Chapter Text
Admittedly, Colin isn’t exactly the most present. In fact, for the last seven years, he’s been more absent than anything else. Missed birthdays, and group video calls, and an embarrassing number of holidays. It’s just that every time he’s in London, he feels this immediate and overwhelming urge to get away.
He can’t blame it on his family, or his career, or his utter lack of a love life. It’s just, there’s something about the city that makes him itchy and uneasy. Like he can tell one day it’s going to swallow him up and never let him leave again. Like there’s something hiding in the walls, in the dirt itself, that will someday infect just enough of him that he’ll be too weak to crawl away.
So, he travels. Listlessly at first, then with great purpose, methodically investigating whole quadrants of the known world. Learning languages, learning how to cook, figuring out how to wash his clothes when he’s never in the same place more than a week at a time.
Then, he gets the travel show, and it’s something he can finally point to when his family asks why he keeps leaving all the goddamn time. Experiences, sunsets, the people he meets along the way. It’s all there, artfully edited with soft acoustic music and the classy kind of filters that don’t really announce themselves so much as smooth the rough edges of jet lag off his face.
But this year, he turns thirty, and his mother basically threatened dismemberment if he wasn’t in London to celebrate his birthday. So, he’s coordinating with his agent and the production company and about a thousand other people just to clear his schedule enough to be home for week so he can turn thirty and feel like a pile of shit with an audience of people who know him uncomfortably well for how often he’s gone.
“You’ll need security,” his agent reminds him through his wireless earbud as he swipes on his phone to check what the weather will be like in London while he’s home.
Gray. Rainy. Cold.
“Do I really?” Colin whines automatically, hating a fuss.
But his agent is right. His show has been picked up in North America recently, and suddenly he’s been noticing the occasional paparazzo outside his hotels, or lingering near the entrances of restaurants he thought he was slipping in and out of unnoticed.
“Look, it’s either we send out the security team we use, or you find a private bodyguard. So long as I can check the references, I’ll let you find your own muscle. But we’re not going to cut you loose in London, your hometown, and think it’ll go smooth as silk.”
He begs for a day to find his own personal bodyguard, dismayed when their old family friend, Will Mondrich, claims he can’t help him this time.
“Me and the wife managed to scrape up enough for a proper holiday—I won’t even be in Europe when you’re here. Sorry, mate.”
He calls everyone else first, his little brother Gregory included, but it’s Eloise who brightens immediately when he begins his complaining.
“Oh, you should just hire Pen!”
Colin laughs at first, startled to find Eloise is silent in that certain way that means she’s a bit offended. He laughs again, sure it must be a prank because Penelope is barely more than five feet tall, soft all over, and sweeter than chocolate treacle.
“Penelope Featherington,” he checks, thinking maybe there is another Pen in Eloise’s life he hasn’t heard about in his absence.
“She’s been doing Krav Maga for like ten years now. Five years ago she got talked into this tournament, and she trounced the competition. She got scooped up by this security company and made lead coordinator in six months. Colin,” Eloise huffs impatiently over the phone, “she runs tactical teams to keep dignitaries and billionaires safe. And she works private security for family and friends. Hire Pen.”
It’s actually brilliant. He hadn’t wanted to be followed by two black suits all week, humorless dolts who would find the chaos of his family overwhelming and not a bit endearing. No, it would be perfect to spend time with Penelope, who had been underfoot at Bridgerton House since before Colin ever even thought about traveling.
Quiet, thoughtful, observant Penelope. Cute-as-a-button, pocket-sized Penelope. Hired to be his bodyguard. If anything, it will be an endless source of amusement all week.
So he passes her name along to his agent, surprised when he receives near-instantaneous approval. Realizing he actually needs to speak to Penelope, or at least her agency, he calls personally and gets bounced around the office, speaking to four different secretaries before clicking through to someone who immediately asks what he wants and snaps her gum.
“I’m looking to hire—I need a bodyguard detail. Personal, just…me?” Colin closes one eye, listening to the girl on the other end snap her gum again.
“But they put you through to me, which means you’re not just some rando off the street. Name?”
“Colin,” he supplies immediately. “Bridgerton.”
