Chapter 4: Brotherly Rivalry
The world outside the grotto had grown sharper, the edges of leaves and stones defined by a rising moon. Penelope’s damp chemise clung to her like a second skin, chilly now as they walked back through the dark garden paths. Colin walked beside her, his arm slung casually around her shoulders, whistling a tuneless melody. Daphne and Anthony were ahead, a shadowy pair moving with the easy synchronicity of long practice. No one spoke of the waterfall, or the rock, or the unspoken current that had passed between the brothers. It lived in the air between them, a new frequency humming just beneath the surface of things.
They approached the main house from the west lawn, skirting the edge of the lit terraces where music still faintly played. Anthony stopped near a waiting phaeton, his carriage, the black lacquer gleaming under a lantern’s glow. Its doors were open, the interior a plush cave of crimson velvet.
“A drink,” Anthony announced, not a question. He vaulted inside with effortless grace, disappearing into the shadows of the cab.
Daphne followed, sinking into the cushions with a sigh. “He keeps the good brandy in here.”
Colin nudged Penelope forward. Her legs felt unsteady, as if the ground hadn't quite settled. She climbed in, the step unsteady under her soft slippers. Colin came last, pulling the carriage door half-closed behind them, not latching it. It shut them in a private, moving room, the scent of sandalwood and bergamot from Anthony’s earlier ride mingling with the night air and their own damp skin.
Anthony poured amber liquid into four cut-crystal glasses from a decanter secured in a niche. He handed one to Penelope first. Their fingers brushed. His eyes held hers for a beat too long, a silent echo of his command in the grotto. You did well.
They drank. The brandy was fire, smoothing the last rough edges of her nerves.
Colin stretched his legs out, knocking his boots gently against Anthony’s. “So. Penelope Featherington knows all our secrets now.”
“Seems so,” Anthony said, his voice a low rumble. He wasn’t looking at Colin; he was still watching Penelope, a speculative glint in his eye. “Question is, what does she do with them?”
Penelope took another sip, the warmth spreading through her chest. “I imagine I keep them. They’re not mine to give away.”
A slow smile touched Anthony’s lips. He approved.
Colin, however, swirled his brandy, his gaze flicking between Penelope and his brother. A playful, competitive energy began to crackle in the enclosed space. “She handled herself rather impressively, didn’t she?” he said, nudging Anthony’s foot again.
“She did,” Anthony conceded, his eyes still on Penelope. “But the night is for testing limits. Seeing where they break.”
The words hung there. Daphne curled her legs beneath her, watching them all with amused detachment, like an audience at a particularly engaging play.
“Is that what you were doing?” Colin asked, his tone deceptively light. “Testing her limits? Or were you just testing me?”
Anthony finally turned his head to look at his brother. The air thickened, charged with the memory of their shared gaze behind the waterfall. “Maybe both.”
Colin put his glass down with a soft click on the lacquered wood. “You always have to push, don’t you?”
“Someone has to.”
Without warning, Colin moved. It was a fluid, powerful lunge across the narrow space of the carriage. He didn’t go for Penelope. He caught Anthony by the front of his open waistcoat and shoved him back against the velvet-padded wall. The carriage rocked slightly on its springs.
Anthony’s drink sloshed, but his expression didn’t change. He looked up at Colin, a challenge in his dark eyes.
Colin kissed him.
It wasn’t like anything Penelope had seen before. It was nothing soft, nothing exploratory. It was a collision—all teeth and dominance and raw, frustrated energy. Colin’s hand fisted in Anthony’s hair, holding him still. Anthony didn’t fight it. After a moment of shocking stillness, he reciprocated, his own hand coming up to grip Colin’s neck, his fingers digging in. It was a brutal, silent struggle for control, a contest played out with lips and tongues and clenched jaws.
Penelope’s breath caught. This was different from the fluid, almost ritualistic connection she’d witnessed in the grotto. This was immediate, personal, and fiercely hot.
Daphne let out a soft, appreciative sigh beside her.
Colin broke the kiss first, breathing hard. He pressed his forehead against Anthony’s, his voice a gravelly whisper. “You don’t get to claim everything first.”
Anthony’s smile was a knife’s edge. “I don’t recall claiming anything that wasn’t already mine.”
Their eyes locked again, that private current blazing between them. Then, as if by some unspoken signal, they both turned their heads. Looked at Penelope.
The focus was paralyzing. Two sets of intense eyes, hungry and full of a rivalry that had just found a new, delicious outlet. Her.
Colin released Anthony and turned, his movements fluid. He reached for Penelope, pulling her from her seat and into his lap on the carriage floor, his back against the opposite seat. “She’s not a prize,” he murmured against her temple, but his words were for Anthony. “But she’s here. With us.”
Anthony watched, slowly putting his glass down. He loomed over them, a large silhouette against the dim light from the half-open door. “And what do you propose we do with her, brother?”
