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Well, you certainly are a masochist, Penelope Featherington, she told herself as she walked the three miles home. It was a cold and dreary January day, long past the cheery festivities of Christmas. The flowers that once lined her path had dried up months ago and the overcast sky seemed to be a permanent fixture of her country life. She used to despise days like these in London but, out here, she abhorred the sunny ones.
Two crows greeted her as she kept her slow but persistent pace. The few trees in her eyesight were barren and, although many artists tried to capture some nonexistent beauty into the desolate landscape, she could find none which suited her just fine.
She stopped for a moment to catch her breath. With her hands on her hips, she took an inventory of her body – feeling the opposed weight of each soft limb, checking in with every sore and ache that pained the lower half of her body from her current excursion. It was something she had made a habit of doing multiple times a day since she left London. It grounded her to the present and oddly enough, made her feel more fulfilled by calming her down and stilling her mind.
As she took herself into account, a dull pain shot through her back. Her feet ached and the feeling in her toes had long abandoned her, but they were nothing compared to the ache in her heart.
Damn it, girl. It’s been close to three years.
She had reached the point where the memory didn’t sear as it once did. By no means did that mean she didn’t revisit the scene often, a couple of times a day at least. This way she was able to slow it down and replay exactly what she was thinking.
When she heard her name that night, she didn’t know what to expect. In hindsight, she should have expected some sort of rebuff from her beloved. Colin never reciprocated her feelings. What surprised her was the swiftness in which he said it.
The question barely left Fife’s lips before he got out, “Ah, are you mad?”
Her heart sank as it digested his words, giving her no time to prepare for what came next.
“I would never dream of courting Penelope Featherington.”
Looking back, she found the phrase ironic. The man who would never let himself think of her in any desirable way – in a wifely way– was all she thought about. He would never dream of her, yet he was all she dreamt about for years.
He ended his refusal with “Not in your wildest fantasies, Fife.”
With three short sentences, her hopes for her future were completely dashed. The words were simple and yet exceedingly cruel. But she finally got his message.
By the following Monday, she was already gone in an early morning hack. Since Eloise wanted nothing to do with her, nothing was really stopping her from leaving.
She didn’t mind living in a home where her own family didn’t respect her and the Ton certainly didn’t give her the time of day. There were only two people worth staying for and since they clearly didn’t respect her, she realized she needed to respect herself. Leaving was the only way she felt she could do that.
She left her mother with a few pounds of her Whistledown money and forged a note from a fictitious country Earl looking for a governess for his daughters, saying that he had hired her. She promised to send back her earnings to the Featherington estate and to write often. And then, that was that.
She expected to cry on her way out to the countryside, but no tears stained her cheeks. Instead, she focused on what lay ahead, a life with her thoughts among fresh air and wildflowers.
For the most part, her expectations met her reality. She wrote and read for most of the day, often outside on warm days. There were dark moments but two years in, she liked to think the solitude of country life suited her.
But she still couldn’t let go of him.
Penelope embraced the wind’s harsh sting as she continued her walk along the old country road. If she was honest with herself, she welcomed the numbness. It was a pleasant distraction from the constant ache buried deep inside her.
She felt it when she would see a man with a hearty appetite chowing down at the local pub or when she would see traveling merchants enjoying their journeys between towns. She truly believed she was happy here but that didn’t mean she was free from his memory.
Despite her two-year absence from the Ton, she still received the occasional visit from her family and frequent correspondence from a few Bridgertons. Violet, Daphne, and hell, even Anthony wrote to her inquiring how far her home was from Aubrey Hall. Nothing came of his question but she knew it was his way of checking up on her.
Penelope quickly unlatched the front gate and ran through the yard. She noticed smoke piping out from her chimney, indicating her neighbor Mrs. Childs had already come by to cook for her. She was no expert in the kitchen as most women of the Ton weren’t. However, she and the elderly woman took turns making a Sunday meal after attending their obligated church activities. The practice provided her with much-needed fellowship and a new skill she liked doing.
Her chilled fingertips fumbled with the key string around her neck before she finally got her front door open. The smell of roast beef waffled from the house.
“Mrs. Childs!” She called as she turned to hand up her scarf on the hook by the entrance. When no answer came, she twirled around and gasped.
There, lining the entryway, cluttering the kitchen table, and scattering into the sitting room were hundreds and hundreds of flowers.
