Chapter Text
Fourteen years ago...
“Cheers!” Colin Bridgerton accepted the envelope full of pictures, making sure to flash a charming grin at the shop girls. They giggled behind the counter. “Need anything else, Pen?”
Penelope looked up from her magazine and shook her head, sending her red curls bouncing. Colin shrugged and grabbed a few snacks and drinks.
Once they were back in the car again, he tossed a bag onto her lap. She frowned.
“Do you need me to open these for you?”
He gave her a playful look. “They’re for you, silly. You love fizzy cola bottles.”
Penelope blushed. At fourteen, she wasn’t used to receiving gifts from boys, even if it was just a bag of sweets from the village drugstore.
“This one is coming with me to uni.” Colin pulled a photo from the stack. It was the two of them weeks before, smiling happily at the camera from the front seat of the car. After Eloise had managed to contract mononucleosis at the beginning of the summer, she and Colin had grown closer. Their snack runs to the village, which he insisted include just the two of them, were the highlight of her day.
“Oh, there’s two!” Penelope exclaimed. The second picture was almost the same, except they were a little less composed, their mouths open and laughing. “Can I keep this one?”
Colin gave her a thumbs up as he lifted a can of cold cherryade to his lips and drank heartily, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down. The sight made her feel lightheaded. She turned away, staring out the window and absentmindedly fingering the crinkled piece of paper in her pocket.
The car lurched down the country road. “Pen, as the second mate of this vessel, you are severely neglecting your job.” He motioned to the radio.
“Aye-aye, captain.”
Penelope scanned through the stations until Colin grabbed her hand.
“Stop here! This song is bangers!”
She laughed as he played the drums against the steering wheel, off-key screaming along with the words. Remembering her candy, she popped one in her mouth and scrunched up her face when the sour-tangy flavor hit her tastebuds.
“Sharing is caring, Pen,” Colin yelled over the music. She obliged, dropping a sweet into his open mouth. For a split second, his lips brushed against her thumb, and she shivered.
This would be Penelope’sonly chance to tell him how she felt beforeColin left for his first year at uni. She had stayed up half the night putting words to her feelings, and it took half the morning to scrub the ink off her fingertips. Even if he didn’t feel the same, she had to tell him.
The song concluded and Colin turned the volume down. “Do you mind if we pull over for a sec?”
Her heart fluttered. “Ah, s-sure.”
“Pen.” He leaned in, his eyes serious. “There’s something I need to ask you. I...” He hesitated. “I’d rather do this here. I don’t want the others to eavesdrop.”
Oh God, was this happening? How many nights had she dreamed up this exact scenario? Her hand caressed the letter in her pocket.
“Great minds,” she said. “I have something I’d like to tell you, too.”
“Do you remember Daphne’s friend, Emily? Dark hair, green eyes?”
She recalled the slender, dark-haired girl from Daphne’s coming-of-age party. “I think so.”
“Well, we’re going on a date as soon as I’m back in London, and she mentioned liking that book you read.So, I was wondering if...”
Penelope plastered on a vacant smile. “Of course.”
Was she so pathetic that one summer of niceties and extra attention from her friend’s older brother could fool her into believing he liked her?
She was.
Why had she even bothered?
“Thank you, Pen!” His brilliant smile broke her heart. He started up the car and they continued down the road.
As they pulled into Aubrey Hall’s circular driveway, Colin turned to her. “Hey, you never got to tell me your thing.”
Penelope shot him the everything-is-great smile she reserved for her mother’s dinner parties. “Don’t worry, I can’t remember anymore.”
Unlike her mother, however, the false expression didn’t fully convince Colin. “Are you sure? I feel bad, talking so much about my love life.”
The knife lodged deep in her chest twisted.
“Yup! I’m going to take a little walk before dinner. See you later!”
Before he could argue back, she rushed down the trail, her sneakers slapping against the mud. Tears streamed down her splotchy red cheeks as she hurled the balled-up love letter and the bag of candyinto the tenant farmer’s goat field.
She avoided him the rest of that week, and then the next.
When Colin left for uni, she found their picture discarded on the floor of his bedroom.
Present Day
“A conference?”
Penelope was lying prostrate on the floor of her studio apartment. Her chin rested on a displaced throw pillow as she mechanically flipped through the icons of a streaming app on her TV.She popped a raisin into her mouth from a bag of trail mix, the last soldier in her decimated regiment of salty snacks.
