Chapter Text
The problem with Gloucestershire, Sir Philip Crane decided as he stared down the offending piece of parchment, was that it was entirely too quiet, yet not a single acre of it was currently capable of keeping his children from dismantling Romney Hall.
It had been a year since Marina’s passing.
A year of quiet, hollow rooms, followed by the sudden, deafening realization that Amanda and Oliver were growing up, and he was entirely out of his depth.
He had stayed in the country out of habit, burying himself in his botanical studies while trying to convince himself that he could manage.
But the truth, which he barely admitted to himself, was that he was sinking.
"She has the spots, Papa," seven-year-old Oliver announced, marching into the study with a wooden hoop balanced precariously on his shoulder.
"Red ones. All over her neck. Nurse says they are very itchy."
"Chickenpox," Philip muttered, rubbing his temples.
He looked at the mountain of unanswered correspondence on his desk, then at his son, whose coat was already missing a button.
"Which means Nurse resides strictly in the attic for the next fortnight, and you and your sister are..."
"...unsupervised," Amanda finished, stepping into the room with the quiet, terrifying grace she had recently adopted.
She possessed an innate aura of generalship that Philip found deeply intimidating.
"We are very sorry for Nurse, Papa. But who is going to make sure Oliver doesn’t eat the wallpaper?"
"I only ate it once," Oliver shot back, defensive. "And it tasted like paste."
"You ate a corner of the library border because you wanted to see if the flowers tasted like real ones," Amanda corrected him, thoroughly unimpressed.
She turned her sharp gaze back to her father.
"We cannot stay in the nursery all day, Papa. The fire is out and the maid is helping the apothecary."
Philip sighed, leaning forward and resting his chin in his hands.
"I know, Amanda. I am trying to figure out an arrangement. For now, you must both promise to stay indoors. No climbing the greenhouse, no exploring the stables, and absolutely no tasting the decor."
"But it is sunny outside," Oliver complained, kicking the toe of his boot against the rug.
"And the frogs are coming out by the pond. You said you'd show us the ones with the spots."
"That was before the household came down with a highly contagious ailment," Philip said mildly.
He reached for a fresh sheet of paper.
"I need to write to the agency in London. Perhaps they can send a temporary governess by the week's end. Until then, you will read your books in the morning room."
Amanda tilted her head, her eyes narrowing slightly as she spotted the pile of letters from society hostesses Philip had been ignoring.
"Are we getting a new mama from a letter, Papa?"
Philip froze, the quill hovering perilously close to the inkwell.
He looked at his daughter, caught entirely off guard by the bluntness of the question.
"It is... complicated, Amanda. I am looking for someone who can provide structure. A lady to help take care of you both. Now, please, go to the morning room. I must finish this."
The twins exchanged a look, clearly unsatisfied with the answer, but they knew the tone that meant their father was truly stretched to his limit.
With a synchronized sigh, they turned and padded out of the study, closing the heavy oak doors behind them.
Philip let out a long, ragged breath, burying his face in his hands.
He had barely achieved ten seconds of silence when a polite, hesitant knock sounded at the door.
"Come in," Philip called out, expecting his butler with tea.
The door opened, and Gunning, looking thoroughly flustered, stepped into the room.
"Sir Philip, I beg your pardon for the interruption, but a gentleman has just arrived from London. He gave no prior notice, but he claims to be a close friend of yours and insists-"
"He claims to be entirely out of patience with the pace of your country post, Gunning!"
Before the butler could finish his sentence, a broad-shouldered figure forcefully brushed past him into the study.
Colin Bridgerton strode in, looking disgustingly cheerful, impeccably dressed, and entirely unaffected by what must have been a punishingly fast carriage ride from the capital.
Gunning looked appalled.
"Sir Philip, I can have the stablehands-"
"It's quite alright, Gunning," Philip said, a mix of exhaustion and faint amusement washing over him as he stood up from his desk.
"You may leave us."
The butler bowed rigidly and exited, closing the door on Colin, who was already tossing his traveling cloak onto a velvet armchair.
He took one look at Philip’s disheveled hair, the chaotic desk, and the sheer aura of panic radiating from the room, and let out a low whistle.
"You look," Colin remarked, flashing a brilliant grin, "like you’ve just fought a losing battle with a French privateer. Which is precisely why I am evicting you from Gloucestershire."
Philip blinked, thoroughly thrown.
"Colin, what on earth are you doing here? It takes a full day's travel just to reach the boundary lines."
"I've read your letters, Philip. Your attempts at finding a wife via correspondence are an absolute tragedy, and you're turning into a complete hermit," Colin said, entirely unfazed as he walked over to the desk and tapped the stack of unanswered mail.
