Chapter Text
Chapter One: Invisible Girl
“Order me a dark beer, a basket of chips, and something fruity for when I remember I detest dark beers.” Penelope threw her purse to Eloise, who caught it just before it collided with her chest, and marched herself to the ladies’ room with her nose in the air.
Standing over the sink, Penelope glared at her reflection in the water-specked mirror and fought the urge to curl her lip in disgust.
Once again she had built the perfect pitch in her mind, had the words locked and loaded in her chest, ready to say them firmly, with feeling, and then spoken aloud and discovered she sounded like a goddamn mouse.
Everyone had goggled at her like she was a kindergartner who had wandered into the conference room, nodded politely, and returned to the actual conversation. Penelope had sunk as low as humanly possible into her chair, feeling heat radiate off her face like a cartoon character who’d eaten a spicy pepper whole. When it felt like everyone’s attention was safely off her, she’d attempted to escape to the loo to shake off the humiliation only to run into Cressida Goddamn Cowper.
“Pity your squeak wasn’t well-received,” Cressida had simpered at her, letting out the cruelest, most over-the-top giggle Penelope had ever heard.
If she thought she could get away with it, Penelope would, without hesitation, throw a drink right in that bitchy blonde’s face.
But, as her mother often reminded her, they lived in a society.
Penelope gripped the sink in her fingers even tighter, forcing herself to breathe evenly, pinching her eyes shut so she wouldn’t see her glassy-eyed self-reproach and give in to angry tears.
After all, Colin would be joining them at the pub any second now. Penelope didn’t want to look blotchy and emotional when he arrived—he would undoubtedly ask her what had crawled up her arse, make a few ridiculous jokes, toss chips at her, then trick her into dancing with him until she was giggling and had quite forgotten what had crawled up her arse at all.
Actually, that didn’t sound so bad.
Penelope released the sink and stalked over to the toilet, slamming the stall door shut behind her. She peed, fuming at herself, returned to the sink to wash her hands, giving herself a stern look.
“You will not pout and make a scene so Colin pays attention to you. You will not.”
A throat cleared softly behind her, and Penelope jumped, gasping and clutching her heart. As quick as she could manage, she hurried back to Eloise, relieved to see a pint of something dark and malty waiting for her.
“Thank you.” Sliding into her seat across from Eloise, she picked up the glass and pretended to offer a clink in cheers, prematurely pulling back so she could suck back a gulp, letting the foam give her a charming mustache.
“I take it your pitch didn’t go so hot,” Eloise guessed, tone dry and mouth twisted down in disappointment.
“Abysmal,” Penelope said, raising her glass to herself. “Per usual. Somewhere between my heart and my mouth, the words got all squeaky, and mixed up, and stupid. Then I froze up, and then,” she hefted her glass once more, another sarcastic thank you to the heavens, “Cressida Cowper got a dig in. Truly some kind of record was broken today.”
Wincing, Eloise gestured for Penelope to go ahead and gulp down as much of the beer as she wanted. Plugging her nose, Penelope did just that, letting out a rather unladylike burp afterward, her eyes watering.
It was, of course, this precise moment Colin arrived, raising his eyebrow and putting his hands on his hips.
“Go on, do the alphabet now.” His teeth flashed in a shit-eating grin, eyebrow still up.
Her face began to feel hot all over again, her retort momentarily silenced by Colin’s distracting biceps straining against the sleeves of his Henley shirt. Then, as Colin slid into the seat beside her, reaching for Eloise’s drink to take a sip, she remembered herself.
Clearing her throat, she shot back, “Says the man who once tried to belch a Christmas carol and threw up in Violet’s gardenias?”
“I told you that in confidence!” Colin scowled, pinching her just above her elbow on the back of her arm where Eloise wouldn’t see. Yelping softly, Penelope jerked out of his reach and squinted up at him.
“Fine, buy me another beer and I’ll burp the alphabet for you.”
Colin smiled sunnily at her, but then started to really look and Penelope suddenly squirmed under his scrutiny. He had always been adept at reading her face, at picking up on the things she didn’t say aloud—sometimes he even saw the things he wasn’t supposed to see.
