Slining Doors

Rude awakening

He woke up with a terrible headache, yes, he was really getting old.  She stood up and without even opening her eyes walked towards the corner where she kept the chamber pot except that she bumped into her trunk where she kept her logbooks of her old voyages.
"What the hell?"  he was puzzled
Was he so drunk that he took the wrong house and went back to Brutus Street, where his mother had gone to live after Anthony's marriage to Kate?
Absurd he said sitting down on the edge of the bed again.
He dressed and went downstairs to scrounge up some breakfast.
His mother was sipping tea smiling at Hyacinth who was telling him a bizarre dream with winged unicorns ...
"Good morning dear aren't you late today?"
"Sorry mother, yesterday I must have drunk more than usual and found myself sleeping in my old bed..."
"Please, where were you supposed to sleep?. And watch how you answer, your brothers are here!!"
"But at my house?"
"At your house? Brother, you have your own house! So, mother, can I move into her room now that it's bigger than mine?"  Gregory said immediately
"Darling, did you take the apartment you were talking about? You didn't tell me anything, you said that as long as you were travelling, you would stay at home with us"
"Mom what are you saying, I have my own house with my wife and my 2 children"
Violet dropped the cup and Colin was quick to wipe it away before she burned herself.
"Colin Bridgerton if you're trying to make fun of me, you're really exaggerating. As far as we know you're not even engaged and you're courting any lady we know. I think you've had too much to drink."
Colin was stunned for a moment....what the hell was going on.  Maybe… maybe he was dreaming and hadn't woken up yet.
Now he just needed to relax and he would wake up with his beautiful wife Penelope who would scold him for being late and with those two adorable pests of his children, Agata and Thomas who would yell at dad a thousand times until he caught them in your arms and blow yourself towards the ceiling.
He just had to wait....just wait a little longer....5 more minutes.
Nothing his mother still stood looking at him questioningly waiting for explanations.
Colin jumped up and walked outside as his mother called to him.
He stormed out on his way to his house, or Featherington house.  When Colin and Penelope were married, her mother had decided to leave the house to them and go live with Prudence to help her with her twins and with her third child.  But right now he was awake, and he didn't know what the hell was going on but he was just watching Portia Featherington and her daughter Penelope walk out of the house laughing to each other.  Then a gentleman joined him who delicately placed a shawl around Penelope's shoulders and made her get into the carriage.  Colin at that moment had excruciating pain in his heart, were it not that he was still very young, he would have thought he was about to have a heart attack.  He leaned against a carriage hitch and waited for the Featheringtons' carriage to pull away then approached the gentleman.
"Was that the Featherington's carriage wasn't it?"
"Yes, please, I can help you, are you all right?"  the man said getting worried seeing Colin waxen face.
"Pleased Colin Bridgerton"
"Ohh yes I know you by reputation....the real writer? Are you looking for someone?"
"I was pleased to say hello to a dear friend, Miss Penelope Featherington"
"Ahh my fiancée. She is going with her mother to Madame Delacroix for the finishing touches of her wedding dress, we are getting married in 2 weeks. She will tell him that you have come to see her."
Colin couldn't swallow or even speak, if he was too young for a heart attack, he certainly wasn't for an apoplectic stroke, the one he thought was coming to him.
"Nice anyway, I'm Charlie Patterson. We have something in common. I'm the deputy managing director of the Sunday Times. And I'd be honored if he would share some famous stories about him in our publications."
"I'll think about it. Thank you for his time."
And he went his way in bewilderment.