Colin’s hands were already pushing the damp chemise up her thighs. “What we want.”
Anthony nodded, a single, decisive dip of his chin. He didn’t join them on the floor. Instead, he remained standing, looking down. A judge. An orchestrator. “Then show me,” he said, his voice low. “Show me what you want.”
Colin’s mouth found Penelope’s neck, his kiss feverish. His hands worked her chemise higher, baring her to the waist. The cool air of the carriage, the heated brandy on his tongue, the possessive grip of his hands—it was a sensory overload. She arched against him, a small sound escaping her lips.
“See?” Colin gasped, looking up at Anthony. “She’s not quiet. She’s loud when she’s properly inspired.”
Anthony’s gaze was like a physical touch. “I heard.”
He knelt then, a deliberate descent. Not to touch Penelope, but to watch Colin’s hands on her skin, to watch his brother’s mouth trace the line of her collarbone. Anthony’s own desire was a palpable force in the confined space, a tension coiling tighter with every sound Penelope made.
Colin, emboldened, defiant, guided Penelope to turn in his lap, to face Anthony. He held her from behind, his arms wrapped around her, his hands cupping her breasts, presenting her. “Your move, brother.”
Anthony’s control snapped. He closed the final inch of space and kissed Penelope, deep and claiming, a mirror of the kiss he’d given Colin moments before. This was for Colin as much as it was for her—a demonstration. His hands came up to cover Colin’s where they held her, their fingers tangling over her skin, a confusion of possession.
It was too much. The brothers, the competition, the shared focus—it ignited something primal in her. She was the spark between two flints, the object of their contest, and the only possible victor was her own pleasure. She cried out against Anthony’s mouth.
Outside the carriage, partially hidden by the shadow of a large rhododendron, Eloise Bridgerton stood frozen.
She had slipped away from the ballroom, seeking a moment of quiet, a break from the inane chatter. The sight of the carriage, rocking gently, had drawn her curiosity. Then she had seen the half-open door. The flash of pale skin. The tangle of limbs.
She saw Colin’s face, tense with passion, pressed against Penelope Featherington’s hair. She saw Anthony, dominant and relentless, his broad back blocking then revealing the scene. She saw their hands moving over Penelope’s body, a chaotic, intimate map.
A bolt of pure, shocking heat went straight through her, pooling low in her belly. Her face flushed. Her breath shortened.
Then the disgust washed in, cold and acidic. This was her brothers. This was Penelope, her… her friend? Acquaintance? A girl society considered invisible. And they were… they were using her. Turning her into this… this shared thing.
The arousal and the revulsion warred, locking her in place. She wanted to look away. She wanted to step closer. She wanted to scream at them. She wanted to know what it felt like to be the center of such fierce, undivided attention.
Inside the carriage, the dynamic shifted again. Anthony pulled back from Penelope’s mouth, his own breath ragged. He looked past her, at Colin. A challenge accepted.
“Together,” Anthony ground out, the word not a request.
Colin gave a tight, desperate nod.
It was a messy, complicated rearrangement of limbs in the cramped space. A negotiation of space and angle. Anthony moved behind Penelope as Colin guided her forward, supporting her weight. There was a moment of pressure, a gasp from Penelope that was half-pain, half-overwhelm, and then a shuddering sigh as Anthony seated himself deep within her. At the same time, Colin shifted, his own body connecting with hers from the front in a different, no less intimate way.
Penelope’s world dissolved into sensation. She was held, filled, surrounded by them. The competition was over. This was collaboration. Their rhythms, at first awkward, then finding a frantic, perfect syncopation against her. Anthony’s groan was a dark rumble in her ear. Colin’s choked curses were hot against her lips. The carriage creaked on its springs, a rhythmic counterpoint to their motion.
Eloise watched, her hand pressed to her mouth. The disgust was still there, a sour taste on her tongue. But it was drowned now by a flood of aching, undeniable need. Her own body clenched in helpless empathy. She saw Penelope’s head fall back against Anthony’s shoulder, her face a mask of shattered, breathtaking ecstasy. She saw Colin’s expression, raw and open in a way she’d never seen, as he watched his brother over Penelope’s trembling form.
It was too much. It was a truth too bright to look at directly.
She stumbled back a step, her heel catching on a root. The sound was tiny, but Anthony’s head snapped up, his hunter’s instincts cutting through his pleasure. His eyes, dark and fierce, scanned the darkness, locking for a fractured second with hers through the gap in the carriage door.
Eloise’s heart stopped.
Then Anthony’s eyes closed, his face tightening as his own climax overtook him, but not before she saw the faint, dangerous acknowledgement in his gaze. He knew.
She turned and fled, the rustle of her skirts loud in her own ears, the image of her brothers and Penelope welded onto the back of her eyelids, a secret now twice as heavy, and far more dangerous, than the one she had just discovered.
