Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Just a fool to believe
I have anything she needs
She's like the wind”

Colin is a man prone to dreaming.

By day and by night, his mind whirs—forever occupied with what might be kind, what might be noble, what might be heroic. What might a man of purpose do? What might a man of decision become? These questions beleaguer his eager brain, circling endlessly, rarely resolved.

This evening feels like the sort that lingers, the kind of triumph of purpose that might follow him into his dreams tonight. Or perhaps he has fallen victim to wishful thinking. Lord knows it wouldn’t be the first time.

The events of the ball have unfolded with a precision almost too perfect to ignore. He exposed Jack Featherington’s scheme to fund invisible ruby mines, rescuing Penelope’s family from disgrace. But more than that, he had done what no one else ever seemed inclined to do—he had looked out for Penelope herself, alone in a world governed by rules and restrictions that offer her little protection. 

I will always look after you, Penelope. By far it is the easiest promise he has ever made.

She has always believed him to be better than he thinks himself capable of being. But tonight, she seemed to see him through new eyes. Or perhaps he had seen himself that way. Tonight, she had called him astonishing. Tonight, she had looked at him as though he were exactly what he had always imagined a hero to be.

And yet, even as the satisfaction settles, it refuses to sit comfortably.

Colin pushes two celebratory lemon tartlets into his mouth in quick succession, scarcely pausing to taste the second before draining his glass of champagne. He reaches for another, plucking it from a passing tray. It is not indulgence for indulgence’s sake—at least, that is what he tells himself—but a practical response to the peculiar chill that has settled into his bones.

For despite the ballroom being full to bursting, despite the fire roaring brightly in the hearth, despite the warmth of accomplishment that ought to fill his soul, the air is unmistakably cold.

The morning had promised a gentle April sun. By nightfall, the wind has turned sharp, carrying with it a bite more befitting winter than spring. Still, Featherington House glows, its grand ballroom transformed into a glittering spectacle of citrus, light, and something to prove.

Portia Featherington would never tolerate the ton whispering that she had spared effort, imagination, or expense—particularly not at the final ball of the London Season, when impressions hardened into judgments that might last a lifetime. This evening must dazzle. It must silence doubt. It must remind every guest present that the Featheringtons remain very much worth noticing.

Every corner gleams. Every flower is arranged with artful precision. A thousand candles flicker like fallen stars, their light reflected endlessly in polished surfaces, as though abundance itself might ward off scrutiny. The soft strains of a string quartet wind through the hall, mingling with animated conversations and the clink of china and crystal, the sound of prosperity carefully curated.

Next to Colin, Fife and Stanton are embroiled in a contest of exaggerated boasts, their voices rising and falling with enthusiastic fervor. Colin pays them little heed. His attention drifts elsewhere, his gaze sliding past them, past the press of bodies and the blur of citrus-colored silks, in search of a single figure among the throng of guests.

Eloise has taken refuge beside Benedict near the wall, their heads bent together in conspiratorial amusement as they observe the dancers like naturalists studying a curious species. Anthony and Kate Sharma have disappeared, no doubt eager to push scandal behind them and begin their new life. Lady Smythe sits near the wall, lorgnette in hand, surveying the company with measured approval. 

All should be well. His belly is full of brandy and hearty fare; his heart full of pride in his success. He addressed Jack Featherington with firmness and authority. He had done precisely what a man ought to do.

Still, the air feels wrong.

Too sharp for a room so full, too cold for a fire burning so brightly. A lady nearby flutters her fan in agitation while another tugs her shawl closer, though neither seems to notice the contradiction. The musicians falter briefly, the tempo stuttering before recovering, as though the music itself has lost its footing.

Colin’s champagne has gone flat on his tongue. He shifts his grip on the glass, scanning the room once more—

And then, finally, he sees her.

Across the hall, Penelope is engaged in conversation with Lady Danbury, who waves her cane dramatically, pointing at the flower arrangements along the banisters. He has always thought of Penelope as familiar, safe. Comforting, even. Tonight those descriptors feel inadequate. 

He attempts to meet her gaze, but she acknowledges him only briefly, her brow furrowed, before her attention snaps back to Lady Danbury. The dismissal stings more than it should. She has always been there—constant, reliable as breathing. Now she drifts just out of reach, and he feels the loss of her attention, another chill chasing up his spine.

Lady Danbury slices him a look that makes his heart lurch. “Approach if you dare,” one elegant eyebrow seems to challenge.

Colin is about to brave the dragon’s lair to rescue Penelope once more—he has become rather adept at it tonight—when a sudden exclamation breaks through the hum of the ball.

Stanton’s nose is pressed against the windowpane. “By heaven,” he cries in disbelief, “it is snowing! And in the spring, of all times! What madness is this?”

A ripple of movement spreads through the ballroom, guests floating toward the windows like snowflakes into drifts. Curious faces press close to the foggy glass, while outside the trees shudder and wobble under the force of the wind, their bare branches bowing and thrashing as thick flakes of snow dance wildly through the air. The street below is already dusted with white, the ground disappearing beneath a growing blanket of snow, and the wind howls like an uninvited guest announcing its presence.

“In April,” people gasp, shaking their heads in disbelief. “Quite unnatural.”

“I have never seen the like.”

“This cannot be right.”

Someone crosses themselves and mutters that such weather must surely be a sign from heaven. Another insists that someone—perhaps Lady Whistledown—has sinned grievously and that God is making His displeasure known.

The first guests begin edging toward the exit, cloaks gathered hastily, shawls pulled tight as though the chill has permeated the stone walls of Featherington House, the wind already picking up speed and volume. Anxious voices rise. 

“The roads will be impassable.”

“The horses will never manage in this wind.” 

“We must leave now, before it worsens.”

A man pushes through the crowd, calling for his wife, panic threading his voice as the murmurs and music fracture into something sharp and unsettled. Chaos grows by the second; chairs scrape, conversations overlap, glasses clink, hastily abandoned on the buffet. The music fades, bows coming to a stop with a discordant whimper. 

Their hostess appears at the center of it all, arms raised, her shrill voice cutting through the din. Colin resists the urge to plug his ears.

“Everyone remain calm!” Lady Featherington shouts. “Surely the weather will pass. There is no cause for alarm, and certainly no reason to abandon this splendid evening.”

But the wind answers her with a violent gust against the windows, and outside the snow continues to fall: thick, relentless, and determined to prove her wrong.

Lady Featherington turns to the string quartet, their bows silent and in their laps. “Play something lively,” she snaps.

A Parisian Quadrille begins, Portia desperately trying to corral young ladies inside the ballroom while guests call for their carriages. 

Colin looks back at Penelope, who fixes him with an inscrutable look before turning away and disappearing into the mass of people pressing toward the exit. An uncomfortable heat prickles the back of his neck. Something is wrong. He cannot determine the source; he knows only that Penelope is not herself.

“Has the bloom met with an early frost?” a mocking voice drawls.

Fife. Again. 

Colin stiffens, still scanning the hectic room for Penelope’s smooth auburn updo. “What are you talking about?” Maybe if he feigns ignorance, Fife will grow bored and leave. 

“Your betrothed appears to be cross with you,” Fife says, leaning in just enough to be irritating. 

Or not.

“Not that it is anymore your affair now than it was an hour ago, but we are not courting,” Colin replies stiffly. “Miss Featherington and I are friends.”

“So you say.” Fife folds his arms, his grin lazy and knowing. “But has anyone told her?”

“Told her what?”

“You really are a daft sod, aren’t you, Bridgerton? Do you not notice the way she looks at you?” Fife pauses, a predatory gleam in his eye. “The crocodile tears that gather in those huge blue eyes every time you dance with another? You ought to pay closer attention. It is quite telling.”

“I’ll thank you to lower your voice,” Colin hisses, glancing around the ballroom. 

Blue? Are Penelope’s eyes blue? How has he never noticed before? The sudden mental picture of those eyes—both angelically innocent and piercingly intelligent—rivaling sea and sky, unsettles him more than it should.

“Why concern yourself at this point?” Fife replies, dogged in his determination to annoy. “You have already told half the company you would never dream of courting the girl.”

“You are mistaken,” Colin insists, though the half dozen lemon tarts he consumed curdle in his gut. 

“As you say.”

Colin rounds on him, unable to leave well enough alone. It is hardly the first time Fife has needled him about his friendship with Pen, and Colin’s trouble with Fife is always that he reveals too much. Somehow, Colin cannot bear that this be one of those moments. 

A peculiar tick makes his jaw tingle. 

“How is it you know so much about Pen—Miss Featherington, and the way she looks at anyone?”

Fife shrugs. “Walls are thin. Words travel. You would be surprised what lingers.”

Colin glances back toward the crowd. The ballroom has shifted—no longer lively, but restless. Guests surge toward the exits in a growing tide, whispers and gasps rippling through the room. Lady Featherington attempts to intercept them, calling for calm, urging a return to dancing and merriment, but her overtures are useless. Anxiety etches every face. Murmurs swell into shouts as some call desperately for missing relatives.

The doors fly open.

An icy wind tears through the room, rattling the windows in their panes. Snow swirls in sharp, blinding gusts. Somewhere beyond the threshold, horses whinny and rear, their cries cutting through the din as hooves strike frozen stone.

