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i.
The first time, he is two and ten and does not understand it.
His father has been dead for three weeks. Three weeks since they lowered Edmund Bridgerton into the ground. Three weeks since his mother collapsed at the gravesite and had to be carried home. Three weeks since Colin watched his older brothers try to become men overnight, their faces carved from stone as they stood sentinel over a family fracturing at the seams.
Three weeks, and Colin still does not know what to do with his hands. He has tried so very hard to be helpful. Has fetched tea and carried messages and sat with his younger siblings when their tears became too loud for the quiet the house now demands. He has made Gregory laugh once and felt guilty for it immediately. He has held Francesca when she cried, pretending he was not crying too.
It is never enough.
Anthony does not look at him at all. Benedict tries, claps him on the shoulder and asks if he is well, and moves on to the next crisis before Colin can answer. There is always another crisis now. Colin has learned to stay out of the way.
He is the middle child. Too young to be included amongst his brothers, too old to be included amongst his younger siblings. So he is simply there, stuck, left to slip through the cracks while everyone else falls apart.
No one has thought to ask if he might be falling apart too.
He hides in the rose garden because he cannot hide anywhere else. Tucks himself behind the tall hedge where the roses climb thick and wild, where the thorns catch at his sleeves, and the petals drop like small surrenders onto the grass.
He hears her before he sees her.
Footsteps on the gravel path, light and hesitant. Colin shrinks further into the shadows, hoping whoever it is will simply pass him by. He cannot bear another pitying look. Another whispered condolence. Another hand on his shoulder from someone who means well but does not understand, cannot understand, what it is to lose the person who made the world make sense.
But it is only Penelope Featherington.
She rounds the corner of the hedge and stops short when she sees him. Her dress is the colour of squash, all ruffles and bows and fabric that threatens to swallow her whole. Her hair is escaping its pins, the red of it almost orange in the afternoon light. She looks as out of place in this manicured garden as Colin feels in his own skin.
For a moment, they simply stare at each other.
"I am sorry," she says quickly. "Eloise said—I was looking for—I did not mean to intrude."
"You are not intruding."
The words come out before Colin can stop them. He does not know why he says them. He has wanted to be alone all day. Has wanted nothing more than to sit in this garden and not have to perform grief for anyone else's comfort. But Penelope is here, and she is looking at him with those eyes of hers—pale blue, wide, uncertain—and there is something in them that makes him think she might understand. That she, too, knows what it is to be overlooked. To slip through the cracks.
She hesitates. Glances back toward the house, then at him again.
"Would you prefer I leave?"
"No," Colin says, and means it.
She nods slowly. And then, without another word, she gathers her skirts and settles onto the grass beside him. Not too close and not so far away that it feels like distance. She tucks her legs beneath her and tilts her face up toward the roses overhead, and she does not ask him anything at all.
The silence stretches between them. Colin waits, holding his breath, for her to fill it. Everyone fills silences now—with platitudes, with prayers, with memories of his father that are meant to be comforting and only make the absence sharper. He has learned to brace himself for it, the well-meaning words that land like blows.
But Penelope says nothing. Simply breathes and exists beside him, quiet and still, watching the roses sway in the breeze. Slowly, the tension eases from his shoulders and from inside his chest.
"You do not have to talk," Penelope says finally. Her voice is soft. Careful. "I know everyone probably wants you to talk. To tell them how you feel, so they can feel better about how you feel." She frowns slightly, picking at a loose thread on her sleeve. "That probably does not make sense."
"It does," Colin says. His voice comes out rough, scraped raw by something he cannot name. "It makes more sense than anything anyone has said to me in weeks."
Penelope turns to look at him. Really look, not the quick glances people give him now, the ones that slide away as soon as they meet his eyes. She looks at him as if she is seeing him. As if he is a person and not a problem to be managed.
"My father is not dead," she says quietly. "So I cannot—I do not know the right thing to say. I never truly know the right thing to say."
She falls silent, frowning at her hands.
"Everyone keeps telling me things," Colin mumbles. He does not know why he is saying this. "About my father. About how he is at peace. About how I must be strong."
Penelope looks at him. "That sounds exhausting."
The laugh that escapes him is rough and wet and surprises them both. "It is. It really is."
She nods slowly, and the tears come suddenly before he can stop them.
He has not cried since the funeral. Has not allowed himself to, because someone had to be strong, someone had to hold Franny and comfort Gregory and not fall apart when there were already so many pieces to pick up. He has swallowed his grief and swallowed it and swallowed it until it became a stone in his chest, heavy and immovable.
