Why why why did she do this to herself?

Year after year the invitation arrived by messenger, and year after year Penelope swore she would never, as God was her witness, ever attend another Smythe-Smith musicale.

And yet year after year she found herself seated in the Smythe-Smith music room, desperately trying not to cringe (at least not visibly) as the latest generation of Smythe-Smith girls butchered poor Mr. Mozart in musical effigy.

It was painful. Horribly, awfully, hideously painful. Truly, there was no other way to describe it.

Even more perplexing was that Penelope always seemed to end up in the front row, or close to it, which was beyond excruciating. And not just on the ears. Every few years, there would be one Smythe-Smith girl who seemed aware that she was taking part in what could only be termed a crime against auditory law. While the other girls attacked their violins and pianofortes with oblivious vigor, this odd one out played with a pained expression on her face—an expression Penelope knew well.

It was the face one put on when one wanted to be anywhere but where one was. You could try to hide it, but it always came out in the corners of the mouth, which were held tight and taut. And the eyes, of course, which floated either above or below everyone else’s line of vision.

Heaven knew Penelope’s face had been cursed with that same expression many a time.

Maybe that was why she never quite managed to stay home on a Smythe-Smith night. Someone had to smile encouragingly and pretend to enjoy the music.

Besides, it wasn’t as if she were forced to come and listen more than once per year, anyway.

Still, one couldn’t help but think that there must be a fortune to be made in discreet earplugs.

The quartet of girls were warming up—a jumble of discordant notes and scales that only promised to worsen once they began to play in earnest. Penelope had taken a seat in the center of the second row, much to her sister Felicity’s dismay.

“There are two perfectly good seats in the back corner,” Felicity hissed in her ear.

“It’s too late now,” Penelope returned, settling down on the lightly cushioned chair.

“God help me,” Felicity groaned.

Penelope picked up her program and began leafing through it. “If we don’t sit here, someone else will,” she said.

“Precisely my desire!”

Penelope leaned in so that only her sister could hear her murmured words. “We can be counted on to smile and be polite. Imagine if someone like Cressida Twombley sat here and snickered all the way through.”

Felicity looked around. “I don’t think Cressida Twombley would be caught dead here.”

Penelope chose to ignore the statement. “The last thing they need is someone seated right in front who likes to make unkind remarks. Those poor girls would be mortified.”

“They’re going to be mortified anyway,” Felicity grumbled.

“No, they won’t,” Penelope said. “At least not that one, that one, or that one,” she said, pointing to the two on violins and the one at the piano. But that one”—she motioned discreetly to the girl sitting with a cello between her knees—“is already miserable. The least we can do is not to make it worse by allowing someone catty and cruel to sit here.”

“She’s only going to be eviscerated later this week by Lady Whistledown,” Felicity muttered.

Penelope opened her mouth to say more, but at that exact moment she realized that the person who had just occupied the seat on her other side was Eloise.

“Eloise,” Penelope said with obvious delight. “I thought you were planning to stay home.”

Eloise grimaced, her skin taking on a decidedly green pallor. “I can’t explain it, but I can’t seem to stay away. It’s rather like a carriage accident. You just can’t not look.”

“Or listen,” Felicity said, “as the case may be.”

Penelope smiled. She couldn’t help it.

“Did I hear you talking about Lady Whistledown when I arrived?” Eloise asked.

“I told Penelope,” Felicity said, leaning rather inelegantly across her sister to speak to Eloise, “that they’re going to be destroyed by Lady W later this week.”

“I don’t know,” Eloise said thoughtfully. “She doesn’t pick on the Smythe-Smith girls every year. I’m not sure why.”

“I know why,” cackled a voice from behind.

Eloise, Penelope, and Felicity all twisted in their seats, then lurched backward as Lady Danbury’s cane came perilously close to their faces.

“Lady Danbury,” Penelope gulped, unable to resist the urge to touch her nose—if only to reassure herself that it was still there.

“I have that Lady Whistledown figured out,” Lady Danbury said.

“You do?” Felicity asked.

“She’s soft at heart,” the old lady continued. “You see that one”—she poked her cane in the direction of the cellist, nearly piercing Eloise’s ear in the process—“right over there?”

“Yes,” Eloise said, rubbing her ear, “although I don’t think I’m going to be able to hear her.”

“Probably a blessing,” Lady Danbury said before turning back to the subject at hand. “You can thank me later.”

