Chapter Text
So in awe, there I stood as you licked off the grain
Though I've handled the wood, I still worship the flame
Long as amber of ember glows
All the "would that I'd loved" is long ago
Would That I - Hozier
*
Honestly, they fall into marriage like they fell into love. Quietly, and without a lot of discussion or fanfare. Penelope’s been watching Grey’s Anatomy while unpacking various rooms of the house and Colin happens to be home when the post-it marriage episode comes up and she says, without really thinking about it, “That’s what we should do.”
“Get married on a post-it?” he asks, confused.
She doesn’t blame him for his confusion. It’s not like he’s proposed or anything, but to her, the moment they bought the house and declared that this relationship was forever, she started feeling like his wife.
“No, not like that but something, you know, simple and efficient and fast.” She shrugs at his eyes following her around the kitchen. “Do you want a big wedding?”
“No,” he answers, quickly enough.
“Me either.”
“Do you want a ring?” he asks, that same perplexed look on his face.
She doesn’t need a ring but that’s not really what he asked. So she thinks about it for a moment and says, “Yes, I think I’d like a ring.” She frowns. “Did I ruin this? Did you have some big surprise planned?”
He shakes his head. “No. I mean, I’ve thought about it, obviously.” He gestures to the half unpacked house around them. “I didn’t want to overwhelm you.”
“And I don’t want to be overwhelmed, so thanks. But I do want to be your wife, if you’d like to make it official.”
They ring shop together, which is honestly so nice. Penelope can understand how some women might like the surprise, the one knee confession of love and devotion, but Colin shows her every day that he loves her and is devoted to her and now she gets to pick out a ring she’ll love instead of having to wear something every day for the rest of her life that she hadn’t even had a say in.
Penelope chooses bands and a stone and the setting and because it’s custom, the jewelry shop says it will take about a month to source a stone and put the piece together and that’s fine, because once they file the paperwork that they intend to marry, there’s a month-long waiting period.
And then they get the ring and wed at the registrar’s office on a Tuesday morning, the first available appointment. He wears slacks and a button down, she wears a floral dress in green and pink. It’s May again, spring melting into summer and that feels right. One May she’s pulling open the door to the cafe next door to discover Colin Bridgerton at a small round table and the next May, she’s a Bridgerton too.
After the wedding, she goes back to the shop to work the mid-shift and Colin takes the car to the roasters where they source their beans to pick up the shipment and it’s life as usual. Maggie is the first person to notice her ring, lowering her glasses to stare at Penelope’s hand.
“Excuse me,” she says. “Did you get engaged?”
“No,” Penelope says honestly. “We got married.”
“Shut the front door! When?”
“Yesterday,” Penelope says, unable to smother a grin. “No big deal.”
Maggie’s struck momentarily silent before sputtering out, “It’s a big deal to me! Mum and Da! Finally!”
Penelope laughs. It really isn’t a big deal but it’s nice. She likes being his wife.
They make it to Christmas before Benedict says, “When are you two going to make it official?” and she pulls her long sleeves back from her hand.
“We did.”
She and Colin took the Scottish shift of Christmas this year with Fran and John. Ben and Sophie and their new baby Charlie come to Glasgow. Violet and the rest stay in England. It’s not ideal, these split holidays, but sometimes it’s just easier than sorting out what to do about Eloise.
“What? What?” Francesca says, grabbing her hand and studying the beautiful diamond. “Without me? What, and I mean this with all the love in my heart, the fuck?”
“Sorry,” Penelope says. “I didn’t want a spectacle.”
“Post-it wedding,” Sophie says wisely from the couch where she’s nursing.
Penelope points at her. “That’s exactly it.”
“I know my Penny,” Sophie says, her baby smacking hungrily at her breast. Penelope looks at the baby, feeling a ping of something. She files that away for later.
***
In fact, the one thing that has changed since they married is the sex. Penelope suggests casually in the new year that maybe they think about leaving the condoms behind. Colin, who is currently hard as a rock and pulling a condom out of their nightstand comically tosses it over his shoulder and says, “Done!”
He still makes her laugh every day.
And it’s not like she’s never felt him bare against her. Sometimes the yearning is too much and he’ll rub the head of his cock against her clit until she’s a moaning, babbling mess. Once or twice he’s even slipped inside of her, just to feel it raw, before pulling out again and choosing the condom.
But now they’re married and successful and she’s pushing thirty hard. They have a house and plenty of space. There’s a small room upstairs that they’ve both left pretty much untouched in their renovations and decorating, save for the floors, simply because she both suspects they’re saving it to be a nursery, though neither has come out and said as much.
