Chapter Text
The Bloomsbury Bridgerton
As kaleidoscopic bursts of colour continued to explode from the Featherington’s back garden, Eloise Bridgerton sat staring mournfully out of her bedroom window. She had suffered many blows on the final night of her first London season, but none of them was worse than the discovery of Lady Whistledown’s true identity. Her tears had abated somewhat in the preceding hours since she had ripped up the floorboards of her oldest friend’s bedroom, the truth thrumming between them like a heartbeat. She recalled the poisoned barbs they threw at one another; they had reached an insurmountable obstacle in their ability to be of one accord for the first time. Eloise had not been able to traverse into Penelope’s mind and access her thoughts; she could not finish her sentence or anticipate her next gesture. It was as if the tether that connected them had been sheared. Though she felt the cut instantly, she could not say her grief eclipsed her during the exchange. Instead, she was consumed by vindication; she had been right . The goose chase to uncover Whistledown had come off tremendously, and it was all her doing. She allowed herself, for a moment, the triumph of her discovery.
Sharpening those feelings into a blind rage over Penelope’s betrayal, her accusations of Eloise’s supposed jealousy still ringing in her ears like the pops of fireworks above her. She took to her writing desk and poured years of anger into inky swirls, covering entire pages with her thoughts. Her devastation spurred her to be more forthright in her tone than she had ever felt capable of. She burnt her way clean through two quills and all her available stationery. The resulting missive was scratchy and stained with tears and candle wax droplets. She hoped her recipient would not mind.
Gathering her courage, she closed the letters in melted wax. As she reached for the seal marked E.B. in flowing font, she was launched anew into a sadness that circulated like shards of molten glass through her heart. Clutching the delicate brass handle, she thought back to her birthday celebrations. Penelope’s exuberant gift had come wrapped in delicate tissue paper as thin as a bee’s wing. Eloise had been reluctant to open it, knowing her usual heady clumsiness would likely ruin the carefully assembled package. Instead, she had uncovered the beautiful instrument with trembling fingers and, holding it aloft in her palm, had turned to Penelope with a wide secret grin. Penelope had rightly intuited this to mean she was soon to be on the receiving end of a lot more of Eloise’s pamphleting endeavors. They had giggled most indecorously that same afternoon as they watched Cressida Cowper and Lady Danbury conduct a charged tête-à-tête over cooling cups of tea and little iced cakes.
Eloise’s recollections soured as she realised that Lady Whistledown had reported on that exchange and wished her happy birthday. How could she have been so blind? She thought. Whistledown had been stealing the marrow from Eloise’s life for the entirety of their acquaintance. Sighing, she cast a hand down her face and pinched the bridge of her nose. Her hands ached from being forced to write for hours; her back was similarly cramped and tender between the shoulders, no doubt her mother would have words about her posture. She cast her eyes around her bedchamber and found that grey light had begun to fill the dark spaces and chase away the previous night. Her resolve tightened further as she surveyed the wreckage of her writing things; she knew that if these letters were to make their way to their rightful owner, they needed to leave now before the growing light would reveal more Bridgertons than she could endure.
Despite the recent scandal, Eloise’s flight from the Bridgerton household was much easier than she believed possible. She had alighted from the main steps of their Mayfair townhouse without a soul noticing her exit. Instead, providence blessed her as she hailed a hack cab, hoping for one last trip before morning, as it meandered lazily down the street. The driver took her proffered coin without a sliver of genuine regard for her disheveled appearance. Then, with her immediate movements mapped out, Eloise allowed herself a moment to close her eyes, hoping she would be able to recover some semblance of clarity.
A short while later, a loud thumping shook her back to consciousness, chasing away the tendrils of her dreams.
“We’re ere’ Missus,” The coachman called out as he thwacked the brass point of his cane across the passenger door a final time.
Eloise coloured and mumbled apologies as she exited the cab; her hood had fallen down while she slept, revealing the shock of her dark hair and her round pale face. The man tipped his hat to her; his eyes scanned her face for a long moment before he uttered, “Christ, you’re just a little girl, what are you doing in these parts?”
Still rubbing sleep from her eyes, Eloise considered lying. Yet, strangely, she felt no compunction about concealing her movements to this stranger. Instead, she found she no longer cared if he knew that a Bridgerton was thusly ‘polluting’ themselves in these ‘parts’.
“I am visiting a friend, sir—Mr. Sharpe. You may know him; he works at the printer’s shop just down that entryway.” She pointed in the general direction of the storeroom and watched the man’s face for signs of concern or distress. She lifted her shoulders, determined to weather the man’s declarations about her delicate womanhood or some such nonsense. Instead, he said, “Theo’s a good lad. Bit radical mind, though you look like a well-bred type, so I assume that’s not what yer after from him.” At this, he wiggled his mustache suggestively, and Eloise knew her time to depart had appeared. She thanked him cooly for getting her safely from Mayfair to Bloomsbury and watched as the cab picked up dust as it trundled away.
The morning had broken through Eloise’s dawn travels, and sunlight quickly pooled along her footpath. Men and women had begun to fill the streets, craning their necks eagerly to catch the first brave rays of light. Eloise looked on at them with increased trepidation and anxiety. Her family had to have noticed she was not in her chamber by now. Cecily, her lady’s maid, would have found her bed empty and her belongings either strewn around the room or missing entirely. She hoped fervently that Anthony and Miss Sharma’s escapades would be enough to cover her exit for a while longer. A pang of regret shot through her that she had not been able to congratulate her eldest brother on finally achieving his happiness. She mused that their whole debacle was another thing Whistledown had repurposed and sullied for her own ends.
Breathing deeply and shaking out her loose curls, Eloise felt the creased edge of her letters stab the side of her chest, and she was reminded again of the purpose of her journey. A mere twenty paces separated her from his front door; she knew this because she had counted them repeatedly as she waged war internally over her first visit. Her naivete had been writ so large across her face that day. Although it was only weeks ago, to Eloise, it felt as if she had lived an entire life in those stolen hours with Mr. Sharpe. He had understood her and backed her intuition in a way no person had ever dared. Yet, she knew that most people, her family included, found her difficult and prickly. They did not understand her beliefs or her mind, not truly. As for her mother, the disappointment she continually fostered upon the Viscountess was more than a daughter could bear. If only they could see! She rationalised that they would soon understand they were worth more than balls, parties, and scandal sheets.
Taking a few tentative steps toward the sign that hung above the entranceway, she hoped she was embarking on a path that would finally make her worthy of her idols. She brought to mind Wollstonecraft and de Gouges, two women who had fought bravely and brazenly against the confines of society. They, too, had been handed great shame and humiliation and used it to hone their crafts and intellects. Eloise knew that the best way to follow in their footsteps was to put herself at the coal-face of their movements. She was done with being preened and displayed like a prize hothouse rose. Here, in Bloomsbury, she knew she could finally put her skills to use. It would not be easy, she was sure, and she did worry that Mr. Sharpe may throw her out the moment he realised who was darkening his doorstep. Still, Eloise Bridgerton realised as she took the remaining few steps, and the outline of the worn and paint flecked knocker came into sharp relief that she did not need Mr. Sharpe to fulfill her. He would not complete her missing piece, nor would he participate in any trite axiom she accumulated during the season. Instead, as she lifted her pale and slim hand to rap lightly on the door, she discovered that she simply wanted him.