I do not know how you look at these two and not see the most stunningly gorgeous people. Like my god, they are beautiful.
I just imagine every evening, Colin has to stop and take a good long look at his wife, and admire how she radiates an ethereal beauty that makes him want her even more. And in the mornings, Penelope just watches her husband, disheveled and rugged, move about the house, enjoying that she's more often than not put him in that state before they're off for the day.
It's amazing they function in the same room together, because seriously.
Pairing: Eloise Bridgerton x Penelope Featherington
Rating: T
Chapter: 6 / ?
Word Count: 2949
read on tumblr: one | two | three | four | five
A Bridgerton wedding was widely acknowledged to be a season-concluding event no other event could hope to surpass. Penelope saw her mama take this assessment sourly (the Featheringtons had given the ball that had been intended to close out the season, after all), though she painted on a smile and made sure to inform any who raised the topic that of course she and her girls had been invited. They had been the closest of friends with the Bridgertons all their lives. That family’s success was their success, and vice versa. (Though which of the Bridgertons, Penelope wanted to know, had been overawed by the pomp of Philippa’s wedding the way the Featheringtons now were by the Viscount and Miss Sharma’s?)
Because it was a great occasion, Penelope’s mama had determined they should have new dresses for it. No more for the rest of the year, mind, she had told them with a stiff wag of her finger. While Prudence had squealed with delight, Penelope had nodded solemnly, hoping the meeker she behaved, the greater the chance might be that she could have some small say about her gown.
On the day they were meant to visit the Modiste, Prudence said suddenly, “It ought to have been my wedding that ended the season,” and fell to crying on the chaise. With a great and pitiless sigh, their mama sank down beside her daughter and scowled as she patted Prudence’s heaving back. Seeing the opportunity to escape the walls of their house slipping away, Penelope spoke quickly.
“Might I call on Eloise and go with her to the Modiste instead?” she asked.
Her mother narrowed her eyes, tracing her gaze up and down the length of Penelope.
“You would select your dress yourself? The fabric, the cut, everything?”
“It is not as though I am ignorant of your taste,” she reminded her mama carefully. “I know what you prefer.”
“Yes…” her mama said slowly, consideringly.
She was clearly weighing the option of allowing Penelope to go alone—taking with her whatever wild designs she might have for her gown—against having to chaperone both girls together at a later date, closer to the wedding.
“Yes, alright,” she said decisively. She flapped a hand at Penelope, dismissing her. “But no blue. You are not a Bridgerton.”
This final remark, delivered as Penelope began to turn away, was enough to bring her to a stop. She felt as though she had been stung by a nettle. Eloise had thought her gossip sheet harsh; if only she could have heard the poisonous words spoken by Penelope’s mama, words that seemed at once carelessly and intentionally malicious.
Penelope had not forgotten that she was no Bridgerton. However could she have? There was no warmth in this drawing room, no kindness or generosity between its inhabitants. She would already feel the distance between she and they at the wedding, but her mother must insist that she not dress as if she were one of them. As though any onlooker would think red hair and fumbled social graces marks of the finest family in Mayfair. The thought was laughable, and so the fact that her mama had resolved to not allow Penelope to leave without implanting it in her mind was enough to fill her with shame.
“No, Mama,” she agreed without looking back, then hurried on her way.
—
As she and her maid crossed the square, Penelope cheered somewhat. What would have been an odious errand—her body draped in the most lurid of fabrics and critiqued by her mama all the while—now had the possibility of being quite endurable, even enjoyable. She drew the free air deeply into her lungs.
“Excellent,” Eloise pronounced the invitation when Penelope had entered Bridgerton House and given it. “I have not yet been fitted for my dress either.”
“How fortuitous,” Pen chirped.
Eloise regarded her skeptically as she pulled on her gloves and looped her reticule around her wrist.
“Are you alright?”
