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swallowedbyfandom · 4 days

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Luckily Penelope is well aware of who and what her mama is. It is always easier to apply subtle manipulation when you know someone well. So barging into her mama's bed chamber tearfully begging for her help avoiding marriage to an untitled third son with no property, who would leave her destitute by spending his inheritance on his silly travels is too easy.

It is some of her best work. She cries into her mother's arms and whispers how in less than a week she would be a countess and Colin Bridgerton is trying to take that from her. Did she think it was Mr. Bridgerton's attempt at getting back at them for Marina?

She begs her mama so desperately to say she was watching her out of her chamber window so Colin could not claim he took liberties. She pleads with her mama for a footman to get Lord Bridgerton to collect his brother off their property before someone else stumbles across him.

She knows she will spend her morning being reprimanded for being out in the garden in the first place, but she will only have to deal with her mama for one more week. Then she will be the Lady of her own home. She also knows that Colin will have an infinitely worse morning than she will the thought is immensely satisfying.

Perhaps were she not so angry with Colin she would feel bad about setting her enraged mama on him. As it stands she will silently cheer her mama on from the sidelines. Knowing her mama she will spend the next season trying to trap a man for Prudence and wrecking Colin's reputation on general principle. Honestly her mama will need a hobby once she manages to marry Prudence off. Why can't that hobby be making Colin miserable?

Bridgerton House

When Anthony was awoken by the butler in the middle of the night he only wondered which brother he should kill. When he saw a seemly exhausted footman dressed in a Featherington uniform in his foyer he knew it would be Colin. The footman handed him a letter and shuffled off with a grunt. Never one for delaying bad news he open the letter.

Lord Bridgerton,

Please come collect your brother off our property. He is currently unconscious, gagged, and tied to a tree just outside my property line. The big oak behind the bushes is where I left him. He managed to get me quite far before I landed an elbow to his temple.

Your drunken fool of a brother threw me over his shoulder and attempted to kidnap me out of my garden. While I admit I should not have been outside so late at night I could not sleep and thought I would be safe in my own garden. I thought he was a vagrant of some sort. He appeared in my garden barefoot, with a scarf covering half his face slurring his speech and smelling like an entire distillery.

I wish to keep this quiet as I see no need for an honor duel that I know my fiancé will demand. It would be a scandal and it would break your mother's heart.

Please keep him under supervision and guard until I am away on my honeymoon.

Regards,

Penelope Anne Featherington

P.S. I believe he may have urinated on himself, so you may want to take that under consideration when you come to get him. He may also be unable to walk as I kicked him in the groin several times once he was on the ground. I stopped once kicking once I recognized him. I will be safely tucked away in my home.

He must be a terrible person because his first thought upon reading that little Penelope got the drop on Colin and kicked him in his groin multiple times is a flicker of hope that perhaps Colin will be unable to reproduce. Who knows what he would impregnate? His taste in women so far seems to be an already compromised lady carrying another man's bastard children or an already engaged Lady who wants nothing to do with him. Christ what does his brother have against available women?

He will go collect the drunken mess he calls brother but then he will post guards outside his room and call on Eloise and Kate to devise a punishment severe enough to make up for this disgusting behavior. He will call the doctor tomorrow afternoon, let Colin suffer for a while. He deserves it for acting like a classless scoundrel. He cannot believe he is related to someone who would kidnap a Lady.

#bridgerton #unhinged colin bridgerton #unhinged penelope featherington #bridgerton s3 #polin

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swallowedbyfandom · 4 days

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Colin: You should be careful encouraging the affections of Lord Debling. I realize you enjoy his company but he is not well known by the ton and may not be right for you.

Penelope: Lord Debling is an outsider among the ton and I respect him all the more for that! He is kind and intelligent and interesting. And I do not need to marry a member popular society the way you do.

Colin: What is that supposed to mean?

Penelope: It means you are a Bridgerton. You are expected to choose someone popular and beautiful. No one would ever dare make you or your future wife feel unwanted or unwelcome. But people like he and I are not treated the way you are. He sees me, he makes me feel special, as though he would be proud to call me his. He would choose me. He understands me.

