Chapter Text
Cressida Cowper was remarkably good with secrets.
This was something she learned from her mother’s training. Knowledge was provender and gossip the richest kind. It took few words to influence and even fewer to ruin. A secret need not even be told in its entirety; a hint of scandal could be just as damning. Cressida was no Lady Whistledown, but she heard and saw her share of salacious news. More than ever pretending to be Whistledown herself, Cressida had plenty of agency all on her own with what he knew, of Penelope Bridgerton and Daphne Bassett both.
But there was a softer voice in there—though some would argue it was too quiet to hear—something that was Cressida’s own, that always made her wonder what harm could come from spreading secrets. It was not just a matter of what Cressida could gain, but also what others could lose. And Cressida could be awful, but despite what others thought of her, even she had her limits. When she envisioned a look of horror on Daphne’s face after some fictional event where Cressida shared her secret, it did not bring her pleasure—it just made her ache.
Secrets were a heavy burden to bear.
Cressida did not want to bear this one.
It took careful cajoling of her maid and gifting a heavy coin purse, but Cressida had slipped away from her mausoleum one last time to find Penelope and tell her—well.
Cressida leaned back against a lamppost, tilting her face to the sky. Sunlight simmered a hint of heat on the bridge of her nose. Her mother told her that gentlemen did not appreciate the indelicacy of sunburnt skin because it signified a young woman spent too much time outdoors like a commoner. But after being secluded in her bedroom for so long, it was a pleasant burn. She was soon to leave for Wales and her Aunt Joanna did not seem the type to let her outside much.
As she padded along the cobbled street, Cressida was not entirely sure what she meant to tell Penelope. Even as she came to the Featherington-Bridgerton home where a bemused footman took her to the drawing room, she was not entirely sure.
“Good morning, Mama,” Penelope called out as she came through the door, then recoiled when she saw who was there.
Cressida gave an insincere curtsey. “Good morning.”
“What are you doing here?” Penelope asked, eyeing her suspiciously.
Part of Cressida wanted to drag this along, to play with Penelope, to perhaps arouse a burgeoning panic at realizing what Cressida knew. But Cressida could begrudgingly admit to herself she had no time and frankly, a waning inclination to act as such.
“I am simply here to visit the esteemed Lady Whistledown,” Cressida said, casually inspecting her nails. She looked up to see Penelope barely flinch. “I know your secret.”
“Whatever you think you know, you are incorrect,” Penelope scoffed, but the pink had drained from her cheeks. “Now I wish you to leave.”
But Cressida sat down uninvited, a little thrilled at the annoyed look Penelope shot her, though she eventually sat with her as well.
“You know, I was reasonably confident walking in here today that I was going to blackmail you,” Cressida admitted. “I still might, we shall see how this conversation goes. But if nothing else, Penelope, you need to know your secret is unraveling. Everyone thinks me a fool and yet I found out on my own.”
“You know not of what you speak,” Penelope tried again, but it was weaker. They stared at each other, then Penelope sighed. “How did you find out?”
It zinged through her, Penelope’s confirmation. She would not allow herself time to bask in the revelation, instead shifting to further settle in her seat. “I was persistent in hounding printers,” Cressida shared. “One such boy was quite willing to share everything he knew for the possibility of meeting you.”
Penelope pressed her hand to her brow. “I suppose that was inevitable, there really are only so many printers in the area.” Her eyes narrowed. “Why are you telling me this? Should I be expecting the Queen’s men to pound on my door any minute now?”
“I have yet to tell anyone,” Cressida said. “People should expect by now that I am good with keeping secrets. Yours is no different.”
“I suppose £5,000 to a Cowper is nothing,” Penelope reasoned, but Cressida laughed humorlessly.
“Oh, I am ostensibly disowned from my family,” Cressida corrected. “I no longer have a dowry and any day now I will be shipped to Wales to be wrung out at the hands of my dreadful aunt. If I were truly playing the game, I would demand you pay me the Queen’s reward so that I might set up my life abroad—or I would tell everyone of your true identity.”
Cressida had just enough power, a mere pawn of a chess piece, for one more move before her fate was sealed in the Welsh countryside.
It was the single greatest piece of leverage Cressida possessed.
But Penelope laughed. “No one would believe you, Cressida. Your reputation could not be any lower at present.”
“This is true,” Cressida allowed. “But the thought would still be planted. You would never know which day would be the day it sprouted to fruition in the wrong person’s mind, someone with no scruples or discretion.”
Any mirth left Penelope. “You would do this to me, share a secret of such magnitude and leave me to the whims of the ton? Of the Queen?”