Experiencing both a messy break-up and abrupt unemployment in the same month was, in her opinion, a very impressive feat. A casual observer might even consider the youngest Featherington sister to be extraordinarily accomplished at being unaccomplished. In the name of “Self-care”, she had elected to spend the last two weeksrotting away whilst watching bad reality TV and inhalingher freezer and snack cabinet provisions.
Eloise Crane made an affirmative sound from the other end of Penelope’s tinny speakerphone. By contrast, her best girlfriend’s life was going rather swimmingly. Recently married and employed by a top university, she was taking a break from lecturing to work on a publication for a research journal.
“The National Trust is hosting conferences at different historic homes in Kent. Mum was thrilled when Aubrey Hall came up on their list.
“As she should be!”
“Plus, Phil was invited to give a lecture on... something?”
“Shrubbery?” Penelope suggested helpfully.While his dedication to plant conservation was admirable, both women loved to tease Philabout his all-consuming love of foliage.
“Historic shrubbery, I’m sure. Very well-to-do.”
Penelope chuckled. Despite her best friend’s ribbing, the undercurrent of wifely pride in her voice was unmistakable.
“Too bad I won’t be there to bask in his triumph.”
“Fear not, my precious Penelope, because Mum has already set aside a room for you.”
“For me ?” She sat up. “Not that I’m not appreciative, but... why?”
Eloise snorted. “Please. This sort of event will be like a funfair for you. You can do a little networking, wander around the grounds cosplaying Pride and Prejudice, chat up other single nerds, maybe work in some light snogging...”
“Light snogging? As opposed to...?
“Moderate-to-severe snogging?”
“El, while I appreciate the thought-”
“Mum’s intentions aren’t all pure, you know,” Eloise interrupted. “Do you remember those classes she made me take? The dancing about and all that?”
'Dancing about and all that’ encompassed a series of childhood etiquette and social classes that all of the Bridgerton children had been forced to participate in. Penelope, who was practically glued to Eloise from Year 3 onward, had also participated as a figurative carrot for her best friend. Unlike the others, she had actually enjoyed most of the classes.
“How could I forget Lady Norris and her obsession with tiny forks?”
“Always on about the tiny forks, that woman! I doubt any world leader worth a sh*te would care if I ate my tiramisu with a bloody shovel.”
“Anyway,” she continued, “these Trust arseholes were banging on about historical reenactment. ‘Bringing the past to life’ or some other nonsense.She’s managed to convince a few of us, but she needsextra female volunteers for thatJane Austen vibe.”
“I doubt I can remember anything from etiquette lessons we took two decades ago, El.”
"Really?” Eloise said smugly. “I seem to remember a certain Miss Featherington instigating two waltzes and a quadrille at Edwina’s wedding reception.”
Penelope cringed. “You know what a good gin and tonic does to my brain!”
“You also hand-embroidered baby blankets for all of my nieces and nephews-”
“-Anyone can learn to embroider from a YouTube video! They sell the kits at Primark!”
“You are also the only one of us, save Colin and Francesca, who can crack out an audible tune on the piano.”
She knew fighting against it any further was a lost cause.
Penelope was the stereotypical single woman who loved Jane Austen novels and rewatched period dramas whenever she was feeling low. It was an embarrassingly basic special interest. She had even tried her hand at writing a few romance novels set in the Regency period, though she was too scared to send them to a real publisher. They were decaying away on a hard drive at the bottom of her wardrobe.
“I don’t know...”
“Face it, baby cakes. It’s time to put away those tattered joggers from uni and break out of this funk.”
“I happen to love my tattered joggers, thank you very much.”
“You’re seriously telling me there’s not a pile of chippy boxes stacked around your bin as we speak?”
“No,” she lied, eyeing the overflowing tower of rubbishin the corner.
Eloise had been kind enough to let her rent the flat for practically nothing after her marriage to Phillip, and she knew she should be taking better care of the place.
“Penelope. Just think of all the happy memories those old walls hold from when we were kids. Doesn’t a trip to Aubrey Hall sound fun?”
It was true that Penelope had spent many idyllic summers at the grand estate with Eloise and her siblings, roaming the lush green meadows and reading in the cozy treehouse the late Edmund Bridgerton hand-built for his children. They were some of her fondest childhood memories. Even in university, she always made the trek for at least a week or two to spend time with her second family. As a twenty-eight-year-old working adult, however, her visits were becoming more and more sporadic. It had been entirely too long.
“I’ve even come up with a name for my plan to de-funkify you: Operation Over-Under.”
Penelope blinked. “Over... under?”
“You know, the old saying? ‘The best way to get over someone is to get under someone else?’”
“Good God, El! I will not be shagging random men in your ancestral home!”
“It’s not like you have anything else to do this summer.”