But now, when he sinks into her, it’s different. It’s thrilling and intense and intimate and he holds eye contact the whole time, even when she tries to close her eyes or tilt her head back or to the side. He uses the hand not propping him up to nudge her cheek or her chin so her gaze falls back to his. It’s like he’s fucking her on purpose, on a new level, and she almost can’t bare it. They have a robust sex life, managing two, sometimes three times a week. And maybe that will fade with time, but every time she looks at him, she can’t help but want him. He’s beautiful and he’s in love with her and he’s hers and it’s the strongest aphrodisiac in the world.
“Are we doing it?” he asks, when his rhythm starts to get a little sloppy. “Can I come in you?”
“Yeah,” she says, gripping his biceps and thrusting back against him. “Please come in me. I want it.”
Her permission is all it takes. His breath stutters, the vein in his forehead throbs and he moans. After, he keeps her there for a while, legs together and elevated before she finally bats him away.
“I have to pee; you’re gonna give me a yeast infection,” she says, laughing. She’s never had someone actually finish in her before and it’s strange how it literally drips out of her when she’s sitting on the toilet. Strange but kind of hot.
But it doesn’t take right away. Her period comes two weeks later and the month after that and the month after that. She’s not panicking about it. She knows she’s still young but she’s also not twenty-two. Things like this take time.
And then, in the summer, her period doesn’t come. She buys a test, takes it, and it comes back positive. She thinks about trying to plan some convoluted surprise but instead, when he comes home, she just hands him the test and he grins, his hands over his heart.
That feels right, too.
***
Anthony’s fortieth birthday party is the first time in years Penelope will return to London. Colin has been back and forth a number of times, never asking Penelope to attend, but this party is a big deal and Penelope finds she’s tired of avoiding a place whose ghosts no longer haunt her.
“What should we do about El?” Colin asks.
“If Anthony wants her to come, she should come.”
It’s exhausting, the song and dance the Bridgertons do to keep them apart. It’s not fair to Eloise, who has been doing well for a while now. She’s still living at Number 5, but she’s working for Anthony now full time and has been holding the job. Violet says she’s as back to normal as she’ll ever be. So to Penelope, it seems unfair to cut her out of her own family.
“That’s what she did to you,” Colin reminds her when Penelope points this out.
“But I’m not sick,” Penelope says. “And I don’t want to deprive her out of spite.”
So they leave it up to Anthony, confirming their attendance.
Penelope is ten weeks along and the morning sickness has been brutal, but she’s not showing yet and usually by the evening, it’s not so bad. They haven’t told anyone yet, waiting for the second trimester to start.
The party is at Bridgerton House, glittery and expensive and extravagant. Kate ordered a three-tier cake that towers in the center of the room, and there’s champagne and a cocktail bar and a full catering staff who keeps trying to put a drink in her hand. Finally, she takes a flute of champagne and makes Colin down half of it so she can hold it without being disturbed.
There’s a lot of people she doesn’t know here, and the many bodies fill the ballroom, the foyer, and the dining room. She sticks pretty closely to Sophie and Daphne, filled to the brim with pregnancy questions and unable to ask them. Mostly one, which is How big were your babies again? because Colin is tall and Benedict is taller and Anthony isn’t the tallest but he’s broad and she’s worried that her tiny frame can’t actually withstand a Bridgerton baby.
But Daphne is on the petite side and all the girls are slender so maybe if she has a daughter, the baby won’t wreck her whole entire body forever.
But they both leave her to tend to those giant babies they had and Colin is off drinking with his brothers which he needs and deserves both and she wanders to see if anything looks good to eat. She hasn’t had much of an appetite and her doctor says she should be gaining weight, not losing it, but everything she eats she pukes up so she tries not to eat.
She makes a pretty immediate mistake when she walks past the raw oyster bar. Is it the smell? Is it the sight of them raw and gray and quivering in their little disgusting shells? She’s not sure, but she bolts, certain enough that she’s going to be sick. There’s a line for the bathroom, so instead she goes into the closed study door and pushes out to the terrace, gulping air to see if that helps, but actually, it just smells like cigarettes.
She thrusts her body over the railing and is sick, where it falls down below into the night, hopefully not on anyone. No, it’s dark down there, and still.
She rights herself and realizes immediately that she’s not alone.
Eloise is standing on the far side of the terrace, holding a burning cigarette as still as a statue.
Penelope wipes her mouth with the back of her hand.
“Sorry,” Eloise says. “I didn’t think anyone would be… sorry.”
“No,” Penelope says. “It’s fine.”