Now it cracks.
He does not sob. Does not wail. The tears simply slide down his cheeks, silent and relentless, and he cannot make them stop. He waits for Penelope to say something, to offer comfort or consolation or any of the things people say when someone breaks in front of them.
She does not. She reaches over and takes his hand. Her fingers are small and warm and slightly sticky, probably from whatever sweets were served at tea. She does not squeeze or pat or do anything that might demand acknowledgement. She simply holds on, her hand in his, and lets him cry.
They sit like that until the sun begins to set. Until the shadows stretch long across the lawn and the roses glow amber and gold in the fading light.
"Thank you," he says at last. His voice is hoarse. "For... I do not know. For this."
Penelope smiles, the corners of her mouth turning up just slightly, and there is a softness to it, a kindness that asks for nothing in return. Colin’s chest flutters. He does not understand it.
"You are welcome," Penelope says simply. She releases his hand and rises, brushing grass from her skirts. "I should go. Eloise will be looking for me."
Colin nods. He should stand too, should walk her back to the house, should do any of the things a gentleman is supposed to do. But he cannot seem to move. Can only sit there in the roses and watch her go, her terrible dress disappearing around the hedge, her copper hair catching the last of the light.
That night, lying in his bed, Colin stares at the ceiling and thinks about Penelope Featherington.
About the way she sat with him and expected nothing.
About the way she looked at him and saw something worth seeing.
About her hand in his, small and warm and steady.
About her smile.
And for the first time since they lowered his father into the earth, Colin sleeps.
ii.
The second time, he is seven and ten and blames the heat.
It is the hottest summer in memory, the kind with humidity that feels thick on his skin and makes even the simplest tasks feel like wading through treacle. The lake at Aubrey Hall shimmers like a mirage, and Colin has escaped there with the single-minded determination of a child of eight seeking silence. He has been home from Eton for four days. Four days of his mother's watchful eyes and Anthony's endless lectures about responsibility and Benedict's cheerful obliviousness and Eloise's relentless questions about school. Four days of being Colin Bridgerton, spare to the spare, expected to be charming and pleasant and utterly without needs of his own.
The lake is the only place that has ever felt like his.
He does not expect to find Penelope Featherington already at the water's edge.
She is standing on the bank, her shoes discarded beside her, her bare feet in the water. Her dress is a pale yellow thing that has wilted in the heat, and her hair is escaping its pins, curling damply against her neck.
She looks up when he approaches, and something akin to panic flashes across her face before she schools it into composure.
"Mr Bridgerton."
"Miss Featherington." He grins at her, easy and teasing. "Escaping your mother?"
"Escaping everyone,” she says, with feeling, and he laughs.
"Mind if I join you?"
She shakes her head, and he settles beside her, close enough that their shoulders nearly touch. He rolls up his trousers and wades in until the water laps at his ankles, cool relief against his overheated skin. The earth is soft here, and he sinks slightly, the mud squishing between his toes.
They stand in silence for a moment. Penelope's toes break the surface of the water, pale and delicate, and Colin watches the ripples spread outward in lazy circles.
"I did not think anyone else knew about this spot," Colin says.
"Eloise showed me. Years ago." Penelope wiggles her toes in the water, watching the ripples. "I hope you do not mind. I can leave, if you—"
"Stay." The word comes out faster than he intends. He clears his throat. "I only meant—it is a large lake. I am sure we can share it."
She smiles, small and surprised, and Colin feels warmth bloom in his chest. He should say something. Should fill the silence with easy chatter, the way he always does, the way that has made him the Bridgerton everyone finds so pleasant and unthreatening. But the words have dried up somewhere in his throat, and he is simply looking at her, at the way her smile changes her face, at the way her eyes crinkle slightly at the corners, at the smattering of freckles across her cheekbones and the bridge of her nose.
Penelope notices him noticing because of course does. Because he is starting to understand that Penelope notices everything. Her smile falters. Her lips part, just slightly, and Colin watches the flush spread across her cheeks, watches her chest rise on a quick inhale, watches something flicker in her eyes that looks almost like—
"It is unbearable," she says abruptly, turning back to the water. "This heat. Do you not think? Mama says it is the worst she can remember, though she says that every summer, so I am not sure we can trust her judgment. And Prudence has been complaining endlessly, which is rich considering she refuses to go outside at all, so I do not know what she has to complain about, but then Prudence always finds something to complain about, and—"
She stops. Presses her lips together. The flush on her cheeks has deepened to crimson.
