That Bridgerton Girl
Summary:
Five times Cressida pursued Eloise and one time Eloise pursued her back.
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2762 words
@retrowrimay 2026, day 5: 5+1 Things
I truly honestly thought I would make it before midnight 🤦♀️
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Helpful link to AO3
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ONE
1812
Cressida’s mother had been tempted to skip the Bridgerton’s “practice ball,” just on principle, but thankfully, Cressida was able to convince her that it was too good of an opportunity to pass up.
“Daphne Bridgerton, the spoiled sow, will likely be your main competition when you both debut next year,” Lady Cowper warned her for the millionth time during their carriage ride. “If she is anything like her mother, she shall demand all the attention from the most eligible Lords and leave none for the rest of us.”
“Yes, Mama,” Cressida said, because what else was there to say? Next year was to be a bloody, no-holds-barred battle for a good life, and this year was the last year to prepare for it.
Cressida kept a close eye on Daphne through the whole ball and regrettably saw only perfection: natural poise, genteel manners, and flawless dancing. She told herself that the growing pit in her stomach was from the clearly inferior refreshments, not from jealousy or, god forbid, dread. She was excited for her upcoming debut. The moment that her entire life has been leading towards. The only chance to secure a good life.
The butterflies in her stomach were assuredly excitement.
An excitement that Cressida saw mirrored in every pre-debut young lady in attendance. Even Daphne herself seemed to have a moment of panic when the song went on for a stanza longer than the dance it was paired with, though she covered it impeccably. Certainly better than Cressida did, nearly stepping on her partner’s feet.
Cressida declined the next dance in favor of sipping on said inferior refreshments to calm the nerves she did not have. Her eyes alighted on a young lady sitting in the corner of the room. She seemed tremendously annoyed at the young man who was distracting her from the book in her hand, presumably to ask for her next dance. Cressida could not make out what she said, but it resulted in the young man retreating in a huff and an appealingly smug grin on her face.
Cressida was already crossing the room to greet her before she even realized she wanted to. The young lady tilted her face up at her expectantly, already annoyed at yet another interruption from her reading. “You are at a practice ball, with no interest in practicing?” Cressida blurted out.
The young lady’s lips twisted, and she replied, “My books will always be more interesting than dancing, and anyways, I had to be here.” She nodded towards the hostess, Dowager Viscountess Violet Bridgerton.
Cressida belatedly realized the young lady was wearing Bridgerton blue. She was unlikely to be Hyacinth (too young) or Francesca (reportedly blonde), which makes her-
“Miss Eloise, I did not think you were to debut with your sister.” Cressida looked back and forth between Eloise, Daphne, and their mother as discreetly as she could, noting the subtle similarities she had not immediately detected. Though, she had yet to see Daphne or the Dowager Viscountess frown as deeply as Eloise was currently.
“You thought correctly,” Eloise groused. “And yet, here I am required to be.”
In for a penny. “You are forced to attend, but not forced to participate?”
“Ah, this is what they did not anticipate.” Eloise snapped her book closed. “I was given leave to approve my dance partners. How unfortunate that none have impressed me yet.” She leaned towards Cressida with a conspiratorial grin, but Cressida could not return it.
Perhaps this is what her Mama meant. Perhaps a Bridgerton feels comfortable scoffing at the trials of the marriage mart, secure in the knowledge that their family prizes a love match above all else. It left a bad taste in her mouth.
“What novel could be so much more impressive than, say, the Earl of Fulton or the Marquess of Exeter?” Though neither of them are in attendance tonight, they were near the top of her mama’s list of eligible Lords and hopefully would still be available when she debuted.
“It is a poem,” Eloise corrected. “And it is by Lord Byron.” Eloise flashed the spine of her book at Cressida, long enough for her to catch the word Pilgrimage. “The way he writes,” she sighed. “I wish I could also reject the trappings of Society and travel so freely.”
Reject Society? Cressida stared at the Bridgerton in disbelief. Was she mad?
“Uh,” Eloise broke the awkward silence. “Do you read?”
“Not very much, as I have been so busy preparing for my upcoming debut. Although I very much enjoyed Sense and Sensibility. Jane Austen has a way of understanding young women.” She found it comforting, to see her own deepest fears reflected in the written word. She did not read a wide variety of books, but the ones she enjoyed, she would reread several times over.
“A romance novel?” Eloise wrinkled her pert nose in obvious disdain. “But they are so silly.”
Cressida was done putting up with that Bridgerton girl. “Not as silly as hiding at a ball you did not even want to attend,” she retorted and stormed away.
Mama was right to warn her away from the Bridgertons. Spoiled, indeed.
