Testing Audio -DK Principessa

by kibass91

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47. Unconditional

Unconditional

Katie993

Summary:

Marina Thompson had almost ensnared the most coveted pack of the Ton. With one scandal sheet the potential lovematch/entrapment/scheme had come crashing down.

The Featherington's reputation has been left decimated. Unhelped by Portia's determination to pretend all is well, and the fact that there is no heir in sight, and most certainly since Penelope at nine and ten is yet to present.

With one final ball of the season left to withstand, one night will set in motion a chain of events that will change everything.

Chapter 1: For a Night

Chapter Text

An insipid wallflower indeed.

Not in your wildest fantasies Fife.

Mercifully, the noise from the ball fades the further into the house she moves.

Penelope had left Eloise standing in the rubble of her bedroom, in the ruins of their friendship. She swallows the sob that threatens to break free as she pleads away the echo of their words – Eloise's and her own – the words and accusations and all the poison they had spat at one another.

Unable to withstand it she had fled. Not strong enough to tolerate the look of disgust in Eloise's eyes, to bear the betrayal in her words, to meet her condemnation eye to eye she had made her escape down one staircase and another and into the night air.

She fought for breath, feeling the shrapnel in her chest, the gaping wound that bled fast. Searching for a single second of respite, for refuge…for Colin.

She had only realised her intended direction when she had heard his voice across the garden, spinning desperately on her heel like a compass shaken north. And then his words reached out across the grass, the night, the ton. Her mind now forever.

Later she will be angry with his words, of course – for she had certainly not asked him to court her, to love her, to marry her, to be anything to her. But standing in the shadows, unnoticed, it is his laughter that rings in her ears. As though she has been struck. Laughter that makes her a joke. As though the very thought of her is so very intolerable.

In a second a decade of friendship is unstitched, torn to shreds, tattered.

And it is too much. This unravelling. Something within her withers now, wilts as the pillars of her life begin to powder and crumble. And she knows she will not be able to bear the weight, not without them.

She slips away unnoticed as the cold bite of the air fades against her skin. An emptiness envelopes her, a numbness. Tonight she will welcome it as an old friend. Tonight she will need it. For the night is not quite done with her yet.

She escapes into the house and yearns for it to empty, wishes her mother had not decided to host a ridiculous ball as though the Ton would look kinder upon them because of one sparkling night. As though they can scratch their way out of scandal with music and dancing and fanfare. As though their sins had been packed and awayed with Marina's departing carriage. As though pretending that everything was fine would make it so.

She avoids the residential halls and seeks refuge in the back of the house. And mercifully it is quiet, and dark and drawn and Penelope's hands begin to shake in the aftermath. She leans heavily against the wall in attempt to catch her breath. It is as though her dress has cinched two sizes tighter.

She knows not how long she stands, trying to clarify the world around her, trying to keep herself from turning to ash. And then abruptly voices loud and brash spill into the hall, a tumbling of bodies staggering up the carpeted stairs right toward her. And she cannot be found here. Cannot face another soul. Not tonight.

She forces her breath still and darts through the doorway closest to her realising too late she has crossed the threshold of her father's study. Bile rushes her throat and fear is a blade that slices her chest.

They grow closer, she clamps a palm across her mouth, pleading with the night, the moon, the god above for this one mercy. But this night is not hers.

It is after the quadrille when something shifts, changes the air, the tide, the light. A cresting swell of murmurs sweep through the Featherington hall and Anthony first glances around for the new Whistledown, finding none. Eyes widen, faces grow ashen, fans flutter, gasps echo all beneath the domed ceiling. And then the first whispers begin to reach him.

A body.

There has been a death.

Someone has been killed.

Lord Featherington has been killed.

The air immediately scents with shock and fear. Panic floods. A contagion, a quickening. The thick mix of distress has his shoulders rising, muscles contracting, alarm piercing his mind. Anthony forces himself calm and his eyes sharpen, darting across the room to locate his charges.

His mother already has Hyacinth's hand tucked into her own, Gregory shadows her other side. Across the floor, Benedict's arm loops around Francesca's shoulders, his brother's face is uncharacteristically severe as he steers their sister towards the trio – meeting Anthony's gaze for only a second. He finds then, Daphne and Simon joining the group, faces drawn with severity.

Questioning glances turn his way, as though the Viscount possesses answers to the mounting sea of questions. He does not yet care for answers, not until he lays eyes upon his missing siblings. Not until all the pieces of his heart have been collected. The muscle begins to knock painfully against the wall of his chest.

He finds Colin next, fighting against the tide of guests flooding from the ballroom, hastening for the carriages. His eyes are wide and he reaches Anthony just as Benedict draws to his other side.

"What has happened?" Colin asks with urgency but it is Benedict's report that claims his attention.

"I can't find El." Three sets of eyes sweep the hall, trace over faces and silhouettes and swim through shadows in search.

"Pen's not here either," Colin observes because finding one typically yields two when it comes to their sister and Penelope. Lady Featherington flits into view as she darts between bodies, attempting to slow the sudden stream toward the exit as though she is trying to stay a leak.

Lord Featherington has been killed.

His eyes find Prudence and Phillipa observing the chaos around them…yet not Penelope. And not Eloise. Which is enough to refocus him. His heart threatens to tear itself apart; he cannot bear the thought of either young woman being unaccounted for when such a thing has occurred.

Anthony and Benedict follow Colin. Somewhere in the back of his mind a question lifts its head as the younger alpha moves through the halls, the staircases with such sure footing, with a knowledge he should not possess. Until Colin pauses, falters in his path before tearing forward.

Ice thickens in Anthony's veins, for at the end of the hall a small frame is slumped to the ground. Eloise. Her willowy arms are looped around her knees, her body rounded into herself.

Anthony covers the distance in mere seconds, falling more than crouching before his sister.

"Eloise." Her eyes drift upward only once he speaks, as if she has not heard their thundering footsteps, has not scented the panic and urgency, the dread and alarm that churns in the air.

"Are you hurt?"

"El what has happened?"

Benedict crouches beside him while Colin slides down the wall beside their younger sister. This Eloise, pale and tearless and silent he wishes never to witness again. He instantly yearns for her fire, her rebellion, her ire.

Eloise's eyes are wide and glassy and drift between her brothers before they settle beside her, on Colin.

"She told you." Her words are whispered and ragged, as though she has been screaming, as though the sound has simply run dry. Her words shake and before Anthony can, Colin draws Eloise into his arms, as though he can keep her from shattering. His heart hollows at the look on her face, the quietness grows unbearable.

"Can you tell me what happened Eloise? Where is Penelope?" Anthony asks when he realises he cannot scent the other girl close by. Then again, Penelope's own scent has never been as distinctive as Eloise's. She is quieter. Subtler.

Somewhere closeby doors are thrown open and the fall of boots grow louder and heavier. Anthony straightens and spins towards the noise, shoulder to shoulder with Benedict. Behind the wall they make, he feels Colin helping Eloise to stand.

A group of bodies appear striding down the hall almost as one moving shape. Anthony recognises the butler of the estate, several servants, two men he knows to be associates of the Featherington's and a pair who are easily identified by the black of their coats and slacks and hats as the Bow Street Runners. A voice orders them downstairs and Anthony nods curtly before the small group disappears into chambers at the very end of the hall.

"Penelope?"

"She went downstairs," Eloise whispers back, her eyes wider than before, alive now with questions, and uncertainty. Her fear ribbons through the air, bitter and Benedict pulls their sister to his side leaving Anthony to fall into step with Colin as the siblings retreat. The night is over. It is time for them to return home.

"What's going on?" Eloise asks unsurely as they return to the hall, the crowd has thinned even further. His hand on her back propels her forward, keeps Eloise in motion. But he is unable of course to keep the whispers from her shore.

Eloise stumbles to a stop abruptly and turns sharply, eyes large and scared, head shaking.

"No wait…I must find Pen." Anthony guides her into the arms of their mother who huffs out a breath of relief. Violet's eyes search for injury, for a cause to panic before they lift back to her sons.

"And Penelope?" Anthony wordlessly shakes his head already searching the floor for answers.

"Simon followed the officers upstairs," Daphne informs them and though every instinct whispers to bundle his family into a carriage and across the square he knows he cannot leave until they have found her. Knows his mother, and Colin, and certainly Eloise will not take their leave until they have. Even if he promises to remain, to find her. Penelope is a Bridgerton in all but blood.

Colin is half way across the room before he can move. Anthony plants his feet and waits to hear Eloise promise to stay in the hall before he turns and follows his brothers.

They hear Portia first. Anthony grips the banister as he tumbles through time. Portia sobs, hollow with shock and disbelief and horror. His own inconsolable mother echoes in his mind. His hands grow clammy. He is eighteen again.

Bodies line the hall. Portia has folded to the carpeted floor, drowning in the green silk she adorns. Screaming. Bodies block her view of Featherington's study. Anthony tastes the metallic of blood in the air.

Simon meets his eyes over the matriarch; the Duke's face is stricken. At the end of the hall, bright colours cut into his vision with a startling wrongness. They do not belong in this darkness. Prudence and Phillipa hold onto one another, faces tear-stained, eyes focused on their collapsed mother. The fear emanating from the them is nauseating, the scents curdling in the air. Lady Danbury stands vigil beside them, knuckles tight around her cane.

It is as though the hall has been cloaked in stillness, has become frozen stuck. A portrait of tragedy. Death immortalised. And Anthony – Anthony moves.

He shoulders between his brothers and sweeps closer. He knows this moment. This moment plays on repeat in some dark corner of his mind. And with a furious push that scatters the memories at the edge of his mind, he resolves to do better this time.

His voice is low, yet calm, and strong and cuts through. Movement ensues. Mrs Varley and several men rush to assist Portia to stand, maids sweep around the omega's at the end of the hall. And Lady Danbury nods her approval to the Viscount. This is no place for the daughters. Not with death hanging like a cloak in the air. Suffocating.

The Featherington women are guided away from the horror – except one.

Because Penelope remains unaccounted for.

Though not her father.

When the officers at the door shift Anthony feels bile roll up his throat.

Lord Archibald Featherington has been killed.

His body lays supine on the floor, discarded and frozen in time, rigid and unnaturally grey. There is a pool beneath his body as dark as ink. His eyes are open. Unseeing. Haunting. His body mutilated. The evidence of something more, something darker carved into his frame.

He forces his eyes away, sees the blood splatter around the room, like fallen drops of rain. Like splattered paint. And this…this is different. He knits together a prayer that Portia Featherington had not witnessed this destruction of her husband.

Her hysteria, slowly fading with distance is far from reassuring.

She had not turned to look at her daughters, perhaps had not realised one to be missing. But he had.

Where is Penelope?

The world tunnels to this one unanswered question.

And he is unable to fathom why others are forming in the hall when this one remains. Why there is not a flurry of concern and urgency. His own apprehension begins to claw beneath his sternum.

The officers cite they have not seen the missing girl. Simon straightens in worry at the information. And he feels the way Benedict and Colin turn away from the repulsive and bloody scene. They move as one. They will search each room, sweep each square foot of this home. And he pleads that she is not close.

When Penelope was six years old she had visited Aubrey Hall for the very first time. She had spent three days and two nights in residence. It had been her first time away from her mother and father and sisters and the most fun of her entire life.

On the second morning of her stay Eloise and Penelope had scampered out of bed before Elizabeth, the nursemaid had risen to wake them. They had snuck, hand in hand, down the stairs in search of an adventure before breakfast. They had stifled their whispered giggles with their small palms and Eloise had made sure to point out each creaky floorboard that threatened their fun.

They had jumped off the very last stair together. Victorious. Until,

"Good morning young ladies." Penelope had gasped and turned to find Eloise's Papa grinning down at them, Penelope had thought his eyes were laughing.

Her Papa's eyes never laughed.

Behind him stood all three of Eloise's older brothers, buttoning themselves into winter coats.

"An adventure," Eloise had cheered before she stuffed her feet into two purple boots and tore out of the house. Anthony had immediately gathered up a jacket and a scarf and ran after his sister.

Eloise's Papa had crouched down until he was the same height as Penelope.

"Would you like to come on an adventure too Miss Penelope?" She had twisted her hands together, suddenly unsure, she had never been on an adventure before. She wasn't quite sure how.

"Come on Pen, it will be fun!" She blinked up at the boy who was stood by the door. Colin. His eyes laughed too.

And so she had found herself on an adventure in the woods. With a new name and her new friend. They were going to see a falling tree. Eloise had said she had seen a falling star but never a falling tree.

The tree climbed all the way to the sky and when it fell it was so loud she was certain it had cracked the earth. That they would all fall away.

Eloise's Papa had laughed and carried her and Eloise back to the house in time for breakfast.

And no one had told her to be quiet.

When he falls to the ground. She thinks of the tree in the woods. Cracking the ground. The sound is deafening, the silence after is even louder.

Blood drips onto the carpet, blooms like a flower, like spilled wine, or ink. It is not the colour she had read about. Not the frank bright red of paint she imagined.

The two men stalk around the office. Rummage through the desk, find the safe and pull the key from her father's immobile body. They empty what they find into a bag while Penelope forces herself to fill her lungs, and prays her heart won't simply burst in her chest.

And then, a glint of menacing silver, a blade. She swallows the horror that rolls up her throat at what comes next. Her eyes scream, frozen open.

And then his too. Wide. Hollow. Staring right at her. Finding where she hides tucked between two shelves, in the shadows. His mouth moves but only a gurgling rasp fills the room and she does not move. Or breathe. Or cry. Does not even swallow around the scream that builds in her throat. He stares at her as though this too is her fault. He stares at her until the flame in his eyes is extinguished.

You thought you could take from us Featherington.

You thought us fools.

You thought there would be no consequences to your thievery.

There is nothing you can offer us. You are too late. We will take your money, your jewels, your hands, your life.

Warnings: Character death

Chapter 2: Haunted

Chapter Text

Benedict cannot tell if his youngest packmate is driven by scent, instinct or knowledge. Nonetheless, he follows Colin down the stairs and out what he realises is the servant's entrance.

Anthony and Simon had split to sweep the opposite side of the estate, leaving Benedict to catch up with Colin's determined stride. Colin had navigated them first to the library on the uppermost floor, finding it empty and ignoring his own attempts to search each room they passed. Trusting the closeness tethering Colin and the youngest Featherington he had simply followed.

"She's here," Colin breathes as they spill out into the night. For the second time, Benedict wonders for the cause of his certainty. And then it doesn't matter.

For hidden in the deepest part of the garden, concealed by a curtain of branches that spill from the tallest willow, they indeed find Penelope.

Her skin is porcelain, eyes wide and tilted up to the moon. It hangs above them, luminous, draping the young woman in a platinum silk that itches his fingers for a paintbrush.

Without hesitating Colin drops to his knees before her.

Penelope's chin falls and she blinks once and then twice and then once more toward Colin before she tilts her gaze to him and he sees it, as clear as the sky above.

She knows.

"Are you hurt?" Colin's voice is ragged in a way Benedict has rarely heard. His own eyes trace her form, searching for injury. The skirt of her dress is creased as though she has slept a night in it. Her scent reaches him, faint yet soured, and it scrapes at the back of his throat. When Colin reaches for her, Benedict's eyes catch a small cluster of crescent-shaped cuts that mar the skin of her palm.

"Pen?" Her eyes draw back to Colin and the three of them simply breathe in the cool air for a moment. The leaves above rustle, unsettled, and he can make out a distant shout from the house. Benedict feels an ache that heavies the bond he shares with Colin, the mounting helplessness. He ducks his neck to catch her eyes.

"Penelope we need to go inside now," he says softly. She blinks once and then stands, soundless and steady, and steps to move past them without a word.

She ignores or perhaps does not notice the way Colin reaches for her, offers her his arm, and Benedict pushes away a sudden instinct to withdraw his words, impede her path ahead, to instead sweep her away from the darkness he knows to come next.

She wonders if,

had he known her there, folded into the corner,

had he known she would bear witness to his desperate words,

had he known they would remain evermore his last, father to daughter,

would he have chosen others – would he have cared to trade.

She wonders at the words he had tried to shape there on the floor once he had seen her – the words that would now remain trapped in his throat. Unheard and buried.

She had waited it seemed for an eternity before pulling herself from the corner of the study. Finally, finally forcing her gaze from his.

She had moved closer…a realisation forming somewhere beyond the fear and the shock that clouded her mind…that she could no longer make out the scent of her father. Only blood. And death. And suddenly she had been set alight with an urgency to flee. As though they would return any second to execute her too. As though they still lingered in the shadows, waiting to strike.

Her hands had shaken with the violence she had witnessed as she reached for the sheets of paper that lay on his person, that they had left on his body to be found. She knew with startling clarity that she had to retrieve them before making her escape, before they could be found by another. Her eyes found her own name in ink and his final desperate plea echoed around the room, and then followed her out and down the hall and into the night.

Relief shudders through Anthony's chest when Penelope steps into the hall. Benedict and Colin bracket her between them and for a night propriety slips into the shadows of the darkness that has befallen them.

She does not seem to be hurt, and he finds reassurance in his brothers as Eloise slips by him, crossing the floor.

"We will take the girls back to our home while you speak with the officers." Anthony hears his mother offer. Portia remains still at her side. And at last it is time to return his kin home, Penelope and her sisters enfolded too into his care. There he will be able to breathe once more.

For a perplexing moment his mind spins with the fact that after all that had come to pass that season. That after the cruel scheming and conniving born of the Featherington home and family – that now he and his own would provide their haven; the flood of tragedy washing it all away. Marina, their plan, the failed bond.

At least for tonight.

Movement scatters his thoughts when Eloise reaches for Penelope. For a stretching second Penelope sways, so far he thinks she will fall. Then she straightens, and pulls her arm out of his sisters hold, folding it against herself, retreating. Eloise's face crumples in distress.

"We must get them out of here," Simon advises from beside him and he is right of course. He knows the officers will descend any second now, officers who have already been trading words like murder and debt and torture upstairs. And they need to get her, get them out of there.

Without protest from Portia, Violet is quick to usher the girls from the home. Anthony recognises the desperate efforts of his mother to shield the young women.

Soft weeping from Phillipa, and a sob Prudence tries to swallow echoes loud in the quiet of the hall which such a short time ago had been bathed in music and laughter.

A crowd lingers in the square, clusters of the Ton's families. Necks crane, murmurs swell and Anthony summons the carriages quickly. Francesca climbs into the first and he assists both Prudence and Phillipa to follow. Their hands tremble in his own and tears track down the slopes of their cheeks. They both cast gazes, fearful and frightened, behind to their mother. Violet squeezes his hand once before she joins them as well.

The carriage lurches away and Anthony turns back to the remaining and youngest Featherington.

And before him now she seems so very small. So very young.

"I'm so sorry Penelope," he murmurs softly, a band tightening around his chest. She does not acknowledge his words, he cannot even be certain she has heard them.

When she takes his hand to climb into the carriage, her own is steady. Her eyes, though dull and distant, remain dry. She is silent though it is not her usual soft, unassuming quietness.

Eloise, Colin and Daphne follow her into the carriage and it is Benedict who signals the driver and she is pulled away. As he stands watching its path across the square, his chest grows as hollow as her stare had been, and an uneasy apprehension wedges itself between his ribs.

The thump of a cane pulls him from his thoughts. Only he, Benedict and Simon remain on the terrace, the staff dissipating quickly in search of their own answers, or orders.

"I trust Miss Featherington remains unharmed. At least in body," Lady Danbury enquires, her eyes focused on Benedict once they turn. His brother nods once.

"Quite a night," she comments as though she is still half trapped in thought.

"Lady Danbury I will return our carriage and will have a room for you should you require it this evening." Anthony catches a hint of approval flare in Lady Danbury's eyes. When she speaks again her words are quiet,

"It is my understanding the officers upstairs will be calling upon a number of families come morning. I expect they will call upon you Lord Bridgerton," he nods his understanding and Lady Danbury turns to her godson, "as I expect they will they call upon the Mondrich's."

Simon and his godmother exchange a long look that tugs at Anthony's attention, though before he can ask Lady Danbury continues,

"Miss Featherington will also be called upon," she explains arresting Anthony in place.

"For what business?" His voice is sharper, louder than intended, lancing into the night. The thought of Penelope, in her new grief, being subjected to questioning by officers of the ton was unacceptable, insulting. He had every intention of providing only shelter and refuge to the young Featherington's over the coming days. His mind spins to his own siblings, young and abruptly adrift in the days after their own father had fallen.

"They have as so far been unable to account for Miss Featherington during the approximated time of her father's death."

"She was in the garden," Benedict supplies.

"A groundsman reported observing her leaving the house only after the musicians were halted." The words hang in the air between them. And the worry that had dissolved into relief upon sighting Penelope unfolds in his chest once more.

"They will wait for morning?" he checks and pauses for the confirmation she provides, trusts in her knowledge. Lady Danbury turns then, and he watches her return to Portia's side – nobody blinks at her presence. Anthony tucks his respect away before turning from the house, toward his own where he is needed.

Simon is quiet as they begin across the square on foot. Benedict on his other side fills them in on finding Penelope, his words are quiet, and he leaves many unspoken that Anthony hears anyway.

He knows Benedict's theory concerning Colin and Penelope. It is hardly the time however to lend thought to the conundrum of Penelope's designation and their bond – not when her father lies dead upstairs, not when officers would be calling upon the girl herself come first light, not after Colin had almost bonded to her cousin only months ago.

Anthony turns to Simon then. His patience not unending.

"There was something," Simon begins, words stilted and hesitant, "between Will and Featherington at the last fight. When I went to confront Will, Featherington was leaving the tent. Will threw that fight." Anthony feels Benedict's shock and turns the new knowledge over in his mind, a picture beginning to web itself together.

Anthony frustrates at his own ignorance, he had been too focused on Sienna to notice any wrong in the hall. And even if he had, the dealings between Lords were hardly their business, not then, but now… with death washed on their shore, darkening their doorstep.

It was no hidden fact the Featherington coffers had been thinning. Archibald frequenting corners of the Ton known for trouble.

And now he had left a wife, three daughters, a household in freefall.

Penelope and her sisters now tucked away in his home, it is difficult not to feel the sense of protectiveness and responsibility unfolding beneath his sternum. For who would look after them.

"I will call on Will for answers tonight," Simon decides. The brothers agree, needlessly, to check on and watch over Daphne and pause as Simon climbs into a carriage.

Benedict and Anthony make their way upstairs where the first notes of the pianoforte reach them. A quiet, soothing piece they have heard from Francesca before. Anthony sends his younger sister an appreciative smile as he enters the drawing room to find his family dotted around the room.

Daphne sits beside the eldest Featherington sisters, her hand sweeping over Phillipa's shoulders which shudder as she quietly cries. Prudence's eyes are similarly red as she sips tea.

On the opposite settee sits Violet and Penelope, their hands clasped. Her figure draws his gaze. He finds his eyes focusing on the rise and fall of her chest, unsettled by her stillness.

Colin stands by the window, his troubled eyes meeting Anthony's before returning to Penelope. Surprisingly Eloise too stands at a distance by the fireplace, arms folded, an expression etched on her face that Anthony doesn't quite know of what to make.

Several hours later Colin paces the length of Anthony's office. And then again. And again.

Whisky burns down his throat as he listens to the discussion between Simon and his eldest brother. Worry spirals the length of his spine, he cannot keep still. He paces, and fights the instinct that tugs him upstairs, to Penelope.

Had it not been for Anthony's grip that had guided him back downstairs after they had settled the sisters he knows that he would have remained planted outside her room, just in case she would have need for someone, for him.

He had been in the garden with Fife and Bellamy when Benedict's alarm had flared through the pack bond shared between the eldest Bridgerton brothers. It had hit him like lightening, turning him on his heel and sending him with haste back toward the ballroom ignoring the calls from his old classmates.

Moments later, the ball had thundered into chaos, storming and scenting with fear and panic alike. Colin had fought his way inside, eyes searching for a glint of familiar red. Growing more desperate with each passing second to know her safe. Even now, it coiled through his frame.

"I worry she is in shock," he says interrupting the discussion. While Prudence and Phillipa had been loud and open with their grief, Penelope had yet to make a sound.

She had passed the evening in silence, leaving her tea untouched, hardly moving at all.

After some time, Colin had stood from his place beside Penelope to confirm with Mrs Wilson the guestrooms were ready and squeezed Daphne's hand in gratitude when she and Francesca had ushered the older siblings upstairs. He had hoped in their absence, Penelope would relinquish the tight grip she had been keeping on her grief.

Yet she had remained still and silent and composed. Even when his mother had tucked her frame against her own, whispering her condolences and reassurances and comforts. Eventually it was Violet who had guided Penelope upstairs. He had trailed after them, helplessness ribboning through him. An ache in his chest, a slicing need to help, to comfort, to relieve the distress that embittered her scent.

And he felt as lost as the look that creased Eloise's face when Penelope chose to retreat alone into the room that had been assigned hers years prior. A room that she hardly ever used, typically disappearing into his sisters when she stayed at Bridgerton House.

Panic had flared in his chest when she had disappeared behind the door. Out of sight and reach.

Eloise had wordlessly swept back down the stairs, Benedict trailing after her instinctually. And it was then that Anthony had led him down to his study, decanted the whisky and told Colin what he knew.

Later, Simon had returned to confirm the suspicions Anthony had shared, certain that Featherington had met his end at the hands of a bad debt. And though Will knew not what the Lord had gambled he knew it sizable enough to draw suspicion. Suspicion that had led to repayment with his life.

And Colin felt a splicing guilt momentarily when he wished the Lord alive again, not for Penelope but only so he himself could confront him. Question how it was he could abandon his daughter in this way. How he could be so careless with her safety. His fury folded over and over, growing and lacing together with the worry roiling in the pit of his stomach.

Now, there are only a few comforts he can call upon. The familiar expression on Anthony's face is one, knowing his brother is pulling together the corners of a plan. And the fact that Penelope had long ago been stitched into the fabric of their family, was basically pack, and he is confident in the knowledge they would do whatever necessary to protect her.

When she closes her eyes she meets his.

Wide and empty and unblinking.

His lifeless gaze reaches down into her chest and steals her breath. Squeezes her heart so tightly she is certain it will shatter apart.

Penelope's eyes snap open, body wrestling from the sheets to stand, chest heaving. She cannot breathe.

The air in the room turns stale. Her lips and then her fingertips prickle with panic. Blood rushes her ears, she imagines the sound of a roaring ocean she knows only from her reading. And she must escape the room before she drowns.

She does not notice her path, focuses instead on dragging herself forward as the events of the evening shackle themselves around her ankles, making it almost impossible to move. She takes the stairs, gripping the bannister, as though she can climb above the rising tide of her panic, the memories that swell to swallow her entirely.

When she passes Colin's room she hears his laugh. From the gardens. Had an hour passed…a night…a lifetime.

In the carriage he had tried to speak with her. In the Bridgerton drawing room, he had sat beside her, and she had focused on trying to recall his words. I would never dream of courting Penelope Featherington. She had passed them through her mind, linking them like beads, turning them over and over to keep her mind from flipping to the page that had followed: the deafening silence of the study, the metallic scent of blood, the fear and its bruising grip yet to release her. I would never dream of courting Penelope Featherington.

He had moved to kneel before her at some point, and the sound of her sisters sobbing had broken through, "please Pen say something," he had begged of her quietly. Eloise had spoken at some point, "I'm here Pen, none of it matters now, I'm here for you." They had felt so far away.

She finds herself in Benedict's studio. The air is warmer inside, she is able to sip at it in relief. She folds into a seat by the windows and stares at her home across the square, still alive and teeming. It seems now, somehow, of another world. So distant.

The settee is soft and seems to ease her into its hold, its warmth thawing her body as the hours pass. She is careful to keep her eyes open, avoids the waiting, accusing stare of her father as the inky canvas above is repainted over and over, each time one shade lighter. Drawing dawn closer.

She does not hear the door open. Nor the quiet murmur of her name. Only when Benedict sits beside her does she realise she is not alone.

He keeps himself still, eyes sweeping across her face slowly and calmly. He seems more solid, as though he has lost some lightness, and she is unsure if he speaks again. Her own words forsake her.

After a time he reaches for her hand. He uncurls her fingers with his own and reveals to them both four little angry marks on her skin. She knows instantly they are of her own making, the bite of her nails, the tight coil of her body.

Benedict stands. He keeps his movements slow and careful and retrieves a bowl and some cloth. He lowers himself again before her and cradles her hand in his own. Then he washes the blood from her skin. Slow and measured. Neither of them speak.

First, she feels the coolness of the water against her skin.

The warmth of his own touch against her.

The soft brush of the cloth he uses to dry and then wrap her hand.

She hears his breath. Steady and deep and is distracted for a moment trying to map her own against it. In and out. In and out.

His scent reaches her then. Heavy and familiar and comforting. She breathes deeper still.

And slowly the world sifts back into mind. Reaches out for her. Tugs her away from an edge.

He gently encourages her to lie against the cushions, his touch soft yet sure, as though he is positioning her for a sketch. Penelope had, over the years, featured in many of Benedict's paintings – when the family refused her to remain on their outskirts, pulling her amongst them again and again. The second-born would flit around the family, pushing them together, wrapping arms around each other, arranging them to his liking before expertly recreating them in paint and ink and charcoal.

Now, he folds her arms against her chest, encourages her shoulders to relax, soothes a thumb across her brow. Her body complies, her mind quietens. He pulls a blanket from somewhere close and she is enveloped in a warmth heavy and safe and still.

Benedict settles on the floor before her, close enough to touch, she scrunches her fingers into the blanket.

He sets the sketchbook on his knees, and drags charcoal across the page. Later she will wonder what became of the sketch, what shape it took. The steady and rhythmic brushes of charcoal soothe her nerves and lull her finally, finally to rest.

Chapter 3: Black & Yellow

Chapter Text

Portia Featherington arrives early the next morning.

She is composed, announced quietly by Humbolt who takes his leave as she sweeps across the room and presses a kiss to the crown of Prudence's head and then to Phillipa's. The sisters sit beside one another on the settee, watching Hyacinth and Gregory play softly on the carpet. It is the quietest Anthony has ever witnessed Bridgerton House.

Portia turns then to thank both himself and his mother for their hospitality and announces that she and her daughters will take their leave from the Ton later that same day to mourn.

Her words are light. Simple. Her countenance calm and at ease.

As though her husband hadn't met an end that was as distressing as it was bloody in her very own home the night before. While the entire Ton were spinning around the dancefloor below. Anthony is certain Portia must now be in possession of the same information he holds himself yet she appears undisturbed before them.

Colin meets Anthony's eyes from where he is seated beside Penelope at the table. Her tea remains untouched, as does the plate that Colin himself had filled. Anthony can feel his brother's composure fray.

Penelope herself doesn't seem to react to her mother's presence or words. Before he can consider his next steps, or Colin's repeated requests for him to summon the physician to check over the young woman, Portia requests a word in private.

Benedict is relieved to find the room empty, bar one.

Genevieve Delacroix looks up from where she is arranging sheets of fabric across a large table. The cloth varies in style and texture though not in colour.

Gen startles, clocking his presence, recognition giving way to relief. There is something frenzied and desperate in the way she moves around the table, something Benedict has not seen in her before.

"How is she?" she asks before clarifying, "Miss Penelope?" He pauses, considering. He has never heard her speak of Penelope in all the time they have shared.

"I was not aware you and Miss Featherington were well acquainted?" Genevieve shrugs,

"I have been dressing her for years now." He hums having spent far too many hours with the modiste to not hear the words she now omits.

"She is calm," he answers instead, his thoughts turning to the young woman he had stumbled across the night before. She had slept fitfully for several hours on the settee of his studio.

At some point Eloise had appeared, shadows beneath her sleepless eyes. She had curled up in a chair across the room and he had left them both just after dawn when panic had sliced through the bond, all Anthony's. Word of Penelope's absence had undoubtedly reached his elder brother and Benedict hurried to mitigate the chaos he would quickly spiral into.

Movement from the hall pulls him from his thoughts, and he turns to see his thoughts materialise into form when Penelope steps into view. His sister follows.

Benedict feels a thrum of empathy for Eloise at the helplessness pooled in her eyes. She had cried against his shoulder the previous evening yet offered no answers to his questions, only assurances her own sorrow had nothing to do with Lord Featherington.

Genevieve sweeps by him toward Penelope, reaching for the younger girl. She squeezes her shoulders and Benedict notes Eloise's own surprise at the familiarity Gen displays.

"I am so sorry this has happened Ma Cherie." Penelope nods and Gen links their hands guiding her further into the room. Once she is close enough Penelope reaches out to touch the material, the shades of night.

One minute bleeds into two and then,

"I feel I may have prayed one time too many for a shade other than yellow." Penelope's words are but a whisper. But they are the first he has heard since he and Colin had found her in the garden, and relief breaks over his shoulders, and he releases a breath he hadn't realised he'd been holding.

For a minute Benedict thinks she is about say more before her jaw clicks shut and her eyes grow distant again. Gen runs her thumb over Penelope's knuckles,

"Let's fit you before your mother arrives, oui?" Penelope nods and follows the modiste, and Benedict watches them before he follows his own sudden instinct and loops an arm around Eloise's shoulders, guiding her back out of the room.

Genevieve meets his eyes when he reaches to close the door behind them, a solemn gratitude in her eyes. He offers her a quick nod realising that he has found an unexpected ally in the care of Penelope Featherington.

"The officers have recommended a period of leave from Mayfair whilst they conduct their investigation," Portia explains clearly and concisely. Lady Danbury and Violet sit either side of her, Anthony at his desk.

"I certainly found solace in the country, after Edmund passed," Violet offers quietly, kindly. Anthony feels the familiar weight of his grief, old and worn, settle in his chest.

"I would prefer to remain to ensure our affairs are in order," Portia remarks unhappily, "ensure the estate is managed correctly until the new Lord Featherington receives our correspondence and arrives. They have however implied the time away would be for the safety of my daughters and that is something I am unable to overlook." Anthony straightens.

"Lady Featherington despite our differences this season, despite all that has transpired, you have our families support in ensuring the safety of your daughters until and after the new Lord Featherington arrives." He has questions of course about the future Lord, but he cannot tear his mind away from this new issue at hand, from any lingering threat.

He is unsure how his next words will land though he cannot prevent nor defer himself from asking.

"I had actually intended to offer to take in Penelope if it would allow you some freedom to attend to the matters of the estate." He hadn't yet spoken to his mother on the issue, though he sees the small smile that lifts her lips, recalls how she had all night orbited Penelope as though ready to catch her.

Recalls too the way she had tended softly to Phillipa and Prudence,

"Her sisters would be welcome too of course." He had not meant to exclude, only that Penelope had perhaps spent more time in Bridgerton House throughout her childhood than her own home, and he was certain she could find comfort in its familiarity.

"Thank you for your offer Lord Bridgerton, though I wish for my family to remain together in this time of mourning. Despite Penelope's closeness with your sister and your bro-"

"No." Anthony hears himself interject. His voice is abruptly harsher and vastly colder, it surprises even himself. "You will still not speak of Colin." The air of the study stretches thin, suddenly fragile and tenuous.

He recognises the anger, knows that it had started simmering the day Daphne had accepted their invitation to the Featherington Ball. Had it been his decision his family would have remained firm and absolute in their distancing from the Featherington's after the season's events.

He had himself sat down with Colin and offered to rescind the acceptance with one word, their reputation be damned. After some time and some whisky, after Benedict had joined them, Colin had quietly declined, and Anthony had known even then that his brother's actions were as much for Penelope as for his own family. He could recognise how much Colin had matured in the wake of his scandal.

He and Benedict had flanked Colin upon their arrival at the ball. He needn't have worried of course, as Daphne had already explained more than once. The Ton had been quick to align themselves with the Bridgerton's – to condemn the actions of Portia Featherington and her ward.

Three quick knocks and the door swings open to reveal Humbolt and several officers – just as Lady Danbury had predicted.

"The officers would like to speak with the young Miss Featherington," Humbolt informs them quietly and Anthony makes a note to line Humbolt's pockets in coins for leading the officers to his study rather than up the stairs.

Though the officers were required to inform her guardian, Anthony knows they would take the opportunity to question Penelope alone if they could achieve it. The Bow Street Runners were known for their brash methods of inquiry.

Portia freezes for only a second before standing. Her eyes narrow and it is clear she resents the request, yet she nods and announces her leave to retrieve her daughter.

"I should like to attend," Anthony dares and Portia pauses before nodding once. Truly she can hardly deny his request, under his roof. He catches the same glint in his mother's eye that he finds in Lady Danbury's – both of whom follow Portia from the room.

The black fabric falls severe across her skin, which appears under it as pale as snow. She breathes easier now out of the yellow, she hopes she can as easily strip the bite of Eloise, of Colin's words from her person, the billowing loss that is waiting for her attention. She can feel it, hear it's quiet knocks at the edge of her mind.

She feels the parchment, the only thing she had taken from the study, nestled beneath her stays. She has not dared remove them. Another thing to deal with once she slips the cloak of shock from her shoulders.

Genevieve is quiet and guilt ribbons through Penelope.

The matter of Whistledown had been sliced smaller and smaller with each hour that had passed since she had found Eloise in her chambers.

Recounting Eloise's discovery was easier than facing the other parts – than Colin, than the study. It was only in the quiet that fell as Gen laced her new corset that Penelope realised Eloise's new knowledge impacted the modiste as well.

She had been quick to reassure Genevieve that Eloise knew not of her methods, of their involvement together and Gen nodded and squeezed her hand and looked at her as though she was waiting for Penelope to shudder into pieces. It was the same look that Colin kept levelling at her, that painted Eloise's face, and Violet's and Daphne's.

And now Gen is quiet. Across the room.

She wonders if the modiste is feeling the same regret for their friendship that had saturated Eloise's voice the night before. The room stays quiet.

She wants to apologise. Tries to order the words together in her mind, find some that could convey the depths of her sincerity. It is too quiet.

And she realises too that for Gen, Penelope's own intentions are of little consequence, not when it is Gen's entire livelihood she has risked. And she doesn't know how to bridge this silence.

And then she doesn't have to.

For a gasp tears its way through the room and Penelope's eyes snap up.

In the mirror she sees the yellow fabric of her dress in Genevieve's hands.

The modiste lifts the material into view between them and her eyes fall to the dress.

To the lining of the yellow skirt which is stained dark. Along the hem. As though it has been dipped into paint or dye or ink. She knows what it is immediately. Feels bile in her throat as images flick into her mind, unwelcome.

And the look that twists onto Genevieve's face churns her stomach further. Penelope's sees shock fade into worry, and Whistledown and Eloise and anything other than the dried blood that stains her gown falls away.

Before Penelope can even think of an explanation, before Genevieve can even ask the question the door clicks open.

"Madam Delacroix, oh good Penelope is done, her presence is required downstairs. I will send up Phillipa." Genevieve is quick to bunch the bloody fabric in her hands, sweep it out of Portia's sight. And Penelope avoids her gaze, turning on her heel, black skirt swishing as she makes a hasty retreat from one more thing she does not know how to face.

Anthony, along with the three officers, stand upon the return of Lady Featherington. He pulls his own chair out from the desk, and nods to it when he catches Penelope's eyes. She lingers, uncertain in the doorway for a moment and he feels his own surprise at the black material that wraps her frame.

She hesitates before rounding to his side of the desk. When she draws close he can scent her apprehension.

"I am Officer Chambers Miss Featherington." The officer is older than Anthony, perhaps the age his father would have been, his face is lined with fatigue, and in his eyes Anthony watches the way his curiosity flares into suspicion. The man eases himself back down in the seat across the desk. Portia takes the vacant chair beside him.

The two officers behind him cut opposing figures. One tall and broad, neck spilling from his collar, arms folded over the acreage of his chest. The other slighter, almost wiry and pale, his eyes red with sleeplessness and something else that stays Anthony's gaze for a brief time. They remain standing, shadowing the man obviously in charge.

Anthony remains on his own feet, beside Penelope. He hopes his proximity will be of some comfort.

"Miss Featherington I offer my sincerest condolences to you," Chambers speaks, his voice softer now. Penelope nods her head in acknowledgement.

"We are here to find out what happened to your father, do you understand?" Another nod. The rise and fall of her chest is shallow, as though she is keeping her breaths small, and silent. And they begin.

"Did you see anyone at the ball last night you did not recognise?" "Were you present in the ballroom for the Queens arrival?" "Did you observe your father speaking with anyone?" She shakes her head yes and no until, "Did you spend anytime upstairs last evening?"

Chambers crosses and recrosses his legs and the attention pools to his exaggerated movements. His own eyes never once leave Penelope. Chambers keeps his voice polite, soft even, as though he is speaking with a cornered animal.

"Miss Featherington we require the truth, you will do best to provide it to us today." Anthony does not appreciate the intimation. Or the way Chambers' tone sours, as it had earlier, as though he stumbles over her name. It is harder to ignore when it is directed at this particular Featherington he realises. He itches to interrupt, forces himself to remain quiet.

"My daughter has an unnatural yet persisting proclivity to reading, she is likely avoiding my ire at retiring to the library early in the evening without permission." Portia's laugh is too high and bleeds with bitterness. It does not help.

Chambers doesn't acknowledge Portia, does not turn his gaze away from Penelope. Penelope does not move or fidget or fuss. She simply meets his gaze.

"You were seen last evening entering the estate from the gardens rather distressed and instead of returning to the ballroom you were seen venturing into the halls that lead to your fathers workrooms." The words are slow and blunt and take immediate effect.

Ice slices through Anthony's chest. He recalls the stained carpets, the darkened halls, the office, the body.

"What was the cause of your distress?"

"I had an upsetting disagreement with Miss Bridgerton in my chambers," Penelope explains softly, "I sought refuge in the garden but found it to be too crowded. I went back inside, I wanted to be alone." Anthony is proud of the steadiness to her voice, relieved to hear it.

"And where did you go to be alone?" He thinks of her in those deserted, quiet halls, constructs imaginations in his mind of Penelope being in the wrong place at the wrong time and he wants to vomit.

"I went to the reading room on the third floor. I did not see anyone, I did not hear anything," she adds, anticipating Chamber's next questions and he catches the small flare of surprise in the officer's eyes.

"How did you learn of what happened to your father Miss Featherington?"

"I heard voices, louder than I had expected in that part of the house, and I snuck to the end of the corridor. I overheard several of the staff speaking in the stairwell." She had been so close. Too close.

"And where did you go once you heard the news?"

"I didn't know what to do…I went back downstairs…and there were people everywhere, it was overwhelming so I went where I knew it would be quiet, I just wanted a minute to be alone." There is a fine tremor that runs through her words. Her fingers.

"You did not seek out your mother or sisters?" Chambers leans forward,

"I just wanted to be alone," she repeats after a beat and Chambers nods, after another. He confirms once more that she had not heard anything in the halls, not encountered anybody and she shakes her head. He nods seemingly satisfied, and readies himself to stand.

And then appears as surprised as Anthony feels. Like the words from behind have struck him.

"You remain unpresented, is that correct Miss Featherington?" Anthony and Portia make an identical sound of indignation. Perhaps the first accord they have ever reached. The smaller of the men has taken a half-step toward them. Anthony rounds the desk.

"Which is of what relevance?" Anthony questions noting the way Penelope's skin flushes crimson. Fury licks at the back of his neck on her behalf. The officers have outstayed their welcome.

"Apologies Viscount," Chambers is quick to supply on behalf of the younger man whose eyes remain fixed upon Penelope, who doesn't himself appear apologetic at all. Impatient he moves forward, hastens their exit, clicks the door to his study shut behind him.

Simon and Benedict are present in the foyer, both straightening and clocking Anthony's agitation.

"It is not of complete disregard." The younger officer proclaims, his voice louder than perhaps he intends under the higher ceiling. Chambers grumbles something unintelligible and shuffles his younger partner toward the door, away from Anthony.

Officers or not they had no right to question a young lady about her status in such way. Had she been one of his sisters…

He was not oblivious to the unanswered question of Penelope's designation. How could he be? It was a common subject of gossip spun about the Ton, even Lady Whistledown remarked upon it frequently enough.

When Francesca had presented, Colin had gently posed his own set of questions to his older brothers, questions that even then Colin had handled with care, questions that even still Anthony sometimes sees in his younger brother's eyes.

