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Chapter Text

With six and eight years separating him from his eldest brothers, Colin had always felt somewhat apart from them. But it wasn’t merely the age. Anthony, ever the stoic firstborn, carried his duties like armour, and Benedict, wild-eyed and bold, seemed forever chasing the next thrill, whether on horseback or up a tree. They were boys in the way boys were expected to be, steadily growing into men.

Colin, by contrast, was a gentle creature – “more flower than flame”, his mother would say. He’d rather curl into his mother’s lap and steal lemon drops from her reticule than chase foxes or brandish wooden swords. When Aunt Georgiana had gifted the three of them such swords one Christmas, Colin had promptly given his to Eloise, who had shrieked with delight and immediately challenged Benedict to a duel.

He had never minded the difference. Not truly.
At least, not until that one afternoon.

Benedict was dressing for his first hunt, the scent of gun oil clinging to his coat. He adjusted his cravat with the sort of grave self-importance only a fourteen-year-old boy could summon.

“Can I go hunting, too, Mama?” Colin had asked.

From the chaise in the drawing room, their mother said, “Oh, Colin, you know you are far too young for hunting!”

Daphne was perfecting her needlework beside her, while Francesca tapped out a hesitant scale at the pianoforte, and Eloise read quietly on the opposite chaise.

“I am not so much younger than he is,” Colin replied quickly.

“You’d cry the moment the dogs started barking,” Benedict said with a laugh. “I’ll leave you with the other girls, sewing samplers, sipping tea. Maybe Mama can take you shopping for ribbons.”

The heat surged into Colin’s face before he could stop it. “I am not a girl!” he snapped, too loud.

“Are too.”

“Am not!”

“What’s wrong with being a girl?” Eloise seethed.  

“The fact that I am a boy!”

“Yeah, right—”

“Benedict, please,” Violet interjected gently, setting down her teacup. “Let your brother be.”

Colin made it only as far as the end of the corridor, slumping onto the cushioned bench beneath the tall window where the afternoon light filtered in, soft and gold.

He sat there for a while, watching dust dance in the sunlight. He told himself he didn’t mind. That he was used to being left out.  After a time, the soft sound of slippers on polished floors crept toward him.

“Go on, you talk to him,” Daphne hissed. They were often called the ‘twins’, with hardly a year between them, and Daphne was his favourite sibling in truth, though he’d never tell her as much.

“I talked to him last time,” Francesca murmured back.

“I’ll do it,” said Eloise, and she marched towards him like a footman with urgent news. “Are you sulking?”

“I am not sulking,” Colin muttered, without much conviction.

“Good,” said Eloise brightly. “Because we’ve held a council and reached a decision.”

“A… council?”

“Yes. Franny, Daphne, and me.” She gestured imperiously behind her. “After much discussion, we’ve decided that even though you are technically a boy, you can play with us anyway.”

Francesca climbed up beside him on the bench and added with a grin, “It was not a unanimous vote, for the record.”

“I said he could if he promised not to ruin anything!” Eloise interjected.

Colin narrowed his eyes. “What are you playing? I’m not playing dress up, again.”

“Princes and highwaymen,” Daphne declared. “Franny and I are the princesses, and Eloise is the rogue who steals us both away. You can be the prince who saves us all. It’s very noble.”

“I don’t have a sword,” Colin said, lips twitching despite himself.

“You can borrow mine,” Eloise grinned.

He finally smiled — just a little.

Daphne reached out and smoothed his hair like their mother did. “You’re quite good at pretending, Col. That’s all hunting is, anyway – pretending to be brave and not bored. This is more fun.”

“And no animals have to die,” Francesca added cheerfully.

Colin had always been closer to his sisters as a child, before his growth spurt and years at Oxford secured him a seat at his brothers’ table and a glass of whisky.

It wasn’t something he’d chosen deliberately, it had simply been. With Anthony and Benedict so much older, their world had always felt like a closed door he wasn’t tall enough to reach the handle of. They were already boys by the time he was still being tucked into the crook of their mother’s arm, already running, sparring, sneaking out to watch Father shoot, laughing at jokes he didn’t understand. With the girls, he had simply belonged.