Corncockles, Orchids, Harebells, Daisies, Foxgloves, Lily of the Valleys, Honeysuckles, Musk Mallows, Wood Forget-Me-Nots, flowers she had never seen before – all stood before her in various well-thought-out arrangements.
She picked one up to examine it, careful to not knock any vases over in the process.
“Who brought you?” she whispered aloud. Her head shot up when a throat cleared.
“You look good, Pen.”
There Colin Bridgerton stood in her sitting room, with the same twinkle in his eye that made her fall in love with him. His smile looked dimmer than she remembered, making him seem hesitant – scared even.
All she could do was stare at him, eyes wide, and heart beating. She tried feeling her body to grant her some sort of control over her mental faculties, but each limb was nearly frozen from shock.
“Your cheeks look…kissed” he finished, his tongue emphasizing the sound of hard consonants.
“Well, the wind has been strong today,” Penelope waved him off and then tucked the stray hair that hung in her face behind her ears. I will not give him an inch.
She took him in. Despite knowing it was impossible for a man of two and thirty to grow taller, she swore his presence loomed larger than the last time she saw him. For a split second, her mind drifted to imagining him enveloping her in his strong arms, but two years’ worth of chiding herself finally paid off and the urge faded as quickly as it began, leaving a flurry of self-hatred in its wake.
“What are you doing here Colin?” she exasperatedly asked.
“I came to see you.”
“Yes I can see that,” she said looking at all the flowers. “You’ve certainly left your mark.”
“You don’t like them?”
She sighed.
“It is a lot of work to clean up. All these flowers will be out in the bins in a day or two.”
Her response seemed to rattle him, his usual confidence dissipated into thin air. She knew he expected her to welcome him with open arms, with more warmth than what he received. The frost from her cool demeanor was enough to make him question everything.
“I didn’t mean to cause you any inconvenience.”
“You never mean to do anything Colin,” her voice was soft.
“Right.” He took a beat to regain himself, staring at the floor before closing his eyes and bringing his hand to his forehead. He started repeating himself.
“Right. I’ve come here to ask you to come back to London with me,” he said, directly looking her in the eye.
All she could do in response was stare at him, eyes wide.
“And to give you this.”
He handed her a letter with her name inscribed in his tight manic script. She didn’t dare look at him as she broke the letter’s seal, so she turned away towards her kitchen.
As she unfolded the letter, her eyes made out the opening line:
To My Dearest Pen.
It was enough to make her hands tremble. Her heart raced in fear. She couldn’t go through this again. She physically did not have the strength to let him back into her life permanently.
To read his words would be to openly welcome more pain into her life by refilling her head with the hope she once cherished, that she and Colin would be together. The thought of one more heartbroken night terrified her.
No doubt, Colin was bored of his life in the Ton and on the road. His desire to be liked and fawned over outweighed even his platonic feelings for her, she justified. Surely, he was lonely and too lazy to find the one he was meant to be with, so there he stood in front of her wanting to make a go of their relationship. If he truly thought some performance of a romantic grand gesture would convince her that they were meant to be something more, that the promise of some unsaid future would get her to come crawling home to the exact same position she was once in. He would be sadly mistaken.
Penelope Featherington would not go back to being an afterthought.
She thought she had done well up until this point. She made a modest living tutoring a few local girls and found her interactions with them fulfilling. She only spent one to two days in bed a month struck down with sadness, as opposed to the unending weeks she spent upon her first arrival. She embroidered here. She wrote better here. She sang to herself here. She would say she was content here.
Yet, if she was honest with herself, the idea of more never truly left the back of her mind.
And so she continued reading.
A flower for every reason why I love you.
The penultimate word stopped her in her tracks. He wrote of something he didn’t know, at least not with her.
Her breath caught in her throat as she stared at the page frozen.
She felt a hand touch the back of her arm and Penelope whirled around to find him much closer than he was before. There was a gleam in his eye, a look Penelope was too frantic to understand.
“Penelope,” he whispered, reaching out to her. On instinct, she stepped back hurriedly bumping into her flower-ridden kitchen table in the process. She looked for any path to give her more space but his gift riddled her floor.
Seeing her eyes dart around the room, Colin’s face dropped, his hands suddenly at his sides.
Despite her best efforts tears lined her eyes. Penelope hated him seeing this unyielding hold he still had over her.
I will not do this again. I will not. I refuse.
She yearned for the brush of his hand again – for any physical contact, really – but refused to allow herself to welcome him in.
“I can’t think,” she said, leaning over the table. “This is all too much.”