While the comment may have stung coming from anyone else, Eloise’s bluntness had a calming effect on her anxious brain. With her own mother on a series of never-ending luxury cruises and her sisters preoccupied with their husbands and children, she didn’t have anywhere else to be.
Except for the Bridgertons, no one would miss her absence.
“Look,” she continued, softening her tone a bit, “if you hate it, you have my express consent to hole up in the library after your obligations to Mum have been fulfilled. Deal?”
Penelope sighed. “There will be zero shagging. But... I do love a good empire waist dress.”
“Amazing!” Eloise cheered. Penelope laughed as she heard Phil’s quiet ‘whoop whoop’ in the background. “Mum is going to be so happy. I’ll emailyou the program and schedule for the week.”
Eloise’s hair-brained matchmaking schemes aside, a vacation would be a welcome distraction.
--
An hour later, Penelope was swiping through social media after dismantling ‘Chippy Mountain’ and taking a much-needed shower.
She had forgotten it was a Friday night and was assailed with pictures of old classmates, coworkers, friends, and ex-boyfriends enjoying their lives. Nigel Berbrooke, his arm wrapped around his new paramour’s lithe shoulders, popped up. They beamed happily as the bright blue ocean sparkled behind them.
Penelope cursed under her breath and swiftly blocked the account. She hadn’t even liked Nigel that much, but it still hurt her pride to see him shacking up with her second cousin Marina so soon after their amicable split.
“Enough doom scrolling,” she said aloud, setting down her phone to make a cup of peppermint tea. She did a few stretches as it steeped.
The gentle notes of ‘Clair de la Lune’ floated through the air. Assuming it was Eloise again, she crossed the room and answered without looking.
“If you’re calling to nag me about shagging and my chippy habits again, I will not be taking the bait, Mrs. Crane.”
A ruggedly handsome face blinked into the camera while a rather unflattering rectangle of Penelope from below the neck hovered in the corner. “... Pen?”
In a moment of primal fear, Penelope tossed her phone across the floor.
“Just a sec, Colin!”
Leave it to Colin flipping Bridgerton to video call her in the dead of night when she was in her most rancid state of being. Spotting the bra slung over the back of her couch, she slipped it on underneath her pajama top. It was the only social courtesy she had time for on such short notice.
“Did you throw me across the room?”
Damn him for knowing her so well.
Penelope adjusted the bra cups before picking up the phone again, ignoring his question with a smile. “Hey, stranger! How’s Amsterdam?”
He grimaced, flipping his camera and panning it across the airport. The crowds were practically stacked on top of each other in the terminal. “Amsterdam was excellent, but Schiphol is another story.”
“My condolences to your flight,” Penelope said, plopping down on the couch to attend to her cuppa. “Traveling solo this time?”
“Don’t be daft, Pen. I always travel solo.”
“I checked my socials earlier and saw that pic of you with what’s-her-face, the blonde make-up influencer, in front of some cute row houses.” She shrugged nonchalantly, hoping her voice didn’t sound too annoyed. “Figured you may have picked up a ‘friend.’”
Colin paused thoughtfully. “Oh! That was a brand collaboration.” Colin’s face disappeared as he rifled around in his carry-on bag. “See?”
“Why on earth do you need an eyeshadow palette?”
“To make my eyes pop, of course.” He fluttered his eyelashes at Penelope.
“I have to say, Pen,” he continued, “your jim jams are making this delay much more bearable.” He squinted into the camera to get a better look. “What are those, cherries?”
Penelope flushed fire-engine red. “Strawberries.”
Colin nodded approvingly. “Very cute.”
She absentmindedly finger-combed her damp, curly red hair with her free hand and she tried (and failed) to think of a clever quip back.
“Yes, well... Only the finest Primark pajamas for us Featheringtons.”
A moment later, the screen flashed.
“Colin! Stop taking sneaky screenshots when I’m in a bedraggled state!”
“I would call your look ‘delightfully rumpled,’” Colin argued. “Besides, I haven’t seen you in ages. Needed a little souvenir.” He gave her his best winning smile.
Penelope’s crush on Colin Bridgerton had persisted for almost two decades, despite knowing that her feelings would never be reciprocated in kind. The Picture Incident proved that much. Throughout secondary school, she endured Colin's brother's gentle ribbing at the dinner table about his newest conquests. When he began traveling for work, social media reminded her that there was a new girl in every port, and little by little her heart had hardened towards his affections.
While it was impossible to forget him completely, his constant traveling kept her most intense yearnings at bay.They stayedin sporadic contact through text, emails, and social media posts, sharing memes or selfies.
