Romancing Mister Bridgerton

When she had been doing the column, the actual writing of it hadn't taken too terribly long, but she always had to be on the alert, watching and listening. And when she wasn't writing the column she was thinking about writing the column or desperately trying to remember some clever turn of phrase until she could get home and jot it down.

  It had been mentally engaging, and she hadn't realized how much she'd missed having her mind challenged until now, when she'd finally been given the opportunity again.

  She was jotting down a question about Colin's description of a Tuscan villa on page 143 in volume two of his journals when the butler knocked discreetly on the open door to alert her to his presence.

  Penelope smiled sheepishly. She tended to absorb herself entirely in her work, and Dunwoody had learned through trial and error that if he wanted to get her attention, he had to make some noise.

  "A visitor to see you, Mrs. Bridgerton," he said.

  Penelope looked up with a smile. It was probably one of her sisters, or maybe one of the Bridgerton siblings. "Really?

  Who is it?"

  He stepped forward and handed her a card. Penelope looked down and gasped, first in shock, and then in misery. Engraved in classic, stately black on a creamy white background were two simple words: Lady Twombley.

  Cressida Twombley? Why on earth would she come calling?

  Penelope began to feel uneasy. Cressida would never call unless it was for some unpleasant purpose. Cressida never did anything unless it was for an unpleasant purpose.

  "Would you like me to turn her away?" Dunwoody asked.

  "No," Penelope said with a sigh. She wasn't a coward, and Cressida Twombley wasn't going to turn her into one. "I'll see her. Just give me a moment to put my papers away. But..."

  Dunwoody stopped in his tracks and cocked his head slightly to the side, waiting for her to go on.

  "Oh, never mind," Penelope muttered.

  "Are you certain, Mrs. Bridgerton?"

  "Yes. No." She groaned. She was dithering and it was one more transgression to add to Cressida's already long list of them—she was turning Penelope into a stammering fool. "What I mean is—if she's still here after ten minutes, would you devise some sort of emergency that requires my presence? My immediate presence?"

  "I believe that can be arranged."

  "Excellent, Dunwoody," Penelope said with a weak smile. It was, perhaps, the easy way out, but she didn't trust herself to be able to find the perfect point in the conversation to insist that Cressida leave, and the last thing she wanted was to be trapped in the drawing room with her all afternoon.

  The butler nodded and left, and Penelope shuffled her papers into a neat stack, closing Colin's journal and setting it on top so that the breeze from the open window couldn't blow the papers off the desk. She stood and walked over to the sofa, sitting down in the center, hoping that she looked relaxed and composed.

  As if a visit from Cressida Twombley could ever be called relaxing.

  A moment later, Cressida arrived, stepping through the open doorway as Dunwoody intoned her name. As always, she

  looked beautiful, every golden hair on her head in its perfect place. Her skin was flawless, her eyes sparkled, her clothing was of the latest style, and her reticule matched her attire to perfection.

  "Cressida," Penelope said, "how surprising to see you." Surprising being the most polite adjective she could come up with under the circumstances.

  Cressida's lips curved into a mysterious, almost feline smile. "I'm sure it is," she murmured.

  "Won't you sit down?" Penelope asked, mostly because she had to. She'd spent a lifetime being polite; it was difficult to

  stop now. She motioned to a nearby chair, the most uncomfortable one in the room.

  Cressida sat on the edge of the chair, and if she found it less than pleasing, Penelope could not tell from her mien. Her

  posture was elegant, her smile never faltered, and she looked as cool and composed as anyone had a right to be.

  "I'm sure you're wondering why I'm here," Cressida said.

  There seemed little reason to deny it, so Penelope nodded.

  And then, abruptly, Cressida asked, "How are you finding married life?"

  Penelope blinked. "I beg your pardon?"

  "It must be an amazing change of pace," Cressida said.

  "Yes," Penelope said carefully, "but a welcome one."

  "Mmmm, yes. You must have a dreadful amount of free time now. I'm sure you don't know what to do with yourself."