“You were saying something about the cellist?” Penelope said swiftly, before Eloise said something entirely inappropriate.

“Of course I was. Look at her,” Lady Danbury said. “She’s miserable. And well she should be. She’s clearly the only one who has a clue as to how dreadful they are. The other three don’t have the musical sense of a gnat.”

Penelope gave her younger sister a rather smug glance.

“You mark my words,” Lady Danbury said. “Lady Whistledown won’t have a thing to say about this musicale. She won’t want to hurt that one’s feelings. The rest of them—”

Felicity, Penelope, and Eloise all ducked as the cane came swinging by.

“Bah. She couldn’t care less for the rest of them.”

“It’s an interesting theory,” Penelope said.

Lady Danbury sat back contentedly in her chair. “Yes, it is. Isn’t it?”

Penelope nodded. “I think you’re right.”

“Hmmph. I usually am.”

Still twisted in her seat, Penelope turned first to Felicity, then to Eloise, and said, “It’s the same reason why I keep coming to these infernal musicales year after year.”

“To see Lady Danbury?” Eloise asked, blinking with confusion.

“No. Because of girls like her.” Penelope pointed at the cellist. “Because I know exactly how she feels.”

“Don’t be silly, Penelope,” Felicity said. “You’ve never played piano in public, and even if you did, you’re quite accomplished.”

Penelope turned to her sister. “It’s not about the music, Felicity.”

Then the oddest thing happened to Lady Danbury. Her face changed. Completely, utterly, astoundingly changed. Her eyes grew misty, wistful. And her lips, which were usually slightly pinched and sarcastic at the corners, softened. “I was that girl, too, Miss Featherington,” she said, so quietly that both Eloise and Felicity were forced to lean forward, Eloise with an, “I beg your pardon,” and Felicity with a considerably less polite, “What?”

But Lady Danbury only had eyes for Penelope. “It’s why I attend, year after year,” the older lady said. “Just like you.”

And for a moment Penelope felt the oddest sense of connection to the older woman. Which was mad, because they had nothing in common aside from gender—not age, not status, nothing. And yet it was almost as if the countess had somehow chosen her—for what purpose Penelope could never guess. But she seemed determined to light a fire under Penelope’s well-ordered and often boring life.

And Penelope couldn’t help but think that it was somehow working.

Isn’t it nice to discover that we’re not exactly what we thought we were?

Lady Danbury’s words from the other night still echoed in Penelope’s head. Almost like a litany.

Almost like a dare.

“Do you know what I think, Miss Featherington?” Lady Danbury asked, her tone deceptively mild.

“I couldn’t possibly begin to guess,” Penelope said with great honesty—and respect—in her voice.

“I think you could be Lady Whistledown.”

Felicity and Eloise gasped.

Penelope’s lips parted with surprise. No one had ever even thought to accuse her of such before. It was unbelievable…unthinkable…and…

Rather flattering, actually.

Penelope felt her mouth sliding into a sly smile, and she leaned forward, as if getting ready to impart news of great import.

Lady Danbury leaned forward.

Felicity and Eloise leaned forward.

“Do you know what I think, Lady Danbury?” Penelope asked, in a compellingly soft voice.

“Well,” Lady D said, a wicked gleam in her eye, “I would tell you that I am breathless with anticipation, but you’ve already told me once before that you think that I am Lady Whistledown.”

“Are you?”

Lady Danbury smiled archly. “Maybe I am.”

Felicity and Eloise gasped again, louder this time.

Penelope’s stomach lurched.

“Are you admitting it?” Eloise whispered.

“Of course I’m not admitting it,” Lady Danbury barked, straightening her spine and thumping her cane against the floor with enough force to momentarily stop the four amateur musicians in their warm-up. “Even if it were true—and I’m not saying whether or not it is—would I be fool enough to admit it?”

“Then why did you say—”

“Because, you ninnyhead, I’m trying to make a point.”

She then proceeded to fall silent until Penelope was forced to ask, “Which is?”

Lady Danbury gave them all an extremely exasperated look. “That anyone could be Lady Whistledown,” she exclaimed, thumping her cane on the floor with renewed vigor. “Anyone at all.”

“Well, except me,” Felicity put in. “I’m quite certain it’s not me.”

Lady Danbury didn’t even honor Felicity with a glance. “Let me tell you something,” she said.

“As if we could stop you,” Penelope said, so sweetly that it came out like a compliment. And truth be told, it was a compliment. She admired Lady Danbury a great deal. She admired anyone who knew how to speak her mind in public.