“Penelope, please –”
“Love!” She was yelling now, waving the note in his face with shaking hands. The stationary crumpled in her embrace.
“You think telling me what I have been desperate to hear from you my entire life will change anything? I don’t want your false words, Colin!” She shoved the letter into his chest and walked past him, before stopping to keep herself from sobbing.
“They aren’t false, Penelope.” He pleaded, taking a step forward but she kept the same distance between them.
“Pen darling, please.”
Even as indignation filled her, she could not help crumbling at the sound of his agony
“You have never shown me the slightest bit of romantic affection!”
Her words stopped him.
“I know that you knew how I felt and you not only turned away, you ridiculed me in front of your friends in the process. How do I know you are telling me the truth because one does not do that to someone they love!”
“I truly didn’t know!”
She glared at him, finally letting her tears fall in an angry rage. “I know I have been away for two years, Colin. Don’t tell me you’ve grown to be a liar! You need to leave.”
“I didn’t mean –”
“Now. Take the flowers. ” She turned away from him and bent over picking up vases as she walked.
“I didn’t know how I felt about you–”
“Take every last flower.”
“–until I returned and I kept wanting to see your face.”
She stopped but stayed facing away from him.
“I longed for it. While walking around Mayfair, while dancing at balls, while strolling along beaches and country roads.” He stopped as if waiting for her response, when none came he continued.
“I didn’t know it was you I needed at first. But I have deeply felt your absence. Every time I closed my eyes, I’d see your face. I dreamt of you constantly. I couldn’t bear to look at my siblings when one of them mentioned your name. I never dared look at your house and would plan my routes around it.”
He sighed again.
“You are right about my behavior – about me, about everything. Please.”
I will not look at him.
“Penelope,” She realized he was begging for her. Never had her name been uttered with such regret and pain. She slowly turned around where he briefly met her eye.
“I cannot tell you how sorry I am.” He dropped his head, before taking a breath and meeting her eyes again. “I treated you so poorly –”
“You did. You absolutely destroyed me. And the thing that makes me undeniably furious is that I let you do it again and again until that day in the garden when you said what you said to Fife. Then, I left, and only then did you care about me.”
“Pen, I’ve always cared about you. I’ve told you that for years!”
“Yes, but you only wanted me when I chose myself over you. You haven’t seen me for over two years. I could be someone here. I could have hobbies and friends I refuse to forgo. I could be courting someone-”
“Are you?
She ignored him.
“You came here with no regard for the life I could have established here! You practically broke into my home, Colin. You want what you want no matter the cost or consequence to me. You clearly don’t respect me enough to consider my space or realize that you are chasing the old Penelope.”
He was silent while she stared him down. Her words seemed to galvanize him into quiet reflection. His eyes wandered around the life she had instilled in her new home, noting the tiniest details–how they seemed so inherently Penelope although not quite. She had become a new person, one that he was eager to know.
“I shouldn’t have come. Not like this. I am appalled that I did essentially break into your house and now I see I may have littered your home with a ridiculous number of flowers. You’re right that I may be chasing what you call the old Penelope.”
Penelope could feel her eyebrows raising as she continued to meet his gaze. She never thought he would roll over so easily and surrender. The Colin she once knew stuck to his own instincts, even when they were wrong. He did this with Marina despite her pleas.
“And that I never even considered that you would be happy here.”
He gestured to their surroundings. “You have a piano so you’re clearly continuing your musical studies here. On every flat surface, I can see from where I am standing that there is a jar of ink therefore you must be writing a lot. And have you picked up embroidery?”
Penelope gave him a curt nod.
“You clearly have evolved and changed in two years' time. I can see that you have not stagnated with your absence but rather thrived. It was foolish of me to think you wouldn’t be courting someone. You are wonderful and always have been and if someone came to realize this before me, I wish you every happiness.”
Colin closed his eyes and took a step toward her. A vase of Baby’s Breath and Forget-Me-Nots was knocked over in the process but neither seemed to care. He inhaled deeply before taking both of her hands in his.
“You have every right to move on however you see fit. And, if this is goodbye, I need you to know that I do love you. You were correct that I only started wanting you when I couldn’t have you. I know myself enough that I not only loved the person I perceived you to be and the person you were. But you are wrong about something. I will love the person you are now even though I barely know her. Because she came from the girl I loved. I will love the next person you become and the next. I will love every iteration of you, Penelope. Even if it's from afar, I will love you.”
And then he said it a final time.
“I love you.”