Colin: I understand you Penelope.

Penelope: Not the way he does. You would be ashamed to choose someone like me. You felt the need to make it known that you would never settle for someone like me. You do not even consider me a woman, because you believe I am beneath you.

Colin: I do not like it when you talk about yourself that way——

Penelope: The way you talk about me with your friends?

Colin: I told you I was sorry. You are my dearest friend in the world, I am trying to look out for you.

Penelope: Your friendship is important to me Colin… but I am not the girl you once knew. I am alone in the world but with Debling I do not have to be. With him I could be more than the insipid wallflower people spill drinks on and ridicule. I am a woman to him. If he wants me, I am his.

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swallowedbyfandom · 5 days

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swallowedbyfandom · 7 days

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When one is a lady as small as she is, planning to traverse the town under the cover of darkness, one must learn to incapacitate an attacker as quickly as possible. They should never run around unchaperoned to begin with. Unfortunately, how else is a Lady to her conduct her morally dubious business?

So when she is running to catch her hired hack and feels herself lifted into some brute's shoulder she does the most logical thing. That is of course to strike a hard sharp elbow to the temple of said attacker to knock them out. When she recognizes that her attempted kidnapper is Colin she swiftly turns him over and kicks him in the genitals. She hopes she hindered his ability to contribute to society. The last thing the world needs is more dim witted Bridgerton spawn. Then she Robbed him blind for the sheer inconvenience of having to deal with him.

The sheer nerve that over grown child has to think he can compromise her! No! She will not have it. He spent 1813 panting after her vain cousin making a fool of himself and he thinks she will accept anything less? That he thinks she deserves less than his complete humiliation and groveling after demeaning her and damaging her reputation to his little group of boot lickers? His audacity is beyond the pale.

Lady Whistledown is no man's second choice. He did not respect her enough to court her in the appropriate manner to make her for his blunders of the last two season, so he thinks to steal her? Strip her of her choice? The gall!

She has her sweet besotted Earl now, who spoils her silly and dotes on her sweetly. He has wooed her, courted her, and kissed her as if she was all the sir he needs to breathe. He respects and values her opinions, what more could she want? She will be a titled countess, the Lady of her own domain. She will not let this spoiled boy who has done nothing to earn her hand ruin it for her. Penelope Featherington is done playing second fiddle to entitled Bridgertons.

She politely asks the hack to wait for her while she gags Colin with his gloves and scarf and strips him of his boots. She then uses his caveat to tie him to a damn tree. She will deal with him later when she gets back. She leaves the word coward on his forehead in ink in case he gets away before she returns. That blow to the head should keep him down for at least an hour, but if not he should not get away unscathed. She also made sure to dump his flask on him so he smelled heavily drunk.

She hopes something urinates on him while he is tied to the tree. Let him have to get picked up by his brother smelling of spirits and urine while barefoot and disheveled. Anything really to destroy his credibility.

#bridgerton #bridgerton s3 #unhinged colin bridgerton #unhinged Penelope Featherington

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swallowedbyfandom · 10 days

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The first year surprising is not the hardest. Penelope is sad, angry and exhausted in general but everyone seems to respect the mourning period. They give her the space she needs to nurture her children and find her footing. Penelope herself allows us all (minus El) to coddle her. And the extra care an infant requires in addition to a toddler seems to help keep Penelope distracted from her grief during the day.

Agatha's second birthday leaves Pen in shambles. Luckily they are all still at Aubrey hall so there are plenty of family members around to pick up the slack. Thomas' first birthday however a week after the official day James' ship went down leaves Penelope near catatonic with grief for that entire week. It is just him, mother and the Stirlings. Mother tells him, Fran, and John to mind all the children, while she takes care of take of Penelope.

Mother spends the week cuddling and force feeding Penelope. She sleeps in her bed all throughout that week gently petting and singing her soothing lullabies. Mother lets Pen cry her heart out in her arms without empty words. Just cleans her face after and rubs her back until she falls asleep. It is perhaps the most devastating thing he has ever witnessed.