“Dates?”
He consults his calendar. “March first through the sixth. I fly out on the morning of the seventh.”
“Heathrow?”
Colin tilts his head. “Yeah?”
“Gross.” The girl snaps her gum. “You’ll get a call as soon as I run this by Miss Featherington. Enjoy your day.”
Then, she hangs up.
He doesn’t get the call back until he’s waiting to board his plane at Singapore Changi Airport, doing the math to see how much time he’ll have during his first layover.
“Hello?” he answers, not recognizing the number calling him back.
“Colin, hi!”
Dropping his bag at his feet, Colin stands tall, putting his hand on his hip. Two production assistants from the show linger nearby, determined to see him past the security gates before they will leave him to it.
“Penelope Featherington! How long has it been?”
“I saw you last Christmas,” she answers in the same sweet, unassuming voice he remembers. “You were just back from Mexico City, I believe.”
He looks at his phone, at the unfamiliar number at the top. “Do I not have your number saved in my phone?”
“Oh, well, I guess you might? But this is my work line. You’re supposed to save this one because it has backups to other people at the agency, if I’m unable to answer.”
“Bit over the top, isn’t it?” Colin asks, chuckling nervously. “They’re acting like there’s an assassination plot out to get me. Really it’ll be the easiest gig you’ll ever take. If, erm, you take it?”
She snorts. “Obviously I’m taking it. I heard there’s going to be a birthday party!”
Grinning, Colin bends for his bag, tossing it over his shoulder. “One of Violet Bridgerton’s biggest bashes, I’m told. Maybe even a quick overnight out to Aubrey.”
“Ooh, all right…when will you know for sure? About Aubrey Hall?”
“Pen,” he admonishes, thinking she knows him better than to think he has an itinerary for his week at home. He lives by them every minute he travels for the show, which is constantly, so when he’s home he rather enjoys flying by the seat of his pants.
“It’s fine—I’ll weasel it out of you one way or another. Or, more accurately, end up planning the whole thing.” Penelope sounds settled and amused, almost a little cocky, if Colin is being honest.
“Will it really be you?” Colin asks suddenly, unable to picture it. Whenever he’d been assigned bodyguards before, they were always seven-foot-tall behemoths with shaved heads and arms so thick they could barely fit through doorways.
When Colin stretches an arm straight out to hold open doors for Penelope, she fits under his elbow without ducking. Was she going to wear all black and linger just behind him like a tiny, demurely-smiling shadow all week?
She giggles, which is alarmingly endearing. “Well, yes, actually. Mostly I’m good at keeping my wards out of trouble, as in avoiding it. But when push comes to shove, I’m actually quite feisty.”
“Feisty,” he repeats, not meaning to sound quite so doubtful.
“Yes. I have a low center of gravity and a lot of sparring experience.” Suddenly, her voice is a bit firmer. Lower in register. Certain. “If you want a demonstration and promise not to be a baby, I’ll even show you what I can do.”
Well, that prickles down into a spot beneath his belly that’s disconcertingly close to his cock.
Abruptly, her tone brightens. “When do you arrive?”
“I’m at the airport now, flying out of Singapore” he admits, still discombobulated by the bizarre tingle that had raced through him at her enticing offer.
“Colin!” she wheedles, sounding somehow fond at the same time. “When do you arrive at Heathrow? I can clear my schedule.” She sighs, followed by the sound of papers rustling in the background.
After talking logistics for a bit, Colin hears his flight beginning to board.
“I have to go,” he mutters apologetically. “But I’ll see you in, what, eight hours?”
“I’ll be at Heathrow,” she promises.
He smiles as he moves toward the security line. “Holding one of those charming signs, I hope?”
She snorts. “Discretion, Mr. Bridgerton. My job will be to keep you safe, not draw a bunch of attention to your arrival at a major airport. If you have a ball cap, wear it when you disembark. Don’t look for me, I’ll find you. Safe travels!”
Colin blinks down at his phone. Saves the number under a new contact (Badass Pen). Boards his flight and starts the long trek back home.
