Chapter Text
They arrived like splashes of watercolor, faded and barely formed.
The images. A yellow evening glove perched on his arm.
The sounds. A voice, soft but sure.
The sensations. A familiar weight leaning against his side, a lightness of being as the carriage bounced along. Glossy hair brushing against his cheek. He could almost feel it now.
———
“Has he opened his eyes, Ma’am?”
“No, Dunwoody. “
The voice. He wanted to reach for it, to pull it in hand over hand, like a silken rope, until he had coiled it entirely to him.
Then, nothing.
———
There was crying. It was high-pitched, and he wanted to tear himself apart rather than let the poor babe suffer.
A baby?
———
“Colin, I’m here.”
He groaned. It hurt. Everything hurt.
“There’s no need to hurry. Rest.” A hand soothed the hair away from his eyes. “Rest.“
He allowed himself to sink into the black.
———
Penelope was here. She cradled a babe against her breast, rocking back-and-forth. She stared off into the distance so she didn’t notice him stirring. Occasionally she pressed a tender kiss against the wisps of red curl adorning the precious child’s crown.
“Are you a governess?” he croaked, confused. No, a governess was for older children. What was the word? A nursemaid.
But how would Penelope fall so far? She was dressed finely, like a particularly well cared for wife.
How much time had passed? She looked different. More self-assured. Lovelier than ever.
The thoughts flew by in an instant as Penelope leapt to her feet.
“You’re awake!” she cried. His body felt jostled and bruised and he wondered if he would be better off asleep, but the relief on her face was so evident that it made him feel glad.
“Pen.”
She didn’t seem to hear him. She crossed to the servant bell beside the fireplace and rang it with one hand, cradling the baby with the other.
A woman in uniform appeared, and Penelope placed the sleeping child in her arms.
“Put the young miss to bed and alert Dunwoody that Mr Bridgerton is awake. The doctor should come at once.“
“Yes, Ma’am,“ the lady replied and bobbed a curtsy.
As Penelope returned eagerly to his side, Colin continued to spin in his confusion.
“I don’t understand,” he tried again. “Have you been compromised?”
It didn’t make any sense.
“In a manner of speaking,” Penelope replied lightly, her eyes dancing with relief and joy. “Most willingly, as you know.”
She looked as though she expected him to laugh with her, but Colin’s face grew red, and despite how his body felt heavy against the bed covers, he was sure that he could duel at that very instant.
“I will call the man out!” he cried, sitting up despite the stabbing pain in his forehead. “I knew Debling was not worthy to court you!”
“What are you speaking of?”
Penelope now seemed to share his confusion and while it was comforting not to be alone, it also filled Colin with a sense of dread.
“Your honor is no small matter. You are ruined, and I have failed to prevent it.”
She was speechless for a moment, and then she sat heavily in the velvet chair next to the bed, where she must have been keeping vigil.
“Colin,” she said gently. “That baby is your daughter. Agatha.”
———
It was very strange, he reflected, after the parade had ended. First, the doctor had come, uselessly advising rest and time. Then, Anthony, stoic and sarcastic as usual but just beneath holding back countless tears, such that Colin had not seen since their father passed away. Finally, Benedict, who accompanied their weeping mother. It was then that Colin learned of the accident.
Penelope had been a constant presence through it all. That was not what felt unusual to Colin. She had always been there, in the hidden corners and brightest moments. What felt unsettling was the way that the others looked to her as the most important person in his life. Her opinion on his condition was always consulted and her judgements considered final.
He had never tried to hide how he prized her, well, almost never. But their fondness for one another had always felt to him like a precious secret. Something that would only be tarnished by others’ knowledge of it. Now it had been revealed to the world, and he was the one lagging behind yet again.
He felt he was trying to make up for years of lost schooling in the course of an hour or two. But what made his heart clench was when he heard that distant cry again during Anthony’s visit. Pen politely excused herself, an attentive mother, and a loving one. He could see it in the way her eyes glowed with overflowing affection. It couldn’t be dimmed even by the grim state of his memory.
He had a daughter. One he didn’t know. He, who had always longed to be a father. He had missed it all— the anticipation, the birth, that first moment when her tiny soft hand must have curled around his finger. He had an Agatha, and he did not even know how she came to be. The lost months brought a grief so deep he could not fully face it, not yet.
Penelope sat in stillness near the fire now that their guests had left them in peace. All was quiet. There was embroidery in her lap, but he hadn’t seen her make a stitch. The muslin seemed a mere prop. A symbol of domesticity that set Colin’s stomach churning and made his head ache.
He made to speak, but found he didn’t have it in him. Usually he took pride in setting Pen at ease but she seemed a stranger to him now.
The way she wove her way with such comfort through the more familiar threads of his life.
The way she comforted his mother during their visit and offered his brothers refreshments. Only now, she teased Anthony and exchanged smirks with Benedict, as though it was an established pattern of interaction.
The command with which she ran the household, the way the servants listened to and respected her.
It was his house, he realized, these unfamiliar surroundings. He had wondered why the bed was facing the wrong direction, why there was a door that he now knew led to Penelope’s quarters.
But now they were alone, and he didn’t know how to talk to her.
Penelope was a woman. A wife. And he was meant to be her husband. Only he didn’t know how.
Finally, she broke the silence.
“You must have many questions,” she said quietly.
Their eyes caught, and Colin flinched at her stormy blue sea of love, fear, hope. It was overwhelming. It made him feel small, inadequate.
“How did this happen?”
The question cut through the air, sharper and more anguished than he had intended.
Her back stiffened, and she looked away. There was shame there. Regret.
“In the usual way,” she said, avoiding his eyes and clenching her embroidery tightly. “You courted me. You proposed. I said yes.”
It was the barest of explanations. He felt that something was being kept from him, something that belonged to him too.
“Because we are friends?“ he asked. “Did our lessons fail?”
Penelope flinched. A familiar protectiveness welled up in Colin at the expression of hurt on her face.
“No, they succeeded.” For the first time all day a hint of bitterness came into her tone. “Beyond your wildest fantasies.”
“Penelope…” he began. He thought they had resolved this argument with their agreement about her lessons. She merely waved him away like it was of no matter.
“I received another proposal, but you asked me not to accept it.”
Colin blinked, a green, sick feeling trickling into his stomach. “Lord Debling?”
“Yes.”
“But why did I disapprove? Were my suspicions correct that the man is the worst sort of rake?”
He felt a hint of smug satisfaction at being proved right. Penelope‘s lips twitched at him in amusement, almost as if they had a private joke, but then the half smile disappeared.
“No, it was much simpler than that. You fancied yourself in love with me.”
He stared at her. In love? How? When?
They both startled at the sound of Agatha’s thin cry coming from the nursery, and Penelope rose.
“I’ll return shortly to see to your care.”
Colin nodded in acknowledgment, but he was too stunned to speak.
Or perhaps he was simply too afraid to ask her the obvious question: was his wife in love with him?