“Mm, I was hoping for some mischief tonight but something tells me if I indulge you too much, Eloise and I will be taking turns holding your hair back in the alley.” He suddenly turned and raised his hand, and like the sorcerer he was, a waitress immediately appeared to take his order.
Eloise snatched her drink back from him before he even had a taste, holding it out of his reach before throwing Penelope entirely under the bus.
“She had a shit day at work. Distract yourself with that while you wait for your own bloody pint.”
Colin snapped his eyes back over to Penelope instantly. “They didn’t pick up your author’s manuscript?”
Sighing, she shook her head. “Not that I blame them. I didn’t sell it very well. I wish I could just speak to Agatha one on one—I do so much better without spectators.”
Nodding, he scrunched his face a bit. “One of these days, Pen, you’re going to say your piece and everyone is going to listen. They’re going to kick themselves for not listening sooner. They’ll wonder how they let someone like you slip by their notice for so long and you’ll get to roll your eyes and burp the alphabet at them.”
When he started talking, Penelope had gone sort of gooey, thinking this might be the night she drank until she could talk herself into confessing herself to him. But then he’d concluded his little pep talk with a cheeky joke and she remembered, oh right.
Colin was kind. Always kind. Rarely if ever did he punch down, and he apologized genuinely and profusely when he did. And since he’d once spouted off about her, he had since overcorrected into uncomfortably complimentary more often than not.
But, drunk off every single bit of praise from his lips, Penelope did not beg him to stop. She simply squirmed and yearned and hated herself a little more.
“You’ll get another chance,” Eloise suddenly said, slapping her palm down onto the table. “Now, are you ready to forget all that and enjoy yourself?”
She was.
As predicted, not even twenty minutes later she’d laughed until she’d snorted beer through her nose twice. (First because Colin and Eloise bickered as only siblings could—rapid-fire, without mercy, and with more emotion than logic. And then, a second time because Colin had pointed out a trio of men in practically identical suits and made some joke about American Psycho that had been so clever Penelope had been simultaneously jealous of his wit and delighted he was sharing it with her.)
When their multiple baskets of chips arrived at the table with bottles of malt vinegar and piles of paper napkins, Colin indeed tossed chips at Penelope when she disagreed with him. Their game came to an abrupt halt when one of the flung chips landed inside her button-up blouse so she had to fish it out, laughing so hard tears were collecting in her eyes.
Colin had actually blushed, which had only made it all the funnier. It also made her want to fling her arms around his neck and put her nose in his neck and have him hug her back the way he sometimes did when he’d just returned from some far-off place.
The way he indulged her in those first few days after he returned—Penelope treasured every moment.
They had played a game of Punderdome and fed the jukebox increasingly ridiculous requests (Eloise’s pick of “Fuck the Pain Away” had caused a minor stir and made Penelope clamp her fingers on Colin’s forearm so she could hold in her laughter and not give themselves away). Then the Archies came on, and even though Penelope knew Colin was responsible, knew it like she knew her middle name was Anne and Colin’s favorite biscuits were chocolate with raspberry jam in the middle, he denied it over and over again.
Even as he took her hand and pulled her a few feet away from their booth and danced with her like they weren’t in everyone’s way spinning and singing along with the goddamn Archies he refused responsibility.
It felt quite on the nose, actually.
Here he was, dancing with her to a song he’d paid real money to play and denying it.
Here he was, making it bloody impossible to stop wanting him and pretending he had no idea she wanted to lick his neck.
When they sat back down in the booth after their impromptu, likely-obnoxious dance, he settled his arm along the back of the seat and for a few minutes, Penelope felt herself sitting tall.
His arm, stretched out behind her, like she was his.
When it was her turn to visit the bar and get the next round, she bounced absentmindedly to the music and risked a quick glance at the trio of Patrick Batemans Colin had been teasing earlier. One of them almost met her eye, but she quickly turned away, rushing out her order to the impatient bartender.