🤜👊🤛
Penelope is unable to resist a test of strength, which she suspects may be one of her greatest personality flaws. Colin Bridgerton, her childhood crush and best friend’s older brother, had called looking for her services. The way her belly had flipped when her assistant had passed along his name and the dates he needed, she knew she had to see what she was made of.
Would she be able to focus, do her job, and maintain her secret for the entire week? Perhaps even manage to soak up some joy at being in the presence of the man who had held her heart since the early, innocent days of her girlhood?
In truth, she’s rather eager to show Colin this new side of her. Oh, it had been brewing and building and taking shape for a decade now, but Colin had been off in his own world forever. Barely able to keep up with the many changes back home, let alone actually absorbing anything going on with her.
But since he’d last actually stayed put, Penelope has found comfort in her own skin. Has accepted that she holds some power over her own life. Has grown quietly confident in the things she knows she can do.
And one of those things is keep Colin Bridgerton from bodily harm. At least the kind that comes from outside threats.
Truly, her greatest gifts are her observational ones. But somewhere along the way, as she repeatedly turned up for self-defense lessons and signed up for increasingly brutal martial arts classes, she stumbled across a Krav Maga instructor she adores.
The woman had walked with a limp and insisted her knees didn’t bend anymore, but with just a few short jabs of her elbows and a handy little trick with the heel of her palm, she had unarmed three men twice her size. And then she’d taught Penelope how to do it.
It had been Agatha who planted scouts for the security agency in the tournament’s audience five years ago, and Agatha who enthusiastically signed as her reference when she finally applied for the job. And it was Agatha she wanted to impress, even if she’d never admit why Colin Bridgerton was her own personal Hart of the Forest.
After texting Eloise an early-morning confirmation that she had indeed managed to move around her schedule to accommodate Colin’s last minute request, Penelope readies for the day.
She crams a bag full of bottled water, pepper spray, sunglasses, ball caps, battery packs, and snacks. Lots of snacks, actually. Fruit leather and trail mix, jerky and packets of biscuits with jam filling. Then, jamming her hair into a trucker cap and locating her biggest aviator sunglasses, she sets out for Heathrow in the company car, which is a nondescript Toyota of some kind.
She parks in a short-term lot and hustles to the first concourse, using a plane-tracker to make sure she’s beaten the aircraft to the ground. When she locates the luggage carousel for Colin’s flight, she purchases a magazine from the nearest booth and sits on a bench near the lavatory, buzzing with adrenaline.
Her assistant texts her various bits of information the team has been busy unearthing since she agreed to the job. Colin has no specific security concerns, no names to be wary of, but he does have a healthy online presence, a profile on IMDb, and a recent paparazzi sighting at a restaurant in Sydney that had gossip sites buzzing about whether or not the jet-setting travel-junkie has a girlfriend or not.
Last she heard, he does not. In fact, she has never heard of Colin having a girlfriend. She doubts he’s entirely solitary during his travels, but if he ever takes the edge off his loneliness in the company of a woman, he does so discreetly.
She needs to call Violet, to figure out the particulars of his stay in Mayfair, as well as put the bug in her ear that Colin wants to make a trip up to Aubrey Hall. Typically when she takes these sorts of assignments, either she sees her target to the door of some other secured building and hands him off the in-house security, or she gets room and board nearby.
Knowing the Bridgertons, there will be no in-house security detail. Meaning she will, boo hoo, have to spend the week with them. Only instead of watching Eloise squabble with Benedict, or pretending to choose which flavor biscuit dough Gregory and Hyacinth should spoon onto baking sheets, she can keep herself within twenty feet of Colin at any given moment and have it be perfectly reasonable.
It isn’t her holiday, after all. She will be on the job. And just because he’s lounging around his mother’s house and letting her throw him a birthday party (which would, undoubtedly, have a massive guest list), it does not mean Penelope can let her guard down or get swept up in Bridgerton antics. Some starry-eyed, handsy girl could end up at that party and make a scene trying to get a picture with the birthday boy. Or maybe some jealous, fame-hungry loser might decide to make a name by making an example of Colin.