Whilst children would typically present toward the beginning of their adolescence, Penelope at ten and nine remained undesignated. He had multiple times been forced to retrieve his siblings from altercations where they had stepped in to defend Penelope, Benedict and Colin of course, concerningly Hyacinth once, and more times than the others combined, Eloise.

Anthony himself had presented just shy of his fourteenth year, had been sent home for the standard six weeks from Eton. Six weeks that were perhaps one of the best times of his young life. He and his father had adjourned to Aubrey Hall together for almost a month, without their siblings. And Anthony had basked in the uninterrupted attentions and focus of his father, who had done the same thing for Benedict – as he and his brother had replicated for Colin. It was his father who had instilled in him what it was to be an Alpha, a husband, a Bridgerton, a packmate. And every day he attempted to live up to his father's instructions.

His sisters had all presented once Anthony was left to grapple with the reins of the Viscountcy. Three omega's, thus far. Together he and his mother who had been similarly fighting against the tide of her own grief, had done their best. Really, Benedict and Colin had shouldered much of the weight. Deftly handling their sisters with care and kindness and laughter and empathy while Anthony had handled the logistics.

It was his mother's suspicion that Portia had debuted Penelope early in hopes it would trigger her presentation. It had also been his mother's idea, several years prior, to have Penelope spend as many weeks as she could negotiate with Portia at Aubrey House.

Penelope had seemed happier than he had perhaps ever seen her during that time. His siblings too. His mother's theory however remained disproven. There were many theories about Penelope's delayed designation. And each year his mother attempted to hold her closer and tighter. He knew she saw herself in Penelope. Knew Penelope held a piece of her heart that Violet herself had made certain she would not find in her own children.

"Officer Chambers," Anthony calls. He focuses on the older officer, refuses to look at his younger silhouette.

"Penelope Featherington remains under the protection of this family, we care very much about her." Chambers nods, and once his colleagues have departed down the stairs of Bridgerton House he doubles back. And stands before Anthony, his expression hesitant,

"Viscount if I can be blunt," Chambers says as though he is an old friend. Anthony nods,

"I have spent weeks now investigating The Featheringtons. It would be wise to keep your wits about you. You would not want to be fooled a second time." Anthony bristles,

"I myself have certainly taken issue with the recent conduct of the Featherington's. What remains is that Penelope Featherington for all intents and purposes is a Bridgerton herself, my mother's daughter in all but blood."

"I understand Viscount, and there is perhaps no better endorsement," Chambers says and reaches to shake his hand.

"I would appreciate being kept abreast of anything pertaining to Miss Featherington's safety," Anthony asks for something he certainly is not entitled to yet Chamber's nods easily.

"Of course Lord Bridgerton," he agrees and then, "though in my experience it's often those closest to us who cause the most harm." And with that he turns on his heel and the three officers start their way back across the square. To the horrors folded into the Featherington halls.

Chapter 4: One Fine Mourning

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

"Brother." Anthony groans as Colin slips into the study, into the seat across the desk. The same one he has claimed each afternoon for weeks now.

Colin does not bother him; is quick to crack open the book he carries and disappear into the pages. Anthony returns to his work.

He does not complain. There is a quiet comfort in sharing space with his packmates. On the days when the mail arrives later in the afternoon, Benedict will usually find his way to the study as well.

When the door to the office sweeps open next, it is neither Benedict nor Jenson with the post but Daphne. Her eyes are panicked and draw Anthony out of his seat.

"There has been a spill on the North road. The florist says they cannot replace the blooms in time for the wedding." The distress rolls off their sister, her words mournful. She has been growing steadily more tense with each day that draws her wedding closer.

Thankfully, there are only two more nights until they will see their sister become a Duchess.

Colin gently tugs Daphne down into his own chair and coaxes her into taking one deep breath and then another, giving Anthony the chance to speak with several members of staff. He quickly arranges a ride to the neighbouring village; Daphne presses a kiss to his cheek before fluttering from the room, describing with what they should return. They almost collide with Turner on the way out.

Turner has a report for Anthony, an issue with the south lands he has dealt with before. Colin's attention tears itself away from the page in his palm with each knock to the door, three more to count, before finally the post is delivered.

Colin is quiet while Anthony sorts the stack. His impatience is loud. His question remains silent. And Anthony feels his own disappointment and worry braid together. There is nothing from Penelope.

"What if something is wrong?" Colin asks, not for the first or tenth time.

"Something is wrong Colin," Anthony replies softly, as he normally does. Lord Featherington had been killed.

In the weeks that have expired since that night, the investigation had slowed to a still. The facts had fallen so easily into place, a bet gone wrong, a violent reclamation of a debt outstanding. It was not the first or last time it would happen that way.

Those responsible though remained unidentified and the last missive he had received from Officer Chambers explained that whilst they were still seeking new information, they were now awaiting on the new Lord Featherington to advance.

Of which Anthony still had no answers.

The Featherington's had retreated from the Ton shortly after Anthony had seen the officers back across the square. Portia had declined Violet's offer for lunch, and his own offer for him and his brothers to escort the family on their journey.

They had quickly been forced to make peace with the lack of correspondence. Violet spent much of her time reminding her children that all was typical for a family in mourning. And yet despite his mother's own reassurances, it was Violet herself who had made the most significant efforts to ascertain knowledge of Penelope's wellbeing.

"The Featherington's are due to arrive in two days Colin," he reminds. It was perhaps the only thing keeping his younger brother from slipping the grounds of Aubrey Hall of his volition.

Almost four weeks after leaving Mayfair themselves, Violet had summoned her sons together one evening after supper.

"I wish to see Penelope," she had expressed quietly once they had settled in Anthony's study. At her words Colin had groaned out a sound of relief and offered to accompany his mother in her journey, planning for first light. She had reached for Colin's hand, running a soothing thumb across his knuckles,

"No my love, I wish to invite Penelope here, to spend some time here with us."

"Portia was quite clear…" Anthony had interjected and his mother had nodded,

"Indeed." Her eyes had flickered up to the portrait on the wall, distracted momentarily,

"You wish to invite her family here." Anthony had realised after a moment.

"For the wedding," Violet had confirmed. "I have spoken with Daphne who is agreeable but it is the three of you I wished to speak with before extending such an invitation."

"Lady Featherington caused you all much harm last season, I have neither forgotten nor forgiven this fact. And if it would make just one of you uncomfortable for her to be present we will simply speak not of this again." Anthony had not allowed himself much time to consider his own role in Portia's scheme.

If Whistledown was to be believed, Portia's plan had included Marina forming bonds with Colin's packmates as well, given time...or coercion, he supposed.

The idea was as objectionable as it was absurd. Not least because he and Benedict had been hardly convinced of the initial bond between his youngest packmate and the recently arrived Omega. And once he had finally tried, Anthony couldn't for one instant imagine Miss Thompson as a Viscountess. And when he had learned of the pups, the suppressants, the deceit – blood pumping in his veins Anthony had been tempted to refuse there and then.

It was one thing to provide refuge in the wake of tragedy and another to invite them as guests to Aubrey Hall now, to Daphne's nuptials no less. An invitation would signify their intention to move on from what Portia had repeatedly declared the duplicity of a desperate Omega – that she and her family had been Marina's first victims. The words tasted of falsehood.

And yet,

there remained Penelope. And ultimately, there was little else to consider.

His mother was clever. Portia, they knew, would hardly decline an invitation from a Duke and Duchess, and when Anthony had received the acceptance in the post he couldn't deny the way something loosened in his chest.

Eloise's hand slips from the crook of his elbow as the carriage pulls away to reveal the Featherington's. She catches herself, his dear sister, planting her feet and swaying back to his side. But he understands her reflex.

For he wonders if Penelope has slept at all since the few hours she had managed in his own studio the night her father had died. Weeks ago now.

The shadows beneath her eyes scream of her sleeplessness. And she is as pale as he has ever seen her, the night of her dress only further exaggerating her pallor. Her movements are wooden as she climbs the stairs of Aubrey Hall and he wonders if she feels the weight of a dozen gazes she suddenly finds herself under.

Prudence and Phillipa, arms linked with their mother's, climb the stairs together leaving Penelope to follow. Surprisingly it is Simon who breaks away from the line of the Bridgerton's, bowing his head to Portia before reaching to offer his arm to her youngest charge.

They had spent the morning, lined to welcome the guests arriving at Aubrey Hall for Daphne's wedding to the Duke. The happy couple stood together at the head, accepting congratulations and small gifts from the arriving families with the grace of their titles.

Benedict had manoeuvred himself beside Eloise and they had spent the time muttering under their breath, entertaining the time away. Her quiet laughter swells his heart, he has missed Eloise's company, has grown increasingly concerned the further she had turned herself inward since that fateful eve. Lost to her thoughts and her sorrow. The cause of which he remains frustratingly in the dark.

Now he shares her irritation at not being able to follow Penelope into the house, to enquire after her. Daphne herself breaks formation and joins her soon-to-be-husband in escorting the Featherington's inside.

Too soon, Benedict finds himself seated at the dining table wondering which God's wrath he must have incited. Directly opposite sits his mother and Portia Featherington and he himself is sandwiched between Lady Cowper and Hyacinth. Despite his plight, he spares a thought for Eloise who is seated further down the table beside Lady Cowper's only daughter.

And Colin, who appears to be half-heartedly listening to a story of the neighbouring Baron's, appears just as dejected. Benedict had caught his younger brother deftly switching two small place cards, and yet as the guests had piled in the chair beside Colin remained vacant.

The rest of his siblings are scattered across the two large tables, all hosts for the evening.

"Is Penelope well Portia?" Violet wastes no time in asking, after the guests have all been seated, as soon as she notes the missing presence of the youngest Featherington.

Portia hums non-committedly, as though she is unbothered, or uncertain.

"She will rest for the evening. Penelope has been unwell, the doctor assures us that it is simply the stress of recent times." Benedict does not know the doctor under the employ of the Featherington Estate, wonders if his brother does, wonders if they could seek their own report. Wonders when he started having thoughts that sound like Anthony.

Benedict sees his concern reflected on his mother's face, an expression Portia easily misinterprets,

"Lady Bridgerton, please be assured I would not have allowed Penelope to attend had I thought…" Violet waves away Portia's words,

"No of course not. I should only like to call our family physician, if you please. He has tended to Penelope before and would be glad to be of assistance." A memory flashes through Benedict's mind.

A small, screaming Eloise, face reddened and crumpled with distress had torn into the drawing room. She had been inconsolable and tripped over her own feet as she tried to pull Benedict and Colin bodily from the house.

Benedict had resorted to scooping Eloise up into his arms when she had spluttered out the name of her best friend and they had realised the cause of her anguish and urgency.

She had pointed them across the garden where they had found a tiny Penelope, pale yet tearless amongst the wildflowers.

She had cradled her arm so carefully against her chest and shook her head when he asked kindly to examine it, eyes growing wide and fearful. Colin could neither coax her into showing him, nor bribe her with sweets. Even Eloise's solemn promises that her brothers would be careful couldn't convince little Penelope.

In the end Eloise's cries had drawn both Anthony and their father outside, the eldest being sent to call the physician immediately.

And their father, he laid right down in the flowers beside Penelope. Stretching out long.

The little girl had kept her eyes on their father as she often did, a quiet yet brimming curiosity. The three siblings had watched as their father busied himself with recounting a tale, of a little bird and a broken wing.

A couple of minutes passed and a little giggle had escaped Penelope, drawing Edmund's gaze and together they tested out her wing. They had quickly ascertained that she could straighten her elbow and circle her wrist and that she would be able to fly again.

Penelope had eventually allowed Edmund to carry her back to the house, and had chosen blue material for a makeshift sling and only cried when she was sat sandwiched between his fussing mother and doting father hours after the doctor departed.

Benedict had thought her brave, amongst the wildflowers that day, and during her early presentation to the queen, and facing the officers in Anthony's study.

Portia declines the physician's visit twice and Violet's expression becomes pinched. Unspoken words, lingering accusations and residual anger scatter across the table between the platters and salt and glasses of wine.

A quiet, tenuous agreement seems to form between the two mothers before him, almost physical. They stick to easy topics that hold no weight, the marriage proceedings, the floral disaster on the North Road, Francesca's upcoming presentation.

Benedict wishes he had been sat further down the table. Benedict hopes Penelope is asleep.

Raucous laughter bounces off the corners of the hall. Night has fallen, final preparations made, and the men gather for one final night of celebration 'fore the Duke's union come morn.

Men are scattered across the room, cups overflowing. Colin laughs amongst his Eton schoolmates and Anthony pretends not to notice Gregory hiding behind an amused Benedict by the bar. His own laughter mixes with Will's as Simon disappears to find the gift Will has brought his friend. A favourite liquor of the Dukes who declares he will retrieve it at once.

"Mr Mondrich," Anthony says turning his attention back to Will, "I must thank you for your assistance at the end of last season, I apologise for not yet having reached out myself."

Will shuffles in place, appearing to grow uncomfortable with the change of subject. Anthony is almost embarrassed that it takes him several minutes to realise the source of his sudden unease. Realises Will likely expects judgement for his own actions last season. Of which he will find none from the Viscount,

"Mr Mondrich if there is anything I understand it is the means one will take to look after and provide for one's family."

"Lord Bri-"

"Anthony, please."

"Anthony." Will repeats, as though trying the shape of his name out for the first time. He leans closer.

"Anthony, I do not wish to detract from the weekend's occasion though I might request an audience with you before the weekend's end. I have learned some further information of the late Lord Featherington and I do not wish to ask for the Duke's attention." Anthony feels himself grow taller and is quick to lead them to an empty table in the corner, waving away Will's reluctance.

He assures Mondrich that his ability to focus on his sister and the wedding will be hindered more by the anticipation rather than the knowledge itself. And eventually, with a refill, Will acquiesces,

"It was widely known in our circles that Lord Featherington did not possess the funds to place a bet of such significance. I myself only learned how significant when he delivered the winnings," Anthony nods, "It led me to wonder who would have accepted his stake, knowing Featherington would not be able to pay."

Will swallows around his next words, several times before he manages to get them out,

"The word is Featherington supplied not cash, but a deed as his wager." Anthony's heart skips a beat in his chest, for a moment he freefalls. A deed.

"For the estate?"

Will avoids his eyes.

Simon carefully balances the bottle from Will and the glasses he has borrowed from his future brother-in-law.

The Duke couldn't help but take the path to the top of the garden, hoping to steal a glance at his bride through the windows of the main house.

One more night before they could savour the solitude unfound at Aubrey Hall, until he could relish in the uninterrupted attentions of his wife, as her husband. Until he and his stunning omega could thread themselves together, in love, in bond, in fate.

He had found more waiting for him in matrimony than he had ever imagined possible. A healing he had not anticipated hidden in the chance to prove himself an Alpha deserving of Daphne Bridgerton.

On his way back to the celebrations, in the clear, bright moonlight he is drawn to a still. A flash of pale skin, of silk, of copper. He turns on his heel, concerned, curious. And despite the liquor that fizzes in his blood, his senses sharpen.

When he steps into the clearing he realises he has found himself at Edmund Bridgerton's grave. And it is Penelope Featherington who occupies one of the benches.

He had not seen her since her arrival that morning, since Daphne had gently pulled the girl from his own arm and led her into one of the guest rooms, settling her with a tenderness that flipped his heart.

"Miss Featherington?" He calls her name, his tone tinged with regret at the inevitable fright he knows he will cause. Her gasp tears through the night air and he remains still until it once again settles.

"Your Grace forgive me." Her words are slightly breathless, he can hear the beat of her heart in the words, racing and startled.

"Please call me Simon," he asks kindly, ignoring her plea. Though he and the youngest Featherington have had little opportunity to converse, she has been a familiar presence, folded amongst the Bridgerton's through the season. It was easy enough to see the fondness they held for her, the protectiveness his new bride seemed to radiate towards the younger girl.

"You are a Bridgerton in all but name it would seem. That makes us family does it not?" He sees something brighten in Penelope's eyes, even in the darkness.

"I suppose it does," she breathes, "at least after tomorrow." Simon's lips tug upwards into a smile, as he lowers himself beside her, allows his gaze to fall to the tall headstone – Edmund Bridgerton.

He does not ask what has brought her here.

Or why she is out at night. Unchaperoned.

He does not rush to fill the silence that falls between them.

Or question the comfort he finds in the quiet still.

They sit.

"He would be happy to see his daughter loved so," Penelope says quietly, "he would be happy that it is you." Simon's heart swells. He had before pondered what would have been, had Edmund been there to walk Daphne down the aisle, to pass judgement on his first daughter's marriage. Wondered how he would have measured up to the esteemed Viscount. Penelope's words, a balm to something jagged beneath his breastbone.

"You knew him then?" She nods, face turning wistful, sorrowful.

Simon retrieves the small glasses and twists the cork from the bottle. He feels Penelope's gaze follow his movements and when he offers her a small cup, a splash of amber, she hesitates for only a moment before accepting the glass. He pours himself another and she follows his actions when he raises his own to the headstone.

"To Edmund," he whispers,

"To Edmund," she echoes.

A laugh bursts from his lips, loud and light, when her face scrunches severely at the taste. At the way her eyes widen and cheeks flush. A laugh tumbles from her own lips after another moment. And he is so happy to hear it. Will be happy to recount it to his wife. And then she surprises him when she reaches for the bottle herself, refills their glasses. Raises her own once more,

"To your marriage, to your love, to Daphne,"

"To Daphne," he echoes this time. The name a prayer on his lips, a wish, a salutation to the moon.

A yawn stretches Penelope's jaw then, as they settle in the quiet once more. He wants to offer to escort her back, yet something encourages him to wait. One moment turns over into two and then three and then,

"I remember what it was like after…what Eloise was like, Violet, Colin…" She lingers in memory for a moment. He spins in time, recalls visiting Aubrey Hall, calling upon Anthony to offer whatever support he was able. He remembers the way Anthony was treading water, his mother completely submerged by grief, and baby Hyacinth.

"I am not terribly sad, not like they were." Her admission is a whisper. Coaxed out by the moonlight that somehow warms them. Perhaps it is the liquor.

Before he can prevent it, Simon recalls standing over his own father, the fading light. The man had been, regretfully, at the forefront of his mind these last few weeks as he drew closer to marriage.

Then he recalls Archibald Featherington at White's, at the ring, loitering in the shadows of clubs far from Mayfair. And now he sits beside his daughter, who continues before he can respond.

"I know how wretched that makes me…what daughter feels anything other than grief at her father's death." Her eyes shine like the lake, and it is only then that she rolls her lips together, as though sealing them, as though to prevent any further truth from slipping free.

He sees the apology on her face, the regret, the words she speaks silently to herself in admonishment. He pours another. Penelope reaches for it quicker this time, does not wince this time. He considers her for a moment, sees a shard of himself – younger, wounded, alone. He suddenly feels startingly sober.

"It does not make you wretched Penelope," he says quietly and firmly. The sound of her own name seems to arrest her in place, draws her eyes to his own and he hopes she can see his sincerity.

"One's relationship with a father can be…complicated." Simon turns his eyes back to the grave and knows he will not speak of this to Daphne. Will hold this for Penelope instead. Feels a thread pull between them.

"They were lucky in a way, lucky to have him as their father…even when it meant they had to endure his loss." The words are hard, and not for the Bridgerton's, but something tells him that here neath the black, minutes after midnight, that Penelope Featherington understands the ache of them just as he does.

The wedding is stunning. Only outdone by the beauty of the bride herself. Daphne, a darling, a diamond, a duchess, shines brightest through the ceremony, the breakfast, the wonderment of the day. As though she alone unstitches the knots the Ton has tied themselves in the season last, and settles them under a silk of forgiveness, of love, of new beginning.

Surprisingly, she and her sisters are gifted more sympathy than suspicion from the Ton, no doubt the influence of the Bridgerton's repeated displays toward their family. Violet sits with them for an extended time, and Penelope finds herself in Daphne's embrace more than twice.

Her mother attends a steady stream of visitors to their corner of the proceedings. Penelope rather thinks the families are drawn to her mourning one the same way the streets become lined when a carriage tips in the street. Thinks of the way curiosity cranes it's neck towards darkness, and scandal alike.

She fares rather well.

It is only when the Duke calls for the attention of his guests, to extend his gratitude at their attendance, to declare aloud the happiness he has found in his union, Penelope feels the familiar grip of illness. A recent development.

Her palms grow hot and clammy. She tries to focus on his words, grasp them but the Duke's voice begins to fade in and out. The world grows shaky underfoot and Penelope is grateful to be seated.

She forces breath in through her nose, holds it steady, as though it can douse the fire catching in her chest. Sharp and burning. Consuming. Her eyes prickle and the small aching pulse that she has learned to endure at her temple, flares blindingly into a cacophonous drone.

White spots dance on her eyelids and she feels herself losing her grip. And then, Anthony's voice cuts through, abrupt and strong and her eyes flick open – her vision clearing. She expects to meet his eyes, close and worried but finds him instead having replaced the Duke in the centre of the room, speaking at large.

She swallows the cry that balls in her throat, blinks away the water from her eyes and tries to focus. And tries again. Briefly her attention is pulled across the room, but when she turns her head the world threatens to spin and she stills herself quickly, her focus dissolving.

And she manages it. Manages even to raise her glass, marvels at its steadiness and cheers' to the new handsome couple and their lifetime of happiness before she finds her feet and slips from the crowd, into the hall in time to empty the contents of her stomach in the chambers.

An ocean gathers in her eyes, overwhelmed with the grip of the sudden dizzying sickness that wracks her frame, that demands from her, that pulls her back a second time over the basin and takes from her again. It comes in waves this sickness, she knows now, she has learned to endure.

It recedes from her shore then, as though satisfied with her payment, leaving her fraught and unsteady. Which is perhaps why she startles so easily when she finds Eloise waiting for her in the hall.

"Are you okay?" Eloise asks, a picture of worry. And she nods.

She sees the way Eloise grapples for words, the same way she is. There had been so many spilled between them that night, they are left dry.

"Pen are you actually…are you really okay?" She is, in some ways. She is more okay than she ever has been, she thinks. And yet completely undone. There is movement at the mouth of the hall. A familiar shape. If Eloise is one half, was one half of her, he had been the other.

Colin's frame fills the doorway, the light of day creating a halo around him, flaring too bright in her bruised mind. Both Colin and Eloise take a step towards her, in perfect unison and she wonders what they had seen. She hadn't felt herself move, or falter.

"Pen," he breathes her name as though it is a sentence full. She feels the creak in her bones, like a mast on a ship, testing her strength, her fortitude here between them.

"I should like to return upstairs." A coward. Her mother had declared her constitution weak with her recent ailing. The physician had claimed her bereft.

Colin is by her side then, offering his arm as he has done a thousand times before. I would never dream of c-the words are lost to the swell of her exhaustion now, her anger and hurt barely crest before they return to the sea.

There is a part of her that hates how easy it is to fall into step with Colin. How easily her resolve gives way. Weak. It is her mother's voice.

Eloise follows, a silent shadow. They slip into her room, without worry. Alpha, omega, other. Penelope tries to pretend for a moment as though it is before. But the air tastes different.

"I will call for our physician, he is downstai-," Colin trails off at the shake of her head. She holds him tighter as the world rights itself. His other hand covers her own. His skin warm to the touch.

"I just need rest." Eloise fights with the bedsheets wordlessly, Colin steps out and Eloise unlaces her corset, her stays and Penelope slides under the covers in her chemise. Fingers card through her hair and her eyelids lift, expecting Eloise, finding Colin.

"Rest Pen." She slips beneath the waves.

"A fantastic union my Lord, a victory of a day. Congratulations to you and yours Viscount." Anthony offers Lord Wilcox his thanks and pretends to not notice the way Lady Wilcox draws a younger version of herself between them.

"Have you met our Elizabeth Viscount? She will be debuting next season." He bows his head to the girl, and offers her a commiserative smile, recognising the discomfort that floods her face – he has seen on Eloise when his own mother would tumble her into the spotlight.

"Elizabeth tell the Viscount o-" Lady Wilcox's words fade when his eyes catch upon a figure on the far wall.

A wiry frame. Blonde hair almost white. A guest uninvited and most unwelcome. There is no place for him, on Daphne's day. Anthony makes his apologies and makes a path around the edge of the room, hoping to avoid attention, hoping to right the situation unnoticed. And hoping more to determine the cause of the interloping officer.

"Officer Fleming." The man startles having not noticed the Viscount's approach. He straightens under Anthony's gaze, as though shrugging off his suspicion, as though he expects his presence to be accepted without explanation. He will have no such luck today.

"What brings you here officer?" He wastes no time, "I haven't seen Chambers."

"Ah just me today. I am here on business, though I am afraid I am unable to disclose further," Fleming says, lifting his chin and appearing no taller.

"In my home?"

"Gentlemen…" Benedict's voice is quiet though amiable – allows Anthony to hear the bite of his own. He sucks a breath past his teeth.

Fleming pulls a parchment from his coat then and thrusts it towards Anthony. It is a printed warrant, a judge's order of attendance. It fails to denote the purpose of his visit,

"Should I be concerned?"

"No Viscount this does not concern your family, just business of the Ton."

"Does it concern the Featherington's?"

"I am afraid I am unable to disclose further Lord Bridgerton."

Anthony holds his gaze for a time. He hears Daphne somewhere behind him, the orchestra fades and starts up again, the sun climbs a little higher. Benedict squeezes his shoulder,

"Come Brother it is time for our gift to Daph." He follows Benedict's lead. And his eyes quickly find Portia, Prudence, Phillipa…no Penelope.

"Eloise and Colin have disappeared too, she will be safe." He cannot ignore the itch at the base of his spine though, as he negotiates with Benedict quietly. Anthony uses few words, grateful for the way Benedict easily strings them together and understands entirely. Together they will keep their new guest in their sights.

Daphne swings her arms around their shoulders. Eyes sparkling. He presses a kiss to her forehead.

She wakes with a gasp.

She blinks them away. His cold, dead eyes.

The room is bathed in shadow and it is not her own. Not her room in Mayfair, nor her room at Clarendon House. The muffled din of celebration filters in and the pieces slide together. Daphne, the Duke, Eloise, Colin.

Fatigue presses heavy on her eyes, she fights them open, avoiding his waiting stare. The tears breach quickly. Her composure a whisper-thin pane of glass, desperation thrums through her, thready like panic, she would beg for just a moment of rest. For she cannot seem to find it in sleep. He is there, waiting for her always.

There is a heat beneath her skin, she feels leaden as she pulls herself upright. Her mind a foggy London morning, she has not the strength to clear it. Her feet pad across carpet, she lets the noise guide her path away. Recoiling from a flame.

Beyond thought, her mind recognises her path about Aubrey Hall. Her body seeks out the comfort it offers, she has always been safe here.

The room at the end of the hall reaches out to embrace her, wraps her in warmth. The fire whisks a thawing heat through the room. There is relief to be found here, something heavy and comforting drapes across her, she fills her lungs.

Her body grows heavier and she folds herself into the settee by the window. She sinks into the leather, already licked warm by the dancing flames, as though she is sinking into the water of a steaming bath.

The sky outside grows darker as though the night draws its blanket over them both, soothing the pulse at her temples, she is safe here. This place she knows. She is safe here. And under the painted gaze of Edmund Bridgerton, framed above the fireplace, she drifts into slumber. And finally, finally finds rest.

Notes:

Hope you all have a beautiful day x

Chapter 5: Clarendon House

Chapter Text

Upon arriving at Clarendon House, the Featherington's country home, Penelope had spent many of her hours walking the grounds, the black of her skirts unworried by the mud and the dirt.

It took little effort to evade the attention of her mother and sisters, joining them only for meals. Four black silhouettes around the table, the charcoal remains of a ruinous fire.

Her sisters, unchanged, complained of the new colour, of the way it washed them out while Penelope drifted further and further from shore. She noticed though, the growing weight in her mother's eyes, each day darker, each morning heavier.

Envelopes grew in a pile on her desk – Colin, Gen, Violet, a jigsaw of sentences from the Bridgerton siblings, one from Eloise, one from Anthony. All concerned, all unanswered.

As a child she had spent most of her time at Clarendon House in her room, a fieldmouse skittish and afraid, hiding away from the storm. Not daring to emerge. Darting away from the danger.

It was at Clarendon House that she learned to hide.

After the merriment of the day, Anthony finds himself far from sleep. Before he retires, he climbs the stairs to the family quarters. The familiar warmth of knowing his charges to be safe and tucked away washes over him.

He pauses at Daphne's door – his sister, overnight a bride, a wife, elsewhere now with her new husband. For a moment, her younger, girlish laugh tinkers through the empty hall, her voice in lullaby floats from baby Hyacinth's room. For a moment, the time that has escaped him is a cannonball to his chest.

His old room is across the hall. A capsule of another time.

It had been Daphne who had prevented his siblings from claiming it as their own so many years ago. His belongings had been moved downstairs before the first night had fallen on his Viscountcy. And though his room was by far the best of the hall his siblings never complained, nor did they comment when he would occasionally emerge into the hall some mornings alongside them.

Anthony retreats and finds himself making the familiar trek to his study. Aubrey Hall is quiet on the other side of midnight. Peaceful. Happiness lingers in the air.

He finds Arthur, one of the Bridgerton footmen, standing by the office door as though a guardsman at the palace.

"Art, have you not retired for the evening?"

"Evening My Lord. No, well, it's just I came to attend the fire earlier and came across Miss Featherington…" Arthur raises a weathered hand placatingly,

"She's asleep My Lord, and forgive me but it doesn't seem the lass has had much of it recently so I thought I'd see to it she remained undisturbed. Anthony feels himself deflate at Arthur's words and gratitude breaks over his shoulders.

"Why don't you take one of the carriage Art, head home to your girls, take tomorrow off. If not for this, for all the work you did to prepare for today." Arthur's face creases with happiness at the acknowledgment as much as the gesture. He squeezes Anthony's shoulders, gives his thanks and takes his leave.

Anthony slips into the study, and she is there, balled into the corner of the settee.

Firelight dances across her skin, imbuing it with a warmth he hopes she feels. Anthony keeps his footsteps light as he draws closer and snags a blanket from the nearby armchair. He unfolds it across her and stills when she moves, holding his breath.

Her brow scrunches and he crouches then, regretting the way tension coils through her frame. Her fingers flex, she curls tighter into herself, restless.

"You're okay Penelope." He smooths the fabric over her shoulders, brushes the hair from her eyes, keeps his voice soft. And slowly she relaxes again. The subtle barely there scent he knows to be Penelope fills his nose and the knot between his shoulder blades loosens slightly.

He should take his leave, he knows, retire to bed but finds himself unable. Instead, he adds a log to the fire and eases into the armchair. His mind is surprisingly still, only small ripples across its surface: Will's revelation, Fleming's unexpected presence, the sound that had leapt from his mother's chest when Penelope had arrived the morning last.

Questions, old and new, wash to the shores of his mind, to remain unanswered for at least tonight. Anthony finds himself content to settle with simply watching over her for now, content with her rest…

"I thought Col said he put her to bed," Benedict whispers almost an hour later, slipping silently into the study. Anthony's eyes fly open. Two sets then, snap to Penelope, her chest falls, lifts, falls; two sighs of relief. Benedict's face twists into an apology.

"Sorry thought you were awake." Benedict sinks into the chair opposite him. The air in the room is thick and warm and rich, and fatigue presses its thumbs against his eyelids…

A small whimper lifts his head. He blinks awake and pauses at the weight across his lap. Gregory his mind supplies before he can sight his youngest brother. Instead, his eyes are pulled across the room to where Colin knees beside the settee,

"You're okay Pen, it's alright," Colin soothes quietly. A smaller restless sigh escapes the sleeping girl, and Hyacinth slips out from under Benedict's arm, eyes cracked open only enough to avoid stepping on Eloise and Francesca, leant together atop a makeshift bed of pillows by the fire.

A protest balls in his throat when she reaches for the blanket covering Penelope. She shakes off Colin's attempts to help or hinder, Anthony can't be sure. Penelope fusses slightly as Hyacinth settles against her, his little sister snuggling beneath Penelope's chin, winding her arms around the older girl and then they seem to draw one deep breath in together, and relax completely.

He feels the fondness that paints Benedict's expression content. His brother meets his eyes briefly before returning to the book in his hands. Colin settles himself back against the pillows on the floor, head coming to rest against Eloise's side. Penelope sleeps on. Dawn inches closer.

When he opens his eyes again, Colin is stifling his mirth as Hyacinth attempts to slide from Penelope's hold without disturbing her. Francesca now dozes at the end of the settee, Penelope's feed in her lap, early pastel light spilling across fine china skin. Eloise is curled beside Benedict and Gregory is a starfish on the carpet.

Anthony glances at the clock, he has slept almost nine hours. Disbelieving, he quickly counts a second time.

Colin threads his fingers through Penelope's, freeing his sister, a willing sacrifice Anthony muses, as Penelope settles once more content and sleeps on. Her cheeks are flushed, warmed by the fire and her scent seems to linger thicker in the air now, ribboning amongst the others as vibrant. His mind sighs in delight, content. Safe.

Hyacinth drapes herself over his shoulder,

"Hey pup." Her face scrunches,

"Don't call me that," she whispers scathingly and he only grins, his affection for the girl a warm ball in his chest. He smiles when her stomach grumbles and pulls himself upright, letting her slip into his place. He flutters a blanket atop her before heading for the door, sparing one glance behind him before he sets of to gather his pack something to break their fast.

Her father was dead, never to visit Clarendon House again. Now it was Penelope who paced the halls as if the ghost.

It was ironic that it was in this place they would mourn him. She had hated him here.

As a child, Clarendon House had been a haunted mansion, ripped from the pages of her storybooks, riddled with ghouls and ghosts and swallowing shadows. A castle of fear.

She was more uncertain now that it was the House that was haunted. Perhaps it had always been her.

Each night now, stalked by an empty stare that would wait for her in the darkness, would find her wanting. And she would wake time and time again, saturated in sweat that she would mistake for blood.

When night painted itself beneath her eyes, her mother had called for the physician, who asked her if she were sleeping, asked her if she were dreaming. And she had lied.

Eloise had woken early, the night still drawn dark, the sound of pattering feet in the hall, the sound of trouble. She had been amused to find Gregory and Hyacinth in the hall, buried under the bedclothes they were attempting to drag down the staircase.

She was quick to aid them, happy to invest in whatever mischief they were courting. She had been surprised to follow their path to the study, to find most of her siblings and to find Penelope, sound asleep amongst them.

Even more surprising was the way Anthony was sleeping almost as soundly as Penelope as Benedict read and Gregory and Hyacinth constructed and reconstructed a fort.

"She's okay," Benedict reassured quietly, letting her slip into the space beside him. Yet even in the study, amongst her siblings, she feels adrift.

It had been the same since that night, as though by morning the world, which she already felt at the edge of, had grown that much more inhospitable, unendurable. A world without Penelope.

Their friendship was one of Eloise's very favourite things. A redeeming sweetness of society, a most soothing balm when she felt cornered and trapped and entirely constrained by its ever-tightening bonds, its suffocating weight.

Still the betrayal is bitter on her tongue. The anger flares bright. The sense of it all, still a shape she does not know. It is hours before Penelope wakes, her siblings drifting in and out of the room and sleep. From across the room she watches Colin settle Pen, when a nightmare creases her face, as though she is not her best friend, her other half. She feels as though she is looking through water. Distant. Drowning.

She had wondered if she was dying too.

If death had slipped beneath her skin there in her father's study, not a quick blade, not the blast of a pistol but something darker and quieter. A penance perhaps, a suffering for her sins.

It had been quiet at first, in the silence of the country. A small beat. She often paced her steps in time with it. It had started in her temple, grew louder each day. A pulse, a drum, an echo.

And then as though the seasons were slipping by, the burning began. Undying reddened coals in the pit of her stomach, fire catching in her chest.

When the physician had visited she had not mentioned the itching of her skin, nor the deep-water pressure behind her eyes. She had lied.

She sleeps for fourteen hours.

The warmth is the first thing she notices. Soothing, like silk. Sweet, like syrup. Not raging or molten or angry. As though the ocean has loosened its grip, and she floats on its surface now.

The world reaches out to her, lifting the corners of her consciousness. A quiet chatter of familiar voices sifting into mind, like birdsong. A familiar blend of scents caress her skin, wrap her in a blanket, she thinks she could sleep here forever.

She notices then the quiet, the stillness in her skull. As though two warm hands cradle her head. And it is not there, the relentless drumming at her temple and relief breaks over her so sharply, it swells to a sob.

She draws in a long breath to soothe it back into the seas. It is easy, she realises to fill her lungs, the crushing pressure lifted. The grief laced behind her back loosened if only for a while.

Time passes. She can hear charcoal on canvas, quiet snores, pages turning. Soft chatter, and tea pouring and she finally, slowly peels her eyes open. Anthony's study.

The siblings are scattered around the room. She is too warm to worry, too comfortable to raise a question, or her head for now. There are plates of food on Anthony's desk, fruit and wedding cake, and pots of tea.

And when she does pull herself upwards there is strength in her limbs. As though the exhaustion has been wrung from her skin.

Gregory fills the space silently, without remark, balancing a plate on his knees. The slice is too large for him, for her, for three. He takes a bite and silently hands her a second fork.

She waits for the nausea. Her seas stay calm.

Colin places tea on the small table beside her. No one asks anything of her. As though she is meant to be there. As though they had planned a sleepover on one of her stays. As though nothing has changed.

Eventually Violet enters the study, and the siblings are swept from the room to make some farewells. It is morning, and time for the ton to recede from Aubrey Hall. She wants to stay. It will hurt this time to be ripped from this place, it will keep some of her, she thinks, tear some of her away.

Anthony guides Colin who hesitates, and Benedict gently pulls up a sleep-logged Francesca and Violet presses a kiss to her forehead and undoes her completely.

And desperately she tries to hold on, to keep from unspooling entirely.

The door clicks shut and she lets go.

She hesitates leaving the study, re-joining the world that seems not to want her. There is safety in Anthony's office, a shelter. It has cracked her open and threaded her back together and left her lighter and warmer than she has been in so long.

She pads around the room, delaying her leave, refolding blankets and tracing her fingers down spines in the bookshelf.

She picks grapes from their stems, sips another tea and her eyes fall to the pages splayed open on the desk. She recognises Anthony's penmanship – neat and uniform, her finger traces the columns. She absently adds the figures together and turns the page to find her math is correct.

It is a forecast she realises, of the Bridgerton funds for the month, the next quarter, the next year. Neat and tidy and as squared away as Anthony.

"He left us with nothing, that useless man. Nothing."

"That selfish man goes and gets himself killed and leaves me in this hell alone."

There is a pile of identical books, small and leather-bound, stacked into a neat pile beside the pages. She bends with her curiosity and thumbs the pages open to find them blank.

"They will need to marry. How will they marry without a dowry?"

"There is enough for a month at most once we return. What are we to do?"

She acts from a place beyond thought, slips one of the small books into her hands, gathers the blanket and slips from the study.

"We will need a miracle Varley."

Her mother is supervising the packing of their belongings, their carriage soon will be drawn and she thinks if it were another time she would likely be staying, folded amongst the Bridgerton's to farewell the Ton.

Colin too, is set to depart later that evening. Perhaps this is a mercy. That she will not be forced to watch him leaving. Again.

She slips from the room unnoticed, through the halls, one last time, she thinks. Suddenly it all feels so suddenly final. So heavy.

She finds him, on the terrace, standing with a group of his friends. His back is to her.

Déjà vu, a sharp slicing blade.

It is Fife who sees her first. She sees the words on his face. As though written in ink laced with her humiliation.

"Pen," she hears Colin call but she is unsteady, unfocused, being thrown through time. Are you mad? The world spins back to the night of her mother's ball.

She needs, suddenly and sharply, to be alone now. She has made a mistake. She turns on her heel, his repeated calls going unheard, the eyes they draw remaining unseen. She flees.

It had been so long ago that he had fallen from his horse, and she had braced her tiny frame in wait of his anger. His laughter had been shocking. Loud and uninhibited. Surprising and wonderful like the moon in a blue sky.

She doesn't expect him to follow her. He hadn't that night, hadn't even seen her, hadn't even thought to check.

"I knew you'd be here," he says when he finds her and irritation itches her palms. He thinks he knows her so well. But there is so much he does not know. So much that has changed.

"I was worried about you yesterday." She can see the question in his eyes and finds she has no answers to gift.

"I feel much better this morning." He nods. She wonders if he feels the space between them. If he even knows. It is startlingly clear now, the way she has avoided his words, evaded the hurt for weeks now. As skilfully as she has turned from the truth of him, of them for so many years. She can no longer afford the childish fantasy.

And she is, after all, a woman of words. So she will take his. She will return home now and unfold them, and hold them up to the light, and see them for what they are.

"Pen I do not wish to leave you now," he says abruptly when she focuses them on his upcoming departure, asks if his itinerary is still the same. She curses him, and all of his earnestness and knows there and then that unstitching them will be painful.

"We are in mourning Colin, it is not as though we will be receiving visitors." He is slower to agree this time. Hesitance and worry bleeding in his eyes. And she knows it is time. But for one moment more, he is simply Colin and she is still simply Pen.

The way he looks at her, his concern reaching out to take her hand. She lets herself believe – for the last time now.

He will leave to traverse the world, hop between continents and uncover their riches. He will be free to unfold his horizons and she will practice living without him, without them. She will spend the rest of the off-season in mourning at Clarendon House and then return to Mayfair, haunting her small stretch of world. And it is her who will be homesick forever.

Colin lingers in the observatory long after Penelope leaves. Something unnameable slowly unfolds in his chest. Something is amiss. There is an impulse he tries to smother, one he has been trying to smother since the season's end to run after her, run to her. Something is wrong. The warning whispers from the edge of his mind.

Once they are resettled it is though they had never left for the weekend.

Though Clarendon House had always felt that way. Isolated, inescapable, like it could swallow you whole.

Her father is dead.

One morning, her mother remarks on their good fortune, that their mourning period coincides with the off-season.

Penelope only just manages to catch a bitter laugh between her teeth. It reminds her of the wedding's eve, of finding herself beside the Duke of Hasting's who had called her family and poured her a drink that had finally burned away the blood she could still taste, more than a memory.

Then she recalls the words that escaped her graveside, and feels the walls shift in closer.

Mrs Varley rushes into the room, claiming their attention.

"Ma'am he has been located, the new Lord Featherington." The breakfast she has managed turns to clay. The world around her tilts severely. Her stomach lurches, as though she is about to pitch into an abyss. And all Penelope can think about is the parchment hidden behind a portrait upstairs.

I, this day, outlay the conditions for sale of one Miss Penelope Featherington upon her presented Omega designation. I, Archibald Featherington, of sound mind and body, declare assurance of sale and delivery upon receipt of the agreed sum paid in full to the Featherington Estate."

She had read it only once.

And folded it away forever.

Now as she climbs the stairs to her room, she feels them shift beneath her. Feels her ribs powdering in her chest.

She locks the door behind her, crosses the room and lifts the portrait to retrieve a small leather-bound book. In the top right hand corner a tiny B she had not noticed in Anthony's study shines, gold and embossed.

The pages are familiar now, her own penmanship filling the lines. Her own math, her own money, her own projections and plans.

And in the back, the small parchment that threatened everything.

But it was at Clarendon House Penelope had learned to survive.

Chapter 6: Deeds & Diamonds

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

It is strange, the way time unravels itself, days stretching long and weeks passing in an eyeblink.

Her mother is lighter following their attendance at Aubrey House, her hope renewed. She is lifted higher still in the wake of Varley's announcement.

Fear rebuilds Penelope as its home. It rises, a seething sea that floods her, that erodes her bones and her grief and wrings the illness from her body. Her fever submits to its icy grip and when the physician returns and files his report of her recovery, Portia's fleeting interest in Penelope whisps away.

She wakes now at the slightest of sounds, she searches the shadows of each room she enters, she spends her nights spinning.

And then one morning a week before their expected return, a royal carriage dots onto their horizon. The Ton is summoned by royal decree to the new debutante presentation, what will be a dazzling event to usher in the start of a new season, to spot a diamond.

Penelope reads through the swirling script of the invite first but the words quickly reach out past her, beckoning the attention of Lady Whistledown as though the Queen has penned her a direct correspondence.

A starting gun to signal open season. A second invitation tucked within the first.