Colin’s pulse quickens—not because of the wind, or the snow, or the rising panic around him. It is the same dread that has been coiling in his chest since Penelope turned away. Something is troubling his friend. He can feel it. What’s more, he has an icy suspicion that he is the cause.

Fife leans in, close enough that Colin catches the sharp bite of brandy on his breath. “Tell me, Bridgerton,” he murmurs, “why the devil are you so concerned about that girl? Surely dozens in the ton would be delighted to be your…friend.”

Colin’s gaze snaps back to him, his face flushing with barely contained fury. “Mind your tongue, Fife,” he says, low and dangerous. “And get out of my way.”

He leaves Fife standing alone in the corner and turns just in time to hear his mother’s voice cut through the chaos, sharp and unmistakable as the storm closes in.

“Colin!”

He pivots instinctively, even as his gaze flicks past her shoulder, scanning the ill-settled crowd. Not there. His breath leaves him in a quiet rush. 

“Mother,” he exhales, already bracing himself for the argument he knows is coming. Home is only across the square, after all.

She reaches him quickly, fingers closing firmly around his arm, as though she might physically pull him along. “We are leaving now, dear,” she says briskly. “This weather is worsening by the minute.”

“I know,” he replies, gently prying her hand loose, his attention already drifting past her again. Where has she gone? “You should take the others. I shall follow shortly.”

Her eyes flash. “Absolutely not. You are coming with us.”

“Mother—”

“This is not up for discussion,” she cuts in. “The roads are freezing, the horses are frightened, and I will not have you wandering through a storm alone.”

He shakes his head, barely hearing her over the rush of blood in his ears. “I shall not be wandering. Home is but a short walk away. I shall be home before you have even settled by the fire.”

“Colin—”

“I will be fine,” he insists. “I promise. Please. Just go.”

Another violent gust tears through the open doors, sending a swirl of snow skittering across the floor. Mother glances back instinctively, her fear deepening as the wind howls. She tightens her grip on his sleeve once more. “Colin,” she says again, more firmly now, “you are coming with us.”

Before he can answer, Benedict steps in beside them. “Mother,” he says calmly, laying a steadying hand over hers, “Colin is a grown man of one and twenty years. Let him come when he is ready.”

Mother hesitates, displeasure etched across her face, her lips pressed into a thin line. At last, she exhales sharply. “Very well,” she says. “But you come home very soon. Do you hear me?”

“I will,” Colin replies automatically, though he cannot help but search the room again.

His mother studies him for a long moment, as if she can sense the distance in him, then allows Benedict to guide her toward the door. She casts one final worried look over her shoulder before disappearing into the storm with the rest of the family.

Colin barely registers their departure.

Where is Penelope?

He turns, already moving, his gaze cutting through the thinning crowd. The ballroom is in a state of hurried dissolution now—shawls clutched, voices raised, furniture stirring as guests press toward the doors. Somewhere near the musicians’ dais, Lady Featherington has abandoned any pretense of control.

“Well,” she announces with brittle brightness, “this is most unfortunate, is it not? We shall simply plan another evening once the weather improves. Something smaller, perhaps. Quite intimate.”

No one listens.

Penelope’s sisters have also had enough. Philippa complains loudly that her toes have gone numb. Prudence echoes her with dramatic shivers, the pair retreating deeper into the house in search of warmth, abandoning what remains of their hostessing duties without a backward glance.

Colin hears it all as if from a great distance, the sounds muffled beneath the roaring in his ears. Featherington House feels wrong—too large, too hollow, as though something essential has slipped out of it unnoticed.

Pen.

He weaves between departing guests, scanning faces, skirts, familiar colors. No brilliant copper hair gleaming in the candlelight. No flash of honey yellow silk. She moves through crowds like wind through an open door—always just ahead of him, impossible to catch. Never before has he noticed quite how easily she slips away. Almost as though she were…invisible.

A shiver runs through him. He crosses his arms over his chest to suppress it.

The edge of the ballroom arrives just as the last cluster of partygoers spills out into the entry hall, the wind howling louder with every opening of the door.

She is not among them.

A sharp unease coils low in his chest.

He turns back, moving against the flow now, pressing deeper into the house as servants hurry past him in the opposite direction, arms laden with cloaks and extinguished candles. Featherington House seems to empty all at once, as though the storm itself is sweeping it clean.

“Miss Featherington?” he calls, his voice swallowed by the din. “Pen?”

No answer.

He retraces his steps, reaching the entry hall just as a footman staggers in from outside, his coat crusted white, his breath coming in visible bursts. Snow clings to his lashes; his hair is damp and dark with melt.

“Sir,” the footman says hoarsely, stamping his boots, “the roads are impassable.”

Colin stills. “What?”

“The last carriages only just made it through,” the man continues. “Another quarter hour and they would have been stranded entirely. The horses are panicking. We cannot send anyone out now.”

The words land dully, as though striking some surface inside him that refuses to respond, contrasting with the sharp screams of the wind. 

Colin looks at the closed door—toward the square beyond it, buried now beneath a rising white blur. His path home has vanished.

Very well.

He turns back into the house.

If he cannot leave, he reasons, then neither can she.

And if Penelope Featherington is still beneath this roof, he will find her.

He has scarcely taken three steps back into the hall when she appears as if conjured by his unspoken wishing.

Penelope stands at the far end of the corridor, half-shadowed by a flickering wall sconce. She has gone utterly still at the sight of him, her face blanched white, as though all the blood has fled it at once.

For a heartbeat, he thinks she might turn and flee.

She does not, and the roiling tension in his gut eases a fraction.

Instead, she looks at him, her forehead puckered in scrutiny, and whatever expression he expects to find there never materializes. There is no warmth, no flicker of recognition. The wonder of the evening seems to have vanished from her entirely: the relief that had softened her eyes when he exposed Jack Featherington and his forfeited ruby mines. Their dance, her trusting hand warm and soft in his. The laughter they shared. The words he had spoken with such careless sincerity: You are special to me.

She had echoed his sentiment; he recalls the moment with perfect clarity. But it seems as though she has forgotten all of it.

Her mouth is set, pinched tight, and she regards him with a reserve so stark it might be mistaken for courtesy. It is the look one gives a stranger. Or worse—someone she once knew and would rather forget.

Tension floods back in, his stomach twisting.

Fife’s voice echoes in his mind, oily and smug. Walls are thin. Words linger.

Had she heard him?

The possibility settles in his chest like a stone, his jaw ticking again. Dear God, what has he done?

“Pen,” he begins, and the sound of her treasured nickname on his tongue feels suddenly presumptuous, wrong. What right has he to address her so intimately?

Her eyes flick toward the front door. “You should go,” she says quietly. “Before the weather worsens.”

The suggestion is not cruel. No, it is worse than cruel; it is indifferent. Measured, controlled—as though it is of no consequence to her whether he turns to ice or becomes lost in the storm.

Relief and hurt crash through him in equal measure. Relief that he is spared the need to explain, to confront the damage he may have done. Hurt that she wishes him gone. That she does not ask him to stay. That she no longer looks at him as though he matters.

Suddenly, it occurs to him that she’s the only person outside his parents who has ever regarded him with more than indifference, and he feels bereft. Empty. 

“I would not intrude,” he says stiffly, already retreating. 

If he leaves now, this misunderstanding may remain unfinished. Perhaps there will be time to undo it later, to explain that his words were thoughtless, unguarded, and never meant for her ears. But even as the idea forms, he knows it is a lie. He cannot unsay that he would never court her; he cannot pluck his companions’ laughter from her ears and stuff it back down their throats.

The footman moves aside, regarding Penelope warily.

Colin closes his fingers around the doorknob and pulls it open.

The wind tears at him instantly. Snow whips sideways in blinding sheets. Somewhere beyond the threshold, a carriage wheel skids past the house, disappearing into the whiteout as though flung by some unseen force.

He stares after it, his heart pounding.

Behind him, Penelope is silent.

And he knows, with a certainty that makes his chest ache, that even if he could step back inside and shut the door, he would not know how to make her look at him as she once did.

As it happens, the door does not stay open long enough for him to decide.

The wind barrels inward with a force that steals his breath, snow slashing across the threshold. Somewhere nearby, something wooden splinters with a sharp crack. Colin staggers back as the door is wrenched from his grasp and slammed shut by a pair of footmen straining against it.

“No one is going anywhere,” one of them pants. “Not tonight.”

“Well,” Lady Featherington declares, sweeping into the hall with an expression that suggests she has lost patience, hope, and several good rugs all at once, “this is all supremely unfortunate.”

“I can leave,” Colin offers again, helpless to do anything but make himself clear. He is not staying here by choice. Not where he is unwanted.

Portia turns her gaze on him fully for the first time. He cannot imagine it to be any colder than the blustery air outside. 

“You will do no such thing,” she says crisply. “I have already seen what comes of Bridgerton boys meaning well beneath my roof.”

Colin frowns at the neat, deliberate barb. How could he forget? His folly with Marina last season cost both families dearly in reputation. Penelope’s pain he regrets most of all, yet Eloise had told him how Pen had no concern for her own reputation, only his well-being, his shattered heart. 