“I could—or rather, I should,” Cressida said. She looked down and realized she had picked a nail until it bled. “I am in desperate need of funds. And yet,” she sighed, looking back at Penelope, “I came here to tell you first. I do not know what you need to do to get your affairs in order, but you must do it quickly if you insist on maintaining a secret identity.”
Penelope watched her, eyes pale in the sunlight that slanted through the window. “You said you came here to blackmail me, but it sounds an awful lot like you are helping me instead.”
Cressida nodded. “I would fight you harder on this, but every attempt I have made thus far to save myself has brought me further pain and ruin. I have a sense of self-preservation, but I execute it poorly.” She looked up at the ceiling to stave off tears. “I really am the fool my parents say I am.”
Penelope sighed. “I do not know what you expect me to do with this information, other than pay you, that is.”
“Blackmail was lofty of me,” Cressida mumbled. “Unless, of course, you are inclined to pay me from the saintliness of your virtuous character.”
“I am not that good a person,” Penelope said wryly.
Cressida was not friends with Penelope; they never built any rapport. How could they, when Cressida spent years antagonizing her? Her mother would say it was because Cressida was undermining her as a rival in the marriage mart. Her father would say it was because she is an incorrigible bitch. Both were most likely true. And yet even knowing this, that no sympathy would be in company here, Cressida found herself scrubbing tears from her cheeks in front of Penelope.
“Oh,” Penelope said, softer than Cressida warranted.
“Ignore me,” Cressida muttered, embarrassed, but her breath still hitched. It was over, well and truly. No more games. No more subterfuge or dirty tactics. Cressida’s fate had been sealed and her body was catching up to it.
“Perhaps it will not be so terrible,” Penelope said. “Is your aunt truly that dreadful?”
“She is my papa,” Cressida replied. She knew Penelope understood what that meant.
They sat quietly with it.
“You know I am not going to pay you £5,000 to stay silent,” Penelope confirmed. “I will not allow you or anyone else to hold Whistledown over me.” She hesitated, then put a soft hand on Cressida’s. “I am sorry, truly. We are not friends, but I do not wish you ill—though you have certainly made that sentiment difficult.” She said the last part with a small smile.
“We are not friends, but I do not wish you ill as well,” Cressida agreed. “I once learned of your secret partnership with your husband and I kept it to myself when cornered by debutantes. You have no other reason to trust me, but I will keep your identity to myself as well.”
Knowing she was pushing her luck on time, Cressida stood, flattening her hands on her stomach as nausea roiled through her. This may be the very last time she ever spoke to Penelope.
Penelope stood with her. They did not hug in parting.
“Best of luck, Penelope,” Cressida said. As she turned to leave, Penelope’s hand shot out to take her elbow, then quickly dropped it.
“Will you write to me? From Wales?” Penelope asked.
“Write to you of what, the sheep?” Cressida asked, genuinely confused.
“Of the—yes, Cressida, of the sheep. I mean, will you write to me of how you’re faring? Assuming your aunt lets you keep correspondence.”
Baffled, Cressida still nodded. What Penelope could possibly want to hear from her, she did not know. Nodding in return, Penelope went to a writing desk and scribbled several lines. She tore the written portion away and came over to give it to Cressida.
“Write to me here. It should come as no surprise now that I can be quite the writer when so inclined.”
Cressida held the parchment to her chest with gentle hands, knowing how precious a gift she had just been given. “Thank you.”
Not wanting to test her luck, Cressida gave half a curtsey and left.
Cressida dragged her feet as long as possible.
There was no incentive for her to return home. The sooner she walked through that front door of the mausoleum, the sooner she would be sent to Wales. She took a detour through the shopping district with no particular intention. Perhaps she could buy something small for herself, a trinket that would remind her that surely she would return to London someday.
But to what London would she return? And to what social milieu would she belong, as friendless as she was? She supposed she would be a wife whose life was her husband’s, that if she were let outside to breathe, it must be in the company of his acquaintance’s wives. Or worse, if she were to marry someone of Lord Greer’s ilk, her own mother would be her contemporary.
If she left for Wales, she would come back as her mother.
Her breath quickened. No, it was not—she could not—all she would find in Wales was sheep and rain and despair. Laughing a little hysterically to herself, she started walking faster and faster until she tripped over cobblestone and promptly bumped into a hard back.
“Pardon me,” she gasped, then caught her breath.
She did not anticipate Lord Debling.
Never had she met a man who did not laugh at her, who could make her smile but also ache along her ribs because he understood the pain of a withholding family.
He startled a moment, then his eyes widened upon recognizing her. Nothing about him seemed to have changed since she last saw him all those weeks ago. But Cressida had changed tremendously; she irrationally resented him for seeming so unaffected.
