The Blossoming of Penelope Featherington | A BRIDGERTON Fanfic

Chapter 9

It had been some time since the season had come to a close, and the days had gone far longer than all the prior off-season lull Penelope had experienced. Not that the company she has is in any way tiresome, because much like her time during the season, she had Eloise Bridgerton and her family to spend her hours with.

The big difference is the lack of balls and scandals she had to encounter which may seem like something a wallflower like Penelope would appreciate, but was definitely something Lady Whistledown was not likely to take joy in. It was her source of material, after all. Yet even that career dwindling obstacle- that she and her readers were already accustomed to- may not even be the reason behind the lag in the sun's descent. Penelope has an inkling that it could have well been because of a gentleman's lack of presence in her day-to-day life.

It had only been a little over a month since Colin had gone away and yet he somehow made her miss him more than she once did before he became her friend and was still awfully and naively in love with the man. It would be a lie if she said that her past affections for the gentleman had fully up and vanished, because it had not, and she curses herself every time she realizes so. And now that Penelope had found almost as deep of a friendship as she had with Eloise in Colin, she thought that maybe she simply became used to his familiar presence in Number Five, the benches of Hyde Park, and sometimes- damn her!- she still expects a call from him at their drawing room despite his already month-old departure.

As of August the only exciting affair that had occurred was the seemingly unplanned matrimony of three couples in the Finchley Manor. Lady Whistledown declared that the astonishing development could possibly be the fruit of the determined machinations of a rather romantic, although almost fiendish, mastermind. This transpired only after the simultaneous marriages of the Kilmartins and Stannages- separate events of course. From here on out, Whistledown fears, they have nowhere to go but downhill.

With that notion in mind, Penelope decided to release Lady Whistledown's Society Papers weekly rather than the prior three times a week. This left her with almost none to do except read and read, and maybe do some stitching or watercolor, or other things that ladies were expected to do. She went shopping or walked around parks, hoping to have anything to write about. Otherwise, the days leading to the winter months were growing tedious.

It wasn't until Colin's letter had arrived that she found another thing to keep herself busy with.

When Colin first arrived in the port of Piraeus, Greece, he was taken over by the sheer warmth of the Mediterranean- not in the sense of temperature because he had already been introduced to the perfectly pleasant heat of the Basin long before the Rhiannon made contact with the docks. As he gazed out at the buildings that lined the port, the people milling about, and then back to the bright cerulean waters that reflected the sky, he realized how the word "warm" can encompass so many aspects in just one single picture. And he was, then, looking at that very painting. No. He was living within the frames of it.

When he breathed in the salt that the wind carried from the gentle waves, a thought came knocking at him. If only Penelope could see this.

Before he set off for his journey, he recalled the book that Penelope had introduced to him in the most enthusiastic fashion he had seen her in, and bought a journal of his own. A memoir of a Lady in England. If an anonymous woman can write a whole memoir about her travels in the country that seemed mundane to him after having lived in it for most of his lifetime, why couldn't he write one about his own travels in lands that are uncharted to most young English men- and women.