Chapter Text
He is sitting on Siena’s doorstep when he hears it - the clattering of horse hooves against the cobblestones. He watches as the carriage - ‘a hired one,’ he thinks curiously, lurches slowly to a stop in front of the apartments. A woman in a finely made dark purple velvet cloak steps out of the carriage before hurriedly motioning to the hired hack to continue moving onwards.
He catches a sharp line of eye searing yellow and dark red curls and before he knows fully what he is doing, he stands and leaves the bottle and the crushed bouquet on the steps.
He watches as Penelope Featherington sways unsteadily on her feet before crumpling towards the cobblestones like she’s some swooning debutante in her first season. He lurches forward, one arm wrapping around her waist to steady her from hitting her head.
The cloak bunches up and catches on his signet ring, making it all the more difficult to steady her. He looks at her face and her eyes are closed, her head lolling to the side with her auburn curls spilling over one arm.
He cannot call for a physician, not in this part of town. The Bridgerton carriage is all the way on the other side of town, the only thing he had brought of his was Jack. The sturdy Stallion was waiting around the block from Sienna’s apartments. He cannot risk taking her in the Bridgerton carriage he had followed here to take Siena to Daphne and Simon’s ball.
He adjusts the woman in his arms, gently cradling her to rest against his chest. He needs to take her back to the lodgings he had for trysts with Siena. He has no other choice in the matter. To take her back to Grosvenor Square was to condemn them both to a marriage neither of them wanted, or worse, unthinkably, was to ruin Penelope’s reputation so thoroughly she would never recover.
Both of those options were unthinkable, so he was going to carry her on Jack to his lodgings on this side of town until she could be properly awake to explain herself. Snorting, he carries her to the place he’d left Jack tied up. The only thing that marks the horse as a Bridgerton horse are the deep blue bridle and reins, the bridle which is engraved with crawling wisteria branches. He hadn’t saddled the horse, in preparation of Sienna riding with him, or of them taking a hired carriage over to the lodgings.
To his credit, Jack only blows gently at Penelope’s hair and stamps his front feet as he chomps on his bit. He places Penelope gently on Jack’s back, before swinging up after her.
He holds the reins in his right hand, and asks Jack to slowly move forward into a walk. He isn’t going to risk moving any faster, not without a saddle and with a delicate passenger. He slips the reins over his right arm and then gently tugs the hood of her cloak over Penelope’s curls. He would hate for Whistledown to catch wind of this and ruin them both.
Finally, finally, they reach the front steps of his apartments. There are few servants here, and all know to keep his secrets. He had picked only the most loyal servants from the Bridgerton household to staff it when he had bought the building.
He swings down from the horse nimbly, before pulling Penelope down from the horse’s back. A footman holds the reins and greets him softly. Anthony inclines his head towards the other man, making a note to give him extra for his silence.
He carries Penelope up the stairs to the single bedroom, the large bed with its eiderdown pillows and blanket, with the painting hanging above the bed. The servants have cleared away the old flowers at the vanity and strewn rose petals about. The silken flower petals look like droplets of blood in the darkness of the bedroom.
One corner of the clean bed sheets are already turned back to welcome them in, with a bottle of brandy and two empty glasses. He gives a soft scoff, laying down his damsel in distress on the feather mattress.
He stalks over to the other side of the bed to pour himself a glass of brandy and throw himself in the blue velvet armchair. Sighing, he rubs a hand over his jaw, he doesn’t understand how he got here. In his bachelor's lodgings - the ones that only himself and mother and certain members of the household knew about, without Siena and with Penelope Featherington instead.
Had she been compromised and afraid to tell her mother what had happened? Had someone at Simon’s taken liberties with the little wallflower?
His brow furrows, sipping softly at the amber drink in his glass. She was in a hired hack carriage, all together unsafe because the men who worked them pushed the horses far too much past their limits, not to mention the dangers such a lady faced going out into the streets of London alone.
He doesn’t understand what would have caused her to flee from Simon’s estate in such a manner. He had left early himself to propose to Siena one last time, to ask her to come to the Hastings ball with him.
He sits, glancing between his drink, the Featherington girl in his bed, and his father’s pocket watch for nearly half an hour before she begins to stir. It is only happenstance that he catches her reaching for the slip of parchment in her bosom.
“What are you doing, Miss Featherington?”
She startles so much that her head rears back into the wooden headboard. He winces in commiseration as she cradles her head.
“I- My Lord Bridgerton, where are we?”
“My bachelor’s lodgings.”
He watches as the young woman gasps, her eyes catching on every detail around the room.
“You brought me back to Mayfair then?”
“No. This is another building that I own, on the other side of London.”
“Ah. For your Soprano, then.” she quips with a smile.
His mouth drops open as he stares at her reddening face in shock. She should not even know about- A panicked noise leaves his throat as she squeaks and buries her face in her hands, her hair tilting forward to fall in gentle waves over her collarbone and breasts.
“I- Does everyone know about that? First my mother and now you. The little wallflower debutante.” He huffs, “If I did not know it to be impossible, I would wager you were Lady Whistledown herself.”