There was something final about the way the word came out of his mouth. ‘Goodbye’ lurked in every crevice of this utterance, and Penelope had finally had enough.
She had proven to herself that she could survive without the love of Colin Bridgerton. In the last two years, she thrived. Despite all her progress, the thought of him leaving devastated her. Gone would be the fantasies of being a Bridgerton wife, of being a mother to his children–fantasies she tried to tamp down in fear of losing herself to the despair Colin often left in his wake. She wanted to rise above the call of her heart and keep this new Penelope inside her. But she realized that giving in to a dream did not make her weak, not if she did not compromise herself.
With his eyes closed tight, he squeezed her hands before releasing them, but she held on. That instant, she could feel her heart leap out of her body and go with him. She could survive a world away from him and she had. This newfound self-respect she had found in the last two years told her she would be fine without him. But she knew if she let him leave, that would be it. Any chance of them being together would be gone. She couldn’t bear it. Colin was willing to let her live her life without him. That was enough for Penelope to try to work something out.
She pulled him slightly closer and leaned in. Standing on her tiptoes, she brought her mouth to his.
Colin jerked in surprise, his eyes flying open. He stared at her in shock for a brief moment, before desperation set in and the realization hit him of what her action meant.
Penelope moved in to close their distance again but Colin was faster, his lips meeting hers again. He held on to her for dear life, feeling her melt into him in more ways than one. For a moment, not a single thought crossed their minds as tongues and touch became the only language they spoke.
Finally, Penelope pulled away gasping for breath. Colin’s head followed her, clearly looking for her lips. Instead, he kissed her hair and then rested his forehead against hers.
She leaned into him, her hands softly rubbing the lapel of his jacket up and down. He cupped her face, placing soft kisses every once in a while across her brow line.
“So you’ll come back with me?” Penelope could tell Colin was beaming as he asked her. She couldn’t help but smile at his plea. Though he was a grown man, a childlike excitement filled his eyes. He was practically bouncing, vibrating as the anticipation of a life with her.
She hated to disappoint him so but she was torn. One kiss didn’t fix everything. She saw the spark of change in him with his willingness to leave her be if she wanted, but there was so much for him to answer for. So much more work to be done.
He pulled away from her when she didn’t answer right away.
“Penelope, please.” He squeezed her hands. “Come back with me.”
She took a breath.
“I’ve built a life here, Colin. One that I’m quite proud of. I love this cottage. It's small but I’ve made it into something that I love. I’ve made friends. I practically keep the local bookseller running. The children of the village love me and come for lessons. As much as I’ve longed to be your wife, I’m quite different from the girl that left two years ago.”
“So you aren’t willing to leave?” An understated whine entered his voice.
“What I am saying is I won’t go shrinking into the night again, Colin. I refuse to surrender the confidence I gained in order to please you again. ”
“I’m not asking you to!” He raised his tone desperately.
“I haven’t seen you in two years. Forgive me if this sudden semblance of a future together… feels out of the blue!”
He stopped and stared at her before sighing.
“You’re right.”
“Though I’ve meant everything I’ve said to you today, how are you to know that? In your eyes, my intentions have been less than consistent. You deserve everything you desire, Pen.”
Her furrowed brows smoothened, tension easing slightly from within her before she took an involuntary breath.
“You’re right. I do.” Penelope presented herself with a level of calm confidence Colin had never seen from her. His heart ached as he realized he missed the formation of this part of her. She continued.
“But I would be lying if I said I was willing to let you go too.”
“What do you mean?”
“I still long to see you. That part of me never died. Probably never will. But we still need to be reacquainted with one another.”
He nodded, choosing to level his attention to the ground as he could not meet her gaze.
She brought his chin up to look at her. She then leaned up to whisper in his ear, “I’m saying there’s hope for us, Colin.” She heard him inhale sharply before kissing his cheek and taking a step back.
“But this time has to be different. This is the only opportunity I can give you because I cannot take another heartbreak. I will entrust you with my heart this one time and it is up to you if you earn me or let me fall.”
She grabbed his hands and looked him dead in the eye.
“It’s late January. If you come up to visit me every weeks-end until the beginning of the season, I will agree to court you.”
She watched him do the calculation in his head, realizing the start of the social calendar was over three months away.
“Every week?”
“Every week,” she confirmed.
“And if I miss one?” he asked. Penelope knew Colin liked testing boundaries but the question alone made her heartache.
“Then, I know you aren’t serious and I will pass on your courtship.”