He’d spent hours choosing dresses with Daphne, watched Francesca frown in fierce concentration at the piano, run through the garden at Eloise’s heels as she issued shrill, bossy orders. It hadn’t felt unusual to be the only boy sitting on a blanket during teatime, cradling an empty teacup, or to be roped into playing the injured knight, or have his curls tied in silk ribbons during ‘dress-up’. That was just the shape of his days.

He protected them, of course, but it wasn’t the kind of protection is elder brothers offered, a deeply masculine sense of duty, of preserving honour: ready to scowl at wayward suitors, duel if provoked, step in with authority when boundaries were crossed. Colin's brand of care was quieter. He’d distract a sour-tempered suitor so Daphne could slip away, find quiet corners for Francesca to sit in when she grew overwhelmed, smuggle banned pamphlets from the bookshop for Eloise.

And in return, they protected him too.

Within minutes, they were off to the play room, rearranging pillows into battlements and cloaks from the linen cupboard into royal regalia. Francesca crowned herself with a tea cozy. Daphne fainted onto the ottoman with dramatic flair. Eloise roared into the fray with a wooden sword tucked into her sash. And Colin — Colin laughed, a bright, clear sound that startled even himself.

He didn't need to prove himself in a field full of men and rifles. Not when there were queens to rescue, villains to outwit, and sisters who thought he made a perfectly excellent prince.

Chapter Text

Little Thomas Featherington was the apple of Colin’s eye – and, as it turned out, everyone else’s too.

The Bridgerton drawing room was alive with noise and laughter. The drawing room was alive with noise, laughter, and the distinct squabbling of younger siblings. Hyacinth had just made a dramatic grab for the baby, cradled in Gregory’s arms, prompting a scandalised protest from Colin.

“Hyacinth, do not snatch him as if he is a rag doll!”

“But he’s my nephew!” she insisted, holding out her arms like a child demanding a turn with a toy.

“He’s my nephew, too,” Gregory shot back, Tommy giggling as his uncle drew him backwards in dramatic fashion. “And you had him longer!”

“Enough,” Colin said gently, rescuing Thomas from the tug-of-war. “You’ll scare him. And me.”

Thomas fit in his arms so naturally it started him, warm and impossible small. His tiny hand curled instinctively around one of Colin’s fingers, as if he knew him, trusted him. His hair was the same red as Penelope’s, his cheeks round and flushed. His sleepy expression was so unmistakably her that Colin’s chest ached.

How was it possible to love someone so completely? A chubby little stranger who had only just arrived in the world, and yet Colin felt as though he had known him forever. As though his heart had simply cracked open the day this baby was born and rearranged itself around him.

“He’s very...round,” Benedict said dryly, lounging nearby with his sketchpad.

Colin shot him a withering glance. “He’s perfect.”

“Oh, absolutely. Exceptionally round. I daresay it’s the most symmetrical face I’ve ever seen,” Benedict replied with a grin. “But well done, the both of you. I am exceedingly happy for you.”

Penelope rolled her eyes, though she was smiling. “Do you want to hold him, Eloise?”

“I’ll wait until he’s a little more...conversational.”

Colin raised an eyebrow. “You never did care for infants.”

“No, I didn’t,” Eloise said, swooping in like a whirlwind and looping an arm through Penelope’s, tugging her away from the group. “And I’ve waited months to have a proper conversation with my friend without you hovering around like a besotted lapdog.”

Penelope laughed, allowing herself to be pulled toward a quieter corner of the room. “You’re one to talk. You left me for Scotland!”

“And you left me for my idiot brother. And nappies!”

Colin opened his mouth to retort but was promptly distracted by Violet, who was now hovering with purpose. “My turn,” she declared, arms outstretched and eyes gleaming. “Come to Grandmama, my perfect little darling.”

Reluctantly Colin passed Thomas over. Violet took him like a priestess receiving a sacred relic and immediately began cooing in a pitch that made Francesca flinch from behind the piano.

“Oh, look at you,” she whispered. “You clever, clever boy. Yes, you are, as every Lord should be. Do you know how loved you are? Yes, you do. Oh, you and Anthony's little Eddy shall have such fun together!”

Thomas blinked once and promptly sneezed.

“Oh!” Violet beamed. “What lungs!”

Colin stood quietly, smiling as his family orbited around his son, loud, loving, ridiculous, exactly as he had hoped they would.