By the time the summons has crossed the countryside to Clarendon House, it demands the Featherington's immediate departure to prevent a belated attendance. A would-be ruinous misstep when they have not yet freed themselves from the scandal of the season past. Her mother declares she should like to attend the gallows before committing such offense.

And as such, the Featherington's emerge from the black of mourning. They slip from the shadows and the light is blinding.

It is fortuitous perhaps, that Penelope has little time to address her rising dread at returning to Mayfair. She spends the journey stitching together the threads of her composure, bracing herself for impact, blinking away the panic that spots her vision. And then she is treading water in the teeming sea that floods Buckingham Palace. And the new season washes ashore.

From his place at the foot of the stand, a guard adorned in palace gold and white turns to view the gathered audience. His black eyes rove the crowd until suddenly she is pinned under his gaze.

He begins toward her, seeming to split into two, then four twin silhouettes drawing closer. They converge, uniformed and furious, their grip is hard and painful and punishing and she is wrenched from her place and dragged through the corrid-

"Penelope!" her mother hisses and she blinks back into the grand gallery. Her gaze flicks to the guard at the foot of the stand who remains in place, turned away. It is new, this paranoia that slates into terror. But things are so very different now.

She has not seen Eloise since Aubrey Hall. Has not corresponded with her. Has only had a hundred imagined conversations by night. And though it appears the Ton is not yet aware of her crimes, the Bridgerton clan are still to arrive, to join the clamouring masses.

The stands closest to the Queen remain to be filled, awaiting the most esteemed families of society, of which the Featherington's are no longer welcome.

Penelope wonders how bright Eloise's fury still burns. Neither Lady Whistledown, nor Penelope herself could write a better setting for her ruination, for the cards she has so haphazardly stacked to finally fall, before the Ton, before the Queen herself.

She wonders if this is her life now. Trembling neath the guillotine. Stretching on tip-toes to loosen an ever-tightening noose. Attempting to remain balanced on cracking, uncertain ground.

The Bridgerton's arrive only once Penelope has been standing for just over an hour and she is not blind to the way the collective gaze of the Ton draws to the esteemed pack, the way eyes flick between them and her own family. One wedding weekend insufficient to fade the stain of their scandal.

The siblings move almost as one shape, headed by Anthony. Daphne and Simon, newlywed and stunning follow. Eloise's fingers are tucked into the crook of Benedict's arm. Finally Hyacinth and Gregory trail, and between them, Colin.

And though she has been trying to breathe all day she forgets to now. She thinks of the letters he has sent from his tour, all unanswered. She had been unable to discard of them, had saved the pieces of him she still had.

He passes her now, taller than she remembers, broader. And lighter. Her lips lift imperceptibly, at the easy smile on his face as he weaves a tale to his enraptured younger siblings. And even from as far away, she swears she tastes his scent on her tongue.

And the regret from the season past withers as she watches him.

Because he is not married. And entrapped. And living in a countryside he does not know. Fathering a pup that is not his. With an omega unable to love him. With a bond that she is still certain could not have sustained him.

And even if they do not speak again. Even if she never steps foot in their home again, that would have to be enough. It would be enough.

Francesca is a vision.

Penelope rubs at her chest with gloved fingers, attempts to ease the ache beneath her sternum as she watches Violet escort her daughter into the grand hall, brimming with pride. Where Edmund's eyes had laughed, Violet's had always loved.

Francesca is to be the diamond, Penelope is certain.

Her own presentation had, thankfully, been a much smaller affair. In a smaller hall with a largely disinterested Queen and other debutantes, which had included her older sisters. It had been a bid from her mother, an attempt to trigger her presentation, to fix her undesignated daughter, to persuade her biology. It had been unsuccessful.

The Featherington's had boasted a long line of Omega girls. She had heard her mother on occasion reach to compare their lineage to the Bridgerton's, clumsily and overexaggerated. Especially when Penelope remained unknown.

As a child she had thought her family's favour could be earned. With good manners and even better behaviour. With a quiet presence and perfection in her studies. She had thought for a time that her omega would be the part her mother would finally be able to love.

Though time, the teacher that it was, had taught her that her sins had already been etched in stone.

She had not been the boy, the heir, her father had demanded of her mother.

And she would not become the Omega her mother had expected of her daughter.

A break in the chain. Fulfilling the prophecy of disappointment into which she was born.

And no physician Portia employed, nor book Penelope scoured had ever yielded an answer to the question of her designation, or lack thereof.

The day her mother had forced her to debut, wide-eyed and out of place, a year before even Daphne she had been so afraid the Queen would take one glance at her and have her thrown from the room. Too different, too odd, unable to be stitched into the fabric of society. Unacceptable.

Francesca herself earns an approving nod from the Queen, of which seems to inspire elation in Violet and relief in the debutante herself. When the doors open next Penelope's eyes are drawn to someone she does not recognise.

"Presenting Miss Gabrielle Allard."

The girl is a dainty satin silhouette, her golden hair cascades over her shoulders and she seems to float across the floor, as though made of moonlight. Murmurs sweep after her like the long train of her dress, embroidered to catch the light. The Ton is spellbound.

The Queen herself sits taller and Penelope can make out the satisfied glint in her eye even from her place.

Penelope curses the way her fingers instinctively itch for her pen. The way her mind begins to thread words together to describe the extravagance of the day, the fullness of the crowd, the sparking debutantes and their resplendent new arrival. Dear Gentle Reader...

The debutantes are led back into the hall and frame the Queen who stands, seemingly overjoyed with her charges, with her day – a crowning success. She sweeps among them, and the Ton waits with bated breath for her next move. Anticipation hums in the air.

And finally, in an unprecedented move, which is the theme of the day Penelope supposes, Queen Charlotte leads the new debutante to the centre of the gallery,

"Introducing my diamond of the season, Miss Gabrielle Allard."

"Lady Featherington." Anthony Bridgerton's voice is not the first she had expected to

hear upon their carriage coming to a stop in Grosvenor Square. Day has turned to eve, the presentation finally drawing to an end.

A sudden and clawing desperation grips Penelope. She wishes the horses pulling the carriage would riot, and wrestle, and carry her miles from the Ton. She misses her mother's response in her panic and sits, unable to bring herself to move – perhaps not as ready to face them as she had forced herself to believe.

"Ah there you are, I was starting to worry they'd left you behind." Benedict Bridgerton cranes his head into the carriage and she swallows the stone in her throat.

He wiggles his fingers towards her and she takes in his easy expression, the lightness of his scent. Somehow Benedict remains as he has always been. Relief breaks over her.

She had been so certain her next encounter with the brothers would be catastrophic at best. Had spent her nights rehearsing its sadness.

Now she grapples to understand why Eloise has not revealed the truth to her brothers. To the Ton. To the world. She would have deserved it. An insipid wallflower indeed.

Benedict's skin is warm through the fabric of her gloves. Penelope's gaze sweeps up and then down the sidewalk and she heaves in a deep breath, relieved to find no more Bridgerton's in the orange glow of evening. Two is enough for one day.

"Penelope," Anthony greets her warmly and she cannot deny it nor avoid it a second longer because how she has missed them, all of them. Time without them had stretched on, long and dull and darker.

She has so desperately missed visiting upon their home on a Wednesday and walking with Eloise on a Thursday and joining the brood for tea on Sundays. Best get used to it, a voice whispers in the back of her mind.

"It is good to see you Penelope, are you well?" Anthony enquires and she nods politely and tries to ignore the swell of her heart at his words.

The two alphas look good, refreshed and ready for the start of another season. A mix of their scents linger in the breeze, pleasant against her skin. The weight in her body shifts, swaying her towards them, she plants her feet.

It is almost impossible, bracketed by them, for her mind not to slip to the last of their pack. The searing in her chest is familiar now – she knows how to breathe around it, how to bear it's weight.

It is Benedict who speaks of him first.

"Colin has returned from his travels. Please Penelope do come to tea tomorrow so there is another poor ear to suffer his tales." She smiles at his exasperation,

"Unfortunately Mama has already scheduled us at the modiste in the morning." And she is grateful for it, perhaps for the first time in her life.

Benedict's face falls and she avoids the Viscount's lingering gaze. No one has looked at her quite so carefully in months and suddenly she feels as though she has been placed beneath a focusing glass, that she has grown transparent in the evening light. She fears her face says too much.

She bids them goodbye, keeping her voice light, and retreats from the brothers, her steps growing leaden. The plates of her world have shifted again, she finds herself living not in ruin as expected, not in the rubble of her choices and mistakes but on borrowed time, on unstable ground.

And so she pushes aside the warm comfort that comes from their company and deigns even this small surrender of the Bridgerton's a step toward success. Takes it as a sign that she will be okay – even once they know. Even once they cannot bear to look at her.

That evening, seated beside Prudence, Mrs Varley does not ask if she has finished. With a nod from Portia, seated at the head of the table, Penelope's plate is cleared still half-full.

Words, in question or protest, do not bother to form. Her fight is the only thing to have perhaps withered further away than her appetite. All of her energy required for one thing now. Penelope takes her leave from the table; nobody glances her way.

As she passes the large window that spills light across the landing she fails to keep her eyes from flicking to Bridgerton House across the square. Fails to keep her gaze away from the row of glowing windows on the first floor where the family takes their meals – together always. A riot always. Plates heaped, appetites voracious for food and each other and they laugh and talk and yell over one another and the first time she had sat with them, between Colin and Eloise, she hadn't said one word. Entranced. Overcome. Enchanted equally in measure by the madness and the magic.

"Pen's back?"

"Colin Bridgerton!" Violet scolds her son who asks the question around a mouthful of dinner.

Benedict's face scrunches into something between bemusement and disgust but nods his confirmation nonetheless. Benedict's eyes slide down the table to see Eloise has not looked up from her place, has not reacted to the news he and Anthony had crossed the square with. Perhaps she had already known.

"Pen answered not one of my letters during my travels," Colin complains from across the table. At the head of the table, Anthony's head whips up from the paper spread before him and Benedict can only laugh at Colin's self-made misfortune.

"You have been corresponding with an unmarried young woman during your tour?" Colin blinks toward Anthony,

"I have been corresponding with Pen, well I have been writing Pen."

"That is rather improper of you brother," Hyacinth teases in an impression of Anthony that makes them laugh, that snaps the tension coiling in the air.

"I am very glad to hear of their return," Violet interrupts, dismantling the argument expertly before it can take shape. "I was unable to enquire after them myself with all the grandeur of the ceremony. Word is the Queen has planned quite the season."

Benedict lifts his gaze to find his younger sister grow several shades paler at the prospect. His chest tightens. Francesca had always been a quiet and gentle soul, and having watched two sisters traverse the battlefield of the marriage mart, he understands her reticence.

"No doubt inspired by Whistledown's taunting." Eloise's words are quiet yet molten, still livid with the way her own escapades last season had been exposed in the scandal sheet. Truly a season they should not have survived.

Benedict recalls the way his own heart had simply dissolved in his chest reading that his younger sister, had been visiting the city alone and unaccompanied. The fear that had threatened to strip him to pieces. Anthony had about combusted into flames.

"Indeed," Eloise seems surprised when Violet agrees with her.

"And as such tomorrow, both you and Francesca will join myself, Daphne and Simon for tea with Lady Danbury," Eloise's face scrunches into displeasure, "at the palace," Eloise chokes on her food.

"Are you mad!" Eloise's voice rings around the room, hollowed out with horror. Anthony tuts at the volume, having discarded the paper as he does each and every night, a ridiculous ritual he for some reason maintains.

"We are all going to play our part this season, ensure our swift recovery from the last," Anthony reinforces, his words sharp and determined. Eloise's anger wilts and Benedict realises Colin has grown very quiet across the table, picking at his food. Benedict cannot decide if he is lost in thought or avoiding attention.

Never one to surrender, Eloise composes herself, straightening in her seat before addressing her mother.

"Mama I really do think it will be far more advantageous to attend without me. We should like the Queen's attentions to be focused on the best of us, yes?" Benedict doesn't miss the self-deprecation in Eloise's voice. It is a new shade of his sister, a more resigned cut of her past cynicism. He despises it.

She had withdrawn from them even further at Aubrey House, turning to her books and her writing. He, along with his mother and brothers were sincerely hoping a return to the Ton, to homely comforts and, most importantly, to her best friend would achieve more than the sum of their failed efforts to soothe and comfort their beloved Eloise.

Who grows slightly less beloved with her next words. A desperate attempt at persuasion or diversion.

"Do you not think Mama, that it is perhaps time for the Bridgerton pack to cement it's lineage." Benedict feels his eyes widen at words he has never heard her say, words that sound wrong from her lips, and his own tea catches in his throat. He sends Eloise a look of outrage which she entirely ignores and Anthony rolls his eyes.

"Your brothers will find their soulmate when the time is right Eloise, in fact Anthony has already begun making preparations. As for you young lady, you will attend tea tomorrow, and Lady Danbury's ball come Friday, and each engagement after that alongside your family." Violet stands, finished with her meal, and pauses to press a kiss to her daughter's crown and softly add,

"Who, by the way, love you very much." Eloise flushes and Benedict knows he isn't the only one who hears the words she does not say, the one's she hides with intellect and ire.

"It is important, now more than ever, that we attend this season as one," Violet declares as she retreats into the drawing room where they one by one follow. Defeat washes over Eloise's face and she slumps despairingly into her seat until Benedict pulls her upright himself. He wraps an arm around her shoulders.

"The three of you do not make a match and the Ton sends their apologies. You have no expiration date, you have no ridiculous ceremony to uphold with its ridiculous feathers and ridiculous rules," she grouses, huffing out a breath of defeat and the only thing he despises more than this forlorn, stoic, greyer Eloise is the helplessness that spirals his spine in her presence.

There had been few occasions when Benedict could not heal the hurt of his siblings. And in those times he would deploy Colin, who had perhaps never once failed.

Across the room Anthony, always last to leave the table, drops into the space beside Francesca wrapping an arm around her, perhaps more attuned to the plight of his younger charges than Benedict credits.

"What does Mama mean that you have started preparing brother?" Francesca asks as they all flop into chairs around the drawing room.

"I have a line of interviews prepared with the Ton's eligible omega's scheduled for the coming weeks." Violet mutters something inaudible from her place by the fire and Benedict wants to laugh.

The familiar argument between the heads of their family remained as amusing as it was comforting. Even Eloise lightens slightly, leaning further into his side eyes flicking between Violet and Anthony, heart and head.

And he would sit there forever, laughing at such woes with her if it eased the anguish he could feel churning about her.

Penelope feels her carefully constructed composure shudder when she steps into the store. Gen is waiting for them, which pleases Portia, and when their gazes meet Penelope finds herself blinking furiously at the emotion that builds in the corner of her eyes.

A silence stretches between the two, vast and bottomless, into which Penelope feels she could collapse, or laugh, or weep. Gen is one of her few remaining tethers to the world and she is relieved and lifted and overcome to be reacquainted.

The modiste had sent her one letter in her seclusion, disguising her concern and questions cleverly.

"It is very good to see you Penelope," Genevieve says softly, threatening the fragile equanimity she has found before the modiste turns and sweeps to attend her mother who has begun pulling fabrics.

Penelope can't help the roll of her eyes when she turns. The colours are harsher after being draped in night for months. She thinks she will miss the black.

She knows she will miss it especially when her mother holds a mustard yellow swatch against her skin.

Too quickly, it is her turn to step onto the modiste's pedestal. Her mother circles ominously.

"I am not certain I understand Lady Featherington," Genevieve says a short time later, once she had fitted Penelope a new corset.

Portia draws closer and Penelope forces her expression to remain poised as her mother instructs the material tighter. Gen's face begins to twist into a frown,

"I must protest in-"

"I do not pay you to protest or understand I pay you to fashion the dresses as I see fit." Her mother snaps. She sweeps away and levels a threat about taking her business elsewhere, that perhaps Genevieve's designs had grown tired and worn.

She makes a note to sing Genevieve's praises in her next issue, a remedy to right her mother's wrongs. And then for a dizzying second, she thinks she may be unwell all over the material Genevieve holds at the thought of publishing again, of spilling her ink. At the thought of Eloise's face.

The reminder of what she has lost is a blow. Penelope steels herself, shakes off her spinning thoughts and nods at Gen who squeezes her shoulders with a resigned sigh.

She pulls Penelope's dress tighter than is comfortable, will bone it to cinch her into a silhouette that is not her own. She sees the apology in Genevieve's eyes and lifts her hand to squeeze the modiste's, out of sight of her mother who waves her approval several centimetres tighter.

"Lady Featherington the fabric used for your older daughter's gowns will stretch better. It's likely to achieve what you are wishing for more effectively." Penelope winces at Gen's attempt, knows she means well but wishes she wouldn't.

Portia clicks her tongue, her gaze hardening,

"That material is for Omega's is it not Madam Delacroix?" Which was the truth, for it was far softer and gentler on skin that grew sensitive with changes in scents and seasons.

Neither Genevieve or Penelope reply, there is nothing to say. She is not an Omega. The material of her dress is to remain as firm and as unforgiving as her mother. The talented modiste ensures it is bearable.

When Portia pulls money from her reticule emotions unfold and war in Penelope's chest as she watches the bills be traded for fabric.

Gen's keen gaze moves several times between the bills she accepts, Penelope and her mother, a regretful understanding webbing together in her eyes. Penelope wonders when she became so transparent to the modiste.

"Can you visit tomorrow evening?" Genevieve asks quietly of Penelope when her mother and sisters move to the door. She nods quietly before retreating.

Rae pushes into the room and from beneath a pile of linens produces an envelope that causes Penelope's heart to skip a full beat.

"It is not necessary," Rae implores when Penelope digs out some coins to trade. She waves the words away, slipping the silver into Rae's pockets despite her protests before she takes the letter. The amount, never enough to adequately recompense Rae for the risks she takes on Penelope's behalf.

"It is from Officer Fleming." The ladies maid keeps her voice at a whisper. Penelope reads the address on the front, tracing the ink of the counterfeit address she had supplied her mother in her first fabricated missive from the new Lord Featherington.

Penelope had taken many risks as Lady Whistledown. She had known and been prepared and had sworn to learn from the mistakes she had made. Her new moniker though, had spiralled much quicker from her grasp, skittering like marbles across tiles.

The evening Mrs Varley and her mother had disappeared to write the new Lord Featherington Penelope had eavesdropped in the shadows. She had spent the entire night pacing the length of her room. Fear had gripped her in its claws, wringing her of illness, sharpening her focus, wiping away everything else.

And as the night grew long, her fear turned dread into panic, into terror. Her mind began sewing together an imagining of the new Lord, of cold cruelty, of unrelenting callousness.

And left trembling and short of breath, she found herself entirely unable, incapable to surrender her fate into the hands of another.

Propelled into desperate action she had crept into the study of Clarendon House, holding her breath, and stolen the missive her mother had penned to the new Lord.

It lay now, beneath her floorboards, with her Whistledown earnings, and Anthony's banking book.

Several agonising weeks later, she had posted a reply to her mother's letter, addressed to Clarendon House, signed from Lord Jack Featherington, the rightful heir to the Featherington Estate.

Portia had read the words she had written at breakfast: Lord Featherington's vow to return and claim his inherited title, to provide for his grieving charges, and support their upcoming season.

Portia had slumped in relief, and raised the enclosed bills as though she had claimed a hard-fought victory. Penelope had excused herself and only made it outside before her breakfast lurched from her stomach.

She sits at her desk now, bathed in flickering candlelight, as she has so many nights before, blank parchment awaiting her words. She, collecting her courage. It is her conscience, her soul that is stained now, not her hands.

She has traded Lady Whistledown for Lord Featherington. When she lifts her pen now, it is not an enterprise, but a lifeline.

Lady Featherington. I remain aggrieved at the loss of cousin Archibald. Though I cannot imagine how you and your daughters are faring I sincerely hope your return to Mayfair has not been too arduous. I endeavour to join you there as quickly as possible.

Please find enclosed the necessary funds to ensure your comfort until this time. My gratitude to you for sending the summation of the Estate's account books. I will endeavour to relieve the outstanding burdens as much as possible afore my arrival.

Yours faithfully,

Lord Jack Featherington

To the attention of Officer Fleming.

I thank you for your introductory communiqué, and too regret the circumstances under which we will acquaint.

I understand that you have been appointed liaison for this case and extend my gratitude for your work thus far investigating the tragic loss of my cousin. I will direct any further correspondence to your office as instructed.

I remain appreciative of any information, of which you can provide.

I enquire about any progress in identifying the responsible parties? With such in mind, I worry about any enduring threat to the Featherington's safety, of which I should like to remain apprised of, as the new Baron responsible for Archibald's widow and daughters.

I will of course avail myself to you upon my arrival in Mayfair, unfortunately until I am able to finalise several business proceedings in Europe I am unable to provide a clear date.

Please forward any further correspondence via the Featherington House who will hold my latest address.

With respect,

Lord Jack Featherington

To the attention of the Viscount Bridgerton.

Please find enclosed the sum of the outstanding funds owed to you from the Featherington Estate.

I look forward to making your acquaintance upon my arrival in Mayfair later this season. Lady Featherington speaks of you and your family with great esteem.

Should there be any matters, of which I am yet to be apprised, that remain unresolved with the Featherington Estate please do not hesitate to send a missive via the Featherington House who will hold my latest address.

Respectfully,

Lord Jack Featherington

Notes:

Don't fret everyone, between Rae and Gen (and some others who are going to be pretty upset themselves when they learn what's been done) she's going to be okay! I woke up to your comments and could not keep you waiting a minute longer! Thank you to everyone who takes the time to comment, it means so very much.

Hope you all enjoy this chapter and do something nice for yourself today xx

Chapter 7: Hope & Allies

Notes:

Hi all! Just a quick note to say I have made a few changes to the beginning of last chapter before you read on, I do hope you enjoy :)

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

Penelope watches the rope of cherry liquid flow into the stemmed glass. A quiet anticipation winds up the spiral staircase, webs in the corners of the room. The fire begins to lick away the cold caress of night from her skin.

Penelope's eyes fall upon a pool of yellow fabric, familiar and stained.

"You kept it?" Genevieve nods, a shoulder lifting as she recorks the bottle.

"I didn't know what to do with it," the modiste answers honestly and then tilts a concerned gaze toward her, "we have much to discuss."

Penelope accepts the glass and eases herself further back into the settee.

So much has happened, so much that she has not dared to speak aloud, has shared with no one. And now, she is entirely uncertain how to begin, how to reach for the right words. She herself feels out of reach, even as she sits beside Gen, secreted away above her store.

"Are you well Penelope?" The question, even this one, feels too big, oceanic and unknowable, "Benedict noted that you had been quite unwell in his letter." Surprise unfolds, not that they are in correspondence but that they have dedicated ink to her.

"I am better, the doctor said it was stress…" Gen's gaze is pulled across the room then. Peneope refuses to look at the dress. Wishes Gen had burned it.

"Who's blood is that Ma Cherie?" The words stack behind her teeth, her jaw locks, as though she knows, knows the truth is too dangerous in the world. Then Gen reaches for her hand, grounds her just in time,

"My fathers."

Gen leads them. Asks questions that Penelope can answer. Each a stitch until she can pull together a tapestry of that night. Until she understands. Gen's eyes grow glassy.

"They did not see you, you're certain?" Gen asks, shifting closer. She nods. Knows they would too have taken her life had they seen her, or worse, taken her. Beneath her skin an icy hand grips her sternum.

"Has your mother learned of Whistledown?" She blinks back into the room, confusion replacing fear when she meets Gen's eyes.

"It was your money, your makings that settled the accounts for your gowns, was it not?" She nods, then shakes her head, muddled with which question she is answering. She forces a breath into her lungs, forces the panic to recede, knows the way it will wait for her, will eventually pounce.

She unravels the words, prying them from within, manages a faltering explanation of her new nom de plume.

"Lord Jack Featherington does not exist?" Genevieve asks, words suffused with disbelief.

"He exists as far as I know," she replies in a voice that sounds unlike herself, "just he does not know he has inherited a title."

The fire cracks loudly through the room, Gen's face grows slackened.

"This is a daring ploy…even for Lady Whistledown" She nods, she knows. She hears the question in Gen's words, why she would take such risk, court such danger. And from beneath her stays retrieves the missing piece of the puzzle Gen is unable to see.

"My father did not have the funds to make such a bet," she admits. Gen's hands tremble as she unfolds the parchment.

Penelope has not cried, not since the moment in Anthony's study, not once. But the gasp that shudders through Genevieve, the horror that creases her expression and the way the modiste grips her hand so tightly, pulls her closer, as though she can keep her from the lurking danger unravels something within Penelope.

"I was afraid I was presenting, when I was sick." She had heard the words, the suspicion whispered in the hall, when the fever would ease its grip momentarily. Her mother and Mrs Varley and the physician. A sob wracks her frame, and there tucked in her chest is a mountain of emotion that she cannot bear. Cannot withstand. Is not ready for.

Gen shifts to face her, cradles her face between her skilled hands and Penelope tries to focus on her eyes. They are burning. Furious. Aggrieved.

"Omegatrades were outlawed by the King, Penelope," Genevieve states as though her words can disintegrate the deed, the ugliness of this new truth, the actions of her father, "even if they come forward, even if you are an omega they will have no right to you."

She knows this of course but knows also that such trades are still rife in high society. Omega's were traded between families to ensure legacies, secure prosperous industries, fasten together families, to cause and prevent ruin.

Once when she was young she had been led to her father's study at Clarendon House for the very first time. He had introduced her there to Marquess Whittaker, a sinewy alpha with beady, avian eyes. She had been instructed to sit quietly through their meeting, as their cups overflowed she listened as they together forewrote a great future of wealth and esteem for the Featherington-Whittaker pack.

The pop of a cork bursts the thought, Genevieve has retrieved another bottle, refills their own cups. Their courage. When Gen reaches to take her hand once more, she places a small amber vial in her hold.

Penelope finds herself arrested by the fragile look that pinches Gen's face, watches her sip her own breaths more carefully now,

"If you present Penelope, take one of these and send word for me, or find your way to me and we will make a plan." When Penelope drops her eyes she sees two small tablets in the bottle. Her eyes widen,

"Suppressants?" Gen nods.

"But…you're a beta?"

"I am. I have had several young pups go into their first heat in my store. It's not common, usually pups only take their first heat in a place they feel safe but every now and then it does happen."

"Aren't they dangerous?" Penelope asks of the tablets,

"One, even two is fine and it is far safer than travelling through the streets in heat. Many Mama's carry them before their pups present, allows them to get home before the worst hits."

Penelope nods her understanding and grips the bottle tight in her palm.

This time her tears fall in relief. Because Gen, business partner turned friend, has provided an answer to the question that had been caverning her chest. A safety net. A plan. Hope.

"You are not alone Penelope." And for the very first time, since that fateful night, she believes it.

The morning after the Queen's ceremony dawns bright. Stars linger in the early light, as though they too celebrate the new diamond. The Ton flocks to the banks of Hyde Park.

Under Bridgerton Blue, Anthony is grateful for Daphne and Simon and the way they absorb much of the Ton's attention. Daphne is as gracious as ever, Simon is a cutting presence by his bride, laughing apologies at their guests when he is pulled away by Hyacinth and Gregory – of which the Ton finds charming.

As it seems does his sister. He doubts it will be too long before there is a new pup of their clan.

His own pack mates sit at the back of the tent, slouched against the park cushions with Eloise pocketed between their shoulders. Anthony feels a thrum of envy pass through him when he glances back. He shakes it off before it can take root, turning to Daphne when she calls,

"Brother, have you met Miss Davenport? She was just telling us about her latest endeavours in needlepoint,"

"I have not had the pleasure sister, Miss Davenport?" He drops his head to the young miss and ignores the mischievous glint in Daphne's gaze.

"What kind of sister would I be if I didn't endeavour to repay your kind efforts to assist me in finding a match last season?" Over her shoulder Simon looks delighted at her trouble-making and he smothers a groan. Beside him, the most gracious of them all, it is Francesca who enquires after her work and he smiles politely.

Colin ducks by them and it is only at the very last moment Anthony spies a cluster of yellow and catches a handful of Colin's coat, dragging him back under the canopy.

"Absolutely not," he instructs and Colin's face falls.

"Excuse me Miss Davenport, I believe you and I are having tea next week I look forward to hearing of your progress." The young miss flushes and returns to her Mama and he will later grapple for a cause to cancel.

"Will you let go of me" Colin grouses once she walks away.

"We are here today to support Francesca, Colin." His mother says softly, which is in kind for Anthony's eyes are distracted by Penelope across the lawn. Her eyes dart around the park, never quite settling on anything. She could be searching for someone he reasons, but there is something in the way she holds her frame, in the way her fingers twist the fabric of her shawl.

It seems the commotion claims the attention of Portia who stretches a smile across her face and begins toward them, her daughters falling into line and Anthony hopes he is mistaken at the regret he sees in Penelope's face.

"Lady Bridgerton…," Portia begins though her words go unheard as Anthony feels a sea of eyes turn their way. A clashing. Blue and yellow. A spectacle of which the Ton makes a sport.

While their mothers talk, Colin inches forward, as though he cannot help himself. A moth to her flame.

"Pen?"

She seems to steel herself before turning to Colin, when her eyes lift they are more guarded than before. She nods, just once.

"Good day Mr Bridgerton." He feels it through their bond, the way her words land, a sharp slap. Even Portia's voice stutters as she turns to her daughter, brows lifting at Penelope's formal address. Penelope had used their Christian names for almost a decade.

Her eyes lift then, perhaps to avoid the confusion and shock that twists Colin's features. Her gaze skates over his shoulder, lingers in the space behind him. And the clouds clear in her blue and Anthony can make out the heaviness in her eyes.

In an instant, he feels a fool. He had assumed that Penelope and Eloise's discord had dissolved in the wake of all that had come to pass. For anything else was inconceivable. Not when they had been tethered together for so long. He had assumed that Eloise's quiet at Aubrey Hall had been born out of worry of her friend, out of missing her presence.

According to Benedict, it had been Eloise who stayed beside Penelope in his studio, he knew Eloise had found her ill at Aubrey Hall, he had seen Eloise write her constantly in the months past. Yet now, frost descends between the young ladies. Eloise makes no attempt to move from the back of the tent and Penelope lingers in the sun, keeping her distance, as though she has not passed hours with them on these banks.

He thinks that his father would never have been so blind. Have missed something so clear.

"Are you and Penelope to be fighting all season?" he asks once the Featherington's retreat and he has tucked Francesca's hand into his mother's arm.

Eloise, intent to ignore him, opens her book while Benedict's face tilts his way in exasperation.

"The two of you were basically conjoined last season," Anthony reflects. Eloise's first season on the marriage mart had done nothing but highlight the tie between the two. Eloise was frustratingly adept at slipping from sight only to be found tucked in a corner of a ballroom with Penelope, deep in discussion, or laughter or plotting escape.

"You're still not speaking with Penelope?" Colin asks, stumbling backwards and pitching a look of disbelief to his younger sister.

"What on earth could have happened Eloise?" She is restless under the sudden scrutiny of her brothers. No one intervenes, not her sisters or her mother, all undeniably curious.

"Miss Cowper, lovely morning," Daphne says loudly, cutting through the tension between the siblings who spin to see Cressida, swallowed by fabric, at the mouth of the tent.

"Are you well dear?" Violet asks

"I am thank you Lady Bridgerton. I was hoping to call on Eloise." It feels then, as though the ground tilts the weight of the world to the back of the tent once more. A swinging pendulum. Eloise, wordlessly, snaps her book shut and stands. She slips by Anthony and links her arm with the tall, willowy omega and leaves her family in a stunned silence.

Anthony's eyes can't help but circle the lawn again, and he finds her just in time to see shock give way to hurt on Penelope's face. Nobody speaks…and then for a moment longer…and then Colin,

"What in the world is going on?"

Before the end of their conversation the night before, Gen had asked who knew of Penelope's plight. She had been shocked to learn she was to join only Penelope's lady's maid in knowledge.

Genevieve had escorted Penelope home, unsettled with her travelling alone, both climbing into a hired hack in the early hours of the new day, wine-scented breath and swollen eyes.

The Modiste had watched the way Penelope's eyes found Bridgerton House as they entered the square and had taken her hand,

"Miss Eloise is a wonderful young woman and she is very intelligent but she has been afforded some protections in life that you have not." Gen kept her words soft and watched the way Penelope's lips curled down,

"She will come around, I have never seen two closer friends. But Penelope, there is no shame in survival, you understand?"

"Miss, a Mister Bridgerton has arrived to see you." Penelope eyes the footman, imagines the way Colin is pacing in the foyer. She wishes she could remain indisposed, hidden in her room but she is certain the footman will report it back to her mother. Is certain that Colin will persist, the stubbornness of him.

She descends the stairs as though she is sinking into deeper and deeper water. She is still unpracticed in swimming it alone. Without him.

And then her heart lifts in surprise. Relief eases the tightness in her chest. For it is not Colin's silhouette she finds.

Instead, Anthony Bridgerton stands and bows his head, a show of formality from the alpha which gives Penelope a few seconds to wind her surprise back. She dips in her place and watches his gaze linger over her shoulder, realises he is waiting for her mother to appear. From the corner of the room Rae takes a half-step,

"Lord Bridgerton, Miss…would tea in the gardens be amenable?" They are both quick to agree and Anthony follows her through the corridors toward the back of the house, only stepping ahead to pull the door open. Light spills across the threshold.

She has spent more than enough time with Anthony over the years though as she settles on the bench beneath the orange tree, she can't quite recall a time they had been alone, thinks then of the way loneliness was perhaps an impossible feat at Bridgerton House. So unlike her own.

Once she has settled Anthony takes a place beside her. He glances toward Rae, who lingers at a distance. When his eyes swing back to meet hers she feels a warmth settle across her.

"How do you fare Penelope?" She attempts to ignore the intensity of his gaze. She knows this look of Anthony's. Has seen it many times. He looks at her as though his next actions hinge on the very words she will choose. It had been this way since he had become Viscount, stepping into his father's shoes, ever quick to move, to defend, to protect, to do whatever was required. A man of action.

It is heady to think of him acting for her. She pushes the thought away.

"I am well." His gaze is disbelieving but she does not offer more. Instead he chooses to reveal the purpose of his visit.

"I have received a missive from the new Lord Featherington." Which are the not the words she expects. Despite having written and sent the small note. A crushing panic grips her. Has he seen through her so easily? Has he discovered her so quickly? Had she been so senseless to think she could fool the Viscount. The Ton. The Queen. How stupid she was, how naïve. Her fingers grip the stone beneath her.

"Have you met him before?" She blinks her way back to him, sees the concern in his gaze. She swallows, her throat painfully dry now, and shakes her head.

"My father travelled to visit him once but no we remain unacquainted." He nods at her words and then tilts his head pensively,

"I should like to meet him upon his arrival," he tells her softly, "if you would be amenable." The idea of Anthony Bridgerton seeking her approval is laughable. Yet he remains as serious as ever,

"That is only to say Penelope that it is important to me that you know I am here. Before the new lord arrives and after, for anything you should need."

Her eyes well, emotion slices at her chest and for a minute she thinks she could tumble right on over the edge, shatter completely. Unravel the secrets she has tucked away out of sight. She snaps her teeth together.

"If it is of any comfort to you Penelope, from first impressions only, the new Lord seems very capable and committed to managing the affairs of the Estate."

"That is a relief," she offers quietly. Relief unfolds in her chest, and something else that is harder to name. A part of her preens at his conclusion, capable.

"And in the meantime if anything should come up Penelope, you have an entire family across the square." It is too easy, the way he pulls apart her defences, slips by the distance she had attempted to put between them. She had avoided Violet's eyes in Hyde Park, not swayed under the weight of Colin's stare…she would make her retreat, shorten the inevitable fall.

She had not expected such a test of her new, fragile strength.

"You are a good man Anthony Bridgerton." Something blinks across his visage for a moment, flashes too quick to comprehend. He grows restless for a beat, as though searching for a response. Ignoring the words entirely, he pulls his pocket watch into view, the one that had belonged to his father.

"It is time I take my leave, I'm afraid I must begin the process of bribing Eloise into her frock." A laugh unexpectedly breaks free of her lips and his eyes shine with amusement, and this she thinks is her favourite shade of Anthony Bridgerton.

"I hope to see you at Bridgerton House soon Penelope." Which sounds more of a summons than an invitation – in true Viscount fashion. His voice softens then,

"Irrespective of the state of your friendship with my sister, or the relationship between our families, you remain welcome there. No less, I hope the two of you can reconcile soon." She nods. And perhaps the immovable force of Anthony Bridgerton could hope such an implausible thing into existence. Could succeed where she had failed.

"Save me a dance this evening won't you Penelope?" She curses the way her cheeks flush and watches Anthony bow for a second time before he makes his retreat. She stares after him.

Notes:

Let me know which POV's you're most interested in at the moment. Hope you have a wonderful day!

Chapter 8: Love & Freedom

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

"Well aren't you just the belle of the ball tonight?"

Benedict knows his smirk matches the one that flicks onto Anthony's face. Colin pointedly ignores them, offering a lemonade first to their mother, then to Francesca who is the picture of poise beside Anthony.

Benedict loves his younger brother. Would die for him, without regret, would kill for him, undoubtedly. Yet never has he wanted to abandon a soul more than Colin, who cannot move in the hall for the attention he seems to have netted since his return to Mayfair.

They sweep to their shore now. A wave of lace and taffeta and tulle and young ladies all vying for Colin's attention, proffering their dance cards for his name.

Eloise seizes the opportunity and fastens herself to Colin's side, satisfied to endure the young women of the Ton should it mean avoiding the gentlemen who seem to be lurking just as ominously around his sisters…gathering the courage to face the Viscount perhaps.

"Don't tease, Benedict," his mother scolds lightly before eyeing her youngest son in attendance, "Colin, I do hope you have offered to dance with some of these lovely young ladies?"

"Have you seen Pen?" Benedict hears the collective silent groan of his mother and Anthony but is unable to stop his own eyes from lifting to the young woman, who stands on the far side of the hall, cloaked in shadows not quite dark enough to blot out the orange of her dress. Several shades lighter than her hair by his eye.

The Featherington's had arrived to a swell of whispers. Penelope, herself had trailed her sisters and mothers at a distance, on her own. Unaccompanied. They had been quickly descended upon by a ravenous Ton, Portia basking in the attentions as though she had stepped into sunlight. And as they were swallowed by the crowd Penelope had slipped away, unnoticed. The movement easy and practiced. Her shoulders had dropped only once the shadows draped over them, loosened like a knot tied too taut.

His own mother, now in her element, separates her children and stitches them into dance partners. A young woman, a winning smile, holds Colin's arm as though he is a trophy and Eloise sends Benedict a pleading look before she is pulled away…too far gone to save.

Anthony quickly sweeps Fran towards the floor to escape his own partnering – though their sister appears similarly relieved, sharing a victorious smile with Anthony.

He ensures he is gone before their mother can even think to turn for him.

Out of sight, and reach, he skirts around the edge of the ballroom while the eyes of the Ton fall to the floor. When he finds her, her eyes too are focused on the pairing partners and Benedict follows her gaze needlessly, knowing it will lead him to Colin.

Colin who has found himself centre-stage, who charms the Ton with a charismatic smile, a ringing laugh which smooths the tension that folds through the floor. Even Eloise in her unease smothers a laugh two spots over. Colin grins like it had been his very goal.

Something raw and wounded ripples across Penelope's face for a mere breath before she draws her expression back into a picture of composure - so fleeting he wonders for a moment if it had changed at all.

Yet the way he reaches for her as though she may shudder apart there in the shadows is evidence enough. His movement catches her gaze, turns her toward him, surprise in her eyes.

"Miss Featherington, will you do me the honour?" Her gaze, wide and unsure, bounces between his outstretched hand, the dancefloor and his own patient eyes. He laughs then, warm and fond.

"We're going to miss it completely at this rate Penelope," he teases, discarding the formality and linking their arms to guide her gently onto the floor and right into the first step of the dance. A small sound escapes her, hardly a gasp, almost a laugh, and she falls into step easily, as he knew she would.

He had spent many an afternoon as her partner in the Bridgerton drawing room, a clever ploy of his mothers to cajole Eloise's own participation.

"I see you are to suffer the duty of the wallflowers this evening with Colin otherwise occupied," Penelope comments once she gains her bearings. When he spins her back to his chest his head is tilted in question.

"Your mother's kindness knows no bounds," she comments quietly, "she likes to ensure I take to the floor at least once an occasion." He feels the divot that furrows his brow. Her words are accepting, a shade lighter than resignation.

"As happy as my mother will be that I am on the dancefloor Penelope, this dance is not of her making." And despite her guarded expression when he steals an opportunity and audaciously spins her an extra time a smile dances her lips.

As though her words catch up to him, he realises suddenly and regretfully that the dances shared between them last season had in fact been at the behest of his mother.

He swallows around the disappointment and draws comfort that her words are tinged with something of a simple knowing than anything sharper and he tugs her sightly closer as he steers them across the floor. And away from such ruminations.

His mind is quick to submit a subject for conversation, for distraction. One that had taken up residence in his mind's corner, steeped in question.

"Madam Delacroix was looking forward to your visit yesterday. I was not aware you two were friends?" Her eyes are drawn back to his and she nods pensively. She ducks under his arm, a delicate twirl. Her skirts brush his shins.

"Madam Delacroix has been kind to me over the years. She is a good friend. Kind and very clever and I quite admire all she has achieved. She has been a-" Penelope catches the word between her teeth, peering back up at him, suddenly unsure. He squeezes the small hand tucked into his own, hoping to encourage yet she shakes her head as though to clear it.

He is fortunate that Penelope is paying attention, for the music swells and she pulls away from him, spinning once and then again, several feet away. For one single second his hand reaches for her, as though she has simply drifted away on a breeze. Mercifully, his mind catches up to the music and he abandons the movement as Penelope had abandoned her words and catches the young woman to his left.

Several turns later once she steps back into the space before him, once he envelopes her hand back into his own, he is met with two blue flames, daring and dancing, that peer up at him unexpectedly. Arresting.

"Madam Delacroix was also quite looking forward your visit. You too are friends…of a kind are you not?"

And Penelope Featherington.

His eyes widen. And really, having grown up with an abundance of siblings, with Hyacinth herself, he shouldn't be so easily outmoved – yet as he holds her gaze, the ballroom, the music, his desire for revelation falls away. A laugh fizzes in his throat. He dips his chin,

"You should not know about those kind of things or those kind of friends young lady," he admonishes and the dimple in her cheek deepens in delight. He wonders suddenly, just how close she and Gen are. And perhaps a visit to his favourite modiste is of new import.

"Will you be returning to art school next month?" she asks then, her words demure and prim despite the flame still alighting her eyes. And he acquiesces, allows her to lead them into a new subject while he leads them across the floor. He finds himself unexpectedly delighting in this second dance.

"I will," he nods and answers her questions, which are as astute as they are curious, pocketing his own, for now. For now.

Too soon, the music draws to a final crescendo and Benedict dips his head, an echo of her neat curtsey and he is distracted entirely by the dimming spark in her eyes. They grow distant and reserved, the clear blue clouded, the fire smothered. He wishes the music to lift once more, regrets the way the waters still. Her eyes shift around the room and instead of dropping her hand, he tucks it into his elbow, an instinct to keep her close.

They are intercepted at the edge of the floor, though curiously, not by the brother Benedict had anticipated.

"Good evening, Penelope, I do believe you saved the wrong brother a dance," Anthony says pointedly. Penelope smiles as though she cannot help it, as though she has lost a fight. It breaks across her face and even though it is not his, Benedict feels a victory. She feels closer once more.

Anthony gestures to her dance card and both he and Penelope watch as Anthony scrawls his own name for the next dance, and then Benedict's for the dance just completed. Gratitude blooms in his chest, he tucks away a reminder to spend some coins on his brother.

"Perhaps a lemonade before you are swept back to the floor then." Penelope takes the hand Anthony offers and then hesitates, unexpectedly. Her eyes linger on the card that swings beneath their joined hands for a moment and her lips part when a deeper voice sounds from behind them.

"Her Royal Highness, Queen Charlotte…" They spin as one. Penelope drops into curtsey while the brothers dip into twin bows on her either side. Benedict is certain he can feel his mother's gaze from across the room,

"Ah Viscount Bridgerton, we were just speaking of you and your pack. I would like to introduce you to my diamond of the season." Benedict observes the young woman tucked against the Queens' side. Queen Charlotte offers the young woman's hand to Anthony herself, as though passing a rare jewel indeed.

