Chapter Text
Edmund
“I demand an audience with Lord and Lady Bridgerton!”
Both Edmund and his wife’s heads turn quickly in the direction of loud voices approaching. They are enjoying a rare private tea that afternoon, all of their children occupying themselves elsewhere for a few hours. He was just reflecting on the pleasant peace and quiet in the usual bustling, family-filled sitting room a moment before. It appears, though, their peace and quiet was short-lived.
“Lady Featherington,” Violet greets in surprise at the woman barging into their sitting room and rising to her feet alongside Edmund. “What is the meaning of this?”
“The meaning of this,” the Featherington matriarch echoes before thrusting a trembling Miss Penelope Featherington in front of her. “Is that my daughter is ruined!”
A heavy, tense silence blankets over the room, and all of the occupants blink at Penelope in shock. She is a girl of eighteen and entering her third season on the marriage mart. She is also close companions with his daughter Eloise of the same age, as well as friendly with Colin who is several years older. In truth, Penelope is a beloved figure by all in the Bridgerton household, which is why even the footmen and Mrs. Wilson in the corner are looking on with genuine dismay and concern.
Edmund’s mind races as he watches the young lady in the center of the room staring down at the floor dejectedly. He knows as the Lord of the house it should be him cutting through the uncomfortable silence, dismissing the staff, and inquiring further, but he is quite frozen instead. Thankfully, his wife possesses the clarity to do all three.
Once the room is clear of everyone except for Lady Featherington, Penelope, Violet, and himself, the Viscountess directs all of them to the sofas by the fireplace for a proper chat.
“I am very sorry to hear this news, Lady Featherington,” she starts gently, her gaze fixed on Penelope who remains careful to avoid eye contact with anyone and stares down at her own hands in her lap instead. “And I certainly hope you are alright, Penelope…”
“Alright?” the Baroness repeats bitterly. “Of course she’s not alright! She’s with child out of wedlock—without even a betrothal or a single formal suitor!”
Edmund’s stomach sinks as he watches Penelope’s body twitch and a sniffling sound come from her moments later. This poor girl—thrust into a confusing, life-altering situation and with perhaps the least warm and understanding Mama of all beside her.
Violet and Portia go back and forth for a few moments then about the extent to which they are certain of Penelope’s condition, and her Mama reveals that she has missed her courses for two months in a row, her gowns must be let out, she has been ill most mornings lately, and her bosoms are obviously tender to the touch. All of the signs point to a definite pregnancy, especially considering the most damning piece of evidence of all.
“She has admitted to allowing a gentleman to compromise her,” Portia announces haughtily. “On more than one occasion even.”
Edmund again feels his stomach swirling with anxiety, his eyes darting uncomfortably over to his wife on the settee who is gazing forlornly ahead at the young redhead still with her face turned down. Violet takes several more seconds to process before she clears her throat.
“This is all most… unfortunate,” she starts diplomatically. “But I must inquire why it is that you are here and sharing this news with us specifically, Lady Featherington.”
“Come now, Violet,” the woman snaps before crossing her arms. “Surely, you can deduce that on your own. It is a Bridgerton that took liberties with her and got her with child of course!”
Edmund goes pale then and coughs at the same time his wife is gasping in shock. “A Bridgerton?”
“Yes! I trusted you and allowed my innocent Penelope to spend time unsupervised by me or a member of my household here in your home and your country seat as well. And look where it has gotten us! She is now unmarried, un-bethrothed, and pregnant with a Bridgerton bastard!”
Finally, Edmund manages to find his voice, which he raises in an intimidating manner. “That is quite enough shouting, Lady Featherington.”
“How dare you chastise me! I am only—”
“I understand you are concerned for the welfare of your daughter and her future,” he speaks over her. “But I will not sit here and be accosted so loudly in my own home, nor will I listen to you accosting her either.”
Violet chimes in before Portia can give him a piece of her mind then. “We will of course ensure a swift marriage proposal is made, Lady Featherington. We will not allow Penelope’s reputation to be sullied, nor will any child conceived by a member of my family be labeled a bastard, I assure you.”
Edmund winces slightly at his wife’s words before he recovers and nods in agreement. How he will ensure that comes to fruition he does not know, however.
Lady Featherington appears somewhat mollified by Violet’s earnest speech, and she simply sits back against the settee and crosses her arms.
“Now, Penelope dearest,” she continues gently. “Which of my sons is it that will be proposing today?”
They all wait several seconds for the young lady at the center of all this controversy to speak or at least lift her head for the first time since entering the room. She does neither then, and Edmund can’t decide if he’s grateful for that fact or not.
“It is alright, dearest,” Violet presses further. “You are not in trouble. All will be well. Now, please just let us know which of my sons compromised you so we might right this situation and ensure you are wed.”
When Penelope still does not respond, Lady Featherington chuckles darkly. “Herein lies our other problem… While she has admitted to be compromised and admitted that it was a Bridgerton who compromised her, she will not speak the name of the specific Bridgerton male in question that robbed her of her virtue!”
Edmund swallows and nods once, his eyes laser-focused on Penelope sitting beside her mother hunched over and looking so small. “I see.”
Violet and Portia attempt to wheedle the information out of her. His wife’s tactics are far kinder than her mother’s, but regardless the young lady remains mum. If the topic were less severe and if Edmund were in any other position, he might find her steadfast refusal to answer their questions rather amusing.
“Was it Colin?” Violet questions directly. “Were you… familiar with him?”
Penelope tenses slightly before raising her head finally for the first time. The sight of her face is a sad one to behold, though—her cheeks flushed, her eyes glistening, and her lip trembling gently. Oh how Edmund’s heart breaks to see the sweet girl so clearly frightened and forlorn!
They all watch with bated breath as her attention shifts briefly from Violet who posed the question and over to Edmund at her side. The pair of them make clear eye contact, and for a moment he well and truly panics at what is about to come next.
To his relief, however, Penelope eventually looks away from him and refocuses on his wife instead.
“I…” she rasps before clearing her scratchy throat. “I do not know what to say.”
It is not an outright answer per se, but oddly enough Violet and Portia seem to take it as one. The Viscountess leans back against the settee while the Baroness starts prattling on about how she knew it was Colin all along and how it would have been far better if she could have bedded the heir instead.
