Chapter Text
A Lack of Understanding
Penelope Featherington stared at the letter in her hands. It was the ninth missive she had sent to Mr. Colin Bridgerton since she had fled to Bath. She had not intended to harass him via the post. When she fled London, fled her ex fiance, she intended to keep her word, intended to never bother him nor Eloise nor any other Bridgerton in the world ever again. Colin and Eloise had made it abundantly clear that they would rather die before reading any of her poisonous words again. She could not say that she blamed them.
It felt like only yesterday that everything had gone so horribly wrong. Since he discovered she was Whistledown, since she tried to be honorable like a fool. She had tepidly offered to call off the wedding, hoping that the enormity of the statement might make him realize that on some level he still loved her. He had been concerned that they had been intimate - but together they had quietly convinced themselves that there was no way she could have fallen with child after one mere encounter. The moment that determination was made, it was over. Colin could no longer pretend he wanted to marry her.
He agreed with her sad little offer, and called off the wedding; she in turn had sent a letter to the Queen, asking for an audience to reveal her secret. Penelope had almost hoped for an execution, hoped for banishment from England, hoped to be locked away. Publicly flogged or whipped? A punishment befitting the crime. At that point, she certainly felt like the wickedest woman alive. Perhaps if she had been punished enough, Eloise and Colin would forgive her. Her apologies certainly didn’t matter, no matter how much she groveled, so she had prayed punishment would suffice.
Instead of violence or hatred or whatever else Penelope expected, standing in front of the Queen, who was accompanied only by Lady Danbury and her manservant Brimsley, the Queen laughed. The recently snubbed little Featherington. So humiliated by the Bridgertons - and by Lady Whistledown. So unnoticeable that the Queen forgot who she was for three seasons in a row. So forgotten that the Queen had to be reminded of her name and lineage twice during her audience. The Queen hemmed and hawed for several agonizing minutes.
Penelope stuttered out a hasty entreaty, all of her previous bravado of hoping for punishment dissolving instantly. She spoke of her lack of a voice, how nobody listened when she spoke, how her own family did not care for her and mocked her, how even the Bridgertons would not take heed of her words when she told them news of import, but how they listened when she published it. She spoke of Cressida’s meanness, and said she could not allow her to take the credit, spoke of how her engagement with Mr. Colin Bridgerton dissolved because he finally saw what a horrid woman she was. That through and through she was unloveable and Lady Whistledown briefly gave her mere seconds in the sun, basking in the warmth of worship.
To her own credit, she did not cry, and for that she was proud. Lady Danbury had looked upon her proudly, whispering words in the Queen’s ear. A few more moments of quiet debate ensued.
In a moment of everlasting shock and awe, Penelope was given the prize money of five thousand pounds before being told to never darken the streets of Mayfair ever again. Not even a proper banishment. The Queen had been in a good mood, with Lady Danbury whispering in her ear for clemency. She had waved her hand, “See how good a turn your Queen does for you? Remember this, should I ever require your services. I think the punishment of never again speaking to or interacting with the people you so cruelly reported upon is a fitting one. Banished from high society. No Mayfair, no London. Not while I’m breathing.”
She cocked her head to the side, and Penelope curtsied so low she nearly was on her knees. “I can see how this punishment fits my crimes, your Majesty, and I thank you ardently for your clemency. You are a kind and wise Queen and -” she paused, worrying she was overstepping, but soldiered on, “and I shall miss knowing that you are watching. Nobody inspires fear and awe and intrigue quite like you.”
The Queen had smiled smugly at that and waved her away. Penelope was then given several official letters from the Queen’s solicitor, and a carriage ride home in what she assumed was the hack that ferried the mistresses of her royal sons.
She was to leave the Ton forever. None of high society knew she was Whistledown - save the Queen, Lady Danbury, Brimsley, Colin, Eloise, and then finally her mother. Penelope knew she had no choice but to explain why she was effectively banished from high society, London, Mayfair. Her mama had been beside herself, crying about her betrayals and hatred and cruelty, before promptly shutting up when Penelope revealed that one of the documents was essentially a letter stating that the investigation into the ill gotten gains of the Featherington household was being stopped permanently. That the Queen informed her solicitor to leave it be, that the Featheringtons were provided for by Lady Whistledown herself, not stolen goods.