“Fine,” Penelope replied, but she had to glance swiftly downward to conceal the emotional wobble of her chin and the shine her friend’s question threatened to bring to her eyes. She sniffed and raised her head, wearing a brighter expression. “I am fine.”
And she was, or would be. That Eloise had asked meant a great deal more to Penelope than her mother’s cold words. She could tolerate almost anything now that she and Eloise were friends again. More than friends, she reminded herself. We have gone into business together.
Because they took a carriage to the Modiste—Hyacinth and Francesca’s dresses were ready, and Eloise was meant to collect them during their trip—there was no opportunity to discuss that business. Penelope and Eloise’s maids sat with them, and so they spoke about preparations for the wedding instead. As Eloise told it, these were all extraordinarily tiresome, not to mention appallingly extensive; Anthony had determined (perhaps even before the engagement) that his bride should have whatever she wished, and so there would be heaps of Bridgerton tradition as well as additional hours and flowers and other supplies allocated for decorations and activities which might honour Miss Sharma’s Indian culture. Penelope was filled with curiosity, and Eloise allowed that she was too, it was only difficult to express that curiosity at home without the risk of Anthony attempting to engage her on some trivial task.
“He does too much!” she complained, and Penelope only smiled, thinking how she would love someone to do this much too-much for her. She found it all so romantic.
Naturally, it had crossed Penelope’s mind that this would be the first time Eloise would encounter Madame Delacroix since discovering confirmation of that lady’s participation in Lady Whistledown’s business. When their party entered the shop, Penelope nearly held her breath.
“Ah, bonjour!” Madame Delacroix effused. “Such a pleasure to see you both! More dresses for the Viscount’s wedding, am I correct? Bon!”
Penelope gestured for Eloise to go first; the Viscountess Bridgerton (soon to be Dowager Viscountess) had provided specifications for Eloise, as Penelope’s mama had for her. However, Eloise appeared to be relieved by this rather than distressed. At first, Penelope took for granted that this was simply because Eloise would not be forced to wear orange, pink, or yellow. On reflection—and watching Eloise peruse bolts of fabric without a sign of strong preference—she realized it might be that she had resigned herself to her family’s colour palette in a way Penelope had never been able to. Was there some part of Eloise that ever longed to wear yellow?
While Madame Delacroix served Eloise, unspooling fabric and overlaying it with various pieces of lace to demonstrate what might be done to elevate the garment for such an occasion, Penelope closely observed their interaction. She wondered, every moment, whether Eloise would hint to the proprietress that she was in on their secret—that she knew Penelope was Lady Whistledown, and that Madame Delacroix had been aiding her. Besides the three of them and the girls’ maids, who lingered by the shop window, the establishment was empty; it was the end of the season, and few in the ton currently required new dresses. If Eloise kept her voice low, the secret would not escape this shop.
It was not necessarily Penelope’s desire that her dealings with either woman be kept from the other, but she had not yet had time to consider how she might navigate her—their—expanding enterprise. She was afraid of winks and signals; she was afraid, she supposed, of losing control of what she had created. Lady Whistledown was akin to a ward, and Penelope knew Whistledown could be a very naughty child, a very impertinent one, but she had only ever been primarily under Penelope’s care. Even her worst behaviour was funny or charming or done for a reason, even if the end perhaps failed to justify the means.
So she watched Eloise and Genevieve and waited and listened. And then she jumped when the Modiste beckoned her over for her turn to select fabric.
“Lady Featherington was unable to attend with you?” Genevieve noted slyly.
“If only I could fully feel as though I were out from under her supervision,” Penelope rejoined with a smile.
She instinctually kept her voice low. It would not do for her maid, sympathetic as she may have been, to overhear—or even Eloise. Appearing too familiar with the Modiste (and discussing Penelope’s mama, even if their criticisms were indirect, was very familiar indeed) was a potential invitation for Eloise to mention other connections. Business connections. They could not allow themselves to feel too comfortable. Penelope had learned that lesson.
