The Blossoming of Penelope Featherington | A BRIDGERTON Fanfic

Epilogue

Penelope Bridgerton was gently awoken by the warm midday light. Her eyes fluttered open, only to be blocked by a few strands of hair that had fallen from her plait. She yawned and stretched her now aching back. It had been a few hours since she had locked herself in her office, even before her husband had woken up. She arranged the papers on the desk, checking if she ended up drooling on any of them or if they'd crumpled up from her laying on top of them.

She didn't mean to fall asleep but her fatigue must have caught up with her. She had been trying to finish editing her latest novel for a few weeks now, and her publisher had been hounding her for her final manuscript for about two to three days already- although she suspected that it was mostly because he wanted to read it as soon as possible rather than her being late in submitting it. She smiled at the pages- a tad messy with scribbles of corrections on them- proud of the work she had created. She put it down contentedly alongside a sealed envelope.

After declaring her retirement as the infamous Lady Whistledown, she had been constantly beseeched to come back and claim her retirement a complete blunder in response to an awfully stressful situation. People of different ranks from London and to the edges of England would say so upon encountering her, whether it was in balls or the marketplace. Writers asked to write a book about her and journalists knocked on her door for an interview. That'd be when Colin would charmingly shoo them away- that was, as long as the other party remained cordial because Penelope had seen Colin bark one or two away in the first month of her retirement.

It wasn't just them who missed her writing. So did she. So on the third month of her retirement, when a letter came for her from The Times, asking for an entire section dedicated to Lady Whistledown, she said yes. The Times was growing in fame after becoming a reliable source of information for the past couple of decades. To be contacted by them felt like they respected her writing. And despite the sense of authority that she had from publishing her own papers back then, being a part of The Times meant less work, albeit a couple pennies lighter- she hadn't really thought much of it after the accumulated wealth she had all those years, either.

That was how she ended up writing as Lady Whistledown every week for ten more years, and now with one last article to publish before truly and fully retiring. Hopefully, her incredibly loyal readers would be pacified with the release of her latest and fifth novel.

She shook her head, smiling to herself, and headed to the window where the warm light peaked through. Her smile only grew bigger after seeing that she wasn't the only one enjoying the sun. Suddenly invigorated, she turned around and made her way down to their gardens.

"Are you tidying up the garden, Agatha?" Penelope asked her eight-year old daughter who was picking up a bunch of fallen leaves and pulling out grass into her tiny basket.

"Mama!" called a voice hidden within a flowerbed.

"Thomas?" She pushed away the crumpled flowers and pulled out a seven-year old boy from the flattened bushes. "Are you wearing clothes or is that all mud?"

"I was looking for some caterpillars, Mama. Uncle Gregory bought me a picture book of insects!" he said whilst wiggling from his mother's grasp.

"I told him not to go into the flowerbed, Mama," said Agatha. "And this is for tea. Aunt Felicity said she'll be coming to visit later."

"Tea?" Penelope asked as she called a maid to help Thomas change into a new set of clean clothes.

"Yes," she replied matter-of-factly. "I will ground them up and pour cool water to make tea."

"Don't you mean hot water, dear?"

Agatha shook her head wildly. "No, Mama! I don't like hot water. It will burn my tongue. And I think Aunt Felicity does not want to have a burnt tongue, either," she said haughtily.