"Forgive me. I am rambling."
"I do not mind," Colin smiles.
And he does not. He finds, somewhat to his surprise, that he would be quite content to listen to Penelope Featherington ramble about the heat and her mother and her sister for the rest of the afternoon.
This realisation is quite unsettling.
"Mm," he says, because he has forgotten how to form actual words, too distracted watching a bead of sweat trail down her temple, along her jaw, disappearing into the collar of her dress. He is noticing, for reasons he cannot explain, for reasons he is not ready to examine, the way the sunlight catches the red in her hair and turns it to copper and gold.
She turns to look at him, and he realises he is still staring.
"Are you well? You look rather flushed."
"The heat," he says quickly. "As you said is unbearable."
She nods, accepting this, and turns back to the water.
Colin does not turn back to the water. He is still looking at her neck. At the small mole just below her ear that he has somehow never noticed before. At the way her lashes cast shadows on her cheeks when she blinks.
He shakes his head, hard, as if to dislodge whatever madness has taken root there. Penelope is Eloise's friend. Penelope is familiar. Penelope is Penelope.
But when she sighs and tips her head back, exposing the long line of her throat to the sun, Colin's mouth goes dry, and he thinks that perhaps the heat has driven him to some kind of fever, and forces himself to look away.
He does not look at her again for the rest of the afternoon.
Or at least, he tries very hard not to.
He fails.
iii.
The third time, he is one and twenty and drunk on triumph.
He has done it. Has stood in Lady Featherington's drawing room and laid bare Cousin Jack's scheme with a clarity and precision he did not know he possessed. Has watched the man's face go pale, watched Mrs Featherington's expression shift from confusion to something indiscernible, and now he feels, for once in his aimless life, like he was exactly where he was supposed to be, doing exactly what he was meant to do.
He did it for Penelope.
He does not examine this too closely.
The ballroom is a blur of candles and silk and the press of too many bodies in too small a space, but he sees her instantly. Colin cuts through the crowd with purpose, his eyes fixed on her and her alone.
"We are dancing," he announces, and takes her hand.
He does not ask. Does not bow or murmur pleasantries or do any of the things a gentleman is supposed to do. He simply pulls her onto the floor and into his arms, and she comes, too surprised to protest, her eyes wide and her lips parted and her hand warm and small in his. He has missed dancing with her this season, he realises all too suddenly.
The music swells, and they begin to move, perfectly in rhythm with one another.
“You were astonishing, Colin,” she says, eyes bright and wide and looking right through him. “I cannot thank you enough for looking after us.”
“I will always look after you, Penelope,” he tells her honestly. And then, even more honestly, “You are special to me.”
She looks up at him then, surprised, taken aback. Her footing stutters just slightly, but she recovers quickly.
“As are you... To me,” she says, but his mind is still two steps backwards, replaying the word astonishing on a continuous loop.
No one has ever called him astonishing before. Charming, yes. Amusing, certainly. The affable Bridgerton, the one who tells good stories and laughs easily and never takes anything too seriously. The one who drifts through life without leaving a mark, who fills silences and smooths tensions and makes himself useful in small ways that no one ever remembers.
Astonishing is not a word for men like him, but Penelope is looking at him as if she means it. As if she has never meant anything more.
And Colin thinks, suddenly and quite inexplicably, of the letters. All those letters he wrote her from his travels. Page after page of observations and confessions and thoughts he had never dared speak aloud. He had written to her about the loneliness that dogged him even in the most crowded piazzas. About the restlessness that drove him from city to city, country to country, searching for something he could not name. About the fear that he would never find his place in the world, that he would drift forever, pleasant and forgettable, a footnote in other people's stories.
He had written things to Penelope Featherington that he had never told another living soul. And she had written back. Had met his confessions with her own, her words sharp and warm and startlingly honest. Had seen the parts of him he tried to hide and had not flinched. Had not pitied him or dismissed him or tried to fix him. Had simply accepted him, wholly and completely, as if his flaws were not flaws at all but merely facets of something worth knowing.
She knows him. Better than his brothers, who see only the role he plays. Better than his mother, who loves him but does not always have time for him. Better than anyone, really, because Penelope does not just see who he is, she sees who he is trying to become, and she believes he will get there.