  A prickling feeling began to spread along Penelope's skin. "I don't understand your meaning," she said.

  "Don't you?"

  When it became apparent that Cressida required an answer, Penelope replied, somewhat testily, "No, I don't."

  Cressida was silent for a moment, but her cat-with-cream expression spoke volumes. She glanced about the room until her eyes fell on the writing desk where Penelope had so recently been sitting. "What are those papers?" she inquired.

  Penelope's eyes flew to the papers on the desk, stacked neatly under Colin's journal. There was no way that Cressida could have known that they were anything special. Penelope had already been seated on the sofa when Cressida had entered the room. "I fail to see how my personal papers could be of your concern," she said.

  "Oh, do not take offense," Cressida said with a little tinkle of laughter that Penelope found rather frightening. "I was merely making polite conversation. Inquiring about your interests."

  "I see," Penelope said, trying to fill the ensuing silence.

  "I'm very observant," Cressida said.

  Penelope raised her brows in question.

  "In fact, my keen powers of observation are quite well known among the very best circles of society."

  "I must not be a link in those impressive circles, then," Penelope murmured.

  Cressida, however, was far too involved in her own speech to acknowledge Penelope's. "It's why," she said in a thoughtful tone of voice, "I thought I might be able to convince the ton that I was really Lady Whistledown."

  Penelope's heart thundered in her chest. "Then you admit that you're not?" she asked carefully.

  "Oh, I think you know I'm not."

  Penelope's throat began to close. Somehow—she'd never know how—she managed to keep her composure and say, "I beg your pardon?"

  Cressida smiled, but she managed to take that happy expression and turn it into something sly and cruel. "When I came up with this ruse, I thought: I can't lose. Either I convince everyone I'm Lady Whistledown or they won't believe me and I look very cunning when I say that I was just pretending to be Lady Whistledown in order to ferret out the true culprit."

  Penelope held very silent, very still.

  "But it didn't quite play out the way I had planned. Lady Whistledown turned out to be far more devious and mean-spirited than I would have guessed." Cressida's eyes narrowed, then narrowed some more until her face, normally so lovely, took on a sinister air. "Her last little column turned me into a laughingstock."

  Penelope said nothing, barely daring to breathe.

  "And then..." Cressida continued, her voice dropping into lower registers. "And then you—you!—had the effrontery to

  insult me in front of the entire ton."

  Penelope breathed a tiny sigh of relief. Maybe Cressida didn't know her secret. Maybe this was all about Penelope's public insult, when she'd accused Cressida of lying, and she'd said—dear God, what had she said? Something terribly cruel, she was sure, but certainly well deserved.

  "I might have been able to tolerate the insult if it had come from someone else," Cressida continued. "But from someone such as you—well, that could not go unanswered."

  "You should think twice before insulting me in my own home," Penelope said in a low voice. And then she added, even

  though she hated to hide behind her husband's name, "I am a Bridgerton now. I carry the weight of their protection."

  Penelope's warning made no dent in the satisfied mask that molded Cre
ssida's beautiful face. "I think you had better listen to what I have to say before you make threats."

  Penelope knew she had to listen. It was better to know what Cressida knew than to close her eyes and pretend all was well. "Go on," she said, her voice deliberately curt.

  "You made a critical mistake," Cressida said, pointing her index finger at Penelope and wagging it back and forth in short tick-tocky motions. "It didn't occur to you that I never forget an insult, did it?"

  "What are you trying to say, Cressida?" Penelope had wanted her words to seem strong and forceful, but they came out as a whisper.

  Cressida stood and walked slowly away from Penelope, her hips swaying slightly as she moved, the motion almost like a swagger. "Let me see if I can remember your exact words," she said, tapping one finger against her cheek. "Oh, no, no, don't remind me. I'm sure it will come to me. Oh, yes, I recall now." She turned around to face Penelope. "I believe you said you'd always liked Lady Whistledown. And then—and to give you credit, it was an evocative, memorable turn of phrase—you said that it would break your heart if she turned out to be someone like Lady Twombley." Cressida smiled. "Which would be me."

