Chapter Text
1824 – Kent
It’s an unseasonably warm day and those of them who’ve chosen not to frolic outside – Penelope, Sophie, his mother, and he – have retreated into the house to escape the heat, supplied with a large pitcher of lemonade and various snacks.
He’ll never admit it, because she won’t like it, but he wants to keep an eye on Sophie.
Sophie is absorbed in her novel and he in his sketchbook when their sister-in-law sets aside her writing and rises from the chaise to serve herself another glass of lemonade, despite his mother’s hushed admonition that she should let her get it.
She’s been a bit poorly, but she’s just as stubborn as Sophie – somehow managing to all but shove his brother out the door, insisting he couldn’t let down their nieces and nephews by reneging on his promise to take them to the lake.
When Penelope faints, no one is close enough to stop her from falling and hitting her head on the edge of the table.
“Damn it,” he mutters worriedly, rushing over and scooping her up to follow his mother’s not-quite-calm instructions to take her to the nearest bedchamber.
“Send one of the footmen to fetch Colin or we’ll never hear the end of it,” he calls over his shoulder to Sophie, who’s already yanking at the bell-pull before he’s even finished the sentence.
“And another for the physician, please,” his mother adds more loudly from in front of him.
“Of course,” promises Sophie, a worried crease between her lovely brows, hand unconsciously straying to her belly to rub anxious circles over it.
This is far more excitement than he would’ve liked for her just now.
—
A remarkably short amount of time later, his younger brother bursts into the pink-and-cream guest room that was nearest to the rose salon, still dripping lake water all over Kate’s fine carpet, just missing their mother, who’s left to get cold compresses now that the smelling salts have done their work. “How is she?” Colin manages from the doorway, hands braced on his thighs as he gasps for air.
He must’ve run all the way.
Penelope’s brows draw together in evident confusion (confusion?) at the sight of him. “What are you doing here?”
“How hard did she hit her head?” Colin demands, worried frown deepening, before closing the distance between the door and the bed, approaching his wife as one might a small, startled animal and dropping his voice to a more hushed tone. “Where else would I be, darling?” he asks softly.
Where indeed?
Penelope blinks – once, twice, thrice – before staring at Colin as if he were a particularly challenging mathematical proof. “Not in London.”
“We’re not in London,” Colin says slowly, looking as worried as he feels.
“Where are we, then?”
“Aubrey Hall,” he supplies when Colin doesn’t respond quickly enough.
“Why?”
“Well,” he replies carefully, “the family always gathers here in –”
“I don’t understand –”
He tries to ignore the growing, nagging concern that’s making his collar feel like a noose.
“Why am I here?”
“Why wouldn’t you be?” he asks evenly.
Penelope goes a bit pink. “I’m not part of the family.”
His stomach sinks as the awful truth becomes even harder to ignore.
“Of course –”
He puts a restraining hand on his brother’s arm.
Colin, remarkably, falls silent. He is very pale.
“Penelope,” he asks his sister-in-law very gently, fearing the worst, “what year is it?”
She frowns in thought, as if he’s asked her an exceptionally difficult question. “Eighteen . . . eighteen . . . eighteen seventeen,” she finally concludes, more confidently.
What little blood is left in Colin’s face drains entirely and he suspects he does not look much better.
“What’s the last thing you remember?”
Her eyes dart to Colin and the faint pink flush from earlier deepens to a very, very dark red before she looks back to him and she doesn’t say a thing aloud.
Oh no.
Colin, watching her anxiously, looks bemused.
He knows Colin hasn’t forgotten that unfortunate incident some years past, but he must not remember precisely when it occurred. He certainly wouldn’t if it hadn’t happened just before he married Sophie and he’s not going to make Penelope talk about it now. “Do you happen to remember whether or not I am married?” he tries instead.
“If you’re asking that, you must be married now,” she says slowly. She’s always been clever. “But I don’t remember it.” She looks troubled at that.
“Yes,” he says gently.
