"I have returned to my previous frame of mind, Lord Bridgerton. I do not remember our courtship nor our engagement. All I remember is.. Nothing. You were always the Viscount, the eldest brother of Eloise. And now, I find myself unable to reconcile my past with the present. I have felt nothing but confusion and conflict about my relations with you."
Anthony's heart sank as he heard Penelope's words. "Pen.. I understand this must be incredibly difficult for you. But we can work through this together. My love for you cannot be swayed, I will spare no effort to rebuild what we might've lost from your.. Returned memories."
Penelope shook her head, tears glistening in her eyes. "I appreciate your feelings, my lord, truly. But I cannot continue this engagement when I feel so uncertain. It wouldn't be fair to either of us."
"Penelope.. please." Anthony rasped out, voice thick with desperation. "I am begging you not to discard what we have so carelessly. Our love is true, you must feel it still beating within your heart as I feel it in mine!"
He pressed one hand over the wildly pounding muscle in his chest as he steps closer to her, moisture blurring his vision. "These past months by your side have been the most blissfully, achingly happy of my entire life.. How can you simply erase that history between us and deem it null?"
Penelope held up a hand, effectively warding off his advance. Though her heart ached at the devastated look marring his beloved features, she could not allow herself to waver. Perhaps a clean break would be kinder in the long run.
"You do not truly know me, my lord." She stated flatly. "The woman you have come to care for is but a pale shadow, an ephemeral fiction composed of half-truths and fantasies. I am not she."
Anthony recoiled as if stuck, agony writ large across his chiseled countenance. When he finally found his voice, it was barely more than a hoarse croak.
"That cannot be true. The connection between us runs too deep, is too profound for you to simply cast it aside as illusion!"
Penelope's jaw ticked as she fought against the impulse to wrap her arms around herself, to shield her traitorous heart from the naked longing burning in Anthony's brandy-brown eyes. She could not afford to lose herself in those warm depths again, no matter how tempting.
"I am not who you believe me to be." She repeated steadily. "You know nothing of the truths I have long harbored or the actions I have been compelled to take."
A crease formed between Anthony's brows as confusion began leeching into his expression, overtaking some of the rawness. Penelope seized her opportunity.
"I am Lady Whistledown."
The words exploded between them like a percussive cannon blast, momentarily deafening Anthony and leaving him to gape uncomprehendingly at Penelope's suddenly cool, expectant expression.
"W-What did you say?" He eventually croaked out once the ringing in his ears subsided.
"I am Lady Whistledown, my lord." Penelope repeated in a tone of finality. "The infamous pamphleteer who has plagued London with news surrounding the elites of society."
"You..?" He sputtered out, frozen in utter shock. "Lady Whistledown's infamous scandal pamphlets are your doing?"
Penelope inclined her head a fraction. "Every last salacious word, penned by my own hand over the course of the seasons are not merely scandals, Lord Bridgerton. They are truths made aware to the ton. Though some reputations may have been hurt, my intention was to shed light on the truth to how the ton sees it, not to belittle or make fun of anyone."
Anthony shook his head slowly as a cavalcade of revelations flickered across his consciousness - Daphne's narrowly-avoided ruination at the hands of the ruthless Berbrooke, Colin's aborted nuptials to the secretly pregnant Miss Marina Thompson, and Eloise's liaison with the lower-class printer's assistant that almost cost his sister her reputation.. All of it authored from the quill of this unassuming, gentle-natured young woman now watching him with an expression of distilled ice.
"But how..?" Anthony swallowed hard against a mouth rendered arid by shock. "After your accident, the pamphlets continued from week to week. Whistledown's presence never faltered in London during your recovery!"
Something darker flickered behind the shuttered depths of Penelope's gaze. "I suggest you direct that query to your sister, Eloise. I believe she may prove more forthcoming."
Anthony's breath left his lungs in a harsh exhale at this latest gut-punch, his mind utterly rebelling against the implications. Not only had his naive, delicate Penelope been concealing shocking depths of intrigue and deception all along... but Eloise, his younger sister, had been complicit? A betrayal wrapped within a betrayal, lancing through him with sick, dizzying force.
Penelope turned away then on a sharp heel, signaling an end to the confrontation as finality settled around them like a smothering shroud.
Anthony grasped at her retreating form one final time. "Penelope! You cannot simply castigate our future so indelibly. There must be a path forward, some way to extricate us from this nightmare!"
But Penelope merely paused long enough to pin him with a look of such soulless dispassion that he felt its chill leach into his very marrow.
"Your courtesy and respect are appreciated, my lord. But I believe our future was decided the moment recollections of my previous existence resurfaced to replace.. Whatever tender aberrations had briefly taken root."
With a precise curtsy, she swept away towards the house, her final words lingering like wisps of smoke over the battleground of Anthony's shattered hopes.
"A footman shall see you out at your convenience. I wish you good evening, Lord Bridgerton."
