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Chapter Text

"For God's sake, Penelope Featherington, are you going to marry me or not?"

The ocean spray against the rocks made this new continent not feel so far away from home.

The spray kissed her cheeks and reminded her of her youth; her age was one of the many things she fabricated for her new life. And a lie told enough reflects the truth.

So she welcomed the ocean spray as a reminder that she was not the fiction she created.

The cold droplets on her cheeks were like the ocean she'd known in England—the same ocean in reality. Apart from the sea, only distance stood as the barrier between Newport and Mayfield. The writhing waters were one piece of home Penelope Featherington claimed. A piece she could touch. The familiarity steadied her in a place where everything was new, the roads and buildings. After all, she no longer claimed the Ton's old stock as hers. No, she had done as Americans do and made herself anew. With a new name, an unfamiliar accent, a different story.

Instead of attracting too much of Newport's attention, she endeavored to slink into the shadows she knew so well. The Irish accent was the first step. The lilting tone turned the affluent away, making it the perfect choice for her—peace, privacy , which she coveted above all else.

If she managed those, there could be no chance of her real identity rearing its ugly head.

Penelope sighed, deciding to end her promenade of the seaside. Careful to flip the jet-black veil off her face, she turned into the wind, returning to her small home. A pretty little wooden house, white against the ever-green backdrop of trees, sandwiched between the blue ocean and sky, nestled close to the rocks so she might hear the surf crashing against them at night. 

She convinced the landlord—with no trouble—of the recent, tragic loss of her husband. The tears had not been hard to drudge up. She lost a husband, in reality. Or, at least, the promise of one.

He intended to live without her, making his decision painfully clear to her the last time they spoke. That may be what made the loss painful. His choice was conscious and intentional. The tears were genuine, and the reasoning behind them did not matter. So, the landlord let the house to her as he cooed, 'Such a young woman should not already be a widow.'

He swore her to fidelity, demanding she promise to hire staff as soon as possible. A woman ought not to be alone, after all. Penelope nodded, smiled, and swore she would, resolved that honesty was not a quality she possessed. 

Once she secured her lodgings, came the daunting task of planning a life she did not know how to want. With every fiber of her being, she tried to banish the life she had left behind. Every time, she tried. When her dreams roused her or music filtered through the trees into her home. Each time, she remembered it all as if she was still there. The sound of laughter at a lemonade table. Skirts whispering across the ballroom floor. Quiet secrets she always managed to hear or the sound of his voice in her ears.

No. Forgetting was something Penelope hoped grew with time and years between her and London. So, until then, she spent afternoons with the sea breeze in her hair, a quill in her hand, and endless parchment on her desk.

She visualized herself, dressed in black, mourning the death of a fictional husband. She must look like a blotch of charcoal smeared on a marvelous watercolor.

Quite fitting.

The facade was borne of necessity, but deep down, Penelope knew she mourned her name. A name she had not been called in months. She mourned the end of her life. Now, she was a widow named Felicity, a name she once hoped she would call a daughter. It was clear now that would never happen.

A name so meaningless now. That is what she told herself, at least.

Felicity Bridger.

Deep down, she enjoyed making herself miserable. 

Because deep down, she knew she deserved to be. 

Colin Bridgerton decided five months ago—gazing at the velvet cushions of an empty carriage—that he had made his life's worst, most complete, mistake. And since that night, shrouded in bitter darkness, he aimed to atone for it.

He resigned himself to Bridgerton House's study, searching for the faintest echo of her. Unfortunately, Penelope Fetherington was quite a clever woman. She was nothing short of smoke washed away by the breeze. Colin supposed that made sense; she had to be an expert in anonymity after so long.  

Her mastery of disguise left no information to find. The absence of leads transformed the study. Maps and papers cluttered every surface. Papers penned by her hand strewn in the corners and on shelves. All in the increasingly hopeless effort of tracking down the elusive Lady Whistledown.

He searched to correct everything he left unsaid and everything he wished he had never said to her. He searched so he could apologize, scream, and demand she explain. She had gone without a word. Fled before they both had the row they needed to have out. With each passing day, Colin found growing anxiety that they would never have the chance for such a row or apologies. It fluttered away in the wind as the days marched on without a trace of her. 

It was his fault, which he knew and attempted to curb from his fixations. If he did, it would surely shatter his body and soul, which he did not have time for.

God, did he miss her. Desperately. And he couldn't think about that either—only finding her.

A creak sounded through the room. Colin found a rather large crick in his neck when he turned his head towards the door. How long had he been curled over the current map, trying to track precisely where her carriages were known to go? Where they could have stopped on those many nights and where she sold scandal for a taste of notoriety.

"Hello." There, in the muddled light of the half-closed curtains, stood Eloise. She was wearing another blue dress with another ribbon in her hair, and that was all Colin cared to notice.

He returned to his map, tracing the red lines scribbled on multiple roads with a finger. He offered Eloise nothing more than a grunt. 

"Colin," he shook his head, not wishing to speak to her or anyone else. "Colin." Her tone was firm and final, and it caused his eyes to snap up. 

She took a step, thought better of it, and instead collapsed into the parlor chairs at the playing table. Her fingers deftly flipped over a long-forgotten playing card.

"Yes?" His voice was raw, strangled from misuse, and he coughed around it.

"Colin, I have found new information." She flicked the playing card. Colin straightened his spine in the same motion. He was already out of his chair. "I tracked down Rae, Penelope's maid. She did not have much, but she did have a name. The name of the publisher," she shrugged; Colin noticed the wet shine in her eyes. Her face remained turned just enough that he could not see the tears. "I don't know if it will lead to much of anything. But I knew you needed to know." 

Colin collapsed back into his seat and choked on a cry of relief. There was release from the perpetual knot in his stomach loosening slightly. So, so slightly. 

"Thank the Lord." And he meant it; he would thank the Lord until he died and, in the same breath, could only pray that this led to something. Anything. Because it had to. If he spent any more time away from Penelope, he was sure he would drown or combust. He may merely fade into nothing, so gradually, no one would know whether he ever existed. 

Eloise did not move from her chair, her nails still bending the edges of the playing cards. Her gaze did not meet his as she asked in the quietest of whispers, "What if we cannot find her?" 

"We will." It was out of his mouth before he could face the reality of her question. He would not face the truth of it.

"Half the Ton believes her dead; the other half would not accept her back even if we did find her." The silken shawl wrapped around her shoulders, pulled by thin fingers as she finally looked at him. With his head down, cradled in his hands, backlit by the sun filtering through the window, he looked like a sinner begging for resolution. Pieces of him littered the study, every paper and scrap, shattered bits of himself for the wind to take. "She ensured that she could never return to society after her last Whistledown column."

Eloise had not seen the tremble in his frame. Had not realized that Colin was so close to boiling over. When had he ever, truly, lost his temper? She could count on one hand the times Colin had lashed out from genuine, raw anger. But like the snapping of a carriage axel, he snarled, "You think I do not know that? That I do not have her words branded here—“ He pointed at the space between his eyes, where a crease of worry was becoming a permanent fixture on his face. “—so that I may see them every time I close my eyes." 

Colin's hands swept his desk clean in one fell swoop. Books thundered to the ground, his papers fluttering up and out like feathers in the air. Glass shattered across the hardwood. What had once been a lantern was nothing but crumbled wax. Eloise jumped, her hand falling over her heart. 

Colin threaded wild fingers through his hair, yanking his curls until they stood straight. "She ruined herself. Spared our family any of the backlash, and then, what does Penelope do? She leaves. She wrote it by her own damn hand. I did nothing to stop it. She left. I let her leave." His breathing was ragged. When Eloise caught sight of his face as it met the barest sliver of sunlight, she watched one tear drop from his eye. It streaked like a star falling to earth.

Colin croaked past the tears, "It is my fault, which is precisely why I intended to find her. Because if I do not, I will wither away for the rest of my life, knowing that while her words may have ruined her, it may as well have been me holding the quill. Knowing that the woman I love heard the worst words I have ever uttered as a final goodbye."

