On the sixth of April, in the year 1812—precisely two days before her sixteenth birthday—Penelope Featherington fell in love. It was, in a word, thrilling. The world shook. Her heart leaped. The moment was breathtaking. And, she was able to tell herself with some satisfaction, the man in question—one Colin Bridgerton—felt precisely the same way. Oh, not the love part. He certainly didn't fall in love with her in 1812 (and not in 1813, 1814, 1815, or—oh, blast, not in all the years 1816-1822, either, and certainly not in 1823, when he was out of the country the whole time, anyway). But his earth shook, his heart leaped, and Penelope knew without a shadow of a doubt that his breath was taken away as well. For a good ten seconds.
Falling off a horse tended to do that to a man.
And here we go. The opening lines of the novel, found in the Prologue, set out the whole deal. Here is the female love interest that is the protagonist: Penelope. Here is the male protagonist that is her love interest: Colin Bridgerton. What year does this take place? The last time the U.S. Capitol was attacked by enemies of American democracy until 2020. And just for good measure, the story also features a guy who fell off a horse. How often do you get all that on the opening page? The only mystery that remains is how does it all work out toward an acceptably happy ending when there seems to be an inexplicable time lag between Penelope falling in love and any possibly of a happily ever after between the two.
Colin developed a taste for travel and began to spend more and more time outside of London; it seemed that every few months he was off to some new destination. When he was in town, he always saved a dance and a smile for Penelope, and somehow she managed to pretend that nothing had ever happened, that he'd never declared his distaste for her on a public street, that her dreams had never been shattered. And when he was in town, which wasn't often, they seemed to settle into an easy, if not terribly deep, friendship. Which was all an almost twenty-eight-year-old spinster could hope for, right?
What a romantic age to live, right? A spinster before you were thirty years old. An old maid advised to give up hope of ever landing a husband when you were three years closer to being a teenager than you were to being 40. Which would be okay, of course, if there were myriad other opportunities available out there for staying out of the poorhouse, but it’s as if Penelope could just walk grab herself a job as a secretary much less, god knows, go to college to become a lawyer. It’s a husband or worse and at this point a dozen years after Colin Bridgerton’s fall from his horse, the happily ever after isn’t looking too good.
He had never considered publishing his journals until Penelope had suggested it several weeks earlier; now the thought consumed him day and night (when he wasn't consumed with Penelope, of course). But he was gripped by a powerful fear. What if no one wanted to publish his work? What if someone did publish it, but only because his was a rich and powerful family? Colin wanted, more than anything, to be his own man, to be known for his accomplishments, not for his name or position, or even his smile or charm.
As it turns out Penelope is writing a novel. Because, in 1812, that is who wrote novels: women. The novel was still in infancy stage—well, maybe early toddler—but it still was not considered a masculine form of literature. What men who wanted to write novels tended to write instead was travel literature which purported to be the true accounts of what they’d seen on their travels, but very often was a little less than true. (Gulliver’s Travels is a satire of this literary form.) And so, it turns out that Penelope and Colin share the kind of passion has been known to bring two people together who have so far been resistant to sheer physical attraction. Could it be attraction to another’s intellect rather than physical appearance which stimulates the movement from friendship to something more? It is a possibility.
