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Penelope had never had Eloise's ambitions to obtain a formal education. True, she delighted in learning new information through careful observation, but Pen had always assumed that everything she needed to know would be taught to her in due time—how to discerningly hire a good housekeeper, how to prevail in an extended negotiation with the dressmakers for a better price, how to dance a quadrille without tripping over her partner's feet. It was quite admirable, of course, that Eloise wished to learn more about politics and about history and about social issues. But Pen was well content with her place in life, for the most part. The only thing she could imagine learning at university was how to write better—and, if Pen felt like flattering herself, the popularity of Lady Whistledown's colourful lampoons indicated that a tutor might not impart much of use on that count, anyway.
Still. Pen did wish that there were books to read on certain subjects that were taught neither by governesses nor by college dons. Flirting, for example. She simply didn't understand how it came so easily to some women, how the merest flick of a coy glance could bring eligible young men with giddy smiles flocking to their sides. Pen, as an astute observer of the world, had seen that even less-pretty girls still sometimes managed to attract quite a lot of attention, and she had carefully noted all of the ingredients that led to their success. But for the life of her, she couldn't fathom how one put all of said ingredients together to the correct effect—and goodness knew she'd tried at one ball, shooting shy little glances all evening at Colin Bridgerton, hoping that he'd be looking her way even once, to no avail. (Once she got the whole process down correctly, as close as possible to an art or a science, Pen vowed to put it all down in writing as a primer for other girls in her current straits. Lady Whistledown would have remarkably high demand for that sort of publication, no doubt.)
And then there was a whole flurry of matters, beyond flirting and related to marriage, that were so far beyond Pen's comprehension that she wasn't even sure what the questions were, let alone the answers. Growing up in a household as emotionally strained as the Featheringtons', Pen had always been baffled to spend time with the Bridgertons and their particular brand of chaotic but inevitably warm familial adoration. She remembered watching with some fascination the closeness between Eloise's parents, back when the title of 'Lord Bridgerton' was held by Anthony's father, and not by Anthony himself. There was something indescribably tender about every interaction between the two, whether in the familiar way they glanced at each other over tea, or how they always linked arms on walks around the ton, or how Lord Bridgerton gently chided the kitchen staff if they hadn't prepared Lady Bridgerton's favourite cakes, especially if she happened to be with child and was craving a certain type of delicacy. Pen, as the youngest daughter of her own discontented family, had never seen her own parents behave in such a manner, and she quite honestly couldn't imagine them ever interacting with the easy joy of Lord and Lady Bridgerton. It was her first inkling that perhaps there was more to marriage than simply maintaining an orderly house and a large enough income to support it. And she pondered why some people who seemed so out of love nevertheless ended up married and tasked with raising a bevy of children, regardless.
Pen was tired of not knowing things, and of not knowing whom to ask for the correct answers, and so if Marina Thompson said that cake led to babies and sweetness and marital bliss, then that was a stronger lead than Pen had had to date about figuring out what led to such happiness. She lay in bed the night that Marina had revealed the secret to her, a hand pressed experimentally to her stomach; and she thought about Colin, and about how dearly she would love to bear his child, and about how terrifyingly foreign and unthinkable such a thing would be unless she were married to him. And she dreamt that night of Colin's smile and woke up the next morning craving sugar, horribly flustered that such thoughts were in her head at all, given how improper the whole notion was.
But once the idea had lodged itself in her head, Pen couldn't get rid of it. She began daydreaming about cradling in her arms a burbling child with her red curls and Colin's dark eyes. She began to glance resentfully at married ladies in the streets whose state showed in spite of their skirts. And she began sneaking extra bites of cake after dinner, waiting for the impact to bundle itself into a secure bulge at her mid-section, despairing when instead it all seemed to wobble right down to her thighs and Prudence told her she was getting even fatter and she continued to bleed regardless. Clearly, something still wasn't right. But Marina now was plotting to make Colin her own, and Pen no longer could ask her for clarification, and too much of her time was now being spent miserably contemplating how bleak the future would be for all three of them if Marina's plans succeeded. The day that Colin announced his engagement to Miss Marina Thompson, Pen sat on the floor of her room and crammed herself as full of cake as possible, until she felt sick and could do nothing more than curl up in bed and weep. The next day, she stopped eating cake altogether, now that every last bit of sweetness in her life was irrevocably lost.