In the study, the world paused, and both siblings could only stare at each other. The weight of past conversations dragged them both under. Penelope was now the sticking point of both their breaths. Eloise had lost a friend who neared sisterhood. Colin, well, he knew what he had lost.

Their mother's voice rang down the hall, and they both turned towards the door. He could hear her heavy, worried steps rounding the corner of the corridor, her muffled voice calling out to him. 

In the last few seconds before his mother threw open those doors, Eloise swallowed, saying, "Then we will find her."

"You cannot be Lady Whistledown," Colin gasped, pleading for a contradiction. His eyes shaded against the candlelight, but Penelope could see them. The betrayal sparked there, growing into an angry inferno.

She shook her head, tears dangling in her eyes. "But I am. I am her." She could not breathe, and it hit her all at once, so violently she gasped rather loudly around a sob.

"No, you can't…" How he looked at her rang like another night in another carriage when he had bared his heart to her.

He looked at her now, like the moment his hope shattered on the jagged pointed word 'friends.' But the word he shattered across tonight was no longer as trivial as 'friends.' She doubted he even wanted to be friends at this point.

It was unseasonably cold for a May night; at least, it felt that way as a chill raced along her skin. Penelope saw the moment right before he cut her out, and the knife was so much sharper than she ever knew it could be. He shouted, "You cannot be Whistledown!" Then, in a whisper so deathly calm it could be mistaken for reverence instead of rage, he said, "Because I could not marry you if you were."

A moment is rather like lightning, cracking the sky in half. There is before and after, and both would be the same had the light not shed across the domed sky. At that moment, Colin's words shattered her like glass reverting to sand and fluttering away. He could not marry her. She should have known he could not.

He watched two tears fissure down her perfect cheeks, and like a coward, Colin walked away.

Instead of fixing the fractures between them, he left.

But Penelope ran. So much further than the carriage could take her.

The green of Newport inched closer to copper and gold as the months wained from summer to winter. Penelope marveled at the vibrancy of the colors every day. To think decay could be as beautiful as this. 

She supposed seeing such an expanse of red and gold hues in London was challenging, with the city's stone and smog blotting out most color. Newport in the fall was the opposite. There were only trees and expansive landscapes. A tree blushed red everywhere one looked, and she had never seen anything like it. It brought out the blue of the vast sky in a way that felt like promenading in England gardens. When a storm brewed on the horizon, making the already blue sky darker, she couldn't find the words to describe the color. If she did find the words, they would involve a name she resigned herself never to taste again. 

Colin. Her thoughts did not have the same aversion to this name as her tongue. She wished they did. His name hurt just as much swimming around her thoughts as it did spoken into the air.

Five months since London. Five months, and somehow, it felt like days and years all at once. She sighed, watching another storm roll across the ocean's horizon, finishing the dregs of her tea. The large covered porch of the house was her favorite piece of the structure. It allowed her to be inside and out all at the same time. She was ever the admirer of the outdoors from a safe distance.

In these moments, with nothing but a patio table overlooking the small garden she kept and the ocean beyond, Penelope felt that maybe fleeing London was worth it. Almost. 

"Fran?" She called into the home's open windows before her maid met her on the porch, dusting flour from her hands. Penelope found that she didn't need much, but a maid to help her dress and cook was fitting and economical.

She'd found Fran begging for work in town, untrained and starving. Penelope did not care for the girl's lack of experience, but she did care that society had left her to rot. So she offered a position, and Penelope knew enough to help the girl train as a Lady's Maid. After two months of employment, Fran was getting rather good at hair.

"Yes, Miss?" Penelope turned. Fran still struggled with titles. As she was supposed to be a Widow, Fran should call her Mistress, but to Penelope, it felt like an untold truth between them that she called her Miss instead. 

"I've finished my tea. If you would be so kind and clear it away?"

"Oh yes, Miss! Sorry, Miss."

"Oh, Fran?" She called through the house as she went inside with her papers and quills. The kitchen was just a short distance from the drawing room as Penelope approached it. 

"Yes, Miss," Fran called, the clatter and clinking of china evident in the kitchen. 

"I believe it's time for our weekly meeting." While Penelope refused to partake in Society, she still found gossip spread just as quickly through the Help, especially in America, where loyalties to wealth did not run in a generational line. So, to ensure her life remained comfortable, she once again traded in secrets and gossip. 

Pen smiled bitterly, setting her papers at the desk before her windows overlooking the Atlantic. She swore on clear days, London peaked over the horizon. 

The publisher's information was the best and worst thing Colin could have wished for. 

The man had seen her the night she fled, only under a different name. She called herself Felicity, the publisher said. He recalled she dropped off the damning papers to publish the same night of Colin and her falling out. She had said it would be her last column, that she was leaving for America first thing in the morning. The man had tried to stop her, or so he said to Colin, but she had only dissolved into the fog of London the same as she had appeared.

"If I'd known she was a great lady, I wouldn't 'ave taken 'er money or business, Sir." The man's cockney accent dropped all the syllables from his words. With the murderous look on Colin's face, the poor man only stumbled over them more. 

"Yes, you would have," Colin grumbled, taking his leave.

For all his qualities, the man was honest when he shrugged, black ink on his white shirt shifting with the motion. "Yeah, I would've, but I'd'ev felt bad 'bout it at least." 

Now, Colin chewed on the information in the carriage ride back to Mayfair. She had been spotted and, even better, said where she was going. The only issue was that if finding her in England was daunting, finding her in America was impossible. The sheer landmass alone would take his entire life to search the corners of. He dropped his head into his hands, biting back a scream with all of his might. If only someone had warned him. If only she told him in a way that did not feel like a slap to the face. If only he had listened to her instead of running away to clear his thoughts. 

If only he trusted that his love for her could not be so easily affected by something as trivial as Whistledown. If only his pride had not been so severely damaged by it. 

If only. If only. If only.

He threw himself back, trying not to think of candlelit carriage rides, her warmth on his tongue, her breathless moans in his ears. 

He hunched forward, shaking the thoughts from his mind. He swore he heard Penelope's phantom whisper his name, beckoning him to follow her.

He would book passage to America first thing tomorrow. Mother had visitors in town whom she invited to dinner. She had made rather terrifying threats if he chose to miss supper and 'mope' in his study. So he would attend and then leave for the nearest port America could offer. 

Dinner was delicious, though Colin found his appetite still vacant. He ate only to appease his mother.

Lord and Lady Washing had not returned to London for nearly six months. They did not care for the London season and chose to spend the time traveling instead. That may also have something to do with the fact that Lady Washing was very much an American. Colin could only imagine the sneers the Ton must have accustomed her to. He did not blame her; he would want to stay away, too. 

However, his Mother had never been one to snub for lack of noble blood and got along almost better with Lady Washing than Lord Washing. It did not stop the ordeal from grating on Colin's every nerve. He should be on a ship, closing the distance to Penelope. He did not care about the couple's time in India, though Kate had perked brightly at the mention. He also did not care about the progression of art styles. He cared about none of it. 

When the topic shifted to the absence of Lady Whistledown in Society, Colin inhaled the food in his mouth, proceeding to spatter and cough. Eloise gave him a wild glance, her eyes widening at the topic. Benedict slapped his back so aggressively Colin felt he would clap his lungs from his body.

Colin knew that if he looked up, all eyes would be on him. Save the Lady and Lord in attendance, everyone else in the room knew why he nearly died at the mere mention of the name. 

Violet, ever cool under fire, sent Colin a soothing look before handling the conversation. "It is true. The Lady has been absent for nearly five months. Our gossip now has to filter through natural channels like the old days." 

Lady Washing blushed while she took another sip of wine. She smiled. "That is rather unfortunate. I found myself missing her papers in our travels this season. My children always sent me copies while their father and I were away. I wasn't sure if the last issue I received was merely due to a lack of effort on their part. I'm sad to hear it was not." 