“Then, I will be at your doorstep every Friday evening, dead or alive.” His face grew grave as he declared his promise.
“I mean it, Colin. My heart has been yours since I was sixteen but if you want any chance of a future with it – with me– then I need to see an effort.”
He squeezed her hands.
“I don’t think I can fathom a life without you anymore. I will be there, Penelope. I will. I will prove my loyalty and love to you.”
She nodded before leaning against him again.
He kissed her head quickly before asking his next question.
“I assume the time we spend together will be reacquainting ourselves with one another?
“Yes, and figuring out if we are a match.”
“I don’t need to figure that out. I have found my answer.”
He slowly brought his lips to hers in a feather-light kiss. Penelope inhaled slightly as soon as his touch left her, wanting more. He pulled her in for a searing kiss.
Penelope would have been content if they spent the rest of the day like this, enraptured in one another’s embrace but Colin pulled away.
“You know, Miss Featherington, I would have promised more than just my weekends to even look at you. You could have asked for a lot more–you still can obviously…” He looked down for a moment. “I just want you to know I’m serious. That I am willing to give everything up in order to be with you. Traveling, whiskey, sweets, anything you ask of me.”
“Colin–” She wanted to say that he didn’t need to give anything up for her, but that wouldn’t be true. He would have to sacrifice a few things to be with her. He wouldn’t be able to travel all the time. He couldn’t just go to the club with friends on a whim because he felt like it. Not because she wanted him to give them up to prove something to her, but because that was what love is. A give and a take. In their first decades of friendship, she gave so much that her heart practically bled dry. It was time for Colin to reciprocate and she was thankful he was so willing to do so.
“Can we just start with your time and attention?”
Colin gently moved a stray strand of hair behind her ear, before cradling her face in his hands.
“Oh darling, you’ll have it until the day I die.” Penelope used this opportunity to kiss him again, this time clinging to his lapels. He pried her mouth open with his tongue and drank her in and drew her closer to him.
When they finally broke apart, Penelope was gasping for air.
They made their way to her settee, careful not to knock any of the flowers over. It was like a game trying to find the quickest path. It ended with two vases strewn on the ground and plenty of giggles shared between them.
They held one another for a while, content with the silence and relishing in each other’s warmth. Colin drew tiny circles into Penelope’s hair as she heaved soft sighs to his coaxing. Interspersed in between were kisses and languid touches, proof that they were not in a hazy dream. This was their reality now, astounding them both with its tangibility.
Neither had spoken in a while when Penelope finally said what had been plaguing her mind in the last few minutes.
“I desire to keep the house.”
He was silent for a moment, staring straight ahead.
“Is this to be our primary residence?”
Penelope didn’t like how he asked his question. Maybe it was the monotone of his inflection or that she detected some skepticism hidden away in his intent.
“Colin, I shall not be brought back to London only to be held captive by the ton. I shall not sell this place. I refuse. If that is an issue…”
He stared at her, his brow furrowed and his eyes narrow.
“I do not mean you should sell this place, Penelope. You worked hard for it. The effort that you have exerted to maintain it is evident. You are obviously happy here and I want to be a part of it. I just want to plan our life together.”
Penelope took his hand in hers and weaved their fingers together.
“Perchance, we should start planning your next trip here in a week’s time?”
Colin kissed her mouth and smiled.
They spent the next couple of hours talking about their lives, his travels, and her hobbies. He met Mrs. Childs, who thought the flowers around Penelope’s home were more romantic than a nuisance.
When Colin left two days later, the flowers had been relegated to one part of the house. Penelope watched him trot away first from her doorway, then from the front window when she could no longer bear the cold. She thought his departure would feel final and, while she had some reasonable doubt, she didn’t feel the sense of loss she thought she would.
Instead, a nervous ball of emotion ran through her throughout the week. As she washed dishes, watched the snowfall, and hemmed her new dress, the uncertainty of him coming at week’s end vibrated within her. This was the ultimate test– would he be there for her?
Penelope tossed and turned as Thursday turned into Friday. She sighed as she threw her blanket back and placed her feet on the wooden floor. The smooth glossy finish felt cold beneath her and yet it calmed her. She took a moment to just feel the wood beneath her and the soft cotton sheets that touched the back of her thighs.
When she felt calm enough, she stood to walk into the kitchen to put the kettle on. As she crossed the threshold, she heard a bump against the door followed by a delayed “Oi!”
She gasped and ran to the front window.
There splayed on the ground, bundled under an entirely too thin cloak was a distinct mop of hair.
