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Days passed since the funeral and he was still no closer to inner peace. From his seat at the window, he peered out towards his brother’s house across the square. It was his childhood home, his family home, too but in the years since he and his siblings had all flown the nest and his mother had moved into her dower house, it had become so overwhelmingly different. At no risk of criticising his sister-in-law’s choice of internal design, it was just so clearly now the Viscount’s home.
Colin’s home, however, was this house but it was more than that. His home was the person he had moved into it with, her heart acting as his compass and his metaphysical home and without her in it anymore, it felt empty and like a void. He knew he had ought to spend the last few days with his children but he felt awful every time he laid eyes on them, as if they were nothing but reminders of her. His eldest and youngest with their red hair so very much like their mother’s being a constant reminder whenever they walked into the room.
It had been too painful to put into words and as such, he had acted like a coward and distanced himself before he said the wrong thing in front of one of them.
“Colin.”
He turned slowly, seeing his mother in the doorway and he was grateful at least to see her still wearing her mourning attire when she came to see him.
“Oh, my darling,” she said, evidently seeing how deflated he was in spirit as she made a beeline for him, framed in the window with the sun taunting him in contrast behind him.
“Mother,” he said, formally, and stood to greet her.
She took his hands in hers and squeezed gently, just like she had done when he had been a boy, and leaned up to press a gentle kiss to his cheek. Except now, she was doing it because they were both in the same situation. People who had loved, and now lost, their spouses.
“How are you doing, dearest?” She asked, genuinely curious.
He shrugged and released her hands, dropping back onto the windowseat. “Like Hell, I shouldn’t wonder,” he replied, “I spend all day in this room, I distance myself from the children and I snap at people merely conveying condolences. I am not good company to be around.”
“I highly doubt I was good company after your father passed,” she admitted, “as anyone would be when they lose the one they love. We all deal with grief differently.”
He looked up at her, tears shining in his eyes. “I cannot stop seeing her,” he confessed, “she is haunting me like a ghost, speaking to me as if she is still there and even when I do not see her, I see her in our children. I know it is not kind of me to distance myself from them but I cannot bring myself to see my wife’s face in theirs, knowing it is not, and will never be, her.
“So, I keep my distance, to perhaps spare them of my misery, to let them move on at their own pace so that they are not held back by me.”
Violet sat down beside him and touched his knee. “It is hard but we should surround ourselves with those who we love and who love us. I forced myself to be with you and your siblings, even when grief was telling me to do anything but, but it helped in time,” she told him gently. “And do you know why?”
He shook his head.
“Because you and your siblings were reminders, pieces of your father for me to remember him by,” she replied with a smile, “you have your five darling children to remember Penelope by and while it hurts to see such vivid reminders of her at present, it will help you. Because it helped me.”
“Mother, we are not the same,” Colin said gently. He did not mean to be unkind because he knew she was only trying to help but he at present could not see a way forward that would help him.
She smiled softly at him. “Your sister said the same thing,” she replied.
He frowned. “Francesca?”
She nodded. “When she lost John, she was heartbroken and she blamed herself for not being able to have a child,” she explained, “you know how much she had longed for one before she and Michaela found one another.”
He nodded gently in understanding.
“None of this is our fault,” she continued, “we do not choose when the Lord decides it is our time to leave this world. All we can do is remember that the pain those of us left behind feel is a remnant of the love we have for those who have left us. Is it not extra important that love persists? Beyond everything?”
Colin knew she was right. He didn’t know how long it would take him to be able to go on with his life but he knew that one day he would have the strength to do so. His mother was right.
As he sat in the window seat, his gaze fell to outside the window once again, his mind drifting to all the times Penelope would sit there, gazing across the street for a glimpse of him. Perhaps if he had looked closer at this house sooner, they would have had more time together.
He let out a resigned sigh and slowly turned back to his mother. “Thank you for your counsel, Mother,” he said earnestly, and stood from his seat. He leaned down to press a kiss to her cheek.
She seemed surprised, even as she came to her feet with him but she did her best to not show it. “You will call, will you not?” She asked him. “You are always welcome at Number 5.”
He nodded. “I will,” he promised and he had full intention of keeping that promise when the appropriate day arose.
She smiled and kissed his cheek, her hand gently brushing his arm as she did in her usual maternal fashion and she soon made her departure, leaving him alone once more.
He put his hands to his hips as he assessed the room he was in. It was Penelope’s drawing room, everything was to her taste and it was a small comfort to remember that. As his eyes moved around the room, pausing every now and then, he stopped before the fireplace.
He saw her again.
She was smiling but it was a mournful one. “Your mother is right,” she said to him, kindly.
“I know,” he replied quietly. “I know it will get easier.”
“Will you tell anyone about me?” She asked him.
He frowned. “No,” he replied.
“Why not?” She asked.
“Why—? You know why,” he said, “they all think you are dead.”
She sighed. “Colin, you have to remember,” she told him and moved forward from her place by the fireplace. She was still as he remembered her. Her hair was still orange and fiery, even with the grey hairs that overwhelmed the colour now. “I am dead,” she added softly, as she approached him.
He swallowed thickly, meeting her gaze.
With a stubborn sniff, he glanced away and took a step backwards.
“Colin—”
“I do not wish to discuss this,” he said, cutting her off.
“You are arguing with your own mind, my dear,” she said.
He shook his head and looked back at her, eyes shining with unshed tears. “Do not leave me,” he whispered.
She smiled. “I am always here,” she whispered and touched his heart lightly. It was as if he could really feel her touch. But of course it was his mind again. “I am always with you.”
He reached out a hand but of course, he touched nothing. She wasn’t really there in front of him. She was just a figment of his imagination, a product of his grief. “Pen…” he whispered, choking on a sob.
