Chapter Text
Penelope Featherington stood at the edge of the loch, her shawl wrapped tightly around her shoulders as the wind whipped through her hair. The early morning air was crisp and unforgiving, much like her mood.
This was her punishment. Exile to Scotland.
Her mother in a moment of decisiveness had declared, “The fresh air will do you good.”
But she knew the truth.
The ton had wasted no time turning her into the season's most pitiable figure now that her reputation was in tatters, and her mother wanted her out of sight.
The following week she had been shipped off to her Great Aunt Margaret’s remote estate for the off season, far from society, far from the whispers, and far from him.
Colin Bridgerton’s voice, once so warm and comforting, now felt like a dagger to her heart and echoed in her mind like a cruel refrain:
“Are you mad? I would never dream of courting Penelope Featherington.”
She had stood there, surrounded by the laughter of half the eligible gentleman in Mayfair, while her heart shattered into a thousand irreparable pieces.
While she had long ago accepted that she was not meant to be the object of a grand romance, she had not expected to be made a spectacle of by her supposed friend. And yet, thanks to one careless question, one insufferable cad’s goading, her name had become synonymous with humiliation.
The distant sound of hooves disrupted her brooding, and she stiffened. Turning, she saw a lone rider emerging from the mist, dark-haired and easy in the saddle. Her fingers curled tightly around her shawl, and her vision blazed with anger even before his features became clear.
Lord Reginald Fife.
He reined in his horse when he spotted her. He was tall, with piercing blue eyes that seemed to hold a perpetual glint of mischief. His notorious reputation as a rake and a libertine whose name was whispered behind gloved hands at every ball, and whose sole amusement seemed to be making sport of others preceded him.
Dressed in riding boots and a Newmarket coat, he cut a dashing figure as he dismounted his horse and approached her, his expression shifting from mild interest to one of surprise.
“Well, well,” he drawled, a slow smirk curving his lips. “Miss Featherington. What a delightful coincidence. I had no idea you were in Scotland.”
Her hands twitched with the sudden, unladylike urge to throw something at him.
“Delightful?” she bristled, “I can’t say the sentiment is reciprocated, my lord.”
Reginald blinked, genuinely taken aback by the young chit standing there. She looked quite different from when he saw her last, with her striking red hair flowing free like luminous flames in the sunlight. Gone were the garish yellow gowns that usually defined her. Instead, she wore a simple yet flattering day dress in a pretty shade of blue that accentuated her pleasing figure and sparkling ocean blue eyes.
Eyes full of steel animosity that conveyed she didn’t give a fig who he was, wasn’t interested in his attention, and was irritated with him, almost as though he’d already committed some unknown transgression.
He was bewildered, grappling with the stark contrast between the Penelope Featherington he assumed her to be and the one before him now.
“Such venom, Miss Featherington! I wasn’t aware my mere existence could cause such…distress." he said, giving her a wicked grin that lived up to his reputation.
Penelope gave him a slow, saccharine smile in return. “I have no doubt you’ll survive the venom, my lord,” She tilted her head, eyes gleaming with mock sweetness. “After all, I believe snakes are immune to what they spew.”
He let out a low laugh, as he studied her with something bordering on admiration. “Miss Featherington, if I didn’t know better, I’d think you were flirting with me. Tell me,” he added with a lazy smirk, his gaze flickering over her and taking in the fire behind her eyes. “If I am the snake, does that make you the charmer?”
Undoubtedly, he probably expected her to blush and flutter her eyes, but she wasn’t a brainless twit. Regardless of how handsome he was, she had no interest in a despicable man like himself, if anything she wanted to roll her eyes and stomp his toes.
“Unfortunately it makes me the fool who wandered too close, Lord Fife,” she said, her tone deceptively light. “I should have been more careful where I stepped. One moment, I was minding my own business, and the next…” she gave a mock gasp, hand fluttering to her chest, “I found myself bitten. Not by the snake itself, mind you, but by the so-called gentleman it so easily provoked.”