“Lady Featherington,” Edmund interjects then with a reproachful look. “There is no need for that kind of talk. What’s done is done.”
Violet sighs and rubs her forehead. “We must call Colin in now and discuss all this with him. I will go summon a footman to fetch him.”
He knows he must intervene and prevent any more open discourse on this subject with both family matriarchs present, so he thinks quickly on his feet for perhaps the first time in this entire exchange.
“I think this has all gotten rather tense,” Edmund explains calmly as he rises to his feet and turns to face all three women. “Colin will feel ambushed if we summon him in here like this, so I think it will be far less unpleasant if I confer with him and Penelope upstairs in the study privately. I am certain that you must be quite weary from such a harrowing morning, Lady Featherington, and would benefit for a spot of tea and some refreshment with my wife.”
The Baroness looks most pleased to be temporarily rid of her daughter and agrees readily to stay for tea. Violet, however, furrows her brow and gives him a curious look. She will not question him in front of Lady Featherington, which he banked on and is quite grateful for indeed.
Edmund and Penelope do not exchange a single word as they move through the house, go upstairs, and approach his study. He is smarter than to begin discussing their sensitive business before they are safely ensconced in the privacy of a room with a firmly closed door. Unfortunately, though, that room is not exactly empty when they arrive on the threshold.
Edmund’s third son is pacing back and forth in front of the fireplace before he notices them and straightens, an aghast expression on his normally jovial face.
“Is it true then?” Colin blurts out immediately. “That you’re with child?”
Edmund groans and quickly ushers the young lady inside before clicking the door shut behind them. “Colin—”
“I deserve to know,” he speaks over his father, blue eyes that match his own focused intently on Penelope as he takes a few steps forward to stand before her. “Are you with child, Pen?”
He is not expecting her to answer considering how little she spoke downstairs, but she surprises him by sniffling and nodding her head a beat later. “Yes… I think so.”
Colin inhales tightly before rubbing his forehead and looking over at his father. He opens his mouth to presumably ask Edmund how this is possible, but he speaks before his son can get the words out.
“Come now,” he instructs, taking both his son and Penelope by the elbow and guiding them into a pair of seats in front of his desk. “We will sit and discuss this and find a way to make everything right. Neither of you have done anything wrong.”
He notices once he settles in his own chair across from them that Penelope is no longer keeping her eyes trained on the floor. Instead, she seems to be looking back and forth between Edmund and his son, a clear wave of panic emanating from her as the seconds tick by.
“What is that supposed to mean?” Colin asks slowly and draws his attention away from Penelope. “That neither of us has erred?”
“Exactly that,” he answers with a sigh and leans back in his chair tiredly. “Your mother and Lady Featherington believe you to be the one who sired Penelope’s babe, but…”
He watches as his son’s jaw tightens and he seems to be fighting the urge to look at the young lady beside him.
“But,” Edmund continues with his brow slightly furrowed in bewilderment at Colin’s behavior. “You need not worry, my boy. I know they are misguided. I only need a little time and space away from the ladies downstairs to think about what to do and how to make all this right for Penelope. Rest assured.”
Instead of looking more at ease, Colin only stares back at him with deeper confusion and perhaps even consternation filling his expression. “What are you saying, Father?”
He lets out another sigh before steeling himself to speak the truth for the very first time and acknowledge something he swore he would never acknowledge aloud.
“I know it was not you who fathered the child in her womb,” Edmund says slowly. “Because… it was me. I am the one who took liberties with her.”
Colin
Surely, Colin’s ears must deceive him. In fact, he is quite certain that there is something amiss now that everything has gone silent for him. He can see his father’s lips moving and the obvious Penelope crying at his side, but he hears none of it. Maybe those last few words that his ears managed to take in could not be trusted as a result. Maybe they were warped and twisted and a complete farce by whatever malady has suddenly overtaken him. Because the other possibility—that he is simply in shock and in fact heard those words properly and they were in fact accurate—simply cannot be true.
As quickly as everything went quiet for him, all the sensation comes flooding back in an instant. He can hear quite plainly his father’s rambling on about feeling guilty for having compromised Penelope, for having betrayed Mother even, and he can also make out Penelope’s increasingly loud cries ringing out beside him.
Before he realizes what he’s doing, Colin is shoving his chair back dramatically and leaping to his feet. “You… You were intimate with Pen?”
Father winces before nodding slowly once. “I… I am not proud of it, son, but yes. I will not lie to you. I took liberties with Miss Featherington, and I am most regretful for the present state it’s left her in.”
Penelope weeps a little more loudly into her hands, but he cannot find it within himself to feel badly for her. The only feeling he can accurately detect within the swirl of emotions engulfing his mind and his heart right now is that of anger.
“My father?” he questions loudly and bitterly, whipping to the side to face the lady in question. “Honestly, Pen—my own father? How could you?”
She only continues crying, muttering apologies into her palms as she does so. He has to look away from her then. The sight of her looking so distraught is tugging at his heartstrings even if he wishes to remain angry at her. It is easier to do so if he is not watching her weep like this.
“Colin, I understand this must come as quite a shock to you, but—”
“A shock?” he interrupts bitterly, his gaze narrowing in on the father that he could have never conceived would act in this manner. “That is putting it lightly.”
Pen somehow finds her voice and pipes up quietly and brokenly from her seat. “I am sorry, C-Colin… I only wanted to be helpful, and to offer affection and care…”
His eyebrows shoot up at that and he feels another pang of anger strike him in his core. He hates this. He hates feeling so embittered towards her of all people. He cannot help it, though. Colin is properly reeling from this revelation still.
“By lying with my father? That is how you seek to provide comfort? You offered up a form of comfort found only between your legs?”
The Viscount rises to his feet then and puts a hand down firmly on his desk at the same time. “Son, that is quite enough of that kind of talk. It is my fault entirely, so if you should feel the need to express any disappointment or frustration, express it to me instead of Penelope who remains innocent of wrongdoing here.”
Colin’s eyes flit over briefly to the “innocent” young lady at his side before steeling themselves on his father once more. He eventually continues his explanation in the wake of his son’s sustained silence.
“I am a man grown, and a married one at that. I had no business taking liberties with a young lady, but… I fear I am a weaker man than I hope I raised my sons to be. I selfishly took my pleasure and my comfort in her youthful body…”
Colin shakes his head once in disappointment, words escaping him still as he slumps back down into his chair and rubs at his forehead a few times.
