Chapter Text
Anthony would like to pretend he does not know how it started, but he knows.
One day, after sending Colin off to cure his broken heart and relieve the family of the taint of scandal, Anthony looked up from his paper and saw Penelope. (Sitting in his dining room, joking with his younger siblings, eating the same meal as himself. He nearly lets out a pleased rumble but does not, because he is dignified.)
Rather, it is less that he saw her, and more that he finally smelled her. Hers is a delicious scent — vanilla and musk and honeysuckle — and he frowns.
Now that Colin, the other alpha of the family is gone, it seems like the air around the house is clearing up, and it wouldn't do to have any members of the family unprotected in public settings, smelling like that. (Anthony cheerfully glosses over the fact that Penelope is not actually part of the family.)
So he resolves to… just be a bit more present. Gently brush along her gowns just a little, so that there would be a faint scent of alpha clinging to her so that people would know that Penelope Featherington was not without friends.
Pleased with this decision with the confidence of a man who expects absolutely nothing to go wrong despite having had many things gone wrong before, Anthony leaves the house to go over his business affairs with his solicitor, and has the thought that perhaps he should search for a wife.
Penelope does not know what caused the change in Anthony Bridgerton's behaviour, but it is unnerving her.
He has started to hover near her when she visited the Bridgerton house (though he of course would not deign to actually speak to her), looming like a slightly confused gargoyle, and he has started scenting her.
It is subtle — just a brush of his jacket here, a light pat there — but it is unmistakable that he is leaving his scent to lay upon hers.
(She tries not to think of how careful Colin had been to never do this.)
She cannot think of any reason, not a single one, why Anthony Bridgerton would suddenly start scenting her.
The nuances of alphas are somewhat mysterious to her, having been raised in a family full of betas — oh, she knew they liked to flirt and fight and frustrate other designations with their sense of superiority — but here, she is utterly lost. Perhaps it is stress, or a health issue — she has heard of such things, and resolves to keep a closer eye on Anthony in case something wrong is happening to him, and she needs to save the Bridgertons from ruin again.
Penelope is really very lucky that her family is full of nose-blind betas, but she knows it is only a matter of time before the other Bridgertons will notice, or worse, a member of the Ton does, and someone gets the worst and most inaccurate idea of what is actually going on.
"What are you doing with Penelope?" Benedict asks Anthony in the privacy of his study, and he does not miss the slight tensing of Anthony's shoulders, then the sudden stretch the alpha makes to look nonchalant.
"I am not doing anything with Penelope," Anthony says, and it would almost have been convincing if Benedict hasn't heard Anthony use that exact tone to declare that he would never marry his mistress, of course not, he was a rational and proper gentleman.
"I may be a beta, but I can smell you all over her," Benedict says, exasperated that he has to speak of such unmentionable things to Anthony.
"I am just watching out for her," Anthony loftily declares. "Her father is gone, and Colin is as well, so it falls upon me to play the role of her protector."
"Her protector," Benedict says, incredulously. He might be a beta, but even he knows that alphas do not generally scent unmated omegas for protection.
"Besides, I am seeking to find a wife this season — " Anthony says.
" — my lord!" Benedict interrupts, not able to believe that this is what Anthony says after the word "besides".
"Yes, I know it's quite surprising, but I think it's rather time I settled down, don't you?" Anthony frowns at Benedict, as if he can't quite see what the problem is.
"My lord," Benedict repeats, because. "Of course you think so," he says, absolutely at a loss for words to express his utter disbelief at how utterly thick Anthony is being.
Their family have just narrowly avoided a dire Bridgerton-Featherington scandal not scant months before because Colin had been too dim-witted to realize what really was going on between him and Marina, Benedict does not think his nerves could survive a season of Anthony being too dim-witted to realize what he is doing with Penelope too.
Though, he is kind of looking forward to see who will kill Anthony first — his mother or Eloise.