by Quinn, Julia
"Now you're just being ugly," she said, a little voice at the back of her brain wondering why she wasn't crying by now. This was Colin, and she'd loved him forever, and he was acting as if he hated her. Was there anything else in the world more worthy of tears?
Or maybe that wasn't it at all. Maybe all this sadness building up inside of her was for the death of a dream. Her dream of him. She'd built up the perfect image of him in her mind, and with every word he spat in her face, it was becoming more and more obvious that her dream was quite simply wrong.
"I'm making a point," he said, snatching the paper back from her hands. "Look at this. It might as well be an invitation for further investigation. You're mocking society, daring them to uncover you."
"That's not at all what I'm doing!"
"It may not be your intention, but it is certainly the end result."
He probably had something of a point there, but she was loath to give him credit for it. "It's a chance I'll have to take," she replied, crossing her arms and looking pointedly away from him. "I've gone eleven years without detection. I don't see why I'm in need of undue worry now."
His breath left him in a short punch of exasperation. "Do you have any concept of money? Any idea how many people would like Lady Danbury's thousand pounds?"
"I have more of a concept of money than you do," she replied, bristling at the insult. "And besides, Lady Danbury's reward doesn't make my secret any more vulnerable."
"It makes everyone else more determined, and that makes you more vulnerable. Not to mention," he added with a wry twist to his lips, "as my youngest sister pointed out, there is the glory."
"Hyacinth?" she asked.
He nodded grimly, setting the paper down on the bench beside him. "And if Hyacinth thinks the glory at having uncovered your identity is enviable, then you can be sure she's not the only one. It may very well be why Cressida is pursuing her stupid ruse."
"Cressida's doing it for the money," Penelope grumbled. "I'm sure of it."
"Fine. It doesn't matter why she's doing it. All that matters is that she is, and once you dispose of her with your idiocy"— he slammed his hand against the paper, causing Penelope to wince as a loud crinkle filled the air—"someone else will take her place."
"This is nothing I don't already know," she said, mostly because she couldn't bear to give him the last word.
"Then for the love of God, woman," he burst out, "let Cressida get away with her scheme. She's the answer to your prayers."
Her eyes snapped up to his. "You don't know my prayers."
Something in her tone hit Colin squarely in the chest. She hadn't changed his mind, hadn't even budged it, but he couldn't seem to find the right words to fill the moment. He looked at her, then he looked out the window, his mind absently focusing on the dome of St. Paul's Cathedral.
"We really are taking the long way home," he murmured.
She didn't say anything. He didn't blame her. It had been a stupid non sequitur, words to fill the silence and nothing else.
"If you let Cressida—" he began.
"Stop," she implored him. "Please, don't say any more. I can't let her do it."
"Have you really thought about what you'd gain?"
She looked at him sharply. "Do you think I've been able to think of anything else these past few days?"
He tried another tactic. "Does it truly matter that people know you were Lady Whistledown? You know that you were
clever and fooled us all. Can't that be enough?"
"You're not listening to me!" Her mouth remained frozen open, in an odd incredulous oval, as if she couldn't quite believe that he didn't understand what she was saying. "I don't need for people to know it was me. I just need for them to know it wasn't her."
"But clearly you don't mind if people think someone else is Lady Whistledown," he insisted. "After all, you've been accusing Lady Danbury for weeks."
"I had to accuse someone," she explained. "Lady Danbury asked me point-blank who I thought it was, and I couldn't very well say myself. Besides, it wouldn't be so very bad if people thought it was Lady Danbury. At least I like Lady Danbury."
"Penelope—"
"How would you feel if your journals were published with Nigel Berbrooke as the author?" she demanded.
"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 w
ell-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 Whis-tledown 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.
"You're not ugly," he told her, his voice low and urgent.
Her eyes widened.
And he whispered, "You're beautiful."
"No," she said, the word barely more than a breath. "Don't say things you don't mean."
His fingers dug into her shoulders. "You're beautiful," he repeated. "I don't know how ... I don't know when ..." He touched her lips, feeling her hot breath on his fingertips. "But you are," he whispered.
He leaned forward and kissed her, slowly, reverently, no longer quite so surprised that this was happening, that he wanted her so badly. The shock was gone, replaced by a simple, primitive need to claim her, to brand her, to mark her as his.
His?
He pulled back and looked at her for a moment, his eyes searching her face.
Why not?
"What is it?" she whispered.