Amid the laughter and noise – Violet’s singsong cooing, Hyacinth campaigning for another turn, Gregory sulking, Benedict’s dry commentary – Francesca sat still.

She was poised, as always. Serene. Remote. Her hands folded neatly in her lap, her expression unreadable. She offered a smile when someone glanced her way, just enough to satisfy curiosity, never quite enough to invite engagement.

But Colin noticed. He always noticed.

Perhaps it was because they were both third – third sister, third brother. The watchers in a family full of voices. The ones no one really noticed, the ones no one heard.

So when Francesca rose, almost silently, and slipped from the drawing room with a quiet “Excuse me,” no one thought much of it. Except Colin.

He hesitated for only a moment before following, slipping out without fanfare, unnoticed by the rest – save Penelope, who caught his eye and smiled just before he disappeared through the doorway.

Colin found Francesca in the music room.

The door was half open, the light inside dim. Francesca stood by the pianoforte, one hand resting on its polished surface, the other tucked beneath her elbow. She didn’t turn when he stepped in.

“I thought you might come,” she said quietly.

Colin closed the door behind him. “Did you want me to?”

A pause. Then, softer: “Yes.”

He walked over slowly, giving her time, and leaned against the edge of the pianoforte beside her. For a while, they just stood there, the hush between them deeper than silence.

“Thomas is a beautiful child,” she said, still not looking at him.

Colin smiled faintly. “I rather think so.”

“I am glad for you both.”

“I know.”

“I didn’t want you to think—”

“I know.”

A grateful smile. Francesca’s voice caught on the next words. “John and I have been trying. For a year. More.”

Colin’s breath stilled.

She swallowed, eyes fixed somewhere just beyond the room. “Everyone thinks we are simply...waiting. That we’re not ready,” Her voice wavered. “But I want a child. I want that. And every month, I think, perhaps now, and then it is not. And still, there is nothing wrong, they say. No explanation.”

Her voice faded.

Colin said nothing. Just listened.

Francesca finally turned to him, her expression raw, vulnerable in a way she rarely allowed. “I tell myself to be patient. To be grateful. And I am. But,” she paused, searching for the words, “I find I am also something else. And I do not quite know what to do with that.”

Colin nodded slowly. “That something else...would not be sorrow, would it?”

A pause. “Yes,” she said at last, the word barely audible. “Though I do not like to admit it.”

“You needn’t admit it to anyone else,” he said. “Only to me.”

Her mouth curved in a brittle smile. Colin’s heart ached. For his sister, so strong and self-contained. For the quiet grief she carried behind every perfectly composed smile.

She looked at him again, her composure cracking at the edges. “It seems wrong, to feel so…lacking. On a day like this.”

“It does not make you unkind,” he said. “Only human.”

“I did not mean to spoil anything.”

“You haven’t.”

She leaned her head lightly against his shoulder, just for a moment, then straightened, as if remembering herself. Remembering she was a married woman now, the ever-composed Countess of Kilmartin. Still, she did not let go of his arm.

“You have always been so...gentle,” she said, her voice laced with both fondness and faint surprise. “How does one explain such kindness in a man raised among the rowdiest, most maddening family in Mayfair?”

Colin let out a soft laugh. “Trial by fire, I suppose. One learns either patience or permanent injury.”

She gave a faint smile but didn’t look away this time. “You always watched. Even when you didn’t speak.”

He glanced down, faintly sheepish. “It’s easier to speak now. With my Penelope.”

“You two are so perfect for each other.”

“As are you and John.”

“Some days I fear he loves you and Benedict more than I,” she teased, and he laughed at that, before his expression shifted, something tender flickering in his eyes.

 “You know, you’ve always been quiet, too. But your silences were never empty.”

“Perhaps that is why it matters,” she said softly, a sadness not gone but soothed. “That you saw me. Even now.”

Colin turned to her, his voice low. “Of course I saw you, Francesca.”

And there it was, no declarations, no fuss. Just two middle children, long overlooked in the noise of a large family, holding space for one another.

She exhaled. Not a sigh, exactly. More like relief.

The door creaked open behind them.

“Francesca?”

They both turned as a striking young woman stepped lightly into the room. Michaela Stirling, John’s cousin who had been briefly staying with them in Scotland, was not the sort of person one easily overlooked. Her smile held just enough mischief to suggest she was perpetually on the edge of saying something scandalous.

