"Penelope," Lady Bridgerton said with a warm smile, "do sit down. The tea is still nice and hot, and Cook made her famous butter biscuits."
Colin made a beeline for the food, barely pausing to acknowledge his sisters.
Penelope followed Lady Bridgerton's wave to a nearby chair and took a seat.
"Biscuits are good," Hyacinth said, thrusting a plate in her direction.
"Hyacinth," Lady Bridgerton said in a vaguely disapproving voice, "do try to speak in complete sentences."
Hyacinth looked at her mother with a surprised expression. "Biscuits. Are. Good." She cocked her head to the side. "Noun. Verb. Adjective."
"Hyacinth."
Penelope could see that Lady Bridgerton was trying to look stern as she scolded her daughter, but she wasn't quite succeeding.
"Noun. Verb. Adjective," Colin said, wiping a crumb from his grinning face. "Sentence. Is. Correct."
"If you're barely literate," Kate retorted, reaching for a biscuit. "These are good," she said to Penelope, a sheepish smile crossing her face. "This one's my fourth."
"I love you, Colin," Hyacinth said, ignoring Kate completely.
"Of course you do," he murmured.
"I myself," Eloise said archly, "prefer to place articles before my nouns in my own writings."
Hyacinth snorted. "Your writings!" she echoed. "I write many letters," Eloise said with a sniff. "And I keep a journal, which I assure you is a very beneficial habit."
"It does keep one disciplined," Penelope put in, taking her cup and saucer from Lady Bridgerton's outstretched hands.
"Do you keep a journal?" Kate asked, not really looking at her, since she had just jumped up from her chair to grasp her daughter before the two-year-old climbed on a side table.
"I'm afraid not," Penelope said with a shake of her head. "It requires far too much discipline for me."
"I don't think it is always necessary to put an article before a noun," Hyacinth persisted, completely unable, as always, to let her side of the argument go.
Unfortunately for the rest of the assemblage, Eloise was equally tenacious. "You may leave off the article if you are referring to your noun in a general sense," she said, pursing her lips in a rather supercilious manner, "but in this case, as you were referring to specific biscuits..."
Penelope wasn't positive, but she thought she heard Lady Bridgerton groan.
"... then specifically," Eloise said with an arch of her brows, "you are incorrect."
Hyacinth turned to Penelope. "I am positive she did not use specifically correctly in that last sentence."
Penelope reached for another butter biscuit. "I refuse to enter the conversation."
"Coward," Colin murmured.
"No, just hungry." Penelope turned to Kate. "These are good."
Kate nodded her agreement. "I have heard rumors," she said to Penelope, "that your sister may become betrothed."
Penelope blinked in surprise. She hadn't thought that Felicity's connection to Mr. Albansdale was public knowledge.
"Er, where have you heard rumors?"
"Eloise, of course," Kate said matter-of-factly. "She always knows everything."
"And what I don't know," Eloise said with an easy grin, "Hyacinth usually does. It's very convenient."
"Are you certain that neither one of you is Lady Whistledown?" Colin joked.
"Colin!" Lady Bridgerton exclaimed. "How could you even think such a thing?"
He shrugged. "They're certainly both smart enough to carry off such a feat."
Eloise and Hyacinth beamed.
Even Lady Bridgerton couldn't quite dismiss the compliment. "Yes, well," she hemmed, "Hyacinth is much too young, and Eloise..." She looked over at Eloise, who was watching her with a most amused expression. "Well, Eloise is not Lady Whistledown. I'm sure of it."
Eloise looked at Colin. "I'm not Lady Whistledown."
"That's too bad," he replied. "You'd be filthy rich by now, I imagine."
"You know," Penelope said thoughtfully, "that might be a good way to discern her identity."
Five pairs of eyes turned in her direction.
"She has to be someone who has more money than she ought to have," Penelope explained.
"A good point," Hyacinth said, "except that I haven't a clue how much money people ought to have."
"Neither do I, of course," Penelope replied. "But most of the time one has a general idea." At Hyacinth's blank stare, she added, "For example, if I suddenly went out and bought myself a diamond parure, that would be very suspect."