Eloise reached for Colin's hand under the table, squeezing it softly. It cooled his cheeks only slightly as Lord Washing looked at Colin. "I was sorry to hear about your jilted engagement. It seems she may not have been entirely suitable, which must be some comfort." 

Launching himself at the Lord would take three seconds, taking the man's wig off his head with him. Eloise was the only thing grounding him enough to see past the red swimming in his vision, now gripping his hand to the point of pain. From the corner of his eye, he saw the slight shake of her head. "I wouldn't say that." Colin ground through his teeth in a tone as close to pleasant as he could muster.

"Indeed!" Benedict exclaimed, clapping his hands. "I have often found Lady Whistledown to be quite wrong about people in the past." That was the pointed end of the topic. Benedict's eyes dared the man to mention the scandal again, all with a marvelous smile on his lips. 

Lady Washing gathered the clue and moved from the topic of Penelope. "Well, regardless, I found myself missing my daily gossip fix. But I must say, right when I felt I was lacking all of the insider knowledge from London, I found the most extraordinary paper in America. Unfortunately, I fear the contents would be quite a bore to you all." A glance from Eloise, then his mother.

The conversation had never once been more stimulating. "I hate to disagree, Lady Washing, but I am anxious to hear about this American paper."  

Lady Washing, smiled in a conspiring way and continued, "The Lord and I were in Newport this summer; it is becoming quite the vacation venue for Americans. Someone must have visited London and taken a page from Lady Whistledown's pamphlet. Very similar to London's, filled with scandals backed by facts. It was invigorating to hear about my kin, painted in such a light," Her gloved hands swung as she talked, floating over her husband's food, much to his chagrin. "I could not get my fill. The scandals from the Ton were well enough, but I truly understood the fascination when I read about names and houses I had grown up with." She let out a whispy sigh, a sly smile on her lips. "American drama has much to offer, I have found." 

Colin was tense in his chair, his fork forgotten on his plate. "Where did you say this was?" 

"Newport, Road Island," Lady Washing answered, sipping again from her wine. Her cheeks flushed evermore. "It's quite the vacation stop for rich New Yorkers. I heard from a friend that the paper gathered traction in Newport. Now, it is available across all of New York as well...This wine is quite good." She looked at the liquid in the glass, giving it a long drag with a content smile.

Colin watched as the eyes of each family member shifted to him. He ignored them, his focus on Lady Washing. "How long has the column been active? In America, that is?" 

Lady Washing hiccuped slightly. "Not quite sure; we were there for nearly six months but only started seeing issues sometime after June." 

"And the name?"

"What?"

Anthony spoke before Colin could. "The name of the column. What is it?" 

"Oh," Lady Washing clapped before pointing at her husband. "What was it, dear? Oh! Yes! I remember. It's quite funny actually with our conversation of Miss Featherington earlier, but the name of it was Mrs. Featherington's Anonymous. " She took a moment to think. "Do you think someone from America got the idea from the last published Lady Whistledown? That would be rather clever, taking the idea over to America."

The pure rush of air punched out of Colin's body was silent, and he swore he had witnessed his entire family take that same gulp of air before the room drew silent. 

"Yes, Lady Washing, that's exactly what I think happened," Colin said, his voice quite breathless. Only the silverware clinking on china could be heard through the rushing sound of blood in his ears. He knew where she was. That had to be her. 

It had to be.

It grew colder by the day, and the leaves were all but wilting away. Only a few stragglers clutched to the bare branches of trees, the rest diving into the wind or crackling under footsteps. 

Penelope had been in town not two days prior and already saw the preparations for the Harvest Festival going up on lantern posts and framing doors. The Ton had never celebrated the harvest; the season was always well over by this time of year, and any social gatherings were much more intimate. 

She didn't entirely hate the thought of a festival with lively dancing and apple cider. It would be enough not to overheat in the cooler weather. No, now with herself officially out of mourning—she was so tired of wearing black—she thought a dance, if a gentleman presented, to be just what she needed. 

She bought a gown for the event from a shop in Newport. It was not nearly the caliber of Madam Delacroix's, but she found it simple and well-cut. And for a moment, as she fingered the emerald satin of her most recent purchase between the pads of her fingers, she almost forgot the ache in her empty chest.

But it came back by a vigorous slap when a treacherous thought crossed her mind. 

Colin would be excited about the festival, too. 

Eloise fought valiantly for the chance to go with Colin. She had been vicious to Violet, cruel to Anthony, and horrendous to Colin. He had never seen her gnash teeth so expertly, so professionally. He did believe she would make a fabulous solicitor if women were allowed such professions. 

But even with her arguments and tantrums, both Violet and Anthony felt it much too scandalous to send her off to the Americas with only her brother to act as a chaperone. It would not be a trip for socialization, and therefore, a lady did not need to travel for it. So, the answer had been no, and Eloise then turned gnashing into evisceration. Colin was the only one who came from the situation moderately unscathed, and that was only because he knew she felt he was already being punished enough. 

He gazed at his younger sister now. Her head turned to the side, her eyes hollow as she feigned interest in the bustling port. She had tucked her shawl through her arms and held it like a shield over her heart like he knew she did when she tried desperately not to be bothered. It was cold next to the water, which is why her nose and eyes looked so red. That is what he told himself because he knew that was what she would want him to believe. 

Colin felt his mother's hand on his bicep, gentle through the fabric of his travel-worn coat. She traced a line to the space over his heart and splayed it there, adding pressure as if to a wound. He looked at her, much older and smaller than he remembered, and watched a spark of pride glint in her eyes, eyes blue like his own. 

She must have been affected by the cold as well because her eyes were also quite red. They focused on Colin's collar, straightening it and fiddling needlessly. "I wonder if it would not have been better to chase down her carriage just a little quicker." She jested, her voice wobbling. 

Colin tried to smile and felt the echo of a laugh somewhere between his ribs, but it did not quite surface as he took her hands in his. "I sometimes wonder the same thing." 

She smiled, her chin wobbling. "She loved you always, and she will still love you when you find her because what you two have is not something that fades or leaves you. It was always there through the anger, fear, and pain. It will be a source of pain, and it will tear you in half, but it will be worth it. I know it will. Because for what the absence of your father has done to me, I would not trade a single moment we had." She grabbed both his arms and looked into his eyes with a fervor he never saw directed at him. "When you love someone, truly love them, they are engrained into your soul forever. And you should not live without that if you are able." 

His arms reached around her, pulling her into a place where he felt again like a boy. While he cradled her in his arms, it did not feel like he held her but that she held him. She held him together as only a mother could. "Thank you, but you do know I am going after her because of that." 

She pulled away slightly, just enough to see his face. "Yes, but I need you to remember it when you see her. Remember it when the anger rears and rational thought leaves you. I need you to remember not to get back on that boat unless she is with you." 

"How can she return? Society will not accept her." He was bringing her home regardless, but it did not stop the thought swirling in the corners of his mind. 

Violet pulled away, a sly smile tilting her lips up, her eyes formulating that all too familiar gleam. "That, darling, is something to worry about once she is again on English soil because I shall find a way or two to repay her for all the things Lady Whistledown has done for us." 

Eloise cocked her head to the side then. "Not to rain on the parade because I'm quite happy we are bringing Pen home, and while I do not wish to dig up past sins, are you forgetting she nearly ruined our family three seasons in a row?" 

"Yes," Violet reached out to pull her daughter to her side with a smile. "Yet without the scandal between the Duke and Daphne, Daphne would have been married to that sniveling little man. Anthony would have been thick-headed and married Edwina instead of Kate, and you, my darling girl, would have been ruined by the Queen herself. I do not condone the method, but Penelope has always had our family's interest at heart. And she has always been crueler to her character than ours." Violet thought momentarily and then said, "Oh, and if I remember correctly, the first Whistledown of last season just happened to arrive right as you were presented to the Queen at your debut. Do not think I forgot that detail." 

Eloise blushed magenta and nodded, resigned to being wrong for once. "Very good. I only wished for clarification." 

Colin cleared his throat, hoisting his bags onto his shoulders. The ship was taking on passengers, and it was time for him to leave. "It's time, I think." He said. 