After that, Portia became shockingly and unendingly supportive. She asked how Penelope did it. They bonded over cakes and tea, and whispered about the disappointments of high society, they bonded for the very first time in Penelope’s life. It was glorious to bask in the sun of her mama’s love for her own merit, and not because she had been planning a wedding to a Bridgerton. Which is why it was so disappointing that Penelope would leave her so soon. For that matter had to be settled immediately. The Queen had given her seven days to get her affairs in order, after which she would send men to the Featherington home to ensure she had vacated.
Portia aided in Penelope finding a home in Bath, a cozy townhouse in a fashionable part of town, she sent Rae with her, and she promised to visit. Penelope actually hoped she would. Her mama even helped her come up with a cover, sending Penelope with all of her mourning clothes from when her father died. When she looked at her in confusion, her mama had rolled her eyes kindly before explaining.
“So as to give you time to determine how you wished to present yourself. Nobody knows you in Bath. You can do whatever you like! Would you wish to be a single woman? Widowed? Would you like a social life or to be done with it all? Would you prefer to change your name in case anyone came looking? Keep yourself hidden? Darling, the opportunities are endless. You have money, you can do whatever you like. This just buys you time to decide what it is you would like. Keep an air of mystery about you. Nobody will ask too many questions if your house is cloaked in mourning!”
Her mama was shrewd and helpful and together Penelope determined she would change her name to Penelope Crowley, taking her mama’s mother’s maiden name. The Queen’s solicitor had helped her obtain some necessary paperwork. “Her Majesty would like your punishment and banishment to take place as soon as possible, so she bid me to speed it along,” he said tepidly, looking rather amused by the entire situation.
Penelope had several chapters of the first draft of her novel already written. It had been a tepid hope that she could publish under her own name once she became a Bridgerton, but now that she would no longer be shackled to the ton or to the surname Featherington, the world seemed open and endless. She determined that she would eventually publish as PA Crowley, using her London printer. He had easily agreed after all the business she had brought him with Whistledown. This is how she would survive.
It was all shockingly easy to do, thanks to the Queen wishing to expedite her banishment. Easy to use her busy and bustling nature as a salve to her thoroughly stomped upon heart. She was often so exhausted that she did not have time to cry into her pillow before she fell asleep, although she typically woke with tear tracks on her face nonetheless. She put Colin and her stolen moments of happiness out of her mind. This was her penance. This was her life. She had made tenuous tragic peace with it.
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Her tenuous tragic peace did not last, of course. Rae told her on their sixth week in Bath, wringing her hands as she did so, that her courses had failed to come for a second month. The first month, the experienced maid had chalked her odd menstruation up to stress, anxiety. Said that she saw spotting and assumed all was well. But some women bleed just a little the very first month they were with child, something about things settling in her womb. Penelope was suddenly sorely glad that she had refused all visitors and put black drapes of mourning in her front window when she first arrived at Rosemont Square. Doing the math, Penelope put herself at nine weeks pregnant.
She had time to plan her next move. If she could contact Colin, have him reach her in time, she could pretend they had always been married and that he had been away handling her affairs whilst she mourned. She had not introduced herself, and ensured that Rae informed anyone who stopped by or craned their necks that the mistress of the house was deeply in mourning and unlikely to make any appearances until the following social season.
But time had passed too quickly. Her initial plan had been to pose as a spinster mourning the loss of her Uncle, who left a tidy sum to her. If Colin did not arrive in time, which it quickly became evident that he would not - she would tell everyone she was a young widow. She and Rae quickly crafted a story that her husband had married her the week he shipped out to the frontlines, died in the war, and she had immediately relocated to Bath using her dowry, London tainted by his memory.
The tragedy and romance would be enough for others to give her space. Her child could safely be born without taint to its name. Still, even with her child’s reputation in hand, she hoped that she would not have to live her life as the mother of a fatherless child.