~~~
TWO
1814
Cressida’s eyes, and indeed every eye in the room, snapped over to the Queen laughing heartily at something. There was an array of Bridgertons before her, likely presenting that Bridgerton girl to the Queen again since the first attempt had been … unexpectedly interrupted. The Queen commended Eloise heartily for her thoughtfulness, but you would not know it by looking at the debutante’s face. No, the abject terror quite contradicted that.
Cressida watched as Eloise scurried directly towards Penelope in a panic. Well, if she truly wanted to live up to her sister’s season, talking to the least promising Featherington would hardly help.
Cressida might be willing to overlook her deplorable manners and even mentor her through the upcoming season. Perhaps befriending a Bridgerton girl would prove more successful than rivaling one.
But the spoiled chit rejected her. Was she mad? “Rather die,” indeed. Being affiliated with the likes of the Featheringtons would certainly be a fate worse than death.
Cressida shook herself out of those thoughts. She needed to focus. The season’s most eligible Lord was shaping up to be Viscount Bridgerton, to the misfortune of all. As she would never entertain joining that horrid family, she would have to set her sights elsewhere. Perhaps with the other debutantes pursuing the exacting Viscount Bridgerton, she would be able to scoop up another eligible Lord. A better one, she told herself, though in her second year on the marriage mart, she knew she would take what she could get.
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THREE
In a cruel twist of fate, Cressida found herself once again convincing her mother not to turn down a Bridgerton invitation on principle. Well, a Duchess of Hastings invitation, technically, but no matter her name, Daphne will always be a Bridgerton.
“She means to lord it over you, that she won and you got nothing!” Her mother screeched, waving the invitation in the air.
Cressida huffed. “And she is entirely within her rights to do so, as a Duchess. Whatever the indignity, it would be worth it if I could meet someone.” Cressida wrested the paper back from her mother and smoothed it gently. “Just imagine. Meeting and charming a Lord at the Duchess’s own dinner party.”
Lady Cowper gasped. “And she shall have no one to blame but herself!” she crowed, before shouting for her maid. “Hurry, we must find your most fetching clothes! Put the cow to shame in her own home.”
Cressida was grateful to see her mother was warming up to the idea. Truthfully, Cressida was finding it hard to hold out hope she would be able to meet and charm anyone, at the Duchess’s dinner party or anywhere else, but anything was better than sitting around in this mausoleum of a house.
Cressida attended the party, smiled and simpered where necessary, and was baffled to see that Daphne appeared to hold her no ill will. The duchess greeted her with perfect cordiality and placed her in a seat perfectly suited to her rank, none of the spite or subtle insults she expected. Foolish, she decided. Entirely too foolish and too spoiled to hold a grudge properly. She cast her eyes about the grand drawing room.
Now, there sits one who can hold a grudge. Cressida spied a young lady in Bridgerton blue, sitting in a corner with a book. At last, we shall get some entertainment.
“Ah, Miss Eloise.”
“Miss Cressida?” Blue-grey eyes peered up at her tentatively, while delicate fingers worried the edges of the page she was holding.
“And what novel- I mean, poem, is so much better than the company today?” Cressida sat next to her on the settee, just close enough to make her uneasy.
“I uh-” the girl had the nerve to try to hide her book in her skirts, face flushing. “It is actually not- Uh, I had packed some books for the trip, you see, only to find my tastes have changed.”
“Not radical enough for you?” Cressida pressed.
“Uh, the opposite?” Eloise darted a glance up at her, then returned to staring at her skirts. “I kinda had a bad seaso- well, you know. Society has quite tossed me about.”
Cressida considered her for a moment, such a radical change from the spitfire who had scoffed at the marriage mart and insulted Cressida herself so easily and fearlessly. “And you are just going to let it?”
“Excuse me?”
“You are a Bridgerton. Your sister is a Duchess.” Why Cressida should have to be the one to explain this to her, heaven knows. “You do not have to let Society bandy you about.”
“What do you suggest?” Eloise groused.
Cressida leaned close and whispered, “Participate.”
“What?”
“Dance, dress well, flirt. You do not have to like it, you do not even have to do it that well. But if you go with the flow, the current will stop bashing you against the rocks.”
“The current is stupid and unfair.”
“Extremely,” Cressida agreed, earning a shocked look from her. “Do you think I am happy about the fact that the quality of my life – my finances, my reputation, the duties I will be responsible for – all rest solely on a total stranger that I can only pray will choose me? Of course not! I have only accepted it.”
Eloise stared at her, hopefully reforming her entire opinion of her.
“You, however,” Cressida bumped her shoulder gently. “have more options than I do. It appears that your family would take care of you, even if you do not marry well. All you have to do is float.”
“I … do not know how to float,” Eloise admitted.
“I can help you.”
~~~
FOUR
1815
Cressida was relieved when the ballet portion of the Queen’s ball was over and she could finally move. She had not spotted Eloise anywhere, but she was determined not to give up.