Now he knows that the hurt Marina’s lies caused him is nothing compared to the anguish of being at odds with Penelope. He steals a glance at her, trying to measure her reaction. But she remains silent along the wall, unmoving yet eerily illuminated by the sconce she is positioned beneath.

“I never intended any harm to your family, Lady Featherington,” he says, wounded. “I assure you—”

“Assurances,” she cuts in, waving a hand, “seem to be a particular talent of yours, Mr Bridgerton.”

She sniffs, then turns to her housekeeper. “Varley. A bed for our guest.”

Her attention snaps back to Colin. “You may stay.”

“Thank you,” he says, as good breeding demands, though it is clear she would leave him to the storm if she could. Were he Anthony or someone worthy of her flattery, he would be treated differently. But he is once again “that Bridgerton boy”—titleless, purposeless, useless. 

“The guest chamber at the far end of the house,” she says briskly, already dismissing him. “Away from the family rooms. I trust that will not trouble you.”

“Of course,” he replies. “Not at all.”

“Excellent,” Lady Featherington says, clearly unconcerned with his comfort. “I find separation does wonders for preventing misunderstandings.”

Then, as if remembering herself and her desire to remain in his mother’s good graces, she schools her expression into something approaching cheer. “I am sure the weather will improve by morning,” she adds, all strained brightness. “And if it does not, we shall simply endure. One does what one must for one’s children.”

She turns away, already muttering about drafts, ruined carpets, and the astonishing frequency with which Bridgertons seem to find themselves in compromising circumstances entirely through no fault of their own.

The guest chamber is cold and cheerless, tucked into the quietest corner of the house. No fire has been laid in the grate. The bed looks unused, the coverlet folded with impersonal precision.

Colin closes the door behind him and stands there for a long moment, staring at nothing.

He feels wretched.

After a moment, he kneels and sets about building a fire himself, fingers clumsy with cold and frustration. The flint sparks reluctantly, and when the flame finally catches, it feels like too little, too late.

The room warms, but his thoughts remain as cold and harsh as the wind wrapping around the house.

He paces, the floorboards creaking beneath his booted feet.

Then his gaze drifts, unbidden, toward the door.

Penelope.

He could go to her chamber. The thought arrives fully formed, urgent and reckless. He could knock, could beg her to speak with him, to hear him out. Improper, perhaps—but he has never stood on formality with her.

And then, like a slap, the list unfurls.

He has flaunted propriety with her. Repeatedly. Thoughtlessly.

Whirling her into dances without signing her card. Touching her bare skin, soft and sweet as peach fuzz. Writing to her, receiving her letters, words passed back and forth with an intimacy he never questioned. Pulling her into quiet rooms for private audiences, a barely ajar door their only guard against the world.

His chest tightens.

How easily he had assumed her constancy. Her understanding. How freely he had taken what comforted him without ever considering the cost to her.

And tonight—tonight he has drawn a line so sharp it has cut her clean through.

I would never dream of courting Penelope Featherington.

The fire crackles softly, offering no absolution.

Colin sinks onto the edge of the bed and drags a hand through his hair, heart pounding with the awful certainty that whatever ease once existed between them has been shattered by his own careless words.

He does not know how to mend it.

He does not even know if he will be allowed to try. She is like the wind—essential, everywhere, impossible to hold. And he is only now learning that he has been breathing her in his entire life.

He rises before he has quite decided to.

The fire has settled into a low, steady burn, but it does nothing to ease the rolling ache of his belly. The thought of remaining in this room—alone with his mistakes and missteps—feels unbearable. If he does nothing, the night will swallow him whole.

Penelope’s bedchamber is not difficult to find. He knows the house well enough, though the corridor seems longer than it should be, the shadows stretching and shifting as he walks. He stops before her door, heart hammering, his hand lifting of its own accord.

He hesitates.

How would he explain his presence? What would he say?

His knuckles hover inches from her door. He has crossed many thresholds with Penelope, but even he has never breached her inner sanctuary. To do so would be paramount to a declaration. Should they be found, marriage would be inevitable. A lifetime of her being shackled to him, he who is shiftless, and consequently beneath her. Always the problem and never the solution. 

For one reckless, desperate moment, he considers knocking anyway. Impropriety be damned. 

And then he thinks of her face in the corridor.

Pinched. Guarded. Resolved.

He lowers his hand, letting his knuckles scrape along the wood grain of the door.

Rejection hovers, hot and heavy, making him turn away before it is delivered. His feet carry him down the stairs without conscious direction, his stride hurried but without purpose. He tells himself he is in need of a drink. Something to warm him. Something to dull the edge of his thoughts lest they bleed all over his brain.

He will find his greatcoat. He will take a drink to warm himself and armor himself against the storm. And then—somehow—he will leave with whatever shreds of dignity he has left. The storm cannot last forever. It must relent. For if he must stay in this house without speaking to her, knowing something is amiss, he will go mad.

The drawing room door stands open, firelight spilling across the floor into the antechamber. 

Penelope stands before the hearth in her nightrail, a china blue shawl draped over her shoulders.

The fire has been laid for her, not him—its warmth gathered tight around her small, hunched figure. Flames cast a soft glow across her face, but there is no peace in her expression—only fatigue and a wise sort of sadness. 

She looks up at the sound of his footfalls, and for a brief, unguarded instant, something akin to alarm flashes across her face before she schools it away. It is enough to tell him she did not expect him to come here. Did not expect him to seek her out at all. She turns to face him, her small bare toes peeking out from beneath the hem of her white nightgown, hair unbound and flowing down her back like a river of fire.

Neither of them speaks.

The house creaks faintly around them, settling under the weight of snow. Outside, the wind howls, but in the drawing room, there is only the crackle of the fire and the sound of his own unsteady breathing.

He had come for a drink, the promise of oblivion.

He has found her instead.

“I did not realize you were still awake,” he ventures, finding his voice.

“I might say the same,” she replies.

Neither of them moves.

“I thought I might have a bit of brandy,” he says after a moment. “And then… I shall go.”

She studies him, her expression guarded. “You intend to leave?”

“Yes.”

“In this weather.” She says it as though he is touched in the head.

He frowns at the orange and green carpet. “It cannot remain so violent indefinitely.”

She glances toward the windows, where snow lashes hard against the glass. “You have always been an optimist.” Her voice barely rises above the wind.

“I am trying not to impose.”

Her mouth tightens. “A bedchamber in the farthest corner of the house is hardly an imposition. Unless there is some other reason you wish to leave?”

“No,” he lies. He crosses to the sideboard with deliberate care, afraid of taking up too much space. He pours a single measure of brandy then pauses, the decanter hovering in his hand.

After a beat, he pours a measure into a second glass.

When he turns back, he offers her the glass without comment. A peace offering.

She hesitates, then accepts it. “Thank you.”

“I thought it might help,” he says, glancing at her bare feet, so delicate and pretty. “Against the cold.” He wonders that she is not clad in wool socks or slippers, but he will not risk her mistaking his concern for a reprimand. He is in no position to tell her anything. 

They stand there in uneasy proximity, the fire crackling softly, the storm raging beyond the walls.

“I will go shortly,” he says, his breath making a cloud in the air between them.

She watches him over the rim of her glass. “You are determined.”

“I am trying to do what is proper.”

“Of course you are.”

The mocking reproach in her tone makes him wince. When did everything he said to her suddenly become so terribly wrong, every word laced with poison irony?

Another gust howls outside, rattling the windows hard enough to make the flames shudder. Penelope exhales slowly, as though conceding a point under duress.

“Of course,” she says at last, “I would not wish you injured. Or ill. Or lost in the storm.”

The words are restrained. Humane. Containing no more warmth than she might offer a stray animal.

Relief loosens something in his chest, immediately followed by a deeper ache.

“You are kinder to me than I deserve,” he says quietly.

She nods once and turns back toward the fire, the line of her shoulders unmistakably closed.

Colin takes a sip of brandy, its warmth meager and crude.

He had come down intending to leave. Instead, he has found Penelope after all. And now that the opportunity to speak lies open between them, he has no idea how to begin.

The room feels suddenly precarious. This quiet, this accidental meeting, this moment suspended between apology and retreat is more dangerous than any storm raging beyond the walls.

To his surprise, she is the first to speak. “Quite a lively evening.”

“Yes.” He leaps on top of her words, anxious for something to say. “Quite.”

“Mama hates to be outdone,” she says with a wry twist of her mouth. “Mother Nature’s day of reckoning is surely at hand.”

He laughs, relaxing slightly in her presence for the first time since the snow began. He can almost picture Lady Featherington demanding an audience with the author of the storm, wanting to know why creation would choose to unleash winter’s fury on her ball, when it might choose any other day. Preferably one outside the London Season. Or perhaps on the evening of Lady Cowper’s ball instead.

“It was enjoyable whilst it lasted, though.” Penelope turns her glass slowly in her hands. “I danced a great deal.”

The words land oddly, making him frown. “You did?”

She glances at him. “Of course.”

“I—” He stops. He had been with her much of the evening. For his confrontation with her cousin. Dancing. Speaking. Making and unmaking promises. “I do not recall—”

“There were several gentlemen,” she continues, as though he hadn’t spoken at all. “More than I expected, in truth.”

