Chapter 2: Dinner and Dessert
The silence that followed Penelope’s quiet pronouncement in the drawing room was not a peaceful one. It was a thick, tangible thing, heavy with shock and spent energy and the souring tang of taboo. It lasted three full days.
On the fourth evening, the family gathered for dinner in the formal dining room. It was a mandated assembly, a silent agreement to pretend normalcy through ritual. Candlelight flickered in the sterling silver candelabras, casting jumpy shadows across the polished mahogany. The scent of roast lamb and thyme battled with the sharper notes of beeswax and the faint, ever-present ghost of bergamot from someone’s forgotten tea.
Everyone was there. Anthony at the head, Kate beside him, her watchful eyes missing nothing. Benedict, looking uncharacteristically thoughtful as he pushed his peas around. Eloise, her jaw set, staring at her plate as if it contained the answers to philosophical quandaries. Francesca, quiet and observant. Gregory and Hyacinth, buzzing with the unspoken tension they were too young to fully comprehend but old enough to savor. And Violet, at the foot, her posture a rod of iron, her face a careful mask of maternal calm. It was brittle.
Colin and Penelope sat side-by-side in the middle. A footman placed a dish before Penelope. As she murmured her thanks, her skirts, vast and cream-colored, rustled and pooled, brushing against Colin’s leg. It was an accident. Or it was an invitation.
Under the vast expanse of the white damask tablecloth, a kingdom of shadows and secrets, Colin’s hand found her knee. Penelope didn’t jump. She took a slow sip of wine, the crystal goblet cool against her lips.
“The Granville ball is tomorrow,” Violet said, her voice cutting through the careful clink of cutlery. “I trust everyone has appropriate attire.”
“I shall wear my grey,” Eloise stated, not looking up.
“Again?” Hyacinth giggled.
“It is a statement of intellectual neutrality towards the mating rituals of the ton,” Eloise retorted.
Beneath the table, Colin’s fingers slid up Penelope’s inner thigh. The soft kid of his glove was a teasing contrast to the warmth he found there. Penelope’s breath hitched. She set her wine down carefully.
“I find the grey fetching,” Penelope said, her voice only slightly strained. “It suits your complexion.”
Colin’s touch grew more deliberate. He found the slit in her drawers, his fingertips brushing against bare skin. Penelope’s fork slipped, screeching faintly on the china. Anthony glanced up.
“Everything alright, Penelope?”
“Perfectly,” she breathed. “The lamb is just… very tender.”
Colin worked his own trousers open with his other hand. The act was concealed, smooth. He guided her, his hands on her hips beneath the tablecloth. Penelope understood. A wild, thrilling recklessness took hold, a direct continuation of the drawing room’s shattered propriety. She shifted in her seat, hoisting her skirts just enough, and then, with a slow, deliberate pressure, she sank down onto him.
She was still slick and sensitive from days ago. The fit was immediate, shocking, deeply intimate. She let out a soft, shuddering sigh and quickly converted it into a cough, reaching for her water glass. Her body was stretched around him, a secret held within the confines of her own bones.
Violet was discussing the merits of hydrangeas versus roses for the upcoming garden party. Kate was offering a counterpoint. Anthony was nodding. It was all a distant drone.
Penelope began to move. A tiny, almost imperceptible rock of her hips. The friction was a bright, sharp pleasure. She cut a piece of lamb, her hand steady, and brought it to her mouth. She chewed. She swallowed. All while Colin Bridgerton was buried inside her.
He responded with a subtle thrust upward. His hand, now on her waist under the cloth, gripped her tightly. His other hand lay flat on the table, fingers splayed, as if holding himself steady against a storm.
“I prefer roses,” Penelope heard herself say to no one in particular. “They have… thorns. A warning alongside the beauty.”
Colin’s rhythm under the table became less subtle. It was a slow, deep, persistent cadence. The tablecloth near their laps began to stir, a gentle, undulating ripple in the damask sea. A crystal salt cellar shivered.
“Are we having an earthquake?” Gregory asked, pausing with his spoon halfway to his mouth.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Violet said, but her eyes flickered to the trembling glassware near her son and daughter-in-law. Her mask slipped, revealing a flash of pure, unvarnished horror. She’d seen this before. It was happening again. Here. At dinner.
Penelope was losing the battle for composure. Each drag of him within her coiled a spring tighter in her core. Her knuckles were white where she gripped the edge of the table. She bit her lower lip, hard. The conversation swirled around them—talk of parliament, of a disputed hat, of Gregory’s latin tutor—but it was all nonsense. The only real things were the joining of their bodies and the desperate need to stay silent.
Colin was breathing through his nose, sharp intakes of air. His movements became frantic, a hard, pounding tempo that made the whole table judder. A spoon clattered from a saucer. A goblet of red wine swayed, threatening to tip.