“Apologies,” Michaela said, glancing between them with easy charm. “I didn’t mean to intrude, but John was wondering where you’d gone,” She smirked, then. “I assumed the music room was a safe bet.”

Francesca’s posture, already collected, seemed to stiffen by a fraction. “I didn’t mean to disappear,” she said.

Michaela smiled – that slow, self-assured smile that always looked like it knew more than it was saying. A few elegant tendrils of dark curls framed her face, and she wore a gown of deep sapphire, trimmed in silver. “You’re allowed your silences, Francesca.”

Then, to Colin, with a polite nod: “Mr. Bridgerton. Ever the proud father, I take it.”

Colin straightened, offering his most affable smile in return. “Miss Stirling. Very proud, indeed.”

Michaela smirked. “As you should be. Thankfully, he has Mrs Bridgerton’s face, though I noted his ears were not spared of your likeness.”

Francesca coughed into her glove again, clearly suppressing a laugh. Michaela glanced her way, and something quick passed between the, like a spark darting across a wire.

Colin narrowed his eyes, catching it but choosing not to comment. Yet. “Yes, well, every Lord must be humbled somehow. I am glad to hear you remember my wife, Penelope, from our last encounter.”

“Of course, how could I forget?” Michaela said, with relish. “She stood before the entire ton and declared herself the most dangerous woman in all of Mayfair!”

Colin raised an eyebrow. “We don’t usually phrase it that way.”

“I believe I was half in love with her.”

At that, Colin choked audibly. “You know she’s my wife?”

She tilted her head. “That’s what makes it interesting.”

He raised a brow, and Francesca stifled another laugh. “Michaela do not scandalise my poor brother. He takes the matter of his wife very seriously.”

“Hm. Far be it from me to stand between Pen and her admirers. Though you are possibly the most alarming woman I have ever met, Miss Stirling.”

“And yet,” Michaela said, “your wife has already invited me for tea, Mr Bridgerton.”

Colin raised a brow. “Does she know a charming Scotswoman intends to seduce her over scones?”

“Well, someone has to,” she grinned. “I heard from Miss Eloise that you have quite the reputation for clinging to her like a lovesick barnacle.”

“Because I am a lovesick barnacle,” Colin said proudly.

Michaela laughed, startled. “This is certainly an odd family. John would never think to declare his love with such catastrophic devotion!”

He gave a helpless shrug. “We’re not exactly subtle people.”

“No,” she said with a grin, “but you are entertaining,” Then, after a pause, more sincerely, “I like her, you know. Penelope. She's clever and sharp, where most women are polished. She’s…real.”

He looked at her then, something warm in his expression. “I know.”

They shared a brief silence, the kind that only settles when two people have mutually decided not to dislike each other.

Then Michaela added, charming as ever, “But if she ever tires of your travel journals and eerily perfect hair, do give her my calling card.”

Colin smirked. “Noted. Though I’m afraid she’s entirely, irrevocably spoken for. And ask any Bridgerton at teatime – I’ve never been one to share.”

Michaela’s laughter was uncontrolled and shameless, unlike most debutantes Colin had met. He decided he rather liked her – despite her fancies towards his wife. How could he begrudge the woman for having great taste?

“Well,” Michaela said, drawing back a step, “I suppose I’ve completed my errand. John’s in the study – when you’re ready, of course.”

“I’ll find him,” Francesca said, half-flushed. When Colin glanced at her, she was watching Michaela with an expression that was...difficult to read.

But not empty.

Colin, ever the observer, narrowed his gaze slightly.

“Good,” Michaela replied, her tone softening. “I’ll see you both soon.”

And with a final look, lingering, unreadable, just a little too long, she swept from the room. A silence fell in her wake.

Colin turned to his sister, arms folded, expression unreadable.

“She’s interesting,” he said at last. “I think I rather like her.”

Francesca gave a faint shrug. “She was wonderful company in Scotland. Eloise was rather infatuated by her, in truth.”

“Well. Eloise is forever drawn to sharp women with scandalous reputations.”

Francesca laughed at that. “You married one.”

“I never said she was the only one,” Colin stepped closer, his tone shifting as his eyes met hers with a gentle sincerity. “You know, Fran, you’re stronger than you realise,” Her gaze softened. “But you also don’t have to hold it all together, not alone. It’s okay to let the pieces fall, to let the world be a bit broken for a while.”

