Chapter Text
There had never been a day when Penelope had not felt alone. Her family loved her but did not care for her. Did not like her. Did not want to spend time with her. Eloise loved her and did not hear her, did not listen. And Colin, he’d never really seen her. Never tried to look at her outside what he knew of her. Penelope has never truly been known.
But she had never felt as alone as she had on the night of her family’s ball.
It had begun well enough. Eloise had yet to discover her secret, and Colin had just saved her family from the rogue that was her cousin. That changed in quick succession. She had gone from the high of being seen, of being cared for, of having danced with the man she’d been in love with almost her entire conscious life to having lost two of her most important people. Perhaps even the only two people in her life that she had thought had cared even a whit about her.
Penelope had lost Eloise by her own doing. She had been the one to keep secrets, and she had been the one to write about her friends. And while Penelope had known that it was the only way she had to save Eloise from the queen, she had hoped that if Eloise had made the connection, she would have at least understood. Penelope had been protecting her. Evidently, she did not.
“An insipid wallflower indeed.”
Penelope had thought she could at least call Colin a friend, but no friend would disparage her the way he had as publicly as he had. Perhaps it was hypocritical of her, she had quite literally done the same to Eloise. She had exposed her to the ridicule of the ton. Perhaps this is what Eloise had felt as she yelled at her. The deep-seated betrayal of realizing that someone you thought cared about you, could humiliate you, could hurt you, could effectively ruin your life.
She knew Colin had meant nothing by his words.
“Penelope Featherington? I would never dream of courting Penelope Featherington, not in your wildest fantasies Fife.”
The words themselves, they had not hurt... Colin had always had a habit of putting his boot in his mouth. While he was charming, he was not always the most thoughtful of men. No, it was not his words that had destroyed her. It was his laughter.
She had always associated his laughter with joy, happiness, barbs, quips, and puns. His laughter had always been with her. And for the first time in their friendship, she’d heard him, she’d felt him laugh at her. That had been the first time his laughter had hurt her.
The worst part of all of it was that he had been loud. It had not been enough that had she heard him disparage her. No. He had been loud enough for the whole garden to have heard him. It meant that everyone knew how he felt. She would have to publish. She would have to tell everyone what he had said, and as soon as her mother would read his words. That would be it. There would be no escape.
Her mother would marry her off. She had no choice. Her family could not afford even a single spinster daughter. Her mother would soon sell her to the highest bidder and it was all Colin Bridgerton’s fault.
Penelope had never felt as lonely as the day she’d had that realization.