“I am sorry for the discord I’ve caused between you,” Pen whispers after a moment. “It was never my intention… None of this was my intention…”
“It is alright,” he hears father reassure her quickly. “We will sort this all out, sweet girl.”
Colin clenches his teeth in response to the term of endearment leaving his father’s lips, and finally drops his hand to his lap to look upon them once more. Penelope is sitting at his side, her eyes still glistening with tears as she flits her gaze back and forth nervously between him and the Viscount. He takes a deep breath, as deep as he possibly can, before letting it out very, very slowly. As he does so, his mind settles on a conclusion and a solution to this mess that they’ve found themselves in, and the one he knows he must pursue even if it feels rather painful now.
“We will be married,” Colin says simply as he stares ahead at his father’s face quickly twisting into confusion. “We will be married swiftly considering Miss Featherington’s condition.”
Penelope whimpers at his side before wiping another tear with the back of her hand. She’s certainly not used to him referring to her as “Miss Featherington,” and it was probably petty of him to do so now. But he cannot help it. His mind and his heart is a mess of confusing emotions and he doesn’t know what he’s supposed to be thinking or feeling about any facet of this debacle.
“Colin,” Father starts once he seems to recover from the suddenness of his statement. “That is… very gentlemanly of you to offer, but… This is my responsibility to bear. The child is mine. I will find a way to—”
“You do not know that,” he bites back tightly. “You do not know whose child it is.”
Father inhales and he watches as ire overtakes his expression at the slight he’s just made on Pen’s character. Sure enough, he’s reproaching him a moment later.
“How dare you—”
She’s crying again as Colin cuts his father off to finally clear this all up, to reveal his own truth once and for all.
“The child could just as likely be mine.”
The normally composed, confident Edmund Bridgerton looks properly stunned by that. If this situation were not so dire, Colin might find it amusing that he’d finally managed to shake his unflappable father.
It’s true, though. He has been bedding Penelope Featherington for months now, over half a year even. It all started at the end of last season, after she overheard him seemingly disparaging her at a ball hosted at her family’s home across the street and he caught sight of her scampering off and apparently crying. Colin followed her, clarified the truth in his words, and professed just how much respect and admiration he actually has for her. What happened next was honestly a blur. There was something about that discussion—about the way she opened herself up so vulnerably to at first allow him to see her in her shocked, emotional state and then later steeled herself and reproached him for his careless words. It was like he was seeing Pen for the first time, and suddenly all the latent desires he’d been keeping smothered down deep came bursting to the surface. He took her virtue that night, in the bed of her childhood home, and while dozens and dozens of partygoers still milled about the first level.
It was tender and sweet and beautiful—an intimacy and a warmth that he had never experienced before in his couplings with the handful of whores he’d bedded by then. Pen had been entirely innocent, completely lacking in almost any knowledge of marital relations or intimate acts between men and women. He felt rather guilty at first for exposing her to such activities outside the bounds of a marriage and before her wedding night, but he could not help himself. She was eager to learn and to please him, and he was all too eager to teach her and please her right back.
Colin and Penelope were up all night exploring each other’s bodies, and he claimed her at least three times before the sun came up the next morning. It was then that he broached the necessity of a proposal and a marriage between them, which she shocked him by steadfastly refusing.
“I do not wish for you to propose to me out of obligation, Colin,” Pen spoke clearly as she gazed into his eyes. “You have opened my eyes to pleasures and comforts beyond anything I could have ever conceived of. That is enough for me. You need not offer me more of yourself than you already have.”
He blinked at her in dismay. “You… you do understand that I have compromised you, Pen, don’t you? That I have claimed your virtue?”
She nodded easily. “I do.”
“And still you do not wish to be wed?”
Pen took a deep breath then, her teeth digging into her kiss-swollen lower lip for a few moments as she carefully considered her response. “I wish for you to be happy. For us both to be happy. You have dreams of travelling, do you not? And we are both very young for a wedding, I should think.”
Colin frowned at that. She was 17 then, the same age as Daphne when she wed the Duke. And he was 21, maybe a little young to be married but still not out of the realm of normalcy either.
“You… you would seek to wait?” he suggested after a moment or two passed in silence. “You would like for us to live a little as young, unencumbered individuals before we would marry?”
Pen seemed surprised by this but eventually she nodded slowly. “Let us wait a year. If neither of us has not found another passion or changed course… we will revisit this topic.”
And now here they are, not having made it a full year before the topic of marriage was in fact being brought back up and he’s learning that it’s not only him who has experienced the ecstasy between her thighs in that time. His father—the man blinking and gaping at him from across the desk at him—has too.
“You… you took liberties with her?” he finally inquires, his voice quiet and full of some emotion that sounds akin to disappointment to him.
“Oh, do not even dare to chastise me, Father,” Colin snaps in an instant. “You of all people must reserve judgement.”
He sighs and rubs his face once or twice before shaking his head. “It’s not that. I only… I did not know that you were being intimate with one another… I would not have done what I did if I knew.”
Colin cannot hide his pain for a moment then. His eyes shift to Pen still sniffling at his side, and he swallows a lump of emotion settling in his throat. In these last several months, he has found himself delaying the grand tour of Europe he’d been planning time and time again. All his dreams and aspirations that existed before that night with Penelope felt rather foolish after that being with her. He didn’t want to travel abroad and subsist on nothing but a few letters from her for months and months at a time. He wanted to see her, to speak with her, to touch her.
Colin has spent a great deal of time doing the latter. Any stolen moment he can find—any time she can manage to sneak over to his home, he’s had her warming his bed. On occasion, she’s even had him sneak into her home instead to warm her bed, but it’s far more seldom. She prefers to visit him, it seems, and Lady Featherington has a tendency to enter her daughter’s bedchamber unannounced.
In all their couplings these last several months, Colin’s been pretty careful not to spill himself within her (even that first night at Featherington House). He’s assumed that becoming with child would definitely force her into marriage, which she professed to want to avoid for at least a year. Even so, though, he has certainly cut it a little close on more than one occasion. It’s hard to have the presence of mind to remove himself when at the same time her legs are so often wrapped around him and keeping him close, or she’s astride him and he has to lift her up at just the right moment. He has to believe (though he does not like to imagine it) that his father would have behaved similarly—that he would not be so callous as to lay with Pen and spill his seed inside her with the knowledge of how easily this predicament could be brought about.
