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.”

“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 well-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 Whistledown 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 your 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.

She nodded, her eyes never leaving her breast.

He found her nipple again, his fingers tracing slow, tantalizing spirals around it, then on it, and all the while she watched, her body growing tighter and tighter.

And all she could hear was her breath, hot and heavy from her lips.

Then—

“Colin!” His name flew from her mouth in a strangled gasp. Surely he couldn’t—

His lips closed around her, and before she’d even felt more than the heat of him, she bucked off the bench in surprise, her hips pressing shamelessly against his, then settling back down as he ground against her, holding her immobile as he pleasured her.

“Oh, Colin, Colin,” she gasped, her hands flying around to his back, pressing desperately into his muscles, wanting nothing other than to hold him and keep him and never let him go.

He yanked at his shirt, pulling it free from the waist of his breeches, and she followed his cue by slipping her hands under the fabric and running them along the hot skin of his back. She’d never touched a man this way; she’d never touched anyone like this, except maybe herself, and even then, it wasn’t like she could easily reach her own back.

He groaned when she touched him, then tensed when her fingers skimmed along his skin. Her heart leaped. He liked this; he liked the way she was touching him. She hadn’t the least clue what to do with herself, but he liked it just the same.

“You’re perfect,” he whispered against her skin, his lips blazing a trail back up to the underside of her chin. His mouth claimed hers again, this time with increased fervor, and his hands slid underneath to cup her derriere, squeezing and kneading and pressing her up against his arousal.

“My God, I want you,” he gasped, grinding his hips down. “I want to strip you bare and sink into you and never let you go.”

Penelope groaned with desire, unable to believe how much pleasure she could feel from mere words. He made her feel wicked, naughty, and oh-so-desirable.

And she never wanted it to end.

“Oh, Penelope,” he was groaning, his lips and hands growing more frantic. “Oh, Penelope. Oh, Penelope, oh—” He lifted his head. Very abruptly.

“Oh, God.”

“What is it?” she asked, trying to lift the back of her head from the cushion.

“We’ve stopped.”

It took her a moment to recognize the import of this. If they’d stopped, that meant they’d most likely reached their destination, which was…

Her home.

“Oh, God!” She started yanking at the bodice of her gown with frantic motions. “Can’t we just ask the driver to keep going?”

She’d already proven herself a complete wanton. There seemed little harm at this point in adding “shameless” to her list of behaviors.

He grabbed the bodice for her and hauled it into place. “What is the possibility your mother won’t have noticed my carriage in front of your house yet?”

“Fairly good, actually,” she said, “but Briarly will have done.”

“Your butler will recognize my carriage?” he asked in disbelief.

She nodded. “You came the other day. He always remembers things like that.”

His lips twisted in a grimly determined manner. “Very well, then,” he said. “Make yourself presentable.”

“I can race up to my room,” Penelope said. “No one will see me.”

“I doubt that,” he said ominously, tucking in his shirt and smoothing his hair.

“No, I assure you—”

“And I assure you,” he said, leaping on top of her words. “You will be seen.” He licked his fingers, then ran them through his hair. “Do I look presentable?”

“Yes,” she lied. In truth, he looked rather flushed, with swollen lips, and hair that didn’t remotely adhere to a current style.

“Good.” He hopped down from the carriage and held his hand out to her.

“You’re coming in as well?” she asked.

He looked at her as if she’d suddenly gone daft. “Of course.”

She didn’t move, too perplexed by his actions to give her legs the orders to step down. There was certainly no reason he had to accompany her inside. Propriety didn’t really demand it, and—

“For God’s sake, Penelope,” he said, grabbing her hand and yanking her down. “Are you going to marry me or not?”