  Penelope's mouth went dry. Her fingers shook. And her skin turned to ice.

  Because while she hadn't remembered exactly what she'd said in her insult to Cressida, she did remember what she'd written in that last, final, column, the one which had been mistakenly distributed at her engagement ball. The one which—

  The one which Cressida was now slapping down onto the table in front of her.

  Ladies and Gentleman, This Author is NOT Lady Cressida Twombley. She is nothing more than a scheming imposter, and it would break my heart to see my years of hard work attributed to one such as her.

  Penelope stared down at the words even though she knew each one by heart. "What do you mean?" she asked, even though she knew her attempt to pretend that she didn't know exactly what Cressida meant was futile.

  "You're smarter than that, Penelope Featherington," Cressida said. "You know I know."

  Penelope kept staring at the single, incriminating sheet of paper, unable to tear her eyes from those fateful words—

  It would break my heart.

  Break my heart.

  Break my heart.

  Break my—

  "Nothing to say?" Cressida asked, and even though Penelope could not see her face, she felt her hard, supercilious smile.

  "No one will believe you," Penelope whispered.

  "I can barely believe it myself," Cressida said with a harsh laugh. "You, of all people. But apparently you had hidden depths and were a bit more clever than you let on. Clever enough," she added with noticeable emphasis, "to know that once I light the spark of this particular piece of gossip, the news will spread like wildfire."

  Penelope's mind whirled in dizzying, unpleasant circles. Oh, God, what was she going to tell Colin? How would she tell him? She knew she had to, but where would she find the words?

  "No one will believe it at first," Cressida continued. "You were right about that. But then they'll start to think, and slowly but surely, the pieces of the puzzle will fall into place. Someone will remember that they said something to you that ended up in a column. Or that you were at a particular house party. Or that they'd seen Eloise Bridgerton snooping about, and doesn't everyone know that the two of you tell each other everything?"

  "What do you want?" Penelope asked, her voice low and haunted as she finally lifted her head to face her enemy.

  "Ah, now, there's the question I've been waiting for." Cressida clasped her hands together behind her back and began to

  pace. "I've been giving the matter a great deal of thought. In fact, I put off coming here to see you for almost a full week until I could decide upon the matter."

  Penelope swallowed, uncomfortable with the notion that Cressida had known her deepest secret for nearly a week, and

  she'd been blithely living her life, unaware that the sky was about to come crashing down.

  "I knew from the outset, of course," Cressida said, "that I wanted money. But the question was—how much? Your husband is a Bridgerton, of course, and so he has ample funds, but then again, he's a younger son, and not as plump in the pocket as the viscount."

  "How much, Cressida?" Penelope ground out. She knew that Cressida was drawing this out just to torture her, and she held little hope that she would actually name a figure before she was good and ready.

  "Then I realized," Cressida continued, ignoring Penelope's question (and proving her point), "that you must be quite wealthy, too. Unless you're an utter fool—and considering your success at hiding your little secret for so long, I've revised my initial opinion of you, so I don't think you are— you'd have to have made a fortune after writing the column for all those years. And from all outward appearances"—she gave a scornful glance to Penelope's afternoon dress—"you haven't been spending it. So I can only deduce that it is all sitting in a discreet little bank account somewhere, just waiting for a withdrawal."

  "How much, Cressida?"

  "Ten thousand pounds."

  Penelope gasped. "You're mad!"

  "No." Cressida smiled. "Just very, very clever."

  "I don't have ten thousand pounds."

  "I think you're lying."

  "I can assure you I'm not!" And she wasn't. The last time Penelope had checked her account balance, she'd had £8246, although she supposed that with interest, it had grown by a few pounds since then. It was an enormous sum of money, to be sure, enough to keep any reasonable person happy for several lifetimes, but it wasn't ten thousand, and it wasn't anything she wished to hand over to Cressida Twombley.