Really, he’s most likely at risk of being cornered by paparazzi with boundary-issues, but Penelope hasn’t been lying. She’s feisty when she needs to be. And, more importantly, clever. She hasn’t met a foe she couldn’t outwit yet. Where brains fail, she has pointy elbows and just enough sense to immobilize her opponent and get away. She can get a gun away from a man three times her size, and Agatha has taught her a neat trick for getting a knife away from her neck and into the ribs of any arsehole who’d dare threaten her.
People often underestimate her, which used to irk her. Now, it amuses her.
Her tracker pings that the plane has landed. For a few minutes, the luggage area is almost empty. Then, the bustle begins again, and just a few minutes later the first travelers start stumbling down the carpet to wait for the belt to move.
Colin is a seasoned traveler, so she figures he won’t go straight to the carousel. Sure enough, when he pops through the final gate and appears in the luggage area, he makes straight for the lavatory, blowing past her without a backward glance. She folds up her magazine, tucking her few flyaway hairs back into her cap, and leans against the wall just outside the loo door.
Giggling, she listens to him whistling in the lavatory. Washing his hands, grunting as he stretches and limbers up after a pair of long flights.
When he exits, she falls into step beside him. “Good morning, Colin.”
To her delight, he yelps, jerking his elbow up and away only to throw his bag down and burst into a laugh, bending to give her a quick hug before he stands back up and scowls.
“Where did you come from? Did you mean to sneak up on me like that, give me a bloody heart attack before I even see my mother?”
She smirks up at him, heart flipping already at the comfortable way he falls into rhythm with her. “It’s for the best if I sort of fade into the wallpaper. One bummer about those big beefy guys who usually get these gigs? People notice them, which means they eventually notice who they’re protecting.”
“Again, I’m not a spy,” Colin mumbles, smiling anyway as Penelope keeps herself perfectly in line with his longer strides.
“No, but let’s say we stumble across the Colin Bridgerton Appreciation Squad. Might be nice to float under the radar, yeah?”
The way he snorts and turns a little pink at the tips of his ears makes Penelope feel some type of way, but she has been feeling some type of way in Colin’s presence since before she even had the vocabulary for such things.
About two years ago, she had decided that Colin Bridgerton does not and will not ever see her in a romantic light. The decision to drop that last shred of hope had been liberating.
It had also been depressing, and a crushing blow to her self-esteem, but still liberating. She had begun allowing herself to picture a future where Colin didn’t suddenly come to his senses. She has too many cats, romance novels, and potted plants in these new imaginary futures, but she genuinely believes she can feel a version of fulfillment in one of them.
Sure, Penelope suffers a tiny relapse every time she crosses paths with Colin at the occasional Bridgerton event where he happens to be in London, but he’s in London so infrequently, it is, disturbingly, growing easier to recover and reset between his appearances.
Thus, this assignment really is her ultimate test. Proof she can set aside her very-real and yet very-unrequited feelings and be Perfectly Normal while she does it. Plus perhaps, maybe, possibly…she can show Colin what he’s been sleeping on these past fifteen years.
“You have a ride back to your mum’s?” Penelope asks curiously.
Colin shoots her a smirk. “Uber.”
“And wait around by the curb like some kind of non-important person?” She gasps in faux-disgust. “Colin, isn’t there Emmy buzz over in America right now?”
“Hush, you,” he says, his pink ears a dead giveaway as he frowns at her, though she can tell he’s inwardly very pleased. “No one knows I’m here except you and my family.”
“And the flight attendants you probably flirted with the whole flight over. Gushing to their friends, uploading snaps of you sleeping and drooling on the plane, the works.” Penelope enjoys his sudden pause, eyes hardening as he fixes them in the middle distance, caught like a bug in a web.
She takes his hand and gives it a consolatory squeeze. “You haven’t had to think about this stuff, I get it. And really, my being here means you can continue ignoring it. But you have to let me…make plans.”
Colin looks her over. Penelope has a crawly, bad feeling he’s spotted something he thinks he understands—and perhaps he does understand it. Whatever it is he’d seen, however, he’s apparently decided it means he’s willing to play along. Like he thinks he can get away with murder the way he does with Violet and even Daphne. How nobody seems capable of being properly annoyed with him beyond finding him impertinent, cheeky, and much too unserious.