Her father’s voice echoed in her head, but she shook it away. It turned out that it was not just her mother, but her father who blindly hated the Bridgertons. Cressida did not know, and frankly did not care, how the elder Bridgertons conducted themselves. Eloise was a good friend, and they could not understand.
Cressida searched resolutely for that Bridgerton girl, but she could not help glancing at every familiar old man. Was this one a friend of her father’s? Was this the one she will be promised to?
If he was anything like the company he kept, he was sure to be atrocious.
Eloise had actually come to call on her in her mausoleum of a house, Cressida’s first visit of that nature, and her father had repaid her friend’s kindness by banishing her.
Her friends would not be banished from whatever house she would take over. She and Eloise would spend his money, avoid him like the plague, and pray for his death. And then? No one could tell her what to do. She could spend all the time with Eloise that she liked.
Her mother would say she is mad, call it an obsession, but it was clarity. No rivalry, no jealousy, no animosity. Just two people that got along. That actually enjoyed each other’s company. Certainly, they did not see eye to eye on everything, but they kept each other honest, the way no one else in their lives would.
A life with Eloise, just as soon as her husband could die. Now that is a dream.
“Eloise, there you are. I have been searching for you all evening.”
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FIVE
Cressida wanted to take the carriage and raid every single print shop she could find, but with her luck, all she would receive for it was becoming grimy, then tired, then chastised. And she could not bear to leave for Wales without seeing Eloise one last time.
It was only now, on the precipice of losing her, that she could actually face the truth. A truth she had felt, deeply, but could not look at, could not name, could not accept.
It would ruin her.
But if she was already ruined, her beloved should know the truth.
Eloise thought she was unloved, possibly even unlovable, lost in the shuffle of her large family, drowning in their expectations. But Cressida saw her as she was and loved her for it. And her beloved Bridgerton girl deserved to know that.
Cressida took the carriage to Bridgerton house, feeling freer than she had in years. She gathered a few pebbles and lobbed them at Eloise’s window. She almost giggled at the memory of many a night, wishing that a man were so charmed by her that he would do this for her.
“Cressida?”
She was so distracted by her thoughts, she almost hurled a rock directly at her beloved’s face.
“Cressida, what are you doing here?!” Eloise whisper-shouted. “Are you mad?! Come around the servant’s entrance.”
Cressida followed her directions, and Eloise let her in, then promptly hustled her into the coat closet.
Cressida laughed silently, as Eloise folded her arms and attempted to look mad, but only succeeded in looking constipated. “Cressida, explain,” Eloise commanded.
“It is all over.” If she stopped laughing, she was going to cry. “I am to go to Wales to live with my horrid Aunt Joanna, as dour and sadistic as my father. If he has his way, I shall never be seen in society again.”
Eloise tried to stay judgmental, but Cressida could see her softening.
“I know I have myself to blame, in large part for this,” Cressida admitted. “Nevertheless, it is the worst thing to happen to me.”
“Society-” Eloise began, taking a step closer.
“It is the worst thing to happen to me, because it is separating me from you, Eloise.” Cressida declared in a rush.
Eloise froze in confusion.
“My dearest Eloise,” said Cressida, “for dearest you will always be …”
She could see the exact moment the quote registered in Eloise’s mind. “But-”
“Whatever the event of this hour's conversation, my dearest, most beloved Eloise.” Cressida finished in a whisper.
She scrutinized Eloise’s face carefully, watching as understanding dawned and began warring with denial. “Cressida, you are mad to-”
“Shhhh.” Cressida pressed a finger to those delicate lips. “You are quite right. I am mad to come here. But I needed you to know.”
She burst out of the coat closet and fled home.
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PLUS ONE
“Cressida!” Her aunt thundered. “The door!”
Cressida muttered angrily while plodding her way to open their own door like a peasant and was shocked to find a young lady in Bridgerton blue on her doorstep.
“Eloise?!”
“The one and only.” She grinned cheekily, seemingly impervious to the impossibility of her being here. Her eyes flicked over Cressida, as if checking her over for wounds.
“How are you here?” Cressida was still at a loss, but never a loss for words.
“Oh, well,” she chuckled. “I guess I got a bit lost on the way to Scotland.”
What? “That is not at all how that works, Eloise!”
“Tell that to my horses. Silly things.” Eloise would not stop smiling at her, and despite herself, Cressida found herself smiling back.
“Are you mad?!” She asked, hope bubbling in that pit in her stomach.
“Yes. Mad for you.”
Then, like madwomen, they stood there on the doorstep, grinning at each other.
“So,” Eloise held her bag aloft and shook it at her. “Will you let me in?”
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Madwomen, indeed I hope you enjoyed this! Please let me know what you thought! (pls be kind T.T)
