Chapter Text
Art by the wonderful @itsfrannie23 on Twitter
His lips are cold, wet… wrong. Like oozing slugs on her neck. His hands are desperate, digging into the places she feels so much shame about, where she feels too soft, too much. The places she tries to hide from the world.
Despite the dark, she closes her eyes, searching for enjoyment.
Isn’t that what makes it so deliciously forbidden?
Isn’t that what leads to temptation?
To bad decisions?
To ruin?
She leans more into the kiss, clumsily matching his rhythm, yet still, she cannot understand it. Why would anyone risk everything for this?
Her back is pressed against what she thinks must be a shelf, it’s digging into her spine, blunt yet stabbing. She grunts and he seems to take her noise as encouragement, tugging at her bodice. It somehow stays in place, and she feels a swooping relief.
She pushes against his chest and he stumbles back, panting.
“Perhaps we should return to the ball, my Lord,” she says to his shadow.
She’s had enough. She’d asked him for a kiss, just one. This was more than enough.
She hears footsteps outside, voices, giggles.
“My Lord?” she whispers, and her voice trembles, as if her body knows what’s about to happen before her mind.
And then, a blinding light.
Her eyes burn, squinting, unseeing.
She hears him curse.
Gasps tear across the distance. Her stomach is twisted and knotted. Her blood scorches her skin even as ice descends on her organs.
And then laughter.
Not the kind that encourages a light bubbling feeling. But the kind that makes her want to disappear, to curl into herself and never leave the darkness.
—
Penelope awoke choking on air, her lungs stuttering, wrenching her from the now familiar dream. She sat up in bed and rubbed her dry eyes, feeling their sting. Once again she’d fallen asleep in tears. She glanced to the window, grey soft light peeped through her curtains. She could hear a cat yowling outside, the clatter of horseshoes against cobblestone; above she could hear the creaks of servants readying themselves for the day ahead. All of it so familiar, and yet so otherworldly.
She sighed and flopped back against her pillow, her heart still hammering against her chest. She wondered if the dreams would ever stop. She placed a hand on her neck where his lips had been, rubbing as if she could remove the memory of him. If only she could block out the echoes of their laughter too.
Groaning, she rolled over, her eyes landing on her desk by the window, sheets of blank paper judging her. The hours ahead of her deadline were dwindling. Genevieve had left her a note tucked within a dress she hadn’t ordered but had been delivered yesterday evening nonetheless; she had to go to print.
Not to would be damning.
But she already was damned. All possibilities in her life had been burned to ash. No longer could she dream of a husband, of family, children… No warm embraces, no safety, no escape.
In the four days since the scandal, her mother had already made plans to send her away to Scotland, as if she could physically remove the stink of her fall from grace. As if she hadn’t already damaged her sister’s prospects beyond repair, as if she hadn’t all but guaranteed their rejection from the ton.
Prudence had been on the edge of a proposal. Mr Harry Dankworth had been courting her for weeks, had made implications and indications. All had been on schedule. And Penelope had ripped that away from her.
While there was no love lost between them, the guilt of having not only destroyed her own future but her sister’s as well would forever linger. Neither Prudence nor her mother had been able to even look at her since that night.
She was a wallflower, who could have known her thorns were tipped with poison?
Sighing, she pushed herself out of bed, throwing the covers back and walking toward her desk. The morning air chilled her, goosebumps scattering across her flesh. She sat down in her chair, her finger tracing the familiar inlaid pattern that bordered her desk. How many nights had she spent here, her quill flying across the page? How many scandals had she luxuriated in detailing for the ton? How many names had she written, putting to ink their shame? Her mind flashed with Eloise’s outrage, Marina’s betrayal, Colin’s heartbreak.
She knew that there was justice in this.
Why should her name be protected? What made her any different?
She had made a choice, one that from the outside was stupid, without reason, yet from the inside had felt exciting and empowered. And now she had to make another choice. Should she write about it for the world to devour? Or should she remain silent, all but announcing to the world who she really was?
Penelope lifted her quill, twirling it between her fingers. Then, her hand trembling, she dipped it in her pot of ink, tapped it against the edge, and brought it to paper.