“Pity,” she jokes faintly, clearly an attempt to make the strange situation a bit less so.
He offers her a thin smile in response.
“Your mother must be delighted.”
“Quite. In fact, the only thing that delighted her more was –” Is this really the way to break the news to her? He throws a look at his brother.
“Was what?” Penelope demands impatiently, curiosity insatiable even in these bizarre circumstances.
Colin is, for likely only the second time in his life, entirely at a loss for words.
“Having you join the family,” he says slowly.
“What?” Not I beg your pardon, not even excuse me, just what?
Colin opens his mouth, slower to speak than he’s ever seen him. “You – I – that is to say –” Colin clears his throat.
This isn’t precisely the sort of thing one contemplates when one vows in sickness and in health, he supposes.
“We –” Colin waves a hand between Penelope and himself. “We are married.”
“You’re having fun with me,” Penelope says instantly, eyes narrowing suspiciously.
Colin’s eyes widen. He clearly didn’t think she’d think he was lying.
He wouldn’t have expected that either. She’d be confused, given the years that have passed between when she thinks it is and the actual present day, perhaps even doubtful, but it wouldn’t have occurred to him that she’d react like that.
“Why would we do that?” he asks very reasonably.
“I don’t know, but you must be. There’s no way that’s true. It can’t –” She sputters. “I never thought you the sort to be cruel, Colin.” Penelope pauses when the words come out a bit tortured and broken. “Just careless –”
Colin visibly flinches.
“But teasing me like this –”
“I’m not –”
“It’s . . . it’s –”
“Pen, I –”
“Don’t,” Penelope warns shakily, snatching her hands away when Colin reaches for them. “It’s heartless is what it is!” she finishes, her voice rising on the words, arms crossed and chest heaving with whatever other emotion roils beneath the surface.
Colin quite honestly looks like he might cry now.
Having experienced the indignity of Eloise witnessing his tears only a few months ago when Charles was so ill, he’s tempted to spare his brother the same, but he thinks he’s needed here even more than Colin needs a moment’s privacy to compose himself.
Or perhaps – “Colin,” he says gently, “perhaps it’s best if Penelope and I have a word alone.”
Colin hesitates, but then he nods tightly. After he turns to the door, he closes his eyes a moment as if gathering strength and resolve before opening it and making his exit.
—
“We’ve already sent for the physician, dearest,” Mother says as soon as he’s closed the door to the pink-and-cream behind him, before he can get a word in edgewise. “But –”
He nods, fearing what will happen if he opens his mouth.
“I want to see her –”
“Leave them be, Eloise,” he chokes out.
“Don’t be absurd, Colin,” Eloise retorts. “She’s my best –”
“Eloise,” interrupts their mother’s voice, somehow both gentle and very firm. “Can you not see your brother is overset?”
“Of course I can see he’s overset,” Eloise retorts. “And that’s why I want to see her. He wouldn’t be so upset over some little swoon –”
“I need a moment,” he interrupts, something near-hysterical edging into his voice. He can’t quite get enough air in his lungs.
“But Colin –”
“Eloise,” their mother says again, nothing gentle in it this time. “Let him be.”
“Why won’t you just tell me?” Eloise asks plaintively, the question directed at his back as he walks away.
He turns then, eyes watering against his will. “If you really must know . . . she doesn’t remember the last seven years.”
Eloise just stands there, helpless, as if too overwhelmed to decide whether she wishes to comfort him or disobey him and march right in.
—
Once Colin has left, he pulls a chair closer to the bed and sits down so that he’s not looking down at Penelope any longer.
She gives him a helpless, slightly embarrassed look.
“I’m sure this must be . . .” He chooses his next word carefully. “Overwhelming, Penelope.”
Her lips press together as if to hold back some emotion.
“And I’m sorry for that. But I swear to you, on everything – on everyone – I care most about, that we are telling the truth. You can speak to any of the rest of the family when you so choose and ask them. Perhaps Eloise,” he offers. Who better?