“We will be keeping with the, hmm, traditional Featherington colours then?” Genevieve inquired. Even she sounded disappointed.
“Well…”
This single word brought a smile to the Modiste’s lips. Penelope ducked her head under the weight of her own shy grin.
“Perhaps we might do something a little different?” she ventured.
“Bien sûr,” Genevieve said with a wink. “I have a pale pink that would look exquisite with your colouring.”
She ushered Penelope over to the bolt of fabric in question and unspooled a bit. Penelope reached out and touched the fabric. It was several shades lighter than the pinks her mama typically permitted her to wear, but it was pink, and the weight of the fabric was appropriate for wedding attire without being too fine; her mama would not be able to find fault with the cost.
“A silver overlay, perhaps?” Genevieve suggested. “To cool the pink even further?”
But Penelope knew she must not allow herself to be carried away. She must take small steps, make concessions for what her mama expected. If her mama hated the new dress, she would simply make Penelope wear something already in her wardrobe, something horrid and, undoubtedly, yellow. This new creation would be sent back, and Penelope would only find herself heartbroken after getting attached to an idea of herself she was denied the possibility of realizing.
“Perhaps an adornment of flowers, instead,” she proposed.
“Whatever you think best.” Madame Delacroix was a consummate professional in all things, and Penelope was grateful that she behaved so now.
Penelope swallowed before choking out an addendum: “Yellow, I should think. Yellow flowers.”
“Certainly, Miss Penelope.”
Penelope took a step away from the wall of fabrics, then stopped herself. “Pale yellow,” she said. A small victory.
“A wonderful complement to the colour of the dress,” Genevieve praised. “It will be lovely.”
“Flowers will be quite the theme of the day,” Eloise said, sauntering over. “Anthony seems to be ordering them by the thousand. I do not see him but I hear him muttering about flowers.”
“I will not look out of place then,” Penelope tittered.
Eloise glanced at her with warm amusement in her eyes.
“’Course not. You shall look like one of us, only more cheerful, as we will have been hustled and scolded up until the very last moment. Right up until Miss Sharma appears at the end of the aisle, Anthony will be hissing at us all to behave and my mother will be fussing with my hair.”
Penelope smiled with sympathy, though truthfully, she had absorbed little after Eloise had promised that she would look like one of the Bridgertons. Heart thumping merrily, she followed Eloise to make an appointment with Genevieve to return for a fitting of her gown once the Modiste had made it up.
—
While the finished gown had been met with her mama’s narrow-eyed stare, it had been deemed passable. The wedding itself was met with far heartier approval. The fine weather held, and though the day was a warm one, those in attendance were refreshed by the welcome breeze blowing through as they chatted and sipped champagne in the garden of Bridgerton House following the church ceremony.
Everything was splendid, Penelope thought: the flute of sparkling champagne in her grasp, the reams of flowers Eloise had previously derided, and, of course, the picture of elegant adoration that was the Viscount and his new Viscountess. Also splendid was the privacy all the talk and celebration had afforded Penelope and Eloise; though there were many people in the garden, all were absorbed in their own pockets of conversation. Discussions of the Viscountess’s wedding hairstyle (expected to set a trend), the floral arrangements, which Bridgerton might be the next to marry, the excellent music, and the music itself filled the air, rising from the quartet set up on the lawn. Eloise and Penelope were effectually safe from eavesdroppers, if there were a person there who could even think of such a thing when there was so much to talk about.
Their conversation had begun well, with Eloise’s immediate agreement that this wedding could not go unmentioned in Whistledown. Had Eloise never discovered her secret, had the two of them never fought, Penelope would certainly have written about the wedding. She would have dedicated an entire issue of her gossip sheet to enumerating every detail discussed in this very garden, and published the general consensus on each detail as well. But she would have written other things too, like which mamas looked a tad desperate, shepherding daughters who appeared close to tears which were being explained as an expression of joy for the couple’s happiness rather than their personal hopelessness at arriving at the end of the social season still un-courted. She would have printed assumptions about the success or failure of marriages made earlier in the season, watching those couples circulate about the garden. She would, in fine, have inevitably written something rather cutting in amongst the fluff of the Viscount and Viscountess’s wedding. It was Lady Whistledown’s way. It was what her readers had come to expect.