"You are beautiful," he said, shaking his head in confusion. "I don't know why nobody else sees it."
Something warm and lovely began to spread in Penelope's chest. She couldn't quite explain it; it was almost as if someone had heated her blood. It started in her heart and then slowly swept through her arms, her belly, down to the tips of her toes.
It made her light-headed. It made her content.
It made her whole.
She wasn't beautiful. She knew she wasn't beautiful, she knew she'd never be more than passably attractive, and that was only on her good days. But he thought she was beautiful, and when he looked at her ...
She felt beautiful. And she'd never felt that way before.
He kissed her again, his lips hungrier this time, nibbling, caressing, waking her body, rousing her soul. Her belly had begun to tingle, and her skin felt hot and needy where his hands touched her through the thin green fabric of her dress.
And never once did she think, This is wrong. This kiss was everything she'd been brought up to fear and avoid, but she knew—body, mind, and soul—that nothing in her life had ever been so right. She had been born for this man, and she'd
spent so many years trying to accept the fact that he had been born for someone else.
To be proven wrong was the most exquisite pleasure imaginable.
She wanted him, she wanted this, she wanted the way he made her feel.
She wanted to be beautiful, even if it was only in one man's eyes.
They were, she thought dreamily as he laid her down on the plush cushion of the carriage bench, the only eyes that mattered.
She loved him. She had always loved him. Even now, when he was so angry with her that she barely recognized him, when he was so angry with her that she wasn't even sure she liked him, she loved him.
And she wanted to be his.
The first time he had kissed her, she had accepted his advances with a passive delight, but this time she was determined to be an active partner. She still couldn't quite believe that she was here, with him, and she certainly wasn't ready to let herself dream that he might ever be kissing her on a regular basis.
This might never happen again. She might never again feel the exquisite weight of him pressing against her, or the scandalous tickle of his tongue against hers.
She had one chance. One chance to make a memory that would have to last a lifetime. One chance to reach for bliss.
Tomorrow would be awful, knowing that he would find some other woman with whom to laugh and joke and even marry, but today ...
Today was hers.
And by God, she was going to make this a kiss to remember.
She reached up and touched his hair. She was hesitant at first—just because she was determined to be an active, willing partner didn't mean she had a clue what she was doing. His lips were slowly easing all the reason and intelligence from her mind, but still, she couldn't quite help noticing that his hair felt exactly like Eloise's, which she had brushed countless times during their years of friendship. And heaven help her...
She giggled.
That got his attention, and he lifted his head, his lips touched by an amused smile. "I beg yo
ur pardon?" he queried.
She shook her head, trying to fight off her smile, knowing she was losing the battle.
"Oh, no, you must," he insisted. "I couldn't possibly continue without knowing the reason for the giggle."
She felt her cheeks burning, which struck her as ridiculously ill-timed. Here she was, completely misbehaving in the back of a carriage, and it was only now that she had the decency to blush?
'Tell me," he murmured, nibbling at her ear.
She shook her head.
His lips found the exact point where her pulse beat in her throat. 'Tell me."
All she did—all she could do—was moan, arching her neck to give him greater access.
Her dress, which she hadn't even realized had been partially unbuttoned, slid down until her collarbone was exposed, and she watched with giddy fascination as his lips traced the line of it, until his entire face was nuzzled perilously close to her bosom.
""Will you tell me?" he whispered, grazing her skin with his teeth.
'Tell you what?" she gasped.
His lips were wicked, moving lower, then lower still. "Why you were laughing?"
For several seconds Penelope couldn't even remember what he was talking about.
His hand cupped her breast through her dress. "I'll torment you until you tell me," he threatened.
Penelope's answer was an arch of her back, settling her breast even more firmly in his grasp.
She liked his torment.
"I see," he murmured, simultaneously sliding her bodice down and moving his hand so that his palm grazed her nipple. "Then perhaps I'll"—his hand stilled, then lifted—"stop."
"No," she moaned.
"Then tell me."
She stared at her breast, mesmerized by the sight of it, bare and open to his gaze.
'Tell me," he whispered, blowing softly so that his breath brushed across her.
Something clenched inside Penelope, deep inside of her, in places that were never talked about.
"Colin, please," she begged.
He smiled, slow and lazy, satisfied and still somehow hungry. "Please what?" he asked.
"Touch me," she whispered.
His index finger slid along her shoulder. "Here?"
She shook her head frantically.
He trailed down the column of her neck. "Am I getting closer?" he murmured.