Back at the table, Eloise and Colin were huddled around his phone and elbowing one another for position.
“What’s the cause of this rare peace accord?” she asked them.
Eloise grunted, then answered, “Benedict thinks he found his Lady in Silver.”
Penelope’s heart leapt in joy and sank like a stone with envy all at once. “Oh. Good for him.”
“Not so good—apparently she’s a student.”
Oh. Well, that certainly complicated things.
As a professor, Benedict would not be able to date one of his students. And while he was exceedingly good at keeping his dalliances discreet, Benedict was not discreet in matters of love. And he had claimed, for years now, that the Lady in Silver was the love of his life.
“You could send him the music video for that Sting song,” she suggested then, eyes widening at her own flippant barb. Were Benedict there, he would have been the first to burst into a boisterous chuckle, but in his absence, Eloise gladly broke the ice and cackled, snatching up Colin’s phone to do the dirty deed herself.
“Pen, you are dastardly,” Colin said, and it was absolutely a compliment.
Penelope settled back into the booth beside him and once more, he stretched his arm along the back while she sat gloating to no one and sitting up tall and proud like a girl deserving of existing under Colin Bridgerton’s sinfully muscled arm.
“Next round is on me.” Colin nudged her ribs with his elbow and clinked his glass against the side of hers. “You’ll get the words out next time. Drink up tonight.”
When Penelope was drunk enough she was no longer tempted to go glare at herself in the ladies’ room mirror anymore, she stumbled out to an Uber Colin had insisted on procuring for her, yelled a spirited goodnight and thanks for all the laughs, then sighed and giggled all the way home.
There, creeping in the side door and cursing as she bumped into the console table and then the umbrella stand, Penelope froze, listening to the sounds of Portia watching some QI rerun and sifting her hands around in a popcorn bowl.
Slowly, Penelope began to creep up the stairs towards her room, noticing at the first landing there were two rather large suitcases stacked there. Then, at the top of the stairs, swaying slightly on her feet, she noticed the light on under her door.
The humming on the other side was unmistakable—Aunt Siobhan. Freshly in from Ireland, it would appear, and making herself at home in the one room in Portia’s house that currently housed one of her children, for some reason.
She should have knocked, told the kooky old bat to pick literally any other fucking room in the house, but her arm fell slack at her side before she even pretended to work up the gumption to knock. Bowing her head, her eyes suddenly stinging, Penelope hoisted her purse on her shoulder, trudged up the hall to Philippa’s old room, and slumped inside.
Tomorrow was a new day. She could try to be brave tomorrow.
***
The following morning, Penelope greeted the day by huddling over the toilet and retching loudly for ten straight minutes.
Then, feeling like someone was pressing the heel of their boot right at the base of her skull and grinding it, she wandered down to the kitchen and glared with one eye at Aunt Siobhan clanging a pan on the stove. She kept her other eye shut behind the heel of her hand, sure if she opened it she would start dry heaving again.
“Eggs?” Siobhan offered.
Penelope burped and shook her head, feeling underwater.
Siobhan pushed her a cup of tea, still hot. “You look like shite, dear.”
“I feel like shite,” Penelope shot back. “Late night at the pub. And then there was someone in my bed.”
Pushing back a forelock of frizzy red hair, Siobhan grinned crookedly. “You could have told me to shove off.”
She gave her aunt a withering look, risking the use of both eyes to make sure she really got the full effect.
Siobhan, per usual, wasn’t cowed in the slightest. “Oh, c’mon,” she lilted, her Irish accent bright and grating. “You’re a Byrne.”
Penelope rolled her eyes and promptly regretted it when the kitchen continued spinning.
“You’re just stuck,” Siobhan said, as if she had the first clue what she was talking about. “Happens to everyone from time to time. The question is—what are you going to do about it?”
Penelope suffered in silence, raising the heels of her hands to her eyes, mouth pressed shut.
“Oh dear, that bad, is it?” Siobhan tutted softly, empathetically, compassionately.
Penelope instantly distrusted it. As a Featherington.
