Quinn, Julia - Romancing Mister Bridgerton With 2nd Epilogue

She’d told herself that she wouldn’t have accepted in any case, since her heart belonged to Colin. But was that really the truth, or was she just trying to make herself feel better for having been such a resounding failure on the marriage mart?

If someone asked her to marry him tomorrow—someone perfectly kind and acceptable, whom she might never love but would in all probability like very well—would she say yes?

Probably.

And this made her melancholy, because admitting this to herself meant she’d really, truly given up hope on Colin. It meant she wasn’t as true to her principles as she’d hoped she was. It meant she was willing to settle on a less-than-perfect husband in order to have a home and family of her own.

It wasn’t anything that hundreds of women didn’t do every year, but it was something that she’d never thought she’d do herself.

“You look very serious all of a sudden,” Colin said to her. Penelope jerked out of her musings. “Me? Oh. No, no. I just lost myself in my thoughts, that’s all.”

Colin acknowledged her statement with a brief nod before reaching for another biscuit. “Have we anything more substantial?” he asked, wrinkling his nose.

“If I’d known you were coming,” his mother said in a dry voice, “I would have doubled the food.”

He stood and walked to the bellpull. “I’ll ring for more.” After giving it a yank, he turned back and asked, “Did you hear about Penelope’s Lady Whistledown theory?”

“No, I haven’t,” Lady Bridgerton replied.

“It’s very clever, actually,” Colin said, stopping to ask a maid for sandwiches before finishing with, “She thinks it’s Lady Danbury.”

“Ooooh.” Hyacinth was visibly impressed. “That’s very cunning, Penelope.”

Penelope nodded her head to the side in thanks.

“And just the sort of thing Lady Danbury would do,” Hyacinth added.

“The column or the challenge?” Kate asked, catching hold of the sash on Charlotte’s frock before the little girl could scramble out of reach.

“Both,” Hyacinth said.

“And,” Eloise put in, “Penelope told her so. Right to her face.”

Hyacinth’s mouth dropped open, and it was obvious to Penelope that she’d just gone up—way up—in Hyacinth’s estimation.

“I should have liked to have seen that!” Lady Bridgerton said with a wide, proud smile. “Frankly, I’m surprised that didn’t show up in this morning’s Whistledown .”

“I hardly think Lady Whistledown would comment upon individual people’s theories as to her identity,” Penelope said.

“Why not?” Hyacinth asked. “It would be an excellent way for her to set out a few red herrings. For example”—she held her hand out toward her sister in a most dramatic pose—“say I thought it was Eloise.”

“It is not Eloise!” Lady Bridgerton protested.

“It’s not me,” Eloise said with a grin.

“But say I thought it was,” Hyacinth said in an extremely beleaguered voice. “And that I said so publicly.”

“Which you would never do,” her mother said sternly.

“Which I would never do,” Hyacinth parroted. “But just to be academic, let us pretend that I did. And say that Eloise really was Lady Whistledown. Which she’s not,” she hastened to add before her mother could interrupt again.

Lady Bridgerton held up her hands in silent defeat.

“What better way to fool the masses,” Hyacinth continued, “than to make fun of me in her column?”

“Of course, if Lady Whistledown really were Eloise . . .” Penelope mused.

“She’s not!” Lady Bridgerton burst out.

Penelope couldn’t help but laugh. “But if she were . . .”

“You know,” Eloise said, “now I really wish I were.”

“What a joke you’d be having on us all,” Penelope continued. “Of course, then on Wednesday you couldn’t run a column making fun of Hyacinth for thinking you are Lady Whistledown, because then we’d all know it had to be you.”

“Unless it was you .” Kate laughed, looking at Penelope. “ That would be a devious trick.”

“Let me see if I have it straight,” Eloise said with a laugh. “Penelope is Lady Whistledown, and she is going to run a column on Wednesday making fun of Hyacinth’s theory that I’m Lady Whistledown just to trick you into thinking that I really am Lady Whistledown, because Hyacinth suggested that that would be a cunning ruse.”

“I am utterly lost,” Colin said to no one in particular.

“Unless Colin were really Lady Whistledown . . .” Hyacinth said with a devilish gleam in her eye.

“Stop!” Lady Bridgerton said. “I beg you.”

By then everyone was laughing too hard for Hyacinth to continue, anyway.

“The possibilities are endless,” Hyacinth said, wiping a tear from her eye.

“Perhaps we should all simply look to the left,” Colin suggested as he sat back down. “Who knows, that person may very well be our infamous Lady Whistledown.”

Everyone looked left, with the exception of Eloise, who looked right . . . right to Colin. “Were you trying to tell me something,” she asked with an amused smile, “when you sat down to my right?”

“Not at all,” he murmured, reaching for the biscuit plate and then stopping when he remembered it was empty.

But he didn’t quite meet Eloise’s eyes when he said so.

If anyone other than Penelope had noticed his evasiveness, they were unable to question him on it, because that was when the sandwiches arrived, and he was useless for conversation after that.

Chapter 5

It has come to This Author’s attention that Lady Blackwood turned her ankle earlier this week whilst chasing down a delivery boy for This Humble Newssheet .

One thousand pounds is certainly a great deal of money, but Lady Blackwood is hardly in need of funds, and moreover, the situation is growing absurd. Surely Londoners have better things to do with their time than chase down poor, hapless delivery boys in a fruitless attempt to uncover the identity of This Author .

Or maybe not .

This Author has chronicled the activities of the ton for over a decade now and has found no evidence that they do indeed have anything better to do with their time .

LADY WHISTLEDOWN’S SOCIETY PAPERS , 14 APRIL 1824

T wo days later Penelope found herself once again cutting across Berkeley Square, on her way to Number Five to see Eloise. This time, however, it was late morning, and it was sunny, and she did not bump into Colin along the way.

Penelope wasn’t sure if that was a bad thing or not.

She and Eloise had made plans the week before to go shopping, but they’d decided to meet at Number Five so that they could head out together and forgo the accompaniment of their maids. It was a perfect sort of day, far more like June than April, and Penelope was looking forward to the short walk up to Oxford Street.

But when she arrived at Eloise’s house, she was met with a puzzled expression on the butler’s face.

“Miss Featherington,” he said, blinking several times in rapid succession before locating a few more words. “I don’t believe Miss Eloise is here at present.”

Penelope’s lips parted in surprise. “Where did she go? We made our plans over a week ago.”

Wickham shook his head. “I do not know. But she departed with her mother and Miss Hyacinth two hours earlier.”

“I see.” Penelope frowned, trying to decide what to do. “May I wait, then? Perhaps she was merely delayed. It’s not like Eloise to forget an appointment.”

He nodded graciously and showed her upstairs to the informal drawing room, promising to bring a plate of refreshments and handing her the latest edition of Whistledown to read while she bided her time.