"Pack a trunk for yourself and the twins. We are leaving for London. You’re coming to stay with us at Featherington House."
"Wait, you cannot just make me-"
"Oh yes I can," Colin spoke firmly.
"You need to be in Mayfair. I am going to help you actually talk to women, introduce you to the right hostesses, and get this sorted. You cannot find a stepmother for your children while hiding in the shires. It requires strategy, presence, and someone to stop you from talking about fertilizer within five minutes of meeting a lady."
"And what of my children while I am being marched through ballrooms?" Philip asked, a defensive edge in his voice.
"The nanny literally just came down with chickenpox before you walked through the door. I can't just abandon them."
"Penelope is already at the house, and more importantly, my sister Eloise is currently occupying our drawing room floor," Colin grinned.
"She practically lives with us anyway to escape the fuss at Bridgerton House. Come along, Philip. Your carriage is being loaded as we speak. I took the liberty of telling your coachman to get moving."
-
Featherington House, while grand, was currently a whirlwind of pastel silks, children's toys, and the high pitched giggles of Penelope and Colin’s young family.
Philip stood rigidly near the doorway of the drawing room, feeling entirely too large and out of place among the gilded, butterfly-motif furniture that still lingered from the late Lord Featherington's era.
Amanda and Oliver stood flanking him, holding his hands with a sudden, uncharacteristic display of perfect manners that Philip knew, by experience, meant they were plotting something.
"Oh, the poor thing," Penelope Bridgerton said softly, pouring Philip a cup of tea after Colin explained the nanny crisis that had expedited their move.
"Chickenpox is dreadful. You must let us help, Philip. Truly, you staying here is no trouble at all."
"I appreciate the hospitality, Penelope," Philip said, still unaccustomed to the familiarities Colin insisted upon.
"But Colin tells me he expects me to attend a breakfast at Lady Danbury's tomorrow. I cannot logistically abandon my children in a strange house."
From the far corner of the room, curled up on a chaise longue with a thick volume of political philosophy, a sharp voice spoke up.
"They aren't a regiment of foot soldiers, Sir Philip. They're just small people. And frankly, the ones you brought look far more interesting than Colin’s... they haven't cried once since entering the room."
Eloise Bridgerton closed her book with a decisive snap and swung her legs over the edge of the chaise.
Philip shifted uncomfortably.
He had met Eloise briefly before, but she remained entirely outside his sphere of comprehension.
Where other ladies of the ton glided, Eloise marched.
Her chestnut hair was pinned up, and she was currently staring at his twins with open curiosity.
Penelope brightened, a mischievous glint entering her eyes as she looked at her best friend.
"Actually... why doesn't Eloise watch Amanda and Oliver while we're all together? Since Colin is taking you out to help you find a wife, Philip, someone needs to keep an eye on them. Eloise is here anyway, and heaven knows she’s read every children's story in the library three times over."
Eloise froze.
Her eyes darted from Penelope to Philip, her expression instantly hardening into one of profound skepticism.
"Penelope, I am currently in the middle of a very important treatise on-"
"You’ve been reading the same page for twenty minutes, El," Colin chimed in, grinning from the sideboard.
"Besides, if Philip is going to find a suitable stepmother for these two, he needs to be focused. You'd be doing a public service."
Philip cleared his throat, his pride instantly bristling.
"There is absolutely no need. I can hire a temporary governess-"
"To find a competent governess in twenty-four hours in Mayfair?" Eloise scoffed, standing up.
"You’d end up with a high-born fraud who teaches them French verbs and forbids them from sweating. Fine. Let them stay. But if your son breaks a vase, Sir Philip, I take no blame."
Philip looked down at his children.
Amanda was staring at Eloise.
Not with the suspicion she usually reserved for new adults, but with a cold, calculating intensity.
Oliver, meanwhile, was looking at the mud on the hem of Eloise’s walking dress.
Neither Philip nor Eloise looked thrilled with the arrangement.
The children, however, looked entirely enlightened.
-
The afternoon did not go precisely as Philip had feared. It went much stranger.
He had spent two hours in Colin's study being lectured on which hostesses to avoid and how to properly converse with eligible debutantes without accidentally lecturing them on the growth of their food.
When Philip finally escaped back to the main house, his eyes drifted to the garden window.
Out on the lawn of the Featherington courtyard, Eloise had entirely abandoned her political treatise.
She had also abandoned her shoes.
"Is she..." Philip squinted through the glass. "...climbing the oak tree?"
"Oh, definitely," Colin said cheerfully, appearing over his shoulder with a fresh glass of scotch.