Penelope's fingers slip from Anthony's hold, and she takes a small step backwards. Benedict reaches to draw her to his side before his attention too is called,

"And Mr Bridgerton." Benedict stretches a smile over his face, mirroring Anthony's actions, another bow, before he presses his lips to the glove of the young woman, Gabrielle. Her eyes dance across his face, a small smile lifting her lips and when she speaks her words are soft and accented and sound of poetry.

Queen Charlotte, seemingly pleased, turns back to his brother.

"I do believe Viscount, my diamond would like to dance." Anthony nods and as though the Queen has summoned them herself, the opening chords of the next dance lift through the room.

Murmurs sweep after them, the Ton's attention pooling to the diamond and the Viscount.

When he turns,

Penelope is gone.

She slips away easily enough, like water, weaving between bodies, rivulets across the floor. It is an effortless escape. She slips to the wall, refusing the turn of her head, wonders for a moment if she could slip from the ball entirely – capitalise on the Ton's royal and sparkling distraction.

The Queen had not noticed her, had not spared her a glance, for which she knows to be grateful.

Dearest gentle reader… a triumph of ceremony for the esteemed Lady Danbury. Queen Charlotte herself graced the crowds to acquaint her diamond with The Viscount Bridgerton who himself has declared to be seeking his pack Omega this very season.

And as this author knows only too well, a place in the Bridgerton pack is a place only for the finest of gems indeed.

It is early, dear reader and one can never know what the season has in store. Only time will reveal whether diamonds truly are found or formed.

Penelope forces the words to scatter with an angry push.

"I am not certain I know who I am without my art dear Penelope."

Benedict's words echo in her mind. The loss of Lady Whistledown tearing through her chest, as though she is missing something vital to her being, to her living. She had known it would be sharper once back in the Ton, once she had reclaimed her place at the wall, once the whispers began to reach her shore. And not for the first time she wonders if she will descend back into the wretchedness of her first season.

The despair and loneliness and isolation, shouldering the Ton's cruelty and hypocrisy alone. Her mother's hateful disappointment, as though the fears Portia had held, the old suspicions had all been confirmed by the end of that very first night. No one knew what to do with an undesignated debutante. Not the other debutantes, not the Ton, not her Mama or Papa.

Colin had been the one to find her treading water. Had pulled her afloat.

Had pulled her onto the floor, and then to his own mother whose own daughters had not yet debuted.

She was undecided if it had been more painful her second season, watching him fall in love with her cousin.

As though to outrun her thoughts, Penelope hastens for the corner of the hall, slips behind a pillar and before she can breathe relief, begin unwinding the tightness balled in her chest…Eloise.

Eloise, who seems just as startled by her. Though only for a moment and then her face hardens, satin to stone.

In another time, in the season before, they would have swum the shadows together, would have found themselves in the same corner knitting together a daring plan for escape.

I wish never to see nor speak to you again.

Eloise's eyes are a storm of emotion, but it is the anger that billows to the fore, that is the boldest, the loudest, the easiest to untangle.

Stay away from me, stay away from Colin, stay away from my family.

She shifts forward, in fractured movements.

"Your mother…I didn't ask to dance with Benedict it was…I couldn't…" She has never seen this expression on Eloise's face. The cool sharpness of her stare, the lift of her chin, the turn of her body, as though she is repelled.

Silence snakes its way between them, it tastes of poison, and consumes her clumsy attempt, leaves her struggling for breath. And like that night, she turns away.

"I noticed there has been no Whistledown yet this season." A quiet yet slicing question, it arrests Penelope, stills her. Eloise's face is arranged carefully and the words they do not speak grow louder between them. And there is so much to say, and nothing at all, and then Cressida Cowper steps into view.

"Ah Penelope," Cressida begins, poised to strike. She turns her body, and lofts her gaze across the room, Eloise and Penelope's eyes unwittingly following.

Colin has joined his brothers now. Anthony places a second delicate kiss on Gabrielle's gloved hand, held dainty and aloft. Her frame is delicate and the pearl satin she adorns contrasts the midnight of the brother's dress jackets perfectly – a star among the night. A diamond.

She seems so small between them. She is beautiful.

Behind them, Penelope catches sight of Violet. A sweet shade of happiness flushing her face as she watches her sons. And in pulpit above them all, the Queen's eyes gleam with approval.

"Well, it certainly appears that any chance of capturing the attentions of the Bridgerton pack is coming to an end…despite your mother's very best efforts." Cressida pins her beneath her gaze once more, her words louder than necessary, raised to draw notice, to humiliate – they have played this game before.

"My commiserations Penelope." She hears the snickers, feels the gazes that crane toward her misfortune. She meets Eloise's eyes, beyond Cressida, filled with something Penelope cannot quite name and wishes she had not seen.

"Oh," Cressida croons in faux sympathy that is sharp and wicked. She realises then that Cressida has taken hold of her dance card, the ribbon biting her skin. "I am sorry you missed your dance with the Viscount Penelope. I suppose the Queen herself decided she could not subject him to that."

Eloise's silence roars in her ears.

"Miss Bridgerton." Lady Danbury's voice commands attention, chins lift, bodies swivel. The woman, who moments ago had been at the Queen's side, stares down at them coldly.

"Your mother is looking for you," Lady Danbury states, her hard gaze fixed upon Eloise who shifts in place for a moment, as though she may stay, as though she may speak. The cane snaps against the tiles, and Eloise slips away, Cressida follows.

Lady Danbury's stare is not easy to hold. It makes her feel entirely transparent, itches at her skin.

"Sirs might I ask to see your invitations?" The man is clearly staff, dozens of matching silhouettes scurrying about the hall. The suspicion on his face remains unappreciated. As though he can simply see they do not belong.

He turns, dismissing the man. Leaning over the balustrade and sighs in frustration at having lost sight of her. It will not be a difficult task however, with her hair of fire, not to mention the almost offensive colour of her gown.

"Sir I must insist." He finds her, by the wall as she has been for most of the night. His eyes flicker back to her mother, a far cry from a grieving widow. The two older siblings, he does not know their names, orbit their mother all evening. It is only her, who strays, a little lost duckling.

"You can see mine." His packmate offers behind him. His affable tone is as artificial as any invitation they would provide.

He listens as flesh hits flesh, one louder crack that is swallowed by the music, and the sound of a body dragged across stone. No one looks up. She wanders to the left, thanking a servant for the glass he offers her with a smile. His eyes slide over her neck as she drinks.

He cannot see any trace of a bond. And cannot scent a bond on her from his vantage point.

Still it was near impossible that an unclaimed, sweet little omega would be permitted or remain unnoticed for long enough to stay at the fringes of such an eve.

Had pathetic Archie Featherington already married his daughter off…had she already been bonded long ago? They were there after all for an omega.

Violet offers him a bemused smile that is nothing compared to the beaming grin that adorns Daphne's face.

"We'll have to get you a dance card at this rate mate," Simon teases making both his omega and mother-in-law laugh. He can see the question his mother is only just managing to contain, the excitement of watching Anthony's second dance with the Ton's diamond alive in her eyes.

Having had enough eyes on him for one night he turns to ask for Simon's company in t--

For a moment Anthony thinks the wind has pulled apart Lady Danbury's banner. Then he hears laugher from behind them, a sharp sound aimed to maim. His eyes find Eloise amongst the bodies first, her face pale and then Penelope – who he had been searching for half the evening. He owed her an apology, and a dance, and now she stands before his sister, shock giving way to humiliation.

She stumbles away from the pair only for a man Anthony knows to have been in Benedict's year at Eton, to upend his glass of spirit down her front. He does not miss the cruel smirk that curls the lips of Cressida Cowper.

Anthony's long stride closes the distance before the flush can finish staining Penelope's skin. Colin appears on her other side and Anthony feels Benedict across the room.

No one in the ballroom will question their actions. Penelope had been associated with their pack, with their family since she was a babe. So when Anthony shrugs off his dress jacket and places it around her shoulders, no one questions the significance.

Penelope blinks up at him, after taking in the ruined fabric of her dress, torn and stained and what he sees throws him right back through time. Her glassy eyes brimming with shock, dulled into a quiet that had pervaded well into the night.

"Pen…" Eloise's voice is quiet and sorrowful. Cressida has disappeared, and his sister is the ashen colour of regret. Penelope tilts her face away from Eloise, and he catches the way her chin trembles, just once, before she turns and flees, slipping out the door.

Colin does not hesitate to follow.

Eloise meets his eyes briefly, long enough for him to catch the hurt and anger and heartbreak.

It had for as long as she could remember felt as though there was a small thread that tethered her to Colin. It pulls at her, from the space below her sternum, its spool somewhere deep. It tugs at her now, attempts to catch beneath her feet to slow her path, to spin her off-course and back toward him, to wind them back together.

"Pen please stop." She takes three more steps, three more breaths, one more corner, one more moment just to gather the parts of herself she can.

She had felt his eyes, across the ballroom. His gaze searching the shadows in which he would usually find her. The weight of his question filled gaze across her shoulders.

Her hopes that he had returned more distant than before erased as the night wore on.

"Pen?" His voice is more urgent now, aggrieved as though he knows she is ignoring him. As though he knows the distance she attempts is purposeful.

She spins in place now, the thread winding around her tightly, constricting her lungs when she meets his wide, concerned eyes. Colin.

"Pen." Colin.

"Colin." His name is an unfamiliar shape on her lips for the first time, "I'm sorry I did not hear you. I just…" She searches for words knowing she had prepared for this, the words lost now. He reaches for her.

"Are you alright?" She forces herself to nod, forces herself to ignore the tenderness of his words, that tremble her chest.

"I wish only to return home." He calls her a carriage without delay, steps into the weather, keeps a hand on her back and under his touch the spine she had been forcing to steel shudders, as though it could simply powder to dust.

"How was your trip?" She hears herself ask, the words light, and she thinks upon the small list in the back of her journal. The small, little list in ink of safe topics she would share with Colin. For she had to be careful now. Their usual conversations, that would wander like ivy, relegated to the past. She had to take measures now.

For so much has changed. She has changed.

"I wish very much Pen to speak with you of my trip however I care not for that now. Will you please tell me what is wrong?" Colin has never been careful with his words, not with her. Or about her. And it is back, the hot slick of anger. It makes it easier to ignore his beseeching words.

"It has simply been a trying time Colin, that is all." Regret creases his face, his expression growing pained, and he nods as though admonishing himself. She has always hated this particular expression of Colin's – a shade of helplessness. Intolerable when his instinct to help, to save, to aid is as embedded as his reflex to breathe. It is sewn into everything he does, into the fabric of who he is. As a son, a brother, a friend.

It is why she could not see him married to Marina. And why she cannot tell him now, of all the wrong of which he asks. They stand, side by side, waiting for the carriage. She feels his gaze, avoids it, sips at the cool night air.

"I am sorry that Cressida tore your dress."

"A blessing perhaps, now there may be a chance of my Mama conceding such a thing to be unwearable." She only realises that words have escaped her at the burst of his laugh. It spirals into the night, carried by the chilled breeze. The sound, so familiar draws her eyes to his, emerald pools of fondness and relief and Colin.

The longing in her chest, a betrayal.

The way she cannot look away, weakness.

They are suddenly as they have always been.

His head tilts as he considers her, his eyes grow sombre and earnest and pleading.

"I hope you know Pen that I am here, just as you were for me after my father passed. Please allow me to support you in this." She draws in a long breath, and nods, and wrestles her eyes away from his, and sends a prayer of thanks when the carriage pulls around the corner.

"Do you not need a chaperone?" Colin asks before she can step into the light rain. Her eyes lift to see it invisible against the black of the night sky.

"Spinsters do not need chaperones."

"You are not a spinster Pen," he chides lightly, as though she is merely joking and words, furious and sharp, race her throat, stack behind her teeth. Then his hand, warm and steady, is on her arm, and he gently turns her to face him.

"At least allow me to..." His fingers lift Anthony's coat and Penelope mourns the loss of the heavy material even before its weight slides from her shoulders.

She expects him to drape it over his arm, intent on returning it to his brother yet he holds it aloft and circles her and she realises he means for her to slip her arm into one sleeve, and then the other.

"We can't have you freezing on your journey home Pen." The words rumble in his chest, so close behind her. One small step and sh-. She swallows and takes even breaths and steadfastly ignores the way her heart races as he slides the coat up over her shoulders, the way his arms circle her.

He turns her once more and nods, seemingly pleased that he has fortified her against the elements. She feels as though she has not stopped her spin.

"I have missed you, Pen." His words are gentle and honest and she has no more words. Not tonight.

"Good night, Mr Bridgerton."

He sees her into the carriage, raps his own knuckles against the exterior and she lets out a shaky breath. She focuses on her breath yet cannot resist stealing one last glance at the Danbury estate before it's gone. Through the rain-splattered window her eyes find his silhouette, still standing, as though he watches her departure.

Penelope slumps against the seat, runs a palm over her face, feels the sigh heavy in her chest. Her shattered resolve so completely in pieces. Her good intentions entirely wilted.

She is angry, at Cressida and Eloise, at her mother, at herself.

At Colin.

She forces it aside, tucks it away somewhere behind her breastbone. For in all honesty, she knows it is not his.

Just as she is not his.

And that was the sharpest part of it all. Because if only those words, his words, if only they had managed to kill her love for him once and for all. If only everything with Marina had finally stolen all that she had carried for him…she could have easily forgiven them, forgiven him.

She could have lived without his love if only she had been granted her freedom.

And yet, it is still there within her. Flickering, lingering, consuming.

This excision would be by her hand. For her. Enough now.

When Violet enters the study, she swallows a laugh at the way her sons are quick to right themselves, to straighten in their chairs and sweep feet from desks. Colin stands, provides her his seat before crossing the room to claim another.

The light is low, the room lit only by several lanterns and the glow of the fire. In their cups, her son's cheeks flush the very same way Edmund's always had, and Benedict lets out a trill of amuse when she reaches for his drink. Two sips before bed.

"And what are we discussing then?" she asks fondly. She had been waiting for the opportunity to speak with her sons about Gabrielle, the bejewelled young woman that had so dazzled the Ton that evening.

She had been the subject of every conversation since the Queen's crowning, which is perhaps why Colin's next words disarm her so,

"We are discussing Penelope," Colin reveals simply. Violet blinks at her son,

"Penelope?"

He nods, "perhaps we might seek your insight Mother." His brow scrunches in confusion and contemplation and she sees the weight that drapes his shoulders. Her Colin troubled by the world.

"Penelope is not speaking with Eloise, will not speak with me, will hardly even look at me. She says she is fine but I know better." Frustration and something more vulnerable bleeds into his words,

"And what of Gabrielle?" She cannot help but ask to which Anthony hums from where he sits across the table. He nods once and meets her eyes over his own glass,

"We will call upon her tomorrow" he declares as though the matter is long settled. As though he is speaking of land taxes or the time they are due at church come Sunday. As though he predicts her next words Anthony continues,

"It is important we marry this season Mother." Colin's expression flattens, eyes dropping to his lap while she holds Anthony gaze. And she knows it is not the night for this battle. She wonders briefly how it will be Anthony will learn the grandest lesson of his life, for he would, she was certain. He was after all Edmund's son.

"And what do you make of Gabrielle then?" she asks softly, unready quite to relinquish the subject. Anthony answers as simply as before,

"She is the Queen's diamond." Violet thinks their Queen would be most ecstatic to hear the Viscount's words, as though between the title and the declaration nothing else need be spoken. Oh, Anthony had so much to learn of love.

Instead, she reaches for Colin, who still sits brow furrowed.

"I think that Penelope has got so very much on her shoulders right now, and that we will remain in her support in whatever capacity we can. She may simply require time or space, I will reach out and invite her for tea for Thursday." Colin nods, thankful and worry-worn and she sees the shadows in his eyes.

"Well, I think it is time for me to retire my sons." And Colin stands as she had anticipated, and takes his leave, and despite his age and despite his size and even though it is now him who escorts her around she pulls her son and his heavy heart close outside her chambers, bidding him goodnight, a good rest.

"You need to tell him you don't blame him for the whole Marina debacle," Benedict says as he sips his whisky. One moment turns over into two before Benedict speaks again.

"You don't blame him do you brother?" Anthony is quick to throw him a look of reproach,

"Don't be ridiculous of course not. We all know that mess was a production of Lady Portia Featherington," Anthony says as though his own whisky has soured.

"I have been racking my mind as to a possible basis for the discord between Eloise and Penelope."

"You think it has to do with last season? With Marina." It is as odd as it is rare for a name to turn sharp on Benedict's tongue.

"It never even occurred to me at the time," Anthony begins, almost hesitantly. "Could Penelope have known what her mother was planning?" He appreciates that Benedict does not immediately discount him, that he instead sighs pensively and nurses his tumbler and contemplates it.

Not for the first time he thinks Benedict would have made an exceptional Viscount. More patient, more considering, more sociable and liked.

Benedict sighs once more, pulling him from his own musings, and shrugs, with the trace of a smile.

"I honestly think if Penelope Featherington knew, she would have written the words in the sky before letting Colin marry Marina. Besotted little thing that she is," Benedict says fondly. And Anthony too cannot stop the upturn of his lips as he thinks of Penelope and the love she has long since held for their youngest pack mate.

"Even if revealing it would certainly harm her own family? And it has hurt them." The answers unfold in the silence shared between them. The glimpses they have each had of the Featherington home and family, the way both Portia and Archibald treated their youngest daughter, the way Penelope's eyes would follow their own parents once she had started visiting Bridgerton House.

The way she avoided attention. And confrontation. The way she sometimes flinched.

And if nothing else, they had both as young men, overheard a quiet conversation between their mother and father one late evening. One of the few times they had witnessed their father angry, their mother bereft and resolved.

"Ant, she loves this family, you know that. I think she would have found a way." He nods, he knows.

"Eloise maintains that it is something else that caused their estrangement…was rather insistent that Penelope was unaware of her mother's schemes last season." Anthony turns over the words in his mind and wonders why he feels no relief. For some reason they do not fold neatly away.

Benedict sighs, a third time, "irrespective of our darling Penelope brother, it is Colin you need to speak to."

"How do you feel about the diamond?" Benedict hums letting the subject change and knocking back the last of the amber liquid,

"She is beautiful of course. We will meet her tomorrow and we will know more." Benedict pauses after standing, "I am with you brother, we will do what we must for the family, for our pack." Anthony nods at the declaration of solidarity, gratitude humming through their bond, upstairs Colin drops into slumber making Anthony and Benedict realise just how tired they are, the latter sweeping from the room, leaving Anthony to his thoughts.

He refills his glass, and lets his head drop sighing into the room, the fire crackles back in echo.

For all of their differences, Benedict had long been his mirror. The two had been tied inexplicably together in the wake of their father's death. His words echo around the room and Anthony finds he despises the pragmatism of Benedict's words. The duty, the acceptance, so unnatural from him.

For somehow, despite the responsibility that had been heaped upon his shoulders, Benedict had still managed to become the dreamer, the artist, the romantic. It still eluded Anthony how these parts could so effortlessly exist within him, with an ease he himself did not attempt to understand.

For a moment his eyes flicker overhead and then he too stands, avoiding his father's gaze.

This deep ache she knows. It finds her, like it has so many nights before, in this bed, under this sky. The memories of them build in the corner of her eyes, and only here will she allow them to slip free, in the darkness, unseen.

The Ton, the night had bared its teeth and Penelope licks at her wounds in the sanctuary of her room, as she waits and wishes for the respite of sleep. Rae had mercifully not mentioned the tears that had escaped as her dress was unlaced, as though the emotion could not be contained a moment longer, an outpouring as her binds were loosened.

It twists inside of her now, knotting between her shoulder blades, churning deep in her core, pressing against her chest. The moon dips into view beyond the glass of her window. She blinks back at the stars, and unravels until she is clenching the blankets in fists, swiping crossly at her tears. A well of frustration.

The hours pass. The eyes of the ton crawling over her skin. The silence of Eloise, deafening. Colin's silhouette blurring with distance and rain and tears. Her ruined dress and ruined night and really it should not affect her like this, not after so long. She knows this defeat.

She has not grown her thick skin yet, still feels paper thin. She wonders what will earn it. What could possibly stop the ache of this all.

Her thoughts grow tired and tangled and louder and harsher.

And eventually, she is too tired to think on her actions, too tired to question her movements or instincts. Her body slips from the bed, toes scrunching into the softness of the rug. She crosses the room silently until she pulls Anthony's coat from where she had placed it over her desk.

Her eyelids barely lift, fatigue pressing heavy and the cold bites at her skin. The fire has long died out. She slips back beneath the covers, attempting to move faster than her thoughts can form.

She pulls the coat against herself. Over and around.

Buries her fingers into the material, presses it against her skin, pulls it closer still. His scent, so familiar, brings with it a safety and solidity and stillness she clings to. It reaches for her, through the fog, and tethers her. And she can breathe. And she can finally rest.

And the moon is her only witness when she presses her cheek to the collar, where his scent is the heaviest. The only witness to her relaxing body, growing too hot, twisting in the sheets. The only witness when her fingers lift to itch at her own neck.

Notes:

I'm backkkk (and very happy about it).

Hi all. I'm so sorry for the delay. I ended up getting what I through was a little cold that turned into pneumonia. It thoroughly wiped me out for a solid three weeks, but happily better now. I hope you're all doing well.

I'm really excited to get back to this story, I hope some of you are still around! :)

I hope you enjoy, this one was a little tough, hopefully just rusty and getting back into the swing of things.

p.s. Pen & Anthony will get their dance, promise :) Just not quite yet

Chapter 9: A Third Season

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

It seemed that by her daughter's third season on the marriage mart Portia Featherington had finally resigned herself to Penelope's lack of callers.

The morning after the Danbury ball, Penelope had woken feeling unexpectedly well, and even more unexpectedly, famished. She had remained in bed longer than was typical, indulging in the slow sleepiness of morning. Remaining wrapped in her cocoon of blankets as long as possible.

As Penelope broke her fast several hours later, her mother had made it abundantly clear that Penelope was to entertain herself, out of sight and far from the drawing room for the duration of calling hours that morning. The words, a poem, a prayer, a blessing from above to the youngest Featherington.

It was a sharp relief, after two seasons of being confined to the drawing room each morning with nothing other than her sisters and mother and all of their contempt. Hours that had slowly though undoubtedly chipped away at her, leaving her less than whole.

And then Marina. Marina who was kind and for a bright moment, something of an ally for Penelope, a buffer in those slow passing wretched hours. Marina, beautiful and thoughtful and entirely captivating she had quickly learned, to Colin. She had never blamed him. Only her own foolish, childish heart.

She had grown to despise calling hours then. To miss, with some twisted sense of nostalgia, the times when all she'd had to withstand were her sister's relentless yet uncreative remarks, and reminders of her mother's disdain. Instead, she had been condemned to witness Colin falling in love, not ten feet away.

And then she had learned of their scheme.

"Miss Penelope." Rae's voice pulls Penelope from her thoughts.

"There is a caller here for you. Your mother has asked I retrieve you." Confusion webs between the two young women for a stretching moment. Rae herself seems troubled which does nothing to ease Penelope's mounting trepidation.

Rae discloses that she had not recognised the two men and squeezes her hand quickly before they reach the bottom of the stairs, a silent show of solidarity and support. She will never stop being grateful for Rae.

Her body seizes to a sudden stop as she steps off the last stair. The world blurs around her and Rae is suddenly a weight against her, swaying them to the wall to keep her upright. The panic is acidic on her tongue and the air grows too thick to pull into her lungs.

It is their scents though, that rip her back through time, bitter and noxious and strangling. They scratch her throat and sting her eyes and drag her unwillingly back into the study splattered with blood. It is undoubtedly them, the men who had killed her father. Who had taken the deed from his safe, who had it now, the rights to her, her father's pledge and signature and…

Rae's eyes are a mirror and Penelope clearly recognises the terror that is swallowing her whole. The tendrils of their scent wrap around her neck. Her eyes well. It is Penelope who pulls them into a side room, staggering to close the door behind them. It is Rae, however who is first to speak. Her words shaking and urgent.

"You have to go, right now, you have to go Miss Penelope." Penelope's hands tremble. How are they here? Had she not anticipated this? Rae draws closer,

"Miss Penelope, go straight to the modiste. I will learn what I can and follow you." Penelope wants to be braver than this. Wants to have another option. Wants most desperately to take it all back. Rae leads her from the room then, through the halls and out the servant's entrance. It all rushes past her, blinding.

"Go," she orders, her eyes clear and resolved before she pushes Penelope onto the street behind the estate. They have done this dozens of times. The back entrance, the gap in the wall, a hired hack to the printers.

But this is different. This ocean, too deep.

Gabrielle's eyes alight when Anthony mentions Colin's time in France. She gasps happily and turns toward him, excitement dawning, and Colin swallows his desire to be anywhere but at Buckingham House, calling on a young lady, the young lady, the Queen's diamond no less.

He should of course be grateful. Anthony has gifted him a topic of discussion he had not managed alone, but the words of his travels no longer come as easy as before. Even his family had noticed the lack of tales from Colin's most recent tour, their prodding a mix of relief and concern. Colin's own contemplation had revealed no answer to his sudden reticence…a tangle of thoughts…an answer that remained just out of reach.

Queen Charlotte sits in the corner of the room, observing the proceedings, happily. The line of suitors had snaked its way through the halls of Buckingham House yet when the Bridgerton's arrived they were met by a uniformed young man who escorted them to the front. Seated beside the diamond now, across from his pack mates, he feels the Queen's gaze, feels rather like he's a part of a pantomime for her amusement.

Thankfully Anthony does most of the talking, softened as usual by Benedict's lighter countenance. Colin quietly observes Gabrielle's attention anew as she takes in the brothers. She is a picture of grace after what he can only imagine has been a fatiguing morning of the same conversation…remembering Daphne's calling hours.

Colin had been achingly desirous for a quiet season. In the shadows. Out of sight of the Ton, the Mama's, the Queen and Whistledown herself.

His travels had been a balm after last season. An escape he'd needed like air. Distance from his failings and humiliation, his disastrous engagement. Space from the pity he saw in his own home, the whispers that followed him around the Ton, the worry he felt heavy the bond with his packmates. Being away had done much to put his pieces back together.

"Are you well Col?" Benedict has asked him, several nights after his return. His brother had artfully enfolded a dozen questions into one, as he flopped down beside him. Benedict had arranged himself into a shape of patience and Colin knew his brother would contentedly sit with him all night if he desired, and Benedict was in many ways the best of them all.

In truth, since his return Colin had rather felt as though he was still abroad. Distanced and untethered. This homecoming had felt so different to the last, when he had returned to admire his home, with all its love and comforts and liveliness, anew. Perhaps it was him who was so very different. Perhaps he had stitched himself back together wrong. Perhaps he hadn't solved anything at all…simply run and returned to find it all waiting.

He had brought an omega home to his pack, to his family and it had been a ruinous disaster, had spiralled so quickly out of his control. Had only emphasised his naivety and proven himself to be gullible and immature and hardly a man worthy of an omega, or a pack. Hardly the man he was raised to be, by his parents, by his brothers.

When Anthony had announced they would be calling upon Miss Allard, Colin knew he would raise no protest. Anthony had been forced to clean up his mess, he certainly owed him no further trouble. And so, Colin had forced away his instinct to return to the port and flee.

Their time draws to a close and he copies the bow of his brothers. Gabrielle too, stands and turns to him last, a small and pretty smile on her lips,

"I would love to hear more about your travels Monsieur Bridgerton." He nods and presses his lips to her gloved hands. They bow once more to the Queen and before long they spill back out into the sunlight.

Their journey home is largely silent, all three brothers lost to their thoughts.

Anthony forces himself to turn his focus to his brother's expressions. The bond they share does nothing to elucidate the state of his pack; a heavy mess of emotion too dense to know.

Several streets from Grosvenor square, Benedict casually raps his knuckles against the roof and offers his brothers a smile that fools neither, an excuse that is even thinner and slips from the hack without another word.

They carry on in silence, and Anthony's focuses his gaze beyond the glass. He briefly wonders if it is Benedict's attempt to force the conversation he continues to insist upon, rightly so Anthony knows.

He feels an old and familiar regret unfurl in his chest, filling the space it has carved out for itself over the years. So swept up he had been with Sienna that he had missed entirely Colin's plight last season, until it was far, far too late. Until Colin himself had announced his engagement to the Ton.

Anthony, blind in his selfishness, had missed each and every warning sign. How easy it should have been to identify the mal intent, the ploy aimed at his pack. All of a neighbour, nonetheless. All unfolding there within the bounds of the square, on his very doorstep.

Somewhere deeper in his chest, another sorrow writhes in its shallow grave, reaching for attention. It is older and brittle.

Anthony had made many mistakes during his Viscountcy yet all the most painful belonged to his family. Colin had been so very young when his father had died, younger than he or Benedict.

It was a truth too excruciating, and too permanent for Anthony to bear, the way he had overlooked Colin in the wake of his father's death. It had been subtler than the way Daphne had taken on the caretaking of her younger siblings, the change that Colin underwent. He had leant on them both, in those early days, and sometimes still, more than he should have, more than he should have allowed. More than they had ever deserved.

And Colin had been so convincingly okay, that Anthony had never questioned it. And history repeats.

And now, he knows not how to live with his mistake nor how he can even begin to make amends.

It is a change in the bond that snaps his gaze to Colin. A sudden rush, a cracking pressure, a crushing weight. All in an instant.

"Col?" Colin's eyes are wide, his face ashen despite the brush of olive he'd been painted with abroad. Colin doesn't respond, doesn't acknowledge him at all and most concerning doesn't take draw a breath in a moment that stretches too long.

"Col…Colin!" He barks his younger brother's name, sharp and hard. Colin's eyes snap to meet his. As though he stutters back to life, Colin lifts a hand to rub at his sternum. Anthony shifts closer, moving to crouch before his brother when his breaths begin to grow shorter, shallower, quicker.

"Hey, you're okay, Col look at me, look at me. Breathe." Colin nods and his chest rises and falls as his brow furrows in confusion. And in that moment Colin seems younger than he has in such a very long time.

It comes out of nowhere. For a moment, he thinks the carriage has tipped in the street. He grips the seat below him, his fingers pitting the velvet cushion.

It recedes quickly, dulls after the initial flare. And he is left reeling, with a swelling confusion.

It feels, he realises then, not of his own. As though he is a spectator. As though it is a phantom pain. Though Anthony had been fine, and Benedict's side of the bond is calm.

Colin shakes his hands against the fine tremor that remains, flexing his fingers and reassures a fussing Anthony that he is well, recognising the terror in his brother's eyes, from another time.

Yet Colin's body remains tensed, ready to move, to run, a lancing need for something that is slower to abate. It buzzes beneath his skin, frenzied and out of grasp.

"Penelope?" She turns, eyes wide and for a blinding moment she thinks they know her name, feels their advancing shadow, awaits an unyielding, deadly grip.

"Pen?" She does not recognise the voice, the familiarity unreachable for her scattered mind. Not until he steps into her path and plants himself before her does she see him.

Benedict.

Her hasty retreat has left her gasping and white dots dance in her vision as she draws to a stop. Benedict's eyes are teeming with worry as he peers down at her.

His lips move but she cannot make out the words, as though he is far, as though the world and all of its noise spins away from her for a perplexing instant. As though she hangs in the air above it all, tipping to plummet to the ground.

"Let's get you home Penelope." She flinches away from him, recoils. Benedict freezes, his eyes roving across her face, then her form, as though searching for the cause of her state.

"Gen," she rasps. A one syllable victory, and all that she is capable of. Benedict blessedly, seems to understand. He nods but bends to meet her panicked eyes.

"Are you hurt?" His question is calm and pitched lower than normal. She shakes her head, and both of their eyes drop to the violent tremor of hands. She wonders if he can hear her racing heart, the roar of her rushing blood.

Benedict gestures into the street for a hack that immediately lunges their way. Her eyes well.

"Penelope." He uses the same voice of before and it cuts through the fog of her panic, the scramble of her thoughts. Unexpectedly, he follows her into the carriage. She blinks at him once he is seated opposite her, his elbows propped on his knees, as though ready to catch her, to hold her together himself.

She hadn't heard him speak with the driver but when the carriage suddenly lurches forward her stomach flips, growing heavy and curdling her fear. Bile rushing her throat.

Benedict leans across the space between them and lifts her hands into his own. She watches them disappear into his gentle hold, his hands so much bigger than her own. She is not wearing gloves, she realises distantly.

"Breathe with me okay." As they are pulled from Grosvenor square the peak of her panic ebbs. She breathes deep, copying the exaggerated movement of his chest, the lift of his broad shoulders, heaving in air, and out. In and out. In and out.

Deeper still, she tries to strip the nauseating scent that still coats her lungs. Benedict's scent is as grounding as his words that ask nothing of her but this. She follows them. His gaze anchoring her, his hold warm and steady.

"That's it Pen, you're doing good. Just breathe for me." Her body jostles as the carriage moves. She pays no mind to their journey, focuses solely on pulling the corners of herself closer together again. After a second, or an age, they draw to a stop.

Benedict squeezes her hands before he opens the door and exits the carriage. He remains close, releases only one hand, and standing in the door they are far closer in height. He holds her tighter than before, as though he expects her to stumble, she wills her legs to hold.

Penelope only realises she has not brought coins when Benedict slips the driver some from his pocket. He tucks her hand into the crook of his arm, does not step back into the carriage as she expects.

He refuses to depart and ignores her fractured protests as he ushers her from the street and steps into the modiste himself. She wishes she had not roped him into all this, wishes she could grip his hand once more and never let go.

Gen emerges from the back as the door closes. Her eyes widen when they fall upon Penelope, and she can only imagine the sight she makes. Benedict seemingly understands the change in the modiste's gaze, the tilt of her head because he guides her gently towards the staircase to Gen's quarters.

He settles her into the settee and presses a glass into her hands before seating himself atop the small table before her. He takes her hand once more and Genevieve arrives at the top of the stairs.

She sweeps across the room to Penelope, stepping into the space before her, between her and Benedict. Gen's hands cup her face, sweeping Penelope's hair back from her face in a way she has seen Violet do to Hyacinth, she thinks.

When Gen's brow creases in a brief confusion, an answer emerges from the fog that clouds Penelope's mind and she realises that Gen had likely thought she had presented.

And it's then for some reason, her tears begin to fall, the sob that builds in her chest finally grows too large to contain.

"I can't Gen," Benedict says a short time later, his feet planted. The expression she sends him is one of impatience and the way her eyes dart back towards the stairs tells him how much she wishes to return to Penelope. As though he had wanted to leave her for a moment.

Genevieve Delacroix had cleared the store, changed her sign, sent runners to cancel appointments and drew shut the curtains she had fashioned herself. All in the middle of a workday. He had never seen her close her business before, not for weather or sickness or anything else. Her work was her life, was her livelihood, was her pride and dreams and happiness.

The fact that Gen had so quickly and unthinkingly closed shop for the young woman now secreted away a floor above only worried him further.

"I have her, I promise." He had watched Gen refill Penelope's glass and fold a blanket across her before she had caught his wrist, pulling him up to follow her downstairs.

They'd left Penelope, glassy eyed tucked into Gen's settee. Her scent, tarnished with fear and panic and distress, clawed at Benedict's throat, had followed him down the stairs and stuck uncomfortably to his skin.

He had assumed the modiste had intended to fill him in out of earshot, only to realise she had been shepherding him towards the door instead, gathering what had happened from him quickly and efficiently.

"Gen." He hears the change in his own voice, notes the surprise that blooms in her eyes is the same that unfolds in his chest. The ragged sounds sits between them for a moment. And she must understand, that he cannot leave her like this.

"She's upset, Benedict think of all she's been through. She does not have her own family, she no longer has your sister, she is my friend, and she needs me. She will be alright here, and I'll send for you should we need you." Benedict searches her eyes, eyes that he has come to know. He sighs,

"Look after her." And she promises she will. And Benedict forces his logic to prevail over his instinct, forces himself from the store and waits to hear the click of the lock before turning away.

"Her name is Ida, she is a good woman" Gen implores, "She has taken in many omegas, and many others that have found themselves in a bad spot, she will take very good care of you."

"You'll send me to her if I present." Genevieve nods, squeezing Penelope's hand before reaching to tuck the blanket further around the younger girl. Penelope's voice is small and tired, on the other side of the sobbing that had gripped her. Genevieve had simply gathered her closer.

"She's ready for you, whenever you need, whatever you need. If you present, if it is unsafe for you to stay here. I trust her with my life, I trust her with you." Penelope's chin wobbles as she processes Gen's words, which surround her and settle against her skin.

Upon returning upstairs, Gen had been quick to slip beside her on the settee and circle her arms around Penelope, quickly and wholly dissolving the fragile composure Penelope had worked to piece together in her moments alone.

She had managed an explanation and watched Gen's own shock and worry unspool. The modiste had pulled another bottle from the shelf, the contents clear like water and two smaller glasses. The liquor had burned the last of the nauseating scent from Penelope's throat.

In the wake of this news, Gen tells her about Ida and about the plan she had been slotting into place on Penelope's behalf since they last spoke. And this time it is not panic that overwhelms her, that steals her breath and her words.

Gen easily deciphers Penelope's silence, the thoughts she cannot articulate,

"I told you Penelope, you are not alone."

And as though called by the words, a knock echoes up the stairs. Gen refuses her attempt to stand and returns a moment later with Penelope's lady's maid. Relief breaks over Penelope's shoulders and she crosses the room to embrace Rae.

Gen pours three glasses, and the women catch their breath for a moment, settling in the stillness of Gen's quarters. Outside Penelope knows the Ton continues to turn, continues on as though they have not suddenly been pushed to a precipice. As though at any moment they could tip right over.

"They presented themselves as the Talbot pack," Rae begins and Penelope feels the name being etched into bone deep within, knows it will never fade from her mind.

And knows that come nightfall she will visit her father's study for any trace of it. Her palms grow clammy at the thought. She has not dared even close to the working rooms of the house since the ball, had hoped she would never have to visit that study again.

Had spent many dark nights convincing herself his body did not still lay on its floor.

"They said they had travelled from their family estate in Bath, that they were guests of their cousins, that they had come to London seeking an omega to complete their pack." An old impulse surges forward and Penelope welcomes the familiar comfort of her curiosity, of the pursuit of information, of asking the right questions…of Lady Whistledown.

"Who is their cousin?" Rae grimaces and lets out a sigh, her body loosening for the first time since she had arrived.

"Your mother didn't ask." Penelope groans loudly pulling a small smile from Gen. Rae's face scrunches as though she wishes not to continue,

"She presumed they were calling upon your sisters who then arrived. When the pack asked after you specifically your mother explained you were not an omega. She tried to tell them about Prudence and Phillipa but they left soon after."

Penelope's mind spins with the new information, her thoughts fraying apart before they can thread together. The nausea though returns, stinging her throat, churning her stomach. Rae assures her they had barely spared her sisters a glance but a new fear unfolds.

"If I go to the officers…" Rae makes a sound that disintegrates the words on her tongue and Gen too shakes her head.

"You'll need proof Penelope that those men killed your father." She appreciates the way Gen speaks, the words she chooses, frank and firm. They sooth the way her mind threatens to spiral, to second-guess.

"They will not take your word for it." She nods, she knows. Yet it is a relief to hear Gen's certainty.

"Madam Delacriox is right Miss Penelope. I think even if they accept that you were there that night, they will claim your senses cannot be trusted because you have not presented." Rae infuses her words with an apology. Which is unnecessary.

"Just Genevieve…and Penelope," Gen reminds Rae who flushes yet Penelope sees that she is not finished. That there is more.

"The Talbot pack accepted your mother at her word for now but requested a status confirmation from your head of house." The words hang in the air. Penelope is unable to pinpoint the cause of her shock. And they are suspended for a moment of fraught silence.

Until Gen draws in a deep breath and raises her glass to them both,

"Well, it is indeed a very good thing we can reach Lord Featherington, is it not?"

A sound tears from Penelope's throat, made of both a sob and a laugh, though wilder than either. Distraught and distressed and hysterical. As though Gen's question has rocked her over a line she had not known to avoid.

The laces of her corset seem to cinch tighter then, the air is pushed from her lungs, is barred from returning. Her lips purse and she slides her eyes shut to focus.

Breathe with me Pen…just breathe for me.

And she does. And when she opens her eyes again, she realises Rae has reached for her free hand, Gen's fingers remain tangled in her other. She too recalls the way Benedict's hands had held hers.

She has been held more in a single day than during the decades that have passed.

You are not alone.

Like the man himself, the thought of Benedict is difficult to dislodge. And she remembers then his eyes turned dark with worry, the questions that creased his brow. She turns to Gen eyes-widening.

"Benedict…he will speak with his brothers." It is Genevieve and Rae now, who share a long wordless look.

"Would it be the worst thing?" Rae asks tentatively,

Penelope shakes her head at the idea, "No…no I can't involve them. It's bad enough I have involved the both of you."

"Hey," Gen chides from her other side, "we're here for you…we want to be here for you Penelope. They would too, the Bridgerton's love you." She shakes her head, as though out of all the things of which they have spoken, this is the most outrageous. Gen sighs softly beside her.

As she stands, still and silent against the wall, her mind slips to her daughter as it so often and so easily does. She imagines the little girl, all rosy cheeks and sparkling almond eyes.

Rae had been employed by the Featherington estate only several months after the birth of her daughter. And it is for her that she gets up each morning, for her that she works each long day, for her that she endures the distance between them and the way it breaks her heart.

For all the things she has learned in her employment it is Lady Featherington who has been her greatest teacher. Having spent time being trained by Mrs Varley, and then in service to all three of the Featherington daughters, she has witnessed each side and shade and shape of the mother that is Portia Featherington.

The mother that Rae would never be.

"You do not leave this house without permission!"

"I'm sorry Mama." When Rae and Penelope had slipped back onto the grounds, into the house, they had found Portia and her eldest daughters in the dining room, finishing supper as though nothing was amiss.

A full plate lay in Penelope's usual spot at the table. Rae knew it would remain untouched that evening.

They had stood, side by side, at the mouth of the room as a suffocating silence descended, the screech of Prudence's cutlery all that had remained. Portia's eyes had found Rae first, who attempted to hold her gaze, had refused to wither under the venomous stare. She was uncertain how Penelope had managed it for so very long.

Rae had swallowed her nerves, and fear, and worry and addressed her mistress.

"Miss Penelope was visiting Bridgerton House My Lady." Portia had finished her mouthful, nodding curtly, before she stood, chair scraping across the floor. Penelope had followed her mother wordlessly and Rae couldn't help but trail after them.

Portia said nothing. Did not spare her a glance. Perhaps she did not notice her, perhaps her presence merely did not signify. Rae tucked herself just inside the door of the sitting room and observed the way Portia paced. The way Penelope stood, seemingly calm and still before her. No trace of her earlier unravelling.

Time stretches, and the wait is agonising for Rae who is used to rushing, and rarely still and then a bitter, hollow laugh tears through the room. The hairs at the back of her neck lift.

Rae knows her own scent would have soured had she not used her scent blockers that morning. She wonders briefly if Penelope's scent, had she had one, too would have revealed fear in this moment…or anger…or something else entirely. Not for the first time Rae thinks of her training, how lady's maids were taught to learn their charges scents to anticipate their needs, to respond to important changes, to keep them from harm.

Without a designation, Penelope had never developed her scent. For a time, Portia had demanded Rae dab a perfumed oil across Penelope's decolletage each morning, it's scent artificial and embarrassing.

"Penelope." Portia turns on her heel, her tone turned feather soft, which is far more dangerous than any voice the matriarch could raise. "Despite my disbelieving eyes, today your first suitors called to the house. Your third season can you believe it?."

Penelope does not move, nor answer, does not rise to the bait they both know it to be. Portia advances, "And yet you were not here to receive them, nowhere to be found" she snaps, the words laced with rage.

"Alas Penelope." Voice soft again, dizzying. "The moment they heard of your situation their interest simply evaporated. Even my attempts to introduce them to your sisters were futile after I was forced to disclose your peculiarity." Rae recoils in Penelope's place, who does not flinch.

