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Since the day Marina Thompson appeared in his life, Penelope Featherington realized she was destined for invisibility. It took only a moment: the sparkle in Colin Bridgerton’s eyes, a spark she had never seen directed at her, lit up when he looked at her cousin. From that instant, Penelope ceased to exist for him.
She couldn’t hate Marina. Marina was kind, even affectionate, perhaps the only one in the household with whom she could talk without feeling judged. But that kindness made the wound more cruel, for there was no defense against Marina’s sweetness nor against the fascination she inspired in Colin. Thus Penelope swallowed her jealousy and pain, pretending support while every smile, every secret glance between them pierced her like a dagger.
She endured it all… until that fateful night.
She had prepared a tea for her cousin, determined to speak honestly. But as she approached her room, she overheard. And what she heard was her own damnation. Muffled whispers, breathless sighs, words heavy with desire. Colin’s trembling voice:
—“You were so beautiful tonight, Marina, tempting me with your smiles…”
And then the promise that shattered Penelope’s world:
—“If they discover us, they’ll force us to marry… and truly, that is what I desire.”
Every word was a whip. Penelope froze, tears streaming down her face. When she fled, she left the cup of tea on the floor: a symbol of innocence that would never return.
That night she understood: feeding the illusion of ever being loved by Colin was chaining herself to eternal torment. And amidst her grief, she made a dark resolution: if fate condemned her to a loveless marriage, then at least she would first taste forbidden pleasures.
She would no longer be the invisible maiden.
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Marina, meanwhile, lived in her own labyrinth of deception. The child growing in her womb was not Colin’s but George Crane’s, a man who never returned. She knew Penelope suspected something —the forgotten cold cup was proof enough— and her only escape was to ensnare Colin in a forced marriage.
At Lady Danbury’s ball, fate struck. Marina, radiant in a scandalous gown, accepted a waltz from Colin, forgetting Eloise and Penelope. In the dark gardens, lips met, hands dared… until a cry shattered the night. Portia Featherington, Violet Bridgerton, and Penelope herself bore witness. The scandal was sealed. Colin had to marry.
For Penelope, it was the end of every dream. And with the death of that illusion, a new woman was born: one who sought not love, but pleasure.
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The first man to offer her that escape was Lord Remington. Tall, blue-eyed, with laughter that eased her melancholy. With him, Penelope discovered the power of her own seduction. Their encounters were secret, intense, without promises. In his arms she learned that desire could be a language of freedom. She learned to burn and to be burned, to possess and be possessed. There was no tenderness, but there was release: she was no longer invisible.
Meanwhile, Colin and Marina’s marriage crumbled. At first there was tenderness, hope… but calculations never lie. Their children were too strong to be premature. Marina’s confession fell like a thunderbolt: they were never his. She had never loved him as he believed. Colin was trapped in an empty marriage, raising children that were not his, drowning in silence, alcohol, and brothels.
One night, in his despair, he saw her. A veiled figure slipping into the shadows, entering a discreet house. He followed. The passionate kiss he witnessed under the dim light struck him like lightning: Penelope.
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At first, he refused to believe it. Sweet, timid, invisible Penelope? Secretly giving herself to another man? The image devoured him. He began to follow her, to watch her, consumed by obsession. Until one night, in a deserted alley, he unmasked her.
—“So it was true, Penelope?” His voice was a whip. “You hid in the shadows to give yourself to another?”
She met his gaze with fire, proud though wounded.
—“And what right have you, Colin Bridgerton? Are your nights of wine and brothels more honorable than my secrets?”
That defiance was the spark. The argument turned into a desperate kiss, into reckless union. From that night, they were chained to a dangerous, clandestine, destructive bond.
For Penelope, it meant doom: sooner or later she would have to marry, and this passion would be her ruin. For Colin, it was drowning in jealousy, unable to bear that another man had touched her, though he himself lived among hired women.
There was no tenderness, only a voracious need to possess and destroy. Every encounter was a battlefield between desire and reproach, between burning caresses and wounding words. They knew they were playing with fire, yet they could not stop.
Penelope told herself she must flee, that this bond would end her reputation and the last shreds of her innocence. But every time she saw him, she succumbed again, trapped in the maelstrom. Colin, for his part, sank into an unhealthy obsession: he could not love her freely, but neither could he endure losing her.
It was a bond born of wounds and poison, binding them tighter the more it tore them apart. And both knew, deep down, that it would not save them: it would drag them to ruin.
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Thus the invisible Penelope and the broken Colin became prisoners of a forbidden passion that could never be true love. A flame burning in the shadows, consuming them slowly, until nothing remained but ashes.
And in every sigh, every secret glance, every clandestine night, fate seemed to whisper the same truth:
> There is no redemption for those who love with poison in their souls.
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Years passed, and life —relentless as ever— went on.
Penelope, as she feared, eventually married. Not a man she loved, but one fate and circumstance chose: someone who offered her a name and position, but never the fire she had once known. She became a respectable wife, a proper mother, a figure in society… yet every smile, every word, was a mask hiding the memory of nights when she had burned with an intensity she would never find again. Her life was orderly and acceptable, but deep inside she was hollow, consumed by the forbidden memory she could not name.
Colin, for his part, never fully recovered. His marriage to Marina became a silent hell of lies and distrust. The children grew under his care, loved and protected, but every glance at them cut him with secret pain. In the salons, his smile was still dazzling, but in the shadows he drowned in alcohol and fleeting passions, unable to tear from his skin the memory of the woman he had loved too late and too wrongly.
They never spoke of it again. When they met at society events, they exchanged only the briefest nods, like strangers. Yet in those brief instants, their eyes revealed what words denied: they had shared something that marked them forever, something neither time nor appearances could erase.
And so, through guilt, silence, and resignation, they slowly consumed themselves. There was no redemption, no solace. Only the memory of an impossible love, turned into an eternal wound.
Because some passions do not save —they only destroy.
And Penelope and Colin’s fate was, from the very beginning, to burn in a fire that should never have been lit.
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