Kate nudged Penelope with her elbow. "Bought any diamond parures lately, eh? I could use a thousand pounds."
Penelope let her eyes roll up for a second before replying, because as the current Viscountess Bridgerton, Kate most certainly did not need a thousand pounds. "I can assure you," she said, "I don't own a single diamond. Not even a ring."
Kate let out an "euf" of mock disgruntlement. "Well, you're no help, then."
"It's not so much the money," Hyacinth announced. "It's the glory."
Lady Bridgerton coughed on her tea. "I'm sorry, Hyacinth," she said, "but what did you just say?"
"Think of the accolades one would receive for having finally caught Lady Whistledown," Hyacinth said. "It would be glorious."
"Are you saying," Colin asked, a deceptively bland expression on his face, "that you don't care about the money?"
"I would never say that" Hyacinth said with a cheeky grin.
It occurred to Penelope that of all the Bridgertons, Hyacinth and Colin were the most alike. It was probably a good thing Colin was so often out of the country. If he and Hyacinth ever joined forces in earnest, they could probably take over the world.
"Hyacinth," Lady Bridgerton said firmly, "you are not to make the search for Lady Whistledown your life's work."
"But—"
"I'm not saying you cannot ponder the problem and ask a few questions," Lady Bridgerton hastened to add, holding up one hand to ward off further interruptions. "Good gracious, I would hope that after nearly forty years of motherhood I would know better than to try to stop you when you have your mind quite so set on something, nonsense as it may be."
Penelope brought her teacup to her mouth to cover her smile
"It's just that you have been known to be rather"—Lady Bridgerton delicately cleared her throat—"single-minded at times..."
"Mother!"
Lady Bridgerton continued as if Hyacinth had never spoken. "... and I do not want you to forget that your primary focus at this time must be to look for a husband."
Hyacinth uttered the word "Mother" again, but this time it was more of a groan than a protest.
Penelope stole a glance at Eloise, who had her eyes fixed on the ceiling and was clearly trying not to break out in a grin. Eloise had endured years of relentless matchmaking at her mother's hands and did not mind in the least that she seemed to have given up and moved on to Hyacinth.
In truth, Penelope was surprised that Lady Bridgerton seemed to have finally accepted Eloise's unmarried state. She had never hidden the fact that her greatest aim in life was to see all eight of her children happily married. And she'd succeeded with four. First Daphne had married Simon and become the Duchess of Hastings. The following year Anthony had married Kate. There had been a bit of a lull after that, but both Benedict and Francesca had married within a year of each other, Benedict to Sophie, and Francesca to the Scottish Earl of Kilmartin.
Francesca, unfortunately, had been widowed only two years after her marriage. She now divided her time between her late husband's family in Scotland and her own in London. When in town, however, she insisted upon living at Kilmartin House instead of at Bridgerton House or Number Five. Penelope didn't blame her. If she were a widow, she'd want to enjoy all of her independence, too.
Hyacinth generally bore her mother's matchmaking with good humor since, as she had told Penelope, it wasn't as if she didn't want to get married eventually. Might as well let her mother do all th
e work and then she could choose a husband when the right one presented himself.
And it was with this good humor that she stood, kissed her mother on the cheek, and dutifully promised that her main focus in life was to look for a husband—all the while directing a cheeky, sneaky smile at her brother and sister. She was barely back in her seat when she said to the crowd at large, "So, do you think she'll be caught?"
"Are we still discussing that Whistledown woman?" Lady Bridgerton groaned.
"Have you not heard Eloise's theory, then?" Penelope asked.
All eyes turned to Penelope, then to Eloise.
"Er, what is my theory?" Eloise asked.
"It was just, oh, I don't know, maybe a week ago," Penelope said. "We were talking about Lady Whistledown, and I said that I didn't see how she could possibly go on forever, that eventually she would have to make a mistake. Then Eloise said she wasn't so sure, that it had been over ten years and if she were going to make a mistake, wouldn't she have already done so? Then I said, no, she was only human. Eventually she would have to slip up, because no one could go on forever, and—"
"Oh, I remember now!" Eloise cut in. "We were at your house, in your room. I had the most brilliant idea! I said to Penelope that I would wager that Lady Whistledown has already made a mistake, and it's just we were too stupid to have noticed it."