Mother tells them she had the same reaction for hyacinth's first birthday. She saids there is a special kind of heartbreak a mother experiences when you realize that your child has lived their entire life without ever feeling the loving embrace of their father. That James passing so near Thomas' birthdate just makes the hurt that much sharper.

Mother warns them that the second year is harder. Not emotionally but socially, everyone acts as if you should be healed magically. People will react rudely as if you are snubbing them if you decline their social invitations. Mother of course is correct. The second the first year is over, every fortune hunter and merry rake seems to be making overtures and coming to call as either a prospective husband or a bed warmer. Penelope treats every invasive guest to the tart tongue that made Whistledown so rich.

Penelope still wears her full mourning attire well into her second year, not yet ready to move on. She had privately told him she plans to do two years of full mourning before she moves on to a year of half mourning. That often times she wakes up and still expects James to be laid beside her. That she forgets sometimes that he is gone and she turns to tell him something. That she cannot imagine ending her mourning period when she still feels his presence so strongly.

Shortly after he escorts mother and Hyacinth back home from Scotland he gets drunk with his brothers and tearfully confesses his struggle with watching Penelope mourning for James. He spills his guts in the least eloquent way possible. James was his friend and a man he admired. He was happy when Pen and James fell in love and married. He was always content to receive a joint letter from them to update him oh their lives. He was always pleased with the places James suggested he visited on this travels. He was happy for them when they had Aggie, he shared their excitement when they found out about Thomas.

Now, in hindsight? It all pours out of him, how he realized his love too late. How he made his peace with it because James worshipped the ground Pen walked on. How he feels guilty for her suffering. If he had been smart enough to marry her, she wouldn't be a widow. She wouldn't be suffering.

However, he loves her children Aggie and Thomas are perfect he cannot imagine a life without them. How he knows she doesn't feel the same for him anymore but he will wait for her. He tells his brothers about the letter James sent him and how relieved he was to have his blessing.

He confesses how he still feels guilty and how he had planned to stay in Scotland longer but left because she is not ready for a new love and he can barely contain his feelings for her. He needs advice on how to be a supportive friend without the expectation of more. How can be best quell the overwhelming lust he feels for her. How he generally does not feel lust for people. He feels fleeting attraction at most and it usually dissipates rapidly.

Anthony is sympathetic and helpful, he is also very protective of Pen and the children. He tells Colin about the practicalities that need to be considered marrying a woman in Penelope's position. He points out emotional pitfalls that Colin had not considered but most importantly he tells Colin to take his time and sort himself out first. He encourages Colin to correspond with Penelope as a safe way to reconnect with her. He advisors short visits with Fran and Penelope to allow the children to retain comfort with him. This will also allow Penelope the comfort and support she needs. Most importantly he advises that Colin keep his feeling for Pen to himself until she is halfway through half mourning unless she brings the topic up. Truly he feels calmer now that he has something resembling a game plan.

He spends the next 4 months with his family in Aubrey Hall chasing after his nephews and his nieces. He sends letters off to Pen filled with Bridgerton shenanigans and inquires about her and the children. She responds with letters filled with nature walks taken with the children and stories of the milestones they have reached. She tells him of Thomas and little John's completive attempts at racing each other and running so erratically that it makes them look like tiny drunks stumbling through the gardens.

He tours Wales for 4 months and writes to Pen the entire time. He learns of Aggie's newfound love for all things canine. She despairs over how Thomas now removes his clothes to run nude whenever you take your eyes off him. He visits her for a month as she needed some help dealing with the harvest as Aggie had fallen sick and John and Michael were occupied with their own harvest and could not lend a hand. He tours Ireland for 4 months and visits her for two weeks after. He tours Scotland for 3 months before visiting her again for over 2 months due to severe storms and a winter fever outbreak. He revels in those cozy days spent with a child on his lap giving dramatic readings of fairytales and spooky stories. He watches impressed by Aggie's artistic endeavors. If he has a pile of her greatest works in this room that is his business.