And yet...
She couldn’t help but feel relieved every time he showed up for a visit or holiday without a girlfriend hanging off his arm. Even during their routine video chats, she found herself scanning the background, looking for the unmistakable signs of female companionship.
Penelope rolled her eyes. “Note to self: confer with the esteemed Lady Bridgerton next week on ways to reverse thirty-two years of indulging her cheekiest child.”
Colin raised his eyebrows. “What’s happening next week?”
“Oh, she invited me to a fancy conference at Aubrey Hall.” Penelope relayed the details of her conscripted labor in full.
“You always were a cracker dancer,” Colin mused. “I expect you’d be a Regency bombshell.”
“I’m, also recently unemployed and unattached, in the romantic sense, so El thinks it could be a two-birds-with-one-stone situation.”
“Really? I thought you were doing well at the publishing house.”
“I was,” she said wryly, “until the corporation that bought them out had a round of layoffs.”
He grimaced. “I’m so sorry, Pen. How are you holding up?"
“As well as can be expected, I suppose. Eloise has graciously agreed to not kick me to the curb, and I do have a decent savings built up to keep me afloat in the meantime.”
“And your... boyfriend? Ex-boyfriend?” Colin asked. “I didn’t even know you were seeing someone.”
“More of an acquaintance-with-benefits situation, if I’m being honest.” Penelope tried to play off her embarrassment with a laugh. “Who knows, the next time we talk, I may be some tenured professor’s trophy wife.”
Colin was quiet, his mouth pressed into a tight line. She tapped the screen. “Did you freeze or something?”
“I’m here,” he said, giving his head a little shake. “Just tuckered out from the layover.”
“I’ll let you go, then. Let me know when you’ve boarded the plane.”
He mock-saluted and winked, sending another wave of heat up her neck. “Will do. See you, Pen.”
--
The following week was filled with intensive preparations. In between deep cleaning her apartment and packing for the trip, Penelope was summoned several times to a high-end modiste (at Violet’s insistence) where they measured every millimeter of her body in excruciating detail. After looking into rentals and other services, Violet had insisted that all of ‘her girls’ needed custom-made dresses.
The modiste was a converted Victorian end-of-terrace house near the high street. Lush, green hydrangea bushes bursting with off-white conical blooms lined the underside of the wooden sash windows. Penelope admired them for a moment before ascending the steps and ringing the bell. A young shop assistant answered and ushered her into a private fitting room near the back.
“Sweet pea!” An attractively boyish woman with curled dark blonde hair rose excitedly from a plush ottoman in the corner of the fitting room. Even after ten years of marriage and two children, Eloise’s sister-in-law still managed to retain her narrow-hipped figure. “Fancy seeing you here!”
When Benedict Bridgerton and Sophie first started dating, Penelope was in sixth form and extremely awkward. One afternoon, she was studying with Eloise when she bumped into Sophie in the Bridgerton’s hallway. The first words out of Sophie’s mouth were, “Blimey, you’re as pretty as a sweet pea!” And although she was normally quite prickly about nicknames, she allowed it among the Bridgerton clan.
“Soph!” She crossed the room for a quick hug. “I see I’m not the only one immune to Violet’s machinations.”
“It would seem so.” Sophie pulled back, mischief sparkling in her large, moss-green eyes. “Eloise is with Kate in the other room. They should be back any minute.”
“ Bloody hell! ” Eloise’s curses tore through the air.
“Now, now,” Kate soothed from the other room. “You’ll only have to wear them on and off throughout the week.”
“Must be the stays,” Sophie whispered conspiratorially. “She’s been griping about them since we arrived.”
“My mother is barking if she thinks I’m wearing this sh*te for more than an hour!”
“Poor El. She barely wears bras, let alone shapewear.”
The door slammed open as a disheveled Eloise stomped into the suite. Kate followed close behind, looking as graceful and willowy as ever. She tucked a piece of silky black hair behind her ear and smiled. “Thank God you’re here, Penelope. You’ve always had a rather... calming effect on Eloise.”
“Not bloody likely,” Eloise muttered, plopping down beside Penelope and crossing her arms. “Look at this!” She held out her slim arm, pinpricked with red dots. “I’m convinced this is meant to be torture.”
“The atelier is very capable. You simply would not hold still.”
Penelope stifled a laugh and gave her hair a little stroke. Eloise was not known for her patience.
“It’s time for your final fitting, Miss Featherington.” The atelier shot a dirty look at Eloise before escorting Penelope into a private room. The sound of Eloise and Kate’s continued bickering filtered through the walls.