Lady Danbury chuckled. “There’s more to you than meets the eye, Penelope Featherington.”

“It’s true,” Felicity said with a grin. “She can be rather cruel, for example. Nobody would believe it, but when we were young—”

Penelope elbowed her in the ribs.

“See?” Felicity said.

“What I was going to say,” Lady Danbury continued, “was that the ton is going about my challenge all wrong.”

“How do you suggest we go about it, then?” Eloise asked.

Lady Danbury waved her hand dismissively in Eloise’s face. “I have to explain what people are doing wrong first,” she said. “They keep looking toward the obvious people. People like your mother,” she said, turning to Penelope and Felicity.

“Mother?” they both echoed.

“Oh, please,” Lady Danbury scoffed. “A bigger busybody this town has never seen. She’s exactly the sort of person everyone suspects.”

Penelope had no idea what to say to that. Her mother was a notorious gossip, but it was difficult to imagine her as Lady Whistledown.

“Which is why,” Lady Danbury continued, a shrewd look in her eye, “it can’t be her.”

“Well, that,” Penelope said with a touch of sarcasm, “and the fact that Felicity and I could tell you for certain that it’s not her.”

“Pish. If your mother were Lady Whistledown, she’d have figured out a way to keep it from you.”

“My mother?” Felicity said doubtfully. “I don’t think so.”

“What I am trying to say,” Lady Danbury ground out, “prior to all of these infernal interruptions—”

Penelope thought she heard Eloise snort.

“—was that if Lady Whistledown were someone obvious, she’d have been found out by now, don’t you think?”

Silence, until it became clear some response was required, then all three of them nodded with appropriate thoughtfulness and vigor.

“She must be someone that nobody suspects,” Lady Danbury said. “She has to be.”

Penelope found herself nodding again. Lady Danbury did make sense, in a strange sort of way.

“Which is why,” the older lady continued triumphantly, “I am not a likely candidate!”

Penelope blinked, not quite following the logic. “I beg your pardon?”

“Oh, please.” Lady Danbury gave Penelope quite the most disdainful glance. “Do you think you’re the first person to suspect me?”

Penelope just shook her head. “I still think it’s you.”

That earned her a measure of respect. Lady Danbury nodded approvingly as she said, “You’re cheekier than you look.”

Felicity leaned forward and said in a rather conspiratorial voice, “It’s true.”

Penelope swatted her sister’s hand. “Felicity!”

“I think the musicale is starting,” Eloise said.

“Heaven help us all,” Lady Danbury announced. “I don’t know why I—Mr. Bridgerton!”

Penelope had turned to face the small stage area, but she whipped back around to see Colin making his way along the row to the empty seat beside Lady Danbury, apologizing good-naturedly as he bumped into people’s knees.

His apologies, of course, were accompanied by one of his lethal smiles, and no fewer than three ladies positively melted in their seats as a result.

Penelope frowned. It was disgusting.

“Penelope,” Felicity whispered. “Did you just growl?”

“Colin,” Eloise said. “I didn’t know you were coming.”

He shrugged, his face alight with a lopsided grin. “Changed my mind at the last moment. I’ve always been a great lover of music, after all.”

“Which would explain your presence here,” Eloise said in an exceptionally dry voice.

Colin acknowledged her statement with nothing more than an arch of his brow before turning to Penelope and saying, “Good evening, Miss Featherington.” He nodded at Felicity with another, “Miss Featherington.”

It took Penelope a moment to find her voice. They had parted most awkwardly that afternoon, and now here he was with a friendly smile. “Good evening, Mr. Bridgerton,” she finally managed.

“Does anyone know what is on the program tonight?” he asked, looking terribly interested.

Penelope had to admire that. Colin had a way of looking at you as if nothing in the world could be more interesting than your next sentence. It was a talent, that. Especially now, when they all knew that he couldn’t possibly care one way or another what the Smythe-Smith girls chose to play that evening.

“I believe it’s Mozart,” Felicity said. “They almost always choose Mozart.”

“Lovely,” Colin replied, leaning back in his chair as if he’d just finished an excellent meal. “I’m a great fan of Mr. Mozart.”

“In that case,” Lady Danbury cackled, elbowing him in the ribs, “you might want to make your escape while the possibility still exists.”

“Don’t be silly,” he said. “I’m sure the girls will do their best.”