"Eloise holds the family record for reaching the third branch. Anthony banned her from doing it when she turned sixteen, but since he isn't here..."
Through the window, Philip watched his son Oliver shout something up into the leaves.
A moment later, Eloise’s face appeared.
She pointed down at a sturdy branch, shouted an instruction back, and extended a hand to haul Oliver up onto the lowest limb.
Amanda stood below, hands on her hips, nodding in stern approval like a general inspecting a newly fortified position.
Something strange shifted in Philip’s chest.
It was a tight, unfamiliar warmth.
For the past year, the few women he had encountered through mutual acquaintances had treated his children like unfortunate baggage, minor inconveniences to be shushed or ignored.
Eloise Bridgerton was currently wiping dirt onto her skirt and teaching his son how to properly leverage a foothill.
When the twins were brought back inside for supper, they walked with a docility that made Philip deeply suspicious.
They were entirely covered in grass stains, Oliver had a smudge of soot on his cheek, and Amanda was clutching a perfectly pressed leaf Eloise had given her.
"Thank you, Miss Bridgerton," Philip said, bowing formally as they met in the grand hallway.
"I apologize for the state of your gown."
Eloise waved a hand dismissively, though she was breathing a bit heavily.
"Nonsense. Your son has an excellent center of gravity, Sir Philip. And your daughter is terrifyingly intelligent. She spent twenty minutes explaining to me why the butler is secretly afraid of her. I like them."
With a sharp nod, she turned and marched back up the stairs toward the guest bedroom.
That evening, the guest quarters of Featherington House were quiet.
The children had eaten their supper without a single argument and had gone to bed with unprecedented cooperativeness.
Philip sat in his designated armchair, a glass of brandy in hand, staring into the crackling fire.
For the first time in a year, the suffocating weight of his anxiety felt just a fraction lighter, even if the prospect of Colin dragging him to a lady's breakfast tomorrow loomed over him.
A soft knock sounded at the door.
"Come in," Philip said.
Amanda and Oliver crept into the room, clad in their nightshirts.
They didn't look tired, more like a council of war convening for a midnight raid.
"Shouldn't you two be asleep?" Philip asked, though his voice lacked any real sternness.
Oliver scrambled onto the velvet ottoman across from his father, pulling his knees to his chin.
Amanda remained standing, her small arms crossed over her chest.
"We had a discussion, Papa," Amanda announced.
Philip suppressed a sigh, setting his brandy down.
"About the wallpaper back home?"
"No," Amanda said, deadpan. "About Miss Bridgerton."
Philip’s posture stiffened slightly.
"I see. I hope you thanked her properly. She was very kind to tolerate your... antics while Uncle Colin and I were busy."
"She made Oliver laugh," Amanda noted, her eyes locking onto Philip’s with a weight that felt entirely too heavy for a seven-year-old.
"A real laugh. Not the polite one he uses when your friends give him peppermint drops."
"She didn't talk to us like babies," Oliver added, leaning forward earnestly.
"When I asked her if she knew how to climb trees, she didn't say 'young gentlemen stay on the ground.' She just said 'watch this' and went up the trunk like a squirrel. And she listened when Amanda talked about the beetles."
Philip softened, a gentle smile touching his lips.
"She is a very unique lady, Oliver."
Amanda stepped closer to the hearth, her expression perfectly serious.
"...I think she'd make a very good mama."
The silence that followed was absolute.
The grandfather clock in the corner ticked with sudden, deafening volume.
Philip felt the air leave his lungs in a sharp rush.
His mind racing to find a reprimand, an explanation, anything to stop the sudden, terrifying pounding of his heart.
Colin was supposed to be helping him find a wife tomorrow.
A sensible, quiet woman of society.
Yet his children were already casting their votes.
"Amanda," Philip began, his voice dropping into a low, warning register.
"That is entirely inappropriate. Miss Bridgerton your uncle Colin’s sister. She is a lady of the ton, and we do not-"
"...Can we keep her?" Oliver interrupted, his wide brown eyes completely sincere.
Philip closed his mouth.
He looked from his son’s hopeful face to Amanda’s fiercely determined one.
"Bed," Philip commanded quietly, though his hand shook slightly as he reached for his brandy glass.
"Both of you. Right now."
The twins exchanged a quick, silent glance.
They didn't argue.
They didn't whine.
They simply turned on their heels and marched out of the room, their small bare feet padding softly against the hallway carpet.
Outside the door, out of their father's line of sight, Amanda caught Oliver’s arm.
She gave him a sharp, decisive nod.
The alliance was formed.
The mission was accepted.
Papa and Uncle Colin could go looking for ladies all they wanted tomorrow.
The twins had already made their choice.