This one follows on from 'Broken'. It's not all angst and misery, despite the tone of this opening chapter. There'll be lots of lighter moments and plenty of action for the Tracys once the story proper gets going, but without this introduction not a lot would make sense as far as Penny's concerned. I really hope it works - bit nervous about this one...

Chapter One

"Just a little more..." the designer murmured, pulling the corset of Lady Penelope's dress even tighter. Ignoring her involuntary gasp for breath, he dropped to his knees and began fussing with the hem. "There."

He rose to his feet and took a step back, surveying Penny critically before reaching out to make a few minute adjustments.

"C'est magnifique!" he proclaimed, finally satisfied. "Pierre, if you please..."

His assistant pulled away the cloth which covered the only mirror in the room and for the first time Penny could see herself. This time the gasp was one of amazement. She knew she was a beautiful woman, but this... this was beyond anything she'd imagined, and the look wasn't even finished. Hair, make-up, jewellery, all these were still to be added and they could only enhance the overall effect.

She became aware that everyone in the room was staring at her, waiting for some response, but for once in her life she had no words. The designer allowed himself a smile of satisfaction.

"Simply perfect," he declared. "Lord Simon will be overwhelmed when he sees his beautiful bride."

"Yes," Penny said. "Yes, he will. Dear Simon..."

But as she gazed at her reflection, she couldn't help thinking about another dress - much simpler, if far less refined than the one she was wearing now - and another, very different wedding ceremony in Las Vegas, just eighteen months earlier...

"Lady Penelope?"

"I'm sorry?" Penny blinked at the designer. "Did you say something, Marcel?"

"I was asking if you were alright. You looked so sad for a moment."

"Oh, oh yes. Yes, I'm perfectly alright. Thank you."

"Are you sure?" The man didn't look convinced. "Is it the dress? You're not still thinking about that ivory silk?"

"No! Of course not. The dress is perfect, Marcel. A masterpiece. I couldn't have asked for anything finer. I'm alright, really. I was just thinking about a dear friend of mine who died last year. She would have been one of my bridesmaids..."

As a reassured Marcel moved away, realising that she'd appreciate a moment alone, Penny turned back to the mirror. It wasn't exactly a lie; she had been thinking about Tin-Tin Kyrano a lot lately, and not just in relation to the wedding. If the girl hadn't died things might have worked out very differently...

Stop that, Penelope! she commanded herself. You know that's all in the past.

As Marcel hung up the dress, having called in two of his assistants to help him gather up the five metre-long train, Penny took one last look at it. It certainly was beautiful, she thought. The perfect dress for what was sure to be the society wedding of the year, if not the decade. Lord Warrington-Farr was the perfect match for her, and she did love him, she really did.

Just not in the same way that she had loved Scott Tracy.

Unable to help herself, her mind drifted back to that turbulent time on Tracy Island just after Tin-Tin had died. Once she'd got away from the place, she'd fully intended to break it off with Simon. After all, she'd spent a night with Scott and it wasn't fair on the other man to be second-best, but it had been impossible to find the right words and anyway, she hadn't felt right doing it over the phone. As hard as it would have been doing it face to face, it was the least he deserved, and she'd fully planned on doing so as soon as her next mission for MI5 was over.

But it had all gone horribly wrong. Maybe Scott and the others had been right when they'd advised her against taking the job, especially when she clearly wasn't her usual cool, capable self. But she'd insisted, welcoming the opportunity to focus on something other than the tragedy of Tin-Tin and her own disastrous love life. It had worked, too - right up to the moment she and the other agents had been betrayed. The two men who had been working with her - good friends as well as colleagues - had died instantly when their car had been forced over a cliff. Only Penny had survived, though she'd been badly hurt.

It had been a horrendous time. As if Tin-Tin's death hadn't been bad enough, she'd now lost two more people she cared about. Plus, she'd been alone in Switzerland, far away from her friends and family. She hadn't even had Parker - he'd been occupied elsewhere at the time and, although he'd begged to be allowed to return to her, distraught that he hadn't been there to drive the car, clearly believing that if he'd been at the wheel the tragedy could have been averted, she'd refused, insisting that the mission came first. And so she'd lain in her hospital bed, enduring the worst pain - both physical and emotional - that she'd ever experienced.

