Chapter Text
“Oh, my. Look at those two... they look utterly besotted with one another. Are they newlyweds?”
She wanted to say yes, they did look utterly, helplessly, and completely besotted with one another. Perhaps if her son wasn’t such an oblivious boy she could have affirmed the question proudly. After all, she had treated the girl as her own daughter for years– nurtured and cherished her in all the ways she was permitted to as if the girl was her own child.
But instead, the Bridgerton matriarch swallows a lump on her throat and shakes her head. “I-I’m afraid not,” she pulls out her fan to distract her from her wavering voice.
Violet watches with careful eyes how Penelope Featherington looks up at her son as if he’s hung the stars and moons. As if he could part the sea should he willed it. She watches the way Colin pulls the youngest Featherington out to the dance floor, cheeks burning red and face beaming with light, and Violet’s heart melts.
The two of them reminded her of herself and her late husband, Edmund, so much to the point that the parallels was far too uncanny.
Penelope Featherington was a mirror of her when she was still Violet Ledger.
While Violet now was one of the most prominent figures of the Ton, there was once a time where she too was but a meek and shy wallflower. Always berated by her mother for knowing so much, speaking too much for a girl her age and position. Clinging to the walls of the ballroom and could barely speak two words without becoming a sputtering mess.
And then Edmund came.
It wasn’t love at first sight. But somewhere within her, Violet knew that along the way she would marry Edmund. That for every conversation, every exchange of witty remark, for every laugh shared over a new stumbling debutante, the more she was certain that she would one day become Violet Bridgerton.
She was correct.
She married her best friend; theirs was a love match. So, to lose Edmund was more than losing her husband and lifelong companion– she had also lost her best friend. Her one confidant. The sanctuary and safeplace of her heart and soul.
And yet the love and life he had poured into her during their brief yet everlasting time together was enough to give her strength to ensure that her sons and daughters too could one day find a love like theirs.
No, Violet was steadfast in her resolve that all her children should only marry a love match. They deserved nothing less of the sort.
However, the present condition of said children as they mingle with society made it feel as though that was impossible.
Anthony, her eldest, was absent when he should have been here chaperoning, probably off to God knows where bedding his opera singer.
Benedict was somewhere in the room, either drinking or with his artistic peers.
Daphne was dancing with her suitors, and trying her hardest to make polite conversation. Violet sighs. She couldn’t understand her eldest daughter entertaining other callers when she was so obviously in love with the Duke (as if he wasn’t as enamored with her, if not more).
Eloise,.. well, Eloise was Eloise. Strong-headed like herself but did not wish to bend to the contemporary notions of the Ton. That girl was likely somewhere in between the crowd hiding from her.
And then there was Colin.
The more he grew up, the more he reminded Violet of Edmund. His laugh, his ravenous appetite, and even the crinckles that formed on his eyes whenever he smiled— it was all Edmund. The only thing that distinguished him from his father was that Edmund was a bit quicker to catch on things; his emotional intelligence more developed than Colin's in his age.
Because Violet was sure that if her son was as swift and put together as Edmund (in mind), he'd be the first to get married out of all her children at the sight of Penelope's blush alone.
Although Colin may not look at Penelope in the same intensity she had always stared at him, his fondness of her was so sickeningly sweet it was no wonder he couldn’t see it himself. It was probably second nature to her son to be so considerate of Penelope.
Even when they were merely practicing, Colin made sure to always pair with her when she had her dance lessons with Eloise and Daphne. Sometimes, Colin even went as far as waking up earlier than his usual routine to ensure that he could greet Penelope before they made their way to the modiste.
Violet Bridgerton does admit that there may or may not have been times where she urged his son to dance with Penelope. But for the later years until her debut, it was Colin himself who took the opportunity to dance with the young girl.
In every room he entered, whether Colin was aware of it or not, he always sought after her. His eyes would travel the wide expanse of the room and once it would land on the fiery red of her manes, or the yellow dresses Portia would put on Penelope (which, in Violet’s opinion, only washed out the young girl’s beauty), Colin would smile with the same boyish grin his father had, and move at once to her side.
She was positive that along the lines of their close attatchment, Colin would realize what was always there in front of him. The Ton may think their closeness inappropriate, but she knew her boy to be a gentleman.
And what better foundation to any courtship or relationship than that built on friendship?
But then she also watches the light in Penelope’s eyes disappear the second Colin approaches Marina Thompson with a skip in his step.
“My brother is a fool ,” Benedict says, appearing suddenly beside her. “If a girl looked at me with half the fervency Miss Featherington does at Colin, I would have dragged her to the altar myself.”
"In due time, my dear. He’ll realize soon that Miss Thompson is nothing but a passing fancy.” her reply tastes sour in her tongue. Violet may have said as much but even she was harboring doubts, what with the way Colin had been entertaining Miss Thompson over the past week.
Penelope clasps her hands together, fidgeting with her gloves and brushes an invisible flint on her dress. What a sight the decorations for tonight's ball was, and yet the young girl's eyes remain glued to the pair as they move around the room. She doesn't think anyone notices her insecurities build a wall around her, so Penelope retreats back into the shadows, hiding from the scrutinizing eyes of the Ton.
“Benedict, why don’t you dance with–”
“Already on it, Mother.”
Violet, at the very least, is grateful that at least one of her sons are sensible enough to know what to do without being told.
She wants to interfere. She could interfere. Perhaps a small nudge? Violet was certain that her son wasn’t that much of an idiot. He could put two and two together if he had the right clues, the right pieces of the puzzle.
Still, Violet remains rooted in her place.
If her son was worth even half of Miss Featherington, he’d have to man up to his mistake first of ignoring her all these years and realize his feelings without the need of their intervention.
So she does the only thing she can do.
Watch it all.
To fall, or to unfold? Violet isn’t sure herself.