Now, though, they are staring down the barrel of that forced marriage that he tried to avoid for her. He will never know if it is his father’s doing or his own that brought about the babe quickening in her womb at present, but it does not matter. Lord Bridgerton, Viscount and married father of eight trueborn children, cannot marry her. Colin Bridgerton, third son with no responsibilities or ties otherwise, can.
The tragedy of it all, though, is that marrying Pen never really felt like an obligation to him before. He fell more and more in love with her every passing day, every excuse he made to delay his trip, every instance he welcomed her into his bed. He wanted to be her husband, and he was only planning on waiting the year that she had requested of him before he revisited the subject and proposed formally and confessed the entirety of his feelings. It all feels tarnished now, though. The feelings that he thought and prayed were mutual may have been built upon lies for all he knows.
“I thought you knew…” he whispers to Pen brokenly beside him. “I thought you knew that I had fallen in love with you.”
Colin hears his father inhale in surprise even as Penelope cries out tormentedly and buries her face in her hands again. Neither man says anything then. They just sit and wait as she sniffles and wipes her eyes on a handkerchief his father finally passes over.
“I hoped you might have,” Pen finally says painfully. “I… I have always loved you, Colin.”
His heart throbs dully in his chest. How can she say that? How can that possibly be true when she has been lying to him all this time? When she has been bedding his own father for goodness sake!
“You do?” that same father asks in surprise. “You both truly love each other?”
Colin cannot bring himself to respond. All that anger he’d been harnessing earlier has been overtaken finally by the sadness he was suppressing. He fears if he opens his mouth, all that might come out is a sound similar to the ones Pen has been making for the last several minutes at his side.
“If that is the case, this is an entirely different matter,” Father continues sounding encouraged, almost pleased even. “If you love each other, then there is a happy ending in sight to be certain.”
“I do love you,” Pen speaks directly to him even while he will not look at her still. “You must know that I did not intend to do anything bad. I did not think it would hurt you, Colin…”
“I am sure that is true,” Father affirms gently. “Our encounters were… tender, but we clearly did not experience the same depth of feeling as exists between the two of you, my boy.”
“Why?” he barks harshly then, hating how wet his voice sounds and hoping his eyes don’t match. “Why did you do it, Pen?”
She takes in a rattling breath and seems to steel herself and prevent herself from falling apart again. “I have always enjoyed our intimacies, Colin,” she pauses to blush (the audacity of that reality is too much for him to deal with at the moment). “From that first night we were together… There was pleasure, yes, but there was also always a feeling of… rightness, of warmth, of reassurance. And, you… you seemed to feel much the same from my observation.”
Colin does not agree or otherwise respond to her explanation so far. He simply stares at her, watching as she shifts uncomfortably in her seat and lets out a sigh before continuing.
“There was such relief in those experiences for me, and I… Well, I wanted to offer the same sort of relief and comfort and reassurance to Lord Bridgerton. He has so many responsibilities before him, so many people that require his attention and his care. When we found ourselves together by chance in the library at Aubrey Hall one evening when I visited following the Christmas holidays… I realized that I could offer him the same sort of tender relief and release that I could offer you too.”
“So it was you,” he croaks desperately. “It was you who approached him? You wanted to lie with him?”
Pen quirks her lips to the side as pain slides over her expression. “I did not want to lie with him in the same way I wished for it with you, but… I did want to offer him comfort. I did want to experience that mutual warmth and satisfaction. I did not realize, however, that it would cause you pain if I were to be intimate with another.”
Colin looks away from her and at his father who has been rather quiet for a while. The soft, almost reminiscent way the Viscount is gazing back at Pen has him scoffing and looking up at the ceiling instead.
Father clears his voice then. “Well, Colin, you’ve heard the young lady and her explanation. And you’ve heard mine too. What we shared was not motivated by anything nefarious, nor did we seek to harm you in our actions. She seems to bear true and genuine feelings for you. What do you have to say to that?”
Colin sniffs and shakes his head once. “I have already agreed to propose. It is my responsibility, considering you would be unable to do so.”
Pen whimpers to his right and he steadfastly prevents himself from looking at her. He is too pained and too confused to feel badly for her right now.
“I do not wish for you to enter this marriage with ire in your heart, Colin,” Father continues gently. “Do not allow my irresponsible actions and Penelope’s innocent but misguided intentions to come between something lovely and blessed that you share. I can sense now that the feelings between you are earnest.”
He feels his resolve, his intent to remain bitter and hurt and resentful, finally starting to crack a bit at that. It’s all he wanted for so long—for her feelings to match his own. But now everything is so muddied and complicated. Now he’s afraid he doesn’t know her at all.
“It is strange to know you have been intimate with her,” Colin speaks slowly. “You are my father. You should not have bedded my future wife.”
“I know,” Father answers heavily. “And I am very sorry to have caused you any pain or heartache, my boy, but… we cannot change the past. All you can do is move forward and seek happiness in its fullest, truest form—something that you should not allow the blip of our misguided intimacies to keep you from achieving.”
“A blip?” he says before turning to Pen finally and finding her staring back at him with wide, wet eyes. “That is all it was? All it will ever be to you?”
She nods quickly. “Yes, Colin. That is all.”
She is so beautiful, he muses then. Even in this moment, even when perhaps he should hate her for what she’s done no matter what her intentions were… Penelope Featherington is still every beautiful thing he believes in on this Earth. And it’s that thought—that ability to still see her beauty through his pain—that has him settling into the notion that they can move past this, that they can still be together, be married, have this child even, and be happy. Father was a blip. It’s all going to be okay.
Colin is opening his mouth to tell her all this, to let her know that he believes himself capable of letting go off any past indiscretions and moving forward in unity and in satisfaction, when a knock sounds at the study door.
All three of their heads swing around to face the sound and the party entering without answer. Anthony, his eldest brother, stands in the doorway looking at them all with a curious expression on his face.
Father clears his throat and reacts first. “Anthony, please leave us. Colin, Penelope, and I are in the midst of a private discussion.”
Colin waits for his brother to follow suit and disappear from the room, but that reality never materializes. Instead, he only steps further inside with a furrowed brow and lets the door click shut behind him.