They stare at one another.
“Are you okay?” Eloise asks, finally.
“Oh,” Penelope says. “Yeah. I’m just… I’m not drunk.”
She doesn’t look great, Penelope notices, but she certainly looks better than Penelope has been picturing her. She’s still very thin and her bangs are cut unevenly like she’d done them herself, but she’s wearing a black dress and other than her terrified expression, just kind of looks like Eloise.
“No,” she says faintly. “Good.”
“Um,” Penelope says. “I’ll just let you finish the cigarette.”
“You don’t have to leave,” Eloise says.
“No, I can’t be around the smoke.” She says it without thinking but Eloise is not an idiot and has always been extremely good at solving puzzles.
Immediately she says, “Oh shit, you’re pregnant,” and then drops the cigarette and stubs it out with the toe of her boot, waving her hands around like that’s going to disperse the smoke away faster somehow.
There was a time when Eloise would have most certainly been the first person she tells she’s pregnant after Colin, so it’s surreal now that it remains true.
“Yeah,” Penelope says. “No one knows, yet, though, so…”
“Mums the word,” Eloise says. “Promise. Congratulations.”
“Thank you,” Penelope says.
“And on the wedding,” Eloise says. “At first I was like, whoa but then the more I thought about it, the more sense it made. And the bookshop thing is really cool too. I look at your website sometimes. Anyway, you seem really good and I’m so happy about that.”
Penelope nods, feeling suddenly quite weepy. Part of her wants to throw her arms around Eloise but even though her wound is mended and scabbed and healed, the scar is still there and the damage cannot be undone.
“I’m sorry we can’t go back,” Penelope says, crossing her arms against the night air. “I wish we could be how we were, but we can’t.”
“I know,” Eloise says, and she’s crying now too. She swipes at her face, annoyed at the tears. She never did like to cry, thinking it made her weak. Penelope cried enough for the both of them.
“But I think there’s probably a way that’s different than this, don’t you?” Penelope asks. “I don’t want you hiding out in the dark just because I’m here. They were your family first.”
Eloise nods but then coughs and shifts and says, “I fucked up so badly.”
“Yeah,” Penelope says. “But not on purpose, I don’t think. And I am really sorry about that website. You were… you know. You were right about that.”
Eloise nods and says, “Thanks.”
The light to the study comes on and it’s Colin, looking for her.
“Gorgeous,” he says. “Ben said he saw you come in here, are you okay?”
She nods. “Just a little nauseous.”
“She booted, actually,” Eloise says.
Colin jumps at the sound of her voice and swivels, sticking his head through the doors. “What are you doing here?”
“It’s okay,” Penelope tells him.
“Hello to you, big brother,” Eloise says, giving him a little bow. “Come to yell at me again?”
Penelope realizes that it’s not her that’s keeping Eloise hiding away from every single family function. It’s Colin. Their relationship is still in shambles. She doesn’t know how to fix that or if it’s her place to do so but she touches his arm and says, “No,” softly and he relents, nodding at her.
“No,” he says. He turns his attention back to Penelope and says, “You wanna come back inside?”
She nods. She looks back at Eloise and says, “See you around.”
Eloise’s hands drift up and press against her chest, her heart, a very Bridgerton mannerism indeed.
“See you around,” she whispers.
***
The baby is due in the spring. Penelope sees Doreen every other week now instead of twice a week, but she still finds the sessions useful and helpful and feels better after them. She’s telling Doreen now how Violet is going to come stay with them around the birth to help in those first few grueling weeks and how grateful she is that Violet has the time to give her.
“Remember how you wanted me to have a contingency plan if Eloise reached out and I didn’t think I needed it, but I did?” Penelope asks.
“Yes.”
“We never talked about one of those for my mum,” Penelope says.
Doreen shifts which is so unusual. She literally has no tells ever so it’s strange to see her look uncomfortable.
“From everything we’ve discussed about your mother, it doesn’t seem likely that she will reach out. To me,” Doreen admits. “Has she ever tried to contact you seriously since you told her you wanted to go no contact?”
“Never,” Penelope says. “I was just thinking because of the baby… My sister Pip says she really likes my niece Meena, that’s all.” Penelope sighs. “I don’t actually want her to reach out.”
“No,” Doreen agrees. “And I would be surprised if she did.” She taps her pen against her notepad. “We can make a plan, though, if you think it would make you feel better.”
“That’s okay,” Penelope says. “I have Violet.”
Doreen nods. “You absolutely do.”
