Broken Trust: Part 1-The Catalyst

Penelope returned to her room after her dance with Colin to find her clothing scattered and crumpled, her writing desk in disarray, her furniture overturned and floorboards pulled up to expose the hiding place beneath.

There's nothing under the floorboards but Penelope's journals from before her presentation, before Lady Whistledown, hidden against nosy sisters and Cressida Cowper, who regrettably did not turn down the invitation to tonight’s ball. Not since last Christmas, when Prudence and Phillipa tried to 'convince' Penelope to "share" her pin money. After eventually giving up a few shillings from her reticule, Penelope had promptly moved the bulk of her fortune to a bank well-rated by female professionals, after paying a drunk to pretend to be her husband, in order to open the account in the first place. The man had then been given enough coin to drink himself under a table, and hopefully forget everything about her.

The hiding place, now exposed by cracked and broken floorboards, holds nothing worth discovering, now. Nor is there any sign of the culprit, long-since fled. How is Penelope ever to feel safe again, when her room, her sanctuary, the only place she can be herself, has been violated? She does not know if something is missing, or if it was only a spiteful act of violence. She does not know how it happened, how the villain gained access, or if they will return. A shiver runs down her spine at the thought that they might still be here, and she can never know who.

Her quills are broken, useless, and her desk in disarray, an ink-pot spilled across the expensive stationary. The books Great-Aunt Agnes had gifted her over the years, with the old lady's limited funds, lay strewn across the floor, their pages torn and crumpled. 

How long will it be until she has the money and ability to replace them? Mama will not advance her pin money for such an expense, and that amount is meagre enough as it is. Mama may even withhold it to replace the bright yellow dress that was discarded too close to her desk, and is now splattered with black stains that will not easily come out. Even a single gown is expensive, and it will take hours to check all of the clothing tossed about for damage, and replace them in the clothes press. Withdrawing money from her account to pay for repairs and replacements will mean a trip to the bank, which must wait until there are no eyes on her, and who can say when that might be, now that Cousin Jack's scheme has been exposed?

Holding back tears of fear and dismay, Penelope fled to find a footman. Perhaps one of the servants will have seen who broke into her room.

Eloise found her before she got very far. "Oh, Penelope, I was looking for you. What do you think Lady Whistledown will make of tonight, with all the scandals you pointed out?"

Penelope loved Eloise dearly, but she wished her friend would find another topic to obsess about! Had the search for Whistledown's identity not caused her enough trouble, even without attracting the Queen's wrath? She'd been confined to her room for a week at the end of last season, after the Bridgerton housekeeper caught her snooping in... A dreadful suspicion dawned. "Eloise, might you have seen anyone near my room? It is in the most frightful state!"

Eloise shook her head. "No, not since I went up earlier, looking for you. Can you imagine, I thought you might be Whistledown, but of course I dismissed the idea, for there was no proof."

Anger, thick and choking, rendered Penelope incapable of speech for several minutes, as Eloise nattered on. "Then it was YOU who tore my room apart? Eloise, how could you? How could you take such advantage of my trust? Of our friendship?"

Yes, Penelope was Whistledown, but did that give Eloise the right to rampage through her room? Eloise was impulsive, and blurted things out, and until that changed, she could not be trusted with Penelope’s secret. Her room was merely more proof of the same.

Eloise paused, "I thought... I had to know..."

Penelope did not care to hear it. "I thought you were my friend, but you are just like every other young lady in the ton, caring for nothing but your own whims, and hang those who pay the cost for it!"

Her friend - former friend, for how could they ever come back from such a violation? - shifted uncomfortably. "I... It can all be replaced, I am sure. We can go to the markets tomorrow..."

Of course. Eloise was a Bridgerton, wealthy and well-connected, a family that shrugged off scandal as one might wave away a fly. Eloise could trust her siblings and Mama to help her, in a way that Penelope had never been afforded. Eloise could spend her pin-money in a day, and still the Viscount or Lady Violet would buy her whatever she wanted, and Eloise would still have a dowery that a Duke's daughter would envy. "With what money? Papa gambled it all away last year, and now my cousin controls the purse-strings, and he cares no more for books than... than Prudence does! Of course you do not care, when have you ever needed to do more than ask to have your every desire handed to you?"

For the first time, a shadow of uncertainty crossed Eloise's face. "I can-"

Put Penelope in her debt, and insist that it meant nothing in the pursuit of Lady Whistledown's identity, the one thing Penelope had that was hers and hers alone. "I want nothing from you except to see or speak to you again! Goodbye, Miss Bridgerton."

Penelope's legs might be short, but she knew the garden well. 

After a hasty turn to avoid interrupting Viscount Bridgerton's very heartfelt and sincere proposal to the eldest Miss Sharma - dear Lord, Penelope would have to remember it for if she ever took to writing novels! - she found herself behind a bush near a group of gentlemen. One of them was Colin, her only remaining friend among the Bridgertons.

But even that was apparently not true, for she walked in on him laughing and denying that he would ever dream of courting her. 

Was it possible for a heart to break so many times in a single night? Penelope had never expected Colin to return her feelings, but neither had she expected him to ruin her in the eyes of all the Ton. He would never dream of courting her, after addressing her in familiar terms, after dancing with her almost exclusively, after holding her hand and speaking to her alone? Penelope might as well declare herself a spinster now, for all the hope of marriage she would have hereafter!

Sobbing, she ran back to her room, her friendships ruined as much as Penelope's belongings were.

There is one piece of paper that is only a little splattered on one side, and a quill that broke cleanly. Her handwriting will be atrocious, but Penelope does not care. If there is no one else in her life she can rely upon, she will always have Lady Whistledown.

'Dearest Gentle Reader...'

Read Part 2 here