Portia stalks back toward the window, as though she cannot bear the sight of her daughter. As though the day's events have been simply too much to endure. Rae knew that Portia was intelligent, with sharp eyes and a survival instinct that made her formidable and ruthless. And sometimes unforgivably cruel.

"It is enough Penelope," Portia declares loudly, as though addressing the square below.

"We must accept that no one will marry you like this, no suitor will be accepting of you as you are, and I will not ignore it any longer." Cold dread begins to spiral its way up Rae's spine as Portia spits words at her daughter.

"I have employed a physician who will call upon us tomorrow. He will get to the bottom of this once and for all." Portia steps closer to Penelope than Rae has seen her in years. She places a finger beneath her daughter's chin, lifting it ever so slightly.

"If he is unsuccessful, if you continue this, it will be your last season in Mayfair Penelope. I will not have you poisoning your sister's futures."

"Madame Delacroix?" Genevieve startles and rises from her seat just inside Bridgerton House. Her hands twist in her lap despite her attempts to remain calm. It had been an gruelling day at best.

She had hoped to slip in unremarked, a quiet word in the second son's ear before she could be otherwise noticed. She had visited the estate several times, officially to deliver fabrics, unofficially with Benedict who had somehow slipped by her defences, charming and dangerous. He had snuck her in the side entrance, into his studio, and once into his quarters. From this distance she rolls her eyes at her own recklessness. She was smarter than to be undone by a boyish smile.

It is Anthony Bridgerton who stands before her now. She wonders if Humbolt announces all the visitors to the head of house, or if it is simply bad luck, or, more unsettlingly, if the Viscount was already aware of the likely reason for her visit.

"I apologise for the hour Viscount Bridgerton. I had hoped to call on Mr Bridgerton quickly…Benedict…your…" She clicks her jaw shut with force and straightens her spine, meeting Anthony's gaze. She is surprised at the amusement that flashes on his face for a fleeting second.

She considers turning on her heel, yet Penelope's pale face and panicked words are unable to be pushed out of mind just yet. Her visit is one of import.

"Very well, follow me Madame Delacroix."

Notes:

Guys I was completely blown away by your response to the last chapter, you are all the absolute best!

(I used your comments as little treats for myself after I had finished a section, so please know that you all literally brought this chapter into existence yourselves…it was a very effective way to motivate myself haha).

I hope you enjoy xx thank you for reading.

Chapter 10: Protection

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

"A presentation, unlike anything we've ever seen. The opening ball, a triumph to your name my dear. My diamond has been resplendent, has comported herself with nothing but beauty and grace. And the seeds of what would make several truly remarkable matches have already been sewn…"

Lady Agatha Danbury sips at her tea, considering the Monarch seated before her.

"All sure signs of a bountiful season ahead your highness." The orange evening light filters through the tall windows, setting a glow to the room. The gold of the room brandishes brighter, the jewels refract their sparkle across the walls, the world glistens for its Queen.

"And yet nothing," Queen Charlotte snaps contemptuously, "not a word from her, not one single sheet yet." The sudden bite in her words causes a ripple in the wall of satin and silk that is her ladies' maids.

"Perhaps she has not yet returned for the season." The Queen speculates aloud, her head tilting in contemplation. Lady Danbury hums, thoughtfully.

"Perhaps your efforts to identify Whistledown last season rather convinced her that her enterprise was a foolish pursuit, unworthy of the risk."

The words hang in the air for a moment of contemplation. Together, the Queen huffs and Lady Danbury waves them away. A dismissal, neither convinced by the conceit.

No, Lady Whistledown had proven herself to be formidable.

The voice the writer had established, in a mere two seasons, was able to change the tides of the Ton with a single string of words. A power, Lady Danbury muses, difficult to relinquish once held.

And now, as she sits before her Queen, her friend, Agatha finds another of her suspicions proven correct. That the Monarch holds no such desire for Whistledown's disappearance. That despite the words she employs about the writer, their Majesty relishes this game, this dalliance, this dance far too much to see its end.

Anthony Bridgerton leads Genevieve to what she quickly determines to be the Viscount's own study. He leaves the door slightly ajar and keeps his words low,

"Is she safe?" Gen blinks for a moment, at the worry in the Viscount's eyes, the raw edge of his words. Something aches in her chest before she nods, and reassures him that Penelope has been returned home, safe and well.

The lingering hope that Benedict had not yet disclosed in his brother wisps away.

Anthony pulls out a chair for her, at the table by the window and offers her a drink. She declines and then accepts once she glimpses his rather impressive liquor collection. Anthony hums his amuse pulling three glasses when a harried Benedict Bridgerton tumbles into the room.

Benedict pours himself into the chair opposite her as though he is water, and she repeats the reassurances, watching him wilt in relief. Benedict slides several more questions across the table before Anthony joins them. She observes the tension in their shoulders and hears Penelope's pleas as she selects her words with care.

Please Gen, they can't…I can't have them involved. Please don't tell them.

She has no intentions of betraying Penelope's trust. Not when their friendship is still so new and tenuous. Not when she has come to understand how alone the young Featherington so often is, in the Ton, in her home, evermore since the fracturing between her and Miss Eloise.

And not now, when Penelope is gently leaning on their friendship, as though testing its strength. Gen has observed the way Penelope hides her emotions, and selects her words cautiously, and hesitates to ask for too much…as though one wrong move, one thing too heavy, and their bond will snap.

Encountering Penelope Featherington in the market that day, small and sweet and unassuming Penelope, far from home, youngest daughter of a baron, friend of the Bridgerton's, a shy and sweet girl… ...Lady Whistledown.

Genevieve had thought herself more worldly than most of the sheltered minds of Mayfair, yet she had, like them easily accepted a thin and simple version of Penelope. Not seen anything further of the young woman, not thought to look for anything more.

And Penelope is, she has come to know, those things and everything else as well. Sweet and kind and generous. And wickedly funny and honest and intelligent. Sharp and soft and heartbroken. Thoughtful and fiercely protective.

The modiste recognises parts of herself in Penelope. In the drum of her ambition, in her trudging determination. In the sharp edges of her loneliness.

And something deep in her chest withers and aches at the thought of letting her down. At becoming another who would hand her only hurt or heartbreak.

So, she fortifies herself against the scepticism bright in Benedict's eyes, loud in the silence he allows to wash between them.

"The Penelope Featherington who couldn't even draw a breath earlier was having more than a hard time Gen," Benedict counters, folding his arms across his chest.

And yet despite his shape of stubbornness, he relents. As though he knows she has offered him all she can, all she is willing. She shouldn't be surprised in the ways that Benedict Bridgerton shifts through life anymore.

"Did you check on Colin?" he asks of the Viscount instead, who glances at Gen. Anthony is far less subtle than his brother, she muses.

"He's fine…confused." Benedict meets her eyes once more and Anthony swirls the liquor in his drink, and for a moment she thinks he will prevent Benedict from explaining.

"Just after I left the carriage Colin was arrested by panic…struggled to draw breath, his hands began to shake. Anthony said he reached for the door of the carriage as though he needed to run…and then it was gone, rather unlike panic."

"Just after I left the carriage," he repeats - slow for impact - "I stumbled upon Penelope…who could not breathe, nor speak, her whole body was trembling, she needed help."

Benedict's eyes hold her own, willing and waiting.

Anthony's eyes slide to her, heavier, troubled, unsure.

Anthony refills her glass in the quiet. The fire crackles behind her. Understanding unfolds. Her eyes widen,

"You think Penelope and Colin are mates."

It is later than normal by the time the last lantern is extinguished in the Featherington household, the darkness rouses Penelope from her place at the top of the staircase. Hours have passed since she had been dismissed to her quarters, her sisters to theirs.

Penelope slips through the halls, her feet bare, her steps silent. And too quickly her palm rests flat against the door of her father's study. Her heart shudders in its cage, in her fingertips, in the soles of her feet. And she is certain, that at any second it will simply tear apart. And she herself will ribbon to the ground in pieces.

Just like that night a noise propels her forward, or perhaps it is the night itself extending its shadowed hand to do what she cannot, to tip her across the threshold. She clicks the door shut and clamps her eyes closed and prays for silence.

She knows not how long she stands. The door at her back, her heart a trembling ball in her throat. Bracing for the sight that awaits her. In her mind death sings to her from the corners of the room, the coldness she remembers from that night begins to twist around her ankles.

Yet when she peels her eyes open, the study is as it has always been.

The carpet has been replaced and her gaze sticks to the place he had fallen…then the space she had hid, tucked between the shelves. Hiding, cowering away as her father was murdered. Doing nothing to help, not even attempting…she turns away, from the thought, from the sight.

Talbot.

She has a name. A reason to have returned to this hateful room. To threaten the memories she had exiled to the darkest parts of her mind.

She knows the name is likely as authentic as Whistledown's. But even if it false or forged, a simple fakery, she reasons it is still more than she possessed one day ago. Terrifying. Emboldening.

She sits at her father's desk and pulls the ledgers one by one by one. Consumes them page by page. She loops her L's the same way as her father does…did.

By morning she has not found a single trace of the name.

At ten thirty-five the light is perfect. It sweeps through the lingering fog of morning, a day in bloom. It glistens like scattered jewels across the Serpentine, which is already dotted with pedal boats unzipping its glass water top.

As promised, he and his brothers head to the opulent royal tent once their own family is settled on the banks.

They are hardly kept waiting, once again being ushered to the fore by the Queen's guard. Gabrielle meets his eyes briefly, despite the suitor that chatters before her. Anthony nods and is rewarded with a small smile that shapes her lips. He only recognises Lord Huntington, when the man follows her distracted gaze, throwing an agitated scowl toward the brothers. Benedict smothers a laugh beside him.

Anthony's eyes are drawn back to their tent, the blue canopy the colour of the sky. He knows his mother will hardly waste his absence – sweeping suitors in for Francesca's acquaintance, he itches to return. Anthony had learned from his mistakes with Daphne…he would do better this season.

Before long they are seated before the young Parisian. Anthony thinks Francesca would like Gabrielle. She is fluent in French and English, German and sheet music. She tells them the way she visits the gallery weekly, and dreams of seeing the cliffs in the south and the isles of the north and yearns to be a mother. Art and adventure and legacy.

She is poised and proper and purposeful in her answers, a faultless conversationalist.

And then, like smoke beneath a door, a ruinous little voice in the back of his mind whispers that these interests and dreams are not her own, are spun instead for them like gold.

A promise of riches. For what men did not covet gold.

In his mind, he recalls his list. The one that Benedict had ridiculed for far too long, the one his mother would never know about, the one Eloise would likely disown him for…or set afire (him, his audacity and his list). Tolerable…dutiful…the makings of a Viscountess. Thinks perhaps that she might be its embodiment, wonders if it perhaps had blown into her hands.

She is undoubtedly beautiful, as though the sunlight itself paints the colour of her hair. Her pale blue eyes are clear, calm, still. Her scent is pleasant. He imagines her on the steps of Aubrey Hall, the centrepiece of the balls she will effortlessly throw, a flawless bride.

It is Gabrielle who extends the invitation to the palace, causing aflutter in the crown of lady's maids that surround her. A second victory before they leave.

Later when Anthony takes supper around the table crowded with Bridgerton's, he will try to picture her amongst the bedlam. With a hair out of place. Holding against the tide of his siblings.

When he walks the halls after nightfall, an echo of his father's rich voice and mother's laughter will rush by him in the corridors. Eternal. And he will realise he has not heard her laugh.

Colin and Benedict bracket him and silence weaves them together as they retreat back toward the Bridgerton tent. There is a conversation that dawns on their horizon, decisions that must be made, suits which soon must be declared.

"Brother!" The three alphas are pulled from their thoughts and stop in their tracks. Their eyes snap up in search, frames bracing for impact, all as one shape. Francesca flushed and teary arrives before them, winded in her apparent haste. Her floral scent is soured with distress. She takes hold of Benedict's arm as her panicked eyes flit between her brothers. The bond ripples with alarm.

She is forced to heave in a breath before she can provide an explanation.

"Gregory punched Lord Jameson."

Penelope had spent the morning stifling yawns and avoiding attention, which was unfortunate considering the ton's entire populace seemed to have descended upon Hyde Park for promenade.

She trails her sisters, listens to their complaints when Portia Featherington makes to walk the lakeside path a third time. Penelope knows her mother, who smiles amiably, and holds herself tall, knows she is searching for them…had likely spent the night scheming a way to entice the Talbot pack's interest.

And Penelope resolves once more there on the banks, as she had standing over her father, and scouring ledgers in his study the night before, that her mother cannot learn of the deed. Her mother can never know.

Penelope gradually shortens her steps, slows her pace, allows their distance to grow. They do not notice, and she is used to passing time herself.

Her skin enjoys the sunshine, her eyes wander the banks, news and gossip and secrets reach out to her and she lets it fall. Perhaps someone else will pick it up now.

Her mother stops to speak with Lady Cowper for a time, and Penelope braces for whatever cruelty Cressida has leftover. Yet, impossibly they pass without a word, without colliding. Penelope chances a glance, too confused to be relieved, and wonders if she imagines the redness of Cressida's eyes.

It is not long before Penelope's gaze unwittingly finds Bridgerton blue in the sea of colour. Like finding the sun in the sky, a light in the dark. And then she focuses her attention, and her thoughts fall away, and her heart jumps in her chest, and her feet pull her across the lawn before she can even think to move.

Francesca stands, shoulders tight and drawn high, arms hugging her middle. The tent is surprisingly empty, yet the rapid reddening of Gregory's face distracts her from wondering after the missing Bridgerton's.

The youngest brother has his arms crossed and pushes his way between Francesca and the silhouette of a man Penelope recognises as Lord Jameson beneath the canopy.

Lord Jameson could perhaps use some etiquette lessons of his own before he reattempts to traverse the marriage mart. This author fears the refined Miss Dawson may prefer to accept her sister's invitation across the channel than endure more of such mulish behaviour.

"How dare you speak to my sister like that," Penelope hears Gregory growl in a startlingly accurate approximation of Anthony. Lord Jameson had evidently attended no lessons, heeded no cautions. He ignores Gregory entirely.

"… how can I be certain of what you say? You'll have to convince me Miss Bridgerton." Penelope catches only some of his words, baiting and saccharine. They are enough for unease to jet into her veins.

"Don't talk to her," Gregory erupts and abruptly launches himself forward. Lord Jameson's face twists into outrage and he catches Gregory's arm in a bruising grip. Penelope lunges forward, a furious shout tearing from her chest loudly.

"Lord Jameson release him at once!"

Chaos erupts beneath the Bridgerton canopy. Entrapped, Gregory struggles in his grip, instantly enraged. And Hyacinth, knotting into a little ball of fury, fearlessly launches to grab Jameson's arm and wrench it away from her brother.

Penelope hears Fran's yell, and then Eloise's voice urgent and drawing closer. When Jameson swats in Hyacinth's direction Penelope's heart seizes and she sways into the fray pulling the smaller girl to her front. Arms circling her frame and all of her fury.

"Miss Featherington," he spits, eyes narrowing upon her, "and here I thought the Bridgerton's had abandoned their little pet." His words are punctuated by the effort of avoiding Gregory's elbows.

"Let my brother go." And for the first time of the season, Penelope and Eloise find themselves shoulder to shoulder. Jameson's face twists in anger as he glowers at them, before wheezing out a pained gasp. Gregory grins triumphantly.

"Lord knows the skirt's not worth this trouble," Jameson hisses vulgarly, attempting now to shake Gregory from him. His other hand grips the back of the boy's coat to dislodge him, "I should like to speak to whoever raised you, feral little mutt."

"That would be me." A dark voice, almost unrecognisable, spears through the tent from behind her. The quarrelling of boy and man, the writhing of Hyacinth, the dust in the air stills at the sound.

For one split of a second, one blistering fraction of time, Anthony's scent swallows her whole. It is bolder now, darker and foreboding, barrelling through the air, consuming.

"Remove your hands from my brother." Jameson though, does not move fast enough and a sound leaves Anthony that has Jameson stumbling away instead.

And then he sweeps by her, Benedict and Colin flanking him. A blistering force. A wall of shoulders and rage. And her world blurs so completely for a moment she fears she too will collapse or stumble.

She drops her nose closer to Hyacinth's crown, the sweetness of the pup a blessing. Hyacinth, taking her closeness for comfort, burrows back against Penelope and clings to her.

Benedict swoops to retrieve his brother tucking him under his arm. Colin makes a show of inspecting Gregory for harm. She has never seen the brothers like this. Dark. Angry. Dangerous.

And perhaps she should be unsurprised, the eldest Bridgerton's have always been extremely protective over their charges. And even though she can feel Eloise and Fran speaking behind her, and now Violet's voice, she cannot look away from them, from the way their molten anger eclipses entirely all she has ever known of them. The easy-going, the lightness. Gone.

"What possessed you to approach unchaperoned omegas?" Anthony demands darkly.

"What dared you to put your hands on a pup?" Another day Gregory would be offended but the boy only arches a grin toward Jameson from his place between his older brothers, the shape of it menacing, promising.

It seems to shake the stunned Jameson awake, jar him back into his body, into time. He sucks in a breath as though he has not dared to do so since the alpha's arrived. Penelope watches the man force himself taller, force his lips to curl into a smirk. She sees his mistake before he makes it.

"What omegas…the one fucking radical's downtown or t-"

"Anthony!" For a moment she thinks the Viscount has struck him as Gregory had made to do earlier then she sees the way Jameson struggles to keep his feet beneath him as the Viscount stalks from the tent with a handful of the protesting Lord.

"Benedict!" Violet cries next, but the second brother does not follow. Instead, he turns and huffs out a deeply overexaggerated breath, as though encouraging them all to follow, which they do. Penelope cannot help but recall the day before, tucked into the carriage opposite him,

That's it Pen, you're doing good. Just breathe for me.

And then as though he had not just been so entirely unrecognisable, Benedict's face scrunches into an expression she has only ever seen him make. Something teasing and puckish and lifting.

"I see we have decided on chaos today Bridgerton's, very good." Gregory grins at Benedict's words, still tucked beneath his arm, and the tension fractures like a pane of glass. The world roars back in and Penelope is unstuck.

Eloise leans forward to high-five Gregory who snickers loudly, and Colin wraps an arm around Fran who though she is slightly pale lets free a chime of laughter at whatever he murmurs.

"Mama you should have seen Penelope!" Hyacinth exclaims then still against her, "she came out of nowhere and yelled at that awful alpha Anthony's probably killing," Penelope hears the grin in the girl's voice and chokes on her own breath.

"Your brother is not killing anyone Hyacinth," Violet admonishes before refocusing on her.

"It is very lovely to see you though Penelope," Violet says softly placing a hand on Penelope's shoulder before she moves to her sons.

Penelope attempts to stay upright under the weight of the gazes she finds herself abruptly beneath. One blistering the skin of her cheek.

The one fucking radical's downtown…" Penelope's horror unfolds as the words slice through her mind. When she turns Eloise's eyes are waiting.

Wounded and angry and accusing. A knife across her chest.

And yet worse. Far worse. Is the regret and shame Eloise is attempting to conceal.

And she never meant for this.

Anthony reappears. The world moves too fast now. And Hyacinth tears herself out of Penelope's arms and barrels into his chest. He absorbs the force of her effortlessly and for a moment holds Penelope's gaze, and she tastes his scent on her tongue, and thinks of his dress jacket buried in the bottom of her closet, and wonders about the state of Lord Jameson.

She excuses herself quickly, hears her name being called and hastens her retreat.

She never meant for any of this.

Hyacinth moves to follow her but Anthony gently keeps her in place as they watch Penelope retreat. Colin calls her name twice more, anguished and frustrated. She does not turn.

He is distracted by the peppery change to her normal scent. It lingers briefly and he recalls the blazing blue he had glimpsed before his vision had tunnelled completely to the alpha intruding on his family's space, the alpha she had been holding Hyacinth from, had been so fiercely glaring at.

He had never seen Penelope Featherington angered.

For a moment he wills her to turn back. To see if her eyes were still afire.

His knuckles throb with a blooming bruise. He answers Benedict's questioning glance with a nod and notices the way his brother is inching toward Eloise whose shoulders have rounded, who avoids their eyes. His knuckles throb with wanting this time, for penance, for his pistol as he recalls the vile words Jameson had dared. The slight against them, against her.

Later, Eloise will let herself sag against him, into his embrace just for a few short seconds when he catches her in the hall, and he will huff out a thankful sigh and hold her for an extra breath. Until she demands her release.

And the dastardly words will circle his mind, like water at a drain, well into the night and his anger will reignite and he will let his liquor chase it through his veins.

Colin avoids him that evening, and Benedict slips from the house.

And a weight begins to press against his shoulders. A growing list of things unresolved, things outstanding, things unhandled.

His overdue conversation with Colin and now Jameson's words. Fran's potential suitors and their reputation in the Ton. The increasing demands of Parliament and Benedict's application to the Royal College. Eloise's lingering melancholy. Gregory's Eton application. The staff changeover at Aubrey Hall. The incoming Lord Featherington and the murder across the square. And Penelope. And Penelope and Colin and Eloise and Penelope. Genevieve's words from the night previous. Genevieve and Benedict. Sienna. The diamond. A Viscountess. And if it would be enough, truly to restore the Bridgerton name. His duty and an heir and his pack and their bond and their future and his mother's sweeping disappointment and suddenly he cannot breathe.

He squeezes his eyes shut.

He forces breath into his lungs.

Blue flames dance in the dark.

Genevieve drags her palms across her face. In a single day her world has been undone and remade and she feels unstitched.

Rae sits opposite her having arrived just before midnight. With news of the physician at Featherington House that day. Recounting Portia's threat of Penelope's exile from the Ton at the end of the season.

"I am worried for her Genevieve," Rae says, her admission quiet and fraught with fear. "Penelope is resilient and smart and clever but even she cannot protect herself against everything. She needs help. She needs protection."

And Gen is pulled back to Bridgerton House. And she knows not if it is regret unfolding in her chest.

"You think Penelope and Colin are mates?" Genevieve repeats, this time a question, airy and incredulous. Benedict does nothing to deny her words, though Anthony sighs,

"We think they have a bond…that they could be compatible as mates." Benedict snorts at his brother's diplomacy,

"Penelope is not an omega."

"Penelope has not yet presented," Benedict counters calmly.

"She may not present at all. She may be a beta," Gen argues…wishes, unable to think about that awful deed and her awful father and all of the awful things that could happen if Penelope were indeed an omega.

Benedict slates a disbelieving look toward Genevieve she struggles to unravel. There was no reasonable way to know if Penelope had a mate, if Penelope was an omega. No way for anybody to-

"We can feel it."

"Ben," Anthony warns. His voice low. Benedict however is not dissuaded. His sudden sincerity reaches across the table to her.

"We can feel it Gen. How different, how…settled Colin is when he's around her. How he responds to her. Maybe Penelope is not an omega, but I swear to you both they are mates." With his words, Gen realises Anthony is a degree of unsure, that Benedict's words are for him as well as her.

It is his certainty that gives her pause. Because Benedict Bridgerton, bless him, is hardly ever certain about anything. Except for his family. To which his devotion was all-encompassing and unwavering.

She had quickly learned how attuned with one another the Bridgerton Pack were. How connected Benedict was with his packmates. Though familial packs were not rare she had never encountered one as strong as them.

And she is suddenly the one with all the questions. The weight in the room seems to shift, the world as she had known it tilts as she dares to consider his words. She does not wait to seek answers, has not gotten as far as she has by tip-toeing.

"You're a pack…so is Penelope your mate?" she baldly asks of the men, two thirds of the Bridgerton pack before her.

"There are many dynamics in familial packs. Some end up with one omega that binds the pack…some establish separate bonds yet remain connected."

Gen almost misses Anthony's answer… because there in Bridgerton House, in the Viscounts study another thought begins to thread together in Gen's mind…blinding and arresting and almost inconceivable.

Her mind slips to the helplessness that had swallowed Benedict's pupils in her store, of the way he seemed to physically struggle to distance himself from Penelope, of the pained, aggrieved sound that had ripped straight from his chest. Not something she had ever heard from him before.

She slates her eyes toward Benedict, "You're all rather protective over her wouldn't you say?" He shrugs,

"Penelope has been a part of this family for years, and if she is Colin's mate then she is pack."

"Madame Delacroix." It is almost odd to hear Anthony address her so formally when they speak so intimately. A grin plays on Benedict's lips. She turns her attention to the eldest Bridgerton.

"Despite any connection that our brother or pack may have to her, it would appear that Penelope is dear to us all. The only important thing right now is that if she needs help-"

And before her now sits the esteemed Viscount, the skilled negotiator and successful business man. And the way he binds them together, for a trembling moment tugs at all the words she could say, the words that perhaps she should say.

And all the shadows, and fears and dangers Penelope 'dear to them all' finds herself facing ball in her throat. Genevieve is not naive, and she knows Penelope is in over her head. And the Bridgerton's are powerful and resourceful and protective.

Yet she rolls her lips together and swallows the words. Because she knows so certainly, the way she will sever the trust between them in an instant, knows exactly the way Penelope will flinch away, hide and withdraw, from her, from them all. Will become unreachable.

The worry bleeding in Anthony's gaze is painful to witness, it shakes her resolve. And the new shape forming in her mind grows bigger.

"If Penelope needs help then she can ask for it," Genevieve answers. Her hard words carve out a moment of silence. Yet Anthony appears unconvinced, his eyes flitting toward the window, across the square. Benedict too is uneasy across the table, a reflection of his brother who meets her gaze one more time, levels one last question. And in it, she hears his fear.

"But will she?"

Notes:

Thank you thank you thank you for your response to the last chapter. I cannot tell you how much I love hearing your thoughts and ideas and suspicions of what's coming next!

I had hoped to get this out end of last week but it just wouldn't play nice - apologies for the delay! I also kept getting distracted writing so many fun things for the upcoming chapters.

I really hope you enjoyed and would love to hear what you think!

I hope everyone's well and today is kind xx

Chapter 11: A Trying Time

Notes:

See end for warnings

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

The physician is not what Penelope expects.

He is younger than she had anticipated. His dress, formal and he bows to Portia and then to her as though he is about to request a dance.

He offers her a smile that is not unkind and sits patiently while Portia expounds on her plight.

An undesignated daughter. An unexplainable delay. An aberration.

"I cannot blame the Ton for their suspicions around this strangeness. There are concerns forming though that children born of my other daughters could be similarly impacted. This issue must be resolved."

Penelope feels his gaze on her face as he listens, occasionally nodding, occasionally scribbling in the notebook he splits the spine of.

The physician begins his own line of questioning then. Penelope finds she must provide most of the information, when her Mama searches the silence for too long. Mrs Varley is the only other present in the room. Rae has been dismissed to the servant's quarters.

The scratch of his quill across the page is loud in Penelope's ears. She is struck by an urge to rip the parchment from its binds, tear it to pieces, watch it dissolve to ash in the fire. She wants to run.

When he stands, he seems taller than when he had arrived, larger and looming. He moves slow and infuses his words with a lightness that sounds contrived. Her nails dig into the arms of the chair as her mother's eyes narrow, demanding her compliance. A silent shout. She wants to run.

He crouches before her and draws an instrument from the bag he sets by her side.

"We will conduct a basic assessment today. This will take your temperature. It will take time. It will sit beneath your tongue." He speaks in small staccato sentences. And it is helpful and patronising. And she is grateful and irritated. Her teeth click together, and the physician tilts her jaw, and the glass of the thermometer is cold in her mouth.

"Good." He nods curtly.

His fingers drag a line from her jaw, over her neck then, searching. The pad of his fingers, clammy, their sharp press, painful, pitting the skin where glands should be.

He lifts her hands into his own next. One by one. The physician prods his thumb over her wrists firmly. She can feel her heart thundering beneath her skin, beneath his touch, drumming in protest.

He retrieves a stack of gauze squares and swipes one over the skin of her neck. Another over her wrists.

"I will collect samples, have them analysed." Portia nods over his shoulder, as though she had known this already, as though she has no further questions. Penelope has a thousand. She imagines biting down on the glass, shattering it on her tongue, spitting her questions amongst the shards and the blood. Staining the white of his shirt the way his touch stains her skin.

"I know it's all scary but we're going to get you back to normal, okay," he comforts or condescends. He pats her knee, and his hand is a heavy weight on her thigh. It burns through the fabric of her gown, her stays.

"Open." He pulls the thermometer from its place then, though keeps a hold of her chin as he reads it. His fingers press along her teeth, lift her lip to inspect her gums and then he places another small square beneath her tongue. She is frozen still.

"Alright Miss Featherington, I'm going to hold a swatch of fabric to your nose I want you to inhale." But when he lifts it, he covers both her nose and her mouth, a firm pressure and waits. Her eyes widen and when she must inhale it is pungent and strong and alpha. Her eyes well in revulsion and the physician hums.

"How curious." His eyes rove her face, and he disappears into thought for a long, silent moment. And his eyes slate into something different. His gaze scrapes across her skin like metal. He looks at her now like a problem to solve, an outlier to correct. She wants to run.

"I'll ask you to stand." Her eyes dart to the door. Her knees tremble.

"Place your hands on the settee. I will collect one final sample and leave you for the day. I will have enough to commence my analysis." Portia thanks the doctor and Penelope withers.

And then he begins to lift her skirt and she recoils so violently that Portia herself shoots to a stand. Before logic can prevail, Penelope thinks her mother has rushed to her feet to intervene.

"You will do as the physician asks," Portia Featherington hisses.

In another life, she could be a mother reaching for her daughter's hands, to reassure and comfort, but her Mama's hands were not made to hold. Her fingers encircle her wrists, place them back on the settee.

The sting in her eyes is betrayal.

Portia clicks her tongue,

"There is no need for hysterics. Scent glands are on your neck, your wrist and your thigh. The physician will swipe this one as well," she says as though Penelope should have known. Mrs Varley looks away.

Panic clouds her mind, her body seizes still. She does not want this, any of this. Portia keeps weight on her wrists, and she wants to run, and she thinks she may never be able to move again.

He widens her stance. The cloth swipes against her skin, tears build in her eyes and bile rushes her throat and then, abruptly and unexpectedly, the door crashes open.

"What is the meaning of this?" Anthony Bridgerton strides into the room. The blood in her veins stills at the sound, her skirts drop back to the floor, the touch recedes.

Anthony's scent, furious and unbearable sweeps through the room, a tidal crash of anger. She waits for the windows to shatter in their frames.

"Remove your hands from her." The physician, though, does not move fast enough and Anthony strides across the floor and takes a fistful of his overcoat and sends him careening away from her. She feels herself collapse.

And then Benedict is there, and then Colin too, and their scents are promises of safety, oaths of shelter and protection. They bracket her, keep her upright, keep her from stumbling or falling or tearing herself into pieces.

She tips into Colin's chest, seeking out the comfort of his familiar scent. He has always been her comfort. Benedict's voice is at her ear, quiet and coaxing, and her heart slows under his reassurances, air manages its way into her lungs under his practiced guide.

Her fingers twist into Colin's shirt, she burrows herself closer against him, the steady wall of Benedict at her back. And then Anthony's words are a finger beneath her chin, lifting her gaze.

"What possessed you to put your hands on her?" She steals a glance toward them. Anthony's fingers are wrapped around the physician's neck, pinning him to the wall, digging into his skin the way his had pressed so harshly into her own.

Then Colin cradles her head, drawing her gaze back to him. Benedict's hand slides across her shoulders soothingly. She wants to drag his touch against the other places the physician had touched, erase him from her skin.

Their scents wrap around her, cocoon her into something that is safe and warm until she hears her mother's voice, an uproar and Colin and Benedict are pulled away by two uniformed men, the Queen's guard she hazily realises, she stares wide-eyed and bewildered before she hears the sob that tears from her chest, riddled with panic and fear and she reaches for them. They call her name, as if it will be the last time they can. And fingers grip her arms tightly to keep her in place, and they are there…the Talbot pack, on either side of her, pressing closer, their faces blurred and hold too tight. And then a door swings open and her father, Archibald Featherington, stalks into the room and wrenches Anthony away from the physician and his eyes are not cold or hollow or dead – they are blazing and burning and loathing as they turn to stare at her. A scream builds in her throat, irrepressible. So loud that it tears the room apart, the windows from their frames, disintegrates the floor beneath her feet and she is falling, and falling, and falling.

Penelope's eyes snap open. Her body is propelled upright. Her eyes dart around the room, recognising her bedroom, dark and empty. Her hands reach for the sheets that have wound themselves around her legs in her sleep, fighting to loosen their grip. Her body trembles, she gasps around her breath, and begs the nightmare away. Colin and Benedict and Anthony and her father and the physician and the pack and the sky is light beyond her window. Morning. Unwelcome when fatigue presses on her shoulders so heavily.

She suspects she may never sleep peacefully again.

Images flash through her mind. Shivers wrack her frame. Her cheeks flame red, her skin grows cold. She is overwhelmed.

She is still in the dress Rae had laced her into the previous morning. After the physician had repacked his bag and left the house, quietly and orderly, with only a few parting words to her mother Penelope had escaped up the stairs, sought refuge in her quarters, feeling hardly of herself.

She had not returned downstairs for supper, and no one had sent for her.

No one had come for her.

No one would come for her. It whispers.

In the emptiness of morning, a phantom press of fingers is there against her skin, and for the first time Penelope's reeling mind slips to Gen's words.

If it is unsafe for you here…I trust her with my life, I trust her with you..

She had tucked them at the periphery of her mind, dragged them over her sharpest hurts and boldest fears, a blanket of reassurance. An option, a last resort.

But now, now she imagines herself slipping from the sheets, down the stairs, through the streets. To Gen. Then somewhere new, somewhere safe. And maybe there she could be new too. Maybe there, these ghosts could not follow. Maybe there, she would be easier to love. She wants to run.

She does not feel of herself.

The morning passes slow, Penelope spends calling hours relegated to her room at the command of her mother. She attempts to read only to find her worries in the spaces between sentences. Attempts to write yet the empty page taunts her, her lost moniker screaming from the crypt Penelope has abandoned her in.

And perhaps this is simply who she is, stripped of Whistledown. Watered down, transparent, weak where Whistledown was strong and bold and impervious. Without her armour she is left exposed and wanting.

She feels as wrong as her mother has always claimed.

She knows it is not just Whistledown. She feels another person entirely without Colin and Eloise, without her soul being steeped in everything of Bridgerton House so very often. It has been so many months now.

This is the bed she had made for herself, over and over and over. The destiny she had hand stitched.

And she knew that these losses would come in waves. This grief would ebb and flow. But today she is too tired to tread its waters. Too heavy to float. Today she is drowning.

Which is perhaps why her resolve is so weak.

After the Featherington's arrive at the Queen's Garden Party and have lapped the south courtyard once together, they disperse to tarnish different corners of the Queen's event with yellows that are too bright and garish.

Before she can locate all the Bridgerton's to avoid, Francesca and Hyacinth find her.

Hyacinth immediately tucks herself against Penelope's side and unknowingly shifts a piece of her back into place.

Francesca laments that she hadn't found a chance the day before to thank Penelope for coming to her defence. Penelope waves the words away uncomfortably, the memory still fresh and vivid slips into mind. Anthony storming for Lord Jameson…for the physician… her dream swirls unwittingly into her mind, blurring reality. And she flushes. And she is unsure why she flushes. And it is all so confounding.

When Fran sweetly invites her to Bridgerton House the following day her protests are swallowed by Hyacinth's enthusiasm. Fran asks a second time, as though she hadn't heard her and Penelope and her tired resolve, concede easily. Francesca Bridgerton is far more astute and wilier than people credit.

Hyacinth whispers helpfully that Eloise will be out of the house. Because really all the Bridgerton sisters are a force to be reckoned with. Perceptive and intelligent and beautiful and exceptional. She loves them so. She misses them more.

She wonders then, if distance could be a balm for this ache. Or if she would simply leave her heart here and attempt to continue elsewhere without it.

The day is unseasonably warm, the breeze sweeps throughout the courtyard of the South lawns, waves of warmth, a silk of spring.

Violet Bridgerton allows her smile to fade, her enthusiasm to wane just for one little unnoticed moment, as the Ton's attention is captured by the Queen's new imports whinnying about their new paddock.

Violet had spent the morning corralling her children into attendance. None of them eager to leave the house after the events at Hyde Park the day prior, preferring to remain home to lick their wounds.

Even Anthony had easily wilted when Hyacinth had curled into his side, had widened her eyes and softened her voice just so, and requested a family day. Violet had crossed her arms, unimpressed and Eloise ended up owing a laughing and smug Benedict an amount of pin money she wished not to know.

They would not be slighting the Queen with their absence on her watch.

She had admonished all three of her sons once she had learned, in the carriage on the way, that they had been extended a personal invite from the diamond herself.

She and Francesca, arm in arm, head the promenade upon their arrival. Anthony trails them, entertaining a boisterous Hyacinth until he overhears their discussion of Francesca's suitors and steps to her other side to participate.

When she spots Lord Jameson ahead, Violet turns to warn her son to find his eyes already focused. Realises the Lord is far more likely the reason she and Anthony now bracket her third daughter.

The Lord excuses himself from the group he stands in before they reach him. She pretends not to notice the mottling over his jaw.

Her children are quick to scatter once their circuit is complete, disappearing before she can muster even one. She meets the gaze of an amused Agatha Danbury instead.

They find some sunshine and find some wine and relax into the day.

They bet on Daphne's pregnancy, rejoice in their success of last season, in the happiness of the Duke and The Duchess. A win that shines still just as bright.

Agatha confides the Queen is rather enthused by the Bridgerton's interest in her diamond, and then more quietly that their majesty is also rather incensed that there has not yet been a Whistledown to remark on the likely suit. And even Violet muses that perhaps the season would not seem so disorderly with a word or two from Whistledown.

Colin brings both her and Agatha another glass, and then a cake, as he returns to the refreshment table several times before she shoos him away,

"He seems much improved," Agatha regards as they observe Colin's retreat. Violet nods her accord, hopeful and relieved, though unsure of the cause of Colin's sudden lift of spirit.

"Ah Anthony," Violet sighs, relieved at the sight of her eldest son on the terrace. Then she pauses, something maternal and protective raising its head as she notes his silhouette.

She slowly joins him, leaning against the railing, the ends of her shawl ribboning in the breeze as they look out over the gardens. The Queen has long departed, leaving the terrace free.

"Have you seen Francesca?" He points to the far side of the yard where Francesca is speaking with a shape Violet takes a moment to realise is a blended Penelope and Hyacinth that makes her smile fondly.

She catches Anthony's eyes circle the grounds.

"And Eloise?" she asks not having seen her daughter for a while. Anthony points to the back of the garden, and she finds Eloise, barely visible, tucked between some exquisite topiary, a book splayed in her lap she hadn't noticed her daughter carry.

"I'm quite certain Benedict smuggled it under his waistcoat," Anthony supplies and Violet huffs a quiet laugh.

"We will never admit it to her, but I find myself rather comforted by the picture she makes there," she confesses as she watches her daughter.

"Indeed," Anthony murmurs dropping his gaze below where Cressida Cowper, Gabrielle and a cluster of debutantes have gathered. From their vantage point, above the trees, the world seems calmer than below, slower, easier. She takes a moment to ease air into her lungs.

"The others?" Anthony points then to the other side of the garden and she sighs in (mostly) exaggerated dismay when she finds Colin correcting Gregory's fencing posture, Benedict brandishing one of the two sticks they have found somewhere. Anthony does laugh this time.

The breeze seems to still for a moment, a cloak of quiet, a thoughtful reprieve. Her heart swells tenderly beside Anthony, her children all held in his gaze. She reaches for his hand, where it rests on the railing, sweeps her thumb gently across his bruised knuckles.

"You have always protected them so well," she says, the words so soft they lift into the air, are swept away and carry over heads. He swallows several times, and she lets him be. And he looks so heavy for a moment, made from stone and steel and she wants to lift his chin, his heart. She aches to see the smile of his boyhood, loud and free.

And her grief and her love swells, the same and different. Because it should be Edmund she stands beside here, watching over their children, not Anthony. And the unwavering unfairness of it all trembles her heart, so familiar, still so intolerable.

She squeezes Anthony's hand, who has grown still beside her. Then she unknits the tension as they have learned to do.

"I fear though our combined efforts will not be enough to survive Hyacinths' debut." Anthony does smile then, and her gaze falls below them, the diamond catching her eye.

"Perhaps we will have some additional help by then?" Gabrielle below them, is crowded by the Ton as she has been for the entire day, the entire time since she arrived in London Violet muses.

"God help them. I can't imagine anyone having success wrangling Hyacinth" Anthony attempts to joke but when she looks back his eyes are troubled and have refocused on his brothers. Then his sisters.

Together they watch Penelope fastening her clip into Hyacinth's hair, who is delighted.

"I won't have this. Francesca does not deserve this. It is Daphne's first year as a duchess. I won't abide anyone speaking of Eloise this way." And the mother in her, hears the self-flagellation in his tone. As though any of this has stemmed from Anthony. It is not as bad as Anthony believes – but their family has not had to weather many storms of this nature.

"I will court the diamond, Gabrielle, with the intention to marry. I will declare my suit come morning."

"As a pack?" Silence swirls around them.

"It is not their burden," Anthony says quietly then. Benedict pretends to have been killed, dropping to his knees, face stricken…she can hear Gregory's roaring laugh on the wind. Colin lifts his arm in victory. And her heart shatters, raining against her lungs, wedging between her ribs. She understands.

"Love is not a burden Anthony." He nods, like he knows. And she realises he does. He does not speak of love now. He speaks of marriage, of legacy, and duty, of their restoration.

And then her son, then Viscount Anthony Bridgerton attempts to stave off the words he knows she is going to say.

"Colin is in love with Penelope." And it is a very good attempt. The only one that may have worked, she muses, with an amused curl of her lips. And they will speak of it later…all of this said in a mere glance.

He turns away, arching his gaze back over the court, bracing when she does not relent. Not this time, not when it's of such import. Because,

"It's not what he would have wanted for you."

"He would have wanted his family safe," he counters stubbornly.

"For you" she impresses.

"He would want me to marry well, produce an heir. It would be a fine union."

"The only thing your father ever cared about Anthony, was your happiness." There have been far too many battles that she has left to Anthony, many more than she wishes she had. So many failings on her part.

This would not be one of them.

Colin circles the courtyard determined.

'A trying time' were the words she had used. 'A trying time' to describe the death of her father, her unexplainable estrangement with Eloise, her isolation at Clarendon House – her months with only her mother and sisters. 'A trying time' to explain away the pallor of her skin, the shadows in her eyes, the sudden end of her letters and the way she keeps slipping away from him and avoiding his family.

After following her from Lady Danbury's ball and tucking her into his brother's coat and bundling her into a carriage to aid her escape, Colin had stood watching her disappear into the night, watching the rain fall until the evening had ended and Benedict had appeared to retrieve him.

Her three little words had since burrowed deeper and deeper into his chest. A sharp niggling worry that had grown into a dull constant ache, a persistent thrum of worry that pressed against his chest.

And so, despite the chaos and comfort of home, despite his lingering scandal and Marina, and his worry for Eloise, and despite the diamond he may be courting, his thoughts have slowly tunnelled to Penelope.

And the way she is suddenly a riddling question instead of someone he knows as well as himself. And the way her absence is suddenly so pronounced and loud and unbearable, it aches like loss and tastes like grief.

The girl had once knocked him from his horse. She had been a balm in the wake of his own father's death. She had set him on the path of travelling which had turned him into the man he was becoming. She had tried to warn him about Marina…and if only he had listened, if only he had listened, if only he had listened.

He is listening now.

"A trying time."

"Spinsters do not need chaperones."

"Good day Mister Bridgerton."

To her words as few as they were, to the disquieting silence that stretched between them, to the voice in his mind that whispered she was not okay, to the pull in his chest toward her.

He is relieved to see Francesca and Hyacinth with Penelope, has every faith they will succeed in their mission to have her visit Bridgerton House the very next day. And only one of them had to be bribed.

It is later when he manages to seek her out. Falls into step beside her. She is circling the gardens, avoiding her family, and his, keeping from the back corner where he knows Eloise resides.

Relief breaks over his shoulders when she calls him Colin. Her eyes are tired, and full and he wants to ask after every fleck.

"Bridgerton!" Penelope's eyes flick over his shoulder at the voice, but he does not turn intent to ignore it. It is her to whom he wishes to speak not his old school friends.

