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English
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Published:
2024-06-15
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798
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1/1
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Lay down your dreams

Summary:

Penelope Featherington learns to embrace herself.

Notes:

(See the end of the work for notes.)

Work Text:

After she speaks with her mama she decides she knows exactly what to do.  It is time to stop hiding she is so very tired of making herself smaller to be more palpable for the society.  She is tired of people claiming to love her but never allowing her to speak.  She is tired of allowing Colin to blame her for his own blindness. He was her most frequent correspondent, he could have figured it out if he ever bothered to think on it.

She looks at her once vibrant mother. She remembers thinking as a girl that her mama was the most beautiful Lady. Now her mama is worn too thin. Her fierce mother has lied, cheated, and literally stolen to support their family. Her tasteless, tacky mama is a survivor. So is she. Penelope respects that, more so she is proud of it. 

Dash it all. She is Penelope Featherington, The Lady Whistledown, that is a better legacy than being Penelope Bridgerton, the unheard wife of a third son. In a way she wants to thank him for being so stupidly hurtful she has finally had enough. She was willing to give up Whistledown for him. She did give up her only source of power for him however temporarily it was. 

He however would not even set down his hurt long enough to have a discussion with her.  He claimed she entrapped him, when he was the one who ruined her prospects. She wishes to all that is holy that they had never been intimate. He was not worthy of her virtue.   She has never needed Colin's conditional honor. The final straw was when he ignored her opinion on Cressida Cowper.

She heads back to Bloomsbury to gather her belongings. She has Rae and some of the Featherington staff pack her trunks and load them on the carriage before heading back to Featherington House.  She hands Varley enough to make the Finch/Dankworth Ball the most elegant and gaudy ball Mayfair has ever seen. She wants her sisters and her mother to have a magical night that reflects the loud vibrant women they are. 

She settles into her childhood room, to set her schemes into motion. She writes a letter for Violet explaining everything she wished to explain. The beginning, the middle, and this bittersweet end. She includes her engagement and wedding band. She shall have the letter delivered the afternoon of the ball. Let Colin deal with his mother's disappointment. Violet she knows will understand her reasons better than most. 

Their ball is a victory for the ladies of her house. Widowed, married, and newly single alike. Colin of course comes to her after the Queen's judgement with his heart in hand.  He finally sees her. He is beautiful, earnest and as always, he is a day late and a shilling short.  She takes his hands in hers and tells him she had their marriage annulled on the grounds of fraud and lack of consummation.

He tries to protest but she will not have it. She drops his hands and speaks her truth.

"You had your chance to fix things, Colin. You turned your back on me. All your grand claims of love, devotion, and protection were empty.  Our marriage was a farce. You never allowed me the dignity of explaining myself. You ran. You always run, Colin." 

She cries silently while she continues. It will always hurt she thinks. The loss of this beautiful dream she no longer believes in. Colin has shattered her heart and her faith in him for the last time. Love is not always enough.

"I asked my mama how one knows if they are with child and she explained it to me. I started my courses two days ago and I have no symptoms. I can safely conclude I am not with child. You can no longer claim I have entrapped you. The annulment has been signed, sealed, and filed already. I have returned the rings to your mother and removed my belongings from your home."

"I wish you well, Mr. Bridgerton. Good bye."

She leaves him standing there.

She is as free as a woman in society can be.  She is not yet comfortable with the attention and the problems she will face being Whistledown publicly but her mama will not be implicated in theft. The solicitor will believe the inheritance to be Whistledown income.  It is not too far from the truth anyway.  She has been discreetly paying down her papa's debt for years. Her family will endure. She will head to the country with her mama next week. She thinks she will write a book as her next endeavor.

Perhaps the Queen would be open to sharing her love story.  It cannot hurt to ask.

Notes:

I knew I was going to be disappointed by season three. My expectations were so low they were on the floor. But what was the point of moving up the Polin story if they were background characters at best during their season? Their love story was nonexistent.

The visual aesthetics were entirely too modern and cheap looking. The elegant speech patterns we expected from Bridgerton were gone.

They made Colin a Man whore and then gave him the blandest sex scenes possible. Real talk I was embarrassed for him. Damn her first time and he gave her no prep? Really?

They hyped up Penelope's body type and how empowering it would be to see a woman her size embrace her body and then had pen cover her self quickly. There was none of the body worship you expect from Colin as we know book Colin looks Pen's shape. Overall this season was more about self discovery and acceptance than about romance. We got maybe 30 mins of Polin shared screen time over the whole season. Which sucks because Luke and Nicola have great chemistry together and are talented actors.