Undeterred, Siobhan resumed bumping around the kitchen, albeit a bit more softly now. “Paralyzed. At work? In love? In life?”
Penelope lowered her hands, exasperated but also choked with all the words she could say but would rather die than spit out.
“All three, oh dear.” Siobhan suddenly dried her hands, frowning in earnest. For a moment—just a moment—Penelope’s suspicion wavered.
“It will feel good to unburden yourself, even just a bit. Perhaps I can help!” Siobhan offered her a crooked smile that wedged itself in the cracks of her suspicion and began to wriggle.
Penelope took a moment to picture herself, paler than a whisper on a winter morning, hair a rat’s nest, face streaked with makeup only half wiped off, dressed in her roomiest loungewear with barf-breath.
“I’m invisible,” Penelope suddenly whispered. “Utterly invisible. No one hears me at work, no one takes me seriously here, no one out there sees me apart from a small handful of people with their own busy lives and I just…need…more.” Her chest heaved in the silence that followed.
Siobhan did the last thing she was expecting and rounded the counter to hug her. A proper two-armed hug, laying her cheek on Penelope’s shoulder, and rubbing her hand up and down the middle of her back.
When she drew back, she evidently didn’t like what she saw on Penelope’s face because she dived right back in for another hug, this one twice as warm, twice as earnest, twice as loving.
She squeezed her aching, stinging eyes shut, her breath hitching. “I keep trying. I swear I do. But—“
“No buts,” Siobhan interjected, suddenly pulling away and seizing Penelope’s shoulders to give them just a brisk enough shake she flicked her eyes open before the room resumed spinning.
Siobhan waited until Penelope had stopped swaying queasily and met her eyes. “You just need a bit of help. No shame in it! There are a million solutions, we’ll find one!” Suddenly her eyes slitted and Penelope had the distinct notion her aunt was going to open her housecoat and reveal a cadre of unsavory tools to improve her lot in life.
“I myself am partial to potions and elixirs.”
Penelope’s ears rung in the silence, her eyes fixed wide, heart feeling skittish and ready to flee any second. She gulped softly, as if afraid of drawing attention to her throat.
“I have one in particular that you might have a right bit of fun with, something to at least lift your spirits—give you a giggle.” Siobhan turned at the sound of the electric kettle clicking off and made herself busy pouring tea while something in the toaster began to smoke at the edges.
Penelope watched the unfolding chaos as if watching something on the telly. Distantly, she asked, “What do you mean? Potion, like a witch’s brew?”
“I will never divulge my secret recipes, of course, but there aren’t any cockamamie ingredients in them, and you won’t grow a beard or anything like that. Not much to lose, if you ask me.” Siobhan pointed at her purse heaped at the edge of the counter—denim with beadwork on it like from one of the South American countries Colin had spent months cavorting around before he’d come back to London “indefinitely.”
Eloise had money on there being a girl who had initially caused Colin’s interest in returning home with no imminent departure date. Penelope didn’t want to believe that particular theory, nor did she see any evidence, and she was nosy to a fault when it came to Colin’s love life.
Wait, why was she thinking about Colin’s love life?
She seized Siobhan’s purse and threw the flap open, reaching around inside until she came up with a trio of spritzer bottles. One in a mint green bottle with a lightbulb drawn on a paper label, one in a blue bottle with a crescent moon, and one in a blood red bottle with a heart on it.
“The red one!” Siobhan needlessly chirped, stirring eggs in a pan. “A spritz before bed, and a spritz in the morning, plus I have a little incantation you’re supposed to say in the mirror every morning. Pretty soon, my little mouse, you’ll be roaring like a lion. Like a Byrne.”
After a beat, Penelope scoffed. “Just like that?”
“Well, no, of course not.” Siobhan laughed. “You have to work with it. Lean into it a bit. I can’t make you succeed against your will. But I can grease the wheels. Help you fake it till you make it.”
Penelope fingered the bottle, looking at the contents through the deep red glass, holding it up to the light for any clue. “Any side effects?” she quipped, unable to keep her sarcasm to herself.
