Quinn, Julia - Romancing Mister Bridgerton With 2nd Epilogue

“She quarreled with Colin?” Penelope asked, an awful feeling beginning to roil her stomach. “When?”

“Sometime last week,” Hyacinth said.

WHEN? Penelope wanted to scream, but surely it would look odd if she demanded an exact day. Was it Friday? Was it?

Penelope would always remember that her first, and most probably only, kiss had occurred on a Friday.

She was strange that way. She always remembered the days of the week.

She’d met Colin on a Monday.

She’d kissed him on a Friday.

Twelve years later.

She sighed. It seemed fairly pathetic.

“Is something wrong, Penelope?” Lady Bridgerton asked.

Penelope looked at Eloise’s mother. Her blue eyes were kind and filled with concern, and there was something about the way she tilted her head to the side that made Penelope want to cry.

She was getting far too emotional these days. Crying over the tilt of a head.

“I’m fine,” she said, hoping that her smile looked true. “I’m just worried about Eloise.”

Hyacinth snorted.

Penelope decided she needed to make her escape. All these Bridgertons—well, two of them, anyway—were making her think of Colin.

Which wasn’t anything she hadn’t been doing nearly every minute of the day for the past three days. But at least that had been in private where she could sigh and moan and grumble to her heart’s content.

But this must have been her lucky night, because just then she heard Lady Danbury barking her name.

(What was her world coming to, that she considered herself lucky to be trapped in a corner with London’s most acerbic tongue?)

But Lady Danbury would provide the perfect excuse to leave her current little quartet of ladies, and besides, she was coming to realize that in a very odd way, she rather liked Lady Danbury.

“Miss Featherington! Miss Featherington!”

Felicity instantly took a step away. “I think she means you,” she whispered urgently.

“Of course she means me,” Penelope said, with just a touch of hauteur. “I consider Lady Danbury a cherished friend.”

Felicity’s eyes bugged out. “You do?”

“Miss Featherington!” Lady Danbury said, thumping her cane an inch away from Penelope’s foot as soon as she reached her side. “Not you,” she said to Felicity, even though Felicity had done nothing more than smile politely as the countess had approached. “You,” she said to Penelope.

“Er, good evening, Lady Danbury,” Penelope said, which she considered an admirable number of words under the circumstances.

“I have been looking for you all evening,” Lady D announced.

Penelope found that a trifle surprising. “You have?”

“Yes. I want to talk with you about that Whistledown woman’s last column.”

“Me?”

“Yes, you,” Lady Danbury grumbled. “I’d be happy to talk with someone else if you could find me a body with more than half a brain.”

Penelope choked on the beginnings of laughter as she motioned to her companions. “Er, I assure you that Lady Bridgerton—”

Lady Bridgerton was furiously shaking her head.

“She’s too busy trying to get that oversized brood of hers married off,” Lady Danbury announced. “Can’t be expected to know how to conduct a decent conversation these days.”

Penelope stole a frantic glance over at Lady Bridgerton to see if she was upset by the insult—after all, she had been trying to marry off her oversized brood for a decade now. But Lady Bridgerton didn’t look the least bit upset. In fact, she appeared to be stifling laughter.

Stifling laughter and inching away, taking Hyacinth and Felicity with her.

Sneaky little traitors.

Ah, well, Penelope shouldn’t complain. She’d wanted an escape from the Bridgertons, hadn’t she? But she didn’t particularly enjoy having Felicity and Hyacinth think they’d somehow pulled one over on her.

“They’re gone now,” Lady Danbury cackled, “and a good thing it is, too. Those two gels haven’t an intelligent thing to say between them.”

“Oh, now, that isn’t true,” Penelope felt compelled to protest. “Felicity and Hyacinth are both very bright.”

“I never said they weren’t smart,” Lady D replied acidly, “just that they haven’t an intelligent thing to say. But don’t worry,” she added, giving Penelope a reassuring—reassuring? whoever heard of Lady Danbury being reassuring?—pat on the arm. “It’s not their fault that their conversation is useless. They’ll grow out of it. People are like fine wines. If they start off good, they only get better with age.”

Penelope had actually been glancing slightly to the right of Lady Danbury’s face, peering over her shoulder at a man who she thought might be Colin (but wasn’t), but this brought her attention right back to where the countess wanted it.

“Fine wines?” Penelope echoed.

“Hmmph. And here I thought you weren’t listening.”

“No, of course I was listening.” Penelope felt her lips tugging into something that wasn’t quite a smile. “I was just . . . distracted.”

“Looking for that Bridgerton boy, no doubt.”

Penelope gasped.

“Oh, don’t look so shocked. It’s written all over your face. I’m just surprised he hasn’t noticed.”

“I imagine he has,” Penelope mumbled.

“Has he? Hmmph.” Lady Danbury frowned, the corners of her mouth spilling into long vertical wrinkles on either side of her chin. “Doesn’t speak well of him that he hasn’t done anything about it.”

Penelope’s heart ached. There was something oddly sweet about the old lady’s faith in her, as if men like Colin fell in love with women like Penelope on a regular basis. Penelope had had to beg him to kiss her, for heaven’s sake. And look how that had ended up. He’d left the house in a fit of temper and they hadn’t spoken for three days.

“Well, don’t worry over him,” Lady Danbury said quite suddenly. “We’ll find you someone else.”

Penelope delicately cleared her throat. “Lady Danbury, have you made me your project ?”

The old lady beamed, her smile a bright and glowing streak in her wrinkled face. “Of course! I’m surprised it has taken you so long to figure it out.”

“But why?” Penelope asked, truly unable to fathom it.

Lady Danbury sighed. The sound wasn’t sad—more wistful, really. “Would you mind if we sat down for a spell? These old bones aren’t what they used to be.”

“Of course,” Penelope said quickly, feeling terrible that she’d never once considered Lady Danbury’s age as they stood there in the stuffy ballroom. But the countess was so vibrant; it was difficult to imagine her ailing or weak.

“Here we are,” Penelope said, taking her arm and leading her to a nearby chair. Once Lady Danbury was settled, Penelope took a seat beside her. “Are you more comfortable now? Would you like something to drink?”

Lady Danbury nodded gratefully, and Penelope signaled to a footman to bring them two glasses of lemonade, since she didn’t want to leave the countess while she was looking so pale.

“I’m not as young as I used to be,” Lady Danbury told her once the footman had hied off to the refreshment table.

“None of us are,” Penelope replied. It could have been a flip comment, but it was spoken with wry warmth, and somehow Penelope thought that Lady Danbury would appreciate the sentiment.

She was right. Lady D chuckled and sent Penelope an appreciative glance before saying, “The older I get, the more I realize that most of the people in this world are fools.”

“You’re only just figuring that out now?” Penelope asked, not to mock, but rather because, given Lady Danbury’s usual demeanor, it was difficult to believe that she hadn’t reached that conclusion years ago.