"Yes, well off with you then." Eloise made a shooing motion, and he grabbed her hands in the air, squeezing them tightly. She yanked one away in time to swipe a stray tear from her eye. "Bring her home so that I might apologize to her." It was not a question but a command. 

Colin nodded and kissed his mother's cheek and sisters before backing away towards his ship. "I will not return without my wife." 

"She is not your wife." Eloise said at the exact moment his mother said, "I'll have Anthony get started on the papers." 

Colin smirked, the first natural lift to his lips since May, "She is not my wife yet! But she will be." 

Penelope took one last look at the Bridgerton House across the square. She'd given three hours after Whistledown's delivery, three hours to see if Colin came, changed his mind. He evidently had not. So, she watched as Bridgerton House disappeared behind her hired hack.

Her Mother had all but disowned her when Whistledown arrived. The tirade Penelope endured was so noxious she swore the wallpaper curled away from the walls at her words. There was a bruise on Penelope's wrist from how violently her mother wrenched her from her settee overlooking the square. She swore she could hear the wailing inside Featherington House blocks away, her mother's words still cracking like ice in her head. "You are no longer my daughter; if I loved you any less, you would already be on the street with nothing but your filthy reputation to protect you." 

Penelope realized that she did not like ghost stories—not one bit—mainly since her home resided on an empty, dark stretch of road. The Americans did find an oddly morbid fascination with death. She supposed England did, too, but it wasn't much talked about at dinner parties or balls. Tonight's festival was entirely focused on the topic. 

She'd danced with multiple bachelors, her emerald gown glimmering like the emerald waters of a river in the lantern light. It was amazing the number of eligible men who approached her when they had not already been told by Society she was worthless. It had made for quite a refreshing time. When she was tired from dancing, she sat and listened like she was so good at it. She listened to ghost stories and children with sheets over their heads running and screaming in laughter. 

It felt nothing like home, and at this point, she did not know if that was good or bad or if she was finally moving on. She prayed to the Lord in Heaven she was because she could not live with a broken heart for the rest of her life. 

As her carriage pulled up to her darkened house, she took a deep breath of sea air and tried to banish all stories and thoughts. There was a frightening story about a jilted woman in the woods that she wished she had not heard. 

"Miss, would you like me to turn down the sheets for you?" Fran asked as their carriage rolled to a halt on the dirt road.

Penelope had given Fran the rest of the night to visit her family. Penelope endured the idea of fending for herself tonight and tomorrow morning, but the thought of her bed turned down and fire made so she did not have to brave the dark alone was too tempting. Penelope grimaced with a shy smile, "Please? I am sorry; I know I have given you leave to be with your family, but I fear the ghost stories have me rather on edge." 

Fran shook her head, her messy tangle of red curls bouncing with the movement. "Don't you worry about it, miss! The first time I heard about the Howling Bride, I nearly fainted. I can light the fire so it is not so dark when you go up for the night." Her satisfied smile warmed Pen's heart. 

She reached out to Fran, placing a hand on her arm. "Thank you so very much, Fran. I am going to check that I have brought in all my writing tools before heading inside." 

Fran bounded out of the carriage, and Penelope followed, taking her shoes off in the process. They pinched her toes fiercely, and it was bliss to have them off.

She knew she had taken her writing in before leaving for the festival, but she wanted a moment to look out towards home, to smell the cold ocean spray and close her eyes, wondering what the square smelled like with its rainy cobblestones and mulched leaves. 

She followed the path to the rocky overlook and could see nothing but black, save for the splotchy half-moon reflected in the water. Would it be day by now in London? Was everyone waking up for breakfast? She could almost see the Bridgerton's bustling about their home. Coffee pouring, the heady smell in the air, and enough pastries for seconds and thirds on the table.

She almost thought of her own home but could not find any fond memories, just empty, lonely ones as always. When she thought of home, it was of the Bridgerton House and a particular Bridgerton sibling, but that was neither here nor there. 

It was in the middle of these thoughts that a scream sliced through the unbroken evening air. 

Chapter Text

"Brother, you must rouse yourself, for you have a rather busy day ahead of yourself." Eloise was never one to barge into his room, especially not in the morning when his state could vary so drastically. Yet here she was, slapping his head about on his pillow and throwing the curtains open, a swath of sunlight bathing every surface. 

Colin was still in his clothing from the night before and wished he wasn't. He was in his engagement party attire. Penelope had touched these garments less than twenty-four hours ago. She had ruined their engagement less than twelve hours ago. He swallowed down his nausea; the last thing he needed was his swirling hangover to punctuate their fight last night instead of allowing him the pleasure of forgetting it. 

His head lolled to the side, and he squinted past the light to see Eloise standing over him, but she was a silhouette to his eyes. "What in God's name?" He began to roll over and kick his feet over the side of the bed. 

Eloise slapped his face with a sheet of paper. "Good, you're already bringing him into the conversation because you are going to need to beg the Almighty for a miracle, you insufferable ass."

He must still be dreaming, but Pen wasn't here, so that couldn't be true. "Did you just curse at me?" 

"Yes. Now, make haste, or we will lose her. Forever." 

"Who?" He couldn't quite tell what was a dream and what was not. How much had he had last night while drowning his tears in liquor? He cradled a headache in his hand. A lot, it had been a lot. "What are you going on about?" 

A sheet of paper slapped into his lap, and he heard Eloise fold her arms before unfolding them to point at the paper. He saw the graphic on it and wished he had not. "You knew?" 

She scoffed, "Of course I did; I was the one who threatened her to confess to you last night, which she must have. And it must not have gone well judging by today's Whistledown."

"What did she write? Did she ruin us?" He picked up the paper to read Whistledown's damning words, for the first time knowing who it really was. 

Eloise threw her hands. "Are you daft? No, she did not ruin us, but she has ruined herself! Her Mamma was just here asking if she has been seen." Colin only stared at Eloise, the gears in his brain grinding together. "Colin, she has fled, and what she wrote in this issue of Whistledown incriminates no one but herself. With the ruin she has caused herself, I do not see how she could return to court." 

"You mean—“ he trailed off, taking the sheet. He was furious with Penelope, furious for so many reasons. The primary reason was that the further he read, it only grew worse. He was livid. Not for the lies she had told over the years. No. The cause of his red-hot anger filtering past his ribs and into his stomach was the outright slander written and published right in front of his eyes. They ruined her and only her, leaving him and his reputation untarnished. In ink so foul, on a parchment made from lies, he was but a victim to Penelope Featherington's marriage schemes. 

"She has tied herself to the pyre, lit the fire, and watched herself burn with the entire ton for an audience, Colin," Eloise whispered, and it was then he saw what he had caught glimpses of this season. Hurt. Not from Penelope's words last season but the emptiness from the lost friendship. She was mourning, and with the gravity of the current situation, any animosity still harbored for her old friend was absent. Now Eloise cradled only anxiety to her heaving chest. 

She was in a complete panic, and it shot a dart right through Colin. 

Colin blanched, crumpling the paper so disgusted that he could only throw it into a corner to rot. Penelope would not ruin herself for him, not now. Not ever. With a clearer head prevailing in the morning sun, his words from last night came flooding back to him. Those damned words he spit at her, to see her hurt like she had hurt him. 

He was pathetic.  

"Where is she?" He snapped from shock into frenzied so quickly he could not remember standing or how he had already begun to sling his travel coat across his shoulders. He looked to Eloise for an answer, hating that the look on her face twisted his gut so tightly he nearly vomited.

She cried out, exacerbated. "Were you not listening, Colin? No one knows!" 

Penelope's head snapped towards the house, where she could see the soft glow of candlelight behind the main-level windows. "Fran?" Her voice came out an octave higher than she liked if an intruder was in the house; it was not a particularly threatening tone. She picked up the train of her skirt, taking two leaping strides, ready to flat-out run towards the house until she saw Fran throw open the door and sprint towards her. 

