Quinn, Julia - Romancing Mister Bridgerton With 2nd Epilogue

A vaguely panicked expression drifted across Lord Haywood’s face, and then, when it became clear that he could not escape, he said, “I try to make a policy of always agreeing with you.”

Lady Danbury turned to Penelope and said, “Is it my imagination, or are men getting more sensible?”

Penelope’s only answer was a noncommittal shrug. Colin decided she was a wise girl, indeed.

Haywood cleared his throat, his blue eyes blinking fast and furious in his rather fleshy face. “Er, what, precisely, am I agreeing to?”

“That the season is boring,” Penelope supplied helpfully.

“Ah, Miss Featherington,” Haywood said in a blustery sort of voice. “Didn’t see you there.”

Colin stole just enough of a glance at Penelope to see her lips straighten into a small, frustrated smile. “Right here next to you,” she muttered.

“So you are,” Haywood said jovially, “and yes, the season is dreadfully boring.”

“Did someone say the season is dull?”

Colin glanced to his right. Another man and two ladies had just joined the group and were avidly expressing their agreement.

“Tedious,” one of them murmured. “Appallingly tedious.”

“I have never attended a more banal round of parties,” one of the ladies announced with an affected sigh.

“I shall have to inform my mother,” Colin said tightly. He was among the most easygoing of men, but really, there were some insults he could not let pass.

“Oh, not this gathering,” the woman hastened to add. “This ball is truly the only shining light in an otherwise dark and dismal string of gatherings. Why, I was just saying to—”

“Stop now,” Lady Danbury ordered, “before you choke on your foot.”

The lady quickly silenced herself.

“It’s odd,” Penelope murmured.

“Oh, Miss Featherington,” said the lady who’d previously been going on about dark and dismal gatherings. “Didn’t see you there.”

“What’s odd?” Colin asked, before anyone else could tell Penelope how unremarkable they found her.

She gave him a small, grateful smile before explaining herself. “It’s odd how the ton seems to entertain themselves by pointing out how unentertained they are.”

“I beg your pardon?” Haywood said, looking confused.

Penelope shrugged. “I think the lot of you are having a jolly good time talking about how bored you are, that’s all.”

Her comment was met with silence. Lord Haywood continued to look confused, and one of the two ladies must have had a speck of dust in her eye, because she couldn’t seem to do anything but blink.

Colin couldn’t help but smile. He hadn’t thought Penelope’s statement was such a terribly complicated concept.

“The only interesting thing to do is read Whistledown ,” said the nonblinking lady, as if Penelope had never even spoken.

The gentleman next to her murmured his assent.

And then Lady Danbury began to smile.

Colin grew alarmed. The old lady had a look in her eye. A frightening look.

“I have an idea,” she said.

Someone gasped. Someone else groaned.

“A brilliant idea.”

“Not that any of your ideas are anything but,” Colin murmured in his most affable voice.

Lady Danbury shushed him with a wave of her hand. “How many great mysteries are there in life, really?”

No one answered, so Colin guessed, “Forty-two?”

She didn’t even bother to scowl at him. “I am telling you all here and now. . . .”

Everyone leaned in. Even Colin. It was impossible not to indulge the drama of the moment.

“You are all my witnesses. . . .”

Colin thought he heard Penelope mutter, “Get on with it.”

“One thousand pounds,” Lady Danbury said.

The crowd surrounding her grew.

“One thousand pounds,” she repeated, her voice growing in volume. Really, she would have been a natural on the stage. “One thousand pounds . . .”

It seemed the entire ballroom had hushed into reverent silence.

“. . . to the person who unmasks Lady Whistledown!”

Chapter 3

This Author would be remiss if it was not mentioned that the most talked-about moment at last night’s birthday ball at Bridgerton House was not the rousing toast to Lady Bridgerton (age not to be revealed) but rather Lady Danbury’s impertinent offer of one thousand pounds to whomever unmasks . . .

Me .

Do your worst, ladies and gentlemen of the ton. You haven’t a prayer of solving this mystery .

LADY WHISTLEDOWN’S SOCIETY PAPERS , 12 APRIL 1824

P recisely three minutes were required for news of Lady Danbury’s outrageous dare to spread throughout the ballroom. Penelope knew this to be true because she happened to be facing a large (and, according to Kate Bridgerton, extremely precise) grandfather clock when Lady Danbury made her announcement. At the words, “One thousand pounds to the person who unmasks Lady Whistledown,” the clock read forty-four minutes past ten. The long hand had advanced no farther than forty-seven when Nigel Berbrooke stumbled into the rapidly growing circle of people surrounding Lady Danbury and proclaimed her latest scheme “scrumbly good fun!”

And if Nigel had heard about it, that meant everyone had, because Penelope’s brother-in-law was not known for his intelligence, his attention span, or his listening ability.

Nor, Penelope thought wryly, for his vocabulary. Scrumbly, indeed.

“And who do you think Lady Whistledown is?” Lady Danbury asked Nigel.

“No earthly idea,” he admitted. “Ain’t me, that’s all I know!”

“I think we all know that,” Lady D replied.

“Who do you think it is?” Penelope asked Colin.

He offered her a one-shouldered shrug. “I’ve been out of town too often to speculate.”

“Don’t be silly,” Penelope said. “Your cumulative time in London certainly adds up to enough parties and routs to form a few theories.”

But he just shook his head. “I really couldn’t say.”

Penelope stared at him for a moment longer than was necessary, or, in all honesty, socially acceptable. There was something odd in Colin’s eyes. Something fleeting and elusive. The ton often thought him nothing more than a devil-may-care charmer, but he was far more intelligent than he let on, and she’d have bet her life that he had a few suspicions.

But for some reason, he wasn’t willing to share them with her.

“Who do you think it is?” Colin asked, avoiding her question with one of his own. “You’ve been out in society just about as long as Lady Whistledown. Surely you must have thought about it.”

Penelope looked about the ballroom, her eyes resting on this person and that, before finally returning to the small crowd around her. “I think it could very well be Lady Danbury,” she replied. “Wouldn’t that be a clever joke on everyone?”

Colin looked over at the elderly lady, who was having a grand old time talking up her latest scheme. She was thumping her cane on the ground, chattering animatedly, and smiling like a cat with cream, fish, and an entire roast turkey. “It makes sense,” he said thoughtfully, “in a rather perverse sort of way.”

Penelope felt the corners of her mouth twist. “She’s nothing if not perverse.”

She watched Colin watching Lady D for another few seconds, then quietly said, “But you don’t think it’s her.”

Colin slowly turned his head to face her, raising one brow in silent question.

“I can tell by the expression on your face,” Penelope explained.

He grinned, that loose easy grin he so often used in public. “And here I thought I was inscrutable.”

“Afraid not,” she replied. “Not to me, anyway.”