He blinked the tears away and when he opened his eyes again, she was nowhere to be seen.
The next few days passed without much change. Colin woke up, called his valet, dressed and went downstairs to the breakfast room. He said barely a word as he collected and read the morning paper as he broke his fast, only offering a “good morning” and “quite well” when asked how he was.
Then, he would disappear into his study, looking through his manuscripts and books, occasionally looking through Penelope’s back catalogue of Whistledown issues but beyond that, he did not do much.
Today, however, there was a change.
Usually, his children took his behaviour seriously and did not disturb him and it pained him that they never usually tried to talk to him, even if he feared he would have been short or any other way of bad company. Today, though, when he heard the knock on the study door before the face of his youngest daughter peered around the wooden door, he felt his heart grow a little to its normal strength again.
“Papa?”
Jane, now two-and-thirty, had always been the one to resemble her father the most. Penelope had often joked that Elliot was like her clone and Jane was like his. He found himself smiling a little at the memory as his daughter came into the study. She had made a good match in her second season out. She had married the Viscount Edgecombe when she had been nineteen years old and had a son and heir of her own named Henry - though he was always called Harry by family.
His little clone had grown into a remarkable young lady. He was proud of her. As he was of all of his children.
“Jane? Is everything well?” He asked, because he really was surprised that one of his children had deigned to approach him during this time.
“With me?” She asked, surprised herself. “Yes, of course. Well, I miss Mama but that can hardly be a shock. I came by more so to make sure you were alright.”
He schooled his features, trying not to focus on the morose expression of his wife’s ghost who was standing just beyond Jane’s right shoulder and staring at him with sadness in her eyes. “I am as well as one can be, my dear,” he said bravely and shuffled the papers on his desk, as he flicked through the pages of his manuscripts.
He reached forward and took a swig of his brandy, relishing the sting as it slid down his throat.
“You do not need to pretend with us,” she said as she stepped more into the room. She wore a mauve gown and he was sure he had noticed it before but the fashions had truly changed quite a bit since he himself had married. Ladies’ skirts were now voluminous and if he had been in a better mood, perhaps he would have made a joke about the small confines of the walls of his study. “We all miss her,” Jane added, blissfully unaware of his wayward thoughts.
“Darling, it will get easier,” he said, repeating his own mother’s sentiment. “It always does. Time has a way of doing that.”
“Maybe it does not need to get easier,” she said, “we can of course not truly understand how much Mama meant to you. Even before she was your wife, she was your friend since you were both children.
Even though we have all made matches of our own, we do not have the same kind of match you and Mama had. It is alright to miss her, Papa, you do not need to distance yourself.”
He watched as she stood before his desk and he had to look up at her. She was Lady Edgecombe now but she would always be a Bridgerton, he thought to himself. His sister had once said that as a Bridgerton, there was a part of them all that needed a challenge to feel fulfilled. They were stronger and closer than most families of the ton and he saw now, as his daughter towered over him, that she was perhaps the strongest of them all.
He glanced behind her, seeing her there nodding slowly. He knew what she was telling him to do.
So, he stood and came around to the front of his desk and leant against the surface next to her. He sighed. “Do you wish to know the truth? Why I have been keeping my distance?” He asked, vulnerability seeping into his words.
She nodded. “Tell me,” she replied.
He glanced at her. Her dark hair, her piercing blue eyes. She was so very like himself except… small features. Her button nose. The soft curve of her lips. Her pale complexion. These were all things she had inherited from her mother.
“You remind me of her,” he said quietly. “All of you children. I cannot help it. I kept my distance to spare you all of my misery, to spare you of my making comparisons of the fact that in my grief, I cannot help but see your mother when I look at you.”
He shrugged and turned away, hating himself for voicing it so openly.
To his surprise, however, Jane just wrapped her arms around him and nestled against his shoulder. “I understand,” she whispered.
He glanced sideways at her. “You… you do?”
She looked up and met his gaze. “I do,” she replied, “I imagine you see Mama more clearly in Elliot and Aggie.”
He swallowed past the lump that had formed in his throat. His silence seemed to indicate an answer to her.
“You do not need to be ashamed of feeling,” she said rather wisely, “you loved Mama so much. We are fortunate that we got to grow up in a household so full of love and affection.” She squeezed a little to get closer to him.
He slowly, tentatively, placed his hand on her arm that was wrapped around his stomach and held her close, resting his cheek on the top of her head. He closed his eyes and let them stay like that for a little while.
Jane glanced forward, still enfolded in her father’s arms, and found a shadow by the door. A figure that was impossible and yet maybe not so much.
She looked just as she did the last time the Viscountess Edgecombe had seen her. Her auburn hair fiery and the greys that littered those strands not ever quite able to extinguish the fire. Her smile was warm and full of love and it was as if she had been waiting to witness this image in front of her before she… disappeared? Moved on?
Jane didn’t know what to call it. The woman’s lips parted slightly and she could make out her soft words: “Look after your father for me,” she said, “tell him to live his life and I will be waiting for the day, whenever that time arrives, to see him again.”
Jane nodded gently and smiled in the way of a promise.
Colin felt her move against him. “Are you alright, darling?” He asked gently, shifting them slightly to a more comfortable position.
“I am,” she whispered. “I am going to look after you, Papa. As you live your life until the day you reunite with Mama.”
He frowned.
“I promised Mama,” she whispered.
He blinked a few times in realisation and jerked his head towards the doorway. Penelope nodded to him with a warm smile and then faded from his view.
“You promised… Mama…” he echoed and turned back to his daughter, wrapped up in his embrace. “Thank you,” he said earnestly, to both her and Penelope.
He kissed her forehead gently and held her close. “Thank you.”