She looked up at him, the faintest glimmer of tears in her eyes. “Thank you, Col,” she whispered, her voice trembling just a little.

A quiet stillness followed, and then Colin broke the silence with a dry chuckle. “I do hope Miss Stirling was joking about stealing my wife.”

Chapter Text

Colin’s relationship with Eloise had always differed to his other sisters. She protected and defended him the way an elder brother would be expected to protect a younger sister, when Anthony’s brotherly love veered too far into tyranny, or when Colin found himself adrift in self-doubt.

Her love was not quiet and sure as Francesca’s, nor tender and doting as Daphne’s, nor even loud and effusive like Hyacinth’s. Eloise loved in gestures, not declarations. She would scoff at his interests, yet remain the last one standing to see him off on his travels (save their mother). She offered the last of her supper when she knew it to be his favourite dish, and books she had just completed and deemed worthy would often appear, without a word, on the table beside his bed.

This arrangement suited Colin well as an adult, sure of himself and his place in the world, of the love he had for his siblings and the love they had for him. As a child? It was a little more complicated.

His morning had begun the way they usually did at the grand age of ten, with his father informing him that he was to remain at home with the younger children, whilst Anthony and Benedict accompanied him into town.

“Soon enough, my boy,” the Viscount had muttered before he swept from the room with his smug elder sons, leaving Colin in the nursery, indignant at being left behind.

And worse still, he had been left with his sisters.

Colin wandered out to the gardens with the slow, defeated gait of a boy who had nowhere better to be. The sun cast a lazy golden hue across the Bridgerton estate, as he scuffed his boot against the gravel path, hands shoved deep into his pockets, his mouth set in a miserable line.

His mother was lounging beneath a garden canopy, set with a small tea table and cushioned chairs. She was observing Eloise and their neighbour, Penelope Featherington, playing in the garden, whilst Francesca sat cross-legged at her feet and Daphne was curled nearby, stringing daisies together.

Colin approached Eloise and Penelope with slow, dragging steps, Eloise brandishing her wooden sword with dramatic flair, Penelope trailing faithfully behind.

“Can I play?” Colin asked, his voice small.

Eloise didn’t even stop swinging. “No.”

“Why not?”

“Because you weren’t here at the start,” she said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “We’re knights of the realm, and we’ve already set out. There’s no time to stop for merchants.”

“I’m not a merchant,” he said, his voice rising. “I can be a knight, too.”

“No, you can’t. You never let yourself get captured properly.”

“That’s not true!”

Eloise shrugged, utterly unmoved. “You can’t just appear and expect to be part of the story. That’s not how quests work.”

Penelope, small and rosy and dressed (as ever) in one of her mother’s unfortunate yellow frocks, cast Colin a tentative look. “Maybe he could be a...knight-in-training?” she offered. “Or the cook. Or a really brave stable boy?”

“I don’t want to be a stable boy,” Colin muttered.

“Well, then you can’t play,” Eloise said matter-of-factly, already turning back toward the imaginary battlefield. “We have sorcerers to slay. And possibly a dragon, if I can find that hound again.”

And just like that, she galloped off.

Penelope stayed, hands clasped awkwardly in front of her yellow skirts, her red hair frizzing slightly in the breeze. She looked very much like she wanted to say something, but couldn’t quite find the words.

“What?” he asked, more sullenly than he meant to.

Penelope winced, but didn’t leave. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “About Eloise.”

Colin looked down at the grass. “Doesn’t matter.”

Penelope hesitated. “I think you’d make a very good knight,” she added after a moment.

That pulled a reluctant smile from the corner of his mouth. “You think?”

She smiled and nodded, just a little, the sunlight dappling between them through the leaves. It didn’t entirely ease the heavy sense of not quite belonging, though.  

Colin approached his mother’s chair with slow, dragging steps, saying nothing at all, merely staring at the hem of her gown. Of course, she’d watched the entire interaction, and opened her arms wordlessly. Colin stepped into them at once, climbing onto the seat beside her and tucking himself into her side. He did not cry, he was ten, after all, and Eloise was his younger sister, by two years, at least. This knowledge didn’t lessen the sting of her rejection.