“Fine,” he says carefully, squeezing his eyes at her in playful suspicion. “I suppose it is a form of flying by the seat of my pants if I’m not the one making all the plans.”
She perks, relaxing simultaneously. “Sure! I can just surprise you with all sorts of activities! Lunches with your siblings, the trip to Aubrey, keeping you busy and out of trouble when you’re here itching to get a move on…”
“Keeping me busy and out of trouble?” Colin finally starts walking again, chuckling at her with a winsome twinkle in his eye. “Good luck, babe.”
It’s meant to be nothing more than a joke. A loaded, halfway flirtatious joke, maybe, but a joke. Nevertheless, Penelope’s breath catches and the lone stubborn spark of her love for Colin Bridgerton roars back to a full-sized campfire. Which is ridiculous, she knows, but the truth is indisputable.
She offers to make plans and be his steadying force, and he smirks, says Sure, Jan, and she’s ready to tell him she finds his inability to be dragged down by the weight of anything to be the sexiest thing about him. Tied with his frankly ridiculous arms and disgustingly plush lips. Plus the way that no matter how much he sasses and jokes and wags his eyebrows, he is always kind about it. He knows where people’s limits are and doesn’t go trying to drag them out of their comfort zones.
No, he just likes to be happy, enjoy things, and keep moving.
Penelope claps, forcing herself from spiraling even deeper down that familiar rabbit hole. “So, it’s a bit of a jog, but I did get a spot in short-term parking.”
“You drove?” Colin asks sharply.
Nodding, Penelope lifts her shoulders and puts an extra bounce in her step. “Turns out a bit of carefully controlled aggression is brilliant for dealing with London traffic. Doesn’t scare me a bit these days.”
“You’ve been trapped in roundabouts for minutes, Pen. Minutes.”
“And now,” she points him toward the short-term car park with a quick flick of her wrist, “I am the one who traps mousy redheads in the innermost lane.”
He squints at her. “No you’re not.”
She sags, laughing. “No, I let everyone in. It’s hard out there, why add to it?” At Colin’s delighted giggle, she smirks. “But two things can be true, can they not?”
Colin gives her an uncharacteristically assessing look. She feels it like some kind of sci-fi body-scanner, quickly taking her in from the crown of her head to the tips of her toes.
“El said you became some sort of Krav Maga…expert, black belt? What do they do?”
“There are belts,” she admits, thinking of her collection back at her flat and wondering if he’d find it fascinating or unbearably nerdy.
Colin turns sideways and stoops a bit. “But, what is that really like? Tournaments? Karate Kid? Cobra-Kai? Skills test? Written exam, oral exam?”
She throws her head back in a full belly laugh, sticking her elbow in his ribs. “Training hours, skill tests, technique displays. The tournaments are more for, I dunno, proving yourself.”
Colin waits two seconds, still walking at a funny angle, practically bent in half to examine her face while she speaks. “But did you have to fight some gigantic hairy ape or not?”
“Is this a kink of yours or something?” she asks, quirking an eyebrow at him.
He grins crookedly at her. “I suppose I am trying to picture it. But there’s no pudding or baby oil involved.”
“Well that’s boring,” she mutters, pleased as punch when Colin lets out a giggle.
“See, your reticence to actually answer the question leads me to believe you may be obfuscating the truth for some unknown reason.”
“Just because you trot out your best vocabulary doesn’t mean you’re winning the argument,” she reminds him, fluttering her lashes teasingly. “And yes, of course I ended up sparring with some gigantic idiot once or twice.”
Colin groans, straightening up to throw his head back. “Tell me the whole fucking story, what are you stringing me along for? Lunacy, Pen! The details, now!”
“Okay, wow.” She puts a hand on his arm to stop him from throwing himself to the ground in an actual tantrum. “Earlier this year, actually. I got talked into this skills demo and tournament for bragging rights. Great big swarthy fellow with a lot of unpleasant body hair rolls up and offers to let me go no holds barred.” She waits for Colin to react.
He’s on the edge of his imaginary seat, eyes wide, mouth hanging open. “And?”