“Oh, there’s no question of them doing their best,” Eloise said ominously.

“Shhh,” Penelope said. “I think they’re ready to begin.”

Not, she admitted to herself, that she was especially eager to listen to the Smythe-Smith version of Eine Kleine Nachtmusik. But she felt profoundly ill-at-ease with Colin. She wasn’t sure what to say to him—except that whatever it was she should say definitely shouldn’t be said in front of Eloise, Felicity, and most of all Lady Danbury.

A butler came around and snuffed out a few candles to signal that the girls were ready to begin. Penelope braced herself, swallowed in such a way as to clog her inner ear canals (it didn’t work), and then the torture began.

And went on…and on…and on.

Penelope wasn’t certain what was more agonizing—the music or the knowledge that Colin was sitting right behind her. The back of her neck prickled with awareness, and she found herself fidgeting like mad, her fingers tapping relentlessly on the dark blue velvet of her skirts.

When the Smythe-Smith quartet was finally done, three of the girls were beaming at the polite applause, and the fourth—the cellist—looked as if she wanted to crawl under a rock.

Penelope sighed. At least she, in all of her unsuccessful seasons, hadn’t ever been forced to parade her deficiencies before all the ton like these girls had. She’d always been allowed to melt into the shadows, to hover quietly at the perimeter of the room, watching the other girls take their turns on the dance floor. Oh, her mother dragged her here and there, trying to place her in the path of some eligible gentleman or another, but that was nothing—nothing!—like what the Smythe-Smith girls were forced to endure.

Although, in all honesty, three out of the four seemed blissfully unaware of their musical ineptitude. Penelope just smiled and clapped. She certainly wasn’t going to burst their collective bubble.

And if Lady Danbury’s theory was correct, Lady Whistledown wasn’t going to write a word about the musicale.

The applause petered out rather quickly, and soon everyone was milling about, making polite conversation with their neighbors and eyeing the sparsely laid refreshment table at the back of the room.

“Lemonade,” Penelope murmured to herself. Perfect. She was dreadfully hot—really, what had she been thinking, wearing velvet on such a warm night?—and a cool beverage would be just the thing to make her feel better. Not to mention that Colin was trapped in conversation with Lady Danbury, so it was the ideal time to make her escape.

But as soon as Penelope had her glass in hand, she heard Colin’s achingly familiar voice behind her, murmuring her name.

She turned around, and before she had any idea what she was doing, she said, “I’m sorry.”

“You are?”

“Yes,” she assured him. “At least I think I am.”

His eyes crinkled slightly at the corners. “The conversation grows more intriguing by the second.”

“Colin—”

He held out his arm. “Take a turn with me around the room, will you?”

“I don’t think—”

He moved his arm closer to her—just by an inch or so, but the message was clear. “Please,” he said.

She nodded and set her lemonade down. “Very well.”

They walked in silence for almost a minute, then Colin said, “I would like to apologize to you.”

“I was the one who stormed out of the room,” Penelope pointed out.

He tilted his head slightly, and she could see an indulgent smile playing across his lips. “I’d hardly call it ‘storming,’ ” he said.

Penelope frowned. She probably shouldn’t have left in such a huff, but now that she had, she was oddly proud of it. It wasn’t every day that a woman such as herself got to make such a dramatic exit.

“Well, I shouldn’t have been so rude,” she muttered, by now not really meaning it.

He arched a brow, then obviously decided not to pursue the matter. “I would like to apologize,” he said, “for being such a whiny little brat.”

Penelope actually tripped over her feet.

He helped her regain her balance, then said, “I am aware that I have many, many things in my life for which I should be grateful. For which I am grateful,” he corrected, his mouth not quite smiling but certainly sheepish. “It was unforgivably rude to complain to you.”

“No,” she said, “I have spent all evening thinking about what you said, and while I…” She swallowed, then licked her lips, which had gone quite dry. She’d spent all day trying to think of the right words, and she’d thought that she’d found them, but now that he was here, at her side, she couldn’t think of a deuced thing.

“Do you need another glass of lemonade?” Colin asked politely.

She shook her head. “You have every right to your feelings,” she blurted out. “They may not be what I would feel, were I in your shoes, but you have every right to them. But—”

She broke off, and Colin found himself rather desperate to know what she’d planned to say. “But what, Penelope?” he urged.

“It’s nothing.”

