Flawless My Dear ( English version )

Chapter 23

The coachman walked with Penelope in his arms into the Bridgerton house as the Featheringtons were preparing for the end of the wedding.

"Somebody please help me!"

Out of the adjacent room came the Duke, as he had been left to tend to his newly arrived son. His face displayed horror.

"What happened?" said Simon, taking Penelope in his arms. They conveyed her to one of the guest rooms and laid her on the bed. There they could see that the wound on her head was still bleeding and that she had a few more cuts.

"I was with Miss Eloise and I stopped when I saw a car overturned and almost completely destroyed. Inside was Miss Penelope in this condition. The driver is deceased. I have already sent for him," said the Bridgertons' coachman.

"Send for a doctor," demanded the Duke.

The coachman ran downstairs, and Simon stayed with Penelope, trying to cover her gushing wound, and all he kept doing was holding her hand. Penelope must have felt that she was not alone even though she was unconscious.

(...)

"By the power vested in me, I now pronounce you husband and wife," said the priest.

Felicity's now husband and Felicity gave each other a quick kiss on the cheek and grinned like never before. Everyone clapped and Portia couldn't help but cry at the sight of her daughter finally married.

Colin was also smiling as he had watched that little girl grow up, but on the other hand, he couldn't take his eyes off the door, waiting for Penelope to show up. All he wanted that day was to see her walk down the aisle to him, even if it wasn't to get married. He had already made a firm proposal to her and could only wait for the right moment to propose.

He couldn't imagine the rest of his days without her by his side.

"We'd better go and grab a seat before the food runs out," suggested Colin.

"So don't worry, as I know what you like to eat, I've reserved a table just for you, your sister, and Penelope. Was her dress really so bad that she couldn't show up?" said Felicity's husband.

They had prepared a small toast at the back of the church, so everyone started to move towards the back.

"I would like to dedicate this toast to my wife, Felicity. I hope that we have a full life ahead of us, full of love for each other, and that we will never be separated by the lack of it. "I love you and I always will," he said, raising his glass.

Colin looked at them and it was as if he could see himself making that toast to Penelope. And he remembered Violet's words: "Give it to her when she's ready to say yes."

It was time; he knew it was. He had already shouted to the four winds in the rain that he loved her, and she had said nothing against it. He knew it was time to propose and he couldn't wait to propose. He needed Penelope to become his wife, he needed to make her his, he needed to make her his and not let her slip away no matter how much adversity happened.
So, he walked back inside the church with the intention of going straight to the Featherington house but in the middle of the aisle now filled with petals, he stopped and his smile faded as he came to a halt.

Eloise stood in the doorway devastated, her face streaked with tears and the white dress she wore stained all over with blood.

"Eloise!"

Colin ran over to her and picked her up, looking all over for the blood that was staining her dress.

"Colin," said Eloise in almost a whisper, "I..."

"Tell me who did this to you. I'm going to call the doctor right now," Colin asked.

Eloise started crying again, this time louder, and couldn't help holding her brother to keep from falling over from the helplessness that made her whole body tremble.
Then, for a thousandth of a second, the thought crossed his mind that the blood was not her blood?

It was Penelope's.

"Where's Penelope?" Colin said, looking around.

"Colin..."

"No, you don't understand. I have to propose to her." "I have to ask her to marry me, so first I should go and find her mother and ask for her permission," he said, looking around. I was in a state of shock.

"At our house," Eloise announced.

Before Eloise could speak again, Colin ran out of the church and jumped on the first horse he saw. 

It couldn't be her, it couldn't be her blood.

 
Colin hit the reins of the horses so hard that his hands started to bleed, but he didn't care. He needed to see that it wasn't her, that she was fine, and that it was just a misunderstanding.

"Damn it," said Colin Bridgerton as he tried to pull himself up from the ground.

"Oh my God, are you alright?" Penelope looked for the first time into the eyes of young Colin Bridgerton, which were to be her undoing for the rest of her days.

"I suppose I haven't broken anything, that's a good sign, isn't it?" he said with a chuckle.

The snapshot of the first time he met Penelope had nothing to do with the thoughts that came into his head now. Before he saw her as an adorable little girl friend of his sister's, and now he sees her as the woman he will spend the rest of his days with.

Before he reached the door, he jumped off his horse and ran into her house. As soon as he did, he bumped into Simon.

"Colin!" shouted the Duke.

He didn't care that Simon tried to stop him; he just kept going. He saw the maids going around with horrified faces and when he got upstairs he met Daphne, who was utterly dismayed.

"Let me in," he asked his sister.

"No, Colin, you can't do anything right now," Daphne told her brother.

"You don't understand that the love of my life could be dying and I'm standing here waiting like a death sentence," Colin replied.

"I know," she said, grabbing Colin's shoulders, "Look at me, brother," drawing his attention to her, "Miss Featherington..."

"Penelope," corrected Colin.

"Penelope is in the best of hands right now. You just have to have faith," she asked her brother.

"The same faith that let our father die in mother's arms?" he said, full of resentment. "I refuse."

"The faith in the love you both have. I'm sure that a love that is as pure and as intense as yours has to overcome this. And that's what you have to hold on to. Hold on to your love for Penelope to believe," she said, looking at him compassionately.

That's when Colin couldn't take it anymore and sat down on the floor in front of the door that separated him from Penelope, hugging himself like a little boy, crying like there was no tomorrow because maybe Kate wasn't right and he had come too late.

"Im going to love her for the res of my life, dont take her away" as tears escaped from his eyes, wich he wiped away with his still bloody hands "She has to hear that my love belongs to her,  she deserves to hear it from my mouth " he said while he was crying on the floor  "That it was a mistake all that terrible things I said to her...She deserves a life where she is completely and utterly happy" looking up at the ceeling.