Decidedly Married
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“In my hormonal agitation I have made Mr. Bridgerton break our bed,” she said. “Please ask the footmen to do what they can or advise if it needs to be replaced. I heard some wood crack when I threw him down.”
He was an experienced man, and Rae certainly knew they had passion between them. But Colin looked at the floor and blushed like a virgin, and her maid gaped at her. Perhaps pregnancy was making her too forthright about her physical demands. They had to be a funny sight to see her boss her large husband around like he was the demure party and Penelope the rake who had seduced him. It was a mutual seduction, and she was quite proud of both of them.
“I will tell them, Ma’am,” Rae said. “Are you well? Is Sir well?”
Series
- Part 1 of Decidedly Married
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Penelope stood up, holding an envelope up. “You are not distracting me! I am sending for a doctor who can check the pain in your neck and shoulder.”
He frowned, but there was no recourse. They would bicker and she would watch him, and he did not feel much better. There were illnesses that hid in the body. He could not leave her, a new mother and in charge of an estate on their son’s behalf.
“The doctor will find nothing,” Colin called as she left the room.
“Perhaps in your head he will have to search for your brain, but it rolls to the right spot eventually.”
Series
- Part 2 of Decidedly Married
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She had a disguise that did not ask for any itchy mask or special gown with large protruding wings or fake armor. Masquerades were every evening out for three years of her life, and she did them so well it took loving her to catch her in her true self.
Penelope did not look like a Bridgerton after she married Colin, even with the ring and the frequent company of a large and affectionate family. Her child looked more like Bridgertons, but there was a height requirement she would forever fall short of, and the hair was an absolute. Bridgertons had brown hair, tending dark but going lighter in some members. Curly, straight or wavy, Violet Bridgerton’s genetics had carried the gloss of her hair to her children.
Series
- Part 3 of Decidedly Married
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Colin loved her. He would love to never stop touching her, and she felt the same. So it made sense that his ardour was not false or exaggerated for effect. It was love that washed over both of them.
“I would look for you if you were not there.”
Which made it all a bit tricky when they had one baby very early, and inherited an estate for their good timing on a boy. Penelope was glad for their son, but she was trying to learn how to run a house without a baby. Colin, who had been the third son of a family of eight, had no concept he would ever run an estate for more than a week to allow his brothers to have leisure.
Their life together was not a problem, but it was work. And she wanted to do everything well and feel all of her loved ones were getting their due. They had both felt neglected as children, even if physical needs were met. Penelope had decided Elliot did not need a sibling for years. He would be old enough to be excited and helpful when their next one was born. Which meant they had to find a way to immerse themselves in love without making a new baby.
Series
- Part 4 of Decidedly Married
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“I am a married man,” Colin told her. “I am glad to dance, but I do not want to give any wrong impression. I must go home to my lovely wife at the end of the night. We have a home together and a son. Had I a hope of leaving her, those scant days are long past. My heart cannot be given twice.”
The blushing debutantes were humming with interest, and Penelope sighed before she put her hand out nonchalantly. “Then I must take on the role of a rake,” she said. “For having seen you this night, I must have something from you. I promise I will not make you fall so deeply in love with me you would give up all others. May we not have a single, memorable dance to pass the time?”
She let him take her hand again but moved to hold his hand up to her lips, kissing the back of it genteelly. He nodded with a smirk.
Series
- Part 5 of Decidedly Married
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“Pen, it is my joy to kiss you,” he said. “And I will bring a present, too. Where are my papers?”
She was closer to the desk where they were set by dint of being shorter. Penelope picked them up first, and she opened the leather cover. “Did you remember your signatures on everything,” she teased. “Oh, they are copies of our marriage register. Many copies. Are you - Why do you need so many? What are the lawyers going to do?”
Her voice was sharp and she heard it, but it was only months since they had a whispered argument about calling off their wedding. Penelope trusted her husband, but he suddenly looked very guilty.
Series
- Part 6 of Decidedly Married
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Kate was quick to point out Penelope had not a whit of objection to how she was touched. She might put up with more from Colin, and Anthony thought that was part of the issue. One could be a bit forward with one’s wife in a joking manner, but his brother imbued his whole being with Penelope. He seemed to think of new ways to touch her too much.
There was the week she must be carried across thresholds because they were recently married. Then the week after when she was breaking in new shoes and could not risk an uneven paving stone. Colin started wearing her arms like a scarf with her slung bodily across his chest. The display of asinine chivalry at the sight of a puddle could hold up a promenade to the point a walk started in the morning stretched to an afternoon.