“Oh, my love,” she murmured, stroking his unruly hair. “The world has been unkind to you today, has it?”

Colin nodded into her sleeve, grateful to his mother for always making space for his sensitivities, no matter how irrational they seemed. He’d once overheard his father warning his mother of ‘babying’ him but she doted on him as if he were her youngest child. “El won’t let me play,” he mumbled. “She said I’d ruin it.”

Violet Bridgerton made a thoughtful noise. “Well, Eloise is leading a very serious quest. I daresay you would only slow them down.”

From across the lawn, Penelope squealed with laughter as Eloise charged forward, wooden sword raised high. Without him.

“It’s not just the game, Mama,” he said, voice quieter now, harder to get out. “I don’t think El likes having me around anymore.”

Violet’s brow furrowed. “Darling—”

“She used to want me there. Before Pen came over all the time. Back when it was just us.” His voice tightened. “Now whenever I speak, she rolls her eyes, as though I’m tiresome. Like she doesn’t care if I’m there or not. She never sighs like that at Benedict, or Anthony. She thinks they’re the coolest.”

Violet tucked a loose curl behind his ear.

“Oh, Colin,” she said softly. “Eloise cares very much. That’s why she forgets to be kind about it.”

His gaze stayed fixed on the orchard, where Penelope had just dramatically fallen into the grass, and Eloise was dragging her back up with a triumphant cry. He could hear their laughter from all the way across the lawn.

“I think she likes Pen better,” he said, the words flat and a little bitter. “She never tells her to go away.”

“She doesn’t love Pen more. She’s just excited to have a girl her age to play with.”

“But I’m never allowed to go out with the other boys, and the girls, they’ve no interest in me either. And Eloise has Pen now. Where am I meant to go, if no one wants me around?”

The truth was that, when it came to the two young girls’ closeness, Colin had been jealous of Pen long before he’d been jealous of Eloise. As a man, fending off his relentless sister to savour moments with his darling wife, it felt laughable.

Colin knew, in some quiet, unspoken way, that Eloise loved him. But as a boy often unsure of himself, lonely, and forever in need of reassurance, he did not thrive beneath her sharp tongue and constant teasing. Particularly in contrast, when he saw her with their elder brothers: all wide-eyed admiration at Benedict’s art, and reverent silence when Anthony spoke. With Colin, she only seemed exasperated. He did not wish for her tolerance; he wanted to be chosen.

As they grew, the shape of their bond changed. After their father died, it was not Anthony or even Benedict that Eloise turned to in the quiet, hollow days that followed. It was Colin, curling beside him in the library, wordless but near, as though his presence alone steadied something in her.

It was to him she brought Penelope, wide-eyed and pale, when she started her courses unexpectedly at Aubrey Hall, knowing Colin would not scoff or grow flustered. He’d merely nodded, feigning a bloody nose so that no one would question the blood stain on their mother’s new chaise. Then, he’d disappeared into the kitchens, returning with a cloth-wrapped bundle of sugared tarts (he was the chef’s favourite, after all).

And when Anthony, in one of his more tiresome moods, made sport of Colin’s softness, calling him green, it was Eloise who snapped in his defence. “Better a heart too open than trousers forever at his ankles,” she had once said, with such venom that Anthony had blinked in shock.

And when even Penelope, her dearest friend, had kept Lady Whistledown from the world, Eloise did her best to shield Colin from the eventual blow.

For all her cutting words and impossible moods, Eloise loved him with a fierceness that was bone-deep. And though Colin did not always feel it as a child, he would come to understand, eventually, that he had been her chosen person all along.

The ballroom was aglow with candlelight and chatter, music fluttering through the air like lace—Lady Danbury’s ball, the first of the season.

And in the very centre of it all stood Colin and Penelope, their first season as a married couple.

Eloise could hardly bear to look. But she couldn’t stop, either.

Colin had Pen tucked under his arm, his hand settled scandalously low at her waist, his head bent to whisper something into her ear that made her blush. Blush, giggle, and then swat his chest with her fan as if she were some wide-eyed debutante.

And then he kissed her. First on the cheek, then on the corner of her mouth. In public. With the entire ton as witnesses.

Eloise nearly choked on her lemonade.

“I daresay if he stares any harder, she’ll burst into flames," she muttered.