A cold prickle creeps up the back of his neck.

“I was not aware,” he says carefully.

Her gaze flicks to him again, curious now. “Were you not?”

“No,” he replies. “I thought—I believed—I was with you.”

“For some of the evening,” she allows. “But not all.”

His heart gives a hard, uneven thump.

She lists her potential suitors with maddening calm. Names tumble out, unremarkable, plausible. A gentleman from Kent. Another whose cousin knows her mother. Someone whose name he almost recognizes and cannot quite place. Each name she speaks feels like a gust cutting through him. What could he possibly offer her that these men could not? He is directionless, purposeless—a fool to believe he has anything she needs.

“They were very attentive and kind,” she adds. “Particularly toward the end of the evening.”

“That cannot be right,” Colin says, shaking his head. He feels ill. “I would have noticed.”

Her brow crumples, hurt spreading into lines across her forehead. “So incredulous. Is it so impossible to believe that a gentleman would enjoy my company?”

“No! That is to say, I love your company. Anyone would be glad of your attention, Pen.” He rubs his fingers together. “I only meant that I didn’t see you.”

She studies him for a long moment, then looks back at the fire. “Perhaps you were otherwise occupied,” she says softly.

He wants to argue, to tell her he saw her dance card, devoid of names. To remind her that they drank champagne and ate canapés together. That he’d stood nearby while she shared bits of gossip with Eloise. But then he’d gone out to the garden, his flask heavy in his coat, and drank with Fife and his companions. In truth, he does not remember much of the conversation. Only that it was boastful and peppered with falsehoods.

Of course it is possible that she danced and entertained gentlemen outside his presence. His hands clench into fists, so hard he fears he will smash the glass. He imagines it exploding in his palm, crimson rivulets of his blood running down his clenched fist and dripping onto the carpet. 

Good God, is this fire burning in his belly jealousy?

But it cannot be, can it? She is Pen. His friend. She is meant to be his confidante, his haven in a world where he is so often misunderstood. Not his tormentor. 

He forces his grip around the glass to loosen, draws a steadying breath, and lets the thought pass without voice. Whatever this is—jealousy, fear, or something far more dangerous—he will not give it shape yet. He will not risk naming it before he knows the truth.

“Pen,” he ventures at last, tracing the rim of his tumbler with a finger. “Will you tell me now what is troubling you?”

She does not look at him. “Nothing troubles me.”

He bites back a harsh laugh. “You have barely looked at me. Hardly spoken to me since our dance.” He hesitates, choosing his words with care, though he is not able to edit the hurt from his tone. “When the snow began, you seemed quite prepared to send me out into the storm. And if I have offended you in some way, I would rather know than continue to guess.”

She turns slowly, and the pain in her eyes makes him want to close his own. 

“Since you insist, I overheard you,” she says tartly. “Speaking with your companions. Telling everyone you would never, ever court Penelope Featherington.”

The words land on the fertile ground of his imagination, taking root and sprouting weeds. The source of her anger, and worse—her disappointment—is precisely what he feared. Him. 

Fife, damn his aggravating hide, had been right.

“It was foolish talk you should never have heard,” he says in a rush. “Thoughtless. I was trying to end a conversation I never wished to be having.”

“And you deemed that cutting me down before a group of eligible gentlemen was the most convenient way to do so?”

“No.” He shakes his head sharply. “I thought nothing at all. And that is the worst of it.”

The wind rises outside, rattling against the windows, a low, moaning sound.

She looks back toward the fire. “I see.” A pause. “I suppose that is what I expected.”

“What did you expect?”

“That I had mistaken you,” she says quietly. “Or rather, my significance to you. That I had fabricated the depth of our association. I mistook your kindness for regard, your attention for—” She stops herself, lips pressing together. “I do not know what for. You said I was special to you, and I believed you.”

Every word lands like a blow, as though he is being pummeled in the boxing ring.

“Pen,” he says urgently, stepping closer, “you are special to me. The idea of you thinking yourself insignificant to me is intolerable.”

She turns away then, her shoulders drawing inward. She lifts a hand to her face, brushing at her eyes with an impatient motion, as though angry with herself for her weakness.

“Which is the truth, then, Mr Bridgerton? And which is the lie? Either I am special to you, or you would never court me. It cannot be both.”

“Pen.”

“No.” She faces him again, her gaze bright with unshed tears. “If you mean kindness, then be kind. If you mean friendship, then say so plainly. But do not offer me words you will later regret. I would rather you be honest with me than gentle.”

Something sharp flares in his chest—fear, frustration, anger—all turned inward.

“I would give anything to take it back,” he says, his voice rough. “But I cannot. And that is what frightens me.”

She is quiet for a long moment.

“Why take back the truth?” she says, sounding both careful and brittle. “We are friends, Colin. And you would never court me.”

He stares at her, stricken.

“That is not—” He stops himself, dragging a hand through his hair, pacing once before halting abruptly. “God help me, Penelope, I do not know why I said it that way. Only that I was afraid to examine what it might mean if I did not.”

Something had shifted tonight when they danced. Her hand in his—soft, warm, fitting perfectly as though his palm had been shaped for hers alone. The way she'd looked up at him, eyes bright with admiration, as though he were someone worthy of her attention. He'd been acutely aware of every detail: the curve of her waist beneath his hand, the scent of her hair as they turned, the way her breath had caught when he'd pulled her closer than propriety allowed. His heart had hammered not from exertion but from the startling certainty that holding Penelope Featherington was the only thing he'd ever done that felt right.

And later, confronting Jack Featherington, that surge of fierce protectiveness that had roared through him; more tha duty and courtesy—something primal and possessive. Like he was protecting what was precious to him, what was his. When Fife called him on it, he'd cowered beneath confusion and denial, too afraid to name what his body already knew.

He turns back to her, his composure unraveling.

“You are the most important person in my life,” he says, his voice beseeching. “More than anyone else. And I do not know how to make you believe me.”

His breath hitches. To his own surprise, his vision blurs.

"I do not know how to be without you," he admits hoarsely. "The thought of losing you—of having wounded you so deeply that you would turn from me—" He bows his head and then meets her gaze, anguish blazing in his heart. "It is unbearable."

She does not speak. She only looks at him, her face pale in the firelight, her stillness more unnerving than any rebuke.

The crash comes without warning.

Featherington House shudders violently, the sound so close it runs through the walls like a struck bell. Penelope gasps as the fire sputters, and a nearby lamp flickers once before going dark, plunging half the room into shadow.

“Pen,” Colin says at once.

Another crack splits the air—wood splintering, glass shattering somewhere nearby. She cries out, startled, and he is moving before the sound has fully faded, crossing the space between them in two strides.

He takes her hands in his. They are ice-cold, trembling beneath his grip.

“It is all right,” he says firmly, wrapping his fingers around hers, anchoring her there. “I am here. You are safe. I will look after you.”

The reassurance barely leaves his mouth before another crash tears through the night, closer still. The window bursts inward in a spray of glass, and Colin reacts on instinct.

He pulls her against him, turning his body to shield hers as they stagger and fall together to the floor. His arms lock around her, holding her tight, his back braced against the worst of it.

“Stay with me,” he murmurs fiercely into her ear, one hand cradling the back of her head. “I have you. I will never let anything happen to you.”

The storm howls around them, but for the first time that night, Colin does not feel afraid. He feels, rather, that he is playing the role he was born for: taking care of Penelope. And despite the danger, he cannot help but notice how soft she feels and how good she smells.

They remain crouched on the floor, tangled together, the world reduced to noise and cold and the terrible rush of wind. Snow pours in through the shattered window, stinging his face, melting instantly against his coat and her hair. The heavy curtains whip like they are made of paper.

The fire gutters. Once. Twice. Then a final gust roars through the room, and the flames collapse into darkness.

Frigid air rushes in at once, brutal and immediate. Penelope shudders against him, her breath coming fast and uneven as the cold wracks her small body.

“Col-Colin, the fire,” she manages, teeth chattering.

He tightens his arms around her, soothing them both. “I know,” he murmurs, pressing his forehead briefly to hers, grounding them both. “I know.”

Another groan echoes through the house, the walls protesting under the storm’s weight. He lifts his head, peering into the blackness, feeling the temperature drop with every passing second. This room is no longer safe.

“We must leave,” he says. “To another chamber, one with a fire. Come. It’s too cold. I’ve got you.”

He rises first, keeping his body between her and the broken window, then reaches for her and pulls her carefully to her feet. She clings to him, fingers fisting in his waistcoat as another blast of wind screams through the room. He wraps an arm around her shoulders and steers her toward the door, shielding her with his body as they move. They are nearly across the threshold when something catches his eye amid the shards of glass.

Stone. Rough-hewn and coated with ice.

Colin stops abruptly. “Wait.”

He eases Penelope behind him and steps closer to the wreckage, fighting against the wind and the snow as it whips around him. There, half-buried near the window under the snow, lies a brick. Something pale flutters beneath it.

He crouches, muscles straining against the wind as he lifts the brick with numb fingers. A folded note clings to it, damp at the edges but legible.

Penelope’s voice comes from behind him, soft and frightened. “Colin…what is it?”