His smirk froze. It was only for a second, but she caught it, the brief, involuntary tightening of his jaw, the flicker of something uneasy in his eyes. And then she knew he understood exactly what he had done.
“Ah,” he said. “You’re referring to the…incident at your family's ball.”
“The incident?” she repeated sharply. “Oh, is that what we’re calling it? How quaint. A minor ‘incident’ that left me unmarriageable and led to my social ruin.”
“Social ruin? That’s rather dramatic, don’t you think?”
She gave him a look so scathing it could have reduced him to ashes.
He winced. “It wasn’t meant to be cruel.”
“No, of course not,” she said acidly. “It was merely meant to amuse you. Tell me, did you enjoy your good laugh after? Were you and your degenerate lackeys pleased with yourselves while the entire ton heard Colin Bridgerton declare he ‘wouldn’t dream of courting’ me?”
Fife hesitated, something flickering across his face. Regret, perhaps? But Penelope was too furious to care and too satisfied that she had finally said exactly what she thought, and no one would make her apologize for that.
“No, my intentions were pure…ish,” he admitted. “I didn’t think Bridg…”
“You didn’t think,” she cut in, her voice sharp. “And because of that, I have been packed off to Scotland like an embarrassment best kept out of sight. Do you know what it’s like, Lord Fife, to be pitied? To be whispered about? To be dismissed entirely as a woman no man would ever look twice at?”
His jaw tightened, his posture stiffening. “I do, actually.”
She scoffed. “Oh, of course. I’m certain you have endured endless suffering, what with your wealth, your title, and your reputation as a charming libertine.”
The corner of his mouth quirked into something that was not quite a smile. “You forgot my devastatingly good looks.”
It was the sheer audacity of him that nearly made her laugh, if she weren’t so furious. Instead, she narrowed her eyes. “I suppose that’s why you can afford to be so careless. Everything comes so easily to you.”
Something unreadable passed over his face at that. “Not everything,” he murmured, but before she could decipher his meaning, he was all rakish ease once more.
“Well, Miss Featherington, I must say, exile has made you quite sharp-tongued. A pity you weren’t this spirited in London, I daresay you’d have been a sensation.”
She huffed, how dare he speak to her with such condescension, as though her worth could be measured by his shallow standards? Her hands clenched at her sides, her nails digging into her palms as she fought to keep her composure, though her voice trembled with barely restrained fury.
“What exile has done Lord Fife," she shot back, “is afforded me the clarity to see people for who they truly are. And you, sir, are precisely as insufferable as I believed you to be. If I lacked spirit in London, it was only because I had the misfortune of being subjected to dull, self-important men like yourself.” She took a step closer, her gaze unwavering, her voice dropping to a low, seething whisper. “Kindly go to hell, my lord.”
He laughed, the deep, rich sound of it carrying on the crisp morning air. “I look forward to seeing you there, Miss Featherington.”
He watched her storm away towards her home, her skirts swishing with the force of her movements.
He had never meant to hurt Penelope Featherington, but the result was the same, wasn’t it? He had been careless. Thoughtless. And now, she had paid the price.
He felt a surge of guilt, as he mounted his horse, his mind wandering back to that night. The one that had set all of this in motion. He’d only been trying to nudge the fool in the right direction for god’s sake. Bridgerton was so utterly blind to his own feelings for the girl that he thought by pointing out the obvious it might finally make him realize what everyone else saw;
That he was hopelessly in love with her.
But of course the bumbling idiot fucked it all up and Penelope had been caught in the crossfire.
The worst part, the part that unsettled him most, was that she was not at all what he had imagined.
Not meek. Not unnotable.
She was fire wrapped in silk, and she had not hesitated to scorch him.
A slow smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.
She was right that he had been careless, but he was not heartless. He would have to somehow make amends.
With a flick of his reins, he turned his horse toward home, already anticipating his next encounter with the woman who had utterly blindsided him.