Penelope’s climax tore through her with violent suddenness. She snatched her napkin from her lap and pressed it to her mouth, muffling a broken, gasping cry into the linen. Her body clenched around Colin, a series of pulsing waves that pulled his own release from him. He groaned, a low, strangled sound, and his body went rigid beneath her.
The tablecloth in front of them darkened instantly, a sudden, spreading stain of dampness where he’d spilled onto the fine fabric. The rippling ceased. The crystal stilled.
A thick, pulsating quiet descended. The only sounds were the fire in the grate and Penelope’s ragged, napkin-muffled attempts to breathe.
Every eye at the table was on them. Hyacinth’s mouth was a perfect ‘O’. Gregory looked baffled. Francesca had gone pale. Kate’s eyebrows were in her hairline. Anthony looked as if he was calculating the cost of replacing the entire table setting. Benedict wore a faint, approving smirk. Eloise just looked resigned.
Violet Bridgerton placed her knife and fork down with a deadly precision. The click on the china was like a gunshot. She stared at the dark, wet patch on her pristine tablecloth, then lifted her gaze to her son. The maternal mask was gone. In its place was a fury so cold it burned.
“Colin,” she said, her voice quiet and terrifying. “That is a Hepplewhite tablecloth. From 1782.”
Colin, still buried inside his wife, still catching his breath, blinked. A post-coatal haze of pure satisfaction glazed his eyes. He shrugged, a loose, effortless movement. “Send the bill to me.”
“This is not about the bill!” Violet’s composure snapped. Her voice rose, sharp and strained. “This is about decency! About basic human decorum! Have you both lost your minds entirely? First the drawing room, now at the dinner table? In front of your family? In front of the servants!” She gestured wildly at the footmen, who were studying the wallpaper with intense fascination.
Colin carefully helped Penelope off of him, a final, intimate shift that made her gasp softly. He tucked himself away, fastening his trousers with an audible click in the quiet room. He leaned back in his chair, completely at ease.
“Mother,” he said, his tone conversational, as if discussing the weather. “If you got fucked more often, you wouldn’t mind it so much.”
The air left the room.
Anthony choked on his wine. Kate patted his back mechanically, her eyes wide. Hyacinth squeaked. Gregory finally understood, his face flushing scarlet.
Violet went utterly still. She looked as if she’d been slapped with a dead fish.
Benedict broke the stunned silence. He barked a loud, genuine laugh. “He’s not wrong,” he said, grinning. “You’ve been wound tighter than a pocket watch since Father died. It’s not healthy.”
“Benedict!” Violet hissed.
“No, really,” Benedict continued, pushing his chair back. The legs screeched on the floor. “Colin’s onto something. All this tension. This fussing about tablecloths.” He stood up. His own expression was one of reckless, brotherly solidarity. “It’s just a body. It’s just a function. Look.”
And before anyone could move or speak, Benedict undid his falls. He reached in and pulled out his flaccid penis, letting it hang in the candlelight for the entire table to see. It was a pale, soft thing against the dark wool of his trousers. “See? Nothing frightening. Just a bit of skin and blood.”
Violet made a sound like a teakettle boiling over.
“For God’s sake, Ben,” Anthony muttered, putting his head in his hands.
Colin, eyes shining with mischief and challenge, stood up too. “He’s right. All this drama.” He followed suit, fishing out his own semi-soft member. He gave it a little, disrespectful waggle in the direction of his mother. “This is what you’re so afraid of? This is what’s causing all the trouble?”
The two brothers stood side-by-side, their cocks out in the elegant dining room, swinging gently as they turned towards their apoplectic mother.
“Put those away!” Violet shrieked, finding her voice. It was a raw, unfiltered scream of maternal outrage. “Put them away this instant! Have you gone completely savage?”
From the head of the table, Anthony Bridgerton, the Viscount, the head of the family, sighed a sigh of profound exhaustion. He looked at his wife, Kate, who gave him a tiny, helpless shrug. He looked at his mother’s furious, mortified face. He looked at his two brothers, standing there with their pants open, displaying themselves with a bizarre, principled defiance.
He took a long, last sip of his wine. Then he set the glass down, stood up, and began to unfasten his own trousers.
“Anthony… no,” Kate whispered, but it was half-hearted. There was a gleam in her eye too.
“If we are doing this,” Anthony said, his voice gravelly with authority and something else—a wild, repressed hysteria. “Then we are doing this as a family. No half-measures.”
Violet stared, utterly broken, as her eldest son followed suit. He pulled himself out, larger and thicker than his brothers, and gave it a firm, authoritative shake. “There. Are you happy, Mother? The Bridgerton men. In our full and unanimous opinion, you need to be laid.”