A Little More Convincing

Chapter One: A Very Hasty Offer

Note: This starts directly after Chapter 13 of Romancing Mister Bridgerton. This story is Book Canon, but with a few Show Canon shout-outs. :)

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"For God's sake, Penelope," Colin said, grabbing her hand and yanking her down. "Are you going to marry me or not?"

Penelope nearly tumbled to the pavement at that, but she gripped the carriage door's frame to keep herself upright, also to hold onto some semblance of reality. Her mind must have been muddled from all that kissing. Because he couldn't have said what she'd just heard.

She felt a strange relief when Colin laughed, then felt quite peevish. Of course he wasn't in earnest.

"Are you going to stand there all day?" he asked, still holding her by the hand, and still laughing, the lout.

She gaped down at him, frozen with one foot in the carriage and the other out, more than peeved now. "I'll stand here day and night if that is what it takes for you to stop your nonsense. I don't find this amusing at all."

"You would if you could have seen your face." He laughed harder, tugging at her hand.

She didn't step down, rather tempted to dive back into that carriage and live out the rest of her days there. "This jest of yours is not funny in the least. I'd like to see your face if I held you to it."

Colin laughed. "Then hold me to it, by all means!" Penelope could only gape at him, at which Colin laughed harder. "Good Lord, one might think I'd offered to walk you to the guillotine instead of to the vicar!"

"Will you keep your voice down," she hissed, leaping from the carriage now, glancing up and down the street. There was a family walking on the other side, but they seemed occupied by their little sons fighting, thank goodness. "I'm sure this is all very amusing to you," she whispered. "Your ilk might have the luxury of... of groping ladies in a carriage every other morning, but for me..."

His laughter stopped abruptly. "What are you suggesting?" Now he looked peeved.

"I'm not accusing you personally," she said, stepping back. "I'm simply saying that your reputation won't suffer the way mine would." As it should, she supposed. Dear God! If anyone had played the wanton in that carriage, it was her. After all her years of enforced purity, she'd been insatiable. She blushed to think of the way she'd begged for his hands, his lips... She took another step away, tearing her eyes from his still-mussed cravat. "If people heard your little jest, they might think something happened."

"Something did happen," he said, quite loudly.

"Would you keep your voice down?"

"And what jest?" he asked, still with no regard to volume.

"The... marrying one," she hissed.

"That was no joke," he said, his brows drawn together. "We will marry as soon as possible."

She was beginning to think he might be serious. She shook her head, taking another step away from him until she felt her front steps behind her. "Colin, please stop."

He didn't stop. He took a step toward her. "I can assure you," he said, no laughter in his voice now, "that I do not behave as I did with a woman of your background without rendering a marriage proposal."

She backed up the first step, forcing a laugh. "How many marriages proposals have you—"

"Just the one," he said, glowering at her as he chased her up another step. "So it would be nice if you would stop acting as if I were in jest."