passing in the night, a chance missed.
Something clenches in his chest when he realises her eyes are watery, desperate.
She inhales shakily and lets it out again.
“Why are you doing this to me?” she whispers.
He shakes his head, and his eyes must be watery too because they’re burning, but he’s lost his voice.
She doesn’t wait for him to find it.
The fifth time, it’s not about Debling at all.
It’s about how he can’t sleep, can’t eat, can’t breathe without seeing her sad face.
It’s the painful knowledge that he’s hurting her. He never, ever wants to — but with all his hesitation and mixed messages, he knows he is.
He hates how she’s avoiding him, hates the distance between them. More than that, he hates that it’s his fault.
He seeks her out at the next ball, the way he always does.
She’s standing alone on the upper balcony, looking down at the dancing couples below. Half shrouded in darkness, he can only make out the back of her form, the fire of her hair flickering in the candlelight.
He takes a step towards her.
She turns her head to the side immediately, dipping her chin to her shoulder.
“What do you want?”
It thrills him as much as it discomforts him, the fact that she knew he was there without even turning around.
He takes another step. Still, she doesn’t turn around.
“Why are you up here all alone?” he asks instead.
He hears the light scoff that rolls from her throat.
“What business is it of yours?”
He sighs. They can’t keep doing this, circling each other like predator and prey, batting questions at each other.
Someone needs to bend, and Colin knows it must be him.
He takes another step towards her.
“Pen, I hate this distance between us,” he admits quietly, “there is nothing I want more than to fix it.”
She doesn’t reply.
The air is thick, heavy with the weight of everything left unsaid. Implication hangs behind his words. If they were just friends, there would be nothing to fix. Her impending engagement to Debling wouldn’t bother him, and nothing would have changed between them.
“Please,” he murmurs after another excruciatingly long beat, “let me fix it.”
He doesn’t have to be able to see her face to know she’s nervous. He knows it because there’s a slight tremble to her shoulders, shoulders which are rising and falling too quickly due to her shortened breath. He knows it because she’s wringing her hands, anxiously threading the fingers between each other.
He just knows her.
Better than anyone.
“And how do you propose to do that?” she whispers eventually, a thread of vulnerability lacing her tone.
She wants him to.
She wants to fix things too.
“By telling you how important you are to me,” he says, voice quiet and low, “how much I value you.”
She focuses her gaze straight ahead again, lifting her hands to curl them over the balcony’s edge. He takes her silence as a good sign—she isn’t turning him away, after-all—and takes one more step towards her.
He hears her sharp inhale of breath at his proximity. He’s so close now, her hair brushes his chest, and his fingers twitch with the effort it takes not to touch her.
“If you value me… if you care about me the way you say you do,” she starts, voice soft and nervous, “why are you trying to ruin my only chance at happiness?”
His brows draw into a frown.
“Debling is not your only chance at happiness.”
“Of course he is,” she bites back, “I hardly have a line of suitors waiting to ask for my hand, Colin. Debling is the practical choice. He is the only choice.”
“What passion."
“Do not mock me.”
He shuts his mouth, jaw locked tight. When he speaks again, he makes sure his tone is low and gentle.
“What I mean to say is that he cannot make you happy. He will leave you, and he is too… too… particular,” he screws his eyes shut in frustration at his inability to find the right word, “with him, you would just find yourself up here again, alone, sheltered in darkness, hiding from the world. You deserve more than that. You deserve love. A love that consumes you, but also brings you peace.”
That’s what she’s given him — even if she doesn’t know it yet.
She doesn’t speak, but he hears her reply anyway. He hears it in the way her body starts to relax, starts to lean back into his chest a little more. He hears it in the way her breathing shallows, a shiver of excitement running through her.
“You deserve to be appreciated,” he murmurs, leaning in closer still, “to be listened to.”
He raises one hand and gently touches it to her waist.
“To be cherished.”
Her breath hitches again. He doesn’t miss how her fingers twitch and tighten around the balcony’s edge.
He gives her waist a little squeeze and then slowly, achingly, splays his fingers and begins to slide his palm over her stomach. The candlelight flickers and glints off the ruby in his ring as it catches on fine fabric.
With all the courage he has left, fully aware he is risking scandal and not giving a damn, he gently presses down, bringing their hips flush and closing the small gap between them.
Penelope gasps, her head tipping back slightly.
He dips his chin to murmur hotly in her ear.
“To be touched.”
He delights at the thrill that rockets through her, so powerful he literally feels it. His cock stirs at the confirmation of how very responsive she is, his mind racing with all the ways he could make her body sing.
“Colin…”
He suppresses a shudder at the way she says his name. It makes the already tenuous grasp he has on his self-control slip.
He swallows heavily, preparing himself for what he needs to say.
Only when he opens his mouth again, all he manages is a soft “Penelope, I—” before she interrupts him.
“Be quiet.”
He snaps his mouth shut at her command.
One of her hands lifts from the balcony to slowly cover his own on her stomach. Her hands are warm as her fingers touch his. He feels an immediate charge at the connection, and his chest tightens when he notices she's trembling.
“Can you just…” the words catch in her throat, barely a whisper, “just… be still. For me.”
He can.
For her, he can.
Her palm, warm and uncovered, slides over the back of his hand until she’s gently gripping his wrist. She leans even further into him, her head rolling back onto his shoulder. From the new angle, he can see her eyelids fluttering shut. He can see the way she worries her plump bottom lip between her teeth. She shifts again and he has to bite his tongue to hold a groan when her behind rolls over his crotch.
The ball rages on below them as they stand like this, suspended in time, half cloaked in protective darkness.
Until he can’t take it anymore.
She told him to be quiet, and she told him to be still, but he can feel every curve of her body and it’s driving him mad, and her perfume is making him dizzy, and his chest hurts, and his throat burns, and he just needs to say it—
“Please don’t marry him,” he whispers, “it will kill me if you marry him.”
She stiffens in shock.
Her eyes fly open and her lips part, but all he hears is her mother’s shrill voice.
“What on earth is going on here?”
“Mama!” Penelope steps away from him like she’s been burned.
Colin's jaw slides to the side then clenches in irritation. He can’t look at Portia, won’t look at her, but she’s suddenly all Penelope can see as she averts her eyes to the floor, cheeks burning red.
“Lord Debling has been searching for you,” her mother tells her, voice betraying her fury, “best you go find him before he gives up altogether.”
Something sharp and possessive stings in Colin’s chest, but he lets her go, dragging his gaze away as she runs past her mother, flustered.
A pointed silence hangs heavy in the air until Portia breaks it, speaking slow.
“If you think I am going to let her throw away a lord like Debling for a third son—”
“Careful, Lady Featherington,” he growls.
She pauses but lifts her chin indignantly.
“Mr Bridgerton, Penelope is young—”
He interrupts her again, a muscle in his jaw leaping. He stands straight and adjusts his jacket, awarding her one final, piercing line before he leaves.
“I know exactly what Penelope is.”