"Not very complimentary for us, I must say," Colin murmured.
"Well, I did intend we to mean all of society, not just us Bridgertons," Eloise demurred.
"So maybe," Hyacinth mused, "all I need to do to catch Lady Whistledown is peruse back issues of her column."
Lady Bridgerton's eyes filled with a mild panic. "Hyacinth Bridgerton, I don't like the look on your face."
Hyacinth smiled and shrugged. "I could have a great deal of fun with one thousand pounds."
"God help us all," was her mother's reply.
"Penelope," Colin said quite suddenly, "you never did finish telling us about Felicity. Is it true that she is to be engaged?"
Penelope gulped down the tea she'd been in the process of sipping. Colin had a way of looking at a person, his green eyes so focused and intent that you felt as if you must be the only two people in the universe. Unfortunately for Penelope, it also seemed to have a way of reducing her to a stammering imbecile. If they were in the midst of conversation, she could generally hold her own, but when he surprised her like that, turning his attention onto her just when she'd convinced herself she blended in perfectly with the wallpaper, she was completely and utterly lost.
"Er, yes, it is quite possible," she said. "Mr. Albansdale has been hinting at his intentions. But if he does decide to propose, I imagine he will travel to East Anglia to ask my uncle for her hand."
"Your uncle?" Kate asked.
"My uncle Geoffrey. He lives near Norwich. He's our closest male relative, although truth be told, we don't see him very often. But Mr. Albansdale is rather traditional. I don't think he would feel comfortable asking my mother."
"I hope he asks Felicity as well," Eloise said. "I've often thought it foolish that a man asks a woman's father for her hand before he asks her. The father doesn't have to live with him."
"This attitude," Colin said with an amused smile that was only partly hidden by his teacup, "may explain why you are as yet unmarried."
Lady Bridgerton gave her son a stern glare and said his name disapprovingly.
"Oh, no, Mother," Eloise said, "I don't mind. I'm perfectly comfortable as an old maid." She gave Colin a rather superior look. "I'd much rather be a spinster than be married to a bore. As," she added with a flourish, "would Penelope!"
Startled by Eloise's hand waving rather suddenly in her direction, Penelope straightened her spine and said, "Er, yes. Of course."
But Penelope had a feeling she wasn't quite as firm in her convictions as her friend. Unlike Eloise, she hadn't refused six offers of marriage. She hadn't refused any; she hadn't received even a one.
She'd told herself that she wouldn't have accepted in any case, since her heart belonged to Colin. But was that really the truth, or was she just trying to make herself feel better for having been such a resounding failure on the marriage mart?
If someone asked her to marry him tomorrow—someone perfectly kind and acceptable, whom she might never love but would in all probability like very well—would she say yes?
Probably.
And this made her melancholy, because admitting this to herself meant she'd really, truly given up hope on Colin. It meant she wasn't as true to her principles as she'd hoped she was. It meant she was willing to settle on a less-than-perfect husband in order to have a home and family of her own.
It wasn't anything that hundreds of women didn't do every year, but it was something that she'd never thought she'd do herself.
"You look very serious all of a sudden," Colin said to her.
Penelope jerked out of her musings. "Me? Oh. No, no. I just lost myself in my thoughts, that's all."
Colin acknowledged her statement with a brief nod before reaching for another biscuit. "Have we anything more substantial?" he asked, wrinkling his nose.
"If I'd known you were coming," his mother said in a dry voice, "I would have doubled the food."
He stood and walked to the bellpull. "I'll ring for more."
After giving it a yank, he turned back and asked, "Did you hear about Penelope's Lady Whistledown theory?"
"No, I haven't," Lady Bridgerton replied.
"It's very clever, actually," Colin said, stopping to ask a maid for sandwiches before finishing with, "She thinks it's Lady Danbury."
"Ooooh." Hyacinth was visibly impressed. "That's very cunning, Penelope."