"Come with me?" he asks, gesturing to the clearing just beyond the hedges and reaches for her hand unthinkingly, as he has done so many times before. She draws it away quickly, holds it against her chest, out of reach.

Something flickers in her eyes, too fast for him to decipher.

When she speaks her words are thick and rough and angrier than he expects.

"Because I embarrass you," she accuses as though it is something already known. As though he has already been judged as guilty, as though he stands now for sentencing.

He is winded by the words. And sees too the way she is wounded by them. Sees the way they hurt her, in her pinched expression, in her stoic gaze that runs from him. Hurt rises to her surface. But how could she think…

"I am not embarrassed by you Pen," he refuses. His words are ragged and raw as though they have been torn from him. And they are entirely insufficient to convey the way he is left staggering. The way it feels her blade has sliced him collarbone to navel.

His gut twists at the way she looks at him, as though he is a stranger before her, as though he is the one holding the knife. The one who has exacted this damage.

He reaches for her hand again, urgently, as though to staunch the flow of blood. She follows him this time, out of view.

He leads them to a seat, which he guides her into before he all but collapses before her, as though he is the one bleeding. Desperate for her gaze, desperate to see the hollow, resigned acceptance wiped from her blue.

And even now, she avoids him. She dips her chin, her auburn waves slipping to curtain her eyes. He raises his free hand and tumbles it back over her shoulder, tucks it gently behind her ear.

A breeze lifts through the air, and he is suddenly envious of the way it gets to caress her skin. And between the azure of her eyes, and the sunset of her hair, her skin is the white sands of Kos. He recalls slipping it through his fingers, under the Grecian sun and then stills…processing his thoughts…blinking back to his place crouched before her. Fingers intertwined. And then it doesn't matter, not his thoughts, not his surprise…nothing when the wind whispers along her neck once more, and her scent reaches him and enmeshed within is another.

Colin's world whites out.

"Penelope." It has been years since he's used her full name. When it tears from his throat, her eyes snap to his. He slips his hand from hers and curls his fingers around the steel of the seat instead. Tension cords through his body, he wills himself still.

And focuses. And refocuses. And forces himself to focus.

"Penelope," he tries again, rasping around her name. Her eyes are two glistening pools of concern. And he drowns in their crystal depths as fire and panic jets through the corridors of his body.

"Did someone touch you? Did someone hurt you?" He forces the words, each one feeling like he is tearing away a part of himself. The way he knows her answer will. Because someone has come too close. And he cannot breathe.

And her scent, her sweetness, blooms on his tongue. And his eyes fall to the white sands of her neck, and he tugs at the bond with his brothers.

"Colin? Are you okay? Just breathe it's going to be okay." Her voice pierces the fog slowly consuming him. And he tugs at the material around his neck that feels like a noose. And his lungs scream for air the way his mind is screaming for an answer. He unknots the cravat at his neck, sliding it from his collar before he looks back up at her, on his knees now before her.

"Pen, please." Her hands are trembling when they lift to cup his face,

"I'm okay, I'm okay Colin I promise, I'm fine. Just breathe."

Anthony meets Benedict at the edge of the gardens. Both had felt the flare of Colin's alarm in their bond. An urgent plea for his packmates.

The heat that had emanated from Colin's side of the bond a moment later told Anthony what they needed to know. That Colin was going into an unanticipated rut. There at the Queen's Garden Party. Because of course he was. Because the Bridgerton's were just aching for attention this season.

Anthony who had been with Simon and Daphne at the time, had sent the Duke for the carriage, had asked Daphne to round his siblings.

He sees the question in Benedict's eyes as they drive forward. And then, they draw to a stop, are arrested in place, at the same time when stumble upon him…and Penelope.

Colin is on his knees, his expression tortured, his hands clenched around the legs of the chair she is sat upon. Colin is bereft, asea, almost distraught.

"Colin." Anthony keeps his voice sharp. Two sets of eyes snap toward him immediately. Colin's relief breaks through the bond, his shoulders dropping, the tension in his body snapping as he relaxes in the comfort of his brothers.

Penelope's eyes are wide and startled, and brimming with so much worry it threatens to overspill into tears. She does not understand. But he does not scent or sense any fear from her.

They move as one, carefully. Not entirely certain of how Colin will react to their approach. They have never encountered this situation as a pack.

Benedict sits beside Penelope. Colin barely reacts.

Anthony places his hands on Colin's shoulders, and Benedict gently pulls Penelope's hands, tiny and splayed on Colin's cheeks into his own hold. Colin merely blinks, unbothered. Anthony levers the alpha away to create enough space for Benedict to sweep her out of his space.

Colin sags against him. Wilting. Yet his eyes remain on her. And it is clear that whatever has induced this has come from Penelope. Yet now is hardly the time for answers.

"Is he okay?" Anthony hears her quiet voice ask Benedict who wraps an arm around her shoulders, murmuring soft reassurance, and explanation.

The alpha's snap to attention, Colin throws himself to a stand. All three turn to face the entrance to the clearing. Simon wisely remains as far as possible, eyes taking in the scene before him.

"Hey Col," he greets, his voice soothing before he slates his gaze to Anthony.

"Carriage at the back gate." Colin has already dismissed Simon as a threat, has turned back to Pen.

"You're okay?" he asks, sounding much more like himself. Penelope nods, eyes beseeching.

"I promise Colin, I'm fine."

"We have to go now Colin," Anthony prompts, which Colin ignores, planting his feet. Considering. And then Benedict speaks,

"Col I've got her, she's safe I promise."

He nods then. As though shaking himself back into time. And Anthony quickly bundles him toward the carriage.

"He's okay?" Penelope stares at the path from which Colin and Anthony disappear.

"Yes love," Benedict answers, his voice soft. And despite everything, the little term of endearment catches her attention. Born from the stress of the moment she's sure…yet she can't help revel in it for just a second.

Simon crosses the distance to them then and she knows the alphas are having some kind of silent conversation above her head but cannot bring herself to care.

She realises her hand is still enclosed in Benedict's. Draws comfort from his steadiness. And then he is leading her to a seat, just as Colin had earlier. Simon sits opposite.

"Colin seemed rather worried about you?" Benedict pitches his words softly, as a gentle question attempting to unfold the events. She nods and ignores the little spark of resentment when Benedict uses her name this time.

She focuses.

"I thought it was panic," she offers truthfully and Benedict hums his understanding. He sweeps his thumb across the back of her hand and gentles his words even further.

"Can you tell me what had him so worried Penelope?" His words wrap around her heart and squeeze. Her eyes are drawn to his, he holds her gaze as steady as he holds her hand. His careful words unzip her just slightly, uncurl a corner of truth.

And there are so many reasons to worry, she knows. Her own, a constant itch under her skin, and whisper from the edges of her mind. They stack up now, behind her teeth. Yet none explain what had happened to Colin, what had swallowed him so wholly and so suddenly without warning.

"How are you feeling Penelope?" Simon asks after a time and it takes her a moment to draw herself back into the gardens. And into her body.

"I'm okay," she realises and then Daphne slips into the garden. She barely reacts to the sight of Penelope, one quick flare of surprise. The Bridgerton's are ready to go.

They escort her back to her mother. Benedict draws her to a quick stop, still out of view. He lifts her hand, presses a ghost of a gentleman's kiss to her knuckles before he gently relinquishes it. She mourns the loss.

"Stay safe little love," he murmurs quietly, capturing her attention again.

"I made a promise to my brother, let's not make me a liar." A smile hints at her lips. And so she makes a second promise, to a second brother that she will be well and then a plea to the moon in the sky that she may keep her word.

Penelope is lost to her thoughts for the rest of the day.

Replaying the way Colin had descended into a rut before her very eyes. Over and over. It is all she can think about.

And this time, after day turns over into night, and the house slips into slumber she gives in to an instinct that had slowly threaded together in the hours passed.

This time, hers are not the desperate actions of a sleepless night.

This time, her cheeks flush crimson the moment her feet touch the carpet.

It doesn't stop her though. The judgement from her own mind, the embarrassment that blooms within.

She pads to her wardrobe and retrieves Anthony's dress jacket. She holds it close to her chest as she slides open the drawer in her desk to retrieve a little scrap of fabric, Colin's cravat.

She doesn't understand her actions, yet it does not stop her, not tonight. Tonight, she leans on an instinct. And she returns to bed fingers scrunching in the fabrics.

Benedict slips in through the side door of Gen's shop that evening, exhausted from the unending day.

From managing Colin's sudden Penelope-induced rut, to attempting to pull Eloise from the depths of her renewed misery. To attempting to decipher what he wanted his future to look like, and whether it was to be bejewelled with a diamond. To tempering Anthony's mounting need and fraying patience to restore their family's good name on the marriage mart. And in doing so, attempting to decide if his future was pack-bound.

He slips up the stairs with a wink to Gen, unseen by her visitors. He recognises the young debutante and her mother; glances the custom sketches Gen had pinned up for their inspection.

He pours a glass for himself, and one to wait for Gen. And loses his waistcoat and loosens his cravat and breathes.

As he waits, he thumbs through the sketches on Gen's desk. He always enjoys looking through her work. They are both artists of different mediums, paint and fabric and lead and charcoal.

His eyes fall upon a page of writing that had been beneath one of the sketches. And he does not mean to glance, would never invade her privacy but the words reach out to him, claim his attention.

Dear Genevieve.

Thank you for your letter I assure you everything is in place, I simply await your word.

In answer to your question, I am familiar with several omega's whose presentations were delayed to a similar extent to which you have described.

In each case, presenting would have resulted in significant harm befalling the omega.

Only once they felt completely safe from that danger did they present.

I can confess early in my work, even I had difficulty accepting this notion, it is so widely accepted that nothing can prevent or impede our designations, it is after all how we connect. It seems to me however that the only thing stronger than our desire to belong is our instinct to survive.

I can only wonder then, regretfully considering you write of your friend with such fondness, if there may be such circumstances inhibiting her presentation.

If there is anything further I can do at this time Gen, please do write me. She is fortunate to have you on her side.

Yours sincerely.

Ida.

"Benedict." His head snaps up and his eyes meet Gen's, who has stilled at the top of her stairs, taking in Benedict who stands by her desk, letter in hand.

And his only thought is that he had almost certainly lied to his brother,

Col I've got her, she's safe I promise.

Notes:

So, this morning I thought to myself everyone's been so overwhelmingly lovely and encouraging and kind I'm going to write a quick chapter of thanks before the proper update.

Hours and hours and over 6000 words later, oops (but more so I hope you enjoy haha)

While I have you, I would love to know what your favourite parts of the abo trope are if you have a moment…it is still relatively new for me and I'm certainly putting my spin on it, but would like to make sure I'm including as many of the well-loved parts as I can.

Can't wait to share more with you all. I can't thank you enough for every comment and kudos left for my little story.

Warnings: medical exam with non-consensual touch

Chapter 12: Mates & Mistresses

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

"What is this, Gen?" Benedict's voice is low and grave, his eyes flitting between her and the parchment he holds.

Genevieve had known they would return sooner or later, with pockets of questions and hands that itched to right whatever wrongs had befallen Penelope. When their patience expired and the weight of what they didn't know grew too heavy.

The Bridgerton's had been shaped and sculpted by the constant, unrelenting wash of grief they had swum for a decade. Endlessly they had kept each other afloat, treading time, and saving one another from the darkest depths again and again.

Now it was knit into their bones, this instinct to help, to save, to aid. As much as the colour blue was the Bridgerton's so too was this.

And now Benedict stood in her space, eyes burning brighter than the lantern, and the fire and her own indignation.

"Gen." There is a warning in his voice. An urgency. A desperation.

"Do you know then?" he asks bluntly, lifting the words from the page, "what is preventing her presentation?"

He asks like he wishes not to know, as if the answer may drown him, draws a breath around the words like it may be his last. Yet he sways towards her, as though he could reach for it, as though he may be able to unravel it all.

"Is Penelope in danger?" He asks, his questions quicker than her answers. And she hears it in his voice, the tremble of worry. He takes several steps, closing the distance. His voice lowers in appeal. He lays reasons for his urgency, for his severity at her feet,

"Gen, Penelope's father wasn't just killed that night. He was butchered in his own home." Of which she knows, of which she had heard directly from the late Lord Featherington's pale, shaking, traumatised debutante of a daughter. There was so much Benedict did not know.

"If there is something that threatens her safety I need to know." The shudder in his words is not quite fear and not quite anger. It is something else, something bigger, something ancient, it burrows under her skin.

"You need to know?" she questions, the words shorter and sharper.

"Penelope is Colin's mate. She will be my packmate. She is a part of my family." He had insisted the same thing in Anthony's office. Colin's mate. These words will tire quickly, she thinks. An impulse bites at her to push back, to test if he is able to hear the way his own words slate into something like possession…devotion.

Though, if he so wishes to speak of Colin…

"And what does your brother think of all this?" she asks sharply, another version of Penelope unfolding in her mind. Because for all the youngest Featherington had endured that night, Colin too had drawn a scar across her chest with his careless words.

A wound Genevieve knew to be particularly deep and painful, of which Penelope had tried to flippantly dismiss, as though it were not still bleeding, as though she was not growing paler each day.

"Is he aware of his mate? You seem so very certain about this all yet I seem to recall Colin spent last season in love with Penelope's cousin." She sees the truth in Benedict's eyes, in the fall of his shoulders.

"He wasn't in love," he dismisses, and she hums, the sound maddened and mordant.

"Just engaged to be married," she says blandly before venom tinges her voice, offended now on Penelope's behalf- -for someone had to be.

She bites,

"Would he have made his mate his mistress then?"

She thinks about sending Rae across the square to bid her apologies, but Eloise will be out of the house. And just maybe she would be able to see Violet for a few minutes. And what of Colin, her mind asks again and again and again. How was he faring? And Hyacinth had been so enthused and Francesca so very sweet.

And she is too weak to fight herself, to deny herself. Undisciplined and gluttonous, her sins had been tallied long ago.

Perhaps then, a small and final gift to herself, this visit across the square. A small slice of time that will not end her starvation but perhaps just for a moment it will stop the churning in her stomach, in her soul. Perhaps it will taste like closure.

The constant stream of whispers that burble at the edge of her mind, urging her to run, to flee, to slip from Mayfair's hold to somewhere else, somewhere safe seems to quieten as she crosses the square, divides it in two with her path.

Hyacinth is waiting on the front steps, chatting away to an amused Humbolt. The young pup skips down the stairs and takes her hand and she is home.

Hyacinth mentions a new pianoforte, and Francesca, and leads her to the music room at the back of the house. And so elated she is to be back in Bridgerton House, so happily distracted she is by Hyacinth's ramblings that it takes Penelope far too long to realise anything is amiss. By the time Hyacinth unlaces their fingers, and Gregory jumps to a stand, and by the time her eyes land upon Eloise who sits in the corner of the room, who is supposed to be out, it is too late. She is too late.

And then they are too slow.

And Hyacinth and Gregory are gone, disappearing in a flurry of triumphant laughter. The lock slides into place so loudly it feels as though the earth shifts beneath them, the walls tremble closer.

She should have known better. She should not have come. The air thickens between them until it is hard to fill her lungs.

One moment bleeds into another. Penelope's heart begins to dissolve into her chest.

And Eloise has always been quicker to act.

She startles into motion, tears her stare from Penelope and stalks across the room. She pulls at the handle and shouts words through the wood which sound angry yet refuse to make sense to Penelope in her haze. Eloise is instantly furious in the cage they have found themselves locked. Riotous and fuming and she is frozen.

The shouting is futile, and her words and her wrath sink into the sea that seethes between them. The silence is stifling.

Eloise turns on her heel, swinging back to Penelope standing in the centre of the room. Eyes blazing. Gaze branding.

The one that's fucking radicals downtown…

And the sky slates grey. And everything comes roaring into view. Angry and writhing and refusing to be contained for one second longer.

"I told you to stay away from me and from my family. What are you doing here?"

She has no good answer. No words at all.

Eloise looks at her now like she is a stranger. Like she is something to be looked at. Like she is some small and wounded and unsightly creature, something fictitious and fanged and feeble.

Penelope's mouth shapes around an answer, and then an apology but it is a question that escapes her instead, one that has circled her mind for months now,

"Why have you not told them?"

And Eloise's eyes grow unexpectedly glassy, at her words, at her voice, at the thought of her family in possession of the truth, Penelope does not know.

"I do not wish to break their hearts as you have mine." She turns away, as though she has been struck, away from Eloise's gaze, and honesty, as though she can stop the way it slices at her throat.

The words are bruised and bleeding.

I wish never to see or speak to you again.

"Have you given it up then?" Eloise asks. Penelope hears the way she avoids the name. Whistledown As though she cannot even bear to say it.

"Is that not what you wanted?"

"All I wanted was my friend." As though she is gone. As though she is dead. As though she speaks of someone else, not Penelope, standing there right before her.

No, Eloise looks at her now as though she is holding the knife that had taken her friend. A knife, a pen, weapons the same the poets have deigned.

"I was trying to protect you." Penelope wants to scream. Because how, how could Eloise truly believe anything else.

"Protect me," Eloise scoffs, "You were protecting yourself." And she takes Penelope's pen for a second time, retrieving it now only to rewrite history. But Penelope remembers still, the feeling of falling when Eloise had told her of the Queen's accusation. The crushing weight on her chest, the dizzying spiral of terror. The pacing and pleading and panicked scrawling of something that could undo her damage.

The only person you were interested in saving was yourself.

Tarnishing everyone in town all because you are too scared to stand up for yourself in reality.

It is anger this time. That opens its mouth in a scream, that swallows her whole. Its teeth are sharp, tearing at her skin. The ache in her recedes, replaced by the burn.

"Well, no one else is going to, are they?"

Not Eloise.

Not Colin.

Not the Bridgerton's.

Not her own preoccupied sisters. Not her hateful mother or her dead father.

There is a sob, rough and ragged, the sound of anger and sorrow being ripped in two. Maybe it is anguish. Maybe it is heartbreak. It spills over onto her cheeks. And Eloise, Eloise infuriatingly remains composed, poised and tearless and whole. She has always been stronger.

At the sight of her tears though, something else works into her gaze. It is not remorse, or guilt, something worse.

I look at you now and all I feel is pity for you.

She watches Eloise force her anger away, bite down on the words that stack behind her gritted teeth as though Penelope is too weak to endure, as though she knows how paper thin she is, how little of her remains.

She looks at her like she is the third Featherington daughter. A pity.

She looks at her like she is blank and undesignated; forgotten even by the world itself.

Too different to belong. Something wrong and rotten at her core.

The way they have always looked at her.

The way her mother looks at her.

The way she meets her own eyes in the mirror.

And this pain is so slicing and aching and cavernous that she aches for the anger of it all, an easier companion. She meets Eloise's gaze,

"Do not gentle your words just because my father is dead Eloise."

Anthony heads back towards his study relieved calling hours have closed for another day, though perhaps not as much as Francesca herself who had sagged with relief only once the final suitor had departed. After the audacity of Lord Jameson Anthony had refused to be absent.

Fran had slipped from the drawing room heading undoubtedly for the piano to let her music wash her mind clean of courting and suitors and marriage, the way he too will allow his work t-

Anthony turns mid-stride.

He retraces his steps until he stands at the foot of the stairs and folds his arms across his chest. His eyes narrow as he takes in two small shapes he hadn't noticed, distracted in his thoughts. He is certain neither Hyacinth nor Gregory have ever managed stillness for so long.

Anthony clears his throat pointedly when they attempt escape, and they plop back down into place with defeat. Gregory avoids his gaze while Hyacinth meets his eyes defiantly. He has played this game before.

"Gregory?" he prompts holding Hyacinth's gaze and she scowls at her brother as though he has already betrayed her and whatever mischief they are courting.

"Penelope is here."

The words Gregory omits are louder, though he unravels quickly, and Anthony is uncertain if he's impressed or dismayed with Colin's meddling.

Still if whatever broken between Eloise and Penel-a yell swivels all three of them toward the back of the house. A yell that is unmistakeably a storming Eloise and Anthony sighs knowing his work will have to wait.

"Protect me?" Eloise wants to laugh, and it rolls into her mouth, tasteless and chalky and choking. "You were protecting yourself."

"Well, no one else is going to, are they?" Penelope's voice is sudden and loud and lancing. A furious whip of wind.

And Eloise wants to be furious herself because how much time had she spent protecting Penelope, how many times had her family protected Penelope. How many times had Penelope sought shelter under the Bridgerton's roof. The words echo from that wretched night,

Whistledown has been all I have had… But she'd had them. She'd had her. She had been family. They had stitched her into their own and she had torn them to shreds so easily.

And yet her one little word, barely a syllable, pulls at the threads of Eloise's anger before they can knot,

No one else is going to are they?

And its sinks into her skin, the accusation, the blade edge of Penelope's words.

And this too, Eloise wants to scream and wants to sob.

This too, Penelope has stolen. The chance for Eloise to weather this storm with her. To provide comfort in the wake of her father's death, the way Penelope had for her.

Every day Penelope had been there. Through the worst of her father's death. The worst of her mother's heartbreak. The worst of living in Daphne's shadow of perfection and fearing for the future. And as society had begun to sink its claws deeper it was to each other they had held.

Perhaps the only thing that Eloise had been sure of had been Penelope.

Until she wasn't.

Penelope knew every part of her. Never had she kept anything concealed, not until Theo. And even then, she had barely thought twice about revealing the truth of him, had done so almost flippantly, unthinkingly.

And all the while, through the months and seasons and years, Penelope and her secret had lived and laughed and eaten and read alongside her. Unbothered. Unashamed.

She had witnessed Eloise's attempts to unravel the mystery of Whistledown. Had listened and watched and repeatedly said nothing. Had she enjoyed it, Eloise's obsession? Had she pulled the strings with her well-placed words and sat back to watch her flounder.

And what of Colin? He had always been kind to her. And what of Marina? Penelope had been so relieved to have Marina in her home. And what of Daphne and Simon and her …and what of her.

She was certain she would never understand it.

But then sometimes between breaths, or in the moments just before she would wake, she thought that perhaps she understood it all perfectly. That maybe it was the only thing that made any sense at all. That maybe she would go mad for all the sense it made.

Eloise had written her. Pages crowded with her words, her fury and forgiveness, her contempt and her condolences. And it was all so very confusing. So very impossible to reconcile. She had reread Whistledown hundreds of times, mortified that she had kept them, mortified that Penelope knew she kept them.

And then just before returning to Mayfair she had pitched them all into the flames and watched the fire lick the ink from the parchment, and in the glow she had prayed that come morning her anger too might have turned to ash.

"You are such a hypocrite Eloise," Penelope hisses, the person who knows her best in the entire world. And this anger is just another thing she has failed to see in Penelope. Another part of her she has kept concealed. Has not trusted her with.

"And you are just so disappointing Penelope." The door swings open.

The stone underfoot blurs, she does not slow her path. And it had been so ridiculous to think she could return here. A moment of weakness. A lifetime of it, she thinks.

"Penelope?"

She freezes, mid-step, mid-thought, looks up to realise she knows not where she has wandered, where her feet have carried her. There are not many corners of the Bridgerton estate she has not ventured, yet this one is unfamiliar.

Anthony stands at the mouth of the hall, cautious and relieved and walks slowly towards her as though his steps may cause her to shatter across the stone. As though she may dart away if he moves too suddenly.

And then, behind them, a door sweeps open at the far end of the hall and Anthony is at her side, and it is her who reaches for him when scent pours into the hallway and floods her, and for a blinding moment all she wants is to let it wash her away. Colin. Suddenly he is everywhere. Everything.

She hears Anthony's voice distantly but not his words.

Colin's frame fills the doorway at the end of the hall and she is arrested in place. His pupils are blown wide leaving only the smallest ring of green. As though she has held her quill for too long against a parchment and the ink has pooled. His gaze falls over her, heavy and draping and he is undone in a way she has never before witnessed.

His hair is amess. Her fingers itch to run through it, winding through curls. Her gaze sticks to his skin, more skin than she has ever seen, before her now in only his breeches. Flushed as though he has been under the sun and her mouth is so dry.

As though in orbit she seems to fall more than step toward him. And Anthony, keeps her upright, and gently holds her at his side, his arm wrapping around her shoulders. She catches the way Colin's fingers curl around the doorframe, knuckles white. He doesn't move closer. Doesn't seem to breathe.

"Are you alright Pen?" It hums in the air, ripples across her skin. Colin's voice is deeper than she's ever heard it. The same way his eyes are darker, billowing with things she cannot name. And she wants to run. Directly to him.

"She's fine Col," Anthony assures in a steady voice, but she's not.

She's not and she should not have come, and she should not be here either…somehow now in the hall to the Bridgerton dens. The far side of the estate, beyond Anthony's work rooms.

And it is, she realises, clarity fighting through the fog, an old instinct she hasn't yet managed to erase. This instinct to run to Colin. Just like that night, after her fight with Eloise, she had run to find Colin – the symmetry poetic and pathetic. Each of her pages a tragedy.

Would she ever stop running to him?

Anthony leads her away from the dens, her fingers scrunched into the sleeve of his shirt, and he suddenly feels as though he is wading water. She arches her gaze over her shoulder several times but follows him without protest.

Her scent is sweeter. A decadence that pools in his mouth. And he hurries to pull them from the hall, where thankfully Colin remains. By the time he had reached the back of the house Eloise and Penelope had escaped in different directions, leaving behind a cluster of concerned Bridgerton's with no answers.

They find Violet and Mrs Wilson waiting in the entrance hall. And Penelope's eyes are wide, as though she is lost, as though she has stumbled somewhere unknown.

She pulls away from him suddenly, her eyes darting around the room, and she folds her arms across her stomach, holding herself together. And then Violet takes a step toward her only for Penelope to stumble backwards, and they all freeze. And he is certain the sun stills in its arc, the earth stops in its spin.

Penelope's lips tug downward, and her chin trembles and his mother's eyes glint with grief from across the room.

"I should take my leave," Penelope says, and the words are stretched so thin they are barely audible.

"We'll have John walk you home Miss Penelope," Mrs Wilson says, her voice soft and careful, the one she reserves for pups and illness. Anthony notices the way the housekeeper too, squeezes his mother's hand in comfort,

"Anthony will take you," Violet says and Anthony watches Penelope, watches her grow leaden as though she could sink to the floor, as though she wishes it would crack open beneath her, as though she is a burden they are passing back and forth between them.

And it is particularly painful to watch her force herself upright, and blank. She strips the pain from her person and hides herself away. He hates that she does it, hates that she can.

"No one need escort me. Thank you for your hospitality Lady Bridgerton, Lord Bridgerton." Hates the way she leans back into formality as if she is not family.

"I will escort you home Penelope." She doesn't argue only starts toward the exit like she cannot bear the weight of this moment for a second longer. At the top of the stairs, she hesitates to take his arm and he reaches for her, slowly and gently and places her hand in the crook of his elbow himself.

Her scent is stronger, he realises suddenly. Fuller and richer and swirling in shades. And scents though by nature were ever-changing, Penelope's had always been more subtle. Honeyed and floral, but a single flower. Now suddenly, seemingly overnight, a bouquet.

He wants to pull it apart, know its notes, he fills his lungs. Then he recalls the angry pepper that had been unknown to him before Hyde Park. It had itched, not unpleasantly, beneath his tongue well into the afternoon after promenade and he absently swipes across the roof of his mouth now in search.

As they start across the square her scent reminds him of the air before rain, dense and thick. A sky teeming with clouds, heavy and dark and aching to let go. As though she could cry for a season.

"Penelope." He keeps his voice soft. She keeps her face tilted away. He draws them to a pause and repeats her name once more, even softer, his mouth shaping around the syllables of her name.

He has not seen her cry. He thinks he could spend the rest of the day listing the reasons she could.

"Anthony please, I can't." And he knows this, this desperate moment of fighting the flood away, the frantic need for shore, the weight of these waves. He is relieved she uses his name, it's sound is a pin in his chest. Her eyelashes bat against her cheeks like wings, preventing the fall.

He resumes their walk and hears the relief and the apology in her sigh. Her fingers scrunch back into the material of his shirt and he fights the instinct to pull her against his chest, to wrap her in his arms. To hold her until she trusts that he will keep her together while she falls apart.

"She's important to me Ant." Colin's voice roughens as his rut descends. The air in the small belly of the carriage quickly grows stifling. Induced ruts were always more intense, ripped from a fold in time, a flash flood.

"I know Col…" he attempts to reassure his fraying packmate softly. It is hardly the time to question his brother about Penelope.

"Something's going on with her, something isn't right."

Penelope leads them through a side door in the entrance hall he hadn't before noticed, his thoughts scattering when she turns to him.

"Thank you Anthony." The word is wobbly and he squeezes her hand before she steps away, the waterline in her eyes tremble and he swallows the words he wants to say and lets her go. She is quick up the stairs.

He retraces his steps, his thoughts racing ahead and across the square to Eloise and Colin and his mother and-

"Lord Bridgerton." He turns to see the small shape he recognises as Penelope's lady's maid.

"Miss…"

"Parker, Rae Parker." He drops his head, an echo to her curtsey, and takes note of the way the young woman twists her hands together.

"Lady Featherington wishes to see you." She doesn't wait for his response, turning on her heel and hurrying down the hall. He forces himself to follow her, dread a weight in his stomach.

He is surprised then when Rae leads him to a small waiting room, where two men already sit, twin silhouettes of impatience.

"Might you wait here for a moment My Lord?" He nods his acquiescence but searches her face, her expression one he has seen his sisters wear many times. Something is afoot.

Both men tilt their head in greeting.

"Viscount Bridgerton," nods the man closest. They seem to know him though he is unable to say the same. Through business or his mother or parliament he knows most of the faces and names of Mayfair.

"John Talbot, this is Louis my packmate." Anthony shakes their hands and takes a seat opposite. John holds his gaze while Louis, the smaller man, crosses his ankle over his knee. His boot bounces erratically in the space between them.

And something within Anthony lifts its head. Some small foreboding flame alights. And he has learned in his years as Viscount to trust these instincts. He sits taller in his own chair and meets John's gaze, notes the way his jacket is stretched slightly too tight across his shoulders.

"What brings you here gentlemen?"

"Friends of the late Lord, here to offer our condolences to the family," John explains, and Anthony is certain he catches the corner of Louis's lips lift minutely. He nods and offers his own condolences to Archibald Featherington's…friends.

"The youngest," Louis says then, uncrossing his legs and leaning across the space. And there is a hint of an accent in Louis' voice and John's fingertips turn white around the envelope he grips suddenly tighter.

"She is an omega?" And they are speaking of Penelope, Anthony realises and stills. He considers the question, the way the man leans eagerly toward him, the clench of John's jaw, the two men he has never before seen.

"An alpha got too close to her Ant, I could scent him on her." Colin's words slate furious, his fingers curl around the edge of the seat. They barrel away from Buckingham House, the carriage jostling over cobblestones in its haste.

"Col I'm sure…"

"On her neck," Colin spits the words between them, eyes storming and blackened and raging.

"She has not presented," he hears his own words before he registers they have escaped him. His tone is hard and short.

"Unusual," John says pensively. And disappointment blinks into Louis' gaze as he slumps back against the wall and then Portia Featherington herself sweeps through the door, her smile too wide, her eyes too bright, and when she speaks her voice is sharp.

"Lord Bridgerton to what do we owe the pleasure?" Before his confusion can ebb into a question Rae tumbles back into the room, a book tucked under her arm which she extends.

"Lord Bridgerton, the book for your sister. Thank you for your patience." Anthony meets her eyes, finds a million words in their pleading depths. He only nods, and relief swims into view.

"If I heard correctly, you were discussing my daughter," Portia interjects pointedly.

"We have in fact consulted an expert physician on the matter. It is his belief that it will simply take a strong alpha to trigger my daughter's presentation."

Portia's words are baiting. And the two men exchange a glance, and bile surges Anthony's throat.

Anthony hears the way she strings her words together, the singsong of her voice infusing banality into words meant to challenge, meant to entice the ego of an alpha. Honey to a bee.

Words that set Penelope as a prize.

The study has a disquieting air about it this evening. The fire remains unlit, shadows climbing the walls, and stacks of papers and folders had been pulled from the bookshelves, left in small haphazard stacks around the room.

"What's going on?" He asks of his brother, who remains focused, brandy in hand, sparing only a quick glance toward him. Anthony had been holed up in the office all evening, missing dinner for the first time in seasons. He'd had no answers to provide his mother who had cornered her only grown son at the table that evening.

And so, after taking Colin down a plate, and ensuring the pups were in bed, and checking in on Eloise who thankfully was already asleep after her tumultuous day, he had set off for the study, a second plate balanced on his palm.

"How is Colin?"

"It's already easing," Benedict reports, having been surprised himself at the way Colin's rut had already begun to subside. More questions to go unanswered,

"Have you heard of the Talbot pack?" Anthony then unceremoniously asks, lifting his gaze for the first time.

Benedict trades the plate for the decanter and pours himself a glass while Anthony explains.

And Benedict thinks the fire would have done nothing to thaw the ice that spreads through his chest, crystallises in the spaces between his ribs, when his brother recounts Portia's words to the unknown alphas. Gen's voice lifts through his mind from the evening prior,

"Penelope must marry this season. Lady Featherington means to send her away should she not," Gen offers quietly, her voice lilting gentler in the aftermath of the storm.

Ben looks up at her from where he is slouched on her settee. Struck suddenly by the thought of Penelope exiled by her own family. Feels a wave of gratitude roll through him for his own.

"Send her where?" Gen shakes her head, unknowing, and sighs loudly. Gen refills her glass first and then Benedict's and drops down beside him, helplessness nestles between them. Time passes, silence stretches, blocks away Penelope

"Your brother is so determined to return your family to good standing that he is prepared to marry the diamond," Gen says then and he frowns.

"My point is the only person in Mayfair perhaps more driven to influence their family's standing this season is Portia Featherington. She will do whatever is required to ensure her family's place in Mayfair. And putting the questions around Penelope's designation behind them will be one of her priorities."

Anthony's voice pulls him from his mind, "I have written to Lord Featherington. And a number of associates to enquire about the Talbot pack and once his rut has abated we will speak with Colin about what is going on."

"We can't." Anthony's face creases, confounded. And he can hardly be blamed. Benedict has only been attempting to convince him that Penelope and Colin were soulmates for years. Anthony fixes him with a look he knows to have contorted his own face the evening last,

"As soon as he realises his feelings for her, I cannot imagine anything, Penelope's presentation included, that will prevent Colin's love or his devotion, he will marry her Gen," Benedict proclaims. Colin really was the best of them.

And how very tidy it would be for everyone. A love match indeed. One that would finally make Penelope the Bridgerton she has always been. And one that would do more than just return the Featherington's to good standing, Benedict could not fathom Portia or the new Lord protesting to such a match.

And then Genevieve fixes him with a look that makes him feel very small indeed, as though he has barely lost his leading strings, has learned nothing of the world, is painted only with naivety.

"I've come to know Penelope quite well Benedict." He turns to her then, catching the fondness in her voice, feels it in his own chest as he thinks of the young woman.

"Penelope has loved your brother for much of her life." Benedict nods, he knows but Gen has not finished.

"If your brother learns that Penelope must marry and then proposes, she will believe that he has done so only out of duty. And the Penelope Featherington I know, she would rather leave Mayfair a thousand times than force Colin into a marriage." And Benedict feels the way he does when a ruinous drop of paint splotches onto an almost finished canvas…feels the answers slipping away.

"He loves her Gen." Is all he seems to have to offer, and this time she does not anger. Instead, Gen seems to lament his words, or perhaps the ones she offers next,

"And I think perhaps before last season she might have believed him." Gen seems to hesitate then, rolling her lips together, shuttering away. Though Benedict needs no more words, he had seen Marina and Colin together, had watched Penelope grow smaller and quieter still. And how could it not have unravelled her. Colin really was the most senseless of them.

A curiosity alights in Anthony's eyes as Benedict recounts his conversation with the modiste. He doesn't expect it from Anthony. Yet knows he feels it too, this unexpected unknowing.

It had flickered to life, sudden and perplexing. As though Penelope hadn't been with them for over a decade. As though she was unfamiliar to them.

The last few months, weeks and days had redrawn her shape, had unfolded so many new sides of the young debutante from across the square.

When he recounts the content of the letter, Anthony abandons the page he had been reading.

"She thinks that Penelope hasn't presented because she hasn't felt safe enough to do so," Benedict concludes, a wiry tension coiling in his stomach.

Silence drapes between them. He can see something webbing together in Anthony's mind and his face pinches in a way Benedict instantly dislikes.

From the stack beside him Anthony pulls free a parchment and slowly slides it across the desk. Benedict's eyes fall to trace the lines of ink, and he frowns, starting over once and then twice before meeting Anthony's waiting gaze. Anthony who has refilled their brandies, generously.

"This is a partition for emancipation," Benedict realises aloud, his words hollowed with shock.

"For Penelope." Anthony neither corrects nor contests him and then his eyes catch on the ink at the bottom of the print. A shape he has not seen in so very long. Benedict feels a rushing at his temples,

"This is father's signature," he breathes. Anthony nods but his eyes have already arched up over Benedict's shoulder, meets their father's painted gaze.

Notes:

Oh hi all, I hope everyone's doing well!

I know our dear Eloise will ruffle some feathers here but please do know she is so integral to this story we just have to work through this part!

Thank you so much for all your support! I read your comments over and over to get this one out!!!!

lots of love xx

Chapter 13: Colin

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

By the end of the week, bulbs are awakening in their pots, the sun, a golden coin in the sky rises earlier and lingers later, and spring is abloom.

His rut abates overnight, and by dawn Colin wakes feeling stronger and more settled than he has since landing back on the shores of London. He wakes to yellow. Light beams across the ceiling and he lies and watches the dust cartwheel in its rays. And he thinks of her.

The way she had looked so overwhelmed with worry as he knelt before her in the garden, refusing his yearning hands to hold her. And thinks of her, there in the denning corridor. The cream of her skin flushing before his eyes, her scent ribboning out towards him, caressing his skin, twining around his frame like ivy.

The fear that had befallen him there, that day at the palace, had been a noose around his neck, had cracked the ground open beneath him and left him falling. And he would have run forever. Would have taken up arms, would have found a way to lasso the sun closer if she had said she were cold.

He loves her.

He loves Penelope.

He always has, he had realised somewhere in the fog of his rut, or perhaps on his knees before her that afternoon. Or perhaps he had known before that, when even countries away he would search the edge of every visited room for her.

And in the heat of his rut. It had been her to consume his thoughts. The heat that licked at his skin the same as the colour of the waves that tumbled over her shoulders. He had imagined setting it free, her hair and the fire in his veins. Brushing it from her neck, pressing his lips against her skin, letting himself be devoured by the flames.

And he thinks then of the heaviness she has come to carry, the weight wearing her down. He can see it in her eyes, and hear it in her voice, in the sigh of her breath. He aches to shoulder it, to unburden her. So much has harmed her…the ton, her sisters, Cressida, Eloise, Whistledown, her father, her mother. And even him, because where had he been? What had he been doing? How had he left her? Never again.

He touches the pads of his fingers to his cheeks, where she had laid her palms against his skin. And of course it's Penelope.

His mother and siblings seem pleased at their reunion, and he spends the morning catching up on days' worth of Bridgerton chaos bracketed by Hyacinth and Gregory at the table. He fills both of their plates while they talk over one another and forces his gaze away from the window.

Eloise refuses to speak with him, avoids his gaze, and sullenly picks at her plate at the table's end. It had been Anthony to apprise him of the calamitous visit between the girls, the one of his own failing architecture.

After they have broken their fast, he sees the pups off to their governess, bribes them a pall mall secret to win their acquiescence, of which Mary seems grateful before he takes his leave. Colin jogs down the stairs, determined and anew as the day. He has a square to cross. A debutante to see. A piece of his heart to tend to.

And so, when Humbolt requests his presence in the study, just as he slips over the threshold Colin swallows a groan. He finds both of his brothers, hardly unusual, yet Anthony's formal dress gives him pause.

"We are to depart for the palace shortly," the Viscount instructs, and Colin feels his heart sink, a pebble feathering down to the seabed. A protest shapes his lips,

"I need you to accompany us Colin." And this time Anthony's words sound of apology. Benedict lounges on the settee by the window yet Colin can see the tension in his shoulders. An image of Penelope curled up on its twin at Aubrey Hall flashes through his mind.

"I am to declare my courtship to Miss Allard this morning. I must be seen to have the support of my pack." And Penelope flits into his mind again, he blinks her away though it seems she has made a home in his mind, has buried into in his chest, safe beneath his ribs now; ever present, a whisper of warmth. He feels more like himself than he has in years.

"You do not love her." Colin is as surprised as Anthony appears when he hears the words escape his own lips. They sit heavy in the air between them.

Anthony nods, "No Colin I do not."

Irritation dances sharply through his chest, and the slick heat of guilt slides beneath his skin, like oil, or daker like tar, because this fault is his own.

"I understand why you're doing this but you don't have to marry her." Colin is painfully aware he sounds naïve, to his brothers at least. They adopt two versions of the same look, one he has seen them send their mother many times at the mere mention of love matches and soulmates.

Anthony's eyes though, ever so briefly linger, almost unsurely, before he snaps back to himself. Lifting his chin, straightening his spine, "I must."

But Penelope.

The thought a whisper, sudden and quiet and then louder and then roaring. Frustration swells within him, a sudden gale, an unexpected storm he cannot tame.

He thinks then, of the way Anthony's eyes had caught aflame at the sight of a furious Penelope on the banks of Hyde Park, the way they'd followed her for the rest of the morn.

And the way Anthony had tucked her so gently against his side, as if she were cracked glass in the denning halls below.

He thinks of the way Anthony doggedly writes to the new Lord Featherington, to the officers investigating the late one. Determined to ensure her safety.

Recalls wrapping Anthony's jacket around her small frame. The way she had pulled it tighter. Scents weaving together, pack, he had failed to realise then but he does now. A second dawn in as many hours.

"Something is wrong with Penelope." Anthony's face creases, a strange blend of frustration and resignation. Benedict's lips curl upwards for a moment from his place as spectator,

"Colin the best thing you can do for Penelope right now is to accompany us to see Miss Allard. The Featherington's too will benefit from the ton moving on from the events of last season." So much has harmed her he reminds himself… And even him, and certainly him. And what had he been thinking? Where had been his sense been the season last? How had he not seen her?

Anthony apologises, voice softening with regret. Colin is certain his brother can feel the shame slicing him into pieces.

"I do not mean to reopen old wounds, nor to offend but I must think about our family first, our pack. Francesca has only just debuted, Eloise has her own scandal to shake off, Daphne is establishing herself as a duchess." Colin nods, struggling to reign the emotion coursing through his body. And for a moment Colin tumbles back through time, to all the occasions the trio had stood in this study and banded together to raise their family.

Anthony has not asked anything of him in some time, Colin realises when he next speaks, "I need you today. You will have a lifetime with Penelope. I need you for this today." He nods, and something pulses so painfully between them, and Colin's heart soars at Anthony's wording A lifetime, and Anthony himself strides from the room to ready the carriage, squeezing his shoulder with a gratitude Colin knows he does not deserve. And he wants to be sick, and he wants to cry.

They are left to silence. One that Colin steals seconds from to steady himself. He feels Benedict's gaze on his face, patient as though they have all the time in the world. A lifetime.

And Benedict had sat with him, that first night when his instincts had threatened to tear him apart, reminding Colin to breathe, promising him once, twenty, two hundred times that Penelope was safe. And he had trusted only Benedict to redraw his world that had fallen so far apart.

"This is wrong." Benedict huffs out a breath, resigned and he nods while pulling his body from the settee as if he has lost a fight.

"He's declaring his courtship Col, not his engagement," Benedict reminds him and then lifts his lips into a smirk and dances his fingers across Colin's shoulder when he draws close enough "plenty of time for things to go wrong."

Then he plants his feet, squeezes his shoulder as Anthony had done, and his gaze turns solemn, as though the world has lost some of its colour.

"He's doing this for us Col, for all of us. Even if none of us have asked him to, even if none of us want him to." As he always has. Time and time again.

"Come on little brother, let's go support our misguided Viscount."

"This is not the modiste Mama," Penelope observes quietly as she steps into the street. The carriage bustles away and Portia strides on, as though she hasn't heard her. For all her adventuring through the city's corridors, Penelope has never been here before.