And still, she calls him astonishing.
He looks down at her as they guide one another around the dance floor. At her earnest face, her uncertain eyes, the flush on her cheeks that could be from the dancing or could be from something else entirely. Her hands are still in his. They are close, closer than the dance strictly requires—and he can smell her perfume, something soft and floral, and beneath it, something that is simply her.
He thinks about kissing her.
The thought arrives without warning, fully formed, undeniable. He thinks about closing the distance between them, about tilting her chin up with his fingers, about pressing his mouth to hers right here in the middle of this crowded ballroom. He thinks about how she would taste. How she would feel. Whether she would gasp against his lips or sigh into him or pull him closer and kiss him back.
He thinks about it, and he wants it, and the wanting is so sudden and so fierce that it steals the breath from his lungs. His gaze drops to her mouth, and he cannot remember why she is not for him, cannot remember anything except the word astonishing and the way she looked when she said it, as if she believed in him.
The music ends.
He releases her. Steps back. She curtsies. He bows. And when she slips away into the crowd, he does not follow, though every instinct screams at him to try.
Instead, he stands alone on the dance floor and watches her go.
Astonishing.
The word echoes in his skull, brands itself onto his bones, takes root in some deep and hidden part of him that he did not know existed until tonight.
He promptly ignores it.
iv.
The fourth time, he cannot stop.
It is worse now. So much worse. Because now he knows.
He knows what she tastes like. He knows the sound she makes when his mouth finds hers. He knows the way her fingers grip the fabric of his coat, desperate and certain, like she has been waiting for him.
He knows, and he cannot unknow, and it is driving him to absolute madness.
He makes a list.
It begins as a practical exercise. A way to organise his thoughts, to make sense of the chaos that has taken up residence in his skull. But it spirals quickly, because Colin Bridgerton has never been practical about anything, and he is certainly not going to start now.
Things I Cannot Stop Thinking About, he titles it.
The way she kissed me back.
The way she said my name.
The softness of her waist beneath my hands.
The hitch in her breath when I stepped closer.
The way she looked at me when we parted. Like I had broken her heart. Like I held it in my hands and did not even know.
The taste of her mouth.
God, the taste of her mouth.
The list grows. It expands to fill entire pages. He writes it by candlelight and crosses things out and adds new entries until the paper is more ink than parchment.
The way she argues with me.
The way she laughs when she thinks no one is listening.
The way she looks in yellow, even though everyone says she should not wear it.
The way she loves my family. The way she has always loved them. The way she has always been there, on the edges of my life, and I was too blind to see her.
The way I want to see her now. All of her. Every part.
The way I want to make her mine.
He throws the list into the fire.
He starts another one the next day.
v.
The fifth time, they are married, and he is going to have her against this wall if it kills him.
The ball is in full swing. A thousand candles, a hundred guests, music swelling through the air, but he cannot hear any of it, cannot see any of it. Only sees and only hears his wife. Colin should be dancing. He should be charming. He should be doing all the things a Bridgerton is expected to do at these insufferable functions.
Instead, he has Penelope pressed into an alcove behind a heavy velvet curtain, and his hand is beneath her skirts, and she is biting her lip to keep from crying out.
"We cannot," she whispers, even as her hips rock forward into his palm. "Someone will see. Someone will hear."
"Then you shall have to be quiet." He curls his fingers, watches her eyes flutter shut. "Can you do that, Mrs Bridgerton? Can you be quiet for your husband?"
Her only answer is a whimper, muffled against the fabric of his coat.
It had started innocently enough. A dance. A look. The way she had whispered in his ear that she was wearing his favourite stays beneath her gown, and watched his face go slack with shock.
She had laughed. That low, wicked laugh of hers, the one that still undoes him entirely. And then she had walked away, and Colin had followed her like a man possessed, because what else was he supposed to do? What else could he possibly do? She is his wife, his wife, and he loves her and he wants her and he needs her in ways that do not make logical sense.
"You are a menace," he mutters against her throat, his fingers working her steadily. "An absolute menace."
"You married me."
"I did. Happily. Willingly. And I would do it again, even knowing you would torment me like this."
She laughs again, breathless this time, and the sound goes straight to his cock. He is hard, aching, desperate for her in a way that has not diminished one iota since the moment they kissed.
"Colin." Her hand finds his falls, fumbles with the fastenings. "I need—"
"I know precisely what you need."
