Bridgerton Collection, Volume 2 - Julia Quinn Page 0,123

through the strands (Penelope was afraid to ask what) that seemed to bring out the red highlights.

Red hair wasn’t very fashionable, of course, but Colin had once said he liked the way the candlelight made her hair more colorful, so Penelope had decided that this was one case upon which she and fashion would have to disagree.

By the time she made her way downstairs, her carriage was waiting for her, and the driver had already been instructed to take her to Number Five.

Colin had clearly taken care of everything. Penelope wasn’t sure why this surprised her; he wasn’t the sort of man who forgot details. But he was preoccupied today. It seemed odd that he would have taken the time to send instructions to the staff about her delivery to his mother’s house when she could have conveyed the order just as well herself.

He had to be planning something. But what? Was he going to intercept Cressida Twombley and have her shipped off to a penal colony?

No, too melodramatic.

Maybe he’d found a secret about her, and was planning to cross-blackmail her. Silence for silence.

Penelope nodded approvingly as her carriage rolled along Oxford Street. That had to be the answer. It was just like Colin to come up with something so diabolically fitting and clever. But what could he possibly have unearthed about Cressida in so short a time? In all her years as Lady Whistledown, she’d never heard even a whisper of anything truly scandalous attached to Cressida’s name.

Cressida was mean, and Cressida was petty, but she’d never stepped outside the rules of society. The only truly daring thing she’d ever done was claim to be Lady Whistledown.

The carriage turned south into Mayfair, and a few minutes later, they came to a stop in front of Number Five. Eloise must have been watching at the window, because she virtually flew down the steps and would have crashed into the carriage had the driver not stepped down at that precise moment and blocked her path.

Eloise jumped from foot to foot as she waited for the driver to open the carriage door; in fact, she looked so impatient that Penelope was surprised she didn’t brush past him and wrench the door open herself. Finally, ignoring the driver’s offer of help, she climbed into the carriage, nearly tripping on her skirts and tumbling to the floor in the process. As soon as she’d righted herself, she looked both ways, her face pursed into an extremely furtive expression, and yanked the door shut, nearly taking off the driver’s nose in the process.

“What,” Eloise demanded, “is going on?”

Penelope just stared at her. “I could ask the same of you.”

“You could? Why?”

“Because you nearly knocked over the carriage in your haste to climb inside!”

“Oh,” Eloise sniffed dismissively. “You have only yourself to blame for that.”

“Me?”

“Yes, you! I want to know what’s going on. And I need to know tonight.”

Penelope was quite certain that Colin would not have told his sister about Cressida’s blackmail demands, not unless his plan was to have Eloise harangue Cressida to death. “I don’t know what you mean,” she said.

“You have to know what I mean!” Eloise insisted, glancing back up toward the house. The front door was opening. “Oh, bother. Mother and Hyacinth are coming already. Tell me!”

“Tell you what?”

“Why Colin sent us that abominably cryptic note instructing us to stick to you like glue all evening.”

“He did?”

“Yes, and may I point out that he underlined the word glue?”

“And here I thought the emphasis was yours,” Penelope said dryly.

Eloise scowled. “Penelope, this is not the time to poke fun at me.”

“When is the time?”

“Penelope!”

“Sorry, I couldn’t resist.”

“Do you know what the note was about?”

Penelope shook her head. Which wasn’t a complete lie, she told herself. She really didn’t know what Colin had planned for this evening.

Just then the door opened, and Hyacinth bounded in. “Penelope!” she said with great enthusiasm. “What is going on?”

“She doesn’t know,” Eloise said.

Hyacinth shot her sister an annoyed look. “It figures you’d sneak out here early.”

Violet poked her head in. “Are they quarreling?” she asked Penelope.

“Just a little,” Penelope replied.

Violet sat next to Hyacinth across from Penelope and Eloise. “Very well, it’s not as if I could stop them, anyway. But do tell, what did Colin mean when he instructed us to stick to you like glue?”

“I’m sure I don’t know.”

Violet’s eyes narrowed, as if assessing Penelope’s honesty. “He was quite emphatic. He underlined the word glue, you know.”

“I know,” Penelope replied, just as Eloise said,