The next 2 months he spends with Fran and her family moping over missing them. He takes Francesca's advice and drafts a letter that declares his intentions to properly court her, when she is ready. Fran states that Pen is ready but scared of opening her heart again, giving her a warning will allow her time to emotionally and mentally prepare.

Dearest Pen,

I am in love with you. I have been in love with you for years. I have known and loved you for so long that I genuinely do not even know when it happened. I just know that for almost half my life you were the person who I missed most. Yours was always the opinion I sought when in doubt. Your happiest was always what I sought above all else. Your approval always made me feel ten feet tall. Were I clever I would have recognized what all that meant.

However, I just assumed that was the way one felt about their friends, and you have always been my dearest friend. Looking back I see now, that in my ignorance I broke your precious heart.

I watched James sweep you for your feet, Pen. I was so happy for you. I had tried to teach you to have more confidence but it was James who taught you your value. His love and acceptance helped you grow in a way that was extraordinary to watch. When you wrote to me of your pregnancy I felt such an overwhelming amount of joy for you. I was so proud that you were living your dreams, Pen. I remained blissfully ignorant as to why I so often yearned for you until I held Aggie in my arms for the first time. She has your gorgeous face and glorious eyes.

I felt like I had been struck by lighting, Pen. In my mind whenever I allowed myself the passing thought of what my future children would be like it was always that face I pictured. That perfect little face with that exact shade of blue for eyes and my chestnut curls. How on earth did I miss that? It hit me which such embarrassing clarity. I have been in love with you forever and I helped you marry someone else.

It hurt I will not lie. The revelation that I had given you up unknowingly caused me a great deal of anguish. Even in my heartbreak I was still so happy for you, Pen. I could make my peace with it because you were happy, safe, and so very well loved. All I have ever wanted was your happiness.

I do not regret the choices that I have made that have led us here. Agatha and Thomas are perfect, Penelope. I love them as I love you, wholeheartedly and without reservations.

I am not asking you to forget James, I am not asking you to stop loving him. I am asking you to allow me the privilege of courting you. I am asking you to make room in your heart and family for me. I am asking for the honor of raising Agatha and Thomas with you. I am asking if god be willing to provide them with siblings.

I am yours, Pen. I have always been yours. If you are ready, I would like to begin by formally declaring my intentions to court you this upcoming 1821 season. I let you go once without a fight I shall not do so again.

A ll my Love,

Colin C. Bridgerton

Two weeks later he receives his response.

Dearest Colin,

I have been called a wit quite often in my lifetime. What kind of wit would I be If I dismissed such a beautiful declaration of intent? You already have a place in my heart and family, Col. That place is not one of romance currently, but If you believe can make it so. Who am I to dissuade you? Let us see what your romantic endeavors shall bring us, Mr. Bridgerton.

The children and I will be relocating with our household to Debling House in Mayfair for the upcoming 1821 season.

Affectionately,

Penelope Anne Debling

#polin #bridgerton s3 #bridgerton #colin bridgerton #penelope x colin #penelope featherington #violet bridgerton

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swallowedbyfandom · 12 days

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So I just read ur Polin Amnesia & Time Travel AUs and now I need to know what happens! I will literally die 🙈

Do Pen and Colin find each other in the future?

And does Penelope agree to marry Colin despite his supposed "Amnesia"?

I NEED ANSWERS! 🙈💀

Last one of the au related replies. This one was part of my catching up to Polin week efforts lol. Found here: Amnesia au And Time Travel au

For the time travel au, here's some clarification for those who didn't catch the little reference in the first paragraph. About Modern Eloise, she asked Penelope to transcribe Regency Colin's journals. Eloise is in charge of Aubrey Hall Because unlike the rest of her family, who travel a lot, Eloise is the only one permanently based in England. Penelope is vaguely aware that Eloise gave up a career in publishing, to study medicine when one of her brothers fell into a coma and she stayed in England to take care of him. Since he's been in a coma for years and unlikely to wake up, modern Colin is a touchy subject for Eloise and as such she never talks about him with Penelope.