"Why is it, do you think, that they're always so afraid of our being alone with young men?" Eloise frowned one morning as she and Pen strolled about the ton.
"Who?" asked Pen, who was too busy noting the way that Lord Bartleby's servingman had just surreptitiously slipped a letter with an embossed seal into the hand of Cressida Cowper's maid.
"Being alone with young men," Eloise repeated insistently. "They're always going on about being afraid that men will dishonour us in private. But if any man tried to do such a thing in private, it would mean that I could give him a piece of my mind, the way I couldn't in polite company. So surely that would be to our advantage, wouldn't it?"
"What do they mean by 'dishonour'?" Pen asked, curious, because she had heard the term repeated so often that she had never before noticed its vagueness.
"Say impolite things to us, I imagine," shrugged Eloise resentfully. "Maybe outright tell us that they don't think we'll ever deserve to do half the things they've been entitled to since birth."
That still didn't seem quite right, though, because Pen was sure she'd heard men say such things in public before, and no one seemed to find it the least bit scandalous when they did so. When she and Eloise parted ways, she wandered back into her family's house and discovered her mother huffily pacing about the drawing room.
"Mama," asked Pen tentatively, "what would you do if I told you that a man had dishonoured me?"
Lady Featherington paused mid-pace, and her head snapped violently in the direction of her youngest daughter. Her eyes widened as she traced Pen's short stature from waist to face with her eyes, and Pen took interested note of this precise reaction.
"Penelope," she breathed furiously, "if anything at all has happened..."
"No, no," Pen said soothingly, and some of the rage ebbed out of Lady Featherington's expression. "Nothing at all has happened. I more was just wondering what you would do, if something did happen."
It wasn't the most unreasonable question imaginable, after all. Marina Thompson had departed some weeks hence with her dead lover's brother, but the scandal of her situation still lingered in every room of the Featheringtons' house like bitter perfume. Lady Featherington sniffed, then settled herself haughtily on the edge of a couch and folded her hands in her lap.
"Well, you'd have to marry the man, of course," she told Pen. "Assuming that he was of a suitable rank, it goes without saying. Otherwise, I suppose we'd have to send you out to the countryside until any... problems, had smoothed themselves over, in one way or another. A rather fitting quid pro quo for the Thompsons, no doubt," she added with a cruel little smirk. "But don't even think of tempting fate in that way, Penelope, even if an opportunity somehow did, er, present itself."
"But there's small likelihood in that, so long as I don't find myself alone with a man?" Pen pressed. It seemed the only logical assumption, given how often she had eaten cake in the presence of any number of people, to no ill effect. Although she still didn't quite see how eating cake alone with a man would qualify as 'dishonourable' unless society had even stranger ideas than she had realised heretofore.
"Given that most people have some sense of shame and decency, yes," sniffed Lady Featherington. "Why, pray tell, are you asking all of this, Penelope?"
"Well, it's just that I can't help but wonder," Penelope continued, "why eating something delicious should produce such a scandalous effect when it's just two people doing such eating alone and in private?"
Lady Featherington's cheeks flushed a violent magenta, and she shouted at Penelope to go to her room. Which Pen did; only, once she had exhausted Lady Whistledown's latest suspicions about Lord Bartleby and Cressida Cowper, she was left with far too much time to think. Eating cake alone did not beget a child. Eating cake alone with a man apparently did, though. Colin Bridgerton was the kindest and most honourable gentleman Pen knew, and he had professed that he would have been willing to marry Marina Thompson and claim a child that was not his own, had she only been honest with him. Surely, then, if Pen grew heavy with Colin's own child, he would do the doubly honourable thing and marry her? Pen knew that she lacked Marina's looks, but she knew Colin, had known him since they were children, had always gotten on with him. For all Pen didn't know about marriage and the mysteries that undergirded its success or failure, she knew that she could make Colin Bridgerton happy.
