Bridgerton Collection, Volume 2 - Julia Quinn Page 0,128

would all become clear if she just waited a moment and thought about it. But that didn’t work, and so she asked, her words slow and careful, “What sort of announcement?”

His face turned resolute. “I’m going to tell the truth.”

She gasped. “About me?”

He nodded.

“But you can’t!”

“Penelope, I think it’s best.”

Panic began to rise within her, and her lungs felt impossibly tight. “No, Colin, you can’t! You can’t do that! It’s not your secret to reveal!”

“Do you want to pay Cressida for the rest of your life?”

“No, of course not, but I can ask Lady Danbury—”

“You’re not going to ask Lady Danbury to lie on your behalf,” he snapped. “That’s beneath you and you know it.”

Penelope gasped at his sharp tone. But deep down, she knew he was right.

“If you were so willing to allow someone else to usurp your identity,” he said, “then you should have just allowed Cressida to do it.”

“I couldn’t,” she whispered. “Not her.”

“Fine. Then it’s time we both stood up and faced the music.”

“Colin,” she whispered, “I’ll be ruined.”

He shrugged. “We’ll move to the country.”

She shook her head, desperately trying to find the right words.

He took her hands in his. “Does it really matter so much?” he said softly. “Penelope, I love you. As long as we’re together, we’ll be happy.”

“It’s not that,” she said, trying to tug her hand from his so that she could wipe the tears from her eyes.

But he wouldn’t let go. “What, then?” he asked.

“Colin, you’ll be ruined, too,” she whispered.

“I don’t mind.”

She stared at him in disbelief. He sounded so flip, so casual about something that would change his entire life, alter it in ways he couldn’t possibly imagine.

“Penelope,” he said, his voice so reasonable she could barely stand it, “it’s the only solution. Either we tell the world, or Cressida does.”

“We could pay her,” she whispered.

“Is that what you really want to do?” he asked. “Give her all the money you’ve worked so hard to earn? You might as well have just let her tell the world she was Lady Whistledown.”

“I can’t let you do this,” she said. “I don’t think you understand what it means to be outside of society.”

“And you do?” he countered.

“Better than you!”

“Penelope—”

“You’re trying to act as if it doesn’t matter, but I know you don’t feel that way. You were so angry with me when I published that last column, all because you thought I shouldn’t have risked the secret getting out.”

“As it turns out,” he remarked, “I was right.”

“See?” she said urgently. “Do you see? You’re still upset with me over that!”

Colin let out a long breath. The conversation was not moving in the direction he’d hoped. He certainly hadn’t intended for her to throw his earlier insistence that she not tell anyone about her secret life back in his face. “If you hadn’t published that last column,” he said, “we wouldn’t be in this position, that is true, but the point is now moot, don’t you think?”

“Colin,” she whispered. “If you tell the world I’m Lady Whistledown, and they react the way we think they will, you’ll never see your journals published.”

His heart stood still.

Because that was when he finally understood her.

She had told him before that she loved him, and she had shown her love as well, in all the ways he’d taught her. But never before had it been so clear, so frank, so raw.

All this time she’d been begging him not to make the announcement—it had all been for him.

He swallowed against the lump that was forming in his throat, fought for words, fought even for breath.

She reached out and touched his hand, her eyes pleading, her cheeks still wet with tears. “I could never forgive myself,” she said. “I don’t want to destroy your dreams.”

“They were never my dreams until I met you,” he whispered.

“You don’t want to publish your journals?” she asked, blinking in confusion. “You were just doing it for me?”

“No,” he said, because she deserved nothing less than complete honesty. “I do want it. It is my dream. But it’s a dream you gave me.”

“That doesn’t mean I can take it away.”

“You’re not.”

“Yes, I—”

“No,” he said forcefully, “you’re not. And getting my work published . . . well, it doesn’t hold a candle to my real dream, which is spending the rest of my life with you.”

“You’ll always have that,” she said softly.

“I know.” He smiled, and then it turned rather cocky. “So what do we have to lose?”

“Possibly more than we could ever guess.”

“And