Eloise’s presence alone urged Penelope away from crafting cruel remarks, even without paper. Eloise had a keen mind for connecting the tidbits they heard to larger conclusions they might draw. If unmarried girls were crying, why should they despair so soon? If mamas were visibly panicked, perhaps they ought to put less pressure on their children. Was it not worth mentioning that there were married ladies here who had come with friends instead of husbands? Did this not point to the possibility of finding fulfillment beyond marriage? Should not that be celebrated?
In return for Eloise’s insights, Penelope gave her first lesson on invisibility. If they stood just there, in the shade, the ornaments in their hair would not catch the sun and attract attention. If they did not stroll around the garden too quickly, there would not appear to be any particular purpose to their movements. If they positioned themselves near this lady or that lord, Eloise and Penelope were sure to hear whatever had been told to them, as those guests had the loudest voices and least discretion.
“You are rather good at this,” Eloise said, eyeing her.
Penelope could not at first tell whether she was meant to interpret this remark as a compliment or critique.
“You know what I am,” she said. A gossipmonger. One whose income depends upon standing in the right place and listening well.
“It is fascinating.”
“Oh.”
“I am ashamed to say that I long assumed there was nothing more interesting being said than whatever left my own mouth,” Eloise confessed, linking her arm through Penelope’s as they strolled. Penelope patted it and held it in place. “Reading about myself in Whistledown cured me of much of that arrogance. I realized it was sometimes better to listen, and that few people were as trivial as I had assumed them to be.”
Penelope gave Eloise’s arm a squeeze and they took several steps in silence before she replied.
“Unfortunately, many people are that trivial.” The girls shared a laugh. “Or, at least, what they speak of is.”
“I can see how it would be difficult to report much else,” Eloise said thoughtfully, “when snide gossip comprises much of what you hear.”
“I do not think our sheet—yes, El, our sheet—will change the essential workings of our society, but adding depth to what we print may aid in inspiring our readers to have more depth in their conversations.”
“You mean it will not all be reporting stories of young ladies’ ruin and spreading rumours which end friendships.”
This was said archly enough that Penelope blushed.
“That is right,” she said. “We will try harder to do good. We will help people—young ladies, especially.”
“Yes! And we will not always write about courtship and weddings and love…”
As they walked, Penelope’s gaze fell on Colin, dashing in his blue waistcoat, charming in the bow he gave Lady Danbury to excuse himself to push Hyacinth on the swing. “Not too high, my dears!” Dowager Viscountess Bridgerton called out. Penelope smiled absentmindedly at the happy scene. Slowly, the smile slipped. He had declared her unmarriageable.
“Pen?”
Penelope blinked and focused her attention back on Eloise.
“Yes?”
“Are you listening to my ideas?” she inquired jestingly. “I believed this to be a partnership.”
Penelope forced a laugh.
“Of course. I was only thinking. Please, tell me more of your thoughts. I will compose a draft when I return home, then steal away this evening so you might review them before the pages are sent to the printer.”
“How thrilling! The process is really so quick, so easy?”
Penelope laughed genuinely this time.
“Easy? Oh, El!”
“Hush!” Eloise swatted her. “You will attract attention, and you have just finished teaching me how important it is to not attract attention!”
Penelope composed herself.
“You are quite right.”
But within moments, she had dissolved into giggles once again.
I had moments where I was like “BUT WHY. WHY ARE WE DOING THIS. WHY ARE CHOOSING TO BE DUMB.”
And well, I let it go. The ending felt a bit rushed to me, but truthfully, I still enjoyed it. It was interesting to me on several parts. I know a lot of people are saying they are doing Penelope and Colin next season, but I don’t think so precisely. I think we are going to get Benedict and Sophie.