“Well, first of all, my life isn’t a bloody Hollywood blockbuster so no holds barred isn’t really a thing.” She snorts, looking at the car park as they near the middle section where she’d parked next to a red service van she hopes is still there as it was the only notable landmark she’d seen on the way in.
“Okay, so a misogynist shitbag invited you to let him have it. Did you?”
She slows a bit, tilting her head curiously. “What do you actually know about Krav Maga? Anything?”
“The Israeli Special Forces uses it, right?” Colin shrugs, slowing when he inadvertently gets a few paces in front of her. “No?”
Penelope fully stops, smiling gently. “It’s a combat-fighting technique that emphasizes survival. So, they teach you to go aggressive, fast, pull no punches, and hit until you know you can get away. It’s dirty street fighting—it’s do-whatever-it-takes-to-stay-alive self-defense.”
Colin’s eyebrows lift slowly into his tousled hair. “So, what did that mean for your swarthy sparring partner?”
“Everyone wears protective gear. But everyone usually skips certain pieces to make sure they have good mobility. Anything not mandated by the tournament gets scrapped. My wanker of a sparring partner had a couple of weak spots I noted when we were squaring up.”
Colin’s head tips, his eyes strangely dark and eerily still. “Did you make him cry?”
Unable to stop herself, Penelope bites her lip and nods. There’s an odd thrill in admitting such a thing.
“No shit,” Colin murmurs, his breath hitching on the inhale. “Paint me a picture, Featherington. Were you choking him out? Twisting his arm behind his back? Maybe an elbow jabbed somewhere unmentionable?”
Exploding in a laugh, Penelope swats his arm and goes striding past him. “No, you numpty. I broke both his arms.”
“You didn’t!” Colin cries, racing to catch up to her. “How?”
She gestures at her elbows. “He skipped the bracers and elbow pads on both arms. Couple of good kicks to the ankles so when he lost his balance and tried to catch himself, he got fractures in both ulnas.”
Colin’s jaw works a beat before he explodes, “Devious, Pen. Absolutely dastardly. It’s your villain origin story!”
“I prefer a good anti-hero, actually.” She stabs a button on her key fob, perking up to hear the chirp of her horn from just a few rows away. “They generally have noble hearts. Just not the best methods.”
“Do you have video from any of your tournaments?” Colin asks as he follows her between cars.
Casting an amused look at him over her shoulder, she replies, “I don’t know. I suppose there might be a couple videos on YouTube.”
“But I need to see it,” he whinges, looking around the car park suddenly. “What if we get mugged out here? You’re telling me—“
“When we get back to your mum’s, I can give you a demonstration,” she tempts. “You’d be the only one who would volunteer, anyway.”
“Are my brothers cowards these days? Marriage really is softening them up…”
“It doesn’t exactly come up in normal conversation.” Penelope laughs. “And besides, Benedict swore he could keep me in a hold for more than ten seconds once, and I couldn’t let him go the whole night thinking that was true—“
“If Hyacinth didn’t get video of that, I’ll eat my fucking shoe.” Colin already has his phone out, apparently already texting his sister.
Feeling downright smug, Penelope locates her car and tosses open the driver’s side door. “It was over too quick—poor thing didn’t get a chance to record.”
For the entire drive from Heathrow to his mother’s, Colin peppers her with questions. Obtrusive ones she feels sort of thrilled he feels comfortable enough to ask, as well as the big ones that everybody asks her. Still, he wants to know more about her.
More. About her.
She leads him in through the side door of Violet’s house on Bruton Street, gesturing for him to head through the kitchen door to ambush his mother and youngest sister with a hug, but he hesitates.
“When?” he asks in a half-whisper.
“When what?”
“When is the demonstration?”
She explodes into a delirious giggle. “Later, you nutter. Go say hi to your mum!”
The moment he slips through the doors, she relaxes, pressing her hand to her heart to catch her breath. She needs to capitalize on the distraction now and get to work planning how to keep him from making his trip home a nightmare through foolish optimism and a refusal to admit he’s crossed from I’ve heard of that lad to oh my GOD that’s him in the last six months.
And later, if she thinks it won’t make things weird for some reason, she can show him how she can have him curled up on the floor begging for mercy in less than a minute.
For some reason, she sort of thinks he might enjoy it.