“Anthony—” Father restarts frustratedly again before he’s cut off by the same man he’s addressing.
“I am to understand you are discussing Miss Featherington’s… condition.”
Pen lets out a little squeak presumably in embarrassment before she’s covering her eyes again and hiding from their gaze. He feels a swirl of anger spread through him at his brother making her feel uncomfortable, so he decides to answer his statement before his father manages to do so.
“Yes,” Colin bites back while shooting Anthony a glare. “So, why don’t you leave us to it and go back downstairs?”
He watches Anthony’s face form into a deep frown before his green eyes flick back and forth between the other parties in the room. “Should I not be involved in this discussion?”
“No,” he retorts darkly while he glares at him further. “Why should you be?”
“Because the babe is mine,” Anthony answers quietly but evenly. “We have been intimate with one another.”
Colin’s eyes proceed to bug out of his head and he exclaims loudly at the same time his father groans and the lady in the room cries out.
“Penelope!”
Edmund
Truly, Edmund Bridgerton cannot wait to wake up from this living nightmare. He has only just managed to find a happy, fulfilling solution for all parties only for his eldest son to come in and muck it all up even further.
In the wake of Anthony’s announcement that he too was intimate with Penelope and believes himself to the be the father of her child, things have completely devolved once more. Edmund’s mind is racing and spiraling with confusion and a lack of direction. Penelope is a sobbing mess in her seat across from him. And Colin is on his feet and pacing back and forth menacingly across the floor in front of the fireplace.
“I am prepared to do the gentlemanly thing and propose, you know,” Anthony mutters in clear confusion at everyone’s responses. “There is no need for concern.”
Colin freezes at that and levels his brother with a dark look. “And I’m prepared to toss you out the bloody window!”
Edmund groans again and rubs his face. This is a mess—an absolute utter mess.
“Pardon me?” Anthony asks in dismay. “What is going on here? Why are you even a party to this?”
He clears his throat at that and answers on Colin’s behalf. “They engaged in intimacies as well.”
Anthony’s eyes go wide for a moment before his expression settles a bit. “You know… that actually makes tremendous sense. I always wondered if you bore affections for her.”
Colin scoffs loudly. “And yet you took liberties with her regardless?”
Edmund spares Penelope a sympathetic glance as she continues weeping, quickly searching his desk for another handkerchief now that she’s made a mess of the first one he gave her and seemingly has a fresh wave of tears to cry.
“I…” Anthony trails off uncomfortably after a few seconds. “I do not wish to malign Miss Featherington’s character of course, but… it was she that approached me, if I am being truthful, Brother.”
His third son whips around then to face the young lady in question. “Was it the same with Anthony as it was with Father? You were attempting to offer comfort to my brother as well?”
“Father?” Anthony squawks loudly before staring at him in shock. “What do you mean?”
Edmund opens his mouth to attempt an explanation for his improprieties to another son today, but Colin cuts him to the chase.
“Was it?” he demands of Penelope. “Or did you actually harbor more affectionate, loving feelings towards him?”
She sniffles then before shaking her head. “He… He was very heartbroken about his opera singer who departed for the continent, I learned. I only wanted to help dispel the dark cloud above his head.”
“Your what now?” Edmund questions with a raised eyebrow. He hadn’t the slightest idea Anthony was involved with anyone or had taken a mistress. Then again, it appears as though there is a great many things that have transpired under his roof that he has been entirely ignorant to these last several months.
“Nothing,” his heir answers as his cheeks redden slightly. “It was nothing.”
“There were no more serious feelings between you then?” Colin continues interrogating his potential bride-to-be.
Penelope swallows and looks over to Anthony, her teeth digging into her lip sweetly before she finds her voice again. “I… I care for you, Anthony, and I always found our special moments together to be quite… educational.” She pauses a moment as Anthony goes even more red and Colin looks positively murderously at his brother. “But… It was always Colin who—”
Penelope is cut off from speaking by yet another knock on the study door and yet another figure stepping inside. Benedict, his second son, stands before their party of four now with a curious expression on his face.
“There you are all,” he says in a rush before crossing the room and looking as if he’s about to settle into the unoccupied chair beside Penelope and across his desk. “I wondered where this was all happening.”
“Do not sit,” Edmund instructs with a sigh. “We need some privacy, Benedict. Please just go back downstairs and see if you can help your mother keep Lady Featherington busy with tea.”
His son gives him a perplexed look, his hand on the back of the chair he was about to occupy and his head tilting to the side.
“I can do that if that’s what you wish. However, I thought we were all gathering to figure out what to do about Penelope’s condition considering we’ve all four been bedding her for at least a few months.”
Edmund’s stomach drops at the realization that yet another one of his sons has been intimate with her and another layer of complexity is thrust upon this impossible situation he’s found himself at the helm of.
It seemed to take Colin a second to process Benedict’s words, but once he does, he’s lunging across the room from where he’d been pacing and moving as if he’s going to strike his older brother.
Anthony grabs him before he can make it all the way across the room, though, and prevents him from physically harming anyone.
“You were bedding her also?” Anthony inquires of Benedict as he keeps his arms around Colin and struggles to contain him.
Benedict shrugs somewhat casually. “Occasionally. Not nearly as often as Colin was, I expect.”
Edmund sighs and leans back in his chair, taking a moment to close his eyes and attempt to organize his thoughts while the chaos continues around him. Anthony, Benedict, and Colin discuss matters back and forth with varying levels of ire across them, and Penelope sits in her seat and sniffles into the second handkerchief he’s found for her in his desk.
“How did you know?” he hears Anthony inquire. “That she was with us all? Even Father?”
Edmund opens his eyes then to watch his second son tilt his head to the side. “It was fairly obvious. I thought you all had at least a vague idea of what was happening but were too… ‘traditional’ to acknowledge it aloud.”
The way Benedict said the word “traditional” made it sound more as if he meant “prudish” or some other more critical adjective.
“How?” Colin calls out, clearly directing his question to Penelope. “How did it start up with Ben?”
The man in question tries to respond, but Colin isn’t having it.
“I want to hear it from her.”
Penelope sighs and shifts in her seat for a moment while she seems to try and gather her thoughts. It’s the third explanation she’s had to offer him tonight for the third man she’s been revealed to have bedded besides Colin in these last several months.