  Cressida smiled serenely. "I'm sure you'll figure out what to do. Between your savings and your husband's money, ten

  thousand pounds is a paltry sum."

  "Ten thousand pounds is never a paltry sum."

  "How long will you need to gather your funds?" Cressida asked, completely ignoring Penelope's outburst. "A day? Two days?"

  "Two days?" Penelope echoed, gaping. "I couldn't do it in two weeks!"

  "Aha, so then you do have the money."

  "I don't!"

  "One week," Cressida said, her voice turning sharp. "I want the money in one week."

  "I won't give it to you," Penelope whispered, more for her own benefit than Cressida's.

  "You will," Cressida replied confidently. "If you don't, I'll ruin you."

  "Mrs. Bridgerton?"

  Penelope looked up to see Dunwoody standing in the doorway.

  "There is an urgent matter which requires your attention," he said. "Immediately."

  "Just as well," Cressida said, walking toward the door. "I'm done here." She walked through the doorway, then turned around once she reached the hall, so that Penelope was forced to look at her, perfectly framed in the portal. "I'll hear from you soon?" she inquired, her voice mild and innocent, as if she were talking about nothing more weighty than an invitation to a party, or perhaps the agenda for a charity meeting.

  Penelope gave her a little nod, just to be rid of her.

  But it didn't matter. The front door may have thunked shut, and Cressida might be gone, but Penelope's troubles weren't

  going anywhere.

  CHAPTER 22

  Three hours later, Penelope was still in the drawing room, still sitting on the sofa, still staring into space, still trying to figure out how she was going to solve her problems.

  Correction: problem, singular.

  She had only one problem, but for the size of it, she might as well have had a thousand.

  She wasn't an aggressive person, and she couldn't remember the last time she had a violent thought, but at that moment, she could have gladly wrung Cressida Twombley's neck.

  She watched the door with a morose sense of fatalism, waiting for her husband to come home, knowing that each ticking second brought her closer to her moment of truth, when she would have to confess everything to him.

  He would
n't say, I told you so. He would never say such a thing.

  But he would be thinking it.

  It never occurred to her, not even for a minute, that she might keep this from him. Cressida's threats weren't the sort of thing one hid from one's husband, and besides, she was going to need his help.

  She wasn't certain what she needed to do, but whatever it was, she didn't know how to do it alone.

  But there was one thing she knew for sure;—she didn't want to pay Cressida. There was no way Cressida would be satisfied with ten thousand pounds, not when she thought she could get more. If Penelope capitulated now, she'd be handing money over to Cressida for the rest of her life.

  Which meant that in one week's time, Cressida Twombley would tell all the world that Penelope Featherington Bridgerton was the infamous Lady Whistledown.

  Penelope reckoned she had two choices. She could lie, and call Cressida a fool, and hope that everyone believed her; or

  she could try to find some way to twist Cressida's revelation to her advantage.

  But for the life of her, she didn't know how.

  "Penelope?"

  Colin's voice. She wanted to fling herself into his arms, and at the same time, she could barely bring herself to turn around.

  "Penelope?" He sounded concerned now, his footsteps increasing in speed as he crossed the room. "Dunwoody said that Cressida was here."

  He sat next to her and touched her cheek. She turned and saw his face, the corners of his eyes crinkled with worry, his lips, slightly parted as they murmured her name.

  And that was when she finally allowed herself to cry.

  Funny how she could hold herself together, keep it all inside until she saw him. But now that he was here, all she could do was bury her face in the warmth of his chest, snuggle closer as his arms wrapped around her.

  As if somehow he could make all her problems go away by his presence alone.

  "Penelope?" he asked, his voice soft and worried. "What happened? What's wrong?"

  Penelope just shook her head, the motion having to suffice until she could think of the words, summon the courage, stop the tears.

  "What did she do to you?"

  "Oh, Colin," she said, somehow summoning the energy to pull herself far enough back so that she could see his face. "She knows."