Penelope, along with Eloise, hugged the banister rails as she waited to catch sight of the latter's elder brother returning from boarding school for the summer holiday. Miss Emma, Eloise's governess, had assured the young girls that she would fetch them from the nursery just as soon as the third eldest Bridgerton son stepped through the front doors of Bridgerton House. But the young girls were ten-years-old and much smarter than Eloise's stuffy governess suspected. They both knew Miss Emma would wait until the young Mr. Bridgerton was settled in and had tea with his elder brother, the viscount, and his mother, Lady Violet, before she would ever come to collet them. That was why the two had snuck away from the nursery the moment Miss Emma had stepped away to retrieve a book, and now waited on the second floor landing, peering down below, full of anticipation.
Eloise always voiced to Penelope how she didn't like that Colin had to go away to school for most of the year. It seemed unfair that she should get to remain with the family for her education and Colin had to live at Eton with no mothers and no sisters, only a slew of smelly boys to keep him company. Though Eloise had not voiced it directly, Penelope knew that Eloise missed him while he was away.
A knock sounded at the door and Penelope pressed her face in between the spindles to get a better view of the brother she had heard so much about from Eloise. One of the Bridgerton's footman, Humboldt, walked to the door and grasped the knob. Penelope heard Lady Violet's swishing skirts before she saw the woman rushing toward the door. "He is here!" she called out over her shoulder.
Lady Violet had missed Colin, too. Penelope knew this from seeing the woman crying one day in the drawing room of Bridgerton House; when she had asked her what was wrong, the woman said that her heart was made up of different pieces―one for her late husband, and another each for her children: Anthony, Benedict, Colin, Daphne, Eloise, Francesca, Gregory, and Hyacinth. She had said one of her pieces was away at school and she could not wait for it to return to her.
For some inexplicable reason, Penelope's heart raced as Humboldt opened the door. Lady Violet stretched out her arms and Colin stepped through the doorway to wrap his mother securely in his embrace.
Penelope stayed, tucked away, behind the banister rails as the other members of the Bridgerton family flocked to the foyer to welcome their sibling home. The look on Colin's face was strange. It was the same sort of look she had seen on Miss Emma's face when Penelope had surprised her with a bouquet of picked flowers on one occasion―like she wasn't quite sure they were meant for her but was happy to receive them anyway.
Why did he look that way?
Penelope continued to watch on, still unsure if she was ready to reveal herself yet. She could hear and see all of them exchanging hugs and greetings, but Penelope never looked away from Colin. He didn't quite look the same as his older two brothers. The most noticeable difference, Penelope decided on, was that he appeared to be more timid. He stepped back as Anthony―rather, Viscount Bridgerton―approached him. The elder Bridgerton brother looked as if he was going to hug Colin then paused and, instead, slowly extended his hand. Colin stared at his brother's hand for a lingering moment before taking it. After the handshake, Colin smiled―a little tentative, but it was still a smile.
Everyone started moving out of the foyer and toward the drawing room then. Penelope didn't stand up, but she hoped Eloise would look up and see, race up the stairs, and pull her along as she always did. But her friend was laughing at something Benedict had said and walked right by without seeing her. Penelope's smile fell and she let go of the rails. It wasn't her friend's fault―she was caught up in the excitement of welcoming her brother back home.
Penelope was just preparing to stand up when Colin stopped walking. She froze, trying to remain undetected by this boy she wasn't sure about yet. His blue eyes bounced over the foyer and then up the navy carpeted stairs until they landed on her. Penelope gasped. She didn't smile or move. Colin seemed startled to find her there, at first, but then he smiled a nice, gentle smile and raised his hand to her in a soft wave.
Something strange and new happened. It felt as if a thousand flutters rushed into her stomach.
She wasn't sure about those feelings, or about the boy with the kind blue eyes. But he seemed nice. And, for some reason, she liked that he saw her.
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Penelope simultaneously relaxed and tensed, just like she always did in Colin Bridgerton's presence.
He walked toward her, his impressive frame even more alluring in the darkness. A subtle light played across his face―the warm glow caressing the skin of his jaw in a way that Penelope longed to. "What are you doing out here, Pen?"
Pen.
Colin had been calling her that name since she was a young girl. Every time she heard the nickname she had to try very hard not to wince. It sounded childish, a constant reminder of how he saw her: his darling, little longtime friend.
"Nothing," she said, quickly placing the torn slipper behind her back.
He grinned, his usually stormy-grey eyes looking as dark as midnight in the dim light of the corridor. "What have you got there?"
"Nothing," she reiterated. It was a solid alibi, and she was sticking with it.
Colin wasn't quite as massive as his brother, Benedict, but when he stepped in front of her and towered over her as she was doing just then, he felt very much like a giant. Penelope's heart stumbled as she smelled his familiar scent―like mint, fresh rain, and something else masculine and spicy that she could not name. Penelope wanted to bottle it up and carry it on a chain around her neck so she could inhale it whenever he was not around.
"Then let me see your hands," said Colin, nodding toward her hands tucked behind her back.
"No. They're cold. I'm trying to warm them up."
His eyes narrowed. "Prudence said you left the ballroom because you were overheated."
"Mmm-hmm. I am. But my hands are...cold." She winced. She was a terrible liar and always had been.
As he spoke, he gave her the half-smile that always made Penelope's stomach turn inside out. "What scrape have you gotten into this time?" Before she could answer, he darted his hand behind her back and retrieved the broken slipper.
Penelope sighed and looked on, a little crestfallen, as he held the pathetic accessory up to the flickering candlelight. She tried to snatch the slipper back from his hand but he just lifted it higher out of reach. "How in the world did you manage to tear your slipper?" Well, he didn't need to make it sound as if it was such a fantastic situation, did he? In fact, it had torn quite easily.