He does not answer. His eyes are fixed on the paper, on the few words scrawled there in a spidery, uneven hand.

I see you.

Colin crumples the paper in his fist and rises slowly, heart pounding. He turns back to Penelope, positioning himself between her and the window once more.

“We are leaving this room,” he announces. “Now.”

He does not wait for her reply. He closes his hand around her arm and steers her into the hallway. The door slams shut behind them, muting the worst of the wind, though the house still groans around them, beams protesting under the storm’s relentless force.

“Colin,” Penelope says breathlessly, trying to keep pace as his strides eat up the floor. “What is on that paper?”

He does not answer. He only tightens his grip and urges her onward. A footman appears at the far end of the corridor, lantern raised. “Sir, Miss, are you quite all right?”

“Yes,” Colin says curtly, already passing him, and shepherding Penelope up the stairs. “See to the drawing room window.”

Despite the storm, Penelope’s bedchamber is warm and well-lit. A fire burns low in the grate, shadow flames licking along the walls. Several candles burn steadily, like sentinels awaiting their mistress’s return. 

The scene is mesmerising, intimate. This is Penelope’s sanctuary. Hints of her are everywhere, and despite the grimness of the situation, he cannot help but smile at the spilling piles of books, a stack of paper, and a selection of quills dotting the desk. It is a writer’s haven. A writer. He tucks the thought away to consider later.

Colin releases his grip on her hand and crosses to the window. He peers out, pushing the heavy curtain aside.

Nothing. Only whirling snow, endless and blinding, the world beyond swallowed by white. His house is invisible across the square, making him question whether it is still there at all.

He exhales sharply and drags both hands through his hair, forcing himself to breathe, to think. He peers out again, scanning the darkness for any sign of movement, any shadow that does not belong to the storm. But there is nothing.

Still, he checks the latch. Presses his palm flat against the cold glass, then draws the thick curtains firmly closed.

“Stay away from the windows,” he tells her.

Penelope nods, retreating a step, her eyes never leaving his face. There is something unsettling in her composure; she might be observing a mildly interesting play rather than standing in the path of danger.

I see you. 

Something hot and furious coils in Colin’s chest. Someone has been watching this house. Lying in wait. To aim and throw a brick with enough force to shatter glass—to very nearly shatter her. The thought makes his blood roar. What sort of person would venture out into a storm? What madman would risk life and limb to hurl a brick through a window to send a message like this? It is lunacy. 

His hands tremble, and he clenches them, forcing himself to breathe before the anger carries him somewhere irretrievable.

In. Out. In and out. Think.

The note sears his palm like a brand.

I see you.

Rage bubbles up and spills over. “Do you want to tell me the meaning of this, or shall I guess?”

"That depends," she answers. Her voice is perfectly even, maddeningly calm, as though they are discussing the merits of her cook’s lemon tarts rather than a threat to her life.

“Upon?”

“Are you going to tell me what it says?”

Without letting her touch it, he holds up the paper between two fingers, as though it is poisoned and letting her hold it will make the threat real, consume her like hellfire and burn her to ash.

“I see you.” Saying the words aloud nauseates him. He wants to howl, to strike something, to send the cursed missive back through the window and pretend it never existed. 

She winds the fringe of her shawl around her fingers with deliberate, unhurried movements. "How do you know it has anything to do with me?"

The question—so reasonable, so infuriatingly detached—makes something snap inside him.

"Goddamnit, Penelope!" he explodes. "This is not a game!"

Her stillness in the face of his fury terrifies him more than the brick, more than the note, more than the storm. She should be frightened. No, she should be bloody terrified. Demanding answers, seeking comfort, showing something. Instead she stands there like a woman who has been expecting this all along.

Suddenly, he remembers her voice from earlier that evening—not carried or overheard by chance, but caught only because he had paused nearby, lingering by the buffet. Pen speaking softly to Eloise, her tone bright with amusement. Something about Fife and Miss Margaret Goring, ensconced in a closet for reasons she is too innocent to elaborate on. The particulars escape him now. What remains is the sound of her laughter—gleeful and knowing. Almost predatory.

At the time, he had thought nothing of it. Only that she sounded pleased. Clever. Entirely herself.

Now the memory sharpens.

Fife’s barbs. His fixation. The way he always seems to circle Penelope without ever daring to approach her directly. How his smile never quite reaches his eyes when her name is spoken. He watches her with the obsession of a man who knows he's being observed and resents it. The brick, hurled through the window in the storm—

The thought dissolves before he can grasp it, slipping through his mind like sand through fingers. What was he...? Something about Fife. Something important. But it’s gone now, leaving only unease in its wake.

Penelope listens. Penelope remembers. Penelope notices what others dismiss. Her quiet attentiveness is the very thing that makes her invisible—and the very thing that makes her dangerous. Most especially to those whose indiscretions might find their way into print.

The pieces align with a sickening inevitability, and he hates himself for how long it has taken him to see it.

Tomorrow, the ton will wake to a familiar rustle of paper. To ink that cuts sharper than any whisper. To a voice that has always been hers, whether he wished to see it or not.

Lady Whistledown.

“I know the truth,” he says, his clenched jaw aching.

“You…truth? What truth?”

“I know,” he repeats, the words rough in his throat. “It's you. You're Lady Whistledown.”

“Colin—” Her breath catches. “I don't—you cannot—”

“Pen, please.” He shakes his head, already past the point of denial. “Do not insult me with more lies. I have pieced it together.”

She stares at him for a long moment. Then her shoulders sag, the fight draining from her all at once.

“Yes,” she whispers, her face twisting. “It’s me.”

Even as she says what he knows to be true, something in him twists painfully—relief and terror and pride clashing in his chest.

“Are you mad?” he demands, the metallic taste of fear thick on his tongue. He gestures wildly toward the window. “What were you thinking? Someone threw a bloody brick in the middle of a storm, Penelope. Bricks belong on walls—on houses—not hurled through windows! Do you have any idea what could have happened?”

“I have always been careful to avoid discovery.”

“Careful?” He lets out a harsh, incredulous laugh. “This is your definition of careful?” He drags the crumpled note from his pocket and thrusts it toward her.

I see you.

Silence swells between them, thick and suffocating.

“You are clearly in danger.” He shakes the paper. “The evidence is in my hand. And you tell me—tell yourself—that you never were?”

“I have done this for years,” she says. “Years, Colin. No one has ever come this close.”

“For God’s sake, Pen!” he snaps. “Did you truly believe you could write about people the way you do—expose them, mock them, ruin them—and never face consequences? Of course someone would want revenge.”

“You think I do not know that?” she fires back.

“Then why risk yourself like this?”

Her composure finally shatters. Tears spill over, unchecked. “Because it was the only time anyone saw me!” she cries. “The only time my thoughts mattered. The only time people listened and respected me. You have no idea what it is like to be invisible, Colin. To be overlooked your entire life. Whistledown is mine. Something I built. Something I am good at.”

She has been moving through the world invisibly, powerfully—like wind itself. Unseen but felt everywhere, touching everything, changing the very air the ton breathes. And he had looked right through her. He is far more angry with himself than with her, and yet he hurls another accusation.

Her composure finally shatters. Tears spill over, unchecked. “Because it was the only time anyone saw me!” she cries. “The only time my thoughts mattered. The only time people listened and respected me. You have no idea what it is like to be invisible, Colin. To be overlooked your entire life. Whistledown is mine. Something I built. Something I am good at.”

She has been moving through the world invisibly, powerfully—like wind itself. Unseen but felt everywhere, touching everything, changing the very air the ton breathes. And he had looked right through her. He is far more angry with himself than with her, and yet he hurls another accusation.

“And what of me?” he demands, hurt surging up to swamp the fear. “You speak of respect, but you did not respect me when you wrote about Miss Thompson last season. You ruined her. And made me a laughingstock.”

“So you want your pound of flesh, then?” she shoots back. “For Marina? After she attempted to pass her unborn child off as yours?”

“She was wrong, but—”

“Oh, please. This is ridiculous.” Her hands twist in her nightrail. “You accuse me of cruelty when you are quite comfortable saying things far crueler than anything I ever wrote. As though you are better than I am.”

“I apologised,” he says hoarsely. “I told you I did not mean it like that.”

“It sounded very much like you did mean it. And now—now that you know something which could destroy me, you seek to absolve yourself.” She crosses her arms, and there's that eerie calm again, settling over her like armor. “Very well. Hand me over to the Queen, then. I care not.”

Colin rears back as though slapped. “You think me so faithless?” he asks, miserable and incredulous. "That I would drag you before the Crown?"

Her voice softens, but the detachment remains. “I do not know what to think. Tonight has taught me that pretty words come easily to you, Colin. It is their constancy I doubt.” She pauses, and something shifts in her expression—not quite resignation, but a weary kind of acceptance. “And why should it matter to you anyway? If something happens to me because of Whistledown, what of it? I am merely your neighbor. Someone you feel compelled to look after because you are a good person.”

Why does it matter?

The question reverberates through him, striking something deep and fundamental. Why does it matter? Why does the thought of her in danger make his blood roar? Why does her pain cut him more deeply than his own? Why has he spent years mistaking motion for meaning, distance for purpose, when everything that mattered was right here, constant as air, vital as breath?