There was a throwaway line at the beginning of season two when the Bridgertons are in their sitting room and someone says they need to hire a new lady’s maid for Eloise. And then nothing came of it the rest of the season. That was not for nothing. I do believe it was setting up season 3, especially with how Benedict’s season ended.
Also next season I believe is Francesca’s debut if I’m remembering the timeline correctly and that’s the season where she meets her first husband and his cousin Michael. I believe we will also get subplot of Frannie falling for her first husband but also being intrigued by Michael. -fingers crossed- I really love Francesca and am desperate to see Ruby Stokes dig into her role.
Can I be greedy and suggest two prompts? Obvs don’t have to do them both, or either.
1. Neon signs & Polin
2. Dandelion & Benophie
🥰🥰
May, my darling, anything for you. I am going to take the easy way out, however, and have everything take place within the L&F AU
Some corny Polin under the cut, Benophie coming soon
"Colin, do you mind if I doze off for a little bit?" Penelope asked. The low hum of the car engine and the view of trees flitting by in the window was putting her to sleep.
“No problem, get some rest. You’ll need it when we get to Miami.” Colin said.
Colin had taken an assignment to go down to Miami and insisted Penelope come with him. Why they were driving instead of taking a plane was beyond Penelope’s comprehension, but Colin was so ecstatic about the idea that she couldn’t say no.
“It will be great, there’s a thousand places on the way that you need to see!'' he had said. So far they had taken a couple of stops along the coast and eaten at a few restaurants where the staff knew Colin by name.
“What are we going to do when we get there?” Penelope asked.
“I have a few ideas,” Colin said with a smirk. He was keeping his eyes on the road but Penelope could tell, even in profile, that he was arching his brow.
“Like?”
“Sandwiches,” he said excitedly, “specifically Cubanos,”
“Oh,” Penelope replied. And here she thought he had been being flirty.
“But for real, go ahead and sleep,” he said, placing a hand on her thigh.
Penelope soon fell into a deep comfortable sleep, so deep in fact that she must have been out for a few hours, because when she woke up, it was dark outside.
“Where are we?” she asked, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.
“We are in Pensacola, Florida,” Colin said with a grin.
“Pensacola?” Penelope asked, “that’s nowhere near where we’re supposed to be.”
“Pen, how many times do I have to tell you that traveling isn’t about where you’re supposed to be, it’s about where you are,” he said looking over at her.
Penelope rolled her eyes, “Okay, why are we where we are?” she said.
“It’s a funny story,” Colin began, “Last year I was doing a piece on tourism on the Gulf Coast and I stopped here in Pensacola at this little motel called the ‘Pensacola Inn’.”
“A fitting name for a motel in Pensacola,” Penelope added.
“Indeed,” Colin affirmed “Now I was tired and had already blown most of my comp budget on the hotels at my actual destinations, so I got their cheapest room, which just happens to be on the second floor right by their big neon sign that shined directly ”
“Mhmm,” Penelope said, wondering where this story was going.
“And wouldn’t you know, half the letters were burned out on the sign,” he said.
“Colin, I love you, but I’m so tired and would really like to know where this is going.” Penelope said
“I think it will make sense if you look up,” he said.
When Penelope looked up she saw the Pensacola Inn sign, but the s, the as and one of the ns were burnt out so it read:
PEN COL IN
“Oh my god,” she said.
“I had been feeling very adrift at the time, and that burnt out sign was the sign I had been looking for,” he said, choking up a bit, “I needed it spelled out for me, but right here, is where I realized that I couldn’t keep trying to avoid my feelings for you.”
“Oh Colin,” Penelope said, her eyes starting to water.
“I wanted to show it to you, even if it wasn’t still burnt out, but it is, and I think it’s because I love you so much that it actually bends the laws of physics.”
“I love you too, Colin, I think I always have, and I know I always will.”