It was making him anxious every time he heard his new sister-in-law chirp “Colin!” And perhaps she had always been too enthusiastic about Colin’s shenanigans, but she was a married woman and a Bridgerton. They had a reputation to uphold.
Series
- Part 7 of Decidedly Married
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“He is back,” Colin whispered. “My publisher is printing his memoir, which is about half concerned with Lord Debling’s recent trip to the north. Apparently his vegetarian ways saved a great many of his companions from starving to death when they were trapped in ice. He taught them how to pull baskets of seaweed up and cook it to eat. He made them gather peat to burn for warmth instead of having to tear apart their own ship for wood. He has returned a hero and - much like the year we married - Alfred Debling is considered a bachelor of much anticipation in the new young ladies. His expedition did not have to resort to cannibalism, and there were remarkably few amputations due to frostbite.”
Her husband was a good soul and a loving man. He was happy that a ship full of hard-working sailors returned home safely. Penelope knew he was not begrudging their safety. He was likely just hoping Alfred would have come back with a terribly frostbitten nose that had to be cut away to horrifying result.
“That is wonderful news,” she said, her voice neutral. “Just so we are both clear on my plans to never leave you, I will never leave you. Even if Lord Debling is back and incredibly dashing.”
Series
- Part 8 of Decidedly Married
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"She does have the fortune to afford you,” Wilding said easily, with what seemed like a conciliatory effort. “Shame the girl wasn’t able to show it, or she would have had more takers. Who was meant to know there was a future with her?”
He gritted his teeth. “No money changed hands. I do not need a fortune because I am well provided for through the Bridgerton estate. I did not buy a bride, nor was I bought for her. We fell in love and wanted to make a life together. Similarly, our child is very much wanted solely to be his parents. There was no strategy to gain power and influence through joining our families. We were friends for a long time, and I had to see there was more.”
There was a hopeful pause when Colin felt his point had been made. He had walked away from this lot multiple times, and would keep doing so in order to honour the promise he made not to hit the men who congratulated him like his marriage was an income stream.
Series
- Part 9 of Decidedly Married
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“I am a failure. Push me off your lap. I do not deserve you,” Colin sneered to himself. “Go on! I will do it!”
“Colin!”
He rolled and put his feet down, letting his upper body drop when he was not going to crush her feet. Penelope stared at him as he splayed like a sacrifice for the evil gods. She could fit a nice rug with a pattern of arcane symbols just there, so he could have a nicer landing when he threw himself into a miserable hangover.
“I am sending a letter to Benedict to let him know he cannot take you tonight,” she said.
Series
- Part 10 of Decidedly Married
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“If the babies are gumdrops, what flavours are they?”
She turned to him idly, petting his hand on her thigh. “Agatha is raspberry, because she is girly but a little tart, too. Elliot is wintergreen. He is very clear-minded. We will have to pray he is a good boy on his own, or he will get away with a lot later. He is moral, though, so I am not worried. Jane is pineapple, because she is sweet but complicated. She has a lot of favourite things for someone so young.”
Colin sighed. “Is that another implication my Jane-”
“I carried her, sir, and she was all mine for a long while,” Pen told him.
“And I was very jealous of all the tiny kicks you could feel when she was the size of a shrimp. I could never diminish your contribution to Jane’s presence, but I will object to your eyesight. Perhaps the last pregnancy has affected your eyesight?”
Series
- Part 11 of Decidedly Married
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Emotional Support Steps and the Bridgertons Who Need Them by nonky
Fandoms: Bridgerton (TV)
10 May 2025
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Because Mama was sometimes carrying a baby, or because she did not like to be picked up in her new dress, Papa could not scoop her the same. Elliot was getting a little big for it, and he got his own scoop and kiss before his sisters. They were small and still getting scooped up together. Papa would greet them, and then he would make a baby pile of Elliot, Agatha and Jane on top because she was still a baby. The baby had to be on the top of the baby pile, because it was a hard life being that small. Everyone had to help her and make sure she didn’t get squished.
Elliot knew the kissing step was special because he couldn’t find it in any other house. He had asked about it a few times and everyone seemed confused. He had tried to explain it was where Papa kissed Mama, and they usually tried to distract him with cake or toys.
Part 2 of the series might be required reading for this one.
Series
- Part 12 of Decidedly Married
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“Naturally, you cannot dance another time with the same partner, but you should mingle,” Pen told him. “Well met, Miss Carmody. I look forward to seeing your social triumphs. Remember a lady does not get anything by being too shy to ask.”
Thus Miss Carmody escaped, none the wiser that she had briefly taken liberties with Lady Whistledown’s husband in front of her. She was truly unprepared for her season. Cressida would have actually eaten her.