Constancy. She is asking for constancy. And suddenly he understands that what she needs from him is not restraint, or silence, or proof.

It is truth.

“Because I love you!”

The admission tears free of him in a tortuous, heaving gasp, as though it has been clawing its way to the surface for years. A truth he had not truly known until the moment he gave it voice.

He does not know what he expect to feel once the words are spoken—relief, perhaps, or certainty of a path forward. Instead, it is as though the ground has shifted beneath him. Love and fear squeeze his heart, constricting it like a vice. At last, he has named this terrible, aching, exhilarating thing, and with it he has named the risk. Her danger. His helplessness. The knowledge that nothing in his life has ever mattered so much, or felt so perilously close to being lost.

“What?” Her eyes are huge in her pale face.

“I love you,” he repeats, and this time the words settle, certain on his tongue. He loves her mind, her humour, her cheeky, irreverent wit; loves the faint scatter of orange lashes against her cheek, the determined set of her mouth when she is thinking.

“I only realised it this evening. Or perhaps,” he amends, “I have only just stopped lying to myself. I told myself I was being honourable—not because I wished to win you, or earn your regard, but because I wanted to be kind, caring, worthy. But the truth is, I love you. I think I always have.”

“You mustn't say such things,” she says, her voice thick as she steps back, lifting her hands as though to ward him off. “You must not.”

He closes his eyes. She does not believe him. 

“I am a bloody fool, Pen,” he says, tears springing to his eyes. “But I am telling you the truth. And I refuse to take it back, no matter how many suitors sought your notice tonight.”

“Colin…”

He sets his jaw, bracing himself for whatever she is about to say. For another reproach. A dressing down. Anything, he prays, but a cold dismissal. 

It does not come.

Another gust tears at the house, the windows threatening to rattle out of their frames. The fire spits, embers shifting. Penelope is shaking, her lips taking on the same hue as her blue shawl.

He draws the garment closer around her shoulders, positioning himself between her and the window once more. “Sit,” he murmurs. “Please.”

She hesitates, then sinks onto the edge of the bed, her strength finally deserting her. He spreads a blanket over her lap and lowers himself to sit beside her, keeping a respectful distance.

Only until the storm eases, he tells himself.

She lies back in the bed, exhaustion pulling her under. Careful not to touch her, he draws the blanket around her, smoothing the edge of it along her shoulder.

He looks to the rocking chair in the corner, deciding it will do as a vigil tonight. That way he can watch over her. There’s no way he can rest knowing she is in peril. No way he can sleep while he carries this tangled knot of truths.

She turns on her side, facing away from him. “Colin,” she whispers, her back to him. “Will you stay?”

“Of course,” he replies, shrugging off his tailcoat and settling into the chair. His cravat is long gone, to where he does not know. The cold from the wooden chair back presses into his limbs like icy fingers, making him shiver. 

In between creaks of the rocking chair’s tread, the wind howls, the house sobbing in reply.

She turns to look at him. “I meant stay here,” she says, patting the mattress. “With me.”

He swallows longingly. “Are you certain, Pen?”

“You said you…loved me.”

“Yes.”

“Did you mean it?”

“You told me not to say things I did not mean.” 

“Colin—“

“Yes, I meant it.”

“Then come here.” She caresses the mattress once more.

He carefully joins her on the bed, lying beside her without touching. The mattress dips slightly beneath his weight, the space between them charged and fragile.

“Colin,” she whispers after a moment. “About Whistledown—”

“Please,” he murmurs, turning his head toward her though he keeps his hands firmly to himself. “Not tonight. We will speak of it in the morning. Now, you need rest.”

Outside, the storm rages on unabated. Wind screams down the chimney. Something strikes the house again, making the walls shudder and the window rattle ominously in its frame. Cold creeps back into the room despite the fire.

Colin shifts without thinking, angling his body so that he is between her and the window. If anything comes through that glass, it will reach him first.

It is then that he feels it.

A faint tremor passes through her, so slight it might have gone unnoticed if he had not been paying such close attention. Her breath catches, shallow and uneven, and her fingers curl reflexively into his sleeve.

“Pen,” he says quietly. “Are you cold?”

“No,” she replies at once.

“You are,” he says, certain now. “You are freezing.”

“I am well,” she insists, but another shiver overtakes her, betraying the words before she can finish them.

He does not argue. Instead, he offers her his body, turning fully toward her, opening himself to her without reservation. “Come here,” he says gently. “Let me hold you. I will warm you.”

She does not hesitate, and her trust makes his heart beat triple time. She moves into his arms as though she has always belonged there, fitting against him with a quiet sigh that twists something deep in his chest. He wraps his arms around her carefully at first, then more firmly, drawing her close. Her arms slide around his waist, fingers curling into his waistcoat, holding on as if she fears he might disappear if she loosens her grip. She tucks her face into the hollow of his chest, seeking warmth, safety, him. He draws the blanket up and over them both, sealing them together, cocooning her against the danger, the storm. She is so cold it hurts him.

“I have you,” he breathes, tightening his hold, rubbing slow, steady warmth into her back. “Everything will be well, sweetheart.”

The endearment tumbles out before he considers it, and he stiffens, expecting her to pull away. She does not.

He breathes her in deeply, reverently. The familiar scent of her—lavender soap and citrus, with a whisper of parchment, ink, and candle smoke—and beneath it all something softer, sweeter, unmistakably Penelope. It clings to him, fills his lungs, makes the world beyond her dissolve. Her hair brushes his chin like silk, impossibly soft. Beneath his hands, her warmth returns little by little, blooming back into her skin until she no longer feels like ice, no longer feels fragile, but alive and sure against him.

Unable to stop himself, he lowers his head and presses a soft, lingering kiss into her hair. When she shifts, her forehead brushing his jaw, the kiss drifts without thought. His lips find her temple, then the corner of her mouth, hesitant, questioning.

“I didn’t know,” he hears himself whisper tearfully against the seam of her lips. How much I loved you. How long I have.

She lifts her head from his throat to look at him and pulls out of the circle of his arms, devastating him.

His hands fall uselessly to his sides. Then, instinctively, his arms wrap around himself, trying to hold together what feels like it’s breaking apart. The cold rushes in where her warmth had been, and he wants to curl up and wither away.

He loves her, but it’s too late. He has ruined everything, like he always does—misreading, misjudging, misunderstanding. It is too late. Always too late.

He doesn't realize he'd said the last part aloud until: “Colin,” Penelope says softly, opening her arms. “Come here.”

And he does. He can do nothing but obey her commands, meek as a lamb to the slaughter. If she told him to go out into the snow naked right now, he would do it. Instead, she offers warmth, comfort, absolution. He melts into her gratefully, sinking close, letting himself be wrapped up and protected by this tiny woman with the strongest, most caring heart he has ever known. He presses his grateful, trembling lips to the side of her neck and lets her soothe him. Lets her kiss the top of his head and stroke his hair from his face, saying nothing as his tears wet her nightgown. 

She lifts his face to hers and kisses him then, molding her mouth to his. He parts his lips with a low moan, and she surges forward, caressing his tongue with hot strokes of her own. He doesn’t know how she knows what to do when he barely knows himself. Instinct, he thinks vaguely, as they kiss and kiss, both of them tasting his tears.

He rolls her over onto her back, bracing himself on the mattress, bracketing his hands on either side of her head. All creamy skin and heaving bosom, she is stunning in the firelight, almost like an angel.

What a fool he has been.

“You’re not angry,” he says, astonished. “Why aren’t you angry?”

She wipes at a stray tear on his chin. “If you can forgive me for Whistledown, surely I can forgive you for such a small thing as saying you would never court me.”

“It was not a small thing,” he retorts. “It was careless and cruel. And I do not expect you to barter with me over whose is the greater sin, Pen. That is not how forgiveness works.”

“Colin.”

He freezes above her, arms locked, breath shuddering, the sound of his name like a physical blow. She’ll tell him to go now. To get out of her bed and her home. To leave and never come back. 

“I forgive you.”

“You shouldn’t,” he says, hoarse.

“I want to.”

Her hand lifts, slow and deliberate, and cups his jaw, steadying him where he trembles.

“I love you,” she says. “I have loved you longer than is sensible.”

“Pen—”

“Shh,” she says. “Rest now.”

She rocks him a little and he lets her, greedy to be coddled, to be soothed, his head on her breasts, her curls soft against his cheek. He moves his lips to the valley between her breasts but does not kiss her there. He only rests, feeling her heart thunder wildly against his lips. 

A sigh moves her chest, but it is not weary or sad, but a sound of contentment. She threads her fingers through his hair, clutching him to her. 

Perhaps he hasn’t ruined everything after all. 

He lifts his head to gaze up at her; her eyes are closed, her lips parted. Outside, the earth continues to revolt, the house quivering and the wind crying. Inside they are safe and well. 

Then he lowers his head to her chest once more, allowing his eyes to drift closed.

The feel of her surrounds him, warm and so utterly, devastatingly Penelope. Without thinking, he buries his face against her, nuzzling into the tender hollow between her breasts. The satin of her nightrail is cool beneath his lips, but her skin is burning through it and he cannot stop himself. He breathes her in. He nuzzles again…and again…and again, slow and gentle, but also greedy for closeness, for comfort, for her.