She made it only a dozen paces before the weight of her own silence stopped her.
The music from the house was a faint, mocking specter of normality. Her heart wasn’t just pounding; it was a frantic, caged thing slamming against her ribs. The heat between her legs was a traitorous pulse, a direct rebuke to the disgust churning in her stomach. They had seen her. Anthony had seen her. The knowledge was a cold stone in her throat.
She turned back. The carriage sat silent now, a dark monolith against the deeper black of the garden. No movement. Just the soft, haunted sound of her own breathing. She approached slowly, each step a surrender.
The half-open door yawned before her. The interior was a tableau of disarray. Colin leaned against the seat, shirt open, hair a riot. Anthony stood by the opposite window, buttoning his waistcoat with precise, deliberate movements. Penelope was between them, on the velvet bench, her chemose mostly straightened, her hands trembling as she tried to repin her hair.
They all looked up as her shadow fell across the threshold.
No one spoke for a long moment. The air was thick with the smell of sex, brandy, and sweat.
Colin broke the silence with a low whistle. “Well. This is awkward.”
“Eloise.” Anthony’s voice was flat. He finished with the last button, his gaze assessing her, tracking the conflict on her face.
Penelope went very still, her eyes wide. A flush crept up her neck, but she didn’t look away.
“I…” Eloise’s voice failed. Her prepared speech—full of outrage and condemnation—dissolved on her tongue. She just stared.
Anthony took a step toward the door. “Did you need something?”
The question was so mundane, so utterly ridiculous given the circumstances, that a hysterical laugh bubbled in Eloise’s chest. She choked it down. “I saw you.” The words were a bare whisper.
“We gathered,” Colin said. He sounded more amused than chastened. He reached for his discarded glass and finished the brandy in one swallow.
“It’s… it’s wrong,” Eloise managed, forcing the words out. The disgust was her anchor, the thing she knew she should feel.
Anthony’s eyebrow lifted. “Is it?” He leaned a shoulder against the carriage frame, blocking her full view of Penelope. “Who told you that?”
“Everyone. Everything. Society—”
“Society isn’t here, Eloise,” Colin cut in, his tone losing its levity. “It’s just us. In a garden. Behind a closed door.”
“It was half-closed,” she shot back, a pathetic defense.
A slow, knowing smile touched Anthony’s lips. It wasn't kind. “And yet you stopped. You watched.”
The accusation, the truth of it, stole her breath. Her cheeks burned.
Penelope finally moved. She stood, her legs seeming steady now. She faced Eloise, her chin lifting. “It’s not what you think.”
“And what do I think?” Eloise snapped, the anger flaring, grateful for its heat. “That my brothers are… are sharing you? Like a… a bottle of wine?”
“It’s not sharing,” Anthony said, his voice quiet but absolute. “It’s inclusion.”
The word hung there, dense with meaning. Inclusion. In their world. In their secret.
Colin stood, stretching languidly. He came to the carriage door, looking down at his sister. His expression was unguarded, softer than Anthony’s. “You’re shocked. That’s fair. We never meant for you to see.”
“But you did see,” Anthony said, not moving. His eyes were like flint. “So now you have a choice. You can run back to the ballroom and pretend you saw nothing. You can let it fester inside you, this idea of us being ‘wrong’. Or…” He paused, letting the alternative swell in the dark air between them.
“Or?” Eloise’s voice was barely audible.
“Or you can stop pretending,” Penelope said, her voice stronger now. She had found her anchor, too. “You can admit what you really felt when you were watching.”
Eloise’s gaze snapped to her. The arousal, sharp and fresh, twisted inside her again. She remembered Penelope’s head falling back, the shattered look on her face. She remembered the raw power coiled in her brothers’ bodies.
“It’s just a different truth,” Colin murmured. “The one behind the waterfall. The one in the dark.”
He was referencing the grotto. The secret she had only guessed at before tonight. It was all connected. A tapestry of hidden desires she was now painfully aware of.
Anthony watched her internal struggle. He saw the moment her defiance cracked, replaced by a desperate, hungry curiosity. He held out his hand. Not a command. An invitation.
Eloise looked at his hand. She looked past him, at Colin’s encouraging half-smile, at Penelope’s surprisingly steady gaze. The disgust was still there, but it was morphing, becoming something else—a fierce, terrifying need to understand, to touch that heat, to be part of that secret instead of its wounded keeper.
She thought of the empty, chattering ballroom. She thought of the lifetime of pretending ahead of her.
Her hand, cold and trembling, lifted from her side.
She did not take Anthony’s hand. Instead, she placed her palm on the carriage door, the polished wood cool under her skin. She took the single, necessary step up, entering the warm, scented dark of the cab.
The door clicked shut behind her.