“It’s not nothing to me.” His hand was on her arm, and so he squeezed slightly, to let her know that he meant what he said.

For the longest time, he didn’t think she was actually going to respond, and then, just when he thought his face would crack from the smile he held so carefully on his lips—they were in public, after all, and it wouldn’t do to invite comment and speculation by appearing urgent and disturbed—she sighed.

It was a lovely sound, strangely comforting, soft, and wise. And it made him want to look at her more closely, to see into her mind, to hear the rhythms of her soul.

“Colin,” Penelope said quietly, “if you feel frustrated by your current situation, you should do something to change it. It’s really that simple.”

“That’s what I do,” he said with a careless shrug of his outside shoulder. “My mother accuses me of picking up and leaving the country completely on whim, but the truth is—”

“You do it when you’re feeling frustrated,” she finished for him.

He nodded. She understood him. He wasn’t sure how it had happened, or even that it made any sense, but Penelope Featherington understood him.

“I think you should publish your journals,” she said.

“I couldn’t.”

“Why not?”

He stopped in his tracks, letting go of her arm. He didn’t really have an answer, other than the odd pounding in his heart. “Who would want to read them?” he finally asked.

“I would,” she said frankly. “Eloise, Felicity…” she added, ticking off names on her fingers. “Your mother, Lady Whistledown, I’m sure,” she added with a mischievous smile. “She does write about you rather a lot.”

Her good humor was infectious, and Colin couldn’t quite suppress his smile. “Penelope, it doesn’t count if the only people who buy the book are the people I know.”

“Why not?” Her lips twitched. “You know a lot of people. Why, if you only count Bridgertons—”

He grabbed her hand. He didn’t know why, but he grabbed her hand. “Penelope, stop.”

She just laughed. “I think Eloise told me that you have piles and piles of cousins as well, and—”

“Enough,” he warned. But he was grinning as he said it.

Penelope stared down at her hand in his, then said, “Lots of people will want to read about your travels. Maybe at first it will only be because you’re a well-known figure in London, but it won’t take long before everyone realizes what a good writer you are. And then they’ll be clamoring for more.”

“I don’t want to be a success because of the Bridgerton name,” he said.

She dropped his hand and planted hers on her hips. “Are you even listening to me? I just told you that—”

“What are you two talking about?”

Eloise. Looking very, very curious.

“Nothing,” they both muttered at the same time.

Eloise snorted. “Don’t insult me. It’s not nothing. Penelope looked as if she might start breathing fire at any moment.”

“Your brother is just being obtuse,” Penelope said.

“Well, that is nothing new,” Eloise said.

“Wait a moment!” Colin exclaimed.

“But what,” Eloise probed, ignoring him entirely, “is he being obtuse about?”

“It’s a private matter,” Colin ground out.

“Which makes it all the more interesting,” Eloise said. She looked to Penelope expectantly.

“I’m sorry,” Penelope said. “I really can’t say.”

“I can’t believe it!” Eloise cried out. “You’re not going to tell me.”

“No,” Penelope replied, feeling rather oddly satisfied with herself, “I’m not.”

“I can’t believe it,” Eloise said again, turning to her brother. “I can’t believe it.”

His lips quirked into the barest of smiles. “Believe it.”

“You’re keeping secrets from me.”

He raised his brows. “Did you think I told you everything?”

“Of course not.” She scowled. “But I thought Penelope did.”

“But this isn’t my secret to tell,” Penelope said. “It’s Colin’s.”

“I think the planet has shifted on its axis,” Eloise grumbled. “Or perhaps England has crashed into France. All I know is this is not the same world I inhabited just this morning.”

Penelope couldn’t help it. She giggled.

“And you’re laughing at me!” Eloise added.

“No, I’m not,” Penelope said, laughing. “Really, I’m not.”

“Do you know what you need?” Colin asked.

“Me?” Eloise queried.

He nodded. “A husband.”

“You’re as bad as Mother!”

“I could be a lot worse if I really put my mind to it.”

“Of that I have no doubt,” Eloise shot back.

“Stop, stop!” Penelope said, truly laughing in earnest now.

They both looked at her expectantly, as if to say, Now what?

“I’m so glad I came tonight,” Penelope said, the words tumbling unbidden from her lips. “I can’t remember a nicer evening. Truly, I can’t.”

Several hours later, as Colin was lying in bed, staring up at the ceiling in the bedroom of his new flat in Bloomsbury, it occurred to him that he felt the exact same way.