She prayed that she could have Colin join her in Bath, have him eventually marry her - a man protecting and providing for his widowed friend in lieu of her dead husband - and her new life could begin. Penelope loathed any world in which people thought that Colin had not fathered their child, that he was just a stepfather, but she knew he would not make it in time to pretend they had been married all along, that the name Crowley had slipped from the house and there was no way to pretend she had always been Penelope Bridgerton. But once they wed… if they wed, she would be able to drop the fake surname Crowley. She could just be Penelope Bridgerton, as she had always hoped. Just the story of her pregnancy would be different - tragic and whispered.
Ultimately, Penelope tormented herself over the decision to write to Colin. She had not wished to trap him, knew he would loathe her when he received her letter. She loved him so dearly. The intent had been to set him free. And she failed, even at that.
But she knew he would be a lovely father, knew her child deserved a father as wonderful as him. If they married, she would be miserable, stuck with a man that loathed her. Realistically, he would marry her. There was a world in which he was already married - moved on so quickly after their broken engagement - and he would not acknowledge their baby. When contemplating that possibility, Penelope was filled with a brief fear that Colin may try to take their child and raise it with his family, far far away from her. She quickly put that fear from her mind. She knew he couldn’t do that to her, no matter how he hated her, he would not steal their child. He was a good man, no matter how vile she was.
So she wrote to him. The first letter was simple, asking him to visit her in Bath, telling him she had news to impart, time was of the essence. She underlined words and wrote as plainly as possible without damning both of their families should someone else open the letter. As no reply came, she worried. Obviously she could not go in person, banned as she was from Mayfair. So Penelope quickly wrote a second letter. She told him that they had fewer than nine months to fix their little problem. He was too intelligent to not understand her meaning - if he was reading the letters, that is.
Again, she received no reply. She wrote a third letter, then a fourth, tried sending the fifth, and sixth letter to Aubrey Hall in case he had retired to the country. All using heavy implication that only someone as dim as Phillipa could miss the implication of. Penelope fretted as she heard no response. Her official story in Bath society became that she was a war widow with a tidy sum settled on her, her plan worked flawlessly. She had to make it known, as they hired servants and she ventured into the world. There was no more waiting and hoping her original story could be used. She could not wait for Colin to rescue her. Her pregnancy was quickly becoming obvious. Penelope continued to write. She even wrote to Eloise and the Dowager Viscountess, although she knew her previous forty-two letters to El had been unopened. She beseeched her mama to help.
Her mama was the only to give her any help at all, telling her with no small amount of concern and scorn that Mr. Colin Bridgerton had gone on another tour, this time to India. Penelope realized he must wish to support his brother and sister-in-law when the baby was born. Or at least she knew that would be what he told himself, when really he was running again. Running from the heartbreak she caused him. She begged her mama to locate his traveling address.
Lady Bridgerton firmly refused to provide the forwarding address to anyone with the last name Featherington. It was with that that she got the confirmation she had always known but never wanted to know. The Bridgertons hated her. All Colin had told them was that the Featheringtons had once again conspired to entrap him, and that Penelope had a last moment change of heart and set him free. She supposed she had, supposed it was the truth in some perverse manner.
Penelope, at five months pregnant, felt a horrible loneliness that enveloped her every waking moment, and she ventured into the social life of her neighbors. The neighbors who all believed her to be Mrs. Penelope Crowley, war widow. They regarded her with warmth and kindness and pity. Although Penelope supposed she was only used to the pity.
Rosemont Square had no small number of elderly women, and two households of spinsters who had abandoned the idea of marriage. Wistfully, Penelope knew that she would have fit right in if she had not been pregnant. But they all accepted her readily, not questioning the story, nor attempting to do any math at all when they realized that she was expecting. If they did, it would only line up by a fraction of a hair. Just enough to be respectable, not enough to keep people from whispering.