His cheek brushes lower. His mouth finds the curve of her breast, the silken swell rising to meet him as she shifts and arches beneath his lips. He presses closer, brushing his mouth over her through the fabric, a tender, lingering caress, and then he feels it: the tight, eager bud of her nipple beneath the thin satin. A shiver runs through him. His lips part instinctively. He cannot help it—he grazes, then kisses, then begins to caress the stiffened peak of her breast with soft strokes of his mouth, as she breathes trembling sounds into the darkness and arches toward him.

“More,” she moans, and his lips close around a satin-covered nipple, tugging gently.

God, her breasts. Certainly he’d looked at them pressed and spilling over in all her lovely yellow gowns, even imagined what they looked like unbound—lush, ripe peaches begging to be savoured.

His hands twitch to explore, to cup, to feel the softness of her skin beneath his fingertips. He wants to trace every curve, to press closer, to touch, to learn every secret she keeps hidden beneath the folds of her nightgown.

He wishes so desperately to see her fully bare, but she cradles his head to her, fingers buried in his hair so he can do naught but suckle the stiff, aching peaks, moaning his enthusiasm into her curves as he marks her, wetting the thin fabric thoroughly.

“Oh Colin,” she whines, her voice breaking into a little cry. “More, please.”

Heat floods his body. He is painfully hard, his cock straining against his breeches as his hips rock helplessly against the mattress, desperate for friction, for relief. The room blurs into a dreamy haze as she writhes beneath him, lifting her hips, welcoming him closer. 

More more more.

“Yes, Pen,” he moans against her breast. “I will give you more.” 

His hands slide down, gripping the generous curve of her arse as he gathers the soft nightrail, baring her inch by inch until the cool air brushes her soft, plush thighs. 

He feels it then—her heat, her wetness. 

A helpless sound tears from her throat, as she moves against him, struggling for contact. He shifts, pressing himself between her legs, rubbing the hard, wool-covered length of his hungry, aching cock against her naked, trembling centre.

She purrs in his ear, then nuzzles his jaw, his throat, her lips hot and searching as she kisses, nips, and sucks along his skin. She hitches her legs around his waist, driving him deeper, harder, her heels digging into his flanks. It is guileless and torturous and entirely without finesse, his blood screaming in his veins, and he cannot get enough. 

He grunts, thrusting against her, sweat dampening his clothes. Lavender and spice rise from her skin, so sweet and intoxicating, her scent wrapping around him the way heat gathers in a room while winter claws at the windows.

“Colin,” she whimpers into his neck. “Colin, Colin, Colin…”

”Oh fuck,” he mutters helplessly, moving faster, her moans spurring him on. Never had his name sounded so sweet. 

He opens his eyes because he must see her, must witness her, the flutter of her lashes, her parted mouth, the way her face contorts with pleasure, her entire body straining toward heaven as he rolls his hips in the cradle of hers. 

“Oh! Oh Colin,” she sobs, her body tensing beneath him, her breath stuttering as pleasure overtakes her. She is pulsing and shaking as he feels her break and bloom all at once, her release wet and warm against him, soaking his breeches. 

“Yes, yes, yes” he chants, awestruck, undone, watching her shudder and melt beneath him. He thrusts once, twice more, and heat coils tight inside him, spreading, surging through every nerve. And then it breaks—a wave he cannot stop, cannot temper. Sounds spill from him—grunts, groans, low, half-choked moans, raw and uncontrolled. His limbs tense, every muscle taut and trembling and for a long moment, all that exists is the dizzying, consuming sensation of breaking apart and being pieced back together in Penelope’s arms.

He pants, trying to catch his breath, every cell still thrumming from the force of his peak. Slowly, he lifts his head and his eyes find hers. They are wide and luminous, cheeks flushed, lips parted, her expression dazed with wonder and the same molten heat that still coils inside him.

He cannot help himself. He leans forward and claims her mouth again, kissing her deeply, hungrily. She answers him without hesitation, her tongue meeting his in a languid dance. After a few blissful moments he trails his lips along her jaw, pressing gentle kisses to the soft skin there before nuzzling into the curve of her neck. He inhales her scent and they lie tangled together, chests rising and falling in unison, clinging as though the storm outside might pry them apart if they so much as loosened their hold. And then like a fire suddenly flaring to life, clarity cuts through the haze and the world rushes back. 

Reality rushes back. Decorum. The enormity of what has just passed between them.

He draws in a sharp breath, guilt and fear and wonder and love colliding in his chest. “I… Pen…” He searches desperately for words. “I am sorry,” he murmurs hoarsely. “I do not know…I do not know what came over me.”

A soft laugh slips from her lips. Her fingers brush tenderly along his cheek and her eyes sparkle. “Why are you apologizing?” she asks gently. “That was…wonderful. You are wonderful.”

Her laughter pierces straight through him and a wide smile spreads across his face. His heart hammers as if it means to escape the cage of his ribs. “Penelope…” he whispers. “I love you. Will you…will you marry me?”

“Colin!” a voice bellows, followed by an insistent pounding. “Colin!”

He winces at the discordant sound. Oh Lord. Lady Featherington has found them. Found him in Penelope’s chamber, in her bed, his release cooling in his trousers. There is not a single respectable explanation to spare them scandal, nor anything that would satisfy a mother already inclined to think the worst of him.

Well. He supposes there is no sense pretending otherwise. The sooner he faces her, the sooner—

He opens his eyes and the world lurches.

He jerks upright.

He is at home. In his own bed. In his own room. Alone.

The pounding is gone. The storm is gone. Penelope is gone.

His heart is still racing. His hands tremble where they clutch the sheets, drenched in warm April sunshine, not storm-dark midnight. His chest is damp with sweat and his sleep trousers…must be changed immediately.

The echo of her voice rings in his ears—I have loved you longer than is sensible…

She had been there all along. Constant as air, vital as breath. Moving through his life like wind through an open window—so familiar he never thought to notice, until suddenly she was gone and he was suffocating.

The pounding resumes, real this time, solid against the door, and Benedict’s voice filters through, wry and impatient. “Colin?”

He drags a hand down his face and exhales shakily.

Another knock sounds, even firmer now, his brother’s voice edged with concern. “Colin? Are you well?”

Good God. It never happened. None of it. Not the storm, not the shattering glass, not the sweet weight of Penelope in his arms. He feels relieved and bereft all at once. She does not know. She cannot know. The storm never happened, but an awakening did.   

Another insistent knock. He snorts. Benedict is usually far better at taking a hint. 

“Colin! For God’s sake! Open the bloody door!”

“Enter,” he calls, ensuring the sheet is wrapped firmly about his hips. Should his brother realize the true nature of his wake-up call, Colin will never live it down.

The door opens at once. Benedict steps inside, eyes scanning the room, then settling on Colin, rumpled, flushed, very much alive. Worry drains from his expression, replaced swiftly by something far more dangerous: amusement.

“You slept late,” he observes, one brow lifting. “Missed breakfast. Which is…unlike you.”

His gaze drifts pointedly to the tangled sheets. Then to Colin’s hair. Then back again. A slow, knowing grin curves his mouth.

“Well,” Benedict says lightly, “judging by the state of you, I suppose one might forgive the tardiness.”

He flicks his chin toward the packed trunks by the mirror. “Still if you intend to sail, you will need to hurry.”

Colin shakes his head. “I’m not going.”

Benedict blinks. “You’re not going,” he repeats carefully, as though testing the phrase for hidden meanings. “As in, not going yet?”

“No,” Colin says. “Not going at all.”

Benedict blinks again, one brow lifting as his gaze flicks once more to the neatly stacked trunks. “You do recollect,” he says mildly, “that you have been speaking of little else for weeks. Maps. Routes. Inns. A great deal of complaining about the state of the roads on the Continent.”

“Yes, well,” Colin says, rubbing at his temples. “I have reconsidered.”

“In the night.”

“Yes.”

Benedict folds his arms, scrutinizing him. “Did something…happen in the night?”

Colin opens his mouth. Closes it again. His thoughts are still tangled, the remnants of the dream clinging stubbornly to him like mist.

“I had a dream,” he says finally.

Benedict’s expression softens into amusement. “Ah.”

“It was not that sort of dream,” Colin snaps, though his ears burn. At least not at first. “It was—complicated. Distressing. Illuminating.”

“I see.”

“There was a storm,” Colin continues, because stopping now feels impossible. “And Penelope. And I was cold, and then I wasn’t, and—” He breaks off, waving a hand. “The point is, I woke up knowing something I did not know before.”

Benedict studies him for a long moment. “You look,” he says slowly, “as though you’ve been struck by divine revelation. Or possibly digestive distress.”

“Neither,” Colin says. “Well. Perhaps the former.”

“And this revelation has caused you to abandon a carefully planned tour of Europe.”

“Yes.”

“For love,” Benedict adds, savoring the word.

Colin freezes.

Benedict rubs a hand over his chin and smiles. “You are not subtle, brother.”

Colin exhales, long and shaky. “I have to see her.”

“Ah,” Benedict says again, this time with satisfaction. “There it is.”

