Romancing Mister Bridgerton (19 page)

“I don't know what you mean.”

“You had a perfectly good escape, just waiting for you. Cressida Twombley was willing to take the blame for you.”

And then suddenly his hands were on her shoulders, and he was holding her so tightly she could barely breathe.

“Why couldn't you just let it die, Penelope?” His voice was urgent, his eyes blazing. It was the most feeling she'd
ever seen in him, and it broke her heart that it was directed toward her in anger. And in shame.

“I couldn't let her do it,” she whispered. “I couldn't let her be me.”

“W
hy the hell not?”

Penelope could do nothing but stare for several seconds. “Because…because…” she flailed, wondering how she was supposed to explain this. Her heart was breaking, her most terrifying—and exhilarating—secret had been shattered, and he thought she had the presence of mind to
explain
herself?

“I realize she's quite possibly the biggest bitch…”

Penelope gasped.

“…that England has produced in this generation at least, but for God's sake, Penelope”—he raked his hand through his hair, then fixed a hard stare on her face—“she was going to take the blame—”

“The credit,” Penelope interrupted testily.

“The blame,” he continued. “Do you have any idea what will happen to you if people find out who you really are?”

The corners of her lips tightened with impatience…and irritation at being so obviously condescended to. “I've had over a decade to ruminate the possibility.”

His eyes narrowed. “Are you being sarcastic?”

“Not at all,” she shot back. “Do you really think I haven't spent a good portion of the last ten years of my life contemplating what would happen if I were found out? I'd be a blind idiot if I hadn't.”

He grabbed her by the shoulders, holding tight even as the carriage bumped over uneven cobbles. “You will be ruined, Penelope. Ruined! Do you understand what I am saying?”

“If I did not,” she replied, “I assure you I would now, after your lengthy dissertations on the subject when you were accusing Eloise of being Lady Whistledown.”

He scowled, obviously annoyed at having his errors thrown in his face. “People will stop talking to you,” he continued. “They will cut you dead—”

“People never talked to me,” she snapped. “Half the time they didn't even know I was there. How do you think I was able to keep up the ruse for so long in the first place? I was invisible, Colin. No one saw me, no one talked to me. I just stood and listened,
and no one noticed
.”

“That's not true.” But his eyes slid from hers as he said it.

“Oh, it
is
true, and you know it. You only deny it,” she said, jabbing him in the arm, “because you feel guilty.”

“I do not!”

“Oh,
please,
” she scoffed. “Everything you do, you do out of guilt.”

“Pen—”

“That involves me, at least,” she corrected. Her breath was rushing through her throat, and her skin was pricking with heat, and for once, her soul was on fire. “Do you think I don't know how your family pities me? Do you think it escapes my notice that anytime you or your brothers happen to be at the same party as me, you ask me to dance?”

“We're polite,” he ground out, “and we
like
you.”

“
And
you feel sorry for me. You like Felicity but I don't see you dancing with her every time your paths cross.”

He let go of her quite suddenly and crossed his arms. “Well, I don't like her as well as I do you.”

She blinked, knocked rather neatly off her verbal stride. Trust him to go and
compliment
her in the middle of an argument. Nothing could have disarmed her more.

“And,” he continued with a rather arch and superior lifting of his chin, “you have not addressed my original point.”

“Which was?”

“That Lady Whistledown will ruin you!”

“For God's sake,” she muttered, “you talk as if she were a separate person.”

“Well, excuse me if I still have difficulty reconciling the woman in front of me with the harridan writing the column.”

“Colin!”

“Insulted?” he mocked.

“Yes! I've worked very hard on that column.” She clenched her fists around the thin fabric of her mint-green morning dress, oblivious to the wrinkled spirals she was creating. She had to do something with her hands or she'd quite possibly explode with the nervous energy and anger coursing through her veins. Her only other option seemed to be crossing her arms, and she refused to give in to such an obvious show of petulance. Besides, he was crossing his arms, and one of them needed to act older than six.

“I wouldn't dream of denigrating what you've done,” he said condescendingly.

“Of course you would,” she interrupted.

“No, I wouldn't.”

“Then what do you think you're doing?”

“Being an adult!” he answered, his voice growing loud and impatient. “One of us has to be.”

“Don't you dare speak to me of adult behavior!” she exploded. “You, who run at the very hint of responsibility.”

“And what the hell does that mean?” he bit off.

“I thought it was rather obvious.”

He drew back. “I can't believe you're speaking to me like this.”

“You can't believe I'm doing it,” she taunted, “or that I possess the nerve to do so?”

He just stared at her, obviously surprised by her question.

“There's more to me than you think, Colin,” she said. And then, in a quieter tone of voice, she added, “There's more to me than
I
used to think.”

He said nothing for several moments, and then, as if he just couldn't drag himself away from the topic, he asked, practically between his teeth, “What did you mean when you said I run from responsibility?”

She pursed her lips, then relaxed as she let out what she hoped would be a calming exhale. “Why do you think you travel so much?”

“Because I like it,” he replied, his tone clipped.

“And because you're bored out of your mind here in England.”

“And that makes me a child because…?”

“Because you're not willing to grow up and do something adult that would keep you in one place.”

“Like what?”

Her hands came up in an I-should-think-it-was-obvious sort of gesture. “Like get married.”

“Is that a proposal?” he mocked, one corner of his mouth rising into a rather insolent smile.

She could feel her cheeks flushing deep and hot, but she forced herself to continue. “You know it's not, and don't try to change the subject by being deliberately cruel.” She waited for him to say something, perhaps an apology. His silence was an insult, and so she let out a snort and said, “For heaven's sake, Colin, you're three-and-thirty.”

“And you're eight-and-twenty,” he pointed out, and not in a particularly kind tone of voice.

It felt like a punch in the belly, but she was too riled up to retreat into her familiar shell. “Unlike you,” she said with low precision, “I don't have the luxury of asking someone. And unlike
you,
” she added, her intention now solely to induce
the guilt she'd accused him of just minutes earlier, “I don't have a massive pool of prospective suitors, so I've never had the luxury of saying no.”

His lips tightened. “And you think that your unveiling as Lady Whistledown is going to increase the number of your suitors?”

“Are you
trying
to be insulting?” she ground out.

“I'm trying to be realistic! Something which you seem to have completely lost sight of.”

“I never said I was planning to unveil myself as Lady Whistledown.”

He snatched the envelope with the final column in it back up off the cushioned bench. “Then what is this about?”

She grabbed it back, yanking the paper from the envelope. “I beg your pardon,” she said, every syllable heavy with sarcasm. “I must have missed the sentence proclaiming my identity.”

“You think this swan song of yours will do anything to dampen the frenzy of interest in Lady Whistledown's identity? Oh, excuse me”—he placed one insolent hand over his heart—“perhaps I should have said
your
identity. After all, I don't want to deny you your
credit
.”

“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
some
one,” 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.”