And so, when Colin finally returned from his tour, a few months later, Pen appeared tentatively at his elbow, just off the edge of the dance floor.
"Colin," she said hopefully.
"Pen!" Colin's nose was a bit sunburnt from too much time in the Mediterranean, but his eyes sparkled as brightly as ever. "So good to see you! I told Eloise to share my letters from Italy with you; I hope she did?"
"Yes," Pen stammered, and then she cleared her throat. "Colin, could I have a word with you in private?"
"Certainly," said Colin cheerfully, and Pen led him into the gardens, grabbing a small plate of cake from a table on her way out.
"Have you tried this yet?" she asked brightly, as Colin seated himself on a stone bench along a box hedge. "It's quite good."
She watched with bated breath as Colin gamely accepted the cake and took a bite, then lifted the fork to her in a toast of approval.
"Nothing like a good piece of cake as a welcome home," he said. "So, Pen. What's on your mind?"
Something was fluttering in Pen's abdomen, and she couldn't be sure whether it was a baby taking hold within her body or just nerves, so she burst out, "Oh, Colin, I meant to tell you before I left, but I just can't stand it any longer, and I have to say something. I love you, Colin, and I wish I'd said so long before now."
Colin was staring at her, fork listing from his hand and cake completely forgotten, and Pen buried her face in her hands, sure she'd made a terrible mistake. As she tried to hold back her tears, wondering how long she'd have to spend in the countryside now that she'd made her mistake, she heard the clink of porcelain on stone, and the next moment, Colin's hands were gently pulling her own from her tear-streaked cheeks.
"Pen, I had no idea," said Colin gently. "And really, given how thoughtless I've been, I can't imagine what you've seen in me all this time, in the first place."
"You're kind," Pen sniffled. "And handsome, and noble, and funny, and just... how could anyone not want to marry you on sight, Colin, that's what I've been asking myself for all these years."
"Well, we Bridgerton men do take our time before deciding to marry, generally," Colin pointed out sheepishly. "I wish I'd known sooner, Pen."
Pen's breath caught, waiting for the bad news of yet another engagement to drop catastrophically down on her head. Instead, Colin seated her on the bench, then sat down next to her.
"You see," he said, "on my tour, I had a lot of time to think. Not something you really get, when you're constantly surrounded by family and noise and the general mayhem that I've missed here at home! And what I thought about was how quickly I'd agreed to marry Marina Thompson, when I really didn't know her at all. Can you imagine, Pen, being married for the rest of your life to a complete stranger? And all because she was incredibly beautiful, when there are so many things that are so much more important than beauty."
He took a pensive bite of cake, then noticed that the cake was half gone, and offered the fork to Pen. She granted him a wobbly smile and took a small bite herself.
"What I think I really need in life," Colin continued, "is someone I can trust. Not just the first woman who bothers to return my affections, but someone I know I can rely on through thick and thin. And I'd like to be able to make my choice objectively, not in the heat of infatuation, but after some calm, rational consideration. I've always liked you, Pen. You've a solid, steady character, and a good head on your shoulders, and it certainly doesn't hurt that my whole family already knows and likes you. So I'll give the matter some real thought, now that you've put it in my mind."
He finished off the cake, dabbed his mouth clean with his handkerchief, then took Pen's hand and kissed it gallantly. As Pen watched him retreat, she thought about all of the things that Colin hadn't said—that he thought she was as beautiful as Marina Thompson, that he had always secretly loved her in return, that he wanted to marry her not only for her steadiness but also out of infatuation. She pressed her hand to her stomach with a small sigh. Well, perhaps it hadn't been the fairytale acceptance for which she'd been hoping, but at least it wasn't the outright rejection she had feared. And, as kind as Colin was, at least Pen wasn't trapping him in anything. Colin had gladly accepted her cake. If he gladly accepted her hand, she trusted it would be on his own terms.