So she focused on the people who would not whisper, ironic though it was, given her previous profession. Penelope quickly befriended Edith Montgomery, a thirty year old spinster who lived with her dearest friend Theodora Wallace, another spinster of four and thirty. They said living together stretched their dowries much further than living apart. Penelope suspected that they were in love, but decided it was none of her business. They were kind and funny and witty and intelligent. Penelope could give a fig if they preferred their own sex.
She also was quickly taken in by one Agatha Morris, a widowed sixty five year old who had nieces and nephews in the Ton. Penelope continued to be grateful for her name change and her backstory. Oddly thankful for the Queen of England. Because of her solicitor, her name change was squeaky clean. Even the Bridgerton family would not be able to find her if they tried. But she wanted them to. Because, in spite of her newfound comradery, people who didn’t see her as a pathetic blue stocking or unmarriable unfashionable spinster, she was dreadfully lonely and missed Colin and Eloise terribly.
Her mama would not be able to attend to her during the birth, although Portia fretted greatly about it. It would look odd if she left Phillipa and Prudence when they were due to have their own babies. Her daughters that lived so close. It would be odd to leave to visit the nutty spinster that snubbed a Bridgerton. People might whisper. They couldn’t have that. So Penelope would be alone. Of course, she wasn’t really alone. Rae lived in the housekeepers room by the kitchen, loyally attending her and given a raise to reflect her new position. A cook called Hattie came each morning, a maid named Cassandra, and a manservant named Thomas served her well.
Her staff was polite and efficient and friendly, and Penelope quickly dispensed with formalities to make herself pretend that she had a family. They called her Penelope, but Mrs. Crowley in front of her neighbors, she ate breakfast with Hattie and Thomas, bid Cassandra to join her for tea, and she ate supper with Rae when she was not dining out of the home or hosting guests. She paid them using the interest off her Whistledown money, as she had purchased the house utilizing a large portion of the Queen’s prize money. The Queen’s prize really did allow her to live without worrying too much about finances, which was a lovely change after all that had happened with her own father.
In the meantime as she put on her airs of mourning, Penelope wore her ugly unfashionable black and brown clothes from her father’s death, whilst she slowly built a pleasant wardrobe of cool toned cottons and linens, fabrics that were well made but not ostentatious. She had new day dresses, new pelisses and a couple evening gowns. She supposed it was unlikely that she would go to any balls anytime soon. She was shocked at how content she was at the idea.
Penelope did have velvet used for some of her winter clothing, bought fine lambskin gloves, all from Genevieve, who was also a loyal correspondent. Penelope apologized for not being able to order all of her clothing from Genevieve, given that she deserved her business, but Gen understood that her pregnancy meant she could not use her old measurements.
As she settled into Bath even further, Penelope took great pains to ensure her house was well furnished and warm. Hers was a townhome of simple luxury and quiet wealth. Penelope’s new solicitor was helpful in managing her funds, and assured her that she did not even need to publish the book she was writing if she chose to live a simple life. But Penelope knew she had to prepare for her child. Their child.
In her free time, she scribbled. Letters, chapters of her book. She had settled on naming her story The Wallflower, where she could give the character based upon herself a happy ending. It felt silly and fantastical, but she supposed that some wallflowers were not secret-keeping women living double lives, that they could get their happy endings as they deserved. Sometimes she had to step away from her novel, as it made her dreadfully sad.
The letters she wrote were to Gen, Phillipa and Prudence, to her mama. They were the main ones who bothered to reply. Penelope continued to stay busy.
Her seventh letter she sent when she was seven months pregnant. She told Colin again that she was sorry, that she didn’t know if he would ever read her correspondence and it was his right not to, but that he needed to know even if she spoke in code. Really the code could not be clearer. She used ‘we’ and ‘us’ in her sentences, spoke of ‘nine months have become two’ and implied that she missed him but ‘always had a piece of him within her.’ Still, she heard no response. Penelope despaired.
The guilt and self loathing was eating her alive. She thought absolution from the Queen, from her mama, would somehow make her feel better. But it did not. She did not regret being Lady Whistledown, but she regretted some of the things she wrote. Eventually she sent a letter to Marina Crane. Penelope told her she was sorry, admitted to being Lady Whistledown, told her that she had turned herself in to the Queen, told her that she hoped she was well. Penelope knew that Marina was not spiteful enough to expose her.