“I overheard Benedict complaining one day about the models for his painting work at the art college,” she says slowly and quietly. “How they all had a similar body type—tall, lean, lacking in obvious feminine curves… I thought, for that reason, I could help.”
Colin’s eyebrows raise. “You posed for him? He painted you without clothes on?”
“Yes,” she answers lightly. “And sometimes it… well, I found myself offering physical comfort to him as well. He’s been working so very hard on his artwork and deepening his skills. I… I thought he deserved some relief for all his efforts and also in appreciation of his lovely paintings of my body…”
“It’s some of my best work honestly,” Benedict pipes up proudly then. “I do not need to tell any of you that the form beneath her gown is utterly alluring after all.”
That earns him another glare from Colin, and Anthony holds on to his forearm just in case he plans to move to strike Benedict again.
Once more, his three sons all seem to be talking at once. Anthony is still hung up on Benedict keeping all this from him. Benedict seems to be trying demonstrate the humor in this situation. And Colin is going back and forth between questioning Penelope further and threatening Benedict with bodily harm.
They are getting absolutely nowhere like this, especially with the lady in question crying and the way everyone’s voices seem to be rising louder and louder as the seconds tick by. Edmund needs to emerge from his stupor and take control of the situation. This is his family to lead and he must pull himself together and lead it through one of their greatest challenges yet.
He interrupts them all then, standing and using that tone he’s employed since they were small to convey seriousness and an expectation that they all heed his words. To his relief, all of them, even Penelope and her sniffling, quiet almost instantaneously.
“We are going to sit down and discuss this all like the mature gentlemen I know I raised all three of you to be,” Edmund speaks firmly. “This is a matter of utmost urgency and importance, but I know you all have questions and comments that you must get off your chest. I propose, however, that we four men discuss some things first and make sure we are on the same page with one another now that everything is in the open. I do not wish to distress Penelope any further with your squabbling and debating back and forth.”
Everyone agrees, though Colin does so rather disgruntledly. Edmund asks Penelope to go down the hall to the old nursery to wait for them. The irony of that being the room he dismisses her to is not at all lost on him. It is the only room upstairs that he suspects no one will wander into while their discussion continues, however.
She leaves them all with nothing but a nod, gently clicking the door shut behind her, and he releases an exhale as he turns to face his three sons sitting in seats before him.
“Now…” Edmund trails off before sitting down himself. “Let us figure this out and figure it out swiftly, boys.”
Violet
“I suppose it is a blessing that if my daughter was going to stray from the virtuous path I laid out for her that she did so with a member of your respectable, upstanding family at least.”
It is the latest comment in a string of rather annoying comments that Lady Featherington has made over this tea and refreshment hour Violet’s husband forced upon her. She would much rather be upstairs with Colin and Penelope, helping him to sort through the perhaps awkward and uncomfortable discussion about what had happened between them and how they might best move forward with respect and dignity towards all parties involved. Though, she hopes Edmund is not being too hard on the young couple. While Violet did not fall pregnant from any of the passionate acts they engaged in leading up to her own wedding day, she and Edmund were not exactly as chaste as they made themselves out to be prior to that morning they met at the church to be wed.
It is taking a rather long time upstairs, Violet does note, as Portia prattles on about something else across from her and she nods dutifully as if paying attention. Really this should have been a rather straightforward conversation between them. She cannot envision Colin putting up any form of resistance when it comes to doing the gentlemanly thing and proposing marriage to Penelope, but what else could be the cause of such a prolonged discussion?
“Perhaps I am the one to blame after all,” Portia continues with some thought Violet had not been listening to previously. “But then again, I did believe I could trust the Viscount and yourself to ensure nothing untoward was occurring on any of Penelope’s numerous daytime and overnight visits here in your home.”
She nods idly at first before something in that catches her attention finally. Violet cannot recall Penelope spending any overnight stays with Eloise here at Bridgerton House in the recent months. There was the more extended trip she made to Aubrey Hall over the winter of course, but perhaps that is what Lady Featherington was referring to.
“Overnight visits?” Violet inquires lightly. “Her trip to Aubrey Hall this past winter, you mean?”
Portia frowns lightly. “That, yes, but also all the countless times your daughter insisted Penelope spend the night here too. I could not imagine previously why the two of them sought each other’s company at nighttime when they spent so much time together during the day as it was. Now, though, I expect I can understand Penelope’s motivations more clearly. Why just last week she was inquiring if she could join you for dinner and spend the night with Eloise once more. You would not believe how innocently she looked at me as I granted my permission for her to likely continue compromising herself in all reality!”
Now that has the hair on Violet’s neck rising in suspicion. She definitely recalls Penelope joining them for dinner last week, on Wednesday in fact, but she also recalls Edmund having a Eloise’s maid escort Penelope back home to Featherington House—or so she thought. In the wake of everything she has learned today, perhaps it should make sense that Colin either snuck her back to Bridgerton House from across the street or perhaps even absconded elsewhere with her to be intimate. Perhaps that is how they have been finding time to be with one another in the preceding months. However, that particular Wednesday, Colin was not even in London. He went for several days down to the coast to attend the wedding of an old friend from Oxford. He did not even return until late Thursday afternoon.
Violet continues her efforts to feign interest in Portia Featherington’s ramblings, but her mind is wandering now more than ever. If Penelope was supposedly here at Bridgerton House on Wednesday and Colin was down in Brighton that very same night, then who is it that she was visiting so secretively? And does that hidden truth have anything to do with how long it is taking for the discussion being had upstairs to conclude?
Edmund
“So,” Edmund says definitively as he looks across his three eldest sons seated before him in the study. “In summation, we have all taken liberties with Miss Featherington, and we have all given our best efforts at ensuring she does not become with child as a result of those liberties.”
He watches then as Anthony, Benedict, and Colin each shift somewhat uncomfortably in their seats before nodding. He suspects that, like himself, they can think of at least one recent occasion they were intimate with the young lady and perhaps were a little slow to withdraw themselves to spill safely on her belly or maybe even her back instead.
“And so,” he continues on then anyway. “We cannot know who amongst us may have fathered the babe, but we can say for certain the child in her womb was conceived by a Bridgerton man at least. The other matter we know now with certainty too is that Colin is the only one she truly loves and most earnestly wished to be with. I also believe we know that Colin loves Penelope in return and does genuinely envision a life as her husband and the father to her children.”