She was given a moment of privacy to change out of her street clothes and into the sleeveless chemise before hauling her long stays into place. The lightly boned cotton garment had a ruler-shaped structure running from just below her belly button to the middle of her bust. It thrust her sizeable breasts upwards, creating a slight separation between them.
“I may need to wear this every day,” Penelope mused, making the atelier giggle.
“You're not the first customer I've heard say that.” She gestured to the firm line running up and down the stays. “The ‘busk’ keeps the front of the bodice upright.”
After donning her petticoat, the atelier helped her slip into a pair of white silk stockings. They were hoisted into place by garters, fastened with several rows of metal springs, and closed with a big metal hook and eye.
“Now it’s time to close your eyes.”
Penelope sighed but complied dutifully. A blindfold was draped across her eyes. Violet wanted them to be surprised by their dresses and had begged them to resist the temptation of peeking. She felt the gown slip over her head and was guided into the sleeves.
“Lucky duck,” the atelier gushed. “This fits you splendidly! No alterations needed here.”
Once the gown was removed and whisked away, Penelope began to remove the blindfold.
“Not yet, love!”
“There’s another dress?”
“Several.”
Penelope groaned. “Mrs. Bridgerton shouldn’t have done this! Surely it will cost her a fortune.”
“She was adamant that all of her girls have several dresses,” the atelier explained. “We’re presenting at the conference, too, so it’s fantastic practice for our young apprentices.”
Feeling only slightly better about the ordeal, the rest of the fitting went off without a hitch.
The next stop was a dance studio where a private instructor was giving all of the Bridgerton ladies dance lessons. They were all wearing heavy skirts to practice for the reenactments.
“How are you doing that? How is she doing that?” Eloise exclaimed as she watched Penelope and the instructor demonstrate a galop.
“It’s sort of like skipping sideways,” Penelope explained during their break, nearly breathless as she chugged down water. “Doing it in a bunch of heavy skirts is much harder.”
Even Penelope was surprised at how much she remembered from those long-ago classes.
“I’m so jealous,” Sophie pouted. “It’s like I have two lead bricks for feet.”
“Luckily your husband is a remarkably good dancer,” Kate teased. “I’m sure he can swing you around without touching the floor, and no one will be the wiser.”
Sophie frowned. “He’d like that too much. Maybe there’s a scene I can volunteer for where I’m sat on a sofa reading?”
After their last dance lesson, the group headed to a nearby restaurant for a well-deserved lunch. Halfway through the meal, the topic inevitably turned to Penelope’s disaster of a life.
“Anthony would be happy to hire you on as a technical writer, you know.” Kate took a delicate bite of her salad.
“Benedict’s arts council could use someone to help write their newsletters, too."
“Thank you both.” Penelope smiled, though she couldn’t help but feel guilty. While the Bridgertons were always incredibly generous to her, she desperately wanted to make it on her own.
“Hell, I’d pay you just to walk around Romney Hall wearing one of those stay things.” Eloise wiggled her eyebrows over her wine glass, flinching when Kate poked her in the ribs.
“Eloise! The gowns are supposed to be a surprise.”
“I never said I peeked at the gowns.” Eloise shoved a spoonful of shepherd’s pie into her mouth. “Pen has always had fantastic tit*, so I naturally assumed they would look one thousand times better in a pair of stays.”
Penelope turned to Kate, pointedly ignoring Eloise’s bawdy comments. “Will the others be joining us?”
Kate nodded, her warm brown eyes crinkling at the corners. “Hyacinth and Gregory are overseas for the summer, but Daphne and Francesca will be there for at least one day. And Colin...”
Kate’s voice trailed off as all three women stared at Penelope. She rolled her eyes.
“You can talk about him, you know. We chat quite frequently.”
The Bridgerton women were all too aware of Penelope’s unrequited love for Colin. It was a topic that everyone except her considered somewhat taboo. She supposed they were trying to spare her feelings by being cautious.
“My brother is a bog-standard nitwit if he hasn’t pounced on you by now.”
“I agree,” Sophie said, her brows raised. “You’re gorgeous, smart, and funny. A triple threat!”
“Anthony’s company has so many single rich men, it would make your head spin!” Penelope swore she had seen the same manic gleam in Anthony’s eyes dozens of times. “I could have you married off in a month.”
Penelope choked. “That’s so kind, Kate.”
She knew, however, that she would never love another man as much as she did Colin.
Still, if one of Anthony’s handsome and rich underlings was likable enough and made an offer, would she take it? Penelope knew she probably would, which filled her with an uneasy sort of despair.
It meant that she had well and truly given up.