Marina was more than gracious in her response, kind and understanding and shockingly logical in her forgiveness. Penelope was briefly pleased to see that Marina had always suspected she was Whistledown - at least someone had been clever enough to infer, to see past the wallflower and ugly duckling.
The two young cousins formed a camaraderie in their experiences with being pregnant and not knowing what to do, being pregnant and knowing the father was nowhere to be found. Penelope felt the need to apologize again for her actions in several more letters until Marina told her to stop. She said that it was done and that she was better off with how it turned out, said her children would inherit their birthrights, said that it was better knowing that George had truly loved her. Marina told her that she had forgiven her, had forgiven her long ago when Colin had visited and she realized that had Penelope not intervened, he would have made her miserable, and she would have hated him. Penelope wept tears of joy and grief with that. Marina promised to visit after the baby was born.
Penelope wrote again to Eloise and Colin, finally feeling the flickers of anger. No matter what they accused her of regarding Whistledown being true, she would be damned if they accused her of keeping Colin’s child from them. She received no response. She knew they had to be feeding her letters to the flames, if Colin had received any of them. The Bridgertons were too family oriented to abandon one of their own. Still, she could not visit Mayfair, too pregnant to travel to Aubrey Hall - also too embarrassed to try, terrified of showing up so obviously with child only to be turned away and mocked, accused of entrapment as he had already accused her.
The grief she felt at not knowing if Colin knew, at not knowing if he knew and chose to abandon their child anyways, at feeling so abandoned, helped with her cover story. Edith, Theodora, and Agatha all truly believed she was mourning her dead husband. These three ladies were swiftly becoming her new family.
She had tea with Agatha thrice weekly, and dinner with Edith and Theodora twice weekly. Edith and Theodora often went on strolls about the neighborhood with her, and they visited the market together. Agatha would stop by unannounced to check in. Agatha was overbearing, very loving and smothering in a way Penelope had never experienced, so she found that she loved it. Agatha told many stories of her own love and life, of her losses, she comforted Penelope, and was far more touchy-feely than any person she had met. Penelope leaned into the kind touches, shocked to be receiving any sort of physical affection at this point in her life.
Edith was gentle and kind and quiet, with a searing wit and a keen eye for observation. Theodora was tough and laughed too loudly and perhaps too often, she sneered at rules and laughed at expectations. She had a thirst for knowledge and kept a well stocked library. Theodora reminded her painfully of a more mature, self actualized Eloise. Those women, along with her relationship with Rae, her mama, and her budding friendship with Marina, kept her from becoming lost in sadness and self loathing. The loneliness still ached.
Finally, as her birthing time approached, she sent her ninth letter. She promised herself that if Colin did not respond, she would not bother him again until the child was a year old. Then, she would only write to him every three to five years to provide updates on his progeny. Even if he did not respond, she would send letters to Bridgerton House on Berkeley Square. If he did finally respond, telling her to never write again, she would respect that wish as well. No matter how much it hurt her to do so. She was set in this decision.
Which brought her back to the start. She stared at her ninth letter, and knew that if anyone else would receive it, scandal would destroy her and her family.
‘Dear Colin,
For you will always be dear to me, no matter how much you despise me. Today marks one week from when the midwife says I am to give birth to our child. I speak plainly in case you did not understand the multiple implications I wrote about in my previous eight letters, although I know you are too clever to misconstrue my meaning. I understand if you do not wish to see me, if you do not wish to accept the child as yours. I assume your silence means you have not received any of my letters, that they have not been forwarded to your place of residence in India. I will continue to assume that your lack of response means that you do not know. You are too good and kind to ignore the existence of a child sired by you.
I will allow you to determine if you wish to share the news with your family. I have implied that I dearly need to speak to you in letters to your mother and Eloise, but I have not divulged any secrets. They have not replied.
If you want me to stop writing to you, all you have to do is ask.
Penelope.’