Edmund pauses then as all of their eyes are on his third son. He is waiting for him to say anything of consequence in response, but he has been shockingly quiet as the discussion unfolded after Penelope’s departure.
“Come now, Colin,” he says after sighing. “What do you say to all that?”
He shakes his head slowly before looking away and towards the fireplace on the other side of the room. “I do not know what to say, Father. I may genuinely love her still, yes, but that does not change the fact that she has lain with you and my two older brothers. The child in her belly may be a Bridgerton, yes, but that does not change the fact that he or she could belong to someone other than me. These truths are difficult for me to accept and therefore it is difficult for me to enter into this marriage enthusiastically. That, however, is not one of my requirements for moving forward with a swift proposal and an equally swift wedding. It is only one of your requirements instead.”
“Colin,” Edmund starts patiently and sympathetically. “I am sure I speak for Anthony and Benedict too when I say that I am sorry that my actions with the girl you so secretly held in your heart have brought you pain and consternation. We are not the ones, though, that she held in her heart in turn. She seems to be aligned in her feelings towards you, despite her misguided but frankly sweet and generous attempts to ensure all of us found comfort and fulfillment. Would you really punish her for doing something that she thought was good and caring when society and honestly us gentlemen specifically do so little to explain the bounds of intimacy to our young ladies?”
Colin swallows roughly and he knows he’s hit on a soft point for him. “I do not wish to punish Pen for anything. It is just… difficult for me. I thought up until this morning that what we shared in the privacy of my bedchamber was special. I thought—”
Benedict lets out a snort that interrupts his brother from continuing and instead causes him to whip around and glare once more.
“What?” Colin snaps. “What other humorous observation would you like to make this afternoon, Ben? I am all ears!”
Benedict opens his mouth to answer him, but Edmund cuts him off before he can.
“Don’t,” he warns, pointing to his cheeky second born. “Be respectful. Your brother is dealing with something quite formidable and he’s earned that from us.”
“Oh please,” Benedict continues on without even pausing a moment to heed what Edmund said. “He isn’t dealing with something formidable. He’s dealing with his own ego.”
“This is my life, Ben!” Colin retorts angrily. “I know it might seem trivial to you with all your bohemian friends at the art college who do God knows what with God knows who, but this is different. This is Penelope.”
“Yes,” Benedict agrees eagerly before Edmund can interject and get their discussion back on course. “It is Penelope. She was intimate with all four of us, but so what? It is not as if you were behaving gentlemanly with her, Colin. You were the one to claim her virtue and even introduce her to these acts, were you not?”
He grumbles lightly in response before shifting down a bit in his seat.
“You were,” Benedict continues firmly. “You started this all off. Yes, maybe you did not know that she would interpret everything in a manner that would result in us all lying with her at various points these last several months for our own various reasons. I find it rather rich of you, though, as the original cause of her ‘ruin’ and who has continued lying with her probably more often than any of the rest of us have, to suddenly be so concerned with the morality of it all and how her actions that you introduced her to played out unchecked.”
Colin bristles at that, but it is not he who speaks next. It is Anthony instead.
“It is not morality that he is concerned with,” he says clearly. “It is jealousy.”
The younger brother shoots another murderous look at him before he attempts to grab him by the cravat. Anthony dodges it deftly before Edmund smacks his hand atop his desk and ceases their squabbling before it can even fully begin anew.
“Enough,” he says tightly. “Enough, Colin. She loves you. She wants to be with you. She does not want any of us. There is nothing to be jealous over—not anymore. Penelope is with child and she loves you. What more is there really in this world but precious children and the love of a good woman?”
“I’d be happy to marry her if you’re not up for it, Brother,” Benedict chimes in with a smirk. “Only say the word and I will spend the rest of my life with her all to myself.”
“Stop,” Colin replies harshly before straightening in his seat. “No one is marrying her but me. Penelope is mine, and you must all three swear to me that you will never attempt any form of intimacy with her again. None of you shall ever lay a hand on her in a familiar way once we are engaged and married. She will be mine in all capacities—my wife and the mother of my child. That is my only condition for moving forward. Do you all accept?”
Edmund forces himself to nod quickly even though he cannot help but register the pang of regret coursing through him. Though he certainly would not continue lying with her knowing how much it would hurt Colin, he cannot deny he will miss those tender moments they shared. Somehow, though he knows it is horribly misguided and twisted of him, Edmund never even felt true guilt in any of the stolen moments he shared with her. He was betraying his wife and partaking in acts with a young lady who is friends with his daughter and potentially viewed him once as a father-figure too. And yet, there was something so sweet, so pure in their time together that he could not conceive of anything negative or damaging until he was safely out of her presence and left alone with his thoughts.
“Then the matter is settled,” Colin says with a sigh and seemingly releasing much of the tension from his body. “I will marry Penelope, and we will be happy together.”
Edmund is most relieved to hear that and also observe the genuine lightness that seems to be creeping back into Colin’s expression and posture.
“Well, I am most pleased for you then, Brother,” Benedict says with a grin. “Shall I go fetch Miss Featherington so we can apprise her of the news regarding her future?”
He nods then and watches Benedict cross the room. As he does so, he thinks longingly about the large glass of brandy he is going to allow himself tonight after such a trying afternoon.
Edmund’s second son pauses in the now open doorway of the study instead of continuing down the hall to seek Penelope. He waits for an explanation when Benedict suddenly lets out a little surprised chuckle before calling out to him over his shoulder.
“Father, I think you better come here and see this.”
All three other occupants of the room, himself included, swiftly make their way to the door, and the sight he finds that stopped Benedict in his tracks similarly stops Edmund in his own. There, at the far end of the hall, is Penelope standing and conversing with his last remaining son—with fifteen-year-old Gregory. Her hand is between both of his, and the boy is regarding her in a very, very familiar manner.
The realization seems to sink in for Colin at the same moment based on the sentence he mutters tiredly then.
“Oh for the love of God, not another one…”
Colin
“I came upon Gregory one day last month feeling quite down,” Penelope says in explanation now that they are all back in the study alongside Colin’s younger brother now too. “He told me about how he was the only boy in his group of friends at Eton who’d yet to be allowed a trip to the brothel and was still green.”
Father scoffs at that before narrowing his eyes at Greg. “That cannot be true.”