As it turns out, when a lady stands on her tiptoes to get a good look at a gentleman across the ballroom, the back of her slipper might fall off. And when the back of the slipper is lying limply on the ground, another gentleman just might step on it. And when the lady goes to take a step, the heel of the slipper will remain pinned under his boot and the whole thing will tear. It was accomplished quite easily. But Penelope couldn't tell Colin that, because it had been he who she was lifted on her tiptoes trying to see.
It was his fault for looking so ridiculously handsome in his evening attire.
"I must have snagged it on a chair, or something. Who knows?" Penelope shrugged, and Colin simply raised an eyebrow, knowing her too well to believe such a docile story.
Colin turned his attention back to the slipper and flicked the fabric once again. "I am afraid I cannot fix it. I have left my sewing kit in my other reticule." This was what she loved most about Colin: his sense of humor. That―and his eyes, as blue as the North Sea―and his laugh, the way it rumbled in his strong chest―and his nose, the way it sometimes crinkled when he was reading. And everything else about the man.
Oh, she was truly pathetic. This was exactly why she had decided to come to London: to find another recipient for her heart. She did not feel too particular about who that someone might be―Penelope just needed him to be a gentleman other than the one in front of her, someone who would return her love rather than continually dash her hopes of reciprocal feelings.
Penelope cleared her throat and extended her hand. "Never mind the slipper. I will manage with it as is."
But the handsome fool just smirked and held it up over his shoulder, as if he expected her to make a lunge for it again. "How?"
"The same way I've been managing it for the past half-hour: I shall slide my foot instead of picking it up."
His face was too serious to be trusted. "I don't know, I cannot picture it. Let me see the walk."
Penelope gave him a flat look. "Not going to happen, Colin. Give me my slipper."
"I must insist that you show me your sliding walk, Pen, so that I may judge whether it is a sufficient cover or not. I cannot let my dearest friend parade around a ballroom looking as if she were mentally deranged."
"I am not performing the walk for you."
Colin gave her a look that said, I think you are. She refuted his look with a challenging one of her own before rushing up to him, rising up on her tiptoes, and grabbing for her slipper. He, of course, being the every-playful Colin, raised it high overhead. But then he did something surprising. He reached out and snaked an arm around her waist, pulling Penelope up close to him. She froze, feeling shot through the chest as her heart tried to recover, beating an unnatural rhythm.
Penelope fully expected him to her go.
Only, he didn't.
Colin was only teasing. He was always teasing or playing some amusing game with her, although never a game quite like this one. But, still, he must have simply been teasing her. However, when she willed herself to meet his gaze, she saw something entirely new reflected in his eyes. She was dry brush and his eyes were a loose flame. There was no teasing glint. No smirk. His face was solemn and his eyes bored into hers. Knowing exactly what to do―because she had dreamt of this moment a million times before―her greedy hand raised to rest on his chest. She sucked in a breath when his hold around her waist tightened. She could feel the warmth of his hand searing through the fabric of her gown.
Her lips parted and her breath shook when his gaze fell to her lips. Penelope pressed her hand a little heavier against his strong chest and felt his heart beating a rapid rhythm not so different from her own. If Colin hadn't been holding her firmly to him, she would have undoubtedly melted into a puddle on the floor by now. Someone would have needed to mop her up. Fortunately, he was holding her as if the last breath of humanity lived within her body.
Was he going to kiss her?
"What?" Colin's slightly husky voice broke through the moment, to her horror, alerting Penelope to the fact that she had spoken the question aloud.
He abruptly released her and stepped away, the fire in his eyes dying, replaced by a new, closed-off expression.
No, no, no, no.
She saw a muscle in his jaw jump as he cleared his throat. "I am sorry, Pen. That was..."
Penelope shook her head, feeling the flush of embarrassment creep up her neck. "No―of course, it was nothing!" A forced chuckle left her mouth and she smiled awkwardly. "Nothing at all. We both understand that neither of us feels that way about the other." She resisted the urge to grimace from the pain those words that were only half-true.
Colin stared at her for a moment. Usually she could read every expression that flashed across Colin Bridgerton's face―a talent she had developed from spending countless hours with the the man over the course of ten years. But, just then, she hadn't the slightest idea what he was thinking.
"Right." He handed her the slipper. "I am glad we are both in agreement, then. You mean so much to me, Pen, and..."
Penelope wanted to shut her eyes against the words she knew were coming.
"...I would never want to lose your friendship."
She wasn't exactly sure why falling hopelessly in love with each other would mean they had to sacrifice their friendship, but it didn't truly matter because she had already prepared herself to hear those words.
Because Penelope refused to be a lovesick, pining woman, and also because this little situation only added to her resolve to find someone new to whom she might give her affections, she said, "I agree wholeheartedly." For good measure, she added, "Besides, I am completely convinced that kissing you would have been the same as kissing a brother."
His head kicked back a little and his brows stitched together. "Well...perhaps not exactly the same."
She moved past Colin toward the ballroom door, relishing his offended scowl a bit more than she should have. "Oh, yes―exactly the same. It would have been stale and boring and just plain unremarkable."
Penelope heard him let out a scoff. It felt a little too good to make him pay for that almost-kiss.
She paused, her hand on the knob of the door, and peered back. "I think you ought to find another entrance back to the ballroom. I would hate for someone to see us entering together and assume the worst." She paused for dramatic effect. "Then you would be forced to marry me; a dreadful fate for us both."
Penelope slipped quickly back into the ballroom and shut Colin behind.
A/N: So, carriage scene, anyone...? What are your all's thoughts?!