“I cannot go without telling her,” Colin says, forgetting his déshabille as he swings his legs out of bed. “I cannot go at all, actually. Not now. Not after—” He stops himself, breath hitching. “She deserves to know.”

“By all means, go and tell Penelope right now.” Benedict narrows his eyes. “We are talking about Penelope, are we not?”

“Of course we are,” Colin says crossly. “Who else?”

“Only asking, brother,” Benedict says, laughing lightly.

Colin grunts, unamused.

Ben wiggles his eyebrows, all smugness. “I knew it of course.”

“Did you?” Colin asks wryly.  

“Naturally. You’ve been mooning over her for years.”

“Kind of you to illuminate the matter for me,” Colin mutters, wondering who else knew of his feelings before he did. 

Benedict steps aside as Colin reaches for his dressing gown, watching him with a mixture of fondness and curiosity. “You realise,” he begins, “that this is the most decisive I have ever seen you.”

Colin pauses, one hand on the navy fabric. “Is it?”

“Yes. It is rather unsettling.”

Colin lets out a breathless laugh. “For once I do not feel unsettled. Not in the least.”

“Well,” Benedict says, with a pointed grin directed at Colin’s soiled sleep trousers, “please do us all a favor and bathe before you depart. It would appear your nocturnal activities were rather…exuberant.”

“Get out,” Colin orders, tossing a pillow at his brother’s head.

Benedict ducks, snickering. “Goodness, no need for violence. I hope your aim is better with Penelope.” 

“I am going to kill you,” Colin says, hurling another pillow. This one hits Ben squarely in the chest and he lets out a satisfying oomph.

Then his brother smiles, sauntering toward the door like a cat stuffed with cream. “You look like a man who has finally figured out which way the wind is blowing. Bon chance, mon frère,” he calls over his shoulder.

And then he is gone.

Colin sits there for a moment longer, heart still racing, the echo of her voice lingering like warmth in his chest.

I have loved you longer than is sensible.

“Yes,” he murmurs to the empty room. “So have I.”

And this time, he does not intend to sleep through it.

He drums his fingers against the carved arm of the bench outside the Featherington drawing room, the rhythm uneven, betraying his nervousness. He has already been announced. There is no retreat now.

The door opens.

“Colin,” Penelope says, clipped and cool. “You of all people I did not expect to see today.”

The servants have once again left them unchaperoned—an impropriety he has taken advantage of a hundred times before without a second thought. Perhaps today, of all days, someone ought to be here. But he finds he is grateful for their absence. What he needs to say cannot be said with a maid hovering in the corner or a footman lingering by the door.

He knows exactly why she says it. It’s because of what he said last night at the Featherington Ball, and yet the words still smart. “Why not?” he cannot help but ask.

She turns back to the window overlooking the square, where the April wind runs through newly budded branches, stirring pale green leaves and shaking loose the first hopeful petals. “I thought you were off on your tour,” she says. “You were to leave today, yes? How many countries this time?”

He opens his mouth. Closes it. Tries again.

“I’m not going,” he says.

She stills. “Of course you’re going. You always go.”

That bitter truth makes him wince. Running, running, always running. Whether physically or emotionally, it is what he does best, is it not? No. It is what he did best. Not any longer. 

“Yes, well. I was going to. I mean—I had planned to. Everything was planned. Trunks packed, route decided, goodbyes rehearsed—”

“Colin, why are you here?” She sounds again like the Penelope from the beginning of his dream. Sad, disappointed. Resigned.

“I’m not going,” he repeats, louder now, as if volume might make her believe him. “I woke up this morning and I knew I wasn’t going.”

She turns then, delicate brows drawn together. “You knew.” Her voice is flat, disbelieving.

“Yes. Which is—terrifying, frankly. Because I usually don’t know anything. I usually just go and then decide afterward whether it was a mistake.”

She studies him. “And now?”

“And now I decided first,” he blurts. “Which is why I’m here. Obviously. I mean—not obviously. I realize this looks mad. I am mad, probably. But if I didn’t come at once I was afraid I would talk myself out of it.”

“Out of what?”

He doesn’t answer. He simply grabs her.

It’s clumsy and sudden and utterly without finesse—his hands at her arms, her waist, pulling her into him as though the space between them has committed some grave offense. He kisses her like a man running out of time.

For a split second she is frozen in shock.

Then she melts into him, accepting his kiss, and returning it, her arms sliding around him. Somehow she tastes even more incredible, more right, than the Penelope of his dreams.

He jerks away. “I’m sorry,” he says haltingly. “God—I didn’t ask—I should have asked—I didn’t even say good morning—”

“Colin,” she says, breathless, one hand still gripping his coat. “I did kiss you back.”

“Yes, well. Thank you for that,” he says fervently. “I mean—I’m grateful. Not that I expect gratitude for kissing me. That’s not what I mean. What I mean is—I am sorry. I should not have done that without asking. I just—I had a dream.”

“A dream.” She presses her flushed lips together.

“Yes.” He drags a hand through his hair. “And I know how that sounds. Truly. I do. But it was quite vivid, and quite long, and quite upsetting in places. And you were there, and there was a winter storm, and you were furious with me—which was fair because I had said something unforgivable—and you told me you had danced with a great many gentlemen.”

“I did?”

“In the dream,” he clarifies quickly. “You were certain of it. And I could not remember seeing any of it, which terrified me, because it meant I had not been paying attention. I thought I had lost you without even noticing it happen.”

He stops, breath hitching. “And then you told me why you were angry. Because you had heard me say I would never court you.”

She is very still now. “I did hear you say that. Last night. At my Mama’s ball.”

“I said it thoughtlessly,” he goes on, words tumbling faster. “Cruelly. As though I could explain away our relationship with excuses and laughter. I would give anything to take it back, Penelope. Anything. And in the dream I tried to explain, but you looked at me as though I were a stranger, and I realised—” his voice breaks “—that I had done the one thing I promised myself I would never do. I made you feel unimportant.”

And he knows, with a clarity that makes his chest ache, that this part was never a dream at all.

He can see it even now: Fife’s lazy smile, the press of bodies throughout the ballroom, the careless weight of champagne in his hand. He remembers the exact moment the words left his mouth—how easily they had come, how little he had thought of them at the time. Dreams do not remember like that. They blur and soften. This memory does neither.

He had said it. Awake. Aloud. Where it could be heard. Where it was heard. And by the one person he values above all others.

“And then,” he adds helplessly, “there was Whistledown. 

“Whistledown?” she repeats sharply. “What about her?”

“You told me the truth,” he says, voice rough. “Or rather, I found out somehow. And I was frightened for you, and angry, and—God—so very proud all at once that I could scarcely breathe. I woke up knowing two things beyond doubt.”

He swallows, presses a hand to his chest to feel the rapid thump of his own heart. Real real real. “First, that I loved you. And second, that I had ruined everything. And then—somehow—I hadn’t. And when I woke, it felt like someone had reached in here and rearranged everything.”

He lets out a weak, self-conscious laugh. “You were there. Obviously. And there was a storm. And I was very cold. And then I wasn’t.” He shakes his head. “You see? Entirely mad.”

She only looks at him, her eyes wide and bright with wonder. But she believes him. He knows it by the way her lips part, by the softness that steals into her expression, by the way she leans toward him as though drawn by an invisible thread.

“I asked you to marry me,” he continues, words spilling faster now. “Which I realize is a great deal, especially in a drawing room, and I am not doing that now, not exactly, I mean I might someday, if you would allow it, but the point is—you said yes. Or you were about to. And then I woke up and it was awful, because I had everything and then I didn’t, and I thought—what if that’s the only place I ever say it?”

He stops. Breathless. Terrified.

“So,” he finishes, gesturing at the drawing room, “I came here.”

The wind stirs again, nudging the curtains, lifting a curl at her temple.

“You’re shaking,” she says.

“So are you,” he says at once, relieved to notice it.

“I am not courting anyone,” she adds.

The relief is instant and overwhelming. He lets out a hiccoughing laugh that sounds like a sob. “Oh. Thank God. I thought—never mind what I thought.”

And then he kisses her again, less frantic now, but no less certain.

She smiles when they part. “You are behaving very strangely.”

“I know,” he says earnestly. “But I love you. And I’m not going anywhere without you. And if you’ll permit me—properly, sensibly, with all the asking and waiting—I wish to court you.”

Outside, a gust of spring wind blows, no match for the tempest of his dreams, but enough to shake the budding branches and send a scatter of petals drifting past the window.

She regards him for a long moment, and he can see her weighing his words, testing them for truth.

“Then,” she says, “you may begin by asking.”

He straightens at once, solemn and nervous and hopelessly sincere. “Penelope Featherington,” he says, “may I court you?”

“Yes,” she says. “You may.”

Her smile is slow and warm and unmistakably real. This is no dream.

Outside, the spring wind settles. And for the first time in longer than he can remember, Colin feels still. Anchored. Home.

Colin is a man prone to dreaming—by day and by night, his mind forever occupied with what might be kind, what might be noble, what might be heroic. But standing here, with Penelope's hand in his and her acceptance on her lips, he realizes he has finally stopped asking what a man of purpose might do.

He has done it.

-fin-