“It is!” the youngest Bridgerton male protests slightly petulantly. “All but me have been, Father. Even Vincent Fairchild and he is a year younger than me!”
Anthony rolls his eyes dramatically. “I promise it is not true. Boys tend to exaggerate about those things at your age, Greg. Trust me.”
“He was most vexed about it,” Pen continues, her eyes cautiously on Colin. “I thought I could be the woman he might practice engaging in affectionate acts with if none of you would take him to the brothel yet. I thought I could show him what you all had taught me so kindly.”
“You all?” Greg echoes with a shocked and confused expression. “W-what do you mean, ‘you all’? I thought you were only intimate with Colin.”
Colin scowls at that. “And you did not see any harm in lying with her even though she was being bedded by me?”
Gregory blushes and shrugs. “I… I did not think you would ever find out.”
“Well, I have,” he retorts with a sigh before returning his gaze to Pen. “And quite frankly, I am tired of these revelations and hearing about your involvement with the other members of my family. I fear that precious ego of mine can no longer take it. Is there anything else that you have kept from me, Pen? Anyone else that you shared intimacies with? I will not be cross truly. I just need to know the truth.”
“No,” she whispers sadly. “There is no one else. Only the good and kind Bridgertons…”
Colin lets out a sigh of relief before leaning back against the desk he is standing in front of. At least he has that. At least her activities were limited to the men within his own family. Maybe there is a blessing in that somewhere to be found.
“I have upset you,” Pen says quietly, tears glistening in her eyes once more. “I am terribly sorry, Colin.”
“You have not,” he assures her softly, taking a step forward so that he is standing directly in front of her now. “I was only… confused temporarily and questioning whether everything we have uncovered today meant that your feelings for me were not genuine.”
“They are,” she professes ardently. “I love you. I always have, and I fear I always will. Regardless if you chose to propose to me, or even if you ran from me and spent the rest of your life hating me for what I have done… I will still love you even then.”
Colin inhales at the gravity of her words and he cannot help but take another step forward and pull her small hands into his own.
“And I love you, Pen. I am not going anywhere, nor could I ever hate you. You acted out of kindness and compassion in your own way. I should have told you more about how intimacy should work between people, when it should be offered. I should have insisted we get engaged after that very first night… And we all should have all taken far greater care with you too.”
“I always felt cared for, though. By all of you…” Pen protests as she squeezes his hands and scans her eyes around the room. “It is not to say that my time with each of you besides Colin was not special to me either. I… I always felt safe in each of those moments. It is just that Colin is the one who held my heart. He is the only one who ever has.”
Colin is vaguely aware of his male relatives smiling and nodding in agreement and understanding, but truthfully he cannot take his eyes of Penelope. Somehow, perhaps madly, he feels he loves this young lady even more now than when he first entered this study to discuss Lady Featherington’s unannounced visit to their home this morning. She has only ever acted out of kindness and generosity with his family, but she was acting all the while out of love with him.
“Then I shall propose today,” he says in a rush, a bright smile overtaking his face. “Your Mama and you can return home, and I will be over within the hour with a ring from the family collection and to ask for your father’s blessing.”
Pen blinks up at him, a cautious wonder lighting up her face and a genuine smile appearing for the first time all day. “I would like that very much.”
Colin’s heart swells and he leans down and closer to her to seal this lovely moment with a kiss. Before their lips can meet, though, he hears the sound of his father clearing his throat quite loudly and reminding him that they are not alone in this room.
“Right,” he mutters awkwardly before taking a tiny step back to prevent himself from forgetting himself again but he’s still unwilling to release her hands from his. “We will soon be wed and we shat put all of this with my father and brothers behind us. It will be you, me, and our child going forward.”
Colin does let go of one of her hands then to place his own gently atop her middle. Through the layers of her day dress he cannot sense any difference in her figure yet. Perhaps it is too early in the process for that. He hopes to soon have the chance to undress her completely and find out, though.
It is then that he realizes Pen’s smile seems to falter after he finishes speaking. His stomach flips in anxiousness as a result and he’s quickly asking her what is amiss.
“I…” she trails off before taking a step back and causing his palm to slip from her stomach. “I did not realize that each occasion would be my last with… well, with all of you except for Colin.”
His brow furrows at that. “You are disappointed?”
“No,” Pen rushes out with a shake of her head. “Not at all. It is only… I do not know. It feels… abrupt.”
His furrowed brow seems to slide lower on his face and cause his mouth to form into a frown. “I do not wish for us to be intimate with anyone else once we are engaged and married, Pen. I… I only want to be with you.”
She nods and smiles softly at him. “I wish for that too—genuinely, I do. What if, though… What if we were to be engaged tomorrow?”
Colin’s eyes widen in confusion. “What?”
“If… If we are engaged tomorrow instead of today,” she explains cautiously before her eyes sweep across the room and all its occupants. “I could sneak over here tonight and have a little time with each of you. We could close the page on our own individual stories, and then Colin and I could begin a new one tomorrow.”
He blinks in genuine surprise at her. Is she honestly asking this of him? To allow her one more chance to bed his father and brothers before she commits herself to him and only him for the rest of her life? And is he honestly considering agreeing?
“Only if you are comfortable with it, Colin,” she murmurs, picking one of his hands back up and holding it between two of her smaller ones. “I will not be upset with you if that were the case.”
Colin finds himself nodding slowly after a few seconds pass and he loses himself in the clear, light blue miracle of her eyes. He would give this young woman everything—all of him, it seems. Why not give her this too? The chance to say goodbye in a sense properly to the men who she has cared for and given herself over to these last few months. These men who have cared for her in return and have apparently brought her happiness and fulfillment too. It only seems right when he thinks about it like that.
Father, Anthony, Benedict, and Gregory all murmur their agreement too. Part of him bristles at the way they are a little too eager for his liking after professing that they would never seek out Pen intimately ever again, but he pushes it aside. He loves her and he trusts her to be faithful to him after tonight. That is all that matters.
“I am last,” he speaks firmly, his gaze sweeping around the room and sliding over each of his male relatives. “Tonight, after you visit each of them one at a time, you will come to my chamber last and stay with me.”
Penelope’s face slowly spreads into a pretty smile before she nods and squeezes his hand in hers. “Yes, Colin. I will come to you at the end, and we will start our new chapter from there.”