#don’t just knock him off that pedestal Penelope kick it out from under him

[quotergirl19]

Give me Colin calling on Penelope, wanting to check in since she hadn’t replied to any of his letters, thinking she’d be happy to see him. He enters the Featherington drawing room and Portia immediately offers him some refreshments but Pen interrupts her insisting that won’t be necessary because Mr. Bridgerton will not be staying long enough to enjoy them.

Everyone looks at Penelope, shocked by how rude what she just said was. Colin asks if everything is alright because he’s genuinely shocked that Penelope just made it insultingly clear that he was not welcome in her home. He’s never seen her this way. And Penelope goes in.

She’s rehearsed this speech for months and this is it. She tells him off right in front of her mother and Prudence. No need to spare him the disrespect or embarrassment of being reprimanded so soundly by last person on earth he ever expected to turn their back on him.

Penelope tells Colin that this will be the last time she acknowledges him. That he should never darken her doorstep again. Never take her by the hand again, or touch her or ask her to dance or send her any more letters.

She tells him she trusted him. That when Marina, her sister and her mother all tried to warn her that he didn’t see her for who she was, that she didn’t matter to him, that he was no friend of hers, she didn’t heed her own family because she believed she knew him better than they did. Because he said they were friends. Because he made such a show of protecting her. Because he told her that he would always look after her. Because he told her she was special to him.

She tells him that he fooled her into thinking he was the best person she knew. That he was a true gentleman. That he was kind. And that she mattered to him. But then she heard him mocking her with his friends.

She tells him that he can see himself out. Because she does not wish to be in his company a moment longer.

Colin is stunned silent and almost looks like he’s going to be sick.

Prudence’s jaw is on the floor.

Portia nearly faints.

When Colin escorts Penelope home a few days later asking Portia for her daughter’s hand, she assumes he must mean Prudence because she can’t imagine him wanting to marry Penelope after everything she said to him. When Colin seems insulted by the idea that he wants anyone other than Penelope, Portia realizes he’s in love with her daughter.