When Colin wakes up calling for Penelope, of course Eloise finds it weird, but calls Penelope right away to tell her the news. And it's love at first sight when they meet again. Colin has the memories of modern Colin to help him adapt, but the disappearance of his same named ancestor will forever remain a mystery. Penelope theorizes that all along, he also didn't belong in the regency Era, but rather was pulled there when he fell into a coma. And meeting Penelope was the push he needed to come back to his modern body. Either way, they both have two sets of memories of a love that can trascend time. And they decide to make the best of it together.

For the Amnesia au

Of course Colin keeps up pretending to be amnesiac for as long as he can. Except that after he gets his memories back he just doubles down on the horniness. Because look at her, all soft and witty and HIS. Come clean? Are you kidding me? The moment she figures out he got his memories back she's going to dump him! he can't let that happen. He pushes for the wedding to be moved up and leaves Penelope no choice but to agree. He convinces his mother and the rest of his family, that he's doesn't need to recover his memories to be sure all this time he wanted to marry Penelope (because he's recovered them already) and he goes all out on the marriage proposal. Basically pretend amnesiac Colin does everything he can to make sure Penelope can't back down from marrying him. Because he knows she wants out.

Altough, he thinks she wants out because she doesn't have very deep feelings for him, and wants to keep her secret double life as LW. But truthfully Penelope wants out because she thinks she's taking advantage of his pure, innocent feelings who has been suffering from amnesia.

Is pushing up the wedding underhanded? yes. But Colin knows that leaving Lady Whistledown any wiggle room, would be all she needs to stage a marital prision break. And he likes having Penelope all to himself thank you very much. And even tho, she's dying of guilt inside for basically letting Colin marry someone he doesn't love under false pretenses, because he has amnesia, Penelope does go trough with the wedding, after doing all she can to get out of it.

Colin comes clean after the wedding night...And that's when Penelope gets furious.

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swallowedbyfandom · 12 days

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#polin #bridgerton s3 #colin bridgerton #penelope featherington #violet bridgerton #penelope x colin

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swallowedbyfandom · 12 days

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#polin #bridgerton #bridgerton s3 #penelope x colin #colin bridgerton #penelope featherington #anthony bridgerton #eloise bridgerton #portia featherington

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swallowedbyfandom · 13 days

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#polin #bridgerton s3 #colin bridgerton #penelope featherington #penelope x colin

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swallowedbyfandom · 14 days

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Watching Penelope grieving James is a special kind of torture. He has never had the strength to watch Pen cry, even as children her tears always sent him into a panic. On the one hand, as her oldest and dearest friend, he wants to shelter her and her babes in his arms until her heart hurts a little less. On the other hand he is so desperately, hopelessly, and devoutly in love with her that any comfort he offers her makes him feel like an opportunistic cad.

His heart is so heavy with guilt because as much as it hurts him to see her suffer, his foolish selfish heart, also cannot help the ember of hope that someday she may learn to love him again. God, what sort of person thinks like that? He cared for James, even considered him a dear respected friend. He always admired how James put Pen first. That he chose her then took on God, Queen and Country to have her. James was a man of remarkable convictions and fierce loyalty. God, Agatha and Thomas will never know how great a man their father was, they will not even have memories of him as a cold comfort. He must look for the letter James sent him with the birth announcement waxing poetic about how extraordinary little Agatha was. He will have set it aside for safe keeping to save it for her.

Penelope is not recovered enough to travel to Scotland and with almost all the Bridgerton ladies pregnant Pen opts to hold the Memorial for James in Kent. Colin sits with the rest of their family with Agatha asleep in his arms in the packed church and watches in awe as Penelope stands unfaltering at the alter a picture of regal devastation. He is reminded once more that Pen is the same girl that held the whole of society in the palm of her tiny hand at 17. The power Lady Whistledown possessed over words as a young girl is even more finely honed as a woman in grief. Standing in the ashes of her happily ever after Penelope captivates once more with the moving eulogy she delivers about her husband. Colin can see that even Cressida Cowper is moved to tears. If that is not a sign of Pen's immense talent, he doesn't know what is. He was unaware that harpy even had tear ducts.