The moon's light was not much to go by, but it was enough for Penelope to see Frans's face, sheet white, right before she barreled into her. Her hands were clammy and cold, gripping desperately at the skin of Penelope's arms. Her shawl had fallen to the windswept grass in her haste. "Fran, what in God's name is going on?" 

Fran's thin mouth worked around words that did not make sound, her jaw bobbing up and down. "Miss, a full-grown man is in your house, and I cannot tell if he is a phantom. He told me to gather you and bring you in, but I said I would not, that you were my Miss, and that I would not forsake you to the afterlife or the like, but M'am, I am on the verge of losing my supper, begging your pardon. I do not know how to banish a ghost." Fran gasped quickly, her fingers grasping Penelope so tightly that it hurt. "Oh Lord, Miss, you do not think the man is the old tenet of the house? I do not remember him being so handsome, and not as though I believe devils are handsome, Miss. I'm merely making an observation—"

"Fran—"Penelope tried to interject, but her maid was far past spiraling. 

"But, Miss, I fear it's my fault. I touched one of the fortune teller's tarot cards at the festival even after my Da said not to and—Oh Lord, I did not mean to conjure any spirits. Miss, I am—" 

"Fran!" Penelope took the girl's hands, jolting Fran once to snap her out of it. She finally stopped, her bottom lip pulling into her mouth, tears glistening in her eyes. "Calm yourself. Did this Phantom state his name at all?" Penelope found her gut twisting into something quite tight and uncomfortable. 

Fran shook her head vigorously. "N-No," She gulped back her tears. "But he asked for your name, and I told it to him. I assure you it was out of shock, Miss, for I would never forsake you, not if my life—" 

"Fran," Penelope's voice had a measure of warning in it. She didn't want to have to shake the poor girl again.

With a substantial gulping sob, Fran let Penelope's arms go. "He said something about looking for his wife as I ran out the door." 

Penelope's stomach hiked its way right up to her throat and stuck there, jammed right where her vocal cords sat. It is not. She told herself. It couldn't be. Wouldn't be… 

"Miss, is it your dead husband?" 

Penelope was far away when she replied, her eyes swimming with memories of candlelit carriages and blue gowns, society papers, and whispered sneers. Blue eyes that shined bright with kindness. "That depends entirely on what he looks like." She braved a glance at the house and saw a man standing on the porch; his features lost to the evening save his outline, but Lord, if she didn't know the shape of him for the rest of her life. Her stomach turned over, still planted firmly in her throat, and her vision swirled enough that she stumbled into Fran. She would not believe it until she saw his face.

"Miss?" Her small hands steadied Penelope, her head dipping to catch her eyes. "Miss, what do you want me to do?" 

Penelope watched the shadow shift on the porch as if deciding to brave the moonlight. As if he would disappear under the light when she knew damn well he would only become that much more real. 

"Go home, Fran." Penelope tried to sound stern, but it was nothing more than breath. Her eyes remained on the shadow but could not make out his face. 

"But, Miss—" 

"Get in the carriage," She finally turned her eyes back to Fran. They shined like steel in the moonlight. "Forget about my bed and what you saw and return home to your family." Fran opened her mouth to object, but Penelope cut it off before the breath had even left the poor girl's body. "I mean it, Fran. I will be fine. As you said, it is only a phantom." 

The crease of her brows told Penelope that Fran did not trust what she had said, but still, she stepped back from Penelope, turning to the porch with a fearful gaze, before bolting past it, bounding into the carriage with a rather loud, "Take me home, please." 

Before Penelope realized it, the lantern on the carriage disappeared past the trees edging the property, and the night was nothing but moonlight once again.

Only then did she turn back to the house, taking measured strides. Convincing herself that it was not him at the same instance, she pleaded to God that it was.

She turned her gaze to the shadows, and on queue, it moved to the edge of the porch. A slice of moonlight intersected with the most beautiful face she had ever seen, and in that moment, it was as though no time or distance had passed.

Because staring right back at her, eyes dark as the ocean to her back, was Colin Bridgerton. 

"Colin, I must tell you something before you marry me." The words were so meek that there was barely any life to them. It would be the end if she told him this, but it was her or Eloise, and there would be no chance of forgiveness if Eloise told him instead of herself.

Colin hummed against her chest, peppering kisses across her clavicle before tracing the line of her throat with his teeth. "Anything, dearest ." He whispered in her ear. He took a moment to peek around the corner of the alcove he sequestered them in ensuring they remained blissfully alone.

Her eyes rolled back when his hands fell from the sides of her head, one brushing down her neck to her breast, the other tracing patterns down her torso before nestling between their bodies in a rather sensitive spot of her body. "I'm waiting, Pen."

She sucked air past a rather incriminating moan, trying and failing to ignore the expert work his fingers were doing through the fabric of her dress. For God's sake, they were at their Engagement party. Pulling him away—she had not planned to wind up in this position. She hated herself for immensely enjoying this outcome over what should be happening. When she knew what she needed to tell him. 

"Colin," It came out as more of a moan than she meant for it to. By the time she'd wrapped her tongue around the last syllable of his name, she had forgotten entirely what she meant to say after. 

His fingers teased the buttons of her dress, "Yes?"

Oh, he was being cheeky. 

"We should—" God, she was drowning in fire; that's what it felt like. She had no way to understand how that feeling even existed, but here she was, experiencing it firsthand. "We should go somewhere with more privacy," she panted. 

Colin smirked against her lips. "Why, Penelope Featherington? Because you are embarrassed of me?" 

She twisted her hand into his hair, yanking it just enough to see his devilish smirk before crashing his lips down to hers. "Mortified," she whispered back. 

She would tell him later. 

Later….

It was not that her hair was loose around her shoulders or that her dress gave her the appearance of clothed ambrosia. It was purely the fact that Colin could see the sparkle of her blue eyes for the first time in nearly half a year. He knew he'd gone this long without seeing her on all those meaningless trips worldwide in search of himself. But now, standing at the precipice of her company after so long, Colin had no memory of how he managed the distance before. He supposed it was because he had not yet realized how in love he was, but it was still no excuse.

The girl he had scared the wits out of passed by in his peripheral, sprinting towards the carriage on the road. He did not watch her pass. His eyes fixated on Penelope and her only. Like a man parched, and she was his source of life, he could not draw his eyes away. 

He now knew why Adam took the apple, why Orpheus looked over his shoulder, and Eros returned to wake Psyche. The cause and salve of utter madness—love. Even after months apart, after a shattered engagement and broken trust, there he was. A wild man before her, unsure if he should scream for all his anger and frustration or run to her and kiss her until they melted away together. Always together. 

He felt his lips form around her name, but the sound did not reach his ears. Pen. Unspoken, but it was the loudest thing he could ever remember saying. 

She shifted before gliding toward him like a phantom. The silvery moonlight rendered her like a ghost against the blackened backdrop of night. He could not see her feet, the grass drawing up well past her ankles. She had been a specter to his thoughts for so long now he could not tell if she was indeed there. He stepped toward her, the floorboards under his boots creaking into the night. God, he was so livid with her. All that love, all that want turning sour because it should not be here in this field, six months of silence between them, that they were now to have this conversation. 

She had run. Colin had let her. That did nothing to stop the bitterness of it from straightening his shoulders. 

As she approached, her mouth attempted and failed to work around his name. "Co-Col—“  Maybe it had been that long since she had said it, and she no longer remembered how to trace his name into sound.

The realization was like ice drawn across his brain. "That would be Colin." The words slithered into the air, his tone frigid. Even as ice. Deathly calm. 

Penelope gaped at him, much like a fish, her mouth opening and closing repeatedly. For all the love he had for her, the anger was a chill that fell down his spine. A dam of ice melt opened in his body, its frigid touch reaching every last corner of his body. And as he frosted over, he found himself with armor never once needed when it came to Penelope. "Lovely home. Unfortunately, I think I gave your maid quite the fright. Admittedly, I expected to see you walk through the door, so it is hardly my fault." He shrugged as if this conversation was normal. Like they had just been at a ball and stepped out for some fresh air instead of estranged for months. 