Penelope nodded her head to the side in thanks.
"And just the sort of thing Lady Danbury would do," Hyacinth added.
"The column or the challenge?" Kate asked, catching hold of the sash on Charlotte's frock before the little girl could scramble out of reach.
"Both," Hyacinth said.
"And," Eloise put in, "Penelope told her so. Right to her face."
Hyacinth's mouth dropped open, and it was obvious to Penelope that she'd just gone up—way up—in Hyacinth's estimation.
"I should have liked to have seen that!" Lady Bridgerton said with a wide, proud smile. "Frankly, I'm surprised that didn't show up in this morning's Whistledown."
"I hardly think Lady Whistledown would comment upon individual people's theories as to her identity," Penelope said.
"Why not?" Hyacinth asked. "It would be an excellent way for her to set out a few red herrings. For example"—she held her hand out toward her sister in a most dramatic pose— "say I thought it was Eloise."
"It is not Eloise!" Lady Bridgerton protested.
"It's not me," Eloise said with a grin.
"But say I thought it was," Hyacinth said in an extremely beleaguered voice. "And that I said so publicly."
"Which you would never do," her mother said sternly.
"Which I would never do," Hyacinth parroted. "But just to be academic, let us pretend that I did. And say that Eloise really was Lady Whistledown. Which she's not," she hastened to add before her mother could interrupt again. Lady Bridgerton held up her hands in silent defeat. "What better way to fool the masses," Hyacinth continued, "than to make fun of me in her column?"
"Of course, if Lady Whistledown really were Eloise ..." Penelope mused.
"She's not!" Lady Bridgerton burst out.
Penelope couldn't help but laugh. "But if she were..."
"You know," Eloise said, "now I really wish I were."
"What a joke you'd be having on us all," Penelope continued. "Of course, then on Wednesday you couldn't run a column making fun of Hyacinth for thinking you are Lady Whistledown, because then we'd all know it had to be you." "Unless it was you." Kate laughed, looking at Penelope. "That would be a devious trick."
"Let me see if I have it straight," Eloise said with a laugh. "Penelope is Lady Whistledown, and
she is going to run a column on Wednesday making fun of Hyacinth's theory that I'm Lady Whistledown just to trick you into thinking that I really am Lady Whistledown, because Hyacinth suggested that that would be a cunning ruse."
"I am utterly lost," Colin said to no one in particular.
"Unless Colin were really Lady Whistledown..." Hyacinth said with a devilish gleam in her eye.
"Stop!" Lady Bridgerton said. "I beg you." By then everyone was laughing too hard for Hyacinth to continue, anyway.
"The possibilities are endless," Hyacinth said, wiping a tear from her eye.
"Perhaps we should all simply look to the left," Colin suggested as he sat back down. "Who knows, that person may very well be our infamous Lady Whistledown."
Everyone looked left, with the exception of Eloise, who looked right... right to Colin. "Were you trying to tell me something," she asked with an amused smile, "when you sat down to my right?"
"Not at all," he murmured, reaching for the biscuit plate and then stopping when he remembered it was empty.
But he didn't quite meet Eloise's eyes when he said so.
If anyone other than Penelope had noticed his evasiveness, they were unable to question him on it, because that was when the sandwiches arrived, and he was useless for conversation after that.
CHAPTER 5
It has come to This Author's attention that Lady Blackwood turned her ankle earlier this week whilst chasing down a delivery boy for This Humble Newssheet.
One thousand pounds is certainly a great deal of money, but Lady Blackwood is hardly in need of funds, and moreover, the situation is growing absurd. Surely Londoners have better things to do with their time than chase down poor, hapless delivery boys in a fruitless attempt to uncover the identity of This Author.
Or maybe not.
This Author has chronicled the activities of the ton for over a decade now and has found no evidence that they do indeed have anything better to do with their time.
Lady Whistledown's Society Papers, 14 April 1824
Two days later Penelope found herself once again cutting across Berkeley Square, on her way to Number Five to see Eloise. This time, however, it was late morning, and it was sunny, and she did not bump into Colin along the way.