Next to her, Benedict chuckled. “Do you suppose our brother married Whistledown to keep himself from becoming the subject of every column? ‘Tis certainly a strategic union, marry the gossip writer and ensure one’s impudence is edited out.”

“If he calls her ‘darling’ one more time, I shall have to excuse myself to vomit behind a potted fern.”

Colin finally, reluctantly, stepped away from Penelope, who was flushed and glowing like a summer rose, and made his way over to Eloise, wearing the expression of a man very pleased with himself.

“You’ve been staring,” he said, smug. Benedict excused himself with another chuckle. “Do I have something on my face?”

“Only the expression of a man far too pleased with himself,” Eloise replied flatly.

“Oh, come now,” he said, swiping a glass of champagne and knocking it back like a man untouched by shame, “surely you’re happy to see your dearest friend so well-matched?”

“Well-matched, yes. Publicly devouring your wife like a syllabub in a heatwave? Less so.”

“Devouring?” Colin grinned. “You wound me.”

“Not as much as you’ve wounded decorum,” she shot back.

But her glare faltered as Penelope glanced back at them with a smile so full of private joy it almost made Eloise’s chest ache. And then she looked at Colin, and he looked at Penelope like she was the only thing that had ever made him feel whole.

Eloise sighed, her irritation softening.

“It is not just Pen, you know,” she admitted after a beat, quieter now. “I am happy for you, too,” She didn’t look at him; Eloise never did when the truth sat too close to the surface. “I know I give you a great deal of grief,” she began. “As though you’ve snatched my dearest friend from under my nose. And you have, to be fair.”

Colin smirked a little.

“But it’s not just that,” she went on, voice quieter now. “It’s that she stole you too.”

Colin’s smile faded.

“I miss you,” Eloise said, glancing at him now. “Not just your presence, but…the you that used to be mine. The brother who would sneak Benedict in through the maids’ quarters so Mother didn’t notice his drunken state, or plot how best to needle Anthony without being disinherited. Who else will bring me back feminist texts from France I didn’t ask for, or those absurd little sweets from Italy?”

Eloise’s voice was light, too light, like she was tossing the thought away before it could land properly. “I always thought I had brought you and Penelope together,” she said, eyes scanning the ballroom, avoiding his. “I thought I was the thread that tied you both. But the two of you…” Her voice thinned slightly. “You came together all on your own. Now I suppose, well, there’s no real need for me anymore, is there?”

Colin’s brow furrowed. “You know,” he said, “for a long time I thought I was the one left out.”

That caught her attention. She blinked, turning to him fully.

“You and Pen, you had this world, your own language, your own jokes. And when I tried to join in, you both looked at me like I’d wandered into the wrong room,” He smiled too, but it was soft, rueful. “But El…you were never just a thread between us. You didn’t always get it right. Neither did I. But love doesn’t have to be perfect to shape someone.”

She turned her head slightly, eyes searching his.

“Did you know Penelope didn’t have a friend in the world until you?”

Eloise shrugged. “I suppose so.”

“You loved us, saw us. So whatever we are now, whatever we have, it isn’t in spite of you, El. It’s because of you,” he said. “You weren’t a thread. You were the whole bloody fabric. I know I’m not always here the way I was, but I am only across the square. And if you ever need me, you know I’ll come running. Especially to plot against Anthony.”

A long silence stretched between them, but this one was warm. Full. Shared.

Then Eloise sniffed. “Say something idiotic now, please.”

Colin grinned. “I once tried to make jam in an old boot because Benedict told me it was how soldiers preserved fruit.”

She let out a surprised and genuine laugh. “Dear God!”

“Six years old. Remarkably sticky.”

She shook her head, smiling as she looked away. “Hopeless.”

He laughed, squeezing her hand once before letting go.

Penelope caught his eye from across the ballroom, smiling, expectant, lovely as ever.

Eloise sighed. “You know, your face does this...thing now. All soft and adoring. It’s unbearable.”

“It’s called love, El. You should try it sometime.”

“I’d rather take up embroidery.” She took a loud sip of her lemonade. “Go on then, waltz in circles and whisper poetic nonsense in her ear.”

Colin laughed, just before he vanished into the throng of dancers.

“Unbelievable,” she muttered, but her eyes, following him across the floor, were unmistakably fond.