The Tracys - all of them - had sent messages, but International Rescue was tied up in a major rescue following an earthquake and no one could be spared to visit her. She'd held her breath before taking Scott's call, knowing that if he didn't express any feelings for her now, when she was in such a state, then she'd have to accept that those feelings simply weren't there. He hadn't. He'd been deeply concerned, slightly embarrassed, too, given their recent history, but he hadn't been prompted to tell her he loved her or that he couldn't stop thinking about her and the night they'd spent together. He hadn't told her that he'd been wrong to let her go... Too proud to admit her own feelings, she'd finally accepted that there was no hope.

Another twenty-four hours of loneliness and misery had followed, then, to her surprise, she'd awoken from a restless sleep to find the room full of flowers and Simon sitting beside her. She'd never been so glad to see anyone in her life.

It had taken her a while to recover. Simon had taken her away to his villa in the south of France and she'd welcomed the complete break from MI5 and International Rescue. She'd felt guilty that Simon knew nothing about these aspects of her life - as far as he was aware, the crash had simply been an accident, the other men in the car just fellow travellers - but, having lied to him for so long, she simply couldn't find a way to reveal the truth.

When he'd proposed it had taken her completely by surprise. She hadn't known what to say. She didn't have the passion for him that she had for Scott, though she'd grown to care deeply about him during the time they'd spent together. But she wasn't sure that was enough. Not when there were so many things he didn't know about her. She knew that she had to tell him about her work for the British secret service. Not IR, of course, that secret could never be revealed without the consent of Jeff Tracy. But as soon as she'd started to speak, Simon had hushed her and told her he already knew.

She'd stared at him in disbelief. How could he know? Then she realised that he didn't know - not about her work as a secret agent, anyway. Instead, he'd guessed that there had been someone else, someone she still cared about. It didn't matter to him, he'd told her, he loved her no matter what, but he wanted her to be happy. He'd let her go - if that was what she wanted.

Consumed with guilt that she couldn't be the woman he deserved, she'd told him it was.

She'd returned to England the very next day, cutting all her ties with Simon, hating herself for having made him feel as miserable as she herself had felt whenever she'd thought about Scott. Somewhat to her surprise, she'd found herself missing him. She knew she'd done the right thing in breaking off the relationship, but there were times when she couldn't help wondering what might have been.

Then Jeff and John Tracy had visited, on their way back from some Tracy Industries' business in London. Jeff knew nothing about her brief affair with Scott and he'd talked cheerfully about his eldest, oblivious to Penny's discomfort and John's barely-concealed embarrassment. Scott had rekindled a romance with an ex-girlfriend, he'd told her. Jeff had always liked the girl and he had high hopes that this time Scott would make it work. Penny had said all the right things, but that night, when her guests were safely asleep in their rooms, she'd sat in her library for a long, long time, thinking about Scott - and about Simon. She felt so tired, still not quite recovered from her injuries and surprisingly reluctant to get involved in any more missions. Her nerve had gone, she thought, as much as she tried to deny the fact. Things had changed, and perhaps she needed to change too. Yes, she loved Scott, but he clearly didn't want her and, more than that, he didn't need her. Not like Simon did. Only the other day, she'd heard from a mutual friend that the man had been uncharacteristically withdrawn ever since his return from France.

A week later at a charity ball she'd run into him again. A man less like Scott Tracy it was hard to imagine. Slightly-built, with thinning blond hair and round glasses which magnified his pale grey eyes, he wasn't the kind of man to make a woman's head turn. But he was honest and kind - and he still loved her. When he'd hesitantly invited her to dinner the following evening she'd agreed. Dinner had been followed by afternoon tea at the Ritz, then a day at the races... They were soon seeing each other every day. Things had never been so good between them and for the first time in a long while she'd been genuinely happy. Simon had seen the difference in her and a few weeks later he'd proposed again. This time she'd accepted, driven by a sudden overwhelming urge to sustain this feeling of contentment, to be loved and wanted and needed.

There was still the odd moment when she wondered whether or not she'd done the right thing. But, there had been no sudden declaration of love on the part of Scott - any fantasies she'd had of him flying over in Thunderbird One to demand that she leave Simon and marry him had failed to come true - and she'd finally given up. It wasn't meant to be. Besides, Simon was a good man and she knew he would spend his life trying to make her happy. That she'd make him happy in return was never in doubt - the sheer joy in his eyes whenever he looked at her confirmed that she'd made the right decision - and anyway, Creighton-Wards were brought up to honour their promises. She might still have the occasional wistful thought of what might have been with Scott, but she'd never go back on the commitment she'd made to Simon.

And so preparations for the wedding continued - many of which Penny would be completely unaware of until it was far too late.