Quinn, Julia - Romancing Mister Bridgerton With 2nd Epilogue

“Nigel Berbrooke can barely string two sentences together,” he said with a derisive snort. “I hardly think anyone would believe he could have written my journals.” As an afterthought, he gave her a little nod as an apology, since Berbrooke was, after all, married to her sister.

“Try to imagine it,” she ground out. “Or substitute whomever you think is similar to Cressida.”

“Penelope,” he sighed, “I’m not you. You can’t compare the two. Besides, if I were to publish my journals, they would hardly ruin me in the eyes of society.”

She deflated in her seat, sighing loudly, and he knew that his point had been well made. “Good,” he announced, “then it is decided. We will tear this up—” He reached for the sheet of paper.

“No!” she cried out, practically leaping from her seat. “Don’t!”

“But you just said—”

“I said nothing!” she shrilled. “All I did was sigh.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Penelope,” he said testily. “You clearly agreed with—”

She gaped at his audacity. “When did I give you leave to interpret my sighs?”

He looked at the incriminating paper, still held in his hands, and wondered what on earth he was meant to do with it at this moment.

“And anyway ,” she continued, her eyes flashing with an anger and fire that made her almost beautiful, “it isn’t as if I don’t have every last word memorized. You can destroy that paper, but you can’t destroy me.”

“I’d like to,” he muttered.

“ What did you say?”

“Whistledown,” he ground out. “I’d like to destroy Whistledown. You, I’m happy to leave as is.”

“But I am Whistledown.”

“God help us all.”

And then something within her simply snapped. All her rage, all her frustration, every last negative feeling she’d kept bottled up inside over the years broke forth, all directed at Colin, who, of all the ton , was probably the least deserving of it.

“Why are you so angry with me?” she burst out. “What have I done that is so repellent? Been cleverer than you? Kept a secret? Had a good laugh at the expense of society?”

“Penelope, you—”

“No,” she said forcefully. “You be quiet. It’s my turn to speak.”

His jaw went slack as he stared at her, shock and disbelief crowding in his eyes.

“I am proud of what I’ve done,” she managed to say, her voice shaking with emotion. “I don’t care what you say. I don’t care what anyone says. No one can take that from me.”

“I’m not trying—”

“I don’t need for people to know the truth,” she said, jumping on top of his ill-timed protest. “But I will be damned if I allow Cressida Twombley, the very person who . . . who . . .” Her entire body was trembling now, as memory after memory swept over her, all of them bad.

Cressida, renowned for her grace and carriage, tripping and spilling punch on Penelope’s gown that first year—the only one her mother had allowed her to buy that wasn’t yellow or orange.

Cressida, sweetly begging young bachelors to ask Penelope to dance, her requests made with such volume and fervor that Penelope could only be mortified by them.

Cressida, saying before a crowd how worried she was about Penelope’s appearance. “It’s just not healthful to weigh more than ten stone at our age,” she’d cooed.

Penelope never knew whether Cressida had been able to hide her smirk following her barb. She’d fled the room, blinded by tears, unable to ignore the way her hips jiggled as she ran away.

Cressida had always known exactly where to stick her sword, and she’d known how to twist her bayonet. It didn’t matter that Eloise remained Penelope’s champion or that Lady Bridgerton always tried to bolster her confidence. Penelope had cried herself to sleep more times than she could remember, always due to some well-placed barb from Cressida Cowper Twombley.

She’d let Cressida get away with so much in the past, all because she hadn’t the courage to stand up for herself. But she couldn’t let Cressida have this . Not her secret life, not the one little corner of her soul that was strong and proud and completely without fear.

Penelope might not know how to defend herself, but by God, Lady Whistledown did.

“Penelope?” Colin asked cautiously.

She looked at him blankly, taking several seconds to remember that it was 1824, not 1814, and she was here in a carriage with Colin Bridgerton, not cowering in the corner of a ballroom, trying to escape Cressida Cowper.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

She nodded. Or at least she tried to.

He opened his mouth to say something, then paused, his lips remaining parted for several seconds. Finally, he just placed his hand on hers, saying, “We’ll talk about this later?”

This time she did manage a short nod. And truly, she just wanted the entire awful afternoon to be over, but there was one thing she couldn’t quite let go of yet.

“Cressida wasn’t ruined,” she said quietly.

He turned to her, a slight veil of confusion descending over his eyes. “I beg your pardon?”

Her voice rose slightly in volume. “Cressida said she was Lady Whistledown, and she wasn’t ruined.”

“That’s because no one believed her,” Colin replied. “And besides,” he added without thinking, “she’s . . . different.”

She turned to him slowly. Very slowly, with steadfast eyes. “Different how?”

Something akin to panic began to pound in Colin’s chest. He’d known he wasn’t saying the right words even as they’d spilled from his lips. How could one little sentence, one little word be so very wrong?

She’s different .

They both knew what he’d meant. Cressida was popular, Cressida was beautiful, Cressida could carry it all off with aplomb.

Penelope, on the other hand . . .

She was Penelope. Penelope Featherington. And she hadn’t the clout nor the connections to save her from ruin. The Bridgertons could stand behind her and offer support, but even they wouldn’t be able prevent her downfall. Any other scandal might have been manageable, but Lady Whistledown had, at one time or another, insulted almost every person of consequence in the British Isles. Once people were over their surprise, that was when the unkind remarks would begin.

Penelope wouldn’t be praised for being clever or witty or daring.

She’d be called mean, and petty, and jealous.

Colin knew the ton well. He knew how his peers acted. The aristocracy was capable of individual greatness, but collectively they tended to sink to the lowest common denominator.

Which was very low, indeed.

“I see,” Penelope said into the silence.

“No,” he said quickly, “you don’t. I—”

“No, Colin,” she said, sounding almost painfully wise, “I do. I suppose I’d just always hoped you were different.”

His eyes caught hers, and somehow his hands were on her shoulders, gripping her with such intensity that she couldn’t possibly look away. He didn’t say anything, letting his eyes ask his questions.

“I thought you believed in me,” she said, “that you saw beyond the ugly duckling.”

Her face was so familiar to him; he’d seen it a thousand times before, and yet until these past few weeks, he couldn’t have said he truly knew it. Would he have remembered that she had a small birthmark near her left earlobe? Had he ever noticed the warm glow to her skin? Or that her brown eyes had flecks of gold in them, right near the pupil?

How had he danced with her so many times and never noticed that her mouth was full and wide and made for kissing?

She licked her lips when she was nervous. He’d seen her do that just the other day. Surely she’d done that at some point in the dozen years of their acquaintance, and yet it was only now that the mere sight of her tongue made his body clench with need.