Bodies are sparse along the stretching pavement, adorned by shopfronts which all seem equally as weathered and aged. The air tastes thicker here, starched and stale. As though this corner of the city has been deserted, as though they should not be there.

Fear takes hold of Penelope's throat. Her eyes dart between windows, wondering what lurks within. The doctor? The pack? A new danger.

Yet when she follows her Mama inside it is only an array of fabrics that await them. A woman emerges from beyond a curtain, she towers over them, her frame spindly and avian and Portia trades words with the older woman. And too quickly Penelope finds herself on a pedestal not unlike the one in Gen's store and suddenly fingers are crawling over her like spiders.

The doctor's probing touch, her Mama's bruising grip, phantoms across her skin. And as the modiste none-too-gently pulls at Penelope's laces, her touch icy against Penelope's skin, she forces her thoughts away.

She thinks of Anthony and the warm and steady press of him against her side, his arm around her shoulders, and the way Benedict's hand had swallowed her own in the carriage, in the garden, and thinks too of Colin.

His fingers through her hair. His arms encircling her, his chest at her back. The press of his hand at the small of her spine. His lips on her cheek. Fleeting moments remembered only by her, memorialised in her mind.

The modiste unlaces her corset and wastes no time raising another. Penelope's eyes catch upon the material, thicker and more structured, small metal loops lining the back as though its own vertebrae.

A girl emerges to assist and their combined efforts force the air from Penelope's lungs. It is terribly tight, far tighter than the corset Rae had laced that morning, that lay now at her feet. Her fingers splay across her stomach as she shallows her breath, and they pull tighter still, the corset bites at her skin.

Before she can manage a sound, the modiste addresses her mother once again. Her voice strained with effort.

"With time it works to reform a woman's natural body until she is a shape becoming of a young woman." The words scrape across her skin. And this sting of humiliation is not unfamiliar, she is used to its blistering heat, and the way it wires through her body.

Portia hums her approval as she circles, taking in the new contorted shape of her daughter. Penelope sips at the air. She feels her mother's gaze on her skin, as though a finger, as though a knife.

A shadow of the season last stretches on the walls then, Marina's silhouette. The one Portia had used to condemn Penelope's own. The flare of Marina's hips, the daintiness of her shoulders, the point of her chin and lift of her cheekbones, the slight of her frame, womanly and wanted.

Wanted by Colin, in the end.

The union only proving her Mama's pointed and poisonous words correct.

"You can see her silhouette is much more natural, more pleasing," the hateful modiste continues, "You can in addition expect decreases in appetite, and better posture and gait." Portia comments and Penelope misses the words as her lips begin to prickle.

Her mind slips to the evening last, when Anthony had sat beside Gabrielle at the theatre, Benedict on his other side, Colin absent in his rut. How the conductor himself had remarked upon the beauty of the diamond, had presented her with a piece inspired by her resplendence.

Anthony had offered his hand and escorted her to the stage and Penelope had been left confused by the irritation that had bloomed in her chest. They were a striking picture, Viscount and Diamond.

And the way Portia had stewed on the journey home, her silence loud and portending an outburst that kept even her older sisters quiet, had only frayed her nerves further.

"We must accept that no one will marry you like this, no suitor will be accepting of you as you are, and I will not ignore it any longer.

"It will take some days to wear in. I suggest she wear it for an hour…then two the day next…then three and so forth." Portia nods curtly, seemingly pleased. Portia hands currency over the counter and Penelope's eyes watch it until it disappears from view, recalls placing it into an envelope herself days earlier, Lord Featherington's signature easy now.

She wears the corset home, as per her Mama and the corset wears painfully at her skin long after the hour prescribed by the modiste.

Perhaps this erosion will set her right, will take the things that are so intolerable and leave something more of kind to the Ton.

Anthony leaves his brothers inside before the Queen, a flutter of laughter in his chest at the wide, horrified eyes Benedict sends him. Queen Charlotte had requested he retrieve Gabrielle from the library where she had taken to some reading. He was happy to hear it, despite the time they had spent, in truth Anthony had not learned so much of Gabrielle.

His mind recalls his list, beyond its borders, to the traits of a wife he dared not to write, not to hope for. It was not a Viscount's job to hope for anything more than a viscountess beautiful and dutiful and wanting of child. Not someone well-read and daring and one his whole pack could love and someone who could challenge him more and know him entirely, not the Viscount but Anthony.

He huffs out a sigh, deriding himself. And pushes the door open to find Gabrielle surrounded by parchments. The light is low, autumnal, setting a warm glow against her face.

"Whistledown?" Anthony asks, when he draws closer, his eyes catching on the small, printed silhouette atop of each leaflet. He has not forgotten to be grateful for the absence of Whistledown. He is uncertain his constitution could have endured all that was unfolding this season, atop of the explosive scandal sheet.

Though, in her absence his family's reputation was as marred and damaged as it had ever been, despite his efforts. Or was it indeed because of the sheet?

Still, Whistledown had saved Colin from a false bond, Daphne from a horrid marriage, and had been instrumental in several of his business deals. Far from just a gossip sheet, Anthony had seen the way it shifted tides. He rather wonders what she could have delivered them this season, what had remained concealed beneath the waves. And if they would be shrouded so much in mystery had the scandal sheet been circulating.

Gabrielle smiles, her eyes shining in the low light.

"I found myself curious… I kept hearing the name more and more about the Ton. I will say it has been quite the education."

"Don't believe everything you read Miss Allard," he teases after bowing his head in greeting.

"Are the sheets often unfaithful to the truth?" she asks, and Anthony cannot think of one single falsehood.

"She can be rather scathing," Gabrielle concedes and then shrugs, "though she seems to present things rather intricately, prompts the reader to think about things anew, from different angles, ask questions one would not normally. I confess I find myself wishing for more."

Something new flickers into her expression then, unsure and tentative, something he has not seen of her before.

"She speaks rather favourably of your family, was perhaps even more one-sided than she seems normally to be when it came to the events of last season." He blinks at her in surprise, having certainly not shared her thoughts in the eye of the storm the season last. Though in truth, Anthony had been ready to bundle his family off to Aubrey Hall before Whistledown had smoothed over the worst for them.

And Gabrielle was correct, the sheet had firmly aimed its ire at the Featherington's last season. Had never been a threat to his family the way it was to them.

And Anthony knows then he is grateful for its absence.

Whistledown was the very last thing Penelope needed. He finds himself glaring at the sheets, recalling the words it had levelled at the young woman.

"The Queen seems rather ruffled by it all," Gabrielle pulls him back into focus and he nods,

"Writing in opposition to the crown is treason." A small smile lifts the corners of Gabrielle's lips, and she answers with a conspiratorial whisper, not to be overheard.

"Actually, I get the sense Queen Charlotte would be quite satisfied with the return of Lady Whistledown. I think she misses her."

There are other side effects of the corset she finds. It is true she can hardly tolerate a small portion of lunch, and the corset forces her shoulders back to avoid the pinch of her skin.

Rae is forced to call upon Mrs Varley to help her lace the corset, her eyes bleeding with regret. Her lady's maid had been particularly outraged when she had taken in the new corset upon their return home, incensed there was no way to loosen it thanks to the small metal loops that hooked together.

When Penelope had picked up her quill later that day she observed the slight violet hue to her fingertips. Rae had gone to Mrs Varley, demanding respite. And somehow Portia had agreed.

She finds though, as she climbs the stairs to the Easton's estate for the evening's ball, the corset successfully forces away thoughts she has been pleading away for days and weeks and months. Her father, the Talbots, Eloise and Colin and the Bridgerton's – her attention tunnels down to drawing just enough air into her lungs.

It becomes difficult then to focus on her only aim for the evening, to avoid Colin. Rae had informed her he had left Bridgerton House that morning, his rut lifted, and she knows no reason he would not be in attendance.

She has not spoken with any of the Bridgerton's since her argument with Eloise, had spent the days since licking at her opened wounds. Regret curdling in the pit of her stomach.

"Pen." Her eyes widen and lift and, Colin. She has barely stepped foot into the hall before he plants himself in her path. As though he had been lingering just inside the door. As though he had been waiting for her. Her heart flurries, the treacherous muscle.

His gaze pours over her form, he looks at her as though he has been abroad for years, as though it is the first time he is seeing her.

"You look beautiful Pen." His words hit her like glass. She forgets to breathe, freezes in place, until her lungs scream for air and she attempts a deep breath the wretched material beneath her gown refuses her.

"Are you well Pen?" His gaze searches her face, his own creasing with concern. His hand lifts as though he thinks she may fall. Her mother and sisters are long gone. Not that they would have intervened, or noticed her distress she thinks bitterly. No, it was just her and Colin now. The very way she had wished for so many years.

"Dance with me Pen?" He lifts her hand and there is nothing to do. She has no right to refuse him here under the Queen's watch. A glance to the pulpit above and Penelope takes in the stormy expression of their monarch. Narrowed eyes and folded arms. Whistledown's curiosity lifts her head, Penelope uses all her strength to force her away.

Music lifts through the room and Colin steers her toward the floor.

"Mr Bridgerton, Miss Featherington," Lady Sarah Easton, a former diamond of the Queen, smiles when they line up beside their hosts. Lord Easton smiles, holding his jewel as though he is the richest among them. And then Colin is spinning Penelope away, and the air dissolves from her breath.

"Are you alright Pen?" His voice is even more concerned, his face fallen. There is a tremble to her name this time and when she meets Colin's eyes she is sorrowful for the anguish she finds.

"I am well Colin. And you?" He nods, seemingly unconvinced, his head tilting slightly as he considers her.

"I am much recovered thank you." He squeezes the hand he holds, his thumb swiping over her fingers, burning the skin beneath her gloves. And she feels it still, that pull toward him. Notes the way his scent is so much richer, in the wake of his rut. Beckoning, she burns for a moment too long and there is an ache at the base of her spine.

The cravat at his neck is white with a navy trim and tied in a simple knot. She recalls the way his fingers had deftly undone his last, wonders if he has since missed it, and when her heart swoops into her stomach she vows to discard of it from her quarters, recalls pressing it to her own neck under the dark of night.

"Pen I wanted to apologise for the fuss I caused in the garden. I should not have overreacted but when I caught scent of someone I just so worried you had been hurt." He keeps his words soft, beneath the swell of the music, for her ears only. Keeps them moving too.

And they make sense, she supposes. Colin is incredibly protective of those around him. And without a scent of her own it would have been all too easy for him to scent the doctor and misunderstand, assume her harmed. Bile rushes her throat at the thought of the physician's scent on her skin. She forces the tremor from her voice and strings together an explanation.

"Why are you seeing a physician? Are you unwell?" The change in Colin's scent draws notice, the couples around them give them a wide berth but he takes no notice. And pulls her closer. Her head spins.

"I am fine Colin, my Mama is simply attempting to uncover what is wrong with me." He scowls. Burnt sugar clumps beneath her tongue.

"There is nothing wrong with you Pen, nothing at all."

I would never court Penelope Featherington.

Bland and blank and wrong Penelope Featherington. Not wanted or womanly, the shape of her father's disappointment and her mother's disdain. Not an omega, or a diamond or an heir, or a good friend.

The music stops.

Notes:

Some Colin love we all deserve...though he still has one or two or three lessons to learn.

The last chapter absolutely kicked my butt, but this one felt like getting back in a good rhythm. I hope you enjoy. I'm playing with perhaps some shorter but more frequent chapters but only hope it doesn't disrupt the flow of the story...more than happy to hear some feedback :)

Some comfort for Pen coming up next chapter (and then just so much more of it later in the story I promise!)

Thank you all sooo much for reading!

Chapter 14: Sum of Three

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Benedict's eyes follow her around the edge of the ballroom. She slips through the shadows, evading notice, evading Colin he has realised. His eyes find his brother unhappily searching the crowd for her.

He forces himself still as Penelope sways a second time, ignoring the tug in his chest that urges him forward. And he has spent enough recent time coaxing her to breathe, to see now the way she struggles to draw a steady lungful. She is uncomfortable in the ballroom, in her gown, in the ton.

Within only a few short days she has remade his thoughts, filled his silences and stolen away his focus the same way the night steals the day. His canvas remains blank, his paintbrushes lie abandoned.

Upon their arrival at the Easton Ball, Benedict had noted the way Colin had lingered by the entrance, leaving him to settle the family while Anthony had escorted Francesca about the room. He had been delighted to see Daph and Simon but his gaze, as though weighted, returned over and over to the mouth of the hall. Waiting.

Before long the Featherington matriarch had appeared in the entrance way, a plumage of yellow and fuscia and something had blistered beneath his skin at the sight of her. At the way Penelope followed alone, behind her sisters and their shadows. And he thinks of the night he had learned of the petition for Penelope's emancipation, is certain the words of it have etched themselves into his mind.

"I found it in one of father's old folios about a year after he died," Anthony explains as Benedict reads over the document once more. An onslaught of possibilities each worse, and darker and more awful than the last unfold in his mind. How had they not known of this.

As though he can hear them, Anthony interrupts his thoughts, his voice soft, "Ma said that she and father had been concerned about the care Penelope was receiving after the Featherington's moved in." Benedict's eyes find the date on the document, it was far older than it appeared.

"Apparently Penelope had let slip to mother that she had been forbidden from eating dinner the night before. She'd had no clothes suitable for the cold. And father had read her a story one evening to realise she was well behind Eloise in her reading and comprehension, they found out she hadn't a governess. Father confronted Archibald and offered to take Penelope in." Benedict finds himself pacing to the window as Anthony's speaks, he stares at the estate across the square, and even at dusk it seems darker than ever before.

"In truth there is no legal basis to it," Anthony says lifting the document, leaning back in his chair with a sigh, "It was meant to threaten, to rely on the Bridgerton name, the Featherington's were new to the ton, trying to ingratiate themselves. It would have been a humiliation for such a controversy. And it worked. According to mother, they treated Penelope far better thereafter."

And now, as the Ton spins on the dancefloor, Benedict is unable to keep his eyes from flitting between Penelope and her mother. Just as at the theatre the night before while the Ton watched the play, he had been unable to keep his eyes from them.

For with this new knowledge folded away in his mind, in each look Portia spares or sends her youngest daughter he sees a cold malice he hasn't before. She seems different now. Lady Featherington. A darker shade. No longer benign, or annoying, to be dismissed as merely a rather harsh, meddling Mama. More conniving, and callous and capable than he had realised.

Somewhere, in her deepest depths, a younger, brighter, softer version of herself is still entranced by the beauty of an Easton Ball.

Lady Sarah Easton had debuted the very first year the Featherington's had arrived in Mayfair. Her Mama had taken all three of her daughters to the presentation where she had for the first time caught sight of Queen Charlotte and fallen in love with the beautiful young debutantes she dreamed of becoming.

The Easton Balls were sprawling, romantic affairs presented as a thank you to the Queen from her first diamond and her love, Lord Easton, who had charmed the Ton in his courtship for the diamond, in sweeping gestures and loud proclamations. The Easton's storybook romance and subsequent nuptials had entranced a young Penelope.

She had unfolded a future in her mind, a version of their love for herself. Of her metamorphosis before the Ton, and her own fairytale of a courtship, and she had even been certain that once her mate had fallen in love with her, so too would her mother. And she would fill her home with laughter and a love that she had not found in the one she had been raised.

And then she had met Colin.

Who was certainly the type for sweeping gestures, and loving words, and he could make her laugh louder than anyone ever had before. And he had stepped into her fantasy and never thought to leave.

And now, an older Penelope, wisened by time, was avoiding him in a ballroom.

Colin had pursued her all evening. Fetching her lemonade and weaving her stories and tugging on all the old threads of affection knitted into her very bones. He looked at her as though she were still the girl infatuated with romance and love. And Colin.

When her Mama had requested her presence for an introduction, which had quickly soured once the suitor had learned which daughter Portia had intended, she had managed to slip away from their notice, diving into the shadows.

Out of sight, she had watched Anthony dance with Gabrielle a second time, and across the floor, through the crowd had caught sight of Eloise. Her vision blurred for a long, dizzying moment.

In the days that had expired since their fight Penelope had found herself entirely undone once more. The morning after, she had woken to a darker sky, the gloomy air swirling the waters of her mind, lifting the darkest thoughts and memories to her surface. She had been unable to pull herself from its grip.

So quickly she had abandoned the apologies she had rehearsed and saved for Eloise in her mind. Weakened by hurt she had so easily reached for anger, and pettiness, and cruelty. Not unlike…just like her mother. And Eloise had every right to be upset, yet Penelope hadn't stopped striking, unkind and viperous.

She can taste it now, the regret, the remorse that aches a bruise in her chest. She has buried her hope for reconciliation, torn it from her ribs.

She finds herself drawing closer, skirting the ballroom. For Penelope knows the importance of last words, and she cannot leave Eloise with that. Not that. An apology builds on her tongue. One final word.

Penelope is only several yards away when Cressida's voice snaps her to attention, somehow she hadn't noticed the older girl by Eloise's side.

"I do not know what to do. The contract has been drawn, there is no hope left to avoid this marriage. I am trapped," Cressida frets and Penelope stills, shifting closer to the wall.

And while Cressida's words tug at her curiosity, it is her distraught, hopeless despondency that enwraps Penelope, that stills her in place. She knows it's weight. She knows it's taste. Has heard it in her own voice.

And it is such a departure from Cressida's usual venom, her lofty arrogance and biting words. It is jarring to hear her so forlorn…dejected…fearful even.

"Can your mother not intervene?" Eloise asks, distracted while she searches the room for someone, or something, neck craned and half listening. Like she presents an easy, unconsidered solution, like every mother is Violet Bridgerton. With her title and resources and love. Like there is only one shape of a mother.

Penelope thinks of Lady Cowper, the sharpness to her gaze, the sharp cut of her words, the way she silences around her husband. She knows for Cressida it is not so simple and Gen's words unfold in her mind,

Eloise is a wonderful young woman but she has been afforded some protections in life that you have not.

And neither has Cressida. And Penelope knows not how to feel about the sudden likeliness she finds in Cressida Cowper.

Anthony abandons an emptied tumbler at the base of a large flower pot. He shakes his hands out hoping to relieve the tension coiling through his body.

He has been irritated all day. Too heightened to escort Francesca, he had snapped at suitors until she herself had steered them back to their mother, where they had encouraged him to take a turn about the gardens. He had agreed readily, desperate to escape his tightening cravat, seizing a brandy on his way.

It is a big night for him. And he is assured in his decision, he thinks, at least when he manages to ignore the riot marching through his veins, leaving a fire in its path. He forces a sharp breath out, his frustration. And rolls his shoulders wringing out his resentment.

He takes little notice of his path, expelling the energy unneeded by an enamoured Viscount as he would be by the nights end. And it is only as he rounds the edge of a large shrubbery, he is flooded with a sweetness he recognises instantly.

"Penelope?" His eyes dart around the grounds, until he catches her red. There in a darkened corner, tucked into one of the ornate garden benches he finds her. He quickly closes the distance between them, noting the fatigue in her frame and the way she sits, uncomfortable in her gown.

"Are you well Penelope?" She nods before his lips can even close around her name. He fixes her with the same look he sends Hyacinth when she lies and Penelope flushes. Rose petals on her cheeks.

His eyes circle the courtyard quickly, finding no one in sight. Still, all the reasons it is unsafe for her out here flood his mind.

"May I escort you inside?" He expects her to stand, a small, dejected nod and thinks he will sweep her to the dancefloor, and claim their lost dance, and with some luck the heaviness will swirl from her eyes and lift from his shoulders.

Instead, her brow creases and Anthony pockets his fingers at the sudden urge to smooth the skin with his thumb. She lifts her gaze to meet his own and shifts in her place,

"I'd quite prefer to stay here. I will rejoin you all soon," she says softly instead, surprising him.

She expects him to turn away, he realises, as though he would ever leave a young lady, much less Penelope herself, in the shadowy corner of a garden unchaperoned.

More selfishly he has no desire to rejoin the festivities either, so when she shifts to make space, he drops down beside her and sighs into the night.

"I thought I heard Colin making noise about a waltz with Pen." Her lips quirk at his impression of Colin, and triumph breaks over him as the clouds of her melancholia part for a dazzling moment. And then indeed the first strings of the waltz lift into the night air and suddenly an ocean swells in Penelope's eyes.

A small sob tears from her throat, and she clamps a gloved palm across her lips, barring its escape, eyes wide and startled. She shakes her head in apology, one that he will not accept. And she begins to gather her skirts, to stand, to flee, wincing with each movement.

A gentle touch to her forearm stills her. He can't let her disappear alone with her grief a second time.

Only later will he think of the impropriety of it all. But as the moon settles above them, his world tunnels to Penelope and the small shake of her shoulders. He slides closer and folds her against him. He loops an arm around her shoulders and she turns to stone, small tears sliding down the granite slope of her cheeks.

"You're okay Penelope." An errant thought distracts him briefly, that he much prefers the sound of her full name, the syllables sliding over his tongue, before he twists toward her, tucking her closer against his chest, rubbing a path up and down her arm.

She shudders and finally, finally relinquishes the tight hold she has been keeping on herself, to him. A gift indeed.

He holds her tighter, as small, soundless sobs tremor between them. And time passes, Anthony holds still, and steady, with a bundle of Penelope beneath his chin. He finds himself swaying them just slightly, the way he used to with the pups. An old instinct to soothe.

And though he cannot fix it all, not yet, something within him shivers with satisfaction at being able to provide her even just this moment now.

"I'm sorry." Her unwelcome apology is a strained, tearful whisper. He doesn't move, keeps his shoulders between her and the world. Anthony lifts his hand then, hooking a finger beneath her chin to gently lift the gaze she keeps lowered.

"There is nothing to be sorry for darling," he promises, brushing the backs of his fingers along her cheek, collecting the last of her tears. Sincerity is heavy in his words, and the term of affection shocks him, but it is hardly the time to dwell, not when her eyes glisten once more. A second swell of emotion threatening to overspill.

His palm slides a soothing path between her shoulders, but she refuses them, blinking furiously, and draws air in and out of her lungs several times, the routine practiced and paced.

He observes quietly as she pulls her corners back together, as a ruby flush blooms in her cheeks, when her lips roll together and part again,

"Please don't apologise Penelope," he pleads.

The rain doesn't apologise for falling, the autumn leaves or the stars…he wants to promise to catch her, to pull her back into his arms, if she would just allow herself to fall. But he knows, suddenly and so very clearly, he knows what such soft sentiments will do to her brittle composure.

And he does not wish to shatter her so. No, he wishes for her to sink into his arms, his comfort like slipping into a warm bath, or a soft coat, or sweet sleep after an unending day.

"Thank you then," Penelope whispers in answer, and he smiles softly. They settle, side by side into a gentle peace and Anthony imagines passing the evening just so. Finds himself wishing the moon would slow its arc above, to stretch time for him just this once.

"Are you to announce your courtship this evening?" she asks him quietly. He is shocked at the words from her lips. Wishes suddenly that he could reach himself, up into the night sky and drag the moon back into the day, unwind all that has led him here.

"Colin does not approve," Anthony comments, knowing Penelope has spent much of her evening by his brother's side…until she had found herself alone in the gardens. Penelope hums, the sound thoughtful and pensive and Anthony's is drawn to her expression,

"I'm not sure Colin understands, not completely. It does make perfect sense, marrying the diamond is a certain remedy." And Anthony suddenly feels as though he is treading the blue of her eyes, as though they can see through him completely.

He suddenly wishes to fill the silence, to ask her a hundred questions, to unpick what it is she understands, to know what she thinks.

"I have always admired the way you protect them," she says softly as though the 'them' does not include her.

"I am certain once the Ton learns of your courtship, there will be talk of nothing else." And her words are so certain he feels his confidence bolstering.

"Where is Whistledown when you need her?" he asks of the night, and tries to ignore the way it feels as though something has been knocked out of place beneath his ribs. He senses then, Colin's approach.

Beside him, Penelope too arches her gaze to the garden's edge and Anthony's eyes threaten to roll, had her connection with his packmate always been so obvious? Had he really been so blind?

"Pen!" Colin exclaims his voice suffused with relief, and she feels guilty then for her efforts to avoid him, overwhelmed under his attentions.

"Are you quite alright Pen?" he asks again crossing the courtyard even quicker than Anthony had. Anthony, and the way his arm remains pressed against her own, warms her against the cool night.

"Pen…" She catches the way Colin looks to his brother then, his question fading.

Colin crouches in the space before her, folding himself smaller and tilting his head as his eyes search her face. And she has never been a delicate, pretty crier. Like her mother, or Eloise, or Daphne. She can feel the swelling beneath her reddened eyes, stares at the green in his own.

He reaches for her, without hesitation, covering her hand with his and she can do nothing but stare. She feels better after the release of tears, however mortifying. She is certain the embarrassment will wait for her in the dawn of tomorrow.

She sits still, in the halo of Anthony's scent, draped in its comforting weight and richness. And now, bracketed by them, Colin's scent reaches her too, knitting itself together with Anthony's; a blanket around her, a comforting caress.

She begs the blush away as she thinks about the way this very scent, the two combined, is the scent of her sheets. And she should feel guilty, and she should feel ashamed. And she feels neither.

And then, a third strand, something else. Something new. Something unimaginably better. Something beyond her imagination.

Desire pools in her mouth. Her blood slows in its rush, a smoother sea. And her mind too, seems to sigh a breath of calm, the frenzy flickers out.

And for the first time that evening it feels not as though she must fight the corset for air.

And the very last, final threads of tension taut in her body snap so loudly, the sound echoes through her corridors. Her eyes peel open in search and,

Benedict.

She meets his eyes, and he holds her gaze from where he stands behind Colin.

Colin, who lifts his arm and brushes his fingers along the apple of her cheek, and she feels the wetness he wipes from her skin. And wonders when she had started crying again. Anthony is a steady weight beside her. She finds herself leaning into him, as her body is untangled and unknotted and unfastened. And she has never experienced a scent like this.

It burrows into her skin, washes over her like water, like touch. And she can scent each of the three, the different notes reaching out to her for attention…the mahogany of Anthony, the charcoal of Benedict, the black cherry of Colin. A trace of peppermint, and pine, and rain. And all of their sweetness and tartness and earthiness and musk combines and washes her away.

"Are we needed back?" Anthony asks softly, his words barely audible, as though they are through glass or water.

"We have time." And she trust Benedict's words, as her eyelids grow too heavy to fight. She hears their voices, familiar and comforting as they softly converse. And she wonders why their scent tastes so different on her tongue now, and her cheek comes to rest against Anthony's shoulder, Colin's fingers on her knee, Benedict's gaze caressing her face.

"Pen." Her eyes open to meet Colin's. And they are so adoring and tender, like sunlight shining through leaves of green. She basks in it.

"It's okay," Colin reassures when she manages to tear her gaze from his, and spots Simon several yards away, and struggles to straighten.

"The Queen is to make an announcement shortly," Simon explains softly for her, sending a kind smile toward her before he fixes Anthony with a stare that says more. He has arrived to summon them back to the ball she realises as she lands back in the gardens, under the moonlight.

She realises that she cannot scent Simon from where she sits, that she has to focus, seek him out, fight through the luscious pack scent, she will forever try to recall, already mourning its loss.

Beside her, Anthony seems to deflate under his best friend's stare, and for one long yawning moment she thinks he may refuse. Insist upon remaining there with them, under the stars, under the night. She wishes she herself could stop the clocks, could live in this moment for just a while longer.

Instead, he moves, slowly and gently to his feet, as though not to disturb her, as though he expects her to wilt without his frame, his worry not unfounded.

Colin too, stands and makes to help her.

"I should rather like to stay here." But unlike last time, when he had indulged her wish, Anthony shakes his head softly and she sighs. And let's Colin pull her up and tuck her arm into his own. They follow Anthony and Benedict, two sets of broad shoulders back toward the estate, the noise, the brightness. Simon already having disappeared, she realises.

It is Benedict who pauses and turns to step before her, once they are outside the hall. He lifts a hand to tuck a curl behind her ear,

"You ready?" She nods and blinks away the emotion still in her eyes. And then meets Anthony's eyes over Benedict's shoulder whose words she borrows,

"You ready?" she asks, and earns another soft smile from the Viscount who nods. And from beside her, Colin meets his brother's gaze,

"We're with you Ant," he promises and she watches the exchange between them, heart swelling. And they are climbing the stairs,

And the lights are grating and too bright, and the Ton has collected, and Queen Charlotte stands above them. She draws to a stop between Colin and Anthony, Benedict on his other side.

"I know you all will join me in congratulating my first diamond, Lady Easton as our esteemed host for this evening. A truly wonderful night, you continue to shine just as bright my dear." Lady Easton curtseys, a picture of poise.

"And whilst we speak of our most treasured jewels, I wish to extend a second congratulations to our newest diamond, Miss Allard and Viscount Bridgerton who announced their courtship earlier this morning," Queen Charlotte's voice lifts, delighted and murmurs ripple through the crowd,

Beside her, Anthony does not move the way she expects. He pulls his lips into a convincing smile, and bows first to the Queen and then to the diamond across the room, but he does not move. He stays. He stays.

"We wish the pair our very best," Queen Charlotte exults before her face hardens and her eyes sweep over those below. The sky turns grey.

"Lastly this evening, some unfinished business from last season." The matriarch's voice has tightened, and Penelope feels her calm begin to disintegrate, a disquieting hush sweeps the crowd, the sudden tension contagious. Colin's fingers brush comfort over her palm,

"As you have likely noticed this season, we appear to be missing one of our own. Your Queen however does not easily forget any of you," she declares, lifting her chin to address them,

"As such anyone with information regarding Lady Whistledown should present to Buckingham House. Any information verified as truth, will be handsomely rewarded." And the peace of the evening shatters apart. And Queen Charlotte delivers the Ton's first real scandal for the season.

No one notices Cressida Cowper step back into the shadows. No one sees the way her expression contorts as her gaze follows the Queen from the hall. And there veiled by the shadows, the desperation in her eyes hardens into something else, into determination, a will to survive.

Notes:

Hi dears!

I hope this little slice of comfort brought some comfort to you…it is a small glimpse into Pen's future.

Okay, sincere question about pacing…hoping to do a little bit of a temperature check, is this fic becoming more frustrating than…rewarding/satisfying/enjoyable to read.

Please feel free to be honest, I'm genuinely curious and interested in how it is being received.

Thank you so much! And thank you so much for reading!

Chapter 15: Resurrection

Summary:

Previously on Unconditional...

Penelope continues her ruse as Lord Featherington, unable to leave her fate in the hands of the new Lord Featherington. Chipping away at her Whistledown earnings to keep her family afloat, steadfastly ignoring the rising tides.

After the mere trace of another alpha on her skin sent Colin spiralling into a rut, Colin 'my wife' Bridgerton has entered the chat.

Portia, loving mother to two, has employed a physician to ensure her youngest presents.

Queen Charlotte it seems it not quite ready to let go of Whistledown, and perhaps she's not alone.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

At dawn, boys of six and ten and eight scamper through the corridors of Mayfair. They carry rucksacks with gaping mouths, bloated by the parchments within.

In the low light small hands slide sheets beneath doors, into the waiting hands of butlers and servants for whom the day has already begun.

In Grosvenor square a strap slips from a bony shoulder and leaflets spill across the cobbles. The wind throws them to the air like confetti, and they flash white against blue, turning cartwheels against the morning sky.

Once the Featherington household awakens from their slumber, Mrs Varley pauses breakfast service to receive a handful of sheets.

"Whistledown?" Phillipa exclaims around a mouthful of eggs earning a hiss from her Mama, who reaches for the pages herself. A rock lodges in Penelope's throat when she spies the royal stamp.

"The crown has issued a five thousand pound reward for Whistledown's identity," Mrs Varley reports and Penelope steadfastly keeps her gaze lowered, tracing the spiderweb cracks in the china. Five thousand pounds.

"I would rather pay that dastardly woman double than see her return," her Mama mutters contemptuously beneath her breath before lifting her gaze.

"Though the pounds would be useful, what with the cost of your new corsets Penelope, and special physician." Penelope's honeyed tea turns sour and if she were braver she would protest. Point out that she had neither wanted nor asked for either.

Instead, she bites down on the 'thank you' her mother is expecting, refusing and unable to stomach either the humiliation, or another bite of her breakfast. No one objects when she slips from the table.

"I was only able to get one new dress at the modiste yesterday," Prudence complains, and Penelope's eyes threaten to roll, resentment simmering beneath her skin.

"We must simply be frugal until Lord Featherington arrives girls. In any case I will write to him about increasing next month's expenses."

In Portia's last letter to Lord Featherington, her fraying patience had read loudly between the polite updates she'd provided of her daughters.

Penelope had unrepentantly forged his reply, a short and deliberately droll letter about the delays in the sale of his business. She had lifted some painfully dry phrases from a book on contract negotiation from her father's study and several weeks later Portia had received the response and a clip of currency to cover expenses.

One that would not increase next month, she thinks as she climbs the stairs. She would not fund her own misfortune.

"Penelope is unavailable Mister Bridgerton, she remains unwell." Frustration licks at the back of Colin's neck, his eyes flicking toward the staircase that leads to her quarters.

He has not seen Penelope since the Easton Ball, after he and Benedict had escorted her back to her carriage, Anthony pulled away by obligation. He had called upon her each morning since, only to be slipped an excuse for her absence; despite the fact that she is a debutante and these are calling hours.

Colin had woken early that morning, an itching impatience. He had employed Gregory and Hyacinth to watch over the square while he returned to the florist for the third morning.

Now in the Featherington drawing room, he arranges the vases he has brought so they line the windowsill, adorning it with spring.

He knows she is up there.

In his chest, and somewhere deeper, Colin knows.

There is a deep ache now, cracking his core the longer he is denied her. A yawning yearning that stretches within. It is stronger than he has felt before, when he had wandered too far from these shores, stayed away for too long. Homesickness, he realises. He is homesick, for her.

Now it is only her cathedrals and ravines and oceans deep he aches to know, to learn. To maze the corridors of her mind and witness the way the sun rises and sets within her. She is his home, and his world to discover. The two halves of his soul in one.

Falling in love with Penelope had hardly felt like falling at all, but waking, but knowing, but finding all that he has been searching for.

She is the mate of his soul. He knows. He knows with a certainty he has never before possessed. Designation, status, reputation inconsequential. He is hers. He always has been. He always will be. Whatever may be and whatever may come and through whatever seeks to keep them apart,

"Have you heard Prudence's latest work Mister Bridgerton?"

Colin passes a man on the stairs nodding his head before he is arrested in place.

The world sharpens around him, cords of muscle pulling taut, and he turns to eye the man carrying a brown leather case, he appears about Anthony's age.

Not at all what Colin had been expecting.

He has not seen him before, will regret to know his scent forever. And Colin detests that it had taken another scent for him to realise, to shake his ground. A hurricane to shift this piece of him into place.

"Excuse me, you are the physician visiting for Miss Featherington?" The man nods yet his gaze is not without its own caution. Colin forces an easy grin across his face, relaxes his frame, and the tension whisps away.

"Is she to be okay?" he cannot help but ask. The physician offers him a wry smile,

"I cannot discuss a patient Mister Bridgerton though rest assured I expect the young lady to make a full recovery." And Colin feels at disadvantage, he does not know what ails her, he knows not the physician's name, so much out of his reach.

"The Bridgerton physician has mentioned retirement recently, you wouldn't have any interest, would you?" The man's eyes spark as expected and he nods, eagerly fishing a card from his pocket.

Colin stares down at the name, which etches into his mind. He nods to the physician and turns on his heel,

"Please pass on my wishes for a full recovery to Miss Featherington. My brothers and I will be in touch."

The colour is two parts brown and one part green and no part she desires anywhere near her Penelope thinks. And then prays, as she watches the physician heap the paste onto a spoon. She sinks to the back of her chair, the skin beneath her stays tender in the wake of her new corsets wear.

"We are grateful for your quick work doctor," Portia says from the chair beside her. Mother and daughter watch the physician sift more powder into the mixture, stirring it once more, a thickening.

He does not offer an explanation, and her mother does not demand one, unworried when he looms over Penelope a moment later.

She thinks of denying him, refusing to part her lips as he instructs, and when he grips her chin and presses a finger against her row of bottom teeth she imagines biting down, taking from him the way he takes from her. Unrepentantly. Unconcerned with his comfort or pain.

He places the spoon beneath her tongue, and disgust lurches up her throat when the syrup pools in her mouth.

"Not pleasant," he acknowledges blithely, and closes her jaw forcefully, his grip unyielding even when she tries to pull away.

It burns beneath her tongue, molten.

Quick acting and acrimonious.

Her eyes well.

The room spins.

She can hear his voice, her mothers' too. They sound suddenly at a distance. Distorted.

And the smell of smoke consumes her, billowing. She is sure she is on fire. Feels the ash in her mouth. Parched and burning.

And Penelope loses her own grip on time, the string unravelling. It stretches and slows and runs ahead and loops. And finally he releases her, his fingertips left pitted in her skin.

And his pen grates loudly in her ear, as though he scratches its point against her eardrum. She hears everything and then nothing. Nothing but the thundering drum of her heart.

And she melts into the chair, losing her shape, her spine.

Then lurches forward, as though a carriage crashed, as though a fist wrenches at her sternum, and her stomach surrenders its contents to a basin Mrs Varley places just in time.

The physician barely looks up, his edges blurring in her vision as she heaves up everything but her embarrassment.

They wait for a time, perhaps a minute, perhaps a month and watch her closely as though she is changing before them. The physician takes notes, takes her temperature, swipes at her skin until finally she is dismissed to bed.

Fingers clamp around her shoulders and steer her back toward her chambers. And perhaps for the first time Penelope is grateful for Mrs Varley's tight grip. Still, she stumbles in her path, tripping on her skirts and the shadows.

And then she is on her knees, folded over another basin, stomach heaving around the nothing that is left. And then different fingers soothe through her hair, pulling it from her clammy skin. Gentle and careful and Rae, Penelope realises.

And finally, when she washes back to shore, breaks free of the current, she collapses heavily against the wall. Rae settles beside her on the stone. Mrs Varley nowhere in sight. Rae gently draws a damp cloth over her forehead. She keeps her voice to a whisper,

"Tell me what has been done Miss Penelope." Rae is only several years her senior. They have always felt of peers, yet in that very moment, in the way Rae's request has an unexpected trembling depth Penelope sees her lady's maid only as a mother. This is the word, the tenor of a mother.

You will do as the physician asks.

Penelope had long since given up on her own. Knows she has committed far too many wrongs to inspire any parental protections, doting or fierce or fleeting.

They sit out the storm together. Until Rae encourages her to stand, to cross the carpet. She helps Penelope to slip beneath the sheets, tucks the fire in with her and unknowingly leaves her to burn.

He spends days swirling reds and oranges into a sprawling sunset, then dots poppies in a field, paints scarlet flames consuming a rust-bitten building, and mixes a blush into the cheeks of his silhouettes.

The shade he seeks eludes him, never quite right.

Benedict had allowed himself to be tugged into the gardens at the Easton Ball, steered by some internal compass, some ancient force beyond his understanding. His heart had squeezed painfully when he'd found Penelope pocketed between his packmates, tears on her cheeks, pearls under the platinum moonlight.

And then she had opened her eyes into his, a look etched on her face he had never seen before. It had reached into his chest and stolen his breath and left something behind. Stained his very soul, painted his world an irreplicable red.

And she is suddenly ever-present. At night he searches his memory for traces of her, in the day she transforms into something new, a mirror, a muse, a meditation.

Benedict had not spent much time envisioning his future. An old youthful dream of spanning continents, scouring the galleries of the world, seeking out colours London had never seen now almost forgotten.

It had all been painted over by the black of death. And then screaming infants and troublesome toddlers and a fading mother, and his very own grief had slowly erased what remained.

Now, something new begins to take shape.

Several days after the ball, he abandons his art, frustrated and unable to force his focus. He slips from Bridgerton House where a strange tension has befallen them since the news of Anthony's courtship. Words unshared and unspoken collect in the corners like dust. Decade old apologies and gratitudes and confessions hang in the air, heavy.

And the further too, he ventures away, the irritation that hums in the bond between the brothers begins to quiet. Relief from Anthony's brewing, and Colin's brooding frustration.

And streets later, he finds himself waiting on a doorstep, arching his gaze skyward to take in the crimson, and gold, and cinnamon of dusk until the door swings open to reveal Genevieve who looks at him, and then looks again.

And she smiles as if she already knows what he is just beginning to see.

The posts of her bed seem to sway like willows, the earth dancing, her nausea rises. Even with her eyes clamped shut she can feel the earth's spin, even with a white-knuckled hold of the sheets she feels as though she might be flung from its edge.

Her eyes search the room for answers, for help, she wants to cry at its emptiness. And finally, unable to withstand it, she kicks the covers from atop her, pulls her aching frame to stand. Her knees buckle immediately, as though new-born and she is grateful for the carpet, and grateful now for no witnesses as she crawls to the cupboard.

She pulls the coat, the cravat back into the sheets. And inhales the scent and waits for her body to relax, for reprieve. But the ache at her temples persists and the nausea clawing at her throat grows sharper. She swallows a scream.

And the rotten bitterness lingers, beneath her tongue.

And she knows not how long she lies there, clinging to consciousness, begging for relief. For what is missing.

Bridgerton House is a hive of activity. The Duchess of Hastings had arrived early that morning and stands beside her mother, the eyes of this storm, conducting the chaos. It is the duke who rolls his sleeves and helps John to move a table through the parlour at their direction.

The Bridgerton fete is to be held in two days and all hands are expected on deck.

"And how is your modiste?" The footman hears the Viscount ask of a slightly worse-for-wear Benedict, who had returned only just after dawn that morning.

He is distracted from the answer when he catches Gregory sway under the weight of a heavy crate – determined to help as his brothers are. Gregory grins his sheepish thanks when John unburdens him, before he darts away.

And then for the second time in as many days, a small boy arrives at the gates, gulping at the sight of the Bridgerton alpha's. John hastens to accept the parchments, his mind spiralling to the young woman inside when he spies the familiar bust at the top of each page.

He curses. He had hoped to never see Whistledown again. Wants to scrunch the pages into his pockets before she or anyone can see the sheet. Before it can bring harm to Eloise ever again. Before it can even think to pull her back into peril, he shudders at his own failure.

"John?" He meets the Viscount's questioning gaze and swallows the stone in his throat.

And it isn't long before the dowager Viscountess' gasp, her disbelief echoes beneath the vaulted ceiling. The Duchess' graceful countenance creases with outrage beside her. Eloise then, appears before him, reaches for the last copy and scowls when he hesitates, a reflex.

She fixes him a look of fire he has not seen in her for so long. She ignores the plea in his eyes when he concedes and ignores the burn when her fingers brush his own. She retreats across the room.

"Dubious parentage?" The Viscount growls, claiming his attention, as though the sound shakes the walls.

"How dare she," Lady Bridgerton breathes aghast,

"What has that wretched woman written this time?" The storm cloud of the third Bridgerton alpha asks when he arrives. He had been sent to the lawns to help lift the marquee, an attempt to have him wring the frustration from his frame, a bid by his mother.

Colin had once again that morning ventured across to Featherington House, returning ever more vexed.

Briarly the Featherington's butler, had assured Humbolt of Miss Penelope's welfare once they had learned of her continued absence from calling hours. John misses her presence in the house, perhaps less so on his own behalf and his eyes lift to find Eloise once more – as he is want to do.

And he only just catches sight of her skirts disappearing through the side door unnoticed.

When her door swings open without warning, Penelope assumes it to be her mother. Portia had visited her chambers several times through the night. Her restlessness, her symptoms all signs of success, a signal of the physician's competence. Never before had a tonic or treatment wrought an effect.

She curses them both, and the exhaustion in her body, as she wakes with salt on her cheeks and red-rimmed eyes but the worst of it has passed.

And then Eloise Bridgerton tumbles into her room, pressing her back to the wood, chest heaving.

Silence stretches between them. Penelope shakes her head, as though to clear her vision, as though this is a trick of her mind, Eloise standing in her room.

"You're still in bed?" And Eloise's voice, a mixture of disbelief and judgement, so familiar it pulls Penelope from her shock. She gasps, knows she must look amess.

"What are you doing here?" And Eloise straightens then, disappears back into herself before she crosses the room and waits for Penelope to accept the parchment.