She looks up at him in horror before reaching for the slip of parchment hidden in her dress. His eyes sweep up to the ceiling, studying the candelabra. He knows his cheeks are flushed pink. He usually is far better at handling this sort of thing, but this woman has disarmed him of all his usual charm, setting him on the backfoot. She had been friends with Eloise since she and Daph had been in leading strings together for Lord’s sake.
“Here.” says Penelope, tossing the folded piece of parchment across the bed for it to flutter down and slip under the bed frame.
He stands, setting his remaining brandy on the bedside table. He reaches for the blasted piece of paper, dismayed to find it still warm from her body heat. He opens it and reads the first line before glancing back at her.
“You rewrote an issue of Whistledown just to carry it around?”
She openly laughs at him, her head falling back into the mountain of pillows. He is startled by the stirrings of desire he feels at seeing her so comfortable in his bed. He is startled at how easily he had let Siena go from his mind after seeing her current lover in just a nightshirt.
“No,” she says laughing. “Just keep reading.”
He reads, brows furrowing once more as he sits again on the chair beside the bed. He gets to the final line, the script is more than familiar to him, seeing his sister’s names scrawled on parchments sent across the square for invitations to promenade, to go for ice cream, to go book shopping, to go ribbon shopping. He has seen it countless times over the years to not recognize the flowing script as Penelope Featherington’s writing.
He reads it again, and then a third time, to finally look at the woman in his bed.
“I fear I do not understand, Miss Featherington.”
She snorts, grinning at him in a way that drives him mad. It is the very worst look upon her face, the one that signifies all forms and fantasies of mischief his siblings have roped her into, or she to them.
He shudders and keeps his eyes on hers.
“I am Lady Whistledown, Anthony.”
His breath steals away from him, as he reexamines the letter in light of this new information.
“You were almost caught by the Queen’s men? Have you any idea how much danger you placed yourself in?”
“Yes. That is why I took the detour I did. I did not expect you to be visiting your Soprano during the Hastings ball. I was on my way to Genevieve's.”
He scoffs, before standing to place the unwritten article next to his brandy glass.
“I do not think that the Modiste could assist you in hiding from this, for all her talents. You are hiding from the Queen’s men. If you are found it would not be pleasant, Penelope.”
A muscle in his jaw ticks as he watches her roll her eyes heavenwards.
“I am aware of just how much danger I am in, my lord. I do not need you to look after me.”
He snorts before striding forward to sit on the edge of the bed.
“Clearly someone must. You fainted in the middle of the street!”
He watches as her face twists into something he can only call despair, a look far too familiar to him for his own liking.
“Because my mama has been restricting food, not because of Whistledown !” she snarls, losing the childish affectation to her voice.
“I am not ever to attract a suitor being ten stone heavier than I ought to be, especially since Papa has gambled away our dowries on horses, again. ”
He can feel his own face pale as the gravity of the Featherington household weighs down on him. This is- far far worse than he had thought. If she is in a similar state to his own mother after she had Hy, with financial complications to boot.
The noise that claws its way out of his throat is inhumane, a pained animal noise, built upon years and years of grief, of shunting aside his own emotions for the sake of the family.
“I was aware of your father’s gambling problem, half of the ton likely is. What I find reprehensible is your mother’s insistence that you restrict food to catch a suitor you do not have a dowry for. Unless she intends to manipulate you as she did Miss Thompson?” he asks, with a tilt of his head.
She cannot meet his gaze, her lip caught between her teeth. Her feet flicker under the sheets impatiently.
“I believe that if it comes to it, that Mama will marry me to a man like Lord Middlethorpe.” she sighs, and sounds close to tears as she continues, “I have some hope
that perhaps Colin might yet see me as a potential, but he is always so busy with his lessons and now with his travel plans that I do not think he sees me in such a way yet.”
She laughs sharply, bitterly.
“The night before I wrote the Whistledown column that exposed her, Marina said I was trying to ruin their courtship because I was jealous that Colin would never see me as anything other than how he does Eloise and Hyacinth - a childish little girl. She said that my love was an unrequited fantasy. ” she spits.
Anthony blinks, and then takes her soft hand.
“Colin is… rather immature, and that blame lies on me. I did not step up as I should have when he returned from Eton, to ensure he knew more of the world than just Mayfair and the descriptions in his geography books.”
He scoffs, and thinks back over the years,
“And Miss Thompson may have had some familiarity with men and the marital act, but she certainly does not know Eloise, or even Hyacinth as well as we do. She meant the comparison as an insult, but I see it as a compliment. After all, I have seen no one else keep the peace between my sisters quite as well as you do, Penelope. You have the energy to keep up with both Hyacinth and Gregory in all their antics, the patience to sit and discuss with Eloise, the grace to practice conversations and etiquette with Daphne, and the kindness to listen to Francesca play the pianoforte for hours.”
She flushes pink again, and the more primal part of his brain takes interest that it spreads down over the tops of her breasts.
“You have even braved Pall mall at Aubrey. I have seen no other such debutante display such a feat.”
He is delighted that her lips pull up into a smile.
“Now, let us go pester the staff to see what nourishment can be found after such a trying ordeal.”
The staff make up a small snack plate of a variety of cold foods - raspberries, blackberries, a few blueberries, cherries with the pits removed, peas, prosciutto, cured beef, with fig jam and thick slices of bread.