“None.” Siobhan’s eyes flashed in a soft, savage warning. “Besides, you can always stop spritzing. It’s not a blood debt or anything.” Her lips curled as if sharing a private joke with someone in on it.
Penelope was not, however, in on it. She felt very much outside of it.
“What exactly does this do?” She shook the bottle toward her aunt, making sure her questions were direct, making sure it would be hard for her to provide vague, kooky answers like an astrological forecast columnist.
Siobhan scraped two servings of rubbery scrambled eggs and burned toast onto two plates and brought them to the small table overlooking the side garden. Penelope sat, more out of curiosity than a desire to eat.
After taking a small bite and then picking up the salt shaker, Siobhan gestured to the bottle still clutched in Penelope’s hand. “It will open your eyes a bit, let you see things a little more clearly. Oh, and make you irresistible to men. Or, I suppose if you’re into women, it would make you irresistible to them, too.” She cleared her throat. “That’s all beside the point—this potion is really about confidence, Penelope. But I am not joking when I say you will be beating off men with a stick.”
Penelope scoffed again, louder this time.
Siobhan smirked, sitting back. “I’m here for two weeks. Plenty of time for you to use that little potion and see for yourself.”
“You’re on,” Penelope responded before she could think better of it, removing the cap as if she would spray it right then and there.
Siobhan’s eyes shot wide. “Don’t!”
Penelope froze, her stomach plummeting. What was in this bottle that had a grown woman so frightened?
But Siobhan simply laughed breathily. “I’m sorry, it’s just—well, it’s very potent and I don’t really fancy turning away the old widowers when your mum and I go to that wine-tasting tomorrow night.”
“From one spritz?” Penelope asked incredulously, hating the slight upturn in her voice, the one that sounded suspiciously like hope.
“Well, more potent with the little incantation I mentioned, but yes. One spritz.” She fished in her purse and pulled out a small notepad, the top adorned in curly script that read Food & Shit. She scribbled a minute with a pen topped with a purple pompom, then tore the sheet off—half her shopping list at the top—and smiled, satisfied.
The words were in Gaelic, or at least Penelope presumed it was Gaelic. It was decidedly not a language she was familiar with, though she was somewhat familiar with how to pronounce some of the weirder combinations of letters.
“What does it say?”
Siobhan smiled playfully, stabbing at her plate with her fork. “Oh, let me have a bit of fun, would you? Say the words, spritz, go be irresistible. Spritz, go to bed. That’s it.”
Holding the paper and the bottle, Penelope nodded. “I’ll go reclaim my room and give it a go.”
“Ah, see!” Siobhan pointed in triumph as Penelope mounted the stairs with her trophies. “You’re already acting more bold!”
In her room—which now vaguely smelled like Siobhan’s patchouli body oil and her beeswax lotion—Penelope stood in front of the antique mirror at the foot of her bed.
She wrinkled her nose at the letters there, then inspected her face in the mirror. Immediately, her lip began to curl.
I have literally nothing to lose. She lifted her chin. And no one has to know about this except for me and Siobhan. She swallowed, wondering if Siobhan were the sort to tattle to Portia.
But even facing Portia’s scorn beat staring into the mirror and wanting to scream at herself, to ask her own disgusted face why she choked every time she wanted to say something real?
Clearing her throat, Penelope held the paper out with slightly trembling fingers. “Táim cineálta.” She held her breath a beat before continuing, eyes darting curiously around the room as if anticipating some sort of shift in the air. “Táim álainn.”
She inspected her reflection anew. Light skin, freckled hair, eyes that seemed shrewd and vulnerable. Someone in need of nurturing, not screaming and shouting.
Her eyes dropped to the paper. “Tuillim grá.”
Then, feeling only mildly ridiculous, she lifted the bottle above her head, shut her eyes, and spritzed herself.
It smelled like amber and lemongrass—warm and spicy with a bright citrusy top-note that instantly made her less annoyed. If she were sinking so low as to try her New Age aunt’s kooky homemade love potion, at least it didn’t stink.