He watches his mother and Fran hold Pen's trembling hands throughout the rest of the service. He has no idea how she remains so stoic as he can see in her eyes how fragile her control is currently. Disgustingly, he knows half the people at the memorial service are there to gawk at Lady Whistledown rather than to pay their respects to James Debling husband, father, and Earl. He hates how these degenerates have turned Jame's memorial into a spectacle. James deserved better, so does his family.

He knows Pen will crumble on the carriage ride back to Aubrey hall. She will never give the Ton the satisfaction of witnessing her tears no matter the circumstances. She is so gloriously strong that way. His family close ranks around Pen and Agatha during the receiving line and the entire morning thereafter.

Watching Portia Featherington shame gawkers who attempt to approach Pen is a welcome surprise. He knows Portia has never forgiven Penelope for the Whistledown enterprise, not even when Pen less graciously pointed out that if not for her income they would have ended up on the streets. A sympathetic nod is exchanged between Portia and Pen then nothing more.

He spends that evening at his father's graveside mourning for James, Pen, Aggie, Thomas, and himself. He promises himself that he will be patient. He will set his desires aside and just be her friend, her support. He will have a lifetime to love her but first he owes it to her to help her find joy again without expectations. He knows mother and Hyacinth are planning to stay down in Scotland for the next year to help Pen and to spend time with Fran and the baby. He will likely join them, he will speak with mother to see what would be best.

He watches Pen's resilience grow as she scratches and craws her way through debilitating grief and exhaustion to play doting mother and aunt for the children during the day only to succumb to her loss at night. She gets better at it, not that the grief lessens but she learns to function around it. She is with mother at Francesca’s side in the delivery room a pillar of bossy support and love. John Penn Stirling is born on 20 February 1818 at Aubrey Hall to the joy of all.

Colin knows once Fran heals and little John hits 3 months the Stirling and Debling families will head back to Scotland. That will allow mother enough time for Kate and Daphne to give birth. He wants nothing more than to keep the Debling family safe and secure on his family’s estate but he knows Pen will be headed back to Scotland to care for James’ mother and aunt.

Watching Pen tearfully part from his siblings, nieces, and nephews is terrible but watching his siblings part from Agatha and Thomas is gut wrenching. Anthony will never admit it but Agatha is his favorite, she can often be found climbing up into his lap to cuddle and nap. It is hilarious to see the fearsome Viscount Bridgerton seated at the head of the family table attempting to be stern with a tiny blond cherub passed out on him. His siblings almost always plop Aggie into his arms when he is getting frustrated with them, because they know her adorable dimples and her lisped attempts to say Anthony's name always turn him into a pile of mush. No matter how often he has heard Pen bemoaning his siblings for weaponizing her daughter he always catches the humor in her eyes at the sight.

8 months after James' passing shorty after settling into Scotland for the year Colin receives a letter via lawyer from James.

01 September 1815

Colin,

You may be the only other person in the world who understands the honor and the privilege it is to love and be loved in return by Penelope Featherington. She is special our Penelope, I knew from the first moment she smiled at me. I looked into her eyes and thought I have been waiting for you all my life.

It took me 27 years to find Penelope, there was not a force on earth that could have kept her from me once I found her. I was prepared to do battle with you for her hand while I was courting her, but you never realized you were in love with her.

It was our astute Penelope, who cleared up the confusion for me. She told me that you both have spent a decade with your lives so intertwined with one another that it was difficult to see where one began and the other ended. That while you had love for her you had not the experience to understand what that love was. She told me she didn't want to spend her life waiting for you to go out and gain experience in the hopes that you would come back to her. She wanted to live her life to the fullest. She said you were her first love but timing was never your strong suit.

She wanted to build a future with me, travel, have half a dozen children and grow old with me. How could I do anything other than fulfill her wishes? I thank God every day that, that extraordinary woman found it in her heart to make room for our love to grow. Everyone believes Penelope's gift is words but I believe it is her empathy and her ability to love that makes her so incredible.