Throat working convulsively, Anthony registered the crunch of gravel underfoot as Penelope made to retreat back towards the house and the dubious shelter it provided. Every rational instinct begged him to give chase, to seize her in his arms and somehow jog that beloved, mischievous light back into her beautiful blue eyes.
But his leaden feet seemed to have taken root in the immaculately manicured garden paths, rendering him powerless as his entire world continued crumbling around him into splinters of anguish.
—-
At the Bridgerton House
The heavy drapes were drawn tight across the windows, cloaking Anthony's study in deep shadows that perfectly mirrored the Viscount's increasingly morose temperament. For days now, he had remained entombed within these four walls, seeing no one but the servants who replenished his ever-dwindling supply of brandy.
Even his family's attempts at rousing him had proven futile - a brusque dismissal was the most any of them could prise from his tightly-clenched jaw before the study door slammed shut once more.
It was only a matter of time before his formidable mother decided to intervene.
The sharp rap of knuckles against the oak-paneled door pierced the gloom where Anthony sat hunched in his leather armchair, glass in hand. He made no move to answer Violet's softly called greeting.
After a beat of silence, the latch turned and the dowager Viscountess swept into the dimness, mouth thinning with disapproval at the scene before her.
"Anthony, dearest." Her tone brooked no disagreement as she crossed the floor towards her eldest with brisk strides. "This behavior is unbecoming of you. What on earth has possessed you to descend into such disarray?"
Her sharp eyes raked over Anthony's disheveled appearance - his untrimmed beard, the rumpled cravat lying discarded at his feet, the two empty decanters of brandy on the side table. Worry creased her brow as she took in the dark smudges beneath his eyes and the sallow hue of his complexion.
"Answer me, son." She prompted more gently when Anthony remained insensible.
At last, a muscle ticked in his clenched jaw as he dragged his gaze up to meet his mother's concerned frown. Even in his addled state, a flicker of shame sparked behind his bloodshot eyes.
"She.. remembers." He rasped out, throat scraped raw from the relentless onslaught of spirits. "Penelope regained her lost memories during her.. Absence from London. Everything before the accident.."
Violet paused, surprise flitting over her features before her expression melted into blatant relief.
"Well, that is wonderful news! Her full recovery is a blessing we scarcely dared hope for."
She moved closer, laying a soft hand on Anthony's disheveled head in a rare tender caress. "Is that not cause for celebration rather than this maudlin display? I should think you would be overjoyed at your betrothed's return to herself."
Anthony flinched bodily at his mother's words, finally raising his head to fix Violet with expression of such harrowing desolation that she stopped short. Unshed moisture glimmered in the corners of his reddened eyes.
"She.. cried off on our engagement upon regaining her memories." He rasped, the words seeming to crush the very air from his lungs. "I have lost her, mother. Penelope is gone once more and I.."
He broke off, throat working convulsively as his composure cracked and splintered.
Violet stared at him in stunned silence, utterly aghast, as the first hot tear tracked its way down Anthony's stubbled cheek.
All the joy, all the reveled plans she had harbored for her eldest son's impending nuptials crumbled to ash in that moment. But far worse than her personal disappointment was the visceral anguish she now witnessed etching itself into the beloved contours of her child's face.
Wordlessly, she gathered Anthony into her embrace, a mother's tender comfort she feared had not been bestowed upon him for far too long. His body shuddered against hers as the floodgates finally burst and years of pent-up grief and loneliness poured from his battered soul in a torrent of brutal sobs.
"Oh, my dearest son." Violet murmured brokenly into his sweat-damp hair. "What cruelties have carved such wounds upon your heart?"
Escaping the labyrinthine darkness of Anthony's misery would be no mean feat. But Violet was determined to see him through whatever anguish had wrought this staggering blow, no matter how arduous the path ahead might prove.
First, however, she needed answers in order to tend the shredded remains of her firstborn's spirit. She knew how kind and good-hearted Penelope Featherington is. She had seen the redhead grow up together with her daughter Eloise. If Penelope had decided to break off her engagement with Anthony, there should be a deep and meaningful reason behind it.
Still, Violet will do everything in her capacity to help her son reconcile his relations with Penelope. The whole lot of Bridgertons, well except for Colin, had personally seen how a perfect match the two are, how Anthony and Penelope loves each other evident within the past months, it would be a shame if their union would not proceed as planned only because of Penelope's returned memories.
If she needs to speak and beg Penelope by herself, just to reconsider the engagement, Violet would be willing to do so. As a doting matriarch, she would do anything possible to ensure her child's happiness and well-being. She knew, as she has been seeing now, that Anthony would not be able to live without Penelope. And she herself had long wished for the youngest Featherington to become her daughter-in-law, as she had loved her as her own since the redhead was but a kid.
If there was one lesson Violet had learned through the tumult of her own life, it was that love, when tenaciously embraced, could ultimately overcome any obstacle.