And the sickness roars back. Louder and worse with every new word she reads. This wave does not crash over her, it swallows her whole and fills her lungs. Sweat rolls down the column of her spine.

Before she can finish it, Penelope untangles herself from the sheets, urgency coiling in the pit of her stomach, abandoning the paper as she lurches across the floor. She empties her stomach in the chamber pot, purging the nothingness within.

She slumps against the stone and turns to see Eloise lingering in the doorway, her face a picture of concern. The parchment between her fingers.

"I did not write that." And she wishes her voice was stronger.

Eloise sends her a look she still knows. Hope trills through her. Relief crashes over her shoulders. Eloise does not blame her for this, does not believe this hatred is of her hand. And later, more selfishly she will be satisfied that Eloise had not believed her capable of such clumsy words.

"Who wrote such a thing?" The question scratches her throat on the way out. Eloise doesn't know. And then, unexpectedly, Eloise slides down the wall opposite her and they sit- much like she and Rae had just the night before. Penelope reaches for it again, re-reads the vile words.

"You have no idea who it could have been?" Eloise asks after she does, and Penelope shakes her head. And hatred twists through her chest, for the person capable of writing such words about Violet Bridgerton.

And there on the stone, in the silence, she understands. This anger she feels now is the same that rushes Eloise's veins. The same lethal venom that had poisoned their friendship. Penelope realises she cares not for explanation or reason. Cares not if these words soothed some hurt for the author. Cares only that they have been written. Unforgiveable.

And this too, is her fault.

"I do not know Eloise how it came to be, or who is responsible, but I will fix it. I promise you I will fix this." Her voice seems to snap Eloise back into place, as though suddenly the omega wakes to find herself in the Featherington estate, in Penelope's room.

Echoes of their fight sweep through cracks in the floor, billow the curtains.

"Your Mama?" Penelope cannot help but ask,

"Rather devastated," Eloise reports, her voice stretched thin and Penelope nods, eyes glassy.

"I'm so sorry." Eloise nods wordlessly and Penelope cannot decide if she would have preferred her to shout. If she favours Eloise's anger over this. This helplessness.

"I will fix it," she assures once again. And Penelope sees the question in Eloise's eyes, before she seems to think better of it, before she realises the answer or perhaps wishes not to know. And between them, something shifts.

She worries about the blank page. Worries the quill will no longer fit her hand.

When she reads Whistledown now, it feels of another. The words, the will, the audacity. It all feels so foreign, for how she has stripped every trace from her bones.

Penelope shifts her floorboards and pulls her supplies, like unearthing remains. She sits at her desk and lines her parchments so and feels a flicker.

A flame reignites somewhere in her darkness. It catches alight, cell by cell. As if the lanterns of a city emerging from darkness, as if a million stars breaking through a clouded sky. And from the darkest part of Penelope, from her place of exile, Whistledown unfurls her spine, stretches her fingers and takes back her pen.

The quill sprints away across the page. The anger and outrage and injustice in her veins flow onto the parchment, unstaining her skin, seeping from her soul. The heartbreak and grief and guilt, slip from the beds of her unhealed wounds. The words rain and wash and flood from her.

Dearest gentle reader it seems someone has been impersonating me and so I can no longer sit idly by…

She easily fills one page. And then another. And then three.

And perhaps she had saved the wrong self. Cut away the wrong parts.

Whistledown could have survived all this. Would have known what to do.

Would have been solid where Penelope had floundered. Would have known what to say to her mother, to Eloise, to Colin. Would not be so weak with them all.

And for the first time in so very long she can breathe. She is left, alive and in control and stained only by ink. The rest washes away, over the page, surrendered.

She cries for the relief of it all.

Cries, for the last time.

Notes:

Whistledown has returned!

When Gen finds out about that corset she's going to be apoplectic…(and she won't be alone).

Thank you all so very much for reading. Your comments have reignited my excitement for this little story, I can't wait to share more of it with you.

Chapter 16: The True Lady Whistledown

Summary:

Previously on Unconditional...

A sheet purporting to be Lady Whistledown's return floods the Ton. Penelope is horrified to read the words that besmirch Violet Bridgerton and her house.

Colin waits for Anthony to confront him about the sum of money he has spent on flowers for Penelope…and her absence from calling hours begins to unravel him.

The investigation into Archibald Featherington's death has come to a standstill, the officers seem satisfied his death is the result of a bad debt. Anthony finds himself less satisfied, sensing danger at their shores.

Portia continues to just be the worst.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

She had forgotten this thrill.

Slipping out into the night, into the hired hack, into Rae's old cloak. A parchment tucked against her chest, the ink of last minute additions and edits staining her fingers.

The carriage rolls to a stop and Penelope slips into the printshop. And her whole world has changed so irrevocably since her last visit, yet the shop stands just the same, smells just the same. Of steel and grease and parchment; of a simpler time.

"Figured I might be seeing you sooner or later." Andrew, the owner of the printshop emerges from the back, with a small knowing smile. As though he has been waiting for her, as though she is late.

She can't help but return it. She has missed him too, despite the way he likes to test her, and the fact that he pays the delivery boys too little, he had been the first person who had looked at her with a shade of respect, something like admiration.

Penelope had found herself relishing their meetings, going toe-to-toe. Bartering and negotiating and demanding in ways she would never elsewhere dare, had never done before.

Whistledown, in part, had been born in this shop.

"Why do you say that?" She questions, the accent slipping into place. He scoffs, the sound feathering through the air,

"After that mangled print job, did ya see it? Bleeding ink and crooked borders, a poor Whistledown imitation if there ever was one." His brow scrunches, offended. He leans over the counter then, arching an eyebrow,

"Not the only way that article fell short now, was it? Figured the real Whistledown would want t'set the record straight." Ink stains his hands the same as hers. His eyes shine like he itches too to put things right, to make a point, to reclaim what they had made.

"My Mistress will be happy to hear that," she nods and Andrew's eyes glint with amusement. He hums and then his eyes run her length, appraising and narrowed,

"You ain't been eating right lass," Andrew decides. And she blinks back at his sudden concern, unsure of what to say. He moves before she can fumble together a response and reaches over the counter,

"Right let me see it." She eases as they veer back into familiar territory and she hands him the draft, watching his eyes track across the page. She produces a small stack of coins once he reaches the end.

"A rush job. I need it out in the morning," she explains, "I have extra to cover the expense." He waves her away, eyes dancing,

"This is going to sell double the amount o'anything we've printed before…keep that, I'll take an extra percent, and you keep using my shop."

"Two percent and you give one to the runners." Andrew dramatically rolls his eyes, and she is unable to keep her grin at bay. He nods and satisfaction spirals through her, a sunrise.

"Deal."

"it's good to see you again lass." She smiles and slips back into the night, into the hack and it sticks to her lips all the way home.

"Spare no expense," Anthony instructs and the two men before him nod as they flick through the documents. The light is low, a small lamp in the corner casting barely enough light.

Simon sits silently beside him.

After the meeting they will go first to White's and then Mondrich's and be seen staggering home in the early hours of morn, celebrating the Viscount's new courtship.

And no one will be any wiser of this meeting. Nightfall the perfect cloak.

"I wish to know the details of Archibald Featherington's death. I wish to know everything you can uncover of the Talbot pack and their association with the Featherington's. And most importantly I wish to be informed of anything that could place his daughters in danger."

The investigators, brothers themselves Anthony understands, have been under Simon's employ multiple times. And after weeks of fruitless correspondence with the Bow Street Runners and in particular Officer Fleming who was as infuriating as he was smug, Anthony had sought the referral from his oldest friend.

His oldest friend turned brother-in-law, who smirks at him over a brandy almost an hour later, lips loosened by liquor, a shine to his eyes. Anthony braces for impact.

"I must say Ant, you appeared rather cosy with Miss Featherington in the gardens the other night…" he begins as though he has been waiting all night. Simon grins unrepentantly when Anthony's eyes narrow. He clears his throat,

"She is Colin's p-" Simon holds up a hand, wedding band glinting in the light.

"Ah ah, we're not talking about Colin." To which Anthony has no reply. And then is distracted when he recalls the warmth of her against his chest. The way she had frozen, stunned still in his arms, as though she had not understood, as though she had never been held before. Feels the ache she has left in his chest.

"I'm only saying Ant. Not so long ago I would have laughed in your face if you'd told me I'd be happily married, just returned from a rather delightful honeymo-"

"I will shoot you," Anthony promises wryly, and Simon throws his head back with laughter. And it is undeniable, Simon's happiness. And his sister's.

The Duke fixes him then with a weighted stare, "I saw the way you were looking at her Ant."

"I just need to know that she is safe." And he recalls Penelope being questioned by the officers, worrying after the new Lord Featherington, evading her mother's attention, forcing back her tears until she was out of sight.

And in the gardens, in his arms her fingers had scrunched into his shirt, pulling herself closer as he rocked her, as if she didn't want him to let go.

And now he couldn't.

"You know Daphne is very fond of Miss Featherington." Simon easily avoids his kick, laughing as he calls for several of their Eaton classmates.

Rae wakes her early.

Only a handful of hours after she had helped her slip back into Featherington House. The secret stretches between them that morning, an old anticipation dances beneath her skin, wrings the weariness from her body. She feels brighter and stronger.

When she arrives downstairs, breakfast is being cleared. In the parlour Portia Featherington's spine stretches tall, the point of her chin lifts and she softens her voice into something unnerving.

"We are to call upon the Bridgerton's this morning girls. In the wake of that awful article, we must provide support in their hour of need." And Penelope is glad she has not eaten, certain it would be churning at the gleam in her Mama's eyes.

"We will show the Ton that the Featherington's are just as gracious and benevolent."

Portia sweeps from the room murmuring with Mrs Varley about the untasteful ways the Bridgerton's had treated them last season…after they had schemed to entrap one of their alpha sons with a bond…

She finds herself suddenly in the carriage with her sisters, as though she has been picked up in the gust of an unexpected wind, and she catches Rae's widened eyes briefly before she is swept away. As they cross the square Penelope searches its edges for runners, certain they are due any moment.

Her knees refuse to bend.

It is John who begins toward her, a question of concern creasing his face when she hesitates to follow up the stairs after Humbolt. She attempts a reassuring smile and forces herself forward.

"Oh Violet I am so sorry that horrid woman has targeted you with her lies," Portia cries loudly as she enters the Bridgerton drawing room.

The gentlemen stand for their new arrivals. Colin's eyes flood with relief at the sight of her and he starts across the room before he catches himself.

And then instead, Gregory darts to her side, as straight as a soldier, arm outstretched in offer and Penelope blinks back into the room. A genuine smile reaches her lips as she surveys the pup, who looks fair pleased with himself.

He leads her to a seat, beside Eloise who swats at the boy when he leans to kiss Penelope's knuckles, eyes alighting with victory and mischief. Lady Danbury from her place beside Violet huffs out a laugh.

The Bridgerton siblings are scattered around the room, with the exceptions of Daphne and Anthony. She wonders if the latter is below, holed up in his study so early. Uncomfortable she wishes she could escape the crowded room, seek the solace of the study.

Benedict's scent reaches out to her, it coaxes her gaze to meet his and his eyes are warm and soft and soothing.

Penelope tucks a piece of her hair behind her ear, realising he had done the same to her just a few nights before. Embarrassment blooms in her chest and then thankfully…thankfully it happens.

Mrs Wilson enters the room, her expression pinched and holding a fan of parchments. Hyacinth throws herself to a stand and darts to meet her. Violet does not protest, growing several shades paler, fingers lifting to turn the locket at her neck over and over anxiously.

"Oh, how unfortunate," Portia says, saccharine sympathy as the sheets are distributed. Penelope's heart races in her chest.

A silence descends. Suffocating and stifling and Penelope thinks if she could stand, she would rush to wrench the window free, desperate for air that could stop her collapse. Penelope forces herself to focus on the page Eloise holds, the letters blur together as she waits, and waits and just before she comes apart,

"Oh thank goodness." The words rush from Violet, a wave of relief, a long sigh of release that is echoed around the room as the new sheet is devoured.

"Thank goodness indeed," Lady Danbury remarks, "We are quite lucky the real Lady Whistledown decided to publish so promptly." Violet hums her accord, the sound lifting Penelope's gaze. She catches then, her own Mama's glare burning into the sheet she grips, knuckles white.

"Crisis averted," Violet agrees voice lifted with relief…but it is Colin's voice that carries through the room then, a wrecking ball to the new calm that has soothed the tension away.

"Lucky?" he asks in disbelief. The word curdles on his tongue.

"I'm sorry Lady Danbury but we are hardly lucky for Whistledown," he says bitterly, "It is that wretched woman that started all this mess. Frankly, we were better off without her…Whistledown is a blight on the Ton."

White dots dance over the parchment stained with her words; the words she had written for them. And for a blinding moment she sees Colin, chasing her into the night, on his knees before her, wiping the tears from her cheeks…

"There is nothing wrong with you Pen, nothing at all."

"I am not embarrassed by you Pen."

"Did someone hurt you?"

"You look beautiful Pen."

"I would never court Penelope Featherington."

"Better off without her…a blight on the Ton."

Eloise's reaches for her.

Stilling her thoughts, dousing the fire roaring through her chest. Eloise shifts and covers Penelope's hand with her own, and holds her together, squeezing gently as though she can sense the way Penelope threatens to unravel. And it is all she can focus on, their joined hands in the hidden space between them, grounding her.

"Well I think she is wicked. And I want to be her when I grow up," Hyacinth exclaims across the room and in her chest, a window opens and air flows suddenly into Penelope's lungs, the smoke billows out and she can breathe.

"Quite right child," Lady Danbury knocks her cane, sends Hyacinth a wink and then looks up to meet Penelope's eyes just for a flash, for the briefest of moments, for one single eyeblink.

Her Mama excuses them not too long after and Eloise lets go of her hand as though she knows Penelope incapable.

Portia Featherington stalks down the stairs she had swept up. All three of her daughter's trail at a distance.

Violet says she looks forward to welcoming them back the day next, the Bridgerton Fete to be held after all. "Thanks to Lady Whistledown," Violet says, holding the parchment close to her chest. Violet's words, a balm to the burned skin beneath her ribs.

"Pen," Colin calls and she turns to see him descending the stairs after her.

"Are you well?" he asks once he reaches her. Which is all he seems to ask her these days, she realises. As though it is not obvious, as though she could possibly be okay after it all.

"I am much recovered thank you," she responds simply, stealing his words from the ball. Colin falters at her tone momentarily before he tilts his head and looks at her.

"I called on you Pen." And Penelope wonders if the universe is being cruel to him or to her now, for the fact that the very woman he had called upon, had thrice brought flowers for, is indeed the wretched Lady Whistledown herself.

And she feels her corners, curling in regret but she is so tired of hating Whistledown – whether she is a mistake or a lifeline or indeed her destruction.

She cannot, not when she has been so weak without her. Not when she may be Penelope's very last hope to survive.

"Good day Mister Bridgerton."

Dearest gentle reader

For the third time that week, parchment litters the Ton. The runners, with extra coins in their pockets, deftly slip through reaching hands, maze the latticework of streets to refill their bags when they quickly empty. Gasps echo through Mayfair, and the Ton trembles under the shock of its latest scandal, of Whistledown's return.

It seems someone has been impersonating me and so I can no longer sit idly by.This author is not interested in speculating the reason that inspired such an attempt.

In Buckingham House, Queen Charlotte's narrowed gaze flicks between the two sheets, before she arches her eyes above to stare at the shuffling young woman before her. With a wave of her gloved hand the reward money is removed. And what to do now, with a debutante who lies to her Queen.

Though gossip as I might I always tell the truth; and I cannot tolerate a lie.

As she departs Grosvenor Square, Lady Danbury's eyes loiter momentarily on Featherington House. Violet has been swept back into preparations for her event the next day. An event that will quickly become the most anticipated of the season, Agatha muses before she directs her carriage to Buckingham House.

And certainly not when there are so many truths to be reported. For instance, the great debt Lord Blackburn refused to repay to Lord Samson this week.

Viscount Anthony Bridgerton fights to focus despite the pulse at his temple, the liquor still threading through his veins is chased by relief as he scours the sheet. He pauses briefly to cross out Blackburn's name from his ledger, his list for potential investors.

He re-reads the sheet again only for his gaze to be lifted by a peppery-scent, one that he knows, one that dances again on the roof of his mouth. Penelope. In the entrance hall though, he finds only Colin looking as confused and as miserable as ever.

Or the fact that Mrs Newham unceremoniously dismissed her maid yesterday for the simple act of asking for a day off.

Rae grins re-reading the sheet before she tucks a copy underneath her Lady's floorboards and resituates the carpet. She hopes Ruby, though unemployed enjoys her day off, hopes the sun shines a little warmer. Rae is quick to finish her sweep of the room, slipping down the stairs a new hope in the air.

And for all their attention on Bridgerton House, our counterfeit columnist has failed to remark upon the most significant gossip of the season. For finally it seems a diamond has shone bright enough to capture the attentions of the coveted Bridgerton Pack. Could the Alpha truly uncovered their Omega.

This author cannot help but think a more immaculate match has yet to be made this season, the Bridgerton's are a family of diamonds indeed.

The Dowager Viscountess Bridgerton nurtures and leads her charges with a grace and kindness unparalleled, for what else can produce such jewels, can endure such pressure.

And in a moment of solitude, once Daphne and a sore-headed Duke have arrived, Violet Bridgerton sends her thanks above. To God, to Edmund, to the stars too for seeing them through this storm.

Yet as she re-reads the sheet, as she will many times again that day, even Whistledown's endorsement of the match does not lessen the heaviness in her chest. And she wonders if she can ask just one more thing of the skies above. If the heavens could spare them a love match once more.

I say this all to remind you that this author, the true Lady Whistledown is always paying attention.

Yours truly,

Lady Whistledown.

Notes:

Next up: The Bridgerton Fete…with finally, some Gen, Ben & Pen…and more Simon because I've missed him.

Any POV's you would particularly like to see let me know (They continue to change until I hit that publish button)

Thank you so much for reading! I hope you are all having a beautiful day x

Chapter 17: Risk & Ruin

Summary:

Previously on Unconditional...

After a Whistledown imposter publishes an article aimed for Violet Bridgerton, Penelope returns as Lady Whistledown to set things right.

Colin is in love with Penelope, and cannot seem to garner an audience with her. Penelope, devastated at the hurt she has caused them vows to let go of the Bridgerton's once and for all.

Portia is still the worst. With her doctors and corsets and selective parenting.

Chapter Text

The lawns are aflutter of Bridgerton blue, banners and bunting, and even the sky has painted itself the perfect shade. The afternoon sun catches the hand-stitched beading of Lady Bridgerton's gown and it is just as mesmerising as Gen had envisioned.

A voice calls her name and she spins to see the Viscount approaching, his overcoat a richer blue she had picked weeks before, the same embroidery on his cravat; Paris calls her name.

"Lord Bridgerton, where would you like me to set up?" she asks and confusion blooms on Anthony's face, he echoes her curtsey with a tip of his head.

"Set up?"

"The ladies station." His confusion etches deeper, twisting his visage before he winces with regret, exhaling a long-suffering sigh.

"I apologise Madame Delacroix." And he does sound remorseful, "I should have delivered my invitation in person to ensure it arrived as intended." It is her turn to be confused when he shakes his head, "You are here as my guest."

The modiste blinks back at the Viscount, "As your guest?"

"As my guest," Anthony repeats as though the matter has been settled.

"I am not certain I understand Lord Bridgerton."

"Gen!" Benedict appears, slinging an arm around Anthony's shoulders and even she must admit they do look strapping in their shades of navy, "I didn't realise you would be here. Which Mama dragged you along to suffer this stuffy affair?"

Anthony's face reddens, "Madame Delacroix is here as our guest," he says slowly, as if they are beyond comprehension.

"As our guest?"

"As our guest!" Anthony implores, much less amused this time. And then like night becomes day, Benedict's face dawns with understanding. He spins on his heel and catches a glass of champagne from a passing tray, pressing it into Gen's hand, perhaps in apology, she thinks.

"I do believe my dear, well-meaning brother has rather attempted his hand at matchmaking. Our mother he is not." Benedict's voice is a mixture of laughter and exasperation. And Gen feels the way her eyes grow comically wide as she looks between the brothers.

A laugh wrestles from her lips then, loud and unexpected and Benedict's face twists into something new and amusing.

"Well, I should rather take offence to that I would make a splendid husband!" he cries in faux outrage which only makes her laugh again. He turns her toward the party then and points to the far corner of the garden. Yellow against green. Penelope, she realises.

Rae apologises as she laces the corset.

Each metal hook sliding into place feels like a scrape of teeth, a wound reopened. Pinching and punishing her flesh.

There is a small rust-brown stain which had refused to wash out, the corset bruising the same way as her skin. At the ball, its metal ribs had rubbed at her shape, had worn at her skin for hours. Perhaps with time it would erode her silhouette into one smaller, one acceptable.

Bridgerton House is teeming with the Ton. Flooded by the colours of spring, pastels and florals and Penelope mourns the beflowered lemon of her own skirt. Despite the soured colour, she slips easily by the Lords and Ladies unnoticed.

The air is light and radiant, as is Violet at its centre, draped in what looks like water and the cleverness of their modiste. Her eyes find the shades of blue about the gardens. Anthony welcoming old friends, Francesca escorting Lady Pendleton, Daphne playing with a circle of delighted children.

Already the day is a victory for Bridgerton House. Triumph from tragedy. Warm satisfaction spirals through her.

Penelope halts in her path. Her eyes finding familiar broad shoulders ahead. His coat is the colour of the ocean deep; a colour she knows only from his own descriptions, from the letters he had penned for her. And how her foolish, lovelorn heart had read so much more than his words.

And on the breeze, she thinks for a moment, that she catches the ocean spray of Colin's scent.

She wishes not to see him today. Wishes that he was still away, still adventuring abroad. Where his words had to cross borders and lands and nights to find her. Unlike here, where his words so easily race across rooms, slice through air in slights of seconds, shatter across her skin. Skin that perhaps now is only beginning to thicken.

Colin turns on his heel suddenly, away from his conversation, toward where she stands and Penelope spins out of view, feeling as though she has tipped overboard herself.

She slips away, winding between trees and statues and following winding paths that deliver her safely into the garden's depths. She walks until she finds the stone stairs of a small pavilion hidden away. Ivy climbs its pillars, wisteria pours from its peaked roof.

"Penelope." She gasps, spinning in place to find the Duke of Hasting's leaning against the balustrade, overlooking the gardens.

"Excuse me Your Grace." She retreats only to freeze when he fixes her with a stern look, and places a finger against his own chest,

"Simon," he reminds her softly and she deflates, a small smile lifting her lips.

"Are you well Your Gr…Simon?" His name is still an unfamiliar shape to her lips. He sighs a breath that is full and heavy and retreats into his mind for a moment before swimming back to the surface.

Hyacinth's laughter rings out over the grounds, drawing their gaze as she darts away from her brothers. Daphne and Francesca, laugh side by side and Gregory vaults to reach Benedict's shoulders.

"I confess I find myself rather overwhelmed…" the Duke admits without breaking his gaze, and then seems to hesitate, to struggle in search of words. He watches them with a smile, small and fond yet distant. Understanding blooms in her chest,

"It takes some time to get used to," she remarks quietly, and feels Simon's gaze slate towards her then.

"Being a part of them, this family." He eases beside her, the tension in his frame seeming to unravel.

"Being a Bridgerton is certainly nothing like being a Hastings," he admits, or observes, or marvels. She smiles,

"Nor a Featherington."

And just like that night graveside, something truthful and raw weaves between them. Something of themselves they recognise in each other. Simon swivels his neck to meet her gaze, his eyes searching for a moment.

She sees a question crest on his lips before he rolls them together and she follows his gaze as it washes back to Daphne.

They watch the Duchess laugh with the pups, the way she unthinkingly reties the ribbons in Hyacinth's hair and brushes dirt from Gregory's chin and the way her own hands are drawn to her navel.

Daphne catches then abandons the movement, pretending to adjust her own dress. Her gaze reaches toward where they stand out of sight, in search of Simon.

And something trembles in Penelope's chest as the pieces slot together. And the emotions churning beneath the pavilion reveal themselves.

A small smile lifts her lips.

"If it is any comfort, I assure you there is no better family for a child to grow up in." He smiles, wide and unbound now and the day notches several shades brighter and the air grows sweeter and there on the lawns eight become nine.

"It is Penelope, thank you." There is a trembling weight to Simon's words, and she promises to hold this joy to her chest until they can tell the rest of the family. And she feels then, Simon's gaze focus upon her,

"This will be your first niece or nephew will it not?" he asks suddenly. She blinks.

"There will be much competition, though I think Aunt Penelope might be an early favourite." Penelope watches distantly as the Duke crosses the lawns, rejoins his omega and their unborn pup and she watches them all as though they are a portrait. As though they are already a memory.

And as the afternoon sun descends she sees the end so clearly.

Colin has never once had a reason to resent his name.

Good day Mister Bridgerton.

Good day Mister Bridgerton.

Good day Mister Bridgerton.

He despises it now as much as the first time the words had slipped from her lips, voice detached and deadened, the formality unnatural and upsetting. A quick dismissal of their decade of friendship. Something withers in his chest; he imagines the flowers he had picked wilting on her windowsill.

His eyes circle the garden once more, searching. For her, for the yellow of spring, of acacia, of the morning sun, of his sheets. And he feels it all now, the way she has loved him. And aches, for the way he has been so blind even when others have seen. His brothers, his mother, Daphne and Fife. How many more.

And what of Penelope. And where is Penelope? And the pressure on his chest weighs heavier and harder.

He has fallen in love with Penelope and out of her orbit. Unable to call upon her, unable to reach her, unable to find her even now. Even in his house where she has always been she remains out of sight.

The sun glares its own disapproval down, he squints against it as he searches. And he simply cannot allow it to set one more time without her, without crossing the distance between them, without filling it with something new.

"So are we to marry?" Gen teases when she notices his approach.

"Perhaps in the spring," Benedict jests as he leans against the side of the house, content with the reprieve. His eyes rove over the grounds.

"You have not told Anthony then?" Gen asks, accepting the second glass he holds. Benedict sighs, tipping the champagne back, before he answers her question with another,

"I thought you would have escaped by now?" She hums before arching her gaze across the grounds. He follows it and finds Penelope. Her pale skin rouged by the sun.

"She seems different," Gen observes, troubled, "I was hoping to speak with her." Penelope had reappeared several hours ago only to unexpectedly seat herself beside her sisters, just beyond the shadow cast by the canopy. She had not moved since, not when Colin had twice approached, not when Francesca had paused nearby or even when Hyacinth had attempted to recruit her into a game.

"You know if you tell him how you feel," Gen starts, as they watch Penelope adjusting her gown, pulling at the bodice and rearranging her skirts, "it's far less likely he will try to make you a match with somebody else." Benedict huffs out a laugh and then frowns when Penelope opens a fan from the table beside her.

Benedict is extremely grateful when Daphne, some time later, sends Colin off with Anthony and Simon, the duchess looking remarkably like their mother at the helm of such an event. And he is even more grateful when Penelope who watches Colin's departure finally stands and excuses herself.

When she sees Gen her face slates in surprise and she quickly makes her way to them.

"Or you could simply tell her," Gen teases before Penelope reaches them. And one day he will get the story from one of them, the one that explains the closeness he can see, and sense. He watches them after pressing a kiss to Penelope's knuckles, and ignoring Genevieve's smug expression and delighting in the blush that colours Penelope's cheeks.

"I was invited today as a match for Benedict, have you ever heard something as outrageous," Gen asks the younger girl, and he cannot help the way he searches Penelope's face at her words, a riot of emotions, a burst in his chest. And he is uncertain what he is looking for in her expression, sees too the way Gen's eyes are stuck on the girl.

"Are you well Penelope?" The modiste worries then and Penelope nods, her lips parting to reply. Instead she sips in air, and nods her reassurance. He sees though the way her complexion has grown ashen, the slight sheen at her temple, the way she sags back against the wall.

"What are you wearing?" Genevieve's voice scatters his thoughts and Penelope's eyes flit between them.

"I can't…" the red-head rasps. The sound hollows his chest, worry bleeding into the space.

"Penelope?" Her gaze lifts, a well of water that straightens Benedict's spine into action. He has spent years raising the pups, watching for their tears, drying cheeks. And even now, he has little tolerance for the aching sight of them.

"We must get you inside. Loosen your laces," Gen says, her voice turning calm in the sudden storm. She loops her arm through Penelope's and Benedict ushers them through the closest door, to the nearest cordoned off hall.

The door snaps shut behind them, as if a lid closing on the ringing voices and swirling music of the day. In the quiet Penelope's breaths sound harsher and louder and choking as Gen pulls her into an empty room. The modiste circles her and Benedict falters, intending to retreat, to stand guard and ensure their privacy – yet he cannot move.

"Small breaths Penelope, nearly there," Gen coaxes, skilled fingers flying over Penelope's back. The younger girl shakes her head again, her own fingers clawing at the material of her gown.

Gen gasps then, sharp and shocked, and Penelope sways so violently he strides to reach for her. His fingers splay over her waist, steadying. And over her head, Gen's panicked eyes meet his.

"Help me," she says, "she is going to collapse if we cannot loosen this." Urgency wails in his mind, a screaming siren.

Penelope's eyes are glazed and scared and he wants to stop, to pull her closer and comfort her but her lips have lost their rose-petal pink and she and time slip away. He turns her against his chest, hands holding her upright, holding her firm.

The ribbons of her corset hang, unwoven to reveal a row of hooks. He frowns, unsure. The metal disappears beneath the ribbed material, but there is no time. Gen's hands replace his to steady Penelope, they bracket her closely between them anticipating her collapse. And then Penelope whimpers, a shaking sound and he grips either side of the largest seam.

It doesn't budge.

Hardly moves.

"Why can't I tear this?" He is struck, confused. A mournful sound leaves Gen. She tips Penelope against him then and hurries across the room as he tries a second time, slipping his fingers beneath the top of the corset. Penelope's skin seems cold to the touch,

"Benedict." And his name is so small. And so scared. Crested on a cry. And he wants never to hear it like this again. Hear her like this again. His fingers draw up her spine, he caresses the skin at the base of her neck, thumb swiping comfort across it.

"It's okay love, it's alright Pen. We've got you. You just breathe for me." He keeps up a steady stream of reassurance and she eases slightly as Benedict begins to unhook metal. Gen returns brandishing scissors, relief breaks over him.

"Just breathe Pen, small breaths, you're doing so good." The words drop from his lips as they turn her between them once more. Benedict's fingers cradle the back of Penelope's head against the centre of his chest, so small she is.

He holds her still against his frame and watches over her shoulder as Genevieve makes several cuts and finally, finally the material gives way.

"Almost love, hold on for me." He can feel where Penelope's fingers have scrunched in his shirt, the way she leans against him. He helps Gen pull the corset from her, as though forcing apart its jaws to set her free.

A sound tears from Penelope, raw and ragged and trembling. And he pulls her closer as she wavers. Gathers her against him.

"Keep her there," Genevieve instructs firmly, slicing through his relief, drawing his gaze back. And he freezes still. And focuses again. And something inside of him roars.

Her stays are rusted with blood.

Gen feathers her fingers over the material and Penelope flinches.

"That's it, easy Pen." He guides her several steps, as though they are dancing and eases her down into a chair nearby. The modiste cuts the material of Penelope's chemise then, revealing an expanse of skin to his eyes.

Benedict kneels in the space before Penelope, meets her eyes.

"You're okay," he promises, as the fear ebbs in her blue. His hand covers her own and she nods, wide eyes meeting his as she drifts back to shore.

"I'm okay." Her voice is just as small and he nods and Penelope slumps then against the chair when Gen pulls away, satisfied she is no longer bleeding. Penelope's eyes slide shut, wilting in the chair, avoiding his gaze, their questions, the tension that churns the air above them.

Gen drapes a blanket around Penelope's frame, she appears now as small as her voice. Wounded and worn. And he allows Gen to settle her while he stands, stooping again momentarily to retrieve the discarded, ruined corset.

It has strangely maintained its shape, as though it is still wrapped around a young lady. He meets Gen's gaze, though Penelope's eyes remain closed, her palm pressed against her chest as though soothing an ache, breathing slowly.

"That is from the old Modiste downtown," Genevieve supplies, voice full of contempt as she eyes the offensive fabric.

"With continued wear it is intended to reshape a woman's silhouette." A curse builds in Benedict's throat. And when he spies the blood, her blood, on the material he hesitates not, flinging the wretched corset into the fire, which does more to rouse Penelope than anything else.

She gasps and lunges out of her collapse as the flames swallow the fabric angrily. Benedict catches her easily, impeding her path, steadying her and he notes how, beneath his hands, she appears more brittle than ever.

And he is arrested momentarily, entranced as the fire reflects its flames in her eyes. She stands, encircled in his arms, her fingers wrapping around his forearm tightly.

"What have you done?" she asks appalled, her stare blistering and he basks in her fire. The cold washed from her skin, pink flushing away her pallor, the ire in her eyes stunning when they had been so lifeless.

He feels his own anger, coughing in his chest, "It's where it belongs. You're not wearing that thing Penelope" And then sees the frank red at her waist.

"And you have undone Gen's good work," he admonishes, his voice softening.

"Agree all you want," Penelope says, a mournful glance to the fire, "You are not the ones who must return home without it."

"How long have you been wearing it?" Genevieve asks and Benedict startles, his world had tunnelled to porcelain skin and auburn waves and cerulean fire. And the world slips back in, the impropriety of it all an advancing cry.

"My Mama is simply attempting to improve my prospects," Penelope says instead of answering, her tone practical and unsentimental. As though she is not bruised and bleeding before them. As though she hadn't pleaded for help, for breath with blue lips before his very eyes. The cords of his body pull taut, something poisonous and furious jets into his veins,

"Is she aware it is drawing your blood?" he asks roughly knowing he does not need an answer. And he hears the affront in his own voice. His condemning words are hard and unyielding and lift Penelope's gaze. She does not answer. The truth ribbons between them thickening the air.

It is Benedict who retrieves Genevieve's supplies, slipping through the house, paying no notice to the stares that follow his storming presence.

"It suits you." Genevieve murmurs quietly, breaking the silence that has befallen them. Penelope meets her eyes in the mirror, swallowing a sigh when she takes in the blue material that Benedict had returned with. A colour she had dreamed of wearing for so very long.

Gen had quickly and skilfully set about adjusting one of the spare dresses. A heap of fabric and words unspoken sit between them. The wire from her corset lies in the fireplace, it's skeleton licked clean by the flames.

Benedict had returned outside with a story to share. A tall tale of a tray upended over Miss Featherington's gown, a heroic modiste. A story to be shared before one can be created on her behalf.

"I should just go, I should not be here" Penelope says as she stands before Gen, who lays the finishing touches.

"You are Lady Whistledown Penelope, there is nowhere you should not be." Genevieve straightens her spine as easily as her skirts. She squeezes Penelope's hand, a promise of support, and a promise of another conversation later, the outrage still bright in the modiste's eyes.

And so, Penelope heads back outside.

And she will skirt the edges and gather news and she will write Violet into a victor come morning.

She plans her route to avoid Colin and the Queen.

She smiles warmly to John and Humbolt who stand in the entrance hall.

She ignores Cressida who slips back out of the corridor that leads to the family's private quarters. Ignores the ache in her chest and cannot help but think how in another time it would have been her slipping back into the party to gather food or drinks before retreating to Eloise's room for a respite they would enjoy until Violet or Anthony came to retrieve them.

How times had changed.

And despite the fact she finally wore blue, it was time to let them go.

And Penelope slips down a quieter hall, to slip through the side door and remain unnoticed.

Fingers close around her wrist.

The sun is lower in the sky, blanketing the gardens with a golden hue as though heralding the Queen's arrival.

The Ton descends upon the Queen, lining to pay their respects, endear themselves to the crown. Gabrielle is at the Queen's elbow, beautiful in a silver gown, and it will not be long until he and his pack are expected to join them. Tension twists through his frame.

"Where is Colin?" Benedict's eyes snap to meet his own. And then circle the grounds once and then twice.

Anthony's own gaze sticks to his brother's face and the scowl it is arranged into. Benedict had refused him any answers when he had reappeared suddenly, angered and restless.

"Where is Penelope?" Benedict asks then, and before Anthony can realise that his brother's question is likely the answer to his own, he is distracted by Lord Cho who trips over a chair or Fife, or his own feet before them.

"Have you seen my brother gentlemen?" Fife smirks in a way Anthony instantly despises. He has grown no more mature or tolerable since Colin's first year at Eton.

"Ah I did see him pulling Miss Featherington inside a short while ago," Fife sneers, his smirking voice too loud. The air stills around them for a bleeding beat, necks crane, hushed voices fold together and beside him, beneath his breath Benedict curses their packmate, and Fife, and this very day itself.

Anthony thanks the heavens when his eyes find Portia, distracted and far.

"No need to worry they're just friends. The girl's not even an omega," Fife continues, a slur to his words, he leans into Cho who is easily set off balance again, deep in their cups. Unimpressed Anthony turns, his eyes searching,

"Besides," Fife pipes up, louder and lower, "Bridgerton's made it more than clear even if she were he doesn't see her like that, not really wife material."

And Violet is there, between her sons, a hand on each of their shoulders as tension crackles through the air.

"Actually Lord Fife, Colin and Penelope are assisting me to arrange this evening's surprise." It is Daphne who arrives, her words clipped and sharp and beside the Duke she is a cutting figure. Taller and imposing. Fife bows and turns on his heel.

Their mother's fingers dig into his shoulder when he attempts to move. To follow Fife, to demand he retract his words, to undo the damage, demand his presence at dawn and retrieve his pistol, or perhaps simply to knock Penelope's name from his mouth where it does not belong.

"Find Colin," Violet Bridgerton mutters to her sons, two small, gritted words.

Anthony turns on his heel.

Colin had learned this lesson before. He had read of the colosseums of Athens and Rome, of the Croatian beaches and about the sunrises in the Pyrenees. And yet nothing could compare to the wonder of seeing with his own eyes.

And now, every imagining of Penelope enwrapped in Bridgerton blue dissolves at the sight of her, sweeping down the corridor, waves cascading free over her shoulder. The vision steals his breath, stills his time.

He is pulled to her, until he can lift her fingers into his and guide them into a dimmed, deserted hall.

"Colin what are you doing?" she asks.

His knees tremble as though to give way. To lower himself before her, the way he had in the gardens, at the palace, to plead with her to reveal what she keeps from him, to look at him properly, to love him, to love him.

"What happened to your dress?" he hears himself ask instead.

"Colin we cannot be here." She stares at their hands when he hesitates to relinquish hers. He aches to peel the gloves from her fingers, to feel the warmth of her hands, to feel her skin, to bare his truth.

"I need to speak with you Pen. I have needed to speak with you and you have been avoiding me." She narrows her eyes but does not refute him and how had this happened.

"Have you not?" he asks more softly, begging her eyes to lift, begging for an answer. Her lips remain pressed together, a small seam he forces his eyes from.

"Your pack is courting the diamond," she says then and he blinks, scrabbling to understand.

"Anthony is courting the diamond."

"She is perfect for your pack," she volleys back and he feels stuck, frozen, unable to understand her words, while her beautiful mind flings away, so much quicker, so much faster, a spiral.

"Pen I do not…I…please let me…" And so many times he had rehearsed these words.

"I needed to see you, to tell you how I have been feeling…," a breath, a rush and outside the first stars puncture the clouds, "…how I feel about you..."

"What?"

"What I feel for you," he breathes, tilting his head, compelling her to see him, to hear him, to understand.

Penelope steps back, her hand slipping from his, through his fingers. She turns away, and then back just as quickly, the blue of her skirts swishing like water, she holds her head above the surface.

"I am quite aware how you feel about me Colin." He searches her eyes. Eyes he has known for so long, there are flecks in them now that are unfamiliar, a glint of anger, a flash of hurt.

"Tell me Pen. How do I feel?" They trade words like they had traded letters and he is home, here with her, anywhere with her. On a precipice now. And their friendship will turn to love, their letters to lovenotes, friends to lovers.

"You feel sorry for me. You feel a duty. My father was killed, and my mother is still unkind, and I am still ignored and unwanted and undesignated and you are a good man. You feel sorry for me." And suddenly he is falling.

"You pity me Colin," He opens his mouth, a protest building in his chest that disintegrates at the look that twists onto her face. It flashes across her face, flares in her eyes for a mere second, a hurt, an ache so raw and so big and so profound it could swallow them. Something she has harboured. As old as she.

"I'm the one they all laugh about and point at and whisper about. I know what they call me. And you think you need to rescue poor pitiful Penelope." He staggers forward, one step and then another and she does not move, solid and stoic.

"Stop." His chest is heaving, hers too.

"Stop," he rasps, he repeats, lifting the flat of his palm in a plea. He begs the words away, as though they are a blade. A blade she slides beneath skin…not his but her own, into her own chest and he is forced to simply watch her bleed.

The world around him, around her blurs.

"Pen," he blinks and shakes his head, and it can't, and he can't…

"Pen you know me…I know you…we…"

"You do not know me Colin," she says, the words leaving at a whisper. She says it in the same way she had told him he was embarrassed of her. He likes it as much, tastes ash in his mouth.

"You do not know me," she repeats, hollow and accepting. The door flings open,

"What on earth are the two of you doing in here?" Penelope startles, flinches violently against him. He steadies her before he turns toward a furious, advancing Anthony.

"Outside right now," Anthony orders before Colin can speak. The anger in his brother's voice stuns him still. Benedict slips through the door then, clicking it shut behind him, his face awash with worry. Ben's gaze slips over his face and then over his shoulder. And Colin cannot help but think of the last time they had been together.

The way Penelope had finally allowed herself to unravel, just slightly, just so – trusting them to keep her safe, to provide her space. His purpose had never felt so clear in the moonlight.

He thinks of the way she had only relaxed once they had all been present, the slip of her tears, the way Anthony had been so very gentle with Penelope, as though she were made of glass.

"I cannot believe how irresponsible you are being," Anthony snaps, anything but gentle.

"Do not speak to her like that," Colin bites back, eyes narrowing, and Anthony rolls his own.

"I am not speaking with her. I am speaking to you. The Queen has arrived and you are nowhere to be found, sneaking of as if you are children, it is time for you to grow up!" Colin bristles, hearing other words between the ones Anthony spits low and furious, older ones, sharper ones.

Penelope shrinks before him, putting distance between them he does not want, a blow to his chest. His hands tremble in want to reach for her, a feeling, a shiver, that if he lets her go now he will lose her.

And the moment, this moment and all he had hoped for spirals away. Too quick for him to gather.

"Alone with an unwed and unchaperoned debutante have you taken complete leave of your senses Colin?" He scowls at Anthony's tone. As if he would ever place her in danger, as if he would ever do anything to harm her, to compromise her, as if she is not everything to him.

He turns to see Penelope, where she stands now against the wall. Her eyes are wide and guarded in this new way of hers, volleying between himself and Anthony. She has shut him out of her world, she has become his. His oldest friend, his history and future, his all – hardly simply an unchaperoned debutante,

"She's Penelope, she's Pen, she does not count, she is my friend, she is my…" And he grapples for a word enough. Big enough, grand enough, bright enough. Anthony waits not,

"Well you best hope that is true Colin because Fife saw you. Announced to half the guests that you and Penelope were alone. And Penelope is now to return in a different gown? You are so concerned with her safety and yet you so willingly risk it." The words stacked behind his teeth powder in his mouth. He is certain the walls shuffle closer, the light grows darker and he abandons Anthony, swinging on his heel to face Penelope once more.

She appears unworried, shaking her head to refuse Benedict who has slipped by them, who offers his arm intending to escort Penelope away from the conflict, the corridor and Colin feels so very small now. So very unlike the man she deserves.

Her eyes are cold and extinguish the smouldering beneath his skin.

She meets his gaze before hers arches over his shoulder to Anthony. Unchanging, unregarding.

"Do not concern yourselves." Her tone unflinching.

Three voices lift through the hall in protest but she is gone. Even as she stands right before him, an armlength away, she is out of reach. Something weeps into the hollow of Colin's chest.

"Penelope," Anthony gentles, moving to his side, ducking his head to meet her gaze. Penelope sweeps by them and she does not turn back, she does not look back.

"Good night Mister Bridgerton."