The cake apparently didn't work this time, either. But Penelope didn't care. She had only bled thrice before Colin formally asked for her hand. As they stood shoulder to shoulder in the church some months later—as they had in the park whilst on afternoon promenades, or on the edges of ballrooms as they giggled over Colin's sunny but cutting commentaries about those on the dance floor—Pen trusted that, whatever the missing ingredient was, they'd figure it out as they navigated the rest of their lives together. And if said ingredient was love, then Pen was fairly certain that the problem was already solved.
As neither Pen nor Colin were set to inherit any portion of their families' estates, Colin carried Pen over the threshold of a comfortable townhouse, and the two stood marvelling in the drawing room of what was now their new home.
"Well," laughed Colin finally, his eyes twinkling, "here begins the adventure!" And he kissed Pen before grabbing her hand and racing up the stairs to the bedroom, both laughing.
When he opened the door, however, Colin stopped in confusion.
"What's wrong?" asked Pen, flushed and breathless from all the running and excitement.
"They seem to have sent up the remainder of our wedding cake," Colin remarked.
"I thought it would only be appropriate," said Penelope shyly. "Don't you want any?"
Colin raised an eyebrow.
"Only if you'll feed it to me," he told her impishly.
But when Pen attempted to do so, Colin gently took the fork away from Pen so that she had nothing to use but her fingers, which Colin licked and sucked very clean, before pulling a gasping Pen to him for a series of long and languorous kisses that tasted of sugar. The entire interaction had made Pen feel rather unusual in several previously ignored places on her body, and her quick mind wanted a moment to sort it all out, but not if it meant that Colin stopped kissing her, which seemed like an infinitely more important matter at present. Quite a number of things appeared to be happening to Colin, as well, and by the time Pen had any time to make sense of it all, they were lying side by side in bed, completely naked, panting for breath, Pen wondering why it had never occurred to her to touch half of the places on her body that Colin had just awoken with any number of parts of his anatomy.
"I hope you meant it, Pen," sighed Colin finally, "when you said you wouldn't mind having a brood of Bridgertons as large the one in which I grew up. Because I certainly hope that we'll be doing exactly that quite a lot."
"Oh, yes," agreed Pen breathlessly, still unsure of what had just transpired, but quite sure that she wanted to do it as often as Colin proposed. "I imagine the cook will be sick of baking cake."
"Cake?" Colin propped his head up with one arm so he could quirk a bemused smile at Pen.
"Cake," Pen repeated. "Marina told me that that was how one got a child. Or how she got hers, anyway. A boy at church gave her cake, and that was that."
Colin's expression of utter bewilderment shattered with his peal of delighted laughter.
"Oh, my dear Pen," he chuckled, kissing his wife again. "You are without a doubt the most pure and sweet and precious thing on this earth. So that's why you kept sneaking me little pieces of cake, all through our courtship! I suddenly feel rather flattered, that you were so eager to start the process, even knowing that I intended to ask for your hand."
"Then what did Marina mean?" Pen insisted, flushing.
"I do believe she merely meant that the boy at church had caught her attention by giving her cake, nothing more," Colin grinned, tangling his fingers in Pen's red curls. "What we were just doing, here in bed—that's what makes a child. Didn't anyone explain to you before tonight?"
"Well, no," replied Pen, who suddenly felt rather foolish for having assumed all this while that she was missing just one important ingredient, when in reality the entire recipe was rubbish. Lady Whistledown would surely have to include some enlightenment in as discreet a manner as possible for her young lady readers, at some point.
"I suppose you didn't grow up with an older brother like Anthony, after all," Colin mused. "No matter. Now you know. And we'll continue doing exactly that, as often as you want, until the house is filled with children and we're even more indescribably happy than we are now."
"And no cake need be involved whatsoever," added Pen, still embarrassed.
"Well," Colin said low into her ear, "let's hope that Lady Whistledown never finds out, but I for one wouldn't object to cake being involved, at least some of the time."
And indeed, it was.