Penelope was so close and somehow further than she had ever been. The space between her and him was so vast he did not know how to begin the journey. The weeds around them had not been plucked for far too long, roots far too tangled and messy. Maybe he should not have come. Perhaps this would only end in something worse than it had months ago.

When you love someone, truly love them, they are engrained into your soul forever. And you should not live without that if you are able.

Thank God for Violet Bridgerton. Her words were indeed the confidence he needed to quiet the oily fear drenching his mind.

"Wha-What are you doing here? How did you find me?" Her words were smooth and measured, with a tone of uncertainty among them. Colin watched the moonlight wrap around her cheek and glimmer in her wide eyes. She personified the moonlight, and he wondered what that silvery light must smell like.  

He could see her shaking. Colin was sure he was, too. From wrath or desire, he could not say. "It is quite cold, Miss Featherington, and you seem to be without a shawl. Should we take this conversation indoors?" 

He watched her build a wall, brick by brick, right then. He knew he was letting his anger seep through, that this was not how he told himself this conversation would go. But in equal parts measure to seeing her, the yearning to be near her hitching in his gut, he felt the betrayal coiling into his mind like a snake. As though a burning drop from Psyche's lamp welted his skin.

Penelope nodded, resolute, her jaw setting. "Of course." 

He told himself it was moonlight, not tears in her eyes. 

Dearest Gentle Reader

It is often said to expect betrayal from those closest to you. I'm afraid I have to disagree. Betrayal is most capable in the skilled hands of those you love. It is difficult for betrayal to take when you have not already handed every ounce of trust you have to another person, just for them to break it. Maybe that is why we watched Lord Debling leave the Queen's Ball in dignified silence only weeks ago after having been snubbed by Miss Penelope Feathering mid-dance. 

This may also be the cause of yet another scandal tied to the youngest Feathering daughter, as this author has it on good authority that Miss Featherington has broken yet another engagement, this one with Mr. Colin Bridgerton. It is shocking, to say the least, that the unremarkable and forgettable Miss Feathering, approaching spinsterhood, would gamble breaking off two engagements. This author acknowledges it was quite shocking Miss Featherington managed to acquire one proposal, let alone a second.

What could have persuaded the deficient girl to jilt not one but two highly eligible bachelors? One can only wonder if she hides nefarious secrets under her innocent facade.

Rumors have swirled that she is no stranger to unchaperoned visits to London city. On more than one occasion, she has been seen alone—again unchaperoned—with various eligible matches. And while this Author loathes risking the ruin of all who read this column, it should be made quite clear what a street and Miss Featherington seem to have in common.

It must be considered that Miss Feathering has indeed been hiding her true self from our most distinguished Ton for quite some time. While speculative, this author can confirm that Miss Featherington has engaged in activities unsuited to a lady of her station. She very well may have been a viper in the grass for her three seasons, and it is only by the good Lord's blessing that two suitable bachelors managed to dodge her advances, for who knows the scandal and ruin she would have caused after a marriage. This author hates to say such things against members of High Society, but Miss Penelope Featherington has transformed into quite the cocotte. One that any sensible Mamma would be wise to keep their sons and daughters from. 

Unfortunately, we find Mr. Colin Bridgerton recently attached to the youngest Featherington daughter, for surely he did nothing more than love false images of a trusted friend.

Betrayal slithers through the Ton, and the snake we must name is Miss Penelope Featherington. 

Lady Whistledown's Society Papers

1815

—————— 

Penelope was not tethered to the earth anymore. From the first word he said, she was unhitched, floating into the aether with nothing to grapple for.

The room was spinning. She had no memory of stepping into the house, but there was a fire in the drawing room, and she stood before it. Had Colin started it? Indeed, Fran never would have had the chance. 

He was at her back, his breaths coming in short huffs. She swore she could feel his gaze burning a hole through her entire body. She couldn't think of a single thing to say. Her brain flooded with the many things she ought to say, but not one was falling from her lips. Not a single one.

Only when the front door closed, and she heard his coat fall against the back of one of the chairs, did she slowly, achingly so, turn around. 

What was he doing here? Why was he standing so casually under this roof? Acting as though it was Bridgerton’s drawing room and not the four meager walls she had hidden behind for months.

It was all swirling. Penelope was swirling. The room was swirling. She did not care what he thought as she stumbled into a seat to have something to cradle her through whatever came next. "Why are you here?" She licked her lips because they felt utterly dry now that she was aware of this moment's every detail. "Honestly, I cannot work out how or why you are here?" 

Colin puckered his lips, his brows knitting together. "You cannot think of a single reason why I would be here? In this place," He gestured to the room, then to her, "With you? You cannot think of any reason whatsoever, Penelope?" His tone, drenched with sarcasm, sliced through her. "Or should I call you Felicity? That is what your maid calls you, is it not?" 

“I—“ 

"An entire new persona. You do have quite the talent for creating false identities, Pen." He was practically snarling at her. 

She should thank him. His tone snapped her out of her stupor, and she snarled right back. "Miss Featherington will suit this conversation just fine." She knew she should not relish the flash of hurt that passed over his features, but she did. "Now, Mr. Bridgerton—“ 

"Colin." He took half a step towards her, leaning into his pointed finger. " I am Colin. You are Penelope, and that is how we will address each other." 

Penelope stood up so fast that her vision blurred around the edges and stomped over to him. Not a hands length between them. "For God's sake!" He was forced to tilt his head down. She watched his eyes fixate on the finger she jabbed, rather hard, into his chest. " Why are you here? " She was glad she had chosen a place so far from town, for her voice must have reached the trees.

Colin set his jaw, turning from her and gracefully sitting in a chair. "Oh, I have been doing a bit of light reading. I have been on the hunt for the author responsible for this utter rubbish." He materialized an all-too-familiar parchment in his hand, like magic, tossing it at her feet.

She bent down to pick up the sheet, already knowing the words she would find there and hating them just as vehemently as when she had penned them at her writing desk.

"Go on, it's a rather riveting fiction, is it not?" 

She held the paper up, making a point of it as she spoke. "Do not tell me you traveled across the Atlantic just to have me read this column in front of you? I am fully aware of its contents. I am the one who wrote it. You know that very well." 

He stood then, the cords of his forearms twitching as he used them to push off the chair. Colin had rolled his sleeves to his elbows, and Penelope couldn't tear her eyes from his tanned forearms. "The thing I find so interesting about this particular issue—“ He flicked the paper, and the noise of it was like musket fire. “—are some very crucial details the author seemingly forgot to include," He was directly in front of her, so close she could smell the fresh sea breeze stuck to his coat. On his skin, the familiar scent of sweets and coffee.

She had to shut her eyes against it so the wall she built did not crumble. If she did not, she would tumble right into his chest. "Somehow, the article failed to mention that who you so often found yourself unchaperoned with was, in fact, me. " She nearly choked when she felt his words trace patterns across the arch of her ear. Her eyes barely opened enough that the only thing she could see was him. His shirt hanging open, no cravat holding it closed. She saw his pulse jumping in his neck and promptly shut her eyes again. 

"Colin—“ 

She could still feel the heat of him so close to her face. "It seems Whistledown forgot to mention what happened in the carriage ride home from the Queen's Ball or what I did to you during our engagement party. That every time you were compromised, it was by my hand, no one else's," The words were a fire in her ear, lighting a devouring fire low in her stomach. "It seems she left out a great deal of prudent information," He said, his voice husky in the low decibel he spoke. "I suppose that is why it is called gossip, not truth." 

She dared not open her eyes until three seconds after she felt a cool shift of air brush her face, sure he had taken at least a step back. Enough to allow her to think. "How could I have forgotten to include all the information that would ensure you and your family's utter ruin?" She drolled with sarcasm. "And have you despise me more than you already did? That article accomplished exactly what I intended. It provided me a reason to leave and never come back, and I could not —would not— drag you into that, could I, Colin?" She began to walk past him, wanting to be anywhere but this room. Her self-control was dangling by a thread. If she stayed, she would do something stupid like drop to her knees and beg for his forgiveness. Or drop to her knees for other reasons. "Now, if that was the point of this little visit, I will be going upstairs to bed." His hand wrapped rather tightly around her arm before she could make it a step past him, effectively halting her. 