“Why are you here?” She asked more bluntly than was polite. She hesitated, then belatedly curtseyed. “Lord Debling.”
If he was put off by her tone, he did not show it. “I live here,” he said slowly. Then he bowed. “Miss Cowper.”
“No, you left,” she disagreed. “Halfway through the season. You have not been seen since.”
“That is true,” he allowed. “Though I never truly left. I simply…made myself scarce from high society. I think me finding you alone without a maid chaperoning you in this part of town is more surprising.”
She did not think he was chastising her, but she still bristled.
“My welfare has never been your concern, my lord, so there is no need to act as if that has otherwise changed.”
Lord Debling frowned; she perhaps came across more hostile than intended.
“What am I missing?” he asked carefully. “Understanding the intricacies of social politesse has never been my forte, but I even I can tell I am mishandling things.”
“You are not—this is not—“ she huffed, frustrated with the both of them. She needed to smile and curtsey once more, to lie and say it was pleasant to see him but she was needed at home. She also gathered this opportunity would never present itself again. “Did I ever have a chance? Or was my sense of importance so inflated I was blind to the reality of my situation, which was that I lacked any real consideration on your part.”
“Oh,” he said softly. “That is—I left you abruptly. I was courting you and then I just left overnight. Is that to what you are referring?” She could not decide if his pained expression eased something in her or vexed instead.
She nodded.
“But—was I missed?” He asked.
“What do you mean?”
“When I left after my…situation with Miss Featherington, I honestly had not assumed I would be missed by anyone.”
Ire flared in her. “That is difficult for me to believe, my lord, because you were courting me as well. Did you think you would somehow cease to exist in the ton’s eyes just because you ignored a ball or two? Or,” another thought, a thorned one lodged in her throat, “Do you hold me in such low regard that you did not think I deserved at least the courtesy of being apprised of your absence?”
“No,” he said firmly. “We can spend as much time as you wish dissecting any character deficiencies I may have, but I will be very clear with you: I hold you in great esteem. You were always someone of consideration to me. I see now how my actions have slighted you, but they were never borne from vicious intent. If nothing else, please believe that.”
Her breath shuddered in her chest. She did not know she needed to hear that from him.
“Part of me wants to blame you for how the rest of my season fared,” she eventually admitted. At his quirked brow, she said, “I was alone and desperate, so I made terribly foolish decisions, one right after the other. Perhaps if you had decided I was worth staying for, I might not have acted thus. But—" she sighed. “My actions are my own and I am beholden to myself.”
He opened his mouth but several clocks on display in one stall chimed signaling the hour. Her time was up.
“I cannot honestly say this was necessarily a pleasure to see you, Lord Debling, but I must be off.”
“Wait,” he said quickly, raising a hand. “Will you—can I see you again?”
She frowned. “Why?” What information was he missing, the details of how she ruined herself?
“I do not like to leave things unresolved, even though my quick absence did just that,” he admitted. “Perhaps we can speak once more? When you are not in such a rush to leave. Although—” he trailed off, “You may be in a rush to leave me, in which case I am prolonging some sort of agony here—”
“My lord,” she interrupted, definitely annoyed but also perhaps a little charmed, “I leave within the week. If you are, for reasons that are unclear to me, so inclined on calling, you must do so immediately.”
He bowed. “Then I shall call on you soon, Miss Cowper. Your consideration is appreciated.”
She curtseyed. “Yes, very well. Good day, Lord Debling.” And with a whirl of her skirt she left, could not possibly bear to stay a moment longer.
Her mind was reeling. How dare he think so little of her that he would simply leave without word? She squirmed, wondering if it could possibly be true, however, that he had not meant it as such. How could he think he would not be missed? The audacity—
The heat of it, her ire, carried her the rest of the way home, a vague bolster against the inherent chill of Cowper House. But once she made it to her room, flopping onto her bed, her reality set in. She knew of Lady Whistledown but agreed to keep it a secret. Penelope had offered to maintain correspondence, though Cressida certainly had no clue what such a thing should look like. And Lord Debling, he—he would—
When her maid, Anna, came to gently remind her of dinner, Cressida begged off, even though she did have some hunger pangs. The thought of staring at her parents, to sit in their horrid silence, was simply too much. Eventually she slipped into a fitful sleep, one which caused a recurring panic that every time she woke, she thought she heard her aunt’s voice in the drawing room.
The next day was drowsy and wearisome. She requested her maid help her into a simpler dress, her hair braided over her shoulder, for she had no plans to leave the house—perhaps not at all until her aunt arrived. She ate breakfast alone, then dragged her feet to the pianoforte in the music room. Her mother hated when she was in such a mood because her musical choices reflected it, a solemn Moonlight Sonata just to add to dense air of her home. When a footman entered the doorway of the music room, she lifted from fingertips from the keys.