“I – it just –” She looks abashed, uncertain.
“I understand,” he assures her when it becomes apparent she won’t say anything else just yet. “You see, for us, it is 1824 –”
“Twenty-four?”
He nods.
“Seven years,” she whispers after a few beats.
“And a great deal has changed in that time, but especially in the last several months.”
“I see,” she says quietly, even though they both know she can’t entirely.
“You married Colin in the spring.”
“But . . . why?” she asks, eyes still skeptical.
“Why do people usually get married?” he asks rhetorically. But then he realizes it was a serious question and sighs. “Colin can provide a far better answer than I could.”
“Yes, of course,” Penelope mumbles, wringing her hands uncomfortably. But then she pauses mid-way through the nervous motion, holding one hand out in front of her.
Her left. He can only see the backs of her fingers as she stares at her hand, but he knows what she sees on her fourth finger: a simple gold band, as is the family custom, and Grandmother Bridgerton’s betrothal ring.
Grandmother Bridgerton’s aquamarine suits Penelope nicely. When he learned just who Colin was marrying, he was glad yet again that in his turn he’d chosen to purchase something new for Sophie, for whom, he flatters himself, he found the perfect ring. His wife deserved above all things to have something new for a change, the first of many things he’s since chosen for her, all tailored precisely to her taste.
It is obvious that the rings do it for Penelope more than anything he’s said. He can see in her expression the instant she realizes that, impossible as this all seems, it must be true and real because it’s really too far to go on a tasteless prank.
His presence feels incredibly intrusive, but he has no idea what else to do. He can hardly leave her alone with a head injury before the physician arrives.
She looks back up at him after a long moment, biting her lip. “I must have hurt his feelings a great deal just now.”
He’s not going to patronize her by denying it. “It’s not your fault. You can’t help not remembering.”
“But still –”
“It’s not your fault,” he repeats firmly. “Only – I know it will be difficult for you to believe, what with everything you can’t remember and –” He pauses awkwardly. “Well, some of the things you do remember–”
The color flares in her cheeks again.
“But he really does love you. Very much.”
She gives a tiny shrug. “He loved my cousin, too.”
“He was infatuated with her,” he corrects. “He loves you, Penelope. Truly, madly, deeply. I never once saw him look at her the way he looks at you. Not even the way he looked at you when you were only friends. Yes, it took him forever, but when he finally let himself, he fell very, very hard,” he continues in a rush. “You’ve no idea – you can’t, now – how much we’ve teased him about just how much he relishes referring to you as his wife. And you may recall how resistant he was to marriage after the scandal, so you can deduce it’s not about the institution, but about the woman with whom he finally entered into it.” He pauses when an idea occurs to him. “I wasn’t there, nor were Sophie or Eloise, but you should ask one of the others about Daff’s ball. If that doesn’t prove it . . .” He trails off uncomfortably, suddenly not wanting to make any promises, because what if it doesn’t convince her?
—
He knows he should go back into the pink-and-cream, brush off the outburst, and focus on his pregnant wife’s health rather than his hurt feelings, not sit here like a child at his mother’s feet, licking his figurative wounds rather than worrying for her physical ones, while they wait for the physician to arrive at long bloody last.
It is so selfish of him to wallow in self-pity when she can’t help it, when –
“In some ways, it is my chickens come home to roost.”
“Darling, whatever do you mean? You weren’t even here when –”
“She would not, I suspect, find it so difficult to believe her present circumstances – that is to say, being married to me – were it not for my past behavior. Do you remember, when I announced our engagement, Benedict telling you all about the time I shouted on your doorstep that I certainly wasn’t going to marry her? And how she overheard?”
She nods.
“It seems that . . .” He swallows hard. “Well, that that is the last thing she remembers.”
“Oh my,” his mother whispers. “I’m so sorry, dearest.” She pulls him close, as if he were a boy again.
“I suppose if I were her, I wouldn’t believe me either,” he concludes bitterly.