"You left without warning or a goodbye. Before we could talk, you just left ." The hurt in his voice nearly broke her resolve right then.

She felt her throat convulsing her eyes burning, and she swallowed as hard as she could, waiting until it passed. "You are the one who told me to leave." It was a whisper, a cruel caress in the darkness.

"Never," He choked, his anger lessening around his heart. His hold on her arm, however, remained firm. "Never once did I tell you to leave." 

She shook her head, eyes burning a hole in the wall in front of her. He was looking at her, and she could feel it on her skin. "Not in words, Colin, but in everything else you did." It was one pointed look, but it was directly into his eyes, and she buckled. There were unshed tears hanging on and refusing to fall past his lashes.

Someplace in the middle of her chest cracked open, and all the ugly, horrible sadness rushed out, shadows in the ever-darkening night. "You did not wish to marry me anymore. I had no one left who cared if I stayed, and no one left that I cared enough to stay for. After two broken engagements, I had nothing remaining to anchor me in that suffocating place. Lady Whistledown hardly did anything Society wouldn't have gotten around to on its own. I was ruined regardless of how. I only ensured you were not dragged down with me."

She shrugged as if the following words from her mouth were not the most devastating words Colin had ever heard. "It was bound to happen sooner or later." 

His hand slipped from her arm, clasping her wrist instead as he turned to her. "You would have left regardless?" He did not know why he whispered, but the realization was too horrific to echo through the entire house. 

Pen shook her head, a stray curl falling into the valley of her breasts. He watched how it curved like a rivulet of fire down her skin. "Not after you proposed. But eventually, had I been left to spinsterhood, yes. I have amassed quite the fortune after all." She was trying for levity, but it only fell flat.

Everywhere Colin looked in his memories, he found new places where Penelope could have slipped past him, like the water of an underground creek. A love he would have never known. So damned blinded by what he wished he could be, instead of what he was: lucky enough to have owned Penelope Feaherington's heart. And yet, she would have left a thousand different ways under a thousand other suns, clouds, and moons. There was only one sun, moon, and sky where she stayed—for him—and under those stars, he still made her leave.

"I have never regretted anything more." It was pure repentance, spoken from all the potentialities and moments where she eventually left. It was a whispered vow at her feet whether she knew it or not.

She must have ignored his words because she only repeated her own. "Colin, I do not understand why you are here?" And now she was whispering, making him lean in closer to her. He could see her chest heaving against her dress and watched as her lip trembled ever so slightly. 

His forehead dipped to rest against hers, just the faintest brush. He waited for her to move away, but she only froze, eyes fixed on his. "Because I have never regretted anything more." He repeated firmly, leaving no room for doubt or question.

"What are you saying?" Her whispers were so sweet, painting their way across his lips. 

His thumb traced the curve of her own where he grasped her wrist. She was so warm, so real in his hands. Her breath fanning across his mouth and chin. "You left before I could apologize, Pen. I am guilty of saying the worst things to you, guilty of the biggest lie I have ever muttered, and before I could fix it, apologize, you were already gone." 

"What was the lie, Colin?" He did not miss the tilt of her head, the way it pushed her lips closer to his. He took the bait she offered, tilting his head.

"That I did not wish to marry you, Penelope. And it wounds me to think you believed it. I must not have loved you enough. I could not have loved you enough for you to not see right past it as nothing but cruel words said by a hurt man. I make no excuses for what I said, but I am still furious you did not even try to speak to me again, did not wait twenty-four hours before lighting a fire under yourself and fleeing." 

"It was the first thing you said in weeks that made sense, Colin." He watched a tear, golden with candlelight, slip down her cheek. He ached to catch it with his hand and wipe it away, but he could not bear to move for fear the spell would break. "I could not, still do not, understand how you came to love me. It felt like a fever dream, and what you said woke me. Because I knew it could not last. I was always destined to love you alone. For the rest of my life. I knew it with such surety." 

He inched closer, his heart constricting around her words. He could hear only her breath mingling with his and felt the heat from her rolling onto his lips. When he spoke, his mouth brushed against hers. "Then why am I here, Pen?" She smelled like home, and his eyes pricked with tears. He had not remembered the perfect mixture of citrus and sunshine she offered until now. 

Her eyes fluttered closed, her hand so soft, coming to rest on his, which at some point had cupped her jaw. "I do not know." 

His nose brushed circles into her cheek, and he used his other hand to drag her body against his. "That is a lie," he breathed the words directly into her mouth. "Why am I here? In front of you? Having crossed the Atlantic to get here? Having searched for you since the day I found your carriage too late? Why am I here?" He formed his words around her bottom lip, the touch so delicate he could barely classify it as a kiss. Not yet. 

Penelope dragged her hand along his arm, slung across her waist. Her fingers pushed up just under the rolled hem of his sleeve. He licked his lips, effectively wetting hers as well. "Because you love me?" She whispered a plea in the way she said the words. 

"Yes," he confirmed, holding her tighter, angling her mouth to his. "Say it again." 

She trembled in his arms, shedding months of sadness. "You are here because you love me." 

"Do you love me, Pen?" He stopped all movement, waiting to see if she would push him away, waiting for the death blow. 

Her hands cupped his jaw, her palms silky against his stubble. "I have loved you from the moment you fell from your horse and into the mud," she kissed the corner of his mouth. "I have loved you every moment after," she said, then kissed the opposite corner. "I will never not love you." 

Colin dragged himself across the threshold to her, basking in her lips like a starved man given food, like a blind man seeing the light after years of darkness. Eros awakening Psyche from eternal slumber. And she kissed him back. For all his dreaming of this moment and all the things that could happen in such situations, Penelope kissed him back.

Colin did not recall finding the nearest wall or pushing her between it and his own body. He only half-remembered dragging his hands down to her hips, bunching her silken dress in his palms and using it as leverage to pin her against him. She was so warm and real, and for the first time in months, he was tasting her on his lips, swallowing every whimper and moan. 

Colin had come undone the moment her fingers scraped over his skull. Every thought in his head left him in a groan. He knew he should cushion her head against the wall for how hard his kiss was. He listened to it thump mildly, but the sound made his blood sing her name. 

He dragged his lips from hers, taking to the expanse of her neck and chest, desperate for the sound of his name from her lips so he knew this was real. 

He reveled in every puff of her breath against his neck. It could not be fake. 

Her nails scraped down his neck, and if there had been room between their bodies, he closed it, pushing every part of himself into her. "I missed you." He bit the words into the curve of her neck before soothing the redness away with his tongue. "Every single piece of you," he took the chance to press her breasts high with his hands so that bending to kiss them at the seam of her neckline did not require his body to leave hers. Oh , he loved the gasps she made. "I even missed seeing that damn column of yours in the mornings, knowing it was absent because you were not there." 

"I am sure the Ton was relieved to see Whistledown gone." He could almost trace the bitterness in her tone, but it was impossible to keep track of. Not with how hard she was pressing his face into her, begging for more. 

He shook his head, biting harder to ensure he had her attention. "The Ton does not know how to cope without their beloved Lady Whistledown." 

"They hate her, they hate—" She trailed off, sad eyes catching him—a moment in the flurry of their lips and hands. 

Colin wanted to burn everyone who had ever made Penelope feel lesser, himself included. 

He stopped everything to look into her glacial blue eyes. "Pen, I will say this to you now and forever more; every day you require me to say these words, I will. Every minute if I have to." He took one moment to kiss her lips gently. "You are more loved than you could ever know. For all the things we have yet to sort and all the arguments we are bound to have, I will love you. To the extent that it will crush my bones when you are gone. I will love you until my last breath passes my lips in the shape of your name. I will love you for every barb you throw and for every kindness you extend. You will be in every part of me until I am no more than dust, and when God finds me scattered to the wind, he will see that no part of my being did not love you." 