***
Thank God for the bathtub, because by month six, it’s where she’s the most comfortable. Colin comes home to find her floating as usual, her phone propped up on a chair she’s dragged into the bathroom so she can watch something while she soaks. She tries not to watch exclusively pregnancy videos, but the farther along she gets, the harder they are to resist. She wants to know everything. She wants to be as prepared as possible. She wants a plan for every conceivable scenario. Her doctor says to trust her body because it already knows what to do, but Penelope thinks a little youtube never killed anyone.
“Got the paint,” Colin says, poking his head in. “How are you feeling?”
“Your giant baby is destroying my spine,” she mutters. “Your huge, hulked out baby is consuming me from the inside.”
“You want me to rub your back?” he asks. “I don’t have to start painting right away.”
“You took the day off to paint the nursery,” she says. “You don’t have to waste it on me.”
“You’re never a waste,” he says. “Come on, let me help you up. You can lay on your special pillow and light your special candle and I’ll be so gentle.” He eases her up out of the water and wraps a towel around her.
“I hate that your stupid abs are still so defined,” she says. “Why are you so handsome and I am turning into Violet Beaureagarde!”
“You look very cute, like you’re smuggling a pumpkin under all your shirts,” he says.
It’s not easy to get onto the bed and to get situated in a comfortable manner but she finally finds a good spot and Colin spends a good fifteen minutes rubbing massage oil into her lower back until she’s sighing not from hurt but from pleasure.
His voice sounds husky when he says, “Want me to keep going?”
She shifts her hips, tilting them a little, spreading her thighs and he chuckles. “I’ll take that as a yes?”
“Yes,” she says. “Lower.”
Sex has been more complicated. Once she got out of the first trimester, her libido came back but her body has been changing so fast that it feels like every week they’re troubleshooting positions because lying on her back hurts and sitting on top of him feels humiliating and her knees works sometimes and her side worked for a while but not anymore.
His fingers slip down, between her thighs, and she sighs at the contact. She’s wet, that never changes.
“Oh,” he says, when he feels it.
“Yeah,” she chuckles. “Sorry I yelled at you about your big baby.”
“S’okay,” he says, stroking her lightly a few times before pushing a finger inside of her. She groans, her haywire hormones making everything feel cranked up to eleven. He pumps in and out of her, nudging her clit every now and again. He’s teasing her, going slow, ramping her up until even he can’t stand it anymore. “Do you think—”
“Yes,” she pants, knowing him well enough to read his mind. “Please.”
She hears him shuck his clothing and then his skin is warm on top of hers. He’s careful not to make her bear the brunt of his weight as he nudges the head of his cock against her and then slides in with a groan. She’s glad that she can’t see how they look with her face down and him crouched over her, but it doesn’t matter. He’ll do anything for her, she knows.
“You feel so fucking good,” he says. “You’re so tight like this.”
“Don’t you dare get me all riled up and then come without me,” she says, her voice sharp and he pants, slowing his thrusts to light and shallow.
“I’m trying,” he says. It has been a while for them, well over a week of her searing back pain which has thankfully abated for the immediate moment but she’s loath to change too much about how she’s lying in case that changes.
“Gimme the toy,” she says, gesturing vaguely toward the nightstand. He pulls out just long enough to yank the drawer open and pull out the small blue vibrator. He’d insisted on blue when they’d bought it, of course. She mostly uses it when he’s not around, but occasionally they use it together. Now it seems perfect. She eases it under her, against her, and turns it on to a gentle buzz, gasping at the sensation.
He wastes no time thrusting back into her, deep and hard. Between his cock and the vibrations against her clit, the orgasm seems to bloom in her throat, choking her with pleasure that travels down and out and all around her. It grips her limbs, it pulls at her hair, it skitters across her skin.
“Please,” he whimpers, so hard inside her.
The orgasm squeezes her, forcing a groan out and then she can’t control it anymore. Her hips buck, and he grips her, holding her still until he can thrust one last time and spill inside of her. She takes it happily and then whimpers, twitching against the toy trapped against her now overly sensitive clitoris. He reaches under her and grabs it, turning it off and tossing it on the bed before lying next to her on his back. She looks at him, panting.
“Look at us, making it work,” he says proudly.
She can feel the baby move and says, “Your enormous, oversized baby liked it, anyway.”
“Good,” he says, kissing her nose.
***
Colin paints the nursery a soft green, gentle and calming and serene. When he shows her, he says, “What do you think?”
She finds herself so overcome with love for him and for the color and for this house in this city and for the child inside of her that all she can really do is hold her hands to her heart and say, “I love it.”
Just like a real Bridgerton. Which, of course, she is.