A Matter of Priority

Chapter One: A Prized Pear Pastry

Jut another dip into Bridgerton fanfiction with my number one ship. 😍

Warning: This story has been known to drive people to snack.

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September, 1804

Colin Bridgerton stared in longing at the pear tart in his hand, his perfect pastry. In all his thirteen years, he didn't think he'd ever seen its like. "My perfect pear pastry," he recited, wondering if he could find another "p" word to describe it. "Precious," he tried. "Prized... Patient?"

He'd been waiting patiently for it, after all - all day long, and even longer if one counted the fact that he'd been after Cook to bake pear tarts all summer. Mrs. O'Hara had cruelly denied him, even when he told her the cooking at Eton was slapdash and nothing at all compared to hers, she'd said pears weren't in season and that his flattery wouldn't change that.

But she and the seasons had finally taken pity on him, and just in time, with only one week to spare until he was sent back to school. He'd not been excited about wasting one of his last free Saturdays on a luncheon in Hyde Park with his family, rather than having some real fun with his friends at The Bartholemew Fair, sneaking into the bare-knuckled boxing competition, but Mother was so sentimental about having the whole family together before term started.

Also, Footman John leaned down at breakfast and told him the Cook had baked pear tarts especially for him, so he decided to be a dutiful son. And his dutifulness had paid off. Dessert had been in his grasp moments ago, but Colin didn't even get a bite before everyone was in uproar.

"Penelope?"

"Penelope!"

"Miss Penelope!"

"Miss Featherington!"

It seemed he was not done being dutiful.

Some ten minutes ago, their party had been interrupted by the family across the square and their missing daughter that had, funnily enough, disappeared during a game of "hide and go seek." Either she was lost or just terribly good at hiding.

Colin groaned and tucked the tart back into its napkin before slipping it into his jacket. He couldn't enjoy it properly, anyhow, not until Eloise's new friend, this Penelope person, had been found. And he would rather eat something this special at his leisure than shove it down his gullet hastily, like a biscuit on the run.

He stared around him, rather annoyed that El's little friend wasn't found already. He hadn't seen much of her, except for the hair.

What did she have such violently red hair for, anyhow, if not to make her easier to spot?

He chided himself for being annoyed, thinking there might be reason to worry. Her mother had said she hadn't been seen since before lunch. He didn't like to think of anyone missing a meal.

He glanced back at the tent, seeing that Lady Featherington, the mother, was still torn between grousing about what a naughty thing the girl was and near-weeping that she'd surely been drowned in The Serpentine.

His own mother was presently trying to calm the woman down, assuring her that she'd sent her sons in search... all but Gregory who was five and, though he was miffed at being left out of the search party, Anthony had told him that someone must protect the women. When they'd left him, he'd been marching back and forth with a stick over his shoulder like a rifle.