If you have received his letter then I am dead. I hope I got to give Penelope more than a handful of years together.Do not let her heart go to waste, Colin.Protect her, do not let her stop living, help her heal, and then man up and give that remarkable woman we both love all she deserves. If we have children together love them for me, please.

Sincerely,

James Debling

#bridgerton #bridgerton s3 #polin #penelope featherington #colin bridgerton

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swallowedbyfandom · 15 days

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He genuinely never understood why his siblings's watched him with such bewildered eyes throughout Penelope and Debling's courtship. Why they all looked really to bundle him off at a moments notice at her wedding ceremony or why his mother looked so wistful at the wedding breakfast. He didn't understand why mother cried so hard when Penelope moved away or why she was so defeated when Pen wrote to announce her pregnancy. He didn't understand it until the summer of 1817.

In the summer of 1817, Earl Debling had to travel to the Americas for business. Over protective husband that he was, he worried about leaving his wife during her delicate condition with their twelve month old daughter, without emotional support for what would amount to almost ten months of time. His family and surrounding neighbors were still getting over a winter fever outbreak that he worried could still be contagious, so he arranged Penelope's and little Agatha's stay with Violet and the Bridgerton clan in Aubrey Hall.

He is standing with his family on the steps of their ancestral seat, to greet Penelope and her family while his sibling's chattered on excitedly. His first thought upon seeing her after two years is that she has always been radiant, but motherhood has truly turned her into something ethereal. Her husband gently lifts her out of their carriage and Colin can clearly see the gentle curve of her second pregnancy showing already.

God, Colin nearly cries when he sees how happy his mother and Pen are to be reunited. Really he and all his siblings watch misty eyed how his mother tearfully cups Penelope's face and whispers," Welcome home, my darling girl." while complimenting how wonderful motherhood looks on her. Penelope just melts into mother's arms babbling about how much she missed her and her excitement to share her daughter with her. Then he and his siblings watch as James grandly introduces Mother to their little Miss Agatha Violet Debling. Penelope looks so proud handing her little girl over into mother's arms as James just watches her indulgently, while gently supporting her small baby bump.

Dinner that night is a lively affair the entire family is at Aubrey hall this year. The Bassett and Stirling families included as Pen had written to Francesca warning her about the outbreak of Winter fever and she recommended they visit England for safety while the outbreak was ongoing. Frannie had confided in mother that she and John have been trying to start a family since they first married and were struggling to conceive, so she had written to Penelope for support and advice. That Penelope had always been something of a big sister to her but these last two years had cemented it. Pen had been her support system of candid advice and hilarious gossip to keep her spirits up. So they thought it best to retreat to Aubrey hall and leave Kilmartin in Michael's hand's until the outbreak passed.

It had warmed his heart knowing how even if Eloise and Pen's relationship never quite recovered, Pen still maintained a close relationship with the rest of his family. Personally he thought Fran and Pen's personalities suited better anyway. It helped that their estates were only an hour and a half carriage ride away and that John and James were such good friends they were able to visit each other at least once a month. Perhaps it made him disloyal but he understood why Penelope never trusted Eloise again. She forgave her but she didn't forget all El's betrayals. Pen treats El as a distant childhood acquaintance. Penelope is all polite formal civility and It drives El crazy, but she took things too far and has to live with the consequences.

He realizes he is in love with Penelope the second he lifts her daughter into his arms. He looks upon on a tiny perfect little face that is the exact replica of his dear Pen and feels his whole soul cry. He can suddenly see it so clearly, all the missed opportunities, that led to this moment. This glorious, perfect miniature of his beloved friend held in his arms should have a head of wild chestnut curls instead of the head of golden curls she has. He has been in love with Penelope for years and everyone in his family knew it except him. He finally understands all the looks and the whispers his family exchanged in 1815 and after. They were all waiting for him to realize the fact that he helped marry off the woman he was in love with.

He handed off the love of his life to another man, to another family. He can see now how much his entire family missed Penelope. His blindness deprived his siblings all of a beloved family member they had all counted on. He can also see now that Pen is seated here with his family once more he also deprived her of the comfort and love she has always found among the Bridgertons. He knows James has a minuscule amount of remaining family. That illness and bad luck has reduced the once great Debling family to only James, Pen, Agatha, his elderly mother and infirm elderly aunt.