She ratted on the glass before yelling, “Colin?”
He jolted up and looked around just before Penelope made it to the door and swung it open.
It was freezing outside. The snow that had fallen this morning would soon crust over even more. She had gone to bed with three extra blankets. How Colin had managed to survive out there she would question until the day she died.
“Colin, how long have you been out here? Why didn’t you make a racket to wake me?”
He gave her a sheepish wave, tightening the flimsy cover over himself. He rocked on the balls of his heels to either displace the agitation clear on his form or to bring back the warmth in his cold legs. Penelope was almost sure it was the former if not for the slight tremble in his voice when he spoke.
“I did not want to wake you so early. You should go back inside and sleep some more,” he said, ushering her back in.
“Not without you, I won’t.” In one fluid motion, Penelope pulled him inside with her and bolted the door shut. She took his hand and dragged him into her bedroom and practically threw him on the bed.
“Now you get under those covers and I’m going to fix you some hot water for tea and get the bed warmer ready for you.”
She pulled the blankets up over him.
“Colin, you are of no use to me sick. How could you not wake me?”
“I just wanted to surprise you when you woke up and, of course, I got the timing wrong.”
By this point, he was shivering harder than before.
She smiled and kissed his forehead.
“We were never good at timing. You did come for me though.”
Colin nodded, teeth chattering as he spoke after. “Always.”
He paused, before wrapping the blanket more tightly around himself and tucking his feet under his bum. "This could be the wonderful start of all your future Fridays.”
She gave him a wry glance, amusement dancing on her features, “You darkening my doorstep during inappropriate hours of the night?”
“Yes,” he said, captivating her attention with his undulated uncertainty. He was here to stay, he seemed to say.
Penelope swallowed thickly, overcome with a surge of affection for him. But she only gave him another kiss on the crown of his head before moving away to tend to the kettle. Instead, he rustled one arm from his cocoon and caught her in his embrace in one swift move. He held her over him and breathed in her scent, leaving her no choice but to rest her head on his for a moment.
Being next to Colin, in bed with him, holding one another when one was sick, felt right. Penelope once again mentally felt the current condition of her own body, feeling the cold that emanated from her companion. Her feet were aching and her anxiety was still lurking beneath the surface. But for the first time in two years, Penelope Featherington felt happy in her cottage home.
He came.
Not content, but assuredly, fervently, and loudly happy.
She served him in her bed for the rest of the day. In fact, most of the weekend was spent there. The couple kept propriety, especially in Colin’s condition, but they spent their time reading and talking and just enjoying finally having another person in their bed.
Over the coming months, from Friday to Sunday, Colin was always there between the sheets. They were sure to keep their marital relations for the wedding night, but Penelope couldn’t bear for him to sleep anywhere else when he made the long journey from London. He had kept his promise to her. Through snow and colds and even a horse-related accident, Colin made it to her doorstep. There were times when her old insecurities enveloped her and she kept waiting for him to stop coming but he kept proving her wrong. In the end, she found herself readily accepting him as a fixture in her home and her life. They would often catch themselves calling this tiny abode "their home", often laughing as they wrapped themselves with each other in their warm bed.
Despite her worry about returning for the London social season, their relationship stayed very much the same when they left the comfort of Penelope’s cottage. Colin had to watch his hands around her in private and they never spoke of that weekend in January around their family, but the third eldest Bridgerton sibling made his intentions of who he would end up with public after that first ball.
That first season back was difficult for Penelope. Her mother’s words could still break her heart with a single syllable. Eloise was still icy towards her despite her best efforts to make amends. Every member of the ton felt obligated to comment on her presence either behind her back or to her face. Cressida Cowper was the worst, as always, implying Penelope was fat and that she would end up alone. None of that would matter in the long run as Colin would swoop in with a witty one-liner and take her away to another part of the party. Whenever the festivities got too overwhelming, he would just squeeze her hand and remind her that they would be back at their cottage and in bed soon enough. Patience was a virtue Penelope had perfected and, with Colin’s steadfast support, she was able to survive the season mostly unscathed. Upon returning home, in the safety of her bed, she was able to breathe freely–all the more, now that she had Colin to share this precious space with her.
Their bed would see a lot through its time with Colin and Penelope – Lady Whistledown’s identity being revealed, a wedding, Eloise’s and Pen’s reunion, babies being born and even one dying, tears, fights, sex, and two home renovations.
But each day mostly ended the same way: Colin and Pen going to bed together.