He stood next to Penelope and sighed. “My love, have I made you angry? That was most strange and I would like to go home.”
“I would like to see that flirt I used to yearn for,” she said. “Do you not remember how to flit lady to lady, dropping a bit of sweetness on each heart like they were not real people at all?”
Series
- Part 13 of Decidedly Married
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Summary
Periodically, Penelope did look back and recognize the daring of her actions. She had been convinced she was never going to get what she wanted by the rules of the Marriage Mart, so she went outside it. She had seduced Colin in the garden outside, and had she just a little more confidence she would have seen she could ask for more. But the past was how she had gained the present. They were together, and none could doubt his love. If they chuckled over her pregnant belly so soon after the wedding, they also noted that Colin could hardly bear to split his focus between looking at her and looking at Elliot.
“Colin loves me more than anything,” she said simply. He loved other people as well, but Penelope first and best and most enduringly. He was for her, and she would have to share. They would have to share their son.
“He has so much love to give,” Mrs. Varley said, and Mama stood up abruptly, patting her cheeks.
Penelope could not read that tone, but could tell Mama was out of sorts from the way she plunked flowers into the vase in a hurry and took the housekeeper away to count dry goods.
Series
- Part 14 of Decidedly Married
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Three different Lord Featheringtons had asked Colin if he might be angling to marry Penelope, and the first two answers he gave were just guesses.
Series
- Part 15 of Decidedly Married
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“Papa says you wore yellow and you were like the sun.”
Papa had written them like a love story, when it was more like two coming-of-age tales that had knocked heads and had quite the nosebleed as a result. But she would let it be a bit happier in the name of bedtime.
“That’s right. I didn’t like yellow. It made me feel like I would be looked at too much and it was not my colour,” Penelope agreed. “But Papa liked it. I wrote a lot, and sometimes I wanted to be sneaky to hear what people at balls like to tell one another. And when Papa fell in love with me, I was very busy.”
“Was he loud?”
Colin’s return home was usually a happy shout of her nickname, which brought wife and children to the door and then into the parlour. He was always impatient to see them, unless it was a very late night.
“He was very quiet. He looked like I was a ghost and he was afraid of me. He couldn’t talk to me. He kept trying and I was most out of good tune with him. I loved him, but he was confusing me,” she said. “And once he said it, he had made me angry. I needed a minute to be glad.”
Trigger Warning for Chapter Two: Details of home birth with some anxious moments.
Series
- Part 16 of Decidedly Married
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Summary
Little Lord Featherington could count to 5, was a rather advanced reader, and a prodigy at eating forbidden biscuits destined to be gifts for his grandmother's tea service that very day. Two clever parents have made a clever baby, capable of crimes against baked goods.
Based on Rottentiger's art: https://www.tumblr.com/rottentiger-art/793685653487517696/pen-i-know-youre-not-trying-to-slander-my-baby
Series
- Part 17 of Decidedly Married
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Summary
The newest Bridgerton household picnics, but their biscuit dilemmas return.
Inspired by Rottentiger's Polin artwork: https://www.tumblr.com/rottentiger-art/793685653487517696/pen-i-know-youre-not-trying-to-slander-my-baby?source=share and also a second biscuit scene that is a WIP and not on socials yet.
Series
- Part 18 of Decidedly Married
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Summary
The duties of a baron start young, and Baby Lord Featherington is excelling at running dinner in preparation for managing the estate.
Inspired by Rottentiger's fanart and the canon that any son of Colin Bridgerton's will love a biscuit: https://www.tumblr.com/rottentiger-art/804290167736320000/hes-way-better-at-this-job-than-his-predecessors?source=share
Series
- Part 19 of Decidedly Married
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Summary
An enormous planet had dropped into the space between Earth and the sun, an unexpected eclipse that might upend the spheres of the universe in the park that day. If Penelope was pretty little Venus, her husband was gas giant Jupiter looming behind her. The man had a rather casual one-handed hold of a baby boy on his right side, the child like Jupiter’s moon Ganymede. They were unmistakably father and son, as they had an identical possessive posture. The boy was even crossing his arms like he was holding back violent acts in defense of his mother.
Alfred would swear he was a touch taller than Colin Bridgerton, but that might have been an impression made when the younger man was slouching his disapproval of any chivalry toward Penelope. He had seemed almost ill at points, as if he was malingering with a terrible sickness that was bound to take him to an early grave. It turned out to be easily cured with Penelope’s consideration of his suit. Alfred was not pleased for them, exactly, though he could appreciate that the lady wanted a love match and had it in an unanticipated closeness. A proper wedding, a home together and a son had not mellowed Colin.
Series
- Part 20 of Decidedly Married