Penelope had written to mother that her and James hope to fill their estate with half a dozen children at least. She loves him and the life they are building but she gets lonely sometimes out in the Scottish countryside so far from all she has known. He knows Penelope hoped to marry into a large family so her children could grow up with an army of cousins and family around them. Were he not stupid she would have that.

Later that night after everyone is in bed he sits at his Father's graveside and cries his heart out. He allows himself just this one night to wallow in grief for the life he gave up unknowingly. It hurts because watching her with her husband he realizes that she was in love with him once. Once but no longer, she moved on. He claimed he would never court her and broke her heart, so she let him go. His strong, clever girl learned to love again. He is the dumbest bastard in the world.

Truly James is a good man, who treats Pen like the queen she is, so he can make his peace with it. Tomorrow he will comfort himself with Penelope's joy and the knowledge that he has the next ten months to spend with her, Agatha and his family. He will get to witness her bloom with new life and meet her newest child while they are still a newborn. Yes he is sad but he will not be selfish with Penelope. Her happiness comes first.

He spends the next six months watching his family and Penelope reveling in mischief and chaos together. He watches everyone fall head over heels in love with little Agatha, who Penelope calls her little dragon flower. He wraps himself up in the happiness of all the babies and toddlers at Aubrey Hall.

He watches entranced one day as Penelope sits on one of the loungers with little Edmund in her arms fast asleep on her bosom. His mother sits across from her on a rocking chair with Miles in her arms listening with a gentle smile on her face as Penelope sings a beautiful French lullaby. He had no idea Pen had such an angelic voice. He notices after that Daf is passed out on the sofa with Aggie napping and Fran is fast asleep with Belinda. Kate is passed with Agatha and Newton on a chaise. He wishes he had Benedict's talent for sketching to capture this idyllic scene, perfectly.

He hides away with his brothers and the children when the combined hormonal, pregnancy barrage that is Penelope at eight months, Francesca at seven months, Kate at six months, Daphne at five months becomes too overwhelming. Their mother's euphoric crowing about all her new grand babies can be heard non stop, Eloise hilariously, has taken to hiding away from all the females on the estate and insisting that Portia Featherington was correct all along and pregnancy was in fact something you can catch. She had declared that Penelope is clearly fertile enough to have infected all of Aubrey Hall with it.

Overall it is the liveliest Aubrey Hall has been since their father passed away. He soaks it all up in glee. He blushes with guilt when Agatha's and Miles' first sentence is "where my biscuit?" Then he spends a week dodging Kate and Pen's killing rage, over the knowledge that he had been sneaking the children biscuits, while his siblings mock him mercilessly over the debacle.

Little Thomas James Debling is born in Aubrey Hall on the first of January 1818, with a full head of wispy strawberry blond curls that looked like dandelion fluff. Colin spends that night once more seated at his father's Gravesite weeping with heartbreak. He had heard his Pen crying out for James in fear during her labors. There had not been any correspondence from James in the last 3 weeks they were all worried about it. Aubrey Hall usually received post from him at least once a week and yet there has been no word for almost a month. Ant and John had been making subtle inquiries but they didn't want to worry Pen or Fran so far along in their prenancies are they.

Their peace is shattered 4 days later when Michael shows up at the break of dawn looking exhausted and full of grief. Penelope was already awake from nursing little Thomas so she received him first. They all rush from bed to find Penelope collapsed into Michael arms keening and wailing a familiar bitter melody. Mother looks so stricken by it all seconds before she mobilizes everyone into action.

James much like Ant was paranoid about dying young so the estate and all legalities pertaining to it are already taken care of. Penelope Anne Debling becomes the Dowager Countess Debling at age 21. The slew of legal protections in place for Penelope and the children are to be finalized once Thomas's birth records are filed.

#bridgerton #polin #bridgerton s3 #penelope featherington #colin bridgerton #lord debling #violet bridgerton

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