“A caller for you, Miss,” he said.
She frowned at him, unmoving. Was it—she supposed Penelope might have had something further to say, or perhaps wished for reassurances that her secret would indeed be kept.
A frisson of nerves.
It was possible another caller entirely was there.
She nodded, standing up and following him to the drawing room. And to equal parts delight and dread, there stood Lord Debling with her mother.
“Dear, look who has joined us today,” her mother said brightly, though she knew it was not truly all smiles. Her mother did not like to be surprised, even if his company was ostensibly welcome.
“Lord Debling,” Cressida greeted with a curtsey. “You came.”
Her mother sent her a sharp look.
“I said I would,” he replied, then pulled his hand from behind his back to reveal a bouquet of pink tulips.
She cautiously took them, reluctantly allowing herself to be pleased; they were her favorites.
“Do sit down,” her mother invited, then promptly sat down next to Cressida with barely room to breathe. Lord Debling took a nearby chair.
Cressida opened her mouth to speak, but her mother was quicker.
“Your presence is curious, my lord,” her mother noted, eyes narrowing just slightly. “No one has seen you since you left so abruptly.”
“Ah,” he said with a nod. “Would you believe wounded pride to be the culprit?”
“Because Miss Featherington—Mrs. Bridgerton—rejected your suit?” her mother asked. The details of what happened that night were never quite clarified, not even by Lady Featherington.
“You could say that,” he allowed.
“And yet you are now here. With my daughter who you so callously dismissed.”
He winced but did not deny it. For a moment she worried he would reveal they met in the market—which would reveal she had left the way she did at all—but he said, “I plan on leaving London in the not distant future and it occurred to me, later than it should have admittedly, that I have loose ends I carelessly left behind. Miss Cowper,” he nodded at Cressida, “I am afraid my courtship with you is one such loose end. I fully own the mistake I made in leaving you the way I did, both quickly and without word. I do not expect any forgiveness or understanding, but it truly was never my intent to cause harm.”
“Thank you,” Cressida said quietly. She believed him.
Her mother gave a delicate sigh. “Well, I suppose that is all well and good, Lord Debling. You do understand you left my daughter in an untenable situation.”
“I understand—”
“What I mean to say,” her mother spoke over him, “Is that she is still available. After your abrupt departure, no one gave her further notice, and why would they? They could only assume something was wrong with her if a lord of your rank suddenly cast her aside. Now she is at the end of the season with no prospects to her name. What say you to that?”
“Mama,” Cressida hissed, embarrassed. “Lord Debling, my situation has no bearing on your consideration—”
“She is unwed, my lord,” her mother continued louder. “And quite frankly, it is due to your actions.”
Lord Debling blanched. “That was not my intention—”
“So your intention was to toy with her and throw her away?” her mother sneered.
“No—”
“Mama, stop—” There was horror building, a kind of nausea in the base of her throat. She could see ahead what her mother was doing.
“This all has a rather simple solution,” her mother said, suddenly calm. “Marry my daughter and save her from the ruin which you brought upon her.”
“No,” Cressida gasped. “Mama, that is more than enough.”
“Lady Cowper,” Lord Debling said, voice deep. “While I fully own the mistakes I have made, I do not think marrying your daughter will simply rectify matters. By which I mean no offense,” he murmured to Cressida. She nodded in understanding.
“Oh, Lord Debling,” her mother said almost pityingly. “If you do not marry my daughter, I will make it very difficult for you to return to London and find a wife elsewhere. I have more influence than you think and not nearly enough conscience to care. Do you want to test me?”
Lord Debling stared at her blankly. “You truly wish to force the matter.”
“You do not appreciate how far I am willing to go to secure my daughter’s future,” her mother said simply. “Even if both of you resent me for it.”
“I will not force you to marry me,” Cressida said firmly. “This is not—I never imagined—”
She wanted a gentleman to want her. She wanted her eyes to catch his from across the ballroom and watch them light up because it was her that he found. He would come to know her fully, truly, what little good she had to her name and even the multitude of wrongs she had cast.
She wanted a gentleman who loved her and she feared deep in her bones that Lord Debling would never do so, not if he was so coerced.
Lord Debling glanced at her, then down at his hands. “Very well.”
Both Cowper women stopped breathing.
“Pardon?” her mother asked.
Carefully impassive, Lord Debling said, “I will marry your daughter.”
“Of course you will!” her mother said cheerfully, clapping her hands.
“Lord Debling,” Cressida said quietly.
He did not look at her.