Something mixed with a sob and a smile left her, a rush of air across his soul. And he knew she understood as she pulled his head down and parted her lips against his. As if she was trying to confirm that every piece of his soul sang for her.

Her ankle traced the curve of his calf as if she wanted to wrap her legs around him but could not bring herself to commit. 

He would remedy that. 

In one fluid motion, he broke from her, bending down until he could grasp the circumference of her skirt hem and drag it up to her thighs. He didn't miss the chance to run his hands up her legs, purely for guidance, before hitching both of her plump thighs in his splayed fingers and forcing her legs around his waist. Knowing his clothing was the only thing between them was maddening, heat-inducing, but he could be patient. He had not sailed halfway across the world merely for sex. He would savor every heave of her chest against his, every finger she ran down his spine, every glance into her glimmering blue eyes. 

She flung her arms around his neck, her gaze finally at eye level, with a tiny squeal. "Colin, no—"Her eyes were nervous, glancing across his face and arms. "I am too heavy; do not strain yourself." 

His hands gripped the soft skin of her thighs tighter, and he nearly lost it when she bit her lip, eyes fluttering at the touch. He tucked his head close to her ear, leaning away from the wall, her body weight nothing more than a comfort to finally hold. "You think me too feeble to carry you up the stairs to your room? Pen, you wound me." 

He reveled in the blush that blossomed over her cheeks; it was too tempting not to peck one of them. "No, I didn't mean it in that way—“ 

"Then I would kindly ask you never to repeat it." He nipped at her ear just because he could and smiled into her temple as he took measured steps towards the stairs. He would prove his arms quite capable of lifting her to her bed. 

Penelope's legs squeezed tighter around his waist, and she brushed one of the unruly curls that had fallen onto his forehead neatly back into place atop his head. So gentle, her fingers merely a ghost across his skin. And the look in her eyes when he finally met them was enough that he stopped dead in his tracks.

She was here with him, yet he was suddenly aware of a strain in her movements, the distance growing in her eyes. A rope that tethered between a ship and the dock as it pulled into open waters. He couldn't help but grip her tighter. 

"Colin…" Her eyes—filled with the sparkle he had seen in the carriage the first night he kissed her without a request for him to do it—slowly dimmed. As if she were a melting waterfall, he felt her legs loosening around him, her body slowly sliding back down to the ground.

The line stretched, and he felt the tension tethered to his heart. "Are you well?" If she turned him away now, after everything he had bared to her, he would never be the same.

"Colin," How could he hate his name on her lips so much? He resisted the urge to keep his arm locked around her as she took a step back, wringing her hands together. "This will not end well." 

And just like that, he was knocked to the side, his breath no longer filling his lungs as it used to. He blinked once, then twice. He could say many things to try and convince her, but he already said everything. So, instead, he straightened and tore his eyes from Penelope's because he could not watch her send him away. "Do you wish me to leave?" He asked, his voice far away from his ears.

He was already leaning into a step, the first step away from her, when her hands flew to his face, craning his neck almost unnaturally back to her. "No-No! That's not what—" She yelped, and he ended up matching it, only in pain as his hand shot up to rub at the vibrating kink in his neck. "Oh, Colin, I'm sorry. Are you alright?"

He rolled his head over his neck, wincing at the spot where his muscles were overly tense. "Apart from the throbbing neck and nearly broken heart, I would say I am doing quite well." 

She would have laughed had the words not struck a pain in her. He waited for her to say something, anything. "I do not wish for you to leave. I only wish to lend an ear to reality for one moment before we make a choice we cannot back away from." 

"Can we talk about reality somewhere I might rest my neck?" He whined, lending her a smirk.

She gave him the pointed look she always did when he made light of something he ought not to. "I cannot return with you, Colin. My life in England is over, and I cannot return only to drag you to ruin by my side. Besides, your family…" She trailed off, a brokenness fixating in her eyes. He knew she thought of Eloise and the friendship that had withered away.

It was not right to feel relief, but Colin did, a wash of it. This was something he could fix. "Eloise helped me find you, Pen; she is nearly as heartbroken as I am," At the spark he saw in her, he pushed on. "You should have heard the things she said when Mother and Anthony refused her passage on the ship with me. The memory of it frightens me even now." Pen laughed, laughed, and it was the most beautiful sound. If a sunrise could sing, it would sound like her laughing. When the sunrise laughed, you laughed too, which is precisely what he did. 

She sobered enough to say, "But the rest of your family, they must despise me—" 

"My mother was the one who saw me on the boat, Penelope. Anthony ensured I had the tickets in hand as soon as we knew where you were." 

She gazed, a tilt to her lips, like the words he said were the most unbelievable thing she had ever heard. "But why— after what Whistledown said?" 

"My Mother never once believed what you had written about yourself. And well, Eloise knew your true identity, and so did I. You were already gone, so naturally, the entire Bridgerton family came to find out who Lady Whistledown was." Colin tried to gauge if she was upset after he divulged her secret to his entire family, not twenty-four hours after she exposed it to him. But, if she was angry, she did not show it. "And frankly, it did no good to keep it from them by that point. I promise none of them has disclosed the information to another soul." 

He watched her swallow, saw the bob in the column of her throat from the motion. "But even then, that is only one family. My Mamma would rather throw herself in the Thames than see me back in Mayfair. That also does not even touch on the scandal that would rake through the Ton if I arrived nearly nine months after a sabbatical, with Colin Bridgerton on my arm to boot. Do not think that amount of time will go without notice. You will be ruined alongside me." 

Penelope mentally noted how easily his arms slid around her shoulders, cupping her to his chest, his head falling atop hers.

"What part of the falling to dust and God knowing I loved you did you not capture in that marvelous brain of yours?" Colin placed a feather-light kiss on her hair. "Besides the fact that my mother has had nearly a month already to scheme and create a story for us, that also is not even mentioning the very real probability that she has enlisted Lady Danbury's help; I want it made crystal clear, I will escort you off of the ship when it docks in London. I will take you to gardens and balls for the whole of the Ton to see, and I will walk proudly no matter what is said. If you wish, I will hide you away in the country, and we shall never see another soul again. I would stay here in this rickety wooden house, right by the sea, if that is where you wished to stay. So do not tell me this will not work because I will not walk away again. Not unless you wish me to, and even then, I will not stray far." 

He would give and take and do whatever to stay by her, and in that instant, Peneolpe knew that Colin Bridgerton did not deserve her love. He deserved love from the stars and of Gods from every pantheon. To have love wash over him like nectar, that his feet should never touch the ground again.

He did not deserve her; he deserved worlds more than her and what she had done to him. "I am so sorry," She tilted her head back and saw him looking at her as if she was, in fact, the stars. "I am truly so sorry for everything, Colin. For the lies and— I am sorry. I do not know what else or how else to say it." 

He brushed the back of his finger over her cheek, wiping a tear that had not yet fallen. Instead of a reply, he wrapped around her tightly and kissed her until she felt only him. His hands traced her neck, his breath fluttering her lashes. Only him as he cradled her thighs in his hands once more, his lips dancing from her mouth to her jaw. And when he broke for air, one foot on the first stair, the other still planted in the home's entranceway, he asked her one question without the need for words. 

And like a night, similar to this one in many ways but different in many more, Penelope looked into Colin's soul, everything he was and would become, to every moment that stoked her love for him. Penelope nodded before crashing her lips back to him. 

When he laid her down, and his hands traveled her body as he had already traveled the world—she traversed heaven. As his lips pressed secrets and promises to her skin, Penelope crossed worlds. And each time Colin sent her higher, pulled her from the very heart of the fire, and catapulted her into the infinite sparkle of stars—every time he found her, caught her in his hands, and held her close. 

At the precipice of nirvana, the moment she gasped for air, and he caught it with a hot kiss, his hand was there, intertwined in her own. 

Together they were found. As he would find her and she him. In dreams or reality. It was a certainty. They would find each other time and time again. 

Forever.