He lifts her easily, and she gasps, her legs wrapping around his waist. He pauses there, holding her pinned between his body and the wall, the head of his cock pressing against her cunt but not yet inside. She is slick, and hot, and he can feel her clenching around nothing, desperate to be filled.
"Colin." His name is a plea. "Please."
"Look at me."
She does. Her eyes are dark and wild, nothing like the composed woman who navigates ballrooms with quiet grace. This Penelope, his Penelope, is flushed and panting and so wet he can feel it on his thighs. Colin pushes inside her in one slow, deliberate stroke. Her mouth falls open. No sound comes out. He watches her face as he fills her, watches the way her eyes lose focus, the way her lips part around a silent moan, the way her whole body trembles with the effort of staying quiet.
"That's it," he murmurs against her ear. "Take all of me."
She does. She takes every inch, her body stretching around him, and when he is finally buried to the hilt, she lets out a shuddering breath that he feels against his throat.
He stills, allowing her a moment to adjust, allowing himself to breathe through the overwhelming heat of her. She is tight—always so tight, even now, even after years of having her in every room of their house, in every position his filthy mind could conjure. He will never tire of this. Of her.
When he does not move, she whines, actually whines, and rolls her hips, trying to grind herself on him.
"Patience."
"I do not want patience." Her voice is ragged. "I want you to take me. Now."
Christ.
He pulls out slowly, until only the tip of his cock remains inside her, and watches her face contort with need. Then he slams back in, hard enough to make her spine arch off the wall, hard enough to punch a broken cry from her throat.
"Quiet," he reminds her, grinning, and does it again.
She bites down on his shoulder to muffle her sounds as he sets a brutal pace. He can feel her teeth through the layers of his coat and waistcoat, can feel the vibration of her moans against his skin. His hands grip her thighs hard enough to bruise—he will see the marks tomorrow, will trace them with his fingers and remember this moment, this alcove, the way she fell apart in his arms while a hundred guests danced obliviously beyond the curtain.
"You feel—" She cannot finish the sentence. He thrusts again, and her head falls back against the wall. "Oh God. Oh God, Colin—"
"Tell me." He needs to hear it. Needs to know what he does to her. "Tell me how it feels."
"Full." The word comes out broken. "So full. I cannot—you are everywhere—" She gasps as he shifts the angle, finds the spot inside her that makes her clench around him. "There. There. Please, do not stop, please—"
He does not stop. Colin drives into her, relentless, one hand braced against the wall and the other snaking between them to find her clit. She is swollen, slick, and when he presses his thumb against her in tight circles, she shatters almost immediately, her whole body seizing around him, her release flooding hot over his cock.
He takes her through it. Does not slow, does not gentle, just keeps taking her, using her pleasure to chase his own. She is boneless in his arms now, little whimpers escaping with each thrust, oversensitive and still letting him have her, still wanting him to have her.
"Pen." His voice is wrecked, barely recognisable. "I am going to—"
"Inside me." She pulls him closer, her legs tightening around his waist. "I want to feel you. I want to walk back into that ballroom with a reminder of you on my thighs."
He spends himself with a force that steals his sight, and for a long moment, they simply breathe.
Then Penelope laughs—a quiet, incredulous sound—and presses a kiss to his jaw.
"We are shameless."
"Utterly," he agrees.
He sets her down gently, helps her right her skirts, smooths her hair back into place. She looks debauched. Thoroughly, completely debauched. Her lips are swollen, her cheeks are flushed, and there is a satisfaction in her eyes that makes Colin want to drag her right back to this wall and do it all over again.
"Stop looking at me like that," she murmurs.
"Like what?"
"Like you are already planning the next time."
"I am." He grins, unrepentant. "I have a list."
Her eyebrows rise. "A list?"
"A very long list. Of all the places I intend to have you. This ballroom was merely number four."
"What was number three?"
"My mother's garden. Behind the roses."
She flushes, her hand flying to her mouth. "Colin."
"You cannot fault me for sentimentality."
She laughs, shaking her head, and takes his arm as they slip back out into the ballroom. No one seems to have noticed their absence. Or if they have, they are too polite to mention it.
Colin leads her back onto the dance floor for a waltz. Her hand is warm in his. Her eyes are bright. There is a bite mark on his shoulder that will bruise by morning, hidden beneath layers of wool and linen, and every time he moves, he feels it.
As they dance, she looks up at him, and he thinks that he has been distracted by Penelope Bridgerton for his entire life.
He does not mind.
He never has.